I most certainly do not need or want to be credited.
End of (your nice) story.
Candice
--- Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am not sure what your 'issue' is Candice. I am
> sorry if you expected me to
> credit you for your use of the John Ashberry quote
> (??). (I will credit you
> for bringing it to my/our attention - if that is
> your concern, I can
> understand that and so do). Ashberry's reference
> to the salesman and his
> pajamas full of vowels struck me a timely
> synchronicity with the man in the
> shirt who wants to buy a vowel.
>
> To continue, to bring Barry Albert's sense of
> wanting more visual clarity to
> the piece, I took it back to my shop, and have
> revised it, as here:
>
>
>
> S<caron>Oh, that traveling salesman. And, enthused,
I
> bought away from the long
> procession of vowels in pajamasS<caron> from Where
Shall I
> Wander by John Ashberry.
>
> On the street on Sunday I encountered a slightly
> drunk black man in a black
> t-shirt with a grid of twelve variably empty white
> and black squares. Each
> white square contained a black capital, block-shaped
> consonant (D, N, P, X,
> etc).
> Under the grid - in white scripted letters - was the
> query:
>
> Can You Sell Me A Vowel?
>
> Presumably, if one could buy1 the right white
> vowels, they could fill the
> blank, black spaces. Instead of the sight of edgy
> disparate consonants, the
> grid would be transformed into real1 words. Without
> knowing these words in
> advance, one might assume, however, that the grid
> would reveal a new found
> harmony, a kind of microcosm, the creation of a
> clarity, a formal order in
> the universe.
>
> I am not sure if because the man was an
> African-American - so often
> disenfranchised from so much in this country - that
> the dissonance in the
> shirt was made even more striking.
>
> I asked him where got the great shirt. It looked
> brand new.
> 3I got it at some festival 10 years ago. Finally
> decided to put it on
> today.2
>
> I was tempted to ask if I could buy the shirt off
> his back. But he looked so
> great in it. In fact, I liked the idea of him, this
> sunny afternoon, as he
> did, continue to walk down the street and letting
> the striking shirt - its
> grid of no vowels and un-conjoined consonants - give
> the comfortable
> appearing public a certain edge, a vision of
> reality, a glimpse between
> order and not order, words and not words, provision
> and not provision.
>
> A walking poem, yes, indeed.
>
> Stephen Vincent
>
> > I don't know what story you're telling, but I got
> that
> > sig from John Ashbery's book, Where Shall I
> Wander. As
> > for Stephen, did he have the same source? I don't
> > think so. Timing is what matters then.Ashbery's
> book
> > was published last year.
> >
> > So, ok, tell me a story.
> >
> > Candice
> >
> >
> >
> > --- Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Sorry Candice
> >>
> >> Unless I really read it wrong, Stephen told the
> >> story about meeting the
> >> man with the T-shirt, which I was referring to;
> as
> >> for your sigs, one
> >> of which he quoted, I remain in awe of them all,
> &
> >> their range.
> >>
> >> Doug
> >> On 22-Feb-07, at 11:43 AM, MC Ward wrote:
> >>
> >>> Pardon me, but Stephen didn't write the sig, I
> >> did.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --- Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Great story, Stephen, & thanks for passing it
> >> on....
> >>>>
> >>>> Only in SF?
> >>>>
> >>>> Doug
> >>>> On 21-Feb-07, at 6:15 PM, Stephen Vincent
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>> Oh, _that_ traveling salesman. And, enthused,
> I
> >>>>> bought away from the
> >>>>>> long procession of vowels in pajamas.
> >>>>>> (John Ashbery)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On the street on Sunday I encountered a
> slightly
> >>>> drunk black man in a
> >>>>> black
> >>>>> t-shirt with a grid of twelve variably empty
> >> black
> >>>> squares among white
> >>>>> squares with black block-shaped letters (D, N,
> >> P,
> >>>> X, etc).
> >>>>> Under the grid - in white scripted letters -
> was
> >>>> the query:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Can You Sell Me A Vowel?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Presumably, if he could 'buy' the right
> vowels,
> >>>> the grid could be
> >>>>> turned
> >>>>> into 'real' words and there would be order in,
> >> at
> >>>> least, his universe
> >>>>> and,
> >>>>> perhaps by extension, ours!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I asked him where got the great shirt. It
> looked
> >>>> brand new.
> >>>>> "I got it at some festival 10 years ago.
> Finally
> >>>> decided to put it on
> >>>>> today."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I was tempted to buy the shirt off his back.
> But
> >>>> he looked so great in
> >>>>> it
> >>>>> and I liked the idea of him continuing, I
> >> assume,
> >>>> to puzzle everybody
> >>>>> on the
> >>>>> street. Without the vowels, instead of order,
> >> one
> >>>> could imagine that
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> singular emptiness of the un-conjoined
> >> consonants
> >>>> gave 'reality' a
> >>>>> certain
> >>>>> edge.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Stephen V
> >>>>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
> >>>>> Currently re-introducing the 'homeless
> blanket'
> >>>> series.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> Douglas Barbour
> >>>> 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> >>>> Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> >>>> (780) 436 3320
> >>>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> >>>>
> >>>> Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E
> Murphy)
> >>>>
> >>
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>
=== message truncated ===
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