Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921789
E. Ethelbert Miller
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> The Literary Assistant as Point Guard <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> E. Ethelbert Miller (bio) </li> </ul> <p>Is there an app that keeps track of how many books an author signs? In the old days, successful writers had book tours that took them to many major cities. Folks would wait patiently in long lines for the autograph, the signature that too often resembled hieroglyphics. The author with bent head might make small talk with the person whose book he or she was signing. Casual conversations at books signings are similar to what one encounters at airports and on train rides; seldom do they last beyond the destination and the departing.</p> <p>Then there are magical moments of connection. A writer talks to someone after a reading, lecture, or workshop. The conversation opens the door to the various levels and degrees of life. The author becomes linked to another person like stanzas and paragraphs. Words suddenly make sense. A sentence is completed while punctuation, like time, becomes something to cherish.</p> <p>I think of this when I think about Kirsten Porter. Now I think about her all the time, because we work together and she is my literary assistant. When we first met, in 2007, she was an undergraduate student at Marymount University. Upon first impression one might mistake her for a young nun living in France. Slender and small, she conveyed a spiritual sweetness when we talked, a kindness that elevated her and enlarged her size and frame. I can't recall what we first discussed or how we quickly found ourselves renovating the first floor of a place for our friendship. I did, however, stay in touch during the time she was enrolled in the creative writing program at George Mason University. Kirsten claims I called the director of the MFA program and encouraged him to find a slot for her. Perhaps this is folklore. I do know it was poetry that brought us together, and maybe during that first meeting at Marymount I was simply autographing a book for her.</p> <p>I never know what to say in an autograph. Maybe there should be a workshop on this. Just signing one's name is the equivalent to having an ink stamper. <strong>[End Page 93]</strong> Writing just "thanks" and "love" above one's name tends to have no true meaning and is the equivalent to a fist bump. A longer written statement in a book is just a caress and comes nowhere near being a French kiss. I've never signed anyone's book in a way that might make them blush or fear lending their book to someone.</p> <p>These are the small things writers are seldom instructed on. How might an autographed book influence a critic many years later? Is it important to know that Langston Hughes often signed his signature in green?</p> <p>In basketball, a good point guard is essential to having success on the court. Managing the clock is similar to managing a career. I prefer to view
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Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921802
Eckhard Gerdes
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>BRUT: Writings on Art & Artists</em> by Harold Jaffe <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Eckhard Gerdes (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>brut: writings on art & artists</small></em> Harold Jaffe<br/> Anti-Oedipus Press<br/> https://anti-oedipuspress.com/books/brut/<br/> 144 pages; Print, $16.95 <p>Harold Jaffe's transgressive fictions range from the social critique of his novel <em>Mole's Pity</em> (1979), through his fiction treatments of celebrity in <em>Madonna & Other Spectacles</em> (1988), <em>15 Serial Killers</em> (2003), and <em>Brando Bleeds</em> (2022), and carry on throughout his disturbing and astute docufictions such as <em>Porn-Anti-Porn</em> (2019) and <em>False Positive</em> (2002). But in all cases, Jaffe makes one consistent decision as a writer: the dominant methods of employing fiction are not the essential basis of literary art.</p> <p>What makes Jaffe's writing unique is, perhaps, how he creatively and effectively combines the strategies and techniques of fiction with nonfiction. His docufictions blur the distinction between the two. In that sense, Jaffe's work reimagines the first dictum of the English novel: the pretense of being nonfiction. Readers of eighteenth-century novels must have realized that writers such as Defoe and Swift were not actually relating true accounts but were using nonfiction as a conceit upon which to build their novels. This process has been thoroughly discussed in Lennard Davis's <em>Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel</em> (1997), which traces the history of the novel from the printed ballad, which was ostensibly the sharing of the "news" (cf. <em>novellus</em> in Latin), to the adoption of the conceit by eighteenth-century novelists. But the factuality of the work was not a real issue. It only had to look like that. <strong>[End Page 158]</strong> Present-day readers can read <em>The Onion</em> or the satire of "The Borowitz Report" without believing the stories are true. This synthesis of fact and fiction was foundational in the novel but has been misunderstood and misused by scores of writers who believe that they are so special that all a novel really needs to be is a <em>roman à clef</em>. Indeed, hundreds of these works are of the type that I call "I hate my parents" or "I screwed my grad student" novels. And though some value can be found in these works, the novel as a form is much larger than that. It can certainly be used for social purposes, but is a work whose goal is to effect social change primarily social commentary or a literary novel? What destination is the author driving toward? Is the goal social commentary or literary excellence? Those are clearly separate and distinct goals. Which of those choices is more important to the author? We should not conflate astute social commentary with literary excellence.</p>
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要：评论者： BRUT：作者：哈罗德-雅菲 Eckhard Gerdes (简历) 《BRUT: Writings on Art & Artists》（《艺术与艺术家》） 哈罗德-雅菲 Anti-Oedipus Press https://anti-oedipuspress.com/books/brut/ 144 页；印刷版，16 美元。95 哈罗德-谢斐的越轨小说从他的小说《鼹鼠的怜悯》（1979 年）中的社会批判，到他在《麦当娜与其他眼镜》（1988 年）、《15 名连环杀手》（2003 年）和《白兰度流血》（2022 年）中对名人的小说处理，再到他令人不安而又敏锐的纪录片，如《色情-反色情》（2019 年）和《假阳性》（2002 年）。但无论如何，作为作家，谢斐都做出了一个一致的决定：使用小说的主流方法并非文学艺术的根本基础。贾菲写作的独特之处或许在于他如何创造性地将虚构与非虚构的策略和技巧有效地结合起来。他的纪录片模糊了两者之间的区别。从这个意义上说，谢斐的作品重新诠释了英国小说的第一要义：伪装成非虚构。十八世纪小说的读者一定意识到，笛福和斯威夫特等作家实际上并不是在讲述真实的故事，而是在利用非虚构作为小说的自负。伦纳德-戴维斯（Lennard Davis）的《事实小说》（Factual Fictions）对这一过程进行了深入探讨：戴维斯的《事实小说：英国小说的起源》（The Origins of the English Novel，1997 年）对这一过程进行了详尽的论述，该书追溯了小说的历史，从表面上是分享 "新闻"（参见拉丁语中的 novellus）的印刷民谣，到 18 世纪小说家对这一隐喻的采用。但作品的真实性并不是一个真正的问题。它只需要看起来像那么回事。[现在的读者可以阅读《洋葱头》或《博罗威茨报告》的讽刺作品，而不会相信这些故事是真实的。这种事实与虚构的结合是小说的基础，但却被数十位作家误解和滥用，他们认为自己是如此特别，以至于一部小说只需要是一部 "罗马小说"。事实上，数以百计的这类作品被我称为 "我恨我的父母 "或 "我坑了我的研究生 "的小说。虽然在这些作品中可以发现一些价值，但小说作为一种形式远不止于此。它当然可以用于社会目的，但一部以实现社会变革为目标的作品主要是社会评论还是文学小说？作者的目标是什么？目标是社会评论还是文学精品？这些显然是不同的、截然不同的目标。哪一个选择对作者更重要？我们不应将敏锐的社会评论与卓越的文学作品混为一谈。谢斐并没有回避社会评论，但他在处理写作时使用了大量的工具，这些工具最终混淆了我们对事实与虚构之间区别的概念并使之复杂化，他使用的正是统治阶级用来让读者对真相一无所知的策略。我想到了 "真实性 "等词，这些词已经被武器化，目的是让读者不知道该相信什么。贾菲模糊了这一区别，他在自己网站上的座右铭是：作家的任务是 "找到地缝，埋下地雷，溜之大吉"（haroldjaffe.wordpress.com）。但在贾菲的作品中，社会评论似乎更多是为文学表达服务，而不是相反。在这个意义上，他将事实作为小说的工具，而不是相反。例如，在《BRUT》中的第一篇小说，即三部作品中的第一部《Queen of Hearts》中，就可以看到这一点，这部作品讲述的是一个土著社区将被美国骑兵屠杀的故事。整个社区的人都被杀了，只有一个女人例外，她戴着 "画着野马和水牛的白色面具"，开始疯狂地跳起 "鬼舞"，以抵挡骑兵。她的舞蹈确实让她活了下来，她也是唯一一个没有中弹的人。她的舞蹈是她的反抗行为。这并不是为了让骑兵们坐下来而进行的珍贵的社会评论。
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Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921798
Christopher Winks
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>A Suite of Dances</em> by Mark Weiss <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Christopher Winks (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>a suite of dances</small></em> Mark Weiss<br/> Shearsman Books<br/> https://www.shearsman.com/store/Mark-Weiss-A-Suite-of-Dances-p376037591<br/> 204 pages; Print, £14.95 <p>The title of Mark Weiss's full-length poetic sequence immediately conjures up associations with the transformations of dance rhythms by the likes of Bach and Handel, wherein popular musical idioms are subjected to harmonic variation, contrapuntal voicings, and other techniques of sublimation/etherealization. As with these Baroque composers, albeit in words, Weiss explores the multiple possibilities and ramifications of the languages of dance within that most Terpsichorean of verbal forms: poetry. Johan Huizinga's analysis in <em>Homo Ludens</em> (1938) of dance as "a particular and particularly perfect form of playing" and poetry's affinity with play as "apparent in the structure of creative imagination itself" is especially relevant to Weiss's project, where (to quote Huizinga again) "the words themselves lift the poem, in part at least, out of pure play into the sphere of ideation and judgment."</p> <p>Within that sphere, one might think back to Ezra Pound's "dance of the intellect among words," which certainly holds validity here—Weiss notes "the dance of words / as fixed as a minuet"—but to my mind, the precursor text of which <em>A Suite of Dances</em> is an extension is William Carlos Williams's "Desert Music": "How shall we get said what must be said? // … // Only the counted poem, to an exact measure: / to imitate, not to copy nature, not / to copy nature // NOT, prostrate, to copy nature / but a dance!" Effectively challenging Huizinga's declaration that "music never leaves the play-sphere," Weiss tips his hat to Williams with a subversive alteration of one of the older poet's most often-quoted observations: "No ideas / but in music / No music / but in things." And this book dances to the ever-changing music of/in things, memories, encounters, life itself in all its precarious wonder: "So, in the larger space / as well, and dance, and dance."</p> <p><em>A Suite of Dances</em> consists of twenty-seven sections, each composed of an <strong>[End Page 137]</strong> individual title and numerous separately titled short poems—some as brief as a single word—indented from the "primary" (left-aligned) poem to which they are in a way counter-statements or variations, even at times digressions. What stands out immediately is Weiss's breadth of perception: his noticings often take the form of flashes and glimmers, signs of someone always involved with his surroundings and whose consciousness actively interacts with and processes that which befalls and that which is the case. Moments of quasi-Wittgensteinian philosoph
{"title":"A Suite of Dances by Mark Weiss (review)","authors":"Christopher Winks","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921798","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>A Suite of Dances</em> by Mark Weiss <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Christopher Winks (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>a suite of dances</small></em> Mark Weiss<br/> Shearsman Books<br/> https://www.shearsman.com/store/Mark-Weiss-A-Suite-of-Dances-p376037591<br/> 204 pages; Print, £14.95 <p>The title of Mark Weiss's full-length poetic sequence immediately conjures up associations with the transformations of dance rhythms by the likes of Bach and Handel, wherein popular musical idioms are subjected to harmonic variation, contrapuntal voicings, and other techniques of sublimation/etherealization. As with these Baroque composers, albeit in words, Weiss explores the multiple possibilities and ramifications of the languages of dance within that most Terpsichorean of verbal forms: poetry. Johan Huizinga's analysis in <em>Homo Ludens</em> (1938) of dance as \"a particular and particularly perfect form of playing\" and poetry's affinity with play as \"apparent in the structure of creative imagination itself\" is especially relevant to Weiss's project, where (to quote Huizinga again) \"the words themselves lift the poem, in part at least, out of pure play into the sphere of ideation and judgment.\"</p> <p>Within that sphere, one might think back to Ezra Pound's \"dance of the intellect among words,\" which certainly holds validity here—Weiss notes \"the dance of words / as fixed as a minuet\"—but to my mind, the precursor text of which <em>A Suite of Dances</em> is an extension is William Carlos Williams's \"Desert Music\": \"How shall we get said what must be said? // … // Only the counted poem, to an exact measure: / to imitate, not to copy nature, not / to copy nature // NOT, prostrate, to copy nature / but a dance!\" Effectively challenging Huizinga's declaration that \"music never leaves the play-sphere,\" Weiss tips his hat to Williams with a subversive alteration of one of the older poet's most often-quoted observations: \"No ideas / but in music / No music / but in things.\" And this book dances to the ever-changing music of/in things, memories, encounters, life itself in all its precarious wonder: \"So, in the larger space / as well, and dance, and dance.\"</p> <p><em>A Suite of Dances</em> consists of twenty-seven sections, each composed of an <strong>[End Page 137]</strong> individual title and numerous separately titled short poems—some as brief as a single word—indented from the \"primary\" (left-aligned) poem to which they are in a way counter-statements or variations, even at times digressions. What stands out immediately is Weiss's breadth of perception: his noticings often take the form of flashes and glimmers, signs of someone always involved with his surroundings and whose consciousness actively interacts with and processes that which befalls and that which is the case. Moments of quasi-Wittgensteinian philosoph","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"123 5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140116297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921806
Daniel T. O'Hara
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Panentheism<span>Ontology of the Future, or Poetics?</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Daniel T. O'Hara (bio) </li> </ul> <p>"Panentheism" in theology is the belief in the co-inherence of God and the world. However else God and the world are defined, it is this relationship that distinguishes it. Neither absolute transcendence nor total immanence describes God vis-à-vis the world or the world vis-à-vis God. Similarly, the world, while emerging or emanating from God, is not God's mere reflective mirror, but instead, by virtue of its divine inherence, acts as provocation to divine development. Unlike, say, Gnosticism, in which there are two or more divinities—the original alien god whose plenum or extended presence contains the God of this world (or Demiurge) who constructs it, and many archons or minor administrative, largely evil heads of the cosmos—panentheism argues for all beings as gods-in-potential expression. The violence of all this onto-theological procession, as you might imagine, is internalized and externalized, leaving no being long at peace before a new event of co-inherence arises to produce a new phase.</p> <p>I became interested in panentheism in part as a response to my reading of <em>Being Posthuman: Ontologies of the Future</em>, a provocative 2021 book by Zahi Zalloua, and Cormac McCarthy's award-winning Border Trilogy of the 1990s (<em>All the Pretty Horses</em> [1992], <em>The Crossing</em> [1994], and <em>Cities of the Plain</em> [1998]), which led me into reading McCarthy's entire work and that of many of his scholarly commentators. McCarthy has long been seen, at least partially, as putting Gnosticism to use in generating the mythological dimensions of his fictions, and given the superb promptings of Zalloua's book (is our species already in an inchoate posthuman state?), I became hooked. The term <em>panentheism</em> itself I first observed in Steven Frye's introduction to his edited collection of critical essays on McCarthy in the Cambridge Companion Series (2013).</p> <p>Zalloua introduces the reader to the emergent ontologies of cyborgs, animals, material objects, and Black Being (with a line through the second <strong>[End Page 174]</strong> term). All of these topics are read by their theoretical champions as being at the center of their critical movements, all of which are components of a new materialism and a radical, often racially informed polemical critique of all that has been in the name of what must become, in this present moment of universal crisis. The interface between machine and human, animal and human, real-world objects and humans, and Afro-pessimists and conventional left-wing ideologues (who are for only a piecemeal peaceful change) forecast what has already emerged elsewhere and is now pervading American society: a quest to move beyond all inherited and too-well understood
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要： 泛神论：未来本体论，还是诗学？ 丹尼尔-T.-奥哈拉（Daniel T. O'Hara）（简历） "泛神论 "在神学中是指上帝与世界共存的信念。无论怎样定义上帝与世界，这种关系都是其区别所在。无论是绝对的超越性还是完全的内在性，都不是上帝对世界或世界对上帝的描述。同样，世界虽然是从上帝那里产生或发散出来的，但它并不只是上帝的反光镜，相反，由于其神圣的内在性，它对上帝的发展起着促进作用。与诺斯替主义不同的是，在诺斯替主义中，存在着两个或更多的神灵--原始的外星神，其羽翼或延伸的存在包含了构建这个世界的神（或德米乌尔吉），以及许多大神或小神，主要是宇宙的邪恶首脑--泛神论认为所有生命都是潜在表达中的神灵。正如你所想象的那样，所有这些神学进程的暴力都是内在化和外在化的，在新的共相事件产生新阶段之前，没有任何生命会长久地处于平静之中。我之所以对泛神学感兴趣，部分原因是我在阅读《作为后人类》（Being Posthuman：未来本体论》（Being Posthuman: Ontologies of the Future）（扎希-扎鲁阿（Zahi Zalloua）于 2021 年出版的一本具有煽动性的著作）和科马克-麦卡锡（Cormac McCarthy）在 20 世纪 90 年代获奖的《边境三部曲》（All the Pretty Horses [1992]、The Crossing [1994] 和 Cities of the Plain [1998]）。长期以来，麦卡锡一直被视为（至少部分地）将诺斯替主义用于他的小说中的神话维度，而鉴于扎卢阿书中的绝妙提示（我们的物种是否已经处于一种不成熟的后人类状态？我第一次注意到 "泛神论 "这个词，是在史蒂文-弗莱（Steven Frye）为他编辑的《剑桥同伴丛书》（Cambridge Companion Series，2013 年）中关于麦卡锡的评论文集所写的导言中。Zalloua 向读者介绍了机械人、动物、物质客体和黑色存在（第二个[第174页完]词中有一条线）等新出现的本体论。所有这些主题都被其理论拥护者解读为其批判运动的核心，都是新唯物主义的组成部分，也是在当前普遍危机的时刻，以必须成为什么为名，对所有已经存在的事物进行的激进的、往往带有种族色彩的论战式批判。机器与人、动物与人、现实世界中的物体与人、非洲悲观主义者与传统左翼意识形态主义者（他们只支持零敲碎打的和平变革）之间的界面，预示着其他地方已经出现的、现在正在美国社会中弥漫的东西：一种超越所有继承下来的、被理解得过于透彻的物质和文化现实的追求。传统的学术人文主义，就像社会的其他部分一样，正面临着个人和小团体对日常生活结构日益激烈的反抗。对我来说，这就是麦卡锡的作用所在。他的全部作品都涉及美国南部和西南部早先发生的类似事件。他的获奖小说《老无所依》（No Country for Old Men，2005 年）和《大路》（The Road，2006 年）的电影版，以及他经常被引用的代表作《血色子午线》（Blood Meridian，1985 年），无处不在地传播着我们这个时代的特殊暴力，从而揭示了西南部沙漠边界两侧的 "奇怪的平等"。这里有一段话是这样说的：在那片中性肃杀的土地上，所有的现象都被赋予了一种奇异的平等，没有任何一种事物、蜘蛛、石头或草叶可以提出优先的要求。这些物品的清晰度掩盖了它们的熟悉度，因为眼睛会先看到整体的某些特征或部分，在这里，没有什么比另一个更明亮，也没有什么比另一个更黯淡，在这种景观的光学民主中，所有的偏好都变得异想天开，一个人和一块石头被赋予了无法猜测的亲缘关系。 这种 "奇特的平等 "是一种 "光学民主"，是后现代或许也是后人类奇观社会的完美政治形式。爱默生在《自然》中的 "透明眼球 "段落很容易与我的修正主义作品相呼应。
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Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921774
Jessi Rae Morton
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Story of NFTs: Artists, Technology, and Democracy</em> by Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jessi Rae Morton (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>the story of nfts: artists, technology, and democracy</small></em> Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams<br/> Rizzoli Electa<br/> https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847899364<br/> 144 pages; Print, $32.50 <p>In <em>The Story of NFTs: Artists, Technology, and Democracy</em>, Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams provide a thoughtful and well-designed overview of the role of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in the art world as well as the relationships between NFTs and art history. The authors acknowledge often that NFTs are relatively new and that therefore the book can offer little in terms of future predictions or assertions about the long-term effects of NFTs on artists and art markets. Instead, Whitaker and Abrams seek to engage with numerous questions about blockchain technologies—including NFTs and DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations). To address such questions, some definitions are necessary; Whitaker and Abrams cover key concepts and terms early in the book, and they also provide an appendix that walks the reader through the process of minting an NFT. The appendix defines and explains platforms, protocols, wallets, keys, and smart contracts—all concepts that are mentioned earlier in the book, but with which some readers may prefer to spend additional time. <em>The Story of NFTs</em> is not exhaustively entry-level; readers who are already familiar with the basics of NFTs and block-chain technology will still find much to learn, and less familiar readers will get quick, direct definitions that allow them to move on to the more interesting, though less technical, aspects of the topic. <em>The Story of NFTs</em> is predominantly interested in the relationship between NFTs, blockchain technology, and visual arts, and so the technological elements—though important and duly attended to—do not take over the book.</p> <p>The book's introduction calls attention to two key moments in recent art history—the Association of Art Museum Directors COVID-19-related decision to loosen sales restrictions on museums for two years and the March 2021 sale of Beeple's NFT <em>Everydays: The First 5000 Days</em> for over $69 million. These two events serve to characterize recent disruption within the art world, <strong>[End Page 17]</strong> but they are not the source of the disruption. Whitaker and Abrams point to these moments to illustrate how NFTs moved to the forefront of art discussions in the past few years, then trace the history from which these moments grew. They set out to "understand NFTs not as an alien landing but instead as part of the history of art." When considered in this light, NFTs appear as a development in the art
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要：评论者 The Story of NFTs：艾米-惠特克和诺拉-伯内特-艾布拉姆斯著，艺术家、技术和民主 Jessi Rae Morton (bio) The story of NFTs: artists, technology, and democracy 艾米-惠特克和诺拉-伯内特-艾布拉姆斯著，Rizzoli Electa https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847899364 144 页；印刷版，32.50 美元 在《NFTs 的故事》中，艾米-惠特克和诺拉-伯内特-艾布拉姆斯概述了 NFTs：艺术家、技术和民主：艺术家、技术和民主》一书中，艾米-惠特克和诺拉-伯内特-艾布拉姆斯以深思熟虑、精心设计的方式概述了 NFT（非赝品代币）在艺术界的作用以及 NFT 与艺术史之间的关系。作者经常承认，NFTs是相对较新的事物，因此本书对NFTs对艺术家和艺术市场的长期影响几乎无法做出预测或断言。相反，惠特克和艾布拉姆斯试图探讨有关区块链技术的诸多问题，包括NFT和DAO（去中心化自治组织）。为了解决这些问题，一些定义是必要的；惠特克和艾布拉姆斯在书的开头就介绍了一些关键概念和术语，他们还提供了一个附录，指导读者完成一个NFT的铸造过程。附录对平台、协议、钱包、密钥和智能合约进行了定义和解释--所有这些概念在本书前面都有提到，但有些读者可能更愿意花更多时间来了解它们。NFTs 的故事》并非详尽无遗的入门级读物；已经熟悉 NFTs 和区块链技术基础知识的读者仍然会发现有很多东西需要学习，而不太了解的读者则会得到快速、直接的定义，从而能够继续阅读该主题中更有趣但技术性不强的方面。NFTs 的故事》主要关注的是 NFTs、区块链技术和视觉艺术之间的关系，因此技术元素虽然重要，也得到了应有的关注，但并没有占据全书。该书的导言呼吁人们关注近期艺术史上的两个关键时刻--与美术馆馆长协会（Association of Art Museum Directors COVID-19）有关的决定，即在两年内放宽对美术馆的销售限制，以及2021年3月Beeple的《NFT Everydays》的销售：前 5000 天》以超过 6900 万美元的价格售出。这两个事件是近期艺术界混乱的特征，但它们并不是混乱的根源。惠特克和艾布拉姆斯以这些事件为例，说明了在过去几年中，NFT如何成为艺术讨论的焦点，然后追溯了这些事件的发展历史。他们的目的是 "不是将NFT理解为外来登陆，而是将其理解为艺术史的一部分"。从这个角度来看，NFTs似乎是艺术世界的一种发展，而不是金融或技术外来者的入侵。当作者将旧的艺术实践和概念与 NFT 的能力联系起来时，他们将 NFT 定位在更广阔的艺术史范围内尤为有效。例如，"艺术家保留权利转让和销售协议 "是塞斯-西格劳布和罗伯特-普罗扬斯基于1971年制定的文件，通常被称为 "艺术家合同 "或 "西格劳布-普罗扬斯基协议"，该协议为艺术家提供了转售版税以及控制未来展览的选择权。不过，从历史上看，大多数艺术家都无法获得对其作品如此广泛的控制权。另一方面，通过智能合约，NFT 可以自动为艺术家收取转售版税，与特定平台或 NFT 相关的知识产权参数可以限制购买者如何使用艺术品。此外，艺术家还可以利用DAOs来汇集资源，"有可能利用零碎股份或转售版税来创建退休投资信托"。这些创新有可能 "将以前过于繁琐的官僚流程自动化"。这些可能性听起来当然很有希望，但似乎我们还得拭目以待，看看它们在实践中是否有效。另一个特别有趣的例子是，NFT 与早期艺术实践之间的联系可以追溯到索尔-勒维特（Sol LeWitt）的壁画，即鉴定证书的概念。勒威特的证书并不优先考虑绘画本身，而是提供艺术品的说明，证书的持有者就是艺术品的所有者。这...
{"title":"The Story of NFTs: Artists, Technology, and Democracy by Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams (review)","authors":"Jessi Rae Morton","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921774","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Story of NFTs: Artists, Technology, and Democracy</em> by Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jessi Rae Morton (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>the story of nfts: artists, technology, and democracy</small></em> Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams<br/> Rizzoli Electa<br/> https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847899364<br/> 144 pages; Print, $32.50 <p>In <em>The Story of NFTs: Artists, Technology, and Democracy</em>, Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams provide a thoughtful and well-designed overview of the role of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in the art world as well as the relationships between NFTs and art history. The authors acknowledge often that NFTs are relatively new and that therefore the book can offer little in terms of future predictions or assertions about the long-term effects of NFTs on artists and art markets. Instead, Whitaker and Abrams seek to engage with numerous questions about blockchain technologies—including NFTs and DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations). To address such questions, some definitions are necessary; Whitaker and Abrams cover key concepts and terms early in the book, and they also provide an appendix that walks the reader through the process of minting an NFT. The appendix defines and explains platforms, protocols, wallets, keys, and smart contracts—all concepts that are mentioned earlier in the book, but with which some readers may prefer to spend additional time. <em>The Story of NFTs</em> is not exhaustively entry-level; readers who are already familiar with the basics of NFTs and block-chain technology will still find much to learn, and less familiar readers will get quick, direct definitions that allow them to move on to the more interesting, though less technical, aspects of the topic. <em>The Story of NFTs</em> is predominantly interested in the relationship between NFTs, blockchain technology, and visual arts, and so the technological elements—though important and duly attended to—do not take over the book.</p> <p>The book's introduction calls attention to two key moments in recent art history—the Association of Art Museum Directors COVID-19-related decision to loosen sales restrictions on museums for two years and the March 2021 sale of Beeple's NFT <em>Everydays: The First 5000 Days</em> for over $69 million. These two events serve to characterize recent disruption within the art world, <strong>[End Page 17]</strong> but they are not the source of the disruption. Whitaker and Abrams point to these moments to illustrate how NFTs moved to the forefront of art discussions in the past few years, then trace the history from which these moments grew. They set out to \"understand NFTs not as an alien landing but instead as part of the history of art.\" When considered in this light, NFTs appear as a development in the art ","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921804
Charles Alexander
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Particularly the Press <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Charles Alexander (bio) </li> </ul> <p>Often I have wished to gather into a room, for a conversation if not a lifetime of conversations, a few women writers of the early twentieth century, specifically, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). They are all, in their own way, Curies "of the laboratory / of vocabulary," as Mina Loy (who should also be in this group) described Gertrude Stein in a poem. Anyone who has run a press might think that a "laboratory of vocabulary" is a kind of euphemism for a printing room. All four of these women at one time or another were either publishers or editors, of books and/or journals that helped fuel a burgeoning modernist movement, that truly <em>made it new</em>, and in some ways remade the world. You might think Woolf (who is the one who more than the others got her hands inky while printing) is the only one of these writers who is not a poet, but not when one encounters a passage such as this from <em>The Waves</em> (1931):</p> <blockquote> <p>I do not know—your days and hours pass like the boughs of forest trees and the smooth green of forest rides to a hound running on the scent. But there is no single scent, no single body for me to follow. And I have no face. I am like the foam that races over the beach or the moonlight that falls arrowlike here on a tin can, here on a spike of the mailed sea holly, or a bone or a half-eaten boat. I am whirled down caverns, and flap like paper against endless corridors, and must press my hand against the wall to draw myself back.</p> </blockquote> <p>I think one might, at the least, consider her a poet in prose, one of the three or so finest poets in prose we have ever had in the English language. That she was also quite serious as a publisher enchants the imagination, that is, how did she manage it all? She had help, of course, in her most supportive husband, Leonard. Such an enterprise had a rather casual beginning, or so it seems when we consider her diary entry for her birthday, January 26, 1915: <strong>[End Page 166]</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>I don't know when I have enjoyed a birthday so much—not since I was a child anyhow. Sitting at tea we decided three things: in the first place to take Hogarth [a new place to live], if we can get it; in the second, to buy a Printing press; in the third to buy a Bull dog, probably called John. I am very much excited at the idea of all three—particularly the press. I was also given a packet of sweets to bring home.</p> </blockquote> <p>So began the adventure of the Hogarth Press, which the Woolfs named after their new home. I was moved to write this column essay when I found out that one of the many books from the Hogarth Press was <em>Composition as Explanation</em> (1926), by Gertrude Stein, which begins in a way that speaks of bo
{"title":"Particularly the Press","authors":"Charles Alexander","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921804","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Particularly the Press <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Charles Alexander (bio) </li> </ul> <p>Often I have wished to gather into a room, for a conversation if not a lifetime of conversations, a few women writers of the early twentieth century, specifically, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). They are all, in their own way, Curies \"of the laboratory / of vocabulary,\" as Mina Loy (who should also be in this group) described Gertrude Stein in a poem. Anyone who has run a press might think that a \"laboratory of vocabulary\" is a kind of euphemism for a printing room. All four of these women at one time or another were either publishers or editors, of books and/or journals that helped fuel a burgeoning modernist movement, that truly <em>made it new</em>, and in some ways remade the world. You might think Woolf (who is the one who more than the others got her hands inky while printing) is the only one of these writers who is not a poet, but not when one encounters a passage such as this from <em>The Waves</em> (1931):</p> <blockquote> <p>I do not know—your days and hours pass like the boughs of forest trees and the smooth green of forest rides to a hound running on the scent. But there is no single scent, no single body for me to follow. And I have no face. I am like the foam that races over the beach or the moonlight that falls arrowlike here on a tin can, here on a spike of the mailed sea holly, or a bone or a half-eaten boat. I am whirled down caverns, and flap like paper against endless corridors, and must press my hand against the wall to draw myself back.</p> </blockquote> <p>I think one might, at the least, consider her a poet in prose, one of the three or so finest poets in prose we have ever had in the English language. That she was also quite serious as a publisher enchants the imagination, that is, how did she manage it all? She had help, of course, in her most supportive husband, Leonard. Such an enterprise had a rather casual beginning, or so it seems when we consider her diary entry for her birthday, January 26, 1915: <strong>[End Page 166]</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>I don't know when I have enjoyed a birthday so much—not since I was a child anyhow. Sitting at tea we decided three things: in the first place to take Hogarth [a new place to live], if we can get it; in the second, to buy a Printing press; in the third to buy a Bull dog, probably called John. I am very much excited at the idea of all three—particularly the press. I was also given a packet of sweets to bring home.</p> </blockquote> <p>So began the adventure of the Hogarth Press, which the Woolfs named after their new home. I was moved to write this column essay when I found out that one of the many books from the Hogarth Press was <em>Composition as Explanation</em> (1926), by Gertrude Stein, which begins in a way that speaks of bo","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921791
Brian O'Keeffe
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> The Translation Stone <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Brian O'Keeffe (bio) </li> </ul> <p>In 1799, a large stone was discovered in Egypt. Inscribed on its surface were texts in Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphs. Would this stone permit the hitherto undecipherable hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians to be understood? Key to unlocking the secrets of the Egyptian script was that the three languages incised on the stone were equivalent to one another: each was a translation of the other. In a few short years, the code was broken and the hieroglyphic riddle solved. Finally the meaning of those elegantly oval eyes, proud-beaked falcons, and bulbous scarab beetles was translated into French and English. Egypt—the entire country a scroll of lapidary writing unfurling from obelisk to pyramid to temple complex and burial chamber—now became legible. The Rosetta Stone, as it's now known, of course, is the emblematic artifact of translation itself. It is the translation stone.</p> <p>Before Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion accomplished their translation work, the Egyptian hieroglyph was, along with the Sphinx, a byword for enigma itself. Greeks, Romans, and Ottomans attempted the translation, but in vain. But as much as hieroglyphics daunted all those who attempted to penetrate their glyptic secrecies, some wondered whether they also represented an ideal language, as if pictograms might somehow be more expressive of concepts and ideas than the writing systems of Greek or Latin. Plotinus, in his <em>Enneads</em>, speaking of "the wise of Egypt," remarked that "in their effort towards philosophical statement, they left aside the writing-forms that take in the detail of words and sentences—those characters that represent sounds and convey the propositions of reasoning—and drew pictures instead, engraving in the temple-inscriptions a separate image for every separate item." Discreteness, rather than the clotted details of words forming into sentences, is what Plotinus likes here: perhaps philosophy is better articulated when one image expresses one distinct idea, no more, no less. "Thus," writes Plotinus, "they exhibited the mode in which the Supreme goes forth." As philosophy <strong>[End Page 105]</strong> dreamed its dreams of Supreme Ideas, ideal Essences and Forms, the desire for a universal, indeed primordial language accompanied that dream. In his work <em>Oedipus Aegyptiacus</em> (1652–54) Athanasius Kircher claimed not only to have translated the Egyptian hieroglyphs but also that Adam and Eve spoke that language in the Garden of Eden. And the frontispiece to Johann Becher's 1661 book, <em>Character pro notitia linguarum universali</em>, another proposal for a universal language, depicts his characters inscribed on an Egyptian obelisk. The investment in Egyptian hieroglyphs waxed and waned with the centuries, some countering
{"title":"The Translation Stone","authors":"Brian O'Keeffe","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921791","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921791","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> The Translation Stone <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Brian O'Keeffe (bio) </li> </ul> <p>In 1799, a large stone was discovered in Egypt. Inscribed on its surface were texts in Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphs. Would this stone permit the hitherto undecipherable hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians to be understood? Key to unlocking the secrets of the Egyptian script was that the three languages incised on the stone were equivalent to one another: each was a translation of the other. In a few short years, the code was broken and the hieroglyphic riddle solved. Finally the meaning of those elegantly oval eyes, proud-beaked falcons, and bulbous scarab beetles was translated into French and English. Egypt—the entire country a scroll of lapidary writing unfurling from obelisk to pyramid to temple complex and burial chamber—now became legible. The Rosetta Stone, as it's now known, of course, is the emblematic artifact of translation itself. It is the translation stone.</p> <p>Before Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion accomplished their translation work, the Egyptian hieroglyph was, along with the Sphinx, a byword for enigma itself. Greeks, Romans, and Ottomans attempted the translation, but in vain. But as much as hieroglyphics daunted all those who attempted to penetrate their glyptic secrecies, some wondered whether they also represented an ideal language, as if pictograms might somehow be more expressive of concepts and ideas than the writing systems of Greek or Latin. Plotinus, in his <em>Enneads</em>, speaking of \"the wise of Egypt,\" remarked that \"in their effort towards philosophical statement, they left aside the writing-forms that take in the detail of words and sentences—those characters that represent sounds and convey the propositions of reasoning—and drew pictures instead, engraving in the temple-inscriptions a separate image for every separate item.\" Discreteness, rather than the clotted details of words forming into sentences, is what Plotinus likes here: perhaps philosophy is better articulated when one image expresses one distinct idea, no more, no less. \"Thus,\" writes Plotinus, \"they exhibited the mode in which the Supreme goes forth.\" As philosophy <strong>[End Page 105]</strong> dreamed its dreams of Supreme Ideas, ideal Essences and Forms, the desire for a universal, indeed primordial language accompanied that dream. In his work <em>Oedipus Aegyptiacus</em> (1652–54) Athanasius Kircher claimed not only to have translated the Egyptian hieroglyphs but also that Adam and Eve spoke that language in the Garden of Eden. And the frontispiece to Johann Becher's 1661 book, <em>Character pro notitia linguarum universali</em>, another proposal for a universal language, depicts his characters inscribed on an Egyptian obelisk. The investment in Egyptian hieroglyphs waxed and waned with the centuries, some countering ","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140116538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921797
Hilary Sideris
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems, 1976–2022</em> by Grace Shulman <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Hilary Sideris (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>again, the dawn: new and selected poems, 1976–2022</small></em> Grace Shulman<br/> Turtle Point Press<br/> https://www.turtlepointpress.com/books/again-the-dawn-new-and-selected-poems-1976-2022/<br/> 280 pages; Print, $22.00 <p>Grace Shulman, master of many poetic forms and beloved poet-citizen of New York City, has published a second volume of selected poems, <em>Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems, 1976–2022</em>. Her earlier collection of selected poems, <em>Days of Wonder: New and Selected Poems</em>, was published in 2002. Shulman's poems go well beyond personal narrative to encompass a range of human experience and thought. They allude to cultural figures and artists as well as humbler folk from the past. David Mason described her as a poet attuned to the past, "hearing footsteps and looking under her own soles to see what is there," feeling the vibrations of other times and people. But Shulman does not shrink from autobiography, and her poems often grapple with intense pain and grief.</p> <p>"Without a Claim," the title poem from Shulman's 2013 collection, ponders the fallacy of human ownership of the natural world through the lens of the American immigrant experience. The poem recounts the poet's uncomprehending experience of becoming a landowner. "I couldn't take it in," Shulman writes,</p> <blockquote> <p><span>when told I owned this land with oaks and maples</span><span>scattered like crowds on Sundays, and an underground</span><span>strung not with pipes but snaky roots that writhed</span></p> <p><span>when my husband sank a rhododendron,</span><span>now flaunting pinks high as an attic window.</span><span>The land we call our place was never ours.</span></p> </blockquote> <p>The waves of immigrants who arrived in New York after its "discovery" by Europeans, the poet's ancestors among them, came from places where they had nothing, in the hope of having something to call their own. Yet the land's <strong>[End Page 132]</strong> truest owners, the Montauks, were the only ones able to understand that it wasn't even theirs:</p> <blockquote> <p><span>If it belonged to anyone, it was</span><span>the Montauk chief who traded it for mirrors,</span><span>knowing it wasn't his. Not the sailors</span></p> <p><span>who brought the blacksmith iron, nor the farmers</span><span>who dried salt hay, nor even the later locals,</span><span>whale hunters, the harpooner from Sumatra,</span></p> <p><span>the cook from Borneo, who like my ancestors</span><span>wandered from town to port without a claim,</span><span>their names inside me though not in the registries.</span></p> <p><span>No more than geese in flight, shadowing the lawn,</span><span>cries pierc
{"title":"Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems, 1976–2022 by Grace Shulman (review)","authors":"Hilary Sideris","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921797","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems, 1976–2022</em> by Grace Shulman <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Hilary Sideris (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>again, the dawn: new and selected poems, 1976–2022</small></em> Grace Shulman<br/> Turtle Point Press<br/> https://www.turtlepointpress.com/books/again-the-dawn-new-and-selected-poems-1976-2022/<br/> 280 pages; Print, $22.00 <p>Grace Shulman, master of many poetic forms and beloved poet-citizen of New York City, has published a second volume of selected poems, <em>Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems, 1976–2022</em>. Her earlier collection of selected poems, <em>Days of Wonder: New and Selected Poems</em>, was published in 2002. Shulman's poems go well beyond personal narrative to encompass a range of human experience and thought. They allude to cultural figures and artists as well as humbler folk from the past. David Mason described her as a poet attuned to the past, \"hearing footsteps and looking under her own soles to see what is there,\" feeling the vibrations of other times and people. But Shulman does not shrink from autobiography, and her poems often grapple with intense pain and grief.</p> <p>\"Without a Claim,\" the title poem from Shulman's 2013 collection, ponders the fallacy of human ownership of the natural world through the lens of the American immigrant experience. The poem recounts the poet's uncomprehending experience of becoming a landowner. \"I couldn't take it in,\" Shulman writes,</p> <blockquote> <p><span>when told I owned this land with oaks and maples</span><span>scattered like crowds on Sundays, and an underground</span><span>strung not with pipes but snaky roots that writhed</span></p> <p><span>when my husband sank a rhododendron,</span><span>now flaunting pinks high as an attic window.</span><span>The land we call our place was never ours.</span></p> </blockquote> <p>The waves of immigrants who arrived in New York after its \"discovery\" by Europeans, the poet's ancestors among them, came from places where they had nothing, in the hope of having something to call their own. Yet the land's <strong>[End Page 132]</strong> truest owners, the Montauks, were the only ones able to understand that it wasn't even theirs:</p> <blockquote> <p><span>If it belonged to anyone, it was</span><span>the Montauk chief who traded it for mirrors,</span><span>knowing it wasn't his. Not the sailors</span></p> <p><span>who brought the blacksmith iron, nor the farmers</span><span>who dried salt hay, nor even the later locals,</span><span>whale hunters, the harpooner from Sumatra,</span></p> <p><span>the cook from Borneo, who like my ancestors</span><span>wandered from town to port without a claim,</span><span>their names inside me though not in the registries.</span></p> <p><span>No more than geese in flight, shadowing the lawn,</span><span>cries pierc","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"294 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140116765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921805
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Scenes<span>Soft Skull Press: An Interview with Mensah Demary</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> </ul> <p><strong>Could you briefly describe your press's history?</strong></p> <p>Soft Skull Press began in New York City in 1992 as photocopied, tape-bound books. Over thirty years later, Soft Skull continues to evolve, becoming wiser and more thoughtful about the literature we publish. Though the history of the press should be remembered and protected against nostalgia, Soft Skull today is a house of diverse literary writers among a continuum of independent artists, past and future. Soft Skull has published award-winning books across genres by authors including Lynne Tillman, Rebecca Walker, Maggie Nelson, Kashana Cauley, Hiromi Kawakami, and others. Since 2021, Soft Skull has been led by Editor-in-Chief Mensah Demary, and Assistant Editor Cecilia Flores.</p> <p><strong>How would you characterize the work you publish?</strong></p> <p>Each Soft Skull title is a distinct, singular work of literature demonstrating integrity, developed through practice, and derived from the intuition of its author. Soft Skull Press exhibits mastery and genius unrestrained by genre.</p> <p><strong>Who is your audience, and in what ways are you trying to reach them?</strong></p> <p>Our audience consists of thinkers, dreamers, and artists seeking a sensory experience beyond reading who collude with our books to foster liberation through the attractive force of affinity.</p> <p>By cultivating a curatorial approach to our initiatives, events, and acquisitions, Soft Skull tries to reach its audience through interdisciplinary and creative events, partnerships and campaigns. Our collaborative editorial practices render the book neither object nor subject, exclusively, but encourages lines of articulation and flight connecting our titles, authors, concepts, and worlds to one another, fostering a cosmos within which our readers are at liberty to place themselves.</p> <p>By partnering with inventive and multimedia digital art spaces and intentional, public, cultural institutions, Soft Skull aims to provide events <strong>[End Page 171]</strong> and experiences for our authors and readers that celebrate, interrogate, participate in, and reimagine the composite parts of a book's object-to-subject relationship.</p> <p><strong>What is your role in the publishing scene?</strong></p> <p>It is vital to independent literature that we provide a home for artists who eschew corporate publishing. As editors and collaborators, we think deeply about our relationships to Soft Skull, its authors, and their titles. We are defenders of the life of the mind. We do so, in part, by pushing back against opinion for opinion's sake. We ask our authors, and ourselves, to refine their opinions into theories, across genres, faithful to a body of fact.</p> <p>Examples of this can be found
{"title":"Scenes: Soft Skull Press: An Interview with Mensah Demary","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921805","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Scenes<span>Soft Skull Press: An Interview with Mensah Demary</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> </ul> <p><strong>Could you briefly describe your press's history?</strong></p> <p>Soft Skull Press began in New York City in 1992 as photocopied, tape-bound books. Over thirty years later, Soft Skull continues to evolve, becoming wiser and more thoughtful about the literature we publish. Though the history of the press should be remembered and protected against nostalgia, Soft Skull today is a house of diverse literary writers among a continuum of independent artists, past and future. Soft Skull has published award-winning books across genres by authors including Lynne Tillman, Rebecca Walker, Maggie Nelson, Kashana Cauley, Hiromi Kawakami, and others. Since 2021, Soft Skull has been led by Editor-in-Chief Mensah Demary, and Assistant Editor Cecilia Flores.</p> <p><strong>How would you characterize the work you publish?</strong></p> <p>Each Soft Skull title is a distinct, singular work of literature demonstrating integrity, developed through practice, and derived from the intuition of its author. Soft Skull Press exhibits mastery and genius unrestrained by genre.</p> <p><strong>Who is your audience, and in what ways are you trying to reach them?</strong></p> <p>Our audience consists of thinkers, dreamers, and artists seeking a sensory experience beyond reading who collude with our books to foster liberation through the attractive force of affinity.</p> <p>By cultivating a curatorial approach to our initiatives, events, and acquisitions, Soft Skull tries to reach its audience through interdisciplinary and creative events, partnerships and campaigns. Our collaborative editorial practices render the book neither object nor subject, exclusively, but encourages lines of articulation and flight connecting our titles, authors, concepts, and worlds to one another, fostering a cosmos within which our readers are at liberty to place themselves.</p> <p>By partnering with inventive and multimedia digital art spaces and intentional, public, cultural institutions, Soft Skull aims to provide events <strong>[End Page 171]</strong> and experiences for our authors and readers that celebrate, interrogate, participate in, and reimagine the composite parts of a book's object-to-subject relationship.</p> <p><strong>What is your role in the publishing scene?</strong></p> <p>It is vital to independent literature that we provide a home for artists who eschew corporate publishing. As editors and collaborators, we think deeply about our relationships to Soft Skull, its authors, and their titles. We are defenders of the life of the mind. We do so, in part, by pushing back against opinion for opinion's sake. We ask our authors, and ourselves, to refine their opinions into theories, across genres, faithful to a body of fact.</p> <p>Examples of this can be found ","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141149619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921783
John Schertzer
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Kid Coole</em> by M. G. Stephens, and: <em>King Ezra</em> by M. G. Stephens <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> John Schertzer (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>kid coole</small></em> M. G. Stephens<br/> Spuyten Duyvil<br/> https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/kid-coole.html<br/> 280 pages; Print, $20.00 <em><small>king ezra</small></em> M. G. Stephens<br/> Spuyten Duyvil<br/> https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/king-ezra.html<br/> 314 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>Poet, novelist, critic, memoirist, and playwright, Michael Gregory Stephens has written over twenty-five books in just over fifty years. He grew up in Brooklyn and on Long Island, and after teaching at Princeton, NYU, and Columbia he spent a number of years in London, where his plays were performed, as they were as well as in Chicago and Los Angeles. His novels <em>Kid Coole</em> and <em>King Ezra</em> were recently published by Spuyten Duyvil.</p> <p>Kid Coole is cool, meaning you can trust him with your fifteen-year-old daughter. Ya think, though you have your suspicions. He doesn't drink, smoke, or stay out late at night, and he might prefer you, her thirty-year-old mom, who thinks she wants nothing to do with him. Nah, Kid is living the straight and narrow, though he at times cannot find his way back to his corner, maybe because he is punch drunk, or has blood in his eye.</p> <p>His story is a boxing story, and that's because boxing is his way of being, of navigating his way through life. But his trainer, Bill Flaherty, or Billy Farts, still needs to hire the massive Ralph Half-Dog as the third corner guy, the spit guy, because he's something you can't miss, and Kid does seem to have a bit of trouble finding his way back to his corner after taking a few punches. <strong>[End Page 67]</strong></p> <p>Ralph is Mike White's son-in-law, and Mike works for Billy. Mike's face is pretty scarred up, as is his body, from fights, but also from things unrelated to the ring, living on the street as a man of color, getting stabbed, shot at. He's much safer in the gym. But his biggest scar is the one he has on his chest down to his gut from heart surgery, a thing he shares with Billy.</p> <p>Compared to them, Kid is young and fresh. And always cool. A likable guy, always respectful, very coachable, works out all the time, running this way and that through the streets of some small town called Sticks in Upstate New York, throwing punches at the wind, at no one, as he skitters to and fro when he's not at his job cleaning up the park or mopping floors at the Catholic school.</p> <p>The characters of <em>Kid Coole</em> are embodied with a credible grit, a novel that follows from Stephens's much earlier <em>Season at Coole</em> (1972) and <em>The Brooklyn Book of the Dead</em> (1994), about a large, problematic, and freakish Irish American family from Brooklyn, Long Island, and
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要：评论者： M. G. Stephens 的《Kid Coole》和《King Ezra》：Kid Coole M. G. Stephens Spuyten Duyvil https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/kid-coole.html 280页；印刷版，20.00美元 King Ezra M. G. Stephens Spuyten Duyvil https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/king-ezra.html 314页；印刷版，20.00美元 诗人、小说家、评论家、回忆录作家和剧作家迈克尔-格雷戈里-斯蒂芬斯在短短五十多年里写了二十五本书。他在布鲁克林和长岛长大，在普林斯顿大学、纽约大学和哥伦比亚大学任教后，他在伦敦生活了数年，他的戏剧在伦敦、芝加哥和洛杉矶演出。他的小说《Kid Coole》和《King Ezra》最近由Spuyten Duyvil出版。Kid Coole很酷，这意味着你可以把 15 岁的女儿托付给他。你认为，尽管你有所怀疑。他不喝酒、不抽烟、不夜不归宿，而且他可能更喜欢你，她三十岁的妈妈，她认为自己不想和他有任何关系。不，基德活得坦坦荡荡，尽管他有时找不到回到角落的路，也许是因为他被拳击打醉了，或者眼睛里有血丝。他的故事是一个拳击故事，这是因为拳击是他的生存方式，是他的人生导航。但他的教练比尔-弗莱厄蒂（Bill Flaherty）或比利-法特（Billy Farts）仍然需要雇佣身材高大的拉尔夫-半条狗（Ralph Half-Dog）作为第三个角落的人，也就是吐口水的人，因为他是你不能错过的人，而基德在挨了几拳后，似乎有点找不到回角落的路。[第 67 页结束）拉尔夫是迈克-怀特的女婿，迈克为比利工作。迈克的脸上和身上都有很多伤疤，有打架留下的，也有与拳击无关的，作为一个有色人种生活在街头，被刺伤，被枪击。他在健身房里要安全得多。但他最大的伤疤是胸口到内脏的伤疤，那是心脏手术留下的，他和比利都有同样的伤疤。和他们相比，基德年轻而新鲜而且总是很酷他是个讨人喜欢的家伙，总是毕恭毕敬，很有教养，经常锻炼身体，在纽约州北部一个叫斯蒂克斯的小镇的街道上跑来跑去，不在公园打扫卫生或在天主教学校拖地板的时候，他就随风挥拳，谁也不打。基德-库尔》中的人物形象真实可信，这是继斯蒂芬斯更早的《库尔的季节》（1972 年）和《布鲁克林亡灵书》（1994 年）之后的又一部小说，讲述了一个来自长岛布鲁克林的爱尔兰裔美国大家庭的故事。基德是其中最小的一个，他只关心一件事：戒指。这是一个活生生的故事，就像在讲述一个并不绝望的无名小卒的生活，他们凭借绝望的精神，噼里啪啦地像个大人物。他也许不是个硬汉，但基德足够坚强。他动作不快，但足够敏捷。如果不出意外，他的意志和倔强可以让他成为冠军。这些人不是名人，但他们可以像名人一样发光发热。他们勤奋好学，对格斗了如指掌。基德的区别在于，有格斗家，也有拳击手，而他是后者。他的技术，他知道如何在拳击场上舞动，但这并不意味着他的头部不会时不时遭到重击，他总是面临着眼睛被划伤的可能性，他可能会因为眼睛的脆弱而结束自己的职业生涯。因为眼睛里有血而失明，或者因为被拇指击中而模糊不清，这已经够糟糕了，但因为失去一只眼睛......
{"title":"Kid Coole by M. G. Stephens, and: King Ezra by M. G. Stephens (review)","authors":"John Schertzer","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921783","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Kid Coole</em> by M. G. Stephens, and: <em>King Ezra</em> by M. G. Stephens <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> John Schertzer (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>kid coole</small></em> M. G. Stephens<br/> Spuyten Duyvil<br/> https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/kid-coole.html<br/> 280 pages; Print, $20.00 <em><small>king ezra</small></em> M. G. Stephens<br/> Spuyten Duyvil<br/> https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/king-ezra.html<br/> 314 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>Poet, novelist, critic, memoirist, and playwright, Michael Gregory Stephens has written over twenty-five books in just over fifty years. He grew up in Brooklyn and on Long Island, and after teaching at Princeton, NYU, and Columbia he spent a number of years in London, where his plays were performed, as they were as well as in Chicago and Los Angeles. His novels <em>Kid Coole</em> and <em>King Ezra</em> were recently published by Spuyten Duyvil.</p> <p>Kid Coole is cool, meaning you can trust him with your fifteen-year-old daughter. Ya think, though you have your suspicions. He doesn't drink, smoke, or stay out late at night, and he might prefer you, her thirty-year-old mom, who thinks she wants nothing to do with him. Nah, Kid is living the straight and narrow, though he at times cannot find his way back to his corner, maybe because he is punch drunk, or has blood in his eye.</p> <p>His story is a boxing story, and that's because boxing is his way of being, of navigating his way through life. But his trainer, Bill Flaherty, or Billy Farts, still needs to hire the massive Ralph Half-Dog as the third corner guy, the spit guy, because he's something you can't miss, and Kid does seem to have a bit of trouble finding his way back to his corner after taking a few punches. <strong>[End Page 67]</strong></p> <p>Ralph is Mike White's son-in-law, and Mike works for Billy. Mike's face is pretty scarred up, as is his body, from fights, but also from things unrelated to the ring, living on the street as a man of color, getting stabbed, shot at. He's much safer in the gym. But his biggest scar is the one he has on his chest down to his gut from heart surgery, a thing he shares with Billy.</p> <p>Compared to them, Kid is young and fresh. And always cool. A likable guy, always respectful, very coachable, works out all the time, running this way and that through the streets of some small town called Sticks in Upstate New York, throwing punches at the wind, at no one, as he skitters to and fro when he's not at his job cleaning up the park or mopping floors at the Catholic school.</p> <p>The characters of <em>Kid Coole</em> are embodied with a credible grit, a novel that follows from Stephens's much earlier <em>Season at Coole</em> (1972) and <em>The Brooklyn Book of the Dead</em> (1994), about a large, problematic, and freakish Irish American family from Brooklyn, Long Island, and ","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141149616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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