A row over the cook

After the stabbing, the
£120,000 a year actuary
ripped some pages out of
a Game of Thrones book
and shot himself with a speargun.

The actuary slept with
the fluffy duck every night
because it still bore the scent
of his ex-partner's perfume.

But the actuary suffered
panic attacks and sat around
the flat all day eating food
from a saucepan,
snorting coke
and watching daytime TV.



Court reports tweeted by @CourtNewsUK on 1st May, 2014. Submitted by Marika.

Soft-soaping

Blowfly-minded
Retardate worm
Clown of the House

Idle vapourings of a mind diseased
I would cut the honourable gentleman’s
throat if I had the chance

His brains could revolve inside a peanut shell
for a thousand years without touching the sides
Kind of animal that gnaws holes

Member not fit to lick
the shoes of the Prime Minister
Energy of a tired snail returning
home from a funeral

Shut up yourself, you great ape
Snotty-nosed little boy
You are a cheap little twerp
Ridiculous mouse

Could go down the Mount Eden sewer and come up
cleaner than he went in
Dreamed the bill up in the bath
Frustrated warlord



Phrases deemed 'unparliamentary language' and banned from New Zealand parliamentary debates, as listed on Futility Closet, 30th October 2013. Submitted by Marika.

They’re not grateful any more

It used to be a very unique and
blessed experience to be able to
experience theatre and to go to
see it and only the most highest-class
people in Shakespearean times would be
let into the theatre and everyone
else would have to watch it in the square.
Nobody feels that way any more. It’s
so easily accessible on the
Internet it’s treated like McDonald’s,
it’s treated like trash...

I’m not a French fry,
I’m foie gras.



Taken from the transcription of an interview with Lady Gaga posted on How Upsetting, 2nd September 2013. Submitted by Marika.

Fall in love, or be asphyxiated

At certain points, reading
the work can even be said
to resemble the act of
making love to a
three-hundred-pound woman.
Once she gets on top,
it’s all over.

Fall in love, or
be asphyxiated.



Taken from Norman Mailer's 1998 New York Review of Books review of Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full, posted on Futility Closet. Submitted by Marika.

Swiftly

I am going to be a bit of a crush on you
and your lovely email address and
password for the first time today
and get a different thing to do it
for you to the gin bar in the UK who
are you a call on the anti-Russia
LGBT backlash the UK and Ireland
and the other day and night and
I am a beautiful person to person
who is the best address to to
the café now and then you came to
the the the the the the the
the the the the the the the
the the the the the the the



Text created by accepting all the predictive text suggestions made by the Swiftkey typing app, 11th August 2013. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Deep Blue

To my shame, I prefer playing chess
against a computer than a human opponent.
It’s less risky. There is no shame
in defeat. Cheating is not unethical.
Attention to it can be sporadic.
You can simply suspend
a game or start over if
you think you are going to lose.
Even when I am beaten soundly by
a computer opponent, I don’t feel
outwitted; instead I take away a
feeling that my thinking has not become
sufficiently machine-like to compete,
which is more reassuring than anything else.
I get the gratifying feeling
that being lousy at chess is
a mark of my indelible humanity.
This despite the fact that I
am playing computer chess because
I can’t bear the pressure of human interaction.



Taken from En Passant, a blog post published by The New Enquiry, 27th July 2013. Submitted by Marika.

Blessed be he

His frame is new,
his breast is new,
his penis is new,
his head is of tin,
his teeth are those of a lion,
his eyes are (those) of an eagle,
and he sees like an eagle.



A benediction composed for Hattusli II, King of the Hittites, taken from Stalin's Moustache. Submitted by Marika.

It will soon be dark

Writing is
excessive drudgery. It
crooks your back,
it dims your sight,
it twists your stomach
and your sides.

As the harbour is welcome
to the sailor, so is
the last line
to the scribe.



Marginalia from medieval manuscripts, posted on Wesley Hill's tumblr, 13th April 2012. Submitted by Marika.

Cry me a rainbow

Down by the Fairway waterfront
where all of those artist
studios are the surge
broke into the first floor studios
drawing out paint and chalk across
the whole walkway, splashing
it back up against
the side of the building,
wave by wave,
making this insane rainbow
colored splatter paint all
across the Red Hook
shore. There must have been
mostly red paint
because the ocean in that
little alcove has turned a deep maroon.



Taken from a letter describing the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Submitted by Marika.

Mythologise Anything

A recent exhibition of the work
of American artist Jeff Koons was
called Everything's Here. I subscribe to that
worldview: you can live on "lipgloss and
cigarettes". There are more references to
TV shows and showbiz entertainers

in my songs than references to the
Greek myths but it's all valid. You can
mythologise anything if you put
your mind to it. In a way it's more fun
to look for profundity in something
that's not designed to have it. Or maybe

that's just awkwardness on my part – I do
have a tendency towards that. When I
was nine years old, we were learning how to
draw bar charts at school when the teacher
decided to construct one based on the
times we got up in the morning to get

ready for school. For some reason I was
determined to have a bar on the graph
all to myself and so claimed to rise at
6am every morning (which was an
obvious lie as I was usually at
least five minutes late each day). The teacher

was sceptical but let it go and, much
to my satisfaction, I got my own
exclusive bar. I don't know why I was
so determined to be different from all
the other members of my class, but it
felt important to me. Perhaps it still

is. But I'd like to think that it was more
than mere cussedness on my part, that it
was the start of a sensibility,
a desire to look in the less obvious
places – less obvious because they were
right under your nose. Pulp was the perfect

name for the band because this was an attempt
to find meaning in the mass-produced and
throwaway world that was, after all, what
we were surrounded by on a daily
basis. To sift through and find some beauty
in it all. Take a look – it is there.



Taken from Jarvis Cocker: the secrets of Pulp's songs, The Guardian, 16th October 2011. Submitted by Marika.

I say 'biscuit' 900 times an hour

The hippies of
outrageous fortune
weigh heavy on
the minds of dogs


Taken from an account of life with Tourette's in the Guardian, 10th February 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

On Feet

Slippers are designed
to be slipped into
without help from the hand.
They are monuments to
the hatred of bending down.



A quotation from Theodor W. Adorno's Minima Moralia: Reflections on Damaged Life, first published in 1951. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Qoheleth

Overheard in the Co-op:
"You work bloody hard all your life
and then when you're finished
you have to go and see the doctor every day."


A tweet by @SeeingMore, 4th January 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Orange Juice and Ecstasy

I'm not going to lie,
it can be fun
throwing money over a naked midget
in one of the most famous
gangster strip clubs in America.
But after a while,
throwing money around is not sensible,
even if the midget is willing.



Dizzee Rascal in an interview with the Guardian, Thursday 21 June 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Whether you could bear the idea of marrying me

I can’t advise you in my favour because I
think it would be beastly for you, but think how nice
it would be for me. I am restless & moody
and misanthropic & lazy & have no money
except what I earn and if I got ill you would
starve. In fact it’s a lousy proposition. On

the other hand I think I could do a Grant and
reform & become quite strict about not getting
drunk and I am pretty sure I should be faithful.
Also there is always a fair chance that there will
be another bigger economic crash in
which case if you had married a nobleman with

a great house you might find yourself starving, while I
am very clever and could probably earn a
living of some sort somewhere. All these are very
small advantages compared with the awfulness
of my character. I have always tried to be
nice to you and you may have got it into your

head that I am nice really, but that is all rot.
It is only to you & for you. I am jealous
& impatient — but there is no point in going
into a whole list of my vices. You are a
critical girl and I’ve no doubt that you know them
all and a great many I don’t know myself.



From a letter written by Evelyn Waugh in 1936, after his first wife had left him, asking her cousin whether “you could bear the idea of marrying me”, found at Futility Closet. Submitted by Marika Rose.

The Name of the Father

The first time I came home
with a hangover - I was 21
or 22 - I was in the kitchen
making a cup of tea. In those days
all I drank was Guinness - my dad
leant over to me and said:
'Do you drink spirits?' I said:
'No, I don't.' He said:
'Don't.' That's stayed with me
all my life. I don't drink spirits
at all. It was profound because
my father was a man of
very few words but,
when he did speak,
it was emphatic.



Taken from an interview with Liam Neeson in the Metro, 27th January 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

In the Air

I will not make you a slave, you
will live in my 200-story castle where unicorn
servants will feed
you doughnuts off their horns. I will
personally make you
a throne that is half platnum
and half solid gold and jewel encrested.

Thankyou again for teaching us
about meteroligy, you're
more awesome than a monkey
wearing a tuxedo
made out of bacon
riding a cyborg unicorn
with a lightsaber for the horn
on the tip of a space shuttle
closing in on Mars,
while ingulfed in flames.



Taken from a thank you note written by a nine-year-old, thanking a local TV weatherman for visiting his school in Austin, Texas, as reported in the Metro on 15 March, 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Lion/Lamb

Rain makes for mood of
sadness. I wish for sunny
days for all. My fans.



A tweet by Tommy Wiseau on 4th January, 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Confessions of a Designer

Just because you think
you can use photoshop does
not mean that you should.



One of a series of posters by designer Anneke Short, found on Designer's Block on 27 January, 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Father Rabbit

He;
Is disciplined and discerning
irons his pillowcases and tucks his sheets in
with hospital corners
prefers the cold side of the pillow
suggests if you are going to do it, do it
properly or not at all
prefers you finish what you started
likes his crème brulee unadulterated and his
pancakes thin
is meticulous in his laundry, preferring freshly
washed and smelling of lavender
uses a top sheet



Taken from the website of Father Rabbit Ltd. Submitted by Marika Rose.