Blase Faire

TWINS, Deviance as the New Norm
Is it Flarf's fault?

Probably the most unsettling movie I have ever viewed is Dead Ringers. A review at the Unruly Servant goes on at length regarding the morbidity of twin poets Matthew and what's his name (Micheal) Dickman or rather, The Dickman Twins. Truly a case of art mirroring life and vice versa, the epitome of such things ala Diane Arbus. One thing I always have regretted as a photographer, is never having the opportunity to photograph twins. Alas....but who'd want to after Diane? Really now. The movie is based on the very true story of twin gynecologists who were found in their New York apartment dead from a barbituate induced coma. That is where the likeness ends however and the movie....ah...let me remember all the movies that literally scared me to death: No Country For Old Men with it's cliff hanger ending..the devil on the road and ready to ride....Crowhaven Farm, a seventies thriller in which I, Meg Porter (starring Hope Lang) get crushed by some crazy brick-wielding fundamentalists dressed up as pilgrims and who could forget Blue Velvet, an eighties weirdo based on inhalants (in this case, Blue Velvet the song and the fabric) that morphed into the fascinating series known as Twin Peaks. Series such as The X Files and CSI owe their morbid fixation on the fanciful but real Chronic Americana Psychobot Personality Disorder Complex (defined by symptoms that range from depression to shooting sprees in Amish school houses) to David Lynch and Cronenberg, the Cohen Brothers and just a little bit to Diane. Absolutely. I must mention the awful awful scary spooky and extremely Arbus-esque movie The Shining. Alas, redrum. Good ole redrum. Thanks Kubrick. We miss you.

Somehow though...I get the feeling that this is all above the heads of the Dickmans.

Which leads me to the sardonic nature of Flarf. Is it or isn't it and how does one know the difference without placing value on poems themselves without really placing too much value on them...afterall..like Nada Gordon is quoted, "They're just poems people."

How much value is the right amount? Where does it end? What does this bode for the future? The hit pop alternative song United States of Whatever....well...that says it all.




The antidote to too much muchness? Of course, the Numa Numa and gentle riots of the young.