Review of Heller Levinson’s from stone this running

from stone this running

Heller Levinson

Black Widow Press

www.blackwidowpress.com

248 pages

Reviewed by Felino A. Soriano

Michael Annis writes “No more dead poetry… a Hinge Universe.” when accurately describing the textual endeavors Levinson masterfully creates.  from stone this running is the subsequent release to his Smelling Mary (Howling Dog Press, 2008) which transitions within various manifestations of naturalized language, sans concoctions of au courant poetics.

A fundamental realization one develops when studying Hinge Theory (conceptually created by Levinson) is his works seamlessly attach to a subject, object, word, meaning, interpretation, etc., and creates an unraveling of the original meaning into an absolute creation of neoteric dimension|s.  The structure changes; the genetic familiarity, alters.  The thematic presence in this volume is not the fashionable experience of immediate recognition of a writer’s singular path; through hinging to various “modules” (FROM _____ THIS _____, IN THE _____ OF _____, _____ LIKE _____ _____, THE ROAD TO _____ ROAD, WITH, WITH _____ THIS _____, SMELLING, MODUALAR MODIFICATION, FUSION RECONNOITER, THE FECUNDATING ROTATIONAL CLUSTER, THE INTERFECUNDATING ROTATIONAL CLUSTER COLLUSIONAL, HINGE TABULATORIES, PLACEMENT), Levinson creates a fascinating ambulation with his language; too, his language is superbly musical, as an influence is evident in the form of jazz music:

from FROM MOANIN’ THIS ART BLAKEY

 

Blakey, … A Night in Tunisia

sound pound bound rumble gourd ground

bean bursts bubble boasts primed Serengeti interval drills

click clock       heaping swarms of polyrhythmic magma swamp swills

, cymbal clarion calls                   stratospheric crash whoops

Whorl Whorl     Hoo Hoooooo

This representation of attachment to jazz drummer Art Blakey’s recording encompasses an intertwining to Blakey’s stylized percussion: the blurred flail of movement becomes a productive image paralleling Levinson’s layered and dynamic prosodic and alliterative control.

This brief review is but a surface-layer proclamation of enjoyment.  At 248 pages from stone this running encompasses the reader whom is devoted to language’s UNsameness, and will become a witness to an original writer among variant landscapes of jejune articulations.  Levinson is a premier example of contemporary brilliance, and from stone this running is an extension of viable thought this writer conjures from a widened spectrum of knowledge, seamless in its exhilaration of diligent creation.

Joseph Mulligan: “One Sentence of Tungsten: Translating Vallejo’s Prose”

The opening sentence of César Vallejo’s social realist novel El tungsteno reads: “Dueña, por fin, la empresa norteamericana “Mining Society”, de las minas de tungsteno de Quivilca, en el departamento del Cuzco, la gerencia de Nueva York dispuso dar comienzo inmediatamente a la extracción del mineral.” The precariousness of rendering these lines in English may not be immediately apparent to a reader of the Spanish or a translation thereof. I would argue, however, that the translation problem here is at least twofold, in the syntax and semantics, and is revealing of the author’s agenda in this, his only complete novel. In the following, I want to complicate one line of Tungsten in an attempt to shed light on Vallejo’s idiosyncrasy.

The reader first comes up again a gnarly convolution and is required to parse out the clauses, the clusters, work out the syntactical relations, identify the agency of the elements and aspect of the action. A more or less literal rendering could be: “Owner, finally, the North American enterprise “Mining Society”, of the tungsten mines of Quivilca, in the department of Cuzco, the New York management ordered the immediate commencement of the extraction of the mineral.” So as a translator, one wants to undo this syntactical knot, but this desire is then met by the question: can the end result be a loose thread? Isn’t the clarification of syntactical relations on an interpretative register just as essential as the replication of the entanglement on a creative register? As we look closely at the phrasing of the Spanish, the word order takes on a specific importance. It is by no accident that the word “dueña” (owner) inaugurates this book that unabashedly wields a socialist critique of capitalism during the high tide of 20th century revolution. This story is the tragedy of the highland miner, the innocent “indio” who gets exploited by the capitalist system, and this tragedy transforms one petty merchant, Leónides Benites, a bourgeois mestizo who prefers to think of himself as more Spanish than indigenous – the contrary is true – whose personal ambition, social pursuits and avarice lead to his moral downfall, a terrible reckoning, and search for redemption. To begin the sentence, begin the chapter, to begin the book, without the immediate image of the owner, the proprietor, the overlord, the master, is to pull a punch precisely where Vallejo goes for an uppercut.

The second problem is raised by the company name – it is “la empresa norteamericana ‘Mining Society’” – where we find an egregious mistranslation already in the original. There is little evidence to sustain that the author knew much English, whereas he spoke and wrote in French, made use of Russian sporadically through his later writings, and was comfortable enough in Quechua to pepper it through Hacia el reino de los sciris and proliferate that usage in La piedra cansada. The name “Mining Society” is a transliteration of “sociedad minera”, where “sociedad” means company (e.g. a “sociedad anónima”, often abbreviated as S.A., is a public corporation). The supposition of the transliteration is confirmed if we look at Vallejo’s farce Colacho hermanos – a play created out of Tungsten – where he has renamed “Mining Society” as the “Quivilca Corporation” in an early draft and then the “Cotarca Corporation” in a later. This leads one to believe that his attention had been drawn to the mistranslation after the novel had already been published, and that he saw fit to make the change. Therefore, one must decide whether the name should be “corrected” in Tungsten or should be altered. Yet there is another problem here too, since “norteamericana” is probably not intended to refer to Mexico or Canada, but to the U.S.A. Vallejo could have used the explicit “estadounidense”, but preferred the generalization.

Robert Mezey’s 1988 translation offers the following: “Having finally gained control of the tungsten mines in Quivilca, in the state of Cuzco, the New York management of a North American corporation called Mining Society ordered extraction of the mineral to begin immediately.” When I read these lines I am pleased to have in my hands what is, to my knowledge, the one existing complete English translation of César Vallejo’s only full length novel, but I am also disconcerted by the ease with which it reads. I’m afraid there is no knot, but only loose thread. Even though Vallejo’s language in prose does not usually present the same complexity as does his poetry, it is still remarkably idiosyncratic. Mezey’s rendering also makes me wonder why he preferred “state” over the very literal “department”, which is what the administrative divisions of Peru are typically called. And I share my confusion not to belabor apothegms on what gets lost in translation, but to show that, when we do translate Vallejo, what we find is not as simple as we might expect, that we are not through reading his work, and that – unless U.S. readers decide to read the Spanish – only when his idiosyncrasy (in poetry, in fiction, in drama, in journalism) is available to us in English will we be able to evaluate his literary project with a fair and discerning eye. And so, going on the supposition that there has not yet been some mass acquisition of the Spanish language among English speakers, and with a first draft of chapter one of Tungsten still on my desk, the first line, to my ear, to my eye, for now, goes like this:

“Owner, at last, of the Quivilca tungsten mines in the department of Cuzco, the American company, Mining Incorporated, had its New York management give the go-ahead for immediate extraction of the mineral.”

So Much Depends on the Hinge, Part 3: Heller Levinson Interview

Jared: I’ve noticed for some time that you have been proposing Hinge as an antidote to what you dub, “rampant and pernicious commercialism.” How could Hinge help move us beyond capitalist modes of life?

 Heller:  The simplistic answer is:  By providing more enriching (i.e., Nutritious) options.

First we need to identify the problem before we can understand “moving beyond.” The Human Community has to reach an agreement that unbridled capitalism has reached the end of its tether.  This really shouldn’t require much convincing:  the planet is overheating, the glaciers are melting, the polar bears are dying, vegetation & wildlife are being destroyed, the global economic structure is one giant synthetic Ponzi scheme^[1], our resources (oil, water) are ending or being contaminated, the gap between the haves & have-nots is growing, hunger is growing, rage is growing, fear is growing, & there exist over 55, 000 nuclear warheads that we know about.  The list of horrors could continue, but we all get the message.

This external damage is mirrored in the internal damage.  In 1985, Neil Postman published the now-classic Amusing Ourselves To Death.  Today, with all the gadgetry & digital devices campaigning for our attentions, this Self-Demolitioning can be ratcheted up manyfold.  The human animal is now something of a hybrid:  Part Human/Part Gadget (i.e. BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, etc.)  The whole notion of “Prolongation” which I discuss in our first interview appears to be more & more an exotic curiosity.

Our external landscape is befouling while our internal landscapes are besmirched & shrivelizing.

We are at the End Game.

Hinge Theory to the Rescue (read as the tune “Jim Dandy to the rescue.”).

I’ll include a quote of mine I rediscovered this morning when Felino Soriano sent me his new e-book (Divaricated, Spatial Aggregates):

“Hinge Theory is not a philosophy; it is a guideline to enable entrance to the Hinge Universe, which is a continuing construct of perpetually interconnecting, profusely propagating, contagiously enlivening multiuniverses of multi-complementary extensions.  We have identified language as alive . . . .” – HL

Hinge, then, can help us move beyond capitalist modes of life by providing a Richer Paradigm.  If one explores the Fecundating Plangency Rotational Cluster (in from stone this running, BWP, 2011), one can be initiated into Inner Landscape E(nrichment)xpansionism.  Or, for the more concrete minded, there is the Fecundating Stone Rotational Cluster (also in fstr).  If a person partakes in the Fecundating Stone Rotational Cluster, deeply inhales/imbibes, broods & meditates upon, mulls over, the belief is that the participant will never see a stone, or anything else, in the same way.  His/her “idea” of the stone will be newly-offered, a Perceptual InviGorAtion, an element of the universe will become achingly ALive for them, running/coursing through/with their being, their lives will become more highly sensitized, delightf(illed)ull, spilling into surrounding are(n)as, into trees, creeks, brooks, badger, bark, ancient burial grounds, their world will sparkle, they will rejoice, they will want to Intercourse more, they will lust to explore “love like apparitional joinery,” “lamentation like inglorious silk,” . . . I mean, — who can go shopping after experiences like these?  Wal-Mart will die.  Apple will die.  The Human Being will emerge Newly Flowered.

A note about my comment above, “. . . is Partaken of. . . .”  I’ve had people who have been reading Smelling Mary come up to me & say “I’m still getting through your book.”  Well, neither SM, nor fstr is intended to be gotten through.  Reading Hinge Applications should not be task oriented.  I much prefer — in fact,for the kind of immersion I’m suggesting, I would say it is mandatory — the approach of a reader who told me she had been spending two months on “in the temperature of barn” & was still exploring it assiduously.  This is the path of prolongation, of full absorption, of deepimbibeenthrallment.

Now I’ll need to drift^[2] a bit to flesh out how Hinge can assist in correcting the current greed-oriented toxic situation.  We have to understand that the very foundation of the structure is faulty.  The Chairmen of the Boards of our large corporations have one singular raison d’etre, & that is to achieve profits for their shareholders.  That is the extent of their responsibility.  They have no moral imperative, no ethics other than to provide “profits” for their shareholders.  QED.  That sums up the dilemma right there.  As long as no more inclusive, Vitalistic-oriented considerations take precedence, pernicious toxicity is inevitable.  Which is where we are today.

My proposal, with Hinge Theory as a model, is to Revolutionize the way we Live, Eat, Learn; in short, — how we inhabit the planet.  I know it sounds wide-eyed & preposterous, but at this point in time, we either Radically Alter Our Lives or we will certainly Extinguish them.  The smugness pervading the land is remarkable, the empowerment engendered by the new technology illusory, one only has to go through a severe storm, or the Northridge earthquake (I did), to see our entire infrastructure disabled in 17 seconds.

We must begin with Education.  Currently, there is no such thing as “education.”  Our schools & universities are no more than vocational schools, training grounds to equip citizens to participate in the transactional climate that is killing them.  To “begin with Education,” we have to Hingify the Teachers.  They need to be Spiritually Conditioned.  Without leadership, without persons Lighting The Way, we are Doomed.

This not being the appropriate time to submit a volume on Planetary Repair, suffice it to say that at this juncture we must reorient our lives toward Visions & Disciplines that offer Enrichment & Vitalism.

It has been a downhill slide from the sixties’ spiritual adventure of “Expand Your Consciousness” to the current Mantras of “LogIn,” and “Go Online.” We need to empower the Serfs of the Gadgetry Kingdom to release their Screen-Chains!

When they discover that there is more Satisfaction, more Pleasure, more FulFillment trekking the Inner Landscapes, they will toss their iPhones & stamp on their iPads.

They  will hear the Wake-Up Call to shift from a land of Narcoleptics to a land of Hinge-Devout Eureka Freaks!

So I say, — Get Freaky!

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[1] see Joe Bageant’s “Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball:  Capitalism is dead, but we still dance with the corpse.”

[2] “Drift” is a Hinge activity, but gainful drift.

So Much Depends on the Hinge, Part 2: An Interview with Heller Levinson

Jared: In your last response, you mention that Hinge would be able to encapsulate everything from athletics to home cookery. That caught my eye. So far, we’ve talked about Hinge in very abstract/theoretical terms, but is it also a strategy for navigating through everyday life? An attitude, a frame of mind, more than a poetics? Is Hinge seeking to bridge that life-art gap?

 Heller:  For the past five years, I’ve been visited (as in visitation) by language springing with mutuality, beneficence, congregation, mobility, liveliness, curiosity, enterprise, expansionism, & reverence.  I also describe these years as a 5-year 7-month pregnancy.

Your question is profoundly prescient because just 3 weeks ago I began employing Hinge Strategies for “navigating through everyday life.”  The answer, then, to your question is “yes.”  How the “yes” is a “yes,” I will explore, with the caveat that it’s all so newly arriving that I’m not sure I can do it justice.

You will remember, Jared, that in our first interview – and the same would have applied a month ago — I expressed a disdain for biography.  I thought it the province of lower-order, trite-minded, applause-greedy, narcissists who could respond seriously to questions such as, “Do you have a writing schedule?”

A recent reunion after a 3 month break from my beloved has changed all that.  After reuniting, a tense situation arose between us, & I found that Hinge was extremely effective in orienting us toward a more productive, more enriching, more Loving approach.  (I’d like to signal “approach” as an area to investigate.)  So I am transforming from a hyper-private, semi-paranoid, hands-off-the-autobiographical stuff, into a balls-out, tell-all -confessionist.  Why?  Because Hinge demands it, as your question indicates.  My personal likes/dislikes, inclinations & prejudices, are immaterial in the light of Hinge Furtherance.

I will share an e-mail which I trust will illustrate Hinge Strategy In Action.

Background:  Mary was stressing from losing a renter and not regaining a replacement fast enough to sustain her relatively newly-purchased home.  I had distanced myself from her purchase of the home — I am uncomfortable with “ownership” — & told her from the get-go, she’d be on her own, don’t come to me for help.  The first medicinality was to examine why I had erected this artificial boundary.  Was I putting my beloved on trial?  She would have to prove herself?  Justify her purchase?  I was just going to sit on the sidelines with my arms folded in mock “I told you so” mode.  This no longer struck me as a rich posture for breeding Deep Intimacy.  Instead, I was Rupturing partnership, participation, & Intercourse because I had erected a static Division.  I changed my position & offered to rent the rooms to use as a weekend writing studio.  I asked Mary to be responsible for readying “my rooms” which, I did not realize at the time, put additional pressure on her already overloaded schedule.  From her point of view, she had suddenly acquired a third job.  Identifying this “Blockage” served to initiate a more prospering Hinge-To-Ward Her.  The e-mail:

Darling Mary,

I noticed “tensions” arising between us re:  the Heller rooms.

My thoughts:

1.  We go to marriage counseling

or

2.  We employ Hinge Therapy

I choose Hinge Therapy.

At this point, it is necessary to Re-Wind.  Why did Heller pay for the rooms in advance?  To Relieve Mary of Pressure, of Stress, so she could spend her time more Profitably, that energy going to her writing or some other area that was Productive, i.e., NON — Stressful.  By providing an Income Stream in advance, hoping to secure Security for her, it would also relieve her of Dealing with a foreign personality and the Stress of Worrying if it would work out.  The grand Design was all Pro Mary, to Further Her, Nutrition Her.

For Heller, it meant a)  Primarily taking care of his Honey’s concerns, and b) relieving Him of the stress of an Additional Personality, providing more private, romantic time for him and Mary.

What happened?  A number of things:  1.  Heller, gluttonously, under our toxic cultural conditioning, basked in having a City and Country Writing Studio, the Country Squire, his Very Own Studio Space in the Country.  2.  Mary and Heller thought it best to keep it a Business Relationship. — Wrong Wrong Wrong.  Let us De-Toxify.

We are not business partners, we are Lovers.  I want that space to be Our space, not MY space; I want it for US to enjoy, and since Mary is working there, at the present time anyway, more than Heller, who comes to relax and share time with his Cherished One, it is She who should employ the Work Space with the Preferred Light, it is She who should arrange the spaces that would most Profit her, . . . Heller initiated his “funding” to please Mary, to make her more Happy and Joyous, and that is the Focus I am now regaining. I am far more Interested in Intercoursing with Mary in Pruning practice than worrying about Spatial considerations.

Of course, I enjoy offering my tastes, opinions, ideas, & sharing together, . . . but I want it to be Mary’s Choices, … I started this for Her Gratifications and that is where this will end.  As of Now!

To Remark:

How immediate, spontaneously, and without Hesitancy, the WALLS erect/go up.

How much more Consideration, Meditation,  how much More CARE is required to bring them down.

With deep deep and deepening CARE & LOVE,

HELLER

I hope the e-mail illustrates how by first identifying the Blockage, & then seeking to eradicate/abolish/deconstruct that stance with Vital Circulation/Hinge-Throughs/Good Hygiene, a more rewarding Intimacy emerges. The e-mail was well appreciated by Mary & we deepened.

Dishing myself up as the sacrificial lab mouse, it is informative to note my transformation from our first interview, where my “aversion to the strictly personal” had me camouflaged as a Navy Seal specializing in Far East Intelligence to now, where I’m actually baring to the bone, or the bedroom, one might say.  I find it salient to share this — much as I hate having to expose myself — because I am now experiencing how Hinge is beginning to Shape/Lead/Alter Me.

For the first five years I feel I was immersed in Serving/Developing Hinge Theory.  Now I feel that Hinge is working on me, striving to shape/Fit me into the Ether it has achieved.  It is a strange concept that a creation can, in turn, turn around & begin to Create its Creator.  Since it is happening to & upon me, it doesn’t strike the “bizarre” note so much as it does the Miraculous, the Marvelous, the Sacred-Providential.

Lest this sound too new-age/hippy-dippy/artsy-fartsy/whacko Mystical, keep in mind that we have the proof, the skinny, the goods.  We have the material Evidence in all the applications, in the FRC’s, in the Fusion Reconnoiters, in the Intercourses with other Artists, it all Works.  We walk our talk.  This is not just “abstract/theoretical” babble because the Effectiveness of Hinge Theory is illustrated in the ongoing Work/Creation.  Talking about Hinge can distract us from the fact that we have profound evidence of its Effective Functionality.

What needs to be done is to study the Work, come to see how it behaves, & utilize it as a Medicinal Template, a Hygienic Paradigm.  Applying  elasticity, being in-service to the Particle, the notion of Mobilization/Densification/Complementarity & Extensionality to your everyday concerns, might assist you in Prospering your everyday life.

Drifting to home decorating, I will now note another incident which Reverberates Hinge Atmosphere.  [Your use of the word “encapsulate” would be antithetical to the Hinge Spirit since H releases/mobilizes/vivifies/liquefies —  expands & does Not compress.]  When Mary moved into her new home, the one tenet we agreed upon was not to make hasty decisions in terms of what belonged there & what didn’t, that each item admitted to the home must be Strenuously Precise, In Harmony, or Abandoned.  The first time I visited since our reunion, Mary showed me a lamp she had purchased for the living room.  I was stunned.  It was better than precise.  It was a Rarity.  Not only did it “serve” the room, it enhanced it, . . . Illumined in the truest sense.  She told me it cost $15.00, . . . I knew it to be priceless.  The Lamp looms so pregnantly in the Hinge Landscape that I am currently treating it as a Placement.^[1]  A similar revelation was experienced when Mary introduce me to gardening one afternoon.  As primarily a city dweller, gardening had meant walking two blocks to the local florist & dishing out your credit card.  Digging, planting, turning the earth with your hands & fingers, Placing the plant for the appropriate sunlight for where the roots would best exfoliate, considering the watering, the height & configuration of the plant & how it coterminated with others, all the scrutinies involved brought to mind the considerations at work in an application.  I see that one can approach practices such as gardening as a Hingeful Discipline:  revealing Hinge Convergencies, Off-Shoots/Swells, . . . Tributarial Compoundments.  Nothing isolated.

There are further examples, but I think the message is clear:  Hinge is Ever-Present, & Omni-Pariticipatory, not some Monopoly gobbling up & “encapsulating” in any narrow Corporate-Minded sense, but an Invisible Hygienic Vitalistic Radiation underlying a planet currently besmirched by rampant & pernicious commercialism.

I am considering notions such as:  can a Universe breed from an Insight?  Are Universes operative because of Insight?  What would a Universe be like Void of Insight?  What is Art if not Insight?  Why is Insight Non-Spellable?  Is Hinge an Insight Sales Team?

The next part of your question:  Is Hinge “an attitude, a frame of mind, more than a poetics?”

First off, Hinge is not Hierarchical, it isn’t more or less than anything.  As has been pointed out, it is its own Integrally Universal Wholeness.  But I would certainly agree that an attitude, a frame of mind, evolves for anyone who spends any time practicing &/or studying Hinge.  It is unavoidable.  I have just finished illustrating this by showcasing my own conversion from being overly privatized to now offering disclosure.  I woke up this morning caught in the clutch of your question — “an attitude, a frame of mind,” to which I added, because I thought it was in your question, . . .  approach.  I thought I remembered that as an area I had signaled for further investigation, & sure enough I had, & although not directly embedded in your question, it certainly lies there.  I will spend a little time on this because it represents Hinge in action.  How significant is “attitude” to “approach?”  How does attitude differ from approach?  What elements in approach are not to be found in attitude?  Consider approach & outcome:  effects upon, balances/imbalances, equatables, what manner of ://:.^[2]  Approach as a Determinant of Outcome.  Do Discrete Discriminations produce Determinates?  Note how Fundamental Approach is to hunting & fishing skills, to agriculture, to interpersonal skills, to improvisation, to dressage, to tango.  Future projects for Heller:  “in the mold of approach this fire,” “with approach this stalwart,” “from approach this ambidexterity,” “approach like amplitudinous skins,” “approach in the fawn of  Bedouin dawns,” “approach dawning in antediluvian storm,” “approach perfervid like annunciatory rash,” “upon parliamentary intrusion approach announces desultory as the law of the land,” etc.  We have, then, prepared to fertilize “approach” through an FRC treatment which, in turn, should provide us with a more Intimate, Enlivened, Respectful, Informed, Mobilized, Deepened, Inhalation of the word “approach.”

In the same tone, I would have to answer “Is Hinge seeking to bridge the life-art gap” by saying that Hinge isn’t “seeking” anything.  It is rather that we are seeking to understand Hinge.  Its tenets.  Its magic.  Its Multiordinality.  It is We who are Uncovering/Un-Hiddening all that has been clogged, suffocated, & maligned.  Reading D.H. Lawrence’s Apocalypse clues us into the Sumerian Intimacy with their Universe, their Connectedness, their Oneness, seemingly so less Alienated than we are today from our surroundings despite, or because of, all our sophisticated gadgetry.  And certainly, Yes, Hinge does Not admit of any life-art gap.  Gaps are man-made suppressants inadmissible in a Universe of Flow-Through Explosively Radicalized Fully-Extensional Reproductive-Minded Exuberances.

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[1] For explanation see from stone this running.

[2] see fstr for “cogitation upon ://:”

So Much Depends on the Hinge: Heller Levinson Interview, Part 1

 Heller Levinson’s just-released from stone this running contains little stone, but much running. Readers will observe a poetry that runs, marathons, leaps, surges, and pirouettes across the page. The poems seem to squiggle and transform before one’s very eyes.

It’s the latest manifestation of Levinson’s Hinge project, a fascinating approach to the arts: 

Jared: You previously described Hinge as an organic, constantly evolving project, so could you update us on the new developments that Hinge poetics has taken?

Heller:  Thanks for the question, Jared, . . . it’s good to be back.  Well, first off, we have the new book — from stone this running— from Black Widow Press.  I term this book a second-stage Hinge Enactment because it not only multiplies the initial modules that broke ground in Smelling Mary, — (for example, there now exist over 150 “withs,” and that’s only from my pen) but it introduces some thrilling new behaviorisms.  I won’t go into detail — that is what the book is for.  I will say, however, that in fstr, New Hinge Outcroppings are making their appearance for the first time.

Substantial new developments I can point to are my Hingings with the Artists [any Artist I Intercourse with qualifies as a Hinge Artist]:  Linda Lynch, Michael Dominick, Felino Soriano, Joe Giglio, Sedric Choukroun, & Elmar Lemes.

Linda and I made our debut on alligatorzine.be with a piece called “with lines.”  That Intercourse has bloomed into 35 pages of material that will be included in my next book, Wrack Lariat, a book devoted to Hinging with the visual arts.

In addition, Linda, Felino, & myself have performed the first Hinge Trio Event, with — Hinge Trio Performs Pathos (about 27 pages, currently looking for a publisher).  Here we have three artists impregnating the Particle^[1] “pathos,” two (Felino & Heller) using the Lingual, & Linda utilizing the Visual.  Linda is decisively Not Decorating the “performance” with design, . . . she Is Drawing Pathos.

At Joe Giglio’s studio, I initialized The Interbreeding Amplitudinous Lyric Splash.  This Activity consists of the Hingist splicing existing lyrics with original applications.  The song I Hinged to was  “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” as sung by Fred McDowell.  You can see me performing this on YouTube.

[An aside:  I often think what distinguishes 21^st century romances is their YouTubing one another.]

My Intercourse with Michael Dominick is recent.  He & I simply ignited.  I applaud his Curiosity, his Authenticity, his Lust to know about Hinge and how it behaves, his enthusiasm to Enlarge together, his Respectfulness (I’d better stop “applauding” or my hands are going to get raw) . . . .

I will be reading from a portion of “painting in the mold of fire,” (a Hinge Treatment in progress dedicated to Michael) to introduce his Gallery Event at the Red Tin Shack in Red Hook, Brooklyn on October 1^st, my birthday.  I find it propitious that our first Live Intercourse together will be on my natal day, … it’ll mean a Double Birthday!

Michael & I are in discussion on a variety of ideas, some of which will be inclusive of the Hinge Artists mentioned above.

Joe Giglio, along with Sedric Choukroun, Elmar Lemes, & Frederic Legrand at the Brasserie Julien ^[2] developed “part beatitude/part beast.” For the first time, in “pb/pb,” I incorporate “the body” into the performance.  I was shy about doing this.  I was fearful it would be construed as some vain, narcissistic boob flapping his ass around.  I shared my concerns with Joe who said, “Why wouldn’t it work?  . . . Do it.”  So it was, I wanted the body to Be There, along with the African Olatunji drums, the physical pulse, the throb of rhythm adjoining the text, muscling the performance. We never rehearsed.  First time was the only time.These are what first come to mind; of course there have been other “alightments,” but I think these are some of the majors.

Jared:  I notice you use the word “Intercourse” instead of the more common “Collaboration” — is there a reason for that?

Heller:  Yes.  Hinge strives to protect & foster Integrity & Hygiene.  It is of High Importance that every word calibrate to this Salutiferous Ether.  One could view this as Word Conditioning.  It must be Fit, posess a certain Fit-Ness.

“Collaboration” is a reject.  It fails to qualify.  It is Un-fit.  “Collaboration” has a tony ring to it when it is expressed.  It suggests you are currying Societal Endorsement.  It sounds Self-Important.  It reminds me of when I lived in L.A. and every other person I met said , “I’m in a band,”  as if that magically assigned some Seal of Approval.

“Intercourse,” on the other hand, qualifies because it is FUN!  There is Activity:  Inter = “between,” “in the midst of,” “mutually,” & Course, = “forward or onward progression,” “to run, race, or move swiftly,” (like “running” in the title of this book), etc.  It is fecund, it breathes, it travels, it is, . . . well, I’ll just say it — Fucky.

Jared: Many artistic developments  have come with their own theoretical articulations–for example, it’d be hard to see how Modernism would have evolved  without its million gadzillion manifestos–but Hinge is especially complex, 

complete with explanatory notes, appendices, & a vocabulary that borrows from scientific discourse. Since most artists are notoriously inarticulate about their process, what spurred you on to describe Hinge in such a precise way? 

Heller:  Curious question, Jared, because it has a curious answer.  The short answer to the question is that I never wanted to discuss Hinge.  I have an aversion to the “discursive,” preferring the realm of what Artaud refers to as the “Affective Imponderable.”

When I moved to NYC (with only 6 or 7 “withs” applicated) & dined with  Mary Newell, I would regale her with tales from the Hinge Laboratory, — the curious behavior of the “word”  (particle) when it gristled with the “with” (the pivot/combustion/launch).  Then Outcropped the “road to ______ road” module & I marveled at how the same particle/subject would be complemented & extended (in mutation, transformed/re-disposed) when chambered in a Modular Alternative. 

Salutations to Mary Newell for tolerating such single-minded, manic explosions after enduring a full day of teaching & a two-hour commute. Mary Newell began identifying & discussing the behavior I was submitting.  She is the person who gave us the name “Hinge.”

I felt Safe simply being immersed in the Magmatic Enormity of the material.  I feared if I talked about the creating, I would lose it, as Rilke feared that he would lose his writing ability if he underwent psychoanalysis.  I shrank from identification/discussion/analysis.  I preferred bathing in the Magic.

The first time I was called upon to “say about” was when meeting Mary Newell & Andre Spears to discuss their Dialoguing Hinge, per the suggestion of Michael Annis. After Andre & Mary had discoursed for a while, Andre turned to me & said, — “And of course you have some thoughts.”  Well, of course, I didn’t.  Nada.

I informed Michael Annis of the meeting and he was pleased Andre & Mary were on board & informed me — when I told him of Andre’s remark, & my inbred resistance, he’d have none of it.  Michael said I have to Talk About Hinge because no one else is qualified to do so.  And he didn’t want a guide.  He demanded the inner guts.  So, with trepidation, I began the Hinge Theory Diagnostic (page 71, Smelling Mary, Howling Dog Press, 2008).  While creating the “Diagnostic,” I realized I had been condemned.  Clearly, I could not pass this off on anyone else.  I could no longer just participate in what thrilled me, I was now Obligated to expose/deliver/offer/submit the very Magic that so Enthralled me.  I’ll include a fragment of an email to Michael that platters forward the original flavor:^[3]

[right on ... I'm becoming a Hinge Scientist as well as an artist, ... something I never envisioned, you got me doing all this “talk," ... I actually enjoy the creating the best, but, we have something so vital here that it's beyond what I "enjoy," I feel an obligation to share it and continue to shape/explore it ... as you'll see in my last e-mail to Anthony, the point to Olson (John) was to try and help him see the vastness involved, and that it's not at all splashed haphazardly together, it's very precisely "geared," like planetary orbit ... Mary Newell put it this way:  "Hinge is material of connectivity and introduces an intentional and generative biasing.  Like a pool table with all the balls commotioning and someone lifting the pool table slightly so all that activity is directed.  (With the additional image that new balls are being added all the time as the pool table itself enlarges).”]

 That should partially answer your question, Jared, about what “spurred me to describe Hinge.”  I wasn’t “spurred” so much as Compelled.  The “Choice” was not for me to make if I was to go forth Honorably.

This leads to an interesting point, and why expressing my accounts of Hinge Theory are Mandatory, in my opinion.  Not better, mind you, than other accounts,  just Necessary, for I don’t go outside of the Framework, the ConteXtual Behaviorism of Hinge to describe Hinge.  I attempt to shy away from any Referential Matter.  It is fine, good, & appropriate, — even Necessary — that it is being done, and will continue to be done, by others.  To quote myself: 

“One must resist the temptation to enclose (circumscribe) the newly emerging with the already existing.  Such tendencies will sacrifice ‘novelty’ to the safety nets of the familiar.”

Another element in your question interests me: — your labeling HT an “artistic development.”  I find that restrictive/reductive.  We would not term the creation of our Universe as an “artistic development,” although we can appreciate viewing it that way, –  as an additionality, as prospering Perspectival Furtherances.

HT is Emphatically Not another artistic development like “Surrealism” or “Post-Modernism,” … it is Vaster.  It is Inclusive of artistic movements, as it is inclusive of musical/athletic/lovemaking/home decorating/cooking & dog- training parallels.  But it remains its own Integrally Unique Creation.  The Integrally Whole must be segregated from Fragmentary Movements.  An Ocean is not a bottle of Evian. 

I would like to consider your comment — “. . . have come with their own theoretical articulations.”  I don’t see myself articulating theory.  I  Messenger Marvels.  I unwrap them for you, I fondle them, I gush, & I  rhapsodize, & when called upon, — I Remark.

Further, We don’t “borrow from Scientific Discourse.”  Striving for greater & greater precision, we Utilize from Anywhere/Everywhere.  When a scientific term is most accurate, we use that; if an athletic or dance expression is, —such as “pivot” — we use that, . . . Hinge is Non-Boxable.  “CrissCrossery” used to cogitate upon ://:, probably derives from my image of Pick-Up Sticks.

Curiously, science uses precision to arrive at provability/demonstrability/measurability/accountability/predictability & Explicability. HT employs precision to arrive at the Mysterious/the Infinities/the Magical/the Im-measurable/the Boundless … the IN-explicable.

ExplicitNess to Un-Describe.  Merely to Offer, to Present, — a Cosmic Gift, Eureka after Eureka AWaiting you.

As a Manifesto:  Follow the path of Hinge — you have nothing to lose but your Misery! 

---

[1] See first interview in Jivin’ Ladybug.  These terms are also explained in both Smelling Mary and from stone this running.

[2] Venues constitute Hinge Components — a special salutation to Frederic Legrand & the Jivin’ Ladybug for featuring the performance on their site.

[3] A special note of Regard for Michael Annis (HDP) who has been instrumental in partnering this Hinge forward.

Chasing Sounds: An Interview with Wayne Marshall

In our fast-paced globalizing, loco translocal world, new musics are birthing themselves at an astonishing rate: reggaeton, bhangra, jungle, bubbling, tribal guarachero, funk carioca, etc. And these musics aren’t staying put either. They’re circulating around the planet, both following the geographic paths of their diasporic creators and spreading through social media networks.

We’re not dealing with old-school scenarios of Western cultural imperialism here. Instead, when these musics find new homes, they get reinvented and transformed into something entirely new.

It takes a lot of dedication to chart out these emerging musical trends and figure out how they are transforming our collective sense of musical creativity. Wayne Marshall has been patiently and lovingly doing that work for years now. Both a musicologist and a DJ, Marshall provides astute cultural insights and an intimate familiarity with the process of making music.

I first encountered his work in 2009’s Reggaeton, an academic collection he co-edited with Raquel Rivera and Deborah Pacini-Hernandez. In his opening essay, “From Musica Negra to Reggaeton Latino: The Cultural Politics of Nation, Migration, and Commercialization,” Marshall meticulously charts reggaeton’s evolution from Jamaican dancehalls to worldwide sensation, even analyzing the distinctive rhythms employed by reggaeton musicians.

Given his special attention to how musicians appropriate existing forms and adapt them for their own purposes, I decided to ask him some questions about the emerging trends of music making in the 21^st century.

For more information about Marshall’s scholarship and creative projects, check out these links:

His blog Wayne and Wax:

http://wayneandwax.com/

Marshall’s DJ mixes and mash-ups:

http://wayneandwax.com/?page_id=2

“Love That Muddy Ether: Pirate Multi-culturalism and Boston’s Secret Soundscape”

http://www.theclustermag.com/blog/?p=2179

Marshall’s talk “The Unstable Platforms and Uneasy Peers of Brave New World Music” at Harvard’s Berkman Center

http://wayneandwax.com/?p=4760

Jared: How does your DJing & academic work connect with each other?

Wayne: I discover a lot of music in my research, and DJing allows me to “activate” these tracks in a new social setting, to sit with them and hear and feel them in new ways, and to share them with other people. As someone who studies DJ culture, and as something of an old-school participant-observer, I think it’s pretty crucial to put my intellectual work into practice in this way. Another way to look at it, though, is that my abiding love for music propels all that I do, and I’ve managed — or attempted — to chart a course where sharing music is central to my life and work.

Jared: What got you blogging so extensively?

Wayne: I started blogging back in 2003 when I moved to Jamaica to do research for my dissertation, which largely consisted of visiting dancehall events and recording studios and turning my own apartment into a collaborative space for making and talking about music. (One result of which, apart from the dissertation, was my self-released album, Boston Jerk.) Initially I figured the blog would only be read by academic peers and family and friends, but I was happily surprised when it turned out that a wider readership of people who were interested in taking hip-hop and reggae (and their interplay) seriously had also found their way to my research-in-progress and thinking-aloud. More than anything, the deeply encouraging feedback loop of a community of co-readers (for I think of myself as engaged in a collective process of interpretation) is what turned the blog from a research experiment into the most important and fulfilling part of my work.

Jared: Does this “world music 2.0” (or as you cheekily dub it “global ghettotech”) phenomenon, this global mix n’ match of genres, leading to greater musical variation or homogenization? In other words, is it a scenario of capitalism doing cultural colonization or is it reflective of increased diasporic movements?

Wayne: As much as I’m suspicious of how capitalism shapes and circulates culture, I don’t buy the “cultural grey-out” anxiety that haunted so much globalization theory in the 1990s. Examining hip-hop or reggae as a global phenomenon (which is to say, a trans-local thing) gives the lie to any sense that local transformations of these forms are simply imitative. It has been well observed, of course, that capitalism thrives in the production of novelty, so one could argue that the lack of homogenization is, in a sense, just as useful for selling things. At any rate, I think it would be hard to make a case for anything other than greater variety in terms of the music to which we have access today, and whereas “world music” used to be a fairly exotic product, I find some optimism in the newly quotidian qualities of “the world out there” in an age when media travels so instantly and rapidly, especially when coupled with an increasing recognition that our own neighborhoods (at least in fairly cosmopolitan cities) are amazing and rich repositories of world culture. To the extent that exposure to new sounds — rather than simply the products of the media capitals of the US — might engender a more mutual regard for each other, a respect and tolerance for difference, is about as good as it could get. That, and radical wealth redistribution. (But I wouldn’t wait on “world music” to deliver that.)

Jared: Are these emerging musical trends sticking around or do they rapidly rise and fade? Who are the primary producers and consumers?

Wayne: The whole “world music 2.0″ scene is still pretty small and definitely marked by a hype-cycle dynamic. This is perhaps reflective of the “Western hipster” base for a lot of this stuff — at least once it’s been remediated by DJs and bloggers. But for every bandwagoneer, there are people whose interest in new sounds serves to drive their curiosity about other places, about other histories and narratives, and even about other people in their own local communities. Of course, we shouldn’t let out of sight that lots of these exciting sounds from around the world are emerging from rich local scenes which could care less about a few downstream DJs and bloggers (although, on the other hand, there are clearly some opportunities to be had, lest only the middlemen make the metropolitan money). But the production of the music that circulates on blogs and Soundcloud as a sort of “WM2.0″ is no longer entirely “outsourced,” if you will. Rather, instead of simply “digging” for far-flung sounds and scenes (a la funk carioca, kuduro, cumbia), as the case of moombahton shows, new genres have emerged that partake of the templates and circuits for “global ghettotech” while being almost completely unmoored or grounded in any particular place, hence inviting a broader sort of participation (especially from more privileged corners) and perhaps entailing a different approach toward exoticism.

Jared: Why do economically disadvantaged urban areas (the ghetto, favela, barrio, shantytown, and its many other manifestations) play such a prominent role in the circulation of this material?

Wayne: For all their actual impoverishment (or one might say because of it), ghettos are also immense sites of creativity — and, part and parcel of that, powerful repositories of authenticity. I would alter your question to note that while these places play a prominent role in the production of this material, they are less involved in its circulation. Increasingly, grassroots producers from around the world are using “social media” to share their productions with their peers and wider audiences, but a lot of the wider circulation of these genres is being initiated by web-trawling bloggers and DJs who are enthralled by the stuff they’re hearing. Sometimes the grounds for that fascination and/or empathy are spurious, sometimes sincere.

Jared: Do you see any political ramifications to this increased cultural dialogue?

Wayne: It’s not always clear to me that this phenomenon entails a “dialogue” except in a rather vague (and one-sided) sense. I do think that playing music for local audiences (say, here in the US) which is not what they typically encounter can do a sort of political-cultural work insofar as it reforms ideas about us/them. I tend to reserve my greatest hope for the locally transformative power of these engagements — that is, we can work in Boston or New York to reshape our own sense of our soundscapes and our neighbors, and ourselves.

Jared: What makes the contemporary musical practice of appropriating and recontextualizing sounds so prominent and attractive?

Wayne: The relatively novel ease of cut-and-paste is what accounts for the prominence of these methods. As for their attractiveness, I think that recontextualization, reframing, and remaking culture is simply an elemental way that we make sense of the world and share that sense with others. Of course, the advent of the global internet also means that distant appropriations are easier and more commonplace than ever.

Jared: You’ve talked about how this emerging global musical culture is precariously archived within corporate platforms. How could we create a public, non-privatized space on the internet?

Wayne: This is a serious problem for posterity, and even for present practice. It reflects both a corporate capture of “public” spaces as well as a new prioritization on the part of music-makers and -sharers toward immersion and participation. Toward remedying that — to the extent that people care to — I think we really need to develop (and invest in) new platforms that allow people to personally host (or better, collectively distribute) the media that we make or care to share. I wish there were a will to do this at a municipal or even federal level — to really do it with public funds, as an investment in infrastructure — but there are too many conflicts, I suspect, to make this possible now. So, this has to start with a collective but individual move toward our own servers, and with insisting that we keep copies of everything we post to the corporate platforms whose only value — beyond the user-interface they provide — is entirely generated by our presence and participation there. An open-source alternative to Facebook / Twitter / Soundcloud / YouTube that allows people to maintain more control over their digital culture would be a killer app to be sure.

Jared: In both your essays and your mixes, you chart out the routes of particular sounds such as the dembow riddim or the “zunguzung meme” as they get reappropriated in a variety of different contexts. What kinds of insights about contemporary musical culture does such a method provide?

Wayne: Since — as I think such mixes make audible — it’s not so easy to generalize about “appropriation” when a tune or drumbreak can clearly take so many forms and support such a diversity of messages, the most consistent insight has more to do with the fundamental flexibility and reconfigurability of musical forms (and cultural forms more generally). Although I think this phenomenon far predates the age of technological reproducibility — and results from the essentially mimetic basis of culture — I do think that, with regard to the contemporary, these mixes show not only that it’s easy and commonplace to appropriate or allude to or otherwise invoke and rework previous performances, but that a great deal of creativity, and localization of the power to affect an audience, is very audibly a part of the process.

Jared” Which of your currents projects are you most excited about?

Wayne: I’ve got an ongoing project about the Boston soundscape that I’ve just extended recently with the publication of “Love That Muddy Ether” / Boston Pirate Party — a brief reflection on the rise of Caribbean low-power / pirate radio here in Boston and an audio collage that tries to encapsulate, and take some poetic liberties with, this city’s segregated soundscape. I’m also embarking, after a couple trips to Rotterdam last fall, on a book project about bubbling, the Dutch-Caribbean hyperactive twin of reggaeton, which seems, like kindred genres such as jungle and bhangra, to speak volumes about the musical mediation of a changing sense of place.

Clayton Eshleman- “Berdache”

Clayton Eshleman- Berdache