Fluffy Singler - ProfilesArchive

About Me

As a writer and performance artist, my work is devoted to the Surrealist goal of the liberation of the imagination as a political act. I am interested in the use of language and of poetic text in performance in non-discursive, imagistic ways. In a culture in which almost everything we see and hear is designed to influence us to buy certain things, think certain ways, believe what we're told by government, media, and corporate interests, I believe strongly in the power of language that is used nonlinear, nondiscursively, to rewire the way we think and to engender a creative response on the part of the spectator/viewer/ participant. I believe that words can be made to function on the level of the visual, that a poem can have the same effect on the viewer as a Jackson Pollock, and by presenting language live, through performance, we can capture the alchemy of bodies and harness this imaginative response.
I write poetry and also more "traditional" plays that tend towards the absurdist and the surrealist. Absurdism has fallen out of favor in the moment--in the trend of Beckett and Ionesco--toward an emphasis perhaps on camp and spoof, but I believe that there is still a place for taking the everyday and making it strange and unfamiliar, in forcing us to look at what we otherwise pass over and accept rather than seeing the complications we create for ourselves.
I believe that theatre belittles itself and betrays an inferiority complex when we try to compete with movies and television. It means that we do not understand the power of the live, the alchemy of bodies--raising energy as pagans say; "When two or more are gathered in my name" as Christianity teaches. There are many important things that live performance of work--plays, poetry, readers theatre, music, dance, etc.--offer us that cannot be gained by mediated performance, no matter how good or moving those media might be.

My Interests

Well, here are some pictures from traveling (from England and New York, specifically), some pictures from around Minneapolis, and some pictures of yours truly.

I guess I'm interested in myself. Aren't we all??

Interested in me, I mean!

=8-0

I'd like to meet:

I'm here to connect with people interested in avant garde writing and performance, performance art, dadaism, surrealism, absurdist theatre, etc.

Be sure to stop by my website to read some work samples including poetry, performance pieces, manifestos, and the beginnings of my dissertation, among other things, although the dissertation is now in the process of going up through the blogs, too!

Music:

You can listen to some of my poetry with my poetry band The Bruitists. Listen to 41 written after the Diallo verdict in New York.

Coming soon, The City .

These take a few minutes to download and after you play them, hit *Back* on your browser to get back to my page or back to MySpace.

Books:

Carole Maso is amazing! I highly recommend her novels Ava, Defiance, and Ghost Dance, as well as her book on writing, Break Every Rule and her Frida Kahlo biography, Beauty is convulsive.
Andre Breton, Pope of Surrealism
Guy Debord for Society of the Spectacle
Futurist/Feminist/Dadaist Poet Mina Loy
Tristan Tzara , the Great Dadaist who merits 2 links here, one for his poetry and one for his great manifestos.
Great political literary critic Irving Howe
Scholar Mary Ann Caws , who has done tons of translating and writing on Surrealism and Dada and has a great, gorgeous anthology of art Manifestos
And I love women writers of the Beat Generation. In particular you should read Anne Waldman , Diane DiPrima , and the memoirs by Joyce Johnson and Hettie Jones .
Want to know more about the books I love (or at least the ones I wish I had)? Check out my Wish List on Amazon.

Heroes:

Look through my friends. You'll find some of them.

My Blog

MY HONEY: TRISTAN TZARA

WAYwhat is this road that separates us across which I hold out the hand of my thoughts a flower is written at the end of each finger and the end of the road is a flower which walks with you. From Chan...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:13:00 PST

My NaPoMo: Cy Leslie

On RiotsIncentiveborn in ancientdrum & nbsp; battlesobscene values,archaic faiths.Exploited blacksstand groundedin strong &nb...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:10:00 PST

CATCHING UP MY NAPOMO: JAYNE CORTEZ

As I predicted I would, I am falling down on my own National Poetry Month Postings. So here is the first of 3 tonight. Indelible Jayne Cortez Listen i have ...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:02:00 PST

Can there be a hip hop (or poetry slam) avant garde?

Ok, a little something going towards a paper I'm working on (and towards a dissertation chapter.) I just dashed it off--the theoretical equivalent of an open mic "I wrote this at the table" comm...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Sun, 27 Apr 2008 03:01:00 PST

A sily little thing of my own

I shall call it Mini-me. . . . No, I shall call it Ode to MySpace, for now, since that is what inspired it. Truly truly stream of consciousness. If this were an open mic, I would stand up and say "I...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:55:00 PST

Fluffys own NaPoMo

Sound PoemJoanna McClure Clet--loud upon his shoulder.Pflut--soft, felt upon my back.Wind throws leaves from treesAt us, the porch, the ground. They rustle now across the boards,While cliffs shuzzle d...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:40:00 PST

MY National Poetry Month: Forugh Farrokhzad

Conquest Of The Garden Forugh Farrokhzad That crow which flew over our heads and descended into the disturbed thought of a vagabond cloud and the sound of which traversed he breadth of the hor...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:50:00 PST

Welcome to MY National Poetry Month

Alright. Fluffy's been falling down on the job. I admit it. It's National Poetry Month and I haven't done shit. I get About.com's poetry thing and they did a whole week of Emil...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:45:00 PST

What’s up with the Avant Garde

So on the poetics listserve I'm on, there's been a discussion of modernism/ postmodernism and the avant garde and alleged death of same. This was a post I made in reply and I thought I would sha...
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:53:00 PST

George Bush Nigerian Spam Letter

This one's been around a while, but it's sooo good it just merits reposting every so often. Apologies for the mega font. I don't know about y'all, but I do find the MySpace blog to kind of . . ....
Posted by Fluffy Singler on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:25:00 PST