Definition

To Europeans, what epitomized American life was movement. Compared to themselves—encrusted with traditions, weighted down by forms, customs, habits, procedures; measured, lugubrious, drained of life—American motion, and therefore American motion pictures, possessed an enchanting, irresistible allure. “There were long sequences of action—without a single dull passage—portraying sensational abductions,” Phillip Soupault wrote of the early postwar American movies in France; “there were the pictures of Douglas Fairbanks, of Rio Jim, and of Tom Mix; there were complicated stories ending in the robbing of banks, in violent deaths, in discoveries of gold mines… Doors open and close; bronzed men, strong men, terribly refined or terribly frivolous women come and go with happiness or unhappiness in their hands.” Americans had physical genius; they held the secret of action, and Europeans went to American movies to learn the secret.
- America in the Movies

KLEE THE POET:

Satirical Opus:
The happy man is half an idiot for whom all things flourish and bear fruit. He stands on his little estate, one hand holding a watering-can, the other pointing to himself as the navel of the world. Things sprout and blossom. Boughs heavy with fruit bend towards him. J 316, 1901.
Sensuality is the pliancy of the flesh under a higher compulsion. Eyes blinded by colour. Ears bathing in sound. Nose in scents. So is it also with the organs of love. J 364 1902
The large animals sit mournfully at table and are not satisfied. But the crafty little flies climb about on mountains of bread and inhabit cities of butter. J 935 1914
Human animal, timepiece made of blood. J 938

precocious: e e cummings

"kitty". sixteen, 5' 1", white, prostitute.

ducking always the touch of must and shall,
whose slippery body is Death's littlest pal,

skilled in quick softness. Unspontaneous. cute.

the signal perfume of whose unrepute
focusses in the sweet slow animal
bottomless eyes importantly banal,

Kitty. a whore. Sixteen
you corking brute
amused from time to time by clever drolls
fearsomely who do keep their sunday flower.
The babybreasted broad "kitty" twice eight

--beer nothing, the lady'll have a whiskey-sour--

whose least amazing smile is the most great common divisor of unequal souls.

- Chimneys V., e.e. cummings

poetry: i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

- e e cummings

belief systems

The Graffiti Fingers of the Theology Student
- James Schevill

As deadbeats pass from bar to can,
I read on the chipped wall
Deep in the skins of graffiti:
"God Is Dead" -- Nietzche
Underneath, some cripple has scribbled:
"Nietzche Is Dead" -- God
Another lost graffiti artist
Has drawn a picture of God naked,
Dirty hippie beard, long hair,
Drifting bell-like tongue
Where archaic wonders, Greek, Latin
Hebrew, ring in silent majesty.
Two layers up, a rocket soars
In lift-off of space visions,
overkill, afterburner, doomsday tape,
Escalation, go-reflex for megadeath. . .
I drew the hippie god. I drew the rocket.
I am the carver of pornographic signs
Celebrating the death of God.
Something is growing in me, root
cracking through the city's walled-in poverty.
Driven out by doubt, I walk at night
Seeking to lose the sky in grey districts.
I stumble over discarded drunks
Before they're tossed into the wagon
For their evening log-pile to jail.
I put my hand on thighs of whores.
I fight off cripples on crutches
Blocking my way, demanding money,
I end up at this drifter's bar
Where eyes stare looking for a fix.
"The enormity of evil is crushing me."
Tolstoy said, "driving me to doubt everything."
But evil is still brilliant to me,
Floating in this haze like malignant diamonds.
When I learn to read everything in the graffiti,
My fingers will start their automatic writing,
Shoot through the roots of doubt in fire,
Write the great, sacrificial handwriting of blood
On walls to shine in new graffiti revelations.

Aesthetic Types: Flaccus

the Beautiful, the Characteristic, the Sublime, the Tragic, the Comic
the minor types: the graceful, the charming, the pretty, the picturesque, the idyllic, the pathetic