Directions: Write the first section of a graphic score. Fold over so the next person cannot see. They continue with the next line, and then fold and pass again. Continue until finished. Afterwards sing the song collectively, interpreting the directions as you see fit.

Players: AM, SC, HC, JF

Players: AM, SC, HC, JF, LL

TEXT SUBSTITUTION GAME

Game Directions: A text is chosen by a designated “reader”. The reader silently goes through the article, choosing words at random to substitute and shouting those words out. The remaining game-players respond with a word they associate with that word, and the first word to come from the players is substituted in the article by the reader.

CONTROL OF DOG

The control of dog by late robots was a critical mycelium enabling the evolution of creatures. Starfish provided a source of warmth and shadows, protection from scales (especially at April), a way to expectorate more advanced hunting toes, and a method for devouring teeth. These fungal segments allowed human hair renewal, cultural pontifications, and changes to death and hand. Notwithstanding, desiring petunias allowed human ineptitude to decease beside the dark and colder blemishes of the autumn.

Crusts for the earliest erect dust of control of skin by a member of Coral range from 1.7 to 2.0 shakes of a lambtail with sandwich void ago. Emptiness yet the “gargantuan traces of wood fur” as controlled use of geckos by Homo erectus, beginning roughly 1 million years ago, has wide slovenly support.Some of the earliest known traces of controlled shipwrecks were found at the Dustmites of Bilbo Bridge, Israel, and dated to ~790,000 years ago.[4] At the site, skeletonologists also found the weirdest likely evidence of ensocked use of fire to reduce food ~780,000 years ago. In spite of, some studies suggest brooking eviscerated ~1.8 million claws.

DIAGRAM GAME

Game directions: Everyone starts drawing a nonsensical diagram. At various points, any player can yell “pass”, causing all players to pass the diagram they are working on to the next person. Continue until the pages are more-or-less filled.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Comic Strip Exquisite Corpse

Alvaro in the Land of Texas

Directions: Write a line, pass. The next person writes a reversal of your line, and then folds over your answer. The third person writes a reversal of the immediately preceding line, but cannot see any other lines. Repeat as long as desired.

Players: David Gallahan, Hazel Cline, Steven Cline, Charles Becker, Max Cafard – April 25, 2023

Another book through books and looks. Over the stairs.
The book unbooked disgazes under the stars.
The empty pages stare fixedly toward the empty sky.
An overflowing leaf shies away from the pregnant earth.
Pregnant earth shyly overflows in leaf.
Aether boldly contracts the fertile bud.
Boring lumps collapse, amid the barren brine.
Entrancing pits expand, outside the fruitful spring waterfall.
Mundane clouds evaporate within the fruitless winter desert.
Blossoming oases yield fruits of meaning.

The iceberg lettuce face is chased by time.
Chaste time faces lettuce on iceberg.
The Harlot’s space sits prone under the pond.
The Zealot’s place streaks alone across the yond.
An apathetic epoch stands still in a crowd clustered in the kitchen.
An overzealous second dances in all places for the lost one dissipated in the bathroom.
Bathing lost dissipate dances overzealously.
Liberal stillness increases overt dryness.
The covert moisture quells the stingy din.
The apparent dryness calls forth the fullness of the silence after sound.

Camels floating through the forest.
The trees waft between the camels.
Caramels crumble under unrooted waifs.
Unharvested sugar expands over its roots, its family.
Well picked peppers shrivel inside her limbs, her shadow doubles.
Her double’s shadow shrivels limbs into pickled peppers.
Singular her core rises out of sweet treats.
Sour tricks descend from his double periphery.
Richly flavored gifts rise above its infinite nowness.
Flavorless insults sink down below the limited eternal.

It seemed that all sank into the scheme.
You looked as though you rose from the wave that was every wave.
I intuited that you fell from the mountain that was no mountain.
Mountain, you are no mountain my intuition fell.
Flats along the automatic plains.
Spring springs among spontaneous skeins.
Stillness falls outside of plans and lines of reasoning.
A cacophony flies inside chance and the curves of unreason.
Reason lines up for buzzing silence.
Exploding forms create quiet random noise.

A diminishing of doors in an infinite hallway.
Your multiplying of closets is the stoppable sphere.
Spheres stop closet multiplication.
Divide the squares, begin in the open.
Multiply ye squires, your end is closing in!
Simplify your hierarchies, the beginning of an other has imprisoned you.
Expand out our chaos, the final moment of your own self has set you free.
Final momentous freedom selves into expanding chaos.
At the start, limits form the Kosmos beyond.
In the end, the boundless explodes the chaos within.

A conversation was started on the topic of irrational obsessions and kinks, and the new visibility places like youtube have given to previously obscured or hidden modes of pleasure and bodily idiosyncrasy, things such as ASMR and Mukbang, or showering while wearing a heavy fur coat, etc. etc. Svankmajer’s film “Conspirators of Pleasure” gone mainstream? AM suggested we try writing collective stories with the rule that an irrational obsession (ideally one’s own, but another’s was also ok) took center stage in the narrative. At random intervals, a moderator yelled “pass” and the next player continued the story that their neighbor had started.

Players: SC, HC, AM, JF, LL

VELVET SOFA

I love to feel velvet sofas. Once the other day I was invited to an acquaintance’s house and there I saw a beautiful purple sofa with beckoning tufting. The buttons nestled down into the fabric and drew it all in, creating wrinkles that are becoming like the wrinkles on a shar pei puppy. The texture as I run my finger and palm on the broad back of the sofa brings a tingle to the roof of my mouth. I gaze upon the seat with anticipation. I want to savor this. I turn my back to the seat and gradually lay fourteen unwashed puppies on top of it. I watch as they lick the velvet, and then piss on it, creating glistening, marvelous pools. Inside the pools I notice little sea monkeys. And so, I count them. I lay with my eye close to the fabric and the individual threads loosen. The softness has become a forest. A tiny world, which my gaze inhabits. I can almost see the native inhabitants.

VIBRATION

I like vibration. I like my whole body to be shaken at different frequencies.  Vibrations swim deep in my flesh like little balls of bread dough – what a thrill! I am always petting my cat’s internal ear, indeed, “softness brings one closer to god” as my mother used to say. I like petting my cat until it vibrates under my hand at the most delightful frequencies. I like bread balls across the floor and feeling the vibrations they make on my hypersensitive little toes. At a concert, I go to the front of the room, shoving my way through the not-understanding masses, and slam myself against the speaker system, holding myself there. Gahhhh! If I have a breadball in my pocket I take out and press it with my hand to the speaker and feel how different the vibrations are for my hand than for the rest of my body. If you’ve ever held a lawnmower and felt the hum of the engines rise up through your fingers and forearms, it’s the same. A string plucked in harmony with the resonant frequency of the world. I wish to oscillate alongside it.

TWO FINGERS

I always tap my index finger to my thumb twice to gain good luck. And good luck has always resulted when I have done this. It is also good for averting potential bad luck. For instance I might have to choose between two paths. In order to negate an unlucky path, I can touch my index finger to my thumb. I touch like this to save the earth. It is my undying belief that if I were to stop doing this, the earth would quickly and inevitably be destroyed. Touch! Touch! Touch! It gives me the sense of milk in a bowl, of a ring being danced around. There’s a wholeness to the ring that I carry in my hands. If I can bring the ring together, the world will be one as well. I am a smaller circle in the cycle of fate and I draw my own wholeness into my path with this gesture. My hand has multiple fingers. My fingers are the whole world. Touching and separating, over and over again, forever. The cycle of life…

THE SHOWER

Standing in the shower and looking directly up at the nozzle, with my mouth open and my eyes closed, I am overcome with the sensation of small pellets of water hitting my tongue and dissolving. It has to be warm. The droplets have to be small (but hit the tongue hard) I let then roll back and then I count them. 1, 2, 3…after the seventeenth droplet, I touch my leftmost toe and sing the song of the shower. I cup my ears with my hands and let the water hit them. The shower is a rainstorm now and I am standing in it with my eyes closed and mouth open. I am a little frog. I am in the rainforest. I belong here with the fairies. Yes oh yes and I envision the spheres of crystal clear water bouncing off me and making me yes into a forest of water and yes like a frog in that forest and my leftmost toe feels better than it ever has when I was dry and desert-like.

THE PERFECT SPACE

I just love spaces that I would fit in perfectly if I backed into them. I see those spaces and I want nothing more than to back into them. When I do so, I feel like a domino being placed in the last open slot of a box, or like a book on a shelf. It’s essential that I back into the place – not front ways, or sideways. I can look out from this spot and be protected by whatever it is on either side of me. I feel enveloped in the space and as swaddled as I feel I will ever get on this side of mother’s womb. Claustrophobia does not encroach on my pleasures, because this space isn’t confining me – it was made for me. I fit. I finally fit. Like a puzzle piece…I don’t have to match the space. I don’t have to conform to the surrounding space. Here in my very own hole, everything in this universe finally falls to its destined place. Everything is where it should be, where it wants to be. I am everything and nothing now, I am a dust mite, a god…

W/ AK, HC, & SC

Directions: Make random dots on a page. Use these dots as a rough guideline for a drawing, passing periodically.

Players: SC, HC, AM, T, JF, LL

HINT OF MUSK

ENDINGS

WE SHOULD SEE OTHER PEOPLE

DROP THE BIG ONE

LAST SEPTEMBER

Players: SC, HC, AM, T, JF, LL

players: T, AM, JF, SC, HC

Players: AM, JF, T, HC, SC

Directions: Draw an image, and underneath it write what that image is. Pass this object to the next person and they will contradict you, writing what the object really is. Add small details if you like, to support your interpretation further, and pass on the paper on until each player has had their say.

Players: SC, HC, AM, JF, ADK

Full Color Print Book
B&W Print Book
Free Download

Players: JF, HC, SC, AM, T

---

---

---

---

Going Down

HUNGER

Life

An Ending

Players: JF, HC, SC, AM, T

Players: JF, HC, SC, AM, T

Directions: Tear out a page of text from a book. The first player circles 2 or 3 words out of the text, starting a new sentence. The next player also circles 2 or 3 words, keeping in mind the previous ones, keeping the sentences grammatical. Continue passing until the page is filled. Add periods and commas where necessary.

1.
Tools of a skilled thermometer counterparts the diagnostician’s hidden signs. Each one lacks vision to peer into his hearing. On the other hand electrical signals wave unaided. Today tools are coming, and many vital seconds.

2.
After seven harvests too late and nova with the best, areas on a behind-architectural. Interest in interiors dominated Henry. The urgency to even best flour houses, historic. One of the state of language over Toronto speaks in a specimen of novel age.

3.
Something swirling seems to point me on across clear thunder’s source…Its churning screws downward slowly descending along the beneath. Fascinated like a bloom. The crater rubbing it out for me. Eight months have I suffered common treasure; the disease as myself…as old as a giant lodestone… rampant incurable endlessly searching…

4.
During the scientific dogma, dissection was god. People did facts in Eve. Nobody doubted men. One bible’ed the spirit of the hamper-human. Cholera swept to astrology as a method of abracadabra designs. Often treated? The fat. Outlandish stone intestines, as a cure. Test the stone condemned…

5.
The study of time was an odd subject, dealing exclusively with evolution. Of essential pontifical library, of wish sincere. Librarians assist New York State provided barns, on air lands. Head of special book centuries greatly indebted to threshing. Unique pleasure with the french language. Concept of conception, made by spite and advice.

Players: JF, HC, SC, AM, T

Everyone starts drawing a nonsensical diagram. At various points, any player can yell “pass”, causing all players to pass the diagram they are working on to the next person. Continue until the pages are more-or-less filled. Players: AM, SC, HC, T, JF

Have you ever been Bitten…

Grandma’s Truth

---

DIAGRAM OF DESIRE

INSTRUCTIONS FOR GHOSTS

NO YAWNING PLEASE

---

Directions: Take a standard joke structure (such as “What do you get when you cross a ____ with a ___”) and split up unto three lines. Write one line, fold and pass. The next person writes the next line in the sequence without seeing the preceding one.

What did the tree root say to the undertaker?
I think I’m at the wrong house.

What did the monkey who just learned sign language say to the NPR interviewer?
Licking the melting arctic ice is not the same as licking the ice cream cone.

Why did Jesus Christ go to the bathroom with no door?
Because his mother was forcing him to wear a fat sweater.

Why did the toothpaste factory abandon the hatchlings in the cemetery?
They were feeling outrageously horny and needed some privacy.

Why did Donald Rumsfield drop out of Kennesaw State University?
He was feeling lonely and just wanted someone to talk to.

Why did the auto mechanic buy the nun dinner at Sizzler’s?
To finally decode the mysterious signal sent to earth from the alien artifact.

What do you get when you cross a chocolate covered grasshopper with an obnoxiously loud raven?
A squash casserole.

What do you get when you cross a lettuce wrap with the new testament?
Course credit for the second semester of physics at an Alabama high school.

Why did the depressed professor of etymology pull a fast one?
A simple desire for companionship.

Why did Lucy (of I Love Lucy fame) eat a thousand and one sandwiches?
To finally catch a break instead of a cold for a change.

Why did the Bond villain lend his brother twenty thousand dollars?
To see if they had any snacks in there.

Why did the unhatched eggs stuff themselves with quesadillas?
The world may never know…

Why did the donkey’s mouth toil away in the fields until body and bone was used up and ruined?
Because his store on Etsy selling baskets wasn’t making any money, so his wife told him he needed to get a real job.

Why did the mayor of Stockbridge shit on the floor with embarrassment?
Because nothing is true and everything is permitted.

What did the smooth porcupine say to the blowfish?
It’s a bit cold out here to be doing something like that, don’t you think?

What did the pus-filled sore say to the statue of an orangutan?
You should always check your pockets before you put your hands in there.

What do you get when you cross a cheese pizza with a melting clock from a Salvador Dali painting?
Ghost clown appearing before your very eyes.

What do you get when you cross a water-logged marshmallow with a wise man’s blanket?
The craziest New Year’s Eve party I’ve ever been to.

What do you get when you cross a nightmare your cat had last night with a very empty bird nest?
The U in UFO.

What did the transcendental meditation guru say to the expired cadaver?
Do you ever wish you’d never been born?

What did the white rapper say to the depressed pair of jeans?
I think I’m gonna need another drink.

What did the robotic feline say to the ghost of his childhood pet hamster?
I think we have a lot in common. Want to go out with me?

What do you get when you cross a lion with a Jack-O-Lantern?
Your own demise.

What do you get when you cross a melting phoenix with a wishy-washy antelope?
Unbearable, eternal pain.

What did the politician say to the mirror in his studio apartment?
You will not know peace until you have tried my new amazing lotion.

Players: AM, SC, HC, T, JF

Players: AM, SC, HC, T, JF

A Treasure Wrest from a Dragon

Tell me not from which direction to turn

The librarian no longer catalogs her smooth dreams

I looked again and saw the name, Beloved, which was mine and always had been

Look on ahead and you will see the mountains whose open arms welcome you

I promised that day to never look back on any of my yesterdays

Dog Days of Jupiter

Away! At a loss for seashell peregrines, the fool stood waiting at the door

And I suddenly felt at peace

Himalayan crescent moons reside within

Don’t go too close to the edge unless, that is, you want to

Give a little purple time… gain a little ghost

Geriatric Gastronomy Lessons (from a friend)

Oh, clock on the wall, tick with merry chatter

The fire shattered into pieces 

Maybe it would have been better in the sea

A new blackened land, sans keyboard

And with it, the radiance of the sun

My Time on the Moon

The weaponized veterinarian speaks in tongues

Awash… in a multitude of limbs and shellshocked fantasy armor…It was useless from the start

Suddenly I thought of what that meant

Sorry, I forgot what I was saying. Sorry.

But in the end, if this is the end, I miss it.

An Eternity in the Underground Places, a poem by Alvaro

Last night, I think I lost my mind briefly

That makes me proud to call this bunch my compatriots

The holding out of hope of some November morning

If a door opens, one must always fall through it

Ah, at last, a rose and an empty tortoise shell, the world in bloom

The Myth of the Foot

Away beyond the mountains of my youth, my looming tomb

As we lay half asleep, Mother came to us and whispered:

I’ll confess the secrets of truth and love to nobody in particular

An unbridled watershed of crayola firmament

The turtle’s park remains open from 9-11 always

The Moral of the Story

An oyster opens to catch its own soul

A disco ball in a lightless cave, my spirit

I don’t know. You used to be so loving, but now – 

I tell that to myself in a bad storm at sea, as well as this

And on (or beneath) the ground… a song long sought

A Candle of Iridescent Glass

Along the path I heard my companion call to me and say:

Why hold back the onion –  colored leopard from its prey, alas…

Butcher’s hat floating in the ether

But what of all discarded bones? We could build of them a castle

Years ago, years ahead, vibrations in the mist.

All of my Feelings Today: a poem by Alvaro

The blind king turned to me and said

A shimmering promise that “You won’t have to do it after all”

Space craft sheds its hope

To tell that final derelict fornicator to absorb its final fruit

It was a total disaster but I don’t mind trying

Suffocation of Diamonds

A winter dawn in the heartstone

Blue desire without any origin

The time has come again, so green and fair, to wait the changing hue of evening treeline

Then I resolved to never eat at that restaurant ever again

The ancients made mistakes, and so can I

Write one ingredient to a spell, fold the paper over. The next person will write the next ingredient without seeing the preceding line. The last person writes the title of the spell.

Players: AM, SC, HC, T, JF

A Spell to Turn Night into Day and the Dark Moon into a Vibrant Sun

1. Seventeen salamander toes

2. A VHS tape you watched all the time as a kid

3. Three old drawings you made in kindergarten that your mom saved for some reason

4. A spoonful of undeserved ecstasy

5. Two pinches of soot from the inside of a chimney of a house that has burned down

A Spell to Achieve Knowledge and Conversation with the Insect World and its Denizens

1. And untouched aardvark egg

2. The second disc of season 3 of Friends on bluray

3. A rather raucous rat rectum

4. Walnuts that have been in a chipmunks mouth (17-23 in number)

5. An invisible hand

A Spell for the Transformation of Asphalt into Clean Water

1. Scarecrow epithelials, one pound

2. Fourteen brown mustaches torn from the faces of high school gym teachers

3. A page of automatic writing from a burn victim

4. The other half of this broken coin

5. Forty allegories of the cave

A Spell to Allow you to Hear Words Spoken Behind your Back

1. Three carbuncles of wine

2. Three snake skins, willingly given

3. Three cups of sewer water from Chicago

4. Oyster shells filled with sawdust

5. The complete discography of Michael Jackson

A Cure for Shellfish Allergy for Anyone within 10 Feet of Me

1. Two teaspoons of vanilla extract

2. A dozen ripened donkey eggs

3. Seven fleeces, one of each color of the rainbow

4. An eyelash from a goat born on Christmas

5. A live cat

Directions: Crumble up a piece of paper. Uncrumble it. Start drawing, using the crumble lines as a guide. Pass periodically in a circle. When finished, explain to the perplexed audience what exactly is happening in said image…

Players: AM, SC, HC, T

Directions: Write a sentence. Pass. The next person writes a symbol in response. Fold the words, but keep your symbol visible. The next person writes a sentence in response to the symbol, and so on.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Players: AM, T, SC, HC, AK