Work So Far
1977
Scrapbook page
When you spit on me
I keep falling in love with your
nihilism. Go ahead and lick
the scars left after the cuts. I’m
attracted to the scent of your
apathy. I just ripped my shirt for
the fuck of it. You tattoo anarchy
on my palm with permanent ink.
To know you’re flesh I watch for
you to bleed when pierced. So
you want to dominate my so what.
From 1977 (Ravenna Press)
The Rebel (redacted)
As part of finding the right tone and context for my punk history of 1977, I redacted a copy of The Rebel by Albert Camus (Vintage Books, 1956, 306 pp.), working on the project between 2014.07.01-2017.11.24. Many themes emerged aligned with the punk attitude of the 1970s as well as my later interest in anti-narrative and history (like the page above).
Merchandising
Be among the first 77 to buy a copy of 1977 from the author and get a limited edition 8.5×11 poster of “Another Existential Day 1977” and a cassette of “1977 Mix Tape.” #Merchandising
1977
1977 is here! It’s my new book, a collage of poems and charts and maps that re-creates the feeling I had when I first heard punk music.
You can be first to have a copy by heading over the Ravenna Press and buy online here. Or …
Those of you who can make it to the release party 4/21 may want to wait … the first 77 get a bonus cassette and poster that evening when you buy a copy from the author. #merchandising
Thanks for supporting small presses and independent bookstores!
Walt Whitman says …
I help myself to material and immaterial, / no guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me.
1977 Mix Tape
“What does it mean?” Context is a landscape for understanding. Music often triggers memories of place and time. Collage forces contradictions to confront each other. Dice and loop put things together to make something new.
e.g., my poems on 1977 Mix Tape are provided context and additional meaning by collaborator James Nugent. Listen or download for free at SoundCloud or Bandcamp.
1977: imaginary backcover blurbs (2 of 3)
Razor-edge sharp and buzzsaw loud.
If you believe history is not chronological but rather cyclical, then you’re not puzzled by the notion that history repeats itself.
The word “blurb,” meaning short advertisement, was coined in 1907 by F G Burgess. No surprise another Burgess then blurbs.
1977: imaginary backcover blurbs (1 of 3)
Smashes history, both textbook and memory, into fragments and then reassembles it into an anti-chronological “narrative” (in quotes), this collage of memoir, charts and sampled text is tied together by the thinnest of threads for the reader to pull or be pulled by.
Taking nostalgia to its root in battle and sickness, the writer/illustrator challenges the notion that time that has passed between then and now.
If I had to sum this up in one word, I couldn’t.
JB 