A Short Cultural History (A Fragment)

Meanwhile the great edifice crumples, creating danger zones where

sharp edges create an "attractive nuisance." Once, these

borders were policed by well-meaning bureaucrats.  The culture

coarsens and grows bewilderingly nuanced at the same time. "Shit happens"

on the one hand, and, on the other, infinite gradations of identity, in the small gap

between two otherwise indistinguishable genders. The response

was supposed to be that that the most subtle and the least subtle among us

"lack all conviction." But it isn't so. Those working against the obesity epidemic by day

would join in protests against "fat shaming" in the evening but if you thought

there was a contradiction in this you would be very wrong. That's just one example.

I'm speaking off the record here. I can't even mean what I say anymore....

Indignant

Here's a fragment of another long poem by Cashberg, written in the mid 50s.  You can see that Ashbery's style of the md-seventies is heavily indebted to Cashberg's:


As we sifted through the hotel archives of past indignations

the white hot edges of them burned through our memory,

though the root causes were forgotten: the way the word demotic

does not belong, itself, to any vernacular, and thus was misunderstood

by those to whom it was directed. They were right to be insulted,

perhaps.  So too, the prize designed for the undiscovered village crank

genius went, as always, to the Princeton professor du jour.  Are you getting this down?

Are you taking notes quickly enough, ma cherie? I thought not.

My sprezzetura was taken as simple carelessness, but to correct the mistake

would have made it all the worse, limping into twilight-burnished

corridors, under cover of stale leaves...





  

How to Surrealism

Cashberg's other masterpiece of the early 70 is How to Surrealism.  This long poem goes for the opposite effect attained by the semantic saturation of Brackishness Scruple.  It aims instead of the semantic diffuseness and non-repetition. He said that his aim was to avoid the development of any thematic threads, but that has not prevented critics from reducing it to a kind of quest narrative, in which the poet-hero makes his way through a labyrinthine landscape in search of the perfect musical phrase.  I offer a brief sampling of this 700 page poem:



Arrest. Hysterocommuncal. Brackish. Mudlip. Froggish. Imp.  Stereoderivative.

Greenlight. Densehouse. Immune. Ity.  Foreigneity.  Garage. Toadfill. The.

Asteriskite.  How? Mumblebirds. Championkite. No. Isthmus.  Isthmus.

Sur. To. Tainment.  Brockstyle. Fandom. Austerishity. Sheepishtude.

Hunger. Hattrick. Mysteriousheit.  Under. Mambo.

Ach!  Moonbroom. Fingerscale.  Fingerclaw.  Ugh.

Peninsularlarlar.  Umpteenth. Clinging.

Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.  Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.

Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.  Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.

Arugula. Impress. Naturaleza.  Zippified.

Mustardine.  Goateesimilitude.

Why. Bitters. Turpentudinous.

Derive.

Ascot. Benjaminish. Restitude. Amore. Puck. Margarine. Awe. Mainline. Lagging. Hurt. Flog.

Asterdine. Mug. Hantine. Lake.

Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.  Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.

Never. Impactifullness.

Haste.

Deterioration. Binding. Differential. Genius. Sacred.

Missment. Thole. Snifter.  Banal.

Mugrunt. In.

However. Twostep. Surgeon. Aggress.

Hypnotonormativity. Whether.

Vista. Masculinitad.  Obviate. Osteoneurosis.  Illfit.  

BRACKISHNESS SCRUPLE

Jack Cashberg's BRACKISHNESS SCRUPLE is one of the lost masterpieces of postmodern literature. Published by Black Sparrow Press in 1970s in a limited edition of 40 copies, numbered and signed by the author, this 500-page poem was never anthologized, due to the author's refusal to compromise the work's integrity. It is with some trepidation, then, that I offer this all too brief excerpt. To the critic who called the work "a tedious exercise in semantic saturation" he replied: "don't you think I know that, you fucking idiot." To the Freudian critic who associated brackishness with the id and scruple with the superego he was equally withering. Though often accused of copying Coolidge and Ashbery, he always maintained that his own Self-Portrait in a Bowler Hat was published 10 years before Ashbery's similarly titled work. 


Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  So much depends. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Upon. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple. A. Brackishness scruple.  Red. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  So many. Brackishness scruple.  Wheel. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Ple. Barrow. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Glazed.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. With Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Rain. Brackishness scruple.  I had not thought death

had undone. Brackishness scruple.  Ish. Brackishness scruple.  Water. Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  So many Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Beside. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  The. Brackishness stumble.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness stumble.  White. Among twenty snowy mountains. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Of Man's first disobedience. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Stumble. Brackishness

scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness scruple.  Ish. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness stumble.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Ish. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  And the. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Brack. Back.

Ple. Ple. Ple Ple. Ness. Brackishness scruple.  Apple pie. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Fruit. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Of That. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Scruple stumble.  Scruple stumble.  Scruple stumble.  Scruple

stumble.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Ness.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. The only

moving thing. Brack. Brack. Ple. Ple. Ple Ple. Ness. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Glazed. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  With

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Rain.

Brackishness scruple.  I had not thought death had undone. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Water. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  So many

Brackishness scruple. Brackishness scruple. Beside.Hindemith stumble. Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Brack. Brack. Ple. Ple. Ple Ple.