Stan Persky (most likely) reads from Wrestling the Angel (Talonbooks, 1976) as well as a few unpublished poems.
Introducer - Gladys Hindmarch
00:00:00.00
Stan and I both view Gertrude Stein as sort of eternal and I find that I can never read more than two pages of her at a time, like you just sort of become hypnotized, but she's pretty good to...like when I'm starting, trying to get into something to start to write and if I just read, you know just open one of her books at any sort of page, you know just at random and I just read two or three sentences, sometimes a paragraph, never more than that...and so I'm going to introduce Stan with a couple of Gertrude Stein sentences. "There's singularly nothing that makes a difference, a difference in beginning, and in middle, and in ending, except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that anybody knows it that composition is the difference which makes each and all of them then different from other generations, and this is what makes everything different, otherwise they're all like, and everybody knows it because everybody says it." Stan Persky.
Stan Persky
00:01:13.62
Yeah, I'm doing fine. The reading that I'm going to give is called "The Day," and what it is is pieces of everything that I'm onto right now, and so you have to bear with how ever unable to follow it out. And of course, like what we're trying to do is give you some sense of what it's like to be out where we are.
Annotation
00:01:45.25
Reads "Notebook, around August 20th, 1969"
Stan Persky
00:03:34.14
Is that unbearably fast?
Annotation
00:03:38.89
Reads "Notebook, around August 25th, 1969"
Stan Persky
00:07:16.69
"Notebook, Sunday, August 29th or 30th, 1969" You can see the energy this takes, it's just...[laughs, sighs.] This is barely doing it. "Jim and Franz..." I'm going to try to read one of these a little more slowly, maybe.
Annotation
00:07:42.25
Reads "Notebook, Sunday, August 29th or 30th, 1969"
Stan Persky
00:11:45.39
This one's a longer pull if that's possible. "The Marriage." Angela, this is the gossip for you. Coming in here, I was thinking, who's sitting in the room, and you'd like to hear your names [laughs.]...Arnie..."The Marriage."
Annotation
00:12:23.29
Reads "The Marriage"
Annotation
00:18:56.58
Persky pauses to take a sip of water; continues with the line, "What is an interruption that isn't one?" Audience laughs; Persky responds, "Tricky dick!" and laughs; audience laughter.
Annotation
00:19:10.10
Continues "The Marriage".
Annotation
00:27:55.38
Audeince applause concludes the reading of this poem; edit/cut in recording; recommences with another poem, no introduction.
Annotation
00:27:57.87
Reads "To Gladys".
Annotation
00:34:54.98
Audience laughter follows the poem's last lines: "Is British Columbia inhabited? No maam, just large game animals and God."
Stan Persky
00:34:59.11
"October 24th, 1969" Did I write this for this, did I write this reading?
Annotation
00:35:08.35
Reads "October 24th, 1969".
Annotation
00:36:46.96
Reads "Jamie."
Stan Persky
00:39:49.53
And the last three...
Annotation
00:39:52.30
Cut/Edit made in tape here; no indication of how much time elapsed in cut.
Annotation
00:39:53.26
Reads "Wednesday, November 5th, 1969, by Hunter's Creek".
Annotation
00:42:04.53
Reads "Fred Study. Notebook, Friday, November 7th, 1969, Fred Study."
Stan Persky
00:44:17.37
And at last, to finish, as far as it's gone, or whatever it is, "The Day."
Annotation
00:44:26.91
Reads "The Day".
Annotation
00:46:38.09
Tape ends suddenly; no audience applause; presumably end of poem? Last line on recording is, "Is that it?"
