Re: [microsound] Sci_Fi

["The pHarmanaut" <pharmanaut@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> After coming across others similarly _specifically_ into Dhalgren,
> without fail, they are all from the USA (and I am not).  Perhaps it taps
> into a particularly american cultural vein.  What do you folks think it
> is about Dhalgren that seems to cause it to be held up with such deep
> reverence?

Honestly, I think it's Delaney's alternative American vision/perspective,
its particularly American countercultural vein. Or, perhaps, the kind of
simultaneously cultural/countercultural border politics that can take shape,
for instance, in certain academic settings, such as the creative writing
scene Delaney was into at the time, along with his wife Marilyn Hacker,
hanging out with W.H. Auden and other literati in the East Village. The
second time I read this I was in the creative writing M.A. program of U of
Colorado, Boulder, and the party descriptions from _Dhalgren_ really hit
home to the scenes going on in our program, at readings and parties,
negotiating artist's attitudes and such.

A great book on the scene behind _Dhalgren_ is Delaney's _The Motion of
Light in Water_, a memoir of the East Village scene, 57-65.

> Babel 17 also great, as is "Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand" -
> possibly the most poetic book title ive ever come across.

Yeah, great title. Sounds like:
A) William Blake
B) Walt Whitman
C) Bob Dylan

cheers,
t

------------------------------