the unnaming of aliass Before you start to read this book, take this moment to think about making a donation to punctum books, an independent non-profit press @ https://punctumbooks.com/support If you’re reading the e-book, you can click on the image below to go directly to our donations site. Any amount, no matter the size, is appreciated and will help us to keep our ship of fools afloat. Contributions from dedi- cated readers will also help us to keep our commons open and to cultivate new work that can’t find a wel- coming port elsewhere. Our adventure is not possible without your support. Vive la Open Access. Fig. 1. Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools (1490–1500) the unnaming of aliass. Copyright © 2020 by Karin Bolender. This work carries a Creative Commons BY-nC-sa 4.0 International license, which means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and you may also remix, transform and build upon the material, as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors (but not in a way that suggests the authors or punctum books endorses you and your work), you do not use this work for commercial gain in any form whatsoever, and that for any remixing and transformation, you distribute your rebuild under the same license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Parts of chapter 6 were previously published in “If Not for Her Spots: On the Arts of Un/naming a New Ass Breed,” Humanimalia 10, no. 1 (Spring 2019). Parts of chapter 3 appear in “The Unnaming of ‘Aliass’,” Performance Research 22, no. 6 (December 2017). Earlier versions of chapter 8 were published as a chapbook, R.A.W. Assmilk Soap: (Parapoetics for a Posthuman Barnyard), in the LABAE Parapoetics Series (Berlin: Broken Dimanche Press, 2016), and earlier as “R.A.W. Assmilk Soap,” in The Multispecies Salon, ed. Eben Kirksey (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 64–86. Some of the material in chapter 1 was revised from “‘What You Gonna do About Yer Ass?’: Or, an Answer to Sun Ra via Journeys of Incarnated Poetics and Interdisciplinary Art Practice,” in Collision: Interarts Practice and Research, eds. David Ceccetto, Nancy Cuthbert, Julie Lassonde, and Dylan Robinson (London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009), 149–61. Excerpts also appear in “Gut Sounds Lullaby: Listening with Karen Barad,” Antennae 32 (Winter 2014). First published in 2020 by 3Ecologies Books/Immediations, an imprint of punctum books. https://punctumbooks.com isBn-13: 978-1-953035-12-7 (print) isBn-13: 978-1-953035-13-4 (ePDf) Doi: 10.21983/P3.0299.1.00 lCCn: 2020945733 Library of Congress Cataloging Data is available from the Library of Con- gress Book design: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei Cover photograph: The shadow of a lovely spotted she-ass, yet to be un- named, in Whites Creek, Tennessee in April 2002. Photograph by the artist. punctum books spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion The Unnaming of Aliass Karin Bolender ix Contents Invitation to an Unnaming (or, Untold Stories from the Road to Nameless) 17 ~×~×~×~ PaRt i: “What You gonna Do aBout YeR ass?” one Exit Music (for a Road Trip) 55 tWo On Puns, Passwords, and American Spotted Asses 83 inteRluDe S/He Ride Double? (On Tennessee Come-ons and Hybrid Blassphemies) 123 thRee Thralls and Galls (Meeting a She-ass in Tennessee) 141 homilY The Prettiest Little Shotgun Wedding You Never Saw 173 ~×~×~×~ x PaRt ii: aRt of a sull fouR Art of a Sull (Making Stories with Untold Others) 185 inteRluDe Knoxville ’99 209 five Going Asstray (Carcassonne and Beyond) 217 inteRluDe Snakes of Virginia 235 six Dead-Car Crossing 241 seven Passing-Through (Nomads in the Valley of Dooms) 275 eight R.A.W. Assmilk Soap 307 ~×~×~×~ Bibliography 333 xi Preamble & Assnowledgments Despite thousands of hours spent huddled over its con- tents, gnawing on roots and bones, I am still not sure this ought to be a book – at least not in the guise of a mono- graph with a lone author’s name on it. At the same time, this seems like a good spot to recognize the particular ways that this project has been a reckoning with the lim- its, possibilities, and troubling assumptions of the Book from the get-go. Nothing is resolved here; in an effort to honor the involvements of all those whose tales one can- not possibly claim to tell, this volume puts the prickly question of whether or not it ought to be a book at the core of its proceedings. Over the course of a long-ass journey across the us South in 2002 – born as it was of a book-that-wasn’t – the idea has stuck in my mind that my companion Aliass car- ried a few special books in the black synthetic saddlebag, along with our pink plastic sunblock and bug spray, note- books and water-bottles and crumbled rice cakes. One book, I am pretty certain, was my tattered copy of Watt . I also recall, from the Wilderness Trail campsite the night before, reading William James at the graffiti-laden picnic table... but no, I don’t think that was one on the road with us that day. Anyway I don’t remember, and no catalog ex- ists of that little lost library. So, despite a certain hunger xii to archive, this lacuna leads me to wonder: is it not for the best that I have forgotten, since the premise of that original journey was that the exclusively human linguis- tic apparatus of a book – whether as fat papery codex or pulsing digital record of syntactical thought – could not contain, and might indeed compromise, the seamy flux of living tales that comprise our passages in timeplaces? Well, yes. This was a premise of sorts, a paradoxical passion that originally drove me and Aliass to hoof it all those back-road miles that summer long ago. And the de- sire to buck the assumptions of the Book, to resist exclu- sive rights to human authorship, remains at the heart of our dusty barnyard becomings to this day. One could cer- tainly make a case that Aliass has unfairly borne the bur- den of a voluminous mass of human expressions, desires, fears, hopes, and longings for a long time. So while I ad- mit to certain poetic and narrative urges to commit fuzzy memories to prose – to somehow cling with words to, say, the bygone billowing curtains of fireflies that lit our path in a darkening Tennessee forest, or full-blown moonlight sifting through barn slats, or the bite of fat wild blackber- ries on our tongues – one thing I have always known for sure is that this project must resist the reflective lure of encompassing memoir, in which the ass herself is but a foil, antagonist, or comely sidekick. What unfolds going forward must be otherwise, must do otherwise. One other thing I can say for certain is that Aliass and I never would have made it one blasted mile without the assistance and encouragement of swarms of friendly strangers, strangely wonderful friends, and myriad mys- terious others encountered in the places we have passed through, all of whom nourished and sheltered us in dif- ferent ways. Many generous and brilliant humans have woven their creative wisdoms, wit, friendship, and sup- port through this project over many years: Adam Brin- ton, Christine Cearnal, Jack Christian, Rennie Elliot, Adam Lore, Kelly Marksbury, Jacob Mitas, Melanie Mo- xiii ser, George Murer, Alex Ney, Beth Sale, Emily Stone, Julie Stein, Christine Toth, and many other friends, students, and fellow wanderers of varying species we met along the way. I owe deep thanks for care and support to Alice Beretta Dvm, Maria Cortes, Amy Krohn, Philomath Mon- tessori School, Marie Skersick, Richard and Pam Skersick, and the Smiths. Sebastian Black, Jessica Bozek, Shane Carpenter, Layne Garrett, Kate Herron, Susanna Hill, Richard Lucyshyn, Douglas Smith, and Eli Queen shared their reflective lenses, improvisational brilliance, and il- luminating poetic visions. In certain spectral ways, the dream of Aliass-to-come was born in the barn on Maple Hill Farm, where the Mutt of Gold and I were lucky enough to live next door to the lofty studio where our dear friend Alice Provensen creat- ed wonderful picture books about the farm’s inhabitants and beloved ghosts. Later on down the road, we were wel- comed into other special barns, guest rooms, basements, backyards, and pastures by old friends and new: Vanessa Batts, Maria McFadden Beek, Don Eulert, Becky and Judy Gale Roberts, Amos and Coulter Fussell Harvey, Karen Hawthorne, Kevin Hayes, Kristina Holm, Laura Rittall, Oak Ridge Riding Club, Ketch Secor, Charlie Strothers, Jeanne Thompson, Libby Tucker, and many others who offered gifts of gnarly crabapples, dusty memories, and shady places to graze or lay down in the leaf litter along the way. And to all the nameless others and friendly roadside grasses in places we passed through, regards and gratitudes: in places known (more or less) as Abbe- ville, Badlands, Betty Davis Grocery, Bluebird Road, Boyd Tavern, Carnesville, Cedars of Lebanon, Clinton Hol- low, Como, Damascus, Fincastle, Mosset, Naked Creek, Nameless, Noon, One Mile Lane, Orland, Paradise, Paris (Tennessee), Perigord Noir, Pleasant Valley, Philomath, Roanoke and Rowan Oak, the bygone Tallahatchie Bridge (and what’s below), Whites Creek, Wilderness Trail, Val- xiv ley of Dooms, Weyers Cave, Les Eyzies... and so many overflowings between and beyond. I cannot possibly say what all we owe to Mariann Black, who not only brought me and Aliass together and outfit- ted us radically for the road but who also saved our ass more times than anyone could know. Also in unforgetta- ble ways, Tom Bolender was there for me and Aliass at the ragged end of the trail. Down the road in Roanoke, Cheryl Haas welcomed us into the long-eared camaraderie of her rambunctious herd and cared for me and Aliass and Pass in many ways. On what has to be the most beautiful farm in the galaxy, Fred Taylor offered us boundless friendship, radical mechanical genius, and a wondrous place to come to ground. The shaping of a slow-ass poetic implosion into an enduring art-research practice over almost two decades owes massive gratitude and reverence to my exquisite mentors Laiwan, Ruth Wallen, Ju-Pong Lin, and Goddard College’s singular mfa–Interdisciplinary Arts program. Lately the Rural Alchemy Workshop has been richly augmented by fertile, dirty glimmerings and earthly wisdoms of Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, Labora- tory for Aesthetics and Ecology, Kultivator, and dance for plants. Pamela Albanese has been a steadfast friend and inspiration since we were seven on Green End Avenue. L- Haw (Lydia Peelle) has lit spiraling and deliciously thistly paths since (Mule) Day One, and on and on they g((o)). Wrangling our R.A.W. ass storying experiments into rippling realms of multispecies studies and art-research in surprising ways, Eben Kirksey has been an enthusias- tic champion of this work for a decade. Engagement with vital creative-critical research nodes owes much to the support of Environmental Humanities at unsW in Syd- ney. I am especially grateful for the inspiring guidance of Thom van Dooren and Stephen Muecke. For infusions of hot feminist compost, I bow to Astrida Neimanis, Jen- nifer Mae Hamilton, and Lindsey Kelly. Insights came xv from early readers Jay Babcock, Jennifer Blair, Mark Bil- brey, Nathaniel Brodie, Emily Crawford, Nancy Cuthbert, Richard Dillard, Jeff Fearnside, Julia Johnson, Inman Ma- jors, and Bonnie Roop Bowles. More recently the project was gifted reassurance and brilliant provocations from Ida Bencke, Sophie Chao, Felicity Fenton, Kristin Guest, Tessa Laird, Stephanie LeMenager, Natalie Loveless, and Laura McLauchlan. Out of the blue, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, and the global 3Ecologies posse entertained a rather odd not-book proposal and embraced its ass- backwards ways. It is an utter thrill to be associated with their radiant immediations, and another gift to be part of the radical generosity of punctum books, piloted by the miraculous Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei and Eileen A. Fradenburg Joy. The most onerous burdens of this project have been borne by those I hold dearest, especially the unnamed one(s). Whatever is good here is dedicated to them. For the gifts of implosive words and sustaining barnyard kinships and care, my mother Christie Bolender has my muddiest, hoofworn gratitude and love. Here I stand in grateful awe of the generosity and brilliance of my part- ners in rural alchemy: Sean Hart, who builds, hangs true and holds open the most beautiful barn doors and postli- braries I could ever imagine, and Rolly Kestrel, who lis- tens and cares deeply for the wild secret tales of you-no- hoos and m<other tongues to come. 17 Invitation to an Unnaming (or, Untold Stories from the Road to Nameless) Nameless, Tennessee is a small unincorporated patch- work of farmlands and home plots that sits atop a Cum- berland hill, east of Nashville, west of Knoxville, and not far from a manmade lake called Cordell Hull, managed by the us Army Corps of Engineers. Nameless is barely a dot on the map – grid coordinates G12 in the Tennessee Gazetteer, to be exact. On that day we passed through it in the summer of 2002, Nameless came across as a fairly or- dinary Middle Tennessee settlement, typical of the rural, early twenty-first-century us mid-South: a rolling land- scape of mostly single-family homes with shades drawn against the heat of day, mostly on paved driveways and an acre or two of mown lawn, and spaced amid crop fields, thickets of prickers and creeper vines, and patches of hardwood forest. A rural American palimpsest much like any other, perhaps, stitched together by shady backroads that turned from asphalt to gravel and back again, flick- ering with shadows of global petrochemical and other extractive industries and a vague postindustrial malaise. Ordinary though it may have seemed, I must say this about Nameless, Tennessee: that day in late June 2002 – 18 the unnaming of aliass spent meandering slowly along shady hills and rolling byways of Jackson County amid constant birdsong, leafy brilliance, lawnmower hums, far-off thunder rumbles, and the occasional bray of an unseen mule – was one of the most extraordinary outings I’ve ever experienced. What made this particular passage through Nameless so special that bright-dark summer day was not just the pro- vocative allure of the town’s unlikely name, nor the frag- ile beauties of its glistening understories, thick as they were with ghostly histories and lively unreckoned mesh- es. Rather, the most extraordinary thing about Nameless, Tennessee on that particular day was this: I found my- self passing through it with a certain wise, luminous, and quietly otherworldly American Spotted Ass. Who shall remain unnamed. “Aliass” is a handle by which I have come to know (in some ways), love (a lot), and honor (I hope) the embod- ied mortal beasthood of a certain wondrous companion, member of the species Equus asinus and also (significant- ly) a registered American Spotted Ass. This lovely inscru- table beast, whom I was lucky enough to find in Tennes- see, helped carry a ridiculous burden of human longings and quandaries into a maze of hot, harrowing miles over a seven-week walking journey across the American South in that summer of 2002 – beginning in Mississippi, weav- ing through Tennessee, ending in Virginia – all the while bearing her own untold burdens and histories. And so she has been carrying various specialized and mostly less onerous loads ever since, with hardly ever a wrinkled nos- tril of complaint. And nary a stumble, even in the most uncertain of territories. In a certain sense, the special she-ass of whom I speak is the unwitting hero of the story at hand. More than that, “Aliass” also stands for something harder to grasp than the body of a lovely little ass: familiar forms of pro- tagonist, setting, and even common narrative tropes turn inside-out inside this “name-that-ain’t,” making 19 invitation to an unnaming room for unwritten tales and lacunae that abound within shapes and shadows of the myriad lives that interweave in any environment. Over almost two decades now, Ali- ass and a herd of long-eared associates have been hearty companions within an ongoing, slow and steady negotia- tion with slippery names, shifting ways of (un)knowing and composing, and ontological grasping-at-straws, all grounded in the daily demands of good ass husbandry in rural us barnyards and roadsides. As it happens, it was a specific twenty-first-century hu- man morass of conflicted impulses, longings, and shames that drove me and Aliass out on the road that summer of 2002, across three Southern states and beyond. Most of all, though, what drove me (and so her, too) was a fero- cious desire to compose truer-to-life and more inclusive stories. We are never really alone in our life stories, after all. Centuries of Western tales spotlight (certain) human enterprises and leave everybody else outside, yet animate worlds are always meshes of thinking, feeling, perceiv- ing, and responding lives that connect and communicate across tissues, membranes, and senses of all kinds. While Homo sapiens may be uniquely adapted to the arts of sto- rytelling (such as we recognize them), attentions to wild- ly diverse lives find significant sequences of events play- ing out across cells, neural pathways, and porous bodies of many different kinds – from cooperative strivings of bacteria, mycelia, and roots within forest understories to dolphins who make visual puns, rats who laugh, and foxes who mourn and bury their dead. The field of cogni- tive ethology explores arrays of behaviors that Western thought has long guarded as Exclusively Human, from altruism to self-awareness in species as diverse as pri- mates and mollusks. Crows, sheep, and wasps recognize and remember faces (of their own species and others); elephants express rumblesome joys and suffer PtsD; oc- topuses plan for the future; even the nematode C. elegans has neurochemical states akin to emotions in other spe-