can boreal #6
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
1/88
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
2/88
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
3/88
INTRODUCTION
This is the sixth issue ofCan Boreal,a pamphlet devoted
to Visual poetry, Concrete poetry, abstract draws,
Leerism, Experimental poetry, Asemic poetry, orthodox
poetry, altered texts, prose, collages and anything else
I might feel like enclosing in an unsuspected future.Can Boreal is an anagram of Barcelona, the city
where I live (survive). It means dog from the north.
Dog is anagram of God. There is no God, but plenty
of stray dogs. Or so is what I think.
Dogs are poec. Men are poec. Life, in general, is poec.
Tragically. Art is a way to kill me. A sort of prevenve
murder, if you want, as me will take its revenge upon us
and we will not leave this planet alive.
Poetry shows a desperate aachment to life. A love
for life. So, killing me while making poetry (or art in
general) is one of those things rather diffi cult to explain
in a raonal way. From a distance, it might appear to
be like the howling of the wolves to the full moon. One
could say: Stop howling and enjoy life! But, I guess it is
not that simple.This issue is a trident, trio, threesome (you name it)
with The Blaster, Darlene Altschul and myself.
For the eding of this issue, I counted on the invaluable
help of Darlene Altschul (USA).
I hope that every recipient of this issue will enjoy the
reading.
John Mountain
August 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
4/88
4
s editor, working with the arsc stuff provided by my
long me friend Al Ackerman (aka The Blaster) is always
a big pleasure. One needs to enjoy the art to be able to
deal with the infinite lile problems that show up when
making the edion of a zine and survive the process with
a smile on ones face. And, folks, let me assure you that I
keep smiling. Ackerman gave me total freedom to decideabout the layout of his art and about which precise
drawings and poems to enclose this me.
bout John Mountain, I have to say that, against all
odds, he behaved quite good, this me. So, aer a few
hundred e-mails (!), we reached an agreement about
what was going to be the layout of this issue #6 of an
Boreal.
I think I can speak for the three of us involved in this
project and state that these arsc collaboraons work
as a trigger for us to produce more (and more varied)
art-pieces suitable for the zine format.
I just hope that the recipients of this new issue of anBorealwill enjoy the arsc content and the way that
our three different arsc personalies managed to
get together under the same roof and cook something
decent.
Darlene Altschul (Chief Editor)
ugust 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
5/88
Blaster, Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
6/88
6
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1991
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
7/88
Ngg The Frog God
One aernoon 1 was hanging around in the yellow
weedy space out behind the 7-Eleven when I found
a kind of sump hole in the ground. It seemed filled
with tapioca and I took my shoe off and unwrapped
the bandage and as I got my foot down into the oozing
wetness I wiggled my toes around and around and
eventually saw that it was a million frog eggs ready
to hatch and that they had all coalesced around
my foot, as though to kiss and love on the sores,
and that before long the newborn frogs would be
worshipping my foot like a god. Then I very carefully
began to hop on my other foot and was able to reach
the store and go inside without losing or dropping
off any of the heavy shining ball, and the man in the
green felt vest behind the register was trying to yell,
and nothing but a dry croaking that sounded like
Ngg---ngg--ngg-- was coming out of his throat.
Blaster, Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
8/88
8
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
9/88
9
HOW DID THIS GET WRITTEN?
Simple. Gaso
makes you swell up like clouds and
he space between What does
o become golden mean (contorted
have never felt my veins contorted with ropes of
birds Except that one me
nd because immense des went through everything
o shake a hand makes me think of black coal
o shake a hand and be le with coal And later a fever
s from horrible gonic hot pockets
rom absentmindedly eang the coal. Have
we got me to watch such things become
golden
once more? Have you got a crusty one
hanging in yr shorts? Oh, I know
I belong to a horrible Organizaon!
But I will tell you this much
join me in a bite of coal and what happens next
will be a rather keen surprise say
the light bulb fire has kept us up for years
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
10/88
10
dicknickered in corn salad to be spat
dont spread
and because we go on absentmindedly
eang the coal its beer not to shake a hand
but if lactose floods you more than
gaso knocking talking inside your face
he best thing to do is shoot all the maple leaves
(from jmb of 5/2/07 and many others)
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1992
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
11/88
11
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1995
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
12/88
12
THE WIGGLER
The lady whos full of Satan talk
was on the bus today. Again, she drove
several people to get off before
their stop
with her talk of loony Satanic
conspiracies
that control what her Satanic TVset
tells her. Its no lie to say we have
a lot in common, so I wish Id
had time to tell her to relax, that
when youre in hell its best to
just
kick back and go with it, like a
bad acid trip.
Like a bad trip of whatever ilk and kidney you chance to
ind
yourself on, let it be said, for that matter, and also tell
her that
one should never forget that in The Prodi al Son.
a symbolist painting by Pierre Puvis De Chavannes, the
igure
seated on the ground in beard and disordered loin cloth
appears to be clutching something to his chest
with all the fervor of a squirrel-worshipperclutching some very valuable old nuts,
but its probably only a dottle of leaves, too crumpled,
oo
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
13/88
13
dog-messed to be bandied about in public, and thatMagic Hat, which the folks up in Burl ington, Vt., brew
is an Ale inspired by the doctrine of medieval chemists
and goes great with a 7-meat-pizza, and that
he ravening wolverine is an animal full of surprises,
especially when it hides in wait behind your shower
curtain,
swelling with a glowering intent to lunge out gnashing
its razory
incisors and dean your plow, its agenda always to glean
indiscriminately, which gives it a certain rare appeal,
you just have to know how to look at these things, hence
the streets
of Little Rock are more beautiful than the canals of
Venice,
and I dont know what all. I dont know what
all, among other things,
I wish Id had the t ime to tell her, but I
didnt, and besides she was
too busy talking Satan to do much
listening, so in the end I just got down
n the aisle and started wiggling toward her.
-Blaster Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
14/88
14
Man I really sucked the wine down tonight.
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
15/88
15
Blaster, Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
16/88
16
Jack Ruby in Disguise - by The Blaster 1994
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
17/88
17
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1994
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
18/88
18
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1994
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
19/88
19
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1994
YOU DRIVE FAR
Too erracally, Stevie King, they said.
But I just told them: Ha! heads nosing weedsill on the halt the rising hammer heads
owards our desire of meat the
hand
needs Man needs drink canned balls shine hand
molds to fudge
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
20/88
20
If you believe thats how its gonna be. I beer put your down.I huffed as Steve The Bee-Man Steele began to beat his arms up
and down!
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1995
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
21/88
21
MOVING FROM THE ACORN TO MY PATIENTS
But first let me say that when I say acorn
I mean I simply hold an almond to my forehead
And direct all my frustraon and irritability against it
Unl the manifestaon of my will
Becomes as apparent to it as it may already be
To others seeking refuge from my will.
One of the builders of A ollo
Once told me that hed known all the astronautsBefore they went to the moon
And that when they returned, without excepon,
Their heads were different, their heads glowed so brightly
You could scarcely see the swizzle scks between their teeth.
Ive noced something else, concerning Olympic
Sex. It, in effect, kills us a lile
Bit each me we indulge in itWith one Harry Pellegrino, 78, a paent of mine,
Who kept building a city of sand and became so engrossed
All the pain and redness seemed to leave him.
For one aernoon there was no trace
Of illness, though the sand eventually
Crushed his head. Before we examine specific
Ways to use this sand and deludeOurselves by saying, Other legumes,
Other legumes, give me your hand.
When you give me your hand, you will noce
That what I put into it looks like plasc
But stretches like rubber; moreover,
You will see that the greatest opportunity of your whole sick
Life is now before you, since this thing comes from my nose.Give me your hand and let us begin our journey.
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1999
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
22/88
22
Blaster, Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
23/88
23
Blaster, Al Ackerman 1998
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
24/88
24
Blaster, Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
25/88
25
Blaster, Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
26/88
26
Blaster, Al Ackerman 2003
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
27/88
27
THE PORTAL (III)
Many a bastard regards my back porch as the hissing place,As if some lung ox balling the throat I share with mustard in yr
shoe. Here I am odd as empty sevens, Having rug an shore in
place of burning fences Norpt of cheer.
I boo the trest of
horses smoking.
I cheer the
rest of horses
smoking. Come
o think of it,
gunts druhead
Lets have a fit,
lets club bints.
Saggy but full.
What about a fit goes numb in the dingo club?
As before the clant so aer shant.
The rand cork
Chaining sea wage sneering-
Science, which reminds me of a proper drooling soldie-uh,
soldier The bio peed back, down us all the dead ton quek
Drops on top of guts tv the dead ton
Shouldering a slat-humping clown
A dog phones its face im pailed an spiy
A dug phone its face im pailed an spiy.
(from JMB of 7/11, 9/5. 7/18, 6/13 etc)
Al Ackerman 2003
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
28/88
28
Darlene Altschul 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
29/88
29
THAT OWL NAMED SALLY OVER THERE
The wisdom of an owl named Sally
Yr whole leg uered like a drunk
spent hopping toward the skeleton
of an immense grasshopper
That found a home up yr nose
once when yo did a lot of screaming
in the alley.
he Blaster , Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
30/88
30
Darlene Altschul 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
31/88
31
OWLS
Prepare yourself for your master the wise old owl
of empty leg bags.
Who stared at gag buns window more than the owl
who burns the bush in yr intesne?
Your big brown eye opens so as to picture to your-
self a cricket in yr cricket bins and you may also
picture to yourself a great white owl that asks how
will the harnd be shovel? how will the manner
wash my leg?
Nothing can match the darkness given off by the
great horned owl in your shorts.
Drop the sawed off foot if you would hang bread
fog, the great white owl said, think about how they
do it on VEnus and aer foaming send yr toilet up.
The Blaster , Al Ackerman
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
32/88
32
Darlene Altschul text by The Blaster
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
33/88
33
WHAT THE OWL TEACHES
I later learned that your long
grease smeared owls
berserk, whiffi ng guers on the roof
the whiff of what tuers at me
lis the melng screenss pointy thing
the flickered knots behind your neck
peremptory as a strangled hold
your hand seeks on the drool doorll grabbing that yr grinning talks
as some phone ringing up the soggy sock
and asks to speak to something
waddling in the basement that gets
top buzzing in your ear, like what
we have learned about your throat condion
Ackerman & Benne
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
34/88
34
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
35/88
35
THE INVISIBLE OWL
It has to be seeking a way out of this ant locker
The way as I hog the single baery runs yr mouth
All the way to shoe toilet
coughing or did it swallow corn the inky greens
it has to be holding up a stopwatch
between some tomb and some fingerps
it has to be like some daughter flustered
by yr bombers in the pot
O this breaddoll dancer behind yr yellow curtains
It has to be part of my head, shaking & perfuming
the air like a few of the many frangrances of pear
Ackerman & Benne
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
36/88
36
Darlene Altschul 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
37/88
37
Darlene Altschul 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
38/88
38
Darlene Altschul 2008
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
39/88
39
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
40/88
40
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
41/88
41
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
42/88
42
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
43/88
43
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
44/88
44
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
45/88
45
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
46/88
46
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
47/88
47
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
48/88
48
Darlene Altschul 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
49/88
49
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
50/88
50
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
51/88
51
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
52/88
52
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
53/88
53
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
54/88
54
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
55/88
55
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
56/88
56
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
57/88
57
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
58/88
58
Darlene Altschul 2005
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
59/88
59
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
60/88
60
Darlene Altschul 2006
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
61/88
61
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
62/88
62
Darlene Altschul 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
63/88
63
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
64/88
64
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
65/88
65
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
66/88
66
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
67/88
67
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
68/88
68
Darlene Altschul 2007
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
69/88
69
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
70/88
70
About the Uerly Preposterous Landscapes
The pictorial landscape was born, conceptually,
in the second half of the XVth century, but those
were sll landscapes with human figures. Earlier
to that me, a landscape was only the unavoidable
background for the human figure. It had no meaning
in itself. Brueghel The Old promoted the profane
scenes of daily labor, but those were scenes wherethe human being was the main character and the
necessary character. Rembrandt, Van de Velde
and Ruisdael were the first landscape painters
that used oil-painng, a technique which provided
more realism to the images. The Romancism
used the realism to express the emoon produced
by nature upon the viewer. Hence, nature wasnot anymore the anthropocentric cosmos of the
Chrisan tradion, but a chaos in which we humans
were submerged. The representaon of nature in
itself, not as scenography for a human or divine
character, meant a new look to reality. So, first we
had a shi from the sacred scenes (of the Divine) to
the profane scenes of daily life. But, later, we hadan ever larger change of mentality towards nature:
The arst turned his eyes to the trees, the rocks, the
rivers, the mountains and gave them the absolute
leading part. It is in Ruisdaels painngs where
nature stands by itself. That fact did not happen unl
the XVII century.
Maybe we are now in 2009, as we resume the
first decade of the XXI century, into a new wave
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
71/88
71
of Romancism. Nowadays, the raonalism, the
industrial progress, the modern technology, and
where these things are taking us -individually &
socially- are being quesoned more than ever
before. No maer we might feel we are totally
environmentalists, a remake of the Romanc
landscape would result to us, to the eyes of the
man of today, as completely incongruous. Mainly
because nature has disappeared from the reallandscape and has been restricted into certain
scenographies.
The chaos of nature (the wilderness from the
Romancs) is now equivalent to the absurd arrange
of the general reality produced by the scienfic
progress. And the true landscape is a rubbish dump.
Nature has been confined into a few theme parks.Modernity is an apparent order which goal gets more
and more blurred, undetermined. The supposed
prosperity provided by technology becomes
increasingly expensive and destroys nature with a
speed that results obscene to the naked eye. In this
scenario, the true landscapes that confront our sight
are those of the ficon books by J.G.Ballard: Derelictbuildings, abandoned arfacts, rusted carcasses
of vehicles sophiscated ruins placed in polluted
& naked pieces of land. Nature has become an
exclusive commodity for hire into the Naonal Parks.
They have become theme parks of what was real
nature before the industrial revoluon. We pay the
cket and we get exposed to a Planet Earth withouthuman garbage. Aer we exit, the cruel reality hits
us in the face again: Publicity billboards everywhere,
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
72/88
72
rubble, paved roads and dust.
Yes, possibly I am way too much influenced by the
dystopia presented by J.G. Ballard in his prophecal
books.
Equally to Ballards creaons, these Uerly
Preposterous Landscapes have quite a lot from
the atmosphere of Surrealism. They show the
consequences of the failure of the system to do
things right, to produce a general prosperity withoutgenerang a broad destrucon. What has been
achieved along the last decades is prosperity only
for an elite and large polluon for the rest. But, the
worse is to realize that, not even for that elite, the
prevailing of the human species and the prevailing
of the resources of the planet are assured. There is
the general feeling that the financial interests of thebig corporaons and the big magnates will keep on
ruling aer their selfishness and that the policians
will not work for the best (the survival) of a tamed,
quiet and alienated majority, or for the best of an
over-exploited planet.
Just taking a few steps behind (to reach a certain
amount of perspecve) will allow anyone to lookat his daily dynamics of work, leisure, goals and
generic purpose in life as totally short-term.
Yes, it is way too easy to say that something is not
working rightly and never propose any alternaves.
We are so busy in surviving on a daily basis and
playing by the rules (that were established too long
ago) that we have no extra energy to think and tryto find a soluon. Maybe there is no soluon and we
need, as a species, to hit the boom.
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
73/88
73
Movies like Mad Max (1979) and Silent Running
(1972) have become prophecal.
Vast extensions of rubble without birds or trees, just
like Europes landscape aer the First World War,
seem unavoidable in the next future. This is the kind
of landscape someone keeps building in these
current years in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Iraq.
These are the mes when Norman Foster accepts
to build a replica of the Brish Museum in Dubai.Well, it seems that Dubai is desned to become the
theme park replica of the western cies aer an
unavoidable mayhem will turn them into rubble,
deserts or swamps. Or, perhaps it will be Dubai
what will become a ghost city in ruins first. Who
knows? Is Dubai compeng with Las Vegas or it is
just my imaginaon? Yes, I know it is supposed to becompeng with London, Tokyo and New York.
Well, I digress. I just try to jusfy why I made this
series of Surreal landscapes, some with Surreal
characters in them. Catastrophic, Surreal, Dadaisc,
Ballardian poecally absurd? Possibly they are a
reflex of my inner landscape. Or, as Ballard would
say, of my inner space.
John Mountain
July 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
74/88
74
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
75/88
75
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
76/88
76
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
77/88
77
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
78/88
78
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
79/88
79
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
80/88
80
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
81/88
81
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
82/88
82
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
83/88
83
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
84/88
84
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
85/88
85
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
86/88
86
NDEX
Introducon ..................................................page 1
The Blaster:
When Ruffi ans Gather ............................................ 3
Are You Drunk? ....................................................... 4
Ngg The Frog God .................................................. 5
How Did This Get Wrien ...................................... 7
The Wiggler .......................................................... 10Jack Ruby in Diguise ..............................................14
Prey Hat Club ......................................................15
You Drive Far .........................................................16
Moving From the Acorn to my Paents ................19
The Portal ............................................................. 25
DKA Owls with Blaster Text .................................. 26- 34
John Mountain Poems:
Grinned to Himself ............................................... 37
Amber ................................................................... 38
Epidural ................................................................. 39
Further Subtle ....................................................... 40
Crave ..................................................................... 41
DKA & JoMo Drawings of Women ......................... 42-67
John Mountain Uerly Preposterous Landscapes:
About UPL ............................................................. 68-71
Uerly Preposterous Landscapes 1-12 ................. 72-83
Index ..................................................................... 84
Credits ................................................................... 85
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
87/88
ll images & texts Al Ackerman, Darlene Altschul &
John Mountain
PDF edion by Darlene Altschul 2009
-
8/8/2019 Can Boreal #6
88/88