Saturday, October 02, 2004
puckoon: 1963
belfast is a big city. at one time it was quite small, even worse, there has been an occasion when there was no belfast city at all. thank heavens, those days are gone n there is now a plentiful supply of belfast. ugly n grey it spreads out, drab, dull, lacklustre streets, crammed with the same reptitive, faceless, uninspired, profit-taking, soul-breaking buildings. the only edifices worth seeing r those erected long b4 the coming of the local council n the builder. beautiful buildings seem to taunt them, 'pull them down!' was the cry. 'the highway must go thru.' the world, beauty, tranquility n fresh air were being sacrificed to a lump of compressed tin with a combustion ngine. stately trees were felled as a 'danger to lightning', and when one questioned them the ans came from a faceless thing called 'spokesman said'. here, safe in its bureaucratic cocoon, we had the new vandalism of authority, power w/o conscience or taste; as it was with other cities, for now n ever after it seemed. in this metropolis lived many citizens. most of them poor, with an additional burden, nowadays it costs more to b poor than it used to b.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
plug me in, two time
and did yer ever get kissed, i wonder/ ever get kissed so bad
did yer?
did the world slip away for a second/ just there as the lips touched your own/ n the stickiness clung/ n did the stickiness cling in shreads/ in tiny shreds of spit that caught each on other/ like a sharing, like a secret, like a cradle?
like a cradle stretched as your mouths separat, just for a moment/ and then close again/ gathering the mucus/ gathering the other person's lips into your own/ sealing the holes/ n the way the tongue of one touches the tongue of the other, making a filament/ like a small lamp being lit in the mouth/ a soft wet buzz of electricity
did yer ever get that tingle going on in there/ did u?
and the sudden flood of the pink light, from the tongues' contact/ seeping upwards into the brain/ and the ay the dark flashes in your head just then, the dance of the static/ n the charge of it/ the input n the output of it/ n the charge of the kiss. slithering
did yer/ did u ever get a kiss like that?
oh yeah, maybe u did/ just abt maybe n perhaps u did/ but did u ever see all of it calibrated in your lover's eyes/ caught, traced, calibrated n burnt/ right there in the graphic fuckin' equaliser of your lover's eyes?
ah well then, u missed out
pimp! -- the board game
this is by far the most complete of all the items on exhibit on the Museum of Fragments. it was dated and copyrighted in 1997. all of the more obscure terms can b found in any gd dictionary of the late twentieth century. (see addendum* for further, more speculative remarks.)
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(text begins)
CONTENTS
- 1 game board, depicting a stylized map of the Soho area of London; 4 playing pieces (Pimp, Prostitute, Punter, Pig); $100,000 in play money, of various denominations (not to b used as legal tender); 30 assorted Pleasure cards; 30 assorted Punishment cards; 30 assorted Fetish cards; 4 Sexual Stamina Charts; 2 dice (6-sided, 12-sided); 1 instruction leaflet.
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INTRODUCTION
- the game of Pimp! is to b played by 4 players, who choose by luck of the draw to play either the Pimp, the Pro, the Punter or the Pig.
- each player has a diff objective, which they may undertake alone, or by forming alliances with other players.
- movement ard the board is governed by the throw of the dice, or by utilizing any stamina pts they may have won during play.
- the winner is the first player to reach their given objective, or to find themselves the last player alive.
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RULES OF PLAY
- players begin the game at their designated starting locations, as marked on the board: the Pimp at the Pad; the Pro on the Street Corner; the Punter at the Pub; the Pig at the Police Station.
- each player starts the game with the following amt of money: the Pimp receives $100; the Pro $50; the Punter $200; the Pig $1000. the rest of the money forms the Bank. money can b lost or gained during play, depending on the skill of the player. if any player's resources dwindle to zero, they r deemed to b out of the game, unless they can persuade any of the other players to lend them money.
- all players receive 6 sexual stamina points to begin with. these may b supplemented by certain Pleasure cards, or ele gained by visting the Drug Dealer's pad. if a player's sexual stamina drops to zero, they r deemed out of the game.
- all players receive 2 Fetish cards to begin with. others may b gained during play.
- Pleasure and Punishment cards r to b taken up whenever a player lands on the designated squares (the tel booths), or when forced to take them by another player. all actions described on these cards must b undertaken immediately, unless the player can 'buy' his or her way out of it. Fetish cards, however, can b used as desired, as long as the player has the required sexual stamina.
- to successfully complete an objective, the winning player must get back safely to the correct starting location.
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OBJECTIVES
- the Pimp must take all the money off ALL the other players, w/o being arrested by the Pig. the Pro must not leave him; the Punter must not beat him in combat.
- the Pro must get thru the night with her initial resources intact, n w/o being arrested by the Pig. she must not fall in love with the Punter, or get beaten up by the Pimp.
- the Punter must have sex with the Pro, w/o being arrested by the Pig. he must try to get the Pro to fall in love with him, thereby not having to pay her. he must not b beaten in combat by the Pimp.
- the Pig must arrest the Pimp. he must receive a bribe off the Punter. he must have sex with the Pro, w/o paying.
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EXOTICA
- Sexually Transmitted Diseases: if infected, a player will lose an escalating no of stamina pts each turn. cures can b found at the Drug Dealer's pad, or from the All-Night Chemist's.
- sex w/o a Condom card increases the risk of disease by 10 pts.
- various illegal drugs can b purchased from the Drug Dealer. if a player experiences a Bad Trip, 2 stamina pts r lost. poppers increase the strength of Pleasure cards by 5 pts.
- any player caught in possession of drugs by the Pig loses 6 pts, unless they give the drugs to the Pig as a bribe.
- if the Punter is spotted by his Wife, he loses 5 pts.
- the Pimp must b male. the Pig must b male. the Pro may b male or female, or transsexual. the Punter may b male or female. if the Punter is male, n the Pro is male, the Punter is deemed to b Homosexual. Homosexuals play the game at a greater risk.
- if the Pimp is killed, any other player can become the new Pimp, except for the Pro, for whom there can b no escape.
- the Pig may never b arrested, even for murder.
- any player surviving Fetish Booth #7 is deemed to have won the game, even if their overall objective is not yet reached.
(text ends)
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*appendum. the actual 'game', to which the above leaflet offers instruction, has never been found, nor any mention of it. this has led to certain theories stating that the game was meant to b played 'for real' on the streets of Soho. some commentators have even speculated that the instructions refer not to a game at all, but to real life.
Monday, September 27, 2004
was on the way home when i happened to tune to 98.7 n heard this female dj explaining,
'idiom - A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements'
(she then repeats the meaning just in case her listeners didnt quite catch her.)
'n an example will be 'being well travelled, he is well acquainted with canadian (at this pt in time, i was frantically trying to come up with idioms starting with the word 'canadian' n since i cldnt, i thot i was quite stupid.) idioms.'
wtf?
well acquainted w canadian idioms?
how does the above sentence illustrate the meaning of idiom?
i mean, i can simply replace the word 'idioms' with.....
canadian roadsigns?
canadian folklores?
canadian bastards?
Sunday, September 26, 2004
eng 101.
--
metaphorazine -- jeff noon
johnny takes metaphorazine. every clockwork day. says it burns his house down, with a haircut made of wings. u could say he eats a problem. u could say he stokes his thrill. every clingfilm evening, climb inside a little pill. intoxicate the feelings. play those skull-piano blues. johnny takes metaphorazine.
he's a dog.
lucy takes simileum. thats not half as bad. shes only like a moon gone silthering, upside-down the sky. like a tidal wave of perfume, like a spillage in the heart. with eyes stuck tight like envelopes, n posted like a teardrop. like a syringe, of teardrops. like a dripfeed aphrodisiac, swallowed like a cadillac, lucy takes simileum.
she's like a dog.
grapham takes litotezol. brain the size of particles, that cloud inside of parasites, that live inside the paradise of a pair of lice. he's a surge of melted ice cream, when he makes love like a ghost. sparkles like a graveyard, but never gets the urge n then sings Hallelujah! Hallelujah! like a turgid flatfoot dirge. graham takes litotezol.
he's a small dog.
josie takes hyperbolehyde. ten thousand every second. c her face go touch the sky, when she climbs that rollercoaster high. that mouth! such bliss! all the planets n the satellites ake their home inside her lips. its a 4-min warning! atomic tongue! notrokisserene! josie takes hyperbolehyde.
she's a big dog.
alanis takes alliterene. it drags a deeper ditch. n all her dirty dealings display a debonair disdain. her dynamo is dangerous, ditto her dusky dreams. dummies devise diverse deluxe debacles down dingy darkened detox driveways. alanis takes alliterene.
she's a dead dog, ya dig?
desmond takes onomatopiates.
he's a woof woff
sylvia takes oxymoronx. she's got the teenage menopause. gets her winter-sugar somersaults from sniffing non-stick glue. she wears the v-necked throusers, in the blind-eye looking-glass. does the amputated tango, n then finds herself quite lost, in the new old English style! sylvia takes oxymoronx.
she's a cat dog.
but johnny takes metaphorazine. look at those busted street lamp eyes, that midnight clockface of a smile. that corrugated tinflesh roof of a brow. the knife, fork n spoon of his fingers, the sheer unbrella of the man's hairdo. the coldwater bedsit of his brain. he's a fanfare of atoms, i tell u! n u know that last, exquisite mathematical formula rubbed off the blackboard b4 the long summer hols begin? well, that's him. speeding language thru the veins, johnny takes metaphorazine.
he's a real dog.
--
eats shoots n leaves -- lynn truss
'but colons n semicolons - well, they r in a different league, my dear! they give such lift! assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter n lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of-bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming u have enough additional things to say, although in the end u may run out of ideas n then u have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over n u run out of steam anyway n then eventually with the help of 3 dots ... u stop.'
was going thru my usual intro today:
'hi, my name is florence n im calling from ac neilson. we r currently conducting a survey abt tv viewership so may i speak to the grocery buyer of ur household, pls?'
'sorry but we dont buy groceries.'
n right on cue, his baby started crying.
must b from the hunger.
i swear, hilarious.
----joraffe----
