Sight is the feeble moon eclipsed by encyclopedic clouds
The dictionary dominates the rate of pulsation
And sad worms ponder their spines in fright
This polarity sphere, a cognitive dome, is hunted by re-animated cloth
Worn by self important lips taller than the house of You
I'm sucked into the straw of raw globulin, a silver spark on my hand
Books make good ladders to reach the ears
Where the act of naming spells hypnotic futures
Unravelling ghost gutters with stellar marble skates
These iconic boards bend in magnetic heat
A trapped image shudders
A creeper rings the facial envelope
Drumming the horizon's square nettles
Into a splash of word circuits
Which form dense molecules stammering in restrictive cineplex mufflers
But no silence will dare sleep on the pinpoint
Which moments of censored glue fail to bind
Jul 31, 2008
Jul 25, 2008
Jul 20, 2008
BETWEEN HICCUPS AND OBLIVION
Attaining consequence is reduced to internal visions of a sonorous volcano which formed mucus glands. A final experiment can be entitled 'exploitation' as one of the forerunners of the deferred legendary formless. The attacks are attempting to follow a tendency to suffer from amnesia. Three days of this justification seemed like a lot of evidence. We feel a rejection reveals its true worth. If that were abandoned, an initial reading between hiccups and oblivion is therefore obliged to become more and more perilous.
An infatuation was raising a very high error, a description of the circumstances whose ruse is the very beginning. We have always been simply without mental reservations in this affair--a child under ten. I assure you, those in power because of elegant ulcers can be said to fit the criteria of didactic intention. This egocentrism is a vaunted dichotomy restrained and separated from the umbilical determinism.
Chance text collage
An infatuation was raising a very high error, a description of the circumstances whose ruse is the very beginning. We have always been simply without mental reservations in this affair--a child under ten. I assure you, those in power because of elegant ulcers can be said to fit the criteria of didactic intention. This egocentrism is a vaunted dichotomy restrained and separated from the umbilical determinism.
Chance text collage
Jul 13, 2008
BLIND BREAKFAST DRAWING
While eating breakfast today I made two drawings with my other hand, without looking at the paper. Then I did a quick interpretation of each image. Here is the one I liked better:
Beehive hair and flying palm, she dances with a dense melange of an oil lamp, and crackling angles carry the charge of her internal wombat
Beehive hair and flying palm, she dances with a dense melange of an oil lamp, and crackling angles carry the charge of her internal wombat
Jul 11, 2008
SCHIZOTYPOGRAPHY
INTROVERTED ANHEDONIA
Galaxies' fingers suffocate my grizzled wasp, asp of a sudden lake spelling with a sedan the coiled letters of the sonic sun aimed at the heaving flame that drips across fasciculating mountains wrapped by snug time machine dust smashed into a net. Flinching elbows stain the ear plunged into a lime tree's how-to-do angina ripped wildly out of restless doors scored by mockery salt.
LABILITY OF AROUSAL
Smug advertisements for broken antennas cling to violent figs hurled into a treehouse where nosebleeds paint the lunar eclipse with bay leaves which are the clothes of a mandrake.
IDEAS OF REFERENCE
The static sea undulates with lyrical invocations to my infantile ribbons, olive eyes stung by robot news stuck in the exhaust.
Galaxies' fingers suffocate my grizzled wasp, asp of a sudden lake spelling with a sedan the coiled letters of the sonic sun aimed at the heaving flame that drips across fasciculating mountains wrapped by snug time machine dust smashed into a net. Flinching elbows stain the ear plunged into a lime tree's how-to-do angina ripped wildly out of restless doors scored by mockery salt.
LABILITY OF AROUSAL
Smug advertisements for broken antennas cling to violent figs hurled into a treehouse where nosebleeds paint the lunar eclipse with bay leaves which are the clothes of a mandrake.
IDEAS OF REFERENCE
The static sea undulates with lyrical invocations to my infantile ribbons, olive eyes stung by robot news stuck in the exhaust.
CELIA GOURINSKY
I didn't know Celia Gourinsky, but I want to offer my condolences to the members of the Rio de la Plata group.
Jul 8, 2008
Jul 2, 2008
TELEPHONE TAG BLUES
Inspired by a video of George Melly making random calls from phone booths in England to recite poetic and humorous phrases, I decided to dial several completely random and probable 'wrong numbers' to ask if certain friends were at the place being called. I planned to improvise on the results, if there were any, but my first call went to an answering machine. As I was wanting to connect with a human being, I dialed another number which turned out to be the voice mail system for my entire high school. Thinking it amusing, I intended to leave poetic messages for an old teacher or two, but I was unable after several tries to enter a valid mailbox number. My third and final call was answered by a computer modem extending its screaming electronic palm towards my eardrum. I thought it oddly reflective of our times that I was unable to reach a single human being during this whimsical experiment in telephonic chance.
Jun 27, 2008
CHANCE DICTIONARY
A variation on Question and Answer or Definitions, but played using a single dictionary, or alternately, with one or more books.
Modern--of or like a lion
Shiite--an American shrub which bears small black or blue berries
Ratio--an organ of certain flowerless plants which bear reproductive cells
UNESCO--the state of being hypnotized
Prohibit--a cold blooded, aquatic vertebrate animal
Megalomaniac--insect, very destructive to wood
Lime--half light preceding sunrise
Legislate--a portion of a circle enclosed by two radii and the arc which they intercept
Warble--without form
Skeleton--a mercenary soldier who sells his services to any country
Modern--of or like a lion
Shiite--an American shrub which bears small black or blue berries
Ratio--an organ of certain flowerless plants which bear reproductive cells
UNESCO--the state of being hypnotized
Prohibit--a cold blooded, aquatic vertebrate animal
Megalomaniac--insect, very destructive to wood
Lime--half light preceding sunrise
Legislate--a portion of a circle enclosed by two radii and the arc which they intercept
Warble--without form
Skeleton--a mercenary soldier who sells his services to any country
Jun 11, 2008
MAGNETIC SYRUP
If the heat lightning on your knuckles means cocoons will envelope your glass house, if rocks are laugh meters chummy with a tree vole, and if my hands are dynamos of strobe pools, giant trees carry magnetic syrup.
May 16, 2008
THE PRIME SLOUGH OF FROG DOUGH
As soon as my birch-leaf spine can finish with the muriatic cloud left boiling on a lash of wet silver coiled like a birth window over the prime slough of frog dough, half eaten by the outer eagle of toy beds, it will be one who walks with a secret ear to seek out and neutralize yellow wallpaper fads in glaciers where revelation animates the spider's green and white glove worn by the cloth panther.
Apr 24, 2008
THE SOMNAMBULIST FOOTPRINTS
The Somnambulist Footprints is the result of a collective project in which several contemporary surrealists and fellow travelers wrote short stories according to their own interests and imperatives, based on their common desire to subvert the very foundations of conventional reality, both on the written page and – more importantly – beyond it, in the open space of consciousness.
Contributing authors: Mariela Arzadun, J. Karl Bogartte, Daniel Boyer, Eric W. Bragg, Mattias Forshage, Parry Harnden, Dale Michael Houstman, Philip Kane, Merl, Ribitch, Matthew Rounsville, Shibek, Andrew Torch, and Xtian. With illustrations in black and white. Edited and introduced by Eric W. Bragg.
This is the very first publication by Oyster Moon Press -- a non-profit, surrealist publishing co-op initiated in Berkeley, California.
Contributing authors: Mariela Arzadun, J. Karl Bogartte, Daniel Boyer, Eric W. Bragg, Mattias Forshage, Parry Harnden, Dale Michael Houstman, Philip Kane, Merl, Ribitch, Matthew Rounsville, Shibek, Andrew Torch, and Xtian. With illustrations in black and white. Edited and introduced by Eric W. Bragg.
This is the very first publication by Oyster Moon Press -- a non-profit, surrealist publishing co-op initiated in Berkeley, California.
Mar 16, 2008
AN AWESOME LOVE SCAM
If that running Jesus could try rat bambi's taxi theories on the bed, technically pig digits can't turn into a window. Wish I'd thought lazy dream ball instruments, 10,237 high noises on my first try, and the best course of action, my clones...it's your head out a window! So everything like this has been released on an unlucky day. Meanwhile, I feel that sort of thing to be a surprise. An awesome love scam had never come to detention.
(semi-automatic word collage on the comics page)
(semi-automatic word collage on the comics page)
Mar 5, 2008
PHILIP LAMANTIA
I want to take a moment to remember Philip Lamantia, who died three years ago on March 7th, 2005 in San Francisco. Lamantia's orientation, which included surrealism, poetic revolution, jazz, mystical/mythical heresy, and much more, continues to be inspiring.
Feb 28, 2008
SURREALIST EGREGORE
This blog strives to be a forum and archive for articles, events and creative material related to Portland, and for things of interest to me, with a nod towards surrealist experience and urban anthropology. It is open to other like minded contributors.
Feb 15, 2008
Feb 12, 2008
PUPPET TEARS BOTHER THE CLEAN HOUSE
During screechy, unique, broken exploits, the cornstarch passion for bigger post-dance ferment is returning. Infamous arrows expand the tempestuous electric bedouin crocs. I lean ghost roses out of the shadow beating. They didn't know a generic rogue would love a priceless treacle wave.
The puppet tears bother the clean house. A few evenings later, gruesome uptight dummies closed the twenty-second floor lanes. Come make impossible sun characters--their secret desires inevitably pretended it was a death.
Fewer uphill hurricanes included the Negev desert into their injury lyric on her doorstep. The brief festival ends badly, highlighted by your deeply felt parade of fool's gold: brilliant logistics in predictable murders.
(Chance text dowsing on an entertainment weekly)
The puppet tears bother the clean house. A few evenings later, gruesome uptight dummies closed the twenty-second floor lanes. Come make impossible sun characters--their secret desires inevitably pretended it was a death.
Fewer uphill hurricanes included the Negev desert into their injury lyric on her doorstep. The brief festival ends badly, highlighted by your deeply felt parade of fool's gold: brilliant logistics in predictable murders.
(Chance text dowsing on an entertainment weekly)
Feb 4, 2008
IN THE CASTLE OF CLAY CUPS
The Great Lakes are ambushed by an earthquake
A trembling visceral heatwave
In the castle of clay cups
Swallows wrap ribbons around the mountains
Their spider hands collapse mirrored dice
Ice appears on the old streets
The wild plants' invasion
Crazed ramblers of nepotism
Like falling glass
M.K. Shibek and Tim Iserman
A trembling visceral heatwave
In the castle of clay cups
Swallows wrap ribbons around the mountains
Their spider hands collapse mirrored dice
Ice appears on the old streets
The wild plants' invasion
Crazed ramblers of nepotism
Like falling glass
M.K. Shibek and Tim Iserman
Jan 29, 2008
SURROUNDS
The door of the left arm's eyelash nose and shoulder wisp the sigh of the right leg
Wrinkled loonies edge up from the crater 'neath a silver fish whose coal purple edge sets navel and breast 'gainst widge pugs
(text created through an imaginative reverie associating objects in the room with internal body states and subjective impressions)
Wrinkled loonies edge up from the crater 'neath a silver fish whose coal purple edge sets navel and breast 'gainst widge pugs
(text created through an imaginative reverie associating objects in the room with internal body states and subjective impressions)
Jan 27, 2008
PORTLAND SURREALIST GROUP DISSOLVES
The Portland Surrealist Group, founded in August 2001, dissolved on January 14th, 2008. Due to various internal situations we were unable to maintain a level of collective activity that was consistent over time, and this led to Brandon Freels resigning on January 13th. After further discussion FN Brill and I decided to disband the group. Much of the material that has been published at the Flying Stone blog and elsewhere will be printed and made available later this year.
I want to thank those who came to our meetings or pursued projects or friendships with us during these years (although such a list could never be complete): Victoria Garcia, Kaylene Chassie, Trillium, Rain, Ron, Dave, Chris Beavers, Paul Portugee, Sarah Frances, Andrew Daily, Christopher Gray, Trevor Blake, Anthony Leskov, Dave Negation, the Portland IWW, the Red and Black Cafe, the 411 Collective, the Portland Vadding Collective, Fifth Estate Magazine, Eberhardt Press, Doug Lain, Karl Lind, Apio Ludicrous, Ron Sakolsky, James Koehnline, Laura Corsiglia, Eric Bragg, Dale Houstman, Parry Harnden, Kevin Sampsell, Barrett John Erickson, Johannes and Anna Bergmark, Thom Burns, Nova Dawn, Tim Iserman, various cafe dwellers, passers-by, and other groups and individuals who wrote letters, sent books or showed support from the international surrealist community, especially the groups in Chicago, Stockholm, Leeds, London, and Rio de la Plata. Thanks to Zazie for hosting our first website.
The members of this nucleus will carry on surrealist pursuits in their own way. I may sponsor open meetings based on collective creation, reading circles, and experiments in the street in hopes of sparking a new group activity. Also, sound experiments with Qkcofse are providing an element of improvisation and collaboration that's in the spirit of surrealism, so those will continue.
M.K. Shibek
I want to thank those who came to our meetings or pursued projects or friendships with us during these years (although such a list could never be complete): Victoria Garcia, Kaylene Chassie, Trillium, Rain, Ron, Dave, Chris Beavers, Paul Portugee, Sarah Frances, Andrew Daily, Christopher Gray, Trevor Blake, Anthony Leskov, Dave Negation, the Portland IWW, the Red and Black Cafe, the 411 Collective, the Portland Vadding Collective, Fifth Estate Magazine, Eberhardt Press, Doug Lain, Karl Lind, Apio Ludicrous, Ron Sakolsky, James Koehnline, Laura Corsiglia, Eric Bragg, Dale Houstman, Parry Harnden, Kevin Sampsell, Barrett John Erickson, Johannes and Anna Bergmark, Thom Burns, Nova Dawn, Tim Iserman, various cafe dwellers, passers-by, and other groups and individuals who wrote letters, sent books or showed support from the international surrealist community, especially the groups in Chicago, Stockholm, Leeds, London, and Rio de la Plata. Thanks to Zazie for hosting our first website.
The members of this nucleus will carry on surrealist pursuits in their own way. I may sponsor open meetings based on collective creation, reading circles, and experiments in the street in hopes of sparking a new group activity. Also, sound experiments with Qkcofse are providing an element of improvisation and collaboration that's in the spirit of surrealism, so those will continue.
M.K. Shibek
Jan 25, 2008
STRING GLASS ECHO
Without a shrug of bushes intent on rousing the string
You'll be a whisper in an engine room's glass echo
Without a parcel of ice-faced bunnies
Taken from the shelled ribbon plant
You'll be a frozen rose in the noon's telescope
You'll be a whisper in an engine room's glass echo
Without a parcel of ice-faced bunnies
Taken from the shelled ribbon plant
You'll be a frozen rose in the noon's telescope
Nov 20, 2007
SOLAR ENVY
About my curious gold sunglasses
There may be a 'flaw' in the design
Because when I happened to wear them
Outside at night
A tiny flame danced above distant lamp-posts
An orange tint, half a halo
As if to echo the envy these lights must have
For the sun
Its visual echo in negation-dynamic tension mobiles
These ironic echoes at night of the sun dancing atop lamps
They tell me something about the unconscious of envy
Above distant lamp-posts an arterial sclerosis
At night's glove the fingerprints ignite optical almonds
There may be a 'flaw' in the design
Because when I happened to wear them
Outside at night
A tiny flame danced above distant lamp-posts
An orange tint, half a halo
As if to echo the envy these lights must have
For the sun
Its visual echo in negation-dynamic tension mobiles
These ironic echoes at night of the sun dancing atop lamps
They tell me something about the unconscious of envy
Above distant lamp-posts an arterial sclerosis
At night's glove the fingerprints ignite optical almonds
Oct 23, 2007
DUST STORM OVER THE EQUATOR
High above a beam of red light
at other mist-wrapped sore feet
a chew is enough
Light in my head
a light of glass buttons
melted heaps slither in a wormhole sahara
Heat bubbles of a dust-storm break over the equator
The oak ventriloquists' aerosol words the second halo of moon ice
at other mist-wrapped sore feet
a chew is enough
Light in my head
a light of glass buttons
melted heaps slither in a wormhole sahara
Heat bubbles of a dust-storm break over the equator
The oak ventriloquists' aerosol words the second halo of moon ice
Oct 12, 2007
MEANING THROUGH CHANCE: SUREALIST GAME
This is a surrealist game of creating meaning through chance. Take five books that are important to you in some way, make a wish while holding them, then open the top book. With as little delay as possible, select a short phrase that your eyes fall upon, then open the next book and do the same. When you have done this with all five books, start over in reverse order. Catalogue the results by placing the selected words for each book on a separate line, and break off the paragraph after the fifth line. Complete the process five or six times, or carry on as long as you like. Share the results, or not.
WILL NOT MARRY OUTSIDE ITSELF
TO JOIN THEORY WITH PRACTICE
CAUSE AN OBSERVER TO FORGET HER AGE
IF THE ‘AESTHETIC STATE’
OF HIS OWN HEAD
SHOULD HAVE NO PLACE
THE FATHER AND MOTHER
FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW
IN SO FAR AS
INTERSPERSED WITH OATHS
TO THIS SORT OF ILLUSION
THIS PENCHANT MANIFESTS ITSELF
AND ADOPT A DOCILE ATTITUDE
THE LATTER MAY BECOME FREELY ADAPTABLE TO CULTURE
BETWEEN THE TWO SCRIPTURES
THE FIRST OF THESE FACTORS
THE GREAT ACTIVITY
SHALL SEE VISIONS
TRANSFORMATION IS THE ISOLATED DEED
THE SEVENTEENTH DAY
WILL HEAR THE ORCHESTRA
PROBLEMS OF EQUILIBRIUM
A DISCUSSION WHICH COULD LEAD US FAR
AS THE ARENA
WE BECOME HIS BODY
A FEW MORE PSYCHIC PECULIARITIES
IT IS TRUE
THE ENORMOUS IMPORTANCE
WITHOUT EXTERNAL REPRESSIVE MODIFICATIONS
WOULD PERHAPS HEAR THE CALL
WILL NOT MARRY OUTSIDE ITSELF
10-07
With Fourier, Sade, Marcuse, O.Brown and Freud, in hopes of creating a harmonian cylinder
WILL NOT MARRY OUTSIDE ITSELF
TO JOIN THEORY WITH PRACTICE
CAUSE AN OBSERVER TO FORGET HER AGE
IF THE ‘AESTHETIC STATE’
OF HIS OWN HEAD
SHOULD HAVE NO PLACE
THE FATHER AND MOTHER
FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW
IN SO FAR AS
INTERSPERSED WITH OATHS
TO THIS SORT OF ILLUSION
THIS PENCHANT MANIFESTS ITSELF
AND ADOPT A DOCILE ATTITUDE
THE LATTER MAY BECOME FREELY ADAPTABLE TO CULTURE
BETWEEN THE TWO SCRIPTURES
THE FIRST OF THESE FACTORS
THE GREAT ACTIVITY
SHALL SEE VISIONS
TRANSFORMATION IS THE ISOLATED DEED
THE SEVENTEENTH DAY
WILL HEAR THE ORCHESTRA
PROBLEMS OF EQUILIBRIUM
A DISCUSSION WHICH COULD LEAD US FAR
AS THE ARENA
WE BECOME HIS BODY
A FEW MORE PSYCHIC PECULIARITIES
IT IS TRUE
THE ENORMOUS IMPORTANCE
WITHOUT EXTERNAL REPRESSIVE MODIFICATIONS
WOULD PERHAPS HEAR THE CALL
WILL NOT MARRY OUTSIDE ITSELF
10-07
With Fourier, Sade, Marcuse, O.Brown and Freud, in hopes of creating a harmonian cylinder
Sep 19, 2007
WHITE NOISE DOWSING
A few days ago I was using a computer program to generate brown, pink, and white noise for experimental sound composition. I saved a twenty second segment of white noise as a seperate file and soon listened to it turned up loud in the headphones. I made random loops out of the noise, and found a few paranoiac* statements in the mix. These were distorted, humorous and interesting phrases, spoken with curious timing in a metallic, static-filled voice. Among them were "pleasure the flesh," "please take my fleas," "write, wield the quill," and "g'mornin." I saved each voice to later play to friends, so that their own paranoiac mechanisms might be exercised. It will be interesting to see if they hear what I heard, or if some other revelation will stumble out of the rumbling texture for them.
*'Paranoiac' refers to a phrase which means 'delirium of interpretation.' This phenomena has been written about by Leonardo DaVinci, Salvador Dali, and others.
*'Paranoiac' refers to a phrase which means 'delirium of interpretation.' This phenomena has been written about by Leonardo DaVinci, Salvador Dali, and others.
WHAT IS SURREALISM?
This link, when copied and pasted into a browser window, will take you to an article by a Swedish comrade which plays with the question "what is surrealism?' I found it a well-developed and intriguing statement which, despite its lucid quality, is still somewhat tentative. Such efforts to re-contextualize the evolving 'open system' which surrealism is have my support as important gestures against the widespread confusion and popular mediocrity that has influenced the way 'the public' uses words. Plus, it is always interesting to see surrealists and their friends put forward just what a surrealist praxis is, for them.
http://icecrawler.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-is-surrealism.html
http://icecrawler.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-is-surrealism.html
Sep 3, 2007
MAY 1954
Her desire to introduce freedom does not place against its arrival external impressions of use receiving exhausted delight. To retain it, her enigmatic nature--with a bit of ribbon--may seem once more in the street, but inside things and people. Then, language is transformed into gravitations dedicated to my forehead. The hand is waiting to fall to the ground in May, 1954.
Aug 3, 2007
BEYOND THE WANDERING ATMOSPHERE
The human hope in favor of bias had involved them towards necessity--perhaps more spectre with whole headache theory quarter. Seductiveness remained, because the ego finds yet another function on a glass birdcage trick in logical limits' mistake beyond the very wandering atmosphere.
These difficult newspapers become exterior lanes to the torrid finger signs one may obscure in discoveries. To resist fake purpose, a curious man was widely about. Nothing intricate was seen, however, until many thousand roosting idiots issued from the smaller mouth.
Only in the visual phrase, in the absence of thinking, will the lost spool clearly be able to change the night. Forces erupt for a number of reasons, if one may speak, as interior fact attuned to contradictions guided by objective black humorists finds ferocious treats to destroy.
--Dice game played with three books, July 2007
These difficult newspapers become exterior lanes to the torrid finger signs one may obscure in discoveries. To resist fake purpose, a curious man was widely about. Nothing intricate was seen, however, until many thousand roosting idiots issued from the smaller mouth.
Only in the visual phrase, in the absence of thinking, will the lost spool clearly be able to change the night. Forces erupt for a number of reasons, if one may speak, as interior fact attuned to contradictions guided by objective black humorists finds ferocious treats to destroy.
--Dice game played with three books, July 2007
THE COCHLEA DIMMERS
The water harp ears like a steamed cornea through blasting cap toupee. Crab pelvis solar dungeons play the dusk trumpet. The empty shapes jamboree boulders, river's tongue on sound-spoon. The cochlea dimmers humpily swoon with a wet laugh.
Jul 18, 2007
CHANCE DICTIONARY
These definitions were created using one translucent blue di and two dictionaries. Questions came from the first, and answers from the second, dictionary. The length of the answers were guided by the number rolled on the di.
What is marginal?
A nondescript game bird.
What is phrenology?
Druid misty in extremis enthrall cover.
What is a splint?
Floruit ram hauetur doorbell.
What is gumption?
Headgear flip flop comparitive prepossessing sperm.
What is private?
Marram grass sitar nitrite hysteric.
What's a raindrop?
Snook ordinance inflation gait.
What is marginal?
A nondescript game bird.
What is phrenology?
Druid misty in extremis enthrall cover.
What is a splint?
Floruit ram hauetur doorbell.
What is gumption?
Headgear flip flop comparitive prepossessing sperm.
What is private?
Marram grass sitar nitrite hysteric.
What's a raindrop?
Snook ordinance inflation gait.
Jun 7, 2007
APOSTASY GULLET
I stir the apostasy gullet with lucid morphemes
A compelling face of love's electric cartwheel dramas
Blood slums' captive stations mix cherry angles with
Radio coils under a hat of seeds
The iron-throated vesicle crumbling lead lips
A compelling face of love's electric cartwheel dramas
Blood slums' captive stations mix cherry angles with
Radio coils under a hat of seeds
The iron-throated vesicle crumbling lead lips
A WANDERER'S HEART
A Wanderer's heart
and the open cage
are able, sometimes,
inside your eyes
at dawn
to wave myself
Remaining a dead sanctuary
in a rose among the future
executions
with red, lazy vines
A rising stone in full flight
stops untouched shoulders
from shelling rare roots
in river mushrooms
--Chance composition from Selected Poems of Li-Po, Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, and Everything You Know Is Wrong
and the open cage
are able, sometimes,
inside your eyes
at dawn
to wave myself
Remaining a dead sanctuary
in a rose among the future
executions
with red, lazy vines
A rising stone in full flight
stops untouched shoulders
from shelling rare roots
in river mushrooms
--Chance composition from Selected Poems of Li-Po, Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, and Everything You Know Is Wrong
May 23, 2007
SWARM CONTEST
The lightning open door cow wolves laugh shattering tubas with lace. The sea slithers across deserts; a whistle rises and falls like a snow pony. Straws ejaculate iron discs; love runs into gravity in a swarm contest. Heavy feet ignite sandstorms. A blanket falls over the flowerbeds. Bells eat sound empty. Open mouths lurk where a sled track disappears. It gets quiet as a dust tunnel filled with old books.
CAKE BONES
Between ears of a river and legs of a mountain,the skyline has a see-through crowd. Burnt notes crawl out ignoramuses. Statuesque ribbons percolate faintly. Tongues dance. Frenzied cake bones slump into a giant brace holding aloft the bitter galaxy. A glass bubble hangs over lenses whisking lakes away. Celebrations of musk siren out from a hollow tree's placenta dome.
May 15, 2007
ORACULE
What's my current mood?
Rainwater
What's a dance?
Pied-a-terre*
What's my secret name?
Telemetry
What is a kiss?
Voluminous
What's a penance?
Theology
A footprint?
Specific
A neighbor?
Sunshade
Oakum?
Yeast
Systole?
Felicitous
A phylum?
The Id
A tendril?
Iron oxide
What is surrealism?
Raft*
***** ***** *****
These texts were created by playing question and answer with a dictionary. A rapid scanning of the pages sometimes sparked a rapport between words and phrases. I also selected words from the dictionary and then let the dictionary 'answer.' Only the more interesting results have been recorded here.
1) Pied-a-terre, French; literally, 'foot to the ground', also a temporary or second lodging
2) After 'what is surrealism,' I added more entries by continuing to scan pages. The fourth word in the answer was 'realism.'
Rainwater
What's a dance?
Pied-a-terre*
What's my secret name?
Telemetry
What is a kiss?
Voluminous
What's a penance?
Theology
A footprint?
Specific
A neighbor?
Sunshade
Oakum?
Yeast
Systole?
Felicitous
A phylum?
The Id
A tendril?
Iron oxide
What is surrealism?
Raft*
***** ***** *****
These texts were created by playing question and answer with a dictionary. A rapid scanning of the pages sometimes sparked a rapport between words and phrases. I also selected words from the dictionary and then let the dictionary 'answer.' Only the more interesting results have been recorded here.
1) Pied-a-terre, French; literally, 'foot to the ground', also a temporary or second lodging
2) After 'what is surrealism,' I added more entries by continuing to scan pages. The fourth word in the answer was 'realism.'
May 10, 2007
RELAUNCH ASLEEP
Relaunch asleep. Curity and Manatee goss, stunned particles yawning potion. Asiento gas house. You'll eat your head full of cherry trees, with a ducks' eye. Comets slash silk windows. Burning weights slip into a pool.
May 9, 2007
STORM SLIPPERS
To dance storm slippers, harangue a sun wildly during a volcano walk, and move like a steep ocean breathing out hair into the trees, in a transparent garment of force. It's enough to wing ankles. Sonar bubbles are densely clanging amid raised notes' combustion.
THE END OF THE NINES
Eventually the nines will run out and your peers will catch a train to express-way 100. Cool a baboon's heart by aimless soothing cones. Cinders' glue famish a dump of bones, life's convex mirror of blood luck.
Feb 8, 2007
TRANSPARENT OWLS MINISTER TO THE DANG POPPINS
Gripping cracked paint into each knee
Nine brooms weep yetis tomorrow
Seven dustpans cringe ostrich smoke
Dove throat incensed at yarrow foundries
Oaks hosting xenon rays
Nine brooms weep yetis tomorrow
Seven dustpans cringe ostrich smoke
Dove throat incensed at yarrow foundries
Oaks hosting xenon rays
Dec 9, 2006
OTHER ISLES OF SWAMP
How could brittle forms
sleep after a hazard?
Other isles of swamp,
I'm in love with walking moss...
An afterthought--
To smelter some heard tidings.
My short walk to a bridge,
plaza of arcades.
sleep after a hazard?
Other isles of swamp,
I'm in love with walking moss...
An afterthought--
To smelter some heard tidings.
My short walk to a bridge,
plaza of arcades.
Nov 29, 2006
NEW LOVERS DESTROY OPINIONS
"New lovers destroy opinions."
"The workers' routine is a pale satellite.
Compulsion today extends the universal police force."
"I will not become nothing. What I want would have made rain:
Botanists hurled against savage masques."
"The workers' routine is a pale satellite.
Compulsion today extends the universal police force."
"I will not become nothing. What I want would have made rain:
Botanists hurled against savage masques."
Oct 6, 2006
NOCTURNAL CITY FOXES AND BIRD INSECT ALBUMS
Two things in an interview with sound improvisor Evan Parker struck my antenna:
1) The discussion of foxes being active in the city at night. This reminds me something emphasized by Morgan during a Portland Surrealist Group meeting-- that creatures are here in the city making their own space and that this could be looked at in a surrealist light. Articles on the Flying Stone Blog (http://pdxsurr.blogspot.com) reflect on some of these matters (see Interview with Morgan Miller; Base Poetics; Paranoiac-Critical Coyote).
I'm enlivened by encounters with night creatures in the city, though these are usually brief compared to the experience of the Trafalgar foxes. This brings to mind a possible future inquiry on human-animal relations within the city as experienced by surrealists. For my part a squirrel recently ran up to a friend and I while we were walking by a cafe, paused by our feet, then climbed on my knee as I knelt down. The squirrel made eye contact, then jumped on my shoulders for a few moments as I stood up, before calmly wandering down the other side of my body.
2) Insect sounds have given me hypnotic memories from childhood visits to my grandparents' backyard, where cicadas began their pulsing drone at dusk. I would find and sometimes collect their pristine, translucent shells, left clinging to the bark, when I climbed trees.
*
Monastery Bulletin: What's that squeaky sound? You got a pet mouse in your pocket or something?
Evan Parker: No, it's the woodwork, the bench...
(The next minute of the recording is drowned out by the noise of the coffee machines being cleaned with high pressure vapor.)
MB: Are this kind of sounds especially interesting to you as a musician, daily life sounds?
EP: Oh, I think I've got an ear for - maybe a bird sound, or some mysterious sound in the middle of the night. Maybe foxes. We have foxes, a lot of foxes, even in the city, because of all of those little gardens and cemeteries, the foxes find it easier to live in the city now than in the country.
MB: Maybe because there's no fox hunting in the city! We had a very close encounter with a fox at three in the morning on Trafalgar Square...
EP: They've moved in. And they're very relaxed, and more and more cool now. More at night of course than in the daytime. But you see them in the daytime sometimes. The later in the night, the more confident they become. It's like they're asking you: what are you doing up at this time? This is our time! And they stand there, they don't run away anymore. (The squeaking sound catches our attention again. Evan shifts back and forth to get some more signal.) Yeah, you're right, it's coming from here. Nice little squeaks.
MB: Sounds more like a cricket now... Do you feel a kinship with the music of insects? Some of your records have been favorably compared to insect twitterings.
EP: There's fantastic recordings from this French guy, Jean Roché, and he's for years been making recordings of bird songs from all over the world, but also sometimes insects. So there's some very good records of cicadas and crickets and... This guy started in the age of LPs, and he had various series. So some of them were edited like concerts. Some were more like classic species identification, so each track was to identify a particular species - or a survey of a particular region. And then when he liked a particular individual bird, then he would make an EP and say: this bird is a virtuoso and must be featured as an individual, this is beyond the generic or the species type, this is an individual bird with a very special - so he did a very interesting series of records, and gradually they're being transferred to CD. And also now he has younger people working, making new recordings with digital recording. It's a lot easier to do now than in the old days, going to the jungle with an analogue tape recorder.
* The longer interview this excerpt came from can be found here, under the sub-title 'Shopping with Evan Parker.'
http://www.monastery.nl/bulletin/
1) The discussion of foxes being active in the city at night. This reminds me something emphasized by Morgan during a Portland Surrealist Group meeting-- that creatures are here in the city making their own space and that this could be looked at in a surrealist light. Articles on the Flying Stone Blog (http://pdxsurr.blogspot.com) reflect on some of these matters (see Interview with Morgan Miller; Base Poetics; Paranoiac-Critical Coyote).
I'm enlivened by encounters with night creatures in the city, though these are usually brief compared to the experience of the Trafalgar foxes. This brings to mind a possible future inquiry on human-animal relations within the city as experienced by surrealists. For my part a squirrel recently ran up to a friend and I while we were walking by a cafe, paused by our feet, then climbed on my knee as I knelt down. The squirrel made eye contact, then jumped on my shoulders for a few moments as I stood up, before calmly wandering down the other side of my body.
2) Insect sounds have given me hypnotic memories from childhood visits to my grandparents' backyard, where cicadas began their pulsing drone at dusk. I would find and sometimes collect their pristine, translucent shells, left clinging to the bark, when I climbed trees.
*
Monastery Bulletin: What's that squeaky sound? You got a pet mouse in your pocket or something?
Evan Parker: No, it's the woodwork, the bench...
(The next minute of the recording is drowned out by the noise of the coffee machines being cleaned with high pressure vapor.)
MB: Are this kind of sounds especially interesting to you as a musician, daily life sounds?
EP: Oh, I think I've got an ear for - maybe a bird sound, or some mysterious sound in the middle of the night. Maybe foxes. We have foxes, a lot of foxes, even in the city, because of all of those little gardens and cemeteries, the foxes find it easier to live in the city now than in the country.
MB: Maybe because there's no fox hunting in the city! We had a very close encounter with a fox at three in the morning on Trafalgar Square...
EP: They've moved in. And they're very relaxed, and more and more cool now. More at night of course than in the daytime. But you see them in the daytime sometimes. The later in the night, the more confident they become. It's like they're asking you: what are you doing up at this time? This is our time! And they stand there, they don't run away anymore. (The squeaking sound catches our attention again. Evan shifts back and forth to get some more signal.) Yeah, you're right, it's coming from here. Nice little squeaks.
MB: Sounds more like a cricket now... Do you feel a kinship with the music of insects? Some of your records have been favorably compared to insect twitterings.
EP: There's fantastic recordings from this French guy, Jean Roché, and he's for years been making recordings of bird songs from all over the world, but also sometimes insects. So there's some very good records of cicadas and crickets and... This guy started in the age of LPs, and he had various series. So some of them were edited like concerts. Some were more like classic species identification, so each track was to identify a particular species - or a survey of a particular region. And then when he liked a particular individual bird, then he would make an EP and say: this bird is a virtuoso and must be featured as an individual, this is beyond the generic or the species type, this is an individual bird with a very special - so he did a very interesting series of records, and gradually they're being transferred to CD. And also now he has younger people working, making new recordings with digital recording. It's a lot easier to do now than in the old days, going to the jungle with an analogue tape recorder.
* The longer interview this excerpt came from can be found here, under the sub-title 'Shopping with Evan Parker.'
http://www.monastery.nl/bulletin/
Oct 5, 2006
THE TIME OF CROWS
The time of crows for mixed bales
Each roll of scarecrow hexes
Sunlight elopes with bland hollows thrown to a wet eclipse
Nicety digits have hidden relays of streaming silk dust
Call across the water to move a moon
I'm a spark of thought, baby shale
The codex of mingling slips its head into floating envelopes
tearing gumbo trees in its Ming dynasty library
The shovels of rain, liquid teeth
Evolutionary mechanism ice pallor
follows the changed shirt
Each roll of scarecrow hexes
Sunlight elopes with bland hollows thrown to a wet eclipse
Nicety digits have hidden relays of streaming silk dust
Call across the water to move a moon
I'm a spark of thought, baby shale
The codex of mingling slips its head into floating envelopes
tearing gumbo trees in its Ming dynasty library
The shovels of rain, liquid teeth
Evolutionary mechanism ice pallor
follows the changed shirt
Jul 4, 2006
SURRATIONAL DIALOGUES
SURRATIONAL DIALOGUES:
Two or more people sit in a quiet, pitch-black room. The chance of habitual retinal and sonic impressions overshadowing inspiration is lessened in the dark, in the quiet that often only arrives late at night. There may or may not be instrumental music or flashes of light depending upon personal preference.
The people may use a lamp timer or other instrument to mark the end of each exchange or session by turning on the lights. They can set a timer for one minute or each person can turn on a light when the time seems right to them to do so. The goal of the experience is to record a surrational dialogue within a given, or random, duration of time. The following 'dialogue' is excerpted from my automatic writings to serve as an example of surrational communication in real-time. Very little conscious planning was involved in selecting the words.
This could also be undertaken by a single person, alone in the dark, as a 'self-dialogue.' The free-wheeling intimacy and unusual appeal of such an outpouring of 'the quantities of excitation' could spark a resonance with the hypnagogic, experiential regions that are often denied reciprocation by the social context.
A:
Made flux by wet lives,
this shape is a falling arrow.
The wind is in a tower.
B:
Gruesome tungsten okra might be served.
I broil the corners' laughing soap kites.
A:
Heights of stone stairs, take away my rushing bubblegum.
The heart-beats of imps call out to fabled trees.
B:
With water-oags, my neck-boating class,
row-row-row your boat of ice.
A:
Where your hype ladder is boxed in lion traps,
the pretense of bat choruses' silver flame.
B:
Scared of aluminum noise, cats reach for bums,
weave in and out of a slow pony. Flat mountains
don't exist.
A:
Somehow they do, in mustard clangs.
B:
Pronto is the paper ghost--search for letters to suit the body.
Two or more people sit in a quiet, pitch-black room. The chance of habitual retinal and sonic impressions overshadowing inspiration is lessened in the dark, in the quiet that often only arrives late at night. There may or may not be instrumental music or flashes of light depending upon personal preference.
The people may use a lamp timer or other instrument to mark the end of each exchange or session by turning on the lights. They can set a timer for one minute or each person can turn on a light when the time seems right to them to do so. The goal of the experience is to record a surrational dialogue within a given, or random, duration of time. The following 'dialogue' is excerpted from my automatic writings to serve as an example of surrational communication in real-time. Very little conscious planning was involved in selecting the words.
This could also be undertaken by a single person, alone in the dark, as a 'self-dialogue.' The free-wheeling intimacy and unusual appeal of such an outpouring of 'the quantities of excitation' could spark a resonance with the hypnagogic, experiential regions that are often denied reciprocation by the social context.
A:
Made flux by wet lives,
this shape is a falling arrow.
The wind is in a tower.
B:
Gruesome tungsten okra might be served.
I broil the corners' laughing soap kites.
A:
Heights of stone stairs, take away my rushing bubblegum.
The heart-beats of imps call out to fabled trees.
B:
With water-oags, my neck-boating class,
row-row-row your boat of ice.
A:
Where your hype ladder is boxed in lion traps,
the pretense of bat choruses' silver flame.
B:
Scared of aluminum noise, cats reach for bums,
weave in and out of a slow pony. Flat mountains
don't exist.
A:
Somehow they do, in mustard clangs.
B:
Pronto is the paper ghost--search for letters to suit the body.
Jun 25, 2006
JUNE 24TH DERIVE
In collaboration with the London Surrealist Group who
issued the call, and with other surrealists and allies
around the world.
On the way to my first point, I met a woman with
her face painted white, who was intrigued by the idea
of the derive, and by surrealism, though she said she
knew little about them. She said she'd try her own
version of the derive once I told her the coordinates
and then left an email address during the short bus
ride. I rode to a large mall. My intention was to
wander using the second right, second left, first
right formula from the point of repulsion to the
chance locale to the points of desire, but the
desiring space sometimes intruded into, or was found
alongside, the repulsive and the chanced upon.
From the food court to the video and gaming arcade I
went, talking into a tape deck. 'War: The Final
Assault' was a game which featured an instruction
label reading 'kill boss to complete level.' 'Wing
War' was a flight and driving simulation. 'Time
Crisis' was the last game I saw as I headed for a long
hallway across the food court. I couldn't help reflect
on the tone of video 'adventures' in light of U.S.
foreign policy and the narrow outlook which saturates
this land-mass. People stared at me as I talked into
the tape deck mic.
Following my guideline directions I arrived at a
hallway leading away from the food court. Past a sign
reading 'authorized personnel only' I went through
unlocked double doors, through a short hallway, and
out onto a rooftop area, deserted but for one car. I
could only go one direction down this path which lead
to the public parking lot. Soon I descended a white
steel staircase onto a boring street and saw my
initial point of entry into the mall in the distance,
farther away than I'd imagined.
Heading east, a sudden point of desire emerged in a
parking alley behind a chinese fast-food place. This
was a deserted area without a single car or person,
quiet, and partially in the shade. A row of pine
bushes towered above me to the left from where they
lined the edge of a higher lot. A bird flew by as if
to heighten the solitary feeling of being hidden from
view for a moment, away from the prying, judging eye
of 'the public' near the rush hour. Before I left this
spot I saw one pane in a large double-paned window had
been broken. It seemed no one would notice due to
piles of boxes just inside.
The alley continued across a busy street and past a
small building labelled 'The OOOption Group.' I'd seen
this sign before and it reminded me of the Romanian
Surrealists' 'objectively offerred objects,' which
helped to auto-mythologize the 'oooption group' into a
curious secret society in my imagination. This name is
also a mix of a mistake and a pathway, as in ooops and
options. A sign read 'these premises under video
surveillance' to top it all off.
Moving through an alley behind buildings, past
several 'permanently locked' doors and security
buzzers, I found myself taking the next available turn
into a kitchen and housewares shop. The air
conditioning, shoppers, jazz on the radio, and crying
baby inside were a sudden change, and with humor I
navigated the aisles and levels of this place until I
returned to my point of entry and then set off in
another direction. I wondered when I would be asked if
I could 'be helped' but by then I'd made an exit past
the patio umbrellas onto a boring, hot and busy
street.
A series of giant, locked doors blocked the next
intended turn, and left an uneasy impression. Past the
Epicure restaurant I found an abandoned computer by a
dumpster. A single sheet of paper lay in the
landscaping--an invoice for tropical plants, 'and a
bow' as someone had written in ink next to the print.
It was addressed to a person I haven't thought of for
years, but once was attracted to. "Could it be the
same person." She had a common last name. I moved
through an intermediate space without much to report
other than an unintelligible comment and a smile from
a woman in a passing car. Once past a house where
musician friends once lived, I realized the area was
quite a bore and decided to adopt the chance method by
getting on the next bus.
An atopos or 'useless area' became visible during
the bus ride. Located underneath a busy street's
bridge, just west of a giant bowling alley, this dirt
trail by the highway fence and bridge supports had an
allure. It could be seen only briefly from a short
stretch of road or two in the vicinity, and only
viewed completely by access from the bowling alley
parking garage. Just today as i write this I saw
people moving through and standing in the area. A
short while later I got off the bus to see graffiti,
'paulrus is dead' which appears in multiple locations.
There was a hearing aid shop in a small building near
some apartment towers. On the hearing aid shop's
outside wall were the words 'building' in black
letters. It looked like another phrase before
'building'--some official title or designation-- had
fallen off or been removed from the brick. There were
marks visible where it had once been affixed.
Across the street a bright red, ornate church door
with gold decor and round black handles stood out. A
small courtyard just to the north had been designed
with maze-like patterns of grass and concrete. It was
too tidy and controlled, but was still a somewhat
welcoming area. A nearby dumpster had been decorated
with an ambiguous drawing and the words 'defend the
earth.' I recorded fingertip drumming on a large
aluminum soap container sitting there. To cool off I
headed for a usually interesting or charming thrift
store nearby. In the thrift store I conducted the
derive past clothes and various objects, and found a
unique candle of the cat-goddess Bast or Bastet, some
recording adapters, and a book about a town I grew up
near in a different part of the country. Inside this
book was an aerial picture of a mall (another mall!) I
used to visit as a child, but the photo was taken
before I was born. In addition to this, the
architect's name was the same common name of the woman
in the tropical plant invoice.
I'd intended to explore semi-deserted industrial
spots by the Willamette river, or a series of
overgrown alleyways in the northeast residential
areas, but I was tired and hot and decided to visit
them another time, perhaps with a camera. On my way
back to the busline which would return me to my bike I
saw a pine tree with a curiously bent limb much like a
single arm waiting to be sat on. If someone were to
sit there, it would appear that the tree was telling
stories while holding them up.
I enjoyed the feeling of my motions charting a kind
of geometry on parts of the city, though I was often
tempted to resist the basic instructions. It was a
humorous discipline to maintain the 'flight path.'
Making a sustained pattern across the social
landscape, across the habitual city space, for several
hours, left me with a mild urge to continue for the
rest of the night. The residue of derive lingered upon
me, creating new perception of the commonplace
movements.
M.K. Shibek
Portland Surrealist Group
8-06
issued the call, and with other surrealists and allies
around the world.
On the way to my first point, I met a woman with
her face painted white, who was intrigued by the idea
of the derive, and by surrealism, though she said she
knew little about them. She said she'd try her own
version of the derive once I told her the coordinates
and then left an email address during the short bus
ride. I rode to a large mall. My intention was to
wander using the second right, second left, first
right formula from the point of repulsion to the
chance locale to the points of desire, but the
desiring space sometimes intruded into, or was found
alongside, the repulsive and the chanced upon.
From the food court to the video and gaming arcade I
went, talking into a tape deck. 'War: The Final
Assault' was a game which featured an instruction
label reading 'kill boss to complete level.' 'Wing
War' was a flight and driving simulation. 'Time
Crisis' was the last game I saw as I headed for a long
hallway across the food court. I couldn't help reflect
on the tone of video 'adventures' in light of U.S.
foreign policy and the narrow outlook which saturates
this land-mass. People stared at me as I talked into
the tape deck mic.
Following my guideline directions I arrived at a
hallway leading away from the food court. Past a sign
reading 'authorized personnel only' I went through
unlocked double doors, through a short hallway, and
out onto a rooftop area, deserted but for one car. I
could only go one direction down this path which lead
to the public parking lot. Soon I descended a white
steel staircase onto a boring street and saw my
initial point of entry into the mall in the distance,
farther away than I'd imagined.
Heading east, a sudden point of desire emerged in a
parking alley behind a chinese fast-food place. This
was a deserted area without a single car or person,
quiet, and partially in the shade. A row of pine
bushes towered above me to the left from where they
lined the edge of a higher lot. A bird flew by as if
to heighten the solitary feeling of being hidden from
view for a moment, away from the prying, judging eye
of 'the public' near the rush hour. Before I left this
spot I saw one pane in a large double-paned window had
been broken. It seemed no one would notice due to
piles of boxes just inside.
The alley continued across a busy street and past a
small building labelled 'The OOOption Group.' I'd seen
this sign before and it reminded me of the Romanian
Surrealists' 'objectively offerred objects,' which
helped to auto-mythologize the 'oooption group' into a
curious secret society in my imagination. This name is
also a mix of a mistake and a pathway, as in ooops and
options. A sign read 'these premises under video
surveillance' to top it all off.
Moving through an alley behind buildings, past
several 'permanently locked' doors and security
buzzers, I found myself taking the next available turn
into a kitchen and housewares shop. The air
conditioning, shoppers, jazz on the radio, and crying
baby inside were a sudden change, and with humor I
navigated the aisles and levels of this place until I
returned to my point of entry and then set off in
another direction. I wondered when I would be asked if
I could 'be helped' but by then I'd made an exit past
the patio umbrellas onto a boring, hot and busy
street.
A series of giant, locked doors blocked the next
intended turn, and left an uneasy impression. Past the
Epicure restaurant I found an abandoned computer by a
dumpster. A single sheet of paper lay in the
landscaping--an invoice for tropical plants, 'and a
bow' as someone had written in ink next to the print.
It was addressed to a person I haven't thought of for
years, but once was attracted to. "Could it be the
same person." She had a common last name. I moved
through an intermediate space without much to report
other than an unintelligible comment and a smile from
a woman in a passing car. Once past a house where
musician friends once lived, I realized the area was
quite a bore and decided to adopt the chance method by
getting on the next bus.
An atopos or 'useless area' became visible during
the bus ride. Located underneath a busy street's
bridge, just west of a giant bowling alley, this dirt
trail by the highway fence and bridge supports had an
allure. It could be seen only briefly from a short
stretch of road or two in the vicinity, and only
viewed completely by access from the bowling alley
parking garage. Just today as i write this I saw
people moving through and standing in the area. A
short while later I got off the bus to see graffiti,
'paulrus is dead' which appears in multiple locations.
There was a hearing aid shop in a small building near
some apartment towers. On the hearing aid shop's
outside wall were the words 'building' in black
letters. It looked like another phrase before
'building'--some official title or designation-- had
fallen off or been removed from the brick. There were
marks visible where it had once been affixed.
Across the street a bright red, ornate church door
with gold decor and round black handles stood out. A
small courtyard just to the north had been designed
with maze-like patterns of grass and concrete. It was
too tidy and controlled, but was still a somewhat
welcoming area. A nearby dumpster had been decorated
with an ambiguous drawing and the words 'defend the
earth.' I recorded fingertip drumming on a large
aluminum soap container sitting there. To cool off I
headed for a usually interesting or charming thrift
store nearby. In the thrift store I conducted the
derive past clothes and various objects, and found a
unique candle of the cat-goddess Bast or Bastet, some
recording adapters, and a book about a town I grew up
near in a different part of the country. Inside this
book was an aerial picture of a mall (another mall!) I
used to visit as a child, but the photo was taken
before I was born. In addition to this, the
architect's name was the same common name of the woman
in the tropical plant invoice.
I'd intended to explore semi-deserted industrial
spots by the Willamette river, or a series of
overgrown alleyways in the northeast residential
areas, but I was tired and hot and decided to visit
them another time, perhaps with a camera. On my way
back to the busline which would return me to my bike I
saw a pine tree with a curiously bent limb much like a
single arm waiting to be sat on. If someone were to
sit there, it would appear that the tree was telling
stories while holding them up.
I enjoyed the feeling of my motions charting a kind
of geometry on parts of the city, though I was often
tempted to resist the basic instructions. It was a
humorous discipline to maintain the 'flight path.'
Making a sustained pattern across the social
landscape, across the habitual city space, for several
hours, left me with a mild urge to continue for the
rest of the night. The residue of derive lingered upon
me, creating new perception of the commonplace
movements.
M.K. Shibek
Portland Surrealist Group
8-06
Apr 17, 2006
THE FUTURE CITIZEN
The Future Citizen in a mock shooting gallery on a spending spree, laden with poisonous telecom and gaming devices strung about body armor woven into brain and spine. Microchip nano-factories deposit adrenalin at biometric checkpoint, seratonin captured in research labs fanned into abyss settlements quaking with sore dust. Body a sign under postmodern regime, sign in circulation to deny the depths, sway to magnet vortex illusion skeleton shape. Stolen body returns as cyborg advert super soldier, global positioning system constraint method. Restricted sponge soaks up the past, historical debris inflates; inverted world's black light hands; the social fate that breaks our knees.
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