December 8, 2012

Day 8: Elisabeth Workman, Hundreds of Half-Naked Girls in a Time of Badness


















(click image for audio)


In her Closing Statement on 8 August 2012, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova condemned the "corporate political system" for which the church is proxy and defended Pussy Riot's occupation of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior as a verdict on that system. A brilliant and extensive indictment, she invokes, among many other artists, writers, and Jesus, the OBERIU poet Alexander Vvedensky. "Pussy Riot are Vvedensky’s students and heirs," she says, "His principle of the bad rhyme is dear to us. He wrote, 'Occasionally, I think of two different rhymes, a good one and a bad one, and I always choose the bad one because it is always the right one.'" 

December 7, 2012

Day 7: Daniel Gutstein, RIOT SWAP, a poem for PUSSY RIOT





















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RIOT SWAP 


There Should Be a Television Show


There should be a television show or cultural event named Riot Swap, in which the rioters from one area would trade places with the rioters from another area. Rioters in Country A, for instance, might have no experience throwing borscht, or for that matter, any soups, dips, or marinades, but as part of Riot Swap in Country B, they might have to throw borscht seeing as that’s the local custom, amongst rioters over there. “The War on Meth” should not be mistaken for “The War on Math” even as meth and math, both, are usually prosecuted in labs, and one might require the other in order for fruition (to occur). “Do the meth!” people tend to shout, when the numbers don’t add up. Do you know a guy named Stanislav who knows a guy named Stanislav when was the last time you saw Stanislav? He’s called Stanislav on account of he resembles R&B, dope, and bad dentistry, all at once. I’m thinking of Vladislav and not Stanislav am I thinking of Vladislav what the hell’s the difference between Vladislav and Stanislav except for “Who’s your daddy?” and the urge to confess. If you turn your back then you can create silhouette, or in other words, a trademark that may yield, easily, to exploitation. The tune “If I Were a Bell” can offer silhouette whereas most other ditties cannot offer much silhouette at all. The bartender wants the hipster to do her in “Putin Position.” That is, penniless, or less than penniless, like thinking about depleted Uranium. Later, the hipster (in vintage sweater) survived eye contact with a thug. Clearly, then: one minute is the new two minutes.

December 6, 2012

DAY 6: ELIZABETH TREADWELL, THE STEPHANIE THEOPHANIES






















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THE STEPHANIE THEOPHANIES

ELIZABETH TREADWELL

[a poem for pussy riot]

pressed by the clouds into service
Mary theoryless like a star
in the palace of life, with rainbows,
bright & faint,
in the deserts & the oceans & the camps
theophanies, all the mary parts
giving birth to tiny gods everyday,
nursing them & dolling them up,
in the palace of life, with rainbows,
bright & faint,
in the deserts & the oceans & the camps
our goddess Thinking Woman, all our
Beloved Women, sing
amongst you too
pressed by the clouds into service
the rains the rains the rains

December 4, 2012

DAY 4: SARAH FOX, PLACENTAL ECONOMICS



















(click image for audio)


Placental Economics
           
I emerge from a slippery haze on the gnomic side of the lake.
I’m dressed as a girl in pinafore and ruffled undies. Pink
plastic bird barrettes. Rainbow Brite kneesocks. The mother I
‘d traversed slurps back into a bulb, festering and sursurrant, 
forever refilling her self with her substance. I know I’m late,
but not pregnant—after all I’m only a girl masquerading
as My Pretty Pony circling the drain poke of the world's
cutest death goddess. How did I swash through that asscrack
without claws, why did my growl have to wither
to death. I’m sporting my black Irish filly costume trimmed
with mother's perineal blossoms. Love and nothing co-exist
as a body amorphous, as fetal relation. But gestational fusion
is merely symbolic, inner eye candy for Dad—on deerback
in his wet suit—who’s always hoarding the Hand of Glory,
sometimes disguised as a knife splicing from one body
an entirely second body. Were it not for him we'd still be
exchanging nectar with cave demons and licking the meat-
hedge that regulated our wing spans, as in "personal space".
Mister Daddy Decider, a.k.a. Fr. Kronos, prehistorically
ate the original little shits—obviously masked as steak
or by ketchup (fake blood)—to prove that his sacred 9th
hole was just as good as any 10th for expelling, and in much
less time, the products of conception. That's why he's the maker
of everything. What a cut-up! And while he's a handsomer devil
in the portrait than his starry-eyed corpse of a son, he privately
lacks the balls to grow his own stigmata, or to go lopin’ along
through the cosmos with blood in his pants. Or so the radiant
son is said to have squealed into the bosom of a virgin ewe                       
before Pops chimed in with, "Tell it to the hand." High-five!
I’m performing a beast brothel and am not going to freak
when amnion starts to leak, languidly, from My Pussy Party
while I crouch braying into the bloodbath of my mother’s
tender cavity. I surveil myself birthing a birdboy whose wings
are exact replicas of each half of my vulva—away he goes, pecking
and flitting toward the royal blistering crimson hole of the Sun.

December 2, 2012

DAY 2: BIG FIERCE TYGAHS, A PUSSY RIOT TRIBUTE

(click image for video!)

performed by
π
hole

with
Mel Nichols
Alyse Knorr
Adam Marston
Chris Nealon


fall for the book festival
29 september 2012
fairfax, va