Short attention span is the new avant-garde. Everyone complains that we can no longer intake huge chunks of text. I find that a reason to celebrate. It's something that has deep roots in modernism, stretching from the Futurists' use of typography to Pound's use of ideograms to concrete poetry. David Markson feels particularly relevant now. Twitter is the revenge of modernism.
Kenneth GoldsmithAutomation and technology don't cure behavioral ruts: they just create new instances of them.
Kenneth GoldsmithI think that writers often try too hard in the name of expression, when often it's just a matter of reframing what's around you or republishing a preexisting text into a new environment that makes for a successful work.
Kenneth GoldsmithMy books are better thought about than read. They're insanely dull and unreadable.But they're wonderful to talk about and think about, to dip in and out of, to hold, to have on your shelf.
Kenneth GoldsmithHow fortunate we are to exist in the moneyless economy of poetry! When you take money out of the equation, anything goes and nobody cares. It's truly free.
Kenneth GoldsmithAll of our media is made of language: our films, our music, our images, and of course our words. How different this is from analog production, where, if you were somehow able to peel back the emulsion from, say, a photograph, you wouldn't find a speck of language lurking below the surface.
Kenneth Goldsmith