Fount

Welcome to Edition 11 of Fount!  This week Fount asked what you hip kids are watching/reading/listening to. 

I’ve been reading Infinite Jest on and off for about a month.

I just started from the beginning yesterday, pen in hand in an effort to give it a real go.

It took Dave Eggars a month, so if it takes me two months, it’s ok.

Contribute to next week’s theme: Getting There: Transportation and You

I want stories about walking it out…Dylan covers about trains…videos about sailors

E-mail them to fountblog@gmail.com

by Thursday the 6th @ Midnight.

While watching Surviorman, me and my friends Chris and Joe learned that hand sanitizer can be used to aid in the starting of a fire. Chris and Joe are not the ones to take this information and use it in any way close to what was intended. It was only a matter of time before flaming high-fives and belly buttons on fire was the theme of the night.

I no longer go to mass (even though this is Ash Wednesday) but this is where I get my sermons now: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Pound.html .

Welcome to Edtion 10 of Fount! Please enjoy the below contributions on this week’s theme:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Please contribute to next week’s theme:

You are what you like:

Fount wants to know what you’re reading/listening to/watching.

Send Contributions to Fountblog@gmail.com

By midnight on Thursday the 26th.

Tell your friends!

“When I grow up, I want to wear many hats.”

And now I kindly present my future plans…

                                                                   or not.

  Having graduated in the top fifth percent of my high school class and with a large number of executive positions on impressive school committees, I was certain that I was setting myself up for post-high school success. My lofty ambitions led me to a small, yet respectively expensive and tastefully decorated liberal arts school on the outskirts of a local, thriving metropolis. My daily schedule included impressive sounding classes, such as Neo-Modern Art in Post-Pre-Agricultural Chile and International Fiberfill Markets in Terms of Twentieth Century Imperialism as well as basic courses like Acting 101 and Photography: How the Heck Do I Do This?

            Listen not to those who say that an arts education will leave you with no marketable skills. In the time following my graduation, I held many positions. For a full six months I served as an under-appreciated secretary and practiced the virtues of self-restraint by answering calls from the general public. The following three months saw me as a friendly and hygienic waitress at an upper class coffeehouse. I learned many valuable lessons from this period in my life, including the value of hard work ($135 on a weeknight!) and that, when I do not have the heart to tell someone that their art installment is a talentless waste of paper-mache and old car parts, I can simply refer to it as “avant-garde.” I have also worked as a chirpy retail slave, back alley hairdresser, and an anachronistically dressed tour guide. The latter occupation taught me never to take for granted the privilege of wearing light clothing during the warmer months. Despite being full of worldly wisdom and experience, I believed that there was something better out there for me, a happy-go-lucky lady with a highly financed degree in the arts.

            In 2007, since my professional and personal life was not as I had planned, I picked up my things and decided to see what options awaited me in the fabled lands of Europe. After arriving in England, I quickly eroded my savings account by purchasing the great British essentials, which consisted mostly of tea. Within a few months, I could barely afford a one-way ride on a double-decker bus. The time had come for me to metaphorically sink or swim. I appealed to the kinder senses of two aging doll makers and found myself with a roof over my head and a table of meat pies for dinner. Horrible and tasteless as it sounds, I was lucky to awake from my slumber one night to find my old “aunties” being led away by a uniformed officer. On the table was a note reading, “Out of town for a spell. Please watch shoppe.” I did. I looked over that shop and due my marketing savvy and clever packaging ideas, I was able to move into a quiet London suburb after becoming the head of a small chain of highly reputable toy stores.

            Having attained financial security, I have spent the last year lolling around the English countryside, indulging in my newly found passion: creating incredibly convincing crop circle hoaxes in remote fields. This peaceful, victimless hobby requires only a large board, a length of rope, geometrical skills culled from high school, and enough adrenaline to run from any guard dogs that might be encountered. I am now more relaxed, and physically fit, than I have been at any other point in my life.

            My agricultural artwork has been featured on many television programs, coffee table books, including the award winning Hoaxes: Some People Will Believe Anything, and distinguished magazines like Take Me to Your Weeder: A Bimonthly Gardening Periodical.

SOLIDARITEA
shop owner and dancer.

I want to be a lead guitarist funky tea shop owner. I want to tell you
about the rich smell of this tea and how a monkey picked that tea. I
want it to smell so good you want to take your pants off right when
you walk into the bright citrus room. I want squishy cushions for
everyone to sit on. I want to encourage everyone to bring a salad bowl
or spoons to make music with and then you get free desert if you eat
with them. I want to employ my friends who are artists to hang up
their art to sell. I want to invite my friends to cook on special
nights. I want it to be a collective shop of amazing potential. I want
the Back room to be cleared for yoga and meditation. I want it to have
a thousand different teas and natural healing remedies. On some things
it will be a pay what you can/ barter system.  By this time I will be
a professional belly dancer and whirling dervish. I will be a happy
prankster who makes a communitea out of a community. There will be
Vegan/Vegetarian options, with our exclusive honeyberry kombucha brew.
Discounts for community groups and non-profits. Gawsh…I am getting
excited about my grassroots tea shop.  Does anyone want to be my
business partner?

CyborgpirateninjaJesus

I hope all of our contributors/readers had a fabulous Valentine’s Day, and I hope you enjoy this week’s contributions.

Please excuse my lateness. I ask for forgiveness and for something else…

<3     Will you be my Ballantine?     <3

Contribute to next week’s edition: What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

What’s your dream job? There are no practical limitations.

Contributions are due Thursday the 19th @ Midnight.

E-Mail them to fountblog@gmail.com

Will writes, ”For those of you who celebrate this year’s back-to-back-to-back holidays of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Friday the 13th, and Valentine’s Day, I present this customized greeting card.”

“And on…”

I have a torrid love affair,

With this, the fakest holiday.

All the love that’s in the air,

Makes it quite difficult say.

A hunting feeling, all February,

Because we spoke, before your trip,

That started in a mortuary…

Probably why I lost my grip.

But I feel there’s hope,

His smiling face,

An end to the slippery slope,

A falling into grace.

Welcome to Edition 8 of Fount! This week’s theme was in honor of Groundhog’s Day:

What day would you want to relive/never relive?

(Was anyone else kind of happy that he bit this guy?)

Regardless, please contribute on next week’s theme:

Stupid Cupid: Loving/Hating V-Day

Everything From Frilly Valentine’s to Secret Admirers to Hatemail to Eve Ensler Will Be Accepted.

As always, submissions are due on Thursday February 12th @ Midnight.

E-mail them to : Fountblog@gmail.com

Mr. Storie writes, “I’m not gonna clarify whether this is a day I want to relive, or never relive. Viewer’s choice.”

Jason: Still Nauseates

I haven’t written love

since August Eighth,

the day this stench

first seeped into my air—

            Every time I even try

            to think of words

            I close my eyes

            and there you are.

            Pants down,

two girls at your feet.

Jonathan: Relive, Repeat, Until Death do us Part, Etc.

I started writing love again

December Third,

the snow so white,

the Middle East awaiting—

            And each day since

            I think of words,

            locations blind,

            all open, endless.

            Clothes expelled,

            bodies soft,

            ripping at your skin. 

Here’s a Tanka:

A hundred nights,
Sleep under the pale ceiling
One night, a new moon,
A face rising over a shoulder
How was my luck wasted

Welcome to Edition 7 of Fount.

Contributor’s this week are sending letters to 44th President Barack Obama.

Please contribute on next week’s theme (in honor of a sorely overlooked holiday and film):

Freepeat: Describe a day you wish to live again,

or conversely, a day you would never want to relive

Please send contributions by e-mail to: fountblog@gmail.com

by Thursday February 5th @ Midnight.

(Bill Murray)

January 30, 2009

 Dear Barack Hussein Obama,

 (I see that they are still working on adding your name to spell check.)

 This letter will serve two purposes.

1. To thank you

        2.To ask you for a job

Part 1

Thank you for understanding the value of storytelling.

I haven’t been able to speak with much depth about my experience on the campaign to outsiders. It’s hard to translate the hours, nerves, and hope* into words with enough meaning. The fact that you made personal narratives an integral part of your ground campaign is brilliant. People were encouraged to speak about their path to you. I got to hear stories from autoworkers, transgender cyclists, single moms with Amish neighbors, gifted organizers, and Clarence. I got to tell my story, too. Your love of storytelling (beyond the ever important political anecdote) is obvious in both your speeches and writing, and that impresses me. (This letter to you is the first thing I’ve written in too long.)

 Thank you for helping me to show myself just how hard I can work.

My armpits smelled like coffee today, after exercising. I can’t stop drinking coffee, even though there’s less buzz in my life these days. Much less. I get headaches when I try to quit. I miss being exhausted. On the way home from the staff party, soldiering on sore feet, Matthew said, “You need to hear Barack Obama speak when you’re really tired.” The fatigue helps to mitigate the guilt of crying in public. It was manic tired. It was sleeping in your clothes tired. It was satisfying tired.

 Thank you for showing me that community organizing is a viable career.**

I had given up on a career in politics. I thought there were too many dues to pay- years pushing papers behind the desk of some bloated Southern congressmen. I just don’t think I could ever be a page. If Organizing for America actually gets off the ground, I will kiss your mouth. You will be giving Americans the opportunity to circumvent the typical lobbyist structure. You will continue to amplify the new political voices that they (we) have found. (Please hurry up. I will not be sated for long by a promissory video featuring that charmer, David Plouffe.)

 Part 2:

I think maybe Will Butler of the Arcade Fire put it best at the Obama Inauguration Staff Party when he said, ”This is the happiest group of people that just lost their jobs that I’ve ever played for.” And we were all happy, and largely unemployed. We were satisfied without smugness. (We didn’t eat, we only drank.)

 Honestly, I really need a job.*** Please create one for me- one that is green collar, one that pays the bills, one that fulfills me. I can’t live with my parents anymore. I can’t get Italian bread for rude women with long nails anymore. My resume and references are available upon request.

Below are a lists of jobs I will do for you:

 -brush Michelle’s hair

 -help to create green community spaces

 -teach broke people about cooking well for themselves and their families

 -read the newspaper to you every morning

 -help kids understand the importance of reading

 -make healthy snacks for Sasha and Malia

 -work very, very closely with Jon Favreau writing speeches (really closely)

 -help other people get meaningful jobs

 - organizing

 - probably a lot more, just ask.

*Please note that this is the only use of “hope” in this document.

**Give me a job, please.

*** Seriously.

Dear President Barack Obama;

Please enjoy this week’s submissions on our theme: Ultimate Dinner Party Guests.

You can find my response of a foodie, below. 

Please contribute on next week’s theme: Dear President Obama: Open Letters to the 44th President

Follow Fount on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Fount

Find Fount on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Fount/38934894439?ref=ts

My Ultimate Dinner Party likely takes place in summer, outside on a cool night.

All my favorite foods are in season.

- Alice Waters brings the best goat cheese i’ve ever had, over her tiny local greens. Everyone hopes she doesn’t talk too much. She probably goes crazy.

- Mark Bittman brings this perfect summer corn salad. We talk about Gourmand Syndrome. 

His perfect New Yorky accent intensifies after a few glasses of wine, and carries on the heavy summer air. I probably get drunk and gush on and on about How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

- The charming owner of the most charming wine shoppe in NYC, Bottle Rocket, would attend. He would bring the best dog ever, Otis, and have a never ending supply of perfect wines.

Perhaps including my new favorite cheap-o, Hi.

- Ms. Stephanie Stein would be responsible for her perfect strawberry shortcake with fresh whipped cream. It is literally the most perfect dessert on the planet. It’s not too sweet and creamy and tart. 

(This photo is amazing, Miss Michele Ventura)

-I would make the perfect Roast Chicken.

Crispy olive oiled skin and moist from being stuffed with lemons and thyme. Mmmmmmm.

Mr. Storie writes, “One time my friend observed that, hosting a dinner party of history’s great personalities might get awkward and lonely, because they would all have incredible conversations to have with eachother and the host himself might feel intimidated or left out. 

With this in mind I figure that my ultimate dinner party would be a collection of anonymous, surreal people and creatures, to see what kind of party that would make. We would eat spaghetti and meatballs, or at least try to.”

The Ultimate Dinner Party

The first name on the list was Jesus,
But no one knew where to find him,
I went with L. Ron Hubbard,
And to keep it interesting,
I brought in Charles Darwin,
Dorothy Parker dragged herself in,
James Dean came in too,
Bukowski was well behaved,
I figured he came for the free booze,
Henry VIII was there, and so was Washington,
The president and the carver,
Even though it was like the album
Of Sgt. Pepper at the dinner table,
I was angry after appetizers,
No one brought a dessert,
So I had to buy ice cream and cake,
I asked if anyone was lactose intolerant,
No one said they were, and nobody
Complained about having lamb and veal,
The conversation was going nowhere,
So I asked Dorothy Parker to say grace,
She blushed, and I asked Hubbard,
Then James Dean, then Bukowski,
He declined, in fact, they all did,
Heads flat into their meals.

Allie writes, “In response to the ultimate dinner party, I think this says it all, in light of my recent religious awakening.”

Leviathan

Dear Ishmael, please pass the peas.

       -Call me Mary.

Dear Ishmael, please pass the peas.

       -Call me Joseph.

Dear Ishmael, please pass the peas.

       -Call me Jesus.

Dear Jesus, please pass the wine.

       -Call me Mother.

Dear Jesus, please pass the wine.

       -Call me Father.

Dear Jesus, please pass the wine.

       -Call me Brother, Sister, Ishmael. Call me Ishmael. And believe.

Dear Ishmael, I believe.

       -Would you like some peas? How about some wine?

Amen

Thanks so much to our contributor’s on this week’s theme: Vices: Sex, Drugs, and Gossip Girl. 

You can hear me reading a poem about vices here:Fount Edition 5

I want to let all of our contributors/readers know that there were close to 1,000 people reading Fount last week. 

The word is spreading, so keep on doing what you’re doing.

Please contribute on next week’s theme:

Ultimate Dinner Party:Who’s invited? (living/dead) Why? And what are we eating/drinking?

My submission this week is a storyboard portraying my very dramatic vice.

Not So Guilty Pleasures

By Casey Butler

I don’t believe in “guilty pleasures.”  I yam who I yam and I refuse to apologize for preferring Harper’s Bazaar to Harper’s, and Mandy Moore over Meryl Streep.  So I get my fill of romance from reading books about vampires- meant for teenagers- and I like to watch A Baby Story- what of it?  I enjoy filling out those e-mail questionnaires, I shamelessly take photos at concerts, I frequently order vodka-Red Bulls (a.k.a. “Crack”), and yes, I do own a T-shirt from the Mall of America.  I can say, without a trace of guilt, that I actually adore the soundtrack to a Saturday night at Jack & Bills, and I believe that McDonald’s apple pies are scrumptious (though as a rule, I don’t touch the rest of the menu).  Fuck admissions, I proclaim that I am from New Jersey.  And I like it.  And I’m not sorry in the least.

Of course, all of that only covers the term in the traditional sense.  In giving this a little more thought, I realized that I do take plaisir in a few things that I keep entirely to myself- not out of guilt, but out of… something else.

Writing unsent letters is one of those things, although more accurately, it provides a sense of relief rather than pleasure.  The letters are of all shapes and sizes, to all different people.  Some are lyrical and overflowing with love.  Others are stained with sorrow, and still others seem to claw angrily at the pages on which they’re written to deliver harsh scoldings.  Occasionally, their existence is only a matter of bytes.  A few of their addressees are named, but mostly, their names go without saying.  I know who they are.  They probably know who they are, too.  Some, I have written with a clear view of delivery, which became unclear, for some reason or another, or vanished altogether.  Some, I wrote with absolutely no intention of setting free.  They’re almost always dated.  They’re well thought-out, or at least, I like to think they are.  I always try to find precisely the right words for expressing exactly whatever it is I mean to express.  It’s actually quite a process: thinking, writing, thinking, drawing circles and arrows, crossing out words and replacing them with other, finer, words… reading, more thinking, more writing.  They’re all meant for someone.  And none of them has ever been read by anyone but me.

I’m not sure if the letters count as a guilty pleasure- especially since I don’t overtly feel guilt or pleasure as a result of writing them.  I do, however, sometimes wonder if the To:s deserve to become concrete recipients, and at times when I decide that they do, I feel mildly guilty that they never have.

I love Dan’s fabulously literal contributions from this week. As always, more amazing artwork is added every day at Dan’s blog: www.artmacguffin.blogspot.com

Damien Hirst, LSD, 2000.

Lambda print on glossy Fuji archive paper
From an edition of 300
Height: 41.9 inches
Width: 50 inches

Terry Richardson, Penn Badgley : American Splendor, 2008.

Welcome to the 4th installment of Fount!

This week’s theme was Travel: Where have you been? Where are you going?

My photos from my cross country winter excursion can be found below,

accompanied by photos by my partner in crime, Ms. Lindsay Cumella.

I encourage all of you to contribute on next week’s theme:

Vices: Sex, Drugs, and Gossip Girl

What are your guiltiest pleasures?

Interested in contributing? E-mail your submission to fountblog@gmail.com

by midnight on Thursday January 15.

We almost died a lot of times:

PHOTOS FROM MS. LINDSAY CUMELLA:

Family Reunion

In Arlington, Virginia, I was raised,
In New York I grew up,
Lost the white halo of communion,
And in Key West,
I lost my faith, 90 miles to Havana,
In Kansas City, lived my grandfather,
In Lawrence my mother went to school
Up the only hill in the state,
In San Diego my brother lost his appendix,
In San Francisco my sister and me
Wore coats in summer, sang with the sea lions,
In New Jersey I was always driving and riding,
In New Hampshire the family walked
Through a Phoenician Stonehenge,
In Orlando my grandmother grasped for air,
Plastic snakes always with her,
In Niagara my great grandparents felt the mist,
In Minnesota my aunt skied down to the grocery store,
In International Falls my father’s uncle, broken down
And purple-hearted, tried to get away from it all,
In Seattle my boss watched planes and rains,
In Chicago we collected bones, and
In Cleveland, the hagiography of rock n’roll,
St. Jimmi and Janice, lady of sorrows,
In Charleston we slept easy,
In Savannah we meant Haitians by the river,
In Charlottesville I watched the mountains flood,
The children line up and my shadow leading them,
In Wilmington I met my beloved,
In West Chester we missed the exit,
In Alaska, in Hawaii, my finger rested
And my mind wondered how big they really were,
In Iowa the supervisor gave thanks, not for me,
But I didn’t think of him either,
In Annapolis a fantasy bowled drunk,
While wearing her mother’s name,
In Brooklyn, the past smiled at me
And we ran, pinballs against the trashcan bumpers,
In Salem I admitted spectral evidence
Against the ship of state,
In Indianapolis my father put food on a table,
Two time zones away,
In America I wept, I hoped, I prayed, wept again
By the wall, by the river too shallow,
In the cities wearing the blitzkrieg of white flight,
With the hands too weak to lift another ballot,
Next to the highways, in the shadow
Of the work of the masters in neon,
The sound of the rivers in my ears,
The smell of the mountains in the back of my throat,
The taste of California, of Nebraska,
Sweet and savory lands, I crawled in them
And went to sleep in the night unable to wait for the day.

Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City

City of barbecue rivers and towers
That cut the air like the edges
Of greeting cards,
Site of so many vacations,
A metropolitan dot,
The farmhouse in the middle
Of an inland sea of wheat and corn.

Site of so many vacations,
And those went over sea or down south
Dryly over the river great river
Never could believe it.

A City growing with me,
Washington was a revolving door,
New York preferred to be lonely in a bar,
And Orlando held saran wrap
Over me with orders to breathe deeply.

I came and saw it as the City,
The definition of how men should live together,
Something inherited from the Romans,
Something that Virgil might have fancied,
I saw the fountains and the lawns,
The tall buildings and galleries,
I saw the trains, the people, the cars,
Smelled the fumes of meat,
And ate my way around the world,
In this city which had no towns inside it,
No villages trying to keep everyone out,
No streets arranged in barricades or walls.

In time I came and saw the City
As America, the source of things
Red, white, and blue, coming
In a swirl of those colors on their backs,
It was so close to the center,
I could hear the ground beating
And was the only one who realized
It was arrhythmia.

I came and saw the rust piled up
And turning into kingdoms,
The slow decaying fire gradually
Giving up the embers of old prosperity to the air,
The trains were still, the tracks
Gave off no sparks or shrill calls,
Factory windows broken and smokestacks
A resting place for the wind.

It was an island that I enjoyed,
One thanksgiving there was a time travel
To sit on the chairs and couches,
With no trace of European modeling,
To play the electric organ,
Keys covered in dust, old arcade games
Changed only for new prices,
All the favorite brands and locations
That stalked and circulated back home
Had yet to find this City,
Were circling before exploring the interior.

A City of folk, a City where checks
Would magically appear from,
A small lifeline, the bell that could weather,
It made sense after the drought
To head back for a spin and a mock epic,
Under the carriage covering of a plane,
To brush off the dust I was accustomed to finding,
And learn something of the direction
Of the roots that place loved to guard.

Someone had gone through with a polish,
Added edges to it all and put glass
All around the old markets,
The seating rooms I did not recognize
And all the chains had seeped through
To rattle the commerce here
With the same song rolling everywhere else.

“Nice try, kids! Go back to Hell.”

Who cares where you’ve been…Essentials to survive any trip…

1. Ass, and plenty of it.

2. Making art out of convenience

3. Flail

4.Taking in the adventure

5. Knowing when enough is enough

6.Keepin’ on anyway

Welcome to the third installment of Fount! I blame the slowness on all of your New Year’s Day hangovers! I hope you all had a lovely, bubbly, time.

Now, moving forward, our first theme of 2009 will be: Travel: Where are you going? Where have you been?

What is the best/worst place you’ve ever been? Where do you dream about going? Sing songs about Tahiti and write poems Memphis. I am currently driving cross-country, and will be updating with photographic road treats.

(Note: This post is being written from a possibly haunted hotel in Terra Haute, Indiana.)

(In 1945 it is Japan, not the United States, that develops the atom bomb.)

–Jugatsu. Showa 41.–

The whole world out here was bitter, blank whiteness- a flat, clean Siberian cold, interrupted only by the crackle of gunfire and curling black plumes of smoke. Ten kilometers shy of Vladivostok, the most crucial Soviet city on the Pacific, the Imperial Japanese Army huddled in the trenches. Across the plains, in their own trenches, the Red Army waited.

John knew the turf well. An eight year veteran of the Imperial Japanese Army, he had fought and killed countless Russians on this land.  His regiment, a few hundred British conscripts of the Japanese Empire, even invaded Vladivostok the year before. But a few months ago the Russians pushed them back, and now it was the trenches. Months and months of the trenches.

John hummed as he sharpened the blade of his bayonet. He turned to his old friend Starkey and gestured to the bayonet with pride.

“When those fucking Russians come, I’m gonna be ready.”

Starkey chuckled. “You’ll be ready to run out of bullets?”

“Starkey my boy, we’d be a shitty band of soldiers if we don’t run out of bullets.”

“Sounds like you’re itching to fight.”

“Fuck, I’m just itching to move.”

–From the very day he was born, when Luftwaffe bombs exploded outside the Liverpool Maternity Hospital, all John ever knew was the war. The same war dragged on twenty six years later, ugly and tired, but the world that fought it was much different. John never forgot the cruel and peculiar twists of his childhood; that the same week Germany collapsed, Los Angeles was erased by a great and terrible weapon, and the United States was forced to make a separate peace.

Harrison, a slim young private, grimaced. “We’re almost out of rations.”

“Of course we are,” Starkey shrugged. “We’re always almost out of rations.”

“Our supplies haven’t been reinforced in weeks,” Harrison murmured. “And we’re almost out of ammunition. Sometimes I think the Emperor wants us just as dead as the Russians do.”

“That’s what makes it fun, lads,” John smirked. “There is no country. There’s nothing here to kill or die for. Hirohito doesn’t care. I don’t fight because some mystical old prat tells me to. I fight because I’m here, and we might as well kill so we can kill all this time.”

“You two better watch your words if the Sergeant comes around,” Starkey warned.

“Oh, McCartney can fuck off,” John groaned. “That self righteous twat.”

–It was twenty years ago today that Britain fell. In the wake of American withdrawals, Japan launched a massive and shocking invasion of the British isles. Most of the British army was still tied up in rebuilding western Europe, and on top of it all the Japanese held the threat of nuclear war over Britain’s head. In October 1946, shortly after John’s sixth birthday, the Union Jack was lowered in London and the Hinomaru rose. Meanwhile, the Russians turned on their crumbling western allies and swept through Europe, all the way to the coasts of Normandy. Soon enough the Soviets tested their own atom bomb, and suddenly the world was locked into two massive empires, the Russian and the Japanese, fighting eachother endlessly on the margins. The war had continued in this bloody form ever since.

“Good morning, gentlemen, how are we holding up?”

“Speak of the devil,” John muttered to himself.

“Looks good, Sergeant,” Starkey answered. “We’ve traded some fire with the Reds. Not much movement.”

“Sir,” Harrison spoke up, “We’re almost completely out of food. I’ve had to make a day’s rations last this entire week.”

“Ah, now now rook,” McCartney chirped, “Sacrifices, boy, these are sacrifices we make. Whenever you get hungry, right, just think of this: when you’re out here fighting, you’re feeding the Emperor. Every day you struggle is a day he sleeps comfortably. And every morning he wakes, the whole beautiful Empire wakes with him. Let it comfort you! Our misery is what makes our work sacred. Our land is sacred! Love it, chap! Love it!”

“Ah! So true, good Sergeant! Remember it fellas, The Emperor smiles when you’re miserable,” John added. “The more you die, the more the old man lives. The best thing you’re ever gonna do is die.”

“But it’s a fine thing! D’you realize that they’re all atheists back in the USSR? You don’t know how lucky you are to fight for a blessed nation. When you die, you die for a cause more beautiful than we can comprehend.”

“A lovely way, Sergeant, to say “We don’t know why we’re fighting.”

“I know exactly why I’m fighting, Lennon. I’m fighting to push those Russians back to Moscow. We’re spreading the might of the Rising Sun. I’m fighting to assure the everlasting glory of my country.”

“Aye aye!” John cheered. “And I’m fighting for the everlasting glory of starving in a trench.”

An abrupt shriek of artillery fire pierced the air. The explosion of shells rippled across the front. John looked over the trenches. The Red Army was advancing.

“They’re coming! Positions, men! Positions!” McCartney shouted. “Let’s show those Red bastards what the Imperial Army is all about!”

Thick masses of Russian soldiers flooded the flat, white Siberian landscape. All across the trenches, the British soldiers of the Japanese Army fired frantically, and the Russians retaliated with a heavy artillery barrage. Within minutes the field grew clouded with smoke and fire.

Starkey lifted his grenade launcher and fired repeatedly on the advancing column of Russians. He could barely tell if he was hitting or missing through the dense smoke. John, happily back in action, sniped away with his rifle. Harrison radioed information, in perfect Japanese, to higher command. McCartney barked orders along the line and did his best to orchestrate the resistance.

But the Red Army kept advancing. Through the blackening smoke their shells, grenades and gunfire kept slamming against the Japanese line. John fired another round and opened his ammunition pouch. Empty.

Starkey reloaded and fired off his grenade launcher again, then prepared to pack another round- but found nothing as he anxiously searched his bag.

“We’re out. We’re fucking out!” Starkey shrieked. His big desperate eyes turned to John.

“Well,” John said. “Guess we’re a pretty good band of soldiers.”

More artillery shells exploded around the trenches. Harrison closed his eyes and sat quietly in the mud. The roar of Japanese gunfire slowed to trickle as each man used up their limited supplies.

McCartney drew his blade and howled the terrible order.

“Gyokusai! Gyokusai!”

Starkey and John exchanged a long look.

“All right then,” John said. “Right on chip chap cheerio and all that whatsinon.”

And Corporal Lennon drew his bayonet and charged out of the trenches. As the bullets flew and the explosions rocked the ground all around him, a series of thoughts flashed in and out of his mind. He felt surges of anger, and hate, and excitement, more intensely than ever before in his life.  He thought of the cute Japanese girls he’d met on leave, fantasized about taking one home. He thought of his mother. And he thought, as fun or ugly as the war was, if he could have lived his life over he’d rather play music.

Round 1: Beatles Vs. Babydolls

Robert Whitaker, The Beatles, Butcher Sleeve Session, London, 1966.

Outcome: Beatles emerge victorious, and proceed to mock the dolls by taking their appendages and forcing them to wear mod sunglasses.

Round 2: Beatles Vs. The Birds

Robert Whitaker, George Harrison, Beatles Butcher Sleeve Session, London, 1966.

Outcome: Beatles fight valiantly but George is taken prisoner.

Round 3: Beatles Vs. Plastic Wrap

Robert Whitaker, The Beatles, Butcher Sleeve Session, London, 1966.

Outcome: Stalemate

As always, more art/awesome can be found at www.artmacguffin.blogspot.com

Casey writes, “So, to sum it up: The Beatles.  They’ve only influenced EVERYONE to come after them, helped father the entire genre of rock, and Stella Mccartney.  And, the fact that they’re always included in getting-to-know-you talk <3, as well as in ever-important bar debates, just proves that there’s no comparison between the beatles and… anyone.  (maybe The Stones.)  but in my opinion, their influence isn’t quite as broad.  So, yes, the beatles.

These are inventive and charming versions of Christmas carols from the adorable Barrie McLain and her musical partner Adam Cochran. You can hear the rest of their Christmas album at www.myspace.com/thespecialistsnyc .

Please try listening to the tunes on their MySpace page, linked below, until I get the audio player working.

I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas

Carol of the Bells

I always look forward to getting Liz’s pen and ink Christmas Cards every year. They are sometimes delightfully dark and stormy, often hilariously tongue in cheek, and always highly stylized. I got my 2008 card last night in exchange for a half-drank Jameson and Ginger. Here is Liz’s card from a few years back, featuring the dreamy Nikola Tesla.

Kelley Butler has been my Christmas Card inspiration for a good solid decade. She makes the most beautiful and witty hand printed Christmas Cards every single year. I finally got around to drawing my own cards this winter, and I hope I made her proud. Her contribution is an adaptation of the amazing cards she sent out this year.

Dan came up with, what I think, are some great images for this week’s theme. My personal favorite is the Albert Watson photo of Alfred Hitchcock below.

To see more Art Macguffin selections from what Dan calls “Internet Connoisseurship”, check out Dan’s blog @ http://artmacguffin.blogspot.com 

Albert Watson, Hitchcock with Goose, 1973.

Jen Stark, Candyland, 2008.

Sylvia Plachy, Stars of Radio City, New York City, Christmas Spectacular, 2006.

Dear Saint Nick,

       It’s so fucking ugly.  She’s holding it and she’s smiling. How could she hold that and smile?  Giving me that look that screams of expectations, of stupid hollow hope.  What do you say to that Santa? It’s brown and boring, a jacket that somehow manages to encompass everything that is wrong with, and this word is certainly a misnomer, Christmas presents.  I should have just lied, but I told her Santa.  I just said it.  “Thanks Mom, it’s really nice, but I don’t know, it’s just not, really me… really”.  All she wanted for Christmas was to make me happy.  To give me something good, something that says not only “I love you” but also “ I know you, perhaps better then yourself” even, “ I can make you happy”.  And now it is my sad duty to tell her that in fact, no, she can’t.

            And that was my gift.  For Christmas, besides the gift that got delayed by Amazon and didn’t arrive in time, I gave my mother disappointment.  Like cold Chinese on Thanksgiving, it seems inappropriate and woefully inadequate.  But that’s what she got.  That’s what we gave each other really, unfulfilled expectations.  It wasn’t always like this, Christmas didn’t always feel like an emotional mugging.

            I remember when you used to come, when I was easily entertained, and when Christmas was everything I thought it could be and so much more.  Little children have no great requests, no monumental expectations.  We just need toys, lots of plastic, things that will be forgotten after a few months.  A Tickle Me Elmo perhaps, a Ferbie, and we’re set.  And if we don’t like it, no big deal.  We blame in on Santa, and move on to the next one.  By the end of the day the few casualties are forgotten and we move on to breaking whatever it is we do like. We run around and scream, jump up an down, generally behaving in a manor that would get any sane adult institutionalized, and come that afternoon we usually believe it’s been the greatest day of our lives.

            But it hasn’t.  Not by a long shot.  All we’ve gotten is a hundred dollars worth Chinese made crap, and a one way ticket to the crappy plastic American dream.  But because of the joy, the sublime ecstasy that was Christmas morning in early childhood, I’ve spent most of my post twelve-year old Christmas career in utter disappointment.  Mostly because after those simple tender years of single digits, people don’t seem to know how to make each other happy anymore, and a few items from Walmart, or Bloomingdales, or even Louis Vuitton probably aren’t going to cut it.

            And I know you know this because that is exactly when you stop coming.  As soon as we need more then a video game and Monopoly  you stop delivering.  We need jobs, money or somebody to love.  We need satisfaction or fulfillment, something that we can’t just buy at the store ourselves.  But if it can’t be found in a Chinese factory you ain’t got it.  You’re like the divorced parent that swoops in on holidays disseminating gifts, only to not return phone calls months later when child support is due.

            You know where this is going, asshole.  Don’t say this isn’t your fault.  I know we did it to ourselves, sold out to the corporations, forgot what Christmas was all about.  You could say all that, and you’d be right.  But we didn’t start this nonsense.  We didn’t start these silly traditions, and neither did we fly around sneaking into people’s homes at night, planting seeds of expectation that would not, could not, ever be met.  We wake up now, dazed and jaded, wondering why such an auspicious day, for which our entire society whips itself into a frenzy, only ends in a collective sign of relief and disappointment when it is all finally, thankfully, over.

            So this Christmas I write to you, you big, silly, red-wearing, fat asshole, to tell you it’s over.  Cease and desist with the Christmas bullshit.  Obviously the religious connection is bullshit, a sad tired excuse that has long outlived its usefulness.  You’ve got nothing left to stand on and so I ask you respectfully to retire. We know that you and you alone make Christmas not about family and friends but instead about the search for wildly impractical crap.  Please leave us alone, let Christmas die it’s long overdue death, so that my fellow citizens and I can finally pass a December, just one December, in  peace. 

            Enjoy retirement.  Go to Florida, the Jews probably won’t recognize you, and if they do just apologize for making the gentiles close everything on what must be the most incontinent day of the year.  And then take them out for Chinese, because then, finally, you will have met some expectations.

Thank you,

William Godel

P.S. But we would like to keep the vacation.

I’d like to welcome you all to the first edition of Fount on the theme Change: Nickles/Dimes/Catharsis.

I will be uploading podcasts every week. You can hear this week’s here.

I also welcome you to submit on next week’s theme: Sending a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa card to anyone (living/dead, real/fictional). Images, text, and singing telegrams are encouraged!

Please e-mail your submissions to fountblog@gmail.com by Christmas 12/25 @ midnight.

I still have some kinks to work out, but if you have any questions, please e-mail me at fountblog@gmail.com
Thanks, and enjoy.

Dan, like myself, is a curator for Fount. He will be searching his collection of art work and sharing with us some of his finds for the week’s theme. All of the images below, and many more can be found at his blog: http://artmacguffin.blogspot.com

Joel Stohr,Tower of Babel

Jeff Vespa, McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, 2004.

Johnny Swing, The Half Dollar/Butterfly Chair, 2008.
Made with 1,500 half dollars

“A poem on change. Like Sacajawea.”

Cycling

Your absence brings
the change of seasons.
The upside of four months:
Winter to Spring.
The upside of four days
assume early Autumn,
but in all this guess and mysticism
Summer just gets hotter:
a reminder of those Arab days.

Your distance brings
the image of completion
to our setting eyes.
The moon above
to stretch and swell,
some blood below
to drip and rise.
A surfacing unheard of
and unseen while you spill inside.

Before you left
our sex breathed
I can’t live without you breath,
and eyes shed
all those longing tears
that begged for any absence,
distance, incompletion nullified.
A need for your groove
to fill my void
through all these changing seasons
and all this wax and wane.

You button up your uniform, 
and head for the door.
You walk right out, 
it’s happened before.
It’s different this time,
with your riffle in hand.
You think you’re grown up,
You think you’re a man.
At night I don’t sleep,
I toss and I turn.
You’re just pennies and dimes,
I hope that you’ll learn.
Somethings they change,
Some never do,
But the things you will see,
They will change you.