P.F.S.: Jenny Kanzler

I met the painter Jenny Kanzler in 2008. I was sitting in the Last Drop one weekend afternoon in April or May, working, and she approached me and introduced herself. She was very pretty in a cherubic way, not unlike Abby Heller-Burnham. Over the course of 2008, we had coffee many times. I wouldn’t call these tete-a-tetes dates— Jenny was otherwise engaged— but we got to know each other with some thoroughness. Jenny, both in her paintings and in her life, had a fascination with “the stunted,” in general terms— stunted people, stunted situations, even stunted animals (she found tarantulas "exquisite.") She also had a fetish for violence and gore— the films she liked were violent, and the art. Jenny had been at PAFA along with Abby and Mary, but she usually declined to discuss them. I got the distinct impression that they were not among her favorite artists there. Mary’s The Fall was showing at PAFA precisely when I met Jenny Kanzler, in fact. She gave it a mixed review. There was some sexual tension in the air between myself and Ms. Kanzler, but she made clear that she was mostly a Platonic soul. Abby and Mary were floridly liberated, eroticized, and romantic in comparison, despite Jenny’s attractiveness. Yet, Jenny did have a singular mind and a singular vision. She made a strong impression on me. It seemed to me that the substitution, in Jenny’s art, of violence for love and sex was a deliberate one, but (this was my own prejudice) not necessarily a healthy one. Jenny’s penchant for violent, rather than sexual, smut, was what inspired Apparition Poem 1342, along with the sense, mistaken or not, that Jenny was sublimating so that the part of her psyche which wanted her to remain a stunted little girl would stay untouched, unchallenged, and inviolable.

The phenomenological import of the poem is a torque of Elegy 414— I privilege myself to do a break-in into Jenny’s brain, and have a look around. The problem with phenomenological break-ins is that it is difficult to ascertain whether what you are seeing is real, is really someone else’s brain, or if what you find is just a projection of your own fantasies. It could be that Jenny’s “slice of smut” is more involved in real emotion and intellection, not just a product of stunted adolescence, but there was no way for me to tell, as I was writing, whether this was the case or not. In fact, I believe the break-in in 1342 is brash enough, pompous enough, even, as a male narrator violating a woman, that this Apps Protagonist seems like a half-pig. If he is correct in his assumptions, however, his piggishness has still won him intercourse with a woman who has denied him conventional entrance. It is worth noting that I didn’t fight Jenny this way— no passes were made, nor did I have the experience of falling in love with her— but the bullying energy to understand her made for some strange, loopy mind games between us, and our gaming against each other on cognitive levels lasted a few years. 

To broaden the context— by 2008, the Recession era was starting to sink in, and much of the grandeur of Aughts Philly, the romance and the sense of freedom, were beginning to fade. For Jenny Kanzler to enter my life at the time she did, and for us to become sparring partners rather than lovers, was a sign of the times for me, an inversion of the odal early Aughts, and some of the hard-won victories of the mid-Aughts, its sense of carnal mayhem, too. A beacon of the impulses behind the composition of The White Album at that time. A beacon also, perhaps, inverse-shining towards a realization of the Great Recession, and what it was to become. It’s also germane for me that by 2008, an emergent, notable Philadelphia painter's generalized equation involved violence, gore, and the stunted to sexualized expressiveness; where all of America was headed was into a meat-grinder of violence, moral/ethical bankruptcy, and generally entropic conditions, and those of us who wanted the Aughts, which facilitated art around sex and romance, to go on forever, were to be bitterly disappointed.

Adam Fieled (editor, Plymouth Meeting, Pa): PICC (A Poet in Center City) #42

Competition, folks. It lurks there as a demon between males of the species, doing a sourpuss number on camaraderie and true brotherhood, making a mockery of ties which could bind with more authority, beleaguering situations which shouldn’t matter. “Bros before hos,” Larsen used to say, who was no misogynist but often stumbled around semantics. To be fair, Larsen’s girls were hardly hos, as the saying goes. They tended to share many of his stripes, as Trish Webber shared stripes with me— fetish/boutique stalwarts, underworld slants, heavy tempers, club-and-pub mentalities. It’s just that many of them were also gorgeous and, as I couldn’t not notice, and as began at the turn of the century, none of them had eyes for me at all. I wound up looking like a Larsen-flunky around them. Club-and-pub meant they often wouldn’t even look me in the face— they didn’t need to. So when I found myself, for example, sitting half-naked on the shag-rug in South Philly, looking at Anastasia, a stunning brunette from New Jersey who was famous for starting trouble with guys, in her bra and panties, it was with the exasperated sense of the usual wheel turning— not only no eyes for me, but also no sense that she could even directly look me in the face. But, to shade the painting diligently, with some respect to precision, it must be said that by late ’04 I had a sense of revenge going. It had transpired, in the spring of ’03, that I brought Trish Webber and Tobi Simon to Larsen’s studio for a visit. My ostensible reason was to see if I could match Tobi with Larsen. Trish and I were steady at the time. What happened was cacophonous— we all smoked a bunch of weed, some of it my plain jane stuff, some of it Larsen’s H-laced, cough-and-flu treasure trove. Tobi didn’t think much of Larsen, and vice versa. But, when we were all high as kites, I saw Larsen lock into Trish in a manner that expressed total enchantment. Trish’s long limbs, wide hips, and equally long, lank blonde mane could only be enticing to a Philly guy also entangled deeply with Europe, as Larsen was, who could be, in a number of different sectors, continental at any moment. Larsen locked into Trish, and began to flirt with her. Heavily. “Bros before hos,” huh? At first, I was amused. The level that this was Aughts Philly was a self-conscious one, which meant it would’ve been uncool to try and stop what was developing. At first. High as kites though all of us were, I started to understand that, willy-nilly, Larsen meant business. He really was going to try to fuck Trish right in front of me. Alright. So, gathering my wits, I made my apologies to Larsen and dragged the two ladies down the steps, and out again into the warm spring day. Larsen, on the negative side of things, had taken things too far that day. On the other side of things, I had him— a righteous cock-block of a dude whose girls were constantly cock-blocking me. It never moved, after that— Larsen had a hard-on for Trish Webber that, to his credit, he never really tried to hide. Even if South and West Philly weren’t working together well then. When I broke up with Trish the first time in late ’03, it was that South-to-West imbroglio which made it so that, as shocked me, Larsen made no move in her direction. And, I might add, continued to pine. Trish never denied there was an attraction there, but it was minor for her. Trish had a continental sensibility too, but wouldn’t have liked that Larsen’s self-presentation could be construed as Eurotrash. Then, the camera deadlocks everything, and pans back to Anastasia, stripped to her undies in late ’04, looking (I felt) at everything but me. This is where it remained, because Trish’s big ’06-’07 comeback did a predictable trick of irritating an old wound for Larsen. Yet, in the main, “bros before hos” did manage to rule the roost, and made it so that there was no extended alienation between Larsen and I. The way there was, actually, destined to be extended alienation between myself and Ricky Flint, for what he would always say were a bunch of calculated gambits when Heather Mullen showed up.

© Adam Fieled 2024

In the Loop...

William Allegrezza & Simone Muench collaborate in Seven Corners Poetry.

Gabriel Gudding's Bed from Government.

More Something Solid in Ink Pantry, Synchronized Chaos, Moss Trill. 

Something Solid encompasses, also, Henniker Heat.

Chris McCabe (London, UK): from Zeppelins, "A Proposal"

There was a night before a day with no rent when I spoke softly in your ear as you slept: one day we will get married. I have never told you this. The heatwave brings out what the winter kept hid. The most extreme since 1911 when The Times at last stopped listing the heat-stifled dead. East London was putrid in trapped tanks of air & as the women joined their men marching on Trafalgar Square the open sky was a massive success, a freedom worth fighting for. Those in Liverpool walked out in sympathy & opened the kegs they had lugged for years to drink the contents on the streets. Tomorrow you might walk on as an extra in the film of Brick Lane— relocated to Turnpike — & the money you make will go into the fund for the plans we make. Reading John James in bed I am starting to believe that I am here again. You say you are hot but wrap your legs into mine, well there’s nothing the breeze from Shoeburyness — through the curtains and over the dresser — can do about that. I can’t wait for our future together you say, but when does it start? The night it happened, two weeks ago, I was no more aware of what I was going to say than would you like more wine? Ness, our time was then. The kestrel had cut its own shape against the sky like a tattoo on the retina — hovered with no wind — & as the bats, like burned swifts, tried to skirt the subject it was too late: the stars had already put us on the map. Very quietly & very secretly should we get married? Between us a glance of vitreous success that wanted to last, as if this piece of Dagenham grass would be our legacy. We waited, holding hands, for the first show of fox. Dogs barked & plotted out the silent tracks she made. Imagined fox gave way to fox — swift on the outhouse, feral, musically-ribbed — all was perfect this as she passed. Mongrel Max clambered his trampoline & scared her off. Midnight we found the doors but the walls were too thick — accustomed as we were to the poise of night our home seemed docile, an oafish fist of brick. We went to bed & the rest is this: a cost of one hundred pounds, a catalogue dress at two pounds sixty for 52 weeks. Last night I dreamt us a thumbnail baby with no rollover link but as we looked close we were so pleased with the breaths that it took. Ness, I think we are starting now. Don’t tell anyone until the Summer’s gone. 

© Chris McCabe 2009

Vladlen Pogorelov (Rocklin, California, USA): from Derelict, "No. 112"

The arrival of the greasy day
With its empty cans on the front porch,
Splashes of dirt from passing cars,
Noisy yellow school buses,
A good example of bad taste

The head is a bit heavy
With a thought:
“In every woman there is a lonely a guitar.”

In the bathroom,
The yellow teeth of
Somebody
Is still
RE-SEMB-LING
Somebody
Which lived in the last quarter
Of the twentieth…hundreds of years ago
Since a carpenter’s son
(Never learned the trade properly)
Was nailed to a wooden symbol
Of a helicopter before…Leonardo
(Performance art >>>>>
                                       A-R-T-Y
J.C. on the cross >>>>>
S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
                                              O.K.
Time to spit out the toothpaste and
Get dressed for just another
Greasy day.

© Vladlen Pogorelov 1997

Andrew Lundwall (Rockford, Illinois, USA): from Gardening at Night, "A Rap for Andre Breton"

the shipwreck of the hair follicles of the sun as sung by the phoenix fox choir of spastic city elastic - turntables like elephant trunks you wish them to be still so - horseback rode a circle and there you were at the city's limit - she turned her hand just so when the trees appeared like curious heads at a poker game - she was absolutely red bobbing head watching the follies on the wall - her boyfriend's got a sexual projector he plays these video things we all watch amused biting our cuticles – somewhere a lonesome pitiful man that it's convenient not to recall is turning over trashcans reeking whiskey trying to recapture a blue obnoxious and jealousy note that got lost somehow with mustache on – what is glamorous was said montgomery clift as he fell from our television set - she'd poured us both a dixie cup of milk from the head of a lemur now so her torrential pep talk broadcast to your little burgundy soul's bootielicious content please but don't get swallowed up this industry will laugh hysterically as it slaughters your testicles in the piano keys of infinity 

 © Andrew Lundwall 2008

William Allegrezza in...

William Allegrezza in Eratio Postmodern Poetry.

Steve Halle officially sanctioned on Internet Archive.

Brooklyn Copeland's Northernmost from Ungovernable Press. 

P.F.S. Post to PennSound: State of Grace, Season in Hell: White Candle. 

Meeting at St. George's

St. George's in Philadelphia, on 7th Street between South and Bainbridge, was a bar that had an upstairs which could be used as a performance space. One night in the late summer of '99, within a few days of shifting to Philadelphia from Manhattan (briefly stationed in Glenside before the move to 21st and Race), I got the tip-off that a bunch of acts were putting on a show at St. George's (I was at Philly Java). It was a sultry night, and cloudy, threatening rain. As I ascended the stairs, I looked and saw Matt Stevenson, who I had met at Robin's Books a little less than a year before at the last Siren's Silence reading, hunched over his keyboards/effects boxes rig, and Lora Bloom reciting into a microphone. This early, "pure" version of Radio Eris, as a duo, remains my favorite. Matt was short and stocky, 5'7, wore spectacles, had a slight hobble, and topped it off with a kind of inverse sartorial splendor, making semi-rags look as distinctive as possible. His speaking voice was rich and memorable, and he spoke quickly and articulately, even when stoned, which he often was. 

If I felt a certain urgency about talking to Matt at length for the first time, it is because an intuitive call had been sent out from somewhere in the universe to me— Philadelphia was going to be a cultural monster, one way or another, and it was my responsibility (and Matt's, if he cared to join me) to start the ball rolling. This, I knew. I managed to convey this to Matt at the upstairs bar, and began to learn Matt's quirks— even when he was deeply interested (and he was), Matt Stevenson had to be a cynical bastard. It's just that I had him, and I knew it. When we looked at what was happening onstage, it was obvious that magic was in the air— as Dave and Nemon Buckery played, the skylight above them was wild with windy rain and lightning, and the phantasmagoric effect was intense, the little crowd there assembled rapt. It spoke to me as a metaphor for what Philadelphia could be culturally, and it did so with the spacy, chiaroscuro, eerie ambiance of Philadelphia at night I was already familiar with.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Matt and I were joined by a third attendee. He introduced himself as Dan Baker, painter and musician. Dan was another lanky six-footer, with flaming red hair cut into a bob and a red beard to match. Dan was a transplant from Chicago, and (he implied instantly) underworld-consonant. You could feel the dangerous edges all around him. For all of Dan's musical involvements, with Dan (for me) the paintings are the point and, for their elegant simplicity, will eventually come to light. As I left St. George's that night, forced to walk to Market East Station (now Jefferson Station) sans umbrella, I felt something click that was like having a sudden million dollars in the bank. In the days that followed, I moved my stuff from Glenside to 154 North 21st Street. The flat was a studio— but, because the front/facade of the apartment faced east (lots of morning sun) and was all bay windows, and the living room space had loft-level high ceilings, it felt loft-ish the right way. I was to live in "2A" until mid 2008, when I moved around the corner to 23rd and Arch.

I had Matt and Dan's contact info, and other things going on— Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum and I were hosting readings in Philly Java's back-room, where the Siren's Silence readings had been in '96-'98. Jeremy and I, oddly enough, knew each other from earlier in the Nineties— when, on semester breaks, I would hang out with Chris DeFranco in Manayunk, I met Jeremy and his Villanova-based "d" magazine posse. Jeremy's unique self-presentation— Al Pacino channels Oscar Wilde, in Smiths-land and with a unique set of verbal tics, which manifested also in his work (both poetry and graphic design)— was difficult to forget. The night of St. George's, I had probably started with Jeremy at Java before migrating over. Perhaps St. George's was not posh enough for Jeremy; I had (and have) a ratty streak, and no such scruples. In fact, Aughts Philly depended on most of us having a ratty streak most of the time. A perfect moment in Aughts Philly could happen anywhere, and we were all attuned to that wavelength.