Nice of you not to point out that I signed my doppelganger mailing twice. A
Freudian slip if ever I saw one!

Best wishes

Matthew
-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Nicholls <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 04 June 2001 10:05
Subject: Re: Perloff intro to Luca


>Dear Matthew,
>
>No, I am not sure that we would recognise ourselves in the street. Our
>doppelganger's face is likely to be familiar, but not identical to our own
>face. This is possibly because we are familiar with our own face by
looking
>in a mirror, which distorts the image by reflecting the left half of our
>face onto the right half of the reflection, and vice versa. As you know,
>the two halves of the human face are slightly different, so the image that
>we know as our face is the mirror image of the one that everyone else sees.
>
>This also explains why most people are made uncomfortable by seeing
>themselves in a photograph. The photographic image has the two halves of
>our face the right way around, that is reversed from our mirror image
mental
>picture of ourselves. When we look at a photograph we see ourselves as the
>world sees us, but we are disturbed that this is not the way that we see
>ourselves.
>
>Indeed, this dual perception may apply to personality too.
>
>Cheers
>
>pHIL
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Matthew Francis" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2001 11:58 PM
>Subject: Re: Perloff intro to Luca
>> One's relationship to one's own face is interesting, don't you think?
>Would
>> you know yourself if you walked past yourself in the street, or just
think
>> haven't I seen that person somewhere before? And yet we see ourselves
>fairly
>> often - more often than most of our friends. It's just that the
>> circumstances under which we do are so different: it's never for long,
and
>> it's never socially, so to speak - we don't interact with ourselves.
>There's
>> something voyeuristic about it.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Matthew
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Matthew
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: 02 June 2001 23:18
>> Subject: Re: Perloff intro to Luca
>>
>>
>> >Yeah, created a big splash a couple of years ago--I also can't remember
>the
>> >guy's name. He overlaid a Leonardo self-portrait drawing on the lady's
>> >face--bone structure appeared vaguely similar. Of course, the
>self-portrait
>> >was in extreme old age, many years after the Mona Lisa. Art historians
>> >didn't take it very seriously.
>> >
>> >Something like 20 years ago the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity
>> >published "The Psychoanalysis of the Dead." A very useful paper.
>Apparently
>> >the dead are unusually resistant.
>> >
>> >Mark
>> >
>> >At 11:02 PM 6/2/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>> >>I recall someone, can't remember who, claiming with all seriousness
that
>> not
>> >>only was Lisa Mona a man, but she was a _self-portrait_, to be exact,
>> >>Leonardo in drag!
>> >>
>> >>best
>> >>
>> >>Dave
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>----- Original Message -----
>> >>From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
>> >>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> >>Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2001 8:22 PM
>> >>Subject: Perloff intro to Luca
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>In furtherance of my shameless pursuit of book sales, the following
from
>> >>Marjorie Perloff:
>> >>
>> >>INTRODUCTION to Rochelle Owens' _Luca: Discourse on Life and Death_
>> >>
>> >> In 1919 Marcel Duchamp bought on the Rue de Rivoli a cheap
>> postcard
>> >>reproduction of the Mona Lisa and decided to give Leonardo's famous
>> >>enigmatic face a black-penciled mustache, curling up at the corners,
and
>a
>> >>neat small goatee. Underneath the portrait Duchamp inscribed the
letters
>> >>LHOOQ, a sequence which, read aloud in French, equals elle a chaud au
>cul
>> >>(she has a hot ass). But his was not just a crude joke; as he explained
>it
>> >>many years later, "The curious thing about that mustache and goatee is
>> that
>> >>when you look at the Mona Lisa it becomes a man. It is not a woman
>> >>disguised as a man; it is a real man, and that was my discovery,
without
>> >>realizing it at the time."
>> >> Here Duchamp implies playfully what Freud, in his famous study
>of
>> >>Leonardo
>> >>da Vinci, took very seriously-namely the artist's latent homosexuality.
>In
>> >>both cases the model herself (a local merchant's wife) is seen as mere
>> >>object-"the occasion for these ruses," to use Frank O'Hara's phrase in
>"In
>> >>Memory of My Feelings." And of course art historians have taken this
>> object
>> >>status as given: Ernst Gombrich, for example, argues that the universal
>> >>appeal of the Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile may be attributed to
>"Leonardo's
>> >>famous invention which the Italians call sfumato-the blurred outline
and
>> >>mellow colors that allow one form to merge with another and always
leave
>> >>something to the imagination."
>> >> Indeed, the painting's sfumato does leave something to the
>> >>imagination,
>> >>and in her brilliantly inventive Luca: Discourse on Life and Death
>> Rochelle
>> >>Owens has imaginatively recreated Mona Lisa from multiple perspectives,
>> >>including Mona Lisa's own.
>> >> Owens' is a profound meditation on how Leonardo's painting-the
>> very
>> >>epitome of Renaissance art-was really produced and disseminated, and
>what
>> >>the process meant to the women (Mona and her friend Flora, who appears
>in
>> >>so many of Leonardo's works) as well as the children who served as
>models
>> >>for Jesus and St. John the Baptist in various paintings. Owens'
>> >>"narrative"-which is complexly disjunctive, weaving in and out of
>> >>Renaissance Florence, our own time, and the more distant past of
>> >>pre-Columbian cultures-circles around three characters: "Lenny"
>(Leonardo)
>> >>the artist/scientist, the artist's model Mona Lisa, referred to here as
>> >>Mona or "La Gioconda" ("the smiling woman"), as the painting is also
>> >>called, and Siggy or Sigmund Freud, whose rationalist analysis destroys
>> the
>> >>heart and soul of the culture it "murders to dissect." In the course of
>> the
>> >>narrative Mona and Flora become part of a larger company of women,
>> >>especially poor women from various Indian tribes, who continue to be
>> >>oppressed in the Americas of the present:
>> >>
>> >> Leo na r do had not heard you you answer
>> >> correctly you calculate the edge reflect
>> >>
>> >> Reflect on the sketch
>> >>
>> >> of Indian women
>> >>
>> >> The conjunction of time frames and situations makes for a
>bravura
>> >>performance-that rare long poetic sequence that holds the reader's
>> >>attention from beginning to end even though it is by no means a linear
>> >>narrative.
>> >> Just as Marx will never seem the same after one reads Owens'
>Karl
>> >>Marx
>> >>Play (1973), so "Lenny" emerges as a complex character, obsessed with
>> >>anatomy and hence the dissection of cadavers, much taken with young
>boys,
>> >>alternately giggly and abstracted-and always consumed by his work.
>Sigmund
>> >>is his alter ego-hard, cold, "triumphantly smil[ing] on reading / a
>> >>pathological review of a great man." In "The First Person," for
example,
>> we
>> >>read:
>> >>
>> >> you said
>> >> the smile of Gioconda floats upon
>> >>
>> >> her features you hook your neck
>> >> pursing your lips saturate your dry
>> >> eyelids with oil and very lightly
>> >>
>> >> brush in this preherstory widening
>> >> your fibrous memory
>> >>
>> >> This passage gives us a good idea of the diction and tone that
>> >>distinguish
>> >>Luca from most poetry written today. Owens' theme, here as in The Joe
>> Poems
>> >>or Futz, is that of violation-the violation of one person's space by
>those
>> >>who want to control or absorb it, who will not let it be. Freud's
>"fibrous
>> >>memory" won't let the Leonardo story be; he has to explain childhood
>> >>memories as homosexual fantasies and find explanatory mechanisms for
the
>> >>artist's sublimation. But Owens doesn't relate these things
>> >>dispassionately: in her macabre vision Freud is seen "hook[ing] [his]
>> neck"
>> >>and, in a horrific image, "saturating [his] dry/ eyelids with oil."
>> >> Owens does not shrink from the violence and horror she finds
>> >>everywhere
>> >>around her and which she projects back, most convincingly, into what
was
>> >>supposed to be, according to Burckhardt and Berenson, the ordered and
>> >>measured world of Renaissance Florence. This poet enters her narrative
>and
>> >>calls the shots as she sees them:
>> >>
>> >> At times it seemed
>> >> to her she looked like other women
>> >> wearing a baffled look her brain
>> >> retained an image the very long
>> >> teeth due to gum deterioration her
>> >>
>> >> exhaling suddenly looking in the
>> >> middle instead holding her head to the
>> >> side.
>> >>
>> >> The sardonic suggestion that Mona Lisa's fabled smile is the
>> result
>> >>of gum
>> >>deterioration is characteristic of Owens' x-ray vision. Her packed,
>> heavily
>> >>accented free verse erupts like a volcano, as in this description,
early
>> in
>> >>the poem, of Mona's illness:
>> >>
>> >> Thin body of fiber
>> >>
>> >> Desperately sick for want
>> >> of a cleaner wound the woman followed
>> >> Mona's orders as if there is any
>> >> doubt water salt sugar protein
>> >>
>> >> potassium calcium urinate spon-
>> >>
>> >> taneously then the exposed & opened
>> >> entire lens would rupture the rule
>> >> in most cases the patient adjusts
>> >> following this three to
>> >>
>> >> seven fine sutures of silk or dog-gut.
>> >>
>> >> Notice the strange collision of highly concrete nouns as in
>lines
>> >>5-6
>> >>above, with the indeterminacy of reference produced by syntactic
>ellipsis
>> >>and a quirky absence of punctuation. In lines 8-9 one expects a period
>> >>after "rupture," and the next phrase should read, "the rule / in most
>> cases
>> >>[is that] the patient adjusts, / following this three to seven fine
>> sutures
>> >>of silk or dog-gut." And even the adjectival modifier here is
>> non-sensical.
>> >>A surgeon might say, "Give him three to seven sutures" or "He will need
>> >>three to seven sutures," but in what situation would one say,
"following
>> >>this three to seven fine sutures?" If one knew that Y followed X one
>would
>> >>not be in the uncertainty about X that is registered here. And
>sound
>> >>repetition tells the same story. The predominant sound is that of
>> >>syllables ending with an emphatic /t/ stop: want, salt, protein,
>urinate/
>> >>potassium, rupture, patient, sutures, dog-gut. The poet's voice fairly
>> >>chokes as it vividly recounts the many threads of the Mona/Flora
>> >>story-threads that come together later in the poem when the Renaissance
>> >>motifs are seen through an Aztec prism-words like "Aztec" and "Tlaloc"
>> >>reinforcing the sound structure of the earlier passages and ironizing
>the
>> >>claims of the conquistadores, whose plunder of American soil parallels
>> >>Lenny's earlier plunder of the very bodies and souls of his female
>models
>> >>in the interest of anatomical study as well as the art of painting.
>> >> Rochelle Owens' writing, here as elsewhere, is sui generis. She
>> is,
>> >>in
>> >>many ways, a proto-language poet, her marked ellipses, syntactic
>oddities,
>> >>and dense and clashing verbal surfaces recalling the long poems of
Bruce
>> >>Andrews and Ron Silliman. But Owens is angrier, more energetic, and
more
>> >>assertive than most of her Language counterparts, male and female, and
>she
>> >>presents herself as curiously non-introspective. Hers is a universe of
>> >>stark gesture, lightning flash, and uncompromising judgement: it is
>> >>imperative, in her poetic world, to face up to the horror, even as the
>> >>point of view is flexible enough to avoid all dogmatism.
>> >> Immensely learned, sophisticated, and witty in its conceits,
>this
>> >>Discourse on Life and Death demands two kinds of reading. First, it
>should
>> >>be read through from beginning to end as if it were a novel; in this
>> >>instance, our concern is with character and the interchange between
>> people,
>> >>and we watch carefully as Mona and Flora and the children evolve before
>> our
>> >>eyes.
>> >> But a second reading is required to note the poem's
>> >>microstructure-its
>> >>superb modulation of rhythms and internal rhymes, its ironies and
>> >>paradoxes. It is the layering of cultures and especially of myths,
>> >>including our own contemporary myths of the Great Creative Genius
>(always
>> >>male), creating beauty out of the detritus around him, that makes Luca
>so
>> >>distinctive. Watch out, Owens seems to be saying, for those high-minded
>> >>claims and take another look at the evidence of actual life-"a stream
of
>> >>molten lava burning," "doses of nitrogen muscle saliva," or even "the
>> >>seams/ of a discarded wallet."
>> >> Owens has no easy answers for the pain and sorrow she presents
>for
>> >>our
>> >>contemplation, but her insistent questioning is itself a gift.
>> >> Marjorie
Perloff
>> >>
>> >
>>
>