Designer Manbag. Oh, for opposable thumbs...

See what those mice can do with a lonely old shoe.

Thu, 31 May 2012 12:30:20 -0400

See what those mice can do

with a lonely

old shoe.

longreads: Reexamining Vonnegut’s body of work as an...

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:35:16 -0400

Reexamining Vonnegut’s body of work as an adult:

Rereading Slaughterhouse-Five taught me two things about the novel: how great it really is, and what it’s really about. It’s not about time travel and flying saucers, it’s about PTSD. Vonnegut never explicitly negates the former possibility, but the evidence for the latter is overwhelming once you start to notice it. Billy Pilgrim, whose wartime experience closely parallels Vonnegut’s own, does not announce his abduction to the planet Tralfamadore, where he is displayed in a zoo and mated with the Earthling porn star Montana Wildhack—with the strong suggestion that he doesn’t imagine it, either—until after the plane crash that replays, in several respects, his wartime trauma. Despite the way we flesh them out in our minds into the semblance of a real story—as Vonnegut surely knew we would—the scenes on Tralfamadore add up to no more than a handful of discontinuous fragments: a moment in the flying saucer, a moment in the zoo and a few moments with Montana Wildhack, amounting altogether to scarcely ten pages. The whole scenario turns out to derive from a Kilgore Trout novel that Billy had read years before (as well as sharing plot points with The Sirens of Titan). And the compensatory nature of the wisdom Billy claims to learn up there is all too clear. The Tralfamadorians see in four dimensions, the fourth one being time. ‘The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past.’

“‘I Was There’: On Kurt Vonnegut.” — William Deresiewicz, The Nation

More by Deresiewicz

PTSD.

The children’s crusade, indeed.

Picking up the pieces

forgetting how to make a collage.

The first casualty of school.

Inglan is a bitch. Love, Manbag (AKA the Tiny Hirsute Dancer)

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:28:00 -0400

Inglan is a bitch.

Love,

Manbag

(AKA the Tiny Hirsute Dancer)

“Why do horses have buttocks?” It’s only...

Thu, 31 May 2012 10:31:43 -0400

“Why do horses have buttocks?”

It’s only human.

It’s only A HUMAN.

“Who is speaking please?”

What is 5 x 999?

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Read it upside down.

Sensitive horses need blinkers.

They get stroppy in the wind.

“It’s only a bit of...

Thu, 31 May 2012 10:24:08 -0400

“It’s only a bit of paper.”

YEAH!<

“It’s only a car.”

>YEAH!

It’s only a wall.

It’s only writing

on it.

It’s only strings

of words.

It’s only HUMAN.

“Is it a human?”

Of course it is,

Sir Terror.

Come dancing with me.

Turns out

Sat, 26 May 2012 05:33:53 -0400

I was having a breakdown.

At the time it felt like a breakthrough.

But afterwards,

after the ward, of course

I have to remake myself

anew.

Rip it up and start again.

The horror

the horror

the shame.

Pick up the pieces and start again.

A collage life.

Sliced through with a spade.

The eternal return

the earthworm.

Please forgive me.

whitneymuseum: John Kelsey, Depesrsion, Impoetnce,...

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:53:24 -0400

whitneymuseum:

John Kelsey, Depesrsion, Impoetnce, 2012.

Kelsey repurposed found language from spam emails for these “poems,” which he presents on paper featuring the old Whitney Museum insignia, the eagle. The lists of names indicate the emails’ senders, the titles are drawn from the subject lines, and the “stanzas” consist of the seemingly random, cut and pasted content of the messages.

Bottom right photograph by Tyko

Linton Kwesi Johnson or was it Manbag said it?

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:42:48 -0400

Linton Kwesi Johnson

was

Manbag

said

it?

Robin Day at the QEII Crutch or (poly) prop? 2012

Sun, 20 May 2012 08:47:02 -0400

Robin Day

at the QEII

Crutch

(poly)

prop?

2012

QEII 2012

Sat, 19 May 2012 15:38:20 -0400

QEII

2012

VIVE LA FRANCE!

Sat, 19 May 2012 09:05:54 -0400

VIVE

FRANCE!

D< >I S< >C O< My D>O>G L>O>O>K at ...

Sat, 19 May 2012 08:55:00 -0400

D>O>G

L>O>O>K

those

suits!

R>Y>A>N !

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:52:03 -0400

R>Y>A>N

L>O>V>E

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:50:07 -0400

L>O>V>E

Be Safe. Be Seen. Dancing in blue & green.

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:41:14 -0400

Be Safe.

Be Seen.

Dancing

blue

green.

It ain't the EURO ZONE.

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:43:00 -0400

It’s

YOU,

CAMERON.

There’s a

black hole

in the

ZONE

where

yer’ART

should

be.

wind

tunnel

between

yerEARoles.

ACHTUNG! O< NOB< It’s NATIONAL SHITE DAY. I...

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:31:00 -0400

ACHTUNG!

NOB<

It’s

NATIONAL SHITE DAY.

I forgot.

POLISH THOSE TURDS!

ps. Manbag has often wondered if he should shave the turd before posting, so as to remove DNA evidence.

Is it shite all the way through?

We don’t all have garages, yanna.

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:25:00 -0400

We don’t all have garages, yanna.

I wanna fly my biplane

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:22:36 -0400

Low

over

Swaffam.

But it’s not on theyoutube

L>O>V>E

half man half biscuit

After joy?

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:17:48 -0400

After joy?