#flarf poetry

[lets-dance-to-joy-division]

I think that flarf may be the best thing for writers block I’ve ever discovered. If you’ve never given flarf a go I highly recommend, it’s a real bananas time.

BL

[plegdoctor]

My Soul Sometimes Leaves My Body

I did pills occasionally

This is normal.

As a believer in Christ,

In Jungian psychoanalysis, and

A general consensus among experts,

My soul was trying to guide me but I wasn’t paying

the auction block of sin and the devil.

Walk back to my house

Where David personates Christ,

Popular on Twitter,

Repeating a line from the nursery rhyme.

You are too rigid in your thinking,

Wall devil,

I do not want him to find my body.

Opposite the above.

Soul food, soulmate, soul music,

My soul will survive the death of my body.

Nothing leaves you when you sleep, and

Sometimes you don’t recognise a broken soul until it’s too late.

[infinityof6]

My new album NO FEAR DOWNHILL is out now! It’s an outrageous mix of dark ambient, flarf poetry, bluegrass, lowercase, anti-music, onkyo-kei, free jazz, glitch, trad.arr. noisecore, noise, sex music and field recordings!

Everybody laughed, I was so happy I came running down the hill! Now if ye ask me if I feel uphill, I'll say ehhh... no sae much! 　　　　　ｎ .／）) 　　　ｒ‐┘ｲﾚk(_ 　 　.’,g｀.器├┘Yヽ 　／ * 　 ン┴ｫ┼┬爻　　　　　　< Uh oh! . Lンノ￣　　　｀┼┤└〒ｪ 　 　 　 　 　 　 ��� 寸　┌┼テｭ 　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 寸└┘┌斤ｭ， 　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 寸┌┼┴‐代ｭ， 　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 ┼┘┌┼┼┼ｭ 　 　 　 　 　　　　　　　　　寸 .└┘└┘├ 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　┬┐┌┐┌┼┴┼┐ 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　┴┼┼┘└┼┐└┴┼┼┐ 　　　　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 代.└┘┌┐└┘┌┐└┘└┼ ， 　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 ┼┐┌┼┘┌┐├┘┌┬┐└┼‐､.,,,,,＿___ ,ｨ冖ﾊ 　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 ┼┘└┘┌┼┼┼┐├┼┘┌┤｀'''''''''''''''''''''ゝ ィ´ 　 　 　 　 　 　　 　 　 　 　 ,┌┐┌ぃ┼┤├┼ヤ┴┘┌┼┤ 　　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 /┼┘ｲ　 　.｀¨¨’.T´┬千ヽt┼┴‐! 　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 　 ／┼イ 　! 　 　 　 　 !. ┼┤　 ＼┬┼ , 　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 ,ｲXイ　 |┼┘　 　 　　　’┼ﾁ'. 　 　.｀　,┌┼， 　　　　　　 　 　 　 　{┘ｲ 　　|└!　　　　 　 　　ヾ┼ﾊ　　　　 ｀ヾ┬┴, 　　　　　　　　　　　　＼ ヽ 　 }　/　　 　 　 　 　 　ﾍ┘ﾊ　 　 　　 ｀'┬ﾊ 　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 　 ＼＼ﾙｲ 　 　 　 　 　 　.　ﾉ　,ｲ　　　　 　 　 ヽ　， 　　　　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 ヽ,＼ 　 　 　 　 　　　./ /　　　　 　 　 　　　'.ﾊ. 　　　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 　 ハ__｀ｰｭ. 　 　 　 　 / / 　 　 　 　 　　　　　 '.　､ 　　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 / f´　＼ﾊ　　　　　 / /　　　　　　　　　　　　　} ハ 　 　 　 　　　　　　 　 　 ／.丿　ｨ　 ｀’　　　.／ ﾉ　 　 　 　 　 　　　　　　ﾉ__ .,’ 　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 ∠ ヲ　　　 　 　 　 ∠ ヲ　　　　　　　　　　　　　　{_ イ  

Listen/purchase: NO FEAR DOWNHILL by Infinity Of 6

[babylon-crashing]

faux

“I too Analyze,” the spambot confessed,

“with Safe and Sexy cam models!” “Big Dick

Trickle.” “Dajuana Cox.” “Mother Knows Breast.”

So much for my Shakespeare essay. Type, “Schlick,”

in by mistake and whole new worlds open

up. It makes research a tad hard, bastards.

Still, I'm sure friend Spambot had lots of fun

crafting wretched sex puns from all my words.

Kinda respect such asinine zeal

to the Absurd. Genet would've been proud.

Flarf. Faux Joejobs. Spoems. Ass-'n-9. None

of it sparks joy … like Dick Trickle. Surreal

but not clever. Cold but not kinky. Loud

but not sublime. Zealot but not shaman.

][][

Notes:

Jean Genet is one of my favorite petty criminals and playwrights. Champion of Theatre of the Absurd he wrote The Thief's Journal and Our Lady of the Flowers (where Divine, of Pink Flamingos fame, got her name). The idea of this poem came from Steven Frank's Spamusement! which took subject lines from spam emails and turned them into single-panel gags. Flarf, Joejobs and Spoems do the same thing but, as I've often found, without the humor and self-awareness that makes Frank's work a joy to read.

[brucesterling]

@jessica_salfia ·Apr 11 2020

This poem is called “First lines of emails I’ve received while quarantining.” 

[videosonntag]

Flarf Poetry

This is a flarfist poem by writer Chickee ChicKston, called Truckin' Poem ................................................... 

Truckin’ Poem Honk honk. Truckin’ poem. Honk honk. Honk honk. Truckin’ along. Honk honk. Honnnnnnnnnk. Honk honk. Honnnnnnnnnk. Truckin’ poem. Rollin’ rolllin’. Honk honk. Truckin’ poem. Rollin’ rollin’. Honk honk. Truckin’ poem. Honnnnnnnnk Honnnnnnnnnk. Truckin’ along. Honk honk. Honk honk. Trucking poem. Honk honk. Truckin’ poem. Honk honk. Honk honk. Rollin’ along. Honk honk. Honnnnnnnnnk. Honk honk. Honnnnnnnnnk. Truckin’ poem. Rollin’ rolllin’. Rollin’ along. Honk honk. Honnnnnnnnnk. Honk honk. Honnnnnnnnnk. Truckin’ poem. Rollin’ rollin’. Honk honk. Truckin’ poem. Honnnnnnnnk Honnnnnnnnnk. Truckin’ along. Rollin’ along. Truckin’ along. Rollin along. Honk honk. Honk honk. Honk honk. Honk honk. Trucking poem.

[tuckersampson]

if i run in here will make time thicker. can i enjoy myself? i’m just sitting down waiting. he is gone forever. i don’t know what else to say to him. i will never say anything to him. i will never have that chance. he’s gone forever. often i find myself tapping my feet without even knowing it. i am tempted to call this joy. it is really just a practice. one and two and three and four. the music i think without even knowing it a chance chooses itself. should these things really be connected do i want them to be connected. should i just channel something and hope it works out and i don’t wind up shopping sharpening the masters tools.

[spamzineglasgow]

SPAM Digest #1 (Sept 2018)

A quick list of the editors’ current favourite critical essays, post-internet think pieces, and literature reviews that have influenced the way we think about contemporary poetics, technology and storytelling.

 ‘Human Sacrifice’, by Alexandra Molotkow, Real Life Mag 

A brief moral genealogy of reality TV spectatorship sketched through the short life of The Anna Nicole Show (2002-2004); Moloktow reflects on the hatred of the talentless and contempt for the desperate as a ultimate re-inscription of class dynamics; on the erotic appeal of the fallen beauty; on how the lines between compassion and cruelty come blurred, when those between life and entertainment seem to be disappearing.

‘Reality television remade spectatorship in the likeness of a relationship: You loved your favorite contestants like friends and hated your least favorite like enemies — the thrill of a reality villain was the permission to hate a “real” person and not just a character in fiction.’

‘What many of us are looking for, at least sometimes, is a quick hit of relatability, the ambient sense that other people exist. This isn’t necessarily bad. It cuts to the chase of what we so often ask of art, and people are just as interesting as anything they might produce — a personality itself can be read as a work of art, producing the same range of joys and intriguing discomforts. But real and imagined people demand different moral configurations, and observing a life as theater can create a narrative riptide on reality.’

D.B

‘Andrew Pekler charts imagined sounds on interactive atlas, Phantom Islands’, by Scott Wilson, Fact Mag

It was actually an ex-navy friend who recommended this article to me, and the nautical vibes seemed appropriate, given our current SPAM theme is CRUISE LINER. Wilson’s article glosses a recent project by Berlin-based sound artist Andrew Pekler: an ‘interactive online map called Phantom Islands, which combines the histories of islands that were once found on nautical maps with speculative sounds from each of the 27 locations’. These ‘Phantom Islands’, as Pekler puts it, were charted through history by ocean explorers, but their actual existence ‘has never been ultimately verified’.  

For anyone intrigued by ethnomusicology (soundscapes are here selected with an ethnographer’s ear and knowledge of island history), object-oriented ‘art’ (one could argue Pekler’s project enacts a form of tuning to nonhuman scales, scapes and ontologies) or simply wanting to play around with a synesthetically satisfying map, Phantom Islands is definitely worth your time.

There’s something seductive and ultimately metamodern about this project: its oscillation between fact and fiction; a New Aesthetic, intermedial playfulness and sincere commitment to probing the strange aporia of these places. A sort of sonic psychocartography, combining the analogue ‘hardware’ of the map with the interactive, ‘soft’ subtleties of scroll, click, veer and zoom. It recalls childhood afternoons consumed by the thalassic, open-world vistas of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002), where every cel-shaded island was mapped out on a gridded ‘Great Sea’, sparkling with unique music, sidequests, enemies and secret items. Browsing The Wind Waker’s world, or (in Cruise Mode), the clean white grids of Pekler’s map, you find yourself phasing in and out of the mirage-like isles of geologic and mythical history. I’m made nostalgic for the days when the internet was envisioned as a sort of frontier, this sprawling terrain to be ‘surfed’.

As well as pleasure, there’s a profound melancholy to the project: it doesn’t steer us towards the dramatic sublime but rather encourages an introspective, ‘slow’ experience of personal discovery, a glide over several haecceities. Maybe it’s because, as Malachy Tallack puts it in his 2016 book The Undiscovered Islands, ‘Islands [...] are perfect metaphors for other worlds and afterlives. They are separate and yet connected; they are distant and yet tangible. The sea of death is cluttered with imaginary islands’. I’ve never thought of webpages or online archives as islands until now, but something about that sense of myth or fiction pervading the ‘real’ of the present is oddly comforting. The narrative vignettes and sound clips which accompany the islands of Pekler’s map give the reassurance of presence, even in the space of speculation, in the lack of evidential presence. If, as Tallack puts it, ‘invention’ arises from our desire to fill a ‘terrifying’ absence, then ‘sometimes that desire gives us back the absences we sought to fill’. It seems to me he could be describing a phenomenology of the open internet, the para-reality of endless text and images still sloshing and jostling against the smooth interface of Web 2.0. The haunted archives of yesteryear, preserved on some ad-riddled, lost domain. The splintered archipelagos of our virtual identities, the desiring production of feedback loops.

As a form of ‘interactive’ geography, Phantom Islands reminds us that our conceptions of ‘world’, Other or ipseity itself are bound to slippage, the ambient addictions of browsing a set of imagined striations. Best to enjoy that, while we (physically) still can.  

The Phantom Islands project: http://andrewpekler.com/phantom-islands/

M.S.

‘Funks of Ambivalence: On Flarf’, by Andrew Epstein, LA Review of Books

Flarf’s controversy is no secret within the poetry world. What started as protest poetry, in the manner of pirate radio - a way of ‘hacking’ the internet by mining and reassembling its linguistic fragments - soon sank in a cesspool of suspicion about plagiarism, appropriation and writerly privilege. Well, not exactly ‘sank’, because sank implies a kind of closure, when actually flarf still floats around - the poetic plastic that won’t quite biodegrade, even in these times of lyric revival.

Having recently published, Attention Equals Life: The Pursuit of the Everyday in Contemporary Poetry and Culture (2016), Epstein is well-versed in tracing how poetic form variously attempts to render, illumine or escape the experiential debris of daily life. Here reviewing a recent anthology, published by Edge Books in 2017 (Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf), Epstein maps out the emergence of flarf in the context of both the poetry establishment and the internet’s structural history, honing in on the use of search engines and data trawling as modes of playful aesthetic resistance. He quotes Gary Sullivan (a founding flarfer), who describes ‘flarf’ as both a neologism for ‘a kind of corrosive, cute, or cloying, awfulness’ and verb, meaning ‘to bring out the inherent awfulness, etc., of some pre-existing text’.

A good review perhaps brings something extra to the text it feeds on, and Epstein succeeds in supplementing Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf’s lack in the critical department. As Epstein puts it, the anthology is ‘completely devoid of scholarly apparatus’. What might be ‘more a bid for canonization, an enshrinement of a now-defunct avant-garde’ nevertheless requires a bit of aesthetic and political contextualisation, which Epstein’s piece usefully gestures towards. As post-internet poets, self-identified or otherwise, we’re all guilty of getting a little too flarfy at times, fooling around with discursive detritus online. It’s commentary like Epstein’s that sets all this appropriation in its necessary social contexts - from gender to race, ethnicity, class and sexuality.

Epstein’s upshot is that the ‘antics’ of flarf retain the potential for cultural resistance, but that flarf should not be considered solely in a dematerialised junkspace of recycled ‘play’. Rather, we should be reading flarf alongside certain contemporary poets (Epstein names a few), who digest its playful ‘tactics’ for a more substantial sociopolitical aesthetics, and what’s more acknowledge the extent to which flarf has become the condition of all information dissemination, both online and IRL. As he puts it, paraphrasing Man Ray’s chiastic assessment of Dada’s survival: ‘Flarf cannot live in America. All America is Flarf, and will not tolerate a rival’. In an era of reality-breakdown and disorientating news dissemination, conducted over the famously elliptical medium of Twitter, presided upon by the US President himself, this seems about right.   

M.S.

‘The Irrelevant and the Contemporary’ by DannyPenny, The New Enquiry

‘Post-Internet Poetry Comes of Age’, by Kenneth Goldsmith, The New Yorker

So why is post-internet poetry #trending?

Over the past few years, the art world has been throwing around the term “post-Internet” to describe the practices of artists who use the Web as the basis for their work but don’t make a big deal about it. For these artists, unlike those of previous generations, the Web is just another medium, like painting or sculpture. We’re beginning to see a similar turn in poetry.

Is it fair to say that successful post-internet poems should not merely “update confessional poetry for the age of mass surveillance"? That Poems that want to mirror or deconstruct the experience of living on the internet need a poetics that address that experience on a structural and material rather than semantic level? What is the result of such poetry? Poems that are "boring to be around"? Or poems that are at once organic and mechanical, personal and, in a sense, objective? Why is it that a mining, massaging, and reworking of found online texts into something personal appears to be fuelling some of the more adventurous poetry being written today? See what Kenneth Goldsmith and Danny Penny have to say.

M.P.

[syderary-theory]

What I’ve learned over the past year about poetry as “not a poet.”

Concepts: start with images, not feelings

A mistake that I still make on occasion when drafting a poem is thinking it’s all about the feelings instead of how my reader experiences the poem. The problem with that is that feelings are subjective and abstract. What feels like anger to me might just be mild irritation to you. You’ll often get a stronger poem from building up from imagery, where you can use your language to evoke whatever feeling you want your poem to capture.

Drafting: read it aloud to yourself

This is how you’re going to eventually learn rhythm and meter. It’s also a great way to identify opportunities for sound play.

Editing: look for opportunities for concision

The real art of poetry is trying to say the most with the least amount of words. Literally every. word. matters. Often times the first words you can cross out are conjunctions, relative/subjunctive clauses, and articles. Lyric poetry especially lends itself to concision.

Revision: get feedback if you can

I’m all truthfulness, I am still learning how to revise. Having access to a group of peers has proven to be a wonderful tool for me when it comes to tightening up my poems. However, if you don’t have access to a peer group, something that helps me is identifying my original goals for the poem, and asking myself how those goals may have changed and why.

Formatting: let’s just keep this one simple

Left aligned, 12pt Times New Roman, single space. You’re done.

Grammar: how to get away with run ons

Poetry is one of the most flexible genres when it comes to grammar because of the way it relies on pause for punctuation. Instead of trying to decide where the comma should go, it might be better to ask where you want the reader to pause, and that’s when you decide how you want to convey that pause. One of the most effective vehicles for pause is white space, the more white space you see on the page, the more pause implied. This means shorter lines elicit more pause between lines than longer lines.

Additional note: dude just have fun

None of these are hard fast rules, these are just the tools I’ve found most effective when crafting poems. Also, poems don’t have to be deep dark scary little things, they can be joyous, hopeful, and even silly (look up flarfs). Poems are great opportunities to express our innermost turmoil yea, but there’s no reason to pour your heart out each time you sit to write a poem. Have some fun with it and experiment.

[lets-dance-to-joy-division]

attention all contemporary and non-corporeal residents

concerns have recently been brought to the attention of the HOA

the secret is we don’t care about you

I will never understand why people buy houses with the HOA

yes, the "buddy system" is alive and well. Thanks, Roger

Whats a plat and where do I find it?

Ahhh Bananas...Why bees? WHY?

blah blah blah we don’t care about you

You may approach the Lord of the Hech

steadily emerging with grace

the type of motherfuckers that complain the tree branching over

do not allow parking for trailers and

proliferate in areas with weak local government

All Done. Hmmm. I feel cool. It's a hot day. Reposition.

Much like communism, the benefits of an HOA look great on paper,

until the command structure didn't even use any tea cups

If you merely utter homegrown traditions and explore the art of cooking

I put a pillow over my head and smell of burning garbage in the morning

HOA are not for the homeowners that's for sure

-Home Owners ASSociation-

BL 2023

[caseypoetry37]

Dear William! "Dear William" Oh, William, Imagists paint different views. Your sonnets are, with Flarfers, lately bent. The Moderns now make humble pie of you.

[marcogiovenale]

silvia molesini legge k. silem mohammad

video per Niederngasse.lettura di Marte ha bisogno di terroristi, edito da Arcipelago nel 2005; traduzione di Gherardo Bortolotti e Alessia Folcio.

[infinityof6]

My friend Suela is gradually uploading all the old Garbage Men Puking and Fuck Yr Body Up compilations to youtube. This is Garbageween, from around Hallowe’en 2014 https://www.discogs.com/Various-Garbageween/master/1427732

My tune Thunder Blade... Laurie Is As Follows starts at 08:29. It’s a flarfy poem text-to-speeched with some twiddled samples from Super Thunder Blade on the Mega Drive. Here are the lyrics:

Laurie Is As Follows

I think violent love is wanting to be moonlight. Lori with under... I think missing violent love moonlight. Laurie and below. I think violent love Moonlight are still missing. Raleigh below. Yet lack of intense love Moonlight I think. Raleigh below.

Lacks the intense love Moonlight I think, yet… Laurie is as follows: I are lacking in love Moonlight I think is still intense. Laurie is as follows. Gekko no tension still think my love is missing… Laurie is as follows. There is no I, think Moonlight tension and is still not my love. Laurie is as follows! There is no Moonlight tension I think and is still my love. Laurie is as follows. I think, I love don't Moonlight tension. Laurie is as follows. I think I do love tension moonlight. Laurie is as follows? I love Moonlight tension and Laurie is as follows.

Exposes the tension love Moonlight and Raleigh. Exposes the strained love Moonlight and Raleigh. I love tense public Moonlight and Raleigh.

I love Rory and strained public moonlight. I love Laurie, gets nervous public moonlight. Laurie loves getting edgy public moonlight. Laurie loves is getting edgy public moonlight.

Laurie a nervous public Moonlight, love has become. Laurie is a nervous public Moonlight love. Raleigh is a nervous public Moonlight love? Raleigh is a nervous public Moonlight love.

[moreorlessmemorable]

Search terms: ethics religion us scobies

Date; time: March 31, 2016; 0:42 am

 The Whiskey Priest In The Ministry of Fear or The Quiet American

 Contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada

Profiling the Seven ...

Accessing the Forgiveness ...

"Fire and brimstone not withstanding"

Contact us ...

By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

 An Atheist in West Africa has 'sinned' out of compassion,

Despite the polished surface of the writing, The Quiet American has no hope of forgiveness.

storytelling does religion one better: it allows us to see ourselves in the story

an improper Person they have sent us

Nature is not FOR us, it is a PART of us.

Psychology, Religion, and the Nature of the Soul: The Indelible Image

 the religious elements are removed

Testaments to secular exhaustion

young days that prevented us from working

seven days a week

Fighting Evil: Unsung Heroes

have interiorized the two ethical codes

Parliamentary Debates

Native American Religion

The Theological and Ethical Thought ...

The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction

 Making Friends Across the Boundaries of Religious Differences

feelings of pity blur with love

... judgment, and indifferent behaviour toward

one who unjustly injures us, while fostering

Hitler's State Architecture

wrong deed, Abraham

... he is incomprehensible to us.

 compatibility and indeed interdependence... such reflection leads us nearer to the truth;

After each presentation they completed the Scobie Forgiveness Scale

Keeping the Faith: Reconstructing the Establishment Clause

History reminds us time and again that the price of freedom is Not for People Like Us.

the Oedipus myth: it is not universal, it is not found in JStor

[PDF]Download my cv

[smallpressdistribution]

Let's flarf it up with FLARF: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FLARF edited by Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, and Gary Sullivan. Out now from Edge Books! Pick up a copy at spdbooks.org . . . #spd #flarf #flarf2017 #edgebooks #poetry #poets #poet #poetrycommunity #bookshelf #books #book #internet #words #poems (at Small Press Distribution)

[wiseobservationbarbarian]

“Varieties in Religious Experience” is a poem by Flarf writer Gary Sullivan. “Varieties” is a compilation of anecdotes, strange thoughts and beliefs and observations from childhood, assumedly taken from various sources on the internet. The anecdotes are funny, whimsical, both heartwarming and breaking. They are childlike. However, Sullivan not only borrows the content of his poem, but also the title. “Varieties in Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature” is the seminal book by psychologist and philosopher William James, published in 1907 by Harvard Press. The book is a meditation upon the relation of religious experience and mysticism in humanity, later becoming a figurehead of pragmatism. While it is no surprise that Sullivan appropriates and plays with such a formulaic medium like academia, his specific utilization of James's work elevates the potential of the poem and Flarf as a literary style. 

Flarf is a literary style from the late 1990’s and early 2000’s which utilizes and restructures borrowed phrases. These phrases are taken usually from sites of business, information, religion, and subverted into witty and often funny poems. This is a style of recycling, wherein one turns the non-artistic into something of literary value. Moreover, it adopts the post-modernist style of questioning the quantification of literary value. Flarf is a serious literary style that exists not to be taken seriously, but rather enjoyed. It challenges that lines between a rigid capitalist framework of ‘work’ and ‘play’, utilising language as a means of production to be re-appropriated from the bourgeois.  

So why does Sullivan opt for Williams James's conical work? James's work relied on mechanization of language and thought as means of production, to be utilized for problem solving and practical application. Therefore, language and thought are to be used as means of production, rather than a medium of interpretation of reality. With the understanding of pragmatism, Sullivans appropriation of James's work suddenly becomes clear. Where James contends that our faculties and language are to be used in order to understand, analyse and compartmentalize radicle experiences. Sullivan rejects this form of analysis. Rather, Sullivan illuminates thought and language prior to this pragmatic mechanization of language: the imaginative and seemingly silly musings of children. 

While we read these lines and smile and laugh at their childlike humour, there is also a ting of sorrow attached to “Varieties”. This comes firstly from the surprisingly understandable explanation of these  guileless observations, “Germany is full of germs (germs + many)”. This is juxtaposed against the absolutely impossible derivation of these thoughts from the pragmatic adult. They are beautiful, innocent, and unobtainable to us. The poem illuminates how our language, and thus our experience, has been successfully compartmentalized, and makes an attempt to remember the temps perdu. This is fully actualized, ironically, in the very pragmatic formation of the language of the responses: I used to believe, I thought, I cried, I was. These are the transient realities before the appropriation of our language and thought as means of production.