Attention Span – CE Putnam

Nico Vassilakis | Text Loses Time | ManyPenny Press | 2007

Nico’s book of books. VisPo & NicoPo, side by side.

“In the beginning was a texture. Historically, alphabets are for advertising. And so the world entertains by involving everything.”

Mary Rose Larkin (Holidays) | Nita Hill (Paintings) | Whimsy Day Book 2007: A Calendar of Imaginary Holidays | Flash + Card Press | 2006

“Tuesday May 8     Puppies vs. Kittens 2:05pm”
“Monday July 30     Diet-Jell-O Biafra Invented”
“December 21        Sun Enters the Sign of the Semicolon”

Nita’s abstract big color / bigger sun paintings are a wonderful complement.

Susan Landers | Covers | O Books | 2007

Dante! Now! & B-Sides : “My leader lobs fistfuls of muck down his throat to appease him.”

James Dickey | Self-Interviews | Doubleday | 1970

“The poetic process with me is something that simply goes on all the time, even when I’m sleeping. I write all night when I’m sleeping. It never stops. In dreams most of the time I’m writing, or I’m dreaming about something and trying to write about it at the same time in the dream. And when I’m up, I’m never far from a notebook; I’ve always got something to write on. Poetry, instead of being reserved for a a special time of day, goes on continually.”

Homer Wheelon M.D. | Rabbit No. 202 Illusions and Conclusions “Case History No. 22712 Test No. 67; Rabbit No. 202, Virgin Female, Age 120 Days. April 15, 1933” | Self Published | 1940

In 1933, after observing a rabbit being used in a pregnancy test, Homer Wheelon began to work on writing and illustrating his epic Rabbit No. 202. Doctor, scientist, painter, humanist, and poet, Wheelon filled Rabbit 202 with his diverse interests and beliefs. His Blake inspired pen and ink drawings are particularly weird. A PDF with more information about Homer Wheelon here.

“Air gulping fish,
Lung fish squirmed out of the sea
On land-going fins.
Land-going fins evolved into limbs
Limbs developed to reach the sea
Crawl back to the open sea
Receding waters forced fins into limbs
Droughts, mud, and slimy morasses
Forced life to search for the sea.
Stranded life,
Terrestrial life
Life lost to the sea.”

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Sung Po-Jen trans. Red Pine | Guide to Capturing the Plum Blossom | Mercury House | 1995

Published in 1261AD, this collection of 100 poems and woodblocks was so influential at the time that artists wishing to paint plum blossoms were encouraged to paint from what they found in this book rather than from the blossom itself.

“Sung’s book is also significant because it attempts to fathom the essence of a material object through detailed, empirical examination and uses the results of that examination to form the basis for that object’s deconstruction and reconstruction on a different plane. Once the reader has the flower’s 100 stages memorized, he has the key to the plum flower and the key to Nature as well. With this key he can create his own plum flower universe without having to observe Nature at all.” from the introduction by Lo Ch’ing.

Robert B. Textor | Roster of the Gods: An Ethnography of the Supernatural in a Thai Village | Human Relations Area Files, Inc | 1973

“The tester goes to visit Betsy while she is pounding some pepper sauce (nam phrik) in a mortar. The tester or somebody else somehow manages to put some lime juice into the mortar. If, after a few minutes, maggots somehow begin to appear in the mortar, this is positive proof that Betsy is a host. The rationale for the test is that maggots, like Filth Ghost, enjoy eating feces.”

Boredoms (Yamatsuka Eye, Yoshimi P-We, Yojiro, and Muneomi Senju) | Live Performance March 21,, 2008 | Neumos Seattle, WA

Psychedelic-Tribal-Punk-Electronic-Beatdown-Woosh from Osaka Japan! 4 drummers and stacks of electronics. A Seventar—a taller-than-human 7 necked guitar —played by beating it with a big baton. Once Eye starts up his sun-sound-machine there is no stopping it. The end effect is the compression of epic natural forces into punch/beat/scream/star-fuzz that brings light to the entire body via sound.

Jerry Lee Lewis | Live at the Star Club | Bear Family | 1994

“If you don’t like Jerry Lee’s peaches, honey don’t pull around on my tree.”

Recorded in 1964 at the same club where the Beatles got started. This is Jerry’s last blast before turning country & the oh those poor Nashville Teens (British/German Backing Band) you can hear them sweating trying to keep up with the KILLER. Listen for a mob of Gerrys chanting “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry…” Perhaps the best live rock n’ roll record ever.

Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack | Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life | Famous Players-Lasky Corporation | 1925

Merian Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s (King Kong) first film.

“In 1924, pioneering filmmakers Merian Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack documented the punishing annual migration of the nomadic Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran) as they heroically trekked across harsh terrain to herd their livestock to pasture. With 500,000 animals in tow, the barefoot Bakhtiaris ventured through unforgiving deserts; the icy, half-mile-wide Karun River; and over a 12,000-foot, snowcapped mountain to reach their destination.”  (Netflix film description)

Joe Brainard | The Nancy Book | Siglio | 2008

“I have burned down the sky.”

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More CE Putnam here.