Directions: A mystery object was inserted into a box. Players felt the object without seeing it, and wrote drown their first impressions and associations, followed by a few direct questions.

MEGAN

Initial response
I am the terrain of an oversized sea monkey, left to decay in the back corner of a kitchen cabinet.

What color does it correspond to? A chalky Purple

Is it nocturnal or diurnal? Nocturnal

What part of the world is it associated with? Wisconsin

What year was it discovered? 1992

What could it do? Ensnare one’s index fingers on its rocky terrain and begin to nibble poisoning the skin to a highlighter shade of yellow.

Where is it on a scale between credulous and incredulous? 7 out of 10.

Is it male or female? Male, erotically inclined.

Why did it find us? Georgia’s humidity was its siren song.

What does it taste like? Stale pringles.

Aaron

Initial response
Clay metal organ with plasticine bubbles. Handle it carefully to not sculpt any parts too severely. Felt moist at first, red, then dry. Sand? No, clay. Part of it was like the roof of a mouth, the ridges above the tongue. Peas made of plastic in one corner. Digestive tract of a clay man?

What color does it correspond to? Organic, red and off-purple with brown and some grayish green.

Is it nocturnal or diurnal? Likely had a day job.

What part of the world is it associated with? Either a forensic lab or an abandoned industrial apartment.

What year was it discovered? 1998

What could it do? Function and morph in a full body.

Where is it on a scale between credulous and incredulous? Very credulous to end up in its current state….

Is it male or female? Possibly male.

Is it a crocheter or a knitter? It needs to be stitched together.

Why did it find us? Forensic science.

What does it taste like? Strawberry jam.

Steven

Initial response
Desert landscape, UFO sitting on a hill at night. High technology, mixed with death. Rooster in a farm field. Star shining bright—or is it floating soul? Bedouins stand close by, watching.

What color does it correspond to? Black.

Is it nocturnal or diurnal? Nocturnal.

What part of the world is it associated with? Saudi Arabia.

What year was it discovered? 1917.

What could it do? Travel to distant stars.

Where is it on a scale between credulous and incredulous? Credulous.

Is it male or female? Male.

Is it a crocheter or a knitter? Definitely a knitter.

Why did it find us? To impart pure knowledge.

What does it taste like? A wound.

Casi

Initial response
A hairbrush fattened on sap. It is like a glandular impression in a field of honey sand. Berry-lobes puke and suck their nourishment from the flurry of proteins and nutrients below.

What color does it correspond to? Green and red.

Is it nocturnal or diurnal? Neither, it is crepuscular, but in name alone.

What part of the world is it associated with? The north pole in an age when it is melted.

What year was it discovered? 1990.

What could it do? Grow or disintegrate.

Where is it on a scale between credulous and incredulous? It fluctuates from one extreme to the other.

Is it male or female? It hasn’t decided yet.

Is it a crocheter or a knitter? Crocheter, because it only has one hand.

Why did it find us? To reveal the door to a new age.

What does it taste like? Orange rind.

VOYEURISM

AK
Color: An odd, translucent purple hue.
Tactile Analogy: Wet and silky, something left in the bath too long.
Smell: Lavender.
Taste: Air freshener liquid.
Sound: A concentrated drone and breathing.

SC
Color: Greenish blue
Tactile Analogy: Like sticking two big hands into a bucket of ice.
Smell: Boiling water.
Taste: Fresh banana.
Sound: A light classical melody.

CC
Color: Maroon.
Tactile Analogy: Cool melted glass dripping between toes.
Smell: Pine and frankencense.
Taste: A very strong hot toddy.
Sound: The tinkling of bells.

NECROPHILIA

AK
Color: Cyanish green, pinkish red, yellow, and black.
Tactile Analogy: Rotting wood and toenails in a box.
Smell: Rotten Food.
Taste: Brass doorknobs.
Sound: Strained violin playing.

SC
Color: Blackish green
Tactile Analogy: The slow sinking of a dying Neanderthal into nearby tar pit.
Smell: Swamp.
Taste: liquorish.
Sound: Deep gong & the fingernail scratch band

CC
Color: Brown
Tactile Analogy: Sinking into mud with a squirming thing in it.
Smell: Swampy and acrid.
Taste: How ladybugs smell.
Sound: Squelching

SADOMASOCHISM

AK
Color: Grayscale
Tactile Analogy: A burning rock with partial metal coating pressed against a sensitive area.
Smell: Blood.
Taste: Blood.
Sound: Loud Piano.

SC
Color: Orange and red.
Tactile Analogy: A bear cub trapped via sudden sinkhole into very deep cave. He is slowly losing oxygen.
Smell: Rotting flowers.
Taste: Strawberries in brown gruel.
Sound: The tearing of fabric.

CC
Color: Pink.
Tactile Analogy: Like tattooing a name onto a tongue.
Smell: Disinfectant.
Taste: Blood chocolate
Sound: Tearing cloth.

BEASTIALITY

AK
Color: Earth tones but with more grime.
Tactile Analogy: A fur driver’s coat with a dog head inside. In a garden.
Smell: Feces.
Taste: Grass.
Sound: Silence.

SC
Color: Brown
Tactile Analogy: A fur coat, wrapped around a wooden log, dipped in molasses.
Smell: Feces.
Taste: Raw meat.
Sound: Fingers tapping on a stove.

CC
Color: Faux wood grain.
Tactile Analogy: Like rolling down a hill covered in goose shit.
Smell: Hay and wood chips.
Taste: Barbecue sunflower seeds.
Sound: Cacophony.

Directions: Assign different tactile sensations to each segment of a dart board. Player throws two darts, and receives two tactile sensations. Player then draws a creature or abstract design of some sort which embodies the combination of those two tactile sensations.

CC: combination of the smell of bacon with the taste of strawberries

SC: combination of the smell of bacon with the taste of coffee

AK: combination of the smell of bacon with the taste of a brass door knob

but wait! there’s one final BONUS Drawing still left! CC’s representation of…

THE COSMONAUT

THE POISONED CAKE

NEWMAN’S DREAM

by ML, SC, CC

Ak & SC

THE BEETLE

THE TONGUE

THE CABBAGE

THE ORCHID

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