Erased Text/Print: Nothing Else Matters / Hi-fi idiot / Rip Rig & Panic's Attitude.

RTomens, 2026

When a storm hits you batten down the hatches, don't you? Not that often get fierce stormy weather in London, being in the privileged South-East, in particular, England's capital city which, as you know, is such an emblem of success that the whole world wants to live here...and it looks as if they actually do!

So the wind whips the little tree in our front garden and the all-day rain continues; it's a good day to stay in and do useful things like tidy up my stuff. That's papers, magazines, printed matter, artwork, books etc. Also, music, specifically the CDs I've burnt albums onto. Today I started whizzing through them, playing parts, giving them a test drive to see if they passed after years of not listening. Some did, probably half didn't, so they're in the bin. Blame Spotify. Things sound better on the hi-fi, of course, but I do listen to streamed sounds more than vinyl or disc, especially over the last few months when the amplifier broke down. No bass or treble alteration possible. So I thought. No hi-fi made me feel a little sad and contemplating where to get a new amp. I called in Lady Practical (she's so much better at fixing things). She pushed a few buttons, which included the one marked Source Direct, which was 'on'. Guess what. It fixed the problem! ha-ha - I'm such an idiot, I know. 

Sorting through the discs I came across Rip Rig & Panic's Attitude (1983). Try it out. What an album! It hasn't aged a bit to these ears, probably because it sounded like nothing else at the time so, despite being of its time in my life, musically it's fresh. Ah, Rip Rig & Panic, how we loved you! Avant-Pop-Jazz whatever, words can't really convey the total sum of the multitudinous influences on display, weaved into the sound. Yes, dear reader, I did feel a hint of melancholy for my younger self who went out into the Soho night on a regular basis to sample some Jazz in a dive bar, or at The Wag. Even the night run by RR&P called The Hot Sty. An eclectic treat, of course. 

That's all for now. Be seeing you.

Erasure poetry: Eliminate The Traces & Imitating A Robot / Book: Erasurism - Louis Armand and Michel Delville

 

I'm in an elimination phase...or...'erasure poetry' phase, if there is such a thing. Erasure poetry, I mean, not erasure poetry phase. I don't know why it developed. I don't know what came over me. I've done 'erasure' work before, just not for a while and not exactly like this. 

I can see why the finished product would not be to everyone's liking. It is, after all, a picture of removal, of...covering up, rather than revealing. It is not destructive, but a form of construction. By erasing, what remains is the image of erasure in this instance. Another form would be the total blanking out of what was there. That too, is interesting, potentially. I may explore that later. Perhaps the logical steps are towards total erasure. Total blacking out may also be interesting if the paragraphs blocks are followed. 

Eliminate The Traces begs to be the title of the book of erasures which I had no intention of making until using the phrase. Now it cries out to be used. 

What remains is not nothing, of course, no matter the technique or approach used. I like the combination of black lines and typed over printed texts. I toyed with using ruled lines as I have done before but currently favour the freely drawn. I like the ragged finish; the imposition of the roughly drawn upon the precisely printed. Typed capital letters add another element, the third way between hand drawn and machine printed, the in-between. Type is mechanical but as any typewriter user knows, far from perfect due to inconsistency of weight applied hitting the keys and remaining ink in the ribbon. Ah, the joy of typing.

By sheer coincidence, Erasurism by Louis Armand and Michel Delville has just been published. I have only skimmed the contents but it covers a broad spectrum of literary and artistic examples whilst also examining the work of Samuel Beckett and of course, Tom Philips amongst others. Intellectually, I fear a lot of it is beyond my reach but that is my problem. You can read the whole book online here.

I leave you with another piece I made a few days ago. Title: Imitating A Robot

Be seeing you.

Vispo: This Is What I Think / On thoughts, speaking and typing to music / Jack Kirby's heavy metal

Not that what I think matters at all, except to LJ and anyone else within range of my voice. 

Not that the above piece of visual poetry demonstrates what I think! Or perhaps it does. Our thoughts can, after all, be a blizzard of incoherent ideas or...a 'cloud' of words...which are very briefly joined up in our heads. Sometimes we transfer them to our tongues, but more often than not they remain inside. That may be just as well, eh? If we said everything we thought we might get into trouble.

Gosh, ain't I the philosophical one?

I'm currently trying to think whilst Bathory blast Necromancy into my head. This may be stupid...or...the battle between sound and thoughts could produce something else, something other than what I would say if I was thinking in silence.

I always type to music. As I've said before: sometimes the music influences the art. Other times I choose a specific genre or artist to suit what I know I'm going to type. Or rather, the style of vispo I'm going to produce. This Is What I Think was created to the sound of Thrash Metal. Does it show? The title is taken from part of the photocopied pages at the bottom. They were chosen randomly from an old sci-fi magazine, Galaxy Science Fiction.

Twin influences: Metal and sci-fi. My sci-fi reading these days is more likely to be written by Jack Kirby than J.G. Ballard. So it goes. Kirby's famous tech is definitely heavy 'metal', don't you think?

That's all for now. Be seeing you.

Boris Lurie: EVER THE RADICAL at the Oxo Gallery

 

NO? NO? NO? YES! YES! YES! Went to the Boris Lurie exhibition at the Oxo gallery yesterday. Took some snaps. Brilliant collages, screen prints and other mixed media on display. As with most art, pictures in books, which is all I'd ever seen, can't do justice to the works. Only 'in the flesh' can you marvel at the textures created by applied pant over images etc. I'd say 'Go see' but you probably live across the world. I suggest you go if you live in London. Free admission. More info here

Vispo: Of Course I Heard You / Sick of letters? Too much typing!!! Why I type

RTomens, 2026

Is anybody the-e-e-re?!

Online presence a little...weak?

Not exactly...popular?

Never mind! You didn't get into this for popularity, did you? You didn't set out to be famous, did you?

No, no, NO!

I'm not BIG, just GOOD. Somebody once said that. A publisher, perhaps...if I recall correctly...and correct recollection nowadays isn't easy, you know...

Not that I'm making such a claim. Arrogance isn't 'in my locker'. However, it seems that the arrogant shall rule the world. Ain't that right? Those who shout loudest get heard. You need to ooze confidence in this game! What game is that? I don't know...I'm improvising wiv words...as they come, so shall I write. And so on...

Only when I had almost finished the piece above did it strike me that he seemed to be vomiting words letters rather than shouting them. Perhaps he's sick of letters. I love letters but even I can get sick of typing them. LJ gets sick of me typing them, poor woman. About ten minutes ago she suggested that my longer-than-usual typing session would make my bad back worse. She may be right. That aside, the constant clacking of the typewriter keys gets on her nerves after a while. She can tolerate about 30 minutes, possibly 45, but after that she cracks and, as she did this morning, shuts the door to the room where I sit, hunched over The Beast, hammering the keys as if to exorcise something. 

There may be something I need to get out of my system...but I don't think it's a pent-up emotion, frustration or whatever. You know what it is? LETTERS! I'm full of them. It's a form of constipation and only a good typing session relieves me of it. They build up after a whole day of not typing once the morning session is done. They build up whilst I sleep. I get up dying to release them! 

So there you have it.

I'm done.

Thank you for dropping by and...TTFN!

Spider-Man, Frank Miller, The Fall and Bend Sinister!

 

Yes, there is a connection! Six years before The Fall's Bend Sinister album (1986) writer, Dennis O'Neil and Frank Miller, having discovered the band Shrapnel at CBGB, decided to incorporate them into the Spider-Man King-Size Annual #14. 

The term 'bend sinister' appears in the intro (above) as translated by Doctor Strange. In reality it has a few different meanings and why not introduce another? 

Now, Mark E.Smith was no doubt referencing Nabokov's novel of the same name when he titled The Fall's ninth studio album Bend Sinister, not only to prove his literary chops (as if we didn't know already) but because the phrase is so interesting, of course. That and the fact that 'bend sinister' was also 'used in older literature to mean a defect, stain, or stigma on someone's reputation', apparently. Smith may have been suggesting that society was 'stained' and defective or, perhaps, his reputation was at the hands of those in the media who did not appreciate him. Either way, I was surprised to see the band in the Spider-Man story chanting the term as they marched, Pied Piper-like, through the streets of New York. 

Shadows - the noir project

Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? - Shadow Of A Doubt, 1943

The Shadows project continues. I try different techniques, styles, approaches...looking for not only one but possibly two or three that will work to my satisfaction. This is personal, I told myself the other day. It's personal in that it's taken so long to come to fruition; I've lived with it for a long time. 

More than that, it's personal because although it will appear in printed form and be available to purchase I know it won't have much appeal to anyone. It'll be even harder to sell than visual poetry. Why? because it will be something other than visual poetry, yet include elements of it. It will be something other than a comic, ie a narrative told in pictorial/text sequences, although it will naturally have a sequence of my own making which, perhaps, only I will partly understand.

The lack of conclusion in the 'story' will mirror its contents. There will be no neat ending. How can the mystery end? Because...

If, as is often suggested, we make art first and foremost for ourselves, Shadows represents that idea totally. If only I feel a real sense of satisfaction when it is printed, so be it. It would please me greatly though, of course, should anyone buy it and get something from it. 

TTFN!

 

The Shadows Comic Book Project (influences & inspirations) / Spillane - John Zorn

 

The Shadows project is under way, at last. I'm working with the texts I started to create in 2009. Yes, you read that right, 2009! As a totality, they form an assemblage/collage/cut-ups of various texts. You can imagine the problem(s) - where it ends (does it have an ending?) - how to end it - how to make them form something like a 'story'. That was the biggest challenge, namely; should it even be a story? Did William Burroughs worry about that when he assembled his cut-up 'novels' of the early 60s? I doubt it. Mind you, I have tried not to go too far down that particular route of literary dead (end) roads. 

Here I've posted some key influences/inspirations. Initially I saw it as a booklet but have since decided to make it a 'comic'. What is a comic anyway? A collection of sequential art. Right? Perhaps it won't be a comic in the normal sense then, if there is a normal comic since...when? The 60s underground comix? They at least, despite the radical nature of the content, followed a more or less traditional panel format. many comics have since broken the old form. I don't know the extent to which mine will, but suffice to say, yes, there will be panels, but also, I may break up that idea too.

You can tell it's a work in progress. I am still playing with presentation ideas and techniques. meanwhile, here's a list of inspirations/influences:

Sin City by Frank Miller (party for the visuals, also the noir aspect)

Hardboiled literature (pulp fiction, Chandler/Hammett etc)

Film noir (the mood, ideas/visuals)

Pulp sci-fi

John Zorn's incredible Spillane homage and The Bribe album

Elmer Bernstein (big, brassy mood music made for menacing action!)

Las Vegas grind (for the sleaze)

You get the idea. So visual poetry takes a back seat but has not been abandoned completely. I'll be turning to the Olympia and rattling off some typed work as and when I feel I need a break from inhabiting the Shadows. 

Thanks for calling in - TTFN! Do check out Spillane at the bottom of the page - a masterpiece!

Vispo: Ruler Of The Word / Happy accident - chance in art & the child-mind

 

Whilst trying to tidy up the papers on my table this morning I came across a sheet that I had printed on with a view to typing over but somehow I had spilt water on it, creating lines where the liquid had coursed its way through the print, leaving yellow/greenish trails. After initially cursing the spoilt paper I decided to add to the effect by trailing more water over it. I was going to just type on that but hit on the idea of using a children's illustration from Mental and Scholastic Tests by Cyril Burt (yes, it's funny, the kinds of books I've collected). This naturally suggested a kind of joyful abandon, as children's drawings do; free from adult self-consciousness and restraint. I tried to type in the same spirit, allowing for the fact that I'm a long way from my childhood. Whilst doing so, it occurred to me that I nearly always type like that anyway! 

Of course, being an adult who, by now, has typed many times in the name of visual poetry, I couldn't help but try to create some 'sense' to the picture, hence the pile of letters the figure stands on and the idea that they are dropping more letters at their feet. Oh well, it goes to show, you can never fully regain the child-mind.

Vispo print: Mindswap / Shadows - a science-fiction collage novel - excerpt / Spider-Man by John Byrne & Spidey vibes by Freddie McCoy + Bobby Hutcherson

Mindswap, RTomens, 2026

*

Shadows (excerpt)

Pale shades of evening...naïve, twitching, tottering citizens animated by the profound and the puerile...jerky shadows...the procession of twisted corpses...strange beings damned alive...all must endure in the grave city.

   Tongues are heard far away in the universe...

   Time and space devour the damned...cold stars flash mechanically...

   From the shores of death....I am the dagger and the wound... 

   Abstract thoughts...turning the individual...influencing a person's behaviour. 

   Past forms are charged with madness, the poison flows...a sad tomorrow...perceptions of reality continue to influence a person's attitudes...victims and executioners meet memories of the past...

Feet scurried in the yard.  I held my gun steady, barrel pointing up toward the sky. I could see a single star above.  Suddenly a gaunt yellow face hid the star from my view. The face started to shout and I fired. The face disintegrated and I jumped straight up, put a foot on the edge of the can and vaulted over.

   A chorus of shrill yells came from various parts of the yard. Flashlight beams flitted about. I stepped over the body of the Chinaman who lay alongside the garbage can and darted across the yard. From the window above, Foh Shen-Li shouted in shrill sing-song dialect, “Shoot! Shoot now! He must not escape!”

   I swung my gun up and took a pot-shot at the sound of  Shen-Li’s voice but missed because wood splintered the framework of the window up there.

   Lead winged past me. One slug tore at my sleeve but I reached the fence unwounded. 

   A dark shape hurtled at me and I straight-armed that shape with the hand that held the gun. The shape yelped and collapsed.

   I hoisted myself up on a garbage can alongside the fence and jumped. Shouts rose to a tumultuous crescendo behind me; a gun barked from the window above and just at that moment my foot caught on a projecting nail as I was clearing the fence. My arms went out wildly into the air and I hurtled over into the next yard. I landed heavily on concrete, the breath knocked out of me for the second. Then I got up and felt about for my gun which I had dropped when I fell, picked it up, and sped away through the yard, down an alley...

*

Spider-Man and Havoc 205, 1987

When I came across vibraphonist Freddie McCoy's Spider Man album from 1966 I thought it must have been to cash in on the TV series but that didn't debut until '67 so we can only assume that Freddie was simply a fan of Marvel comics and Spider Man in particular. Either way, arch publicist Stan Lee must have loved the fact that Spidey graced an album sleeve and a Jazz one at that. I wonder what the artist, Steve Ditko, thought. Not that Freddie exactly oozes Jazz chops on this album. It's a lightweight affair, aimed at who, I don't know. The tracks are all brief, having little space for anyone to do much more that briefly solo before returning to the tune. Bachelor pad music, perhaps.

I did warn you; Bobby Hutcherson, it isn't, although I could imagine it going down well in the kinds of Jazz clubs I went to in 80s Soho. This is Bobby Hutcherson...

TTFN