What is Really Needed At Town Board and Planning Board Meetings: Performance Art Poetry
What is really needed is someone—not me, not you, but maybe everyone else we know?—to march right in with a nice flowy dress on and, during the public comment period, get all performance arty and read some truly atrocious poems. There’s not enough performance art at these meetings, people! Here’s but one example of what could be done:
Scene: Planning Board Public Hearing re: a big new development going in where there is currently just a big empty field.
Woman with wild curly hair gets up to speak in the center of the room:
“I have a statement to make.”
Pulling a long scroll from her vagina, she begins to read:
QUEEN ANNE’S LACE
A Choreopoem for Three Voices
At the locally-owned bank the women come and go
I come and go too.
Cashing my check from my laughing yoga classes I say
‘You are moving to the new development. It is
as it stands
as it happens
full of Queen Anne’s Lace
in July.’
The cashier, she wears cat eye makeup like she
believes in the past
and skintight dresses like you do when you’ve grown up
in a small town and loathe everything.
‘Main street of this small town, it’s going away.’
I say to her, my sister.
She hands me my receipt and my $35.
‘I can’t wait to get out of this awful downtown. I hear there’s going to be a nail salon.’
For the last line she prostrates herself on the floor and gets all Emily Dickenson:
Oh! Oh ot[her]ed voices! Hear my roar!
The field—the field— — —
It is full of—
Queen Anne’s Lace—
in July.
12 Responses to “What is Really Needed At Town Board and Planning Board Meetings: Performance Art Poetry”
I bought a durian once, and the same thing happened to me.
zing!
I have never seen anything like this in my life – looks crazy! I had to look it up, based on this comment above. What do you do with it?
It’s wildness! Like Pree says, the unripe ones can be used in all sorts of tasty dishes, sort of like potatoes…they’re starchy and make nice burgers and taco fillings and things. I don’t think I’ve ever had ripe jackfruit, but I’ve had ripe durian and MY GOD. It’s like smelling an armpit, but it’s really tasty!
Is that a jackfruit?! <3 It's one of my favorite fruits and such a versatile ingredient to cook with. The ripe fruit is delicious on its own, but there are also some pretty spectacular vegan Indian dishes that use the raw fruit.
By raw, I meant unripe. Oops. :/
I thought it was a durian, but yep, pretty sure it’s a jackfruit!
That is awesome! Ripe jackfruit does smell (very) pungent, but tastes great. My friend’s mom used to pickle unripe jackfruit in mustard oil, with nigella seeds, fennel seeds, turmeric, indian chili powder, and salt. I know it sounds like a crazy combination, but I swear it’s insanely delicious. :)
that sounds AMAZING!
There is nothing about this post that is not awesome.
: )
very interesting, thanks for shedding some light on such a strange-looking cool-looking fruit, i am gonna go looking for one today!