Life in the Blog of Ghosts: [ home | index/sitemap | books | photos/places | movies |archives ]
rubBEing David-Baptiste Chirot in memeorandom

post
887

[17 June 2021> David-Baptiste Chirot dyed last week. we dont know much byond that, we onely know cuz we just happend to be checking in on Marco Giovenale's SlowForward blog. weave knone David-Baptise Chirot sints the urly days of Sleepingfish + he had a big impact on our one aesthetic as an artist, perticklerly his rubBEings. we always wantid to put together a book of his stuff, but he cd never get his shit to gether into a book objet wich is unfortunet cuz all we got to REMember hym by are dispirate URLs hear + they're on fluxus or mail art blogs, etc... he used to send us onvelopes full of scraps + rambling ½-coherent emails (wich in themselves are works of art)... @ 1 pt we had a road-trip to Milwaukee plannd cuz seams that was th only weigh weed ever get a book outta hym, but this fell thru for whatever reason. innyway, waht follows is a cullection of sum of his art we publiched in Sleepingfish or that we halve lying round on our harddrive, innerspursed w/ sum of our correospondance. the other thing abt DBC is that heed send his stuff a round not keeping track of what was publiched or posted elsewhere ± he'd post them on social media or his blog, which @ sum pt got hacked or corrupted w/ a virus, unless this was an art project of his (to simulate a viral hack)... u can still at least view the homepage of his old blog on the wayback machine). mayb David-Baptise Chirot still lives (after all, he told us once he'd bin declared clinically dead 3x) + has hacked our Life in the Blog of Ghosts as guestblogger hehe... + hear we was just wondring in our last post if any 1 has died + kept living on Inurnet... well mayb DBC has become 1 of anon I'm us, along w/ Gian + other folks who have bin frozen in time on Inurnet. peace brother, wherever u r, onwo/ards!]

[header of DBC's lost blog]

[1st blogpost of his (pooled from wayback mashene)]:

Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Haptic Visual Poetry of Rubbeings--in the cold--& snow--& wnd
Note: I willl try and write a note of varying length here each day.
Thatway one may chart the voyages thrugh te winter monthsof m work--
Today we had the first snows here in Milwaukee. Tmeperatures to drop near
zero--while i was out working i was inffomred it was 16 degrees. Winds have
blown for days signalling changes on the way--and today they
arrived--swirlng gusts of full flaked snow--drastics drop in the
temperatures--
Since I work by hand directly pressing paper to the material to be rubbed
wth one hand--and then holding lumber crayon in other hand--touch and
temperature play a large part in my daiily work outside. The cold wil be
soon affecting the ways i work--i will keep a log of thsee.
Through time the hands learn to see and the eyes learn to touch--i
examing mateirals as they arise for possible rubbing--things that may look
good to the eye do not work by hand and vice versa--one has to go back and
forth in using both hands and eyes to tel lif a given fence or telphone pole
or raised letterings on dumpsters may be of use. The same goes for any
surface in which there are cracks and knots and the swirled lines made by
circling knots--
One learns that what may look good to the eye when rubbed by touch is
nothing much at all--and one may feel by hand someting that seems to be of
great beauty--and then when rubbed by eye sight--it is nothing at all--just
a mess.
Rubbeings are a haptic form of work--touch plays such a role--that i
have of late done much work in the dark or near dark literally feeling my
way--since it gets dark earlier, I have grown used to working by dimmer and
dimmer lights, fading into darkness--this is a fascinating way to work--one
has to use the hands as eyes--and yet one also knows that what may feel good
to the touch is unpleasing to the eyes--so this working by touch--one begins
to learn just how deep an impresion or inccision in wood or other materials
made by--numerbsr and letters on telephone poles for example, burdened into
the wood--or raisesd letterings--and then from this to being able to read by
hand the heights of raised lines of wood--how high they may be before
making truly a good series/set of lines on the paper--slwosly but surely i
find thatiican btuch find what wil be pleasing to the eye--it takes time and
patience and much running of the hands over surfaces--that one cannot see.
I find this a purely haptic approach--and that my rubBEings do feel
to the touch differently in the almost invisble differences in the heights
of the crayon wax on top of the paper--or the areas in white where it is
incised--
One may read sublty by the touch the crayon wax on paper--and see with
the eyes--the shifts in heights and shades and weights of the hands and
crayon as it varies according to the raisings and lowerings of the
materials-
The making and touching/reading of rubBEings are a way to introuce
thehaptic element direclty into visual poetry--a visual poetry in which the
visual may be by touch--and the touch may be visual--- The haptic
element is important in what i work with daily--and is another means by
which to extend visual poetry from the word/paper into the world of
materials.
Concrete--materiality of the word--physicality of letters and
words on a page--these namres and phrases remain removed from the touch of
the world and are abstractions. In working with the haptic, one essays a
finding through the working of a ways in which all these mere phraseas may
truly be a part of the world and visual poetry a lived experience, one not
only on the page alone.

[David-Baptiste Chirot in action, from Sleepingfish 0.75, along w/ following images:]

[+ hear's a few more imgs from this series that seamed to halve disappeared from Inurnet
when we migrated Sleepingfish.net to Calamaripress.com:]

[unfortunately a lot of hour urly email correospondance is lost cuz we was using platforms dat became outdated or our computer crashed, but hear's sum emails from starting around 2004:]

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot [mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 7:08 PM
To:[xxx]
Subject: Thank you again & sending you work--

Dear Derek:
many thanks for your kind letter--i didn't realzie (duh)--that you do SLEEPING FISH!--john m bennett had sent the link at one point--i will send you work for it--via snail mail--i don't know how to and don''t have equipment here (cybercafe) to send anything visual via email--
do you have any specifications? (size/how many, etc etc--)
i like to work outdoors alot--so hopefully the world here in milwaukee wil hurry up a bit --and get warmer--
the books at calamari are terrific! will organize my finances and see abt ordering some--
i am glad you prefer the boston to the nyc little italy--
i have not been in boston since '89--way too long--
i like yr chocies of titles!
onwo/ards! & all best--david-baptiste

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot [mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 5:17 PM
To: [xxx]
Subject: would like to review b/c/a/d

Dear Derek:

You may already have too many requests to review your book--
i would like to review it for MORIA--
am doing some for them--
i went and read/saw at the sites and is magnificent--
work i am very close with--
and would love to review--
(by close i mean--affinites visual/verbal, ideas--emotions--)
is a familiar welcoming place to me--
thank you for your letter re sending contributions--will await your further notes in this regard--
all my best, a warm handshake in thought, to parapharse M. van Gogh--
david-baptiste

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 at 3:14 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: Many many thanks--books arrived!

Dear Derek--
for almost a week been meaning to write to you to say thank you so much--the books arrived--and have been able to begin them--with great exciement and interest--things have been such a combination of screwy and hectic--have been slowed in the eamil writing--
as i go along with make note of questions to ask you so we can exchange via email re the books, make a combined interview/review--
i see your address is W 57th!--my youngest son, Carson David--lives at w 30th--(he is 2 and a half, lives with his mother--)--
thank you again, wil be in touch better--things calming down--laws of physics!
onwo/ards! david-baptiste

[if inny 1 is in touch w/ David-Baptise's family it wd be intresting to know if he left any works behind (contact Calamari Archive if intrested in cullecting them into a book)]

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot [mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 1:24 PM
To: [xxx]
Subject: A qucik hello and thank you--so deeply--

Dear Derek
forgive me not replying to thank yo before--all week long for most part on the run back and forth to hospitals as my insurance changed--new blood tests x rays etc etc etc physical therapy and alol the erest-
i will write more later whe i get home and can catch my breath
i want to thank you with all my heart for all you are doing for the pieces and myself. your faith and encourgament move me prfoundly--it is such an event in life for this to be--i thank you so much
the site is just stunning! it is so wonderful you bring these new orlds of the mexican works to myself and so many tohers--i have never been there--my oldest son was for a while in chiaps and mexico city and told me alot abt the street art he saw--and i have a good friend, a writer and etc on latin american art, he is mexican--also told me much--but i have never eally seen such ones! itis a revelation.
thank you for your commnets i just found--to jesse, re the textures, you have it exaclty--the haptic element--you are one of the few truly profund ones of insight with these, itis such--you see al this time working away, you never really think tha any of this wil be seen--and then even when seen--only a very few brng such deep understandings, and itis amazing to me, because i myself begin to see and understand them in ways new to myself! this is --a friend wrote that for her the pieces did what gerard de nerval hasd written in AURELIA is impossible "like expectng the ground to explain itself"--and she found that these do that! this and your comments have been truly the greatest joys for myself and my "droll companions"--
i am so happy with the colorpieces being up! i hadnt realized very few people i think have seen them much at all--i now anm preparing to retrun to these also--as for the summer so far i focused so much on the rubBEings--as Jukka asked me to make some books for him one or two i got so carried away with working in series i cdnt stop!--also a freind sends me some good questions for working simple ones--so i continue to learn all the time
for example--i never knew before what haptic meant or had never heard the word--until this spring i think it was chris fritton maybe first wrote to me of this--
but also so many other things--i am writing an essay re haptic etc-but i th essay i say in part this is--for myself becasue i never realzied form the begining how litlee i evr asked any questions--usualy when i am intereted in things i get so exicted and start reading up and resarching asking questions etc--but with the rubBEings i never thught abt anything but themselves-i was so dumb i never looked up anyting abt rubings--i am sure al for the best! i stil know nothing really abt them-itis curious to be so uncurious yet, that is the od faith they have with themselves--their secrets so to speak--which at times i hears ome whispering of from them to be sure feeling my way along these things hidden in plain sight that come to one via touch--and of course so often in loneliness, well--to touch things--meant much--it culd be even pathetic, but on the other hand--ketpt one alive and working away no matter what
and that is the greatest blessing--and so is having yor deep insights and faith and all the work you do to bring these forth--i humbly thank you david-

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Thursday, August 19, 2004 at 8:24 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: re --do you need pieces for your project of images?

Dear Derek:
hoping this finds all well with you and al your enedeavors!
tomorrow night the editor of MORIA wil be here in Milwaukee for a joint reading with Hans/Ray Binachi who does Chicago Post Modern Calndar--so wil mee ti with Bil re pieces for MORIA--as i am working on the rviews of your wonderful books for them--
i wanted you to know i haven't forgotten!--
and also--would you like pieces sent to you for your sleepingfish withe urban images? i have huge batch of ones of grafitti in nyc and miami--aminly latino--and also lot of my work is al done in streets here--
can send you some to see if of any interst--rubBEings and painting si make with various paints and nail polish and stage blood--i make a print off of the things in street and then use it to print on to paper
many are also done with found objects impressed into clay and done--made into fiuges, heads etc--and many also just the objects direct
the ruBEings are doen direct on street and in buildings--
the phtos are amazing--is a huge binder of them i found thrown out on street--
i love the site!
thank you so much for doing this!
"what is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say literature"--henry miller--BLACK SPRING--this pharse has inspired me since i was 15--
a warm handshke in thought, always--and wil keep you posted with the rviews, too--
all my best david-baptiste

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot [mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 3:14 PM
To: [xxx]
Subject: FW: pdf of rubBEings/HELLO!

Dear Derek:

gosh--i am so sorry i missed your deadline for the fish ish!--about a month ago, no, less-all my mail files were wiped out--someone must have sent some ungodly hug attachement--as there is but limited psace opn these free hotmails--

how are you!--i am really thrilled the new issue is out--

i have been planning to send you a pile of things for your various projects--but held up as finsihed up three porjects--going up on web sites and also in print--and now more--plus the multiple worlds of daily life--

have been doing tons of work indoors and out--

this is the sort of galley proof of a book/zine coming out with mikeal and to give you some idea of the rubBEings peies i have for you--and then also a great many are made withspray and aumlitiude of other paints, stage bloods, nail polsihes, etc--using clay i imprint with found objects letterings etc on to mask like faces, totemic ones of inner/outer worlds--

of memory dream imagination & conrcerete fact

so--this is a preview of sorts of some of what i have for you

if you like i have two essays also i can send as attachements that are coming outi spoke with bil allegrezza dn the reviews of your books are thenext aomng my projects to do--

i am sorry for the long time it has taken--sinc ei live in transaitional living for recoverng addcit/alkies--we have lot to do for our program plus keeping up things where we live--and then al my scattered children and their mothers--on and on but work hard daily in al the inbetweens and walk and walk!--

a very warm congraytulations on a brilaint issue! and al my deespt best to you--

onwo/ards always!

david-baptiste

[... the emails become sporadic after this or we lost them or just can't find them... as we member he was in + out of rehab + ½-way houses + had health + computer issues (or we did). in March 2005 we both participated in a visual poetry show in Miami (documented in our Miami VizPo post) organized by Carlos M. Luis, who also now lives in the bush of ghosts.]

[from the Durban Segnini show in Miami]

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 at 7:36 AM
To: "<[xxx, xxx]>"
Subject: FW: pdf of rubBEings (entire book)

Dear Derek and Jukka-
it occured to me--i do not know if i have sent these to you before?
if not--here is the rubBEings book--feel free to print out! and who knows use for collaborations--or placemats for dinner parties!--or paper airplanes--
i keep finding more sites/sights/cites of rubBEings--continually!--
my daughter covay maria-nadine & her friend Britta (they are 17)--have asked me to take them out and show how the rubBEings are done and also the clay impressions--for spray or any kind of painting--it should be fun!--i am always hoping ever more poeple wil find these simple ways to make things anywhere anytime in the everyday world--
onwo/ards! david-bc
>This is a 5mb file saved in Acrobat 5 format, You can download it
>here. This turned out a little darker than I was expecting so Im
>gonna lighten it up a bit.
>
>http://cla.umn.edu/joglars/xe/xerolage/xerolage_32_lorez.pdf
>
>~mIEKAL
>

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Friday, June 17, 2005 at 9:24 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: Hello, a thanks and re sending more color pieces--

Dear Derek
a big HELLO to you!
and thank you for your letter re chris cassamassima & nyc--
i am not sure what he hopes to accomplish with all this public display--it must be the sense that there is an audience--after all, to leave poetry--make sure a thousand people know!--
itis strange isn't it, a form of psychomelodrama--
thank you for your letter to him--
i wrote you a ltter earlier but i fear it may not have gone through-
i wanted to ask you if there is a deadline for me to send you more color peices to check out for perhpas your gallery
i was all set to send more then discovered out of blue i am in a show--i keep writing--i need to know if should send them things?--no answer for weeks--they have things, but were sent by someone else--i had hoped to be able to have things i chose for this--but i have no idea what is going on--
so if you have need of these, i apologize for the delay--as i had written before that i would send them--i think i shoud just go ahead and send them to you--
is there still time for them to be considered? i do apologize for this bizarre delay--
i am happy always for your encouragment and interest in the pieces!
and that they are finding a home in sleeping fish!
(i am a pisces, so--well-fish--to be sure!)
letme know and i wil mail them right away--
thanking you always al my best--david

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot [mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 10:06 PM
To: [xxx]
Subject: some truly frightening photos--some more street art for you-

Dear Derek
Thank you again for the photos of the Mexcian street art and so looking fwd to the pieces form Mexico in upcoming sleepingfish!

My son (by his choice, as surrogate father--i have three others 30 20 3 and daughter 17)

My son Tony took these --thought you might get a kick out of them--Tony a good photo of at 25

mysefl with freind: 4 6 7 9 sitting 10 (a fave of Tony's) working away then 14 (another of his favorites) working then also 15 16 17 standing then 18 19 kneeling 20 21 22 standing 24 26 27 just standing not doing a thing--

i hope you enjoy thought of you right away as some shots of street art in action--

i am really looking fwd so much to sleepingfish print and web--!!!--working away on essay for Blackbox--re rubBEings--try to tfinish tonight and organize two books for Jukka K's press and then materials for his site and collabs and then also materials for a chapbook asked for though not absoluetly sure if this what he wants--and also for a journal some of them--i hope somehow before too many eons i get a scanner then cd just send things to you all the time--

somany newpieces i ilke so much i keep finding so many ways to do these things they find me and i find them--amazing how the world continually is opening!--Derek I Thank you always so deeply for all you do--your work your site your bring all these others --Mexicans and all-to others--all over the world--to see and learn from--is truly inspiring and exemplary--and exceptional--your insights--intuitons--i find so much always in what you write and how you edit and create yr site and i can't wait to see sleepingfish a print one! i never have before--abrazos--david-bc

[think this is 1 of aforementioned photos]

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, August 9, 2005 at 5:36 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: Hello and thank you & some news--

Dear Derek
Thank you so much for your astounding letter-! I apologize has taken me such eons to respond--everything seems so oddly in slo mo and at same time moving by so fast--the days go by--summer rushing away--
I am so --just blown away with your offer to do a collaboration book in the future! My god this is--beyond belief! I am so greatly honored--words seem so small and awkward to express how i feel--and will be thinking along all the time until the right time comes--however long this may be--the idea alone of its possibility a light to keep one going by!
It is funny you mentioned Petra--I have been corresponding daily with her since early may. As you can imgaine, it is a writing that evolves through time--in many ways--I here and there learn things of her life--just scenes or fragments--and of many other things--much of it began--i wrote to her as we were at miami and you linked us in your review and both from wisconsin--nothing much happened--i hadn't written with any other thing in mind than to say hello andhow both were linked slightly--and that was all--and i know she didnt expect either to have a correspondance-- and dont know how we really got going --but one thing was she wrote re the rubBEings that for her they had done waht Nerval said in AURELIA is impossible --"one might as well expect the ground to explain itself"--and that for her these did do that!--I was stunned by this as -- it seemed to be and express so beautifully beautifully so much what had hoped for yet never dreamed anyone might find or not--in that way--had almost forgotten of this--and wrote her equally i am stunned as AURELIA is one of my favoirte books since a teenager--and that of course first piece i have at miami show is named that--AURELIA--so a shock for her right back--fro shock of mine--from her----i think this is how we began--to very much connect but has been very very good--and of course a very very big challenge--as am sure you know--i think you have known her some time? and in person also--so must have an idea-, very much better /different than i-though she opns up much with many things--is very--moving and i respect so much---she --wel it has been very good for me to say the least such challenge and also we share many great loves with various french writers-esp -and has been bringing back to me so much i havent hhough tof in ages and ages, like lives i led in other worlds and times i had thought just over with to the point i forget them--they come back and reading in french again-al summer long--and friend sending me so many french books! and i find them around also---it has been truly momentous for me in many ways--i hope i tis for her also--i think that it is since she does write each day sometimes a few times day even--but it has been a most trul wonderful wonderful person to meet --i have the deepet highest regard and affection for her-and i deeply honored that she likes things i do-it has meant so much to write with here as is a person so different--it has given me in an odd way what i call a home in the world --as--wel i have been homeless in manyways so many years--and had lost sight i ver lived in other worlds--let alone other countries! as wel now i do live in another country--but --overseas so man years i lived there--france germany poland holland sweden--begins to come back to one--
you also are giving me a home in the world--i truly have felt ever more in exile since 1999--six long years!--so many in the wilderness-and then this year you and Petra--gvev me such--welcome and --bring such joy and teaching, that is what i hunger for continually , teaching--so you both have been teaching me so much--i get next to nothing from others--but from you two i get so much so continually--
when i was on my "graduation" from the 90 day place--"the world within the world" or what i named The Institute for Criminal Thinking--you have people make comments to you re what they think of yu and your changes etc --one man the one person i most respected by far----said to me--you are the most different person i have ever known--not the color different (almost everybody there Black--m daily living life since then pretty much always in that world--) he said different different--it must be very hard--but you handle so well--your one thing to change is not to have these heros you do--they block your way--when you give them al up wil be the day you beginto find your real freedom to be you--to be that different you-
i found that very increidible and wise and so--it has helped with finding finding--not to have the heros in the way--i understood what he meant--always was some one above me--and wd block the view-of course it is harder when they are not there!--but that has helped--and i thought of it again with Petra as she is the most different person i have met in long while--
i think of you also as different --so many of the people who think of themselves as far out etc --many on spidertangle for example!--are so similar!--and you are very different, ifeel at home with you--
--i hpe you understand me, what i mean is that because of this what you write and sayaand publish and all you do for my works and myself, you see it means a very very great deal to me because you are one of the very very few whose thoughts and work i have my deepest respect and care for--so what yuo say and offer --that means far far more than all the rest combined!--so you and Petra i feel really understand so much--much else who knows--but you two that means the world to me-
I am trying to finshs up collab books and also make chapbook and pieces for a newsletter that Drew Kunz does-(am not sure of the newsltter he did one issue thennothing since--)-Gong press--he asked for a chap--and i have gone through various versions and just wd like to have done and with this other also so can move on--mainly just continuing to be out working away as many hours as one can in mdist of all esle n life so many things-Drew co edited Traverse and publoished many things inc in latest issue and also pub the ZERO POEM book--he does it alone now until now as with stacy szymanczek (sp)--who ran woodland pattern here and just this month moved to nyc and wil be at the poetry project--
i wrote an essay for Bill Austin's site--and was done, went to fill in the deciation at front--to Petra and also my youngest son--Carson david-as ones who had most affected things/ways of thinking with things involved--and bang it was all gone--two weeks of work! so now i have to begin all over--
iti s called HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: tHE HAPTIC WORLDS OF RUBBEINGS--
i wil send to you as soon as done-
Derek i just am so astounded each day thinking of al you have done for the pieces and myself, yuor encourgament and support--this brings so much into each day to know--and then to go beyond any imaging and --truly--the way often in last years so hard and for an 18 month period--i was so dead--(i was dead, though moving dead inside i felt i was dead--extreme depression with sometimes psychotic depression now though been slowly fading--) but working away--so --they find their ways to you and you find them--it is like a miracle--
jim left wich and jukka kervinen out of blue decided to do blogpsot of things o fmine--they say downline qwil be interactive and etc--links--and i wd like to link to sleepingfish!--they let me choose links iwd like and of course YOURS!--ifis okay by you--
davidbaptistechirot blogspot com
also among these ones they have u so far--is just a few realy in a way and --so man man much muchmore rubBEings--i sent five books to Jukka to choose to make from for his press--but--darn wd love to havethem back isnt it funny it wd be better if on the site for others to see--so be it-
but among them--there is one with rubBEd words to effect OPEN POLICE EMERGE KEY TO OPEN DOOR etc--the man in between two large Black men is me--this is when in the Institute for Criminal Thinking--this almost 4 years ago-(i stll see just a couple ofthose guys now many are dead or prison etc-)-wil be 4 years this Fall--also if i hadn't sent you one yet (would you like a copy if i havent sent to you?)--ZERO POEM complete--it is also recorded on the Fluxuations CD mIEKAL put out two years ago --it's easy to find on the web or i can send addres i have it here someplace usualy i just search--
if you dont have ZERO POEM i wil send to you with bunch of my little folded books and also the book called "tearerISm" singlepress printed up fifty copies i have to do distribution myself and been so lazy have never done this! so wd love for you to have one--itis mainly colalges--and lot of the texts i use fragments from the already fragmentary A TOMB FOR ANATOLE by Mallarme--a new updated revised edition of this translated intro by paul auster just came out this year--i have the earlier one he did--it is a haunting book to me many of phrases haunted me so much hence they appear in my book, but in ways i think wd amaze Mallarme--those lines haunt me al the time some of them--i have never been able yet to get very deep into Mallarme--i like this better of al his works!--obviously!-
let me know if you wd like ZERO POEM and i wil alsosend "tearerISm" and bunch of my little books--i have never done much with them--a few are at blogpsot--the ones four images to a page
there are no words i have as yet to say how much i feel thanks to you--and repect and friendhiip--i hope in some way inbetween the lines this wil be there for yu to see & hear and feel--always, david--
oh here is from leftwich this morning:
>you have condensed an entire philosophy
>into each of these pages. i know this is
>exactly the kind of poetry we need these
>days. i don't know if i can tell anyone why
>that is so. folks will have to find out on
>their own, by spending some time with the
>poems. maybe this blog can help with that
>part of the project.
>
>jim
>

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Thursday, August 25, 2005 at 10:01 AM
To: Derek White <white@sleepingfish.net>
Subject: Hello and re colbaorations fish

Dear Derek
God ! --Petra--that is amazing of her. She has been the
most amazing daily correspondant. I seem to be as immense a mystery to her
as she is to me. I have learned a great deal from her--about making things
and oddly about myself. The thing is, she asks very good questions> which
i love, share many same french poets and writers and send her ones copied
and she sends quotes. I lived so much of my life in Europe until mid
twenties it is hard for me at times to recal i was that person and this
brings it back to life. Thank god--as life last years has been one long
journey into the underwolrd the land of the dead. Now is the long owrk
coming back to the light and the living
Oh! we wil t hink of things to do! and i can send things to you
and when the mood strikes you do what you want with the. i wil just make a
p ckage and send along--and if they dont work out--or takes many years--that
is fine. They are just meant to be there for the right time and it is
udnerstood the right time ,may never come, or be al ong time. That is fine
When you said you wanted to do a book with me down the line
somewhere--i thought myeant one we made together/? Or my god ! --one of just
my things? I am stil stunned either way the oppurtunity to work with you is
staggering for me. What ever the case I have been working hard and i plan
to keep this up continually is my life i am seeing better is dail y life and
goes onintothe vening almost evry night out working into the dark.
I am moving in mid ocober to a bigger nice place when we find it,
with another guy does art. he is landscaper carpenter window worker etc.
When we move we are going to make sure a work room for our painting. There
won't be any curfews or rules etc and room inspections then and can do much
more. I was lucky --VERY lucky! i never got caught all winter spray
painting in my room! I took a huge chance. The gods of painting were
watching over me!
I am truly stunned though Derek to work with you because you are
one fo the very very few working that i now of that i love and respect the
work. I was looking at your books here again today. I learn more each time
i go through them. They are just continuously alive.
Lately i keep finding new areaas towork with and also
always more things hidden in palinn sight where i have worked for ages! So
is very exciting many times.
Thank you always so much for everything Derek--your support is
wonderful to know and feel wheni am working and walking, to know these
peices are recoggized and liked and treated with such respect--well you can
imagine, iit makes a person feel much more human all the time! The way back
fromt he land of the dead is a very lng one but i keep workjing and light is
begining to come in--so wheni know the pieces --you can udndrstand trhm--the
languges voices movements words etc--this is a great event. S many years we
lvied alone, those peices and msyelf. And now--
with all my deepest thanks always--david

>From: "Derek White" <white@sleepingfish.net>
>To: "David-Baptiste Chirot" <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
>Subject: RE: Address for fish?
>Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:31:03 -0400
>
>Hey David
>Great, 7 + 1 fishes are on the way, 7 courtesy of the Petra. Yes, would
>love
>to collaborate with you on something, just not sure what, or where to
>begin.
>You could either send me rubBEings and I can see what they inspire me to
>do,
>or vice-versa. I'm been writing little animalistic/morphological snippets
>of
>prose lately, though really not having time to do much writing at all.
>We'll
>think of something, when it happens it happens, and we will know.
>hope you enjoy the fish,
>yours,
>Derek
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: David-Baptiste Chirot [mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 9:47 AM
>To: white@sleepingfish.net
>Subject: RE: Address for fish?
>
>
>
>Hi Derek:
> 740 N 29 #302 Milwaukee, wi 53208
>
>I've been working away on many new series with rubBEings expaniding areas
>where finding them and finding ever more things even now after al this time
>in the regular sites--
>is an ever opening voyage
>i thank you so much always derek--
>i'll put together package of these and send to you
>also am going to start more paontings, using rubBEings and collage with
>them, typewritten texts i did some last winter bt much muchmore to
>d--moving
>in mid next month to a place whhere i work much more inside
>i cant wait to see he fish!
>and thank you so much for the invitation to do a book with you!
>i wil keep working with tis alwyas in mind and heart
>always abrazos
>david
>
> >From: "Derek White" <white@sleepingfish.net>
> >To: <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
> >Subject: Address for fish?
>>

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Thursday, August 25, 2005 at 11:08 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: many thanks again for everything, and re --

Dear Derek
manythanks for everything
and words re petra
i thinksomeitmes we aech complicate something then it gets starightened out
and is better than either ne thoughtt
but i sometimes feel i am plaiiyg in a game where i dont know the rules
so i am always trying to be careful
--iit is a bit wierd to work with a constairnt
yet thatsi how it is
is a very ggod correspondance, wel worth it
but i ave to remeber ho w much i have to do!
always almy thanks
and how much you have to do!
david

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Thursday, August 25, 2005 at 10:50 AM
To: Derek White <white@sleepingfish.net>
Subject: all my best for moving!

Dear Derek
al of my very very best for your moving!
one reason i wasnt in nyc long ago with myson andher mother was themoeny . i
had nothing and she barel any and already herplace one thousand dollars. so
what to do?
alof my best though--god the moment you describe it, new york life comes
back so vividly to me!
always david
and yes we have to find good work place here too!
maybe i complicate things too much with petra or vice versa!
is getting pretty out and time to rol!

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Saturday, August 27, 2005 at 4:59 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: a hello--and re mr a.

Dear Derek
i am writing a letter to you & sending the essay re when i was in the 890
day place--"The Insitute for Criminal Thinking" I called it, nominally a
treatment place.
This alex pathetic person has a "suck ass mother fuck" thread
going on the wrytings list, and also they have had one re "masturbation"
even miekal and to my surprise chipped in. It is truly pathetic. The same
old crap--guys acting touch by swearing--gee whiz, how hip! Man am i
shocked! Can you say the word "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZah" (Boston accent)
So that is the kind of person saying he wants to hear something
important.
I think myself and some of the street artists and Mexicans in
sleepingfish cd take these guys in to an alley and teach them a few things.
Spray paint them into walking objects of shame and ridicule! Feed them soap
over a prolonged period to clean out their mouths etc.
Many other things, dont' get me started.
It is tiresome, though, these guys who want to act so touch,
with such high standards. It always amounts to just this--people who think
swearing is cool. So much for deep thought and standards and the rest.
I wil finish letter, it is just i make so many typos.
I rec'd a very beautiufl letter from Petra, written and
mialed few days ago when she was here in Milwaukee with family. (now
somehwere else to see parents.) I was suddenly struck --by something. I
had been so blind. Thank God i see it now.
I am scrambling to make that damn deadline for the
"typical/atyccial" show--and wondring why doing it, it wil arrive late and
they want ten bucks, too! For my typical one--a rubBEing and i may be
including on it, aong it, a painted head and saml collage face. Or maybe
just ppalin rubBEIng. I was working on them until yesterdy so many
interuptions.
Good ones, though!
(the Milwuakee that jesse claims does not exist, tooall
alive and well and in daily life, amazing things--)
my atypcial i thought at first computer piece but no
access--and wd be far too obvious.
instead i am doing a color by mumbers--is
oppisite--is purchased, not found,. is premade, with directions--not open
ended and working with chance. the colors limited etc--on top of page rows
of crayon with numbers. then the numbers on the picture to follow with yr
crayon
i cdn't find a damn thing anywhere to do--and finally in
used bookstore found one--
a Christian one! horrifically hiedous cartoon people but
one thing i can and began to do--
"God made the rivers, nountains, and trees"
so there we are!
i think makes for a pretty hilarious couple! a rubBEing and the Supreme
Being at work--with red trees and --oh god you shd see this picture! and i
am not the world's greatest person with a crayon let alone following
directions!
i wil finish letter--oh i wil just go ahead and send essay also--i am
embarassed by it now, very much and the tone is to soaring, way too much and
i wd and wil some day write much that is different and ture--and very
good--abt that place. i think of it so much these days, i leanred so much. i
was an other person when i cam out--sadly a person barged literally into my
life and messed me up but good for some time. but that wont happen again.
the essay came out in KARIAN 9 this spring--
i am moving in mid sept to east side after four years in
the ghettos--i work there everyday anway and is best part of town by
far--for many things--music books movies etc etc etc --and old places to moe
into and solid guy to move with.
i --know things wil keep on changining.
it's al about change--change in the universe
says basho. i learned that inside those walls--and now i relearn it-
onwo/ards always!
and this idiot! this little arrogand twit--things wil hit him in the head
soon enough!
--david-bc

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Saturday, August 27, 2005 at 5:05 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: FW: KAIRAN essay, "Necessity is the Motherfucker of Invention"

Derek--as i said this written a while ago seems a bit overodne to me now and
somehwat emebarrassing, but --
>Necessity is the Motherfucker of Invention
> When people plan to erect a large and lofty building,
> they make the foundations all the deeper. But those
> who lay the foundations are forced to descend into
> the depths. --Saint Augustine
> for Clemente PADIN and Luc FIERENS
> with warmest Thanks to Gianni Simone and Lee Thorn
> In KAIRAN 4, Gianni Simone generously published an
>essay of mine called "Refuse/Refuse". This piece grew out of my
>making Mail Art, Visual Poetry, poems and stories with materials
>found in the streets. This "refuse" (trash) I used as a sign of
>a stance to "refuse" (deny) the commercial aspects of the "art
>world". The use of refuse was also a means to indicate and
>establish a link between the streets I move among with those
>my fellow workers in the Eternal Network live and move among, and
> also the sites we share space in presenting works for the
>public: COMMUNITY/COMMUNICATION.
> Mail Art is GIVEN FREELY--and so are the materials found as
>refuse. To refuse the labeling and treatment of found materials
>as refuse is to refuse the classifications and hierarchies of the
>"art world", the work of "product" and "consumption" It is also,
>by being from the streets, a sign that one refuses as well the
>labeling and classifying of people whom society has deemed as
>"refuse": "street people", the poor, the homeless, all "those
>Others" at once so public and so invisible. As Mail Art is a
>sphere without boundaries, it is one without judgements on any
>one and their creations. Mail Art is, via refuse, a refuge--a
>site of guerilla activity that teaches that art is by and for and
>with the people.
> A favorite guiding line in my life since the age of sixteen
>when I was living in the streets of Paris has been a quote from
>Henry Miller, in the "14th Ward" section of his book BLACK
>SPRING: "What is not in the open streets is false, derived that
>is to say literature".
> Ironically, my published essay on the importance of streets
>arrived when I was barely allowed into the streets.
> "Refuse/Refuse" was also, via the concepts of thrown away,
>rejected trash, a refusal of Frank Jensen's ideas included in a
>discussion/debate in KAIRAN 2. Jensen had asserted that Mail Art
>must acquire "standards" that there is too much refuse clogging
>up Mail Art qua "Art", like so much flotsam and jetsam choking a
>dignified and important river. A river of commerce, "beauty" and
>"a critical point of view"--i.e. validated by "experts" and
>included in the vast mechanisms of institutions and bureaucracies
>of the Cultural Sphere.
> When "Refuse/Refuse" arrived in the mail, I was myself in an
>institution, halfway through a ninety day locked in program in
>the Genesis Behavioural Treatment Center. This is a large three
>storey brick structure housing roughly eighty men beginning from
>the age of 18. It was built in the 1940's as a Jewish Home for
>the Elderly. At a later point, it was transformed into Mercy, a
>Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program run by Catholic nuns. Later,
>it was purchased by the Genesis organization, which runs various
>facilities in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA area.
> I was placed in Genesis by the County of Milwaukee, deemed
>near death and incapable of taking care of myself in order to
>survive. I had had a catastrophic relapse of substance abuse and
>was taken into hospital clinically dead. After mediczl
>treatment, I was sent to Genesis, in a borderline area of nice
>homes mixed with drug houses. A block and a half away on North
>Avenue was a very large ultra-modern Police Command and Control
>Center filled with bureaucratic computers, files, documents and
>surveillance equipments.
> Most of the people in these rooms and halls of Genesis were
>part of the Department of Corrections. They are not really there
>for treatment per se--it is simply a step for them on their court
>ordered way either in or out of the Federal and State Prisons.
>It is for them just another way of "doing time".
> During the first thirty days, one is not allowed to go out
>unless to the courts or the hospital, accompanied always by an
>escort. The next sixty days--for those not allowed to go to work--
>one is allowed out on pass for six hours on Saturdays, based on
>behaviour and accomplishment of all assigned tasks. If one
>performs above standard, an extra six hours is allowed on
>Sundays. Family visits are only allowed on the weekends, within
>a four hour time frame, and only in the battered Chapel/Meeting
>room. On return, one is searched --no food is allowed other than
>hard candy and microwave popcorn. Sodas are allowed. Urine and
>breathalyzer tests are also given while all bags and outward
>clothing are subject to search. All visitors and their bags are
>likewise searched. Despite all this, as among humans the world
>over, there is still a lively black market, here in sodas,
>cigarettes, snacks of all sorts.
> During my first thirty days at Genesis I lived in a strange,
>troubled, shadowy world. I found the architecture in my somewhat
>hallucinated state to be Byzantine, garish, immense. I studied
>carefully the neo-pyschedica anti-drug posters, the religious and
>heroic paintings of Black Jesus and Black heroes and Saints.
>There were also a few door signs that I gazed at, attentive to
>their colors and letterings. In my dilapidated state, these
>signs, images and letterings reminded me dimly that somewhere,
>sometime I had myself made such things. Yet I could not piece
>any of this together--it all seemed so distant, so lost . . . I
>was on the other side of a barrier, through whose cracks at times
>I caught a brief glimpse of an other world. . . .
> Daily life was a long series of required groups, chores,
>meetings, harangues. In between, and in the evenings, it was a
>constant struggle for survival in a "world within the world" as
>was called this street/prison/addict/criminal environment. At
>first,being a newcomer and in such a dazed state, I was an easy
>target for the practise of various cruelties. I determined to
>show no fear or anger and with the help of a friend practised
>some forms of quietening within. These were much needed as I
>found myself well fueled by many of the same angers and
>injustices as my fellows. I was often on the point of exploding
>into violence. Slowly I gained respect for the calm handling of
>many incendiary incidents--and also for my activities with
>reading, writing, making art and daily hours of teaching and
>tutoring in literacy.
> In a real sense, the less there is to work with materially,
>the more weight is given to skill with words, oral, rapped, the
>dozens, preaching and written. And from this point, the desire
>to learn these skills becomes very powerful.
> This skill--literacy--was much needed as we had a lot of
>written assignments and and many (myself included) also received a
>great many documents via the courts and social services, Through
>this work I was able to contribute to our community in the "world
>within the world".
> At first my own reading, writing and making art pieces was
>taken as a sign of aberration and rather worthless. Who cared
>about any of this? Then after some time KAIRAN arrived and also
>issues of Lee Thorn's journal FUCK, with street works of mine
>that resembled in part the ones I was making inside the walls.
>That these arrived via the mail indicated to my peers and myself
>that Mail Art and Visual Poetry do indeed include all in the
>Global Eternal Network. The "World" and the "world within a
>world" are indeed linked via community/communication.
> If a Killer or Poetic Pimp (my nicknames) could bepart of
>this, then truly anybody could!
> Miraculously, I had with me a few books and a large old
>battered dictionary. With these I started a little library and
>shared the dictionary around. From teaching and tutoring,
>eventually I was sharing how to make Mail Art and Visual Poetry
>with the most limited tools and materials, I feel this is the
>attraction and power of Mail Art--it can be made anywhere, by
>anyone, in any circumstances and sent out to be shared among
>others, all over the world.
> That Mail Art has no boundaries, no classifications, no
>juries--this means a very great deal when one lives inside tight
>boundaries, is classified and often on the way to being before a
>jury. And in a real sense one already has been judged, to be here
>in the first place.
> Before the arrival of the journals however, I lived for
>quite some time in a much different state. A few Mail Art calls
>and catalogues had been ariving, forwarded from my old address,
>as from a different planet. I looked at them stupidly--I mean
>that I was stupified--it seemed beyond the pale that I might
>respond to these in any way, or that I had ever done so. That was
>all a lost world to me now, from which I had been hurtled by my
>own actions and their consequences. Still the indominitable--if
>dim--urge to make things began to take form and life within me. I
>realized if not in the streets anymore, I was still in the
>"street" world within our narrow corridors and samll rooms. I
>realized I must find whatever materials existed in our
>controlled and near barren environment and get back to work.
> Among the few haphazard effects I had with me on entering
>there were a stubby crayon and a plain 100 page 6 X 9 inch
>notebook. I tried to make some rubbings of raised letterings on
>door signs but to no avail--the crayon didn't work for these. I
>do not recall how, but somehow I was able to get hold of my old
>friend and tool-- a lumber crayon used by construction workers.
>With my notebook and a few other scraps of paper I set to work on
>what little I could find at first in the halls. On Fridays we on
>the first floor were allowed to go into the labyrinthine basement
>to do laundry, use the Medieval Torture Chamber weight room and a
>pool room with a table that sloped badly to one side. In this
>area, I found many more materials, some few of which I was able
>to take back to my room.
> Thus began a great opening up of the world to me. By
>working with so little, my eyes became more acutely aware of the
>small, the minute in particles and particulars. The ears grew
>more sensitive and conscious of sounds--the voices and language
>of my companions and the few sounds that drifted in through the
>windows. I heard a singing and saw a signing that emerged from
>wall cracks and dust motes floating in space and time. I became
>engaged, immersed, in the passage of light and its changing
>shadows on walls, or its movements through thick clouds of dust
>and cigarette smoke in the day room. Time began, by its very
>concentration, its regimentation, to fragment and open up.
> By learning to focus and be attentive, I found the world of
>forms and sounds ever expanding in their expressiveness. There
>were not only the few letterings available to me but fascinating
>networks of cracks and grains. There were also the few markings
>made on surfaces--some made by their having been roughly moved
>and gouged by chance, others incised in wood by past inmates.
>Where before I had found great energies and resources in the
>natural and urban scapes available to one who walks in freedom, I
> now found these in the landscapes of corridors and rooms, of
>floors and walls, table tops and chair backs, in the
>crenellations of shower stalls and battered tilings, The broken
>down Venetian blinds became the lines of musical scores, and
>their alternations of light and shadow a continual study.
> At some point, I began to feel within myself a freedom I had
>but barely glimpsed when free to roam the streets, when free to
>use far more materials. I worked by tearing and gluing my
>rubbings and rearranging them, or by making new arrangements
>while rubbing the letterings and forms as I worked on site. I
>became ever more involved with working with care and attention
>not to letterings as words, but as fragments, syllables, single
>letters and finding poems emerge from these.both visually and
>sonically.
> I found languages, songs, images where before I had
>experienced but an arid desert, a blank time, a constriction of
>movement.
> One day, a violent argument had broken out among some peers
>with whom I worked on reading and writing. The bone of
>contention was the most common word in the American language--
>what is it? Some said, "the", some said "a". Absorbed in making
>rubbings off of the broken, incised and scarred old organ in the
>barren Chapel room where we met for groups and with visitors, I
>was asked as the "poetic pimp" what this word might be. Focused
>on the work at hand, I said the most inevitably,continually
>heard word among us. "The most common word in American is
>'Motherfucker'".
> After a moment of stunned silence, a great sound of roaring
>joy broke out. "Yeah, straight up, Motherfucker!" There is a
>moment of paradoxical recognition when one realizes that in our
>usages of language, a potentially powerful word may be reduced to
>rubble by the battering of its abuse.
> When KAIRAN and other journals, including Lee Thorn's FUCK,
>began arriving, I was able to see what others in Mail Art and
>Visual Poetry were doing. This was a very profound experience, to
>find the ever ongoing community/communication of fellow workers
>in the Eternal Network. It reminded me that even in Genesis, one
>may be a part of this ongoing activity of seeing, hearing,
>making, sharing. Mail Art is one which knows no boundaries, no
>seperations between life and art.
> More than ever, the activity of Mail Art struck me as a
>profound and much needed one in this world of refuse on the one
>hand and the highly priced and prized on the other. We live in
>just such a world, with an ever more brutal divide of what is for
>the rich and what is for the poor.
> I realized that by practising and receiving Mail Art even in
>the conditions of being institutionalized by the State and placed
>at the bottom of hierarchies, I was able to find freedom in
>refuse/refusal. That refusal was a choice to find even in the
>times when at first I had been denied to make the rubbings and
>ridiculed for it, that even with the most minimum efforts
>allowed, one stil participated in community/communication.
>Begining from the most minimal point, I found an ever growing
>abundance of materials and freedom in working with them.
> The circling back and forth of Mail Art in a humorously
>ironic way also radically changed the view the officials and
>counselors and my peers took of my acitivities. Seeing works of
>mine and others arrive in KAIRAN and other journals and
>catalogues,the work was suddenly validated. It took these signs
>from around the world to make concrete the functions of the daily
>activity.
> Ironically, via recongition by others, one finds the esteem
>of one's peers suddenly enhanced. By being a participant in the
>community/communication of the Mail Art Network, in a sense one
>becomes a new form of pariticpant in one's own community. The
>difference with Mail Art is that since one does and gives it
>freely, for free, for "nothing"--it opens up the idea that art is
>not bound by cash values alone. Being a Mail Artist in one's
>community opens for others new areas of freedom. The Mail Artist
>indicates that one does not need to be "special" or "better
>trained" or have works sold to be an "artitst. On the contrary
>the Mail Artist demonstrates by action that anyone may be a Mail
>Artist and participate in ever vaster spheres of
>community/communication.
> I think what really makes a difference with Mail Art is that
>money is not involved. The free exchange of art and written and
>sound works confronts one with the question: why do it? As
>usually the aim of a person is to make money from their work,
>their timeand effort. To suddenly be in the position to question
>all this--one finds that one does it in a sense as a graffito on
>a wall--"hello to you from me. I was here. I AM here, in this
>marking. I am with YOU at this moment."
> It is to give and share of one's presence as a present, a
>gift freely given.
> One can liken it to a postcard sent with a photo of where
>one is, saying on the back: "Having a great time--thinking of
>you" or "wishing you were here, too". Yet the image, the card,
>can be made by one's self rather than purchased.
>It is as simple as that.
> Eventually I was asked to give a demonstration to 24
>inmates. This consisted of presenting the minmal tools--lumber
>crayon and paper--and the immediate use of what could be found in
>the room to make rubbings of. By passing around calls,
>catalogues, KAIRAN and showing that these works made in this
>placecould be shared with others around the world, it made
>concrete the call and response activity of Mail Art on a daily
>local level.
> Something I would like to emphasize--and now was able to
>live daily and share--is that though "Eternal" Mail Art is not
>Transcendental. That is, I did not, even in moments of
>contemptlation, meditation, I did not transcend my circumstances,
>but made use of them, learned from them, was moved to share them.
> On the streets I had learned that "Necessity is the Mother
>of Invention". Now I knew that it was indeed the "Motherfucker
>of Invention".
> Again, by this making direct use of the immediate and freely
>sharing in Mail Art, the "art" is not privatized, not made
>privileged. One is not "aesthetisizing" experience, but making
>concrete use of it, as it is, on its own terms. The "art/life
>barrier" which troubles so many--does not exist. This to me is
>one of the great freedoms Mail Art opens to anyone.
> I am now seeking places to pass this on, in whatever
>locations and to whomever I can. For starters I will be giving a
>workshop at a Book Center in Milwaukee and am also doing with
>fellow workers Clemente Padin, Lisa Boots and David Dellafloria a
>project in each of our cities involving Mail Art election posters
>orginally organized by Gianni Simone. I plan to find anyway I can
>in my community to "show and tell" Mail Art in the community, and
>bring more people into the communicty/communication of the
>Eternal Network. This is a way to say Thank You to the community
>of Mail Artists around the world for all that was given to me
>in learning to live again from within "the world within in the
>world" and the world outside.
> Two Mail artists who have greatly inspired me as exemplars
>of community/communication are Clemente Padin and Luc Fierens.
>This brief essay is to thank them and to dedicate further efforts
> in Mail Art to them and their examples.
> The great American poet Emily Dickinson, a recluse, noted
>the freedom of her art and life in writing "to close theeyes is
>travel" and that books are boats which take us on voyages. She
>also wrote of her poetry as "my letter to the world which never
>answered me".
> Mail Art is one's letter to the world--and one which the
>world answers back. My experiences in "the world within the
>world" brought this home to me very vividly and deeply. Wherever
>and whomever we are, we are not alone.
> In the debates swirling around Mail Art in a time when some
>are advocating the use of "art world" standards, values, prices,
>sales, official recognitions, I say again--"refuse/refuse".
> Once the juried standards and all they entail are
>introduced, Mail Art will become another form of privatization.
>In order to be acceptable, conformity will displace freedom. When
>this occurs, it is the necessity of pleasing others that exists,
>and no longer the nececessity of invention with what is presneted
>on site, which extends beyond any boundaries of the acceptable.
> In Mail Art there are no such acceptable boundaries other
>than the few chosen limits of size, theme, due date/ongoing--
> And in using refuse to refuse any other limits, one is ever
>free to make use of each ones' found necessity, the motherfucker
>of invention!
> --david-baptiste chirot

[think we rejected the above essay but the following images we published in Sleepingfish 0.875 (in print, so B+W):]


-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 at 10:02 AM
To: "<[xxx]>"
Subject: consent form

dear derek
i was just in the hosptial for nine days so only just now found ther note
from Petra regarding singiigng a form for you
i will be glad to i hope it is not toooo late
i wish i had known before i went into hosptial
io am really really looking fed to the confrernce
i was not able to to oepn the picce yo sent re it i will see if Petra can
for me or resend it and iii will try again myself also as i am not sure
where it is in my files
pleaselet me know
i am sreally sorry for being so late but was in the old homstetad fopr those
nione days so am justy barely startgintt to get m breatha nmd see wha is
here
love to you and youors
david
and i am so trhilled and thasnkful you invited me!

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 8:00 AM
To: "<white@sleepingfish.net>"
Subject: hello & re chicago & some recent pieces--

dear Derek
Hello--i hope al is well with you and yours and all your preparations for
Chicago. I can't belive i have been so out of tou8ch--f0or gaes have been
meaning to send you bunch of more works to look at for sleepinfish after the
four pices you accped from one bacth--and to ask you about chicago. I was
in the hopsital a good chunk of January and then part of february not on
eami due to moving--but deeply apologize--the time has gone by so fast! I
have been meaning to send you things and then get in touch re Chicago for
weeks and the days just keep going by--I wanted to klnow if you would still
like to meet in Chicago? I will try to figure out a way to come down if so
as would love to meet you. I don't know if you know of any place o sleep on
a floor? I thought of coming to meet you and hear your reading and stay
possibly overnight and we cd go meet with miekal and next day and see/hear
his event--i have met before some of the others there--maybe I shd write to
them also? Ray Bainchi and Bill Allegrezza and light years ago Joe Amato
and Kass Fleischer. But the person I really want to meet is you.
I enclose some recent pices--i have a lot more i wil sned on to
you--some i made experimenting using xylol transfers of xerox images
combined with rubBEings--also--and now getting wamr enough to use clay again
outside will be doing clay impression spray paintings of letterings and
forms from around city--when my things were moved i was in hopsital, so
people moving them left behind just about al the letterings and objects i
had collected and used in the paintings of mine you have at your site and
have seen--so wil be startiung over--directly on site--but such is life!--la
lutta continua!!
Let me know what you think--I would love to meet with you---again I
deeply apologize the extreme latness of al this--
with all my very best friendship and thanks for all your enoucragement and
support always--
david--

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 5:51 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: Hi Derek!!

Dear Derek

Sorry to get back to you so late--I am going to give it one more try with
people in Chicago--I wrote ray Bianchi a long letter last week and have
never haerd from him--and will try Bill Allegrezza also--Petra, I can't
belive she did this--called all the hotels in the area for a place to stay
for me--but they were all full--so no place to stay--I had thought--and
still pray for last moment miracle--if a place to stay could come for one or
two nights for sure--as I would love more than anything to meet you--and
bring some work down with me--
I wrote to Petra that my god by the time one spent al the money for hotels
regitsration and transport she offered me--i couoldnt get over she wanted to
do this for me--that i might as well just to go nyc and see you there and go
all over the city with you!! I cd stay with old friends in nyc or with my
niece and her partner, they have a place of thiiers in brooklyn--i have a
four year old son in nyc also--but i dont know if such a good idea to try to
see him--right now or for a while--things being what they are with his
mother--that wd be the ideal dream to come to nyc!!
i am really sorry as my hopes have been really high and was so looking fwd
to meeting you and tlaking with you and having a good time and hanging out
with all and sundry--having cvonvesrations listening to conversattions
hearing/seeing the tlaks and readings--would sure be lot of fun!
but somehow or another we will get together--and i wil bring along work for
you--i have more i wil be sending to you via email--let me know if any of
the recent batch i sent of use--i know you took four from the one i sent
before and was so very happy you did--i have lot of new ideas to get to work
on now the weather is getting better--for while has been just rainy or else
super high winds--today very still and blue--and bit chillier--i have ideas
to try for some paintings--as last time i moved i was in the hsoptial and
others moved my things for me--so they left behind al my materials i use for
my patings as well as almost al my art works--so i lost al that--and no to
begin anew--wil have to make use of things outside in the envrironment
solely for some time while i build up my supply of found objects and
letterings agin, which takes time--for sure--
i am wishing you al the very very greatest of times in chicago and greatest
of meetings with everyone and best of readings!! and so sad i will miss you
esp after al the trouble Petra has gone to and myself also--trying to find
sme where to jujst stay on couch or floor--
but we shall meet!
yes!!!!!
onwo/ards!!
witha big embrace--your friend david-baptiste--give'em hell!!

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Friday, July 7, 2006 at 7:54 AM
To: Derek White <white@sleepingfish.net>
Subject: hello --!! good news for you-

Dear Derek:

Oh --i am so gla you wil go see that dada show and saw the other one!
I have been meaning to write you the last couple weeks--I met Steve Timms!
He was here for a reading--one of the best readers i have ever heard and
seen in my life! Just ncredible--barely got to speak with him but a few
minutes after a his family waiting for him to drive back right after--but
wonderful to exhange a few words and i had forgotten we had also both been
in a journal from here in Milwaukee DODO BIRD i had done cover for and
things inside also--very good journal comes out when the editor has the
cash--
Also two weeks ago the mother of myoldest son--well--my oldest son who
lives inThalialnd we have been writing abck and forth--he got married on
valentine's day and his wife expecting a baby in august --so i wil be
grandfather !!--my son's wife we met ten years ago they had just broekn
up--his girlfriend since very young--i said you will be married someday--so
sure enough--wrote his mother was coming to se her siter here in
milwaukee--so i wrote kathy, mother, long letter and on a friday she sent me
an email saying coming next day but to madison, siter had moved--and leaving
mnday cd i cme on sunday morning or ealy afternoon meet for a littlebit--i
thought well Petra is there and had thought someday to vsit her here--so cd
have two vists in the day--and wrote Petra--i found out late saturday kathy
didnt come after lal--but went and spent great day with Petra--she had been
here in March to spend day wih me here--
i have decided to really start working on my blogspot again after
leaving it alone for ages and ages--and something i have started doing which
i have t announce in an entry is i strated putting up fotos from an albumi
found on the street of grafitti paintings--abt 88 of them--which meant to
write you of last week when first put them up--as i wanted to dedicate those
and some other things i wil be putting up to you becuase you put up street
fotos and are very attentive with street art and artits--so will be writing
an entry and putting the addresses for you in it--
i have been sloed down on it this week due to the holdiays and lot of work i
have had to do for varius projects of my own plus for some other people plus
things we have to do here for the programi am in--aa meetings and house
things etc--also wehre i go to do my work and shopping is abt forty minutes
on bus each way--so i get back late at nihgt, just in tme for curfew--11
weekday and friday saturday 1 am--trying to get new work of my own done
outoors plus new writing done--and big project here in my room also have to
sort through and organize and clean out all these things of mine that had
been stored downstairs now in here--so ton of things and not enough of
time--somehow wil get things done if just keep going--
grace vajda and i write a lot and she wil be at the events for
sleepingish at end of month--i wish i cd be there!--it should be a great
time!--i havent got my homestaed money back yet so dont have moeny to do
anything right now--but wil be with you in spirit--
am hoping maybe if my son and his wife and child come back to visit at
some point back east--his mother and her family all live right near my
mother--all with in smal area--i wd go back there to visit and also go to
nyc as my niece lives there and old family friends and to meet you--and
havent been there since abt 1981 heard to belive as used to spend a lot of
time there--my youngest son who wil be five in september lives there but his
mother just sent back my latest leter o them "refused" so imagine if i tried
t visit god knows what she wd do--call the police?--or do something equally
screwy--everything ws fine untl last autumn out of the blue suddenly she
began refusing mail--no explanation--she's a bit tempermental shall we say
euphemistically--which has always worried me with our son but with him she
is terific--the on person in the world she seems to be really continaully
good with--everybody else she is moody and very strange with--i'd also like
to go visi old friends in boston and some in vermont--and go to quebec--one
of my brothers lives there--and i have never met my nephew who is there, oly
talked with him on the phone--well that's probably all a piipe dream!--but
wd for sure love to come to nyc
do you have an email for steve timms? he was in such a rush cdn't give
me one--i thought i' ask you or else the person who had him come here to
read or the guy who does the journal--the latter wd be better as guy who
organized the reading is a fomer friend i stil fnally can stalk with though
prefer not to get along fine when see him but for some time ddint see or
tlak with him after he pulled some pretty low downthings--but he seems to
have morphed ino a kinlder gentler versio of his self and so---as wd love to
write to steve--i just have never heard anyone read quite like that, simply
blew me away! his writing is very beautiful and original--i love how
inventive he is--and what a great ear he has for sounds!--
Petra has been my best freind and to me really i feel a teacher
though i know that is puzzling to her, i always learn so much from her--and
i dont have any friends who have lived in two worlds--sice i lived alot of
my life unil abt age 28 overseas--i havent had anyone else who also lived
alot abroad and who has read man of same authors and also has such an
original mind and way of working--we are always sharing books back and forth
and reading things together--and i've been making tpes for her of american
music i love--rurl blues and older country music--electrc blus jazz
etc--vcalists like billie holiday and nina simone--i wish i stil had my
records and tape--abt tw thousand or so!--but--at least what little i have
now pretty good--and copied lot from a freind's things, too--
i really have deeply appreciated everything i keep learning from Petra--and
it's gotten me back to doing more reading thani have done in well about ten
years which is really good--making my brian start working again! whatever
left of it!--
i enclose a piece i wrote--it needs two sentences changed--will be
coming out in a japanese magazine--there was ton more i cd write but they
had strict space limitations which in a way very good or cdhave gotten oo
lost!--the theme was "at home/not at home"--to do with anything along those
lines--from people all over the world that they invited specifically--
i strated working on prose poems again and some new poems and also have
some book reviews to do--
statng the blo--dod i do not like that word!--i think wil help me with
writing and trynig to get thought s clear--though takes so much tie to do it
somedys--also this new journals otholiths--their next issue they wil have
one of my pieceson the cover and then i think is eight inside--and want to
run that long thing gef huth wrote abt me i had taken down as he put i up
without telling me he had promised me he wd show me first because he knew i
wd object to some things because he said when laking with me these wer off
the ecord--he left out the things we talked abt visual poerty an poetry--wel
so much of it as what call in bad faith--anyway he put itup before i new
abt it--i foundout days after it was up--when i went to send him answers to
some things he had sent--well toolate--althese people said they loved it and
what a great job he had done--i thought it was very shitty thing to do as he
lied to me and there is a little note to me in french at end of it saying
soorry david blah blah blah--well now that nightmare al over gin--so i have
to see if i can get away with chaning someof it--bu i asked the edito if --i
have aksed this fiv or six times now and he never say anything--if i cd also
have included with my things a statement of mywon regarding mywork--i
realize one doesnt havent any real say over what others make of one--but i
think also one does have say when one has been flat out lied to--the guy
sat there and just lied to me--and i knew he was lyng and said so--andhe'd
just grin--it was so bizarre--also he ws supposed to rerun a 25 pp ms of
mine and when he wlked n i knew right away he hadnt brought it with him--of
course he handt --now mstil trying to get it back--o well--he says a lot of
wonderful things abt me and al of that--but i think it makes him out to be
the star for being the great discoverer or something of this porr bumbling
down and outer--you know a failure o sorts--rather than seeing that to have
survived at al inthe first place being cliniclly dead three times in the
last six years--and wlaking about and making work and thinking and making
alife--and moving foward--thats quite an acoomplishment--no matter what has
happened i have kept on working--i dont think he understnd that as being
something actually t be happy about--instead he sees it all as sad--
i feel like for al the imprisoning facotrs in my life in many wys i also am
alot freer person than he is--so ironically of course he cant see that!
becuae of his own imprisonings!--he was shwong me books he had bought--for
gods sake some book abt twelve pp by rn silliman that cost thrty dollars and
another one fifteen--and he hd gotten bob cobbing since i rve abt bob nd
that was my mentor and dear firend--and opening it up he cdnt deal with
it--one poem heis looking at and says i dont understand why its a visual
poem there are no letters in it--i wondered doesnt he remeber they are
called VISUAL poems?
well sorry to rant and rave abt all that!--i think it all taught me a good
lesson--i didnt trust the guy at all but he kept saying you can turst
me--what a nightmare--anyway--i just thought it all so bizarre--he think i
am a great visual poet--but doesnt want to actually listen to much of what i
say or think--he was kndof shocked by things i had to say abt visual poetry
and poetry when i was looking at the books he had--and when i wd lak abt
working a lot of thingsi thought funny disturbed him--or thingsi think are
really importnt to him i realized he doesnt know what hehell i am tlking
bt--anyway--is bafflng to me--if he thinks i am so great--that he wdnt want
to undretsand me in my terms--instead i has to be on his terms only?--thats
very weird i thiink, dont you?--like trying to posses someone--when you take
them over, take over their work bynaming it and clamining it, and ignoring
the artist--except the prts you can name nd claim and understand inyour
terms--and yet going through so far of what i have been able to as is hard
fro me to somach--there are simple factaul errors in there --io hadnt caught
before--so he wasntlistening so close--more like projectng often--his own
made up persona--
it was very disapontin becuse i ha expected a interview o do with each
toehrs wok and discussions abt visualpoetry topics ans tehcniques and etc
shop tlak and such thngs like artists wd tlk abt insetad of l his ther junk
--
i apologize for going on so long abou it--it has just bugged me--
also it was a real inslut he took me ou to eat at a dunkin donuts i think it
was!--
i thought he wd call romserivce for gos sake!
and you cdnt smoke in there either--
and he kept getting onthe phone with people at least i got to get aay and go
tolounge bar area and smoke and watch the baseball game on big tv screen
--be in relaity land for awhile! wish i cd have gotten himto sit nthere and
talk--but i guess thats too non cntolled an enivornment!--
well i have just been chalkingit al up to lenring experience and something
to write abt in the future--it taught me alot abt looking though--because i
keep workin at looking al the time--nd i hadnt realzied how narow his is and
i think ho many visual poets in manyways when i begin thinking things hrough
i begn to wonder visully how open are their eyes--with the world---or is it
visual only interms of things interpretable nerms of the age, that is as
signs--do they wtach shdows move or stduy ants movements or sidewlak cracks
or obsevre rain runoffs or reflections n different typesof hubcap or a
million different hings in an instan to be aware of--i mean simply to be
trianing the eye--
but then i think geof and others of curse have an agend which is tocompile a
sort of bunch of categoies and make a tehroy a totalizing of visual poetry
so hey can neatly box it up--
but vision keeps leking out of the box, and running about all over the
place--
thank god!
cleaning mythings i have been looking at our books again as i just found
them--i would like to write reviews of them--i had wirtten you abt that long
ago--at that time i had hoped to do so for sme journal i know forget--and
forget what happend with that--th place i now was given some to do for is
eileentabios journl galatea resurrected--i will see if i can have reviews
done for this next issue--if not for the one right after--but hopefully for
this next one--she is going to publish some of my prose poems also--i am
working on more of these as in a in series--
i aplogize i got going on so much abt al this--just having to go through it
all over agin brings it back--i keep telling myself tojust lenr s much as i
can fromit all--and not to be s dumb gain--i shd have just wlked out i was
md enough to--but trying very hard to kep my temer under control--years of
having to do this just keeping poker face--when you feel basicaly like
pushng the person through the window--or quietlysuffocating them with a
pillow--
well i better for sure shut up and get back wo work!
again sorry got carried away with al this nonsense!
and say hello to the Baroness for me!
with al my rmest greetings and my deepst thanks always so much for all your
understanding and encourgament and support--onwo/ards always!
david

>From: "Derek White" <white@sleepingfish.net>
>Reply-To: spidertangle@yahoogroups.com
>To: <spidertangle@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [spidertangle] RE: NYTimes.com: Dada's Women, Ahead of Their Time
>Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 10:07:41 -0400
>
>Thanks for pointing me, DBC, will try to check it out. Fought the crowds
>last weekend to see DADA @ MOMA and it was well worth it I'd say.

>
>Derek White/Calamari Press
>
>www.Calamaripress.com <http://www.calamaripress.com/>
>
>www.Sleepingfish.net <http://www.sleepingfish.net/>
>
>www.5cense.com
>
>
>
>no trees were killed to bring you this message,
>
>but billions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
>
>
>
>
>
>2.
>
>
><http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_--;_ylg=1/SIG=11si31tlm/**http%3a/groups.yahoo.com/group/spi
>dertangle/message/5968> NYTimes.com: Dada's Women, Ahead of Their Time
>
>Posted by: "davidbchirot@hotmail.com"
><mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com?Subject=Re:%20NYTimes%2Ecom%3A%20Dada%27s%2
>0Women%2C%20Ahead%20of%20Their%20Time> davidbchirot@hotmail.com
><http://profiles.yahoo.com/davidzchirot> davidzchirot
>
>Thu Jul 6, 2006 9:02 am (PST)
>
>This page was sent to you by: <mailto:davidbchirot%40hotmail.com>
>davidbchirot@hotmail.com.
>
>just read an interesting book abt the Baroness- this article ends on a
>different take on ny dada-lot to think on-- the Baroness also to me a
>precursor of women in Punk like Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics--and
>many others who lived Punk rather than turning it into documents--live on
>in
>memory, urban legend, faded fanzines, friends' fotos--presences so vivid
>they cut through the red tape and crime scene tape of official histories
>hope some of you may see this show! onwo/ards ever!! david-bc
>
>ARTS / ART & DESIGN | July 6, 2006
>Art Review: Dada's Women, Ahead of Their Time
>By HOLLAND COTTER
>"Daughters of New York Dada," a small show at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art
>on
>the Upper East Side, adds a crucial chapter to the current Dada exhibition
>at the Museum of Modern Art.
>
><http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/arts/design/06dada.html?ex=1152849600&en=
>6d806a926e9015be&ei=5070&emc=eta1>

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Friday, July 7, 2006 at 5:54 PM
To: Derek White <white@sleepingfish.net>
Subject: an apology and a query

dear derek

i wanted to apologize to you about long letter earlier today--sorry i
started ranting and raving as i did--didn't mean to burden you with my
personal probelms and disquietudes--
later in the day i suddenly got very worried--id i send the letter to you?
i got worried what if i sent to spidetnalge by accident?
i am at a friend's film and video store--had dinner over here--after
spending afternoon doing recording of narration for a firend's shadow
play--once is all done and she is satisfied--wil be going on the road in a
tour on bikes of abt tthirty perofrmance and other artists steeing out from
providence rhode island though sveral towms scatterd abt outhern new
england--for abt two and a hal weeks starting august third--has been fun and
chanllening work to do--i like it a lot--have done before and acte in
various films and videos over the years but not in a while--nd this no
acting except by the voice--which has been nice to be doing--
i forgot--to mention my blgospot is daviudbaptistchirot.blogspot.com
you can see some ofthe grafitti fotos i have up so far that i have in album
i found in street--
i am putting up more tonight when i get back--hopefully will be doing
entries dialy or at least every two days--and encouraging people to send in
work and statements questions they 'd like discussed and minfestoes anything
they'd like and will put it up there--have to start annuncing that for every
day--
a ton of other things workin on also--
let me know if you recieved the long letter--i started getting really
paranoid i sent to spidertanlge--my friend making me even moe so--by teasing
me abt it--my mail from spidertanlge is so delayed--today at leat i am now
getting this mornming's mail now--
thanking you always with all my heart for all your enoucragement--and i do
so hope the letter came to yu as ood news in it for you!
onwo/ards ever!! david (just way way overtired of lat is why suddenly mixed
up abt letter an ranting and raving--just dont seem to sleep all that much
and not really eating much most of the tim i dont think anything wrong with
m--i hope not--just seems to be that way ost of the time--)

>From: "Derek White" <white@sleepingfish.net>
>Reply-To: spidertangle@yahoogroups.com
>To: <spidertangle@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [spidertangle] interview on loggernaut
>Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 10:09:18 -0400
>
>Oh, one other thing, an interview with me and Carlos up on
>www.loggernaut.org <http://www.loggernaut.org/> .
>
>
>no trees were killed to bring you this message,
>
>but billions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
Date: Monday, July 24, 2006 at 4:07 AM
To: Derek White <white@sleepingfish.net>
Subject: Hi Derek!Thanks for this and your wonderufl note other day----

Dear Derek--

oh gosh yes--m and ms--myduaghter used tocal them "color colors"--her way os
sayng the word colors --color colors --plural--
we used to have epxression inhgigh shcool froeating lotof acid or mescaline
tabs--"eating them like m and ms"--so am sure you are right abt yor friend!

too bad the sotry not very wel done, i wd like to know more abt what
inspired this guy to paint in firstplace,the drive that led to his
inventiveness n thinking up whatavailable tohim to work with --
and hw to make a bursh from thissmal amountof available things also--
"neciessity si the otherfucker fonvention"as essay of mine says--is so
true--

thank you so much for your letter--i was just going to respond--last days
have been swamped with work and also helpn friend with big project--recordng
m doing her narration from her script--i mean she is recording me doing
it--to go with a shdow show she is making--that goes on a bike tour in new
england--MA and RI--in august--abthtry artists andpefromers biking aournd
and dong shows in al these towns--day after day--i think a really great
dea--and lotof fun for al inovled for sure--
lord do iwsh cd be there for the reading! been in touch with grace and she
is very exicted--she has so much good enrgy and enthusiasm and interst--and
open mindedness--a very very godo spirit--somany negativepeople
around--always a joy to meet a peronsuch as Grace--very inspriing--
well--now you are off the so called poeis and spidertangle!
that much less negiativity in yr life!
god what is with thesepeople?
iwrote a piece to peotics abt it--maybe you saw--i think since reagan and
also with influenceof tv lat enight comics etc--al this cheap flip attitude
towards very awful things--peoplewho suppsoedly oppose bush sound like just
him--dumbed down, using the ost reduced language, dsplaying the most
ignorant attidues--and thinking theyare cool and hip!
liek sophmoronic attitues shd be held to for life--aslong as one rweads
"radical innovative poetry" one is absolved of anything else-
no humanity, no compassion, no love, no nothing--no emotion no soul o
heart--and--no poetry!
if there ever anything intersting up you alley i will be sure to fw to
you--i msotly --have no idea why am on poetics to telyou the turth--i know
there was a reson--at somepint--but foget--spidertangle has also gotten off
and on mean spirtied--what hepane t the days of olidarity agsint war among
poets?--
now insted of portesting war they protest each others forms of
protest!
which gives every one a great reason to do nothing--just as
our govt wd like it!
thank you again somuch Derek and i wil be there with you in
spsirit!
i put up some new things on blog yesterday--and hope somemore today--
a la prochaine
abrazos amigo!
david

>From: "Derek White" <white@sleepingfish.net>
>To: "'David-Baptiste Chirot'" <davidbchirot@hotmail.com>
>Subject: RE: NYTimes.com: Behind Bars, He Turns M&M's Into an Art Form
>Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:55:10 -0400
>
>Yah, I saw this, crazy, huh? I suppose if you were sitting around in
>confinement the mind does funny things. I used to know a guy that ate
>nothing but M&Ms, breakfast lunch and dinner with big mugs of coffee (and I
>suspect other illicit substances). Needless to say he collapsed at work one
>day with a brain aneurism. Those M&M's have some powerful colorings in
>them.
>Strange that the gallery that showed them was in mexico too.
>Have a good one,
>d
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: David-Baptiste Chirot [mailto:davidbchirot@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 2:11 PM
>To: white@sleepingfish.net
>Subject: FW: NYTimes.com: Behind Bars, He Turns M&M's Into an Art Form
>
>
>This made me think of my essay "necessity s the motherfucker of
>invention"--i have lot of respect for this guy for thinking through what he
>wants to do and how in ushc limited circumatsnces to d it--how to have a
>brush,. colors, paper--
>
>not a very good article, though--(semmes a bit condescending--)
>hope to find out mre abt ths artist--wondered what made him want to
>paint--the original drive that wd lead to his thinking how to go about it?
>etc
>abrazos amigos!
>david
>
> >From: davidbchirot@hotmail.com
> >Reply-To: davidbchirot@hotmail.com
> >To: davidbchirot@hotmail.com
> >Subject: NYTimes.com: Behind Bars, He Turns M&M's Into an Art Form
> >Date: 21 Jul 2006 08:30:12 -0700
> >
> >This page was sent to you by: davidbchirot@hotmail.com.
> >
> >a few years ago i wrote an essay for KAIRAN entitled "Necessity is the
> >Motherfucker of Invention"-- Donny Johnson's situation--solitary
> >confinement, no window--no art supplies--don't think of the bars but the
> >spaces in between--what can you have come in to make use of?--and what is
> >there that you see to paint?-- how to obtain colors in this environment,
> >how to make a brush?--how to see and imagine colors?-- There's a lot to
> >learn & think on with Donny Johnson-- (In the film QUILL the successive
> >series of ever more confined strategies the Marquis de Sade has to use to
> >write in prison is shown--ending with writing in his own excrement on the
> >walls. Very literary and Freudian and expected. M & Ms --something
> >unexpected! A bit like Art Brut artists in asylums who create works in
> >chewed bread. The best part in QUILL is when he is going to write Sade
> >slyly begins humming "Au clair de la lune"--as it has the line
>"pretes-moi
> >ma plume"--"bring me my quill"--used to sing this very o
> >
> >
> >NATIONAL | July 21, 2006
> >Behind Bars, He Turns M&M's Into an Art Form
> >By ADAM LIPTAK
> >Donny Johnson, who is in solitary confinement, leaches paints from M&M's
> >and uses blank postcards as canvases.
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/us/21artist.html?ex=1154145600&en=239f404
>fddf737ce&ei=5070&emc=eta1
> >
> >
> >

On 10/3/10 11:17 PM, "David Chirot" <david.chirot@gmail.com <http://david.chirot@gmail.com> > wrote:

Dear Derek:
I hope this finds all very well with you--here a cool plae blue skied first October weekend--
i sat down to write the etxt or the images--not knowinw what might happen--and began, with the ideaof a short text--
i had turned before "strarting' o checkout quckly a couple files of mine to find one that i had quote from Novalis i was thinking of using in--
yet, instead of the quote, undr the heading "title"--the name of the quote from Novailsas itis re what a titleis--i foun the very first two paragrpahsof some barely begun El Coloenl story (several have been pulished on line--and Jerome Rothenberg in hismostrecentletter to me indictaed an interst in even including perhaps sometime one or more of them in his "Outsider" anthology--
--i simply began writingout this story which whas suggested by something among the images--esp of course the one directly called "Conema of Catharsis"--and this combined with some haunting imagesfrom a book or among some books recently read re the JFK assasination as periodcialy i return to reading those and had gathered in last year or so sevral of them--in order to copy fotos frm themthat i have used in various collages--paintings--
so--though i cdnt find the exactquotes i anted from the damn scenes described in the peice here--i went ahead asonce istart writing oftencant stop--i dontknow where it come rom--so thisis waht energed
damn i never dreamed wd be so long!
as only meant to craet a text ofomse few interweaving/overlap[pig paragrpahs-but thisis what hapens the writing takesover and i just end up tkaing it down asitis hapening so vidily --takes over almost al of my awrareness

i realize is awfully long! and maynot be at al what you had in mind--
but am sending to you right away--
so yu cansee--and if itis to long --let me know and wil right away set about something much shorter, agai just inpsired by quickglance at the iamges-or maybe shd just focuson one alone-but let me know--asoncei am back inthe groove--the witing startscoming out al over thpalce and d quikly writeout somethingmore to submit
i have to wok tonight inthe office here--from six to eleven pm our time--but can work when done or first thing early morning as get up realy eandjust startworking before the day starts to blur my head with to much bullshit--

i wil go ver this agin tomake sure there arent stilremainng smitakes i didnt cath first time which is more than bound to have happened--

thelast few days feel that am exploding back outof thehellanddarkness have been in for so solong

this morning recived some amazing news--that my friend arynil mukherjee a very great poet--himself--an editor oneof themof KAURAB both print and online Bengali poetryand lit journal--for which i have both written and made covers--as wel as covers or someother Bengali poets' books--arynil wrote that and he and groupf Bengai poets have launched anew poetry movement which wi make its fistappeanrce inthe first issueof new journal "jacket2"--and they antme tobe doing the covers for most of their books etc as well as one for another benglai writer--who has book done now they had written me of before
i just amdoing cover forone bengalipoetry book comingout very soon--but thisis iomense news!
i am also am writing two book reviews for the Kaurab--they haeanenglishtranbslation site which is part of the journal--
arynil wrote an essay abt my art works inbengali not yet in englishwhich cuased huge stir there sotha is why the interst in and askingfor the art work for covers etc
i have done covers for also--sofar i think only once did i ge paid--but that part doesnt bother me as what i really like far more than paybesides one doesnt expect poets as poor as oneslef to pay for works anyway!--what realy matter is being able to participate-- is being able to contribute work to works by others who i have such imesne respect and friendship with/for
wel back to work here finishing up the anthology of visual poetry last few things and then back to work onwhatver projects yu want me to do--
to send yyou more visuals--i began workingonmore series inspired by and being made for you--your ideas of the pieces withtheoverlays of texts of kinds of writing which i love--
your interstplaying alrge part inwhat is briningme back to life
i annot thank you enoughDerek--
your recent letters to me have really been a greatevent a great awaekening back towork and life (which forme are thesame)--
with my deepest tahnks and rewspect
and al myfriendship
let me know also--we wil figureout which pieces to send you and how--for theones yu wnated to purhase
for now though-
here is this piece and as i say let me knowif shorter one much better for your purposes--iha no expectation at al this one wd emerge as it has
love
david

[some more of DBC's art we posted in Sleepingfish vol iX:]


DB Chirot
emerge

DB Chirot
text block/block of text

db chirot
tearISm

db type
Document de la commission: 'This will kill that.  The book will destroy the building.'

DB Chirot
. . . points to the spot where the acoustic and eyewitness place . . .

db chirot
mysticism of materials


Intently, the Eye Stutters

DB Chirot
Ballade des pendus:  Poeme Visuelle de Francois Villon


Alive, Thoreau's Journals


Cinema of Catharsis

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, August 13, 2010 at 5:42 PM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: hello & re submissions for you

Dear Derek:

Been going through lotsof materials here upublished to send you and also making new pieces to send specifically to you--
i was wondering--by your interest in the asemic cinematic pieces--you areincluding both pieces covered by text so to speak and asemic pieces?

as that's the criteria i've been using so i can get works to you as quickly as possible

i hope al going very well with you and yours and your summer has been bearablei mean you have good air where you live and work

hot as b'jezzus here as everywhere it seems--
fortuentaely my apt mate ani have a not to bad fucntioning smal a-c machine which makeslife far better than before we had it!

but abrtual summer in so many ways and is passing way way way too fast
nowi have my right arm al wrappedup as injured it bad tendinits an other arm had always aa wrapperon upper arm to keep my mdeicationin place, fentynal patch theyare 100 times stronger than morphine thisoneihave now is only half of what i was on before operation
as ihave to have in not to long off future a back opeartion
so life been hard in lotof ways but wel al one can do is get stronger and learnfrom it al findways to put it into art the energies i mean!
with al my firendship and respect--
david :

-----Original Message-----

From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 12:36 PM
To: Derek White <xxx>
Subject: Re: attachments/submissions 1

dear Deerk:

so many many thanks!
i was just replying to your second letter that i found yeterday when the computer suddenly anounced a probelm--before i cd get back on line a friend had arrived to give me alift to east side where i do so much of my work outdoors and walking etc--
(i cd barel;y walk most of the last fifteen months and now doing so with walker--i had hip replacemnt in april and walking on broken back waiting for my dr to hook up with dr for operation--so far due to insurance reasons two drs i was with are no loneger avialble so search continues--thisis the fourth time in my life i have broken back--acrroding to al the drs i have seen including some in 1993, 1995, 2001 to present i shd have been decdes a go and they have no idea how i walk let alone am alive--plus i was clincally dead from drug/alcohol blood levels beyond what a person can endure and live--so i have to remindmyself somehow i bounce back from the depression though in the last dcde i had prolong periods of despair the worst ebinng since april--i am not sure what helped it pass suddenly though stil hre noting like it was so i jumped right back into working hours last night outdoors until too cold and dark anymore--
your letter really i cannot thank you enough suddnly woke me up and shook me up reminded me who i am, which is bound up with the art work--and beyond all thisother stuff though --interlated atsome level--
but back on track--also i deeply apologize for as you note inthe past leting long time pass andnot sending things--my finacial sitution and others have screwed things up badly also in last year i lost everything as my payee didnt answe the govt vall for review for seven months! i manged on my own to get mys stauts reinstated--
but i deeply apologize causing yu problems with having been erratic something i am owrking on putting stop too for my own good and others'--
thank you for your enduring interst and faith!
yes i wil supply a text for you today--and also--wd you like a foto for the bio?
sorry ysesterday i replied so fast wasnt until finding yr secondnote yesterday realized i just sent you someof theimages already here--as was cut off due to an error on themachine-
thanks so much or theones you have chosen!
i have been having texts taken by Jerome Rothenberg for his ongoing online construction ofhis next anthology--"outsider" poetry so far his aim--and he keeps asking me for more--so have been workingon some book reviews essays and stories which can also go into that--i am continually amzed by his friendship and interst!--also onct 23 i am giving a reading /performance at the detroit museum of contemporary art--the poet/critic (for the nation etc) barry schwabsky runs a series there and set it up--never dreamed wd be involve in such a thing-they fly you there put you up at amazing place and pay tiny stipend--but the whole event amzes me--
as does yr inteest--i am trying to pull things togetehr to start actualy trying actively to sell my work and eventually see if icansend stories essays etc to places that pay--Petra has been after me to do this--and is high time i moved up a step but esp to sell works so i can travel again as i did in myearlierlife most of the time altenrated working with travel--i need to get out of where i live as has een way to long--transitional living for the recovering addict/runks--i work in office so that cuts down o rent so i can start saving--as formown sanity i really have to beoutof here and live at least on east side where i did for 1 years--when with m wife and my two "middle" children of the four--there i can just walk outdoor and is beaitufl and can go to work right away and is where i go al the time to work and the university si there where go to the films bookstores record stores etc where i hang out-
thelast decde i have lived almost entirely in the ghetto--with abt sevenof the years in this building spread over three stays--five years clean time now and have somehow in spiteof everything been able to slowly keep working away andnow the work sudeenly getting notice and smepeices sold without my eventrying, but just afew--to some people here--who cdnt pay much as working kids--due to the machinationsof a former friend who has told me directly to my face--made sure that i dont get a showor readings at woodlad aptternhere!--the famous poetry place considered oneof the best in usa--not that it matters much--in a way the cntinual deliberate ignroal by people this guy has turend agsintme--and who dont me--is pretty sillyas al it does is mean i am happier to be recived eslewhere--besides if i had to muh attention here anyway it wd be froem peope i dont respect and also it wd intefre with work i i againe
its kind of perfect in a way! al the eforts this guy told me has made to make sure i am rejected in a smal pond--
i attac some pieces made last night at site i havent worked at in some time that i always have great fondness for"the lion house" after two huge lions guarding the stairs ascdending to it--old antebllum manison reconstructed after fires in 19th century now houses a legal office--behindimnpressive fences, metal, high--that make it seem with those watchinglions oddly lik somethingoutof a henry james tale!
an aspect of my work is that of showing the disintgeration oflanguage through time by al kindof exterior/inteior foces--natural, human, etc--and though it seems to become "unreadbale" itis a the same time the emrgence of a new, uncanny writing--one that one immediately apprehends as writing, as we do of cave paintings nd petrolgphs,anceint scripts and heirgoplyphs--we see right away they are "writing" without knowing or being able to decipher the message--
the paradox being that due to theirendurance through time the writing reains while the message is lost
yet the immedicay of the sense of communicatio is ever thee--calling to one
so itis i find writing in everything everywhere-
oh! the antholgoy i cuyarted for openned.com
great british poetry iote wil be within the week--they askd me to choose ten visul poets puls myself it expanded to two more-
i am so happy you like these pieces! as most of theones you have chose made just n thelast couple weeks!--and many of themwith you in mind--the textual aspects--
wl i better shut upand get to work on a text to send you today
is there any lengthlimit?
will get to work right now on it and send you as soon as have it done--
with love and thanks always--
david

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 12:36 PM
To: Derek White <xxx>
Subject: Re: attachments/submissions 1

dear Deerk:

so many many thanks!
i was just replying to your second letter that i found yeterday when the computer suddenly anounced a probelm--before i cd get back on line a friend had arrived to give me alift to east side where i do so much of my work outdoors and walking etc--
(i cd barel;y walk most of the last fifteen months and now doing so with walker--i had hip replacemnt in april and walking on broken back waiting for my dr to hook up with dr for operation--so far due to insurance reasons two drs i was with are no loneger avialble so search continues--thisis the fourth time in my life i have broken back--acrroding to al the drs i have seen including some in 1993, 1995, 2001 to present i shd have been decdes a go and they have no idea how i walk let alone am alive--plus i was clincally dead from drug/alcohol blood levels beyond what a person can endure and live--so i have to remindmyself somehow i bounce back from the depression though in the last dcde i had prolong periods of despair the worst ebinng since april--i am not sure what helped it pass suddenly though stil hre noting like it was so i jumped right back into working hours last night outdoors until too cold and dark anymore--
your letter really i cannot thank you enough suddnly woke me up and shook me up reminded me who i am, which is bound up with the art work--and beyond all thisother stuff though --interlated atsome level--
but back on track--also i deeply apologize for as you note inthe past leting long time pass andnot sending things--my finacial sitution and others have screwed things up badly also in last year i lost everything as my payee didnt answe the govt vall for review for seven months! i manged on my own to get mys stauts reinstated--
but i deeply apologize causing yu problems with having been erratic something i am owrking on putting stop too for my own good and others'--
thank you for your enduring interst and faith!
yes i wil supply a text for you today--and also--wd you like a foto for the bio?
sorry ysesterday i replied so fast wasnt until finding yr secondnote yesterday realized i just sent you someof theimages already here--as was cut off due to an error on themachine-
thanks so much or theones you have chosen!
i have been having texts taken by Jerome Rothenberg for his ongoing online construction ofhis next anthology--"outsider" poetry so far his aim--and he keeps asking me for more--so have been workingon some book reviews essays and stories which can also go into that--i am continually amzed by his friendship and interst!--also onct 23 i am giving a reading /performance at the detroit museum of contemporary art--the poet/critic (for the nation etc) barry schwabsky runs a series there and set it up--never dreamed wd be involve in such a thing-they fly you there put you up at amazing place and pay tiny stipend--but the whole event amzes me--
as does yr inteest--i am trying to pull things togetehr to start actualy trying actively to sell my work and eventually see if icansend stories essays etc to places that pay--Petra has been after me to do this--and is high time i moved up a step but esp to sell works so i can travel again as i did in myearlierlife most of the time altenrated working with travel--i need to get out of where i live as has een way to long--transitional living for the recovering addict/runks--i work in office so that cuts down o rent so i can start saving--as formown sanity i really have to beoutof here and live at least on east side where i did for 1 years--when with m wife and my two "middle" children of the four--there i can just walk outdoor and is beaitufl and can go to work right away and is where i go al the time to work and the university si there where go to the films bookstores record stores etc where i hang out-
thelast decde i have lived almost entirely in the ghetto--with abt sevenof the years in this building spread over three stays--five years clean time now and have somehow in spiteof everything been able to slowly keep working away andnow the work sudeenly getting notice and smepeices sold without my eventrying, but just afew--to some people here--who cdnt pay much as working kids--due to the machinationsof a former friend who has told me directly to my face--made sure that i dont get a showor readings at woodlad aptternhere!--the famous poetry place considered oneof the best in usa--not that it matters much--in a way the cntinual deliberate ignroal by people this guy has turend agsintme--and who dont me--is pretty sillyas al it does is mean i am happier to be recived eslewhere--besides if i had to muh attention here anyway it wd be froem peope i dont respect and also it wd intefre with work i i againe
its kind of perfect in a way! al the eforts this guy told me has made to make sure i am rejected in a smal pond--
i attac some pieces made last night at site i havent worked at in some time that i always have great fondness for"the lion house" after two huge lions guarding the stairs ascdending to it--old antebllum manison reconstructed after fires in 19th century now houses a legal office--behindimnpressive fences, metal, high--that make it seem with those watchinglions oddly lik somethingoutof a henry james tale!
an aspect of my work is that of showing the disintgeration oflanguage through time by al kindof exterior/inteior foces--natural, human, etc--and though it seems to become "unreadbale" itis a the same time the emrgence of a new, uncanny writing--one that one immediately apprehends as writing, as we do of cave paintings nd petrolgphs,anceint scripts and heirgoplyphs--we see right away they are "writing" without knowing or being able to decipher the message--
the paradox being that due to theirendurance through time the writing reains while the message is lost
yet the immedicay of the sense of communicatio is ever thee--calling to one
so itis i find writing in everything everywhere-
oh! the antholgoy i cuyarted for openned.com
great british poetry iote wil be within the week--they askd me to choose ten visul poets puls myself it expanded to two more-
i am so happy you like these pieces! as most of theones you have chose made just n thelast couple weeks!--and many of themwith you in mind--the textual aspects--
wl i better shut upand get to work on a text to send you today
is there any lengthlimit?
will get to work right now on it and send you as soon as have it done--
with love and thanks always--
david

On 10/15/10 6:53 PM, "David Chirot" <david.chirot@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Derek
immediately on writing you i received devastating news
i feel my titles are too poor to do justice to your journal, yet will attempt to convey what i find/feel/live with as the simultaneous material & mystical lives, existences, beings of words
which in my present state i feel too crude/ly to convey the harsh lyricism and beauty of the visual-sonic-visceral ongoing flow of "change, the basis of art in the universe" (--basho)
for each image i have chosen in the most crude art brut manner a word/words which will thus express a simultaneous "literal" "figurative" "literary" "poetic" "concrete" sense of the images' "existence/expression"--
so here they are dear Derek
again i cannot express without tears how much your choosing these images has meant--in every way--
and to thank you will all my being for your support, interest and also your astounding interest in purchasing some works
this last year--now added to by this latest event--another death--the third immediate one to my being the last three weks--has been so brutal that your kindness each moment keeps me alive as artist and person--so difficult to write this--
thank you with all my being--in the room next to mine my new apt mate has been creating the most horrifying cruel deliberately petty death dealing poisonous atmosphere yet i ill not give up
derek i have to move somehow by some miracle from this prison i am in i will find a way and your inspiration support and profound support keeps me alive
the titles are
"emerge"
"text block/block of text"
"tearISm"
"Document de la commission: 'This will kill that. The book will destroy the building.'"
" . . . points to the spot where the acoustic and eyewitness plcae . . . "
"mysticism of materials"
"Cinema of Catharsis"
"Ballade des pendus: Poeme Visuelle de Francois Villon"
"Alive, Thoreau's Journals"
"Intently, the Eye Stutters"
(the one with eye looking through the hangars; sorry i may have gotten them out of order at last moment due to interruption from thispetty monster next door)

Derek:

i mean with all my heart my thanks to you
am abraccio
david
ps
anch'e um umbraccio a Marc0

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 10:28 PM, David Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com> wrote:
dear derek i undertstand perfectly and will add a few short titlse for you right away so you can go on line
no problem atll
the stroy it truns out wull be in two parts with more el clolnel background fopr jerome rothenbegrs outsuder potery anhtology he is incluindg essays and other wroks of mine in it
i am stunned to say the least
gte the titles to you today
love dvaid
ps i did some cllabe work wioth marco and wd like to moe and esp iwth you a long time dream to work wity you
yhank you so much for acceptiong these!
title today
love david
my love to marco
david

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Derek White <[xxx]> wrote:
Dear David,
Thanks, wow, this is great, thing is, yes it is very long, and distracts from the mystery of the art I think, and the projects keeps growing without bounds, which is great, but I’d like to just get a little something up on sleepingfish, if you are still up for it. I’m totally fine just sticking with the series of images that I already put together:
http://sleepingfish.net/iX/MMX_iX_XXX_DBChirot.htm

But would understand if these are becoming part of a larger project. Otherwise, Ii you please could just send me a short bio, or tell me if the one there is okay. And if you have a title for the sequence, or individual pieces, let me know? Perhaps we could put captions or a short sentence to identify or between each. I was planning on closing submissions soon and wrapping up this issue, so would like to just include something from you.

Had Marco Giovenale over for dinner last night, and your name came up. He’s a great guy, he’s gonna come over once a week and teach us Italian!

That is exciting about all your good news, and glad that you are inspired and your spirits up.

Yours,

Derek White

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 6:06 PM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: Hi Derek!

Dear Derek:

i hope this finds al very well with you, all your travels and that you are working on more great projectsof your own--iwas rereading the books of yours i have as they always rbring more with each new look/read--always find so much i didn't see/read before! i thank you always for making them--and sending them!--
as they are inspiring on s many levels--

have you been finding new andintersting street art wherever you go?--a young woman i hadnt seen in some time due to being so laid up--ii saw again finally yesterday where she works at utrecht art store on east side where i bought my very first lumber crayon over ten, twelve years ago now and made myfirst rubBEings right around the corner frm there (talk abt it in the video doc of me online--)

she told me she had been inItaly and inpsired by myrubBEings started making her own from things she had found in streets there--in an industrial area newly constrcuted, so lotof signs stil around--
she had made themononly paper she had--italian newspapers!--
we are gettig togetehr in the nextweek or so to share work--i am really looking fwd to seeing what she has made--

also while i was out yesterday got a cal from the manger here at ourbuilding--a young guy used to live here was in office and watnetd to tal with me--he wd like me to make some works--rubBEings specifically--for his new place--
he proposes having the done in sizes basically three by two--three by two that is letter sized pages--which wd be by far thebiggest pieces i wd ever have essayed--so am realy charged up by the chalenge--we'll be meeting after the Thanksgiving holiday--he wants to pay for them and i can show himwha i have done so far--what ideas coing up with working inthat new size--
wil se if can find any paper that large elsei thoght i cd cobble oghter whatever i can find that wd togetehr make up pieces that size and so work in sectios that wd piece togetehr--
also ran into another young poet here i know asked me to do coversand send visuls fornext issueof his journal which is a pretydecentone--he publihses young poets from our area along side some fairly bignationally knownn poets he has manged to receive work from--

also i may have written you--Bengali poet/editor i have worked with wrote they are founding a new Benagli poetry movment himself and a group of poets he has worked with over past several years--and wd like me to the covers for most of the books in their planned series--
so alot of new projects to lookfwd to as well as working with you in anyway you have inmind--and also finding which way wd work best for you to have e sned paitings to you--

al of these things have beenhelping turn aound the horrific depairi had fallen into, was approahing myold suicidal states agin after sevrayears fortunetaly free of them--had hit the worst bottom in years and it lasted almost al this year--i am not sure quite what begin to lift it--
part ofit i think the nighmarish rommate i had moved out--long story regarding that king of asshles!--he was followed by another fella who was here just three days--
came in onenight past curfew--actually he wentout deliberately past curfew--after tlaking with mefor a while--abt how hethrew hispohone at wall andbroke it and this way got ridof urge t drink

wel abt an hourlater hetakes off-and bit later i hear voices from nextroom--suddenly very very very loud violent noisesof sex--but voice with his sounding like a mans--dialed the manger to say myaptmategeorge has prostiute up in here-when he suddenly --george -busrt inthe door hlding toilet paper roll to his face shoutng motherfuckah stabbedme cal the fuckin police--
sure enough thewhore had stabbed him though notbadly superfical wound just bled lot--
whe the police arived--he had been robbed also--as thequestioning wnet on we peiced it togetehr he had gone to his bar a few blacosk away on 27th street--i used tolive on corner ofit--real sewer of a street--and he had gone there tofind a man dressed liek a woman--he descirbed "woan" as over sixone two hundred pounds wearing blonde wig tight pants and high boots whendanwedon everyone he was taking abt a dude-turned ou thtat was georg'es kick--dudes dressed as women--
so off he went!--running his id and looking at papers he had they fundout he had some other messes in madison so heis i prison now

thank God my new apt mateis nice young ugy i helped interview black man 28 years old he and grilfriend expecting second child within two eeks--a real person finally in here with me--
took me and stil istaking me a while to get over my roommateof two years, morelike familythan firend--of sven years--dying in frontof eyes inearly septmeber--
i sti findmself buying little thngsat store heliked for suprise traets and tlaking aloud to him whih actaully helps me dealwith him not being physically here though of ten sense his presence-
as an after presence muchlike an after image this always happens with me when frin or family come to visit and then leave for days even a few eeks after he keep sesning their presencein rooms and wil turn around to saysomething to them--
may be wil tkae longer with Craig--as ha ndboth believe in ghost and psirits etc
Craigh belived asi do manygostsnthis building--when things wd disappear around the apt he wd always say the gshosts had taken them--

the trip todetorit was incediblei shd write yo a seprate short letter abt it--saw themosincredible art brut along heiblbergstreet-- will look up the man'sname wh o does it he beganinthe sevnties and for thityyearsnow making art outof everything he can find as welas paitingso abandoned buildigs, on old doors and pieces of walls, wood slabs and boards--over an area tha covers a few miles now as so many people have movedout andleft most of the streets aund there as wel as man large open yeards--all empty--
the young woman who was incharge of myeventgaveme ride arund thre as wel as al over belle Isle huge parkdesinged byFrederick Law Olmsted who did the parkshre, in Boston and Central Park in MYC--

amaing place! i ha also themos powerful and moving conversationwithis young woman renee--tha ihave had with anyone on thoselevels quite some time--she was crying by the time we parked with emotion as was a beaitufl tlak we had shared aotot hings ab tour art work and art lives spiritualliuves etc

the whole time there so much hapend as you know traveling makes time open u and an hur can see like days anddays! i ahnd t gone anyhere in so long let alone flying in a plane that it alwas so suning so filed ti h thnks to think on that ihave only n thelastweek begun to aina ssense snap outof the deam and begin torecal i themost vivid detaieach oment each things seen and heard and felt--
the reading as great succes though audience as one wd expect esp on a weeknight whenlot ofother events werehapening around the ciy--was quite samll--but the people thee gotlot outof it and have rec'd someltters since then abtsomeof the things i read--showed also the doc on line and the synchronized visual/sound poem ZERO POEM--

sincei have been back--unil this week was trying to just get through life day at atime unti something burst through the dam and finaly am reviving and getting into goig out for first timeinages al week long films for a noridc film festival here and saw sevralof my closest friends-and startedfianly today to get to work onsomenew works--

just so gla now i can write youagain and actualy have some good news to convey!

looking so fwd t hearing from you --and how you are--how your trips have been--and plans for what to do re thepaintings and

thank you with al my being for inviting to participatei the sleepingfish!

the works i saw before i got off line al these weeks--the works i saw you wereputting up really extraoprdinary! and great to leanr about so many writers and artists new to e--

more soon and hope to have some scansof new work in nextdays to send you too to look at --if i make anything worth shaing that is!

with l myfriendship and respct
and always deepest thanks for your interestin and encourgement o my work--
the works thank you too!
as they are al beings also you know!
onwo/ards ever!
david
many apoliges to be so long out of touch--
was without email for nearly a month after i got back from doing reading in detroit at the musuem of contemporary art--
a friend who started installing new computer for me bequethed by a former resident actually last Christmas--
--instllation/transfers of work began in april--then stopped--until october/nov--finally all done--
the most incredible machine have ever had--now ijust have to learn how to use it!
also due to the transfer procss--now i have to figureout wherre tonsof my files, images etc went to--after april this had already been a problem while the tings wee stored in the old machine awaiting the installing of the new--but finallystarting to figureout whre things are, after from april to oct re scanning tonsof things--
this i hope somehwere has the book for it so can learn al the amazing things i supposedly now can do that have long dreamed of--
as i wd like to make discs of mysound poems-- thought if they comeout well and is enough to be a reasonale "album's worth"--i cd make little boxes for them that wd include zeroxes of the visual poetry scores and for each box make a seprate hand made original cover--maybe thatway to generate a little bit of cash to save up for the the dreaopf traveling again someday before i become totallydecrepit--either tha or start turinginto a nionic being--
as have stil to undergo back surgery for broekn back--so far the new hip is doing okay though the pain sometimes is worse than pre operation--
but that shd be going away after abt a year--

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 5:42 PM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: hello an hope all is well and we can get on with out prjects

Dear Derek:
Hoping this finds all ell with you and you are still on for our dealing with paintings as i sm ecstatically happy about it!
also working on new submissions to send you for the fish--
sorry to have been so out of touch i went through a season in hell which ended finally to the hospital i am one in tens of thousands who react wrong to a med i was given--i was hallucinating like crazy and planning to kill myself i managed to somehow hold out some sign go sanity and saw dr and therapist who helped me get in the hospital for a week s i feel like reborn!
i am really looking forward to continuing our project re the paintings and let me know if you are in the usa or not as that wd make t easier toed you batchs of them so see besides wht is online also new writings working on i feel like i m back from the land of the dead, the orpheus myth-
thinking of you an thanking you always for all your interest and support--oh i use facebook along dail when ok to keep putting up works to see-- my face book page also which is just my full name david batptiste chirot
much love to you and i hope all is going great with your new place and your own deeply inpsiring works-
je t'embrace fort--David

On 12/29/11 10:04 PM, "David Chirot" <david.chirot@gmail.com> wrote:

dearderek

please forvive the longdelay in responding--i was so blown away by your letter, the thought of meeting you!! that i thought i had repolied right away, only to realize that i was so excited abt it i had NOT answered!--
i foundthellter just as i finally got back on line just a couple weeksago--i was inthehospitalbasically thelast sixmonths--i finally had operationformy borken back--and abttendays latersuddenly became ill--i thought i was going to die--and one of the men in theambulance even told me "kid you aint gonna make itthrough the ngitht"--a remark which throoughly hsocked the other man in ambulance with us who really lit into him for sucha lack ofsesnsitivity --sothemanapologized--but inearlydid die twice--i had tohave over a quarterof my intestinesremoved--and the drs cdnt fiure out whati had--i was in thehopsitaltenweeks undergoing all kinds of tests once i was fianly out of theicu--finally they discccovered i had a new kind ofdeadly virus called VRE--iwas sentto antoher hopsitalfor antoher ten weeks while they kept trying out one attmpted cure after another--like spinning a roulettewheel icalledit--before theyfinallyfoundsomething that worked as anantidote--fromthereiwas senttoa nursinghomewhichhad a rehabprogram--i wasthere until just few daysbefore yrletter came--wheni moved back here, idiscovredmy oldcomputer was nolonger working--so had tobuy a new one--theni had probemswith that--andafter a few days took it inandgot it fixed--they did for free thankgod as had just boughtit--i ws abletobuy it as out of thebluemichealmannwho does unarmed journl had writtenthephillipwhalemmemorial grants --aidtopoets in need--and they wd givemehe thought a fewhundreddollars--instead theyawrded mefourthousanddollrs!! whichmeansihavethemoney tomove outof here!! as i cant stnd livin where i do anymore--my deamfor years hasbeentomoveback tomy beloved eastside--eventhough i was using a heavywalker fortwo years dueto mybrokenback--iwas stillgoingover therealmostevery dya--alongbusride--todo artworkwlakandgotobookstoresfilmsetc--as where ilivehas rownevermore sinister--itis inoneoftheworst parts otheghettoof thisside oftown--famous as "crackalley"--whenthenew policechieftook office he made it a top priority though this ws not THE most violentarea, toclean itup--this worked fora while but since theeconomic downturnit has becomemore andmore unsafe than ever--andbesides there isnowhere towalktodowork--nothing--ifeellikea prisoner here--
ialsoapplied forsubsidized housing on the eastside but that tkes a whileas oneis on a long waiting list andeventhenonedoesnt know if onewillbeaccepted or not--wheni ama bit more recovered will start anaptsearchand try tomovefinally to freedom!--
thenrusinghomeiwasin was , is, on theeastsidesoslowly as i gotbetter with wlaker i was walkingfurther andfurther every day--untilicd go onceagaintobeloved bookstore wherethey let you sitand read anddrink a coffe etcfrom oneofplacesnearby--
since i gotbackhere, i have been notallowed yet by drs to ride thebus--soamdependenton myfriendstotakeme eachweektomy payee's toget my weekly budget allowance, doshopping etc--fortunetly igo outalsoatnightor onfootabll afternoons to my freinds' places--oiamgettingout andabtviathem--but sofar noton my own--
ihadno ideahowwiped out i was untiliarrived here--imeantewholelastyear hit me allatonce!!
earlier inthe year i had suffered from extreme depression anddespairans hopsitlaizedforsuicidaletc forabta week--and was slwoly recoveringfromthatwhenii had first the backoperation,thennextthing i knewbackinthehopsitalforthe restof theyear--

iwonderedifyou are stillinterestediin buying/publishingany ofmy works?--
butmainly iamjust so overjoyed you maybecominghereandtofinallymeet you!!--icannotsay enough how muchthtwouldmeantofinallymeet you! you are oneofmyheroesin tevisualpoetry and publishing worlds--
iamjuststarting tofeelwellenoughtostartwritinganddoing artworkagain--lstyearidid have a tonof work appear andeditedan onlineantholoogy ofviualpoetryplus jeromerothenberghasbecomehuge fanofmy workandput up someonhisblog thatisgoing to be themakingsofhisnext anhtology--
soi reallyhavetogetback to worknowiamback herewithmymaterialsandnewcomputer--ialsogotanewco,mbinedscanner/printerasthe oldonesi had were pretyy much alldone in--altother itonly costmeabtfour hundreddollars--asi wanttokeepthegran money asmuch as possibletosave formoving--and forsometravel too--
alsosince i was inthehsoptialiwasntrecevingmy weeklychecksandthat accumulated sofianlly forthefirsttimein mylifei actually havesomemoneytoreallymovemy numberonedreamtorealize--andthenmaketrip--iwanttogo back eastthissummer to see myfamily--my mominvermont,mybrother inquebec city andmy oldestsonandihopehisduaghter--they visitonce a yearfromthilandwherethey live--in thesummertime--
itis so greattohearromyou ikeeptellingallmyfriends howexicted i amabtseeing you andtheni realiedamn it you idiot you hventeven writtenderek totell HIM!!!
it issoGOOD tohearfromyou! the last yearshave beenthehardest of mnmylife--physcially just non stoppainandthenbeing foralong timeonhighpoqeredpainkillers--just tomakeitthroughtheday--istillhaveto takesomeofthembut nothinglie thepast thankgodas they really begintomess with yrmindafter while evenifitis needed you getsick ofit--
iamjust nowbeginningtobreaktheiceand getbackintouchwithpeopleasthefirsttwoweeksbackherei havebeentryingto dosomethingi am unusued torest--take iteasy etc--soihavebeenreading alotthough going abitnuts frombeing cooped up inthisapt--
O Derek!!
thank yousomuch forwritingmewith thisincediblenews! nowi am back onlinewewilbeintouchandiwillwrite you andsendyou newsofprojectsandattachnewpeicesfor you tocheckout asimakethem--
iamsening you all myloveandalways allmydeepest thanksforall yourinterestinandsupportformyworkallthese years!
happy new new yeartoyou andyours!
andtruly thank yousomuch for this great news itmeansmore tomethanicansayinwords--ijustwantohugyouanddanceforjoy!
again,withall my love andthanksalways--
david

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 4:36 AM, Derek White <xxx> wrote:
Dear David
I’m so glad to hear you are okay. I was trying to email, I even went back on facebook to see if I could get in touch with you. How are you doing, would love to hear from you. I might come to the states in february or april, would like maybe even to visit & meet in person.
Un abbraccio,
derek

------ Forwarded Message
From: Derek White <xxx>
Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:14:54 +0100
To: David Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com <http://david.chirot@gmail.com> >
Conversation: hello an hope all is well and we can get on with out prjects
Subject: Re: hello an hope all is well and we can get on with out prjects

Hi David
How are you? Haven’t heard from you in a while. I went to nyc a few weeks ago, but it was too short notice to have you send some drawings, and I wasn’t sure what you had available?
Haven’t seen anything on your blog or anything, are you up to any new work?
Hope all is well with you.
Un abraccio

derek

[... around 2013 we tried to git en touch w/ hym to soilicit work for Sleepingfish 12 but emails to hym kept bouncing back + we lost touch w/ him til 2017 when we signed up for Twitter just to DM hym:]

-----Original Message-----
From: "DAVID CHIROT (via Twitter)" <notify@twitter.com>
Date: Friday, February 17, 2017 at 10:55 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: DAVID CHIROT (@dbChirot) has sent you a Direct Message on Twitter!

@dbChirot: derek I was thinking of you just before your message came I now have a smartphone free from the government property people I am so happy to hear from you I was just looking get some old sleeping fish journals and long can work with you so your message is right on the mark have you heard from Patrick I lost touch when I was in the hospital a long time just before the She Wrote he might move to the northwest also she was in fear of blindness I found her phone number the other day and then ...

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2017 at 11:27 AM
To: Derek White <[xxx]>
Subject: Hello and re collabs and--have wanted to for so long

dear DErek damn ssorry it has been so long to write you back--on line i keep finding places where in interviews you speak of doing a book with me
i have longed to do since you first brought it up many lifetimes ago--
i stiill have miraculously your books you sent me back then--
have survived so many catastrophes--so "a signh" for syure !!
i love those books was thinking maybe we could do something alike--using both writings and images--i think we could do something trulyy incrediblle together! as i finhd so often our minds share many points of interest vision and words--letters things seen found in street--
[p;lease let me know i am ready and rarin' to go
with longfelt fellowship--
onwo/ards ever-!
dbc

-----Original Message-----
From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, June 9, 2017 at 3:20 PM
To: Derek White <xxx>
Subject: Re: Hello and re collabs and--have wanted to for so long

Dear Derek--sounds wonderful
i'm all in!
was just looking again at one of your books you sent me ages ago
really inspiring me for thinking of working with you and writing to you today and here you are!!!

On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Derek White <xxx> wrote:
hey David,
just want to follow up on this.. you still interested? Maybe we can start with a series online in Sleepingfish?
hope all is well,
derek

From: David-Baptiste Chirot <david.chirot@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2017 at 2:52 PM
To: Derek White <xxx>
Subject: Re: Hello and re collabs and--have wanted to for so long

DEAR DEREK

FANTASTICABLOUS!!!!!!!
WOULD BE INCREDIBLE TO MEET AND WORK WITH YOU!!
"A LIVING DREAM"
AS BO DIDDLEY HAS IT--
MY HOME PHONE IS
414 249-5503
CELL PHONE IS
414 4OO-2519
I AM WORKING ON GETTING NEW MATTRESS (SINCE TWO YEARS NOW AS PEOPLE DRAGGING FEET OF CONCRETE SUPPOSEDLY HELPING ME ETC)
ANYWAY YOU CD SFAY WITH ME IF YOU LIKE
I HAVE TWO ROOMS PLUS KITCHEN AND BATH--ITS IN ONE OF THE OLD TOWERS--PROJECTS, BUILT IN 1965--
IN GREAT NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE I HAD LIVED 15 YEARS AGO DOING MY FIRST BOOK OF RUBbeINGS THAT Miekal And PUBLISHED--(HEY HEY REVERSED THE WAY HE SPELLS HIS NAME--)
WORKING AWAY--
AD DOING MASSIVE SORTING CLEANING AND ORGANIZING ALSO STARTING TO PUT TOGETHER MATERIALS I HAVE DONE OVER YEARS TOWARDS A BOOK--VISUAL SECTIONS WITH EL COLONEL SERIES OF STORIES AND ESSAYS ALL CENTERED ON A FEW MAIN ONGOING THEMES OF LAST 15 YEARS--LOOKING VERY MUCH FORWARD TO ANY THING YOU DECIDE ON--
HAVE TO PINCH MYSELF HIT MYSELF ON HEAD TO REALIZE YOU ARE GONNA BE HERE SMUGGLE ME BACK IN YR BAGS! TO BE BACK IN NYC AGAIN--SEE IF I CAN FIND MY YOUNGEST SON HE IS STILL THERE-HE IS 16 NOW--

-ONWO/ARDS DAVID BC

On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 3:16 PM, Derek White <xxx> wrote:
Hey David
I think i sent you an email on my laptop, but then it crashed… did you get it? I was wondering if you were going to be around later this month, what do you think if i came out to Wisconsin (or wherever you are these days) to see if we can get a book together?

[+ that is the last email we have from hym... we have numerous other files that we scanned in as we tried to collect them for the above-mentioned book, here's sum of them:]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

886 <(current)> 888> ½-red books for #888 in tribute to overflow river cultures + fixing dinner for 8 billion
[  (ɔ)om.posted 2021  anon I'm us  |  calamari archive   ]