One Saturday, completely out of the blue, the following text message appeared:
Hello Andrew. Am in Mendoza city, Argentina taking in the annual wine festival parade (vendemia) and thinking of you…Parade began w huge dancing grim reapers, then many tangoing queens, then floats full of men barbecuing meat on great spits. And all sorts of other folkloric stuff (incl argentine bagpipes). See you soon. Sat, 01/02/2013 11:26
Lynn was in Argentina? Who knew? Given the scene she described: grim reapers, dancing queens and men spitting-roasting stuff, I could see why she thought of me, but what was she doing there?
As I found out on my deathday, one of the things she was doing was buying a knife.
The selection of blades for sale in Argentina.
Old Argentinian dudes inspecting the knives.
And having it engraved:
The Argentinian Knife Engraver
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
Detail of Vivian Hodgson’s Portrait of My Personal Demon.
In the end it is our own personal demons that do us in; Vivian has provided me with a portrait of mine.
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
Under the magnifying glass, the loving details of the voodoo doll from the future can be seen.
My Dear Andrew: Happy Un-Birthday! It pains me to tell you it might be your last. I have come across items sent to me from an unknown date in the future that hint at your sad demise. It is my fervent hope that by sending you these items today, you can fight off the tragic death they imply. God speed. XOXO, E.
Thank you for shopping Making Makabre, Purveyors of Quality Death Kits since 1929. Dear Saggyscrotes4u, Please find your customized death kit, made to end the life of Andrew G. especially for you. As you prick the likeness with the enclosed cursed pins, please read aloud from the text provided. If death does not occur within 24 hours, please wait. Death will come, on demon’s wings. NO REFUNDS. Thank you for your continued patronage.
Instructions: Read text aloud while pricking the likeness with the enclosed cursed pins. Death Call for Andrew G. To prick the prick Each needle fixed Upon a dormant organ’s hatch. A line of fire Through brawny brier Lights epaulets of silken thatch. Tortured rotting, Languid clotting, Decay and Reek the final match.
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
Ah Poor Andrew didn’t realize that when you mess with Harry Potter…The owls get mad!
Katy predicts that my incessant trashing of Harry Potter will incite the owls.
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
Vortexted (pronounced: /ˈvɔrtɛkstɛd/) adjective — feeling overwhelmed by a storm of text messages from needy, demanding, or insane people about a particular person, occurrence, or event, past, future, or purely imaginary.
Usage: I was vortexted by George this morning about last night and me and some guy with a douchetag who I don’t remember and suspect doesn’t even exist.
Etymology: A combination of vortex and text that first appeared as, “He’s vortexting you!” after a friend said that someone just kept sending her more and more texts. Contributed by John Mackenzie.
The Catalog of New Emotions is a project to refine our emotional sensibilities through the creation of new emotions and the development of a vocabulary to express these new emotions. If you would like to contribute to this project leave a comment. Your definition of the new emotion should include pronunciation; examples of usage; etymology of the word and/or why this new emotion is necessary.
To see all the entries in The Catalog of New Emotions, click here.
Catherine Matthews imagine a Griffin meeing a feline- and fellini- esque end.
andrew’s felinesque demise
by Catherine Matthews
eyes, fixed,
legs splayed as dislocated wings,
barbed penis unsheathed, careful climax sharpened to screamed
withdrawal
red tufted feathers spitting
from between blue beak, slightly parted, paper thin,
crushed sheet
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
Inspired by my love of cinema (and sex), Pippa Shepherd, and her brother Gyde, contrived the sweetest of endings.
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
I slipped, and fell,
On a pile-o-shit
What an end
For such a with
I tumbled down
Then cracked my head
Once alive,
Alas, now dead
Immortality,
To some sublime,
But belief in same
’Tis mortal crime
So as my cranium
Parses blood
Remember I was
One fine stud
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
How you die
By Barbara Lougheed
Read by Nicola Makoway
March 16, 2013
Andrew when you first called television the Great Teacher* I knew I had found a fellow traveller who well understood why we should devote so many waking hours to this great benefactor of humankind. Dave and I have named our den where we spend so many happy hours the Hall of the Great Teacher in honour of this most excellent name ever.
Andrew, we see you dying in such a hall, but a more sumptuous version, surrounded by many attendants on roller skates to more quickly respond to your finger snapping requests . How do you afford all this you ask? You have come into a great deal of money. You’ll also be surrounded by many friends – having acquired most of these prior to the money. Many more have sought out your friendship since. Some you welcomed and others you sent packing, depending on their merits.
This money is shipped to you in one hundred dollar denominations in great wooden crates. Remarkably these crates make their way to you each month stuffed full of this happy paper and are never interfered with by the outside world or those in your inner and less inner circle.
At 11 am on the fifteenth of every month you take your crow bar and crank open the latest case to all your household help’s happiness and all your many hangers on’s relief. The money is never accompanied by any sort of note explaining why you’re the recipient, where the money comes from or how long these gifts can be expected to continue. By this time most of your household expect that the crates will always come. They started when you were 60 and have been rolling in for the past 20 years.
The neighbourhood has a lot of ideas about where the money originates and these stories are told over beers in the local brasseries and cafes. Some assume you’ve found a direct link to universal bounty and others assume you’ve blackmailed the right folks. You laugh and carry on.
Other than the Hall of the Great Teacher you live quite simply. The majority of your money is donated to your many worthy causes. However, you always hang on to enough to throw a banquet for the neighbourhood each month the day after the crate’s arrival. These banquets keep all the local restaurateurs in business. Following the banquets you and your troupe put on a play. The audience is usually rowdy, emboldened by their drinking and the heightened mood, throwing tomatoes and whatever other food is at hand, not in a spirit of critique but really to demonstrate whole hearted appreciation that theatre is alive and well.
On the morning before you die, you have opened the crate, pulled out the latest bills and ordered the party preparations to be attended to. You go for a stroll up the mountain as you do each day, preside over the dress rehearsal, chow down and then look at your lines once more before your faithful man servant, Jochomo, leads you off to retire.
The next morning on awakening you realize your right arm has turned green. A nice green, a happy green – apple – and being a flexible sort with a well-developed sense of humour you welcome this development and carry on. By 10 am your right leg has turned a lively cerulean blue colour. At your ass the colours merge to create a blue/green symphony. At lunch your face is striped – bewitching really. A cherry red and sunny yellow pinstripe with soft blue dots free floating in between. Both eyebrows are dotted with black and white hexagons. There’s also poetry on your forehead in a flowing orange script. You notice your face when you’re in the bathroom brushing your teeth. The poetry is written backwards so that you can read it in the mirror and it’s what you wanted to say. You see how far your artistic life has carried you. None of the household staff or your friends have even noticed your paintedness. They think it’s just you being you.
By 2pm your back is covered with orange and red plaid triangles, your left side with paisley in gold, emerald green, fuchsia. Your nether parts are a fetching royal blue, violet and gold softly blending into one another. You notice this when you undress to relax in the sauna. At that point you determine that you’re being called upon to share your body as art and theatre in the production to follow that evening.
That evening the play unfolds in all its wonder and adding to the theatrical quality of the evening is your painted body. Your body’s colours have now extended into whatever background you move into so that the colourful magic that is you takes over the entire hall. Your whole body gradually morphs back into the set and becomes the set so that where you end and stop is no longer possible to determine. And then when the play is over you are nowhere to be seen. The case of money – what’s left of it – spontaneously combusts. Your laugh is heard breaking glasses in the distance. And then nothing. You leave this realm loudly just as you came in. We raise our glasses in a toast and your laughter breaks those too. Bastard.
Happy Birthday Andy. I’m so sorry we couldn’t be at your party.
You are one entertaining, rabble rousing, wonderful human being with great integrity. It’s a pleasure to have you as a friend.
*Although Barb credits me with referring to television as The Great Teacher, it was actually Michael Leon who coined the term. After we bought our first Sony Trinitron many years back, my boyfriend at the time, Carl Stewart, and I did refer to it as Sony Sensei.
This year I decided to do something different for my birthday; I decided to celebrate my death. The end result was an incredible evening of poetry, song, storytelling, drawing, conceptual art, chocolate cake, laughter and a whole lot of love. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the results.
tankawanka 