Silliman's Blog

Ron,

Just finished reading what is behind
"the social value of writing" link.
I am at AOL and had read about the
Boston killings, but the revelations
of the adjunct teacher here----.
Everyone who comes to your blog
should read this.
 

Barrett Watten titles his post on Spring and All "A Fractal Reading."

Fractal is an interesting word, and an interesting concept too.

But Watten never explains in the actual "essay" what in he means by "fractal" or how his take on the W.C. Williams work is "fractal"-like. Nor is the connection obvious.

Watten does explain that he brings the methods of "random selection and metapoetic reconstruction" to bear upon his take on Spring and All. That's fair enough, but I don't see "fractal" in that. To invoke "fractal" here seems deliberately obtuse, pretentious, or both.

Of course, I also see that the post is an "excerpt" so maybe the part that explains what the heck "fractal" means in relation to anything that Watten writes is someplace else.
 

A note from Barrett Watten:

Thanks, Ron, for linking to the piece. Readers might be interested in the article I published on your work lo these many years ago in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (1978), where I wrote:

"An article in the April issue of Scientific American on mathematically generated music refers to 'fractal curves,' which show the same fluctuating patterns over time for any duration. Ten minutes of event would have the same ratio of peaks to troughs as ten years, but 'the fractals that occur in nature--coastlines, rivers, trees, star clustering, clouds, and so on--are so irregular that their self-similarity (scaling) must be treated statistically."

I then go on to read Mohawk and Ketjak as "fractals," which means that they evidence the same patterns of variation and meaning-making in small units as larger ones. Thus, reading of Spring & All would see its larger themes in three lines; or thirty; or three pages; or thirty pages; or the whole work. I was working at the three-line level.

Of course, before calling names when faced with a word one doesn't know, one could always go to Google. I bet there is a lot on fractals on Google--including Google itself, in and as its own patterns of variation and meaning.
 

The additional note from B. Watten helps this reader, and is appreciated.

I'm not sure where B. Watten got the apparent idea that I didn't know the word "fractal." I said in my post that it's an interesting word, and an interesting concept.

The problem wasn't that I didn't know the word "fractal." My problem was trying to figure out how the heck fractal was meant to apply to Spring & All.

Watten's essay on Ketjak and Mohawk in issue # 4 of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E made an effort to explain the fractal overlay he laid on the poems. I read no such explanation in Watten's Spring & All essay, and like I said above, the connection was not self-apparent.

The explanation Watten provides above -- using three line units in W.C. Williams' work to see what can be found in 30 lines, or three or thirty pages -- is essential to understand what Watten's talking about. I'm excited to test Watten's approach via a re-reading (always enjoyed) of Spring & All.

I'll admit that my characterization of Watten's use of the term "fractal" here as "deliberately obtuse [and] pretentious" was presumptuous. I should of just called it a lack of clarity. I appreciate that the opaqueness has now been cleared up.

Finally, since Watten mentions his piece on Ketjak in issue # 4 of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, I must take this opportunity to nitpick something Watten wrote therein.

Watten wrote, "Ketjak is written in paragraph blocks, each twice the length of the previous."

This is not exactly correct. Others have pointed this out. I believe -- based on my count of the sentences -- that the poem's first seven paragraphs contain 1, 2, 4, 8, 14, 28, and 54 sentences, respectively. In other words, each paragraph isn't uniformly "twice the length" of the one that precedes it.

Ketjak itself raises the possibility that mistakes could be or were made in its making. To me, the mistakes with the numbers of sentences in the paragraphs not always doubling are part of what makes the poem great.

The poem's asserted form -- a series of paragraphs each twice the length of the one that comes before -- is as rigidly calculated as a thing could be. But a human being wrote the poem. That Ketjak doesn't slavishly conform to its own governing form, that it breaks its own rules, makes it that much more alive, free, and real.
 

Your headline about MassMoca gave me ten minutes of anticipation that I was going to see that show after all, which was diffused by a news search wherein it is reported that Joseph Thompson after winning the suit has decided to not show it anyway. I was of course initially disappointed not for any reason that related to legal precedents but because my curiosity was piqued and I wanted to see it after the Anselm Kiefer show opens in late October.

My opinion had been that I am predisposed to want the artist to retain their rights concerning the management of large installations but perceived that these problems were brought on by Büchel’s personality, especially as I had a favorable perception of Thompson and the Mass Moca team. Therefore I wanted the museum to have the right to show the installation IN THIS CASE and not to set a precedent that would give future administrators of installations extended powers over the artists’ works.

The result of the dispute is therefore the opposite of what I wanted:

(1) A new precedent can be cited that increases the administrator’s authority in managing and exhibiting installations;

(2) but I don’t get to see the damn thing.

As it is Thompson insulates his reputation from any criticism that would come from showing the work, but he comes out with expanded ‘rights’ set forth by the Massachusetts courts:


“Joe, I want to talk about Mass MoCA’s decision to dismantle Christoph Buchel’s installation, but first, how did you feel about the federal court’s ruling?

“We were obviously pleased. We were all anxious for a sense of finality and for some objective person to help us make a decision and sort out our rights. The court affirmed that artists have rights, and that museums have rights. If we both have rights, we also share responsibility.”

http://www.artinfo.com/articles/story/25709/newsmaker_joe_thompson

It seems to be a frivolous lawsuit if they weren’t going to show the work anyway, but administrators have utilized Büchel’s antics to move the goal posts in future cases.