The Great Punctuation Typography Struggle
this text has been altered in one very serious way. I
wanted it to be printed the way it was written —lower
case letters, no apostrophes, contractions.
I like my text to be as empty as possible, only necessary punctuation is necessary, when one knows ones purposes one knows what is necessary.
my publisher, in his corporate wisdom, filled the
pages with garbage: standard punctuation, he knew his
purposes; he knew what was necessary, our purposes
differed: mine, to achieve clarity; his, to sell books.
my publisher changed my punctuation because book
reviewers (Mammon) do not like lower case letters,
fuck (in the old sense) book reviewers (Mammon).
W hen I say god and mammon concerning the
writer writing, I mean that any one can use words to
say something. And in using these words to say what
he has to say he may use those words directly or in-
directly. I f he uses these words indirectly he says what
he intends to have heard by somebody who is to hear
and in so doing inevitably he has to serve mammon.. . .
Now serving god for a writer who is writing is writing
anything directly, it makes no difference what it is but
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Woman Hating
it must be direct, the relation between the thing done
and the doer must be direct. In this way there is completion and the essence o f the completed thing is completion.
Gertrude Stein
in a letter to me, Grace Paley wrote, “once everyone
tells the truth artists will be unnecessary —meanwhile
there’s work for us. ”
telling the truth, we know what it is when we do it
and when we learn not to do it we forget what it is.
form, shape, structure, spatial relation, how the
printed word appears on the page, where to breathe,
where to rest, punctuation is marking time, indicating
rhythms, even in my original text I used too much of it
— I overorchestrated. I forced you to breathe where I
do, instead of letting you discover your own natural
breath.
I begin by presuming that I am free.
I begin with nothing, no form, no content, and I ask:
what do I want to do and how do I want to do it.
I begin by presuming that what I write belongs to
me.
I begin by presuming that I determine the form I
use —in all its particulars. I work at my craft —in all
