Paris Scratch, Sensitive Skin, San Francisco. He spent years wandering the haunted streets of NYC & Paris, cluttered with ghosts & memory, rich in phenomenological detail, friends & foes, encounters & coincidence & the enticing scent of decay, which allows the old to ignite the new. This sensory wealth tends to overpower a city’s residents &, to survive, they must learn to ignore it all. One day we wake up & wonder why we’re living here; they must now put up or shut up; it’s either reinvent one’s relation to the surroundings or get a divorce. & rather than do the easy thing – taking snapshots – plantenga began recording what the 5 senses registered; scribbling down a “snapshot” per day for a year with the writing-while-walking strategy producing a unique form of dérive as well as countless notepads of barely legible scribbles.
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The Unloaded Camera Snapshots commenced in Paris as a documentation exercise to take daily "snapshots" of everyday life.
The two books were first published in excerpted form as 2 limited-edition chapbooks inc. snapshots #1-12, by CHRIS POTASH at Black&White. The Scottish literary journal West Coast Review no. 22, published excerpts in 1994. Excerpts also appeared in Cocodrilo and in Unbearables.1, NY: Ackerman Loft Gallery. |
NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor Sensitive Skin, San Francisco. Wandering the haunted streets of NYC, cluttered with ghosts & memory, rich in phenomenological detail, friends & foes, encounters & coincidence & the enticing scent of decay, which allows the old to ignite the new. This sensory wealth tends to overpower a city’s residents & to survive they must ignore it all. New Yorkers, became “inured to the ravages around them [so that] they scarcely notice anymore,” as Flora Lewis so aptly described it. This deadening allows everyone to believe they’re outwitting their environment.
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Movies [7]: Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor
• NY Sin Phoney 145: That Dangerous Gaze • Paris Scratch 56: Following the Seine of Urine • Paris Scratch 20: Train of Mercy Juste à Temps
• Paris Scratch 77: Archaeologie of the Drunk Dance • NY Sin Phoney 239: Sharing a Cab with Ava Gardner • NY Sin Phoney 255: Downtown into the Past
• NY Sin Phoney 145: That Dangerous Gaze • Paris Scratch 56: Following the Seine of Urine • Paris Scratch 20: Train of Mercy Juste à Temps
• Paris Scratch 77: Archaeologie of the Drunk Dance • NY Sin Phoney 239: Sharing a Cab with Ava Gardner • NY Sin Phoney 255: Downtown into the Past
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The trashy-chic book launch party happened at nowhere better than NY's Downtown Beirut, psycho-geographical epicenter of all qualm was attended by the well-dressed and well-pickled.... an infamous dive with its fetid-humid atmosphere, flooded bathrooms, overpriced beer, a jukebox filled with delirious rot, and shriveled hot dogs on a rotating pitchfork in a toaster oven with grime baked right into its manufacture. the very atmosphere of this purposefully down n out bar perfect for people who needed to play out their scenarios of personal dissipation. I soon wondered – which quickly turned to worry – whether the completed version would ever see the light of any day?
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- Manhattan Linear published Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney excerpts as Wandering the Forbidden & Forgotten.
- Paris Scratch [12 snapshots], 3AM Magazine, 11.16
- Paris Scratch: The Children Snapshots [Les enfants instantanés], Coalhill Review, 12.16
- NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor vs Paris Scratch: 6 short movies, Sensitive Skin
- Paris Scratch excerpts Vox Populi, 3.17
- Exploration vs Consumption in Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney, Ol Chanty, Scotland 3.17
- 12 Zen Blinks from NY Sin Phoney in Fact Flat Minor, appeared in the NYC magazine Manhattan Linear.
Reviews PARIS SCRATCH & NY Sin Phoney
- Wonderful World review of Paris Scratch by Tosh Berman, 4.17
- Book Review: PARIS SCRATCH, Kevin Riordan 1.17
- Paris Scratch: A review of bart plantenga’s latest book, Win Harms, Rough Night 2.17
- Paris Scratch Outtakes Review, Steve Dalachinsky, Brooklyn Rail 11.16
- Paris Scratch Review, Bob Bishop, Paris Voice 11.16
- NY Sin Phoney Review, Paul Knobloch, Goodreads 3.17
- Flash Fictions Galore: NY Sin Phoney IN FACE FLAT MINOR, Peter Bates, Stylus, 3.1
