IMPOSTURE NOTEBOOK

Lance Phillips

BlazeVOX [books]
Buffalo, New York

Imposture Notebook by Lance Phillips Copyright 2007 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza Cover painting by Kenneth Geary First Edition ISBN: 1-934289-65-5 ISBN 13: 978-1-934289-65-5 Library of Congress Control Number : 2007931504

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This all began with a letter not received.

Traversed the grass beaded assumes various forms Beaded branch Open This is not a true reply to your letter, though I (we for that matter) do intend to give a true language thins to an arm Ordinary Quality her finger moves over her skin distorting reply. This is simply to let you know that I did not receive a copy, though ______ read her skin The earth Is distorted itself with these leaves on it These leaves Our his copy to me so I know you intended that I should receive a copy. It may have been psychological perspective is determined by the following: 1) that communication is lost or who knows what. If you could send a copy to me I would greatly appreciate it. necessary, and that for there to be communication something has to be firm, simplified, Also, I think you should know that I am not angry, but I am confused.

capable of precision. For it to be communicable, however, it must be experience I realized after I had sent the previous email that it was rather pointless to ask for a copy as adapted, as recognizable. The material of the senses adapted by the understanding, of the letter. I dont need a copy in order to respond (______ read it to me over the reduced to rough outlines, made similar, subsumed under related matters. Thus the phone.) I hesitate to use email simply because I dislike it for serious correspondence, but 11

fuzziness and chaos of sense impressions are, as it were, logicized. (Nietzsche) An it is fast. It is important to preface everything which follows by saying a couple of honest community versus a true community What is ordinary language? One thinks of things: first, as I stated before, Im confuse and second, as I stated before, Im not angry. Williams or Wittgenstein What about Hejinians My Life? Is it ordinary Language that I suppose I should try to explain why I am not angry. When I asked ________ why the is the language of communication? Pedestrian communication? No A context which two of you divorced she said it was because you are gay. At that point, suddenly, it defies context Real language which has been put into an unusual situation Real versus seemed to me that the divorce and your staying away was your way of protecting us from ordinary? Into his thigh community has been sewn each stitch buckled and some where something which is difficult to explain. I thought then, and do now, that that must have hairs We must begin with the mistake and transform it into what is true. best course of action. By telling you this, though, I am not trying to make you less (Wittgenstein) What I can see and what I can set down and what I can remember Is culpable for your choices; there were also some selfish and irresponsible motives behind memory separate from soul Syntax is a way of making memory present palpable them. I am not nave enough to assume it was better this way and there is no point in Knowing my body as I do your body is separate from the dogs Slant the sun golden is speculating. You said in your letter that you wanted to be honest, as do I. I think at this a quality in human skin Eumenidies Mastery of death? Mimesis? _____: what is it point there can be no other way to be and still hope to proceed. I do want to ask you two, 12

about tone that you dislike? I dislike the way it makes a spectacle of the writing as for now, questions: first, whats your side of the story, second, why now? I can think of does Narrative and description What is it about Drama which attracts people in a piece other questions, but for the time being I think we need slowly to begin establishing a of writing which is not theater? This can easily return to peoples need for God That is history before we can start trying to fill it in. You stated that you also have questions, Ill this muddle of language which requires so many circuits to (illegible) often accepts history before we can start trying to fill it in. You stated that you also have questions, Ill metaphor as veracity Whereas in a writing which is closer to thinking there is little need be glad to answer them honestly, though slowlythis is a difficult thing which requires of circuits Heaven location description versus the Hebrew word for heaven being time, care and respect.

plural the idea of plurality alone one after death existing as a true plurality I spoke with ______ and we both agree that for you to send each of us a letter would be The soul is an action Is it assumes with spinneret egg sack abdomen drama best now that you have both of our addresses. By both of us getting a letter, even which attachment moon hauled on leg points Dissolves on touch the caterpillar One third the contains the same information, we will be able to react individually. Also, I want to petals russet with skin He wrote it as separate from his lungs Mandelstams stress that any dialogue, aside from the transmission of facts, which is to take place Conversation about Dante. In the way their lips slide one to one Theres a way in 13

between you and I and between you and ______ must take place individually. Many of which people can blur over the boundaries and make soul The two of you have a strong the concerns which this dialogue involves are mutual, but many more are extremely soul which I hope youll have always Saying something versus making something individual. It seems that ________ initial questions echo mine: What happened? and happen Blackberry blossoms at night Is the perception of oneself mythology? That Why now? If you have any questions feel free to contact me, but I will not relay would make consciousness a micro-mythology? Crisis occurs when that microinformation, again, aside from facts, between you and ______ that will be up to the two mythological template is laid across others Their myths are different I can think of of you. I cant and wont assume to speak for ______, but I for one look forward to things which I did today for good or no and now I can think of alternatives to those reading your letter.

previous actions How does this affect those perceptions? Is that actual I received your letter yesterday and want to thank you for being so prompt. I told you in micro-mythology altered? Of course actual refers to its being on the outside and able to a previous email that I thought it best to communicate by letter, I still do, the reason I am be corroborated This is memory a micro-mythology This what it is that attracts sending this email is that I couldnt read you return address on the envelope. I guess I people to drama that it mimics the creation of these micro-mythologies What happens got my habit of writing letters quickly from you. Also, I want to thank you for being so 14

when belief is withdrawn from self? Prime mover is it still? World as ecstatic No honest, I know this can not be easy for you. Most of the information you gave I knew to center Death greatest spectacle yields sex yields the self being subsumed Released some extent, except for the __________________________________. This is from spectacle So when I think of tone etc. as making a spectacle out of the writing am I something _________ was not honest about. When I asked why the divorce happened, simply reacting to the death instinct? What happens if everything is equally a prime and this was 7 or 8 years ago, I simply told that you were gay. Over the years Ive mover? Cause and effect would be replaced by action and re-action? Hierarchy is gleaned information from here and there and dismantled? Unity is replaced with process? This is Love The leaves shadowed are _________________________________________________________________. I more and darker leaves If one is able to emphasize the boundaries of things (ideas and want to ask you some other questions. But I also want you to know that anything you objects) one is dispelling unity Does soul still remain after excending those boundaries? choose not to answer is fine with me and that my wanting to pursue a relationship with Yes because it is action Why is this not spectacle? Is it excending versus transcending you is not contingent on either your answering or your answers. I guess Ill ask the hard only? To climb out of versus to carry across Fuscia rhododendron blooms at night one first: did you know you were gay when you married _________? I also have loads Culpability

15

of other questions along an entirely different line: your life. I want to be as honest with

Photography you as you have with me. You stated in your letter that I apparently had tried to find you How can one question value without establishing a new system of value Is something through the _____ side; the fact is I didnt, though I had thought about doing so. which is beyond value by definition beyond spectacle Can one redefine value (or _________ may have tried though I dont know for sure. This doesnt mean Im sorry remove it for that matter) by requiring that it be excending rather than transcending I that you have contacted me; I am, in fact, very happy. I dont know what kind of suppose here Im back to Nietzsche But would this require abstaining from belief as relationship you have in mind. Id like to share some things about my life with you but I belief itself is what establishes value Is belief not opposed to intimacy in that it requires dont want you to feel overwhelmed. I dont know what I expect but I do want to try to only a passive action Here is the problem with tone which exemplifies the problem with understand you in some way and Id like you to feel the same. Just let me know you spectacle as a whole They require a system of belief which bars certain contingencies have in mind or if you dont know either maybe we can simply keeping writing and see while setting in place other expected outcomes Value yields spectacle yields tone Is what happens. Ill try to answer any questions you may have about me and my life. only supported by belief I believe intimately in the immediate structures of the world _______ tells me that your return address is easily read. So, I now have your true 16

the give of flesh the lack thereof in stone or wood The point at which I become a address, but Ill send the email anyway.

skeptic is when the creation of so many micro-mythologies lays a completely Each time I sit down to write you I can tell the focus of my attention is moving from artificial template over those structures and is not aware of it Things are not to be wanting to ask you questions toward wanting to tell you things. I think this is good, doubted for that matter neither are perceptions alone but perceptions in conjunction although I can't get over what a strange and rare opportunity this is for the both of us. with a self are to be held if not in a dubious light then at least accepted as fodder for true Here we are at the cusp of, what I hope will be, an enduring and mutually rewarding thinking and experimenting If one is blind to the porous nature of self one is likely to be relationship. Each of us has here the opportunity to create a self for the other, of course either deceived by its capacity for tyranny and thus become a tyrant or to become a by that I do not mean an invention but a presentation of who each of us thinks we are, victim of anothers tyranny Study of the positions of the body Dante Beckett which is why I so value the honesty which your letters from the first have strove to Resound hands move Photo graphism Actaeon yields study yields Beckett yields body require. I want us to always be honest. What you said about whether you knew you position Actaeon yields study yields Dante yields body as the surface or capital for were gay when you married _________ makes a great deal of sense. It is amazing how punishment Paz on Duchamp Zukofsky 80 flowers Bottom on Shakespeare Aristotle 17

long a culture can ignore or deny something only to turn around and the in space of 3 on the soul Olsons notion: Ive lived so long with my body that it must be my soul decades almost completely assimilate it. You said you didn't want the last letter to be Dante manifests punishment as physical pain so does in his case the body either: 1) about you. But I do, I want to know things about you: your childhood, which you usurp the soul or 2) become the soul Beckett also uses the body as a surface or a mentioned, your life until now, and now, what you do, what/how you think about things, barrier against which the world reacts for in him the world is always only outside Is it everything. I, too, don't want you to feel I'm asking too much too soon, but still I wonder. always only outside Is it possible for the body to be a surface which is the result of a I guess now for me, to begin I don't mind answering any questions you have for me ( tension or better a being made tense or being strung that is an elongation of the inner although I'm not too interested in writing about ___________________, I'll tell you they and the outer so that both are manifest completely in the surface which is body So that are still together and seem happy, they live nearby and I see them often.) I'll start with the body changes from being a barrier to being a ground of inclusion Does this require the questions you enclosed. Yes, we were in New Castle until 1984 when we moved to dis-belief in the self And how honest is that or can it be How does this jibe with unity Charlotte, NC where I've lived since, except for two years of graduate school. In school, If each body is a ground of inclusion in the afore mentioned sense can there be at least, elementary and high school, I'd say I was average maybe slightly above. I distinction And can that surface stretched as it is produce Is there volition in such a 18

graduated from high school in 1988 and started college at UNC Charlotte the same year body Is there difference between writing morally as Martin suggested and writing an where I received a BA in English in 1992. In the spring of that year I'd been accepted honest surface That is in being a body Of course here what Martin implies with into the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and graduated from there in 1994 morally I think of as amorally Is it possible to write an honest image In many ways this with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry Writing. There are lots of other thing I could is the problem I have with fiction It is constantly trying to make something to make tell which occurred in the space of those years, but for now I'd rather start with facts. So, images for something which already exists under the pretense of telling the story but that was most of the boring stuff, although my writing is very important to me.

isnt implicit in that some kind of subjugation of the writingsuddenly it is bound to not Here's the story of my wonderful wife ______. We began dating at 17 and have been be a surfaceit is bound to belief in the self and by extension submits itself to together ever since. We were married in 1994. I should tell you that she has always conventions which are constantly subverting it I feel close to Zukofsky especially when I encouraged me to try to find you and is very supportive of everything which has can relieve him of his predilection for Poetry I dont believe in Poetry Everything is happened. She is beautiful, humble, strong, generous and caring. She has taught me how false! Everything is permitted! Only with a certain obtuseness of vision, a will to to be confident and strong and responsible. My being able to do this is in no small part 19

simplicity, does the beautiful, the valuable appear: in itself, it is I know not what. due to her. She makes it possible for me to be happy in all aspects of my life. I love her (Nietzsche) Robert Lebel says that in Duchamps painting the nude plays very much. Yes, we have one child, _____ , born in 1996. He is a wonderful boy: exactly the same role as the old drawings of the human skeleton in the anatomy books: it intelligent, creative, confident, loving, difficult sometimes, but a joy. We've enclosed is an object for internal investigation. (Octavio Paz) The Rational Violence some pictures (again I hope this isn't too fast), they've been scanned so the colors are Soft breath red face through determination A great firm dome ignorance must distorted. He and my wife are the two people it would be difficult to do without, they encompass you Quiet granite forced from hand from expectation of body the rational fulfill me. What do I do, well, I stay home with _____ and have his whole life, also I violence What are the consequences of Memorys usurpation of vision in the writing work part-time at the county library and I write every day. All this sounds like some Or is that the case How can one alter the frame of the body Would this be a kind of resume, but I want to start with this and build on it. If you have questions let me manifestation of the rational violence (as in Duchamp) Or could it be that an alteration know. Also, there are things I'll want to tell as we go along. I know, from things you've occurs in the struggle between memory and vision Can soul happen without a physical said, how difficult this has been and continues to be for you, but I want to thank you for barrier being breached Is memory or can memory breach(ing) a physical doing it. 20

barriervision Gaze and the template of memory possibly can result in violence I want to thank you for the enthusiasm of your last letter; you couldn't have stated Muscles belly frames in this position the head Bone at bottom of face having seen it I anything more perfectly. As far as feeling intimidated by the fact that I write, you remember here crux Tighten accordingly to face Who would give a bird the shouldn't, you express yourself very well. What I do isn't something which is impossible lie, A Midsummer Nights Dream 5.641: There is therefore really a sense in which for most people if they would just let themselves. Two things which you mentioned in in philosophy we can talk of a non-physical I. The I occurs in philosophy through the your letter, especially caught my interest: 1) that you are on disability, is it fair of me to fact that the world is my world. The philosophical I is not the man, not the human ask due to what condition and 2) what things do you do which might surprise me? I'm body or the human soul which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit curious about the disability because I want you to be well and to be able to sustain being not a part of the world. (Wittgenstein) George Booless Laws of Thought One well. Do you still paint? I've seen a couple paintings which you did long ago and I'm explanation only of these facts can be given, viz., that the distinction between true and curious. Do you read a lot, if so what? Being a student of Life is all any of us can be false, between correct and incorrect, exists in the process of the intellect, but not in the whether we want to admit it or not. There are many people who expend all their energy region of a physical necessity. (Boole) Jung on Job Plain versus plane Man is 21

***** in trying to fulfill a convention which has nothing to do with them, for whom the phrase begotten by man and the sun as well. (Aristotle) Words are a past of the "student of Life" is viewed with contempt. Of course they feel contemptuous because imagination, that is, according as they are composed in vague order in the memory they've never given themselves the opportunity to feel something deeply and let it affect owing to a condition of the bodySo that those things which should be put last we put everything else in their lives. Also, we live in a product oriented culture which places first, and thus the true order of progress is perverted and nothing may legitimately be little emphasis on the paths which lead to those products. But the fact is that the path is concluded. (Spinoza) The flowers of the Prunus Japonica deflect and turn, do I not everything, in fact the only thing. Honestly I can think of very little about which I am think of you dwelling afar? He said: It is not the thought, how can there be distance in uncomfortable answering questions, so anything you can think of is fine. By the same that? (Confucius) How does one get that sense of looking out of the text Out of soul token I'll let you know that I am an odd person, which I do not say in order to be selfcongratulatory nor do I mean that statement as a lament, but only to be honest. I like to Can one make a text which is part of the world Once again this comes back to spectacle do thing my way. I am not a Romantic. My writing is, if any thing, analytic though Does the lack of narrative forego spectacle Is the I necessarily a spectacle If you personal and extremely visceral. I write in a peculiar way and do so because it seems, to 22

see the hair on my limbs, it was originally my clothing. (Nonnus on Acteon) These me, most honest. I'm not very interested in publishing, though am lucky enough to know Indicium tales the naked senses sometimes see too littlebut then always see too some editors of journals here and there (Colorado, Las Vegas, Manhattan) who have muchin speaking of moral courage we imply the existence of the physical. Quite as published some things. Also, I've found out recently that there is a small chance I may reasonable an expression would be that of bodily thought( Poe) Melvilles letters

have a book coming out, though nothing definite. I am interested in the avant-garde, to Hawthorne: Me, a God, a Nature Spectacle yields assuming power by disregarding though not as a community but as an individual pursuit. My writing is, to my mind, a plurality, individuality The fact fights its way into existence; for it exists by virtue of philosophical inquiry. I read little American poetry, preferring some French poets and the oppositions in involves. It does not exist, like a quality, by anything essential, by good helping of philosophy. I find most fiction too concerned with story, which is to me anything that a mere definition could expressthe fact takes placeIt is not time and an artificial sequencing of events. Other things about me outside of my writing: space which produce this character. It is rather this character which for its realization I do not watch television. I do not eat red meat; in fact I eat little meat at all. I like subtle calls for something like time and space. (Charles Sanders Pierce) What is utility, if colors. _____ will tell that I am not witty, though I try occasionally. I dislike most it is confirmed to a single person? Truth is public. (Pierce to William James) 2.014 comedy, because it seems simply an escape. 23

Objects contain the possibility of all situations. (Wittgenstein) 3.142 Only I want to write this to you for two reasons. One, in some way I wanted to tell you Happy facts can express a sense, a set of names cannot. (Wittgenstein) At what point are a set Fathers Day which is not to say that I want you to (nor do I think you want to) take of names a set of facts In thrum all outer form from vase all possible situations _______ place, but you still are my father and I dont see why I simply cant have both. Object white chrysanthemum sun The verb of a proposition is not is true or is Second, I mentioned in my letter that there was a slight chance that I might false, as Frege thought: rather, that which is true must already contain the verb. have a book of poems coming out. Well it looks as though I will have one out this (Wittgenstein) Are Zukofskys 80 Flowers anti-spectacle poems Are they esoteric only springno contract yet, though Ive heard from the editor who says she will send one in No in many ways they are self-supporting, that is they produce this energy at the point of August. Also, I wanted to include this poem, which Ill begin by saying is very old (I composition that is word to word Spectacle=Soul (conventional) To come to a text, wrote it when I was 22 or 23) and is not indicative of the way I write now. Also, there is whether through writing it or reading, without the regiment of progress is to relieve it of something of a story behind it, which is unusual for my writing. In some way the poem spectacle Progress bullies in temporal locators which of course lays the template of a involves you or at least my idea of you at that time. Ill just tell you what happened then long-term syntax over the text Making like the idea of an experience versus making 24

type the poem. This was written not as a direct outgrowth of the experience but something an experience What are the consequences of this way of thinking not simply sometime soon after it. It was primarily an experiment in a way of writing which was for the text or reading but for thinking itself Is this where one comes to Zens worship then attached to you and this experience. Heres the story. When I was living in Iowa of the moment Is that dichotomy all there is Progress versus moment Is a moment an City in 1993 I went to an exhibit of the AIDS quilt. While the viewers where looking object If so doesnt it contain the possibility of all situations Can a moment choose around at the beautiful and various quilts; a speaker was reading the names of victims of its own history Can an object No Both object and moment are delivered of History the disease, I could have sworn I heard your name read. I was taken aback, obviously. I What effect does the introduction of the possessive pronoun have My object My sad and confused. Anyway in the weeks which followed something of that moment Are those particulars limited by their context For example is my object having experience came back up in this poem, though I dont think anyone would know it unless been used in a particular way for one year precluded from other uses in that context of I told them. Again, I wrote this when I was very young. You (and I to some extent) are the my simply from habit Is a moment used To Davenport Paradise Sappho the Hungarian.

Horace Aster seed Seed aster forced each from the five of them What is moment and Love story 25

object paradisiacal redux Rapidus sol If a body meet a body coming through the rye The Hungarian bursts everything he owns. If a body kiss a body need a body cry What is it imagination takes from the world These are the seeds of guilt. Which the pigeons Tactility What is it imagination takes from the world Tactility Can a mote of will not eat, which the singing birds will. sunlight defeat its purpose when thought shows it to be deep or dark? See sun, and think He bathes in the bone water of a bone tub. shadow. (Zukofsky) Ronald Johnson John Taggart I try not to read into things, I To break now would leave him transparent. try to read, which means that if the page doesnt have it any imagination on my part as to The love of a man is heartbreaking. The Hungarian what I might read into it has no significance. I hope everybody would read me the same loves one. Trees are never cold. Trees waythat is, not wonder whether I was afraid of a draft as I am at the moment, but just are never beautiful or ugly, but graceful. read the words. This activity is a kind of mathematics but more sensuous, and it has little The Hungarian is beautiful and bursts everything. do with learning, it has something to do with structure. (Zukofsky) Experience used to Everything bursts. These are the seeds of desire. be called the Soul. (Laing) Mary Caponegro Tales from the next villiage Rachis was Which the pigeons will eat, which the singing 26

it barbule Living wing Thing-events to not experience Shudder groin Shudder her birds will not. He bathes in the fuschia water head just after Operators and things E. Goffman Asylums From notes to Poes of a fuschia tub. The kiss of a promise is heartbreaking. Eureka that attraction and repulsion are matter Blueberries What is the The Hungarian is beautiful and bursts everything. structure of the world This way of thinking requires an acuity by exclusion Enormity

I did receive you letter on the 17th. I want to thank you again for being so honest, Is it simply aggression in a text which makes it thinking Of course I do not mean that couldnt have been easy. Im glad to know how healthy you are. Ill be honest I violence as such but transgression Aeschylus Prometheus literally fore thought dont know so very much about HIV. I know that there have been and are people who Days in those leaves transfiguring the (illegible) remains Is what happens in the text a have gone twenty years or more and havent developed AIDS. It is a little frightening claim of existing Is it similar to proprioception Does an a-narrative stance necessarily though, Im sure it was for you, at least when you found out and for the first few years. I proffer the body itself, or better, a measure of reference In a narrative progression the am very glad to hear how seriously you take your health; there are too many people who context is obvious Yet here in an aggressive a-narration body itself, not as in drama act as if they have no control over what happens to their bodies. You never have to i.e. spectacle, is the residual context for what happens Again back to Soul being 27