The Elephants Were Asleep
Last month I spent several weeks recording segments that I knew would not make sense to anyone listening.
Why would I do that?
I enjoy pushing limits in comprehension. Finding out at what point what you are saying, writing, or even just expressing no longer makes sense is incredibly interesting to me. When the surreal meets genuine expression is where I thrive.
Crying at the keyboard while the thoughts thump down the prairie in a New Year’s celebration of last year’s harvest only mean something to the sounds of the syllables lost in the run on sentence of a sound system set in stone.
When I found a tool that could help me peek into that blurry line of comprehension, I had to use it.
I found a website that would create beat poems based on whatever input you gave it: Acrostic Beat Poem Generator. It draws random lines from a database using each letter that you feed it. It then gives it a completely random often profound-sounding title.
To take an example from one of my incredibly strange segments, I typed “The Elephants Were Asleep” and it gave me:
This was my life
Here I come again
Eradication of earthsEradication of earths
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury
Eradication of earths
Praise your architecture of aggression
Here I come again
And I’m gettin’ shot down
Next mistake…no more mistakes!
This was my life
Somewhere an electric chair awaitsWe ain’t going nowhere ’cause heroes never die
Eradication of earths
Run for cover, run
Eradication of earthsAnd I’m gettin’ shot down
Somewhere an electric chair awaits
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury
Eradication of earths
Eradication of earths
Praise your architecture of aggression
Completely absurd lines of something that looks poetic. What I really wanted to see was if this computer generated poem could create real emotions.
Could something I used no emotion in making make people feel something?
The question circles around authorial intent and its importance to the reader. More simply, is what a reader or listener feels more important than what the writer or creator intended or had in mind while creating the piece of art, article, poem, or anything else?
The results were most people just thought it was “yet another strange John segment”. However, my Mom did comment on how much stranger those segments seemed.
What does that mean?
I don’t really know what it means. I do find it interesting how people will always find different meanings from things. I don’t think it’s possible to say one is more important than the other.
To me, what’s most important is that we take a moment to feel anything at all.
Listen to Mother’s Day, Writing, and Malcolm X:
Written by John Bauer of Comatose.
Comatose is a weekly series of amusing anecdotes, insightful commentary, and pithy stories. Every week three contributors are featured in short segments. The segments, though often unrelated, are tied together using music and narration to set the scene. Relax and enjoy the ride while listening to topics as varied as love, birthdays, and reciprocity.
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