The Art of Tetman Callis

bon jour, manwe made something really bad daddy, can we switch?switch arms?are you going to tell me? (something inaudible whispered.) daddy, can I have a drink?daddy? (Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)

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distant whistle of the midnight freightpulling into the rail yards downtown burring rumbled whirr of freeway trafficpassing endlessly behind my house murmuring voices of next-door neighborshome from the show and not yet drunk muffled clink of the spoon againstthe bottom of my ice cream bowl a cough from somewhere outside a cricket from somewhere inside […]

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here is a rocksize of a small fista child’s fist on the rocksize of a birthmark on a child’s handis a fossil the fossil is of a sea creaturea shelled animalit is exquisitehold it up to your eyeyou can peer into the small dark chambers of the fossil time has been kind to the creature […]

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it’s only mid-may and the summergunfire has already begun. ten shotsin rapid succession. most likelythe emptying of a full magazine(nine-millimeter semi-automatichandgun). it happened not long after nine o’clock. early in the eveningfor the summer gunfire. early inthe season, too. the summer gunfireusually doesn’t begin untilthe hot madness of june. and it doesn’thappen until after ten […]

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the president and his secretary for war came last night to a party at my housebarbecue and cocktails, a bonfire in the back yard i sat with the president and his secretary for war and we talked the president was charminghe was a funny manhis secretary for war was a sourpuss who didn’t say much […]

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i am having the mostincredible high right now i know the validityof any statement madewhile the maker is in such a stateis suspect but i’ve been getting some intenserushesoff this little roachy remainderof a joint of roach-doap— oops—doaped-on-a-roap giggle me timbersi’ll have another hit (Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s […]

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High Street has been accepted for publication by Outpost19, “Provocative Digital Publishing” (http://outpost19.com/), so I have removed it this morning from this website.  Excerpts from it may be re-posted here soon as part of the marketing of the book, which should be available for purchase as an e-book through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com (and […]

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“In the end, art is small beer.  The really serious things in life are earning one’s living so as not to be a parasite, and loving one’s neighbor.” — W. H. Auden High Street 8 — “Plus ça Change” is posted today. That is the end of High Street.  Thanks for tuning in.  Please tune […]

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“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time.  Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.” — Milan Kundera, Immortality (trans. Kussi) High Street 7.4 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (fin.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 8 […]

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“Every writer is offering a true account of the activities of the mind.” — Donald Barthelme (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 7.3 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.4 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (fin.))

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“There’s nothing so beautiful as having a very difficult problem.  It gives purpose to life.” — Donald Barthelme (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 7.2 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.3 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.))

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“If we want to go on existing we need to summon up all our strength in order to wrench ourselves off the spot where we’re stuck.” — Thomas Bernhard, Concrete High Street 7.1 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.2 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.))  

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“A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.” — Karl Kraus, quoted in Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger High Street 6.8 — “Life During Wartime” (fin.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.1 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word”)

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“Mighty is the sin that arises from the destruction of one who has been offered shelter.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Kishkindha Kanda, Sarga 12 High Street 6.7 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 6.8 — “Life During Wartime” (fin.))

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“Writing should be playing.” — Donald Barthelme (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 6.6 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 6.7 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.))

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“The four social classes under late capitalism are artists, rich people, the middle class, [and] poor people—this being the order of rank and precedence.  As the dominant class (morally/intellectually speaking), artists have a clear social responsibility to care for and nurture the three lower classes.  This is not by any means their primary responsibility, which […]

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“Art is always aimed (like a rifle, if  you wish) at the middle class.  The working class has its own culture and will have no truck with fanciness of any kind.  The upper class owns the world and thus needs know no more about the world than is necessary for its orderly exploitation.  The notion […]

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“Where does desire go?  Always a traveling salesperson, desire goes hounding off into the trees, frequently, without direction from its putative master or mistress.  This is tragic and comic at the same time.  I should, in a well-ordered world, marry the intellectual hero my wicked uncle has selected for me.  Instead I run off with […]

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“Every woman artist will tell you that she exists in a universe of discourse created by men, works with a language created by men, a language suffused, colored, drenched in male desire.  That is, every woman artist is speaking a foreign language, like Beckett writing in French.  This should not be overstressed, because the languages […]

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“It seems to me sometimes that we never got used to being on this earth and life is just one great, ongoing, incomprehensible blunder.” — W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn High Street 6.1 — “Life During Wartime” is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 6.2 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.))

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“Art is a commodity, art criticism is a commodity, the apple is a commodity, the air is a commodity, the ground under our feet is a commodity.  God is very much a commodity.  My emotions are a commodity, my desires the very locus of commodification.  My last illness is a commodity (twenty-two days at so […]

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“One of the pleasures of art is that it enables the mind to move in unanticipated directions, to make connections that may be in some sense errors but are fruitful nonetheless.” — Donald Barthelme, “Reifications” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 5.4 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.5 — “Criminal […]

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“One of the characteristics of the ideal is that it is always receding, slipping away from us, ungraspable.” — Donald Barthelme, “Nudes” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 5.3 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.4 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.))

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“It is the vocation of the artist, the fiction writer, the playwright, and the poet, to create new language.” — Walker Percy, quoted in “A Symposium on Fiction” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 5.2 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.3 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.))

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“You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to evade it.” — Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot High Street 5.1 — “Criminal Defense” is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.2 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.))

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“Words get worn out, and instead of conveying meaning they act either as simulacra to conceal meaning or as if they were transparencies with no meaning.” — Walker Percy, quoted in “A Symposium on Fiction” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 4.9 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (fin.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street […]

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“Not everything is unsayable in words, only the living truth.” — Eugene Ionesco, quoted in “A Symposium on Fiction” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 4.8 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 4.9 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (fin.))

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“It is no Disgrace to be Poor; it is simply Inconvenient.” — George Ade, from Fables in Slang High Street 4.7 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 4.8 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.))

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“A little thing may be perfect, but perfection is not a little thing.” — Thomas Bailey Aldrich (from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. X, Sec. 3) High Street 4.6 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 4.7 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” […]

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