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Essays, Manifestos, Statements, Speeches, Maxims, Epistles, Diaristic Jottings, Narratives, Natural histories, Poems, Plays, Performances, Ramblings, Revelations, and all such ephemera as may appear necessary to bring society into a slight tremolo of confusion and fright at least.

My Year 2005: Terrifying Times

Douglas Messerli

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In what author Douglas Messerli himself describes as a "strange project," My Year 2005 represents the first volume of Messerli's ongoing "cultural memoir," stretching back to 2000 and moving forward through the rest of his life until he is unable to continue.

For years the noted author and founder-publisher of Sun & Moon Press and Green Integer has been spurred by fellow writers and friends to write his memoirs. But Messerli argues that he does not have the sensibility to write only about his own life and personal experiences. Since his life has been primarily defined by cultural encounters—with art, music, dance, fiction, poetry, history, politics, film, television, and popular cultural events—Messerli realized the only way for him to tackle the subject was to annually write essays on these experiences along with the hundreds of notable figures with whom he has had friendships and working relationships—including in the 2005 volume David Antin, Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Charles Bernstein, Robert Creeley, Jerome Lawrence, Stacey Levine, Robert Longo, John O'Keefe, Isaac B. Singer, and Paul Vangelisti—combining them with personal ruminations and occasional pieces on other cultural occurrences. The result, he hopes, is a slowly evolving interconnection of societal encounters—both national and international—that only upon its completion might explain a life.

Author of the fiction Letters from Hanusse (written under the pseudonym of Joshua Haigh), collections of poetry First Words, After, Bow Down, Maxims from My Mother's Milk, performative pieces such as Along Without and The Walls Come True, and piays (under the name Kier Peters) such as The Confirmation, Past Present Future Tense, and A Dog Tries to Kiss the Sky, Messerli also edits the renowned PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry) series of international poetry anthologies. He lives with his companion, art curator Howard Fox, in Los Angeles.