From the intro: What follows is a surrealist experiment involving found photos. The rules of the game were very simple. We selected an old photograph, one which we had no personal memories attached to, and wrote an automatic response to that image. We attempted to become “passive receptors”, downloading the subterranean meanings hidden inside these strange bits of lost time.
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As old as tomorrow… With untold floors of FRESH exciting MERCHANDISE, exquisite fixturing, a large, easy-to-use PARKADE OF THE DAMNED and a fine staff of ATTENTIVE SALES ENTITIES… It’s OLD MALL! This volume presents the results of parallel surrealist expeditions to “old malls” in two North American cities. Undertaken in early 2020, these “gothic” experiences foreshadowed the closure of commercial zones throughout the world by a matter of weeks. Specials include:
The Mysterious and Somnolent “ZOPI”
The Skeleton in the Green Hat
The Ghost Hunters in the Bathroom
The Death Shroud Puppet Play
“Good Stuff”
The Street of the Unisex Image
And much more! Save or be saved at OLD MALL
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A small selection of games played recently at South Bend Commons in Atlanta. 9 players, who will remain anonymous…
ROMAN À CLEF GAME
Directions: Players choose a symbolic “title” for an unknown character. They then fold and pass to the next player, who blindly writes the “real” identity of that title.
The Murder of Sad Dreams is Stanley Yelnato
The Death-Bringer of All Wayward Gnomes is Guy Debord
The Glass Dog of Egypt is Levi Tomlinson
IF/THEN Game
Directions: Write an IF statement, fold the paper over, and have the next player blindly complete the sentence with a THEN statement.
If you find yourself lost on the highway…then Alex is crying.
If you surrender to the great god pan…then cry like its an amber dripping.
If a cactus is submerged in brine…then the morning will come with the call of a bird and a fox.
If the ceiling falls on us…then we must rebel.
If you can ride a bicycle…then your misery is magic and your poetry written on a wing.
I THOUGHT I SAW GAME
Directions: One player writes a “I thought I saw…” sentence, while the other writes the “but on furthur inspection” conclusion.
I thought I saw a chicken crossing the road. But on closer inspection, it was a neurotic imbecile.
I thought I saw you caring about me. But on closer inspection, it was blackout rage.
I thought I saw a dead cop. But on closer inspection, it was an eyeball all alone.
I thought I saw a ghost riding a dirt bike. But on closer inspection, it was actually an egg hatching snakeskin.
COLLECTIVE POEMS
Directions: Write one line of a poem, and pass. The next person writes a response to your line, and then folds it over so that only their new line is visible. They then pass to the next person, who does the same. Continue passing until finished.
hey now you little
bean
beagle
having a snack on the porch
forgive me
and all my friends
dissolved into a puddle of ketchup
heretofore you have become anonymous
like a tree falling in the forest
TRANSLATION GAME
Directions: Find a text written in a language you don’t understand, and attempt to translate it.
ORIGINAL
FIRST PLAYER: My demon is deficient in madness molecular, in multiples, he is a green cave—taut like an object portable or scenic—a voice for delirious luminous night intervened. Chance sits haunted, released by a friend.
SECOND PLAYER: My demon of all defeat is for me peculiar, there are men of the cave of green—so many objects for me to see—the voice that I discover makes the lights shine in me. Caging me before, I bow to no man.
THIRD PLAYER: Monday daemon for everyone defeat for me as I accelerate, it is multiple, in the cave of cheese—all the objects around the river—she is that which discovers the lights of an entire interior.
EXQUISITE CORPSE
COMIC STRIP EXQUISITE CORPSE
COLLECTIVE DRAWING
“Minoan amoeba”
CC, SC, ML
Game of illot mollo. Directions: non-writing players announce words out loud at random, and a writer must then incorporate these words into his automatic text.
As I strolled along the riverside, I saw a burrowing porcupine with some whiskers of delight. A tortoise teat evolved at once into a granulation of the wise abrahamic lincoln. I did not know what to think, after that particular spinal column. What a day this was, and still! Still I was not yet self-aware. My mother had been correct about me all of this time. “The cats are at it again”, whispered a nearby trembling oak. At least today was only the Abrahamic lincoln seasonal shedding. At least the ceiling fan of the 3 babies knew best when first to crumble. Waste reclamation was still practiced here, on this continent of stone. And As for King Pinkytoe, he had not yet been traversed. Had not yet harvested crop of treasured wonderful wisdom tooth. Fanny Hill? No, indeed. It was time to return to my feathery bed. A sleep of exsanguination toe was truly the best that one could hope for…
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
CC: Fill it with milk & feed the entire continent cereal
AK: Change its title to “Grand Brand Placement”
SC: Turn the walls into red floppy jello, then cover it with a legion of hungry possum.
Centennial Park
CC: Light all the touches to create a beacon for aliens.
AK: Turn it upside down to reveal the secrets of the mole people.
SC: Replace the water with molasses. Change the bricks into taffy.
Little 5 Points
CC: Take all its little 5 points and expand them into large weather balloons.
AK: Elongate the first park bench I see until it reaches enlightenment
SC: Give life to the Vortex restaurant’s big skull head. Make it ask the passerbys riddles. Make the blind man king.
Underground Atlanta
CC: Fill it with cheese. Charge admission and market it as Atlanta’s “moon attraction”.
AK: Dig it deeper until it becomes a tourist attraction for the underworld.
SC: Pump water into it, make it an underground river instead.
The AT & T Building
CC: Take away one “A” and one “T” , and then add a new “BL”. Afterwards, I will have it for lunch.
AK: Remove the other T for grammatical reasons.
SC: Flatten into oblivion.
The Westin’s rotating Sun Dial Restaurant
CC: Detach it from its pedestal and gift it to some visiting giants as frisbee.
AK: Rotate it the other way to send rich people into orbit.
SC: Turn the rotating floor into a sentient, ravenous flesh blob. It will nip at unsuspecting bourgeois toes.
The Varsity
CC: Regurgitate it.
AK: Reverse its name, and then change the restaurant policy so that customers spontaneously materialize the food. They will leave this food on empty tables for no one to eat.
SC: Replace all menu items with totally useless natural objects, such as twigs, leaves, and stones.
comic strip exquisite corpse / AK, CC, SC
(a dream by CC)
We are in a beautiful city. It is very green. There are large rolling green fields and beautiful forests and gardens. The only buildings are shining glass skyscrapers bursting directly out of the grass. There is one building nearby that resembles the space needle. I am myself, and I am with Steven and our two friends Megan and Steve. We are at a small table which is set up right in the middle of a path in the park near the main thoroughfare for the city. We are having our holiday dinner together. People pass by occasionally along the street. There is a large Indian family that passes by, and one of the small children in the group falls down and skins her knee. Megan and I pull out our first aid kits and let the little girl pick out one of our cute bandaids. She picks a brown one with flowers from Megan’s collection because it matches her dress. While Megan patches up the girl, I start to talk to the family matriarch. She is a beautiful older woman dressed in diaphanous, pale green gloth. She is like a goddess. I talk with her and she tells me that she is dying of cancer. We are now in a pretty rounded caravan with glass walls completely full of beautiful green plants. Warm light is coming in through the windows. She talks to me very calmly about what it is like to be dying. Her face is glowing with internal light, and she tells me something very important, but I can’t remember it. I suddenly recall that I need to walk my pets and go back to the table and untie them from my chair. They are a very small kitty and very small puppy. They are both approximately the size of a potato, but they are fully grown. They are best buds and walk side-by-side practically touching. I decide to take them to the top of space needle, which has a park at the top. I get up there and it is a lovely green open space. I look over the edge and we are so high up that we are above the clouds, and I can see weather patterns including a hurricane. I start to get vertigo and decide to leave. There are a bunch of climatologists up there in white coats and they are giggling at how much of a newbie I am to get vertigo. I head down, but keep getting tangled up in some kind of netting on all the very skinny staircases. Getting back down is slow-going. I remember that I need to take my medicine and try to find a bathroom. I go in a tiny bathroom and the toilette is only like an inch off th ground. I drop my medicine on the floor, but I have to take it, so I pick it up off the floor. I still can’t find any water, so I just try to accumulate a little saliva in mouth to swallow it with. My little kitty takes advantage of the low toilette to relieve herself. We finally make it down from the space needle and are crossing the thoroughfare. I am standing at the entrance to the subway station. Looking toward it, I can see that it is simply two round tunnels in the side of a green hill, which slope smoothly down in either direction. I get the idea that the main modes of transport are walking and subway travel.
01/22/20 – aaron dylan kearns, steven cline, casi cline
Or; I don’t want to lick your hair on the edge of the grand canyon
