The Thing in the Woods
Campfires in the Cold, the Ham Sandwich Moon, Eternal Tuesday, and Contact...
Chit-Chat
Bias in language, aging, work-life balance, ontological honesty, unwanted nicknames, beautiful mountains, death, art, etc…
The Milt Fields of Memory
When was the last time you were sticky?
[Bonus] Mysteries in the Dark (Incubating the Reflections of your Wishes)
An Interview. A Tale.
MANIFESTO
A full reading of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto juxtaposed against Dimitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.
The Land of Unlimited Possibilities (Summer Special)
watching the old deer’s
skull dissolve back
into the forest,
look how much longer
a thought may linger –
how much longer
than i thought.
and this flying insect at rest
looks like a small bit
of leaf or bark –
on long legs –
runs errands in
a square foot of forest floor –
stops at the
alder leaf, the salmon berry
twig, a small piece of moss,
this old thinking skull,
and her vertebrae
in orbit.
Skull - by Monte Merrick
Contributions this episode from Ray Swinn, Vittoria Lyon, Steven Cline, Hazel Cline, James Foster, Toni Crisci, Priscilla Smith, and Raelixe Cassettte
Cover Art: Mechanical Materialism According to Oswyn Peckham by Tan Tolga Demirci
Editing and production by James Robert Foster
Mumbling Planet is a production of the Atlanta Surrealist Group. Find more of our work, including poetry, art, essays, and surrealist games at https://houseofmysticum.wordpress.com/. Find more from the international surrealist movement at https://peculiarmormyrid.com.
#8 - A Conversation with Hazel and Steven Cline on the Doll's Head Trail
An unedited recording of a conversation on the occasion of my first visit to the doll’s head trail; wide ranging and beautiful… I won’t try to summarize here.
Some links to a couple of things mentioned in the conversation:
The mythologization of things on the doll’s head trail (published in Peculiar Mormyrid Issue 10)
#7 - The Mall (i.e., The Eye of the Sun Descends Gently on the Mall)
Act I - The Dream of the Mall is build atop the Brain Ditch, and the Bus Carrying our Wayward Travelers Descends Gently from atop the Mountain to the Mall Parking Lot.
* The great brain ditch, finally built, provides the ideal foundation for the dreams of the mall to rise. As the images and symbols of oneiric winds circulate above the brain ditch, the fragments begin to form the mall edifice. The dream draft this creates drifts all the way up the nearby mountain, which (although unfortunately causing one death we know of) inevitably shepherds us gently through the sky placing us down gently onto mall parking lot unharmed. The ghost of a dead boy from the nearby building provides the final key.
Act II - The Eye of the Sun Opens Slowly in the Sky Above the Mall Parking Lot
* As we exit the bus, we throw the little-boy-ghost’s object up into the sky and it hits the sun… The object merges with the sun… fertilized by dreams… the place where the object touched the sun slowly bulges and becomes an eye… it opens and sees into the hearts of ourselves and our companions… and we see into it’s fire too…
Act III - The Body of the Mall Proper
* Under the Eye of the Sun, which can see into our heart’s memory, the bus is transformed into a wood-paneled station wagon your mom used to drive… and the great mall is transported and transformed in time and space to become Arbor Place Mall in the year 2001. We enter, and explore.
Act IV - Something About Desire
* The awakening of desire and self-awareness within us and within the mall causes it to swell with child… It gives birth, out of it’s front doors… to a rabbit. As the rabbit hops away, it goes on a journey that forces it to confront the nature of its own desire and, gradually, to remove its own mask.
Act V - Something about Memory
* The desire dream of the rabbit, aware now of its fragility and self-aware to its own fictionality, disintegrates into memories… Memories of death by a thousand cuts, and discussion of what counts as a promise, and wonder about whether we would have the right kind of courage… if we ever had to…. The memory of the mall sinks into the sea, replaced by sand…
Mumbling Planet is a production of the Atlanta Surrealist Group. You can find us at https://houseofmysticum.wordpress.com/ and you can find additional publications from the International Surrealist Movement at https://peculiarmormyrid.com/ .
#6 - A Conversation with LaDonna Smith
A conversation with internationally renowned string improvisor LaDonna Smith. LaDonna Smith is a musician and artist based in Birmingham Alabama. She has been deeply involved in the surrealist movement through projects in the southeastern US, including groups such as Glass Veal and Fresh Dirt and collaborations with other musicians and artists such as Davey Williams and Janice Hathaway. Along with Williams, she founded and has run the Transmusiq record label since 1976. Smith also serves on the board of directors of the International Society of Improvised Music; founding, publishing, and functioning as editor in chief for their periodical “The Improviser" from 1980 until it was retired in 2010. She has recorded with musicians such as John Zorn, Anne LeBaron, and Derek Bailey. She is also the founder and current board president of the East Village Arts space in Birmingham. Smith joins us on Mumbling Planet for a wide ranging conversation about music, art, composition, improvisation, oral histories of southern surrealism, and more.
#5 - Complex Interdisciplinary Deathwave
WHY? WHY is it that way? What follows is transmutated whirlpool’s surrealist podcast journey though chaos and complexity, inside greenest ribosome punctured ocean foam. William Paulson’s essay Literature, Complexity, Interdisciplinarity rubs shoulders with audio readings of poems and fiction by Aase Berg, Paul Eluard, Nimoz, HP Lovecraft, and Steven Cline. Streetside strangers from Atlanta, Georgia give voice to their own glowing wet unanswers. And our troublesome WHY reverses itself into its own mirror image surrealist Azathoth, inside grandest guinea pig darkness. Under this searched for WHY, we Lovecraftian listeners may ache all over like blue beetles. We may learn that NOISE, both inside and outside of the text, shall devour all authorial mastery. Listeners will also learn of the Silicon Valley Hedgehog, and his problems. Of the digital phone-scroll eternal, of MacStore-Apollonian turd. Cast thyself away, O meatsack! Yes, in this weird podcast we shall stroke language and unlanguage equally. This, dear listener, is an experimental podcast for *all* philosophical fish.
You can find the Atlanta Surrealist Group at https://houseofmysticum.wordpress.com/.
Surrealism in the American South [Bonus]
An essay by Steven Cline about the history of surrealism in the American South that I just had to go read out loud as soon as I was done reading it silently. I told Steven that I had to go record it straight away because I “wanted my tongue to lick the words”… It covers, in beautiful surrealist language, traditions such as “Riding Fantastic” and figures such as St. Eom of Pasaquan, Edward Leedskaln of Coral Castle, David Huggnis, Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel, Clarence John Laughlin, Glass Veal, and much more… I hope you give it a listen, it’s really a great overview of surrealists and their fellow travelers down here in the American South. Enjoy…
Link to original article: https://peculiarmormyrid.com/2022/11/05/surrealism-in-the-american-south/
#4 - Quakes and Cries [Part 3]
Part 3 - Featuring a performance by Flusnoix (Jess Marie Walker, Joel Nelson, Jasper Lee, and James Robert Foster). Performed Live on the night of Saturday, October 22nd, 2022 at No Tomorrow Gallery in Underground Atlanta.
#4 - Quakes and Cries [Part 2]
Part 2 - Featuring a reading by Vittoria Lion, a piece of performance art by Alice Lilitu, and a duet performance with LaDonna Smith and Atlanta Movement Artist Lucifer. Performed Live on the night of Saturday, October 22nd, 2022 at No Tomorrow Gallery in Underground Atlanta.
#4 - Quakes and Cries [Part 1]
Part 1 - Featuring performances by LaDonna Smith (With Clifford McPeek and Damani), a Reading by Jason Abdelhadi, and a Duet from Majid Araim and Alex Cohen. Performed Live on the night of Saturday, October 22nd, 2022 at No Tomorrow Gallery in Underground Atlanta.
#3 - interdimensional Valentine to the Human Teeth of the City
How Does it Feel?
…
Collective Poetry Performances (in transitions) by Alvero Michael, Steven Cline, Hazel Cline, and James Robert Foster
“Be my Interdimensional Valentine” by Steven and Hazel Cline
“Podcast Experiment No. 1” Electronic Arrangement by James Robert Foster, Audio, poetry and story contributions by Me, Steven, Hazel, Alvero, Barton Linkous, Tony Crisci, K En, and Mary B.
“City” by Steven and Hazel Cline
“Rainbow Divining and Elephant World” by Steven and Hazel; Music by Me.
…
Brought to you by the Atlanta Surrealist Group, Produced and Edited by James Robert Foster
#2 - The Void Dreams of Timefog Rivers
Today we peer into the void,
and the void
dreams back
at us.
Thick clouds
of words
envelop
our senses
As we wonder aloud
About where it all goes
in the end.
Maybe that's melodramatic...
Players this week include Hazel Cline, Steven Cline, James Robert Foster, Alvero Michael, Tony Crisci, and Jason Abdelhadi.
Links Below
“Where will the Time Go” can be downloaded from Bandcamp.
Atlanta Surrealist Group on the Internet.
Information about the upcoming exhibition of the Atlanta Surrealist Group "Undertakers and Underselves" at http://www.peculiarmormyrid.com
#1 - Ladybug Tunnels Encircle the Incomplete Face
This, the inaugural episode of Mumbling Planet, includes FOUR marvels for your listening P L E A S U R E... A three-way cosmic interlocution, a glimpse through chthonic doors, a group juggling of sound and intestines, and a coming together of faceless faces.
Mumbling planet is a podcast of the Atlanta Surrealist Group. You can find many other of our surrealist creations at https://houseofmysticum.wordpress.com/ and works from the broader surrealist movement at https://peculiarmormyrid.com/ . You can also hang out with us on the Surrealist Revolution Discord server here >> https://discord.gg/n7XQZyWQ .
Performers in this episode included Steven Cline, Hazel Cline, Alvaro Michael, Barton Linkous, and James Robert Foster.
Music, editing, and production by James Robert Foster