I guess what I’m driving at is that I’m interested in how books can work like buildings, where buildings are mute, dumb, raw assemblages of geometry and materiality under the auspices of cultural iconography, they don’t communicate, they don’t embody a causal understanding of truth, they aren’t–even when they attempt to be–representational, they simply “are.”
The birds in Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights are an influence. 0 to 9 is an influence. Birds, LLC is an influence. Fuck You is an influence. Getting kicked out of many bars and clubs in New York in the late 90s is an influence. [out of nothing] is an influence. Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters are an influence. The Brotherhood of Eternal Love is an influence. The joy on my children’s faces as they dance to a Flo Rida song is an influence. d.a. levy is an influence. “Not Knowing” is an influence. Being in a grindcore band when I was 14 is an influence. The video for “Genius of Love” is an influence. You are an influence, as are all of our beautiful friends.
This attraction/repulsion to beautiful language is near the heart of things: how that language seems magical, potential, and how it comes from and belongs to the things we want to be done with. Abolition is our aesthetic: of gender, of class, of culture. These are also our mission, plus publishing a few good books by writers we admire.