Entry 1: Antin “How Wide is the Frame?”
Initial Reactions: It feels like story time. I enjoy listening to him speak about the most, seemingly,random things. It feels like a lecture of some sort. But after listening I am left with near nothing. Turning to the transcribed text, it is easier to read this after having listened to him. The lack of any kind of punctuation or capitalization makes things a little difficult, but it also feels like a conversation. I get the overwhelming feeling that I am supposed to learn something very important from this.
Attempt at Understanding: What exactly is he trying to “frame?” I think that a part of the answer is understanding. Creating new ways of processing the world. The image created is one of a picture frame, his experiences (stories) are all frames that needed to be “resized” to help him understand the world around him. His stories in this…poem, musing, stream of consciousness… Are all about a frame of mind that he is unable to relate to either at all or until he changes his own way of thinking to be able to understand the actions of others. The woman who is haphazardly driving with no regard for other drivers;the museums with narrow definitions of what is appropriate/what is art; the father-in-law who does things to do them, not to finish in a succinct way, just to enjoy the doing. Antin’s position in these stories shows outright that he does not understand the behaviors being exhibited by others.
This story of the roulette table and the old man is a different hurdle. Up until this point I have been able to suspend belief enough to see the first three anecdotes as possible and understand at some level the kind of changes he had to create in his own mind to comprehend the actions that others have demonstrated. I suppose that the roulette table story is a way of showing how expanding one’s way of thinking can lead to some profound new knowledge. Dropping the glass and following the woman is an extension of the frame; the idea that “this isn’t probable but is slightly possible, so just go with it.” By expanding the mind’s way of thinking, the knowledge that “winning is also losing” is gained. An understanding that might never have been achieved in a narrower frame of mind.
I think I have posed more questions than I have found answers to. However, I hope you can find something of value within the jumble of my attempt at creating meaning!
Posing questions is good. At least David Antin would think so. You raise story, and of course one thing Antin seems to believe is that we might want to expand the notion of what counts as poetry. That usually when we say poetry we mean “lyric” — but there is an epic tradition in which story was important, there was didactic poetry meant to teach, etc.
Linzey,
I definitely understand the “story time” feeling. I just felt like he was talking and was left, like you said, with “near nothing”. The lack of punctuation, capitalization and the bizarre spacing just seemed like a huge run on sentence of rambling. I feel like my elementary and high school English teachers would be horrified by this lack of style and form.
I definitely struggled to take meaning away from this since I was distracted by the little flaws, and his talk annoyed me. However reading your interpretation helped me grasp the material. Looking at it as a “stream of consciousness” is a good way to look at this. We do not have punctuation or proper capitalization in our minds, we do not think of such things… we just think.
I think the world would be a better place if we all had a better understanding. There are times when I am driving on the road and someone will do something stupid and I will say “what the %^&*!!” I know I do things sometimes that make people say the same thing about me. So sometimes I pause a moment and think about what I was thinking about that made me drive like an idiot- rarely do I ever think about the other people and their causes for driving like an idiot. It’s really self- centered but I have no context for their actions or behaviors. How do I know if they suck at driving or if they were just having a bad day?
Thanks for the interpretation, it helped me understand! Which is funny because this stream of consciousness is about understanding…
Antin’s audio versus his transcribed, polished piece. This was both shocking and helpful, as well as eye-opening. I felt as though his argument for “talking” was strong, but I have mixed emotions about the editing because on the one hand, Antin can’t pause and rewind his speech and ask his audience to forget what they heard. The true nature of talking is beautiful in that way. While stream of consciousness is part of it, Antin is impressive in his ability to connect multiple vantage points and really streamline his performance in a very organic and visceral way. Thank you for taking the time to be so attentive to detail! I look forward to reviewing this later. -Amanda