Tim Romano wrote: The challenge I have for Billy is this: can you tell us where in an Eisenstein film such JUXTAPOSITIONS occur with that kind of high-definition? Your mission, Mr Stoneking, should you decide to accept it, is to demonstrate the clarity and definition of the relation, since every image or scene that comes before or after another one in a film is, by default, "in relation". Without definition, we have blur. I do not know his films well at all, but if they do operate on this juxtapositional/relational principle, I will find time for them. Dear Tim et al... I could easily do this as I remember (vaguely) several Eisenstein texts in which he outlines his shots and talks about the different kinds of compositions emloyed... and to what purpose... though this may well be very well AFTER the fact.... unfortunately I am still in Woodstock, NY, and travelling without portfolio as it were, though this will change soon. I will be returning to Australia on the 30th and will endeavour to locate the necessary texts... mongst the dross of my past lives. In the meantime, let me offer a simple observation which I am sure many on this list have made for themselves. There is, in the creative arts and sciences, a kind of invisible critical mass that is reached at various times in history in which "new" ideas burst forth similtaneously from seemingly unrelated regions of the planet, from entirely unrelated peoples and historical backgrounds. There is at least one researcher (Shelldrake??? I can't recall his name) who tried to account for this by inventing a concept he refers to as "morphic resonance". Morphic or not, there is a kind of resonance that exists among the obsessive ones... I could offer countless examples of this from my own experiences... Pound himself talks about it in a poem when he talks about how the lives of all great men pass through him, or some such (again, I have no relevant texts here in the Catskills). I believe, as a poet, that we - poets, artists, alchemists of the unconscious - are always drawing from the same pool. The pool has different depths perhaps, but it is always the same pool. That a filmmaker reached into the pool and pulled out something that in filmmaking terms can be described as Montage, and a poet reached in and pulled out something that he described as ideogrammtic method is not a shock, nor is it meant to explain away the discovery of either. I, personally, do not find Pound so very difficult, though his contradictions are intriguing. They are what drew me to him in the first place. Nor do I - or would I - use Eisenstein to explain Pound, or Pound to explain Eisenstein. It is enough to explain either man in terms of himself. I just notice there is a kinship here, and I am pleased to acknowledge it. By the way, I also acknowledge that a "trip to the pool" is not necessary for "success". There are many socalled poets and artists out there who have never been to the pool, let alone dipped their paws in it. Sincerely Billy Marshall Stoneking http://ezrapound.cjb.net