Meme-Noir by Steven McCabe

Category: Meme-Noir by Steven McCabe

I was a dishwasher at the Executive Motor Hotel on King Street. The waitress with early 1960s-style hair, who was, maybe, 28, said, ‘If you want to come over after your shift I live nearby.’ Maggie May by Rod Stewart was playing on the radio. Seriously it was. At the time I was reading the writings of Antonin Artaud – founder of the Theatre of Cruelty. He claimed to own a walking stick stained with drops of the blood of Jesus Christ. I was trying to connect dots on a map that didn’t exist. I partook of the green, brown, and black herb. I partook of the artificial chariots. She was, maybe, 28.

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

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June 26, 2022

Like a Bird’s Crazy Beak in a Silly Cartoon

Shapes animated like a bird’s crazy beak in a silly cartoon

remind me of a seagull

blabbering at somebody, somebody who? maybe… Daffy Duck!

He comes to mind for a not complicated reason.

For some reason (in whatever year since 2014 it was) I made this GIF using the book cover.

The gold & ochre jungle leaves remind me of a B&W Humphrey Bogart movie.

In real life Humphrey Bogart was gold & ochre though some say more of a pleasing technicolour.

In real life the book is B&W & printed on cream-coloured paper.

I stand in line at the (big box) grocery store behind a guy with trees printed on his sky blue arm.

Something is in progress ^{in the centre of the store}

if the centre of the store ^{is even there anymore.}

The numbers on my receipt (dancing a Latin dance)

signify symmetry and imbalance

simultaneously, as if an omen, as if

smoke rising from an oil lamp, as if

in flight through my psyche still there

or following a jagged shoreline

to a river, thrashing ^{in the centre of the store}

if the centre of the store ^{is even there anymore}

if the river, voluminous as thunder & thrashing

hypnotized ^{is even there anymore.}

Linocut Print (of an apple) in ‘Nevermore Together’ by Steven McCabe

June 21, 2022

page 68

I opened the frozen container of orange juice with a can opener. Tasted the frozen orange juice crystals and pulled the razor-sharp, metal lid slowly out of my mouth. Blood poured over my lips. I remembered it was sharp. The guy who told me Picts painted blue symbols all over their bodies said the mouth healed faster than any other part of the body. We were listening to Pink Floyd’s Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict. I said, ‘What is a Pict?’

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

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May 15, 2022

page 52

I saw a concealed camera. The building owner said, ‘Keep this to yourself. I can give you a better deal.’ They were trying to catch whoever pulled the fire alarms. I took a two-year lease on a bright, spacious studio. New owners took over. My lease expired. They showed me an abandoned studio containing a four-foot high plaster bust of John F. Kennedy. I wrote the artist a letter. His uncle took me to a basement apartment in Brampton. The artist had been living in his mother’s house. Dishes filled the drainer beside the sink. His thin leather coat hung, buttoned, on a wire hanger. Augustin Filipovic won the Mayor of Rome’s Award. His art embellished the cover of Canada’s Centennial Book. Augustin looked like a movie star, wearing a tuxedo & waltzing in the spotlight with a pretty girl in white.

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

June 9, 2021

GIF Experiments: 20 (Put It On My Account – 2)

I have incorporated Byzantine art and the traditional Sunday school image of Mary for non-commercial purposes of refashioning a new art work. Name of artists unknown.

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April 29, 2021

String Theory

I introduced the poetry project to the high school class. A boy, who seemed to be the class leader, didn’t see the point of it. I told him to knock on his desk. I said, “What did you touch?” He said, “Wood.” I said, “According to physicists at the University of Moscow exploring String Theory you just touched an elementary particle existing in 11 dimensions. Physicists at the University of Moscow exploring String Theory are now aware that elementary particles communicate with each other. Great poetry has come from Russian poets aware of scientific discoveries made at the University of Moscow.” He said, “Okay, I write.”

From Meme-Noir, my 2019 book of autobiographical vignettes. I bluffed my way through a possible rebellion. I remember the students reading aloud what they wrote. It was all very real. They followed his lead and he made it work. Somewhere he must be close to 30.

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January 26, 2021

GIF Experiments: 8 (One line from a vignette)

Because I created such a large number of digital images… to accompany the second vignette from page 70 in Meme-Noir, I decided to create separate GIFs. In this first GIF I use the first line of the vignette only, and approach the words from various angles. How memory repeats significant conversations that perhaps didn’t go the way they could have. That will be more clear in the second GIF to come.