nitsuh on an old ilx thread called bakers checkpoint his attempt at legacy--and not immediatelyt political, and its a weird thing to say about a book that was sold on being about two men in a hotel room, one of them trying to convince the other not to shoot bush.

its a hard book, and one that marks a bitter and explicit turn against the american culture of violence on both the left and right--it is shockingly pro life, in the most literal sense of the word, against murder, against abortion. it tells us we lost wwii, that our work in hiroshima and dresden was the death of civilization, but so was abortion. its not cloying, its strangely not polemical, its human--with the details of a dropped life.

i think that it was misunderstood, too firey when it was released, but baker is a (i was going to write brilliant, but hes not--hes earthy, mundane, broken, and quiet--his obv. talents are the exact opposite of brilliant: i think that he might be the best writer working today, but that might be because he has published so small and so little, nothing over 200 or so pages) (this might also be why he is less respected then he should be)

ive also read a volume of shaker hymns, which have much in common (work, zion, mother god, simplicity, alt. family structures, new jersulem, craft) with much of the other burnt over regions, and i wonder about smiths (talent/skill) as a bricolouer, and wonder if it has been written about.

and an ed ruscha, which i am going to qoute text prints from the mid 70s for a while.
romance with liquids
made with onion juice on onion paper, and it has that white on white translucent glow
various miracles
(with a milton averyesque god descending from heaven to accompony it (also catholic comics, the rays behind moroni, the halo shines from Griffith King of Kings, etc)
sloberin' drunk at the palamino
(black field white text)
three darvons and two valiums
(valley of the dolls/san fernado valley (mottled pale pale pink and white text)
i was gasping for contact
(sickly greygreen, orange hole in the center) letters on the diagonal
I Plead Insanity BEcause I'M Just Crazy About That Little Girl
(dark to light red, top to bottom, v. v. subtle newmanesque transition) (its obv. a qoute from somewhere (rockabilly/country im thinking--elvis?!?!)
sea of desire
the letters are all over the place, tipping drunkenly left or right, and look like they were cut from tinfoil. feild right to left, mango to black)
find contact lenses at the bottom of a swimming pool
i love this one, its an update almost of i once was blind but now i see, and the feild is this grainy, sunny, aqua and white, like being in a pool and seeing light almost--and its almost an impossible task anyways) (and rauschenberg collected it to!)
He Walks into a meeting hall full of workers and yells out, "O.K, What Is it You Guys Want, Pontiac Catalinas?"
marrianne moore, the poet, was asked once to write 1000 names for ford cars, the edsel i think among others--but pontiac catalina is pretty poetic--the spit of the p, the harsh t, no space left, then the k, like two kicks, a nother two hard consanats, and the feather bed of lina...is it any wonder that silliman loves ruscha?

he enjoys the co. of women (love the co. there)
they called her styerene (the colour of a tequila sunrise, title of book)
honey, i twisted through more damn traffic today
dirty baby (more tin cut outs)
i dont want/ no retro/ spective
n'dinette sets
1/2 starved/1/2 crocked/1/2 insane
a squid eating dough in a polyetheylene bag is fast and bublous...got me? (brilliant sentence)
industrial village (new font, the i in industry is covered, and the whole thing floats over a thick black sludge)
hollywood is a verb (perfect red rothko)
areosal particles suspended in haze
is it overcast, radiation fog or scud

and dozens more...