ent rance t oacol oni al
pageant i nwhi chwe al lbegi nt o i nt ri cat e
JOHANNES GĂ–RANSSON
Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate.
Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate. Johannes Gรถransson
Tarpaulin Sky Press
2011
Grafton, Vermont
Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate. Š 2011 Johannes GÜransson First edition, May 2011 ISBN-13: 978-0-9825416-5-4 Printed and bound in the USA Library of Congress Control Number: 2010941882 Text in Minion Pro, titles in Bell MT. Cover and book design: Christian Peet Tarpaulin Sky Press PO Box 189 Grafton, Vermont 05146 www.tarpaulinsky.com For more information on Tarpaulin Sky Press perfect-bound and hand-bound editions, as well as information regarding distribution, personal orders, and catalogue requests, please visit our website at www.tarpaulinsky.com. Reproduction of selections from this book, for non-commercial personal or educational purposes, is permitted and encouraged, provided the Author and Publisher are acknowledged in the reproduction. Reproduction for sale, rent, or other use involving financial transaction is prohibited except by permission of the Author and Publisher.
Note on the Production The main scene should be full of ornaments and crime. The words attributed to the characters do not necessarily have to be spoken; they can be acted out, or played on an archaic tape-player. The second stage is an abandoned factory in downtown South Bend, IN, where during the entire performance my daughter Sinead dances while changing in and out of various costumes: the Hare Mask, the Cartoon Face, the Red Robe of History, the Reversible Body. She is only once actually seen by the audience, on a video screen streaming live from her dance. Mostly she is hidden because she represents that which is hidden. The third stage is a mall, where the Natives stand still, watching, interviewing and photographing the Customers. Sometimes I feel a certain tenderness towards the Natives. Other times I want to stab them in their plug-ugly faces.
The Passenger I was admitted. I had to answer questions. Are you gay? Are you a terrorist? Are you a communist? I answered No to all the questions. After a while I started noticing that the questions had changed. What do insects have to do with cinema? Can you hear me? Are we underwater? Can I kick you in the face? Why do your spasms look infantile? Do you know how to break a radio? But I kept answering No. Because that’s what I wanted to hear myself say with that bag over my face.
The Passenger The nurse shaved my head before the operation. During the operation the doctor handed her rags soaked in blood. Most of the time he handed her the rags behind my head but after a while he seemed to forget about that technicality and I could see how much blood was pouring out of my head. That felt good. Afterwards she told me to sit still for a couple of minutes before I got up. I had lost a lot of blood.
Nurse Marble Knowledge is Power. That is what the billboard says and I agree. I am an adult, therefore I understand the threat of passengers. -3-
The threat to Our Children, who don’t understand the threat of these bird-like, twitchy people. They pose two kinds of threat. To begin with, there is the one we all know about, the predatory threat, the hawk-like passengers that prey on children as they sit in front of their computers or televisions. The terrorist threat. That threat is easy to handle. You shoot it. You contain it. You confiscate. You stitch. You bleed from various orifices and sockets, but you survive, you rebuild house and rinse the child. The more serious threat is the diseases passengers carry with them. Internal terrorism. Children love those diseases. It makes them babble like possessed. Their make-up looks like oil in the moonlight. Such children cannot be cleaned off. Kill them. Or turn them into entertainment. Art.
The Girlfriend
(her body covered with severe burns)
The Passenger’s nervous system can be divided into a brain and the ventral nerve cord. The head capsule has six pairs of ganglia. The first three pairs are fused into the brain, while the three following pairs are fused into a structure called the subesophageal ganglion. The head capsule is also called the plague. He wears a bird mask to keep the ganglia from getting infected. The subesophageal ganglion is the part that gets most infected. It looks like a black shell and it excretes a liquid. He has promised me the black shell and several other parts: the sound organ and the devour organ.
-4-
Miss World
(walks on his tip-toes into the middle of the stage. He is wearing only a basketball jersey. He is 5 years old. He is covered in fine dust. The audience is covered in fine dust. He turns to look at us and the loudspeakers emit the following like semen)
Beware beware I have begun a king a jacklighting king
The Promoter Beware of that bird-like child. The child who likes Japanese notebooks. He’s got a little machine through which he narrates the masquerade and the electrocution. Beware of that fishy child. He’s mixed the two: The killer wears a child’s underwear. The twitchy child makes perfect pose inside a mausoleum: click click click. The electricity makes him spazz out. Black out. Raw. In other words: His body has no integrity. It breaks down. Beware of his bones. His boner is infected to the point of Romanticism. He wears his religion on his wrist: cut. Like montage but digital. Beware. His body is touched up. Roughed up. He’s soft. Dripping of wax. There are real victims inside his statues. He’s been translated from another place: a blown-up
-5-
place, a devouring place. Have mercy on his skin. He’s flimsy. Gross. If you let him in, the play is lost. His dingle-dangle is a strange fruit. Get out of here if you don’t know how to raise a child, how to save a child, from this disease. It’s a disease of language. I suspect I have it already. Shit.
Father Future We must save the children from the diseases which they may have been exposed to, particularly in school. We must save them from the birds who may at any moment attack them on the playground and peck at their orifices and sockets. We must save them from the terror that lurks behind every corner of the meatpacking plant. We must save our own inner child. In that inner child we may find all that is good about the world. My inner child is hungry. My inner child is cold. My inner child is hungry. My inner child is like a host on which I parasite. We must not be parasites. Not like them, the passengers. They have no future. They barely have names. When I say their names, my mouth twitches. They have ill effects on language; and an ill language may infect the inner child. I have seen some black shells that dripped gunk. I cannot tell if that was a dead inner child or if I had begun to suffer from the disease. It’s not just a verbal disease but also a disease of the sense of sight. We must save the children. We must save the orphans from Africa.
-6-
The Natives
(ask these questions of the most beautiful people they can find in a mall)
1. What is your favorite building? 2. Would you ever consider tattooing an image of that building on your body? 3. If so, where would the tattoo be located on your body? 4. If not, why not? 5. What is your favorite instrument? 6. What is your favorite body part? 7. Have you ever had bleeder’s disease? 8. Do you ever have nightmares? If so, please describe them.
The Passenger
(with a hood over his head)
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the other refugees in the erotic ward it is how to perform operations on the ganglia and ovules of certain exotic flowers. Most of the operations involve cinema. We sit there shuddering in the dark watching balloonlike images of the native bodies. The officials have even started to call our room the balloon room. We call it the rancid room on account of the stench.
-7-
Stagehand
(using a flashlight, falls in love with an audience member, utters this on his knees)
Your lips your eyes your eyes your lips your dress your teeth your bones your semen your hands your dress your gouges your grains your flip-outs your flip-books your baloney your thing your bursts your bursts your deer meat your dragged-out bodies your outbreaks your eyes your lips
-8-
your arabs your untouchable music your dinero your oh my god your feebling your interiors your backfire your violations your fans your Chinese fans your boys your armies your death your liver your eyes your fucking god your fucking-god your punishment (At this point he castrates himself with a box-cutter and leaves the audience member alone.)
The Repulsive Man I’m a promoter. I promote things like chronic empires or rashes or torture equipment or even the human body. The
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human body has three kinds of valves: univalves, two-valves and multivalves. Sometimes it contains the shells that are used as receptacles for water. The natives use it for marital horns. The Colonel left behind a snuffbox made of this material. I am more interested in the tumor that spirals like a gem! That tumor has no interior bones. It can exhaust two horses in less than five minutes. The father is now surrounded in a soccer stadium. The crowd roars. We use the proper varnish to take care of the scabs.
The Passenger I had trouble eating the food. The potatoes were overboiled, the mashed-up meat was not warm. I grew weak. I thought I heard the nurses talk about my spine. There was an ant-infestation in the thighlet. On my way to the x-ray I collapsed on the floor. A nurse carried me in her arms. This is how I invented erotics.
Father Literature
(speaking to a crowd of shell-shocked victims, with a camera flashing in his face, he moves like a marionette, a beautiful marionette, a marionette that could be used to set fire to a brothel)
My daughter is white-alive and appeases the Colonel. It’s a breakthrough. Porcelain-like, she has kissing diseases and the
- 10 -
Colonel takes the hint. Gives her three pounds of beads. My daughter does not want to give up any teeth. A piece of ivory hangs ahead of us, I tell my daughter softly to convince her to relent. American teeth are made for microphones; American bullets are made for fashion. I tell this to my daughter while gesturing toward the Colonel. He has recruited survivors to carry his infant representations. The survivors’s knees are permanently bent and their torsos are covered with scars. My favorite scar is on the tip of a breast where a nipple was torn off.
Nurse Marble I fear Father Literature in a heroic quest for Immortality has begun to suffer from the Passenger’s Disease; the symptoms of language made useless. He may still make it though if given the proper treatment: isolation insulation ridicule. Most of all, we must keep him away from his inner child.
Miss World I’ve seen the inner children in a film about a town reduced to rubble. I’ve seen them on the pavement and I’ve seen them on the hit parade. I danced with a mask on my face. It was a colorful mask. That’s when I invented this move, the jacklighting.
- 11 -
Daughter
(performs the part of the sister in Fall of the House of Usher in front of a camera and then, while firing her guns into the audience, says seductively)
The Passenger is related to the Bird-Child in that they are both of dubious importance, they are both exaggerations, spastic. They both hate their bodies. They are both flimsy, flimsy. Knicknack who’s there? A broken fist. Ha. But there’s a big difference: The Bird-Child is ours. The passenger has brought certain diseases from the quarantine. And he’s angry. I’ve applied nailpolish to his penis, but there is more that can be done. I’m an optimist about this and other anatomical projects. I believe he can be saved just like the Bird-Child. They must be saved. From their insect-crawl of joy. The kind of joy that makes one want to stab oneself in the chest with a pair of scissors or put out cigarettes on one’s arms like in a children’s TV show about making one’s own bird decorations for the holiday. Joy must be saved. From the insect crawl. From the twitches. From the scissors and the cigarette burns. I believe in joy and I believe in progress. A joyful progress. A responsible joy. Really. I believe in Realism. Really. Really.
Father Exchange My daughter whispers while gesturing toward the helicopters. She has a harelip and is the host of various organisms. She will not die
- 12 -
of Scarlet Fever despite the virus’s intricate makeup. The virus has infiltrated the Colonel but he is still neat around his loins. It cannot infiltrate an albino. I cannot endorse the new torture operations. My daughter finds crustaceans on the shore. Her living flesh is heroic. Her principle enemy, Man. Her principle danger, the Passenger. Her emblem, the Cured Child.
Daughter
(television-horny)
Mother is selling obscene figurines. The landscape sweeps majestically from one tropical scene to another. I am too hungry to be a ringleader. Too captured to be royal. When we had reassembled all the children, they brought forth nothing more fantastic than this kind of architecture: sluggish, mute, diminutive, spoils of organisms, colossal, perished thousands, impregnated shores, and tiny shells mingled with seaweed. I thought I saw my mother bringing me the trinkets from the interrogation.
Father Voice-Over The interrogations are hallucinatory. A sure sign the daughter too is suffering from a fondling-disease brought in by bugs burrowed into crates carrying shoes from the Orient. No.
- 13 -
That’s a slip. A sure sign that the daughter is beginning to feel foreign to her own body. Beginning to feel a lizard sexuality in her vagina. No. Beginning to suffer from the Passenger’s Disease. But we have cures. Sensible cures. And we have offices in which to deal with such riots of the anatomy and language skills, black rooms in airports.
The Passenger I was more Chinese than slender. My head injury showed and I was going through a peekaboo puberty with megaphones. But I knew how to cut the barbwire fence when I needed to. I led my girlfriend out of the inauguration, to the darkened fields. She held me with one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. I don’t know if I began to bleed before or after she took off my costume. A parasite grows in my iris, she told me to explain what she was doing to my legs. She was preparing them for our vacation.
The Girlfriend
(her body rioted, her clothes luxurious, her smile religious, her body anorexic, her gun warm, her reasons obscure, her fire ridiculously fake)
I took him out in the field while the city was being burned like a newborn calf in a riot. I took him in my arms as if he
- 14 -
was that calf. He had already invented erotics. It was up to me to invent something more sustainable, an ending of sorts. But an ending that keeps on happening. I had to invent a luxury so extreme the passenger would never recover. That’s what I did in the field, with these hands.
The Girlfriend
(wearing a dress made from looted items, she carries the passenger in her arms. He is wearing a red velvet robe, possibly medieval, and a beak. She lays him down gently in the middle of the stage, removes the beak and douses him in gasoline. He lies there, helplessly erotic from the tension: Will the audience light the match? No, they are too busy unwrapping their presents, which are intriguing (cake, soap, pleasure rings, Abyssinian instruments). Eventually Workers (stagehands) come in and drag the Passenger off the stage.)
Father Future
(his garb inspired by the clothes of inmates, his voice inspired by childbirth)
The new torture operations are largely aesthetic. They involve shells, a pretty new torso and my eyes are smeared in a mascara made from fish scales. It is an acrid secretion. The riots are exhibited but we are not near the revolver. Turn on the subtitles. Turn on the subtitles: The natives have small mouths and full, but not thick, lips. That’s what it says in red but the riots have been stripped of artifice. I give the visitors a treacherous surface
- 15 -
that is colored red. The natives are as comely as they are savage. They have high foreheads, large lips and high cheekbones. The Colonel is full of duplicity and rapacity. An eel-like species is the only thing that matters to him right now. I have sunstrokes. Mother is surrounded by 3000 troops.
Nurse Marble I believe we are in a sorry state when Father no longer acts like Father. When he acts like a host. When his inner child is infected, illegal, drugged. When Father hums into the megaphone as if it were a child. A knife. When Father merely haunts the currency. When everything is exchangeable. I am advocating a return to the Gold Standard. I mean to cure Father and turn his penis into gold, so that we may be sure he will always remain intact.
Repulsive Man
(speaking into a shell that is leaking or possibly infected with hoof-and-mouth disease)
Engineers use anemones to build the walls of the city. In the beds live coral insects. They have the power to carry on their work beyond the surface. The native children are endowed with bright insects and are soft in consistency. The Colonel
- 16 -
wants the children deposited in a common pile or mound. The natives are large, heavy limbed creatures, used to drudgery. They pay much attention to the decoration of their hair. I am not native to this pile of spent bullets but I have been sold out for days. The most critical organs are housed in the torso, including the defective cat-heart. I am housed with a dead male. The robberies take place. The cops chase teenage gangs. The colonial exhibition is hard from asphalt, but we wealth around in women’s burnouts. We use sticks for the abdomen. I photograph a bullet hole.
The Passenger When the interrogators asked why I had been scared I told them as I lay there in the basement I thought I heard the clothesline jangling like fish skeletons. This was during my visionary period, where I saw all kinds of things that were not true, especially on my girlfriend’s body.
My Girlfriend’s Body (looks black, polished)
The tympanal organ is the hearing organ, consisting of a membrane (tympanum) stretched across a frame backed by an air sac. Sounds vibrate the membrane, and the vibrations
- 17 -
are sensed by a chordotonal organ. Tympanal organs occur in just about any part of the infected body: the thorax, the base of the wing, the abdomen, the legs, etc., depending on the state of infection. Within the organ, particular structures vary in shape and are used to indicate the nature of the disease. The opening may be in a different orientation and the structures differ in shape.
Father Voice-Over Foreign bodies must be studied. For example, the penis should not be allowed to become a death-prong. A death-prong generates more images than Baghdad. A death-prong is ridiculous. Lets all laugh at this foreign body and its infected image. Authenticity kitsch.
The Natives
(in the subtitles, written on beautiful bodies with big tits)
We interrupt this meat culture to inform you that the pest control is bringing pigs in school buses. We interrupt this meat culture to inform you that the pest control is bringing pigs in school buses. We interrupt this meat culture to inform you that the pest control is bringing pigs in school buses. We interrupt this meat culture to inform you that the pest control is bringing pigs in school buses.
- 18 -
(The Child tip-toes across the stage, wearing what will later be tossed in the bonfire.)
Father Insect (stutters and twitches)
The natives are marauders. Restless. Smell like napalm. Like victory in the morning. Like defeat at night. That’s when the sounds take place. The explosions. The natives conduct their parties with haste. They are promiscuous with pistols. That’s what the Colonel tells my daughter while listening to the promoter. The promoter has an oink-oink heart and a scorpion disease. Nobody knows that the cancer ward is closed. That I’m surrounded by snakes. Daughter, I am surrounded by snakes! (Collapses during the sound of hissing snakes. The Stage Manager douses him in gasoline as he sprawls, resists. The actor who plays this father must be fragile, but not so fragile that a little hurt will send him to the hospital when he tries to perform this dance. This dance is called The Twist.)
The Natives
(ask the following questions of the most beautiful people they can find in a mall)
1. What is the most terrible disease you can think of? 2. How does it attack the body?
- 19 -
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
What is worse: Cancer or AIDS? What is worse: Cancer or Execution? AIDS or hanging? Have you ever heard a disease used as a metaphor? Why does the body make a good/bad metaphor for the nation? Do The Twist! Do The Twist Motherfuckers!
The Virgin Father The natives make royalty more shot in the horse’s head. I use lye and the animal’s shoulders. I am discovering a disease in my mollusk. My daughter is a magnificent torrent with her bristling and bare and very long arms. Her former method was to mount experiments in blooded Abyssinian animals. Now she is adhering to the liver. She gives me an inky substance and tells me to manufacture fine guns from it.
Little American Girl
(with revolvers and a cowboy hat, her voice comes from a tapeplayer taped to her chest)
There is only one novelty. And that is Death. (The tape-player breaks down. The light goes on. The audience members look at each other. The Little American Girl shoots at - 20 -
the crowd. I eat a fist full of popcorn. The loudspeakers play the sound of rioting.)
The Oil Daughter I am by nature carnivorous and ferocious, killing as if by an inborn murderous instinct. But do I ever attack men? My disease does not measure above six inches in length, but I am searching among the shells for a new fold to piecemeal with my instruments. I convulse in a recoil system. Gasoline is good for the skin. The Colonel is attracted to my iris. It was severed in an evacuation drill. It was one kind of meat and then another kind of meat made the audience roar. Just listen to my father. He came of age in confetti and bleeds in a disco. I came of age in an age of strychnine and cover-ups. Ten seconds ago. On a highway. And here we are decorated with our daily makeup. The stutter grows worse every minute. (Evacuation drill enacted.)
Nurse I Would Die For There is no true child in this hospital of innocence. But do not despair. That is because this is a hospital for the infirm, the infected and the positively ridiculous. I wear these rubber
- 21 -
gloves. Order has a way of being reasserted. This hospital may be lost but there is a world outside, run by a different law. This is just a madhouse in Cairo. The Passenger wears the Paper Crown. The daughter wears oils around her eyes. I’m black.
Mother Empire
(speaking to a cheering nation from a balcony, her hair bleached and her fashionable dress crawling with ants)
Small pox is raging among both natives and Turks. The Colonel is worse yet. He is evidently a master singer. Waiting is awful in such a crowded operation. That is what Daughter tells me about the Colonel’s song while I am taking photographs of rabid animals. The natives take these to be representations of erotic deities and leave the mimosa trees on which they are feeding. The Colonel has a goodly supply of heavy rifles – among them is “The Child,” which carries a half pound explosive shell. He digs a watch hole near a corn field. Into this they creep. The Natives. The glamorous bodies are so alive with swarms they have to be rinsed with unique ointments. This voice continues for several seconds. There are no more spiral wounds on my lower body. Drubble drubble. Give me the headphones. I want to hear a cheering nation!
A Cheering Nation (Stagehands re-enact the assassination of Ronald Reagan in the dark.)
- 22 -
Father Voice-Over
(walks in a slapstick trance, his clothes torn, his skin black from a suicide bombing, his slicked-back hair slightly ruffled up from a gunshot wound)
I hear a nation cheering but there is an awful anatomical question that has not been answered. The display cases look beautiful in the aftermath. The sexuality is gratuitous. The gunshot performance ends in a brilliant America with a plastic bag over my head. The Colonel, shaken as he is, determines to have a night sport and bring in some meat for the pest control. The natives try my leak-organs. Daughter tries silence. A few days later the Colonel appears in camp. Unrecorded convulsion. The Colonel’s body is swollen toward the center. Slip knots are made, guns are readied, harpoons prepared. The Colonel’s large mouth looks like a beak. His prodigiously large and glaring body is excited. (Walks off the stage in the manner of Charlie Chaplin, before collapsing in front of cameras.)
Charlotte Bronte
(is marched out on stage and doused in gasoline and set on fire. The fire seems to be saying something. I think it speaks of novelty; you think it recites poetry. The man playing the Promoter offers to interpret our dreams for “an amount.” After the act is finished, Charlotte Bronte’s clothes must be unwound like bandages, to be used later as the “third outfit for an execution,” to be worn by my wife in the role of “Pussy.”)
- 23 -
The Passenger
(trying to shout over the sounds of angry dogs)
One day the nurses discussed whether or not to harvest my sperm or to forbid me to masturbate. “You have to make some sacrifices to become natural,� they said. However, they were in the hurry and had to leave. Judging from the instruments they were carrying in their hands they were heading to the cancer ward. They did not come back. Today I saw them on the movie screen. They were riding hearses or horses. They were draped, gloriously draped. Their child was missing. His photograph was glued up all over town. The entire city looked like a cemetery for their child. I was paid to mourn in my own special way. Dragged through the dirt.
The Passenger
(still brutalized, bursts back in)
My genitals were exposed to the photographers! (He is pulled off stage.)
Hollywood
(played by a heap of dead horses)
We are speaking to you from the umbilical site that sounds like a series of gunshots. The site where amusements can make - 24 -
out of a drive-by shooting something akin to a trinket or a rash. We are shooting you in the umbilical site where you first found out what your love looked like underwater. It looked laughable but you were alive. Alive was the image of a horse’s head, viewed from a passing car window. From reading various articles one might have the sense that our puncture wounds were redundant; that our images have corrupted an otherwise beautiful and perfectly natural body; that before our gasmasks people spoke to each other in a natural language. But nobody loves a heap of dead horses. A lot of people try but only a few can be properly smeared in. Mostly people buy our trinkets and hope to do the plug-ugly in the backseat. Here come the news cameras.
The Girlfriend
(the clicking continues from the last presentation)
The Prisoner was dragged through the dirt, his schlong hanging out of his pants, his one eye closed from a strike of a fist. This is how I reinvented erotics. With my camera. (Holds up hands in a fake camera: Click! Click! Click!)
There is no progress in erotics. There is only art. (Leads a group of orphans in The Twist. They all laugh and scatter.)
- 25 -
Nurse Marble Do the twist you anorexic fuck!
The Passenger I cannot do the Twist. I am too tired from the intricate activities at the airport. I fuck with the breathing tubes in. The birds in. The burning star: entranced. When I was first photographed at the airport I learned how to desire. I tried on the immolation and it fit. Like a glove. A rubber glove. Melting on your very shaven body. When they brought me in somebody put a blanket on my body, somebody shined a light in my eyes, someone rolled the gurney down the hallway, someone tried to taste my blood, someone tried to interpret my protestations.
Father Literature We are beautiful in a royal way: covered in lye. We are authoritative in a blind way: gouge away. We are leaving the mess behind. We will use the megaphone. It’s decidedly not a child. I know that. Neither is it a knife, but that hasn’t stopped me from using all of these objects to great effect. We are sanctioned in a beautiful way: everything we touch is the law. That’s why I’m covered in lye. My only son is corrupted, full of holes and smeared with shit. Something tells me he is the poet of social justice. Peekaboo! - 26 -
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Pieces from this collection have appeared previously in Tammy, New American Writing, jubilat, Parthenon West, Columbia Poetry Review, and Tarpaulin Sky.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Johannes Göransson has published three prior books of his own writings—A New Quarantine Will Take My Place, Dear Ra, Pilot (“Johann the Carousel Horse”)—and several books in translation—including, most recently, With Deer by Aase Berg, Ideals Clearance by Henry Parland and Collobert Orbital by Johan Jönson. He co-edits Action Books with Joyelle McSweeney, and co-edits the online journal Action, Yes with John Dermot Woods. He teaches at the University of Notre Dame and writes regularly on the blog www.montevidayo.com.
TARPAULIN SKY PRESS Current & Forthcoming Titles FULL-LENGTH BOOKS Jenny Boully, [one love affair]* Jenny Boully, not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them Ana Božičević, Stars of the Night Commute Traci O Connor, Recipes for Endangered Species Mark Cunningham, Body Language Danielle Dutton, Attempts at a Life Sarah Goldstein, Fables Johannes Göransson, Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate Noah Eli Gordon & Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Figures for a Darkroom Voice Gordon Massman, The Essential Numbers 1991 - 2008 Joyelle McSweeney, Nylund, The Sarcographer Joanna Ruocco, Man’s Companions Kim Gek Lin Short, The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits Kim Gek Lin Short, China Cowboy Shelly Taylor, Black-Eyed Heifer Max Winter, The Pictures Andrew Zornoza, Where I Stay
CHAPBOOKS Sandy Florian, 32 Pedals and 47 Stops James Haug, Scratch Paul McCormick, The Exotic Moods of Les Baxter Teresa K. Miller, Forever No Lo Jeanne Morel, That Crossing Is Not Automatic Andrew Michael Roberts, Give Up Brandon Shimoda, The Inland Sea Chad Sweeney, A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer Emily Toder, Brushes With G.C. Waldrep, One Way No Exit
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Ido n' tk no wwhe r ee l s ey o uc o ul dc o nt r a c tt hepl a g uei nt he s ewo r dsb utb yt e nTVsa t o nc e . Ont heTVspl a y : S a l o , t hewe a t he rc ha nne l , 2 xFa s s b i nde r( a ny ) , F a mi l yDo ub l eDa r e , a dsf o rg r o undbe e f , b l ur r ys ur g i c a l r e c o r di ng s , po r no , po r no , Ang e r( a l l ) . An1 1 t hTVr i g h t b e hi ndy o uwi l l s ho wy o uy o ur s e l f r e a di ngt ot heb a c k s i deo f y o urhe a d . Y o u' l l ne e dama c hi ne g una ndab o d ydo ub l e . Yo uwi l lno tf e e ly o urdi s e a s e : a she r et he s ewo r dsb r i ngs uc hhi g h pl e a s ur e :t hi sma l a r i ai sf un.I t ' sa l s o dg e t y ,pe t r i f y i ng ,e l e g a nt l yr a s h,g i ddy ,s t unne d. Bur r oug hsa ndGe ne ta nd' Pa ca r ede a d. Longl i v eGör a ns s on. —BLAKEBUTLER I two ul dt a k eami r a c l et ope r f o r mt hi spa g e a nt . Fo ras t a r t , y o uwo ul dha v et or e a ni ma t e Cha r l o t t eBr o nt ë , Ado l f Loos , a ndRo na l dRe a g a n, a ndy o uwo ul dne e da nung odl ya mo unt o fwa x .Mos to ft hea c t i o ni sobs c e ne ,a ndt he r e f o r et a k e spl a c eo ffs t a g e .ea c t o r se nt e r a ndr e po r to ns c e ne so fs pe c t a c ul a rv i o l e nc et ha tg oo na l l t het i mee v e r yda y . ea udi e nc e i spa r to ft hes pe c t a c l et oo . Wea r ea l l t r a ns f o r me di nt oi ma g e ss o me whe r ei nt hi ss c r i pt . At o nepo i nt , a l lo fHo l l y wooda ppe a r so ns t a g eo nt hef o r mo fde a dho r s e s , pe r ha psbe c a us e Ho l l y wood l mc o nt i nue st or e l yo nna r r a t i v ec o nv e nt i o nst ha ti te x ha us t e dl o nga g o . e e nt i r ewo r l da l s oa ppe a r s , pl a y e db yabo ywho , i nas e r i e so f r a pi dc os t umec ha ng e s , put so n i nc r e a s i ng l ypr e t t ydr e s s e s . —AARONKUNI N Vo l u p t uo us , t ur b ul e nt , a ndf o c us e d , i n v e nt i v ea nds t r i c t l yf a i t hf ul t ot hepe r f o r ma t i v ei ns t a b i l i t y o f o urq ue e rmo me nt , J o ha nne sGö r a ns s o n ’ sne wb o o kb r i ng spa g ea nds t a g et o g e t he ri no r de r t op u tg e nr e( a ndg e nde r )t oas e r i e so fo ng o i ngt e s t s .He r ebodya ndbodyo fwo r k ( i ne x t r i c a b l e )a r ei nac r i t i c a lc o nd i t i o n:s ub j e c tt oa ni nv a s i v ea ndr e l e nt l e s si nt e r pr e t a t i o n pr oduc i nge x c e s s i v e , unr ul y“ t r ut hs . ”He r et hede ba s e dc o i no ff e e l i ngi sr ungha r da ndt he “ Aut he nt i c i t yk i t s c h ”o fa ne a s i l ya c c e pt e di de ao ft hepoe t i ci sr e t ur ne df o rabe t t e rme t a l , mi ne df r o made e pe rv e i n. el o v ec hi l d—i nt hi sboo ka t l e a s t —o f S y l v i aPl a t ha ndAnt o ni n Ar t a ud( i fo nec a na s s i g npa r e nt a g ea tt hee ndo fa no r g y ? ) ,Gö r a ns s o ng i v e susr e a l i s ms c o mpl i c a t e da ndf a s te no ug ht obe l i e v ei n.Ent r a nc et oac o l o ni a lp a g e a nti nwh i c hwea l l b e g i nt oi nt r i c a t ei sa ni mme ns e l yi mpo r t a nta nda bs ol ut e l yt hr i l l i nge x pe r i e nc e . Re a dt hi s ! “ S o me t hi ngt e l l smehei st hepoe to fs oc i a l j us t i c e . Pe e k a boo! ” —LAURAMULLEN
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Qua r a n t i neWi l l T a k eMyPl a c e , De a rRa , Pi l o t ( “ J o h a n nt h eCa r o us e l Ho r s e ” ) —a nds e v e r a l b o o k s i nt r a ns l a t i o n—i nc l udi ng ,mos tr e c e nt l y ,Wi t hDe e r b yAa s eBe r g , I d e a l sCl e a r a nc eb yHe nr yPa r l a nda nd Co l l o b e r t Or b i t a l b yJ o ha nJ ö ns o n. Hec oe di t sAc t i o n Boo k swi t hJ o y e l l eMc S we e ne y ,a nd c oe di t st he o nl i nej o ur na l Ac t i o n, Y e swi t hJ o hnDe r mo tWoods . Het e a c he sa tt heUni v e r s i t yo fNo t r eDa mea nd t a r p a u l i ns k yp r e s s wr i t e sr e g ul a r l yo nt heb l ogwww. mo nt e v i d a y o . c o m. www . t a r p a u l i n s k y . c o m