The importance of being Iceland : travel essays in art / Eileen Myles.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Myles, Eileen

Series:

Semiotext(e) native agents series

Language:

English

Icelandic

Genre:

Essays.

Physical Description:

365 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Los Angeles, CA : Semiotext(e) ; Cambridge, Mass. : Distributed by the MIT Press, [2009]

Language Note:

Includes some Icelandic text.

Summary:

Throughout her career, Eileen Myles has reclaimed poetry as public vocation. "Our time needs a shadow," she writes in this book. Framed by an account of her travels in Iceland, these essays assert inbetweenness as the most vital (and poetic) position to view the world as a whole. Culled from more than two decades of art and cultural criticism originally written for exhibitions, events, and journals, the essays in this book-on subjects ranging from Henry David Thoreau, James Schuyler, and Bjork to queer Russia, working class speech, California freeways, and flossing-counterpose the nuance of Iceland's deeply rooted yet fluid culture with the more prevalent, American fact of steamrolling "global" heterogeneity. Myles links ancient Icelandic verse, New York summer streets, the antiseptic malls of La Jolla, and the back of the Sister Spit tour van with an awareness that criticism is always a social gesture.

Contents:

Iceland 13

Art Essays

Play Paws 53

Taylor Meade's Apartment 57

It's A Wonderful Wave: Nicole Eisenman 62

The Free Show 68

Paul Lee's Piracy 74

Evolving Waters 78

Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings 81

Sarah's Smoke 88

Being in (a community of elsewheres) 91

What I Saw 92

Prints Of Words 95

A Treatment Of Susanna Coffey 104

About Martha Diamond 109

People

Daniel Day Lewis 119

Tory 128

The Sonnets 136

Jimmy: James Schuyler At Dia 138

Today's Poets: Alice Notley & Ann Lauterbach At Dia 140

The Art Of The Real 143

Talks

How To Write An Avant-Garde Poem 153

Everyday Barf 163

Universal Cycle 170

A Speech About Allen 181

The End Of New England 185

Introduction To Kay's Talk At White Box 195

Mr. Twenty 197

Eye: The Poems Of Jimmy Schuyler 202

Travel

Blue Petersburg 221

On the road (& at home) with Sister Spit 232

Box of Rain 238

On The Road With Bjork 243

Body

Live Through That?! 251

Jim Fahey 256

A Wedding In Denmark 261

My Sister's Wedding 266

Heat 271

A Recipe For Lesbian Brain 274

Moving Pictures

Reunion 281

The Universe In My Backyard: Russell Crotty 289

Repeating Allen 292

Brothers `N' Sons & Female Heroes: Mike & George 300

Mr. Poole 304

Pistolary, The Complete Films Of Peggy Ahwesh 308

The Time Of Craft 315

Blogs: 2004-2006 325**********.

ISBN:

9781584350668

1584350660

OCLC:

216938356