thy will be dada (in dada as it is in dada)

a long time ago i somehow came across the unvert manifesto. maybe not a long time ago. maybe just a year or two ago. long enough ago that i had a chance to forget about it, and then re-discover it and read it with renewed enthusiasm a few days ago.

the way i re-discovered it was kind of fun. i have a little toy called “henry the talking gnome”—you pinch his foot and he records for 12 seconds, then push his tummy-box and he plays back whatever you said in a helium voice. so i found a video on my computer of henry the talking gnome, close-up on his face, squeaking “sex should be a frightening experience like a dirty joke or an angel” (#4).

anyway, i’m really excited about this poet, jack spicer. i was going to order a book of his collected works, but it’s out of print, and the cheapest copy i can find online is like $60—and fuck that. albertson’s library has a copy, which is checked out, but i shall get my grubby hands on it someday, and i shall make copies of whatever parts interest me. which might be the whole thing. which would be a lot of scanning, because it’s nearly 400 pages. can i please find this book at a thrift store or something? miraculously come across a pristine copy for $1? please?

that’s what i’m counting on. in the meantime, i’ll just keep masturbating on street corners and mourning over the cost of rare, out-of-print books.

a bio, and a few poems that don’t cost thousands of dollars to read:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1656
(i think “psychoanalysis: an elegy” is one of my all-time favorite poems of all-times, ever).

2>4 (put the fun between your legs)

meet calliope (greek for “beautiful-voiced,” named after the muse of epic poetry). she’s a 1978 schwinn suburban that i bought a few years ago at salvation army. she was pretty rusted and nasty at first, but i knew my dad could refurbish her—he used to be a bike mechanic, and he still does all kinds of work on his ridiculous collection of a dozen-or-so bikes. he cleaned her up very nicely—there were only a few areas where the rust wouldn’t come off, and i just covered those places with colorful duct tape. problem solved.

i’ve traveled a lot of miles to a lot of fun places on that bike. this summer i bought a couple new bikes—a schwinn cruiser named athena, and a kickbike (sort of a cross between a bike and a scooter) named persephone. each one offers a unique and marvelous riding experience, but calliope will always be my favorite. i wrote a little cinquain about her:

downtown
to troubadour
i hear your peddles squeak,
your basket filled with flavors and
sunrise.

it’s time for a new poem, though, because that was written so long ago. i should probably stick with a mini-poem like a cinquain, so that if i decide to paint the poem onto the bike it won’t take up too much room. space is at quite a premium, what with all the stickers and rhinestones and whatnot that are already covering most of the visible areas.

the maximus pumpkin

this is baudelaire punkin. he won me a plastic punkin-bucket full of candy corn i couldn’t eat (the prize for 3rd place in a mandatory high school punkin decorating contest).

maybe this year i’ll paint olson’s face on a punkin. or would that be too scary?

my dog could eat your dog's soul

lion's tooth

The First Dandelion

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,

As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,

Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass--innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,

The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

From “Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman

did you know that a dandelion is not a single flower, rather a flower head composed of a bunch of “ray florets” (tiny flowers)?

and because i’m too lazy to paraphrase, here are some other fascinating facts about dandelions, copy-and-paste from wikipedia:

Taraxacum species reproduce asexually by means of apomixis, and seed production commonly occurs without pollination.

The flower matures into a globe of fine filaments that are usually distributed by wind, carrying away the seed-containing achenes. This globe (receptacle) is called the "clock".

In modern French the plant is called pissenlit, which means "urinate in bed", apparently referring to its diuretic properties.

There are usually 54 to 172 seeds produced per head, but a single plant can produce more than 2000 seeds a year. It has been estimated that more than 97 000 000 seeds/hectare could be produced every year by a dense stand of dandelions.

Often dandelions can be observed growing in a crevice near a wall, because the blowing fruits hit the wall and the feathery pappi drop off, sending the dandelion seeds to the base of the obstacle where they germinate. After the seed is released, the parachutes lose their feathered structure and take on a fuzzy, cotton-like appearance, often called "dandelion snow."

The plant can be eaten cooked or raw in various forms, such as in soup or salad. They are probably closest in character to mustard greens. The leaves are high in vitamin A, vitamin C and iron, carrying more iron and calcium than spinach.

Dandelion flowers can be used to make dandelion wine. Another recipe using the plant is dandelion flower jam. Ground roasted dandelion root can be used as a coffee substitute.

Dandelion root is a registered drug in Canada, sold as a diuretic. Dandelions are so potent in this effect that children have been known to wet the bed the night after skin contact from playing with them. A leaf decoction can be drunk to "purify the blood", for the treatment of anemia, jaundice, and also for nervousness. The milky latex has been used as a mosquito repellent; the milk is also applied to warts, helping get rid of them without damaging the surrounding skin. A dye can also be obtained from the roots of the plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandelion

i am going to count the parachutes on a clock sometime. and use dandelion milk to repel mosquitoes. i would also love to make a dandelion salad, but i don’t particularly want to piss en mon lit.

wizzle squizzle

i was just thinking about how squirrels are always portrayed in movies as having really high-pitched voices, and that led me to imagine a squirrel with a barry white voice. mostly funny, but also a little horrifying. i think i want to cross-breed a squirrel with a parrot just so i can train it to speak like barry white. this is how i will make my millions.

some flowers choose not to smile

où sont les enfants?

“ages 3 & up” includes 21- and 23-year-olds. duh.

besides, the boston baked bean-tini made the whole thing age-appropriate. you gotta be at least in double digits to down one of those bad boys.

my friend nikki (whom i just talked into starting a blog, which she also took my advice in naming “the deviant tart”), shared some awesome ideas with me today. she was (and will be again) an art student at bsu, and one of her professors used to strongly recommend writing in books…so in some book or other she actually turned the margins into a journal.

which made me want to take an existing book and make it into a poetry/art book. i imagine it would be part erasure poem, part coloring book, part stream of consciousness craziness…but what book to use? that’s what i’m stuck on. i would use the “jumbo bug time” coloring book i bought today, because it is of the wicked-badass variety, but it has no text to play with.

i’m thinking it would be coolest if i could make it out of a hardcover book, so i could inflict some mod podge collage mayhem on the covers. i have a wee little book called “Woman’s Worth; or, Hints to Raise the Female Character” which is all about being a good wifey, and is both repulsive and hilarious—i would totally use that, but it is very old and falling apart.

i’ll probably never be able to think of the perfect book for this project, and therefore will never begin it…but it’s a neat idea. maybe someone else in this class can do some good with it.

don't you carry nothin that might be a load

i am so thankful for fenders and pumpkin pie.

to anyone who has not experienced the delight of riding a hefty-ass cruiser for five miles through a huge storm with lightning, thunder, pouring rain and sleet, in unsuitable attire, while irrevocably head-stuck with the song “ease on down the road” (from 1970’s horror film “the wiz”):

you’re probably feeling pretty good about yourself right now. and that you should.

i realized today, finally and with unconditional certainty, that pie makes everything all better. i got home, got into dry clothes and shook out my hair, and dug into a punkin pie. no plate, because i was pissed. but the first bite made all my earthly tribulations dissolve. it’s not even a very good pie. i bought some of that canned filler crap last night, not realizing you have to mix it with eggs and powdered milk—neither of which i’ll use, because i don’t eat animal products. so it was ener-g egg replacer and soy milk, plus a bit of flour and sugar because the consistency wasn’t right, and then double the cooking time. it is runny, it will not form slices, but it was just the kind of pie-ish goo that i needed this afternoon.

i once dated a girl who was beyond obsessed with pie—at last i understand where she was coming from! pie is magic, and it makes big thumpy hearts extend from my pupils.