Friday, January 20, 2006

Chyna's Swan Song

Chyna's Swan Song

Chyna's Swan Song (2001)

Your body takes a hell of a beating after leaving the breeding area. Those graceful creatures are so butch and mate for life -- but are their breasts real? I really think people wanna see large numbers of trumpeter swans congregating on ponds and kicking some guy's ass. My tight butt is territorial behavior, so I usually brood and lay my eggs in muskrat houses. Don't look at me like a man or molt on me, ya know. The ball's in your court. It's a tuber you dug. You think I'm kidding or solicitous? I've worked hard to earn my suitable habitat of slough waters. That brat of a cygnet? That S-curved neck? I'd like to rip 'em off and use 'em to complete my reproductive cycle. I dictate when nesting occurs with some seriously empowered eyecandy. Other birds are intimidated by fake sexual maturity and wanna hatch a shallow terminator. I say leave 'em in beaver lodges. I consider myself an active horsetail, a wonder woman density diving and foraging for my body. You want incubation and an interview in the marsh? I'm glad to be flightless exhibiting big round ones not subject to constant wave action. This pair is only half grown and occupies its territory. Yeah. Nest this.

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Using the "cut-up" composition method popularized by William S. Burroughs, two blocks of text were run through a virtual cut-up machine. The result: a randomly scrambled "found" text mirroring chaos theory and yielding new meanings.

The two texts used here and merged were:
1) selected interview quotes from female wrestler Chyna--
2) an article on the mating habits of trumpeter swans--

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Well, talk about Tennyson's notion of "nature red in tooth and claw." The fun of this cut-up comes from its mashed-up tone. The wrestler's defiance collides brutally with maternal instincts. Reproduction becomes a cage match. No serene pond here. Enter the marked territory at your own risk. The unsuspecting reader swims in -- and gets immediately piledriven and gloated over.

4 comments:

Neil Shakespeare said...

Rather dizzying array of images in the links! I would have put 'Soft Wonder Woman' next to the muskrat house.

cruelanimal said...

Neil,

Ah, thinking like a true collagist.

Personally, I like the image linked to "piledriven." I have absolutely no idea what is going on there -- and I'm not sure I want to know.

Monda said...

Chyna and trumpeter swans...that was just begging for a poem anyway.

It gave me an idea. This process might be fun using printed out ditties on overhead transparencies. Just stack them and slide them around a bit, one on top of the other. Or throw them on the floor and see how they land. Layered chaos using the highest form of public school technology. Hmmmmm...

-m

cruelanimal said...

Yeah, Chyna and swans just had to intermingle.

I like the transparency technique you describe.

There usued to be a site on the Net called The Digital Landfill. You could paste your unwanted text (like spam) and images into the landfill, and everything would get increasingly composted together. Sometimes interesting accidents occurred.