Eugene Wildman (Ed.) — Experiments in Prose [1968]

In a Greenwich Village loft one summer in 1968, a hotshot editor named Eugene Wildman sat puffing on his pot to the music of the Mothers [of Invention], while numerous far-out artists limned their visions for the Future of Text in All Media. Among the hepcats present, Bruce Kaplan posited that transcripts of protests in the name of peace were the future, that the docu-novel must flourish; John Mattingly said that prose descriptions of stageplays formatted with creative tabulations were the hippest beat; Jochen Gerz said that words in large fonts printed on paper, or even random letters splattered across paper, was the revolution daddio; Charles Doria said concrete poems snaking up and down the page were the come shot; An Pei said repeated baby babble made for a bright new babel; Herb Dupree said writing shit down without even reading over what had been was written was bound to bloom; Jean Francois Bory said collages of Egyptian imagery and naked women with huge embossed letters were the bankers; John E. Matthias said stories with Ancient Greek characters about Anglo-Saxon grammar were what the common man craved; Shouri Ramanujan said faux-lyrical blather in an elevated style was the prize-bagger (how right she was!); Alain Arias-Mission said that four characters in an Oedipal drama speaking simultaneously was the ticket; Ronald Tavel said a 70-page absurdist farce riddled with terrible puns and sexist humour is the route to riches; William Hunt said boring prose with no notable innovations at all is the secret to enshrinement (how right he was!); Odessa Burns said a stageplay featuring the protracted killing of Kafka is what rocks; Richard Kostelanetz said the word ‘rains’ printed in various fonts and positions on paper is something someone somewhere might believe constitutes art; Steven Katz said three of his least inspired fictions showcasing no notable talents powers the skidoo; Richard Astle said a failed attempt at a computer-program-inspired hypertext in the (pre-)manner of Brooke-Rose and Roubaud prickled the interest; Tristres Delarue said a clunking issuetastic play about race (one of several in this collection) was the whizzer; Robin Magowan said slavish adherence to sub-Joycean wordplay was the one path to pleasure; and Julien Blaine said pictures of tall buildings with a dot atop each was something to do with literature. Some time around 3am, Wildman commissioned a book to be printed and in the morning the book arrived. To much shakings of heads and regrets. Wildman would release two ‘concrete’ novels in the two subsequent years, Nuclear Love and Montezuma’s Ball, each a testament to the baffling bravery of the American avant-garde of the period, also out of print. 

Editions:

Hardback, 1968, Swallow Press.