Archive for the ‘Huge Profits Selling Hot Dogs’ Category
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Create your own by Jacko
http://bit.ly/En8yN
Write your own book in 8 days! We teach you step-by-step.
Create your own by Jacko
In this article I’m going to show you how to create a “HOT”
selling info product in one day, by only writing five paragraphs.
Anyone on the planet can do that. So without further ado
let’s get started.
What we’re going to do is utilize other people’s hard work to
create our very own unique products. Sounds too good to be true
doesn’t it? However this is a very real strategy that the top-gun
e-book publishers use time and time again to create “HOT” selling
products in lightning quick time.
Go to goarticles. com.
You see most web site owners write articles and submit them to
article directories so that they get free publicity for their sites.
At the end of each article is a link back to their own web site
with a bit of information about their site for example. These
site owners want people to take that article and market it to other
people so they get visitors to their site without spending a cent
on their marketing. This is perfect for savvy entrepreneurs who are
willing to spend a few hours of their time in order to profit for
many years to come.
What we can do at go articles. com is type in a niche in the search
bar at the top right (make sure it’s on “article content” rather
than search by author). Type in your niche market. So for example
type in “dogs”, of “fishing” or whatever subject you are interested
in You’ll get thousands of result related to what you have searched
for. Now what I want you to do is simply trawl through the results
finding at least seventy quality articles related to the dog or
fishing or whichever market now copy and paste them into word or
some kind of word processing application.
As I’ve said make sure these really are good quality articles. If
you create an e-book using any old rubbish you’ll get a sky-high
refund rate and it will all have been a pointless exercise. Do it
right from the off and you’ll set yourself up for success.
If you can, try and tie all the articles together in one sub niche.
For example a sub niche of dogs might be training your dog. So you
could find articles on stopping your dog from barking at night,
toilet training that kind of thing. The same for fishing, it could
be ice fishing of fly tying Use a bit of imagination when using
this method.
Email Article Authors
You mustn’t use any articles without the authors’ permission, that’s
plagiarism and could land you in very hot water. Remember the majority
of articles will have been submitted so the author can get visitors
to their site without spending a dime. However you don’t want to breach
any copyright laws. To avoid this email the authors of each article.
Explain to them that you are creating an e-book aimed at their niche
market, and that you would love to include their article in your e-book
and that you’ll include a link back to their site and information about
them. Also ask them if they have any other articles you could include.
You can expert around seventy percent of authors you contact to be delighted
you’re going to include their article in your book. All you need to do then
is discard the articles from authors who you haven’t heard from or who won’t
let you use their article.
Put the articles in an order that makes sense and create a contents page.
Use the titles of the articles as contents topics. You could even create
chapters aimed at solving certain problems people in your niche have. So
for example if you were creating an e-book on golf you could create a
section on improving your golf swing, a section on the mind game of golf
and so on. All the articles would make up separate chapters.
Finally write a short introduction and conclusion. This only needs to be a
few paragraphs. Explain what they can expect to learn from your e-book and
make sure you sign off using your name. You will instantly establish yourself
as an expert in that particular niche. You can also link to your back end
products at the end of the book to increase your sales.
Finally you need to turn it into an ebook to sell. Go toprimopdf . com
and download the software. Don’t worry it won’t cost you a cent. Once
it’s downloaded all you need to do is in your word software hit “file”
and then “print” and then select “primo PDF” as your printer. Voila.
You’ve just created an e-book using other peoples’ hard work. This whole
process can be done in just a few hours. Obviously you may need to wait
a day or two for the article authors to get back to you but apart from
that you’re all set! Anyone can use this method to create more e-books
than you’d ever be able to sell.
That’s a great method right? I mean it won’t cost you anything to create
a product, yet you could sell hundreds if not thousands of copies and keep
all the profits using other people’s hard work!
Paul Jackson is an information publisher specialising in helping people
start their
Duration : 0:0:35
Dream E05 SBS 090810 with English subs
Episode 5 of Dream by SBS 090810
Title: ?? / Dream
Genre: Romance, Sports
Episodes: 20
Broadcast Network: SBS
Broadcast period: 2009-Jul-27 to 2009-Sep-??
Air time: Monday & Tuesday 9:55 PM
Production Credits
Production Company: CJ Entertainment
Director: Baek Soo Chan
Screenwriter: Jung Hyung Soo
Subtitles: withs2
Subscribe for continued episodes
Duration : 0:47:53
Con Ánimo de Lucro
Documental Solidario sobre la pobreza del tercer y primer mundo que pone en duda la aplicación de los 8 objetivos del milenio y propone una solución.
www.conanimodelucro.com
Duration : 0:31:55
SBS318 3
CSUDHTVhttp://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/csudhtvEducationSBS318SBS318 3
Duration : 1:41:14
Janet Kuypers reads “intro talk” at live show 07/17/07 #2
Janet Kuypers performs this piece, along with poems and prose during the July 17 2007 performance art show “Living in a Big World”, live 07/17/07 at the Cafe (5115 North Lincoln Avenue, in Chicago, Illinois). The show contained poems and music from orted musicins from Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, New Mexico, and even Canada, as well as original sampled music, include the writings listed toward the bottom of this show explanation. But in this show, Janet Kuypers, because shw was exemplifying living in a big world (the title of the show), she drew a large chair, painted it onto a white canvas (which actually was a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together) and attached it to a wooden base, so she could literally sit in a drawing of a large chair (it was 60″ wide, actually). The visual display of the artwork projected onto a large paper screen for this show (which once again was actually a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together)was a drawn TV, and inside the TV a bunch of Janet Kuypers photographs from around the world was shown in this “drawn” TV.
Artwork included in the projected “television” display included:
The Reischtag in Berlin Germany, Tiananmen Square in Beijing China, a building in Agrigento in Cicily Italy, Air Force One with President George H. W. Bush at Pease Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, a downed airplane in Joliet, Illinois, an airplane in Naples Florida, the Arbeit Macht Frei gate at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Dachau Germany, Arches National Park in Utah, Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington Virginia, Bad Gastein Austria, as bamboo frest in Oahu Hawaii, a building in Bruxelles.Belgium, castles in Rome, the Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan with superimposed landmarks like an Egyptian pyramid and a building from India and the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben and Russian churches and a mountain from the Alps, the Colloseum in Rome, a mermaid statue in Copenhagen Denmark, the White Cliffs of Dover in England, the Eiffel Tower in Paris France, el Yunque tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico, Tallinn Estonia, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, a gondola in Venice Italy, the Great Wall of China, the Senate Square Cathedral in Helsinki Finland, highrises in Shanghai China, the Hollywood sign in California, hot strings in Wyoming, a destroyed house after Katrina in New Orleans Louisiana, a King Tut like human Egyptian statue in Paris France, the Last Vegas skyline, the Louvre, Luxembourg, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in Urbana Illinois, a painted building in Montreal Canada, a lefe-side replica of the Parthenon in Nashville Tennessee, a glove statue in front of a church in Omaha Nebraska, a pagoda near Beijing China, salvages wall art work in Pompeii, the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome, St. Petersburg Russia, San Francisco, the Seasttle Space Needle in Washington, Siberia from the sky, a video still of shydiving near the Rockies in Longmont Colorado, the space shuttle in Cape Canaveral, the Statue of Liberty in New Jersey/New York, a stop sign in Mexico (that says “alto”), Stockholm Sweden, Olympic Natl. Park Temperate Rain Forest in Washington, the Temple of Vesta in Rome, the Vatican, and Zurich Switzerland.
These are the writing included in the live show:
the poem: Paranoia
we sit here at dinner.
I try to breathe.
My hands rest on my thighs.
I must watch to be sure,
everything must be right:
the silverware, small fork,
large fork, plate, knife,
large spoon, small spoon.
Water glass. Wine glass.
I know no one else sees them:
the fish, the red fish, in
the curtains along the wall.
You have to watch them.
My eyes always glance there.
They are evil fish. They sit
in the curtains, they wait,
and then they come out.
And the yogurt, the yogurt
is the only thing that can
save me from them. throw
the yogurt, take a spoon,
use your hands. Anything.
And we sat there before
dinner, and he ate his
yogurt with his first spoon
before I could stop him.
How could you do this? How
can you save yourself now?
Will I have to save you again,
do you even understand
the danger
—
the prose: Man Who Talks Loud… Say Nothing
I try to learn about the world, try to understand the world. While first traveling, I did a MidWest tour of poetry, then was in a Chicago poetry show at the National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I sell my performance art audio on iTunes & Naster, I try to share myself with the world, but I wonder if I’m actually getting through to anyone.
I heard a Native American man, whose parents were from two different tribes (meaning that he could never truly have an allegiance with just one tribe), say that after he traveled extensively, he tried to tell his story to the people of either tribe, and no one wanted to even listen to him. They called him Ex-eh-ba-che, which means “man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Ex-eh-ba-che.
“Man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Oh, what am I saying, I’ve been around the world, but I’ve never talked to a Native American. That was actually from a movie I saw, I don’t even know if “Ex-eh-ba-che” is a real word or means anything.
But… If I want to see something about the world around me, maybe I should turn on the tee vee, I mean, if news channels can have reporters in war zones, there’s got to be something worth watching. Maybe I’ll just get out the remote and turn on the tee vee, then press the play button and see what’s out there in the world.
—
the poem: Fighting I Can Do
I know these are normal things
for me to be going through
I know that I have been raped
and beaten
I know they’ve tried to kill me
and lucky me, I survived
I think I can survive
everything they throw at me
But as time wears on
little pieces of this statue are chipped away
everybody wants something, right?
well, they’ve been taking from me
and taking
and taking
and taking
and my defenses are getting weaker
and I don’t know how much more
fighting
I can do
—
the poem: I Want
you know what I want?
i want a big house with filtered central air
and i want a big lawn so i can recreate nature
and i want a big fence so i’ll know what’s mine
and i want the evergreens trimmed into neat little
balls, because it has to look neat. plant everything
in a row.
and i want to spray chemicals on my lawn
to keep the dandelions away
and i want a plastic lobster bib
over my fancy dress at the fancy restaurant
and don’t forget the hundred dollar champagne
and i want a big fat car, and i want
someone else to drive it
and i want the two kids, one boy, one girl
and i want a nanny to take care of them for me
i want to be famous
i want everyone to love me
i want it
i want it all
—
the prose: Adjusting Your Beliefs
We lived in Pennsylvania for 6 months, and while I continued my work with cc&d magazine, I got a P.O. box in the town Intercourse Pennsylvania. And actually, it was an amish town, and we would go to the store there to stock up on spices, and the amish people who worked there were all short -
Now, I know I’m tall, but when I say they were short I should also say that their heads looked child-like… that the people working there looked like they had a mild form, or early stages of, downs syndrome. We could only guess by looking at the faces of these people that the Amish had too severe a history of inbreeding, and no one new came into their community.
And recently I was in Champaign to plant a tree, and we stopped at a mall and there was this hydro massage store in the mall - it was this temporary place that had booths set up for individuals to lay down in, and many jets of water pulsated into plastic sheets over the person’s body, it was a massage thing that people could pay for. Now, I had seen things like this before, but I was told I should try this, you know, just splurge, so I was in this thing that looked like a tanning bed for your body with your head sticking out at the end, and John talked to a few girls there, because he noticed how they looked liked they were dressed in near Amish, or Mennonite, clothing. And he found out that these girls were in their late teens, and they came in from out of town on a bus trip; yes, they were Amish, but yes, this was a trip sponsored by their Amish community, and one of the girls said she was on this trip to hopefully find a husband.
And it seems that they were doing this, they were allowing this much technology into the outskirts of their lives, to find someone else to have children with.
Ah, the choices we make. The sacrifices we make to help our lives, or the things we are willing to destroy when faced with insurmountable decisions.
—
the poem: A Retired Policeman Talks About Suicides He’s Seen
As a cop, I remember one lady,
we found her in her bathtub,
she cut her throat. That’s odd,
for women, normally they take pills,
they don’t like to disfigure themselves. But she knew what she was
doing, cutting her throat in a full bath.
Less messy that way. Autopsy said
she was full of barbiturates. She was
a nurse, that explained how she knew
how to do it, but then we found out
that she was pregnant, too. And to top
it off, her brother was a priest.
—
the prose: Technology and Communication (which is prose that has a bit of the poem “Communication ‘05″ in it)
Oh, I’m sorry. I was listening to my iPod.
Oh, wait, let me see, maybe I can hook this up to play the music for you.
You know, I was thinking about it - advancements in technology have been a wonderful thing, and many say it’s brought the world closer together, have kept people more connected. And on some levels I can totally agree with that - I mean, I read submissions from email, saving paper and ink and postage, I keep magazines on line so people around the world can read good writing, I’ve even had musicians from Wisconsin, Ohio and Tennessee find my readings and set music to my words.
But in the same respect, I sit all day at the same desk, staring at the web sites for the domain names I run, instead of actually meeting and working with people.
I mean, at one point, the people i emailed the most
lived in the same city as me, and were only a local call away.
in fact, one of my friends lived a block-and-a-half away from me,
on the same street as me, but
i still emailed her as much as i’d call her,
even though i could just walk over to her house
and have an actual conversation with her.
And even the phone, with cell phones you can carry a phone with you wherever you go, so you’ll never be lonely, but it seems to give teenagers another reason to talk endlessly on the phone… And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to attack someone at a bar, who is there with friends, who gets a walkie-talkie-style call from someone, and they take turns screaming their heads off to get little phrases to someone who couldn’t even be there with them.
I mean, the iPhone just came out, combining a cell phone with an iPod, as well as email and Internet web browsing. But some bits of technology allow you to tune the world out, like the iPod here. When people see these headphones on someone, they know that you’ve apparently found something bigger and better than them for their lives right now… But even without technology, when I go for walks every morning, I wear the iPod, but I also wear sunglasses, even if it’s overcast, so no one knows if I am studying every person I pass. With a lot of the technology we have now, we can learn about the rest of the world - or we can tune out the rest of the world and ignore any news that doesn’t fit in with what we want to believe.
—
the poem: The Carpet Factory, The Shoes
i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor
in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory
he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten
but the people from the factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve
and then people complain to me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china
now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these
will somebody have to die
for these
—
the prose: Differences in China: children & trains
Children in different parts of the world… I saw in China once a little boy outside, a toddler, drop his pants at the street side at a market and just start ing on the sidewalk. And as I saw this, I saw that all the people there weren’t even bothered by this… Someone explained to me that while they’re little, toddler boys in China can go to the bathroom like that outside - but if he goes number 2, the mother has to pick up his feces (you know, like they were taking care of a dog).
But on the trains in China, they had a television screen in every car, with clips from what seemed like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Well, I couldn’t understand a thing anyone was saying in China on this show on the train, but you couldn’t help but watch, and you couldn’t help but laugh. It was a great means of bringing levity when you’re on a public train, like when you’re on your way to work every morning on the el.
—
the poem: Private Lives 2005
sitting on the el train
i saw a middle-eastern man
sitting across from me
holding a large Zip-Loc bag
of some sort of food paste,
i couldn’t tell,
it looked like some sort of
curry-filled food paste
and the man looked unhappy,
and after a few minutes
i saw him open up
the Zip-Loc bag,
throw up into it,
then close the bag again
so, he was carrying
his vomit with him
on the el
at least he had a bag
he could seal it up with
—
the prose: Passport To Outer Space
And a lot of us have experiences around the city, and I’ve tried to see the world, not just this continent, but 15 European countries, Russia, China…
I’ve searched for these stories around the world, I’ve gotten my passport stamped like mad… but my sister told me about Don Stump, a friend of my dad’s who ran a restaurant, well, his father-in-law apparently bought and had the rights to the space in outer space (you know, like all of the space beyond out atmosphere between planets and stars and comets and asteroids and stuff…). My sister even said that his father-in-law stamped the passports of the astronauts that went into outer space, since they were crossing the areas he owned.
But Don Stump was pushed away from their house once, because at least two men from the FBI were there… Apparently Don’s father-in-law was minting coins, it wasn’t money that was valid anywhere, but it’s illegal for U.S. residents to try to make any sort of profit this way, the way they might have potentially done.
Now, Don and his wife and parents have passed away, so…. I guess there’s no way I can pay them for having my passport stamped for going to outer space. But when you’re up high in the Earth’s atmosphere, a lot of places look the same. I mean, Siberia, with snow peaks and mountain lines along the eastern coast, looks like the Rockies in America in the winter. It’s only when you get closer to the ground do you see the real differences.
—
parts of the poem: In The Air
Chicago looks grand from the sky
with this huge expanse of lake
next to it, like civilization crept up
as far as it could but finally had to stop.
The power of nature stopping the power
of mankind… Daylight, and the snow
on the ground in the winter time looks dirty,
too many cars have splashed mud on it as they
drove by. And in the winter the sky
always matches the shade of grey of the snow:
fitting for the city of the Blues.
Maybe the snow is already
that color, that perfect shade of grey,
when it falls from the sky in this city.
When I’m in the air, I like to look
out the window. Clouds look like
cotton balls when you’re above them,
and when you’re landing cars look like
little ants, on a mission, bringing food
back to their hill. And the
streets look like veins, capillaries in some
massive, monstrous body. And the
farmlands look like little squares of colors.
I wonder why each plot of land is a
different color, what’s growing there
that makes them different. Or maybe it’s
that some of them are turning shades of red
and brown because they are dying.
And it always seems on a plane that you’re stuck
sitting next to someone that is either
too wide for their seat, or is a businessman
with his newspaper stretched out
and his lap top computer on his little
fold out table. Once, when I was on a
flight back from D. C., a flight attendant
walked by, stack of magazines in her
hand, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek,
and I stopped her, asking what magazines
she had. And she replied, “Oh, these
magazines are for men.” This is a true
story. And I asked her again what she
had. I had already read Time, so I took Newsweek.
—
the poem: On An Airplane With A Frequent Flyer
“I was once on a flight to Hawaii and I was waiting in line
for the lavatory. There was always a line for a flight
this long, you know, it seemed the washrooms
were always on demand on a flight this long. So
I finally got into the washroom, you know, and I
looked into the toilet, and someone, well, lost the battle
against a very healthy digestive system and left the
“spoils” in the toilet, stuck. Maybe it didn’t want to go
down into the sewage tank where all the other
waste from this long trip went to. Can you imagine
all the stuff this airplane had to carry across the ocean?
Well, anyway, so I saw this stuck in the toilet, and I
went to the washroom, and when I was done i flushed and
it still wouldn’t budge, and so I opened the door and walked
out into the aisle of the plane again. And there was this
long line of people waiting to use this cramped
little washroom, and I just wanted to tell them all,
‘you know, I didn’t do that.’ And then it occurred to me
that everyone, when they leave the bathroom on that
plane, will think the exact same thing.”
—
and the prose: Around the World, & sweet home Chicago
And you know, I talk about travel around the world, but where we come from shows who we are. I mean, once I was on the other side of the world, at the Summer Palace, and an older man came over to me, knowing little english, and said, “My daughter and I wanted to know where you were from.” So… not knowing how much geography they knew, I said, “I’m from the United States, in Illinois, in Chicago.” And that’s when this old man from the other side of the world said, “oh… my kind of town.” And I started laughing, knowing the song, and then he said, “Frank Sinatra sang that.” and I laughed more, then realizing that although I try to learn about the world, but my soul still hold on to my Chicago roots, other editors even comment on my style of writing being affected by being from the MidWest, being from Chicago… being from here affects my style and my art, oftentimes as much as my family history.
I talk about learning stories from around the world, but I think we can also learn from stories right here, and as we live in this big world, it helps us to not feel small, but to grow larger than life.
—
For more information on this writing and other writings from Janet Kuypers, go to http://www.janetkuypers.com for more information and details.
Duration : 0:0:33
James Burke : The Day The Universe Changed: “Credit Where It’s Due”, 3 of 5 (CC)
Watch Entire Show: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A502F5EC13753A1F&playnext=1
More Shows: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JamesBurkeWeb&view=playlists
Episode 6 of James Burke’s ground-breaking series “The Day The Universe Changed” which explores the evolution of Western Scientific thought starting from the fall of Rome.
See channel page for purchase options.
Duration : 0:10:7
Janet Kuypers’ “Man Who Talks Loud… Say Nothing” live #1
Janet Kuypers performs this piece, along with poems and prose during the July 17 2007 performance art show “Living in a Big World”, live 07/17/07 at the Cafe (5115 North Lincoln Avenue, in Chicago, Illinois). The show contained poems and music from orted musicins from Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, New Mexico, and even Canada, as well as original sampled music, include the writings listed toward the bottom of this show explanation. But in this show, Janet Kuypers, because shw was exemplifying living in a big world (the title of the show), she drew a large chair, painted it onto a white canvas (which actually was a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together) and attached it to a wooden base, so she could literally sit in a drawing of a large chair (it was 60″ wide, actually). The visual display of the artwork projected onto a large paper screen for this show (which once again was actually a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together)was a drawn TV, and inside the TV a bunch of Janet Kuypers photographs from around the world was shown in this “drawn” TV.
Artwork included in the projected “television” display included:
The Reischtag in Berlin Germany, Tiananmen Square in Beijing China, a building in Agrigento in Cicily Italy, Air Force One with President George H. W. Bush at Pease Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, a downed airplane in Joliet, Illinois, an airplane in Naples Florida, the Arbeit Macht Frei gate at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Dachau Germany, Arches National Park in Utah, Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington Virginia, Bad Gastein Austria, as bamboo frest in Oahu Hawaii, a building in Bruxelles.Belgium, castles in Rome, the Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan with superimposed landmarks like an Egyptian pyramid and a building from India and the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben and Russian churches and a mountain from the Alps, the Colloseum in Rome, a mermaid statue in Copenhagen Denmark, the White Cliffs of Dover in England, the Eiffel Tower in Paris France, el Yunque tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico, Tallinn Estonia, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, a gondola in Venice Italy, the Great Wall of China, the Senate Square Cathedral in Helsinki Finland, highrises in Shanghai China, the Hollywood sign in California, hot strings in Wyoming, a destroyed house after Katrina in New Orleans Louisiana, a King Tut like human Egyptian statue in Paris France, the Last Vegas skyline, the Louvre, Luxembourg, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in Urbana Illinois, a painted building in Montreal Canada, a lefe-side replica of the Parthenon in Nashville Tennessee, a glove statue in front of a church in Omaha Nebraska, a pagoda near Beijing China, salvages wall art work in Pompeii, the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome, St. Petersburg Russia, San Francisco, the Seasttle Space Needle in Washington, Siberia from the sky, a video still of shydiving near the Rockies in Longmont Colorado, the space shuttle in Cape Canaveral, the Statue of Liberty in New Jersey/New York, a stop sign in Mexico (that says “alto”), Stockholm Sweden, Olympic Natl. Park Temperate Rain Forest in Washington, the Temple of Vesta in Rome, the Vatican, and Zurich Switzerland.
These are the writing included in the live show:
the poem: Paranoia
we sit here at dinner.
I try to breathe.
My hands rest on my thighs.
I must watch to be sure,
everything must be right:
the silverware, small fork,
large fork, plate, knife,
large spoon, small spoon.
Water glass. Wine glass.
I know no one else sees them:
the fish, the red fish, in
the curtains along the wall.
You have to watch them.
My eyes always glance there.
They are evil fish. They sit
in the curtains, they wait,
and then they come out.
And the yogurt, the yogurt
is the only thing that can
save me from them. throw
the yogurt, take a spoon,
use your hands. Anything.
And we sat there before
dinner, and he ate his
yogurt with his first spoon
before I could stop him.
How could you do this? How
can you save yourself now?
Will I have to save you again,
do you even understand
the danger
—
the prose: Man Who Talks Loud… Say Nothing
I try to learn about the world, try to understand the world. While first traveling, I did a MidWest tour of poetry, then was in a Chicago poetry show at the National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I sell my performance art audio on iTunes & Naster, I try to share myself with the world, but I wonder if I’m actually getting through to anyone.
I heard a Native American man, whose parents were from two different tribes (meaning that he could never truly have an allegiance with just one tribe), say that after he traveled extensively, he tried to tell his story to the people of either tribe, and no one wanted to even listen to him. They called him Ex-eh-ba-che, which means “man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Ex-eh-ba-che.
“Man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Oh, what am I saying, I’ve been around the world, but I’ve never talked to a Native American. That was actually from a movie I saw, I don’t even know if “Ex-eh-ba-che” is a real word or means anything.
But… If I want to see something about the world around me, maybe I should turn on the tee vee, I mean, if news channels can have reporters in war zones, there’s got to be something worth watching. Maybe I’ll just get out the remote and turn on the tee vee, then press the play button and see what’s out there in the world.
—
the poem: Fighting I Can Do
I know these are normal things
for me to be going through
I know that I have been raped
and beaten
I know they’ve tried to kill me
and lucky me, I survived
I think I can survive
everything they throw at me
But as time wears on
little pieces of this statue are chipped away
everybody wants something, right?
well, they’ve been taking from me
and taking
and taking
and taking
and my defenses are getting weaker
and I don’t know how much more
fighting
I can do
—
the poem: I Want
you know what I want?
i want a big house with filtered central air
and i want a big lawn so i can recreate nature
and i want a big fence so i’ll know what’s mine
and i want the evergreens trimmed into neat little
balls, because it has to look neat. plant everything
in a row.
and i want to spray chemicals on my lawn
to keep the dandelions away
and i want a plastic lobster bib
over my fancy dress at the fancy restaurant
and don’t forget the hundred dollar champagne
and i want a big fat car, and i want
someone else to drive it
and i want the two kids, one boy, one girl
and i want a nanny to take care of them for me
i want to be famous
i want everyone to love me
i want it
i want it all
—
the prose: Adjusting Your Beliefs
We lived in Pennsylvania for 6 months, and while I continued my work with cc&d magazine, I got a P.O. box in the town Intercourse Pennsylvania. And actually, it was an amish town, and we would go to the store there to stock up on spices, and the amish people who worked there were all short -
Now, I know I’m tall, but when I say they were short I should also say that their heads looked child-like… that the people working there looked like they had a mild form, or early stages of, downs syndrome. We could only guess by looking at the faces of these people that the Amish had too severe a history of inbreeding, and no one new came into their community.
And recently I was in Champaign to plant a tree, and we stopped at a mall and there was this hydro massage store in the mall - it was this temporary place that had booths set up for individuals to lay down in, and many jets of water pulsated into plastic sheets over the person’s body, it was a massage thing that people could pay for. Now, I had seen things like this before, but I was told I should try this, you know, just splurge, so I was in this thing that looked like a tanning bed for your body with your head sticking out at the end, and John talked to a few girls there, because he noticed how they looked liked they were dressed in near Amish, or Mennonite, clothing. And he found out that these girls were in their late teens, and they came in from out of town on a bus trip; yes, they were Amish, but yes, this was a trip sponsored by their Amish community, and one of the girls said she was on this trip to hopefully find a husband.
And it seems that they were doing this, they were allowing this much technology into the outskirts of their lives, to find someone else to have children with.
Ah, the choices we make. The sacrifices we make to help our lives, or the things we are willing to destroy when faced with insurmountable decisions.
—
the poem: A Retired Policeman Talks About Suicides He’s Seen
As a cop, I remember one lady,
we found her in her bathtub,
she cut her throat. That’s odd,
for women, normally they take pills,
they don’t like to disfigure themselves. But she knew what she was
doing, cutting her throat in a full bath.
Less messy that way. Autopsy said
she was full of barbiturates. She was
a nurse, that explained how she knew
how to do it, but then we found out
that she was pregnant, too. And to top
it off, her brother was a priest.
—
the prose: Technology and Communication (which is prose that has a bit of the poem “Communication ‘05″ in it)
Oh, I’m sorry. I was listening to my iPod.
Oh, wait, let me see, maybe I can hook this up to play the music for you.
You know, I was thinking about it - advancements in technology have been a wonderful thing, and many say it’s brought the world closer together, have kept people more connected. And on some levels I can totally agree with that - I mean, I read submissions from email, saving paper and ink and postage, I keep magazines on line so people around the world can read good writing, I’ve even had musicians from Wisconsin, Ohio and Tennessee find my readings and set music to my words.
But in the same respect, I sit all day at the same desk, staring at the web sites for the domain names I run, instead of actually meeting and working with people.
I mean, at one point, the people i emailed the most
lived in the same city as me, and were only a local call away.
in fact, one of my friends lived a block-and-a-half away from me,
on the same street as me, but
i still emailed her as much as i’d call her,
even though i could just walk over to her house
and have an actual conversation with her.
And even the phone, with cell phones you can carry a phone with you wherever you go, so you’ll never be lonely, but it seems to give teenagers another reason to talk endlessly on the phone… And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to attack someone at a bar, who is there with friends, who gets a walkie-talkie-style call from someone, and they take turns screaming their heads off to get little phrases to someone who couldn’t even be there with them.
I mean, the iPhone just came out, combining a cell phone with an iPod, as well as email and Internet web browsing. But some bits of technology allow you to tune the world out, like the iPod here. When people see these headphones on someone, they know that you’ve apparently found something bigger and better than them for their lives right now… But even without technology, when I go for walks every morning, I wear the iPod, but I also wear sunglasses, even if it’s overcast, so no one knows if I am studying every person I pass. With a lot of the technology we have now, we can learn about the rest of the world - or we can tune out the rest of the world and ignore any news that doesn’t fit in with what we want to believe.
—
the poem: The Carpet Factory, The Shoes
i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor
in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory
he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten
but the people from the factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve
and then people complain to me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china
now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these
will somebody have to die
for these
—
the prose: Differences in China: children & trains
Children in different parts of the world… I saw in China once a little boy outside, a toddler, drop his pants at the street side at a market and just start ing on the sidewalk. And as I saw this, I saw that all the people there weren’t even bothered by this… Someone explained to me that while they’re little, toddler boys in China can go to the bathroom like that outside - but if he goes number 2, the mother has to pick up his feces (you know, like they were taking care of a dog).
But on the trains in China, they had a television screen in every car, with clips from what seemed like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Well, I couldn’t understand a thing anyone was saying in China on this show on the train, but you couldn’t help but watch, and you couldn’t help but laugh. It was a great means of bringing levity when you’re on a public train, like when you’re on your way to work every morning on the el.
—
the poem: Private Lives 2005
sitting on the el train
i saw a middle-eastern man
sitting across from me
holding a large Zip-Loc bag
of some sort of food paste,
i couldn’t tell,
it looked like some sort of
curry-filled food paste
and the man looked unhappy,
and after a few minutes
i saw him open up
the Zip-Loc bag,
throw up into it,
then close the bag again
so, he was carrying
his vomit with him
on the el
at least he had a bag
he could seal it up with
—
the prose: Passport To Outer Space
And a lot of us have experiences around the city, and I’ve tried to see the world, not just this continent, but 15 European countries, Russia, China…
I’ve searched for these stories around the world, I’ve gotten my passport stamped like mad… but my sister told me about Don Stump, a friend of my dad’s who ran a restaurant, well, his father-in-law apparently bought and had the rights to the space in outer space (you know, like all of the space beyond out atmosphere between planets and stars and comets and asteroids and stuff…). My sister even said that his father-in-law stamped the passports of the astronauts that went into outer space, since they were crossing the areas he owned.
But Don Stump was pushed away from their house once, because at least two men from the FBI were there… Apparently Don’s father-in-law was minting coins, it wasn’t money that was valid anywhere, but it’s illegal for U.S. residents to try to make any sort of profit this way, the way they might have potentially done.
Now, Don and his wife and parents have passed away, so…. I guess there’s no way I can pay them for having my passport stamped for going to outer space. But when you’re up high in the Earth’s atmosphere, a lot of places look the same. I mean, Siberia, with snow peaks and mountain lines along the eastern coast, looks like the Rockies in America in the winter. It’s only when you get closer to the ground do you see the real differences.
—
parts of the poem: In The Air
Chicago looks grand from the sky
with this huge expanse of lake
next to it, like civilization crept up
as far as it could but finally had to stop.
The power of nature stopping the power
of mankind… Daylight, and the snow
on the ground in the winter time looks dirty,
too many cars have splashed mud on it as they
drove by. And in the winter the sky
always matches the shade of grey of the snow:
fitting for the city of the Blues.
Maybe the snow is already
that color, that perfect shade of grey,
when it falls from the sky in this city.
When I’m in the air, I like to look
out the window. Clouds look like
cotton balls when you’re above them,
and when you’re landing cars look like
little ants, on a mission, bringing food
back to their hill. And the
streets look like veins, capillaries in some
massive, monstrous body. And the
farmlands look like little squares of colors.
I wonder why each plot of land is a
different color, what’s growing there
that makes them different. Or maybe it’s
that some of them are turning shades of red
and brown because they are dying.
And it always seems on a plane that you’re stuck
sitting next to someone that is either
too wide for their seat, or is a businessman
with his newspaper stretched out
and his lap top computer on his little
fold out table. Once, when I was on a
flight back from D. C., a flight attendant
walked by, stack of magazines in her
hand, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek,
and I stopped her, asking what magazines
she had. And she replied, “Oh, these
magazines are for men.” This is a true
story. And I asked her again what she
had. I had already read Time, so I took Newsweek.
—
the poem: On An Airplane With A Frequent Flyer
“I was once on a flight to Hawaii and I was waiting in line
for the lavatory. There was always a line for a flight
this long, you know, it seemed the washrooms
were always on demand on a flight this long. So
I finally got into the washroom, you know, and I
looked into the toilet, and someone, well, lost the battle
against a very healthy digestive system and left the
“spoils” in the toilet, stuck. Maybe it didn’t want to go
down into the sewage tank where all the other
waste from this long trip went to. Can you imagine
all the stuff this airplane had to carry across the ocean?
Well, anyway, so I saw this stuck in the toilet, and I
went to the washroom, and when I was done i flushed and
it still wouldn’t budge, and so I opened the door and walked
out into the aisle of the plane again. And there was this
long line of people waiting to use this cramped
little washroom, and I just wanted to tell them all,
‘you know, I didn’t do that.’ And then it occurred to me
that everyone, when they leave the bathroom on that
plane, will think the exact same thing.”
—
and the prose: Around the World, & sweet home Chicago
And you know, I talk about travel around the world, but where we come from shows who we are. I mean, once I was on the other side of the world, at the Summer Palace, and an older man came over to me, knowing little english, and said, “My daughter and I wanted to know where you were from.” So… not knowing how much geography they knew, I said, “I’m from the United States, in Illinois, in Chicago.” And that’s when this old man from the other side of the world said, “oh… my kind of town.” And I started laughing, knowing the song, and then he said, “Frank Sinatra sang that.” and I laughed more, then realizing that although I try to learn about the world, but my soul still hold on to my Chicago roots, other editors even comment on my style of writing being affected by being from the MidWest, being from Chicago… being from here affects my style and my art, oftentimes as much as my family history.
I talk about learning stories from around the world, but I think we can also learn from stories right here, and as we live in this big world, it helps us to not feel small, but to grow larger than life.
—
For more information on this writing and other writings from Janet Kuypers, go to http://www.janetkuypers.com for more information and details.
Duration : 0:1:59
Janet Kuypers’ poem “paranoia” at live show 07/17/07 #2
Janet Kuypers performs this piece, along with poems and prose during the July 17 2007 performance art show “Living in a Big World”, live 07/17/07 at the Cafe (5115 North Lincoln Avenue, in Chicago, Illinois). The show contained poems and music from orted musicins from Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, New Mexico, and even Canada, as well as original sampled music, include the writings listed toward the bottom of this show explanation. But in this show, Janet Kuypers, because shw was exemplifying living in a big world (the title of the show), she drew a large chair, painted it onto a white canvas (which actually was a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together) and attached it to a wooden base, so she could literally sit in a drawing of a large chair (it was 60″ wide, actually). The visual display of the artwork projected onto a large paper screen for this show (which once again was actually a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together)was a drawn TV, and inside the TV a bunch of Janet Kuypers photographs from around the world was shown in this “drawn” TV.
Artwork included in the projected “television” display included:
The Reischtag in Berlin Germany, Tiananmen Square in Beijing China, a building in Agrigento in Cicily Italy, Air Force One with President George H. W. Bush at Pease Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, a downed airplane in Joliet, Illinois, an airplane in Naples Florida, the Arbeit Macht Frei gate at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Dachau Germany, Arches National Park in Utah, Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington Virginia, Bad Gastein Austria, as bamboo frest in Oahu Hawaii, a building in Bruxelles.Belgium, castles in Rome, the Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan with superimposed landmarks like an Egyptian pyramid and a building from India and the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben and Russian churches and a mountain from the Alps, the Colloseum in Rome, a mermaid statue in Copenhagen Denmark, the White Cliffs of Dover in England, the Eiffel Tower in Paris France, el Yunque tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico, Tallinn Estonia, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, a gondola in Venice Italy, the Great Wall of China, the Senate Square Cathedral in Helsinki Finland, highrises in Shanghai China, the Hollywood sign in California, hot strings in Wyoming, a destroyed house after Katrina in New Orleans Louisiana, a King Tut like human Egyptian statue in Paris France, the Last Vegas skyline, the Louvre, Luxembourg, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in Urbana Illinois, a painted building in Montreal Canada, a lefe-side replica of the Parthenon in Nashville Tennessee, a glove statue in front of a church in Omaha Nebraska, a pagoda near Beijing China, salvages wall art work in Pompeii, the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome, St. Petersburg Russia, San Francisco, the Seasttle Space Needle in Washington, Siberia from the sky, a video still of shydiving near the Rockies in Longmont Colorado, the space shuttle in Cape Canaveral, the Statue of Liberty in New Jersey/New York, a stop sign in Mexico (that says “alto”), Stockholm Sweden, Olympic Natl. Park Temperate Rain Forest in Washington, the Temple of Vesta in Rome, the Vatican, and Zurich Switzerland.
These are the writing included in the live show:
the poem: Paranoia
we sit here at dinner.
I try to breathe.
My hands rest on my thighs.
I must watch to be sure,
everything must be right:
the silverware, small fork,
large fork, plate, knife,
large spoon, small spoon.
Water glass. Wine glass.
I know no one else sees them:
the fish, the red fish, in
the curtains along the wall.
You have to watch them.
My eyes always glance there.
They are evil fish. They sit
in the curtains, they wait,
and then they come out.
And the yogurt, the yogurt
is the only thing that can
save me from them. throw
the yogurt, take a spoon,
use your hands. Anything.
And we sat there before
dinner, and he ate his
yogurt with his first spoon
before I could stop him.
How could you do this? How
can you save yourself now?
Will I have to save you again,
do you even understand
the danger
—
the prose: Man Who Talks Loud… Say Nothing
I try to learn about the world, try to understand the world. While first traveling, I did a MidWest tour of poetry, then was in a Chicago poetry show at the National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I sell my performance art audio on iTunes & Naster, I try to share myself with the world, but I wonder if I’m actually getting through to anyone.
I heard a Native American man, whose parents were from two different tribes (meaning that he could never truly have an allegiance with just one tribe), say that after he traveled extensively, he tried to tell his story to the people of either tribe, and no one wanted to even listen to him. They called him Ex-eh-ba-che, which means “man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Ex-eh-ba-che.
“Man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Oh, what am I saying, I’ve been around the world, but I’ve never talked to a Native American. That was actually from a movie I saw, I don’t even know if “Ex-eh-ba-che” is a real word or means anything.
But… If I want to see something about the world around me, maybe I should turn on the tee vee, I mean, if news channels can have reporters in war zones, there’s got to be something worth watching. Maybe I’ll just get out the remote and turn on the tee vee, then press the play button and see what’s out there in the world.
—
the poem: Fighting I Can Do
I know these are normal things
for me to be going through
I know that I have been raped
and beaten
I know they’ve tried to kill me
and lucky me, I survived
I think I can survive
everything they throw at me
But as time wears on
little pieces of this statue are chipped away
everybody wants something, right?
well, they’ve been taking from me
and taking
and taking
and taking
and my defenses are getting weaker
and I don’t know how much more
fighting
I can do
—
the poem: I Want
you know what I want?
i want a big house with filtered central air
and i want a big lawn so i can recreate nature
and i want a big fence so i’ll know what’s mine
and i want the evergreens trimmed into neat little
balls, because it has to look neat. plant everything
in a row.
and i want to spray chemicals on my lawn
to keep the dandelions away
and i want a plastic lobster bib
over my fancy dress at the fancy restaurant
and don’t forget the hundred dollar champagne
and i want a big fat car, and i want
someone else to drive it
and i want the two kids, one boy, one girl
and i want a nanny to take care of them for me
i want to be famous
i want everyone to love me
i want it
i want it all
—
the prose: Adjusting Your Beliefs
We lived in Pennsylvania for 6 months, and while I continued my work with cc&d magazine, I got a P.O. box in the town Intercourse Pennsylvania. And actually, it was an amish town, and we would go to the store there to stock up on spices, and the amish people who worked there were all short -
Now, I know I’m tall, but when I say they were short I should also say that their heads looked child-like… that the people working there looked like they had a mild form, or early stages of, downs syndrome. We could only guess by looking at the faces of these people that the Amish had too severe a history of inbreeding, and no one new came into their community.
And recently I was in Champaign to plant a tree, and we stopped at a mall and there was this hydro massage store in the mall - it was this temporary place that had booths set up for individuals to lay down in, and many jets of water pulsated into plastic sheets over the person’s body, it was a massage thing that people could pay for. Now, I had seen things like this before, but I was told I should try this, you know, just splurge, so I was in this thing that looked like a tanning bed for your body with your head sticking out at the end, and John talked to a few girls there, because he noticed how they looked liked they were dressed in near Amish, or Mennonite, clothing. And he found out that these girls were in their late teens, and they came in from out of town on a bus trip; yes, they were Amish, but yes, this was a trip sponsored by their Amish community, and one of the girls said she was on this trip to hopefully find a husband.
And it seems that they were doing this, they were allowing this much technology into the outskirts of their lives, to find someone else to have children with.
Ah, the choices we make. The sacrifices we make to help our lives, or the things we are willing to destroy when faced with insurmountable decisions.
—
the poem: A Retired Policeman Talks About Suicides He’s Seen
As a cop, I remember one lady,
we found her in her bathtub,
she cut her throat. That’s odd,
for women, normally they take pills,
they don’t like to disfigure themselves. But she knew what she was
doing, cutting her throat in a full bath.
Less messy that way. Autopsy said
she was full of barbiturates. She was
a nurse, that explained how she knew
how to do it, but then we found out
that she was pregnant, too. And to top
it off, her brother was a priest.
—
the prose: Technology and Communication (which is prose that has a bit of the poem “Communication ‘05″ in it)
Oh, I’m sorry. I was listening to my iPod.
Oh, wait, let me see, maybe I can hook this up to play the music for you.
You know, I was thinking about it - advancements in technology have been a wonderful thing, and many say it’s brought the world closer together, have kept people more connected. And on some levels I can totally agree with that - I mean, I read submissions from email, saving paper and ink and postage, I keep magazines on line so people around the world can read good writing, I’ve even had musicians from Wisconsin, Ohio and Tennessee find my readings and set music to my words.
But in the same respect, I sit all day at the same desk, staring at the web sites for the domain names I run, instead of actually meeting and working with people.
I mean, at one point, the people i emailed the most
lived in the same city as me, and were only a local call away.
in fact, one of my friends lived a block-and-a-half away from me,
on the same street as me, but
i still emailed her as much as i’d call her,
even though i could just walk over to her house
and have an actual conversation with her.
And even the phone, with cell phones you can carry a phone with you wherever you go, so you’ll never be lonely, but it seems to give teenagers another reason to talk endlessly on the phone… And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to attack someone at a bar, who is there with friends, who gets a walkie-talkie-style call from someone, and they take turns screaming their heads off to get little phrases to someone who couldn’t even be there with them.
I mean, the iPhone just came out, combining a cell phone with an iPod, as well as email and Internet web browsing. But some bits of technology allow you to tune the world out, like the iPod here. When people see these headphones on someone, they know that you’ve apparently found something bigger and better than them for their lives right now… But even without technology, when I go for walks every morning, I wear the iPod, but I also wear sunglasses, even if it’s overcast, so no one knows if I am studying every person I pass. With a lot of the technology we have now, we can learn about the rest of the world - or we can tune out the rest of the world and ignore any news that doesn’t fit in with what we want to believe.
—
the poem: The Carpet Factory, The Shoes
i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor
in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory
he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten
but the people from the factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve
and then people complain to me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china
now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these
will somebody have to die
for these
—
the prose: Differences in China: children & trains
Children in different parts of the world… I saw in China once a little boy outside, a toddler, drop his pants at the street side at a market and just start ing on the sidewalk. And as I saw this, I saw that all the people there weren’t even bothered by this… Someone explained to me that while they’re little, toddler boys in China can go to the bathroom like that outside - but if he goes number 2, the mother has to pick up his feces (you know, like they were taking care of a dog).
But on the trains in China, they had a television screen in every car, with clips from what seemed like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Well, I couldn’t understand a thing anyone was saying in China on this show on the train, but you couldn’t help but watch, and you couldn’t help but laugh. It was a great means of bringing levity when you’re on a public train, like when you’re on your way to work every morning on the el.
—
the poem: Private Lives 2005
sitting on the el train
i saw a middle-eastern man
sitting across from me
holding a large Zip-Loc bag
of some sort of food paste,
i couldn’t tell,
it looked like some sort of
curry-filled food paste
and the man looked unhappy,
and after a few minutes
i saw him open up
the Zip-Loc bag,
throw up into it,
then close the bag again
so, he was carrying
his vomit with him
on the el
at least he had a bag
he could seal it up with
—
the prose: Passport To Outer Space
And a lot of us have experiences around the city, and I’ve tried to see the world, not just this continent, but 15 European countries, Russia, China…
I’ve searched for these stories around the world, I’ve gotten my passport stamped like mad… but my sister told me about Don Stump, a friend of my dad’s who ran a restaurant, well, his father-in-law apparently bought and had the rights to the space in outer space (you know, like all of the space beyond out atmosphere between planets and stars and comets and asteroids and stuff…). My sister even said that his father-in-law stamped the passports of the astronauts that went into outer space, since they were crossing the areas he owned.
But Don Stump was pushed away from their house once, because at least two men from the FBI were there… Apparently Don’s father-in-law was minting coins, it wasn’t money that was valid anywhere, but it’s illegal for U.S. residents to try to make any sort of profit this way, the way they might have potentially done.
Now, Don and his wife and parents have passed away, so…. I guess there’s no way I can pay them for having my passport stamped for going to outer space. But when you’re up high in the Earth’s atmosphere, a lot of places look the same. I mean, Siberia, with snow peaks and mountain lines along the eastern coast, looks like the Rockies in America in the winter. It’s only when you get closer to the ground do you see the real differences.
—
parts of the poem: In The Air
Chicago looks grand from the sky
with this huge expanse of lake
next to it, like civilization crept up
as far as it could but finally had to stop.
The power of nature stopping the power
of mankind… Daylight, and the snow
on the ground in the winter time looks dirty,
too many cars have splashed mud on it as they
drove by. And in the winter the sky
always matches the shade of grey of the snow:
fitting for the city of the Blues.
Maybe the snow is already
that color, that perfect shade of grey,
when it falls from the sky in this city.
When I’m in the air, I like to look
out the window. Clouds look like
cotton balls when you’re above them,
and when you’re landing cars look like
little ants, on a mission, bringing food
back to their hill. And the
streets look like veins, capillaries in some
massive, monstrous body. And the
farmlands look like little squares of colors.
I wonder why each plot of land is a
different color, what’s growing there
that makes them different. Or maybe it’s
that some of them are turning shades of red
and brown because they are dying.
And it always seems on a plane that you’re stuck
sitting next to someone that is either
too wide for their seat, or is a businessman
with his newspaper stretched out
and his lap top computer on his little
fold out table. Once, when I was on a
flight back from D. C., a flight attendant
walked by, stack of magazines in her
hand, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek,
and I stopped her, asking what magazines
she had. And she replied, “Oh, these
magazines are for men.” This is a true
story. And I asked her again what she
had. I had already read Time, so I took Newsweek.
—
the poem: On An Airplane With A Frequent Flyer
“I was once on a flight to Hawaii and I was waiting in line
for the lavatory. There was always a line for a flight
this long, you know, it seemed the washrooms
were always on demand on a flight this long. So
I finally got into the washroom, you know, and I
looked into the toilet, and someone, well, lost the battle
against a very healthy digestive system and left the
“spoils” in the toilet, stuck. Maybe it didn’t want to go
down into the sewage tank where all the other
waste from this long trip went to. Can you imagine
all the stuff this airplane had to carry across the ocean?
Well, anyway, so I saw this stuck in the toilet, and I
went to the washroom, and when I was done i flushed and
it still wouldn’t budge, and so I opened the door and walked
out into the aisle of the plane again. And there was this
long line of people waiting to use this cramped
little washroom, and I just wanted to tell them all,
‘you know, I didn’t do that.’ And then it occurred to me
that everyone, when they leave the bathroom on that
plane, will think the exact same thing.”
—
and the prose: Around the World, & sweet home Chicago
And you know, I talk about travel around the world, but where we come from shows who we are. I mean, once I was on the other side of the world, at the Summer Palace, and an older man came over to me, knowing little english, and said, “My daughter and I wanted to know where you were from.” So… not knowing how much geography they knew, I said, “I’m from the United States, in Illinois, in Chicago.” And that’s when this old man from the other side of the world said, “oh… my kind of town.” And I started laughing, knowing the song, and then he said, “Frank Sinatra sang that.” and I laughed more, then realizing that although I try to learn about the world, but my soul still hold on to my Chicago roots, other editors even comment on my style of writing being affected by being from the MidWest, being from Chicago… being from here affects my style and my art, oftentimes as much as my family history.
I talk about learning stories from around the world, but I think we can also learn from stories right here, and as we live in this big world, it helps us to not feel small, but to grow larger than life.
—
For more information on this writing and other writings from Janet Kuypers, go to http://www.janetkuypers.com for more information and details.
Duration : 0:1:54
Janet Kuypers, poem (part) “In The Air” live 07/17/07 #1
Janet Kuypers performs this piece, along with poems and prose during the July 17 2007 performance art show “Living in a Big World”, live 07/17/07 at the Cafe (5115 North Lincoln Avenue, in Chicago, Illinois). The show contained poems and music from orted musicins from Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, New Mexico, and even Canada, as well as original sampled music, include the writings listed toward the bottom of this show explanation. But in this show, Janet Kuypers, because shw was exemplifying living in a big world (the title of the show), she drew a large chair, painted it onto a white canvas (which actually was a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together) and attached it to a wooden base, so she could literally sit in a drawing of a large chair (it was 60″ wide, actually). The visual display of the artwork projected onto a large paper screen for this show (which once again was actually a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together)was a drawn TV, and inside the TV a bunch of Janet Kuypers photographs from around the world was shown in this “drawn” TV.
Artwork included in the projected “television” display included:
The Reischtag in Berlin Germany, Tiananmen Square in Beijing China, a building in Agrigento in Cicily Italy, Air Force One with President George H. W. Bush at Pease Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, a downed airplane in Joliet, Illinois, an airplane in Naples Florida, the Arbeit Macht Frei gate at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Dachau Germany, Arches National Park in Utah, Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington Virginia, Bad Gastein Austria, as bamboo frest in Oahu Hawaii, a building in Bruxelles.Belgium, castles in Rome, the Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan with superimposed landmarks like an Egyptian pyramid and a building from India and the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben and Russian churches and a mountain from the Alps, the Colloseum in Rome, a mermaid statue in Copenhagen Denmark, the White Cliffs of Dover in England, the Eiffel Tower in Paris France, el Yunque tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico, Tallinn Estonia, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, a gondola in Venice Italy, the Great Wall of China, the Senate Square Cathedral in Helsinki Finland, highrises in Shanghai China, the Hollywood sign in California, hot strings in Wyoming, a destroyed house after Katrina in New Orleans Louisiana, a King Tut like human Egyptian statue in Paris France, the Last Vegas skyline, the Louvre, Luxembourg, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in Urbana Illinois, a painted building in Montreal Canada, a lefe-side replica of the Parthenon in Nashville Tennessee, a glove statue in front of a church in Omaha Nebraska, a pagoda near Beijing China, salvages wall art work in Pompeii, the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome, St. Petersburg Russia, San Francisco, the Seasttle Space Needle in Washington, Siberia from the sky, a video still of shydiving near the Rockies in Longmont Colorado, the space shuttle in Cape Canaveral, the Statue of Liberty in New Jersey/New York, a stop sign in Mexico (that says “alto”), Stockholm Sweden, Olympic Natl. Park Temperate Rain Forest in Washington, the Temple of Vesta in Rome, the Vatican, and Zurich Switzerland.
These are the writing included in the live show:
the poem: Paranoia
we sit here at dinner.
I try to breathe.
My hands rest on my thighs.
I must watch to be sure,
everything must be right:
the silverware, small fork,
large fork, plate, knife,
large spoon, small spoon.
Water glass. Wine glass.
I know no one else sees them:
the fish, the red fish, in
the curtains along the wall.
You have to watch them.
My eyes always glance there.
They are evil fish. They sit
in the curtains, they wait,
and then they come out.
And the yogurt, the yogurt
is the only thing that can
save me from them. throw
the yogurt, take a spoon,
use your hands. Anything.
And we sat there before
dinner, and he ate his
yogurt with his first spoon
before I could stop him.
How could you do this? How
can you save yourself now?
Will I have to save you again,
do you even understand
the danger
—
the prose: Man Who Talks Loud… Say Nothing
I try to learn about the world, try to understand the world. While first traveling, I did a MidWest tour of poetry, then was in a Chicago poetry show at the National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I sell my performance art audio on iTunes & Naster, I try to share myself with the world, but I wonder if I’m actually getting through to anyone.
I heard a Native American man, whose parents were from two different tribes (meaning that he could never truly have an allegiance with just one tribe), say that after he traveled extensively, he tried to tell his story to the people of either tribe, and no one wanted to even listen to him. They called him Ex-eh-ba-che, which means “man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Ex-eh-ba-che.
“Man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Oh, what am I saying, I’ve been around the world, but I’ve never talked to a Native American. That was actually from a movie I saw, I don’t even know if “Ex-eh-ba-che” is a real word or means anything.
But… If I want to see something about the world around me, maybe I should turn on the tee vee, I mean, if news channels can have reporters in war zones, there’s got to be something worth watching. Maybe I’ll just get out the remote and turn on the tee vee, then press the play button and see what’s out there in the world.
—
the poem: Fighting I Can Do
I know these are normal things
for me to be going through
I know that I have been raped
and beaten
I know they’ve tried to kill me
and lucky me, I survived
I think I can survive
everything they throw at me
But as time wears on
little pieces of this statue are chipped away
everybody wants something, right?
well, they’ve been taking from me
and taking
and taking
and taking
and my defenses are getting weaker
and I don’t know how much more
fighting
I can do
—
the poem: I Want
you know what I want?
i want a big house with filtered central air
and i want a big lawn so i can recreate nature
and i want a big fence so i’ll know what’s mine
and i want the evergreens trimmed into neat little
balls, because it has to look neat. plant everything
in a row.
and i want to spray chemicals on my lawn
to keep the dandelions away
and i want a plastic lobster bib
over my fancy dress at the fancy restaurant
and don’t forget the hundred dollar champagne
and i want a big fat car, and i want
someone else to drive it
and i want the two kids, one boy, one girl
and i want a nanny to take care of them for me
i want to be famous
i want everyone to love me
i want it
i want it all
—
the prose: Adjusting Your Beliefs
We lived in Pennsylvania for 6 months, and while I continued my work with cc&d magazine, I got a P.O. box in the town Intercourse Pennsylvania. And actually, it was an amish town, and we would go to the store there to stock up on spices, and the amish people who worked there were all short -
Now, I know I’m tall, but when I say they were short I should also say that their heads looked child-like… that the people working there looked like they had a mild form, or early stages of, downs syndrome. We could only guess by looking at the faces of these people that the Amish had too severe a history of inbreeding, and no one new came into their community.
And recently I was in Champaign to plant a tree, and we stopped at a mall and there was this hydro massage store in the mall - it was this temporary place that had booths set up for individuals to lay down in, and many jets of water pulsated into plastic sheets over the person’s body, it was a massage thing that people could pay for. Now, I had seen things like this before, but I was told I should try this, you know, just splurge, so I was in this thing that looked like a tanning bed for your body with your head sticking out at the end, and John talked to a few girls there, because he noticed how they looked liked they were dressed in near Amish, or Mennonite, clothing. And he found out that these girls were in their late teens, and they came in from out of town on a bus trip; yes, they were Amish, but yes, this was a trip sponsored by their Amish community, and one of the girls said she was on this trip to hopefully find a husband.
And it seems that they were doing this, they were allowing this much technology into the outskirts of their lives, to find someone else to have children with.
Ah, the choices we make. The sacrifices we make to help our lives, or the things we are willing to destroy when faced with insurmountable decisions.
—
the poem: A Retired Policeman Talks About Suicides He’s Seen
As a cop, I remember one lady,
we found her in her bathtub,
she cut her throat. That’s odd,
for women, normally they take pills,
they don’t like to disfigure themselves. But she knew what she was
doing, cutting her throat in a full bath.
Less messy that way. Autopsy said
she was full of barbiturates. She was
a nurse, that explained how she knew
how to do it, but then we found out
that she was pregnant, too. And to top
it off, her brother was a priest.
—
the prose: Technology and Communication (which is prose that has a bit of the poem “Communication ‘05″ in it)
Oh, I’m sorry. I was listening to my iPod.
Oh, wait, let me see, maybe I can hook this up to play the music for you.
You know, I was thinking about it - advancements in technology have been a wonderful thing, and many say it’s brought the world closer together, have kept people more connected. And on some levels I can totally agree with that - I mean, I read submissions from email, saving paper and ink and postage, I keep magazines on line so people around the world can read good writing, I’ve even had musicians from Wisconsin, Ohio and Tennessee find my readings and set music to my words.
But in the same respect, I sit all day at the same desk, staring at the web sites for the domain names I run, instead of actually meeting and working with people.
I mean, at one point, the people i emailed the most
lived in the same city as me, and were only a local call away.
in fact, one of my friends lived a block-and-a-half away from me,
on the same street as me, but
i still emailed her as much as i’d call her,
even though i could just walk over to her house
and have an actual conversation with her.
And even the phone, with cell phones you can carry a phone with you wherever you go, so you’ll never be lonely, but it seems to give teenagers another reason to talk endlessly on the phone… And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to attack someone at a bar, who is there with friends, who gets a walkie-talkie-style call from someone, and they take turns screaming their heads off to get little phrases to someone who couldn’t even be there with them.
I mean, the iPhone just came out, combining a cell phone with an iPod, as well as email and Internet web browsing. But some bits of technology allow you to tune the world out, like the iPod here. When people see these headphones on someone, they know that you’ve apparently found something bigger and better than them for their lives right now… But even without technology, when I go for walks every morning, I wear the iPod, but I also wear sunglasses, even if it’s overcast, so no one knows if I am studying every person I pass. With a lot of the technology we have now, we can learn about the rest of the world - or we can tune out the rest of the world and ignore any news that doesn’t fit in with what we want to believe.
—
the poem: The Carpet Factory, The Shoes
i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor
in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory
he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten
but the people from the factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve
and then people complain to me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china
now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these
will somebody have to die
for these
—
the prose: Differences in China: children & trains
Children in different parts of the world… I saw in China once a little boy outside, a toddler, drop his pants at the street side at a market and just start ing on the sidewalk. And as I saw this, I saw that all the people there weren’t even bothered by this… Someone explained to me that while they’re little, toddler boys in China can go to the bathroom like that outside - but if he goes number 2, the mother has to pick up his feces (you know, like they were taking care of a dog).
But on the trains in China, they had a television screen in every car, with clips from what seemed like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Well, I couldn’t understand a thing anyone was saying in China on this show on the train, but you couldn’t help but watch, and you couldn’t help but laugh. It was a great means of bringing levity when you’re on a public train, like when you’re on your way to work every morning on the el.
—
the poem: Private Lives 2005
sitting on the el train
i saw a middle-eastern man
sitting across from me
holding a large Zip-Loc bag
of some sort of food paste,
i couldn’t tell,
it looked like some sort of
curry-filled food paste
and the man looked unhappy,
and after a few minutes
i saw him open up
the Zip-Loc bag,
throw up into it,
then close the bag again
so, he was carrying
his vomit with him
on the el
at least he had a bag
he could seal it up with
—
the prose: Passport To Outer Space
And a lot of us have experiences around the city, and I’ve tried to see the world, not just this continent, but 15 European countries, Russia, China…
I’ve searched for these stories around the world, I’ve gotten my passport stamped like mad… but my sister told me about Don Stump, a friend of my dad’s who ran a restaurant, well, his father-in-law apparently bought and had the rights to the space in outer space (you know, like all of the space beyond out atmosphere between planets and stars and comets and asteroids and stuff…). My sister even said that his father-in-law stamped the passports of the astronauts that went into outer space, since they were crossing the areas he owned.
But Don Stump was pushed away from their house once, because at least two men from the FBI were there… Apparently Don’s father-in-law was minting coins, it wasn’t money that was valid anywhere, but it’s illegal for U.S. residents to try to make any sort of profit this way, the way they might have potentially done.
Now, Don and his wife and parents have passed away, so…. I guess there’s no way I can pay them for having my passport stamped for going to outer space. But when you’re up high in the Earth’s atmosphere, a lot of places look the same. I mean, Siberia, with snow peaks and mountain lines along the eastern coast, looks like the Rockies in America in the winter. It’s only when you get closer to the ground do you see the real differences.
—
parts of the poem: In The Air
Chicago looks grand from the sky
with this huge expanse of lake
next to it, like civilization crept up
as far as it could but finally had to stop.
The power of nature stopping the power
of mankind… Daylight, and the snow
on the ground in the winter time looks dirty,
too many cars have splashed mud on it as they
drove by. And in the winter the sky
always matches the shade of grey of the snow:
fitting for the city of the Blues.
Maybe the snow is already
that color, that perfect shade of grey,
when it falls from the sky in this city.
When I’m in the air, I like to look
out the window. Clouds look like
cotton balls when you’re above them,
and when you’re landing cars look like
little ants, on a mission, bringing food
back to their hill. And the
streets look like veins, capillaries in some
massive, monstrous body. And the
farmlands look like little squares of colors.
I wonder why each plot of land is a
different color, what’s growing there
that makes them different. Or maybe it’s
that some of them are turning shades of red
and brown because they are dying.
And it always seems on a plane that you’re stuck
sitting next to someone that is either
too wide for their seat, or is a businessman
with his newspaper stretched out
and his lap top computer on his little
fold out table. Once, when I was on a
flight back from D. C., a flight attendant
walked by, stack of magazines in her
hand, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek,
and I stopped her, asking what magazines
she had. And she replied, “Oh, these
magazines are for men.” This is a true
story. And I asked her again what she
had. I had already read Time, so I took Newsweek.
—
the poem: On An Airplane With A Frequent Flyer
“I was once on a flight to Hawaii and I was waiting in line
for the lavatory. There was always a line for a flight
this long, you know, it seemed the washrooms
were always on demand on a flight this long. So
I finally got into the washroom, you know, and I
looked into the toilet, and someone, well, lost the battle
against a very healthy digestive system and left the
“spoils” in the toilet, stuck. Maybe it didn’t want to go
down into the sewage tank where all the other
waste from this long trip went to. Can you imagine
all the stuff this airplane had to carry across the ocean?
Well, anyway, so I saw this stuck in the toilet, and I
went to the washroom, and when I was done i flushed and
it still wouldn’t budge, and so I opened the door and walked
out into the aisle of the plane again. And there was this
long line of people waiting to use this cramped
little washroom, and I just wanted to tell them all,
‘you know, I didn’t do that.’ And then it occurred to me
that everyone, when they leave the bathroom on that
plane, will think the exact same thing.”
—
and the prose: Around the World, & sweet home Chicago
And you know, I talk about travel around the world, but where we come from shows who we are. I mean, once I was on the other side of the world, at the Summer Palace, and an older man came over to me, knowing little english, and said, “My daughter and I wanted to know where you were from.” So… not knowing how much geography they knew, I said, “I’m from the United States, in Illinois, in Chicago.” And that’s when this old man from the other side of the world said, “oh… my kind of town.” And I started laughing, knowing the song, and then he said, “Frank Sinatra sang that.” and I laughed more, then realizing that although I try to learn about the world, but my soul still hold on to my Chicago roots, other editors even comment on my style of writing being affected by being from the MidWest, being from Chicago… being from here affects my style and my art, oftentimes as much as my family history.
I talk about learning stories from around the world, but I think we can also learn from stories right here, and as we live in this big world, it helps us to not feel small, but to grow larger than life.
—
For more information on this writing and other writings from Janet Kuypers, go to http://www.janetkuypers.com for more information and details.
Duration : 0:2:41
Janet Kuypers reads “intro talk” at live show 07/17/07 #1
Janet Kuypers performs this piece, along with poems and prose during the July 17 2007 performance art show “Living in a Big World”, live 07/17/07 at the Cafe (5115 North Lincoln Avenue, in Chicago, Illinois). The show contained poems and music from orted musicins from Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, New Mexico, and even Canada, as well as original sampled music, include the writings listed toward the bottom of this show explanation. But in this show, Janet Kuypers, because shw was exemplifying living in a big world (the title of the show), she drew a large chair, painted it onto a white canvas (which actually was a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together) and attached it to a wooden base, so she could literally sit in a drawing of a large chair (it was 60″ wide, actually). The visual display of the artwork projected onto a large paper screen for this show (which once again was actually a bunch of pieces of 8.5″ x 11″ paper stuck together)was a drawn TV, and inside the TV a bunch of Janet Kuypers photographs from around the world was shown in this “drawn” TV.
Artwork included in the projected “television” display included:
The Reischtag in Berlin Germany, Tiananmen Square in Beijing China, a building in Agrigento in Cicily Italy, Air Force One with President George H. W. Bush at Pease Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, a downed airplane in Joliet, Illinois, an airplane in Naples Florida, the Arbeit Macht Frei gate at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Dachau Germany, Arches National Park in Utah, Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington Virginia, Bad Gastein Austria, as bamboo frest in Oahu Hawaii, a building in Bruxelles.Belgium, castles in Rome, the Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan with superimposed landmarks like an Egyptian pyramid and a building from India and the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben and Russian churches and a mountain from the Alps, the Colloseum in Rome, a mermaid statue in Copenhagen Denmark, the White Cliffs of Dover in England, the Eiffel Tower in Paris France, el Yunque tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico, Tallinn Estonia, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, a gondola in Venice Italy, the Great Wall of China, the Senate Square Cathedral in Helsinki Finland, highrises in Shanghai China, the Hollywood sign in California, hot strings in Wyoming, a destroyed house after Katrina in New Orleans Louisiana, a King Tut like human Egyptian statue in Paris France, the Last Vegas skyline, the Louvre, Luxembourg, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in Urbana Illinois, a painted building in Montreal Canada, a lefe-side replica of the Parthenon in Nashville Tennessee, a glove statue in front of a church in Omaha Nebraska, a pagoda near Beijing China, salvages wall art work in Pompeii, the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome, St. Petersburg Russia, San Francisco, the Seasttle Space Needle in Washington, Siberia from the sky, a video still of shydiving near the Rockies in Longmont Colorado, the space shuttle in Cape Canaveral, the Statue of Liberty in New Jersey/New York, a stop sign in Mexico (that says “alto”), Stockholm Sweden, Olympic Natl. Park Temperate Rain Forest in Washington, the Temple of Vesta in Rome, the Vatican, and Zurich Switzerland.
These are the writing included in the live show:
the poem: Paranoia
we sit here at dinner.
I try to breathe.
My hands rest on my thighs.
I must watch to be sure,
everything must be right:
the silverware, small fork,
large fork, plate, knife,
large spoon, small spoon.
Water glass. Wine glass.
I know no one else sees them:
the fish, the red fish, in
the curtains along the wall.
You have to watch them.
My eyes always glance there.
They are evil fish. They sit
in the curtains, they wait,
and then they come out.
And the yogurt, the yogurt
is the only thing that can
save me from them. throw
the yogurt, take a spoon,
use your hands. Anything.
And we sat there before
dinner, and he ate his
yogurt with his first spoon
before I could stop him.
How could you do this? How
can you save yourself now?
Will I have to save you again,
do you even understand
the danger
—
the prose: Man Who Talks Loud… Say Nothing
I try to learn about the world, try to understand the world. While first traveling, I did a MidWest tour of poetry, then was in a Chicago poetry show at the National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I sell my performance art audio on iTunes & Naster, I try to share myself with the world, but I wonder if I’m actually getting through to anyone.
I heard a Native American man, whose parents were from two different tribes (meaning that he could never truly have an allegiance with just one tribe), say that after he traveled extensively, he tried to tell his story to the people of either tribe, and no one wanted to even listen to him. They called him Ex-eh-ba-che, which means “man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Ex-eh-ba-che.
“Man who talks loud… say nothing.”
Oh, what am I saying, I’ve been around the world, but I’ve never talked to a Native American. That was actually from a movie I saw, I don’t even know if “Ex-eh-ba-che” is a real word or means anything.
But… If I want to see something about the world around me, maybe I should turn on the tee vee, I mean, if news channels can have reporters in war zones, there’s got to be something worth watching. Maybe I’ll just get out the remote and turn on the tee vee, then press the play button and see what’s out there in the world.
—
the poem: Fighting I Can Do
I know these are normal things
for me to be going through
I know that I have been raped
and beaten
I know they’ve tried to kill me
and lucky me, I survived
I think I can survive
everything they throw at me
But as time wears on
little pieces of this statue are chipped away
everybody wants something, right?
well, they’ve been taking from me
and taking
and taking
and taking
and my defenses are getting weaker
and I don’t know how much more
fighting
I can do
—
the poem: I Want
you know what I want?
i want a big house with filtered central air
and i want a big lawn so i can recreate nature
and i want a big fence so i’ll know what’s mine
and i want the evergreens trimmed into neat little
balls, because it has to look neat. plant everything
in a row.
and i want to spray chemicals on my lawn
to keep the dandelions away
and i want a plastic lobster bib
over my fancy dress at the fancy restaurant
and don’t forget the hundred dollar champagne
and i want a big fat car, and i want
someone else to drive it
and i want the two kids, one boy, one girl
and i want a nanny to take care of them for me
i want to be famous
i want everyone to love me
i want it
i want it all
—
the prose: Adjusting Your Beliefs
We lived in Pennsylvania for 6 months, and while I continued my work with cc&d magazine, I got a P.O. box in the town Intercourse Pennsylvania. And actually, it was an amish town, and we would go to the store there to stock up on spices, and the amish people who worked there were all short -
Now, I know I’m tall, but when I say they were short I should also say that their heads looked child-like… that the people working there looked like they had a mild form, or early stages of, downs syndrome. We could only guess by looking at the faces of these people that the Amish had too severe a history of inbreeding, and no one new came into their community.
And recently I was in Champaign to plant a tree, and we stopped at a mall and there was this hydro massage store in the mall - it was this temporary place that had booths set up for individuals to lay down in, and many jets of water pulsated into plastic sheets over the person’s body, it was a massage thing that people could pay for. Now, I had seen things like this before, but I was told I should try this, you know, just splurge, so I was in this thing that looked like a tanning bed for your body with your head sticking out at the end, and John talked to a few girls there, because he noticed how they looked liked they were dressed in near Amish, or Mennonite, clothing. And he found out that these girls were in their late teens, and they came in from out of town on a bus trip; yes, they were Amish, but yes, this was a trip sponsored by their Amish community, and one of the girls said she was on this trip to hopefully find a husband.
And it seems that they were doing this, they were allowing this much technology into the outskirts of their lives, to find someone else to have children with.
Ah, the choices we make. The sacrifices we make to help our lives, or the things we are willing to destroy when faced with insurmountable decisions.
—
the poem: A Retired Policeman Talks About Suicides He’s Seen
As a cop, I remember one lady,
we found her in her bathtub,
she cut her throat. That’s odd,
for women, normally they take pills,
they don’t like to disfigure themselves. But she knew what she was
doing, cutting her throat in a full bath.
Less messy that way. Autopsy said
she was full of barbiturates. She was
a nurse, that explained how she knew
how to do it, but then we found out
that she was pregnant, too. And to top
it off, her brother was a priest.
—
the prose: Technology and Communication (which is prose that has a bit of the poem “Communication ‘05″ in it)
Oh, I’m sorry. I was listening to my iPod.
Oh, wait, let me see, maybe I can hook this up to play the music for you.
You know, I was thinking about it - advancements in technology have been a wonderful thing, and many say it’s brought the world closer together, have kept people more connected. And on some levels I can totally agree with that - I mean, I read submissions from email, saving paper and ink and postage, I keep magazines on line so people around the world can read good writing, I’ve even had musicians from Wisconsin, Ohio and Tennessee find my readings and set music to my words.
But in the same respect, I sit all day at the same desk, staring at the web sites for the domain names I run, instead of actually meeting and working with people.
I mean, at one point, the people i emailed the most
lived in the same city as me, and were only a local call away.
in fact, one of my friends lived a block-and-a-half away from me,
on the same street as me, but
i still emailed her as much as i’d call her,
even though i could just walk over to her house
and have an actual conversation with her.
And even the phone, with cell phones you can carry a phone with you wherever you go, so you’ll never be lonely, but it seems to give teenagers another reason to talk endlessly on the phone… And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to attack someone at a bar, who is there with friends, who gets a walkie-talkie-style call from someone, and they take turns screaming their heads off to get little phrases to someone who couldn’t even be there with them.
I mean, the iPhone just came out, combining a cell phone with an iPod, as well as email and Internet web browsing. But some bits of technology allow you to tune the world out, like the iPod here. When people see these headphones on someone, they know that you’ve apparently found something bigger and better than them for their lives right now… But even without technology, when I go for walks every morning, I wear the iPod, but I also wear sunglasses, even if it’s overcast, so no one knows if I am studying every person I pass. With a lot of the technology we have now, we can learn about the rest of the world - or we can tune out the rest of the world and ignore any news that doesn’t fit in with what we want to believe.
—
the poem: The Carpet Factory, The Shoes
i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor
in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory
he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten
but the people from the factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve
and then people complain to me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china
now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these
will somebody have to die
for these
—
the prose: Differences in China: children & trains
Children in different parts of the world… I saw in China once a little boy outside, a toddler, drop his pants at the street side at a market and just start ing on the sidewalk. And as I saw this, I saw that all the people there weren’t even bothered by this… Someone explained to me that while they’re little, toddler boys in China can go to the bathroom like that outside - but if he goes number 2, the mother has to pick up his feces (you know, like they were taking care of a dog).
But on the trains in China, they had a television screen in every car, with clips from what seemed like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Well, I couldn’t understand a thing anyone was saying in China on this show on the train, but you couldn’t help but watch, and you couldn’t help but laugh. It was a great means of bringing levity when you’re on a public train, like when you’re on your way to work every morning on the el.
—
the poem: Private Lives 2005
sitting on the el train
i saw a middle-eastern man
sitting across from me
holding a large Zip-Loc bag
of some sort of food paste,
i couldn’t tell,
it looked like some sort of
curry-filled food paste
and the man looked unhappy,
and after a few minutes
i saw him open up
the Zip-Loc bag,
throw up into it,
then close the bag again
so, he was carrying
his vomit with him
on the el
at least he had a bag
he could seal it up with
—
the prose: Passport To Outer Space
And a lot of us have experiences around the city, and I’ve tried to see the world, not just this continent, but 15 European countries, Russia, China…
I’ve searched for these stories around the world, I’ve gotten my passport stamped like mad… but my sister told me about Don Stump, a friend of my dad’s who ran a restaurant, well, his father-in-law apparently bought and had the rights to the space in outer space (you know, like all of the space beyond out atmosphere between planets and stars and comets and asteroids and stuff…). My sister even said that his father-in-law stamped the passports of the astronauts that went into outer space, since they were crossing the areas he owned.
But Don Stump was pushed away from their house once, because at least two men from the FBI were there… Apparently Don’s father-in-law was minting coins, it wasn’t money that was valid anywhere, but it’s illegal for U.S. residents to try to make any sort of profit this way, the way they might have potentially done.
Now, Don and his wife and parents have passed away, so…. I guess there’s no way I can pay them for having my passport stamped for going to outer space. But when you’re up high in the Earth’s atmosphere, a lot of places look the same. I mean, Siberia, with snow peaks and mountain lines along the eastern coast, looks like the Rockies in America in the winter. It’s only when you get closer to the ground do you see the real differences.
—
parts of the poem: In The Air
Chicago looks grand from the sky
with this huge expanse of lake
next to it, like civilization crept up
as far as it could but finally had to stop.
The power of nature stopping the power
of mankind… Daylight, and the snow
on the ground in the winter time looks dirty,
too many cars have splashed mud on it as they
drove by. And in the winter the sky
always matches the shade of grey of the snow:
fitting for the city of the Blues.
Maybe the snow is already
that color, that perfect shade of grey,
when it falls from the sky in this city.
When I’m in the air, I like to look
out the window. Clouds look like
cotton balls when you’re above them,
and when you’re landing cars look like
little ants, on a mission, bringing food
back to their hill. And the
streets look like veins, capillaries in some
massive, monstrous body. And the
farmlands look like little squares of colors.
I wonder why each plot of land is a
different color, what’s growing there
that makes them different. Or maybe it’s
that some of them are turning shades of red
and brown because they are dying.
And it always seems on a plane that you’re stuck
sitting next to someone that is either
too wide for their seat, or is a businessman
with his newspaper stretched out
and his lap top computer on his little
fold out table. Once, when I was on a
flight back from D. C., a flight attendant
walked by, stack of magazines in her
hand, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek,
and I stopped her, asking what magazines
she had. And she replied, “Oh, these
magazines are for men.” This is a true
story. And I asked her again what she
had. I had already read Time, so I took Newsweek.
—
the poem: On An Airplane With A Frequent Flyer
“I was once on a flight to Hawaii and I was waiting in line
for the lavatory. There was always a line for a flight
this long, you know, it seemed the washrooms
were always on demand on a flight this long. So
I finally got into the washroom, you know, and I
looked into the toilet, and someone, well, lost the battle
against a very healthy digestive system and left the
“spoils” in the toilet, stuck. Maybe it didn’t want to go
down into the sewage tank where all the other
waste from this long trip went to. Can you imagine
all the stuff this airplane had to carry across the ocean?
Well, anyway, so I saw this stuck in the toilet, and I
went to the washroom, and when I was done i flushed and
it still wouldn’t budge, and so I opened the door and walked
out into the aisle of the plane again. And there was this
long line of people waiting to use this cramped
little washroom, and I just wanted to tell them all,
‘you know, I didn’t do that.’ And then it occurred to me
that everyone, when they leave the bathroom on that
plane, will think the exact same thing.”
—
and the prose: Around the World, & sweet home Chicago
And you know, I talk about travel around the world, but where we come from shows who we are. I mean, once I was on the other side of the world, at the Summer Palace, and an older man came over to me, knowing little english, and said, “My daughter and I wanted to know where you were from.” So… not knowing how much geography they knew, I said, “I’m from the United States, in Illinois, in Chicago.” And that’s when this old man from the other side of the world said, “oh… my kind of town.” And I started laughing, knowing the song, and then he said, “Frank Sinatra sang that.” and I laughed more, then realizing that although I try to learn about the world, but my soul still hold on to my Chicago roots, other editors even comment on my style of writing being affected by being from the MidWest, being from Chicago… being from here affects my style and my art, oftentimes as much as my family history.
I talk about learning stories from around the world, but I think we can also learn from stories right here, and as we live in this big world, it helps us to not feel small, but to grow larger than life.
—
For more information on this writing and other writings from Janet Kuypers, go to http://www.janetkuypers.com for more information and details.
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