Sideways Station

The Metaphysical Olympics

I often think about this peculiar painting of the Annunciation by Lorenzo Lotto. As you can see,    God doesn't seem to have much confidence in the angel carrying out his instructions and Mary is just about to exit the canvas. (I'm sure there must be a never-discovered version where she has already left). But most of all, I think about the cat which has jumped up in panic. What set it off? Just the sight of a big thing with wings ? Some angelic smell ? Or do angels move air when they come down and land ?

This one certainly seems to have come down fast. It looks to me a bit like a gymnast trying for a good score when exiting from a somersault. Perhaps overdoing it a bit and so appealing more to the crowd than to the judges. And thinking of that gave me the idea of organising the first Metaphysical Olympics. For the time being we only have one event - Gymnastics for Angels or Gymnangelastics. But our competitors don't need to train and we can use ethereal triangles and spheres as stadiums, so we can expand instantaneously any time over the next couple of weeks.

As everyone should know by now, the Beijing Olympics will be inaugurated on the 8^th of August (8^th month) 2008 at 8 p.m. because 8 (pronounced bā in Chinese) is an auspicious number. We are going to try and out-propitiate them by starting our ceremony at 8.08 a.m. on the same day and while their ceremony is planned to last 3 to 5 hours, ours will end after exactly 88 minutes. Most of the time will be spent singing the Beach Boys song Barbara Ann, because of all the ba-ba-ba's in it. In fact we may just replace all the other words with ba as well so as to multiply the propitiousness and make it fructify. We may have some flags but we won't have any countries, because we think they are silly.

You might be interested in seeing some of the favourites and some outsiders in the Gymnangelastics event. Dutch and Flemish painters are under-represented because most of them seem to prefer to have the angel walk in through the  front door or else have it comfortably seated as if it had been served a cup of tea before bringing up the delicate subject it was called upon to discuss.

(click to enlarge)

Beato Angelico
Beautiful wing position (and beautiful wings), hands in expressive but not overly flamboyant position. However the angel has not been able to completely check its forward motion.
Very good.

Alessio Baldovinetti
Quite a big wobble here. Wings OK but not outstanding. Hands-crossed position looks like a hasty attempt to regain balance.
Average

Botticelli
Big disappointment here from Botticelli, who surely must have been considered a contender.Very bad form in general, everything pointing in different directions and looking very unstable. Perhaps just about to tip forward onto the ground or grab Mary's garb.                           Underperformer.

Caravaggio
Go back and practise some more.
Non-starter.

David
Knees somewhat too far apart, hand gestures not perfect, robe not completely under control and wings in in-between position, but all in all a very impressive performance. Might just be a surprise medallist.
Dark horse.

El Greco

Almost certain to get injured landing like that.
Are you insured?

 

Fra Bartolomeo
Just slightly tilted and askew, but another possible surprise.
The other Brother.

Gentile Bellini
Not perfect (I think you are supposed to land inside the house), but so dynamic and expressive it is very likely some of the judges will be swayed.
The menace from Venice

Grunewald
A completely different approach, flamboyant and deliberately rough-edged.
A bit on the wild side.

Leonardo da Vinci
Most people's favourite. Turbo-spoiler wings, perfect poise, frozen motion and landing almost exactly half-way betweenn' the two cypress trees.  Flawless.

Rubens
You can't deny the talent, but a rather hard landing.
Heavyweight.

Simone Martini
Much simpler than some of the others, but bordering on perfection.
Shades of gold

Terbruggen
A Dutch follower of Caravaggio (notice the dirty feet) and having the same kind of problems in making contact with the earth.

Never Land

Tintoretto

Seems to have knocked a number of the house's walls down and to have involved the holy spirit in a stuka dive.
Spectators advised to stand back.

And then of course there is Lotto. Pretty good but something is not kosher. I have great confidence in the intuition of cats and until the issue is clarified Lotto will suffer a one-point deduction.

By the way, I took all these pictures from a fantastic resource - The Web Gallery of Art where you can organise your own exhibitions by searching for a specifici title like I did for the Annunciation. For example, you could try and find all the pictures of St. Sebastian they have. (Perhaps useful for an archery event at our Olympics).

Events

Some events wait
beneath your bed
all night,
or months if you are slumbering deep,
and grab your ankles by their teeth
when you get up
and snarl and grind and gnash
dragged down the corridor
and all the way through breakfast
for every breakfast ever afterwards.
Some fall off roofs and ladders
losing their balance
because you breathed a little hard.
Some are just out for a jog
and bump into you as you both
round a corner in the park.
Some warmly clasp your hands
and hail you by somebody
else's name.
Some seem to follow you all day
but look away and cross the road
when you turn round.
Some events
sit in an armchair, silently,
facing you for years,
clearing their throats
every once and then.
Some events come up and
say
I'm sorry but I'm almost out of time,
could I occur to you?
Some really have your number
and grab you as you walk out
of the door.
Some events fall drunk
into your arms and pass out
before they have a chance
to really happen.
Some events come from in front,
some from behind, some you just sit on carelessly.
The world has many corners
we can't see.
To our dim eyes
there is no scheme, no season,
no rhyme, no right time,
or right reason, the stream
of things does not flow straight,
or even run in meanders,
it jumps and turns and falls
from anywhere and when
into our lives.
All I can say is
sweep carefully,
sweep well below your beds
before you sleep.

                                                                                Phillip Hill 2008

Listen to the poem         

One short, one long

 

 

Sometimes, at meetings,
purporting busily
to solve the problems of the world
in the time
left over
in between the coffee breaks,
a delegate gets up and says
he has a little something
he would like to do,
just two words he would like
to add,
one short, one long,
to all the other ones,
which would endow our declaration
with a mellower taste
and make for
smoother satisfaction.
The words are
"as appropriate".
"It is innocuous,"
I've heard one say
in soothing tones.
Of course.
Think back to 1789:
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity-
as appropriate.
Or try:
I swear to tell the truth,
the whole etcetera etcetera,
as appropriate.
But I am grateful for this now.
I always used to be confused,
suspicious of my own suspicion,
but  when I hear our leaders
now, especially the ones with
bleary eyes, who seem to say:
"You really must believe me, look,
I've practised this expression hours and hours,
my ears are starting to ache awfully."
Or those with dubba-digit IQ's
and who get even less on
any of the scales scoring integrity,
I stir those freeze-dried words
into their murky pledges and
instantaneously
they all turn crystal clear.

Phillip Hill 2007

Listen to the poem   

Stalin’s socks and Goethe’s thistles

I know several people who are constantly being reminded that this year we are all supposed to be celebrating  the International Year of the Potato (Peru's gift to the world). The Colorado Potato Beetle (Colorado's gift to the world) is also celebrating.

Very few people, however,  are aware that this is Global Artichoke Week (because it isn't) and in view of this I have decided to post Pablo Neruda's Ode to the Artichoke.

This poem is one of his Elementary Odes. He wrote three books of Elementary Odes, which number almost 180 in total, covering such themes as the birds of Chile, conger eel soup, thread, numbers, laziness, a watch in the night, barbed wire, his socks, the liver, soap, the smell of firewood, bicycles, a large tuna in the market,   a ship in a bottle,  a village cinema, the colour green, the migration of birds, clouds, stones, scissors and tomatoes, maize, lemons and lots of other plants and foods.  My favourite of his vegetable odes is actually the Ode to the Onion, from which I recite every time I chop one:

 

y al cortarte
el cuchillo en la cocina
sube la única lágrima
sin pena.
Nos hiciste llorar sin afligirnos

 

(And when we cut you/with our knifes in the kitchen/it prompts the only tear/devoid of sorrow/You made us cry without distressing us)

 

He then goes on to say that he has sung of everything under the sun but for him the onion is more beautiful than a bird of dazzling colours.

 

I also believe that, by writing an ode to his socks, Neruda extended the possible scope of odes to cover almost anything.(Actually he could have gone a little further and written a poem to the holes in his socks).

So I would invite you to think about something you feel we need an ode for. Would you like to have verses to recite when you step into a puddle, watch your washing being spun or while you pour worcestershire sauce into tomato juice? Perhaps we can set up a Home Ode Delivery System, in the same way that you can phone out for pizza. Since I am prone to long-windedness, the first subject for an ode which it occurred to me we might need was "brevity". But since I am prone to long-windedness (and repetition) I ended up writing three.

 

1^st Ode to Brevity:

Oh, Brevity !

 

2^nd Ode to Brevity:

Oh!

 

And some of you will also have noticed the third Ode to Brevity.

 

There are a few very embarrassing lines of verse in Neruda's writing.  I am thinking, in particular, of the place where he writes that in three rooms of the Kremlin there lives a man whose light is turned off late, the world and his country allowing him no rest.  When you think about that you can appreciate how close we came to getting an Ode to Stalin's Socks (which, now I think about  it, is a poem which might actually fill a gap in world literature).

 

Still, this is Global Artichoke Week.  I  have conducted a lot of research into this plant and now can share a considerable amount of useless information with you. First of all, the scientific name is Cynara scolymus and recalls the name of a mythical Greek girl,  Cynara. Zeus took a shine to her and she resisted his advances. He must have been feeling a bit under the weather that day, because insteading of turning himself into a cloud or a bull and having his way as was his wont, he simply transformed  her into an artichoke.

I found a dozen pages on artichokes mentioning that Goethe didn't like them and had dismissively stated that the "peasants in Italy eat thistles", which I found believable until I remembered that he was a good natural scientist and probably wouldn't confuse artichokes and thistles.  So I searched Goethe's Italian Journey for artichokes and thistles and Artischocken and Disteln and I can say that I believe that there is no such statement. He does say he met two Sicilian noblemen on their way to Palermo to settle a lawsuit and mentions that they cut off the tops of thistles with their knives and ate them.  He also mentions artichokes at least twice, once to say that the Neapolitans consume so many vegetables that the leaves of cauliflower, broccoli, artichokes make up the greater part of the city's refuse (a pity that is not the case nowadays) and then to say that his coachman in Sicily ate raw artichokes and kohrabi.

In the 16^th Century  (but this comes from the same sources as the Goethe thistle quotation, so beware) women were not allowed to eat artichokes because of its supposed aphrodisiac properties, but Catherine de' Medici ate them openly, in large quantities.

The French for artichoke- artichaut – and the Italian – carciofo- are both names for a firework which according to the description I have found has holes in its case and spins as it rises.  In Spanish however an alcachofa is a shower head. So be careful next time you have a shower.

In Italian a carciofo is a clumsy, dull-witted person.

Avoir un coeur d'artichaut (to have an artichoke heart) in French means to fall in love with everyone you meet, a concept  I don't think is expressed so economically  in other languages. 

I could add more, but not that much more. On the other hand, you could write an encyclopaedia about potatoes. I was wondering what you call an expert on potatoes. The expression seems to be potato scientist, although potatologist would be prettier, also because in German I suppose it would be something like a Kartoffelog (or Kartoffelolog ? or Kartoffolog ?). By the way, the German word for Kartoffel seems to be a deformation of Tartuffolo  (little truffle – an early Italian name for it). Of course, Germany and potatoes are two words which seem to chime together in most people's minds. So I consulted Potato World's statistics on potato consumption and was surprised to see that:

 

Top potato consumers, 2005

	Quantity (t)		Kg per capita
1. China	52 882 000	1. Belarus	337.99
2. Russian Fed.	20 442 000	2. Kyrgyzstan	152.20
3. India	18 253 000	3. Russian Fed.	141.98
4. USA	16 399 000	4. Ukraine	141.62
5. United Kingdom	6 842 000	5. Latvia	136.14
6. Ukraine	6 659 000	6. Armenia	131.76
7. Germany	6 120 000	7. Lithuania	130.67
8. Poland	4 893 000	8. Poland	127.75
9. France	3 880 000	9. Rwanda	124.83
10. Bangladesh	3 746 000	10. Portugal	118.62

Source: FAOSTAT

 

    in terms of per capita consumption, Germany is not even in the top ten, and is preceded by Armenia (!)  and Rwanda (!!).

But there is one thing much more surprising. Look at country number one: Belarus. It has a potato consumption of 337.99 kg (743.6 lbs) per person per year.  Unless they make baby food from potatoes, this means that each adult in Belarus is eating more than a kilogram per day. If mother does the shopping for a family of four once a week at a supermarket it means she has to lug home twenty-eight kilos (more than 60 lbs.) of spuds alone.

So what can account for this (and note that runner-up Kyrgyzstan has less than half of what Belarus tots up)? First I thought it must all go into the production of moonshine (samogon), but surely the Russian Federation and the Ukraine are just as busy doing that. Next I remembered reading that in the early 20^th century the Brazilian railways ran out of coal and for a while all the engines ran on coffee (think of the smell in the stations), so perhaps they have potato-fuelled power plants in Belarus. But that  is no good either, because it would not count as consumption , I believe. I have decided therefore that I shall write to the International Potato Center (CIP). Apartado 1558 - Lima 12, Peru to request information.

Finally, there is a dispute under way as to whether the potato really is Peru's gift to the world. Chile says potatoes are originally from its own Chiloé region and now Bolivia has also chipped in. Surely today's governments have very little to do with it. Couldn't we just say it was a clever farmer's gift to the world and bear in mind what the always wise Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska says about human borders and plants, animals, stones and clouds ? (Here in Polish and English).

And now at long last, here is Pablo Neruda's Ode to the Artichoke.

Pablo Neruda – Ode to the Artichoke – Oda a la alcachofa

The tender-hearted
artichoke
dressed up as a warrior,
erect, it built itself
a little dome,
it kept itself
impregnable
beneath
its armoured leaves,
beside it
the raving vegetables
began to frizzle,
they turned themselves into
tendrils, bullrushes,
touching bulbs,
below the ground
the red-moustachioed carrot
slept,
the vine
dried out its shoots
through which wine climbs,
the leafy cabbage
took to trying on skirts,
oregano
to scenting the world,
and the sweet
artichoke
there in the garden,
was dressed as a warrior,
burnished
like a grenade and proud,
and one day
assembled with its fellows
in large wicker baskets,
it walked
through the market
to make its dream of
soldiery
come true.
In ranks
it never was so military
as at the market,
the men
among the vegetables
with their white shirts
were
marshals
of the artichokes
the serried files,
the ordering voices,
and the report
of a fallen crate,
but then
Maria
comes along
and with her basket,
picks out
an artichoke
she isn't scared,
she scrutinizes it, considers it
against the light as if it were an egg,
and buys it,
tossing it
into her bag
jumbled together with a pair of shoes,
a cabbage and a
bottle full of vinegar
until
when entering her kitchen
she plunges it into a pot.
Thus ends
in peace
the enlistment
of this armed vegetable
called the artichoke,
after which
leaf after leaf
we undress
its deliciousness
and eat
the peaceful substance
of its green heart.

 

(Translated by Phillip Hill)

Listen to the poem            

 

La alcachofa
de tierno corazón
se vistió de guerrero,
erecta, construyó
una pequeña cúpula,
se mantuvo
impermeable
bajo
sus escamas,
a su lado
los vegetales locos
se encresparon,
se hicieron
zarcillos, espadañas,
bulbos conmovedores,
en el subsuelo
durmió la zanahoria
de bigotes rojos,
la viña
resecó los sarmientos
por donde sube el vino,
la col
se dedicó
a probarse faldas,
el orégano
a perfumar el mundo,
y la dulce
alcachofa
allí en el huerto,
vestida de guerrero,
bruñida
como una granada,
orgullosa,
y un día
una con otra
en grandes cestos
de mimbre, caminó
por el mercado
a realizar su sueño:
la milicia.
En hileras
nunca fue tan marcial
como en la feria,
los hombres
entre las legumbres
con sus camisas blancas
eran
mariscales
de las alcachofas,
las filas apretadas,
las voces de comando,
y la detonación
de una caja que cae,
pero
entonces
viene
María
con su cesto,
escoge
una alcachofa,
no le teme,
la examina, la observa
contra la luz como si fuera un huevo,
la compra,
la confunde
en su bolsa
con un par de zapatos,
con un repollo y una
botella
de vinagre
hasta
que entrando a la cocina
la sumerge en la olla.
Así termina
en paz
esta carrera
del vegetal armado
que se llama alcachofa,
luego
escama por escama
desvestimos
la delicia
y comemos
la pacífica pasta
de su corazón verde.

Listen to the poem (read by Danilo Reyna)

 

Tossing salt peanuts into the air for free - Steve Coleman

In these times, people are  busy inventing ways to sell things or bits of themselves nobody should need to want and half the economy seems to be driven by packaged zilch. I recently saw that there is a company selling bottled water in the United States which freely admits on the label that it is Texan municipal water (and think of how many there are that don't own up to where theirs comes from). Then there was the guy who sold his life on E-bay. I have a clear vision of a world a few years down the line where we are all going to be paid to wear T-shirts which advertise brands (although I suppose it is an improvement on us gleefully paying money for the privilege of wearing T-shirts which advertise brands). We will also find it normal to earn money by slipping slogans and catchphrases  into our conversations and naming our children after household products.

So you think you must have a case of fulminating dyslexia when you come across someone like a brilliant musician like Steve Coleman who writes :   "Why should everything always cost something?  For me music is organized sound that can be used as sonic symbols to communicate ideas.  Since my main goal is the communication of these ideas to the people, then why not provide this music for free and thereby facilitating the distribution of this music to the people. […] My reasons for providing free music comes from my belief that musical ideas should not be owned by anyone.  I believe that ideas should be free for anyone to use (but not to necessarily sell to others or make others pay for the use of these ideas)."

Yes, he is giving his music away. You can download several of his recordings from his website here. I recommend Def Trance Beat, which I actually bought in a shop after having heard him perform in a park on a hot summer's night a few years ago. You can read more about his thoughts on making his music freely available here. And if you want to hear what he sounds like without going anywhere yet, here he is playing Salt Peanuts.

Steve Coleman and Five Elements - Salt Peanuts

Approximating breakfast

One of the good things about my work as an interpreter is that I have the opportunity to travel quite a bit and end up in interesting places I would never have chosen to go to myself. On the other hand, being someone who only has about an hour of real alertness per day - 10.30 – 11 a.m. and 7.00 to 7.30 p.m. more or less – things can become rather difficult when you get entangled with lots of unfamiliar surroundings.
One special challenge I find (and I realise this is particularly unimportant) is hotel breakfasts. Once I tried to write a poem about this: the poem is not very good, but I think the title is not bad– so either I turn the title into the poem or else I work on it and transform it into a full-blown epic on breakfast.

Some early breakfasts ask too many questions   

                                                        Mexico City, two worried-looking eggs,
                                                        a piece of burnt chorizo and
                                                        who am I ?

 For it is true that eggs stare at you balefully and the various kinds of fruit gabble away to each other unintelligibly in their own luminous tropical languages, perhaps saying nasty things about you. This, and having to deal with human conversation, is difficult enough, but something even more disconcerting about hotel breakfasts is that they are all laid out and organised differently, so that in your early-morning mistymindedness, perhaps not even sure which country you are in, you have the task of discovering the secret logic behind them all on your own, with no clues.

In some places, the coffee is in a jug and you have to  serve yourself, in others you will get sent away irately if you try to approach, there are still other places where its location and the time of arrival are jealously guarded mysteries and if you are reckless enough to want a pot of tea you have to begin negotiating the night before. If you also plan on eating something it can take you hours to find everything you need. I remember that once I only found the fruit on the third day. People like me, who are slow and slumberous off the mark in the morning, need a breakfast before they can deal with this kind of breakfast. 

So I have the following idea – ISO should produce a standard for hotel breakfasts (ISO 700am). The European Union could also adopt a directive to approximate breakfasts or harmonise them, which is the kind of terminology they like to use.  I have some fears about this because, in view of the current membership of the European Union, this may result in a deluge of cucumbers. But harmonised breakfasts sound like a lot of fun, you could have the bread in B flat, the cheese in E flat and the butter in F. All the jams would obviously be in jazz harmony. And anything white and foamy, like yogurt and cream, would sing in barbershop quartet style.

Failing this, why don't hotels distribute audio-guides (or else, if anybody wants to be my business partner, we can set up stalls to rent them out)? As in museums, you could just put on your headphones and be led round the hall by the ear. In fact, now I think of it audio-guides would be useful for all kinds of things. I have days which I don't even know how to start – an audio-guide to the morning which starts by telling you to get out of bed would also be valuable. And then there are those people you are always getting your lines crossed with, who always misunderstand all your remarks. If you had an audio-guide specifically for each of them wouldn't that make life easier ?  As you can see from the photograph above, I am making mine publicly available. Finally there are, quite simply, days on which I would like to have an audio-guide to life.

Santa Cochinilla: I think

Santo Domingo does what a church should do.
It makes you crane your neck to take it in.
It stares the neighbouring houses down
into a huddled single-storied squat.
It says, "The sky is mine and mine alone,
lift up your heads, then bow them down again."
I think they ought to call it Santa Cochinilla
for it was built upon the riches
of the trade in Spanish Red,
a dye squeezed from
the body of the cochenille.
I sit and try to guess
how many mountain heaps
of cactus-eating beetles
could have sufficed
to make this master of the air.
And then I see the women from the villages.
They sit on the same wall as me.
I stare at the façade,
they have their backs to it
and gaze at something else
which isn't there.
I listen for the sounds of Zapotec
but words for them are coins of
gold and on this day
there must be nothing
even worth a trip to market.

I think perhaps they're waiting for
the evening mass to start,
but when the church bell peals
(a breeze begins to blow)
the city folk go filing in
and they still sit, wrapped up
unnoticing,
unnerving in their silence.
And when the service ends
after the fancy ladies are
done with all their bubbling talk
and when their men in suits
have had their fill of standing to one side,
squeezing out loud faces which proclaim,
"We do not go around comparing clothes,
we don't demean ourselves:
we scowl.
That's what men of our station
are supposed to do"-
the women are still there.
I stare at them, but they don't look at me,
they gaze at mountains in their eyes
waiting for something
only they know is upon its way.
And yet, even as I entertain
this picture which I think.
I think I think too much, too lush.
The only mountains in their eyes
are ones which I have painted there,
and as for waiting, I think,
perhaps they're in that state
I've only vaguely glimpsed
of being there (or here or who knows where)
without a thought of what comes next.
But then again perhaps they're not.

They're there- their eyes are open,
that's all there is
which makes them all the more mysterious
to my impatient view.
The day drips slowly from the sky,
until I am waist-deep in night.
They sit,
I stand
and go.

And as I round the corner,
chatterish, gabbling and jabberoo -
my busy mind
jumps up and scurries
after me.

                                                        Phillip Hill 2007

Listen to the poem                

 

Old Shanghai and Three Places in New England

 

Cantonese Olive Seller

 

In old Shanghai, not only could one find all kinds of delicacies on the streets but the countless vendors all had their own special local colour. The ones from Shandong sold steamed buns, those from Northern Jiangsu "tiger paws" and "sesame seed rolls",  the locals plied sugar plums and the Cantonese olives and water chestnut flour cakes or linggao. Of all these hawkers the ones which stood out most were the olive sellers. They wore a big bag across their shoulders, which in itself was nothing special, but on the other hand the Erhu they played was very peculiar. Why? The belly of the instrument was twice as big as normal Erhu. It was made from a petrol can. Because of this, the seller could not get any complex sounds out of his instrument but only a KANG KANG LI KE KANG KANG sound. The monotonous music was certainly not easy on the ears, but it had a distinct flavour of the Yue country.

(Translated from cent vieux metiers du vieux shanghai by He Youzhi, editions de l'an 2). This book actually has 90 drawings by the artist and short texts describing the trades of old Shanghai. I have a distinct memory of bad erhu playing and I can summon it up if I imagine someone trying to play an irascible cat with a bow.  Once I convinced some people to go to Beijing's Temple of Heaven at 7 in the morning. We went past the people doing ballroom dancing in the open and one of my friends exclaimed "Wonderful!", we saw all the kites being flow in front of the temple (I particularly liked one which represented an octopus) and again he said "Wonderful!", we went past the people doing taiqi with swords, another "Wonderful!". And then we came to another place and he exclaimed "What a nightmare!". It was an enclosure about the size of a small room where a dozen or so men were playing jinghu's or erhu's . The thing was each one was playing a different tune. Personally, I found it quite appealing. The American composer Charles Ives had a father who performed musical experiments, one of which was to have two bands playing different tunes march around in circles in opposite directions to investigate the effect it would make when they crossed. This is supposed to be one of the major influences on Ives' music and in Three Places in New England there is a part where he reproduces this effect. Think of what his music might have been like if his father had been able to take him on an early  morning stroll around the Temple of Heaven.

Perhaps in twenty years' time there will be a Chinese composer who  will write a piece for thirteen soloists each performing a different tune. If you hear it you'll know where they got the idea.

Austin Kleon's Blackout Poetry

At last something interesting you can do with a newspaper. Get a permanent marker and blackout all the words which stand in the way of an original poem. That is what Austin Kleon has done and he is very good at it. You can see other examples at his website .

It makes you want to try as well. I have and it isn't as easy as it looks. Still I am looking forward to getting hold of my next in-flight magazine.

Would someone develop a technology which will allow us to do something similar to TV commercials ? Political speeches ? Billboards ?  Or condense those Hollywood movies which have no script but only special effects into five-minute-long works of art ?