Vispo: My Thoughts / Book: Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music / Music: Ikarie XB​-​1 by Zdeněk Liška

RTomens, 2023

I'm on a roll(er)! No,  I mean, the roller was on the paper, meaning I cleaned the black ink off the roller and ran it over a new red ink pad - one sweep downwards and build the typing around it. hey - that's vispo, folks! Someone replied on Twitter, claiming to be able to 'see my thoughts', presumably my thinking whilst creating My Thoughts.  Well, mebbe he could, but only superficially and through subjective 'reading', presumably. As I said in response, it's a good thing he couldn't see all my thoughts - they're mostly marked 'Private - KEEP OUT'. 

Who would want my thoughts anyway? Really. I'm no wise man, not am I especially witty....

(I know, I've just negated the validity of this blog - dammit)

Besides, our written thoughts are merely the cleaned-up, edited versions of the kaleidoscopic mess in our heads, aren't they? Funny as it sounds I don't think too much when making art, typewriter art or whatever. Yes, I'm a spontaneous, improvising, crazy man! I'm the Charlie Parker of visual poetry! I wish. Minus the drugs and...OK...the talent. 

Talking of Bird and all that Jazz, I recently bought Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music. First class design job, although there seems to be no credit for whoever did it - love the embossed cover and font used for the essays. Looking at the cover, I wondered how many people would get who Basquiat was referring to and the title. When asked about his favourite music, though, he apparently just said 'Miles Davis'. Well, I would say that too if the question related to Jazz. Otherwise, their are too many artists to consider.

My latest favourite album, for instance, is Ikarie XB​-​1 by Zdeněk Liška on Finders Keepers. You can also listen here if you don't like/have Spotify. For me it represents the best in electronic/acoustic space age soundtracks combing Pop and avant-garde ideas.

Book: RUHUMAN: The Typewriter Art of Keith Armstrong / Vispo: Hypersensitivity to certain final conditions

 

I was recently sent RUHUMAN: The Typewriter Art of Keith Armstrong (a fair exchange is no robbery!) and damned fine it is too. Like me and hundreds of other typewriter artists Armstrong worked solely for the love of his art rather than thinking it would 'get him anywhere' - but where can concrete/visual poetry get anyone? Since when did it open gallery doors? Since the late-60s and early-70s - maybe? If the art of typing had its moment, it was brief, but I'm no historian, just a typist, working not so far from where Armstrong did on the Euston Road, North London. 

RUHUMAN is packed with great examples of the art, the variety of possible approaches being evident here, at least, if not in most singular portfolios. As with any other artform there's a trap, the one of repetition in style. One person's trap is, after all, another's cosy home. Armstrong utilises colour and various forms from 'formal' to precise overtyping and more freeform expression, very much in the tradition (?) of DHS. Barrie Tullett co-edited the book (along with Tom Gill) and created the faultless design. You may be familiar with his anthology, which is also highly recommended.

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RTomens, 2023

This the latest piece I made, this morning. 

And here is my latest booklet, printed and designed by Paper View in Portugal. You can see some pages and buy it from them here. It was actually published late last year and sent to me then but a postal worker who happened to be a fan of typewriter art must have sensed what was in the package and kept it because it didn't arrive, so another batch had to be sent. To my delight paper View did an excellent job on the design. It's on textured paper and I like the rounded edges. 

Vispo: Think / The Art Of Keeping Your Mouth Shut

 

RTomens, 2023

'I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them,' - Picasso

That was a response to those still expecting life-like, representational images, no doubt. Whereas Picasso represented the 'real' as he saw it, us visual poets work the another realm, where 'reality' is not the issue since we work from...what? Pure imagination? Some. Others like to play with words and their meaning. I have used song titles, literary and philosophical quotes as starting points for my letteral abstractions. In the case of Think, it was just that word, which came to me after I did think, for a minute or two. 

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It pays to keep your mouth shut; literally, sometimes. In the shop, for instance, I've often bitten my tongue when a customer threatens to regale me with their political opinions, doing so with a brief comment regarding the government. I keep schtum and take their money. It's never happened, but a political row could easily end with them telling me where to stick those books before storming out. One needs a finely-tuned radar to detect those capable of a sensible, calm discussion and an evangelical ideologue who will start foaming at the mouth upon being challenged.

I told Bookworm this the other day when he suggested we open a bookshop (using my money, of course, because he's a dole lifer). I warned him that he'd find it difficult to keep his mouth shut when serving a pink-haired activist buying The Communist Manifesto. The ensuing row would be filmed by the activist, go viral on TikTok and result in the London branch of Antifa pouring petrol on our dreams, leaving no more than the blackened, wrinkled pages of our stock. Naturally, he didn't take kindly to my prediction, claiming to possess the ability to keep quiet when necessary, which is contradicted by his now defunct contacts book.

'Never discuss religion or politics with those who hold opinions opposite to yours' or 'Do not discuss politics or religion in general company' is an etiquette rule from the late-Victorian era, or possibly earlier. As you know, the Victorian middle-classes were keen on etiquette rules. Perhaps they had a point. That said, in those times we British were notoriously reticent about expressing ourselves. Some would call it an unhealthy manifestation of supressed emotions, although the two could, in theory, be separate issues, we know that emotion and strong political opinion tend to go hand-in-hand.

Since so much political debate now goes on between total strangers via the internet, blood readily boils in the digital, rather than real world environment where, thankfully, most of us respect the close proximity of a living, breathing human. One real threat to that is alcohol consumption. As you know, a well-lubricated mind can easily go off the rails of etiquette and become a runaway ranting train that will inevitably result in carnage; reason and politeness left as mangled ideals beside the track. 

Now it's time for me to shut up and make some art.

TTFN!

Novel: The Color of Money - Walter Tevis / Print: Naked Lunch / Prophet - Sun Ra

 

One of the most exciting lines in the history of literature: 'Let's shoot pool, Fast Eddie.' OK, only if you're a fan of the Eddie Felson novels by Walter Tevis, who died the year it was published (1984). This and the first, The Hustler (1959) must be the best novels based around pool ever written. Not that I've studied the 'genre', but who dare try to write anything as good as what Tevis achieved. The prose is lean, the 'hero' almost existentially adrift in a twentieth century America of booming material success. But could he make it again in the 80s? Will his nemesis, Minnesota Fats, always win in the end? Is pool a mug's game? As Eddie moves on up, socially, we see how he fares, who he can beat and whether he has it in him to win a big competition. Whether you understand the game or not, both novels are essential reads.

  

RTomens, 2023

Inspired, in part, by browsing through Eduardo Paolozzi's Metafisikal Translations, I got out the letter stamp box and went to work on a printed image. It looked fine as it was but I then altered some colours and printed a couple of layers. The texts are by Sun Ra and Paul Valery. An album of previously unheard Sun Ra material has just been released....

Vispo: The data of experience and the phantoms of imagination / Good sense artists?

RTomens, 2023

Today I was told I had good sense. That rarely happens. He meant compositional sense, though, describing my creative output. I'll take all the compliments I can get and print them off before pinning them on the wall. The wall in front of me, should I pin anything to it, would probably disintegrate completely, such is it's condition (peeling, cracked paint). It's damp in The Cave. If I had the kind of good sense DIY-types exhibit I might have done something about it by now. As it is, the housing association are supposed to make repairs, but when it comes to showing enthusiasm, they lack any sense of urgency.

I would make having more good sense a New Year's resolution, except I no longer make them. Being over 60, it's enough to resolve to get out of bed every day. I'm not sure that good sense suits artists. Does a 'sensible' artist produce interesting work? Or do they sensibly create polished pieces for a professional market? I am probably imagining that. Of course we can all demonstrate good sense in certain areas. Right now, though, I have to stop writing to watch my team, Chelsea, play Man City in the FA Cup. I told you I rarely display good sense.