‘I’d like to use this opportunity … to introduce you to a poet you’ve never heard of before. Ed Smith. A common enough name. There are a zillion Ed Smiths on Facebook—I gave up counting them once I reached one hundred. But this Ed Smith was no ordinary Ed Smith, let me assure you. He was born in Queens, New York, in 1957; his family moved to Southern California in 1959. He grew up in Downey (the hometown of Richard and Karen Carpenter) and attended Pomona College in Claremont for one academic year (1975-76). He then made his way to Los Angeles, Hollywood specifically, where he worked as a paralegal and for an independent record and video company, became involved in the punk rock lifestyle, then finally found his niche as a poet in the scene that centered around Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in Venice, California, when Dennis Cooper ran the reading series there in the early eighties. The Beyond Baroque scene has sometimes been called “hip,” sometimes “infamous.” It was lively, that’s for sure. Other young poets who gravitated to the literary liveliness were Amy Gerstler, Bob Flanagan, Jack Skelley, and myself.

‘Ed published two books of poetry in his lifetime, both with Cold Calm Press: Fantasyworld in 1983 and Tim’s Bunnies in 1988. You’ll probably have trouble finding either of these titles—Cold Calm Press was a very small operation. Ed also published his work in Poetry Loves Poetry: An Anthology of Los Angeles Poets (Momentum Press, 1985) and in what Bruce Hainley calls “the most rambunctious publications of the day: Barney, Mirage, Santa Monica Review, and Shiny International [later just Shiny], a magazine for which he conducted interviews with artists Jim Isermann, Mike Kelley, and Chris Burden and eventually served as West Coast editor.” Publishing poems in rambunctious magazines does not pay the rent, so Ed worked as a typesetter, a movie ad copywriter, and a math tutor at a private school. He moved to New York City in the late nineties, married artist Mio Shirai, and founded Creative Systems Architecture, Inc. (CSAI), a consulting firm meant to help companies apply W. Edwards Deming’s principles of emergent intelligence to their organizations. (Sounds crackpot, but there’s something to it.) Sadly, Ed took his own life in 2005.

‘At first I didn’t care for Ed. I mistook his irreverence for disrespect. And maybe there was some jealousy. He was slightly younger than the rest of us in the Beyond Baroque group, cute (almost everyone was infatuated with him at some point), and punkish (he had, after all, come of age in the punk rock scene). I thought he could be obnoxious, a brat. But after I got sober (in 1984) and calmed down a bit (I’d been an uptight alcoholic, which kind of defeats the purpose), I became quite fond of him. Underneath the brash exterior was a very sweet, guileless young man. …

‘And what of his poems? Ed’s poetry was exactly like he was: playful, free of inhibition and decorum, troubling in just the right way. And wrought with intelligence, brilliance even, though on the surface they may seem apathetic to loftier poetic aims. He wrote “Return to Lesbos” (most likely his longest poem) in a black-and-white composition book, scrawling the whole poem throughout it, often with only two, three, four words per page. Ed apparently never typed or tried to publish it. He read the poem at least once to my knowledge, at Beyond Baroque in 1982. Lucky for us this performance (which Amy remembers as a sublime consummation of Ed’s talent as a poet and performer) was filmed and included in Gail Kaszynski’s 1983 documentary about the Beyond Baroque scene, Fear of Poetry. It’s breathtaking to watch Ed stand at the mike, wearing a short-sleeved nerdish shirt he undoubtedly bought at a thrift shop, and read the poem from the composition book, swiftly turning its pages. He simply gallops through the poem, as if he’s uncomfortable with what it’s saying. Fitting, since “Return to Lesbos” is an emotionally charged onrush in which he repeatedly questions his responsibility as a poet: is he going to just hold that “fucking pencil” or use it to “cry for civilization.”

‘Ed is at his best in his short lyrics. They have the sense that they were jotted down on scraps of paper while waiting at a bus stop or standing in a club nursing a beer he’d bought with his last bits of loose change. They probably were. I’ve always thought of Ed as a punk Dorothy Parker. Bruce Hainley refers to Ed’s poems as “toy time bombs.” I think that’s perfect. Something does tend to “go off” as you read them. They delight and cause unease at the same time—they’re authentic, that’s why. There’s real pain and real experience in them, despite their apparent toy-ness.

‘Last year, Bruce Hainley edited a generous selection of Ed’s poems for Court Green (issue 10), a journal I co-edit at Columbia College Chicago. The feature was called, appropriately enough, “Memoirs of a Thrill-Seeker.” This year, in Court Green 11, we published a transcription of “Return to Lesbos.” At the publication party in March, we showed a clip of Ed reading the poem. The audience went wild. “Where can I find his work?” many in attendance eagerly asked. Students, in particular, showed irrepressible excitement. Young people love Ed; his work speaks to them, it’s pertinent. Amy Gerstler and I have been talking about co-editing a book of Ed’s work. I think this would please him—his poems gathered up by two poet friends he hung out with. I’m glad we can continue to hang out with him, and that you’ll be able to, too, since he let himself get caught “being words on paper.”’ — David Trinidad

 

_____
Trailer

 

___________
Preorder the book

https://www.amazon.com/Punk-Rock-Cool-End-World/dp/1885983670

 

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Homages

‘In the very early ‘80s Ed was intimidatingly skinny and gorgeous and as reckless and charismatic as that guy in The Libertines who got caught doing coke with Kate Moss, but very, very talented and massively intelligent, and even when he was a little too wild, he was always so kind and heartbreakingly sweet and smart. Saying he was our Rimbaud is way too lazy, but there was that. I thought of him as LA’s John Wieners. Ed’s poetry has Wieners’s deep melancholy and low-key, note-perfect lyricism, mixed with Ed’s strange, bright ideas and his dead-pan, startling sense of humor. I‘m one of the many people who misses his poetry a lot.’ ― Dennis Cooper

‘Years ago my wife slept with Ed Smith and wrote him into her novel; we goggled, bemused by his ubiquity. It was a time when Ed was everywhere, or so it seemed, and his energy and taste for the zany and the outrageous fit right in with what we in San Francisco appreciated most about the heroic LA artists―Bob Flanagan, Mike Kelley, Amy Gerstler, Dennis Cooper, so many more. The present anthology is not only the best of Ed’s writing but contains in his notebooks the single greatest account of the genius brewing in the Southland at that moment. Hats off to David Trinidad for bringing it all back home―his exquisite care in selecting and contextualizing is the greatest gift he could have given his late friend. — Kevin Killian

‘Sappho invented civilization, and Ed Smith made it punk.’ — Tony Trigilio

‘Reflecting the heroic editorial efforts of David Trinidad, this collection of Ed Smith’s poems and journals makes me nostalgic for a lost era; sad that this talented if troubled poet took his own life; glad that we included his work in The Best American Erotic Poems, and in total agreement with David Trinidad that Smith’s poetry would have a salutary effect on a group of young writers, such as those attending a graduate writing program.’ — David Lehman

‘Ed Smith was this brilliant, handsome, charismatic, disarming, hedonistic, wounded math and science nerd who discovered punk music and art and poetry and was swept away, besotted with all three, and never looked back. He loved drugs and bands and science fiction and science and Sappho and poets and poetry. He liked to give people a little treatise by Alfred North Whitehead on mathematics for a gift. He loved being part of a cool scene. He introduced me to Prince’s music when his first album came out. I think he would have described himself as bi-sexual. He was intense and sensitive and wild. He burned hotly.’ — Amy Gerstler

 

_______
Gallery

Ed Smith and Mary Emerzian, December 3, 1981. Photo by Sheree Rose.

First row (left to right): Amy Gerstler, Ed Smith, Bob Flanagan. Second row (left to right): unknown, Michael Silverblatt, Mark McLaughlin, David Trinidad, Sheree Rose. (1985)

(L.to R.) Michael Silverblatt, Bob Flanagan, Tim Dlugos, Donald Britton, Dennis Cooper, Jeff Wright, Amy Gerstler, Ed Smith. (1981)

Ed Smith, Venice, California, 1980. Photo by Skip Arnold.

 

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Page

 

_____
Extras

Dennis Cooper, Bob Flanagan, Jack Skelley, Amy Gerstler, David Trinidad, Ed Smith,, Sherree Rose.and Steven Hall. (very poor quality)

A poet and a comedian: Taylor Negron, Ed Smith (very poor quality)

 

____
Book

David Trinidad, editor Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith
Turtle Point Press

‘In Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World, David Trinidad brings together a comprehensive selection of Ed Smith’s work: his published books; unpublished poems; excerpts from his extensive notebooks; photos and ephemera; and his timely “cry for civilization,” “Return to Lesbos”: put down that gun / stop electing Presidents.

‘Ed Smith blazed onto the Los Angeles poetry scene in the early 1980s from out of the hardcore punk scene. The charismatic, nerdy young man hit home with his funny/scary off- the- cuff- sounding poems, like “Fishing”: This is a good line. / This is a bad line. This is a fishing line.

‘Ed’s vibrant “gang” of writer and artist friends― among them Amy Gerstler, Dennis Cooper, Bob Flanagan, Mike Kelley, and David Trinidad― congregated at Beyond Baroque in Venice, on LA’s west side. They read and partied and per-formed together, and shared and published each others’ work.

‘Ed was more than bright and versatile: he worked as a math tutor, an animator, and a typesetter. In the mid- 1990s, he fell in love with Japanese artist Mio Shirai; they married and moved to New York City. Despite productive years and joyful times, Ed was plagued by mood disorders and drug problems, and at the age of forty- eight, he took his own life.

‘Ed Smith’s poems speak to living in an increasingly dehumanizing consumer society and corrupt political system. This “punk Dorothy Parker” is more relevant than ever for our ADD, technology- distracted times.’ — Turtle Point Press

 

Excerpts

UNTITLED

This is a good line.
This is a bad line.
This is a good line.
This is a bad line.
Here is a country,
an idea we share.
There is an idea for paying
all debts public and private.
This poetry is now in its own future,
and let me say as an eyewitness
that we are quite primitive back here,
sophisticated only in things we do not do.
My people roll their autos
over goddam asphalt.
This line is doing its best to remain indifferent,
but here it is in this poem.

1982

 

BENEDICTION

Fuck you.
Fuck your mom.
Fuck your cat.
Fuck your mom’s cat.
Fuck your cat’s mom.
Fuck your mom’s cat’s second cousin
from Schenectady.

1982

 

LETTER FROM THE GRAVE

This situation is so embarrassing
that i’m considering approaching it
sheepishly,
but i can’t cause i’m too numb.
Well, numb isn’t exactly the right word,
but it’ll do for now.
Anyway, this is called “Letter from the Grave”
cause i was supposed to have killed myself
last Tuesday,
but i didn’t:
i’m still here,
and next year i’ll be eleven.

1982

 

A LIST OF 3 LETTER WORDS

fun
sex
art
gin
you

1983

 

ODE TO A STREETLIGHT

O ye moon
who shines so bright
it hurts my eyes

1984

 

THE POEM THAT CANNOT BE

I want my whole life to be a poem.

1984

 

CHEATING THE STORK

We fuck
for pleasure alone.

1984

 

DEAR FUCKFACE ASSHOLE JERK,

I am writing you because of the bad review you wrote of my book in Magazine. Not that you thought the book was all that bad just that your review sucked. As an example of how inattentive and lame your supposed criticism was and without going into too much detail you didn’t even manage to get the goddam line breaks right in the quote you took. I won’t even bother demanding a formal apology from a jerk like you, but instead I’ll leave you with this curse: may you wake up with a ringing in your ears, hair in your teeth and Clayton Eshleman lying in bed next to you.

Most Sincerely,

Ed Smith

1984

 

YOU CAN’T LEGISLATE MATURITY

In 1986 I was arrested and charged with armed robbery, possession of a controlled substance, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, statutory rape, indecent exposure and lewd conduct (but not resisting arrest!). Fortunately, that year I was awarded a Literature Fellowship in Poetry by the National Endowment of the Arts and was able to use the Fellowship money to retain some state-of-the-art legal counsel. What with plea-bargaining and all I only ended up serving two years forty-seven days. Since my release I have attained the eighth Operating Thetan level in the Church of Scientology. My short-term goal is to have my civil rights restored so I can pursue my long-term goal of being elected President of the United States.

1985

 

You have to use a washcloth
on the hot water knob in
order to turn it hard
enough to get it all the
way off. I never told
you that. I just went
in every time after you took
a bath and did it myself.

1990

 

MY LAST BEER

It was a long time ago and
I don’t remember it. I was
sitting in a stuffy, dark bar
on a hot sunny afternoon and it
came in a mug. It was one
of those things I thought
I would enjoy more than I
actually did. And not the
first time either. One of
those many things. One of
those many things that just
gradually got replaced by
what’s become everything
else, everything else that’s
just always never enough.

1991

 

When I wrote
this poem rays
of sagacious
afternoon sun-
shine were
streaming in
through the
south-facing
windows, billowy
white clouds
billowed across
the azure dome
of the sky,
birds sang and
chirped to each
other gaily,
the kittens were
asleep in the
living room, one
on the couch,
one on the easy
chair and one
on the futon,
and the tv was on.

1991

 

15 LINE SONNET

You lie on your side back curved
legs bent your knees drawn
up in front of you. I nestle
behind you the two of us
like heavy silver spoons
wrapped in velvet my arms
reach around your tiny
shoulders my hands grip
my forearms securely.
You hold my erect penis
inside you. We rock together
lazily and twist our bodies
slowly. Your head bends
forward and I lick the
back of your neck.

1994

 

ART AND POETRY

Don’t kid yourself it’s
all about power and control

1995

 

SEAT 47K

The last time I was on an
airplane was when I was
leaving you.

1995

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. This book isn’t quite out in the world yet, but I wanted to give it a head start, and it can be pre-ordered now. Some of this is explained in David Trinidad’s intro text below, but Ed Smith was a close friend of mine and a member of the young LA writer gang that circled around Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in the late 70s and early 80s and included, among others, Amy Gerstler, Bob Flanagan, Sheree Rose, David Trinidad, Benjamin Weissman, Jack Skelley, Michael Silverblatt, Kim Rosenfield, Ed, and me. Ed was the youngest, a very charismatic, attractive, brilliant, and complicated guy who wrote knock-out poetry and lived a wild life. He killed himself when he was still quite young, and his two poetry books, published with tiny presses, were long out of print by then. David Trinidad undertook the herculean and so very needed task of assembling Ed’s collected poems and journals, and the spotlit book today is the result. Ed’s poetry is really fantastic, influenced by the particular forcefulness of the punk rock scene that was absorbing LA at the time, and funny and reckless/perfect and deeply emotional. His work was often called Rimbaudian, but it reminded me more of the great John Wieners, although I don’t know if Ed ever read Wieners. Anyway, it’s a great, great thing that Ed’s work is now available to everyone, and in a book that’s beautifully designed and illustrated with photos of Ed and the world around him. I can’t recommend highly enough that you go ahead and pre-order this book. I hope you will. ** David Ehrenstein, Exactly, well said about Perloff/Ashbery. How great that you got to see Jeff Keen and his screenings. ** Kai, Hi, man. Yeah, lots going on over here, and lucky me. Next week, okay. Good luck with the prep. Wow, your kiddo is a year old! That’s crazy, great crazy. Nice, Kai, I’m really happy for you. Oh, we’re working on a screening of Zac’s and my newest film ‘Permanent Green Light’ in Berlin. i’m not sure when exactly when yet, but it would great if it’s while you there and that you could see it and we could finally meet up, flesh to flesh. Have a swell weekend. ** OfKeatonsFromAfar, Elegant. Two or more dates seems like a maxed out birthday to me. Sweet. Yeah, new Sunn0))) out in a week or something. Hope the writing demon swallows you. Most of you, at least. I guess your low half is free to cavort. ** Dominik, Hi, D! Oh, god, I spend a lot of time putting together the posts. I don’t keep track, but definitely every day. Basically, whenever I don’t have something else to do or have a break, I make blog posts. It’s nice in the sense that I never get bored. There’s always something to occupy my time. You might like Sunn0))). They’re an intense live experience. If they come through your area, go see them, and definitely take ear plugs even if you’re a hardcore listener. They redefine loud. No, hm, I didn’t get news about the rating. Huh. Sometimes our producer forgets to tell us stuff. I’ll email and ask. My week was good. Lots of work, though. Writer/d.l. Jeff Jackson is in Paris doing a residency, and we hung out. Saw some art, and … other stuff, but mostly work on the TV script. Wow, late happy birthday to you, pal! 27 is a good portal. It seems good that you saw a lot of people around your birthday. That feels right. Enjoy your solo weekend. My weekend? Work. Episode 1 of the TV series is finished and waiting for Gisele’s input. Episode 2 might be finished today. And then Episode 3 work will take over. Otherwise, see friends, do something. There’s the big annual Queer zine/press fair Paris Ass Book Fair this weekend at Palais de Tokyo. I’ll definitely go to that today or tomorrow. Take care, make the weekend your slave, and I’ll see you soon! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Yeah, he was a multi-talent — film, visual art, sound, … and all of it is pretty exciting. How very curious about EyeMobile. I’d never heard of that existing. Yeah, interested to hear how that works for you, obviously. When do you think you’ll get to experiment with it? ** Steve Erickson, Hi. It certainly seems like the Klonopin decreasing is the very likely culprit behind your mood crash. Logically, at least. I hope your biology evens right out. And that your weekend comes out on the way up side. ** Okay. Yes, I hope you’ll investigate Ed Smith’s book and work today. That would be lovely. See you on Monday.

 

‘The fiercely original film-maker, poet and artist Jeff Keen, who has died aged 88, defied categorisation. He produced a vast body of paintings, drawings, sculpture and punchy Beat poetry, but is best known for his films, which incorporated collage, animation, found footage and live action – often all in one work. Keen used highly innovative techniques of superimposition and editing, and frequently etched and degraded the film surface. Works such as Marvo Movie (1967), Rayday Film (1968-75) and Mad Love (1972-78) were shot with his friends and family either at home, on the streets of Brighton or at the local tip; their fantastical, DIY countercultural qualities evoked the spirit of Andy Warhol’s Factory and the early cinema pioneers of Brighton, where Keen lived. Despite making his first film in his late 30s, he completed more than 70 films and videos throughout his life.

‘Keen was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and had a love of wildlife, art and books as a child. He attended grammar school and gained an Oxford scholarship, but this was thwarted by his national service in 1942. Keen was given experimental tanks and aeroplane engines to trial during the war, and would frequently refer back to this period in films such as Meatdaze (1968), which included bombers and sirens on its soundtrack, and Artwar (1993).

‘After the war, Keen developed a love of movies and comics and attended a small art college in Chelsea. London life encouraged his love of the arts, especially surrealism, Picasso and Dubuffet. When he moved to Brighton, Keen took up work as a landscape gardener for the local council. In 1956, he married Jackie Foulds, who was the muse for his films in the 1960s and 70s, playing the characters Vulvana, The Catwoman and Nadine. Keen himself had a B-movie-style “mad scientist” alter ego named Dr Gaz.

‘One of his early films, The Autumn Feast (1961), was made with the poet Piero Heliczer, who was part of the Warhol set. From the early 1960s, Keen experimented with “expanded cinema” (film events that exceed the normal modes of cinema projection), combining multiple projections and live art performance. A regular contributor to the “happenings” scene of 1960s London, at the Better Books shop in Charing Cross Road and elsewhere, he also participated in the International Underground Film festival at the National Film Theatre in 1970 and continued to make expansive, surrealist-informed 16mm epics such as White Dust (1970-72) and The Cartoon Theatre of Dr Gaz (1976-79), as well as 8mm diary films. He painted throughout the 60s and 70s and made artist books inspired by his films.

‘After Keen temporarily separated from Jackie in the early 1980s, his films became more abstract and introspective. He worked in front of the camera more, sometimes donning absurdist paper disguises, almost as if life had not only merged with art but fully collapsed into it. In Blatzom (1986), he became a moving sculpture/drawing hybrid. His friends and family were still involved: his daughter, Stella, operated a second camera and the editor Damian Toal came on board to help with violent, industrial-style videos such as Plasticator (1990s). Artwar was commissioned and broadcast by Channel 4.

‘Keen’s interest in myth, surrealism and romantic painting complemented his love of movies and comics, and he continually absorbed new references into his work. His highly frenetic videos of the 1990s included homages to Apocalypse Now, Rambo and Predator as well as Budd Boetticher westerns. Although his work has always been featured in historical surveys of British experimental and avant-garde cinema, these qualities distinguished his films from more purely formalist works made at the London Filmmakers’ Co-Operative, an organisation he helped to found in 1966. It meant his work was often more appreciated by skaters and punks than followers of the canonical avant garde. The extreme, short edits in his playful, visceral films have helped to keep his work fresh and alive; they still zap with energy decades later.

‘I worked with Keen throughout 2008 on a series of restorations, a film season and a BFI DVD boxset, GAZWRX: The Films of Jeff Keen. The process was undertaken at great speed, much like the pace of his films. We discussed everything from B-movies to Wagner to William Blake. I followed his instructions diligently along the way, but discovered that in speeding up some electronic drawings made on a children’s toy, and turning them into a two-channel video, we had made a new piece of work, Omozap Terribelis + Afterblatz 2. He grew excited and wanted to make more new things, despite his declining health. It was typical of what had been his persistent desire, even need, to make art. As he said in the early 1960s: “If words fail, use your teeth. If teeth fail, draw in the sand.” Whatever it takes, art must happen.’ — William Fowler

 

____
Stills

 

____
Further

Jeff Keen Website
Jeff Keen @ IMDb
Jeff Keen @ Experimental Cinema
Jeff Keen @ Hales Gallery
The Estate of JEFF KEEN
GAZWRX: the films of Jeff Keen
Jeff Keen ‎– Noise Art
“When words fail, use your teeth!”
Shoot the Wrx, Artist and Film-maker Jeff Keen
Jeff Keen: Artist and film-maker celebrated for his playful approach
Jeff Keen @ letterboxd
DR GAZ
R.I.P Jeff Keen
ART WAR! An Appreciation Of The Films Of Jeff Keen
Stewart Home on the films of Jeff Keen

 

____
Extras

Jeff Keen in drawings, paintings and film

Jeff Keen – Gazapocalypse | The Tanks

(Jeff Keen) Shoot the Wrx! exhibition walkthrough

 

______
Interview

 

WONDERLAND: Why are people finally taking notice of your films?

JACKIE KEEN: A year ago I wrote to the BFI saying that it was disgusting that my husband had been sidelined. I explained that I had seen him devoted to making movies for decades working on a shoestring, doing the whole thing by himself, and never stopping –

JEFF KEEN: Well, I’ve stopped now. [Laughs]

WONDERLAND: Why have you been ignored for so long?

JACKIE: Partly it’s his fault, because he’s not interested in chatting people up. He’s too shy. In fact, I said in the email to the BFI that if Jeff knew I was writing at all, he’d be cross with me.

JEFF: Oh well. It’s old stuff, that is, Jackie. I’ve given up film now.

JACKIE: Yes. But it hasn’t given you up.

JEFF: Well, it has in a way, I think.

WONDERLAND: How do you mean?

JEFF: I’ve kicked the film habit.

JACKIE: But you haven’t kicked the drawing habit.

JEFF: No. I can’t kick that. I fall back on that. I’m still drawing all the time.
[Jackie goes into the next room and comes back with her arms full of boxes, plastic wallets and folders. She hands over the sketchbooks]

WONDERLAND: These are incredible.

JEFF: These are just from the top of the pile… It’s all part of it. It’s all part of the story.

JACKIE: He was never //not// drawing, were you Jeff?

JEFF: No, love. [Little laugh] I used to sit in my flat; I have a chair that’s convenient, and I used to sit there until it got too dark, every night. So I’ve got quite a lot of books lying about.

WONDERLAND: These are the contents of your mind, Jeff!

JEFF: Pouring out. But they don’t want to see them, that’s the damn trouble. The BFI obviously are just thinking in terms of film and I understand that but… I have been bored by it. To be honest, I am exhausted by it. And I don’t want to talk about it.

JACKIE: Now, don’t say that.

JEFF: Anyway, a lot of my stuff was outdoors. It’s gone.

WONDERLAND: Did you used to go around Brighton graffiti-ing?

JEFF: I started doing graffiti in the 60s. I remember the first time, it was the other end of town, the road running underneath the railway bridge where the London trains go over.

JACKIE: I was keeping watch to see nobody came to arrest him. And you were spray-painting ‘Deep War Hurts Says Doctor Gaz’

WONDERLAND: Why did you first move here?

JEFF: I came on a chance a few years after the war. It was a very different place then, almost like life on another planet. I got a summer job working in parks and gardens and stayed on for 12 years. That job came to an end in ’63: we had a very bad winter, and I remember going along the seafront scraping up sludge and snow, throwing it into the road for cars to spin it back at me again as I walked along the road, and that was the end for me.

WONDERLAND: And how did you get into film?

JEFF: I wasn’t thinking about film at all when I was younger. I was an artist, really, from the start. It was only much later that filmmaking was thrust upon me, when Jackie was at the art college.

JACKIE: There was no film society, so Jeff did everything, behind the scenes. It was ostensibly me, but it was all Jeff: he was the backroom boy.

JEFF: I found I liked getting behind a camera. I was the only person with spare time, so I finished up making the films to show.

WONDERLAND: Did you teach yourself?

JEFF: Yeah. Nothing in it really. [Laughs] You can learn to use a camera in a few days, and the rest follows.

WONDERLAND: Do you think in pictures?

JEFF: I suppose I do.

JACKIE: That was one of your slogans, ‘Kill The Word’ –

JEFF: ‘Don’t Let It Kill You!’

WONDERLAND: How did you meet?

JEFF: In a coffee bar called Tinkie’s.

JACKIE: Jeff saw me in the street first.

JEFF: Oh yes, actually, when I first saw her, it was rather terrific. She was walking down from the Clocktower, all in green: green hat, green coat, green shoes. And I thought, ‘God, there’s someone with style.’ [Laughs] She was being chased by a loping man.

JACKIE: Oh Jeff you make it sound –

JEFF: No, it’s true. [Laughs]

WONDERLAND: Have you always felt like an outsider?

JEFF: Living here in Brighton I’d always been outside the mainstream. From the very outset I never really fitted in, even as a filmmaker. Not that it mattered much, you know, I didn’t mind. I just carried on filming.

WONDERLAND: Did you want to be accepted?

JEFF:No. Not really. I never really tried for it.

WONDERLAND: Let’s talk a bit about your childhood. Where were you born?

JEFF: Trowbridge, Wilts. I remember the road. I don’t remember the house. It was a bad birth. My mother was quite old, forty-something. And I was the first one. And it was November and from then on it has been a difficult road!

WONDERLAND: What did your parents do?

JEFF: My mother took on local nursing. And my father didn’t do anything really. He was out of the war, the First World War, where he’d been in a minesweeper off the coast of Ireland, rescuing bodies from the Lusitania, when it sank in 1915, all that sort of thing. Over a thousand people died, a hundred children. And he didn’t want anything more to do with that.

JACKIE: Jeff’s father was amazing. [Jackie goes to the shelf and brings down a photo album] He had the most fantastic sense of humour, and he used to love dressing up.

JEFF: Actually these photographs say far more than words. They need sticking back in again, Jackie.

JACKIE: [Takes one out, a headshot of Jeff in soldier’s uniform] I love this one of him as a soldier. His face radiates warmth, intelligence and his poetic nature.

WONDERLAND: Did you do a lot of destroying things when you were a kid?

JEFF: No I don’t think I did. I was very mild-mannered. [Laughs] I didn’t like the destruction of birds’ eggs, all that. The things I destroy in my films don’t answer back! I remember my cousin, who lived next door, he had this habit of shooting little birds, he got a Diana air pistol for Christmas. He had these starlings down from the nest, on a little table and he put them out on there and shot them and it was a bit of a shock. That night I felt this irritation in the throat, and that was the Scarlet Fever starting.

WONDERLAND: What did you want to be when you grew up?

JEFF: I think I always wanted to draw. I used to draw birds, natural history. My first job was at the local store in Trowbridge just before WW2. Sainsburys, actually, and I remember drawing aeroplanes there. Bombers and things like that. Everyone was talking about war. It was in the air.

WONDERLAND: Comics are obviously crucial to your art. Did you read them when you were a boy?

JEFF: I discovered comics when they started to become popular in this country in the late 50s. They were quite sensational: you could buy them in corner shops, you’d get a collection of comics down beside the door as you went in, mostly national comics, not Marvel then. But I don’t draw like comics. I love them, but I don’t set out to imitate them, you know?

WONDERLAND: Do you remember your first trip to the cinema?

JEFF: My mother took me. It was Chaplin’s film about the circus, I was less than five and I remember screaming out: I was upset when the horse goes on the loose, and everything started to fall about. I was frightened… It’s difficult to imagine really how important the cinema was to us. During the war, of course, it became even more important. People would just flock to them, it was the only entertainment… and the smoke from all the cigarettes used to rise.

WONDERLAND: What did you do in WW2?

JEFF: Nothing much! I was at a secret location about ten miles inland from Great Yarmouth, fitting reject flying fortress engines into Sherman tanks for D-Day.

WONDERLAND: You said earlier that you’ve given up film –

JEFF: I haven’t been making films for some time. And I feel now I’m too weak. [Laughs] You’ve got to be strong, I think, to make films. Unless you’ve got other people to help you. I work in that precarious place of being without money most of the time… It’s strange, you know. I was always happier making films than trying to explain them. Now it’s come to an end, I should be stopping and thinking, but I’m not really. I’m trying to forget.

 

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14 of Jeff Keen’s 49 films

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Wail (1961)
‘The realities of brutal gang violence collide with war paintings and a horror movie werewolf in this extraordinary action and animation mix. Keen recognises the dynamic links between different cultural forms plus popular culture’s potential for violence and subversion.’ — Lux

 

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The Autumn Feast (1961)
‘Jeff Keen lauds it up in Brighton with beat poet and Warhol associate Piero Heliczer. They transform the landscape and set the beat meter going. The dialogue between UK and USA Underground filmmaking starts here. Stylish, fun, scandalous and revolutionary, in Jack Smith’s words “it rubs the very noses of out mannequins in our own mould and sends us spinning into the street – undone and toothless”.’ — bfi

Watch it here for 1.00 £

 

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Instant Cinema (1962)
‘This early quick-fire cut-up animation melds machine gunfire with scratched film. The soundtrack was made by Keen in 2007 with a wasp synthesizer and a shortwave radio.’ — letterboxd

Excerpt

 

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Flik Flak (1965)
‘Comics, monsters and a zombified Keen are gently desecrated in this paint-flecked film that also features a picture of Jackie Keen crying heart-shaped tears.’ — letterboxd

Excerpt

 

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Marvo Movie (1967)
‘Movie wizard initiates shatter brain experiment Eeeow! – the fastest movie firm alive – at 24 or 16 f.p.s. even the mind trembles-splice up sequence 2-flix unlimited, an inside yr very head the images explode-last years models new houses and such terrific death scenes while the time and space operator attacks the brain via the optic nerve-will the operation succeed-will the white saint reach in time the staircase now alive with blood-only time will tell says the movie master-meanwhile deep inside the space museum.’ — Ray Durgnat

the entire film

 

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Cineblatz (1967)
‘In Cineblatz, the viewer is subjected to a high-impact barrage of evolving images, at once comic and terrifying. Glossy magazines are cut up and reconfigured, newspaper pages are defaced with animated squiggles, comic-book superheroes fly out, over and through at superspeed. Pictures appear only to burn up or be torn apart, toys dance in ferocious stop-motion before melting into pools of plastic decay, a hammer plunges down on an image of the assembled House of Commons – all to a crackly soundtrack of treated shortwave static. It is a hyperkinetic panorama of 1960s popular culture in meltdown, where seemingly nothing stays still for more than a single frame, as the artist ejaculates ideas onto the screen faster than the eye can properly register. Lasting just three minutes, Cineblatz is exhilarating, orgasmic even–but also thoroughly exhausting.’ — letterboxd

Excerpt

 

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Meatdaze (1968)
‘With Meatdaze, Jeff Keen tried to create a full cinema programme all in one film. He divided it into six sections, of which three main parts can be discerned: rapid animations (the cartoons of the programme), naked people at play (the supporting feature) and finally a collage of action and superimposition (the main feature).’ — distrify

Excerpt

 

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White Lite (1968)
‘White Lite is something of a mystical film. It feels like we’ve gone through the looking glass and entered another world, despite the fact it was largely shot in the flat of its director, Jeff Keen. The film greets us with the invitation “meet anti-matter and the bride of the monster”, pointing to Keen’s love of B movies and a reference to The Bride of the Atom (US, 1955) or The Bride of the Monster as it was later known, a film by Ed D. Wood Jr. The homage comes some 12 years before Wood achieved considerable notoriety as winner of a Worst Director of All Time Award in 1980 (and 26 years before he was immortalised in Tim Burton’s affectionate tribute Ed Wood).’ — autohystoria

the entire film

 

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Rayday Film (1968-76)
‘‘Rayday Film’ (1968-76) is a sort of crazed homage to comic book superheroes (the title comes from a comic-book Keen himself produced). Sped-up, multi-exposure footage shows Keen’s wife and friends acting the role of various masked or costumed characters, and performing weird, cultish rituals in various locations around Brighton, where they all lived. Thrown into the mad mix are images of toys and dolls being melted, sections of damaged film stock, fragments of stop-motion animation, and a montage of TV clips showing wartime atrocities. Oh, and the soundtrack is a near-constant cacophony of overlaid tracks, forming a pulsing, shrieking vortex of white noise. Needless to say, there isn’t much in the way of a coherent plot. And yet, amidst the sensory assault, certain themes can be picked out: war, and media representations, and the dark mythological energies that lurk beneath the surface of civilised existence.’ — Time Out (London)

the entire film

 

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The Dreams and Past Crimes of the Archduke (1984)
‘The 16mm work is made up of three parts: out-of-date film stock accompanied by evocative piano, a noir style photo-drama set at Brighton train station and – the main piece of the film – a gorgeous blue- and red-dominated poetic psychodrama. The use of old film stock is not untypical for Keen; he would regularly use whatever material was at hand, often using different types of film stock within the same title, as here. As a low-/no-budget filmmaker, he frequently had little choice, but he often exploits the poetics of low-grade material as part of the process. Keen cut his images in the main section to a soundtrack provided by his daughter, Stella Starr, who recorded the cut-up of music and sound effects during a film show at the local cinema. Although not always credited, Stella has provided regular assistance to her father, beginning in the late ’60s and usually as camera operator. She also features as the blind-folded artist painting with a paper brush, a particularly dynamic image. The red- and blue-painted figures look partly to the new romantic art that was happening at the time but also look like ghosts of the people who’d appeared in Keen’s films for the last 20 years. The double-exposure of the ghostly figures, the slow-paced action, colour dominance and interplay between sound and image make this one of his most reflective films.’ — bfi

Keen’s sketchbook for the film

 

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Plasticator (1990)
‘Treating apocalyptic and aggressive imagery with silence and slow washes of colour, Jeff Keen exhibits and works against his usual tropes.’ — letterboxd

Behind the scenes

 

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Plazmatic Blatz (1991)
‘Stealth bombers hover like vultures over crashing waves and a ruined land. Using found footage and several thick layers of video, Keen presents a very visceral version of Armageddon.’ — LUX

Watch an excerpt here

 

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Omozap2 (1991)
‘Jeff Keen stands in overalls, poised with his tools before him. Then he lights a roaring gas-fueled torch, smashes a plate with a hammer, paints a giant esoteric symbol on the wall and starts up his film projector. This snappy one minute video provides a neat evocation of the Jeff Keen live experience and throws us right into the inspired montages to come.’ — LUX

the entire film

 

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Omozap in Artwar (1995)
‘This refined and punchy series of films combines explosions and gunfire with strident performances at home and painting at the local tip. Possibly the culmination of all Keen’s themes and a potent reminder of his seemingly inexhaustible imaginative powers.’ — LUX

Excerpt

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I happened to read that Perloff interview yesterday. Very interesting. I totally disagree with her that Ashbery’s late work was weaker. I think she just missed something there. Anyway, thank you! new FaBlog! Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein has updated his legendary FaBlog with a little number called ‘There’s Always A “7 Women”’, and why don’t you go check it out? ** Kai, Hi, Kai! A rare and wonderful boon/pleasure to see you! I never paid that much attention to Prefab Sprout for some reason, but that new reissue LP is just gorgeous. Hugs from Paris! You sound very alert for someone who just stepped into a radically different time zone. Congrats! Thank you again a lot for showing them ‘Them’, and awesome that ‘Jerk fits into your new thematic. Well, the TV mini-series is a Gisele project. She’s directing it. And we’ve been working on that for over three years. The next ‘live’ thing with her is an adaptation she’s doing of a play that Robert Walzer wrote as a teen. I’m supposed to write a secret play that will be happening invisibly within that play and directing the performers. Haven’t figured out how to do that yet but as soon as the TV script is finished and green lit, I’ll be working with her on that, plus Zac’s and my next film, plus a gif novel in progress, plus hopefully finishing a novel I started about 7 years ago. Busy and good. You have a break now, or does the teaching restart pronto? Love, me. ** Steve Erickson, It’s an interesting album, the Triad God. And, yeah, agree obviously about DEAFKIDS. ** _Black_Acrylic, Cool, glad the Dis Fig track snagged you. Let me know how the Halo album is. My interest has drifted away from her stuff, and I’d like to reengage if there’s a reason. ‘The Wild Bull’! I haven’t listened to that since I was a teen. Whoa. I will. Very nice. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. I forgot that about your flowers phobia. That is one oddball — in an interesting way — fear right there. Jeff Jackson is here in Paris! I hung out with him yesterday, in fact. I hope the doc appointment gives 100% good news. ** chris dankland, Hi, Chris! I’m really happy you’re into the gigs, and hopefully into that particular one. Don’t know Sean Nicholas Savage, no. Hm. It sounds just far afield — in an interesting way — from what I’ve been imbibing that checking him out feels refreshing, so I will. Thanks a lot for the directive. Thanks about the Ellis podcast. Yeah, it ended up being pretty fun to talk with him. We’d only had a few passing conversation before that. ‘Missing Men’, wow, that old thing. Thank you. That’s so kind. If it made you dream of doing things, I mean, nothing’s better. I’ll see if I can pat myself on the back. Seems possible. Take care, good buddy! ** Kyler, Hi. Thank you. It’s not a bad looking morning here so far. I trust yours, which is still in the future and cloaked in darkness but will be in place by the time you read this, functions similarly. Maybe your sister and I will accidentally without knowing it physically bump into each other on the street and yell ‘Fuck you’ at each other. Except I’m not a hair-trigger anger kind of guy, so I guess she’d yell, ‘Fuck you,’ and I would look at her askance and think, ‘What’s her fucking problem’?! Weirdos will inherit the earth. Word. ** Right. I thought a nice, extensive post about the late, great experimentalist Brit filmmaker and artist Jeff Keen would be just the ticket for today. See you tomorrow.