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Authors: David Donnell
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the song, wearing an old sweat with ‘Williams’
across the grey front,
writing about Matisse.” “How can you compare Murray Schafer
to Philip Glass?” “You can’t, they’re too different. I like
Schafer’s ‘Northern String Quartets,’ but there’s not very much loon
in them.” New York is a dying city. But I really like the way
people shoot each other in Sam Peckinpah films. You might as well
write a short history of sound poetry in which you say they all seem
to have been influenced by television dubs. But not me. I would
rather go home & listen to African boat songs & think
about that slow hot butter soft sun & paddling down a river
of infinity.
POSTMODERNS
Postmoderns like things to be laid out calmly
& precisely like design components on a large drawing board.
Like Robert Smithson’s Earthworks, for example. Earth & works –
postmodernism is gutsier than people think. Mississippi
earth is swampy as you get south of Oxford down to the gulf.
I don’t like F’s
Absalom, Absalom!
very much. I don’t like the way
it begins with the runaway slave. F himself is very present,
but in a confused sort of way – splashes of author colour come
through but seem disparate. It’s like a camera falling
through the narrative & it doesn’t work. The characters don’t tell their
own stories
explicitly or implicitly.
Ask any of your friends about their favourite Faulkner
characters and they’ll probably say, Popeye,
Temple Drake, Jason, Caddy, the barn-burning father. Claes Oldenburg’s
giant hamburgers take us back to the 50s. Faulkner was young
in the 20s. And was then smacked in the face
with the 30s & the Depression. I’m probably being unfair
to this book. I’m reading in a sunny room and listening
to Wynton Marsalis’s solos on a CD with Kathleen Battle
who is singing up a rich dark storm & Wynton, it’s Handel, is
right there as if he had written the music himself. Sure
there is probably a point of view from which you could enjoy
Absalom, Absalom!
I don’t know, I sort of like the title.
But not as much as
Light in August
or the story of Jason & Caddy.
Marsalis goes up into C & I toss the book over on the couch
& watch the small English sparrows & the grey squirrel
outside my front windows on this cool blue May afternoon. The
title’s interesting, isn’t it?
Absalom, Absalom!
It sounds
too biblical for the 1930s of Huey Long.
MISSISSIPPIANS
I have a green & yellow plastic Tonka dump
truck
on the left side of my double sink in the kitchen.
Imagine that? An adult white male writer who studies
Wittgenstein
& he’s got
a child’s toy
that he keeps in his kitchen sink.
Her name was Mayonnaise Dutton
& Tom loved her
& he lusted after her panties. Her panties
were cute
& she was pretty goddamn cute herself. But she didn’t give a shit
about Tom.
When I look into the wide open cavity of my mouth
in the large hallway mirror it looks like a caricature
of Baudelaire’s abyss. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean
I have a whale in my mouth. No Jungian references to Melville.
I just mean it’s so huge & pink & clean & wholesome. And innocent.
I’m an American outlaw & I have my whims. Lots of Hathaway shirts,
no Kenzo ties.
I don’t have a lot of money. I’m actually quite
aggressive at times. I like to run water over the truck
in the morning while I do a few dishes, make coffee,
listen to the morning arts news
before I sit down to write for the day.
O HEY, HE’S TALL, BUT HE’S TOO YOUNG TO DRINK BOURBON
Hayden Washington Jones, 6’5”, close-cropped hair, chocolate satiny skin, quiet, at times almost mordant. A tall guy, for sure, taller than Tom Garrone, and blocky, not tall and thin like Tom. In
across the grey front,
writing about Matisse.” “How can you compare Murray Schafer
to Philip Glass?” “You can’t, they’re too different. I like
Schafer’s ‘Northern String Quartets,’ but there’s not very much loon
in them.” New York is a dying city. But I really like the way
people shoot each other in Sam Peckinpah films. You might as well
write a short history of sound poetry in which you say they all seem
to have been influenced by television dubs. But not me. I would
rather go home & listen to African boat songs & think
about that slow hot butter soft sun & paddling down a river
of infinity.
POSTMODERNS
Postmoderns like things to be laid out calmly
& precisely like design components on a large drawing board.
Like Robert Smithson’s Earthworks, for example. Earth & works –
postmodernism is gutsier than people think. Mississippi
earth is swampy as you get south of Oxford down to the gulf.
I don’t like F’s
Absalom, Absalom!
very much. I don’t like the way
it begins with the runaway slave. F himself is very present,
but in a confused sort of way – splashes of author colour come
through but seem disparate. It’s like a camera falling
through the narrative & it doesn’t work. The characters don’t tell their
own stories
explicitly or implicitly.
Ask any of your friends about their favourite Faulkner
characters and they’ll probably say, Popeye,
Temple Drake, Jason, Caddy, the barn-burning father. Claes Oldenburg’s
giant hamburgers take us back to the 50s. Faulkner was young
in the 20s. And was then smacked in the face
with the 30s & the Depression. I’m probably being unfair
to this book. I’m reading in a sunny room and listening
to Wynton Marsalis’s solos on a CD with Kathleen Battle
who is singing up a rich dark storm & Wynton, it’s Handel, is
right there as if he had written the music himself. Sure
there is probably a point of view from which you could enjoy
Absalom, Absalom!
I don’t know, I sort of like the title.
But not as much as
Light in August
or the story of Jason & Caddy.
Marsalis goes up into C & I toss the book over on the couch
& watch the small English sparrows & the grey squirrel
outside my front windows on this cool blue May afternoon. The
title’s interesting, isn’t it?
Absalom, Absalom!
It sounds
too biblical for the 1930s of Huey Long.
MISSISSIPPIANS
I have a green & yellow plastic Tonka dump
truck
on the left side of my double sink in the kitchen.
Imagine that? An adult white male writer who studies
Wittgenstein
& he’s got
a child’s toy
that he keeps in his kitchen sink.
Her name was Mayonnaise Dutton
& Tom loved her
& he lusted after her panties. Her panties
were cute
& she was pretty goddamn cute herself. But she didn’t give a shit
about Tom.
When I look into the wide open cavity of my mouth
in the large hallway mirror it looks like a caricature
of Baudelaire’s abyss. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean
I have a whale in my mouth. No Jungian references to Melville.
I just mean it’s so huge & pink & clean & wholesome. And innocent.
I’m an American outlaw & I have my whims. Lots of Hathaway shirts,
no Kenzo ties.
I don’t have a lot of money. I’m actually quite
aggressive at times. I like to run water over the truck
in the morning while I do a few dishes, make coffee,
listen to the morning arts news
before I sit down to write for the day.
O HEY, HE’S TALL, BUT HE’S TOO YOUNG TO DRINK BOURBON
Hayden Washington Jones, 6’5”, close-cropped hair, chocolate satiny skin, quiet, at times almost mordant. A tall guy, for sure, taller than Tom Garrone, and blocky, not tall and thin like Tom. In
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