Thanks, Doug. Time-bound it may well be but it was also semi-commissioned by a former teacher friend, now fashionista, who asked me to write an article to accompany a photographic spreadsheet crammed with images of sparkly poseurs. I'm no journalist so sent her this. Unlikely that it will fit her bill but it gave me a new focus.
Bill
> On 14 Nov 2013, at 3:48 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I liked that, too, Bill. But, as you sort of gave away, the poem may be time-bound; it's so of this moment in pop culture. Will the phenomenon continue with newer tech? Will the fad just disappear? I tend to agree with your analysis, but also feel that that is what it is...
>
> Doug
>> On Nov 12, 2013, at 2:46 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> one of your best, Bill…
>> I specially like:
>>
>> enduring still-
>> ness long enough for their faces to break
>>
>> into something real, despite themselves.
>>
>> Max (after breakfast Wed morning and taking dogs out in rain)
>>
>>> On 13/11/2013, at 6:59 AM, Bill Wootton wrote:
>>>
>>> Selfies
>>>
>>> A singular pursuit: snapping yourself.
>>> No partner, no friend, no family member
>>> to do the business for you.
>>>
>>> What if someone calls, mid-selfie?
>>> What's the protocol? Do protocols
>>> apply to yourself alone?
>>>
>>> In common with all photos, the selfie
>>> confirms: you were ideed there,
>>> like that, in that moment.
>>>
>>> The difference, not so much contrived
>>> awkwardness, as sudden need for
>>> self-celebration, then approbation.
>>>
>>> The urge to post, to feel the Like,
>>> not new of course; Frida Kahlo,
>>> in oils, paved a way for selfers.
>>>
>>> Adopting a pose the first duty
>>> according to Wilde, the second
>>> the stumbling block. It took Warhol
>>>
>>> to expose step two: filmed celebrities
>>> and Factory nobodies alike, enduring still-
>>> ness long enough for their faces to break
>>>
>>> into something real, despite themselves.
>>> What do giddy selfies reveal? Self-Officer,
>>> arrest that still face. Guilty as charged.
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> Recording Dates
> (Rubicon Press)
>
> Art is always the replacing of indifference by attention.
>
> Guy Davenport
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