12 Surreal Days of Christmas
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Twelve exquisite corpses,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Eleven unexpected juxtapositions,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Ten menageries revolting,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Nine photos of Rose Sélavy,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Eight treacherous images,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Seven surrealist manifestos,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Six soluble fishes,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Five urinals,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Four fur-lined teacups,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Three found objects,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Two readymades,
And a mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
A mustache like Salvador Dali’s.
Surrealtweets (2010)
Surrealtweets (2011 through June)
Newspaper Poems
Austin Kleon’s newspaper poems, made by blacking out newspapers but leaving certain words still visible, a clever variation on Dadaist cut-up technique, check it out at
This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven
Well, it was a surprise to me as well, but today I was taken up bodily into heaven. And, the even better news is that there’s free wireless internet access in heaven. So here I am blogging from heaven. And let me clear up one misconception. My clothes came with me. All those empty trousers and shirts you see around—not an accurate representation of what actually happens in heaven.
Other good things about heaven: Jesus tweets. And He has made sure that in heaven, twitter is never over capacity. And heaven makes sure that all ads are blocked on Facebook.
My only regret is that I missed Kristina’s Rapture Day Yard Sale. Once you get up into heaven, it’s hard to get back to town for a yard sale.
Oh, and the Pixies were right: God is seven.
A Surreal Solstice
Twas solstice eve and through the surreal house, all the creatures were stirring, penguins and ants, aardvarks and saints.
The vuvuzelas were stacked by the chimney with care, ready for blowing and buzzing to cheer St. Chrysalis when he trips down the stairs.
The children cast aspersions, and ate crinkled corn, and some danced like St. Elvis, and some like Rip Torn
And I in my bowler, and my wife in her cape, were waltzing and weaving, napping and knitting, hither and yon, till nowhere was safe
Out on the lawn, we heard such a platter, as if St Elvis had come, to help us with our hip shaking and vuvuzela noise making and matter.
We hoped for St. Elvis, with his white jumpsuit a tatter, looking much fatter, to sing solstice songs like Hound Dog and Return to Sender.
The children sprayed us with cognac, and the vulvuzelas buzzed on their own, and a dozen tiny elven Elvises, leaped out of the phone.
A surreal Christmas to all, sang each miniature Elvis, with a very real shake of each miniature pelvis, penguins dancing in time.
All soon were shaking and singing, each fur-covered spoon, and each fur covered cup, wishing us a surreal solstice and a very long night.
SAD Song List
Seasonal Affective Disorder season has been upon us for awhile, and I’m a little late with my annual SAD Song List (Blue Songs for the Seasonally Affected), but the day of the winter solstice seemed an appropriate time to celebrate (although, celebrate may be too cheery a word) the seasonal mood through songs of despair, sadness, heartbreak, loss, self-pity, and general hopelessness. Some might see the solstice as the turning point of winter, as the moment when we leave behind the darkness and look toward the light of spring. These people are called optimists, and they might as well stop reading now, as this post is for the rest of us, the SAD ones who know that the solstice is just another step in the long march through the deeply depressing winter season. The SAD season doesn’t really end until, well, it’s too depressing to think about it actually, but let’s just say that, in Maine anyway, winter may last until it’s finally chased away by July 4th fireworks.
My approach to SAD season is not so much to buoy myself with false cheer but to really wallow in the sadness by revisiting my favorite really depressing songs. So, plug in your full-spectrum lights and take your vitamin D supplements, and brace yourself.
As always, it’s good to start the list with a couple of songs about the cause of SAD, the loss of light in winter (or, at least, more generally about darkness and the lack of sunlight, literal and metaphorical).
Lenny Kravitz, “Ain’t No Sunshine” (cover of the Bill Withers original)
Best Coast, “When the Sun Don’t Shine”
Jamey Johnson, “Even the Skies Are Blue”
According to Jamey Johnson, not even God is immune to SAD: “God must by crying / because even the skies are blue.”
Along with Leonard Cohen, Richard Thompson is one of the great sources of SAD songs. How bad can it get? Well, when all your dreams have withered and died, that seems to be as low as you can get.
Love lost is one of the greatest sources of blueness, and nobody does the lost love blues better than Bessie Smith. This is a nice cover of her “Empty Bed Blues” by Anne McCue:
I’m in a Best Coast sort of blue mood, it seems. As Best Coast knows, there’s only one thing worse than an empty bed—and that’s a bed that’s not empty. As they note in and “Wish He was You,” “It’s 6 am I’m in someone else’s bed / Oh I wish he was you”
Two standard themes of sad songs are lost love and unrequited love, and the brilliance of this song by A Fine Frenzy is to combine the two, a sad song of lost unrequited love: A Fine Frenzy, “Almost Lover”
And my favorite SAD song of the year has to be Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain,” which consists of one long painful guitar solo by Eddie Hazel. “Play it like someone told you your mama just died,” George Clinton told Hazel at the recording session (at least according to legend), and Hazel plays it like everybody just died. This is Michael Hampton playing guitar in this live version.
Autumn Porridge Cows
For Porridge Cow afficionados, fall is the favorite time of the year, as Porridge Cow farmers begin to gather in their porridge cows from the fields where they have foraged throughout the summer season. Since porridge cows move very slowly (most glaciers would beat a porridge cow in a race), farmers do not drive their porridge cows home in herds. That would take years. Rather, they load them on trucks or on trailers, and haul them in from the fields. While the farmers are preparing their porridge cow barns for long winter habitation, they often brighten the sides of roadways with large groups of porridge cows awaiting the readying of the barn.
It is indeed a beautiful sight. The ignorant have often stopped and snickered at such sights, encumbered by the false belief that they have discovered porridge cows mating. The positioning of one porridge cow atop another is merely for convenience of storage and not for the purposes of copulation. Porridge cows are born pregnant and thus do not engage in sexual activity, which is fortunate, as there’s little chance that a porridge cow in the wild would live long enough (given the slow pace of their movements) even to get remotely close to another porridge cow, much less close enough to initiate sexual contact.
So, let’s just enjoy the porridge cows for what they are–a wonderful part of the autumn landscape.
MacPalin, or, The Scott(Brown)ish Tragedy
MacPalin, or the Scott(Brown)ish Tragedy, written by ShakesPalin, first performed on the stage of Twitter.
From the Boston Globe: Sarah Palin, in an unexpected poke at Senator Scott Brown, said that while Massachusetts may “put up with’’ the GOP lawmaker and “some of the antics,’’ Republicans in states across the nation wouldn’t tolerate his more moderate views and compromising ways. “But up here in Alaska, and so many places across the US, where we have a pioneering, independent spirit, and we have an expectation that our representatives in D.C. will respect the will of the people and the intelligence of the people, well, up here, we wouldn’t stand for that,’’ she said.
Let the play begin.
MacPalin, or The Scott(Brown)ish Tragedy, a play of pioneering independent spirit
MacPalin: Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural antics do breed Scott MacBrown’s unnatural troubles: liberal leanings, weak compromises.
MacPalin: I have given suck, know tender feeling 2 the babe, but I’d pluck my nipple from boneless gums before voting with Democrats.
MacPalin: Scott MacBrown, screw your courage to the sticking-place and respect the will of the people.
MacPalin: Oh, Scott MacBrown, I do fear thy nature is too full of the milk o’ human kindess.
MacPalin: But up here in Alaska, our deaf pillows discharge no secrets. We have a pioneering spirit, bloody, bold, and resolute.
MacPalin: “Unsex me here,” Scott MacBrown cries, and the real Republican replies, “Already been done!”
MacPalin: Laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm MacPalin.
MacBrown: I was not of woman born but birthed by Mama Grizzly, and untimely ripped from her den.
MacBrown: Though grizzly born, I’m 100% American and have US birth certificate (just looking ahead to 2016, or 2012—too soon?)
MacPalin: Lay on, MacBrown, and damned be he who first cries, “Pls refudiate!”
All exit, pursued by a mama grizzly bear.
Curtain
Karen’s Song
For Karen’s birthday, I commissioned a song for her, written and performed by the very funny Trevor Strong of the Arrogant Worms. Here’s a link to the song:
And Trevor would be more than happy to write a song for you or for someone you know (or even for someone you don’t know). Check out the Trevor Strong website.
