Adamsterham letters. Pound and Joyce by Steve Fly

Adamsterham letters: Pound and Joyce

Posted Aug. 6, 2009

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce and the The Cantos of Ezra Pound are examples of a single artists global perspective of humanity, and the language of the humanity tribe.

Both books are important for any NEW Word Order between different cultures. Their inherent hierarchy of values and new foundation for expression and creativity upon which these differences between cultures can be accommodated, shared and mixed into the diversity of world humanity. The multicultural and co-operative open society we strive to cohabit as beings made of language.

Both psycho-somatically and geo-politically, open-source-flow of language processing and communications are critical for a healthy co-operative open society. F.W and the Cantos pry open the barrels of world language and give us our “Tale of the Tribe”; a tale of humanity – warts and all - that dislocates and relocates history into a new language of truth beauty and meaning beyond the linear - Aristotelian based - alphabetic cipher.

In particular, Finnegans Wake and the Cantos introduced by Dr. Robert Anton Wilson, in his book Coincidance along with C.G Jung, physicist David Bohm, and a tribe of colorful characters who RAW invokes using his own special species of writing. Raw presents the evidence, which i now interpret to suggest that Finnegans Wake in particular, and Pound’s Cantos generally behave as special kinds of writing – Tale of the tribe – that somehow increase, enrich the sense of meaningful coincidence of those who come into contact with them, often interpreted to be spooky entities invoked by reading and/or speaking the words aloud.

A sp kind of intelligence seems to live in the poetry itself, a time-traveling entity here to inhabit the non-locally perceived space-time manifold of human observers, to the degree that they are paying attention to the text and to their own surroundings. The two flip polarity and the narrator is suddenly describing the present, as the individual observer perceives it, probably due to the effects of hologramic prose’ i guess, which can seem spooky and wonderful at the same time. Deja Vu’?

Both books are striking to me as a total revision of the English language, of which i am a native speaker - and both came as a shock to what i perceive to be familiar texts, poems, histories, novels and literature up until that point.

The tricky texts seemed totally alien to me at first, totally impossibly complex like a crossword fortress of foreign symbols & esoteric syntax all fucked up beyond recognition etc. Yet with the help of a reading group and some fantastic teachers, and search engines, i came to decipher some of the text, or i became confident in sharing my rather wild observations about what i was reading based largely on the locally interactive method by which such “world encyclopedias” operate. Synchronicity strikes.

I feel that the sense of weird synchronicity increases when one is interacting with any such specially attenuated--world epic-encyclopedic (Tale of the Tribe)--and the method by which one creates such a work, is by no means something you learn in school. More in the tradition of music, it seems to me that the creation of such masterpieces that radiate a magical quality of--spooky action at a distance--are successful as works of art and poetry, so powerful and universal are the themes and language deployed that they can be overwhelming in their precise and personal way of interacting with the individual and the tribe. Masterpieces within the ancient Hermetic tradition.

Unlike most religious texts and socially binding contracts these unique poems charged up with a global language reflect the story of his-story, as told and/or annotated by one author. A single unified individual who serves as the scribe of the tribe, the one who puts down what really happened, the one who invents a whole new style and develops a whole new language that aims to include all humanity and the biosphere under its parasol.

The artists provoke and poke you and pull your coat tails, trying to get you to see and read again, making you think and even forcing the reader to expand their linguistic palate if they really want to “know” something about the book and the world within which it breathes. Who, when, why, how, where are difficult to locate at first, you have to almost just read blind at first, like a kind of braille reading but without any prior experience with reading braille.

You have to feel and breathe with these texts and then, i bet you, if you just continue something will jump off the page and begin YOUR particular reading, an illuminated detail, an epiphany and a synchronicity will follow if you pay attention and keep an open mind. The rewards from reading in this way and from reading both these books in combination with internet search engines and vast document archives, and, if you can dig it, writings of Dr. Robert Anton Wilson, you have a platform, an axis, a foundation for postponing the alphapocalypse of culture and language that i perceive to be moments away, and in synchrony with the singularity i call, timewave 6012.

I propose that the new global and multicultural perspectives and daily interactions with such encyclopedias of humanitas increase the likelyhood of experiencing the synchronicity phenomena in your own life i guess. To awake. A strong statement, but this only reflects my own honest experiences with these two texts, not just with Dr. Robert Anton Wilson's Joyce/Pound synchromesh.

I feel that with the added resource of global internet i can present some of my findings and add a little to the field of Joyce and Pound scholarship within the great lineage of Dr. Robert Anton Wilson. A new beginning.

You can read about my encounters with Finnegans Wake and Cantos in my other blog posts, and the following is meant to be an update and further glossing of the two books based on my current physical location in Amsterdam, NL.

John Adams is a major figure within Pound’s Cantos, and this is the main reason why both Stourbridge, my town of birth, and Amsterdam, my current home, appear in the Cantos. John Adams visit to Europe during the 1780’s during which time he encountered the banking and trade chiefs of Holland and England. Together with other countries in his global epic Pound analyzed texts about florins, pounds, guilders, dollars, yen, francs, and who distributes them and how.

Pound weaves writing of American presidents together, writing on Europe, empire, commerce, war and banking. All with Chinese equivalences, Persian equivalences, Roman, Greek, German and Egyptian equivalences, all dancing together on the page, wrestling to make sense of the world at war, world at commerce, world under the boot of empire and a world of languages flexible, yet precise enough, when in the hands of a Pound or a Joyce, to contain it all in a single text by a single author?

EXHIBITS:

“IS this trial per legem terrae
or by Institutes Digests Roman?
Become attentive to their liberties
counties, towns, private clubs and sodalities
most accurate judgement
about the real constitution
which is not of wind and weather
what is said there
Is rather a character
Than a true
CHING MING
Definition. It is a just observation.--Ez, Canto LXVI. pg.382.

“Could not let us bring their sugar to Europe wd/ lessen the number of French and of Spanish seamen “ LXVI.

“Those whom wish to investigate WHOM in congress
(Leaving us no doubt Vergennes was a twister)
with my two sons to Amsterdam
rye barley oats beans
hemp grain clover lucern and sainfoin
and the pavements are good, vines cattle sheep everything plentiful” -LXV

Ulvos! Ulvos!
Whervolk dorst ttou begin to tremble by our moving pictures
at this moment when I am to place my hand of our true
friendshapes upon thee knee to mark well what I say?
Throu shayestwho? In Amsterdam there lived a. . . But how? You are
tremblotting, you retchad, like a verry jerry! Niet? Will you a
guineeser? Gaij beutel of staub? To feel, you? Yes, how it trembles,
the timid! Vortigern, ah Gortigern! Overlord of Mercia! Or
doth brainskin flinchgreef? Stemming! What boyazhness! Sole
shadow shows. Tis jest jibberweek's joke. It must have stole. O,
keve silence, both! Putshameyu! I have heard her voice
somewhere else's before me in these ears still that now are for mine.
Let op. Slew musies. Thunner in the eire.
You were dreamend, dear. --Finnegans Wake, pg. 565

“Wednesday, anniversary of the battle of Lexington and of my reception in Holland” -LXVI

“our mixed racings have
been giving two hoots or three jeers for the grape, vine and brew
and Pieter's in Nieuw Amsteldam and Paoli's where the poules
go and rum smelt his end for him and he dined off sooth
american (it would give one the frier even were one a normal
Kettlelicker) this oldworld epistola of their weatherings and their
marryings and their buryings and their natural selections has
combled tumbled down to us fersch and made-at-all-hours like
an ould cup on tay. As I was hottin me souser. Haha! And as
you was caldin your dutchy hovel. Hoho! She tole the tail or
her toon. Huhu! --Finnegans Wake, pg.117

“I told Hartley their policy with Holland was wrong, all wrong.” -LXV

Polthergeistkotzdondherhoploits ! Kick? What mother? Whose
porter? Which pair? Why namely coon? But our undilligence has
been plutherotested so enough of such porterblack lowneess, too
base for printink! Perpending that Putterick O'Purcell pulls the
coald stoane out of Winterwater's and Silder Seas sing for Harreng
our Keng,sept okt nov dez John Phibbs march! We cannot,in
mercy or justice nor on the lovom for labaryntos,stay here for
the residence of our existings,discussing Tamstar Ham of
Tenman's thirst.--Finnegans Wake, pg.187

“laws of Gt Britain on plantation trade contrived solely to benefit Britain” – LXV p. 379
Rinse them out and aston along with you! Where did I
stop? Never stop! Continuarration! You're not there yet. I
amstel waiting. Garonne, garonne! --Finnegans Wake, pg. 205

“In which case a minister here from Congress wd/ be useful
...if the neutrality, a minister to all neutral courts
might be useful
Dec. 31 Amsterdam 1780.–LXIX

“and I pudd a name and wedlock boltoned round her the which to
carry till her grave, my durdin dearly, Appia Lippia Pluviabilla,
whiles I herr lifer amstell and been:--Finnegans Wake, pg. 548

“Eerste Memoire dan den Heer Adams
INDRUK of de Hollandsche Natie
Deputies of Holland and Zeeland
we signed the treaty of commerce 8 Oct ’82. –LXV 376.

“Prompt. Eh, chrystal holder? Save
Ampsterdampster that had rheumaniscences in his netherlumbs.
-- By the drope in his groin, Ali Slupa, thinks the cappon,
plumbing his liners, we were heretofore.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 319

“2 burgomasters, 2 schepens and a pensionary.’
‘I believe this set receive ample salaries
to resist American loan
British ministers, Dutch court, and the holders of
English Stocks (to Franklin. Jan 25) 81. - LXIX
Jute.-- Boildoyle and rawhoney on me when I can beuraly
forsstand a weird from sturk to finnic in such a
patwhat as your rutterdamrotter.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 17

“Mirabel (Sardegna) only why don’t they acknowledge it?
5 copies, English and Dutch side by side,
said wd/ be signed next week. – LXV. Pg 376.

It was
in a fairly fishy kettlekerry, after the Fianna's foreman had taken
his handful, enriched with ancient woods and dear dutchy
deeplinns mid which were an old knoll and a troutbeck.
--Finnegans Wake, pg. 76.

“Million guilders new loan from Holland
Paris 1787. - LXIX

The noase or the loal had dreven him blem,
blem, stun blem. Sparks flew. He had fled again (open
shunshema!) this country of exile, sloughed off,sidleshomed via the
subterranean shored with bedboards, stowed away and ankered
in a dutch bottom tank, the Arsa, hod S.S. Finlandia, and was
even now occupying, under an islamitic newhame in his seventh
generation, a physical body Cornelius Magrath's.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 98

“For my part thought that Americans
Had been embroiled in European wars long enough
Easy to see that
France and England wd/ try to embroil us Obvious
that all powers of Europe will be continually at manoeuvre
to work us into their real or imaginary balances
of power; J.A 1782 FISHERIES. – LXV. Pg 377.

to all his foretellers he reared a stone
and for all his comethers he planted a tree; forty acres, sixty miles,
white stripe, red stripe, washes his fleet in annacrwatter; whou
missed a porter so whot shall he do for he wanted to sit for
Pimploco but they've caught him to stand for Sue?; Dutchlord,
Dutchlord, overawes us; Headmound, king and martyr, dunstung
in the Yeast, Pitre-le-Pore-in Petrin,
Barth-the-Grete-by-theExchange; he hestens towards dames troth and wedding hand
like the prince of Orange and Nassau while he has trinity left
behind him like Bowlbeggar Bill-the-Bustonly; brow of a
hazelwood, pool in the dark; changes blowicks into bullocks and a
well of Artesia into a bird of Arabia; the handwriting on his
facewall, the cryptoconchoidsiphonostomata in his exprussians;
his birthspot lies beyond the herospont and his burialplot in the
pleasant little field.--Finnegans Wake, pg.135

“Hence my pleasure at having set up a standard in Holland. -- LXIX

Hear, O worldwithout! Tiny tattling! Backwoods, be wary!
Daintytrees, go dutch!
But who comes yond with pire on poletop? He who relights
our spearing torch, the moon. Bring lolave branches to mud
cabins and peace to the tents of Ceder, Neomenie! The feast of
Tubbournigglers is at hand. Shopshup.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 244

“that i had intention of going to Amsterdam
no arguments but force respected in Europe...
to show U.S the importance of an early attention to language
for ascertaining the language

CHING
MING
- LXVIII

The savest lauf in the
world. Paradoxmutose caring, but here in a present booth of
Ballaclay, Barthalamou, where their dutchuncler mynhosts and serves
them dram well right for a boors' interior (homereek van
hohmryk.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 314

“I have hitherto paid the Dutch interest in capital
(London ’85 to Art Lee)
Court as putrid as Amsterdam, divine science of politics. - LXIX

“Comme bien,
Comme bien! Feefeel! Feefeel! And the Dutches dyin loffin an
his pon peck de Barec. And all the mound reared.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 420

“Green tea, from Holland I hope, but don’t know
...recovered at Braintree, pruned by me – LXIV. Pg. 361.
as far as come back under all my eyes like my sapphire
chaplets of ringarosary I will say for you to the Allmichael and
solve qui pu while the dovedoves pick my mouthbuds (msch!
msch!) with nurse Madge, my linkingclass girl, she's a fright,
poor old dutch.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 459

“Mr Van Vloten is at Utrecht’
H. Bicker
‘but have never obtained any money
(12 Nov. 1780) --LXVIII

Any were. Deemsday. Bosse of Upper
and Lower Byggotstrade, Ciwareke, may he live for river! The
Games funeral at Valleytemple. Saturnights pomps, exhabiting
that corricatore of a harss, revealled by Oscur Camerad. The last
of Dutch Schulds, perhumps. Pipe in Dream Cluse. Uncovers Pub
History.--Finnegans Wake, pg. 602

Hill or hollow, Hull or Hague!--Finnegans Wake, pg. 436

“Madame la veuve de M. Henry Schorn
op de Agsterburg wal by de Hoogstraat
depreciation of money a TAX on the people
paid in advance and
therefore prevents the public from being found in debt --LXIX

“postpuberal hypertituitary type of Heidelberg mannleich cavern
ethics) lufted his slopingforward, bad Sweatagore good
murrough and dublnotch on to it as he was greedly obliged, and
like a sensible ham, with infinite tact in the delicate situation seen
the touchy nature of its perilous theme, thanked um for guilders
received and time of day (not a little token abock all the same that
that was owl the God's clock it was)--Finnegans Wake, pg. 37

“King with ideas of CONcillation
all to raise the price of stocks
Amsterdam 26th April
if the houses Fiseaux, Hodson, Crommelins, van Staphorst
5 million by August. – LXIX.

-- Amtsadam, sir, to you! Eternest cittas, heil! Here we are
again ! I am bubub brought up under a camel act of dynasties long
out of print, the first of Shitric Shilkanbeard (or is it Owllaugh
MacAuscullpth the Thord?)--Finnegans Wake, pg. 532

--Steve Fly Agaric 23
Amsterdam.

Sources.
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, Faber and Faber
Cantos, Ezra Pound, New Directions.
Coincidance, Robert Anton Wilson, New Falcon Publications.


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