In recent months much has been made of the fact that the term Neoism can be traced back to a 1914 occasional poem by American satirist Franklin P. Adams. Okay, so most of the world seems to have ignored the excitement this discovery generated among half-a-dozen fools and jesters, but it is nonetheless referenced on the relevant Wikipedia page. That said, when Blaster Al Ackerman coined the term in 1978, he did so initially as No Ism. The following year this mutated into Neoism, and no one active within the group using this name from the late 1970s onwards appears to have been aware of Adam’s fleeting use of the term until a year or so ago.
With about the same level of ‘authenticity’, an anonymous source revealed today that when Al Ackerman’s Neoist co-founder David ‘Oz’ Zack proposed the name Monty Cantsin as the identity of an ‘open pop star’ in 1977, he was drawing on his knowledge of the earlier Nicolas Bourbaki project. Nicolas Bourbaki is a collective pseudonym dating back to 1935, which a pool of predominantly French academics adopted when presenting expositions of advanced modern mathematics. The Bourbaki team aimed at rigour, created new terminology and concepts, and emphasised the importance of set theory.
The influence of ‘Nicolas Bourbaki’ peaked between 1950 and 1960, when few other graduate-level books in contemporary pure mathematics were available. Their emphasis on rigour was in part a reaction to the work of Henri Poincaré, who stressed the importance of free-flowing mathematical intuition at a cost of completeness in presentation. By way of contrast, Neoism’s influence is set to peak in forty years time, once most of those active within it during the 1980s are dead. BTW: 24 March is International Neoist Day!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Comments
Comment by K Mail on 2009-03-24 11:59:38 +0000
Franklin P. Adams is my great grandfather! Neoism Now!
Comment by Tessie on 2009-03-24 12:00:42 +0000
If Franklin P. Adams is your great grandfather, then I’m your great grandmother! Death is not true! I want to die in the TV!
Comment by Istvan Kantor on 2009-03-24 12:37:51 +0000
All true Neoists repeat the following mantra 20 times when they wake up in the morning, and 20 times before they fall asleep at night: “I am a turd, a lowly abject turd”. Repeat after me: I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd; I am a turd, a lowly abject turd.
Comment by Doris Stokes on 2009-03-24 12:55:44 +0000
Neoism is the invention of its enemies!
Comment by Gail Litvinov on 2009-03-24 13:51:10 +0000
Istvan Wanker has joined the Men’s Auxiluary, you really can teach a tired old dog new tricks! And Valerie Solanas still rocks! Michael K didn’t shoot her!
Comment by fi on 2009-03-24 18:32:41 +0000
ludicrous
happy day x
Comment by Dave ‘Oz’ Zack on 2009-03-24 19:13:07 +0000
The lies about Neoism spead in the last decade are nothing when compared to the falsification of Neoism in seen over the past 10 years.
Comment by Linda Lovelace on 2009-03-24 19:39:31 +0000
I blew Istvan Kantor at the 2nd International Apartment Festival!
Comment by uw on 2009-03-24 20:10:18 +0000
uh uh uh art strike
uh uh uh art stroke
Comment by sw on 2009-03-24 20:36:29 +0000
…and tonight is International Neoist Night!!! See you in dreams on the street in the toilet on the beach at the bus top later…!!!
Comment by Msmarmitelover on 2009-03-24 20:43:57 +0000
Happy birthday Mr Trippy. Got ur photos….
Comment by Harry Bates on 2009-03-24 21:07:16 +0000
If you keep boiling your underpants in pans on the stove the landlady will through you onto the street. I should know, it happened to me.
Comment by Andy Gump on 2009-03-24 22:06:17 +0000
Blaster needs women! Volunteer now and help save the world! And I could do with some chicks too. But don’t forget kids:
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Andy Gump Inc. has been around for over 50 years, servicing Southern California and the greater Los Angeles areas. We are a temporary site services provider The services we provide are Portable Sanitation/ Septic System pumping, Temporary Power, Temporary Fencing, Storage Containers, Field Offices, Barricades, Hot/Cold Utility Sinks and Special Event Equipment such as High End Restroom Trailers which are used in events such as Movie Production, Weddings and Golf Tournaments. By providing excellent service we have become a leader in our industry and we look forward to showing you that “there is a difference”.
Comment by Florian The Neoist on 2009-03-24 22:13:21 +0000
The Golden Palomino
His now more or less constant headaches, insomnia and constipation had, by the spring of that year, thoroughly demoralized the Young Neoist and begun to dominate every aspect of his life.
He was, as his sister Olga remarked in a note to her future husband, in really bad shape, and “one sometimes has to wonder about the wiseness of his self-imposed dietary regimen.” This last in reference to the increasingly ascetic discipline the Young Neoist inflicted on himself in which he progressed from the avoidance of certain foods to the point where he would eat nothing but carry-out fried chicken.
Thus did late May find the Young Neoist bedridden at the Pego Berndt Center, a very laxly run Baltimore nursing home. The Young Neoist was often delirious, picked at himself incessantly and spoke of his belief in something called “rectal brightness.”
On Monday, June 2, the Young Neoist seemed somewhat improved. He was able to spend much of the day working on his massive “Neoist Reading List & Bibliography” and even made several additions. However, on closer inspection these were found to be unintelligible. Around four o’clock the next morning, Dora noticed his labored breathing. She alerted Klaptrap, the attending physician, who administered a camphor injection.
The Young Neoist became extremely agitated and began to rage at Klaptrap, demanding the long-promised bucket of fried chicken. “You’ve always promised it to me. For four years you’ve been promising it, you’re torturing me, you’ve always tortured me. I am not going to talk to you anymore. So be it, I’ll die without any fried chicken.” He was given a wing and a thigh, but he still persisted: “Don’t try to fool me. You’re giving me Roy Rogers’ Roast Beef!”
As his mental confabulation became more pronounced, the Young Neoist confused Klaptrap with Rudolf Steiner, his idol and lifelong role-model, and apparently worried about Steiner’s hair-style. He also sang songs that made no sense and wasted everybody’s time in a big way, referring to himself in these as:
The Fifteen Bath Towels
The fifteen bath towels are like some terrible nightmare.
The fifteen bath towels have only about fifteen hairs per sq. inch,
Fifteen hairs, and refer to you as pig-dogs,
Having greasy hands most of the time.
The fifteen bath towels aren’t offering much consolation,
And are like some terrible nightmare.
That is one dream; another
is like some terrible nightmare. What is “Jugs magazine”?
The fifteen bath towels live about 4 1/2 blocks from the train station.
Your black running shoes that are cut open all along the sides allow
The fifteen bath towels to flop out (“for the good times”).
The fifteen bath towels are not about real life
–The fifteen bath towels have become like some terrible nightmare
Of spilling over into real life: the fifteen bath towels
Can not be counted on, not counted or even…
Even with the readership entirely addled (which
Porn was yours? Whose copy of “Jugs”
Requires fifteen bath towels to flop it out of for? What
is porn?) the fifteen bath towels
Have other things to do, thinks the TV in the taverns; —
The fifteen bath towels may be not in the habit of reading very much
Or make a real income.
The fifteen bath towels are living about two blocks from the train station:
They’re getting closer, closer than
There are kidney conditions in the universe that
In working on a car
Which gives you greasy hands most all of the time
Which wear black running shoes
Which “for the good times” swell to an enormous size
Mean you pig-dogs are perhaps
Often stopped by the police or seized
As porn-mongers, because a fifteen-bath-towel-habit
Leaves much to be desired — not enough
To have feet the size of footballs,
When it spills over into real life. So when
Customers enter the store they see you
Pig-dogs in black running shoes, with the sides cut open
And fifteen bath towels flopping out;
Weel, so what? Turn
The page.
— Sang the young Neoist as he picked at himself…
Comment by James Ringerman on 2009-03-25 02:33:00 +0000
Not too many people drank in those days. Everyone was on LSD. You can imagine, with all the hippies. The chicks and go-go gals were gorgeous…you wouldn’t get home until 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning.
Comment by Michael Roth on 2009-03-26 00:14:40 +0000
I celebrated International Neoist Day by impersonating Mr Trippy. Good Times!
Comment by sw on 2009-03-26 07:04:25 +0000
Nicolas Bourbaki reconciles Leibniz and Poincare in Situationism! nEOISM RECONCILES SUFISM AND SATANISM IN MONTY CANTSIN
Comment by Jock Graham on 2009-03-26 09:45:18 +0000
Revolting prose, ridiculous subject matter, annoying as hell–THE BEST BOOK I HAVE READ IN YEARS! Or the worst.
Comment by Leonhard Euler on 2009-03-26 15:28:27 +0000
I am a turd, a lowly abject turd
Comment by Keanu Reeves on 2009-03-27 11:32:54 +0000
I am the shit
Comment by Hugo Ball on 2009-03-27 12:20:28 +0000
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1873176309/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img
I have been reading around , and studying the post Futurist/Dada avant garde scene for nearly 25 years, and Home’s work is as good as it gets.
Ignore the other reviewers who read Home’s work as “fun and hip” — but shallow and flawed. Such judgments prove just how little the American audience understand European art movements of the 20th century — Home’s work is far far deeper, and along with the source texts from Debord, Vaneigem etc — his book will set the benchmark for awhile yet.
Home’s work is no idle commentary on Debord’s work, neither is it a book of adulation, or simplistic analysis — Home has a sharp, perceptive mind, that ADDS SIGNIFICANTLY to an understanding of Dada, Futurism, Situationists, the Lettrists, and even to an understanding of medieval mystic heretics and their ascetic subversion of accepted reality,as well as touching on Rimbaud and Baudelaire’s place in the lineage,commenting on their concept of the flaneur.
And Home is no fawning “fan boy” either, in awe of art’s “heroes”. His work is not a hagiography, and he is, at points, scathingly , perceptively critical of those involved — see his pertinent dismissal of certain aspects of Tzara, Adorno and Debord’s contradictory dialetic,theory and intellectual snobbery.
Along with SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE, DADA DRUMMER, FLIGHT OUT OF TIME,REVOLUTION OF EVERY DAY LIFE, Richter’s DADA ART AND ANTI ART,Flynt’s BLUEPRINT FOR A HIGHER CIVILIZATION and MARINETTI’S FUTURIST MANIFESTOES — Home’s work is *THE* definitive analytic, critical text of the moment.
Home’s work is essential reading for anyone at all interested in 20th Century art, and by association, the field of knowledge the key Post Modernists (Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard) went on to exploit.If you enjoyed “The Spectre of Marx”,”Discipline and Punish,” For a “Political Economy of the Sign” — then “Assault on Culture” is for you.
As far as art critique and total subversion of political dialectic goes –Home is where it’s at — most of the others are fakers.
Home is the real thing — Ask Peter Ackroyd, Iain Sinclair, and Henry Flynt.
The other reviews here show so very little understanding of the entire field Home investigates so critically, and so very well.
Comment by Christopher Nosnibor on 2009-03-28 08:46:35 +0000
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Repetition is the most basic but effective method of brainwashing.
Comment by ;j;fj;sl on 2009-03-28 10:23:13 +0000
shut up hugo u idiot – what else are your socalled american audiences if not european art movements?
Comment by Michael K on 2009-03-28 12:03:31 +0000
I’ve still got a pair of Hugo Ball socks I ordered from the insert that came with ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’. Actually, no I haven’t.
Comment by Christopher Nosnibor on 2009-03-28 12:38:49 +0000
I’ve just got a pair of Hugo balls.
Oh, and a monster cock, too.