“Reality is Fabricated Out of Desire” — Man Ray

 

Will this dream ever end?
          I bet heaven is also what you make of it.

Question Christopher Herold,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

 

Fairy dust, plus
a little wind
makes what?
          At extreme magnification it remains star-shaped.

Question Sabine Miller,  Answer Michelle Tennison  (2015)

 

Fecund in a New Way: John Levy

I madly love everything that adventurously breaks the thread of discursive thought and suddenly ignites a flare illuminating a life of relations fecund in another way.

— Andre Breton

Poet John Levy’s curious questions add an almost Monty Python-like quality to the game. Together with some random answers they do create meaning, albeit of a somewhat cosmically weird kind. Makes me wonder as I go through an ordinary day what else is hiding there.

How does a herd of gaffes disappear?
          “The tulips have opened, Love, hurry home!”

What haunts your eraser?
          A long exhalation of ferns

What do the weeds sing?
          A dark comedy

When does the mind really mind?
          The thumping sound of a flat tire

Questions John Levy,  Answers Michelle Tennison (2017)

Grasp the Eye by the Monocle

Surrealist proverb, Paul Eluard and Benjamin Peret

 

What do babies see?
          I’m a butterfly when you’re not looking

Q&A Session with Mary Ellen Binkele and Michelle Tennison (2014)

 

What did the bird leave behind in the tree?
          The flower no one sees

Q&A Session with Paul Cunniff, Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison

 

Make two o’clock with one clock

— Surrealist Proverb,  Paul Eluard and Benjamin Peret

 

 

What is time?
          Memories of sleepwalking

Question Harry Hudson,  Answer Michelle Tennison ( 2005)

 

What fills the empty spaces?
          This moment

Q&A Session with Paul Cunniff, Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison

 

How long does a flower last?
          The eternal soul

Q&A Session with Mary Ellen Binkele and Michelle Tennison (2015)

 

 

The Verge

Perhaps the imagination is on the verge of recovering its rights.

— Andre Breton

What divides the light from the darkness?
          The warmth of the egg

Q&A Session with Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison (2011)


What is the meaning of Grace?

          I heard you sing in your sleep

Question Harry Hudson,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2005)


What thoughts are weightless?

          I step out of my mother’s dream

Question John Levy,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

“There is another world and it is in this one” — Paul Eluard

christopher-herold

 

Sometimes the game itself transcends logic and seems to tap into another realm, suggesting a transpersonal consciousness at work. The following results from playing the game with Zen practitioner and haiku poet Christopher Herold give a glimpse into the more beautiful side of Surrealism, something Andre Breton called The Marvelous.

I asked Christopher 11 pointed questions, and he answered them, unseen:

 

What is the past?
          The taste of spring water at 12,000 feet

 

Where is the map?
          A brick path’s geometry of moss

 

What is the mind of God?
          The emptiness inside a mirrored ball

 

What is truth?
          This worn out pair of shoes

 

How do you know you’ve really made it?
          The scent of a pine forest on a hot afternoon

 

What is the one dream?
          Bagpipes skirling through a foggy dawn

 

What is kindness?
          The receding tide depositing driftwood on the shore

 

Where is the nearest exit?
          Linear time compressing as death approaches

 

What will happen when two snowflakes are exactly alike?
          Children’s laughter

 

How can I avoid suffering?
          Discovering and letting go of our attachments.

 

What is deep thinking?
          Nothing . . . in particular

 

Questions Michelle Tennison, Answers Christopher Herold (2017)

 

I admit that two-and-two-makes-four is an excellent thing, but if all things are to be praised, I should say that two-and-two makes five is also a delightful thing.

–Feodor Dostoevsky

What is the secret life of numbers?
          A black spot just outside your field of vision

Question Michelle Tennison, Answer Mark Harris (2016)

How long is a moment?
          Remember me

Question Mary Ellen Binkele, Answer Michelle Tennison (2016)