'Philosophy is the most serious of things, but then again it is not all that serious.'

And has any poet ever written about listening to the radio so much as him?

I wonder if there isn't something a little deliberately willful about Frank O'Hara naming so many of his poems 'Poem' (fifty-seven of them!); making it so by saying so.

I found it encouraging tonight to find Robert Creeley, aged 24, worrying in a letter to Charles Olson over his lack of accomplishments to the date of writing. Saleable accomplishments like completed writing, reputation, and prestige, that is; he was by that time already corresponding with Olson, Pound, Williams, and others, which in retrospect seems like something, at least.

'English humour (?), Jewish humour, Stoic humour, Zen humour: what a strange broken line. An ironist is someone who discusses principles; he is seeking a first principle, a principle which comes even before the one that was thought to be first, he finds a course which is even more primary than the others. He constantly goes up and down. This is why he proceeds by questioning, he is a man of conversation, of dialogue, he has a particular tone, always of the signifier. Humour is completely the opposite: principles count for little, everything is taken literally, the consequences are expected of you (this is why humour is not transmitted through plays on words, puns, which are of the signifier, and like a principle within the principle). Humour is the art of consequences or effects: OK, fine, you give me this? You'll see what happens. Humour is treacherous, it is treason. Humour is atonal, absolutely imperceptible, it makes something shoot off. It never goes up or down, it is on the surface: surface effects. Humour is an art of pure events. Jewish humour versus Greek irony, Job-humour versus Oedipus-irony, insular humour versus continental irony, Stoic humour versus Platonic irony, Zen humour versus Buddhist irony, masochist humour versus sadist irony, Proust-humour versus Gide-irony, etc. The whole destiny of irony is linked to representation, irony ensures the individuation of the represented or the subjectivation of the representer. Classical irony, in fact, consists in showing that what is most universal in representation is the same as the extreme individuality of the represented which serves as its principle (classical irony culminates in the theological affirmation according to which 'the whole of the possible' is at the same time the reality of God as singular being). Romantic irony, for its part, discovers the subjectivity of the principle of all possible representation. These problems are no concern of humour, which has always undermined games of principles or causes in favor of the event and games of individuation or subjectivation in favor of multiplicities. Irony contains an insufferable claim: that of belonging to a superior race, of being the preserve of the masters (a famous text of Renan says this without irony, for irony dries up quickly when talking of itself). Humour, on the other hand, claims kinship with a minority, with a minority-becoming. It is humour which makes a language stammer, which imposes on it a minor usage, or which constitutes a complete bilingual system within the same language. And, indeed, it never involves plays on words (there is not a single play on words in Lewis Carroll), but events of language, a minoritarian language, which has itself become creator of events. Or else, might there be 'indefinite' plays on words which would be like a becoming instead of a completion?'

'As a teacher I should like to be able to give a course as Dylan organizes a song, as astonishing producer rather than author. And that it should begin as he does, suddenly, with his clown's mask, with a technique of contriving, and yet improvising each detail. The opposite of a plagiarist, but also the opposite of a master or a model. A very lengthy preparation, yet no method, nor rules, nor recipes.' The same might be said about Jay-Z. Deleuze meant to emphasize the wild kind of creation not adequately pictured in 'machine', with its image of a man on an assembly line, turning a crank, pushing a button, replicas streaming by. It likewise easily eludes 'maker', with that word's sense that encompasses watchmakers, potters, cooks, poets. Craftsmen. But in thus achieving its accuracy with regard to the character of creation, Deleuze's word 'producer' leaves me unsure: what then am I to say Jay-Z is producing? In what manner? You can run with it from there.

Please don't be excited. I haven't changed my mind about bring this project to a close. But I do have reasons for wanting to get at the parts, and at the moment I'm too lazy and muddleheaded to tweak the parts that would let me hide it away from you and still get it to work.

The underwhelming dismay at this page's disappearance didn't really come as a surprise to me; it only confirmed some of my reasons for quitting.

Take care.

- Joshua

See, we don't love like the flowers, all in a
single year; for us, when we love, immemorial
sap rises into our arms. O you girl,
this: that far back within us, we loved, not one thing, not a thing in the future, but
all the innumerable brewing; not a particular child,
but the fathers lying in our depths like rubble
of wrecked mountains; but also the dry riverbeds
of former mothers---; but also the entire
silent landscape under a clouded or
clear fate---: girl, all this came before you.

Apparently R. Rhees citing Wittgenstein, with my dream Wittgenstein quote: 'I don't try to make you believe something you don't believe, but to make you do something you won't do.' Too bad it's not written down in any of W.'s own things.