Month: May 2006

Premodernism: Reality is imposed from above, i.e. by the church, king, or feudal lord. Modernism: The attempt to realize a universal shared reality based on observable phenomena. Jean-Francois Lyotard described these utopic universalized stories as “metanarratives”. Postmodernism: Reality is individually constructed and structured. Metanarratives are replaced by individual narratives and/or by narratives specific to specific…

What’s the difference between knowledge and wisdom? They aren’t heterogeneous, and you can know lots of things and have no wisdom at all. Between knowledge and action there is an abyss, but that abyss shouldn’t prevent us from trying to know as much as possible before making a decision. Philosophy is the love of wisdom….

Japanese poetry forms have become very popular for writers of poems in the English language. Al Rocheleau, an expert on the technical and aesthetic aspects of good poetry has an excellent article about the use, misuse, and abuse of the haiku. Rocheleau has a terrific short essay on the history and use of the haiku…

An acrostic poem has a word, phrase or name spelled out vertically down one of the edges; usually the left edge. A double acrostic has one word down the left edge and another word down the right edge. A mesostic has a word or phrase down a central spine. The word is usually indicated by…

What do mesostic poems have to do with Fluxus? Fluxus is about “intermedia”. Intermedia is a term used to describe the spaces between media and the places where different media intersect. Mesostic poems were a favourite form of the composer, John Cage. Cage was a seminal early influence on the Fluxus movement. He saw his…

A mesostic poem is a form of inclusion poetry, or acrostic poem in which the "hidden" or included word, phrase, or name is seen vertically in a central spine instead of at the beginning or end (or both for a "double acrostic") of each line. The form was popularized (if such a thing is possible…

The artist, Walter Cianciusi, posted a number of Fluxus events of his devising to the Fluxlist Blog. His posting included the following copyright notice: These texts are copyright