pataphor in Still Life
"... After she had completely soaked the foam rubber mattress with her bitter weeping, she hurled the mattress out the window into the blackberries below.
... Seizing the Camel pack, she squeezed it in her small fist, toppling the pyramids and busting the dromedary's hump. Mummies ran from the pyramids in panic, dragging their wrappings behind them. Water spewed form the camel's cracked hump like a fountain of tears."
202
Still Life With Woodpecker
Tom Robbins
... Seizing the Camel pack, she squeezed it in her small fist, toppling the pyramids and busting the dromedary's hump. Mummies ran from the pyramids in panic, dragging their wrappings behind them. Water spewed form the camel's cracked hump like a fountain of tears."
202
Still Life With Woodpecker
Tom Robbins
It felt dark at two o'clock. Liz got points in Ester's books for having a winter wedding. She asked herself if she would have her wedding in winter ... then she realized that it was the wrong question. The correct question was: Will I ever have a wedding?
Ester was happy when other people got married, but for herself -- she couldn't yet imagine it. When she was a kid, she had childlike fantasies like all her friends. What kind of dress, what kind of garden, what kind of cake, what kind of groom ... But she didn't have any similar fantasies as an adult. Besides, weddings were so expensive.
The real question in her mind was not, will I marry this person? It was will I have children with this person? That seemed more binding than any wedding certificate.
Ester was happy when other people got married, but for herself -- she couldn't yet imagine it. When she was a kid, she had childlike fantasies like all her friends. What kind of dress, what kind of garden, what kind of cake, what kind of groom ... But she didn't have any similar fantasies as an adult. Besides, weddings were so expensive.
The real question in her mind was not, will I marry this person? It was will I have children with this person? That seemed more binding than any wedding certificate.
Oulipo
some constraints of Oulipo (from wikipedia):
- S+7, sometimes called N+7
- Replace every noun in a text with the noun seven entries after it in a dictionary. For example, "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago..." (from Moby-Dick) becomes "Call me islander. Some yeggs ago...". Results will vary depending upon the dictionary used. This technique can also be performed on other lexical classes, such as verbs.
- Snowball
- A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer.
- Lipogram
- Writing that excludes one or more letters. The previous sentence is a lipogram in B, F, H, J, K, Q, V, Y, and Z (it does not contain any of those letters).
- Prisoner's constraint, also called "Macao" constraint
- A type of lipogram that omits letters with ascenders and descenders (b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, and y).
- Palindromes
- Sonnets and other poems constructed using palindromic techniques.
Old men jaywalked across Broadway because of the sidewalk construction. Canes click clack. Ester couldn't even get her mom to jaywalk. An old man waved down a taxi, and then walked away. Maybe he waved goodbye to friends across the street. In any case, it put the confused cabbie out for twenty-seconds, until he pulled back into traffic and roared away. The billboard above the bus-stop was an ad for Coors Light, "Colder than people from Toronto" it said. Ester laughed. Her December breath was visible. The bus was taking too long. C'est la vie. Vancouver transit was getting better, they said. Screw it, she'd walk. It was only twenty-five minutes to huff up the hill. Maybe she ought to hail a cab. Punctuality is a virtue, and one she didn't want to start slacking off on. Bridal showers were special days, at least it was a special day for Liz. And Maybe Ester and the bride weren't as close as they used to be. But Ester could still make use of the special day. Taking taxis, receiving packages in the mail, and getting your hair washed at the salon, all made for a special day.
At the corner, waiting for the light to change, two 20-something women were having a fake argument. A pseudo passive-aggressive expression of their appreciation for each others' capacity to use faux sarcasm to mask that at the bottom of their hearts they meant the words they were saying, and sarcasm was their vehicle of warning.
What a hot crock-pot of spitting talk. Why was communication so complex these days? Words layered like hair. Blame the internet, they say. She crossed the street. tweet tweet tweet. A kid walked the curb like a tightrope. Ah, to have such a mind.
Looking west up 12th, the street opened up like a tunnel. A cab passed by, but she didn't hail it.
At the corner, waiting for the light to change, two 20-something women were having a fake argument. A pseudo passive-aggressive expression of their appreciation for each others' capacity to use faux sarcasm to mask that at the bottom of their hearts they meant the words they were saying, and sarcasm was their vehicle of warning.
What a hot crock-pot of spitting talk. Why was communication so complex these days? Words layered like hair. Blame the internet, they say. She crossed the street. tweet tweet tweet. A kid walked the curb like a tightrope. Ah, to have such a mind.
Looking west up 12th, the street opened up like a tunnel. A cab passed by, but she didn't hail it.
Andre Breton
Andre Breton's Nadja. Andre Breton, father of Surrealism, author of the Surrealist Manifesto.
alfred jarry the father of pata
Alfred Jarry (8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907) created and coined "Pataphysics", as he defined as "the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments".
La petite morte
la petite morte -- the little death, a metaphor for orgasm. sometimes understood as a brief bout of melancholy after orgasm (post-coital tristesse)
Danse Macabre:
Dance of Death, the universality of death; no matter one's station in life, the dance of death unites all.
memento mori & vivere
memento mori: 1. remember that you must die. 2. a reminder of death or mortality.
memento vivere: 1. remember to live. 2. a reminder of life.
Lewis Carroll's ALICE
lewis carroll, born charles dodgson, took this photo of alice liddell, aged 6, 1858. carroll marked special days of his life by placing a white stone on his calendar. the day he met alice liddell is marked with a white stone. carroll met the liddell's in 1855; he entertained the children with picnics, and boat rides; he photographed them, alice--his favorite. in 1863, carroll and the liddell's had a sudden falling-out. the cause of the rift is debated, but alice is suspected as the main reason.
23 skidoo
A friend's father attempted to explain to me what "23 skidoo" means. In the beginning it seemed to be a shooing away word, sort of like skedaddle. But it eventually morphed into a cool thing to say when one was departing. Sort of the way people said in the 90s (and probably continue to say), "Let's bounce" or "let's jet". Various origins of the term are suspected; the one I like to believe comes from the Flatiron Building in New York:"The first building to become a romantic symbol of New York was the Flatiron Building... It was not only a building that appealed to high-art interests ... but this building also entered popular culture. It is at a triangular site where Broadway and Fifth Avenue—the two most important streets of New York—meet at Madison Square, and because of the juxtaposition of the streets and the park across the street, there was a wind-tunnel effect here. In the early twentieth century, men would hang out on the corner here on Twenty-third Street and watch the wind blowing women's dresses up so that they could catch a little bit of ankle. This entered into popular culture and there are hundreds of postcards and illustrations of women with their dresses blowing up in front of the Flatiron Building. And it supposedly is where the slang expression "23 skidoo" comes from because the police would come and give the voyeurs the 23 skidoo to tell them to get out of the area."
from: http://ci.columbia.edu/0240s/0242_2/0242_2_s5_text.html
After our "23 skidoo" conversation, I endeavored to elucidate my friend's father on how the word "word" has evolved into various forms and meanings such as "word up", or just "word" for "yes" or an agreement of sorts. awh, trade-sies.
the werther effect
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was published in 1774. The epistolary novel was widely celebrated in its time, influencing young men's fashion, and suicides. As a source of copycat suicide, it carries the reputation of being the first case in history of this effect, came to be known as the 'Werther Effect'. Apparently myriad young romantic men like Werther were killing themselves in similar fashion, and the book was banned in several countries. Unlike Werther, Goethe did not commit suicide, even though the novel has parallels to Goethe's real life.
Sous les pavés, la plage!
"Beneath the paving stones - the beach!" - Sous les pavés, la plage! - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968
the opening of Moby Dick
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
Festen aka The Celebration
a Dogme 95 film, the darkest Danish festen (celebration) of the family, by Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov, 1998.
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