the dangerous prevalence of imagination: a tapeworm


So, reader, you're holding in your hands, as often happens, a book the
author did not write, although a world participated in it. And what
does that matter? Signs, symbols, impulses, falls, departures,
relations, discords, everything is there to bounce up, to seek, for
further on, for something else. Between them, without settling down,
the author grew his life. Perhaps you could try, too?

Henri Michaux



for Liz  in the laminar flow andor litter a keyboard with millet seed
where exotic songbirds will tap out prose  andor poems formed by a
core sample drilled through an encyclopedia stack andor cluster the
letters pressed on a platen as stalactites grow on the home key row
from a drip overhead in a limestone cave andor reconstruct the ruins
of a bombed-out capital i andor reproduce the canonic works of western
art as a series of road sign glyphs andor commission a painting of
marcel duchamps large ass andor build a concrete poem of the absence
that formatting codes for computers leave as they jerk the print head
over the paper while tape decks record  the squeal and lurch as
occasional music for cello or voice andor construct a poem
acknowledging that words are four dimensional objects in time andor
write an essay on the collected works of jane austen as a tour de
force lipogram that never once makes use of any characters in the
sinhalese alphabet andor escape from a paragraph by eloping along
slightly bottomless discourses andor point out that the super mario
world video game is actually a complex digital allegory for the
writings of terence mckenna andor pen a treatise for andre breton and
philippe soupault on the magnetic fields that vowels emit to shape the
consonants cling to the page like clusters of tiny iron filings
emphasizing the letter ys sometime electromagnetic charge andor
proceed according to a philosophy of whatever andor insert chapbooks
into the newspapers in vending boxes on the street andor do it even
more than usual andor learn everything you can about the life of
cervantes and then rewrite don quixote from the point of view of the
windmills andor print a set of instructions for drycleaning pressing
and patching the sacred shroud of turin andor build an object titled
doctor williams in his dotage that consists of a small red wheelbarrow
filled to the brim with depends brand adult disposable undergarments
andor develop an ability not to push words in usual channels andor
write a poem about the late john cage composed in 64 six line stanzas
based on the chinese book of changes andor move them in and out of
space andor design a camera that records its own presence andor a
construe a word by word synonymic replacement for everything in
finnegans wake and its sequel for casey from mister dressup andor look
as little like a particular point of view as possible andor a compose
a love poem called charged particles where each line is a single word
ending in the suffix ion andor stick a stamp on your head then pull a
mailbag over your head before you begin to recite andor work on a poem
attempting to emulate gansers syndrome where a person responds to
emotionally difficult questions with approximate or evasive answers
andor address the united nations with your intentions andor write an
encyclopedic novel about a whale but maintain throughout that it is a
fish rather than a mammal andor remove specifics and convert to
ambiguities andor knowing that paisleys were at first fertility
symbols from india that a small weaving town somewhere in scotland
stole and began to use as their own suppose as an alternate history
premise where indian castes instead developed a system of tartans and
composed ragas for duos consisting of bagpipe and sitar andor type the
words dylan thomas on a piece of paper but leave it on the platen and
then submerge the entire typewriter in white liquid and call the
resulting object underwood milk andor dial a number at random and talk
your way into reading poems to whoever answers andor enrol names
picked randomly out of the phone book into the book of the month club
andor author a sound poem consisting solely of noises made by spin
dryer full of glass eyeballs andor write each letter of a
shakespearean sonnet on one of those little plastic paratrooper army
men then throw them one by one from a balcony onto the audience below
andor write a scatological parody of the milorad pavic novel a
landscape painted with tea titled a landscape tainted with pee andor
document whats going on in a room not necessarily but possibly the one
youre in andor write a novel about what paul eluard did the year that
he disappeared andor publish a guidebook for nonexistent monuments
found well not found but you know what i mean somewhere in greater
downtown toronto andor illustrate that this must be the case andor
sandblast the scrawled missives of schizophrenics onto sheets of
coloured glass in church windows andor spell it according to a
phonetics of your own devising andor start a pataphysical software
company andor write with your bones dry and distant andor imagine a
poem called ideas for poets consisting of short metaphoric
descriptions of the personalities of real or imagined poets where
christopher smart might be a thin one smelling of vegetable crates and
catfood forever patrolling the sidewalks edge andor avoid the habits
of another artist andor fill a suitcase or steamer trunk full of it
and let your friends edit it while you sleep off the drug of your
choice andor make a western about the group of seven starring yul
brynner as emily carr andor write along the edges of your manuscripts
collated pages the way you used to write on the edges of the pages of
your math book and then shuffle the pages before you bind them andor
write haiku noting that stonehenge is actually a circle of big pi
symbols made out of rock andor make it unlimited massproduced
obtainable by all and eventually producible by all andor remove random
keys from your typewriter before you begin to write then forget which
ones youve removed andor write with your head between your hands andor
posit a time travelling character in a novel who first appears at its
end and proceeds backwards to its beginning as a series of non
sequiturs andor smoke your manuscript page by page when you run out of
rolling papers andor visualize whirled peas andor sell the designs
that appear after trickling a thin stream of sand onto a computer
graphics tablet andor write a sonnet about what a grecian earns andor
look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them andor
write a brief history of television including platos myth of the
television the television at lascaux the york and townley mystery
televisions shakespeares globe television and the first steam driven
television andor write with the tips of your eyes and holding back in
advance andor tell the story of the night that vladimir ilyich lenin
finally went across the street to the cabaret voltaire to see what was
causing all the goddamn noise andor write a treatise on the physics of
luggage calculating the difference between volumes of air displaced by
a clean shirt ironed and folded and by the same shirt when dirty andor
letterbomb the city of paris ontario with it andor punch holes through
every copy of the bound book andor replace sigourney weaver with
jacques derrida and make a film about him chasing hegelians through
the air ducts of a space ship with a flamethrower andor soak your hair
in japanese calligraphic ink and drag your head down a long paper
scroll andor treat grant applications as a creative act andor write
extended marginal comments or possibly subtexts on a movie with a
pinhead and magnifying glass in the black space that surrounds each
frame andor dont and see if i give a fuck andor consider the
implications of letters being the fossilized remains of small animals
and hypothesize what several million years of evolution might produce
as the descendants of such animals andor write without your fingers
blushing andor use rain damage as title for a neurology textbook that
has been repeatedly left outside during thunderstorms andor detourne
the berenstain bears childrens books by replacing all text with
material from charles bernsteins a poetics andor write with inane but
appropriate naivete andor theorize the written page as a prepared
cross section of something biological andor wonder why there are no
christian jubes buddhist jubes or muslim jubes andor break the rest of
these up andor explore the possible applications of artificial
stupidity andor stage the skinhead hamlet with real skinheads andor
work on the beginning for a while andor smear your hand and your
friends hand with spaghetti sauce paint semen or cyprine and shake
hands through a piece of paper andor pile everything thats not nailed
down onto the platen of your scanner andor write under the
pomegranates andor contradict yourself for you are vast and contain
multitudes andor use finishing nails to form the overall outline on a
wall and then hang your words from them andor play a game of
battleship by plotting moves according to letters read in order of
their appearance in poems by siegfried sassoon and f t marinetti andor
make it bigger andor speculate on the whereabouts of the lost portrait
of alfred jarry painted by aubrey beardsley andor write a poem about
sir isaac newton in your normal handwriting on an apple newton and let
it translate for you andor react against the laziness of railway
tracks between the passage of two trains andor document your
participation in an illegal activity then render the document nearly
but only nearly illegible through the application of artistic means
before you show it andor write so as to make a hollow andor cover a
refrigerator with poems written in fridge magnets copied from the food
section of steins tender buttons and fill the contents of the fridge
with the corresponding comestibles andor humanize the parts that are
free of error andor write poems that consist of nothing but
punctuation marks andor keep changing andor write on yellowing velvet
andor vomit alphaghetti onto the page as a homage to bob rauschenberg
and jubal brown andor title a story the fall of the house of escher
andor think of the souvenirs without nostalgia andor annoy the people
at the art bar andor take a newspaper take a pair of scissors choose
an article as long as you are planning to make your poem cut out the
article then cut out each of the words that make up this article and
put them in a bag shake it gently then take out the scraps one after
the other in the order in which they left the bag copy conscientiously
then the poem will be like you and here you are a writer infinitely
original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond
the understanding of the vulgar andor do all of these things andor
kidnap someone and make them happy andor construct grammatically
correct sentences and phrases to fall between the last word at the end
of each line of type and the first word of the following line of type
in a given text andor continue to consider yourself very likeable
andor work flat for a while andor do concrete poems in needlepoint
andor paint it on the soles of your shoes then walk around while
theyre still wet andor write a piece titled nodes consisting of short
homages to the letter n andor make people believe make believe people
andor write even duller if you can andor compile a detailed
concordance of all words beginning with the letters dr in bpnichols
long poem then title it for a secular martyrology andor list all
inappropriate literary gift sets such as the complete works of sylvia
plath with a set of oven mitts andor have nothing to lose andor
commission a carpenter to fashion a chair designed for humans with the
knees on the backs of their legs rather than the front andor write as
though you must behave yourself because a monkey is watching you andor
select a bookcase full of books measure the limits of the bookcase
count the books take the first book and count the number of periods on
the first full page of type multiply that number by all the pages in
the book record the title and the approximate number of periods in
each book then total all periods in the entire bookcase andor
translate it into a language of your own devising andor write it under
the rims of coffee cups andor realize the huge distance between words
andor postulate a psychoanalysis based on orestes rather than oedipus
andor write down the best lines that you hear at every reading you
attend for a year then string them all together andor write with tears
in your fingers andor plant crocus bulbs in the shape of dirty words
on the grassy slopes of parliament hill andor chop the text up into
strips and enclose them in genitally shaped fortune cookies as though
fortune cookies werent genitally shaped already but thats another
issue andor provide evidence you know how people around you are
speaking andor ramble on beautifully andor make several overprints of 
maple leaves in different seasons and the streets of downtown toronto
at different points in history titled toronto mapleafs andor attach
too much importance andor ask your mom or better yet victors mom andor
write the book that you always wanted to read andor realize that if
you actually met many of the writers you idolize that youd consider
them either pompous assholes or reprehensible scumbags andor apply
yourself to renunciation andor stage a reading on top of the world
trade center with the audience circling in helicopters andor bring in
etruscan things and occasionally a marble bust andor burglarize houses
but instead of stealing leave poetic terrorist objects andor write
your book in ink which contains powdered radioactive compounds and
perform your readings of it by holding each page up to a geiger
counter andor put the things you took out back in andor rewrite
atwoods survival defining canadian identity with reference to
positions from the kama sutra instead of victim positions andor draw
it out of a hat andor stick a magic marker up your asshole and scuttle
around on all fours to write texts resembling the later visual poems
of bob grenier andor correct information in the direction of poetry
andor publish the ed norton anthology of english literature andor be
an hour late andor stamp it on to a metal sheet in braille then
electrify the metal sheet andor tell shit from shinola andor write a
poem for jacob wren about death consisting of phrases where the word
death has been omitted beginning with the line be not proud in venice
in june andor translate it into klingon andor demonstrate the artists
dispensability and inclusiveness andor extract from the inside of a
scale model of a chicken a blown eggshell full of confetti cut from
the pages of the captain poetry poems then crack the egg on your head
andor build geodesic origami polyhedrons covered in texts and images
from the writings of buckminster fuller andor flex your head andor
mount graffiti covered panels detached from public washroom stalls in
an art gallery andor grandly forget the present andor buy an abandoned
mine shaft and fill it with bad poetry andor weave alphabet beads on a
large loom into a story about hesse andor write like a nightingale
with a toothache andor at least occasionally push for as much sound as
possible and still allow for and maintain sense andor pick someone at
random and convince them that they are the heir to an enormous useless
and amazing fortune say five thousand square miles of antarctica or an
aging circus elephant or an orphanage in bombay or a collection of
alchemical manuscripts in order to make them realize at some later
point that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary
and will perhaps be driven as a result to seek out some more intense
moment of existence andor make it smaller andor redesign ian hamilton
finlays little sparta for use as a miniature pitch and putt golf
course then print up mock tourist pamphlets and arrive at his front
door with a full set of clubs insisting that you be allowed to play
the back nine andor make room for the unexpected andor type a triple
decker novel without the use of a ribbon andor put it all in a locker
at the bus depot and just walk away andor make a bet with another
writer that you can make more money by founding a religion then
proceed to do so andor establish a genealogical tree of short imagist
poems and breed various examples together noting and cataloguing the
emergence of new strains andor use about fifteen different types of
erasers andor establish internal rhythms andor write the regulations
for equitable blood sports such as an encounter in an aquarium between
a killer whale and a snorkel diver armed only with a staple gun or one
in a gymnasium between a white rhino and a person driving a rider
mower with the blade removed andor write each word of a long poem on a
separate bumpersticker and apply one to each car in a parkade using
rows as lines and floors as stanzas andor when faced with a choice do
both andor set it free on the internet and see what it becomes in five
years andor take photos of individual letters from neon signs and
spell out texts across walls in vast photocollages andor structure
your book according to the moves in a chess game or the fibonacci
sequence andor make it orange andor paint it on centre ice at maple
leaf gardens andor build a model of kurt schwitters london merz house
out of lego then have an ugly little kid in a brown shirt and
lederhosen kick it to pieces andor mean it as a compliment andor
record everything you say for the next two years and arrange it in
terms of insignificance andor work towards and aesthetics of
disappointment andor commission tombstones and print obituaries for
dead artistic movements andor in large type write the phrase once upon
a time there was a story that began on a long sheet of paper running
through your fax machine with the two ends taped together to form a
seamless belt then enter john barths fax number and let it run for a
day or so andor cover the walls and ceilings with it andor paint words
on stones and bury them underground andor eclipse the differences
andor assign letter values to the cells in a beehive and copy the long
word that defines the comings and goings of the drones andor write a
recipe for the masala in a jwcurry andor pull it inside out andor
serve nicole brossard a mauve dessert andor write a long poem in the
second person andor proceed in your analysis as though neil young had
invented the theories of dream archetypes and synchronicity but dont
even dare to imagine karl jung singing for crazy horse andor stuff a
copy of the unabridged oxford english dictionary into the hopper of a
wood chipper and read from the resultant spew through a megaphone
andor walk up the coast of british columbia and photograph it foot by
foot in actual size andor dictate instructions to assemble a piece of
art over a conference call and display the results as a group show
andor paint with my hands andor bolt up commemorative brass plaques in
places public or private where you have experienced a revelation or
had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience andor disguise a
flying tomb as an airplane andor give up the funk andor write an essay
on the philosophical import of the umbrella with reference to
nietzsche derrida the penguin jarry satie mary poppins lautreamont
christo and mccaffery andor get a ouija board to write it for you
andor drive over the pages of it in the parking lot before you bind
them together andor record a drum n bass version of emmett williams an
opera andor make it nude andor pack all the furniture in the house
into a single room  then attempt to live in it for as long as possible
andor embed the real poems as comments in the html source code andor
attribute your work to other authors then review it andor sell it on
the street andor remove the middle three words from every sentence in
the new testament as an act of hostility toward trinitarian values
andor luxuriate in the way that everything rubs up against everything
else andor devote your career to writing letters to the editor andor
get closer to the lens andor drop a ping pong ball full of drano into
the gas tank of a car and record the sound of the fragments hitting
the ground as a homage to apollinaires rain poem andor make a rhizome
andor write down the first sentence spoken after a television set is
turned on then change the channel and write down the next sentence and
so on andor construct a museum of language in the vicinity of art
andor construct earthworks as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in
provincial parks andor write a history of the avant garde making sure
to discuss the avant garde of dissipated scandals the avant garde of
less than nothing the avant garde of cemeteries the avant garde of
almost complete blindness the avant garde of colourful french
bohemians at the turn of the century the avant garde of simian
vulgarity the avant garde of endless lies tantamount to significance
the avant garde of vicious circles logical illusions tautologies and
obvious contradictions the avant garde of the kitsch of the recent
past and the avant garde of almost complete blindness andor put the
pieces on one at a time then burn them andor wrap the reichstag with
it andor construct a peanut butter pump to run in tandem with joseph
bueys honey pump andor only write one poem in your entire life and
spend the rest of your efforts in constantly retranslating it andor
make antipaganda not propaganda andor write a scratch and sniff book
for dogs andor keep changing the questions andor bind individual pages
of a text into the backs of other books already in the library with a
call number or two to point readers on to the next section or sections
making sure to include red herrings andor stage your reading in a
bathroom stall andor give yourself up to remote control andor paint
sections of a page repeatedly with liquid paper until a sculptural
surface develops andor press your fingers against your closed eyelids
then transcribe the phosphene messages that you see before they fade
andor play philip glass in ragtime andor do none of these things andor
affix it to the top of the cn tower andor have time to teach it to the
dancers andor strap a spirometer and heart monitor on paul dutton
during the performance of a sound poem and publish the results in a
prominent medical journal andor write a poem using only the names of
house paint swatches from a hardware store and then arrange the
colours syntactically andor make a popup book edition of the making of
americans andor draft some plans for logical stupefactions andor have
it inscribed on a grain of rice andor write it across an empty field
in cursive script by rolling a big snowball in front of you realizing
all the while that the snowball will eventually form the period at the
end of the sentence andor practice surrielism after canadada andor
happen very naturally andor make a mondrian colouring book andor place
a completed manuscript into a cage and let a gerbil do the final edit
andor annotate a blank page with comments and quotations on postit
notes then annotate the postit notes with a further layer of different
coloured notes and continue until you run out of colours andor replace
collage with frottage andor write only in the lower case or only in
the upper case for a few years then switch andor have the same problem
all the time andor make a huge paper boat from all your correspondence
then launch it climb aboard and sail away andor engage in unauthorized
pyrotechnic displays verbal or otherwise andor work against your
better judgement andor make a series of trading cards for poets with
action photographs and statistics including number of readings
publications and likelihood of having anything entertaining to say
andor reconstruct the memory of a dismantled parallelepiped andor
write a zany half hour sitcom based on the daily life of gertrude
stein and alice b toklas starring jamie farr as alice andor object to
the subject andor publish a scratch and sniff version of our lady of
the flowers andor look for poems in the indices of scientific
treatises on the weather andor try to do this with variety andor
substitute the word hockney everywhere you see the word hockey andor
move all of the vowels to the front andor cover the walls floor and
ceiling of each room of a house in very tiny print andor reconnect to
desire andor spell it on the floor in alphabits and read it by bathing
in milk and then rolling your body across the text andor move away
from black and white andor use an ocr scanner to transcribe the most
illegible photocopy of the text you can produce andor think about it
from my perspective for a change andor spell it out in atoms under an
electron microscope andor come up with a more interesting list than
this andor lease an abandoned church in order to paint an exact
replica of the ceiling of the sistine chapel then burn down the church
and exhibit the dropcloths andor make jello molds of each letter in
your text then place all of the letters that form each word into
separate parfait glasses topped with aerosol whipped cream and serve
one word to each member of your audience andor write a refutation of
the end of endlessness andor stop going to class andor let the birds
out of the john cage andor write a book that consists solely of a very
long title andor make famous poems more efficient by abstracting them
into commercial catchphases such as ive fallen and i cant get up for
miltons paradise lost andor write poems on the backs of stolen blank
deposit slips and surreptitiously return them to the bank andor dub
segments of videotaped poetry readings over the credits of all of the
movies you rent andor turn it up to eleven andor write poems using
only words found in the california licence plate registry andor come
in and talk for thirty six hours straight andor write what you really
wanted to say on the same page in invisible ink made from lemon juice
water and sugar andor impregnate key words with lsd and dmso andor
clog up subway cars during rush hours with cumbersome objects such as
large musical instruments boxes long poles and large signs bearing
fragments from your poems as announcements andor want to destroy
passersby andor tape record your readings and mail them to the address
where youre supposed to be performing so that you can stay home and
watch simpsons reruns and leafs games but if anyone complains plead
agoraphobia andor promulgate obsolete ideas in dead media andor forget
what you were just going to type andor take up weird dancing in all
night computer banking lobbies andor be a quiet but interesting
disaster andor go to a place be invited for instance have impressions
there take things from the places where you have impressions really or
mentally such as bulbs from lamps candy from stores symbols from
visions in dreams symbols from visions in places colours from clothes
colours from faces colours from memory colours from hope colours from
disgust and make as many as time allows invitation allows health
allows walls want you want people want flat things pictures out of the
taken things then copy them photographically make portraits of them
describe them make remarks about them divide them alter them keep them
give them have machines doing the same for you more for you more for
somebody else more for themselves so make pictures out of things
feelings visions remarks accidents which come from those pictures make
at any time a pile from the pictures you like somebody likes  certain
people like nobody likes and bind them as a book andor write political
thrillers based on the premise that the borders of the worlds
countries have been repartitioned according to the way that they
appear on a risk board andor write the word pharmakon on a mirror in
lines of cocaine and cut each letter with progressively higher amounts
of drano andor use high cultural forms to discuss low cultural content
or low cultural forms to discuss high cultural content andor write
what you dont know andor write a three volume novel in french about a
man who falls in love with a cookie andor assume precisely what it is
you should be questioning andor forge a scroll relating the story of
jesus revealing the game of bingo to the apostles and slip it into a
case in the museum housing the nag hammadi manuscripts andor move the
last line of your poem to the beginning of the poem andor print
everything on garbage stolen from behind the coach house andor proceed
as though edgar rice burroughs not william s burroughs had written
naked lunch andor read for a long time but not as long as clint
burnham andor write in letraset on bus shelter windows andor be
monochrome andor write your poems on large soup plates in raspberry
coulis and olive paste then stack them sequentially in a dishwasher as
a form of binding andor take any three things that you have never been
able to do and apply the principles of their making to your life andor
read nothing during your readings andor conceive of a book as a three
dimensional matrix of two dimensional grids where each letter fills a
cell and the book is read by tunneling down through the grids one cell
at a time column by column to form words and sentences or read
existing books as though this were the case andor write scenarios
describing the serendipitous evolution of animals that have been
deliberately bred such as the origin of the yellow labrador retriever
as a denizen of the african savannahs normally to be found in small
happy packs around bluffs of tennis ball trees and kibble bushes andor
copy out all references to fear in the cantos andor write a heavy
metal sequel to zukofskys a titled metallic a or better yet fuckin a
andor let the reader decide whether it is prose or poetry because they
will anyway andor  consider something important then call what is not
important unimportant then take something which is unimportant and
find a way to consider it important adding it to what is already
important and continue in this way until there is no more unimportant
then take something which is important and find a way to consider it
unimportant adding it to what is already unimportant and continue in
this way until there is no more important andor smear it andor refuse
to privilege one sign over another andor burn your unpublished
manuscripts but use the resultant heat to bake bread to send to the
one you love andor write to n minus one degrees andor write a poem
answering all of the questions that ron sillimans sunset debris poses
in the order of their occurrence andor operate a sidewalk fast food
cart whose menu consists of items drawn solely from the pages of the
futurist cookbook andor write your words on the sides of living fish
in waterproof markers and release them back into the sea andor stuff
mailboxes with thousands of packages containing heavy objects such as
bricks addressed to various galleries artists concert halls or museums
bearing as return addresses the locations of various galleries artists
concert halls or museums andor copy the entire text of on the road in
chalk down the middle of a highway bonus points if its the 401 andor
run out of things to write on andor surreptitiously write erotic poems
and excerpts from the essays of freud on the unsold wax magic writing
pads in the toy departments of large retail outlets andor imagine a
world where all writing is hollow and the job of the critic is to
describe its interior structure then write an unflinching review of
your worst work from this perspective andor read everything out loud
two times unless youre john giorno then read it three times andor
design a transformer to use up wasted bits of energy such as excessive
pressure on electric buzzers exhalation of cigarette smoke the growing
of hair body hair and nails the fall of urine and excrement movements
of fear astonishment boredom and anger laughter the dripping of tears
demonstrative motions of the hands and feet tics sour looks arms
dropping to ones side stretching yawning sneezing spitting normally
and spitting blood vomiting ejaculating unwanted hair tufts the sounds
of noseblowing and snoring fainting whistling singing et cetera andor
quit making art to play chinese checkers andor tattoo your poems on
someones back but dont make any spelling mistakes or be prepared to
correct them in a different colour of ink andor remove ambiguities and
convert to specifics andor buy a microsoft actimates plush barney doll
and program it to recite neotraditionalist and new formalist
blatherings andor build and exhibit lead cases designed to contain
classic works of sculpture andor demonstrate the selfsuffuiciency of
the audience andor work on the end for a while andor take all the
things you can find which are too something and touch them until they
feel different andor fuck canadian life writing andor make odd
objections to certain regular symmetries in regular systems andor
practice at any arcade game until youre good enough to get all ten
high scores then use the space where youre supposed to leave your
three initials to write a ten line poem with three letters on each
line andor steal it back again andor disrupt events at concert halls
theatres museums galleries and reading during critical hours by
ordering by phone large numbers of taxicabs trucks ambulances or
firemen andor write the book that occurs between billiard and pilliard
andor get the proper help andor begin to read with your mouth full of
ball bearings then slowly spit them into a metal bowl as you proceed
and after youve spit them all out begin to put them back in one by one
but never stop reading andor publish an issue of someone elses
magazine without telling them andor write a prose poem for each
element on the periodic table then assemble more complex texts by
combining them in a manner analogous to the molecular structure of
your favourite compounds andor question motivations andor get a
reading at harbourfront and invite all of your friends up on stage to
read and loudly demand that greg gatenby feed them dinner or at least
a little snack andor pile everything that is nailed down onto the
platen of your scanner andor let john barlow overt it andor let
someone else decide exactly which one of the lakes it is that you like
better andor present a plausible argument for the theory that
alexander graham bell named the pound key on the telephone after being
impressed by an early encounter with the young ezra andor change the
font andor never spell the same word the same way twice andor hire a
skywriter to use an airplane to spell out the letters m e r d  e then
at the moment when the audience has reached its maximum level of
scandalization add a second letter r between the d and the final e
andor make it funky now andor use a scrabble board as your page and
the letter tiles for your vocabulary making sure to calculate your
score after youve finished writing andor spend an hour at each stop on
the subway line in order collecting a transfer for each minute with no
chronological gaps and do not resurface until you have completed the
task andor punch your text as a series of holes into a long scroll of
paper then run it through a player piano andor use your allusion andor
arrange your books metonymically instead of alphabetically andor
pretend youre leonard cohen as long as you start with the part of his
career where he gives up writing and goes to live in a buddhist
monastery and avoid the crappy folksinging part altogether andor
atrophy trophies andor write reviews of books using only words and
phrases drawn from those books andor substitute photos of charlie
mccarthy for photos of tristan tzara andor begin to be sure that if
you could only go on long enough and talk and hear and look and see
and feel enough and long enough you could finally describe really
describe every kind of human being that ever was or is or would be
living andor begin again and again and again