Happy Birthday Alex, My London Stone.

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Hammer Carefully

Yesterday at high noon I saw a man wielding a hammer in a glass house & screaming how beautiful speed & war are. That was Charles Bernstein reading F.T. Marinetti's The Founding and manifesto of Futurism on the 100th birthday of its publication in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro (see yesterday's post). Charles did smash the pulpit, but refrained from having a go at the glass walls or at the Matisse, and looking around for something that wouldn't upset the host of the event, the Museum of Modern Art, he spotted a pile of copies of Poetry magazine (co-sponsor of the event). Instantly recognizing the economic bull-value (hmmm, I thought I had typed "null-value") of Poetry, poetry, "poetry," no matter how you spell it, he set them flying with a thorish swing of the hammer. The pile had stoically set there for an hour and more by then, with a sign indicating that they were free for the taking, but it was only after Bernstein had liberated them from their stackness and they had achieved their own random orbits on the floor, that the audience scrambled greedily for freebies (there must be a lesson about poetry in this too).

Comments. More at Pierre Joris's blog.

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Diagram Prize

Prize for oddest book title of the year. Contenders include:

• Curbside Consultation of the Colon
• 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais
• The Large Sieve and its Applications

Read the rest of the shorlist at The Guardian.

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Perspective

Sometimes the box isn't big enough:

Bök's views did seem contradictory at times. To illustrate the failure of modern poetry, he pointed to the topic of man landing on the moon. "If the Ancient Greeks had accomplished something like that," he said, "they would write a 12 volume epic detailing the story." But Bök's own work, almost completely void of narrative content, is far from a testament to human achievement. It would surely be a stretch to say that his work succeeds in reflecting modern culture compared to the works he derides. As Volk put it, "He isn't exploring the human experience. Poetry is not supposed to be progressive, it's traditional."

via Cahiers de Corey

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Mike Weller's Magical Mystery Tour

Wednesday 4th March Klinker South, Ivy House, 40 Stuart Road, Nunhead SE14 Thursday 5th March XING THE LINE (benefit for Paul Sutton) 15 Leathermarket St., London SE1 3HN Sunday 15th March Sundays at the Oto Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin St., Dalston E8 (TBC) Klinker North, Cross Keys, 126 York Way N1 Tuesday 21st April The Blue Bus (with Jow Lindsay) The Lamb, 94 Lamb's Conduit St., London WC1 Entrance fees vary. All events begin around 8pm, except for Sundays at the Oto, which commences at 3pm.

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Shearsman Reading: Kuhn, Sheppard

Tuesday 3rd March, 7.30 pm Shearsman Reading Series:

• Philip Kuhn
• Robert Sheppard (launching Warrant Error)

Swedenborg Hall, Swedenborg House, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way WC1A 2TH Admission is free. via modernpoetry

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Stirrers

When it comes to appreciating art, men and women really do think differently, research shows. While women use both sides of their brain, men only use the right half to judge if a piece of work is beautiful, a team of scientists discovered.

via the BBC

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mutapoem

mutapoem live will happen on 23 April 2009 More information including venue and times to follow Check mutapoem for more details on what mutapoem is http://mutapoem.wikispaces.com/mutapoem To participate email me at mattdalby@hotmail.com

More at Santiago's Dead Wasp.

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Blue Bus Review

Short review with pictures from Laurie Duggan.

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London Word Festival '09

Things to be getting on with.

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