Forensic taxonomy

Crops shattering
as if downright nevertheless, in a tumbleweed scenario forgetting whom to benefit, and as if it was in those pages in those sullen despair of dictation fortnights subtle countermeasures not in such an open scenery - look don't look there might not be someone there to reproach you, and you might simmer starlings for the weight of your inanimate bloodshed, and intimidating maggots, though not of madness shed and not of simplemindedness ordered around to the tablecloth and its ultimate corner in the serrated latitudes,
none there to supervise, mortuary gamewise sampled, teaspoon of solicitude, dropped into this marble as if by coarse-ground sector schematics, I had never alotted fairways this scrambled crayfish and laughter housewise, forcefully reproaching the guidelines and crumbling the sacks of necessities hidden in a candlestick,
not knowing how thereby the life of scallops and their shallow tendrils approach the intimacy of gathered nestlings,
not at all, not a single bloodshed to this fortunate essay of lost moments and cough syrup,
had we only been fastened by this atrocity or another and seen or not seen voracity take another direction in history-


(in the comprehensive program of automatism exercises, somebody had suggested writing an automatic text drunk.)


(Byssus threads which might illustrate the "tendrils of scallops")

Cutlery ethnology

Dream suggestion: Some groups of people have developed the skills of eating using four or five chopsticks in their left hand, which resembles a bird's nest or more specifically imitates "Aristotle's lantern" (the chewing apparatus of sea urchins). They themselves prefer to liken it to the beak of a squid, which it does not resemble. It is however remarkably apt for both crushing and peeling shrimp.

Tree geometry

As if non-seeing promises would have benefitted from such doubts and dashes and the skies were nothing but illustrious, clear and wasted, and there would have been nothing to carry on, except in modern snowflakes, or the carcasses of beloved machines, and no seven wholehearted ash-carriers climbing the strange ladders; it might all have been a pathway to hinterlands of sycomore barriers as well; water could not be carried there, stones would assume other meanings, neighbors offered their necks and turtles went mad; as did we all but fell asleep and spilled our effort in the grand bathtub of inertia.

(english-language automatic text saturday morning; such exercises are not often seen here but now part of a collective project; what if we were to continuously post such inconclusive outbursts and really populate the desert in a dalinian sense, o noise and vanity)

Polytheism of the Imagination

Some Local Deities

Some local Deities, painting by Niklas Nenzén

So she walked on the burning before she took her shoulder's narrow road, a lone chameleon and what she wore on her head. A basket of sticks bent by the wind. And eternity was just one of those ordinary thin cloud streaks.

No one saw who attacked whom either. With only a bark of surprise and a rotten smell, like the return of discarded fruit. For they had succeeded.

It was not even a real party, just a frequent meeting which everyone, for once, could attend. And they had just begun to move slowly, towards the evening. Even though those in the city thought otherwise, they would meet them at night.

/ Emma Lundenmark

The First Sighting of the Lone Chameleon

Polytheists of the imagination are known for trying to support and give in to the temptation to perform heathen rituals in honor of gods of which we know nothing more than we can imagine.

You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

Jacques Rigaut on his anchor-clef draisine, wearing a brick suit "to endure the heat".



The drawing above represents a dream-interpretation of the following actual form, which was seen in a photo of a café interior, and which was interpreted as a seahorse (by me) and as Krazy Kat (by JB):

Foto: Peter Bigestans

The dream-idea seems to retain the seahorseness as well as incorporate the brick-theme of K.K.


/Niklas Nenzén

Satan´s Apple: Mythollywood Re-Revisited

About one year ago the surrealist group of Stockholm engaged themselves briefly in a dicussion about one´s mythological apprehension of characters from the realm of popular cinema.

A survey, a text, some scanty response and examplifications were produced, but since then not much has happened and the project has inadvertently been put to rest.

For my part, one of the examples from this discussion was later epitomized visually and will be presented here, along with the mythological interpretation.

/ NN

Satan´s Apple

Clint Eastwood's early western movies predestined him for incarnating the archetype of The Hanged Man in cinema; someone who by capitulating to the cyclical processes has attained a calm, wise and vacuous personality, fit for the audience´s inflated projections.

Beneath the actor´s mask he may additionally touch something imbecile beyond good and evil, since his role characters - much like his fellow-hanged-man Odin in Norse mythology - often seem to strike their enemies with the impersonal zealousness and precision of a discretely working natural force rather than as a human avenger or as a character with the usual heroic motivations.

Furthermore, I think that this mysterious non-human element goes hand in hand with his morphological appearance, which could be described as lying somewhere between root crop and old wood (a derivative relative of his is the ironic comics super-hero Flaming Carrot, whose name and character even further juxtaposes the very same traits).

So, what is individualized in Clint Eastwood´s figure in this image I´d call - and here I borrow a phrase from the speculative sphere of natural philosophy - something like "the impacts of vegetal intelligence on human life." Part human, part plant he is depicted here as the both mythologically and medicinally complex Mandragora officinarum.

Sacho The Suburban Cephalopod

Sacho The Suburban Cephalopod (Huvudfoting) - As seen in a dream, by Niklas Nenzén

Cephalopod dreaming

The terrestrial cephalopod editor has duly participated in the world's joy concerning the video and newspiece finally confirming that octopuses use tools. But this is not a newsblog and nobody needs further proof of cephalopod intelligence. What we would like to know more about specifically on the other hand is what cephalopods dream. Our contributor Ika asked yesterday whether there was a connection between this blog and research about cuttlefish dreaming. Yes I am sure there is only we knew nothing about it. A informative text on animal dreaming can be read here.

If somebody has some advanced empathic or chance method of imagining cuttlefish dreams, or just want to ascribe some of their own dreams to cuttlefish, please add them as comments here or email them to biographed dot poet at gmail dot com.

Untitled

now coming rainlike under the sea
now arcing skywards, whetted with fire
fire on a thread to measure gravity’s zero
my teeth in your holster
your skinned holster
and all those lightning oaths turned into ravens

Joyce Mansour with her dog before the war

It was during the surrealist game festival 2007, actually the first morning of the festival, 16/7 2007. I was playing the old Mass-Observation game "dominant image of the day" with myself (just make sure to choose for every day what has been the strongest image that has presented itself to you during that day). The dream brought up another well-known surrealist game, "Before...after" (where two pictures are put next to each other, more or less randomly selected, and interpreted as being one picture of the before and one of the after)

"I open an album of pictures arranged as in the game "Before...after", possibly by Sasha Vlad. One spread has two portraits of Joyce Mansour. The "before" is a well-known image sometimes reproduced in books. But the "after" I have never seen; Joyce Mansour as a teenager (fairhaired, surprisingly), sitting in a rattan chair, comfortably but with a defiant air, dressed in a toga, with a small dog (terrier?) in her lap, attentively but seemingly critically looking to the left, towards what for some reason must be a theatre performance. I don't know why this image is so incredibly beautiful."

(Comment: I half-remember some joker once made a popsong based on a supposedly atmospheric picture of "René and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war". Now who wouldn't want to make at least a song based on this picture?)

During the following weeks I remember and seek out several different images of Joyce Mansour. While not at all being the two images in the dream, and probably not looking like them at all, I find the idea of having two other images stand in for them satisfactory: the first would be Gilles Ehrmann's portrait of Mansour, the second a "hommage to Joyce Mansour" by our friend Rik Lina. Before and after.

MF