Okay, Robert Lessig, i accept your 10 books that changed me challenge. but i could easily just name one book and leave it at that: 1. The dictionary. I spent a lot of time reading the dictionary as a kid. And I still spend a lot of time with it. but there are also others 2. The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone and Michael Smollin. 3. Metamagical Themas by Douglas Hofstadter. Those two books introduced me to self-referentiality and showed me how fascinating, terrifying and hilarious it is to take that to extremes. 4. Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser. my favorite novel. still read it once a year. 5. For the Time Being by Annie Dillard. a genre unto itself. i have a copy that stays in my suitcase. 6. Striking Resemblance by Tina Darragh. my gateway drug into langpo, thank you bridge street books and bicks books (rip). i can still feel the power of it, standing there in the bookstore, maybe 16 years old (?), trying to figure it out and realizing that spacetime had kind of just been torn open. took me a while to step through the tear. 7. Ariel by Sylvia Plath. high school years. lately ive realized that i am recalling deep plath structure in poetry fox poems. 8. Harvest Poems by Carl Sandburg. my first favorite poet and one of the greatest americans ever. 9. Remarks on Colour by Ludwig Wittgenstein. the one i go back to most frequently, that numerical logic, that progression, that thoroughness, that meanderingness. 10. (cheating) A Test of Solitude & Theory of Tables by Emmanuel Hocquard. this could easily also be Art Poetic by Olivier Cadiot. having done this i could do probably 15 more that had the same kind of hit for me. a Louise Nevelson monograph i stared at a lot as a kid. Scott MacDonalds Critical Cinema books of interviews with filmmakers. Carla Harrymans Memory Play. those little pocket field guides. Alice Notleys Descent of Allette. the Arabian Nights. Charles Reznikoffs Testimony. Claire Needells Not a Balancing Act (i had a literal addiction to Burning Deck books). Lawrence Ferlinghettis Coney Island of the Mind, which my father and i read together. the series of Window poems that Aaron Lowinger has been writing and emailing to me. Susan Sontags On Photography and Roland Barthes Camera Lucida. this is tricky to keep it to individual books rather than just one book by an author who changed you, its a more specific thing. im looking up at the list thinking, how is there no Harryette Mullen, Italo Calvino, Leslie Scalapino, Franz Kafka, William Carlos Williams, Daniil Kharms, Vienna Actionists, and so many others? with all of them i guess its more the body of work than one particular book. okay so i have to tag some people: well, how about Aaron, and Gail Goers because i miss her, and Duncan Murrell because i want to learn his influences, and Mitali Routh for the same reason, and Michael Gubser because i have been thinking about him, and Kathryn L. Pringle though maybe shes already been tagged i dunno
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 10:06:44 +0000
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