Hi Alison / Lawrence / Ric / Keston and all,

exactly re- the likely opposit from decadence in respect of play and in
respect of the decadence of definition although I've been asked to define
so will try to so do.

'niche communities' is a conflation of communities of interest and niche
marketing. It's a shorthand yes, but there is some validity to accepting
their formation. This is a niche community (specialised recess if you will)
of those interested in contemporary poetry and poetics. That makes us not
unalike those who subsribe to skateboarding / surfing / s&m soiress / car
hobbyists and so forth. Else why would we not be producing books or
whatever in editions of more than 100 or 500 or 1000 or 5,000. Smaller and
larger communities no doubt can be identified as niche (you might get into
loyalty card stuff here, with supermarkets and key brands and logos and so
forth). Communities which crosspollinate no doubt (the skateboard
enthusiast who reads graphic novels and so forth). Yes, these are market
formulations. Yes, we are humans and therefore we are not to be trusted.
But business and poetics and skateboarding aren't so different on certain
levels (writing as pollution - theft - colonisations of space - with intent
/  a definition of writing that Bill Howe and myself took on a walk
together yesterday). Humans have a limited range of tropes. Playing the
game is an important aspect of business too. Niche communities used in
respect of habits (more broadly the ideas of 'habitus') has as much going
for it as any other attempt at collective reference. In other words it's
crap and it might be useful.

I'm aware that this little aside might generate masses of astonished mail
-  and male. Well, bring it on.

Carnivalesque used as in context for texts and images that unpack lines
between formal play and informal games. Carne as 'the flesh' too. Most
commonly used as 'reversals' or 'worlds turned upside down', often to
restorative effect but usually with serious intent as in challenging or
interrogating 'norms'.
There are a host of people who draw on such usages, Stallybrass and White,
Bahktin, Burke, La Roi Ladurie to name a few. but the crucial sense of an
arena configured for sometimes unpalatable reversals or inversions will
stick throughout.

love and love
cris




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