Report from Robots 25.1.10

Photos: Troy Yorke, Claire Trev



That spacey backdrop is 'cos we had a screen to project a film on - Isabel's Titus Androidicus: A Robot Romance, a sometimes funny, sometimes creepy short film about robot-human love.

Claire touches objects at lesiure; they freeze,forever. Michele's village people tried to cook and eat a robot. He spat blood schooling himself on English grammar. Troy hummed in the static of his inner television, wondered if God sees him picking clumps of toilet paper out of his ass. Charlie updated Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Rufo heard a brrr like the music of history: a radio tuned to nothing. He eats and eats but still stays thin. The floorboards moan.
If the song's right, it'll cut through you like a knife, said Yanique. Isabel read an ode to the actor playing the robot in her film. Bruce lost a thumb but is not especially missing it, in The Butcher of Belleville, a half true story. Sherri asked Who you gonna be? You just do you, I'm gonna be me. Tia answered: who are you? The sand and water of this land. Claire told about a boy: stinging nettles rub his thighs. And Bukowski avoided a clam hammering job. A few other people did other stuff. And I ended up addicted to words.
And why not?
As good as any other thing
What do you do, you who are not so? With your hours and your days burning your hands, watching your every breath, lurking inside?
I’m addicted to words
That hum with static, crackle with lightning sparks,
Glow Automatic
Their magnetic force suffuses everything holy
Transient as a rainbow on a skin of oil
They boil, turn, burn,
respond to a caress, their dark power nothing less
than what makes the world go round
We are what the words speak
We are what the words said
Said I.

Below, Claire Trev:



1st February's theme: Passion

Hide & Seek 18.1.10 report by Alberto

HIDE AND SEEK

Isabel, Izzy, Michele K, Marty, Michele, Robert, Troy, Claire, Lynn, Alberto, Bruce, Betty, Ida, J.D. Ragan, Yara Tomer, Michele, Bruce&Betty, Hukulhelen, Ramones, David, Alberto, Christian Jalil, Jason, Catullo, Raphael, Konstantin Kavafis, Troy, Isabel, John Seawright, Tia, Misha, Troy.

A very good poet, but la photocopie doesn’t say his name. [Isadore - ed.] Russian poetry by heart. God is good. In the solid company of the stars my stuff sucks. We are never tired of the psichedelic washing machine. And then you are a pile of vomit that the cat vomited on the linoleum. I don’t believe that sand is sand when it can be mud. Daffodils without Wordsworth. Poetry is my jewelry ‘cause diamonds are not a girl’s best friends. Ida hiding in Norway. Somebody put something in my drink. Maybe Michele. Have you ever thought about saving your sperm? Sex is so ordinary now, that my eyes are spying god. We all gonna die. Call or Die. Don’t hang up, let’s hang out. Life is a beautiful experience customized for you. Je veux que tu soy mon amour, mon amie, mon copain, je veux etre ton obsession parce que tu est la mienne. Fuck Face.

And two beautiful things I’ve discovered through Giasone/Jason:

Rafael's epitaph - Ille hic est Raphael timiut quo sospite vinci / rerum magna parens et moriente mori - "Here lies Raphael, who when he was alive mother nature feared that she would be conquered and when he died she feared that she would die"

Catullus - nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle / quam mihi non si se iupiter ipse petat / dixit sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti / in vento et rapida scribere opportet aqua - "My woman told me that she'd prefer to marry me to anybody, even if Jupiter himself asked her. She said this, but what a woman says to a desirous lover should be written on the wind and on running water."

See you next week

Clip - Misha

Clip - Isabel reading John Seawright's Barns of the Suicides. 18th Jan 2010

This dead Southern poet wrote poems to Isabel's mum!

Clip - Rufo's Shelf, Section 15

Report from Junk 11.01.10

Bruce and Isabel among the audience:



Robert Cole, published in Ambit & elsewhere, editor of Chimera magazine:



Troy Yorke, taking a break from the manic satanic glee that his poetry brings out in him:



Or commun:



Some highlights: Or commun était abimé par l'espoir. Susie Reynolds was snowballed by a snow priest and a hermaphrodite nun. Rufo is against farmers. He needs a library to burn, time to get even. Troy Yorke likes to stuff a cat in the garbage can & then eat strawberries. He has quite an arsenal of sarcastic and shall we say direct & explicit poems. They went down well.
Robert Cole began ''All my poetry's junk.'' Saw Dali's brain overrun with chocolate ants. Staggering with the bends. The other Troy read Beckett: Wasps in the jam. Isabel's grandfather's business was junk. Used to say people'd pay a dollar for this family. Ukelelelen sang an ode to Junk, the first time I've heard The Ramones' I Wanna Be Sedated played on the ukelele.
Marty burns brighter, burns fiercer. His hair has grown back now.
Yanique wasted time sorting through your junk.
Bruce was, and maybe still is, Aleesha at Lonely Burger.
And finally Isabel just could not enjoy her corn dog, with cotton candy in her hair.

Robert Cole and Susie Reynolds will be seeking submissions in February for the next issue of Chimera Magazine. Stay tuned.