POST MAF (& more)

The weekend of July 10-12 we celebrated
~~~~~~~~~~~~~AfterMAF 2015 !!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~
with three days of underground, avant-garde performance, poetry, music, publications, puppet plays, group activities, provocations, lectures, demonstrations, improvisations, and many things in-between.
The programme featured local and visiting cultural workers committed to culturally anarchic, disorienting, non-commercial, communal practice--including many long-time participants of the MAF as well as new friends drawn from the network of the international avant-garde.
Presented by an unofficial collaboration of ex-MAF organisers and local, unfunded, DIY individuals, groups and projects, including Art Rat Studios, the Roanoke branch of the Post-NeoAbsurdist Anti-Family, Philosophy INC, Collab-Fest, the Anti-Business Lounge, Monocle-Lash Anti-Press, TLPress, and Star City Shadow School.

HERE is a link to C. Mehrl Bennett's documentation of AFTER MAF which includes a few photos of the mailart exhibit announced below.
However, NOW we also have VIDEOS which were taken at ART RAT STUDIO during 2015 AFTER MAF, most uploaded to VIMEO and so are available for your viewing pleasure right HERE ! Some of the participants included:

Anti-Brain Rot Correspondence Show, official invite was a follows:

Postmark by June 27th for JULY 2015 exhibit (No Returns) to:

ANTI-BRAIN ROT AFTER MAF
422 Walnut SE #2 
Roanoke VA 24014

Email response to an inquiry 2 coordinator of this mailart call
RE: Documentation: "Hi Cathy, Your shortened title works fine for me. I'm thinking of a trifold (snail-mailed) pamphlet with participants listed and some photos. Like a mini "DOCUMENT". This show interests me in that i'm not really utilizing the internet to contact everyone and it creates a social nexus at my home with minimal directly digital implications. Feel free to disseminate info however you want. It will be curated in a way that works for my cat.
Thanks for your involvement; love your glyphs.
Tomislav Butković (alias Wilheim Katastrof on FB)

Sara E. Adrian (Columbus, OH painter & more)
Matt Ames (Roanoke, VA Psychogeographer, Historian, Filmmaker, & more)
At the Moment No Idea (OH/VA free jazz-sound poetry group)
Bill Beamer (Roanoke, VA musician, poet, artist, & more)
The Be Blank Consort (OH/NY/VA Sound Poetry Group)
John M. Bennett (Columbus, OH poet, performer, & more)
Catherine Mehrl Bennett (Columbus OH writer, artist, performer, & more)
Aaron Bensen (Roanoke Backyard Blacksmith)
Tsbs Berg (New York, NY Artist, Photographer, official AFTER MAF Videographer & more)
Megan Blafas-Chriss (D.C./Roanoke artist, performer, & more)
Wilheim Katastrof (Roanoke, VA performer, blacksmith, & more)
Cat Mob (Roanoke, VA band)
Bradley Chriss (D.C./Roanoke painter, performer, & more)
Brian Counihan (Roanoke, VA painter, puppeteer, & more)
Ralph Eaton (Roanoke, VA sculptor & more)
Krista Faist (Columbus, OH sculptor & more)
Warren C. Fry (Roanoke, VA performer, gamer, & more)
Bela Grimm (Columbus, OH sculptor, collagist, & more)
Jim Leftwich (Roanoke, VA writer, theorist, & more)
Olchar E. Lindsann (Roanoke, VA performer, writer, historian, & more)
Julián Mathews (New Jersey theorist & more)
Michael Peters (Albany, NY writer, theorist, musician, performer, & more)
Post-NeoAbsurdist Anti-Family (Performance, Comedy & more)
Roanoke Mini-Zine & Micropress Fair
John Thursday (Roanoke, VA performer, erotoligist, and more)
Reid Wood (Oberlin, OH artist, performer, & more)
with other possible participants to added in the coming month, and performance scores, video sent from across the U.S. and England, and mail art from around the world.   -Schedule & After MAF info posted by Olchar E. Lindsann

FIDDLESTICKS 4 VIDEOS !!!

Here at long last is the video from FIDDLESTICKS 4!! Olchar's report below contextualizes this installment's events, which acquired a certain consistency.

This poem was written by the late Mr. Hugo's fellow rat and protege, the Bar Bar Baron, relayed via David Beris Edward's blog from Warren to Olchar to Tomislav, and then declaimed by a puppet made by dadaDavid Hartke.

Two Post-Neo simultaneous poems: Olchar and Warren perform David Beris Edwards' A Society Function for Snakes and Marmosets, and Tomislav joins them for his own Direct Decree by the Price on Her Head, Version 4.3.

Warren, Olchar, and Tomislav perform a four-part text by Tom Taylor.

Alex performs his piece Close it Closet.

Reports and Documentation of FIDDLESTICKS 5 as soon as we can manage to find time to get it up here!

Olchar's Report for Fiddlesticks #4

This one was quite a journey (aren't they all).

It began for me on the Friday night, working with Tsubasa to (finally) get Angee's floor tiles installed in the space. In many ways, putting on these kinds of shows and events are simply an excuse to get to prepare them with each other (in many ways the opposite is true as well, of course). Usually this preparation is pretty frenetic, in the earlier stages we're all brainstorming excitedly in a dozen different directions, in the latter stages running about like chickens with our heads lopped off, trying to salvage whatever is going to happen from the ruins of what we'd planned to happen even as those ruins continue to fall down upon us, all adreneline and (pointless) purpose. This has been for me one of the most durable and characteristic experiences of Post-Neo, whether with Catharsism of Narcotica in Ohio, with the Itinerant Mirror in England, with the Fiddlesticks shows here.... So it was particularly nice to install these with Tsubasa in a completely different manner, talking quietly and calmly as we both knelt on the floor, tearing off smaller and smaller pieces of tape as the roll disappeared; and an opportunity to take in at least a bit of his sensibility as he patiently compared tiles, grouped and regrouped them, placing each one with a care that made me feel a bit of the barbarian (bar bar bar).


The performances for this installment evolved in unexpected ways. We'd known a couple weeks in advance that Alex would be performing that night, but didn't know what he would be doing (we'd rather get to experience the piece like everyone else); and as of a week or so before we'd planned to do a set of Post-Neo Simultaneous Poems. Then we learned about Mr. Hugo Ball-Rat's illness.

We'd already done the Familiars' Hospital the week before, an undertaking that shows how some of us have come to relate to these inanimate rubber ids; and now a similar situation had struck us not with familiars, but with pets--not entirely different, but: alive. And in it David had suggested a Medicinal Poem; so this was added to the schedule for Saturday. A poem to read to everyone here, both written by and dedicated to a rat in England who could never read or write it (despite having done so)--and a gesture of friendship and empathy between two far-flung communities.

A couple days later, we learned of Tom's illness; and in the notion of the Medicinal Poem that David had put forward on behalf of a beloved pet on another continent, we found one form through which to materialise our concern, gratitude, and friendship to to this man on the other side of our own continent, whom none of us has met in person but with whom a number of us have collaborated, corresponded, and engaged with as readers. And so we added to Saturday's event a performance of a text Tom had sent me to play around with a few months ago.

So Saturday arrives, etc. etc. forgot we don't have key-cards etc. the printer doesn't etc. etc. etc. where's etc. etc. which ones should etc. etc. etc. etc. Oh shit, we thought you meant a digital etc. etc. etc. etc., and we prepare for the poetic chain-gang we had planned for Mr. Ball-Rat's medicinal poem: Warren reading it aloud from David's blog in the computer lab, shouting it to me standing in the doorway, shouting it in turn to Tomislav who finally delivers it to our guests in the gallery via Dave Hartke's puppet. (This mirrors a piece we had done in England a couple years ago at the Itinerant Mirror Cabaret: Warren had called in from the States to David Edwards at the desk of King Ludd bookshop; they eventually ended up downstairs in the basement where Natalie Waldbaum had to act them out.) It is as we are about to read the poem that Warren learns from that blog that Mr. Hugo Ball-Rat had just died. And so the poem became a Funereal Poem or Anti-Eulogy (a rodent Adonais); delivered with great aplomb by Dave's puppet.

Then it's onto the simultaneous poems--now pared down to only two, one by David (we did a few more at Fiddlesticks 5, which you'll see eventually) and one by Tom. Great fun as always; I think I've performed David's 'Society Function...' four or five times and have never to this day managed to gather the apple and nearly-empty-fast-food-cup-with-a-straw that the score calls for.

Then Tom Taylor's texts; Warren, Tom and I had scored them for three voices, treating each section differently, using techniques quite different from those of the simultaneous poems we'd just performed: performing them as canons, reading in different directions, following various visual cues--following the approach of the Be Blank Consort, many of whom have known and worked with Tom for decades. The texts were great fun to do; I'd like to read more Taylor aloud when I have the opportunity.

And finally there is Alex's piece, which turns out to be a very touching and understated vignette on the death of his grandmother. It manages to be simultaneously very direct--it is what it says what it is (yes), and it has an immediate emotional impact--and also quite readably indirect--we only hear his responses as he talks on the phone, not wanting to talk about it, yet, at least. And it gathers together the theme/s that have, gradually, turned into a very sad week, and affirms that, nonetheless, it can be dealt with, and that somehow, indeed, it seems to have tied itself together.

And as usual, most of us remained behind for hours afterward, ordered pizza and ate it in Jamie's studio; at one point Alan's remaining City Poems were retrieved from the gallery and passed around again; etc etc etc., far into the night.

And then onward to Fiddlesticks 5--reports and documentation when we can! Huzzah!

FIDDLESTICKS #6, POST-NEO LECTURE, FREE PIZZA, and THE HOME-STRETCH TO THE FESTIVAL!!

THIS SATURDAY EVENING IS THE LAST FIDDLESTICKS SHOW!!!

After this we will be laying publicly low for a month while we prepare for THE ANTI-FESTIVAL IN JUNE

yes, June.

In this FINAL INSTALLATION OF FIDDLESTICKS:

*Long-time Post-Neos/ mail artists/ dollmakers/ other

-things-ers bela b. Grimm (Columbus, OH) and Megan Blafas (Washington, D.C.),
*Mail artist/poet/archivist/theorist/other-things-er Jim Leftwich (Roanoke, VA),
*Painter(s)/installer(s)/puppetfilmer(s)/other-thing-ers-as-well Sarah Granett (Newark, NJ) and Surprise (surprise)!
*AND if you haven't seen it already, check out the contribution from Steve Dolnack (New Brunswick, NJ) installed during our off-week.
AND!:
At 8:00 PM on THIS SATURDAY, April 26, roundabouts the Lost & Found Gallery, come see the show and treat yourself to a long-overdue (or not) group lecture:
WHAT IS POST-NEOABSURDISM?

We all think we know New Jersey Post-Neo, but here is a RARE chance to get a relatively co--he--rent--(?) introduction to the (anti-)artists, communities, and histories of Post-Neo from its womb in Ohio to everywhere else that it is now--from a panel of five real live Post-Neos ranging from co-founders of the movement to those just beginning to put their stamp on it. These people boast a combined 12--21 years experience post-ing and neo-ing and absurdist-ing (depending on how you count) and many have been involved with multiple Post-Neo groups around the world:

Megan Blafas (Ohio/ Washington, D.C./ Mail Art)
Tomislav Butković (New Jersey/ Mail Art)
Evan Damerow (New Jersey/ Florida) (assuming that our videoconferencing from his Anti-outpost in Florida works)
Warren Fry (Ohio/ New Jersey/ Mail Art)
Olchar E. Lindsann (Ohio/ United Kingdom/ New Jersey/Mail Art)

This is an opportunity to learn more about many of the artists whose work you have seen at FIDDLESTICKS, the people who WILL BE VISITING HERE IN JUNE, and to contextualise what happens in New Jersey or wherever else you are in relation to Post-Neo activity as it continues to develop all over the place.

This will eventually end up online as well so that those of you who live everywhere else can see too, right here on this very blog.

ALSO:
For those of you returning hungry from the WHIFFLE-HURLING GAME that afternoon, or those of you hungry for other reasons, or who generally enjoy scrounging, WE WILL BRIBE YOU WITH FREE PIZZA for those who come to give us a listen; call us by 6:30 if you plan to show up and eat some so our broke arses know how much to buy!

Megan will be up from Washington and Sarah probably down from Newark, so no doubt some fun will be had afterward as well.

IF YOU 'HAVEN'T MADE IT' TO FIDDLESTICKS YET, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!

8:00 PM on THIS SATURDAY, April 26 !!!!

FAMILIAR SURGERY PHOTOS!

Tsubasa Berg was on hand to record the series of delicate procedures carried out in the Lost & Found Gallery/operating theatre during FIDDLESTICKS 2 (Dr. Fry's report has been filed below):

Doctors Fry, Dolnak, Lindsann, and Butkivić gather round the operating table to examine the horribly-mangled Anti-Tom.

Drs. Butković & Fry work on the Anti-Tom in the Staple Room, as Dolnak and Salazar observe.

Dr. Steve Dolnak coping with the pressure.

The newly reconstructed Anti-Tom

A close-up of his luv-er-ly new face.

Miss Ricketts, sans tongue!

Miss Ricketts on the table, a Familiar-sized bottle of 'anesthetic' beside her.

Dr. Butković with that other rubber chicken.

Comptroller Needleman goes under the cosmetic knife.

After the surgery, he demands more 'anesthetic'.

Take a look at your new face, Comptroller!

After seeing his new face, he goes back to the bottle again.

Hector Clam's state as s/he entered the emergency room

Hey, that new snake-tail has to be put on there somehow.

And then there was hot wax for some reason.

Hector's mane is now a beard, and his broken jaw is still strong enough to grasp a paint brush!

The recovery room: plenty of soft string and hard ice.

Puppetriage: Un-Surgeons Report March 8th A.Da. 92

While enjoying a martini with friends at the Lost and Found Anti-Officers Club my fellow anti-nurses, dada-doctors, and barr-barr-barbers we suddenly heard the call over the loud speaker “Incoming wounded, incoming wounded! All surgeons to the Puppetriage! That is all!” It looked like daddy B.S. and the Institute for Aesthletics were at it again...some triumphant maneuver called Bosch on Ice! As some un-general gets his medals, I thought to myself, we'd be knee deep in rubber, glue, and wood, the real gore on our hands. I raced to Puppetriage, where one at a time we laid the dieing on the operating table.

Name: Anti-Tom
DOB: January 29^th 2006
Medical History: Acute Titalitise and teething.
Symptoms: crushed scull, body in three pieces, other pieces assumed missing or destroyed.
Diagnosis: HOLY SHIT!
Treatment: Dr. Olchar was committed to an orthodontic angioplasty to the skull. We agreed. Dr. Salazar lovingly executed a hick-teeth positioning procedure. Dr. Butkovic and I delicately carried Anti-Tom to the SR (staple room) where the team held Anti-Tom down and gave him a haircut while we sutured the gangrenous gums to the patients cavernous temple. A rousing success. The medical team positioned bits of duct-tape around the torso and started cobbling the limbs together: Subdeltoid Bursa mashed against Iliopubic Head of Pelvis and Femur jambed into Caracoid Process, whatever the devil that means! New eyes were arbitrarily added at no extra expense. The patient was taken to the Jamie Bruno Recovery Wing of the hospital and given a bed of dusty string.

Name: Miss Rickets
DOB: January 23^rd 1986
Medical History: Patient's lingua has been ripped off, stolen, escaped, or simply fallen off once or twice a month for past year and a half. 'Baked tongue' (erythematous and/or atrophic glossitis) resulting in blackening and the accumulation of foreign bodies upon the tongue. Emaciation of the torso. Cosmetic surgery: 2^nd fin. Malt vinegar enema treatment in England to no avail.
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Rheumatology and Nervous Affection (towards appendage alien to patient's species)
Treatment: 400+ cc's Vodka administered via plastic umbilicus and EMD (Emergency Medicinal Deputizing) to sublimate patient's Nervous Affection.
Notes: Patient arrived wailing incessantly about her-his missing tongue, which was not yet recovered from the combat zone. We ignored her obvious undernourishment and superficial lacerations. The attending Pataphysicians decided inebriation and the bestowing of a superficial office were best. We poured 20 cc's of Vodka over her blow-hole. It wasn't going in at all so we quickly increased the dosage to our entire supply. Her-his eyes were then unresponsive to his-her pulse normalized. We prepared the dorsal fin for conjoinment with the ornaments of make-believe office. Dr. Dolnac, Tsubasa, and I executed the trusty Rusted Nail'n Hammer procedure driving the plastic star into her r(bl)ubber. As we pierced the patient's flesh she-he violently rejected the new responsibility and it took 1,000 of us to hold her down. Dr. Olchar recommended a full psych evaluation.

Name: Comptroller Needleman
DOB: December 25^th 1963
Medical History: Alcoholic polyneuropathy from birth. Feet dismembered at an early age during an attack of rabid, Jesus worshiping dolphins. Loss of nose after blacking out at Catharcism of Narcotica show. Received liquid nitrogen Bath
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Hypertrophic scarring around the nose and feet, loutishness.
Treatment: 400+ cc's Jack Daniels whiskey administered orally, orthopedic surgery on feet, prosthetic hirsutism.
Notes: We decided to use hair cut from the recovering Anti-Tom (which would lessen the weight on his-her collapsing head) for the patient's prosthetic beard after we applying med-goop in generous pools around the patients face. He blinked up at us in wonderment as skillful hands applied a mustache in the shape of an upside-down T to cover his hideous non-nose. Dr. Olchar recommended prosthetic feet. The team decided on a plastic fork and silver candle which were enthusiastically jammed into the patient's empty ankle sockets. After a lacing of goop Dr. Butkovic began administering a 'healthy' dose of whiskey. The patient appeared already saturated with alcohol, he-she began reeling in delight and consumed our entire stock and finally wet him-herself with wild abandon. We sterilized (torched) the piss-born humors now expunged from the patient's rotting wood-flesh. Dr Dolnac administers an anti-aromatherapy ritual: burning plastic fork prongs.

Name: John Doe
DOB: some fucking time or other...
Medical History: Extreme flaccidity of the torso from birth, not being alive.
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Maximal laceration of the abdomen sustained while beating a drum with Tsubasa.
Treatment: Staple sutures.
Notes: This poor sod was so far gone, having never been alive in the first place, we decided it best to barely try at all. Dr. Butkovic and I slammed staples into this flapping skin-bag as though we were humping a dead rhinoceros. Unfortunately he survived.

Name: Viceroy Hector Clam
DOB: circa 1918
Medical History: Some minor infections from tattoos, pink eye.
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Splitting of the torso in twain from severe blunt force trauma to an ice-rink.
Treatment: Emergency mane reconstruction, waxing of the skull, and snake/tail substitution.
Notes: Corpsmen at the scene, lead by Patamedic Reid Bingham, had skillfully reconstructed the patient using available pythons and a hollowed out horse-head. Upon inspection we found the indefatigable equine to be holding up far better than first expected. Drops of hot wax were used to annul the patient's head injuries while an asp was driven into its steaming tail-hole. The patient's dismembered mane was attached round the lower jay using some string in a risky procedure known as Adenovimician Vommar Capularvimation. Hector Clam was feeling so chipper after the surgery she-he trotted over to the recovery room.

FIDDLESTICKS #2 DOCUMENTATION

All right, it's pretty fucking crazy out here trying to keep all of this moving, and we're behind on our documentation, but here are some of Tsubasa's photos of the second incarnation of FIDDLESTICKS, Alan Reed, Charlotte Whalen, and Tsubasa Berg. (Angee Lennard was supposed to be included, but UPS stole her artwork--see the post below; we've finally received it and it will be installed for the next one).

We're taking this weekend off from installing more and performing in order to try to get the documentation up to date, so over the next few days look for photos, video, written reports, etc etc. of the events for FIDDLESTICKS 2, the gallery show and events for FIDDLESTICKS 3, and announcements for the following weekend's FIDDLESTICKS 4.

We'll post a video-tour this weekend.

So here you go, Post-Neo: THIS WAS FIDDLESTCKS !!!!!!


What you saw as you entered the gallery: Tsubasa's largely subtractive intervention into the space included adding layers of wash over Lenny's and Brad's wall drawings, taking down most of Jamie's string sculpture (how sad to see it gone! a combination of Tsubasa's prerogative and the school bureaucracy expressing disapproval of the removed ceiling tiles), and his uncannily apt and thoughtful stewardship of the space itself--organising the debris from the surgery on opening night into a kind of display, with a recovery/sick-bed for the Familiars.




To the immediate left as you enter, Charlotte's wonderful 21679 Short Poems About Capitalism, including a shredder-turned-poem-generating-machine that guests can use themselves.

Instructions.

Free poem-refills.


If you look carefully, you'll see that somebody has recently fed one of Alan's City Poems through the shredder--a different shade of white. Like finding a needle in a poem-stack.




Tsubasa's arrangement of the surgical instruments from the Familiars' Hospital.


He preserved the operating table as well.




Alan Reed's video piece There is a Table. At first the video ran on a loop with headphones, but we later decided to remove the headphones and let the soundtrack play aloud to the whole gallery, as you'll hear in the video tour.

Also in the gallery and elsewhere around the city are various of Alan's City Poems, posted anonymously in appropriate (or otherwise) spots; they'll continue to appear for the duration of the run of FIDDLESTICKS (maybe longer), and there is a stack in the gallery for you to take and post somewhere yourself. Some have also been fed through Charlotte's shredder, creating several score of Short Poems About Capitalism and the Alienation of the Post-Capitalist Flaneur (with the latter word under erasure). Alan, you are free to berate me for the inadequacy of this off-the-cuff moniker and suggest a better one, if you so desire.


More to Come!

Frater Lindsann's Chronicle of Bosch on Ice

As my brothers and sisters of the (Anti-)Cathar$ist Order have urged it, and as it is the sacred duty of every Anti-initiate to the cult of the Horse Tooth God to record for the generations the secret triumphs of our most defiant heresy, I here record what I did see with my own eyes and mind within Brother Thomas's legendary visions of Bosch on Ice, on the first day of March, in the ninety-second year since the Breaking-Forth.

Brother Thomas found himself in a garden of ice, and verily this garden was wondrous strange: all smoothe and white like a plane of marble; giraffes, their flanks flapping in the wind like the sail of some great vessel, caroused with haughty knights tossing their bosch-balls lightly through the air as they glided easily over the ice on their scaled steeds. To and fro they wandered, slid, skated, and hurried, as the spirit of their God wafted over them like a chilly breath of perfume.

Meantimes, we stealthily made our way round the walls of this garden with our arms and legions, and waited until they lie down to take sustenance and rest their arms, not knowing that we awaited them.

The forms floating about Brother Thomas's seven senses shifted then, like the rays of the sun upon the surface of a still pool when the water has been stirred by the appearance of a fish with both top-fin and tail breaking the surface, moving in such a way as to send the water coursing, gently however, in several opposing directions; and settled into a vision of the whole of the Earth, condensed and reduplicated, as if it were a stone in a crucible. Again the knights caroused, the beasts turned somersaults, humans ran about, in quest of the bosch-ball, in endless strife over its possession, birds caught it and tossed it about in their beaks, dropping it to the ice again like the pellets of the Roc.

At a certain signal, the Brutes fell upon them.

We were dived into two parties. The first Anti-legion sallied forth with a bold shout, led by the mighty Miss Ricketts, ripping and snarling, curling like a serpent swiftly across the ice, heedless of the many and savage blows of the Humans as she wreaked havoc among them. It is said that she crushed the bones of no less than four-hundred and twenty angels, fish, and leopards that day; among their number six princes, twenty mounted knights, and a bishop.

The second legion, among whom I myself was numbered, was ranged behind the formidable vessel A.A. Ariel, our Ship of Fools which cut courageously across the ice from the facing direction, as an uproar of Bars and Anti-s and Kamogs resounded upon the wind. The vessel was cruelly buffeted by the sticks, balls, sleds, tails, and feet of our enemies (for they are all of them our enemies) and soon it foundered and was hurled back and forth across the ice, the sharp cracks of its destruction splintering the air. Hideous was the crying out of the bold and diminutive admirals, seamen, soldiers, first mates, orangutans, merchants, rats, stowaways, pirates, and monkeys as they died on the ice.

Nonetheless, our forces pressed on, locked in sanguine combat. I do verily believe that our enemies had no notion of who we were or why we were attacking and tormenting them. So great is the power of the Anti- that it veils our intentions from the eyes of all.

During this combat the daring comrade Tomislav was given from mysterious forces a great horn, whose blast he was told would drive men and women mad, and win them over to our cause. And truly its voice spoke a babel that was understood by many. We formed a solemn procession, following in file where the Rubber Chicken, sent from below to guide our steps, showed us the way. And it is true, for I saw it with my own eyes, that as our procession continued to the joyous notes of this horn, we were joined by the beasts of the earth and the sea, and by soldiers of both teams as they threw down their weapons and ran to us.

Soon all was chaos, and many of the adorers of the Horse Tooth were gathered in the centre of ice, beating the big drum; and it was at this time that the event took place, which has already been carried far and wide upon the lips of every one. For Hector Clam was cruelly set upon by treacherous rogues, and flung mightily against the ice in a woeful manner, and at terrible length. In vain he screamed and struck right and left with his hooves; in vain his comrades tried to reach him. It is said by many that he was hurled against the ice no less than for-thousand five-hundred and sixty times that day; though there are others who say the number was but two-thousand eight-hundred and seven. Likewise some say the great Clam was slain by a man, and others by a woman. But whatever be the truth, word of his fall spread rapidly amongst the children of the Horse Tooth God, and among our number all fell to our knees, awestruck, and wailing pitifully at our misfortune. But Comrade Reid called out to us saying: Think ye that Hector is dead? That the great Clam Horse can be so easily destroyed? O, ye men and women of little faith, behold! For he liveth yet, and succor may yet be given to him! Whereupon the forces of the Anti rallied, and gathered about the fallen Hector; and comrade Reid sealed his wounds by means of a mighty art. Hector Clam rose up again; and though his head was full metamorphosed by wrath, he led us from the field for a respite, serpents coiling about his gleaming body.

Truly the Gnosis was served this day, for it was well proven that the Earth is indeed Hell incarnate, and that all of the terrors numbered by the Orthodox among the terrors of Hell are verily here with us, and that we are ourselves the actors in these fearsome rites.

Therefore it was truly said that when Brother Thomas' vision shifted once more, it was not Hell that he beheld--for verily, it was much less terrible than the Earth, as he had himself insisted, for he owned that worse than Earth would try his sanity quite sorely--but merely the funeral for the condemned and abandoned Earth.

Once more the Orthodox danced to and fro across the ice, gliding or falling, shouting or snarling, in imagined safety. And after some time of this we solemnly made our appearance, the bodies of our slain piled high on our wain, which we dragged steadily to the centre of the ice, accompanied by ancient rites in hieratic costume, to the dirge of the big drum. And on either side of us the people parted and we proceeded on our way. After which our number dispersed in every direction, and many heroic feats are told of this day, and many more remain untold. With my own eyes I saw the Rubber Chicken immolate itself upon the steel teeth of the big drum, wielded in ecstatic frenzy from Comrade Tsubasa. And many other things occurred, of a number I cannot recount. And the Orthodox abandoned the field, and we retired to long celebration and jovial revelry that lasted deep into the night.

And this is a true account of Bosch on Ice, given from my own lips, who was there in that place and in that time.

And thus may it be, always and never. Sic Semper Absurdus. nemA.

Frater-Comrade Olchar.

AND THE DAY AFTER THAT... AND THE DAY AFTER THAT...

FUCK NJ-TRANSIT for not having any workable ticket machines at ANY station, AND for slapping a $5.50 surcharge at Newark Int'l Airport for NO FUCKING REASON. Ehem.

ALSO,

Hi boys and girls. I'm Tommy B and I'm the post-neo of the group.

Anyway, here are some photos of the newly acquired post-neoabsurdist anti-commune high-rise head[un]quaters.

This building will feature much boredom, obnoxiousness, absurdity, and certainty for those of you that are bourgeoise.

For those of you that are not; welcome to the home of myself, olchar, warren and evan.





Other news to be posted on a day not Saturday 15th, ADa 92.

Check out Frank Zappa if you haven't.

And while I'm whoring and dropping names, check out http://nationalinitiative.us

Bosch on Ice - Aesthletics and (other) b.s.

It was a breezy day. I dropped off Tom Russoti at the Protec Hockey rink in New Brunswick New Jersey and we unloaded sleds, pre-fab costumes, 'aesthletics' equipment and other props from the back of his family car and then off to CSB where I picked up Jesse Douglas, John Peltonen and two of their friends for a 15 min ride back to the rink where we would engage in Bosch on Ice, the culmination of Russotti's MFA thesis exhibit, a 'Garden of Earthly Delights' inspired broom-ball variant.

We made it in time to begin suiting up for the first period: Eden. Tom explained the rules pertaining to each creature. Some could run others had to crawl, some could hold the ball while others could only kick it. B.s. was going to take the field during the second and third periods, Earth and Hell. Eden saw one goal and the antics of aesthletes trying to sport while honoring their archetypal character from the Bosch painting! Swaddeling ducks, lurching beetles and two-person elephants grappled and slipped about the ice while mirthfully trying to score!

After a brief rest Earth began. I remember slipping on the ice and my drum flying onto the rink as Olchar lead Steve Dolnack, John Peltonen and others onto the ice from the other bench. Drumming, shouting, and hijinks of every kind made the game nearly impossible as aesthletes began partaking in the anarchic spleandor! Ah, humanities wrath upon the garden! Jen Park was in the midst of the action filming with a video camera dodging sled-bound creatures and rubber balls! Tomislav Butkovic and Olchar grabbed a traffic cone and transformed it into the North Winds of the impending apocalypse. While mercilessly bashing the purple drum (by now a b.s. hero) I saw from the corner of my eye Hector Clam's torso shattered in twain by some mysterious reveler! With quick thinking Reed Bingham bound him up with a snake so his torso would hold out until he could be properly looked after. We cleaned the ice and waited for Hell.

After some negotiations the apocalypse was staved off for 15 minutes allowing the opposing Brooklyn and New Brunswick teams to have at one another without any b.s. Hell arrived with Crista Lenze and I dragged out as mock-corpses on a sledge. B.s. stomped and drummed out the dead for another quarter hour until time was called.

Some Photos:

Anne Percoco as a leopard!



Members of the Brooklyn team

FLYER FOR MARCH 8TH 92ADA

the big drum in a room of 200 hundred makes you feel better about the 2 trillion

And so it starts! [as soon as I figure out how to post photos on this thing; SHOULDN'T take very long...]

And my tongue hurts. Fucking christ...

Either way, this couldn't have started without a nice ROMEO Y JULIETA, [CHURCHILL EN TUBO] from hit it big and caressing it around while apparently shredding my lungs. Apparently I was better than everyone else because of my Churchill.

DA! DA! DA!

Somewhere along the line I entered with Brad Chriss' 'Hermaphrodite' reading where he had just started Chapter [5] of blue spandex of two mates' copulation ['Copulation'] with lilac teeth? Sliding.

And then into John M. Bennett readings where things were fucking sweet. I haven't heard Brad read any Bennett before so it was interesting to see his configur/tranfor-mation. Its an interesting comparison to any of Olchar's performances since their (that of their performances') mode of existance have a harsh execution with different skins.

The stack of Bennett poems/mailings at once started a whirlpool even escaping the pool quite a bit until I got around to it... apparently translating it into this:

I remember one what told me: 'craemb'

After a few short minutes, this bastard offspring rolled around sort of unknowingly in its vile and bastard-like bowels all over the space and out the door (and up the steps, [into the elevator], down the hall, into a wooden rack, on the wall, onto a screw, back out the door, into the elevator, and up the steps, and behind the steps into the door, in reverse and eventually back into the room. When the wind cleared, you could smell the caramelized stench of a slick, roasted brut saloon. - Mmmmmmmm.

Within it, this happened (It happened.): cell phone coagulating feedback, slide whistle tails, [mike gravel], bennett, lung crackling shredding, cigars, fedoras, glass, tape, an exquisite corpse, pens, markers, people, sarah granett, tomorrow never dies, old ink, french, palindrome, a man who once drew naked in front of machines because he thought they were alive,


[a;rsogiajrja;laksjdf<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>]

Anyway, photos could do some of the approximating too.

LNYLNYLNY

Eric [?], ?, Steve D[?], William Salmon, Brad Chriss, ?

Brad Chriss

?, Naqeeb

Brad Chriss, Martha Clippenger, Eric, ?, O. Lindsann

Christa Lenz

Lindsann

Left: Sarah Granett

'Tsubasa Berg'

And... That's it for now since its 4:29am on a Sunday Night.

Good Morning and Good Night.

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Don't forget Fiddle Sticks, this Saturday, March 8th with a 'Hector Clan meets Britney's Plastic Surgen' meets Silent Soiree meets Iuk Kide reading.