Ornament, cont.

Whenever I hear yet another construction using the pattern “Whenever I hear _______, I reach for my _____________” I usually reach for my barfbag. But I keep thinking, “Whenever I hear the phrase ‘mere aestheticism’, I reach for my lipstick.”

Brenda Iijima writes:

I think that Alan likes ornament, very much in fact. And his poetry often ungulates like wavy lines caused by slight winds, and forceful winds too.

We were walking down Bergen Street and he commented to me that he liked the sign posted on the Sign Reader’s Shop. I said, “OH REALLY” because, for me, the sign was overly ornate and the snake headdress on the woman’s head swirled, all around the space of the blue sign–I believe it was gold on blue.

Now I walk by the sign and look at it with Alan eyes. Maybe there will be change.

and in a later e-mail:

I wanted to come up with a categorical statement about ornament and its usage but only realized this: the more ornament and ornamental feature is applied, the more I expect it to be of the most stunning, sensitive quality, so with ornament comes meticulousness and delicacy. Gesture and a certain primal crudeness can be rich, but somehow not, in ornamental overload. So was that said placard I saw with Alan. Still, there might be cases that blow way beyond my conception…I’ll look.

And my response:

Your comment about ornament seems right, but then I think about, I don’t know, the accidental ornament of a bazaar or a cluttered curio shop or even that place at the corner of Elizabeth and Grand that sells lamp parts — remember? Or the ornament of a tree (not an Xmas one but a real one) heavily laden with flowers or lichen or dewdrops or big fruits — to the point that it’s “too much” — like the outfit of the dancing courtesan in “Devdas” — and then I’m not sure. It’s true that the Arabesque forms of ornament tend to be meticulous and precise, but I think ornament can be offhand and rakish, even unintentional, too. And it’s not always “sensitive” — I think of the big Russian matrons at Brighton Beach with their puffed-out bleached hair and bubblegum-colored lipstick and nails — though they are stunning, and full of the wonder of the world. Not that I’d want them in my living room, but you know what I mean.

and again from Brenda:

Sure, you can post my comments about ornament. I guess I was differentiating between natural forms that could be then called ornament and consciously constructed instances of ornament. In my comments I was not including those found in nature. One stunning phenomenon, at least in the visual arts is that anything that is found in numbers, multiplied, –repeated, becomes, almost by default, visually beautiful or interesting. This too, I was not thinking of, when I wrote what I did to you as addendum. I revel in the contentious statement or the categorical or the deterministic, because instantly energies of the contrary swirl and the richness of what IS comes forward so easily. That’s how I find Alan’s book, SIGNAGE. The book is not about agreement or consensus. It is as if it is its own opposing force grounded in language. It is fodder for the continuation of ideas, that they cannot be housed in a single statement.