Ben Pease - video poezija: Chateau Wichman: Blockbuster in Verse

Ok, video-poezija. I na to smo čekali.

Ben Mirov

Chateau Wichman: Part 1 of ???

Chateau Wichman is a book-length poem focused on a would be-hero as ambitious as he is aimless. Luckily, a mysterious group known as the Sage Editors uses everything from Rilke to The Terminator to turn The Wichman into a mythological celebrity. The Wichman doesn’t mind the transition until he begins to notice how little of himself others see in him. Epic visions, rushed romance, harebrained escapes, and the most sublime chicken cordon bleu recipe—all within one epic saga: Chateau Wichman: Blockbuster in Verse.

(poet/video artist Ben Pease talks about the process of making this video poem):
It took a lot of messing around with several digital formats to be able to put together this video. For a while I used to just play around with collage in MS Paint. At first, I would simply over- and underlay a bunch of images, but then I started using a degraded image quality as part of the aesthetic.


This came to fruition when Paperbag allowed me to include the images I’d made as section divisions for Chateau Wichman.

I realized the images could be worked in with the poetry in a way that added to the entire experience. Just as no one in Chateau Wichman knows exactly who they are, it’s hard to say what kind of figures these dots are supposed to make up, but if you look or think about either for long enough, something definite comes to mind.
More recently, I’ve taken advantage of projectors and PA systems at readings and had a little video play before or during my time on stage. Inspired by my girlfriend Bianca Stone’s thought-provoking interplay of image and text in her poetry comics, I had a lot of fun putting the videos together (and recording the poems brought me back to my college radio days). Finally, I decided to try to combine the two disciplines together for the entire Wichman poem.
The problem with this idea was that I would need to convert every single frame of the movie to the black and white reduction. Listening to upbeat music, I could convert 100 frames in 15 minutes, but the first section (out of 27 sections) had 3,400 frames. This reminded me of people I used to play the now-defunct Star Wars Galaxies with who would use a third-party program to take control of mouse and keyboard functions because the crafting portions of the game were so repetitive or laborious. With this in mind, I figured out how to make my own macro (or as I prefer to call it, a robot) that would convert the images by itself once I had put them all in their own folder and told the robot what to do. The robot’s name is Dan Matrix, and I hope you enjoy our collaboration.



Ben Pease is a poet and visual artist with degrees from Emerson College and Columbia University. He hails from Ludlow, MA, the setting for his next book, Fugitives of Speech. He is an assistant professor at ASA College in New York C

  

WICHMAN COMETH by Ben Pease

Perfect-bound, 41 pages,
7 black-and-white images, 7 x 8 in.

Wichman Cometh promo by Bianca Stone
 

“You need not have grown up with Han Solo to get into Wichman Cometh. A weaker writer might have left the reader grasping or left them responsible for all the referential heavy lifting. Ben weaves these media milestones into the life posts of the Wichman, wandering through life on Earth and in space. The language instantly resonates with the fractured narrative through the prisms of his cultural sources [. . .] The bottom line is that Ben is doing with this project exactly what poetry can do best, that no other medium can approach, historically and contemporaneously.” —LEVI RUBECK, BOMBLOG
“Pease straddles more than fantasy and realism. He braids the ancient and modern, the genre blockbuster and metaphysical contemplation, and art and prose and enjambed verse. Make no mistake, however: this is not crossover stuff. Pease did not dilute his artistry down to vapid pop. His concept is rich and his imagery is groundbreaking, smart. All storytelling, to some degree, is the output of the undying myth engine. John Ford’s newspaperman runs that engine. Homer runs that engine. Twain oils that engine late into the night. As writers, we might borrow and revise archetypes from the myth engine, especially if we are working within genre. Pease’s Wichman cometh straight from the humming myth machine itself.” —DAWN MARIE KNOPF, THE FASTER TIMES

IV.

It was not unusual for many people’s tolerance of alcohol to reach a point where they could see but no longer read; regrettably, it was the opposite for The Wichman. He craved lucidity though it was beyond him: he wished not just to master but to have such a complete domain over it he would seem its creator, its copyright holder: The Wichman would sue your ass if you even considered having a lucid thought of your own. Unfortunately, The Wichman was all talk, all ancient sound abstract on black interior monologue, yet an unharnessed joie de vivre dwelled within. The Wichman lined his desk with dollhouse-sized busts of Apollo he found in the trash. The Wichman could not bear anyone, even if made of stone in one-quarter scale, gazing out at him the same way the bluebirds and cardinals on his windowsill eyed him as if he were a moving concoction of suet and sun-flower seed. The Wichman nonetheless with a sense he was on the verge of becoming his own little person, desired to flex his guns or be wronged in some way to justify a more errant manner of behaving.

 

 

the trees took off
their clothes
                      rushed
their fingers toward
The Wichman

it's all mustard to me
he grinned
          playing underdog
with a swing full of gooseberries

                       the dog walk
became a run

               the playground a field
of impalpable statuary

the merry-go-round
took a turn
for the morose

and The Wichman
                        made a face
that many would attempt
to carve likenesses of

into the hundred
                            inedible
autumn gourds
appearing on shelves
                           as abruptly
as the season changed
               and skimpy female
referee costumes
invaded our lives

The Wichman
disinterested by the human
desire to know
                           infrequently
had his nose
                      in books
     though much did he have
                   his pen
hello
            I love you
                         won't you
tell me your name
                             address
date of birth
              and social security
                       number
the frieze
of girls holding
               grapefruits
over their breasts

the scattering bluebirds
        a contiguous wreck
of nerves

look up vehicular
                      manslaughter
in the Dictionary
                         you'll see
           a self-portrait
of The Wichman most satisfied
      that the sculptor
                 refused to distinguish
        where the grapefruit
             began where the breast
ceased
            The Wichman
milk bottle bowling
           the surrendered leaves
twice stilled
     since the last gust of wind
                           had passed
the almshouse
                  the tree house
the doghouse
                  all pocked
with the branches' shade
                                              otherwise
the whole stand
     of oak    stone pine
and purple ash
                       resigned

the reeling earth
          allowed The Wichman
to stand upon her
                          stretch his arms
and crack another beer 

 The Wichman loafed. The Wichman moped. The Wichman lumbered about his bed like a plank of oak disregarded to the sea. The Wichman took his hands to his head in a spheral harmony, his body sang out thud thomp thud and his phone rattled the table where a record player bounced over Del Shannon's Hats off to Larry, The Wichman stumbling over a day-old tallboy sending rivulets of beer onto the rug and the last few drops into his mouth, The Wichman grabbed his phone to his dismay: I can cut your hair for you. No. No thought The Wichman who was of a species who didn't want just anyone adding to or taking away from his person unless by his command. The Belligerent Wichman, The Scrofulous Wichman flung his phone to a pile of laundry, opened the shades and let the sun detain him for a while.

 

 SINGLE WHITE WICHMAN LOOKING FOR A GROUP OF WOMEN TO MAKE A MAN OUT OF ME, SO AS TO BE REMEMBERED FOR THE AGES. CANDLELIGHT MAKES ME NAUSEOUS, MOONLIGHT I CAN BEAR.

 

the idea of The Wichman
              occupied the mind
of The Wichman

           frequently distracted
by the desire
     for more noble desires
The Wichman often
               found himself
yearning
               for a supreme self
in the position to say
               get off my phone
or come with me
        if you want to live

but The Wichman was realistic
     read aloud from his uncle's
certificate of inauguration
           to the Free Masons
Chief Wichman of the Tabernacle
              Prince Wichman of Mercy
    Grand Inspector
Inquisitor Commander Wichman

The Wichman held a
       "that was zen
       this is tao" postcard
addressed to him reading
         as per your ad
         give us something
         to work with
to which The Wichman
    sank into his loveseast
reached his hand
            into a bowl
         of popcorn
watched the new year
       come in alone
and wrote "all of life
             is simply
a redistribution of air"
  onto a note card
   he then stuffed
underneath
a seat cushion 

 It was not unusual for many people's tolerance of alcohol to reach a point where they could see but no longer read, unfortunately it was the opposite for The Wichman. He craved lucidity though it was beyond him, he wished not just to master but to have such a complete domain over it he would seem its creator, its copyright holder: The Wichman would sue your ass if you even considered having a lucid thought of your own. Unfortunately The Wichman was all talk, all interior monologue. He lined his desk with dollhouse-sized busts of Apollo he found in the trash. The Wichman could not bear anyone, even if made of stone in one-quarter scale, gazing out at him the same way the bluebirds and cardinals on his windowsill eyed him as if he were a moving concoction of suet and sun-flower seed. The Wichman nonetheless with a sense he was on the verge of becoming his own little person, desired to flex his guns or be wronged in some way to justify a more errant manner of behaving.

 

The Wichman awoke every day
                                                    shocked
his eyes still opened
                     that he had two of them

            that almost every part of him
came in pairs
                         except his mind
which seemed to have
            many different parts
going in all sorts
                      of directions

on the mantel of The Wichman's fireplace
sat a videotape
                   Bruce Lee's game of death
a post-it on the cover

a taste of what we can do

popping in the tape
it cut right
                  to the famous fight scene

Abdul-Jabbar: little fellow
you must have given up
the hope of living

Bruce Lee: I do not let the word death bother me
for all of life is simply a redistribution of air

next shot a figure cloaked
              in black

cloud-dark hair
falling from her hood

                          she spoke

Wichman Wichman dear Wichman
you may call us the sage editors
we have taken up your case
now please get out of the way

The Wichman complied

                                     the VCR
and television
                            exploded
       but The Wichman couldn't
                             get over the fact
   that these sage editors
used bits of stock footage
                of Bruce Lee from his pre-
Enter The Dragon films
                   to lengthen the scene
          easily recognizable
   due to the difference
                           in film quality

nearby The Wichman
                  heard pounding
at his door or across the hall

       someone reciting
a tale
           of Apollo
Delphinius appearing
                  to a Cretian ship
in dolphin form
saying I am god of sun
                                    & poetry
god of prophecy & light
                               conceived
on a floating isle
                         surrounded by swans
I worry dads so bad
                they turn their daughters
to trees
           bow down
bow
         down
The Wichman declared himself in the soup
       simmered and began
to put out the little
       remaining fires
      from the television
with his foot 

CLASSIFIED
EYES ONLY
ARCHITECTURE OF THE WICHMAN

The fabric of The Wichman requires
many stray but excellent scraps stitched
together so no seam can be discerned
even by the most subtle electioneers
and couturiers: The Wichman nourishes
by not forcing. By not dominating,
the moon leads. Therefore the moon
takes action by letting things take
their course. She cares about nothing
but The Wichman. Thus she can care
for all things. July, 20, 1969.

 

Stuck in a game
                      of hot potato
between rapture and dismay
The Wichman found
both hands
                  burned
heard a knocking
  definitely at his door
     felt his heart at once
expanding
      and shrinking
as when one squeezes
      a water balloon
too hard off-center
             was The Wichman's
great desire
           realizing itself
or was this all a cruel
    dream or joke
put on by these
       sage editors
    who only bothered him
with scraps of potential
       propaganda
kept mentioning how he
        possessed THE MANIFOLD
                                    MIND
which didn't interest The Wichman
           in the slightest
though it assured him
       the sage editors understood
The Wichman himself
                           was an inadequate
                      mythological figure

most recently The Wichman
           found a slip of paper magneted
to the fridge which he read aloud

memorize this

here men from the planet earth
first set foot upon the moon
we came in peace for all mankind
Neil A. Artmstrong
Astronaut
Michael Collins
Astronaut
Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
Astronaut
Richard Nixon
President
United States of America

but The Wichman wasn't thinking
    too hard about all this
       he happened to be
staring    at the front door
             he always failed
             to lock
its hinges the same
        as any other
today they glided open
     as if strung with pearls

a most high
       a most radiant
light          bore through it
   like a hole carved
               into the heart
of a mountain
       to illuminate
the dwarven king's grace

even though the hallway  
        was windowless
and without any kind
         of light rigging
The Wichman
                   would claim
til the day he died
      he could only
make out
           a silhouette
    of a woman

she irritated him
she repulsed him
she made rise
               the crest
of his right eyebrow

a woman
            a woman
  with a potato-juice
tan dressed in a (unforunately
for The Wichman's aversion
   to red) rosebud
        negligee with
   a gumball-machine
       gold necklace
  reading DAPHNE
     in foxtail cursive

The Wichman had seen this name
              freshly affixed
in red embossing tape
            on the buzzer downstairs

Daphne caressed her arms
        as if she were rolling up her sleeves
and said "why don't you come over
                          for a smoke"
The Wichman would never
                 decline an invitation
but stipulated "I will only
           go as far as the threshing floor"
he received a metal cigarette
       in his palm and thought "who
can behold these two hands
    of mine
               who can steady
this [manifold] mind?"