BlipSoak01

by Tan Lin

Poetry. Asian American Studies. BLIPSOAK01 is a creative endeavor not only in the use of language but also in the use of the page as more than a backdrop for words. Lin plays with the effects that the visual placement of words has on the reader, adding an extra dimension to already fascinating poetry. Lin is a writer, artist, and critic whose art and video works have been exhibited at Yale Art Museum, as well as New York and Copenhagen. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at New Jersey City University. His book LOTION BULLWHIP GIRAFFE is also available from SPD.

Genres: Poetry

336 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jim Elkins]

Well, could this be the first review written on an iPad with the Apple keyboard dock? (Bet it is. I'm writing on April 25, 2010, and the keyboard was just released.) Appropriate for this book, where all sorts of language artifacts mingle with the usual writer's voice, including the 01 attached to the whimsical, faintly dada, faintly machine-language, faintly internet-password title.

Tan Lin is a real discovery, except that I can't say I made it: the book was recommended by a student, Kristi McGuire. Lin is a combination of language poetry, concrete poetry, the insouciance of pop (after Frank O'Hara), the aleatoric collage of the legible and illegible (as in John Ashbery), and -- most unusual, most important -- passages of intense affect, which remind me more of Tsvetaeva than anyone closer in culture or space.

The book (or book-length poem, or visual composition) begins with a wonderful manifesto in verse, which is all about how language works for the eye, and how dedicated line-by-line reading isn't appropriate any more than formal scanning. "The surface is beautiful because it can be forgotten one moment at a time," he writes, and adds some throwaway lines about the pretensions of literature "and especially poetry," which "are fundamentally false forms of excitation and dread." Despite those moments, the manifesto is a wonderful piece of work, and manages to float between the conventional disavowals of abstraction and the equally tired disavowals of neo-realism. (Not to mention the extremely tired disavowals of Necronautical literature.) A footnote names several dozen writers who have influenced him, listed in a faux-English was with first names initialed: "A. Warhol, M. LacNeice, S. Tomkins, b flieschman, W. Pater," etc. It's clearly an art-world orbit we're in, but the writing goes in other directions.

So this is not a book to be read in any normal sense, but it miraculously manages not to fall into the doldrums that artists' books are so prone to, when after the first few pages, the pattern or trick or manner of the book is clear, and there is no longer a reason to keep reading. Here two things kept me going: Tan Lin's very strong grasp of larger-scale structures, so that pages and even longer units cohere and resonate; and his occasional, but intense, affective strength. It can't be quoted here because it depends on layout ("surface"), but it contains lines like this:

as white as milk 02[return]and not milk 02
spare me the strength to leave you 01
when you were born you looked so cute all dres
sed up in your birthday suit
as green as grass
and not grass

Passages like this, with their weird mixture of felt confessional voice, slant allusions to "Death Fugue" and Rimbaud, and random alphanumeric blips, are something genuinely new. I will be starting his new book soon.

But in fairness, the sketchiness of this review reflects my sense that there are many passages in this long book where voice of any sort -- mechanical, affective and confessional, random or aleatoric -- gives way to combinations of relatively uninteresting formal and "surface" plays, clearly written quickly, apparently in the hope or belief that white noise, static, and meaningless "surface" are, after all, part of life, and therefore invitations for the reader to fill in, do some writing or musing or theorizing. But slack, randomized, unlabored passages aren't necessarily expressive, inviting, fertile or fruitful, or even intermittently compelling, and they don't even necessarily evoke everyday wandering consciousness, the dispersed writer's voice, or semi-random acts of attention. Sketched-in passages need to be watched carefully, especially if they are intended to elicit a sense of the writer not watching his work as carefully as older senses of narrative and the novel might lead a reader to expect.

Shall I put this more forcibly? I think Tan Lin has enormous potential if he reins in the loose leash of his language. Otherwise he will not be read, "read," or even "'read,'" except by people with an infinitely expandable sense of what reading is -- a sense that would just as likely bring them to read phone books, text dumps, and other semi-automated, collaged, or random sources of text and pattern. Or fabulous random lorem ipsum genrators like this one, which --although of course it's completely different from Tan Lin's book, as different as two texts can be -- I prefer to Blipsoak02:

http://www.hintplus.com/alterlorem.php

And just in case that site goes down, but not, again, to imply any symmetry, here's what the site generates:

Amarantin troughing octactinal peoplish flamineous jeel mortlake disglut. Ethenic tubuliform armipotence's pantellerite unprocreate cessor understem postlabial preexpressive circovarian unironical predismissal's steatin echeneis semibasement periaxillary bartram nicolo. Bespill besprinkler polypheme preconformity hoihere backfisch katalyzer's. Stresser hosecock's philobotanic ymolten reforget inerroneous befoaming unimpassionate vaginervose gullishness armsize hyperlipoidemia. Phasm apoplexes whitsun superdubiousness xw's quickwittednesses khakanship formel lithoglyptics biphenylene abomasusi extradict. Whimsic quiveriest untalking unwakening canonizant muscoidea stopwork shakefork enmoved phyllostomatoid postea. Rhombovate apocynthions arteriasis chiliomb gaumier kirri overmeticulousness, phalacrocoracidae perstringement oughtlins intervolution's centrobarical inshoot dihydronicotine canceleer. Territorian mottier pointrel reown bronchohemorrhagia shiggaion unexpunged inenubilable toadier omentulum hydromonoplane ilvaite astigmometer's coprostanol virginalling crewmanship paytamine interparietale.

Oxyhaloid lookahead hologastrula parapherna hedgesmith rablin purgery overcredit acraspedote undetestably interplicate demihuman. Sublaryngeally beneighbored repulpit plantarium phytotopographical preallying overaffirmation ganapati aum reencloses signetur cancion prickshot splanchnicectomy. Hyperemization grandeval harrycane glochidian workgirls charpit epiky nonrecurently, korrigum reabandoned ephyrula inconditional unpublic. Elbower dopastat unhideably bateful subwar's taoiseachs longwork, mobulidae reinvolvement's, unoffset yoky antiannexation scrowdging walkene steelwares marli ghibelline.

Cobhead semipause grager's gaslightness antergic clairseacher hypocarpium berust overelliptical urinometric wheatstalk bata radioparent sundrymen depilous dumpled namaycush. Subtribal precompilation's photohalide rita's stallment megalopterous insulize buisting ovariosalpingectomy sorose seminebulous cognosced nonfarcicality yoofs eulysite doigt outnighting, prechoroid gekkonid oblating. Abstort outbreath hysteriac circumocular antimensia contrude. Unoffensiveness luxembourger sesquisulphides unforbiddenly spintherism trichiniases prestimulus's subcontractings fantasmagorically, deuteranomalStremmas suitored globousness mebendazole dentiphone's laton oligocarpous tarepatch esiphonal antimoralism's radiodontics kette feudovassalism. Euripides pruigo poesis podogynium unanalyzing anthracoxen reamalgamation's sternbergia refallow phocidae kights actinograph's cercidiphyllum osteoplaque. Counterside anilinism tabstop precompelling muscicole. Voisinages presavagery's licham megamere peirce blennoid nondemonstrativeness comism.

Preinducement unerratic ischiorrhogic preascetic overinflationary sanjakate helmetpod befurred intermeeting mercuriate preallies uneschewed babylonian thoroughsped. Maletote rushgrass turncoatism dacninae cryptobiotic ingeners cosmosophy overnicenesses. Overobeseness's splatterdash burtree birdwoman corruptingly mastopathy's kashubian moellons encoil empoverished molluscousness westnorthwestwardly locomobilities blockheadism stroboradiograph's uncruelness especialness's koromiko burrfish's. Formicine tonnell bechatter stranglings poetryless reducent oilmongery kisswise curiescopy overdistort, lonelihood's reperform supraclavicle. Demidolmen sarcelled subfractional moloker needsome unmultiplying myxocystoma preferredness's organer guze periligamentous. Leaseman collutory dendritiform nonprospect's dacryuria concional thersites fluigramme balantidiasis unexalting polypaged pseudomorphia monodactylism's umimpeded recarved bromoiodide easternly epigaea ethine's unadaptabness's. Araneidal pulvinarian outstrutted regioide overnationalized homiliaries knapsculls vetoistic spirillaceous demethylchlortetracycline's papalty trinitro. Gorgeret inserviceable passionative enregistration underfeeling mahsur parentdom chevesne nonbelieiver schinus pezophaps cyclitis mcintosh pulvinulus, ragamuffinism incorporatedness's pyche dier.

Cocao hyperscholastically macrocephalus's severalness firstship disconform prorebate exagitate unmarbleize quinamidine nonbenevolently colpeurysis joseite polypifer cephaline bilinite mudweed undegeneracy's, konohiki noncoming. Saigon paralithodes wroaths neednt ciniphes diisatogen exomphalous unrepugnable saturnali epenla prehalter sweethearting meck's nonluminousness epinicial anaglyptics. Piperonyl unpreposterously aranein duodedenums triketone linten rheophile reducent subterfluous unproportionedness typtology superdonation, overhaughtily uncleave unwittingnesses scotal madrassa proganosaur haida predisposable. Bedcase keksyes tuberculination markery plasticly subendothelial pollyanna encyclopediacal. Apoferritin's deuteroscopies brasts misexpressive chorises pylic abscision unambulant southcottian antroscopy ventrimeson biverb sootproof lapstreaked.

Oaxaca noncoagulability treaclinesses ladner ischiocavernosus. Battutas chattererz endevil dreamage hypergalactosis scribbleable sturshum, browsier, unsmoulderingly peganite turma lyons noseburn argillomagnesian. Pickpenny nonport coinhabit eatages dilatableness tannogen servolab roratorio fiard dreamlikeness understage myringectomy perfrication capsuliferous coyan brickmason amphorous steepdowne pinnatedly. Tenostosis nonasbestine subformativeness nauger untributary.

Entirely different from Tan Lin, yes, but it's a kind of text I tend to read with pleasure. Part of the intermittent lack of pleasure in "Blipsoak01" is not knowing when the relative lack of pleasure is intended to be received as lack of pleasure. At least this text was generated by a computer.

[Ross Brighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://ignoretheventriloquists.blogsp...

I've been meaning to post this since I started this blog. It was meant to be published quite some time ago, but even when it was written it was a bit late. However then I still had the excuse that BLIPSOAK01 was Lin's last full-length publication, but now there is HEATH (PLAGIARISM OUTSOURCE), which I must get a copy of.
I've mentioned Lin's work in several conversions online recently, so here's the review.

Tan Lin’s latest full-length book, BLIPSOAK01, [Ed: not any more.]like 1999’s Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe (Sun & Moon), draws on those realms opened up by practitioners such as Bruce Andrews and Steve McCaffery. However this book breaks new ground in its genre through its manifestation as what Lin describes in the preface as an “extended play (e. p.) poem” employing theory that draws not only on the work of the Toronto Research Group and ‘language oriented/centred’ poets, but also the work of Kenneth Goldsmith. Goldsmiths theory[1] is echoed in Lin’s preface: “The poem is born out of our mutual dis-interest” (15) and again “the most beautiful page makes you look away accidentally from what you were reading (13)[2]”. However Lin, rather than following Goldsmith’s mantra adapted from the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler that “the world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more" (“Being Boring”), Lin’s ‘boredom’ is rooted not in repetition and non-interventionism but in a-semantics and banality.
In this way one can reconcile the creative output contained in Lin’s work with a pseudo-goldsmith-esque aesthetic of boredom through a dismissal of conventional economies of interest and information in favour of production of response through the privileging of surfaces, repetition, sonority and textual slippage. Thus the poem is carried along by affect and plastic tonality in a propulsion of starts and stops, staggering passages and smooth surfaces.

The poem extends for over 300 printed pages, operating as around 150 two-page splashes, with the lines of text extending over the centrefold. This typographical twitch creates a new plane operating in a similar way to a line-break, an awkward pause of misconstruance and half meaning:


I open the vanish and try to recover the cancer[/] ‘s instructions (126-7).

(note - the gap won't appear here. it's where the [/] is)


It is this awkwardness and start-stop kinesis that informs the trancelike unthinkingness that Lin describes as boredom, the page that is to be “experienced at the synaptic level, which is the level of looking” and thus the experience of reading becomes “very very easy and relaxing”.

Thus there are 300/150 pages of extended ‘un-boring [pseudo-] boredom’, the poem flitting from the opaque plasticity of:


gon___ist ______________ me’enr

ati _____tennis 55 w;______ kio’s ____st98


so mor3#

youl essen _____ ilt ________(148-9)


into faux-lyricism reminiscent of writers such as Lyn Hejinian and Myung Mi Kim.

Here the process of reading is informed by dislocation and juxtaposition, starts and stops, the not said and the almost said. The reader’s consciousness flits across the surfaces, making connections and basking in the almost-meaning and meandering sprawl of repetitions:


Somewhere, it begins to rain, somewhere

it begins to be boring


If it is February, I wrote of your clutter

If it is February, you are listening at the door where snow is falling (104-5)


the reader is invited to read (non-) meaning or enjoy the poem’s surfaces as a field of play. The poem’s “extended” nature creates manifold openings, hollows and creases in this surface, allowing for reading/play as a series of constructions and deconstructions of conflicting (mis-)readings, interacting, contradicting and rubbing up against one another.

The poem is a constant, and a flow. The reader can step in and out at will, and re-reading/re-turning offers new experiences and (non-)meanings, as the “content” is not fixed-dogmatic-finite. This way the economy of reading exits the closed system where meaning production can exhaust itself, into new, empty openness.


[1] for example his essay “Being Boring”, available through Goldsmith’s author page on the EPC at epc.buffalo.edu

[2] Lin’s critical work on goldsmith can also be accessed through the EPC


Wow. when I cut and paste, footnotes come too. Good to know.

[Bryan Worra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the kind of book I always seem to run into when hanging out with Barbara Jane Reyes and Oscar Bermeo. Tan Lin's BlipSoak01 is one of those books of poetry where I can appreciate what Tan Lin is trying to do. But while I experience it, it's difficult for me to say I "enjoy" it in the conventional sense of the word.

To be fair, I often dive into a book of poetry randomly first rather than starting at the beginning. But even were I to start at the beginning, I'd find myself immersed in textual dislocation. There are moments of coherence, then not. Edges of images, something being said. Do I need 324 pages of it? In a way, I'm happy to own one of the 500 copies of this book, but as it sits balefully on my bookshelf glaring at me, yes, I'm left with a sense of 'why?'

In a modern world of so much text that is possible to read, I admit a particular curiosity as to who exactly really reads this fully. Who ARE the other 499 people in the world who have a copy of this book? And what do THEY do with it?