AK, CC, SC

WHAT’S INSIDE?

SENTIENCE?

HAPPILY EVER AFTER…

– AK, SC, CC

Write a word, fold and pass. The next person writes its definition blind.

PETUNIA – (noun) – A homogenized egret egg baked in the sun.

CARPET – (verb) – To attack aggressively with a hatchet.

AIRPLANE – (noun) – An oblong eskimo sled used briefly by the Argonauts over cold fading stars.

IGUANODON – (verb) – To disintegrate as if through the action of acid.

DIAMOND – (adj) – To appear discreet.

SWAMP – (verb) – To engage in coitus with an orchid.

SLUG – (noun) – A layer of the stratosphere filled with venomous gases.

FLEA – (noun) – A wishing well that has run dry.

BRONTOSAURUS – (noun) – An emission from the bodies of oysters, prized for its aromatic properties and used as a deadly poison.

– SC, ML, CC

Nessie, as recorded within Doc Shiels’ spacial spatula

Doc Shiels’ grand absorption

From SLAG

The immediate purpose of this game is to provide evidence, drawn from living experiences, of the existence of a ‘surrealist poetic time’. There is here a necessary prior consideration: to discover to what extent there is in each of us, and how intensely, an experience of time that overlaps with ‘forced time’ in all its possible manifestations. Testimony, modest but decisive, of an experience of ’emancipated time’. Naturally, what comes out of the answers will be a mystery that can transform the obviousness of the game into something new. Although this remains to be seen.
1. A clock face is found from which the hands are removed.
2. Each player designates a time associated with an event from his/her life that upholds the principle of the marvellous: revelation, passion, liberation, emancipation, encounter.
3. Each player selects a sentence that acts as an emblem of this lived experience and, upon the clock face chosen for the game, writes it against the corresponding time.

‘Each participant indicates the gift that he or she would present to various historic figures on the occasion of their meeting. Thus, each player in turn can nominate an historic figure and all of the players then write down their response. Once all of the responses are written down and the round completed, they are read aloud within the circle.’ 

REMEDIOS VARO

ML: A voluminous robe made from gold Lamé 

CC: A white bear who speaks in seven tongues

SC: A little glass dog, insides filled with squirming green vines

ODYSSEUS

SC: A large wooden oar shaped like a phallus

ML: A condom

CC: 5 & 20 bolts of oiled sailcloth

HYPATIA

CC: A pearl necklace

ML: Oyster sauce

SC: A pair of singing oysters

CASSANDRA

CC: A snakeskin purse in which to carry the severed ears of her enemies

ML: Agreement

SC: A field of sentient ropes

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

CC: An orb which transports him to any point in time when swallowed

ML: Colt 45

SC: Cast-iron tear

BUSTER KEATON:

CC: A pocket watch with a chain

ML: A daisy to wear on his lapel

SC: A smile

CHARLES DARWIN

CC: A hardy specimen of the tortoise variety

ML: A bag of yams

SC: A black-haired burrowing duck

BESSIE A. FICKLEN

CC: A handmade doll with eyes made of glass

ML: A swatch of soft green velvet cloth

SC: A hotel run by wayward trickster puppets

FRANKLIN ROSEMONT

CC: A diorama featuring a prairie and a sloth

ML: A music box

SC: A golden machine gun, shooting miniature suns

-SC, ML, CC

Crawlspace as surrealist object? Of course—why not? And this particular crawlspace? Truly an ONERIC ASSEMBLAGE, if ever there was one.

Underplace, you are marvelous. You are a place in which I slither many times more than I need. My wife, she calls me a future dwarf. She calls me a miner. She says that one day I will stay within you, set up shop, abandon the upper-realms. Perhaps. In order to enter you, I must cover my body with a thick double layer of clothing, and wear my wife’s pink floral shower cap. As an armor against spider, against camel cricket, against scorpion. Against all your unwavering stillborn sentries. I walk around the left side of the house. At the threshold of your slit I stand fearful-excited. Dialectical. I begin to enter you, avoiding the snickering of the asbestos tile, that dancing old alabaster cripple. And I think back also on the journey of the builderman fool, that babyfaced one with his crippling arachnophobia. Once, long ago, he had entered you. His thin legs shaking, his face disgraced by an irritated grimace. He had not given you the proper respect. And so—on exit from your womb—he had been graced by the gift of the poisonous arachnid.

O Lover, I am coming inside you now…And if the door should close fast behind me? I would welcome it. Of course, this is not my first time swimming in subterranean, no no. I am certainly no red-faced virgin. Two houses ago—a very cold, very wet, very dark crawlspace she was—that was the time of my very first underdeath. It had been wintertime. And there was an attempt on my part to light a gas furnace. But down in the crawlspace, my fragileyoung flesh had been transmuted by that unexpected pool of still, frigid water. My poor little leggy legs, paralyzed by an under-lake at least three inches deep, uncompromising. Filled, no doubt, with a thousand suckling worms. With a thousand little devils, sailing on a thousand tiny ships. Mud-covered and shivering I was then, with a mind fast becoming the “porcupine smile”. Eventually my slime-covered body had retreated, squirming from her dark interior like the strangest of all possible snakes. Cast out from only orifice available; a hole about one feet tall. And then!—that sweetest kiss of new sun—that second traumatic birthing. I can’t go back now, friends. I’m hooked. And why not?! A man might as well rebirth every 2-3 months, that’s what I say!

Oh, but have we lost the narrative thread? Let’s reverse it a bit then, let’s get back to that OTHER crawlspace now…So anyways, yeah, I make it through the doorway easily enough. And then I look around. And yeah. This particular underworld, it’s a real odd one. To be sure. No reason, no rhyme. Layer upon layer of antagonistic timelines, all competing for dominion. Specters of 1945, of 1967, of 1992… Along the path, wire-snails wrestle in the language of unreasonable stones. And everywhere else I see great fissures opening, “allbleeding it” across a terrain of orange dust. And they whisper legend in my ear as I pass. Hints, tales of some lost prehistoric epoch, of some grand musical earthquake, microscopic…Cracked in 1972? In 1983?

The ceiling gets higher—it seems I am now beneath the kitchen. So be it. Under the ancient mold-queen, with her everwatchful galaxy eyes, I wait. And I wonder. And I appreciate the opulence of the nearby trash stratum. A real swim of deadpearls can be seen over there now, little strangesomethings left by worker or by vagrant or by ghost. Sigh. Crawl low, journeyman, but not too low. Pass palpitating stomach over primeval feces-mountain. Is it of the raccoon trickster, or is it of the grey cat?

I huddle under the bathroom area now, watching those old pipes running downdown into deep. Pipes! They fall right into the abyss, brave souls, right down into the center of the earth. But that particular hole I shall never approach. So let’s not approach it. Onward! Flecks of white snow fluff are seen nearby, scattered. Buncha blow-in attic insulation, it seems. Completely separated from their kin. Cut-off, adrift. They had merely followed the path of least resistance, those carefree childish ones. Had merely tumbled down one secret raccoon passageway after another. And, absurd as it might seem, they had somehow ended their journey here, in this deepest of household caverns. And all had beheld and all were perplexed.

I squirm on. I look for the nest of kittens, for the prophesied nest, and yet I cannot find it anywhere. Our grey stray had been very recently pregnant, you see, and where else could she possibly have taken them? A great feline mystery. I turn now, looking for the exit. I am feeling slightly panicked, as though my time here is running short. What would happen if one strayed for too long here, in this crawlspace’d fairyland? Who knows, I don’t, no expert can be found, whatever kid. But I know that it’s the place where dreams come to hibernate in the daytime, I know that much at least. And that’s something, eh?

ML, SC, CC

What better way to while away those hazy quarantine hours than with a game of…SURREALIST BINGO? Courtesy of Megan Leach.

FIRST ROUND:

The three weird sisters passed a lotus flower growing out from within an old women’s ear. The flower was male, and the tired women was heard quietly mumbling to herself that she wished that he would find somewhere else to lay his dirty roots. “Nature seems dead today”, commented the third sister.

SECOND ROUND:

Hear, now, the drums throbbing to mark the newly laid spring. Here, now, is the song of exile sung under the cinnamon tree where the milk of human kindness drips uncleanly. Hear, then, the psalms are budding yearly.

THIRD ROUND:

“Its in the rain!” cried death’s counterfeit. Death remained utterly confused as in his dreams he existed as a hairless shell, i.e. causing oblivion.

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.

Print Copy: https://tinyurl.com/r6uhzsx

Free PDF: https://tinyurl.com/tjhoatu

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

PRINT VERSION: https://tinyurl.com/t2gssf8
FREE DIGITAL PDF: https://tinyurl.com/u3x3j34

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.

THE NIGHTTIME HAUNTS OF SPARKLY BEARD

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…

CERTAIN POSSIBILITIES RELATING TO THE IRRATIONAL EMBELLISHMENT OF A CITY GAME

ATLANTA

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

a peaceful day in hell

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Or; I don’t want to lick your hair on the edge of the grand canyon

cyberspace cut-ups

Documentation, editing, structure: Aaron Dylan Kearns
Broken iPhone videography: Martin E. Kearns
Featuring: Steven Cline, Casi Cline, Mattias Forshage, Jason Abdelhadi, Steve Morrison, Megan Leach, Ladonna Smith
Music: Tim White, Craig S. Wilson, The Bim Prongs, Casi Cline, Fluxnois (Post-credits sequence)
Animation: Aaron Dylan Kearns
Runtime: 40:03

New zine of House of Mysticum texts now released, collecting various collective games, drawings and collage from us.

Print version here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/house-of-mysticum/issue-1/paperback/product-24354930.html

Free PDF here: https://atlantasurrealistgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/mysti_web_compressed.pdf

A campfire salome breeds rock underneath her tongue. Blackhole-bear in some toothy extractions? With a gasp her teeth and fangs rose alert against the perceived threat. Yet even after all this, her family still turned to turnips, and the raisin-dew darkness encroached on her thighs…

collective text & image, ML, CC, SC

Black & White Print Version: https://tinyurl.com/r5fv4me
Color Print Version: https://tinyurl.com/rptmuxh
Free PDF: https://tinyurl.com/rmjyqup

Second run of the show still ongoing:

December 7-28, 2019 / East Village Arts – Birmingham, Alabama

We were informed that the nose of this doll, and the nose alone, was haunted by a lingering spirit or energy. We decided to investigate. It seemed to like the name Cleo, and had formed in 1971. It may or may have been a hairy horticulturist, and it does not like pontification. Pens in hand, we speculated further…

CLEO’S ORIGIN STORY

ONE OF CLEO’S CLOSE RELATIVES

CLEO’S TRUE FORM

CC, SC, ML

NOV 9-10, 2019 – Casi & Steven Cline

We have 24 hours to spend in Savannah, Georgia. Savannah, which is “the most haunted city in america”, if you believe the tourist literature. How one goes about measuring such things, we are not really sure, but we are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. We decide to structure our surrealist dérive around the idea of a search for ghosts. Furthermore, having recently heard mention of the old situationist technique of navigating one city with a map of a completely different city on a recent episode of the Weird Studies podcast, we decide to swap out Savannah with the city of Ottawa. We take a map of downtown Ottawa, and mark on it various well-known haunted Ottawa sites. Learning that Jason Abdelhadi of the Ottawa surrealist group also lives very near those sites, we add a stop on the map for him as well. Not content with a mere map switch, we also make a pact with each other to only refer to Savannah as “Ottawa” from here on out. We manage to keep this game going with a straight face for the duration of the 24 hours…

HIGHWAY SIGNS

Along the way, SC notices a tree surrounded by some kind of white offal. Has a great white bird been murdered at the foot of this tree? Or is it birthing out marshmallows? The image is gone by too quick for him to fully process. Strange black swampy areas stretch out between the two roads. A surrealist folding game played later in the trip reveals William Burroughs as the hidden ghost who haunts these swamps. A big bird swoops low. There would be many others.

A PORTAL TO ANOTHER WORLD

Our first stop is the square next to our hotel. A statue sits at its center. One of its panels shows a scene in which a ghostly face peaks out from under a flag. He is watching a dying man. We decide that this is “Confederation Park”, and that it will be our starting point for the map portion of our game, which will be played tomorrow morning. As for today, we will drift mapless. We stumble on an adorably rotund and fluffy cat. He rubs against a parked car, and looks back with his very best “come hither”. CC takes the bait, and follows him, getting a few strokes in before he walks away. We follow in his direction, and are soon gifted with an incredible alleyway. It is about a foot wide, littered with trash and dark as the night. We squeeze through it, eventually reaching the light on the other side. We both have an overwhelming feeling that we are now in a totally different city. That fat cat was our very own white rabbit, and we are now in Ottawa- Wonderland. This feeling is later confirmed by an overheard snippet of a conversation. A young blond comments to her friend that “…It’s all at the right time. I feel like Alice in wonderland, falling down the rabbit hole”.

FOLLOW THE WHITE WHALE

We pass a museum which promises a few nautical artifacts. CC can’t resist. Inside we are surprised to find the body of Ahab’s white whale. Ghost whale? This in turn brings to mind a line from Moby Dick, which we had heard recently quoted on the very same podcast episode mentioned earlier:

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”

A rather nice slogan for surrealist walkers, we think.

At the next museum SC takes a mirror portrait of CC, which reveals a floating voyeur. He’s hiding there at the top right corner of the photograph—can you see him? Yes, he’s a grumpy old Artistole, a spirit best left avoided.

In other rooms we also notice wallpaper displaying an unknown canal, the Rideau Canal perhaps, and an old painting that showing a women releasing several white birds. SC wonders if this here is a portrayal of the event which had transpired underneath the roadside tree that he had noticed earlier. Had that highway flash been a holographic echo, a residue of some forgotten mythic event? A later conversation with Tori Lion reinforces Ottawa with additional mythic content, opening a fresh layer underneath her city-skins. Beneath the upper-Ottawa, Tori says, there is the under-Ottawa. This is a legendary place, a place where airborne whales and gazelles and hyenas and lions and early hominids rein. One day the gateway shall open, and all politicians shall all be devoured. With eager eye one may partake of this true subterranean. So make the twin eyes eager.

A CAMERA WITH A MIND OF ITS OWN

We leave the museum. Our stubborn cameras decide at this point to start taking photos of their own. They continue to do so for the remainder of the trip. We are never quite sure how this keeps happening. The photos are blurry, upside-down, hard to make out. The unknown limbs and abstracted shapes which they portray we can only conclude as obvious ghosties.

REVOLUTION AT THE RIVERSIDE

We reach the Ottawa river. We walk down a few suggestive back alleys, finding numerous ectoplasmic remains. A goofy tree spirit smiles down at us, and we smile back. He guards this place, we think, and has done so for quite a long time.

As we walk down these ancient cobblestone paths, SC can’t help but suddenly invoke the ghost of May 68’, shouting “beneath the paving stones, the beach!”An anarchy symbol spray-painted on a wall soon confirms his thoughts. Before we leave we play a surrealist paper-folding game to find the identities of a few troublesome ghosts. One person writes the name, and the other, not seeing that name, writes the location of their haunt.

The ghost who strolls the water front is really Jason Abdelhadi
The ghost of the black swamp is really William Burroughs
The ghost of the shivering door is really Robert Desnos
The ghost who haunts the drifting shore is really the white bluebird

BACKTRACKING
Getting very tired now, we decide to break with our self-imposed limitations and look up the “real” direction towards our hotel. On the way back we spy an illusive ghost-building that is hiding in plain sight.

THE SPECTER OF SELFHOOD
We are back at the hotel, watching a distant house fire that is breaking out from the security of our 7th floor window. SC takes a picture of it, not realizing that his own reflection has also been captured. In this mirror image SC has big monster hands, and the burning houses’ smoke has formed the top of his tiny tiny head. We are back at that age-old old horror now, the horror of seeing one’s own reflection. Self is a specter.

Deciding to play the part of some anonymous Other’s ghost, we both stand dead still in front of the window, while CC very slowly lifts the curtain up and down. Later, getting in an ant-watching mood, we watch a pretentious art student circle the empty hotel pool with his camera. But what is he photographing? Just that bland, empty pool? Or is there something else down there, somekindof spirit-swimmers that only he can see? We decide to leave him to it, and begin on our night walk. On the way out, SC spies a sad little ghost huddled in the corner by the garbage chute.

SHADOW-OTTAWA SHOWS ITSELF
At dinner we look over a few victorian ectoplasm photographs. Quite beautiful, we think, though they don’t really help to build our appetite. SC decides to stuff a napkin in his pocket for later use. In the park outside, feeling very romantic, we take a few matching ectoplasm photographs.

A completely different atmosphere now dominates this city. This Shadow Ottawa is the true Ottawa, because Night is the breaker of all illusions. We drift around for awhile, eventually turning onto Ottawa’s noisy shop-n-booze district. The magical atmosphere recedes immediately. We escape this accursed street, going one block south. The atmosphere returns immediately. An empty park calls out to us, and we can’t resist. CC tests Jason Abdelhadi’s Theory of a Streetlight.

We move onwards, and are soon confronted with a strange geometric ghost. He is the spirit of rectangle, we think, the four-pointed dead. The hollow cry of some arctic Pythagoras.

Passing behind a convention center where some form of “Disney on Ice” seems to be playing, we find a large pile of snow has been dumped. We aren’t surprised. This is Canada, after all.

CRASHING THE GHOST TOUR
Somehow we end up at Lafayette Square. A large catholic church dominates the view here, her sides under spotlight and framed by spanish moss. It is all just so delightfully fucking gothic. A flickering green fountain lives at the center of Lafayette, and is covered with four identical statutes of some long-necked bird. So it’ll be birds again then, eh Ottawa?

We pause on a bench for awhile. A ghost tour shows up, and we can just barely make out the guide’s stories. A hotel on this square is haunted, she says, and mentions something about two children who thew bouncing balls. Something about two children who fell off a banister. And a murdered watchmen, too. A black hearse drives by, filled with gawkers. The logo on the side betrays it as just another rival ghost-tour. Guide & Co. eventually leave the square, and the silence returns. A man in a vintage brown suit struts through the park and disappears in the direction of the church. No doubt the ghost of the murdered man, we think, waiting for that ghost tour to leave before beginning on his nightly stroll. No doubt the dead hate all ghost tours.

This night is drawing to a close, so we walk back to our hotel. One last marvel. A man in a skeleton costume is seen leaving a pub, heading in the direction of Lafayette…

JOSEPHINE
CC has the feeling of a spirit in the room as she drifts off to sleep. She has the vague feeling that this spirit wants “story”. The next day, CC uses her pendulum and manages to reach the lingering hotel spirit. Her name is Josephine, and she would like us to read her a story. The closest thing we have is a collection of poems by Octavio Paz. SC opens the book to random page and begins to read the poem “The Spoken Word”.

But, accidentally skipping ahead 2 pages, SC ends the poem with the ending some other poem. Josephine says that she likes it.

A PRISON BY ANY OTHER NAME

Today is map day. We begin at our appointed haunted square, with CC as our trusty navigator. Our first stop is “The Ottawa Jail Hostel.” We follow our Ottawa map diligently, and soon behold our prey. The Ottawa Jail Hostel is actually a massive catholic church. And it is the very same church, in fact, that we had both gazed upon during the previous night here. Yes, It seems we are back in Lafayette again. SC suggests attempting to go inside the prison-church, but CC says “no— it fills me with fear and trembling”. The building’s architectural heights are magnificent, but down on the street level it’s all barred windows, barred gates. And watching camera-eyes. Not very welcoming. Do these bars keep the wolves out, we wonder, or do they keep the sheep in?

WE CALL ON AN OLD FRIEND
We decide to visit an old friend, the Ottawa surrealist Jason Abdelhadi. He lives over on Cumberland Street somewhere. On the way we find numerous bricks with the word “GRAVES”.

We pass by another mysterious square (so many here, in Ottawa!). There is a golden sculpture at its center. Four turtles carry an entire world, a world on which every sign of the zodiac is seen dancing. We get rather turned around after the square. SC hadn’t marked his exact location on the map, but he did have a house number. We try to find a match. Eventually we reach it, and it’s a black door covered in ivy. He doesn’t seem to be in today, though. Oh well. Another time perhaps.

ONE HOTEL IS AS GOOD AS ANY OTHER
Time for the Fairmont Château Laurier. The walk seems very long. Along the way we find a strange mail slot covered over with gray duck-tape A makeshift barrier against the spectral? We eventually reach the Fairmont Château Laurier. Oh. It’s the very hotel we’ve been staying at. At all just makes too much sense. Well, we already know that it’s haunted, don’t we? No need to investigate further.

THE BYTOWN MUSEUM TWIST
One stop left on our haunted itinerary—The Bytown Museum. We soon reach the back of the building. It’s an old one, built in 1928. Golden doors. Floral motif. We head towards the other side. It’s another hotel, we see, and goddammit—it’s facing that fucking Lafayette Square. All roads here lead to Lafayette. Lafayette is the true center of the universe. We don’t understand how it happened, but it all feels inevitable. The map game ends.

DREAM POETRY IN BONAVENTURE
One final excursion before we hit the road. The famous Bonaventure cemetery. No real goal in mind this time, just a vague idea of wandering around. Maybe we’ll do some rubbings there, or write some automatic poems? At the entrance SC spies a grave with the name Bessie, which reminds him of that Savannah-based dream-poetess Bessie A. Ficklen. Bessie, how could we forget! Our southern surrealist pre-cursor! Perhaps her gravestone is here, too? Pretty slim odds, but we do a search on our phones anyway. The internet says yes—but we can’t find a plot number. The grave database at the Bonaventure visitor’s center brings zero results. No Bessie Ficklens are listed, and no Bessie Alexanders. A final desperate search on our phones leads to a website with a plot number. We pinpoint it on the map, and head towards it, but we still aren’t really sure if she’s here. The internet site contradicts the official database. Our hope is minimal, but we soon we reach the section. It is at the far left corner of the cemetary, facing a wide blue river. Yes, it exists after all— Bessie A. Ficklen’s grave! Our dream-poetess! CC introduces us, and then brings out her pendulum. She puts a few questions to dear Bessie.

Are you there? Yes

Bessie, I have a short dream poem of my own i’d like to read you:

When the time comes
open the stars slowly

Are you doing well here? Yes

Are you dreaming right now? Yes

(a noisy segway tour rolls by)

Does that noise bother you? Yes
(CC says the primary feeling she gets here is “bemused”)

Would you like to tell us a poem? Yes

The winds talk wisely
to those who listen
and the sun shines brightly
on those who stop to see
the shadows are soft and warm
to those with open wings
there is no shadow to death
for those who stop to be
the raindrops whisper softly on my grave
and sing the pattering of poetry to me