ADVENT DAY TWO: Caolan Madden

VAST NECROHOL: LOADING SCREEN 

The nethicite has corrupted the life of this place. It is nothing but a Vast Necrohol.

- Captain Basch fon Ronsenberg, FINAL FANTASY XII, 2007

All you had to do was / Stay

 Taylor Swift, 2014

ITTE COULLDE BAENE (B minor) EASEYE
ALLE YE HADDE TO DO WAST (G) STAYE

 =  singke                                                         = endURE

deare father deare cpatian my worke is to staye it is USHC EYESEY WORKE

it is the easietst acte

the simpleste

it is my arte to satye

for as longe as my boans allowe

in the artehth

untille he diggath me UP

(G) ALL YE HADDE TO DOE

I staye

I putteth my Palme on the controaler and holde it        so I yronne in circles

I staye in the dongeone leveling and leveing

I do notte turne off the consoal

I am eternale consoaler

o wondrefulle consoaler         keepe yourselfe aloaft             the clocke runninge

(D) ALLE YE HADDE TO DO WASSE (A)

the clocke resettes itselfe i am stille heare

the zombeyes killinge themselvess againste my boddye

my boddyye turrning to loote               I kepte clyckging not knwoeing

if loot wase a noune or a verbe           if I was loote or if I dydde it

my boddye a meathshielde                  sheathe            boane breakking boane

#notyouremeatshieled                          #hark               

(A) ALLE YE HADDE TO DO WASSE  (B minor)

HARKE the stkeetolons are SOAR AFRYAD sedde my mothere

but thare bodyees made moar loote and my bodye

stayhed                        its raiment of goald coines

(B minor) ALLE YE HADDE TO DO WASSE 

(A)

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CAOLAN MADDEN just put up a glittery cardboard Advent calendar in her apartment in Brooklyn. Follow her on Twitter @caolanm

FRILLWHIPPER

by Caolan Madden



FRILLWHIPPER
a photo essay/personality test




Q: Would you believe that every morning I wake up in my black lace brassière and smudge the kohl-black sleep out of my eyes and stumble into my study where I snap open my mother's sea-green Viking sewing machine and sort of cast about me (in that green sea) for any old material--a towel, a carpet, a J Crew catalog, a couple of takeout boxes, some fascicles--and get the machine up humming and just start whipping frills?

a) yes
b) no



[Don't believe me. I don’t even know how you whip a frill. But I wish I could spend all morning positively whipping frills until I had something to put on and be and show. Whenever the spirit moved me. I wish I could do it on the Viking. I wish I could do it in my Kitchenaid mixer.]

Q: How do you whip a frill?
a) with an eggbeater
b) with a raglan sleeve
c) what did the frills do wrong?



[Instead I have this housedress of my grandmother's that I think about turning into a cocktail dress. In high school I learned how to make a pattern for a raglan sleeve. The cocktail dress isn't going to have raglan sleeves, so that knowledge is worthless. I hang the dress on the door, think about swanning around in this housedress, hopping around in that imagined cocktail dress. I could DEFINITELY make a paper doll of the cocktail dress. I could MAYBE make a poem of the cocktail dress. I could PROBABLY make a poem of the paper doll.]

Q: What kind of poem has raglan sleeves?
a – d) write your own poem on a separate sheet.



[I can't make clothes like poems/I’m not sure if I can make poems like clothes. I can put clothes in poems/read poems in clothes. One time I went around muttering "red shoes, red shoes." Then I bought these red shoes. I wore them with a red dress & a copy of Ulysses; with a blue dress & a copy of Romeo and Juliet; with a pink skirt & the Faber & Faber edition of Ariel, the one with red tulips on the front. Then I fell down in a park or something and wrote a poem about them! and in them!

Then people thought I liked shoes so they started buying me things shaped like shoes. Mostly those things are useless but this tape dispenser comes in pretty handy.]

Q: What is blurbling off your lips this morning? And is it also on your feet?

a) red-hot shoes in which I will dance to my death/obvs
b) "Unique New York"/sure
c) Scotch tape/maybe



[I could use these pins to stab-bind a fascicle. But I mostly don’t. I just use the tape dispenser and the Kitchenaid mixer and the shoes. But you know. Sometimes you need to learn to love frills before you can whip them.]

Q: Would you rather
a) whip frills
b) rip seams
c) stab bindings
d) stumble around in a black brassière

SCORING:
Mostly a’s: Your frills are dream-frills: so positively foamy they fill up the dream-frame. When we wake up they seem to be gone, but there are those telltale bubbles.
Mostly b’s: You seem to be able to make real frills; please send me some through the U.S. Postal Service.
Mostly c’s: I kind of think you are Emily Dickinson?
Mostly d’s: Let us put on our trashiest peignors and have a mint julep together or maybe a cherry coke.



Bio: Caolan Madden lives in Brooklyn & sometimes makes poem machines (but not sewing or mixing machines).