News of the Week

Item: French Lick, Indiana man conveys universal truth to world. In response to the unending deluge of cosmic bullshit raining on his freaking midwestern parade every freaking day, Regis Phlunge calved a vision so spontaneously rhythmic and driven by a melody so profound, with lyrics so apt, that small river fauna faced true north and barked soulfully. Driven by instinct, and barely able to comprehend the profundity of the moment, Regis frankly elucidated the most matter-of-fact and comprehensible explication of the eternal mysteries that has yet to be recorded in human civilization. It was really swell.

Item: Live from Brazil, 

in the  most exciting World Cup Soccer Game to date, 

here's what happened:

The guy kicked the ball to the other guy who kicked the ball to another guy who kicked the ball to another guy who kicked the ball back to the first guy. The ball hit the first guy in the head and then it hit another guy in the head and then another guy kicked the ball to another guy who kicked the ball to another guy who picked it up with his hands and kicked the shit out of it. It was all very thrilling, practically unbelieveable in its tension and unremitting athleticism, on and on with guys kicking the ball to other guys for like six hours. The final score turned out to be just as wildly exciting as the entire game: 1 - 1. 

Waking Dream #1


by Calvin Burgamy

The Staging Area

what’s missing in your life

is a good and proper staging area

don’t just take clothes out of the dryer

fold ‘em and put ‘em away

that’s for losers

they belong in a good and proper staging area

an interim area, so to speak, where they lay

waiting for a drawer or closet

sometimes the wait is very long

we, the royal we, wouldn’t be where we are today

without a staging area

to buffer the friction between

a machine and a closet

between the known and the unknown

earth and sky

action and inaction

and those places in between

like inertia, nebraska

torpor, maine

languor, ohio

keg, georgia

now and then

and apathy, texas

buffer yourself, my good man

in a good and proper staging area

it will temper your quills

and hip-ta-phi your Christmas music

Favorite Obscure Wikipedia Articles, Part XVI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehesa_%28pastoral_management%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:FewestRevisions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_Cities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

BlueGreen

The Argument

Wingingit

Whirled at Work

5 Days In Dallas

Incident at 30,000 Feet

Imagine my surprise when flying at 30,000 feet and traveling at or near 500 mph I look out the window and there is this dude's head. The head is screaming but of course I can't hear it because the head is outside and AirTran has inexplicably installed engines right next to the windows as well. So I am trying to mouth to the head that I can't hear a word he is saying. This exchange goes on for about 5 minutes when I decide to call the stewardess and get someone in authority to see what the fuck is going on. So I start to push the button and the head sees what I'm doing and starts shaking itself violently from left to right in the classic "NO!" style.  I "hear" what he is "saying" so I stop myself. I  look  around the plane to see who else is scoping out the floating head situation but no one seems to notice. I look out once more and shrug my shoulders and he nods in silent agreement and slowly disappears into the gray fog that surrounds the plane.

News of the Week

Item: Area man falls deeply and passionately in love with his old sofa. "I don't know what took me so long," gushed Romeo Boggs of Whipville, Tennessee, "She's been waiting quietly for me all this time." The love-struck Romeo spent the entire weekend in intimate collusion with his old sofa, eating, sleeping, snuffling, watching TV, putting off till next weekend what was eminently doable this weekend, and by and large acting like a soon-to-be-embalmed corpsicle, refusing to part from the genuine leatherette caress of his newfound paramour. Unable to summon the energy to entertain even the faintest whiff of self-loathing, Romeo Boggs grinned before he lost his remote "one more time" in the alluring dark spaces between the cushions of the love seat, and noted to himself, "Sometimes a man just doesn't feel like doing what he's gotta do."

From the Whirled HeadQuarters Random Inquiries Department:

1.] 

These words are both homonyms and antonyms:

Balm

&

Bomb

2.]

If some people are named Frances, 

how come some other people are not named 

Spains, Mongolias, Kenyas or Laoses?

3.]

The proper concession to the digital age 

is to quit doing things in real time.

This is a great place to parse Kierkegaard 

while enjoying a sauna.

Mom, Skidaway Island, Georgia

by Calvin Burgamy

In Pursuit of The Word

Pursued by the agents of formalized cliche, and in pursuit of the roots of true language, we ducked into a speakeasy - such places had sprouted like organic slang since the passing of the latest municipal syntax. After knocking twice and correctly identifying the true author of shakespeare's sonnets, the door opened and a boggy irishman ushered us in with a soggy nod of his head. "Say what you will, gennelmen", said he, "but parse not lest ye be parsed. Um's the word, y'know."
 
He beat a peaty retreat towards the bar and we entered, in Finnegan's wake.
 
The heat was off . This was cool. All about us came the hubbub of mother tongues, from sanskrit to gallic to y'all, all rising to a haze of thick glossolalia stirred into meaning by the lone ceiling fan. Verbal gumbo. We looked at each other and smiled wide as our prefrontal lobes ignited in phonetic sympathy. "Ah, the sweet elixir", said one of us, "Neural drool", said the other, laughing. "I think something stout is calling my name", said one more - and we eased into the din of antiquity, heading for the taps. 

 
Edging, shouldering, sidestepping past poets, griots and stern-looking umlauts, we arrived at the bar and asked for pints of the local dialect. The irishman fixed us with a brassy glare and boomed "In the beginning was the Word!" "One word!" came the sudden chorus from from the room. "BUT", roared the son of Erin, "One word cannot be said without a second to give it meaning." "Two words!" shouted back the crowd. "And so", said Finnegan softly, "this one Word, unspoken, breathes life into all you say and hear." All grew silent as the ceiling fan creaked to a stop and the irishman leaned forward expectantly, looking at us each in turn. We drew straws on a napkin and the shortest sketcher frowed his burrow, shrugged and cried, "Yo! What's the Word?!". The room exploded in laughter and high-pitched doggerel and the ceiling fan stirred anew. "Congrats lads", said the barkeep, "Yu'v just recapitulated the ontogeny of yer own vocabulary!" 

 
We didn't know if this was good or bad and a little greek guy with a sticker on his chest that read Hi, my name is Homer leapt onto a table and yelled, "And here's another history lesson: In a land where words were few and stark, no synonyms abounded. Each word described an equal portion of reality, and their relationship to other words was a succinct grammar in itself. This natural tongue, though noble, could not help but grow incestuous to preserve itself. Some words began to have more than one meaning; others survived only in reference to other words. As time went on, this fateful trend continued, from burble to babble to riot. And just when every word seemed to mean anything, everything, nothing, a very strange thing occured..." 

 
The doors to the speakeasy suddenly flew open, dark figures silhouetted in the streetlight pouring in. "Shadduuuuuup!!" screamed a hooded voice, and then menacing, "Stow yer tongues and nobody gets... hurt." The figures began to advance, reciting lines from cheesy gangster flicks in a low liturgical litany. "It's a raid!" yelled Homer, scrambling off the table, and all was bedlam. "Thought police" hissed Finnegan, pulling open a trap door behind the bar, "this way to clarity. Hurry." 

 
We hustled down the chute, recognizing the dark figures as our pursuers, centuries of articulation receding as we sped, chasing the word, and being chased by its constraints...

 

I was OK until you asked me if I was OK.

3-D Luxe

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

 – Emily Dickinson

Paint, Ink

Paint, Ink:

siblings

weirdly worth more

to civilization

than gold

Paint, Ink:

liquid siblings 

hand and brush

touch and breath

attention is physical

the liquid dries

proof remains

Poe

Words of the Week

Commerical: When a business turns into a joke.

Domicidal: Living in a place you hate.

Fleech: A neighbor who drops by whenever you have visitors.

Infantreed: When everyone on your family tree is a baby. 

Car Wash by Calvin Burgamy & Tina Kite

She believed in nothing; 
only her skepticism kept her from 
being an atheist.
Jean-Paul Sartre

by Calvin Burgamy