“Study in Decomposition (Redux)” by Richard F. Yates

Study in Decomposition Redux 20 may 2020 by rfy.jpg
[Ink on reclaimed cardboard with (massive) digital embellishments. One “slide” out of 16 from a recent animated gif that I made! 2020.]

If you read the info under the image above, you will have noticed (I hope) that the image for this post comes from an animated gif that I finished today. The work began as an ink drawing on reclaimed cardboard, which I then photographed with my phone and manipulated until it begged for mercy. The image was then uploaded to MakersPlace, where it was tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain as a single edition, 1 of 1 digital collectible. To try something new, instead of demanding a specific price for this piece, I am accepting OFFERS (in ETH or via credit card), and we’ll see where that goes! (I’m hoping it goes for cheap---because I’m secretly a member of the LOW COST UNDERGROUND, a loosely connected group of renegade artists who are making inexpensive digital collectibles and attempting to entice normal folks, punks, non-collectors, and potentially people from OUTSIDE the crypto-sphere into becoming interested in crypto-art and rare digital artworks by offering exciting, funny, and/or interesting work with ATTITUDE! It’s crypto-punk…, if you know what I mean.)

To check out my new animated gif, which I’ve called, “Fade to Black (And Back Again) (Animated),” just visit my MakersPlace store / slash / gallery or stop by my Cent blog.

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Meanwhile, let’s move on to the title of THIS post, “Study in Decomposition…”

Somewhere between 10 and 12 years ago, when I was deeply immersed in the MAIL ART movement and sent and received postal art almost every day, I sent out a piece that might have been…unpopular. Using a piece of cardstock as a base, I used packing tape to secure a used, greasy, muffin paper (the “wrapper from the bottom of a muffin that I’d eaten---chocolate, if I remember correctly), and wrote on the back, before sealing the card completely in packing tape, “Study in Decomposition.” I then mailed the card to a regular correspondent, who never sent me another piece of mail art.

The question I was asking with that piece was pretty basic: What happens to a moist piece of paper trapped in a (mostly) waterproof system. I assumed there was bacteria on the muffin wrapper that might mold, although I wasn’t certain how or if that mold could grow without fresh exposure to air. Unfortunately, I lost contact with the person I sent the piece to, and I don’t know if they were amused or disgusted by the piece---or if they threw it away. Now that it’s been over a decade, I would LOVE to see what that card looks like, although it might have melted or become toxic by now. Who knows???

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I got a new phone in the mail yesterday---an “UPGRADE.” Today I’ve been trying to make it work. I THINK I have some of it functioning, BUT...I’ve lost contact with the files that were saved to my OLD phone’s sketch app. HUNDREDS of drawings.

Oh well... Those were all OLD drawings, right? Who wants to look at an OLD drawing, anyway...

(I’m being brave... I’m not getting upset... I can always make NEW drawings, and I think I have most of the old ones saved on a drive or posted to some blog or sent out somewhere...scattered...OUT THERE in the world...where they belong, I suppose... They just aren't accessible by ME in one place anymore. I’m being brave...)

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POETRY TIME! (Sorry.)

I’ve been feeling rather LANGUAGE-ORIENTED lately---particularly when I’m DRIVING. (I have a notebook with me in the passenger seat of the car, and I try to chant whatever words comes into my head while I'm driving until I get to a red light, then I scribble frantically in my book to get as much written as I can before the light changes. It’s not a perfect method---but I’ve been using it for YEARS.)

Here are some of my recent MICRO-POEMS, several of them composed at stoplights.

(1.)
Electric legs
limp + lifeless
‘til the voltage spikes

(2.)
If you can read this
you might be make-believe

(3.)
The stars looked ripe
So we tried to pick them
Forgetting entirely about the thorns

(4.)
Broken collar bone
Punctured lung
Bitten tongue
I just wanted to go take a nap
But MOM made me go to the hospital

[That last one is based on when I was run over by a car when I was four years old. Not that fun. Still remember it… Sort of… But I also wrote THIS recently...sort of a "prose-poem."]

(5.)
I’m guessing that, at this point, most of my childhood memories are finely crafted fictions. I’m guessing that a few of my memories from THIS MORNING are probably already wildly inaccurate. (I have little faith in memory.)

I was looking at some photos from a few years ago (20 or so) that a cousin of mine posted on Faceboot---and I barely recognized ANYBODY. Even my cousin, the one who I spent a bunch of summers with… I didn’t recognize him in a photograph until I saw his NAME in the text under the picture. It’s horrible.

Mariah remembers names, dates, faces---but not me. Yet, for some reason, when I worked at the music store---where we had about 10,000 CDs in stock on a given day, people could come in and say, “Do you have that ‘Kung Fu’ disco song?” And I’d say, “Carl Douglas’s ‘Kung Fu Fighting’? Of course, it’s on SUPER HITS OF THE ‘70s Volume 14, right over here…” WHY DO I STILL REMEMBER WHAT VOLUME NUMBER THAT SONG IS FROM??? And yet I can’t remember PEOPLE… It’s probably because I’m a bad person, but I don’t know for sure. (I can’t remember if I’m a bad person or not!)

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FOUND POETRY GENERATION MACHINE (A Language Game)---

“Found poetry” is an interesting field. A number of fascinating folks, like Kenneth Goldsmith (who taught an “UNCREATIVE Writing” course at University of Pennsylvania for many years) are proponents of this odd genre, which is comprised of poems that can be created in a number of different, interesting ways.

For FUN, I’ve come up with MY OWN SYSTEM for creating a poetic work. I’ll be making a few poems in this manner over the next couple of days, and I'm sure I'll make a post about my experiences. If you’d like to play along, here are the rules:

Pick 13 books. (It can be any number, really, but decide on a number and stick with it. This will be the number of LINES in your semi-randomly generated poem.)
Choose an organization method: (a.) alphabetical by author, (b.) alphabetical by book title, (c.) chronological by publication date, (d.) value judgement organized by which book you like the most or has the best cover... It doesn’t really matter HOW you organize the books, as long as you decide before starting on what the method will be and then stick to it. (Games like this are most fun when you make up weird rules and then stick to them!)
Once your books are in “ORDER,” then open them to page 23. (It can be any page number, as long as you decide before hand and stick with it. Make sure to pick a number small enough that ALL of your books have that many pages. Don’t pick page 700, if you have a few books that are only 200 or 300 pages long. I picked 23 because 23 is one of my favorite numbers. The other one is 13.)
However long or short, however strange or boring or unintelligible, copy the first full sentence from page 23 (or whatever page number you decided) in its entirety. (Don’t bother with fragments of sentences continued from the page before. Only use the first full sentence.) Do this for each book, copying the first full sentence from page 23.
Compile your poem of “found” lines from the books you chose (these can be fiction / non-fiction / how-to manuals / children’s books / comics / poetry collections / magazines / textbooks / diaries / or web sites if you substitute paragraphs or sentences for pages / or any mixture of these, whatever floats your boat.) When complete, your poem will be one line long for each book you’ve chosen. It might be weird or nonsensical or
BENEATH your poem, be sure to include publication information for the works that you used to create (or compile---however you want to think about it) your poem. If you’re feeling particularly open, you can share WHY you chose each book, maybe give a mini-review or a personal history with the text, but this isn’t completely necessary. (More like a "bonus feature.") What IS necessary is giving credit to the creators of your “found” material, which could be a good way to make folks aware of your favorite books or whatever other materials you like to read.

Most importantly: HAVE FUN! If your found poem turns out any good, (and it might not---that's part of the game) feel free to share it below (or a link to it, anyway.) Also keep in mind that REALLY BAD can sometime be considered REALLY GOOD! I'm particularly amused by nonsense, absurdism, and weird juxtapositions... If I’m amused enough, I might even throw a TIP your way! In fact, I’ll commit to that right now: MY FAVORITE FOUND POEM, once this post pays out, gets 3 HBD as a tip from ME!!! (Like I said, drop a link to the poem below in the comments, and MAKE SURE to credit your sources!!! It doesn’t need to be full MLA or APA, but it does need to be clear where you got the words that you're using. If you need HELP citing sources, I suggest looking at the OWL @ Purdue. It's a great resource!)

Later, skaters!!!

---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)

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