<strong>The</strong> working order of pages changed c<strong>on</strong>stantly while the number of pages in all slowly built, to fluctuate towards the end of the entire process. Order of compositi<strong>on</strong>, order of resp<strong>on</strong>sive compositi<strong>on</strong> and place in the book are all different. <strong>The</strong> spatial c<strong>on</strong>text for each page was different. And then, when the book was finished, a few pages were performed at its launch; and then the two moved <strong>on</strong>. That is how <strong>Cobbing</strong> and I behaved separately, with a few poems being revisited; and the two of us together reinforced that behaviour. (In the case of D.A.N. we were much more thorough in our performance coverage.) Some of this has been said previously in an essay called ‘Hot Mazing <strong>on</strong> Time’, from 2004, which you will find <strong>on</strong> the web in Pores 3. As well as this book, it deals with performing with <strong>Cobbing</strong>, particularly his book Members Only. I should say, in case any<strong>on</strong>e has read my talk ‘Collaborati<strong>on</strong>, Not Just Cooperati<strong>on</strong>’ given at the University of Surrey in November 2009, you might be c<strong>on</strong>fused about my use of “cooperati<strong>on</strong>” and its comparis<strong>on</strong> with “collaborati<strong>on</strong>” in that essay as opposed to my usage in ‘Hot Mazing <strong>on</strong> Time’. My ideas have changed and, when I was writing the talk for Surrey, I forgot that I had said something different but using the same words in 2004 for Birkbeck, University of L<strong>on</strong>d<strong>on</strong>. That is, I knew that I was changing my usage but had forgotten that I had g<strong>on</strong>e into print using the old idea. I am hopeful that is something I shall clarify in the forthcoming Lab Book, due for publicati<strong>on</strong> in 2011. I was and am inclined to say that Collaborati<strong>on</strong>s for Peter Finch is my favourite work with <strong>Cobbing</strong>. I think there’s a lot going <strong>on</strong> there. I think we were breaking new ground. That may well be true of the other works; but, I suggest, you get a lot in a few pages here! I am still deeply pleased with and somewhat proud of D.A.N., but there is something of Moby Dick’s expansiveness about it! That is both a strength and a weakness. In Collaborati<strong>on</strong>s, our sourcing from pop imagery of the time, in some places, may be more apparent now. (One is aware of that sort of source in the images from <strong>Cobbing</strong>’s With our T<strong>on</strong>gue Our Drils and Quadras from 2001, which Writers Forum republished a few weeks ago; but, in both cases, I think the re-use of that imagery survives the original’s inevitable datedness. As a performance text, it is somewhat problematic in that it is written by both of us for both of us to perform. And now <strong>on</strong>e of us is dead. I have thought of proposing pages as performable with John Drever, as if he and I had anywhere near enough time to make the pieces we already want to make. At present, however, the vocal source is me; and I do not feel that <strong>on</strong>e of the original readers with his voice treated by another artist quite makes up for the absence. I need to think more. It’s a pity Peter Finch and I d<strong>on</strong>’t live nearer to each other.
<strong>The</strong> texts still ask their intriguing questi<strong>on</strong>: And just how would you perform this? <strong>The</strong>y still engage us visually. And it is possible that something can be d<strong>on</strong>e by other artists or by myself and other artists towards sounding Collaborati<strong>on</strong>s for Peter Finch.
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