Here I am Dying at an Average Pace

I was struck by this, this week:

I love the collection of carefully collated images, presented in almost-prose — tabbed gaps to give space to suck a lungful while performing, or to create some kind of pause separation. Its collection of lamentable feeling, it’s regret for an average life — optimal without the interesting intestinal tract of a drowned tourist — nor the horrors of arson or infanticide, and the pain of feeling that life reduced by trauma being observed by others and that the plan: holding something horrible close and making it true only does on thing, which is to make it part of you.

I’m looking forward to @KavehAkbar’s debut Calling A Wolf A Wolf whenever it’s really coming out (there are conflicting dates!)

Dear reader, I ate him. I like this article because it’s a little, odd flight of fancy that doesn’t quite touch on the two missing horrible variables. One: how does mass cannibalism effect population growth (who want’s to bring someone in to the world where they might be dinner after all?) and, Two: the obvious fact that if there was demand for humans to eat, there would be farming. Would capitalism really let us eat ourselves (to its own detriment I mean, obviously it would otherwise).

I very much enjoyed this piece from lit.cat this week Notes On The Clandestine Symphony for its lovely nonsense-world-building:

I like this kind of faux-analysis as a style. It reminds me a little of Ben Marcus’s The Age Of Wire And String which, in itself, distorts meaning by reapplying it. There is something “true” about me suggesting that a box is the tone of any sound made while underneath a bridge in a boat — because I have used the structure of definition.

Although, that example is a little more like Douglas Adam’s The Meaning Of Liff, in which he and John Llyod created new meanings based on the evocative sounds of place names, mostly English. This mean you get joys such as:

And who are we to argue?

This chap cuts up his own records, sticks them back together, and makes quite odd remixes. It’s very jolly.

This lovely little thing by Kathy Fagan does the best with the modern style of lines left broken for effect:

Hey, did you hear that Getty have bought some Ian Hamilton Finlay? We talked about concrete poetry here, so I won’t repeat myself, although it’s worth noting that Finlay does this sort of contemplative work:

Have a wander round that if you have time!

Today’s song:

This is very arresting This Lamb Sells Condos by Owen Pallet/Final Fantasy. You can catch up on all the lyrics here, because yes, you did probably hear them correctly, and yes, they are a bit mad. I hadn’t heard it for years until this week, so please forgive this trip down memory lane.

Thanks for reading this week’s Etch To Their Own. It was late this week because of locational issues (I spent a little too long in Oxfordshire at a coworking space, instead of here, at the library). Etch To Their Own was written in quite a tiz by @CJEggett and proofread by no one. Naturally, I invite you to point out my typos, send me missives, notes and diktats through email or twitter. Or even, your poetry collections, should you have them. I have a very nice little chapbook to rummage through this coming week by @Judson_Hamilton. And remember: we are beautiful, we are doomed.