(Players: AM, K, SC, HC, MB, BL, JF)

Directions: Non-writing players announce words out loud at random, and writer(s) must then incorporate these words into their automatic text.

(Word shouters: SC, HC, MB, BL. Story writers: K, AM, JF)

VERSION #1

There once was a shameless cookie. A knight in King Arthur’s court he was. He had a glass eye. It was made of plastic trapezoids. There were knights. Two intersected. A third was made of sushi. The fourth was parallel. The fifth liked pizza. The sixth was lost, yet to be found. The seventh had big feet. The eighth was quivering and wet. The ninth had ear lobes. The tenth was but a puppet. The eleventh was a jelly belly. The twelve had the talisman of ancient cartilage.

He knew he had to quest. Towards the headless castle. Scumbags were the parapets, tall and grimy. The spider of trash crawled its walls. The wall was made of aesthetic overripe tomatoes. Squandered married lambs. Hazelnuts. It was a mess.

Beyond the wall was the squid. It spoke in disappearing ink. Eternity was found in its fractures. The twelfth knights tattoo of a bird spoke. It said tattoo. Sunbeams lit it. The ink grew spiky. The knight pulled out arsenic. The ink millipedeed passionate tulips. The squid was shipwrecked, space was all it saw behind its eyes.

Next were the germinating flowers. They had toes as petals. Mysterious, said the twelfth night, such garrulous aborted embryos. The flowers engorged. The knight took one to nose. Autonomous and saucy they grew, up his nose. His nose grew marble, trickling fragrant flakes. He saw himself in the precious mirror: a prescient flagrant fake. He was napping like a painting. The gold rush came out his nose.

VERSION #2

The tidal wave loomed over the water house, sixty feet in the air, and squirrel clamshells on the crags shook in fear at the immensity. The solar system turned, its desperate gravity pulling on the wave like a disembodied doll arm. An epiphany then—and not enough pages to write it in—running with bulky bookmarks will not make you a smarter cookie. The shamelessness of King Arthur’s glass eye is enough to prove it. The old kings intersecting trapezoids were enough to cook sushi in parallel. I am lost in thought, the king is like bigfoot. Quivering in the mountain, earlobes perked like puppets pulled by a weak, gelatinous scoundrel. My ancient talisman makes cartilage of the headless scumbags surrounding me. Spiders crawl up my spine which bursts like an over-ripe tomato, the aesthetic squandered by the old tale of Mary’s lamb, who was so fond of hazelnuts. The squid blinds my memory with disappearing ink and I melt into eternity from loss of this fracture of my memory. The tattoo upon me shouts like a bird, the sunbeam shines down on the millipedes wrapped passionately around my fingers. The tulips bloom on shipwrecks left behind by the mare of misfortune, but fear not, for germination and the mystery within shall make new embryos of us all, and we shall not abort the engorgement of this new knowledge, The knowledge that makes us into autonomous, flagrant flakes. Napping no longer, we rise like elephants in the gold rush.

Version #3

A tide water was coming. It brought with it leftover clams and the memory of a solar wind. A desperate disembodied epiphany of doll appendages reached out from the deep, and kept running. A shameless nostalgia for King Arthur hung in the air like an intersecting glass-eye trapezoid in the parallel night. Doodle, lost in the ocean. A quivering sound scoundrel puppet squiggles its ancient gelatinous cartilage into the headless scumbag night, and I am become the overripe tomato. Squandered aesthetic lambs to the hazelnut slaughter. These words will fade like fractures from eternity, like a disappearing ink tattoo.
Sunbeams in his ass.
Arsenic.
Shipwreck.
Garrulous Embryonic Engorgement
It’s the way of things.

Directions: In the first game, an “if” statement was written, folded over, and then the second person wrote the “then” statement blind. In the second round, a three part Initial Statement/Therefore statement/This is why statement structure was used.

IF/THEN

If I am a juicy goddess…then the octopi will devour their young.
If (C5+D14>8000)…then Australia will sink into the sea.
If the double rainbow scintillates at noon…then dew will shed its light once and for all.
If the clown explodes in the cemetery…then we would all have a merry Christmas.
If 3+3+3+3+3+3+2+1= something…then the old sofa will inexplicably glow.
If the koala’s shit comes out a triangle…then then forest will sicken and die.
If all socks ceased to exist…then the apocalypse shall never reach fruition.
If the grove cries out in agony…then the world will be a happier place.
If the sphere splashes into a triangle…then all is lost, and my heart shall wither.

THIS IS WHY…

The grass has transformed into cat hair.
Therefore weeeeeeeeeeee….
This is why we have to do everything we can to stop the near-term effects of man-made climate change.

The lizard sets its sights on immortal glory.
Therefore the shin bones of the world turtle will break.
This is why noses no longer exist.

The people in the street did not want to be spoken to.
Therefore, the art museums become overrun with llamas.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
(Except for the glowing couch. We will always have the glowing couch.)

My spoon is too big of a bigot.
Therefore adherence to a marxist-leninist ideology is a serious business.
This is why you will never ever finish first place in a spelling bee.

There is great injustice in the world.
Therefore the governess will spank the tight bottom twice.
This is why it’s so hard to find good breast implants these days.

The ship which carried the golden heart of the sun has sunk.
Therefore the flow of time will turn sideways and morph into a gravitational puddle.
This is why I never reveal may feelings to strangers.

Directions: Each player starts with a photograph. They write what it is, and then pass. The next person must contradict the person before them with an alternate theory.

(Players: AM, K, SC, HC, MB, BL, JF)

• This is a sad old man.
• This is the husk of a shrike.
• A slug feeding on pink bubblegum.
• What I pooped out this morning.
• The ghost of my great grandfather reminding me to “look out.”
• No, this is the soul of a fallen tree left to float in the numinous pink fires of wooden afterlife.
• No. This is the embryonic state of stonehenge.

• This is a doll box that’s been attacked by a maple leaf of light.
• This is a maple leaf sprouting heads and legs.
• The paws of the child melting into the flash.
• This is the broken memory of a century-old doll.
• Bloodthirsty seashell devouring the body of a helpless golden child.
• A shadow box of morning light.
• Actually, this is what remains when the flaying is completed.

• This is the face of an octopus sentenced to death.
• No! This is a wooly mammoth experiencing love for the first time.
• Actually, it is the face of a dead troll, suddenly reanimated and rising from the grave.
• It is the face of old man-tree, gnarled with herpes.
• Incorrect, it is an aerial view of ridges in a rocky, lichen-covered mountain shape.
• Or it’s a bad, untreatable skin condition.
• Actually…you’re all wrong. It’s [redacted].

• This is a fairy.
• This…I can’t tell you about this….
• Actually, this is the open window of the universe.
• You’re all wrong. This is a keyhole to the doorway of your fears.
• Ha! This is merely a space-dog, evaporating.
• It is the keyhole beckoning entry.
• It is the all-seeing eye of a transcendent squid.

• Head of a puppet nailed to the wall.
• Albino walrus emerging from the floor.
• Dark matter encroaching on a spaceship.
• George (Jr.). He owed my paw money.
• In fact, it is the shocked and sorrowful face of a wall to be torn down.
• This is the Alice in Wonderland rabbit struggling to break through the portal of reality.
• Fools, turn the picture upside-down. Cthulhu has arrived…
• The rabbit of your nightmares, breaking through the plaster.

• This tree fell when my childhood dog died.
• No, this is the broken bone of a fallen giant.
• This is a bridge into an enchanted forest with a beam of light standing guard.
• But actually, it is a jelly fish grabbing fresh prey.
• The forgotten arm of an angel, broken at the senior wrist.
• In fact, it is white moss in the shape of god’s clavicle.
• Could it be a log fallen on a wintry day?

• Dead bark under a microscope.
• No way, it’s totally the guardian ogre of the underworld.
• The faint traces of a memory…
• But really, it is your face. Not your surface face but the true face you see in the black mirror behind your eyelids.
• Or… it’s the face of the immortal sea demon, banished to a life of darkness.
• A dried out pancake, waiting beneath your floorboards, ready to pounce.
• A deflated volleyball, breaking from your pores.

THE END

DO WHATEVER

DARK NIGHT

SENTENCE BUILDING GAME

Directions: Each participant is set to be adjective, noun, or verb, depending on the desired structure of the sentence. Players signal when they are ready, each saying their word our loud in the proper order.

the squeamish wistful turtle catfishes shitty soiled torture.
golden hung maps gallop glass-eyed undulating appendixes.
the titillating scoopy crib eats exsanguinating ponderous princesses.
the cutesy perfect extraterrestrial dies meowing lunar preachers.
pious epileptic lollipops exterminate fleshy cornered puppies.
the silky crispy unicorn is oinky* surreptitious blockage.
The throbbing luxurious flamboyant smarmy crystalizing diseased porcupine.

*oinky: that feeling you get around 2:30pm, when can go no longer stomach work and dream of jumping off bridge instead.

(Players: AM, K, SC, HC, MB, BL, SM)

DEFINITIONS

The first round started with the old classic: write a word, fold the paper over, and have the next person write a definition blind.

Shingles: A dog without any spots.
Marshmallow: A trance involving a sensation of wind and hallucinations of light.
Cucky: The term for sex aboard an airplane.
Globule: A happy accident, or a loose bowel.
Kiwi: An irresistible itching sensation.
Triangle: A bloodless marble heart.
Epilepsy: Mischievous, troublesome, exhausting.
Pesto: The whispering you hear when you rest against a tree in the forest.
Amoeba: The art of seeing the world colored by the scent of a loud soft fish.
Siren: The reason you cry yourself to sleep at night.
Now: The squandering of all your dreams.
Chicken: The sound a dolphin makes when contemplating existence.

In the second round, we instead first wrote the definition, and then the next person created a made-up word for that definition, skipping the folding element of the previous round.

Shadowskance: The feeling that someone is standing behind you.
Brainblarg: The sensory experience of epilepsy.
Storkbillion: A sore in your mouth that you get when you talk too much about the stock market.
Gnarlgurgle: The way your stomach hurts thinking about eating a last meal before execution.
Kettlebugging: Silly socks seeking sooty satisfaction.
Burkenboogers: A type of fruit found exclusively in supermarket corners.
Xloongi: The place where idle wings in the world fly to.

Directions: First player writes a statement, any statement. Next player tries to write a reversal of that statement. Next player tries to write a reversal of the reversal. Etc. (Players: AM, K, SC, HC, MB, BL, SM)

A shipwreck divides into islands of missing rings and lost desire.
An airplane loft unites the continents of discovered holes and found fears.
A warship seaband divides the oceans of unknown surfaces and lost loves.
Lost loves and unknown surfaces are divided by an ocean warship seaband.
Found hate or known mirages aren’t united in a river’s grace.
Lost love and mysterious realities fracture outside the sky’s vengeance.
Rediscovered hate or obvious simulacra inside the earth’s hate!
Forgotten loves and cryptic truths outside a planet’s desire.
If planet’s could desire, outside of them would exist forgotten loves and cryptic truths.
Unfeeling space, within must be inextinguishable hatred and clear-cut falsehoods.

It is murderous to ignore the wave of a tree.
When trees wave, don’t murderously ignore them!
Where smoke stops, make sure to healthfully pay attention?
When the clear, clean breeze extends, let your mind wander and be free.
As a heavy, dirty wave collapses, my skin reforms, and I am chained.
Before the light, clean wind upwells, your viscera dissolves, but you are free.
After the dirty darkness in the water drains, rocks form and enslave you.
Before a plastic weightlessness in the cloud lightens, the fish fall apart, and embrace you.
After many wooden weights underground grow heavier, the birds come together, and disavow you.
Before the single leaden breath above decays lightly, the worms diffuse and affirm me.

The willow tree broke my window.
An oak stump fixed your wall.
A rock mountain broke my moat.
Many velvet hills sealed your bridge.
Your fate is sealed by velvet hills.
My death isn’t opened on rough surfaces.
Your life is closed below below your insides.
My death as an opening above or inside my spirit.
Your birth was the closing over the outside all of your bones.
My death was not the opening beneath my inner flesh.
Your existence was the wall on top of your exterior spirit.
If your spirit is a wall, your existence lies on the exterior atop it.

I feel like a mint jalopy just entered me!
You don’t hear the pint of milk as you vomit it up.
I can taste an emptiness of toast in a swallow of your dirt.
You cannot hear the wholeness behind fresh bread outside an excretion for my water.
Listen to the emptiness of rancid meat, in the inhalation of your breath.
As you inhale, listen to the emptiness of your rancid meat.
I’m farting, speaking of the fullness of my fresh fish.
You breathe in, listening to the emptiness of old livestock.
I suffocate outside, deaf to the cacophony of new flesh.
I inhale life within, listening to the silence of old bones.

The song of the whale makes me heart into liquid.
The sentence of the dolphin suggests your mind solidifies.
The nonverbal cue the ostrich interprets has his body turning into a pile of mush.
A linguistic fart for the jellyfish sings while angels cease inside pindrops of jewels.
The mute inhalation of a hard bird croaks before humans begin outside cannon blasts for pebbles.
The raucous exhaust of a soft ship screams after aliens cease inner unorthodox whispers for marbles.
“This is for all the marbles!” the alien whispered, as the raucous exhaust of its soft ship screamed.
“Thank you for the jello,” said my grandmother. Later that day, the quiet gasoline of cargo sang so quietly.

The forest is aflame with the spirits of the deceased.
The desert is frozen with the bodies of the living.
The bodies of the living freeze in deserts.
Dead minds melt in ice.
Living bodies freeze in lava.
Zombie specters burn as snow.
The reborn dead grow as trees.
The pre-birth death, decaying clouds.
Dying clouds, birthing death, bummer.
Living earth, dying birth, yay!
Dead space, rebirth, oh woe!

The wheels on the bus go round and round.
The stones besides the bike stop squares once.
The gelatin inside the cruise ship triangulates repeatedly.
A stone above a slug plane circles once.
The sand below the centipede boat triangulates many times.
The sky above the worm diffuses, but only once.
The mantle of the earth beneath the bird expands, and always twice.
Mantle tectonics only move twice, look out birds!
Lintel oceans often stay still forever. Mammals aren’t speaking?
Tomato soup deserts never stop moving. Noisy fucking camels.
Beefy forests remain at rest…Whispering lovely needles.

The time and place of the murder is inconsequential, it’s the smell in the air that gave the crime its lasting notoriety.
A statue or void in birth is sublime, like a touch of my earth, take a blessing w/ short ephemerality!
The painting and singularity of death was tormenting, rather than a taste for your sky, give a curse w/o long eternity.
The music and banality of life was boring, in addition to the smell of the earth, praise the short blinking of existence.
The humdrum vividness of death excited me, minus the sound of hell, curse the drawn-out whole note of my disappearance.
The loud blurriness of life dulled you, plus the touch of heaven, love the pieced-together partial pieces of your finding.
A silent focusing on death sharpened me, I minus your wind of hell, hating the growing apart whole-god in my lostness.

If the nile rises only twice a day…then the shoreline recedes into dust.

If you take a breath in springtime of doves…then the dog would fetch his ball and frolick.

If the triplicate sun ices over…then the lost lives will be restored.

If the flow of time were to break…then the journey towards the city will bring joy.

If the snow melts in winter…then the flume is a plume of silk.

If I miss the boat this time…then the cast off castaway will grow reptilian.

If the genes are fish…then someday we’ll heal the wounded deer in our hearts.

If the dodo bird reclaims its rights…then the wisdom of the ancients will blind the present.

If I could prove mathematically that all thought is folly…then the pockets will be deeper than the trunks.

If the basilisk is in the sun…then the neurons in our heads will merge as one and we can harmonize at last.

• Players: AM, K, HC, SC, MB

Comic Strip Exquisite Corpse

1.

2.

3.

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.

We created a deck of cards with random phrases glued on each one. Players pulled a card. We then discussed the connections existing between each card, whether obvious or vaguely associational, and began collectively to fuse them. A final sentence was agreed upon, and a drawing was sketched. Players: SC, HC, AK

Round 1
The seahorse with a human face draws his chariot across the surface of the nile, and the palace of the sultan parachutes down from the sky…

Round 2
Charley on a horse, racing down a trench from the shadow of the night. An atomic bomb descends—firefly landing in a flower bed, six-fold death in bloom…

• Ak, HC, SC