Pioneers, oh! Pioneers?

by now, you've probably seen this

So, naturally, as a poet and being a child of a world where punk rock is taken as a matter of course, as something that happened, my first thought was "FUCK. CONSUMERISM."

This is a standard reaction, mind you, and there is always a sort of low hum of that sentiment buzzing through my brain any time I watch TV, so that wasn't terribly uncommon. But the use of the poem, of course, is the thing that sets this particular commercial (set of commercials, I think, actually) apart.

The more I think about it, though, the more I think I like it. I grant you, I am not Whitman's biggest fan. But I definitely do not downplay his influence; the man basically invented American Poetry as we know it.

Here's what I like about it:

As poets, we sit apart from all other artists in most minds. The poem is not seen as a form of entertainment, it is a curiosity, mostly to be wondered about by other poets or by hipsters or would-be intellectuals hoping to impress a date in some dank coffeeshop or other. To say you are a poet is to immediately throw up a roadblock between yourself and anyone who hates (as all of us should) flowery, rhymey, greeting-cardy verses about butterflies and love and butterflies in love, to say nothing of dead-flowery, often-rhymey verses about self-pity and love and the love of self-pity.

The poem, at some point, wandered down a different road than all other forms of art. we don't sell tickets to poetry readings. no one hangs a broadside in their home. no one has dylan thomas on their ipod. No one reads poems or listens to poems purely for their enjoyment, but only when they have to, or when they have something to prove.

[As I make this point, I naturally concede that there are exceptions to this rule, myself being one, maybe you are another. However, I think it's safe to say this fairly well sums up the general attitude towards the art of poetry -- certainly among the general public, but even, in my experience at least, among those who are otherwise in tune with "the arts"]

But here, in this commercial, we see the poem set with images of young attractive people having sexy adventures. The poem, here, is a soundtrack, used the same way you would use a piece of music! Here, we see a poem placed on an even plane with other forms of art: as something to be utilized, to be combined with other art forms, and yes, even to be exploited for commercial gain. After all, truly great art is hardly immune to commercialization. Lord knows I've heard plenty of favored songs chopped up and shoehorned into 30 seconds of awkward pitchmanship.

Poetry has been too removed from pop culture for too long. If we, the poets, are ever to feel that there is any point to what we do, we cannot deny that we need external validation.

And perhaps most importantly, Whitman himself would've liked it, I think. His initial edition of Leaves of Grass was designed to fit in a pocket, he wanted it to be read in the open air, to be carried with the reader as a part of daily life -- as we now carry our laptops or smartphones. And if there was one thing old Walt loved, it was attractive people having sexy adventures. (There even appears to be a gay couple embracing romantically, if you watch close enough.)

And, goddammit, there are really some nice visuals paired with the poem. It's just a successful little piece of filmmaking all around.

But then again, for all this rabble it has roused in me, one thing it does not inspire in me is a desire to go buy a pair of Levi's jeans. So who knows?

second skin

all pictures were borrowed from flickr.

Bagombo Snuff Box: Vonnegut's rules for short story writing

One of my favorite writers, a favorite writer of many, Flannery O'Conner has been exempted from these rules by Vonnegut except for rule number one. This is a trait that he suggests is shared by many writers. But here they are anyway.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The Zombie Apocalypse of the Imagination

or Undeath, Where is Thy Sting?

By Timothy Volpert

In 1968, a relatively unassuming, black-and-white independent film was released, entitled Night of the Living Dead. You've almost certainly heard of this film, so I needn't expound here upon its merits nor its short comings. The point that I am trying to make, dear reader, is this. In 1968, this film, like the first onscreen “zombie” that appeared in it, staggered, menacingly but somewhat without fanfare, into the popular consciousness. Furthermore, like that grayish man in the graveyard, this film was but the first, small, slow indication of what would become a full-scale invasion, not of the physical world we occupy, but of the much more precious real-estate of the Imagination.

Again I will not bore you here with research, my friends, although I assure you it can be found. But more importantly, I ask you to draw on your own experiences. How many advertisements have you seen (or will you see, if you deign to read this screed in the early morn) today for zombie-related films, books, comic books, t-shirts, video games, or other zombie paraphernalia? How many conversations did you have today, in which zombies as a topic jokingly came up or were referenced? Perhaps you had one or two conversations in which they were referenced quite seriously. How many of your friends' Facebook status updates today were about zombies in some fashion?

For years, popular fiction has entertained and frightened us with the notion of the “Zombie Apocalypse” -- the idea that, once one zombie exists in a given world, eventually the zombies will completely overrun that world. It will almost invariably take a number of years, because of their inherently slow speed (unless you take into account the faster zombies of latter-day films like 28 Days Later, but goddammit this essay isn't about that) but as they turn the once-living into the undead, their numbers begin to grow exponentially. Like a mold growing on a forgotten dinner roll in a plastic bag at the back of the cupboard, slowly but surely, the zombies, we are told, will completely envelope the planet.

But friends, I say to you the time for despair is at hand; this Zombie Apocalypse is upon us, even now. As more and more of our entertainment is filled with the concept, as more and more our conversations turn to The Shambling Ones, they slowly, as they have done to countless alternate Earths in countless works of fiction, they slowly but surely are overrunning our popular consciousness. The Zombie Apocalypse is occurring not as a clashing of rotting flesh and living terror, but in our minds, our imaginations! The concept of the zombie is slowly taking over, and if we don't do something to stop it, there will be nothing left but zombies!

Take for instance, the (disgustingly) well-selling “book” Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. That's right, dear reader, the Zombie Concept has already begun to “turn” other works of fiction. We have the Zombeatles invading music, and Shaun of the Dead (even though it is a masterfully hilarious movie, and, in the interest of full disclosure, one of my all-time favorites) representing the first decaying hand bursting through the soil of the romantic comedy genre.

Where does it stop? Undeath of a Salesman? The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Zombie? The Heart is a Lonely Zombie Hunter? “Love (But Mostly Zombies) Will Tear Us Apart?” Catch 22 To The Head You Know It's Dead? The Grapes of Wraaarrrghhh?

Soon, you won't remember what it sounded like to flip on the radio in the car, and not have every song be about eating brains, or at the very least accompanied by a chorus of bloodcurdling sepulchral moans. You won't remember a Julia Roberts movie where she doesn't crack wise while bashing in the skull of a once-living vessel of sheer unstoppable terror. You won't remember the original ending of Hamlet, where they all just stayed dead.

My friends, I implore you; we must stem the tide of this cultural apocalypse. The more we talk, joke, and make films about zombies, the more strengthened their deathly grasp is on our collective imagination. I say to you, we must remove the head or destroy the brain of this fad now, before those few survivors of us are holed up in libraries and independent cinemas with shotguns and a limited supply of canned goods, clinging desperately to our last remaining “retro” reprint edition of Pride and Prejudice Without Zombies.

Landscaping/Near Future

I'm not nervous,
just shaking
as I watch brick streets
break back up
through the young concrete
above

and I run a chalk line along
a set of railroad ties
and chant the magic words.

I have planned, up to this point,
my journey
down to a series of right turns

that will spit me,
a lost salmon spawning, out onto your sidewalk.

At a wide enough angle
I am comprehensible,
can finally be reconciled
with the landscape around me --

so stand there on your front porch a minute,
door ajar,
and think about
what part of the garden
you might put me in.

---

and on monday morning:
a car
abandoned in the
middle of the street, its blinker on --

your phone might ring,
or it might vibrate itself right off a table

and later on,
the car won't be there anymore;
the tiny rapture
will have been canceled.

And in the near future,
in a business suit,
I will step,
shoeless, through your door

and demand my money back.

Ode to Jan

the weather was warm, Jan
when you sailed your Grande Marquis
into port
you blustered in with turbulent
curls crowning your head
like barnacles

i switched to your channel
The Weather Channel, Jan
and rained gin into your tonic
as you docked at the rail
relinquishing your mackinaw to the wood
of the back of your chair

"Well he is such a hunk," you say
and Jan i agree with you
as you point to the weatherman
blowing in the wind on the screen
"I do love Jim," you say
the hands of your betrothed caressing the sun
sliding across the blue map

Jan I know that you are a liar, Jan
and i think about the weather in
your head. i shiver as i pass you
i pass you your pork
chop, well done

you say "I see my Jim at midnight"
and i say "Shit, Jan what?"
and you say not to worry about it
your eyes rolling whirlpools
lined in kohl, the shaky edges
of heavy clouds

you slur your words, Jan
like the crash of the tide
and you laugh alone at the screen
lips pulled back to reveal teeth
teeth like planks

a woman appears on your channel
huddled against the hurricane's gust
"She is my best friend," you say
"I sure do miss her."

ReThink Topeka

http://www.rethinktopeka.com/

A great event that is changing perceptions and promoting creativity.

I Salute You, Brother

Jim Carroll, if not my favorite poet, then surely the first whose work i ever truly felt a connection to, passed away on friday. when i was (even more of) a neophyte to the world of the poem, this daunting monolith of tradition looming above me, but determined to step into its shadow, i happened upon his collection Fear of Dreaming. it hit me. it hit me hard. it reached inside and touched me in a way that poetry hadn't yet, to that point.

if you haven't read any of carroll's poems, or even if you've only read the basketball diaries, for which he is best known, i definitely recommend you check him out.

a genius has passed from this plane, and the world is poorer for it.

Poem

by Jim Carroll

She was playing the french horn
Standing there at the door
As you walked into the place

You couldn't miss her
Not the way her lips tightened
And released

At her breaks
Such a sad glass she was
Drinking from, suspicious lips, the cut
Of the crystal
when raised

The dark end
Of a sullen spectrum.

And down in deep facets

Which lead her nightly to that drowning place.

And the ambitious candle
Snuffed
By their sensible spit
And her anxious breathing.

That was a flame too young to die

'The Visioning Process'

Crouched

in the cabinet where the magic is kept

with a spent magnet clenched
in one hand
and a bookbag full of contraband,

I bandage an old egg
I found in a ditch at the edge of town

to keep it from hatching too soon.

And I poke pinholes in it
to let it breathe
and through which to project images
on a thin screen,

an off-white sheet of muslin
that marries
my would-be success rates to the wall-paper.

but in the yellowy glow of egg-light
the graphs and animations
don't have quite the impact I would've liked,

and the space is too tight
behind these cramped cabinet doors
to really get a sense of it,

to make you understand at all.

Another Influence

http://www.davidshrigley.com/

Another influence.

I Need To Buy New Boots (New Boots)

"My old boots are coming up at the heal" Derrick said with a dumb ass frown on his face. "I need to buy new boots."
"Why don't you get them repaired?" His second best friend Arthur asked after he had bent down and poked at the old pair of cowboy boots.
"Fuck that I'm gonna glue that shit down" Derrick said, now excited with his bad ass idea. He went to the glue drawer and snatched a tube of glue for model things. He sat down at the kitchen table and took off the bad boot, struggling with it over his knee. After unscrewing the lid and making three lines of glue across the rotten part of the boot he smacked the heal three times with his palm.
"That oughta do it" Arthur said nodding his head. Derrick put the boot back on his foot and did five circle trots around the kitchen.
"Sho' nuff" Derrick shouted.
This was his new thing, whenever he saw the slightest opportunity he yelled "Sho' nuff." Arthur was unaware that it was a slightly ironic phrase for Derrick, and made a swift judgment of his friend. He didn't like Derrick's new persona, which Arthur concluded was rugged asshole cowboy. He was then positive his friend had become a douche bag and made an instant attempt to distance himself from Derrick.
"I want to distance myself from you, man. I think you're a douche bag." This was a very direct way for Arthur to do exactly what he wanted to do, and only served to prove that they were very close friends.
"I understand," Derrick said, "we are headed down opposite roads in life. We should see less of each other." In his head Arthur smiled, he knew they could never be far from each others hearts.
"I'll call you every once in a while, but that's it." Arthur stated firmly.
"Let's say every two months," Derrick specified.
"Make it three months" Arthur said, " starting next month."
"Deal," Derrick said extending his hand. Arthur shook it swinging his arm around for a hug. Arthur couldn't help but tell Derrick he loved him, and did so as he started toward the front door. Derrick wanted to chase after him to tell him that he shared his love and would stop using his new catch phrase if only Arthur would stay, but Derrick's boot was glued to the floor and, distracted, he missed his opportunity to call out to Arthur before he was out the door. They wouldn't speak for the agreed four month period, but when they did the emotions were long passed. Derrick had bought a new pair of cowboy boots and Arthur was fucking a bar tender at the Honky Tonk in Springdale.

Brenden Garbee

The Earth and the Sun by Brenden Garbee. Check him out.
http://bgarbee.blogspot.com/

Submissions

The editors of Unitard Magazine are continually accepting submissions. However, the deadline for the first issue is approaching, we are looking to have everything ready to go in mid September so if you want to submit something let us know that you are planning on it, or just actually submit it. Otherwise it will be considered for the following issue next spring. Email submissions to any of the editors. Their Email addresses can be found by clicking on their name to the right side of the blog.

I don't have nothin'

Not a whole lot goin on. So I thought I would say that art is pretty cool. There is some of that goin on. The Great Mural Wall is coming along nicely, Ashley Laird is working on it with KT Walsh, here is a link.

http://www.tscpl.org/gallery/comments/be_a_part_of_history_help_paint_the_great_wall_of_topeka/

the world's largest hand

mobile facebook status update nightmare.

this is one example of a picture from a woman named Chan Lee's series of web articles "The Most Horrible Diseases Ever to Tremble the Earth" with the casual tag line: Don’t doubt and don’t ask why. These weird and horrible diseases exist around us. They really make it difficult for those affected to live normal lives.

chan discusses these graphic diseases that she makes up her own names to such as "collapsed face disease", "huge tongue syndrome", and "mop-looking". somehow she gets away with using a picture of the Blue Man Group to illustrate the story of an Appalachian family afflicted with a gene that leaves thier skin with a indigo tint.

her insights instruct readers to be objective: When you look at this baby, you’ll probably first yell, “Gosh!” Yes, this was a real baby. This was a human frog that was born by a woman in the Luxor General Hospital. Apparently, the baby was transformed into an external appearance resembling the external feature of a frog that you may have come across around the pond. Well, this sounds bizarre and strange to you, but please don’t curse or hoax at this baby.

after the most horrible diseases to tremble the world 3, (In this series, I’ll focus more on tumor), chan breaks from the title of the series to offer instead: Somewhat Unusual: The Most Disturbing Deformations and Abnormalities in Human History. i can kinda get in line with applying "somewhat unusual" to the baby with the penis growing out of his back, but i have to say that suggesting that harlequin ichthyosis is no big woop is pretty fuckin out there. chan ends this with an instructional section for pregnant moms- a section with about 20 or more helpful suggestions for the expectant mother-to-be. i will simplify the first 3:

1- do not sleep in a waterbed with an electric field
2- go to anger management
3- avoid recieving an x-ray

and just let chan explain for herself number four.

4- "You should never get your eyes contact with weird, scary and wild animals, objects or shapes (either in the tangible or intangible condition) as this will affect the developing of fetus."

thats as far as i got.

there is also a Most Horrible Diseases Ever to Tremble the World 5, and her new project, 10 Shockingly Terrible Eating Related Diseases .


i think i might be able to apply this format to a tour through some really heinous poetry i have written in the past. that might give me something to do during school orientation tomorrow.

anyone want to start a band with me called Scary Shapes?

i will not make any more boring art

John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art. 1971.

Dead Letters and Rare Words

I think mark burrier would also be a good candidate to illustrate the maiden issue of Unitard. I have submitted "unitard" to his Rare Words project, and requested permission to publish the illustration if you all are interested. I am still working on an illustration too, but since we are all about democracy around this block, I am compiling a group of possibilities. Any suggestions, requests, complaints, or casual chit chat about physical ailments are welcome.

In B Flat

I felt like this was the sort of thing I could and should share here;

this is a gorgeous monument of the things of which we are capable now, in this both terrifying and wonderful moment of history, as we stand on the cusp of wholly uploading our brains to the internet, in the interim we get great collaborations like this:

http://www.inbflat.net/

it's part toy, part dashed-off internet collaboration, part showy technology, and part high art. i love it.

[if you're like me you will play with this until you've heard all of them, but make sure you listen to the spoken word bit three down on the left-hand column, it's really brilliant]

Three Cocktails for a Rainy Day

A Modest Proposal for Eggnog

1 whole egg
1 tablespoon sugar
1 wineglass of brandy
½ wineglass of Jamaican rum

Whip the above together in a heavy glass lined with poverty. Stir in hot hunger and overpopulation and do it thoroughly. Carefully fold in the flesh of an infant. Top with nutmeg.


Hobo Lexicon Iced Tea

2 yard donkeys of dago red
1 cinder dick of red eye
1 mumbly peg of Sneaky Pete
½ cat wagon of wind pudding
2 squares of freshly squeezed sop
½ fleabag of speedballs, to taste
2 wedges crotch crickets

Mix the hoppins with a bindle stick in a tomato can. Cover with the moon. Share with Johnny Hollow Legs on The Big Rock Candy Mountain.


Rollickin’ Revelations!

Juice of one white horse of conquest
Juice of one black horse of famine
Juice of one red horse of war
Juice of one pale horse of death
144,000 dashes of the lion and the lamb
1 ground beast
weeping and gnashing of teeth, for garnish

Layer. Repent.


(hi. i'm amber)

The Numero Group

The Numero Group is a clever little record label based in Chicago and ran by a group of friends. Numero is probably best known for creating and releasing series of compilations of eccentric soul music and hillbilly gospel tunes. They also reissue original albums found deep in their own personal collections, only after hitting the road to track down the should-have-been-stars and the stories and sounds of their forgotten music. Numero's tiny basement office is more like my dream library, overflowing with records, rare photographs and documentation of the times. These guys are researchers and they have dedicated their lives to the preservation of obscure recordings by artists with very little commercial success.

"Our collections exist to show the world things that they would not normally have encountered. Maybe it's gospel, maybe it's private folk or some subgenre or a nonexistent genre waiting to be discovered. Furthermore, it's no longer just about record digging, but instead, culture preservation. We want the story, the photos, the shit in the bottom of the drawer, and the bodies buried in the backyard.” - Ken Shipley, co-founder of the Numero Group

http://www.numerogroup.com/

...And who shall I say is calling?

Dear reader, a question:

When you die tragically young, what song do you want to be playing when the detectives/your loved ones find your body?

It's very important to set the mood. My answer changes often (which indecisiveness may be the only reason I am still alive) but one of my all-time favorite songs, and I think today a good choice for this is The Belldog by Cluster and Eno.

also Knee Play 5 from Einstein on the Beach.

I shouldn't think I'd want to go for anything overtly sad, I'd want it to be something cryptic, something to leave them wondering.

However, my top pick for this today --even though, honestly, it's a bit obvious -- goes to Leonard Cohen's "Who By Fire." take that as you will:

Band-Aids

Meth Teeth. In the dictionary it would look like this.((())))http://www.myspace.com/methteethmusic

Macaroni Salad

walt whitman believed with all his heart in phrenology -- that the physical size and shape of the brain determines intelligence, personality, etc. to that end, he had his brain donated for study upon his death.

initial measurements determined that it was slightly smaller than average, and before any other measurements could be taken or even any information was extrapolated based on the initial measurements, a lab assistant dropped his brain on the floor, and it was promptly thrown away.

presumably it would've been fine, but it landed in a corner, sticky side down (isn't that always the way) and probably came away with all sorts of unidentifiable fuzz (cat dander? human pubes?) attached. better safe than sorry, i always say.

hi. i'm tim.

Don Drinks His Way To Freedom

From a towel on a pyramid
Don drinks his way to freedom.

His feet use their toes
in the dragon wing spectrum.

Don drinks his way to freedom
from a towel on a pyramid.

There isn't a bird in sight
and Don needs one bad.

At first sight of a bird
Don drinks his way to freedom.

The bird gets pissed off and says
"where the fuck is my freedom."

Impersonator

Photo Credit: Backyard Bill

If I was playing one of those little kid memory games where you flip over cards and try to match dog with dog or grandpa with grandpa, and I turned this picture over, I'd spend the rest of the game hunting for Moe Tucker.

Staff Workout

We don't speak German and we only do the sexy moves.