Monday, December 26, 2011

The Bell

They rose to something now
To be honest one ain’t enough to go round
It’s one extreme to the other
He ate her
And we had that
If you had these little bits you had two of them
It means everything
I keep threatening her kissing
You need a rack
But they’re dead beneath the fur
I tried one, I skinned one out
Ha ha ha
Five minutes to go out, five past nine
Why not? Do you want to try?
With somebody that drinks here
Victorious, two hours victorious
Tricks, with tricks on spits
Straight onto the A1
This is what he says
No it’s coloration
No they say this
It’s wrong for a swan
But depends how –
Julie, she’s working Friday night at the festival, at the festival, at the festival
I’m just hoping that Christine will
She’ll have got a job in the morning
What are you thinking, Uruguayan?
She would on normal weekends
So is the wholesale – yeah, frustration?
She’s better off here than that
Whereabouts in Cornwall? I’ve no idea
They’re useless
I mean without saying, they’re ok
Not in – not in impact
You know, they want the criteria don’t they
Professional designed but in a more creative – sorry
Yeah hop on you know
And she said I do, I don’t
I don’t know
And it’s still broken, I haven’t sorted it out
She just likes the idea of a crane
A teashop, an exaggeration
It’s actually really, really interesting for ashore
A couple of lads were like interested
When you’re older a little bit
You’ve had experience haven’t you
Four daughters, if you can get the Spanish-type coffee
My patient will be a little
Is she out seeing a lot of him?
It’s about this here cane
You get a lease, pay a hut
It’s not a premises that’s been used for that
A lot of interest
But to be honest I’ve never been inside it
He has a lot of friends
It’s a very – you know, I said a cane
You see the wall shark
Two storey, they made contact
It was very nice in there
Parents like me and her mum to take up votes
The woken papering
When he starts this course of predominantly pills
Despair and shouldering his pecs
I know it was wormwood
Sixteen hundred she lost and eight new phone numbers
And casual conversation remotely
Yeah, remotely
I’m not painting any words

Merl Fluin

Monday, December 12, 2011

Three automatic drawings by Antonio Ramirez

Reunión de vecinos


Huesos

Misterios de la oficina

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Exquisite corpse



Patrick, Aniano, Paul, Merl
Thursday 17 November

Friday, November 11, 2011

The SLAG e-zine has landed!

In these days of turmoil and austerity, dear reader, do you yearn for some rabid estranged juvenile delicacies?


Then yearn no more, but click here to download our new e-zine!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

achtung superman

achtung superman
this time when the assets were drawn
only the gun-paddle showing
sidling through train wrecks
worlds collide in my coat pocket
faster than a speeding enzyme
that punctures your lung on the tip of a shoehorn

Merl Fluin

Friday, August 12, 2011

The odour of lions

Russian TV news coverage of the civil unrest over the weekend reported that the lions and tigers had escaped from London Zoo and could be heard roaring in the streets. In a few words this beautiful story conveyed more truth about what has been happening than the whole of the UK media coverage combined.

The ruling class’s version of events has been enthusiastically embraced by every section of the British press. Whether wringing their hands or shaking their pitchforks, the cry is the same: Call the cops! Call Supernanny! Call Broken Britain! But on the few occasions when any of these media wankers actually bother to ask anyone why they are out on the streets, the response is clear and immediate: they are angry with the police. It’s not about looting from a society that’s already looted their futures. It’s about the racist, contemptuous, murderous, out-of-control police whose job is to defend that society.

That’s what it all comes down to. On one side, several generations (it’s not all just kids, as the media lip-smackingly loves to remind us) whose tempers have given way after lifetimes of alienation, exclusion, criminalisation and contempt. On the other, a “big society” unanimous in its determination to respond to their anger with more policing and – if Her Majesty’s so-called Opposition had its way – more police.

And as police powers are ratcheted up and the armoured vehicles roll into town, the water cannon won’t just be aimed at a supposedly small minority of badly parented “trouble-makers”, but at anybody who gives the ruling class a pain in its currently rather tender arse. Don’t roll over and play dead. This is not a game of sleeping lions.

Friday, August 05, 2011

Collective drawing


Aniano, Merl, Patrick, Paul and Wendy

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

APAUPA

Collective drawing by Merl, Patrick, Paul and Wendy

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Mahmou(th)*

The night fed snakes in her arms
and their jaws rattled lightly like castanets
in the cold
'And what a chore this is that you ask of me young man'
I thought as I chewed
'You look shiny'
this is what the captain of pedigree told me in a friendly manner as he fizzed
as it has been written
Whatever the case, my greasy look did not stop comparisons
which all proved to be against me
And against you
And Againstyou
It's enough to pull your hair
and then cut it
When I grow melancholic I start shooting penalties

* The meaning of this word was instantaneously recognised by D.S.


Yiannis Golfinopoulos
translated by Alexandra Halkias

Yannis performed the original Greek version of this poem during the 'Surrealist Survival Kits' public event in Athens on Saturday 4 June 2011.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Symbiotic Lime-Stone Quarry Phantoms

– Yes my marble eyes are still working



The Surrealist group in Stockholm, with friends, invite you to their exhibition

Location: Nationalgalleriet, Skomakargatan 3 in Gamla Stan, Stockholm
Opening: Saturday June 11, 6pm to 9pm

Opening hours: June 12 – 18, 3pm t0 9pm


Paintings, drawings, collective projects, sound, scents, video sculpture and poetry readings near the place of the skull.

Book table in the gallery with publications from the 25-year history of the Surrealist Group.

Sphinx Bokförlag presents the newly republished Swedish translation of André Breton's surrealist manifestos.


Participants:
Joel Abrahamsson
Christian Andersson
John Andersson
Johannes Bergmark
Peter Bigestans
Bukalemun
Paul Cowdell
Christofer Dahlby
Kalle Eklund
Jonas Enander
Kim Fagerstam
Çeren Findik
Merl Fluin
Mattias Forshage
GOMFILM
Patrick Hourihan
Riyota Kasamatsu
C M Lundberg
Robert Lindroth
Emma Lundenmark
Niklas Nenzén
Prismaginos
Sphinx Bokförlag
Theoni Tambaki
Tippi Tillvind
Ika Österblad


For full information:
http://www.surrealistgruppen.org/LimeStoneQuarryPhantoms.html
http://surrealistgruppen.org/kalkbrottsfantomer.html

Background info:
http://www.surrealistgruppen.org/experienceof.html
http://www.nationalgalleriet.just.nu/
http://sphinxforlag.se/surrealismensmanifest.htm
http://styxforlag.com/



Saturday, May 28, 2011

Well, I don't eat cakes!

Farewell to Leonora Carrington

Monday, May 23, 2011

Patrick Hourihan


We are pleased to announce the launch of Patrick Hourihan's website:

www.patrickhourihan.com

Sunday, May 08, 2011

I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving

Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail

Creation's Pleat

capped by the fall-well
where apricots shine
under the skinny-flipped crust of angelus-stink
hopelessly falling
embezzled the sun
crustaceous, rapacious, colditz unbound
in the bedsores of night
in the carpet of dreams
golden-thighed and solemnly gasping
better grasped than tumbled
and finish the teat-weather
gumption leads to bliss

Merl Fluin

Friday, April 29, 2011

Gibbon offers you the open goal

'Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule'

The Committee of Opportunist Jokers suggest you go ahead and score

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Rebus


Edible sharp melody amalgamation secret and open
armory starred crystallized saints inside
antiques machete fossil hypnos colossal weapons
mountains growing mourning
the antithesis freezing endorphin
EDIBLE!

Aniano, Merl, Patrick, Paul, Wendy
5 April 2011

Edible Mayans


Aniano, Merl, Patrick, Paul, Wendy
5 April 2011

Monday, April 04, 2011

Birthday

There are moments in life when man with his louse-ridden hair casts wild staring looks at the green membranes of space; for he believes he hears, somewhere ahead, the ironic hoots of a phantom. He staggers and bows his head; what he has heard is the voice of conscience. Then with the speed of a madman he rushes out of the house, takes the first direction his wild state suggests and bounds over the rough plains of the countryside. But the yellow phantom never loses sight of him, pursuing him with equal speed. Sometimes on stormy nights, while legions of winged octopi, which look like ravens at a distance, hover above the clouds, moving ponderously towards the cities of men, their mission to warn them to change their conduct; on such nights the dark-eyed pebble sees the beings pass by, lit up by the flashes of lightning, one after another; and wiping a furtive tear of compassion which flows from its frozen eye, it shouts out: 'Yes, he certainly deserves it; it is only justice being done.' Having said that he reassumes his grim attitude and continues to watch, trembling nervously, the manhunt, and the big lips of the shadowy vagina from which immense dark spermatozoids flow unceasingly like a river and then soar up into the lugubrious ether, hiding all nature with the vast span of her bat's wings, including the solitary legions of octopi, now gloomy at the sight of these dumb inexpressible fulgurations. But all the time the steeplechase between these two tireless runners is going on, and the phantom hurls torrents of fire from his mouth ...

Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont
Born 4 April 1846

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Occult Panopticon








High spirit of brine
overlooking this doll-size panopticon
Only parts of his face coming visible
Occultly visible
and soaking in brine
for seven years and seven nights
with limitless supplies of dried fish
I am not a doll!
they had all tried that argument
and gotten a glass of brandy for comfort




Mattias, Merl, Nikos and Paul

Wednesday 9th March

Exhibition: Jean-Claude Charbonel & John Welson


Click on the image to see (and read) a larger version.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Caster Sugar

This has been going on far too long, yet nobody seems to have the strength to stop it. Rabbits and toads have proved powerless in the face of the compulsive Black Prince's dog-smoking, and herds of ostriches are running around in a fundamentally unfettered way. We see no other option at this point but to dig up our long-buried tools for invoking rarely mentioned spirits, such as those of well-meaning polar bears and cute space giraffes. The tools in question comprise arctic terns' beaks, a full set of bicycle spanners, a golden key, and the flowers that grow from our shoulders. May the three-footed hart arise again, to reinforce the metals of the rage that we see no way of stopping from letting loose at this stage. It will make mushrooms erupt. It will feel strangely comfortable. It will gallop down the hill with a scream and a yell and a cry of coriandered frenzy. To its voice we will add our tree-worn fury, our confused sense of orientation and our longing for impressively fine-grained sand, and it will converge in a singular, not noisy, perfectly spherical lawn, sprinkled with dewdrops and gilly flowers. The endless sky of Cumberland will drip ether onto the soil below, the snow will burst upwards in the stride of a hatted man, and there will be hardly anything left to abandon. It's only then, when the moon has risen and the mortal folk have put their cares and their toys away, that our horses will race in riotous charge, the cavalier cavalry of our mountain health, and with this we trust our voice has already reaped its victims. Solemnly. Like the giraffe's lips.

Mattias, Merl and Paul
7 March 2011

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Destruction

The pink tulips lie abandoned on the lawn.
No black carrots are gathered together up a tree.
Cherries fall from the sky into a pool of sugar.
A martini glass climbs from the hole into a salt lake.
A lump of coal falls through the sand beside a freshwater stream.
A diamond jumps into a window over a salted meadow.
A shard of glass opens a hole and a sweet secret lies in the grass.
Thorns close a block of bitter juice on the pavement.
A fur blanket is swept aside to reveal a sweet pool of seeds in the sky.
A feathered bedstead is dragged over to cover a sour heap of dead plants underground.
Barbed wire falls across lush flesh in a meadow of sweetness.

Merl, Paul, Patrick and Aniano
1st March 2011

Collective drawing


Aniano, Merl, Patrick and Paul
1st March 2011

Exquisite corpse


Merl, Aniano, Patrick and Paul
1st March 2011

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

The Annular Projection


pencil drawing
by Aniano Henrique

The Organic Process


pencil drawing
by Aniano Henrique

The Mechanical Process


pencil drawing
by Aniano Henrique

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Ody Saban & Thomas Mordant: "Rising Sign"!

The text below by Ody Saban and Thomas Mordant has been circulated as part of the discussions around Destruction 2011. This exhibition and series of events, in which SLAG is gleefully participating, is being organised in Istanbul by our friends Surrealist Eylem Turkiye.

Cliquez ici pour lire ce texte en français.



THEME PROPOSAL FOR A SURREALIST GATHERING IN ISTANBUL IN 2011


‘RISING SIGN’!

In the face of a prosaic mundanity helplessly mired in its own dying signs, in the face of the apparent triumph of capitalist barbarism, let us build a concrete poetic dialectic of destruction and creation, now when the threat of death is breathing down the neck of humanity.

The question at issue is precisely how the most apparently destructive negativity can help to overcome (marvellous Aufhebung!) apparently hopeless situations.

For some decades the dialectical relationship between destruction and creation has had a very particular quality, one that we could make more effort to understand. We have become accustomed to the idea that although the human race is not absolutely doomed, its survival in the short or medium term is no longer assured. The risks cannot be calculated, because they ultimately depend above all on the struggles of humanity as a whole, as well as on chance. For surrealists and social revolutionaries, the task is to draw paradoxical strength from this state of affairs.

A)
First, we can develop a more collective and more personal, more vivid and profound consciousness of the total reinvention of the basic conditions under which humanity today is called to act, and against which it resists. From a spiritual perspective these basic conditions include, for example, an autistic and pornographic contempt for everything, a nihilistic cult of nothingness, an unsublimated death drive temporarily contained within the cyst of polymorphous perversity, a religion of performance and maximum pleasure drained of meaning so as to be rendered compatible with generalised indifference and chronic ennui.

Read and reread the lunatic screeds of Milton Friedman and especially his teacher Friedrich Hayek (still the great phantom gurus of world powers dominated by the Olympus of financial speculators), which far surpass the lunacy of Mein Kampf in their absurdity. As is well known, for these lunatics the total war of all against all is no longer to be regarded as a remediable, temporary or manageable flaw in capitalism, but as a principle to be venerated with the greatest possible devotion. Chaos is the condition of perfect equilibrium, we are told in all seriousness and in the tones of those who command and are obeyed.

This massive intellectual breakdown among the high priests of Capital, and their crisis of legitimacy, can help us to remind us of the urgency, freedom and necessity to clarify, radicalise and make concrete the spirit of our utopias.

B)
Let us bring our pessimism into dialectical relationship with our optimism.

On the one hand, it is not necessary to have hope in order to act successfully: despair often has the blackly humorous quality of being more effective than hope. And the essential point here is that surrealism, revolt, revolutionary struggle, poetry, freedom and love are their own reward – and would be so even if those passions were doomed to total failure – because they are grand, just and beautiful passions.

But on the other hand, hope is itself sublime, dazzling and precious, the hope of a definite realisation of those passions, improbable and slender as it may be. How many lovers have dreamed in this way of being able to run their fingers, once only or once more, through the hair of their beloved! Something analogous is at work in all our passions. It is for this reason (and not out of a ridiculous optimism that is ready to bend itself to every kind of pragmatism) that we must not abandon the mad hope of love requited, of realising and sharing the Marvellous through creation, of the birth of a human race that is finally free, perhaps for only a few days but preferably for much longer, until this reconciled human race ceases to be (since ‘all that exists deserves to perish’) and disappears or metamorphoses into something completely unknown, perhaps something better.

C)
Lastly, the human race’s blatantly obvious current panic – whether latent or overt – can enable us to recognise the essentially desperate heart of these passions (which still, despite everything, turns its face towards hope) in which the surrealist movement, and each and every one of us, is recognisable.

What is all authentic creation, at its origin, if not a mad expenditure of energy to no purpose?

What is the birth in an individual of passionate love (and this birth can last a lifetime – those whose hearts are dead may laugh), if not the recognition that everything is pointless, if not the blinding flash of a light that it would seem entirely foolish to hope to attain?

What is the passion for poetic and/or social revolution, if not a wager on the improbable, on a future that will remain unknowable, because only ‘another world [that] is possible’ and another life on earth seem more beautiful and more just, even though all previous attempts have failed.


Ody Saban, French-Turkish surrealist, and Thomas Mordant, French-speaking surrealist of Gypsy descent. There are four million Gypsies in Turkey.
Paris, France, 28 November 2010

Translated from French by Merl Fluin, 18 February 2011


Excerpts from ‘Rising Sign’ by André Breton (1947, translation by Franklin Rosemont):

For me the only
evidence in the world is commanded by the spontaneous, extralucid, insolent rapport which establishes itself, under certain conditions, between one thing and another, and which common sense hesitates to confront.

… a vital tension turned possibly towards health, pleasure, quietude, given thanks …

… mortal enemies the deprecative and the depressing.

… ‘A red dragonfly – tear off its wings – a pimento’, Basho substituted ‘A pimento – add wings – a red dragonfly’.

« SİGNE ASCENDANT » !

Click here to read this text in English.

PROPOSİTİON DE THÈME, POUR UNE RENCONTRE SURRÉALİSTE A İSTANBUL EN 2011

Face au prosaïsme, empêtré jusqu’à la moelle, dans ses signes agonisants, face à la barbarie capitaliste, apparemment triomphante, construire la dialectique poétique concrète de la destruction et de la création, au temps du danger de mort, qui souffle sur la nuque de l’humanité.

Tout le problème consiste à apprécier, précisément, comment le négatif le plus apparemment destructeur peux aider au dépassement (merveilleuse Aufhebung !) de situations apparemment sans issue.

Les rapports dialectiques entre destruction et création ont pris depuis quelques décennies une qualité toute particulière que nous pouvons mieux commencer à comprendre. En effet, nous nous sommes faits à l’idée que l’humanité, sans être absolument condamnée, voit sa survie, à court ou moyen terme, ne plus être assurée. Les risques ne peuvent être calculés car ils dépendent finalement surtout des luttes de l’humanité dans son ensemble, et aussi du hasard. Il s’agit pour les surréalistes et révolutionnaires sociaux de tirer des forces paradoxales de cet état de choses.

A) D’abord nous pouvons prendre une conscience plus collective et plus personnelle, plus vives et plus profondes, de réinventer entièrement les bases sur lesquelles cette humanité est aujourd’hui sommée d’agir et auxquelles elle résiste. Ces bases sont par exemple, du point de vue de l’esprit, un mépris autiste et pornographique de tout, un culte nihiliste du rien, une pulsion de mort non sublimée et provisoirement enkystée dans une perversion polymorphe, une religion de la performance et de la jouissance maximum exemptes de sens pour être compatible avec l’indifférence totale et l’ennuie chronique.

Il faut lire et relire le délire de Milton Friedman et surtout de son maître Friedrich Hayek (eux qui restent les grands gourous fantômes des puissants de ce monde, dominés par l’olympe des spéculateurs financiers) et qui surpassent de loin, en absurdité, les délires de « Mein Kampf ». Comme on le sait, la guerre totale de tous contre tous est conçue, par ce délire là, non plus comme un défaut guérissable ou passager ou contrôlable dans certain limite du capitalisme, mais comme le principe à vénérer avec la plus extrême dévotion. Le chaos devient la condition de l’équilibre parfait, cela nous est dit avec le plus grand sérieux, et sur le ton de ceux qui commandent et se font obéir.

Cet affaissement intellectuel massif des prêtres du Capital et la crise de légitimité peuvent nous aider à ressentir l’urgence, la liberté et la nécessité de préciser, radicaliser et concrétiser l’esprit de nos utopies.

B) Dialectiser les rapports entre notre pessimisme et notre optimisme.

D’une part, il n’est pas nécessaire d’espérer pour agir avec succès: le désespoir a souvent cet humour d’être plus efficace que l’espoir. Et, pour aller à l’essentiel, le surréalisme, la révolte, la lutte révolutionnaire, la poésie, la liberté, l’amour, valent pour eux- mêmes- y compris dans l’hypothèse où ces passions sont vouées à un échec total sur le plan des réalisations - parce que ces passions sont grandes, justes et belles !

Mais d’autre part, l’espoir est lui-même sublime, éclatant et précieux, l’espoir d’une certaine réalisation de ces passions, aussi improbable et aussi ténu soit-il. Ainsi, combien d’amoureux et d’amoureuses ont-ils rêvé de pouvoir effleurer, ne serait-ce qu’une fois ou une fois encore, les cheveux de l’être aimé ! Quelque chose d’analogue est à l’œuvre dans toutes nos passions. C’est pour cette raison (et non par un optimisme ridicule prêt à se plier à tous les pragmatismes) que nous ne devons pas abandonner l’espoir fou de la réciprocité dans l’amour, de l’accomplissement et du partage du merveilleux dans la création, de l’accouchement d’une humanité enfin libre, ne serait-ce que pour quelques jours, mais de préférence pour beaucoup plus longtemps, jusqu’à ce que cette humanité réconciliée cesse d’être (puisque ‘’tout ce qui est mérite de périr ‘’) pour disparaitre ou pour se métamorphoser en quelque chose de totalement inconnu, peut-être meilleur.

C) Enfin, l’actuel et criante panique humaine, latente ou déclarée, peut nous permettre de reconnaitre le fond essentiellement désespéré (mais tourné - malgré tout - vers l’espoir) de ces passions, dans les quelles le mouvement surréaliste, et chacun de nous, s’est reconnu.
Qu’est-ce, à l’origine, que toute création authentique, sinon dépense folle d’énergie en pure perte ?

Qu’est-ce que la naissance chez un individu de la passion amoureuse (et cette naissance peut durer toute la vie- les esprits engourdis pourront rire), sinon la reconnaissance que tout est vain, sinon la fulgurance d’une lueur qu’il semble tout à fait déraisonnable d’espérer atteindre ?
Qu’est-ce que la passion révolutionnaire poétique et/ou sociale, sinon un pari vers l’improbable,
pour un futur qui restera inconnaissable, parce que seulement « un autre monde possible », une autre vie sur terre, paraissent plus beaux, et plus justes, bien que toutes les précédentes tentatives aient échoué.

Ody Saban surréaliste turque et française & Thomas Mordant surréaliste de langue française et d’origine tsigane. Il y a quatre millions de tsiganes en Turquie ! Paris, le 28 novembre 2010

Extraits de « Signe Ascendant »
Texte d’André Breton 1947
« Pour moi la seule évidence au monde est commandée par le rapport spontané, extra-lucide, insolent, qui s’établit, dans certains conditions, entre telle chose et telle autre, que le sens commun retiendrait de confronter.
(…) une attention vitale tournée au possible vers la santé, le plaisir, la quiétude, la grâce rendue (…)
(…) ennemis mortels le dépréciatif et le dépressif.
(…) ‘’Une libellule rouge- arrachez lui les ailes- un piment’’ Bashō y substitua ‘’Un piment- mettez lui des ailes- une libellule rouge.’’ »

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Don LaCoss

We are shocked and saddened to hear of the death of our Surrealist comrade Don LaCoss on Monday. He was passionate and tireless and will surely be missed by all of us in the international Surrealist movement.

A short announcement of Don's death and a tribute to him by Ron Sakolsky can be found here.

A memorial blog where people can share their memories of him has been set up here.

Our condolences go to all of Don's friends and family.

Untitled drawing by Patrick Hourihan

Monday, January 17, 2011

Senegal and goodbye

Why do you think I went north and south
Why do you think I went by
Why do you think I went north and south
Fly little one fly

Senegal and goodbye
Run before you finish the war
Don’t ever fuck with that door

I want you to win but not at that price
The smell of hospital pitch
Trickle of flies
You think you can –

Merl Fluin

Wednesday, January 12, 2011