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The following took place at the STLSG meetings in July and August 2008 with our Portland comrade Shibek, who was on an extended visit here.

LATENT NEWS Game
(this game is performed by one or more persons cutting out individual lines from several different newspaper stories or headlines to create a new 'news' story. As the Chicago groups states: 'To disorder the mystification called 'news' and thereby to reveal something of its latent content')

‘Chimpanzees Beneath Modern Alexandria’

- The Emmy-winning daughter of the late 'Crocodile Hunter' is getting her own doll. "We know the D.C. handgun ban didn't reduce homicide," he said in an interview. Rocket men explode in a morning mishap. Oh, but it's in 3-D this time! The other rare fear card is even more tattered.
(Shibek, Richard Burke, Andrew Torch, Susan Burke; from STL Post-Dispatch, NY Times and Riverfront Times July 2008)

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Our social life requires a touch of revolt. But, who killed the electric car? Part of the answer is people's slowness to spend extra money. "Intriguingly, Tell Brak seems to have grown from the outside in."

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Innovators are reshaping the Arch and announcing that our way of life is over. Northeastern Missouri is home to a large number of industrial hog farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations. Our social life requires a touch of revolt. I say a little helmet hair will not ruin a good time. The state would go another year without major upgrades to roads and bridges. That's a mighty deep hole!
(Shibek, Richard Burke, Andrew Torch, Susan Burke; from STL Post-Dispatch, NY Times and Riverfront Times July 2008)



Solo Latent News

Washington's Elite Pinch Teen Pocketbooks

Washington's elite turned out to pinch teen pocketbooks. They are looking for a life preserver, and other radioactive bribery. "We've made huge progress," said umpires before plunging into boat fuel. Microorganisms let business executives pucker up before the next flood. Move to high ground! The bookish carcasses floating on private jets containing well-preserved energy costs were found alive and well, stashed in the economic prison over a big city. A fast-food nurse said U.S. agents poison the atmosphere to promote tourism. A deadly weapon would allow alcohol sales in a makeshift recording studio after a three year delay. Sad shoppers around the globe are a great example of songwriters heading to the world class skatepark. The electronic lipstick is busy pumping slow cherry trees, a social worker, and Idaho antique shops in 1993.
(Shibek, July 2008)

LATENT RADIO NEWS or DISCONNECTED RADIO:
-A technique I developed about 10 years utilizing my fondness of the radio, taking snipets from radio programs listened to from another room (as to miss or incorrectly decipher some words) and replacing a few key words to bring about a new 'news' story in poetic fashion.


Cumin is mixed heartily with discord, baked with a white fish, in the oven of dispair, your heart and hair makes for a tasty knuckle sandwich, motherfuckers drink and lie and turn the temperature up till the lobster-men do not realize they have been cooked, gutted, served cold with chard, China was just the beginning.
(August 31, 2008 Andrew Torch)

Other 2008 game results.....

Exquiste Poem: Richard Burke, Andrew Torch, Susan Burke, in that order, one line each.

The Rationalist smiled idiotically, while snot streamed down his face.
Smoke rises from the house when she takes her pants off.
The sky will rain cats and dogs when the moon rises in the east.(2008)

Feb. 2007 game results:
The game of random occupation joined with random people. (One person lists an occuptation and passes it blindly to the next to guess the person, the different members will be in different colors)

-A breeder of weasels...
Kermit the Frog.

The shoe-shiner at the airport...
Marianne Faithful

Babysitter for very spoiled children...
Pope Benedict.

-A back-up singer in a bad Irish folk band...
David Bowie

-A famous drag queen...
John Lyndon

-World News Weekly reporter...
Harpo Marx

-Pet groomer of extremely spoiled pets...
Hillary Clinton

-Writer of cheap romance novels...
Britney Spears

A teacher of midgets...
Edie Sedgwick.


***
(Same game, just reversed, with one member giving a name and passing blindly to the next to give an occupation)
Lee Miller
Fixer of wheels on grocery carts.

Trotsky
The Queen of England.

The Countess Elizabeth Bathory
A fortune teller on every third Wednesday on even-numbered years.

*********

New game, same meeting......
(One member writes a what or a when or a how statement, and passes blindly to the next to answer the question)

When do bodies of light descend from the cosmos?
-After the cat meowed loudly for his supper.

How did the sun explode seven times in the night sky?
-By rubbing Barbara Bush's legs together over a fire.

-What does the mayor do in the bathroom late at night?
It is the philosopher's stone when hidden from sight.


**** Feb. 2006 meeting (Groundhog observance):

If latticeworks of light shine thru the night,
Then triangles of communications will form in the desert;
If the totem pole is set on fire,
Then the antiquarian's books will burn spontaneously;
If water flows simultaneously backwards & forwards;
Then the cup will be empty at the sighing of sleep.

- Richard Burke, Andrew Torch, Susan Burke


Spring 2005:

-'All hell-bent priests dress the same...
Animal magnetism provokes the proverbs of a new myth...
Therefore, the squirrel slept peacefully as the moon sang lullabyes.

(Same day)
All pigeons will rapture away to heaven...
..and time begins and ends once again...
therefore, lightning will strike the egg-shaped rocks and wine will flow forth.


MAY DAY 2003 St. Louis group:

If the dog ate only bread,
then the lovers will meet an early death.

If the water only flows away from the village,
then lightning will strike the tear ducts.

If you jump bonfires on Beltane
then the monarch will take no further delights!

If the sky is green,
then the followers will fall down the hill.

If the birds fly blind
then magnetic fields will fluctuate.

If trees are flowers
then the sky will explode!

(Susan Burke, Andrew Torch, Richard Burke -May Day '03)

MAY 15th Game:

IF rationalists take over the world,
then topaz will turn blue.

IF the cat's eyes blazed green,
then water monsters will mate.

IF Ted Joans lives,
then sparks will fly!

(Richard Burke, Susan Burke and Andrew Torch)

Exquisite Corpse Poetry 2003

Like stars in the void of night,
braced against the flaming aura,
sunset came with fire

Elephants are hard,
Zone 51 has a parking element missing
The chimes thus told

The absolute has grown wings,
Breaking glass too often
Finding himself at home, he smiled

(Susan Burke, Andrew Torch, Richard Burke St. Louis 2003)

Game of Conditionals Feb. 2003

If war breaks out, then silver turns black; gold to brass

If cat loves dog,
then the water will boil in the sink

If masks are worn up-side down
then fools will have wings

If young love becomes caged,
then he will smell bad.

(Andrew Torch, Richard Burke and Susan Burke)


Exquiste Corpse short stories (le Cadavre exquis) from the summer 2002 St. Louis Surrealist meetings

#1
She knew the end was near. Eggs can not cook that long without exploding...the gunshell was nonetheless a painful reminder of her loss. Suicide was the best option to recover lost love; but unfortunately the gift of fair trade chocolate and colorful daylillies melted and wilted in the hot, yet sexy sun. Her lips turned blue, her skin a lovely violet as she melted onto the sidewalk in a puddle of gold; her teeth looked better with the new caps-but perhaps she should have used silver. (5 Person story)

#2
Love was achingly beautiful but she rejected its overture. Alone again she snak into the morass of sparkling duckweed in a beautiful Illinois swamp full of cypress trees that encircled her with their cypress dreams and kissed her with their boggy lips there upon which she fell asleep, to the sound of rain. It had reminded her of resounding happiness-the feeling she experienced during a summer storm in her mothers arms she was crushed! Death was certain...or uncertain; can she ever figure it out? (5 person story)



Ed. note: This next story is a form of the game 'Opposites'. The first sentence states something and each sentence afterward should be the next writers idea of the opposite meaning.

#1. As he spoke, he began to doubt what he was saying. 2. Her yelling increased in ferocity and self-love. 3. His whisper descended outside realms of timidity and misanthropy. 4. Her shout ascended into the heart of nothingness and was punctuated by agressive love of self. 5. His soul plummeted into the mind of supreme knowledge as he absorbed his self-loathing. 6. Blind to the love he had himself his soul floated toawrds the heavens. (end)

'Opposites',different group: 1. I was alone at the top of the world when the 30 foot rabbit jumped off. 2. Everyone was gathered as the tiny bunny fell. 3. No one was there as the skeleton of the kangaroo arose from the dead. 4. The world disappeared into the flesh as the snake crawled back to the womb. 5. Nothingness appeared amongst expansive energy when a mouse emerged from the penis. 6. All the world vanished into nothingness when the lion entered the vagina. (end)

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