Dealing with the End of the World

                We got lucky: the end of the world falls on a weekend. Imagine if the end of the world occurred on a work day. Forget it, we wouldn’t be prepared. You’d be judged in the worst possible environment. All those things you wanted to do, to get all the depravity out of your system before being raptured, are inaccessible. The most rotten thing you might do at work before the end of the world is check your email on company time. 

                Every few years the end of the world is proclaimed. Various now-dead people and civilizations predicted the end of the world. They picked some obscure, far away date to make people felt better about how things were going. “Don’t mind that famine” they’d say “the world isn’t going to end for long time”. I wonder why we look to these groups for guidance when they did such a poor job at pinpointing their own demise. Shoot, some of the groups whose advice we take seriously never even knew what a wheel was.

                The apocalypse occurs on a fairly regular basis. In case the one on Saturday doesn’t get us, maybe the 2012 one will. Or, if we get lucky in 2012, perhaps there’s another long-dead civilization that predicted our demise in 2020. If all else fails turn to Nostradamus who probably didn’t predict anything, besides knowing what a buzzkill he was at parties. 

                Dealing with the end of the world can be tough. Should I max out all my credit cards? Should I move to rural Montana and stock up on 4 tons worth of Spam. To prevent you from making a life-changing and potentially embarrassing commitment I have some things you could do without looking foolish. 

1.       Go to a Party

When in doubt about what to do (and this is true in any situation) go to a party. By having the apocalypse on Saturday, you can crash on Sunday in case civilization ends. It is remarkably easy to sleep off a hangover when there is no noise. No traffic, no trains, no toilet flushing and no sounds of a vacuum cleaner to bother you. Of course, it being a party, you may also want to

2.       Have sex

Since you’re so worried about the end of the world, it is important to relax. Perhaps at that party you might meet Mr. or Mrs. Right (or Right Now). Remembering the important life lesson you learned from the movies, you not-so-subtly make your move. Don’t worry about the passion; it’s the end of the world baby. In case the world doesn’t end you at the very least had some fun, got some sex. Losing your virginity at what might be the end of the world isn’t a terrible thing either. “Independence Day” was one of the most philosophical films to touch upon sex during the apocalypse. A minor character cooing says “You don’t want to die a virgin do you?” Using all your charm is required in order to effectively pull off that line. 

3.       Drink

If you know or think it is going to be the end of the world, go all out. Don’t worry about having a hangover as you’ll be dead. When the world doesn’t end, you’ll probably be wishing it did. Carry this out. Even Mormons could hit the bottle with little repercussion as they were under the impression it would all be over. Drinking often (but not always) brings merriness and good cheer. Once you realize it is the end of the world, don’t you want to end it on a good note?

4.       Start a Cult

What better time to start a cult than an alleged ‘end of times’? Cults pay big money. Generally speaking, try to have your cult members from the middle to upper middle class cult. Many cults mooch off of their members’ money. If you do it right you’ll get to ‘communal’ status, where everybody shares everything. Avoid a really creepy or violent cult. Have a near-believable status. Wear matching clothes; preferably choose something which rides the line between ironic and stupid. Keep in mind outsiders won’t get it. Once you explain your cult was created to prepare for the end of the world, it makes much more sense.

5.       Take a Nap

Nothing says “Bring it on” like sleeping through the end of the world. The world usually doesn’t end, or at least hasn’t yet. You can take a nap while the world allegedly ends. In the rare case that the world does end at least you have a fairly pleasant journey towards death, unlike all those people screaming as they plunge to their deaths. At least you got a good night’s rest. 

6.       Surf the Internet

Call this a ‘lame’ idea. Go ahead. I dare you. But if you are reading this, you probably spend a vast quantity of time surfing the internet. Twitter would be trending “#endoftheworld”. You can use that tag to mock everyone else who thought it was ending. But if the world does end, you’ll lose internet connectivity at some point. 

7.       Create a really weird play-list

This is tough. How do you capture the destruction of the entire world, everything you’ve ever known in a single play-list? Even for someone who has listened to a great deal of music like me, it is a tough problem. You could decide to make it ironic, with lots of corny giant riffs. Perhaps “November Rain” could make it in there. Movie soundtracks may fit the bill. Get some really loud classical pieces and put them together. To do it more tastefully, try to include quiet, mildly depressing pieces. For a party, have a bunch of dance tracks from bands like L.F.O, Daft Punk, Justice, Lords of Acid, DJ Sprinkles, etc. In case people think you’re being too weird, explain you’re confused by how to approach the end of the world. 

                As the end of the world will be on May 21^st I’ll be personally taking some of this advice myself. I hope you decide to use some of these suggestions (for they are only suggestions) and mix them with your own ideas. Together we’ll get through this non-end of the world. Everything is going to be okay.

Lee Patterson

               Lee Patterson is one of the first poets I’m reviewing from my neck of the woods, the tri-state metropolitan area. While he does live in Madison, NJ I won’t hold his NJ roots against him, as some of my favorite people are from New Jersey. In fact, there’s a certain weird charm I feel every time I take NJ transit on one of my many trips to that exotic land.

                What Lee does is quite clear: he delves into regular poetry on his more traditional poetry blog and engages with Flarf poetry (poetry derived partly or entirely from the internet on his larger, more updated blog). I find it interesting how he felt the need to divide the two into two separate blogs as I feel internet writing can often be just as good, if not better, than what counts as ‘officially published’ writing. Besides maintaining these two blogs, he has been published in “The Columbia Review” and “West 10^th”. Having become aware of him through Steve Roggenbuck’s #poetrybyemilydickinson project, something tailor-made for his interests, most of my focus will center on his No Name Key blog which gives me more information.

                Beginning with the “Independence Day Rain” he shows a certain flair for the readymade nature of Flarf poetry. Managing to avoid sounding forced or unnecessarily pointing attention to their origins, he creates the illusion of a relationship between the two characters in the poem. It’s sort of unusual, but I enjoy seeing the language used outside of context to create something more substantial.

                   One of my favorites has to be his only December poem called “Amazing Bundler Opiating”. In this he shows off one of the results of too much Google information. Cobbled together is information about an amazing Christian rock band, dissatisfaction on Obama’s healthcare plan, Opium, and the Taliban. None of that should make sense together, but a reader’s external information about any of those events or ideas is virtually unavoidable. A reader can manage to make sense out of it; much in the same way our brains are wired to understand words without vowels or with slight misspellings. 

                “I can smell your Heirlooms from here” is great for other reasons. He takes all these internet phenomena and creates a situation, a story. Originally starting with a de-friended friend on Facebook, the narrator tells us about how this awful Facebook friend once slipped acid in his beer. As he begins freaking out he thinks of ‘you’, a person never defined. Smelling heirlooms and the description of synesthesia gives it a surreal quality. 

                For his less-internet based poetry, I’d say the title poem of “Anonimo Key” is the best of the bunch. I’ve never been to the Florida Keys but I enjoyed the feel of the words and confusion chosen. Now that I haven’t been on a road trip for such a long time I kind of miss the bizarre nature of getting lost in new places, rather than getting lost in vaguely familiar places, which is far more common with me. 

                Strangely, I like both forms. Obviously I have a focus on here of internet based poetry, but I appreciated the fact he tried to differentiate between the two forms. That way I get a better idea of what the process must be. Having read both, I’d be interested in how one is decided for one or the other blog, what the criteria is for an ‘internet based’ versus ‘writing based’ poem, since so much of what I read and process is mostly through the internet at this point. I guess not knowing makes it more interesting.