Two and Two with Language

Click here for the recording of our recent book discussion of Paterson Book I at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. We discussed numbers and mathematics; the archive as the condition of knowability; man as a city, woman as flower; nature and industry; as well as rehearsing some issues regarding Book One that weren’t recorded in our earlier real-space discussions of Paterson.

Discussion, Annotated

Perhaps Jamie Mowder can now be forgiven for staying in the comfort of Queens rather than schlepp out to Paterson for last month’s discussion of the poem in its very place of origin, since he has posted at his blog a detailed annotation of our discussion recordings. In his three-columned form, you can revisit some of the more striking comments without having to slog through hours of our ramble and stutter. The following comment by Anne, arrayed by Jamie, now jumps out as a poem:

Why should we be
reading this?
It's, like, crazy.
It's the way I might
talk to somebody I
have issues with, in
my head,
pretending a
conversation.
Who decided?
Why is this great?

And of course there is Cooper’s memorable:

falls in with same folly
as any identification or
signification does
it's a f__cking
frenzy of particles in
the Falls

The third column has Jamie’s exhaustive comments and links—which he self-effacingly calls the “pointless notes”-- many of which I have yet to work through, but which will undoubtedly prove illuminating. He clocked in his blog entry at 7:01 am, so--bless his heart--he was probably up all night with it.
In other blogosphere Paterson activity, there is an epoetry symposium going on at Hyperrhiz in which there is a long post about Paterson, presumably as a precursor to epoetry.

End of Discussion!

Before we were able to begin our last discussion of Paterson in Paterson, we were locked out of the Ivanhoe Arts Center for about an hour. We took the time to slowly get stoned on Smirnoff Ice while gazing intently at the falls of the raceway. Was this the true experience of Paterson--following the twisting braids of the waters, focusing on this layer, now that, as the patterns fell into their destined pool? Once inside, perhaps begrudgingly, we took up the discussion of bird mnemonics, Williams' virgin-whore complex, pastoral poetry, and Alexander Hamilton's final demise on the Weehawken shores (the subject of Williams' unfinished Book VI, and pictured above). The discussion series ends with a rousing version of "But Not For Me" with Mike accompanying on the piano. This mp3 is another long file, perhaps best suited to loading onto an iPod and listening in traffic. Or you can just go to the end of the file to the "musical number," which includes includes the brilliant intro that no one, except maybe Bobby Short, sings, because of the all-pervasive influence of the Chet Baker version or its dated reference to Beatrice Fairfax.

It Is Silent By Defect of Virtue in that It Contains Nothing of You

The cost, the cost; Beautiful Thing; fire, wind and mind; tightrope acrobats across the abyss of the real; wax fetishes and tin ears; the library's discontents: it's all here in Book III. "Come tatterdemalion futility." Click here for our most recent discussion of Paterson in Paterson.
Last chance to stop by in the flesh, for a whirl through Books IV, V and the unfinished sixth, is July 9 at 7pm.

Walking--

This week, I hosted the third meeting of the Paterson book club--reading Paterson, in Paterson, with Patersonians--and we focused on Book II. Listen here for a recording of much of the discussion (large mp3 file). Since Book II arrays multiple views of Garret Mountain, I've included the 25 cent view from the binocular machine mounted at the cliff's edge. Free for Impossible Object readers (click on image)! Last discussion group meetings are on July 2 and 9 at the Ivanhoe Arts Center.