6 Questions with BRITTANY DENNISON
1. Hey Brittany, got a favorite lyricist? (or musician?) Care to share a video?
This past year I’ve listened almost exclusively to a 1974 recording of Julius Eastman’s Femenine when I write. It’s a 72 minute composition for an ensemble, most notably including bright mechanical bells. Hypnotizing, ethereal, and driving—it’s a perfect piece of music. If I’m feeling a little more whimsical I’ll listen to Plantasia, a cheerful and soothing album made with a moog synthesizer by Mort Garson in 1976. Every track is a love song for a different kind of plant.
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2. Hey Brittany, got a favorite quote about poetry?
This line from Alice Notley’s Phoebe Light sums it up: “The great cosmetic / Strangeness of a normal deep person.”
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3. Hey Brittany, what’s your favorite word?
It’s a six-way tie between sauce, exquisite, darling, monticello, thickly, and rococo.
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4. Hey Brittany, any artwork that inspires you to write?
When I’m particularly struck by an artwork, I try to either recreate their tone, like the mystery of Gerhard Richter’s Betty, the joy of Alexander Calder’s Calder’s Circus, the fervor of Vincent Van Gogh’s Two Poplars on a Hill, or the wonder of Ernesto Neto’s spice sculptures, or to copy the structure of the piece, like the frantic and self-referential Circles in a Circle by Wassily Kandinsky.
Wassily Kandinsky, Circles in a Circle, 1923.
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5. Hey Brittany, if you could insert yourself as a member into any historical art/literary “scene” what would it be?
A Dionysian Bacchanale.
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6. Hey Brittany, what’s a favorite cartoon?
I have several favorite cartoonists (my first passion was drawing). Brecht Evens, Leslie Stein, Jules Feiffer, Maira Kalman, Simon Hanselmann, Dame Darcy, Sam Alden… My favorite Japanese serial when I was young was Sailor Moon and my favorite now is Oishinbo.
Maira Kalman, Illustration for Next Stop, Grand Central, 1999.
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[This Q&A was conducted in November 2017 and first published, via Facebook and Twitter, in December 2017]
A Dozen Nothing 