2 + 2 = 2010! : HNY!

 My contribution to kork Advent.

Today wraps up the month of kork Advent emails.  It was fun putting this together.  My thanks go out to all the fine participating artists and all the folks who subscribed and opened the emails each day.   Accompanying the work each artist created was a quote, thought, rant, or definition that each artist scrounged up or concocted themselves.  The text that accompanied my work for Jan 1 is an excerpt from the Forward of E.E. Cummings' book is 5.  Here's the entire text:

F O R E W A R D

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original

or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an intro-

duction to this book.

At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from

original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by

quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz.

"Would you hit a woman with a child?--No, I'd hit her with a brick."

Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision

which creates movement.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter

very little--somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions,

the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest

in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should

prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses.

It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring

electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara

Falls) that my "poems" are competing.

They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and with

El Greco.

Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless

advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the

merely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a

purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon

the title page of the present volume).

E.E. CUMMINGS

My buddy Rich originally cued me into this piece and it really resonated with me as very suitable summing up of much of my sentiments around what I do and my motivations for doing it.
Now I just have to figure out what to do for next year.
In the meantime, the next kork project (Jan-Feb) will feature Canadian based artist Anthony Easton who will be coming down to Poughkeepsie in mid January to produce a series of photographs around town which he will then install on the board.

Update, 1/2/10: I woke up this morning all leisurely like, began reading and then I suddenly gave myself start  thinking that I had a kork Advent email to send out. But that part of my life is over now...