Comic Strip Exquisite Corpse

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Silhouette Game

One Line Game

Directions: Start a drawing using only one line, never crossing other lines or lifting pen. Pass on to next person, who picks up where you left off.

• Players: AM, K, HC, SC, MB

Directions: Each player in turn rolls two dice and rapidly says a phrase or sentence comprised of the number of words shown on the dice. The dice are then quickly passed to the next player, who continues the narrative. (Players: AM, K, HC, SC, MB)

butter off dead (than unloved)

we were passing through the forest when without warning a giant magnificent dogface jumped above the treetops and shouted that he was truly dead.

just then, the glass forest bloomed bloodroses and the forest decided to change. savory gemstones boiled w/in the pot of iron and spoke longingly, crying “debased chickens never hatch in the wormworld that we inhabit now that the dice have rolled.” and then the fiery gemstones flew into the rainbow of our sad desires.

but anyways, the dogface flying above the mountain of misery and despair melted into nothing but butter. the butter was liquid, steaming, and sticky. it burned like butter usually does when it gets hot. simmering stovetops burn butter but kitchen mice are unable to reform their hearts back to their innocent births.

what remained of dogface was found in the butter and the forest where the butter burned screamed and butter never was anything but dust floating through the universe unloved.

from here to black mars (the liberation of emptiness)

my cataleptic kitten says, “please don’t leave me in the kitchen sink. you always throw that out. for once take me to the park w/ you so I can learn why you love to see the sky twinkle. humans are so funky and fresh. i don’t understand why they lie.”

i listened. i hugged my cataleptic kitten. we left and got on our big ship and sailed to the island of tropical breezes where nobody can hear singing rainbow lobsters pontificate. and on that island we spent our days in peace. crabs cried. coconuts fried. the palm trees wept. i told catty, “listen, this is what life is for. to gaze; to ponder; and feel the silence…the silence in the moon’s spiderweb which will help you to peacefully die.”

catty looked at me. i wondered if i had scared her. but she didn’t feel too saucy. instead she made an erector set home to comfort them both and leave the island. the home was in my head too often. and i wanted to free myself forever. my skin shed. my hope fled. and i couldn’t take it. it’s not big enough for both us. i summoned the courage deep w/in my soul.

catty saw my courage and wept. then devoured it with her laughter. she knew that all my pain and struggles were inside me. i couldn’t leave. “here, eat this magical fruit from the tree of good and mediocrity. and you…you can learn to live this time.”

“you’re right,” i said. “idk why it’s always so complicated. i see the way; you’re acting like you don’t know me. but i’m in love w/ you.”

catty disappeared. and so did i.

we were in the land of black. black magicians, black cars, black mars bars, black gold. i can’t see. i can’t hear. but at least i can taste and so i will finally taste what life is.

i tried to lick catty. she leapt. i followed because she tasted like that mars bar i liked so much. like mars, like bar, like catty — forever intertwined my love.

i tripped over a caveworm and into a place where i had no body. i was nothing. nothing was inside me. i was empty. empty of love and everything else. the emptiness was liberating. eternal emptiness enchanted me. and i did not want to be devoured by another glow of flesh. the cold was clean. yes; no; never again. i shan’t; i won’t, but I am always here. just here and i am enough. even w/o my cat.

the end of harvesting masculinity; or, the harvester on the moon

i hate this guy. he always says that i am nothing but a little worm and i don’t know anything about harvesting fruit on the mountain of sorrow. fuck him. fuck his face. fuck his stupid brain and all his stupid little ideas that infuriate my brain. what does he even know about my experience harvesting all the jelly worms on the side of the fruit on the mountain of sorrow.

he didn’t even know about the lost butterflies trapped in my heart. i won’t let them out. not even how they could improve the entire village’s ethical experience.

i deserted that guy. i jumped in my submarine and took off down that steep set of rapids that rolled down his body. escaped the long years of being suppressed and feeling like i was never good enough or pretty enough for him or even anybody else. i journey through jungles wearing the skin of a great ape.

next were the hills of downy flowers under deep purple skies and a pink sun. the flowers sang and breathed. and when they spoke i recognized the voice as my former voice of hope. it said, “he is no hymn. he has no self or other. listen lady, he ain’t shit. he was never the ewe inside the geometric planetoid. listen, leave this ratrace behind and dripout. drip like glass. drip like water under ice. drip like amnion. drip like milk from the teet of a warm sheep.”

i dreamed. i dreamed of genie. and she granted me every secret want. first, she granted me the guy i thought i wanted and then instead she gave me a toasty pretzel of my heartbreaks. and as my teeth sunk into the dough i heard the music of my beauty bloom back into the softness of infancy.

i cried. i pulled out his intestines, ground them, and they evaporated into quiet nothingness. i felt like a worm. he was the worm i always imagined.

but enough of that guy. the flowers spoke again. i joined in chorus until i found a great truth inside myself. the truth was hard, deep as obsidian. i saw a great multitude of lost dead seagulls at coney island and then i threw myself from the hill into the sea and i sank into it. it was black. i could barely breathe under the waves until my gills grew in like slits. and then a bright blue dragon pooped out a seagull w/o feathers. it was eyeless. it was wingless and it was w/o sanity.

it sang, “go back. find that which you lost. and then return here. when you see her, you will know her to be the self you once loved so little.” the seagull was right. i sank into the sun and came out a steamy buttered bun. butterflies; butter flies. i left the sun behind. next was the moon. it was wet w/ drizzling warm spectral aardvarks but anyways i completely ignored all that and continued towards the glowing mountain peak.

the dragon laid sleeping atop it. the seagull sat on its butt; said, “you’re back. look yonder. do you see the prophesied witch. she plays with your your.”

“i know,” i said, ”that’s why i’m a sand witch. but when was i here before? when was i stuck between two pieces of magic? what is the butter that makes you feel alive and pretty and spreads itself across your shining glimmering buoyant soul?

“it is on your sandwich, you foremost witch of the sands. go ye and make ye into the tastes of your dreams. what are the words of your spell that transforms? what are your ingredients? what witch wears whose wise? what when where why? i shall leave and return to the beginning. otherwise known as when.”

thus the seagull left. when i dreamed, i seemed only to dream but i was more awake than asleep. lucid, and entirely conscious i saw that it floated in pellucid slumber. the seagull was there w/o the witch. at the start. the seagull; the worm; the dragon; the…

Recently in Atlanta vague conspiratorial signs detailing the machinations of some nebulous alien invaders have been popping up on the side of the road. Clumsily hand written in black paint on white poster board, these strange signs have unsettled many. In a game similar to the game of surrealist proverbs and superstitions, we decided to create a few road sign messages of our own, drawing from the experience. (Players: HC, SC, ML)

THE MAYFLOWER SHALL RETURN

BLACK PEARL HIDES IN AXOLOTL SINEWAVE!

THIS ROAD MELTS IN THE SUN

BEWARE THE SOLAR PYRAMID

A SPHINX ALWAYS LOOKS BOTH WAYS

TIME-BODY WILL BREAK ON TUESDAY

MAN INTO BIRD? COVID IS EVOLUTIONARY TRIGGER!

QUIBLY IS IN THE WATER

MAYOR SPECTOR HAS NO NAVEL

HAVE YOU DIFFUSED YOUR LIGHT TODAY?

BEWARE: QUETZAL CROSSING

ATLANTA IS A VERB. WHAT WOULD IT BE AS AN ADJECTIVE? THINK ABOUT IT.

THE MORMYRID OPENS

ADDENDUM: Though these started mainly as conspiracy détournements, I soon found that the most interesting messages to paste up were ones which don’t communicate any obvious meaning or image, like “BLACK PEARL HIDES IN AXOLOTL SINEWAVE.” The sides of roads are so filled with communication, everyone trying to convey who to vote for, what burger to buy, etc. When this kind of poetic anti-communication appears, it’s like an obscene shard or splinter among in its surroundings. It conveys a kind of vague atmosphere, but does not call you to any particular action, like all the rest out there which attacks our senses. It doesn’t attempt to control. It just sits there on the side of the road, merely existing, like some animal. An armadillo on the corner. – SC

Directions: Players elect an object, and begin to ask questions about it, answering intuitively and collectively. (Where was it born? How does it procreate? Etc.) The discussion proceeds verbally, and a consensus must be reached with each proposed fact.

Object 1
A nesting doll cocoon, which can make smaller copies of itself. Its life cycle switches between egg form and silver form. It grows smaller over time (going forward in time, that is). At one time it was as tall as empire state building, we’ve just forgotten this.

It feels resigned to its fate. It creates psychological defenses. it feels heavy, dull, sleepy, ancient. It mutters “from the egg we came, and to the egg we shall return.”
It’s name is “eggbert” in eggform and “silly-cone and the eggstential crisis” in silverform.

It smells like pennies and blood, with a hint of cardamon.

In its silver form, it makes eggbeer. In its eggform, it rolls to the the bottom of the ocean to hibernate. It floats back up when it turns silver again, due to its silver form being hollow on the inside.

When it’s too small to grow any smaller, it turns backwards in time, growing larger. Same when it grows too large, it reverts time again and grows smaller. Therefore, at every single moment of time, it is both growing smaller and growing larger in both directions, never having to relive the past nor the future, constantly creating both simultaneously. Therefore, it is the dynamo heart of the universe. Unfortunately, it can also never experience its own death; humans probably will however, living past its smallest state. It existentially worries of the nothingness on the other side of its two extremes, though it can never know them.

Object 2 — Simple Samuel Eric Bjornsson

Born without facial features, but still very much has a face.

It has a sphincter at the tiptop of its head for nutrition; secretes a sweet smell from it. Is actually a plant, even though it looks like a bear.

It wards off predators mainly through its uncanny face. It always listens. Its face is made of a strong tissue that can bulge, inflate, expand. Its face is thin and porous bywhich it can absorb liquid.

It experiences simple emotions, primarily hunger. Eats insects and smalls mammals that can fit. 200 caterpillars in a single meal feels pretty good. It has very low energy expenditure.

It is actually an amalgam of different organisms crash-spliced together via asteroid collision:

• Its kevlar face is a space blowfish; it swims galactic dust currents; actually born of a blackhole. Has no fins, no tail; a ballthing that survived the vacuum of space purely through regulation of its own internal pressure.
• Its body is a crystalline organism found inside an icy comet. It was a purely digestive organism, diffusing nutrients through the air. Brokedown via acids and honeys.
• Its mane is actually just a bear’s. The asteroid slammed into it in ottawa, canada, poor guy. Gave the amalgamation creature its predatory and defensive instincts.

Its brain is an amalgamation of all three organisms.

No one knows how old it is. In fact, different parts die at different times: the bear will slough off first; the blowfish will depressurize next; the crystalline will remain crystalline. It is then that it will revert to mindless sleep; it is only temporarily conscious.

(Players: K, AM, HC, SC)

Directions: Each player drew two lines from a random source on table or phone, creating a collective poem. Players then randomized the order of lines, each with a different new order, and rewrote the poem line into its opposite.

Initial cutup:
the longest night and the wildest road
alley-oop and here we go
dust char on heater when heat is first
rapid eye disingenuous
one hand endlessly stroking the sky
an enormous candy cane impaled through its core
taken apart, we’re nothing
rally archetypes around the nerve.

Reversals:

K — “zen love”
everything never nothings the nether, like
crystal frost on the cool when coolness comes last —

running from what isn’t,
the smallest juice pop spearminting the hole;
the slowest you, sincerely;
bababooey and whodeewoo;
the shortest day, the blackest way —
put together, you’re my everything.

AM — “endless ether”
a minuscule bitter lozenge freed from its surroundings,
oh, woe, and there we stop.
the shortest day but the thinnest wall
discouraging madividuals away from timidness.
clean life on freezer when chills are last.
gradual blind sincerity.
assembled, we aren’t everything.
no leg finitely beating the ground.

SC — “machine-men”
disintegrating stereotypes cast off from machine men,
slow toe truthful.
shortest day or smallest jungle,
silicon fruit in ice as cold never last
rejoined alongside everything
ten toes shortly throwing underground
in tiny meat square stretched by outlier,
skyscraper-ooof and there you stop.

HC — “unready return”
the shortest day and the darkest country
unready but they come back
clean emptiness inside icy wind before cold was last
slow tongue sincere
many feet just once hitting the earth
the tiny vegetable weight removed from its skin
put together you are everything
dispersing singularities inside blood

Directions: Take a concept. Collectively decide its tactile traits, color, feel, smell, etc. and write them down. Once you have collected a list of traits, decide what physical object the concept corresponds to. (Players: K, SC, HC, AM)

Round 1: DANDYISM

1. Feels feathery
2. Purple, with shades of yellow gradiating out.
3. Smells rich, fresh, and clean, like a bath. It also smells like rosemary.
4. Airy and breezy. It could be living in water or in air.
5. It moves smooth yet with great speed, frictionless

CONCLUSION: Dandyism = an aurora borealis jellyfish spitting electrical currents at an arctic sky.

Round 2: D&D-ISM (mishearing of the 1st term)

1. Color is brown, black, earthy
2. Feels rubbery and crumbly
3. Whispery and seductive
4. Smells like the blood of ancient things
5. Very slow moving

CONCLUSION: D&D-ism = A demonic earthworm wearing a thimble on its head. It dwells in cemeteries under the tombstones.

The game began with a variation on our previous card game, each player pulling cards and then synthesizing them into a monk’s aphorism. Once we had created these, we decided to try and glean qualities and philosophy from the sayings, and then went down the rabbit hole of the feces museum, fleshing out the idea of the exhibit. Players: HC, SC, K

sayings of a monk — erik, the stooled pigeon

• “adolescence is merely a teacup.”
• “seahorses are aces.”
• “all life is an exhibit in a cafeteria.”
• “a reporter is like a running antelope.”
• “seven rock cairns are the best strip clubs.”
• “if you deserve info, carry a curved dagger.”

qualities:

• pansexual and sensual: enjoys food and delicate and fragile things, own body included. a modern dandy and decadent.
• practical
• suspicious chap: carries curved dagger to interrogate; is a force; “nothing is curved, everything is tangential”
• jaded: life is a poor art exhibit; youth isn’t worth it
• dresses messy: looks like taoist hermit; body so beautiful that only rags justifies it; only faded flames are the true frames for shittiness. 
• entrepreneur: invented the world’s first feces museum

feces museum (traveling exhibits):

• names by country: 
  • Dude Squirts Lava [american]
  • Plaza de Poot [french]
  • Emporium Furiousorium [roman]
  • Castle d’Ganache [welsh]
• exhibit #1: the cataleptic garage sale
  • dirty tarps and doo-dads covered in feces. but sprinkled w/ strawberries and tulips and petals and jewelry.
• exhibit #2: the fantasia of ineptune
  • filled w/ rabbit pellets rolled in red glass beads. they fall out the fountain’s head, making music. can pick up and eat. surprisingly tastes like clover
• exhibit #3: fartasia
  • still-life of the artist ADK. plays bagpipes of fart sounds
• exhibit #4: the sausage factory
  • full-sized warehouse space housed w/in the museum’s atrium. it is an old sausage factory. shit comes in; comes out transformed into gold.
• exhibit #5: voyeurs de derrière
  • glass hallway lined w/ toilets behind the glass. the toilets are transparent, made of glass. interactive exhibit whereby guests can step behind the glass and poop. can only poop, no piss. picture taken as keepsake.
• atrium: the rotunda
  • turd buttflies fly around. they are literally butthurt, their hemorrhoids trailing behind in pink and blue lights. they smell like rotting oranges.
• exit: enter the voided
  • enter into a rectum. the walls are lined like intestines; it is in fact a labyrinth. the minotaur “Bull Shit” chases you throughout, trying to scare guests into shitting their pants. it chases them through all the places they are afraid to shit themselves: showers, pools, children’s underwear, the gynecologist, in the bedroom, on the subway, in traffic, at own birthday party, on stage at an improv show. if guests shit themselves, they are forcefully tattooed mazes upon their colon. the only escape is by slide.

SC, HC, K

CUBE POEMS

boy greased
a demigod, finger salty, biting, flying —
greased plumage between their pregnant limbs,
any ugly grand barnacle could charm his family
before promises drown his many dynamic, desperate loves.

insert a regret about parallel umbilical graces
between the eyes of his thighs.

his nerves mucked with overlooked ravenous waste,
shivers run down our overweight glancing baby.
“honestly tho, wet candy oozes balance.”

fantasy spiral,
these able goose fingers, curved beak,
lame smooth,
I reaggregate.

my future, honestly
a desire for dancing promises opens ravenous thunder.
the pluck doctor divulges his mouthful quickly
that also killed fortune,
turned melodic in stone. stones in light balance
stay gorgeous through muckgirls of feeling surfaces.
the night is all me.

so moonlights her dead journey-tiger across the violet roams,
wet shapes wind my limbs, portend hmmmms.

REVERSALS

lips tried
the surface sour, the cyclopean hatch
of us on her wicked eyes.
it emptied violets behind the switch machine.
my romantic life.

so looks stay your the clever quickly,
a trade about hellbent stage happy on fire.
our hero left the night ghost;
the moonlight ancient,
those dead are not you.

lofty fortunes bust fast.
but what?

my worklife hero
a desire for dancing promises opens ravenous thunder;
a vision for biting looks like flying happy hearts.

fish behind water…mushroom war yelled…
we whispers fast, “I, the precious peace
sister.” he came
before fantasy. our able flock bumped grand down there.
left w/ fathoms; her eyes your chance.