extraordinary recipe for spontaneously generating mice from soiled underwear and wheat husks

in 1620, the physician and early chemist Jan Baptista van Helmont published this recipe for making mice:

"for if you press a piece of underwear soiled with sweat together with some wheat in an open mouth jar, after about 21 days the odor changes and the ferment coming out of the underwear and penetrating through the husks of the wheat, changes the wheat into mice. But what is more remarkable is that mice of both sexes emerge (from the wheat) and these mice successfully reproduce with mice born naturally from parents? But what is even more remarkable is that the mice which came out were not small mice? but fully grown."

...the theory of spontaneous generation was finally dispelled following experiments done by Louis Pasteur in 1862 for which he won Alhumbert prize (another interesting story).

“I shall demonstrate that there was one source of error that M. Pouchet did not notice, that never occurred to him, that had never occurred to anyone before him, and that this source of error makes his experiment completely useless, and as bad as that of Van Helmont’s pot of dirty linen. I shall show you where the mice came in. I shall demonstrate that in every experiment of the kind that concerns us here, one must absolutely rule out the use of the mercury trough.”

Middlebrow Megachurch Infotainment*

qualifier: this is not intended to be some overarching criticism of TED talks, simply the aspects of it that stink. that stink has given rise to the following revulsion:

fuck TED standing ovations, fuck privileged men in suits and the scum who want to grow into them. fuck apocryphal revelations. fuck rich people chuckling at bad jokes. fuck applauding your own ignorance. each presentation a little bubble of flatulent over inflation. just coz you paid a lot of money to be there doesn't mean you have to validate it by feigning an epiphany. sit the fuck down u fucking cunt. fuck learning something in less than 18 minutes. fuck the little red dot. i don't even mind the little red dot, but fuck it anyway. fuck the never ending slew of false profundity that vapid minds will lap up like teenagers that think they're philosophers the moment they realise "this sentence is untrue" is a paradox. wow, that's fucking far out man. fuck buying into the TED cult to make yourself feel cutting edge. fuck being part of the chosen few. fuck everyone who asks, "have you seen the TED talk?", but can't explain it themselves. fuck the mystique and fuck the 90% of videos that aren't even any good. fuck inept minds jizzing into the sticky pages of wired magasine over an unsubstantiated fantasy of the future. fuck the false hope. fuck the elitism. i'll say it again, fuck TED standing ovations. fuck the sales pitch and fuck the sandals. fuck the fact that the ideas that are to be spread, like a sticky turd into a sheet of newspaper, are frequently the same shade as that of tabloid headlines. fuck. that.

"In the darkest hours of countless nights I’ve woken convinced that a solar-powered cup holder will end third world debt, but not really knowing why" - Martin Robbins, whose entertaining article on TED can be read HERE.

*title words by Benjamin Bratton from his amusing and acute TED-critique, appropriately, itself, a TED talk, that should be consumed as a TED-talk chaser and as a source of healthy scepticism.

also: http://theamericanreader.com/the-sound-of-ted-a-case-for-distaste/

Heel

as a vague point of reference, you can click HERE

slim leather strapping and the
ankle buckles
no shuffling rubber soles
but limbs, sharpened into points
drawn out and thin
extending the leg by way of wooden pegs
giving each step the poise and quivering intent
of tight-rope footing

out in the night
cosmetic hooves make audible the gait
as heel collides
with tarmac, concrete
and precarious cobbles

the agonising hobbles
giving rise to metatarsalgia
through strain of the levitating calcaneus
the uprooting plantar flexion
that breaks the arc
that forces digits into the ground
squeezing stumps
into prosthetic
6-inch
stilts

there's a whiff of nest and stable in it
the ostentation of peacocks
and their difficult manoeuvrings
living out a dichotomous balance
between titillation and practicality
between empowerment and submission

imagine a phalanx of storks
or a conventicle of magpies
ascending to the level of privileged height
in a set of spindly boots with shiny tethers

in the vein of Cinderella
fragments of glass suspend the body, invisible
with perhaps a touch of silk, en pointe
in aid of a sylphic glide, elegant
were it not for the ulcers and bunions
the corns and calluses
the silicone heels and the missing toes

coo-coo, coo-coo
there's blood in the shoe

ideas sleep furiously

flammable urethra pâté
tarmac glove implant bleeds crumpled light
combustion failure contingency spectacle
brisk exploitation capsules heal perennial shrapnel formations
innocuous rust pathology warning
ovarian summer splinters illicit cascading spore templates
burrowing skin tapestry suspending aqueous linen
prudent spring chasm
chrome kiosk performance
gelatinous blizzard fever
concertina petal projecting inert adrenaline halo
follicular pendant brandishing menstrual curvature
avuncular gravity mist leaps vividly
intrepid nylon wound holiday
moist stitching palaver
alphabetical glass connection spreads tangentially
insipid lobotomy and abbreviated oesophagus policies
jilted cervix propaganda
plastered backlash deposit
vital digit deterrent
trimmed masonry format gland


this list is for entertainment purposes only.

3 sentences about my nose

after the NHS cut and sew up ritual
my face is working to regenerate
the connective and epithelial tissues of its nasal septum.
i feel it draw the nutrients from the surrounding area
like a greedy plant
drying out my mouth
my throat
which looks like a red inverted gherkin
speckled with ulcers.
i havent washed all week
but it's ok coz my one good nostril tells me
that my armpits smell of nectarines

log of first MXE trip in months

i found a small bag of MXE that had been sitting in my little chinese take-away tray of stationary, receipts and uncategorisable desktop leftovers for a few months. i picked it up. shit, yeah, it's been a while. i was trying to finish several poems. maybe this unsuspecting white powder would fuck my mind into a new perspective. i did a big line and made a cup of cherry tea which my neighbour had given me earlier. i added in lots of sugar.

i felt the desire to swing and pounce like a monkey - to bounce, and to fling my chair like a helicopter blade above my head. i felt the desire to rage and rampage - to beat the shit out of something.

i folded all of my t-shirts and towels neatly on the bed and considered that the military might serve a purpose after all. i marvelled at how perfectly square the piles were and how it made me feel disciplined and organised.

i did 100 push ups with the supreme confidence that it was possible, each repetition a testament to the ease with which it could be done. afterwards i collapsed and spent a few minutes looking at the skirting board willing the insects who live behind it not to be shy, but to come out to where we could look deeply into each other's eyes.

i followed the encyclopedic hypertext of trotskyist splinter groups of the united kingdom and mapped them on an A3 piece of paper - an experience through which i engaged in the cyclical and pulsating eb and flow of divergent and convergent political philosophies.

i put my ear to the wall for the best part of an hour to listen to the moan and rumble of ambient vibrations passing through ancient masonry.

i watched an introduction to anthropology that Alan Macfarlane had made on a computer in 1988 which explained the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the african bushmen. it was pretty good. then i watched porn in which 3 men skull-fucked a girl and force-fed her out of a dog bowl into which she had vomited.

i pretended that it had become day and that i had written through the night, once again reborn and having made an entire revolution.

i looked into the open page and thought, you are one of the few rabbit holes into which i can confidently shout.

eat aortic

to make an omelette, you have to crack a few eggs.
humpty dumpty eat your fucking heart out.

though we know it is a hazard of living - that there is no opt out clause for the final destination - no one likes to be reminded of their mortality. perhaps we do, falsely, for a moment of weightless adrenaline fuelled abandon, but not truly, when it's completely out of our control.

i think of heroes,
i think of the shrapnel in Tony Stark's heart,
i think of emblems on the chest,
i think of your scars and of how deep they have cut into you.

i never had the guts to hear you say
that before 1948, the 5th July,
we may already have said goodbye.
it's hard to appreciate the miracles of science
when faced with a scalpel and a thousand tubes.

there is a set of hands
that can make ends meet,
but first they have to break my friend
and put her back together with wire and metal.
and when i think of her tomorrow morning
at 8am when they make the first incision,
she'll be splayed open on the operating table,
my beautiful friend,
ribs akimbo,
and they will begin.

they'll open her chest,
displaying her like a gaping flower,
like a window,
like a bloody well.

then they will stop her heart,
and for those minutes i will muster
all my residual superstitions and spiritual tendencies
in an attempt to steer fate towards excellent tailoring;
in an attempt to convince myself of some position of power.

burrow

into all important holes.
my inner t r a c t
that goes all the way to china.
thin streets through which glands, glands
eject mucus, mucus and detritus.
migrants forced through ducts, ducts
to return from whence they came, came.
all the tubes that lead to
cavities and echoes, echoes.
painted interiors of bright arteries
gushing towards punctures and orifice, orifice.
holy gravedigger, friend of the worms,
breathes shit and makes magic, magic
with buttons, stars and spirals;
the navel, asshole and ear.
children's pencils in nostril, nostril
for empty pocket hoop jumping.
a dark entrance to a rabbit hole
that gargles lint and spittle.
empty bellies rumble,
and wombs are v a c a n t.