Context Collapse

sus

sus

Moderator
My favorite poetry publication this year was Ryan Ruby's Context Collapse. It's a little insider-baseball on literary theory at points—I know and respect this forum's anti-intellectualism, but I'm stuck in my wheelhouse of reference regardless; the Ballard-Pynchon canon might as well be alien literature—but I'm giving it a shot here. I think it's a good look at what's happened to the poetry scene, between academic influence and its transformation into an "autonomous field" (Bourdieu) where producers outnumber consumers.

Haven't actually read the book in full; it's pretty impossible to get the MS in full; but there are excerpts online, and some of the video readings

statorec.com

Context Collapse | ®┊STAT®REC

Context Collapse is a long, mock-academic, critical essay poem. Beginning in ancient Greece and continuing beyond the present, it examines how the increasingly wide gulf between poets and their audiences are mediated by new communications technologies and changes in publishing economies, and how...
statorec.com statorec.com
statorec.com

Context Collapse (continued) | ®┊STAT®REC

Context Collapse is a long, mock-academic, critical essay poem. Beginning in ancient Greece and continuing beyond the present, it examines how the increasingly wide gulf between poets and their audiences are mediated by new communications technologies and changes in publishing economies, and how...
statorec.com statorec.com
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Don't understand why there are line breaks or why it is presented as a poem particularly
 
sus

sus

Moderator
R.R.: Absolutely. The essential thing to remember about Homeric Greece is that it is a society entirely without writing. In such a society poetry is a medium and not a genre, which is how we are used to thinking about it, because we’re used to thinking of poetry as something that is almost exclusively written and read. And when we are considering the features of a medium the things to focus on are the conditions of the production, storage, and transmission of information, and not form and content, which are secondary, as we will see. These features comprise what I’m calling context, because they establish the parameters of the relationship between the poet and the audience.
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padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
suspendedreason said:
this forum's anti-intellectualism
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just to be clear, this is entirely a conceit of luka's rather than something that is actually true

what is true is that back in the olden days there were more people with proper academic backgrounds, but that's all

the Pynchon canon is mostly version's thing. there isn't really a Ballard canon here, though that would probably be droid if it were anyone.

having said that, I agree with luka that I don't see what this aesthetically gains by being a poem and not an essay

his interview answer about poetry as medium accomplishes everything making this a poem does but much better
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
it might have been more fun if the author dropped out of the ted talks personal address casual seminar style to ventriloquise some of the movements he's nodding to. So you get something a little more ambitious in terms of the language, some changes in register and pace and intensity etc Ryan if you're reading this, you need to try harder.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
To be (a little more?) fair Ballard is a big part of the Fisher canon, yeh? I mean obviously I'm coming from the outside, but it seems like Burroughs-types get more traction here than others. OTOH, Joyce and Elliot threads, so I DUNNO
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Let's just turn this into a meta-thread about Dissensus's canon, I might be more interested in that. My naive list would include...

Ballard
Burroughs
Pynchon
Grime, jungle, house, Papua New Guinea's Sounds of London
Joyce, Finnegan's Wake
McLuhan
PIL's Metal Box
Cale
Tago Mago
 
sus

sus

Moderator

The Dissensus Canon

Post links to the various top 100 playlists with some appropriate words to go with each one. Could probably add Barty's charts as well, Matt's top 200 - anything else I've forgotten.
www.dissensus.com
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
suspendedreason said:
Let's just turn this into a meta-thread about Dissensus's canon, I might be more interested in that. My naive list would include...

Ballard
Burroughs
Pynchon
Grime, jungle, house, Papua New Guinea's Sounds of London
Joyce, Finnegan's Wake
McLuhan
PIL's Metal Box
Cale
Tago Mago
Click to expand...

Yeah who are some of the more revered figures across Dissensus? Burroughs is the one that usually comes to mind, and I suspect there are many in music that I don't pick up on, whose signal I don't receive.

Tarkovsky seems to be one for film, Malick clearly not. Maybe a couple of the silent directors. Cronenberg perhaps? Not sure what contemporary filmmakers are revered here.

Otherwise, Joyce, maybe William Blake, Pynchon yeah. Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis?

Maybe these impressions are due less to unanimity and more to the persuasiveness of fewer, closer advocates. I think someone pointed out that @version is the primary Pynchon guy - and yet that does not mean the forum can't lie in such-and-such vein of influence.

Whose influences are most felt across the forum?
 
sus

sus

Moderator
The "nos" seem as important as the "yes's," though I can't claim much knowledge of the no's other than people I've liked and brought up like Malick. The big list of under- and overrateds
 
version

version

Well-known member
I don't think we have a canon tbh. The only thing that really comes to mind in terms of something basically everyone likes is jungle. Luka's the only person who talks about Wyndham Lewis. It's only really me and Luka who are arsed about Burroughs. Pynchon is all me, although Linebaugh likes him too.
 
version

version

Well-known member
I think a lot of what Pynchon talks about is our territory too, whether people have read him or not. He works with a similar framework. The emphasis on a Them. The 60s counterculture. Conspiracy. Drugs. Some of the same goes for Burroughs.
 
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