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bts-reveries · 4 years ago

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mini me | 6

“Are you ready to see your friends?” You ask your son as you park outside of Mae’s house. She had a nice, big house. Perfect for three kids, you thought.

“Is Uncle going to be here?” Youngjae asks excitedly, looking out the window, hoping that Taehyung is inside. You turn the car off, taking off your seatbelt to hop out. You open the back door and help Youngjae off of his carseat.

“No, it’s just going to be the aunties and a few of their kids,” you tell him. He pouts a little at the fact that Taehyung wasn’t going to be here. You laugh at his expression, squishing his cheek.

“You like Uncle Cupcake that much?” You say. “What the heck did he put in those cupcakes?” He laughs at your question, holding onto the hand you were holding out as he jumps out of the car. You close the door, and lock it, then you two walk hand in hand to Mae’s front door.

“I just like Uncle Cupcake,” he says, kicking the mat. He looks up at you, “we like the same things.” You smile down at him, your heart aching slightly.

The door opens and you look up to see no one.

“Mommy!” You look down and see little Soojin at the door. “Auntie Yn and Youngjae are here!” She yells behind her. She looks up at you and smiles. “You can come inside my house!” She tells you, she looks at Youngjae and waves.

When you step in, Soojin grabs onto Youngjae’s hand. “Do you want to come play with us? Minseok oppa, Sian, and Haneul are playing in Haneul’s room right now.” Youngjae looks up at you and you nod, telling him to go. You watched as the two ran away giggling.

“Yn!” You heard, Mae greets you with a hug, pulling you into the living room where the rest of the girls were at.

“Ayyee we’re complete!” Byul exclaims, raising her arms as you walked in. You laughed, sitting down right next to her.

“So what’s the agenda today girls?” Jin says, walking up to you seven, crossing his arms.

“Eating, talking,” Mae shrugs, “we’re just getting to know Yn a little more.” She turns to you and smiles.

“Yeah, the party wasn’t long enough, we have so many stories to tell,” Sarang winks at you. You giggle at her nervously, feeling your cheeks heat up.

When you were at the party and Yuna introduced you to her friends, it was more of you seven talking about your jobs, relationships, and kids. It was basically a long conversation that jumped from one topic to another. You thought it was funny how one of the girls would talk about one thing that would remind someone about a whole different thing, which is why your conversation started from when you moved to Seoul and ended to Rina's favorite drama. The first time you all met it felt strange. A good strange. As if you met some of your long lost sisters.

“Can I join,” Jin says, already sitting down next to Mae and getting comfortable.

“No,” Rina says, making a face at Jin. His mouth drops at her, and her expression changed to a smile.

“I’m kidding. I guess you can be a part of our girls night…”

“Great, I wanna hear you girls’ side of the story,” he says, putting his arm on his wife’s shoulder.

“You were on her wishlist??” You ask Sohyun as she tells you about her love story with Yoongi.

“Yeah! And he has this whole thing about granting her all of her wishes to make her birthday memorable, so he was like, I have to take you on a date according to Hana. Us going on a date wasn’t on her list though, he made that as an excuse… but her list did have me in it because she really liked me and wanted to do everything with me,” Sohyun says, Jin laughs at her facial expression as she was nodding with her eyes closed. It kind of reminded you of how Youngjae was with Taehyung.

“Didn’t he break up with you because of another wish on the list?” Rina asks, taking a drink. Your eyes widen and you look at Sohyun.

“Hana wrote that on her wishlist too,” you say, covering your mouth. Sohyun shakes her head frantically waving her hands.

“No no no,” the girls laugh at this. “She wanted me to be her mom and Yoongi wasn’t ready for that.”

“It was this whole thing that happened before my wedding,” Yuna explains. “It ended well though, they ended up going home together after my wedding.” The girls all “oohh-ed,” teasing Sohyun. “Whatever, next caller,” Sohyun says, calling the next one to tell their story.

“Taehyung ended up having to watch Hana,” Jin mentions, unable to stop laughing. His laugh was pretty contagious and you ended up laughing as well.

“Sarangie is next,” Mae calls. Sarangs eyes widen and you can see her cheeks turning pink.

“Oh, ahhhh, so much happened,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “It was when Huimang and I newly moved to the same building as Hoseok--”

“Oh, I thought Huimang was Hoseok’s kid too,” you say, surprised.

“She is,” Byul says.

“It’s a crazy story,” Rina says, making Sarang turn a little more pink. “W-why are you turning so red?!”

“Don’t call me out on it!” Sarang says, covering her face. “Ahhh, let me explain.. It all started in college, my last year. I had the biggest crush on Hoseok and he was attending this party. I never go to parties, but my best friend suggest we go since it was our last chance. Hoseok got drunk and I drank too, but not as much as he did. One thing led to another and the next morning he was a total jerk to me,” she says, frowning. “I ended up finding out about Hope, Huimang, and kept it all from him, then I moved to America and yeah, 6 years later, I ended up in the same building as him. Hope followed Taehyung and his little dog, Yeontan, and ended up on Hoseok’s front door. To make it long story short,” she laughs. You were so surprised and your eyes were so big. “Next caller,” Sarang laughs, mimicking Sohyun.

“Your turn fangirl,” Jin says, he was quite enjoying the girl talk.

“Meeeeeee?” Byul says, sitting up. “Okay, so I’ve always been a fan of Namjoon’s books. And himself,” she says, smiling. You smile back at her. “I attended his book signing and kept running into him after that. We met again at Sohyun’s magical bakery actually,” she says.

“Does all love come from that bakery? I think my son found his soulmate there too,” you laugh.

“I honestly think so,” Rina says. “If I didn’t meet Jungkook when I was younger, I’m a 100% positive that I would’ve met him there.”

“24/7 Heaven, where you meet your match made in heaven,” Sohyun says. “Has a good ring to it, maybe that’ll be my shop’s motto.”

“Tell Yoongi to make it into a jingle,” Jin suggests.

“You’re right...” Sohyun responds.

“He invited me to a hangout with the entire group afterwards and we all got so close,” Byul says, continuing her story. “We started dating shortly after.”

“Wow,” you sigh out. “So does a hangout always start before you start dating,” you laugh. “I met all of you already though.”

“Are you implying something Yn?” Rina says, raising her eyebrows. It seems like your eyes were widening at everything they were saying.

“What??”

“Taehyung’s the only single one,” Jin says, sipping his drink. Like the Kermit meme.

“What are you guys trying to say,” you laugh nervously.

“We’re not saying you and Taehyung should date, but,” Yuna starts.

“But that’s exactly what we’re saying,” Rina says. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Is that why you took me into your group so fast,” you say, squinting your eyes at them. Yuna quickly shakes her head.

“No of course not!” She says, you can tell that she felt bad so you quickly reassured her that she’s okay.

“No I’m kidding don’t worry,” you say, putting your hand on her arm.

“Honestly, we all actually really like you,” Mae reassures you. “You give us good vibes, you know? We dig you~”

“WE DIG YOU?” Jin repeats, looking strange and shocked at his wife. “WHO ARE YOU OLD LADY??”

“Yeah!!! And since you just moved here, you need some life long besties, you feel~” Byul says.

“And oh my gosh, we just clicked!! and our kids clicked too!” Sarang says. “We just felt it~ Your presence was exactly what we needed.” WOW your heart melted right then and there.

“Speaking of kids, I should check on those little nuggets,” Jin says, getting up to go to Haneul’s room.

“Also, if you don’t mind us asking, what happened to Youngjae’s dad?” Byul asks you carefully. You didn’t mind talking to them about it, you felt comfortable enough to let them know about your situation.

“Oh, he’s okay hahaha,” you start, looking up and thinking how to say everything. “Umm… we were in a good relationship when we were younger, but I got pregnant with Youngjae unexpectedly.”

“Ah, me too,” Rina says.

“Yeah, but my parents told us we had to get married,” you say, scratching the back of your head. “We weren’t really ready--”

“I’m back, Haneul’s joining us-- oh-- the mood shifted,” Jin says, stopping in front of the hallway. Haneul lets go of Jin’s hand and runs straight to the girls.

“Auntie auntie~” Haneul says, asking Byul to carry him. Byul’s face lights up as she carries Haneul onto her lap.

“He never asks for me, I’m treasuring this moment,” Byul says, hugging Haneul tightly.

“I think he wants the cookie you’re holding Byul,” Jin says, pointing to the cookie in her hand that Haneul was grabbing.

“Oh, this is fake love,” she whispers.

“Anyways, fill me in please,” Jin says, sitting back with Mae.

“We’re talking about Youngjae’s dad,” Sohyun says. Jin’s mouth shapes into an ‘o’ shape.

“Yeah, I was just saying how Youngjae’s dad and I were in a good relationship but we got pregnant unexpectedly with Youngjae and my parents basically forced us to get married, we weren’t ready. When Youngjae was born, I kind of fell out of love with his dad. He didn’t really like Youngjae?? Like he felt like he couldn’t reach his dreams or whatever because he was “forced” to be a husband and a dad, you know?”

“Sounds like a butthole,” Byul says.

“He is,” you say. “We divorced when Youngjae was 2, every now and then he visits his dad and his family, but only because Youngjae’s grandma wants to keep seeing him. I don’t even know if Youngjae sees his dad honestly.”

“I can see why Youngjae loves Taehyung then,” Jin says. “He doesn’t have any dad figures in his life, or has ever experienced the kind of love Taehyung gives so freely to him.” You nod your head, agreeing.

“Him and Taehyung have a lot of things in common as well. He seems like he fits Youngjae’s dad more than his real one,” you laugh. “I don’t think my son got anything from his dad… except how he looks I guess.”

“Taehyung loves Youngjae too! He calls him his mini me and he always tells us about him whenever he comes back from a hang out with you two,” Yuna says.

“That’s so cute,” you say. “Taehyung also played with him the whole time while we were at the party. I don’t think his dad ever plays with him—-“

“Taehyungie really filled up that missing piece in Youngjae’s heart,” Sarang says.

“Ugh I know! That’s why I like spending time with him, it makes Youngjae happy,” you say.

“Does he make… you… happy?” Rina tries again. You laugh at her question.

“He makes me happy the same way you guys make me happy,” you say.

ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ

mini me

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ part six: we dig you ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

pairings: artist!taehyung x singlemom!reader

a/n: hoping you guys are getting this notification because i copied and pasted and it’s showing up the same way it always does when you guys receive the tags??? ALSO IF YOU’RE READING THIS BEFORE THE OTHER DAD SMAUS THEN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS HAS SPOILERS

taglist: @heartfeltscribblings @taexmichi @prdshobi @smarshere @i-swear-im-a-soft-stan @igotarmyofarohas @butterflylion @miagracegrande @casspirit0705 @ephyra1230 @cosmicdaylight @bbyjoonies @betysotelo18 @strwberry-jam @rjsmochii @chocobetterknot @notmontae97 @alpaca1612 @yoongistruth @dragonqueen01 @silentlyimpractical @hecticwonderer @joanc24 @angjeon @momma-said-that-it-was-oke @sweetmoonlight9 @samros95 @dreamcatcherjiah @sonderkook @taekookcaneatme @listless-losers @kookietsukkie @goldenchemistry @salty-for-suga @peoplejustcanthandlemywierdness @softboyfriendtae @raplineh0e @ess-place @callmepaopao @ggukvii @ramyagovindraj @yoongiverse @mipetronella @cloudy-skys @jikachoo @nxtrogers @kookoo-kachoo @taestannie @hispoutylips @hallofbtsmasterlist

TAGLIST IS CLOSED!

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spaceorphan18 · 6 years ago

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Finding Kurt Hummel: The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester

Masterpost

6x10: The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester

And here we are at the infamous Sue episode panned by fans everywhere. Is it really that bad? Well I did have it as my least favorite episode of the series, (though after careful inspection, that title truly goes to the hot mess that is I Kissed a Girl). However, believe it or not, I don’t think this is the /worst/ Glee ever put out. I do, though, think the context is what makes it so frustrating.

Child Star and Other Missed Opportunities

Here’s the thing - when you write out season 6 on paper, I think the structure of what the writers were going for makes a lot more sense. The main story that they were telling was getting the Glee club back in order, to be, in a way, an echo of what season 1 was. And for the most part, I do think that structure works. You have Rachel in the ‘Will’ spot as teacher, trying to get her life together while trying to inspire these young kids to be awesome, and like the end of the Front 13 - the ending there is Sectionals.

All the other plot lines are secondary, including Rachel’s triumphant return to New York, which is the b-story of the entire season. Kurt (and Blaine)’s reunion arc might be, eh, a distant 3rd? Maybe 4th after Will’s. But that’s what makes these final three episodes (before the final two that make up, essentially, the series finale) so jarring. We’ve been used to strong focus on Kurt and Blaine as secondary characters, and the kids have been the main focus since season 3. Shifting everything back so that Will and Sue are the main characters, with Rachel as a secondary lead feels... off.

The thing is -- I see what they were trying to do here. After wrapping up the Klaine (and Brittana) arc - the last arcs that the ‘kid’ characters get (besides Rachel) we essentially have three extra episodes left. One will be the competition episode. One was the episode about the New Newbies which I don’t think was a bad thing - even if I think introducing a new character five episodes before the end was a dumb move. But like the original kids, I think these new kids rightfully deserved an episode of their own. And thus leaves one episode where they needed to do, well, something.

And hence - we get Sue.

Yeah - It would have been nice if they had spent an episode exploring Kurt and Blaine’s now married life, or what the hell are Mercedes, Artie, Tina, Brittany, Santana, Mike, etc, etc, etc, etc, doing with their lives. But - in the minds of the glee writers... they already did that in various capacities over the previous episodes.

But even more than that - for reasons I’ll never fully understand, unless it’s about how much they love Jane Lynch, they decided to focus an episode on Sue. And while the episode isn’t the utter worst thing Glee ever did (honestly, go back and watch IKAG again...), trying to make emotional sense of a character you’ve reduced to a cartoon character, who breaks the fourth wall just... doesn’t work. And on top of that, they don’t resolve anything, nor is it that interesting to watch. Sue remains, well, Sue and nothing remotely happens.

So yeah, this ‘filler’ episode was a way to stall time before the obligatory ending Sectionals episode - and they filled it up with a lot of what no one wanted, especially the precious few who were still watching. And thus, we have the most frustrating and least satisfying episode of the entire series. Thankfully, Kurt is barely in it.

Burn the House Down

So, we open with the New New New Directions in typical Glee fashion, doing the hot single of the moment - idk even know the name of the song, though - Rather Be? Idk. Anyway, Kurt and Blaine come sombering in, cause, plot dictates they be there for exposition.

And we find out that Dalton has burned to the ground.

So.

Here’s the thing - there could have been an interesting story here for Blaine -- matching Rachel’s story about having to grow up and move on. I mean, it’s kind of subtly and subtextually there. It is (another) reason Blaine is forced to move on and grow up.

But. Do you know why they burned Dalton to the ground (other than doing it probably out of spite)? Not for some kind of deeper level of symbolism. Nope. They did it so New Directions can meet their quota of having 12 members. That stupid, fucking rule. I realize that it’s now become a joke (as mentioned earlier in the Hurt Locker episodes). But c’mon Glee. It’s like you’re not even trying now.

But also, like after most big Klaine events - do Kurt and Blaine get a moment to reflect on their newly marriage life? Nope. Other than talking about a piano exploding in the next episode, Kurt and Blaine won’t share dialogue again until the series finale. On top of that -- instead of getting to be happy newlyweds, they have Blaine upset because his surrogate home has burned down. Thanks writers. Thanks.

However - there are two things I do like about this little moment. A) the fact that Kurt is being a very comforting husband. B) the fact that they are wearing their proposal colors. Nice touch costume dept. You get the gold star.

In the next scene - we get the indoctrination of the Warblers into the New Directions. And Kurt just nods his head along in all the appropriate places. Not a whole lot to talk about -- other than now that we’ve got Will back in charge, Rachel and Kurt have faded into the background. Is Kurt even teaching anything any more? No, not really - despite all the ‘conversations’ Kurt, Rachel, Will, and Blaine have off screen.

Anyway - you know another reason Dalton was burned to ground? To service the Sue plot. Yup. God. Luckily, though, I don’t really have to go into it.

The Way Too Long Geraldo Segment

So, long story short, Sue’s hurt locker was found out and then she’s exposed on Geraldo, which does go on way, way to long. Look, there are some funny moments and callbacks, like the finding of Sue’s Penthouse magazine and the quick return of Joe. But it just becomes stale as it continues after the commercial break. Also, though, Sue’s not going to actually face ramifications. I mean, she should really be in jail just on the hurt locker alone. But this is Glee, where Will, Sue, and Rachel never have to really deal with the actions they make.

So - Kurt’s bit is about the elevator. Which is... fine. It kind of feels hollow since they’re going to thank her in the finale, and she just sent them on a week long honeymoon. But yeah - don’t kidnap people, guys. Bad. The best part of this is the look on Blaine’s face.

Unity

This scene was almost impossible to get a good still. Oh well. Anyway, a good twenty minutes of the episode later...

So, I should mention in the previous scene, the gang is all trying to help Rachel through her issues and trying to get her back to New York (or whatever). It’s a little weird that Kurt is not here since he’s spent so much of his screen time playing emotional prop to Rachel Berry. but I guess I’m not complaining even if I think it’s weird? But we do get Sam calling NYADA a scam school, and info that Blaine was kicked out by Carmen herself - to which I say, why does anyone care about this school?? Whatever. It is a funny little scene though.

Anyway, back to this scene -- where the Warblers and the New Directions are arguing over costumes. And the only real thing I get out of it (Kurt-wise) is that Kurt really hated wearing that uniform when he went there, lol. (He did, though, it’s in season 2.)

And I know there was some grumbling of this scene - why is Kurt taking New Directions’s side? Why is he not supporting Blaine and the Warblers - to which I say... the writers didn’t give a shit about that. Seriously. This scene is a) about comedy and b) presenting this argument that will be compromised in about ten minutes anyway. It’s not at all any kind of reflection on Kurt or Blaine or their relationship. And actually, I’m of half mind that the writers completely forgot that Kurt even went to Dalton himself.

In the large scheme of Kurt related things - this scene barely registers, tbh. **shrugs**

Hey, but costumes wins again - Kurt and Blaine are wearing each other’s colors!

Final Countdown

So, Sue and Will duke it out through music - like it’s always done, and we get confirmation -- all those fantasy performances? Were just that -- fantasies. I kinda do like when the kids come in and are like - wtf??!? Kurt tells Rachel that he hopes that the’ll never become that. Oh y’all won’t, promise ;) Anyway - I love that the show comments that Will and Sue have lost it - like we haven’t known that since the end of season 1.

So, uh, the next day? Will apologizes for being an idiot. Okay, fine. And then Rachel says that now -- if the glee club doesn’t win, all fine arts will be cut. Because that makes a load of sense, c’mon writers, c’mon....

Anyway - the one redeeming thing for this otherwise ridiculous little scene, is that Kurt’s a ball of optimism -- he inwardly reflects on all the crap that’s happened in his life and he turns it around saying that they’ll never give up on anything (to which Blaine looks at him adoringly). And, I mean, it’s a subtle thing -- but I kinda love this. Because here’s a kid who has been through hell and back and a lot of shitty things (even recently) and you know what? He’s fine. He’s in a good place, he’s happy, he’s loved, he’s got a great support system, and a good attitude about life. And, he’s got a great motto to go along with it -- It’s Got Bette Midler. (lol)

But I mean, let’s take a second and think about the fact that Kurt started his journey being that kid who gets thrown in dumpsters for being weird and gay and now, you know what? He’s fine. He’s really, really, really fine. :)

Rise

So - here at the end, we see Blaine solving the absolute crisis of the episode and somehow he’s managed to make, like, twenty unity blazers overnight, combining the Dalton tradition with the McKinley colors. And did it without Kurt knowing what he was up to because Kurt was totally surprised. But it’s in a good way, Kurt’s incredibly proud that Blaine managed to solve this epic dilemma. (I joke, but really, it’s sweet that Kurt’s, again, proud of his new husband).

Meanwhile, we get the song Rise, written by Darren Criss -- and I’m kind of impressed with this song -- it manages to reference birds, Dalton burning down, the kids rising to the top, and the fall of Sue Sylvester all in one go. Color me impressed, too. (Btw, this is such a Darren-esque song, I can hear this in his voice even if I’ve never heard him actually sing it.)

I’ll leave you with the some lyrics, which I’m sure you can work out their meaning on your own ;)

Have you ever felt like you woke up (On the wrong side of your heart) Has it ever felt like it's broken (Like the world tore it apart) Have you felt so weak, You could hardly stand Like if you ever fell You could never tell If you'd ever get back up again I know it's hard to do, But I think you can make it, Cause I know we can take it Baby we will... Rise We are young we are the dreamers we will fly When the world will not believe us, We will rise above the ashes Before this whole life passes us by You and I, we will rise

#finding kh #kurt hummel

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how2to18 · 6 years ago

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“A PROTEST POETRY intended to induce funks of ambivalence.” That phrase appears in Stan Apps’s “Free Dolphin Radio,” the opening poem of Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf. While its placement may have been fortuitous (given the book’s alphabetical arrangement by author), it seems a fitting motto for the entire collection, as well as for the movement the book presents as a whole. “Flarf” refers to a self-styled avant-garde collective that sprung up around 2000 and was devoted to exploring the web, then in its “wild west” phase, as a resource for making poetry. On a private email list, its members developed a technique they refer to as “Google sculpting,” which calls for the poet to trawl the internet for preexisting language, usually by putting combinations of intentionally silly or offensive keywords into a search engine (“pizza” and “kitty,” “Rogaine” and “bunny,” “pussy” and “turtleneck”) and then creatively arranging the results into strange, funny, and unsettling collages. Voilà: “Arthur Treacher grabs my assclown / Assclown grabs my squid / Squid signs me up for the NOW Action Alert list.” (This is from Sharon Mesmer’s “Squid Versus Assclown.”)

The name “Flarf” is a neologism, which one of its founders, Gary Sullivan, defines as describing “a kind of corrosive, cute, or cloying, awfulness. Wrong. Un-P.C. Out of control. ‘Not okay.’” It is also, he explains, a verb, meaning “to bring out the inherent awfulness, etc., of some pre-existing text” (thus, one can “Flarf” any unsuspecting piece of writing). Flarf, you might say, is what poetry would sound like “if pirates pumped the stuffed-up airwaves full of dolphin hymns and rat speak,” to quote another line from that same opening poem.

In the early 2000s, Flarf was a big cartoon thumb stuck in the eye of the poetry establishment. Pumped full of “rat speak�� by pirate poets sailing the high seas of the internet, Flarf poems were disjunctive works made from the ugly feelings, vulgarity, and raucous surreality that colors our everyday experience in the digital age. With language extracted from chat rooms, message boards, and the underbelly of our online lives, the poems were deliberately messy, abrasive, and distasteful. But Flarf was also ostensibly “a protest poetry”: from the start, the Flarfists explained that they were supplying a subversive response to the nightmarish absurdity and deceit of contemporary culture in the post-9/11 era. Mostly, though, it seemed custom-designed to provoke misgivings from arbiters of taste and to induce “funks of ambivalence” about its aesthetics, its politics, and its worldview from both staid cultural gatekeepers and other avant-garde poets.

The funk continues to linger over Flarf, now more a period style than a going concern. While it has been claimed as a powerful and enduring intervention in the development of American poetry, some see it as little more than an extended prank; others insist it was only a tired retread of Dada and other earlier avant-garde experiments. Some claim its practice of borrowing language from “ordinary” people on the internet (often riddled with misspellings, stupidity, racism, and xenophobia) is ultimately patronizing, elitist, a form of punching down. Flarf has been dogged, too, by ethical questions about whether the reproduction of hateful, offensive language perpetuates rather than critiques harmful stereotypes and prejudices.

This anthology will probably not put such questions to rest. For one thing, it’s not clear why the Flarfists decided to publish this collection of their work (co-edited by five of its members) now, at a time when many of the poets themselves have moved on, and the more heated debates about the movement have subsided. Is the anthology meant to provide a snapshot of a vital and ongoing phenomenon, like Donald Allen’s The New American Poetry? Is the timing of its appearance intended to suggest that Bush-era Flarf is now newly relevant in the dark age of Trump? Or is it more a bid for canonization, an enshrinement of a now-defunct avant-garde in poetic history?

It’s even harder to answer these questions because, unlike many such collections, Flarf is completely devoid of scholarly apparatus and critical framework: it has no preface or introduction, no manifestos or statements of poetics. There’s no effort to define Flarf or trace its origins or goals, no attempt to explain its methods or sketch out its intellectual or poetic investments. It is nearly impossible to tell when the poems were written, or whether any of the material in the book is new or recent, or if it all dates from Flarf’s heyday, over a decade ago. Of course the editors’ decision to remove all context and helpful framing is probably deliberate, in keeping with the anarchic spirit of the movement, which is as allergic as Dada was to high seriousness, “official” institutions, the canon, and so on. But if that’s the case, then why produce an anthology at all? At the very least, a few signposts would have helped orient a younger generation of readers who missed the Flarf moment the first time around.

What we are left with, of course, are the poems themselves, giving us the opportunity to take stock of Flarf’s achievement, as it gathers in one place many of its best-known, and best, works, including Drew Gardner’s “Chicks Dig War,” Jordan Davis’s “Pablo Escobar Shopping T-Shirt,” Michael Magee’s “Mainstream Poetry,” Sharon Mesmer’s “Annoying Diabetic Bitch,” K. Silem Mohammad’s “Mars Needs Terrorists,” and selections from Katie Degentesh’s The Anger Scale. Left to fend for themselves, these poems do make a sort of argument for Flarf’s value, and relevance. From the vantage point of 2018, Flarf can be seen as a compelling extension of the long, vital tradition of avant-garde collage, appropriation, and remix, updated for the internet age in intriguing ways. The best Flarf poems use the resources of search-engine technology to capture the exuberance, the strangeness, and the cracked beauty of what Anne Boyer calls our “electronic vernacular.” Jordan Davis suggests as much in one poem when he writes, “‘What I love about the chat rooms / Is that they’re already halfway to poetry, / What’s poetry but lines, what’s a chatroom,’ / He started rubbing the squid.” Where else can one find a poem titled “Humanism Is Cheese” or another with lines like these: “Phoenix is the land of milk dowsers, / and I’ve always been / a wolverine bunny cage xenocide forum asshole”? The poems teem with a density of reference, evincing the strange magnetic power of labels, names, and data in a culture drowning in signifiers: “Dag Hammarskjold rolls off our lips as easily as Lassie,” Boyer writes. “I just killed the Pillsbury dough boy,” the speaker of one of Gardner’s poems announces, before quickly bouncing off toward Terry Gross, “Charman” Mao, Shelley Duvall, Wallace Stevens, Minnie Driver, and Dan Rather.

Other poems crackle with the upending of clichés (“Same old job, / same old Diplodocus bong water orgy” — Gardner again). They frequently delight in the twisting of expectations, as in these lines by Mohammad, where the hackneyed language of romance is infused with militarism and violence:

love is a Pakistani Mirage fighter jet frozen, strange like it had, you know, bubonic plague

I’m a bit less crazy about Flarf’s fondness for goofy, supposedly “transgressive” scatology and the sometimes exhausting levels of zaniness — poems where we learn that “I have to conduct snot viscosity experiments / with ass-lint,” (Mitch Highfill) and so on. But although the movement has been maligned for focusing too much on play and hijinks, for being just a bunch of friends “fucking around with google on the man’s dime” (as Gardner himself once put it), Flarf can in fact be fiercely political: poem after poem takes aim at toxic masculinity, American warmongering and imperialism, virulent racism, the intersections between porn and rape culture, and the penetration of neoliberal capitalism into every sphere of daily life. I fully expected to find that revisiting Flarf at this particular historical moment would feel like stepping out of the Tardis into the now distant days of “Shock and Awe,” where John Ashcroft makes jokes about Abu Ghraib over the sound of Howard Dean’s scream and ends up in a spider hole of denial. But many of the poems feel surprisingly timely, very much in touch with our own batshit zeitgeist. “I hate the high levels of jerk war around here,” Gardner writes in “Skylab Wolverine Bunny Cage Nub” (Twitter, anyone?). Benjamin Friedlander’s potent poem “When a Cop Sees a Black Woman” has a different charge in a post-Ferguson world:

Black hair is more fragile than most.

It requires TLC when a cop sees a black women he can’t think

everything through. She is the shiznit. She tempts and she taunts. She speaks in a bold

outspoken manner. But bypassing a metal detector, his forced and never-bending

monotone drone is not a factor in her arrest.

The same could be said of Gardner’s “How to Watch a Police Beating,” which follows its title with these scathing opening lines: “First off, there should be two sets of laws — / act like an ox and try not to be nonwhite…”

Other poems repurpose gender codes and tropes in ways that resonate powerfully in the #MeToo era. Consider Nada Gordon’s “I Love Men” (“I love men, but they wear me out with all their confusing issues. One day they / say they love you and the next they see someone with bigger ass. // I love men, muscles, sex, porn, and chocolate”). Or Katie Degentesh’s “I Was Horny,” which stitches together a series of found statements, substituting the word “boy” for “owl,” creating an affecting, creepy commentary on predatory masculinity and the culture that fosters it:

Boys are interesting creatures.

[…]

The boys tear their prey, swallow it whole, and spit up pellets. They prey on small things. Boys fly silently. They see well in the dark, hunt at night and sleep in the daytime. They scare others by fluffing up.

[…]

I hope boys never go extinct and I hope they never get endangered. I love boys.

In the decade and a half since Flarf emerged, strategies of appropriation of the sort these poets deploy have spread far and wide. It is worth noting that they have proven particularly useful as vehicles of political critique and dissent for a long list of poets of color not affiliated with the (largely white) Flarf coterie itself, who have seized on such tools to create works that take aim at racism, US foreign policy, police brutality, oppression, and misogyny, often more directly and powerfully than Flarf. In her award-winning collection Look, for example, Solmaz Sharif incorporates euphemistic phrases from a Department of Defense manual but scrutinizes, dismantles, and subverts them, redeploying this found material for both intimate personal reflection and for expressing coruscating outrage at contemporary racism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim policies. I would recommend reading this anthology of Flarf alongside other contemporary poets like Sharif, Tracy K. Smith, Robin Coste Lewis, Philip Metres, Layli Long Soldier, Shane McCrae, and Tyehimba Jess to get a fuller sense of the ends to which such tactics have been put in recent poetry.

Faced with the daily calamity of the Bush years, Flarf testified that verbal play, and the creative détournement of our culture’s own language, could be a liberating act of resistance. Its antics were a valuable method of pushing back against what Wallace Stevens called, in another dark time, the almost unbearable “pressure of reality.” Perhaps right now we desperately need art forms that can seize on the language of our time, expose its absurdity, its deceit, and its sinister designs on us, and repurpose it for different ends. But in 2018, the online culture of misogyny, racism, stupidity, and hatred that Flarf exposed doesn’t need much further unearthing: it seems to be everywhere. As we gasp for air and sanity in the depths of Trumpworld, Flarf seems prescient but also somewhat redundant. To paraphrase Man Ray’s famous remark about why Dada could not survive in New York: Flarf cannot live in America. All America is Flarf, and will not tolerate a rival.

Andrew Epstein is the author, most recently, of Attention Equals Life: The Pursuit of the Everyday in Contemporary Poetry and Culture.

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topmixtrends · 6 years ago

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In the early 2000s, Flarf was a big cartoon thumb stuck in the eye of the poetry establishment. Pumped full of “rat speak” by pirate poets sailing the high seas of the internet, Flarf poems were disjunctive works made from the ugly feelings, vulgarity, and raucous surreality that colors our everyday experience in the digital age. With language extracted from chat rooms, message boards, and the underbelly of our online lives, the poems were deliberately messy, abrasive, and distasteful. But Flarf was also ostensibly “a protest poetry”: from the start, the Flarfists explained that they were supplying a subversive response to the nightmarish absurdity and deceit of contemporary culture in the post-9/11 era. Mostly, though, it seemed custom-designed to provoke misgivings from arbiters of taste and to induce “funks of ambivalence” about its aesthetics, its politics, and its worldview from both staid cultural gatekeepers and other avant-garde poets.

love is a Pakistani Mirage fighter jet frozen, strange like it had, you know, bubonic plague

Black hair is more fragile than most.

It requires TLC when a cop sees a black women he can’t think

everything through. She is the shiznit. She tempts and she taunts. She speaks in a bold

outspoken manner. But bypassing a metal detector, his forced and never-bending

monotone drone is not a factor in her arrest.

Boys are interesting creatures.

[…]

I hope boys never go extinct and I hope they never get endangered. I love boys.

Andrew Epstein is the author, most recently, of Attention Equals Life: The Pursuit of the Everyday in Contemporary Poetry and Culture.

The post Funks of Ambivalence: On Flarf appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2LBSmbD

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

0 notes