"Lists are a Form of Feedback."
"Once amorphous, the desire has morphed.
A blockage.
Now, this is what has to be perfect.
Oh, displacement, I did not invoke you in vain.
A few minutes later, I experienced
an arresting turpitude, the Isakower syndrome.
Nothing would keep my eyes from closing
except for leaving the room.
I'm not leaving the room.
A soft ballooning shape threatens to crush my face.
Anticipating its enveloping warmth, I fall into it.
Nipple, what else is one to do but suck the milk,
withdraw, doze off, tit for tat.
Each deed described to Freud, the transcendental feeling
of the two globes or the two transparent half-globes
enclosing her.
He mistook this for a prenatal fantasy,
misread the palpable shakes.
Sound is not frontal like vision,
not attack but surround sound.
Almost redundant.
Atmospheric resemblances, a life of blank.
When it itself an open possibility for reassembly,
behaves in waves across through configurative energies
at its own pace, it gradually becomes
a forming blank into which all configurations are
drawn, absorbed, condensed.
And out of which, unrecognizable places
jump, shaping volumes into images."
--Arakawa.
"Some say lists are born.
Others think they're symptoms."
"Found."
"We can learn from a tree how to exist in ecstasy."
"Go."
"Meet.
Not meet.
Meet.
Engage.
Not engage.
Engage one on one on the surface.
Engage one on one get along.
Not get on.
Get along.
Make out.
Get nowhere.
Make out.
Get together.
Make off.
Go meet, engage on the surface.
Make do.
Make off.
Go meet, not engage.
Get over it.
Build up.
Go not meet.
Go at it again.
Get used to it.
Move on.
Repeat.
Not go.
Run into him.
Come up to him.
Get along.
Run around.
Come up to him, get along, run off with him.
Run into him, come up to him, not get on.
Have a run in.
Run away.
Not go run into him, not come up to him, build up.
Fade away.
Not meet for now.
Go at it again?
Get it done with.
Move on.
Repeat.
Replace.
Lists can be roundabout."
"Hearsay."
"Blank isn't single.
I can tell she's as smoke, her.
Ay hear she's been sin, somewhere else.
I hear she's been seen as someone else.
She's being seen by someone else.
I hear she's been seen as some elf.
I hear, I hear.
She's no imp.
She's no chimp.
I hear she once kids.
She once skids.
I hear you dew knot-- yew dew knot.
Guess yew will break op.
Guess you'll say pirate and then--
then comes knot eye, bought another 25-year-old.
This is what you write when you've gone shopping
for things you don't need as much
as to remember, regardless."
Dear Karaoke Kingpin, "I wish I were
the one for whom you made a tape with the song by The The back
in the '80s.
If that were the case, you might be happily surprised
to hear from her.
Me, that is.
I wonder if she'd be offended that you
dissed The The in that mixed tape book.
I sure was.
Since I remember liking the band a lot in my teens,
although I can't remember a single one of their songs.
It's just one guy.
I know.
Anyway, I'm not her, so it's time to go.
My name is not Susie.
And for you, I'll leave a little rhythm.
Did the nightingale torture the ear, pack the heart,
and scratch the mind?
And does the ear solace itself in peevish birds?
Lists are what you write when you're feeling eager."
"Follow the Sound."
"Took the one train from 116th to 59th Street,
changed to the B train, took it to Penn Station.
Changed to the F train, got off on Broadway and Lafayette.
Since the train wasn't stopping at Second Avenue,
walked on Houston to 2nd Avenue--
East 2nd.
From Bleecker and Broadway, walked south to Houston Street,
made a left on Houston, and walked
to Avenue C. Made a left on Avenue C
and walked half a block to East 2nd.
Walked East from the 6th Street and First Avenue,
made a right on Avenue B, walked South to East 3rd, made a left.
Kept walking until reaching Avenue C, made a right,
and walked to East 2nd.
Nice to meet you.
Kill your TV.
Lists have nothing to do with the list maker's acquisition
power."
"I'm So Lonesome I'm an I. after Hank Williams."
"See my aging, freckled face and sidewalks filled with trash.
So warm outside, the flowers rot.
I'm so lonesome I'm an eye.
You left for good and fled the hood with yuppies heaping on.
I saw your films and felt the spurn, a take off and a knob.
The door is closed.
Your music's gone.
And poems are far away.
That means you've lost the will to play.
I'm so lonesome.
I'm an isle.
The silence of your frozen face lights up the screen at night.
And as I wonder where you are, I'm so lonesome I'm an eye.
I'm so lonesome I'm an I. Lists are
what we can resort to when there's
nothing to further a plot."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]