Kansas Kommentary Korner

The following entry was recovered from Peter Doe's journal, which he kept during his retreat experience at Vision Kuest '08.

About a week ago, I was sitting in my kubicle at the Kreation Korner HQ. Of course, kubicle is somewhat of a subjective term, as it refers to the imaginary box in which I was trapped, and not an actual four-sided work environment. But I digress. As was my custom, I started my day off with a cola-flavored Slurpee and Texas toast. Sitting there, eating the same meal I'd had for the past year or so every morning like clockwork, it struck me how mundane my life had really become. Despite my life's quest, which was to maintain unbridled kreativity at all costs, I was in a rut. I needed change. As if summoned from the heavens, Chris Peebles approached during KKHQ lunch period and asked if I'd like to accompany him and other kreators on a spiritual sojourn of sorts into the remote mountains of Kansas. I nearly jumped at the chance. Here was that break from the ordinary I'd been looking for! I couldn't wait to get on my way, and the following Tuesday, there we were in the majestic Heartland of America. Ecstatic to kickstart my own kreative endeavors with a little help from the great outdoors, I learned something very quickly: camping sucks. I mean, COME ON, why are we even here? There's nothing of value here! How am I expected to entertain myself without at least a well-groomed beach volleyball pit? Where are the well-stocked bathrooms to which I've grown so accustomed in the real world? If nature can't even provide the basic necessity of double-quilted toilet paper, what kind of enlightenment am I intended to experience? As far as I'm concerned, all that nature has to offer is hopelessly eclipsed by what we humans have invented. Name me one activity in nature that can even compare to the thrills one experiences on the Knotts Berry Farm Xcelerator roller-coaster, available for the nominal price of $24.99 for a half-day or $49.99 for a full day. The one consolation in this whole crappy situation, and a reminder of wonderful, air-conditioned home, is that my team leader packed Go-gurts, which I've been hoarding for the past three days. I only hope I make it out of this with an ounce of my kreativity intact. In the meantime, I remain in the company of the worst hostess of all time: Mother Nature.
-Peter Doe

More Retreat Revelations!

It has been a veritable madhouse within the Kreation Korner HQ these past weeks, as any and all available staff members have been working around the clock to document the nonstop kreative outbursts of those Korner Kontributors returning from what has now been named Vision Kuest '08. Now surely, all of you in the world-wide peanut gallery have been thirsting, yearning even, for all sorts of new kreation. Well, fret not, young kreationists. Now that all kreations have been successfully digitized and logged into the KKDB (Kreation Korner DataBase), we are finally ready to post the unabridged kreations of Vision Kuest '08. Percy Stankowski's post was only a small taste. Buckle your seat belts, folks.

This piece, kreated by Howard Fork, is highly conceptual and will likely be inaccessible to many. However, concentrate on it for a while, and you just might discover the deeper meaning lying within this seemingly arbitrary combination of the various materials that can be found within the hills of Kansas. Here's what the artist had to say:
"At first I was completely lost up there in the mountains. I'd wake up saying to myself, 'Where are my magic markers? My horse-hair paintbrushes? What about my beach ball?' And it was on the third day that I realized, wow, this is really happening. And that's what brought about this kreation. At that point I'd been completely separated from the group and I think subconsciously I was really aching for familiarity. And I think an abstract kernel of that desire can be found in this work, which took about two days to kreate, from concept development to finished product."

Percy Speaks!

As promised, the Kreation Korner is proud to present the first of many new entries kreated during and inspired by our sacred sojourn into the wild. But first, a cursory warning: the discoveries we have made will undoubtedly be disturbing to some. Others may not even see the kreations plainly presented in front of them because those very kreations are entirely contradictory to their own safe, stale viewpoints. But for those who can appreciate our revelations, bask in the glory of their inexorable truth. The first entry comes from Percy Stankowski, whose usual dedication to the moving image was shaken through the course of our quest. During his personal turmoil, he decided to use the written word, simple but powerful, to express himself.

Yeah. Give me something to drink.

I had been stuck in this goddamn desert for forty days. Or forty years. It's hard to tell time once the radiation's turned your brain to low-fat cherry Jell-O.

Give me something to drink.

I repeated myself to the grotesque baby-man standing in front of me. His skin reminded me of tapioca pudding. I hate tapioca.

I'm thirsty, give me a fucking drink.

I was getting impatient. Delirium had set in and I was thirsty enough to drink my own piss. Don't think I hadn't tried.

Pepsi OK?

The tapioca man held up a cardboard cup named Pepsi. It said so on the cup.

I want Coke. Fuck off.

The tapioca baby-man died of lupus and I continued on, in search of more lies.

A Triumphant Return...

After nearly a month, we--the Kreation Korner Team--have returned from our vision quest in the uncharted mountains of northern Kansas. For those of you lay and otherwise uninformed readers, a vision quest is a painstaking process of delving deep into one's consciousness to discover untold dimensions of kreative inspiration. Our goal was simple: discover in ourselves the ability to kreate what has never been kreated before. Naturally, we embraced the harsh demands of the vision quest without hesitation. During the quest, we lived a minimal existence with only limited access to such modern conveniences as Big League Chew and oversized novelty Frisbees. Guiding us in our quest were wise (almost to a fault, to be quite frank) shamans-in-training from a nearby alternative arts college. Our days were tumultuous: meditation, sweat-lodge sessions, name games, and yogurt socials (which are like ice cream socials but with half the calories). The sundry hallucinations we encountered were awesome, terrifying, sentimental, and often dull. Yet they succeeded in bestowing true kreative potential on all the kontributors you have come to know and love: Chris Peebles, Charlie Weigman, Hattie Weyland, Marilyn, Davin Krengal, Jawn Steighmeaus, Percy Stankowski, and all the rest. For the next month or so, the Korner will be characterized by an unprecedented explosion of fiercely passionate, devastatingly original kreations from all your favorites. Now that TKK headquarters are back in operation, failing to deliver this material would be a betrayal of our obligations as kreationists. So, with further ado being unnecessary and thusly forgone, sit back and prepare to have every preconceived notion you have ever had about life, living, and existence annihilated by The Kreation Korner.

Fiction Korner

Esteemed fiction writer Jawn Steighmeaus returns this week with a chilling, metaphor-soaked account of the harsh realities of post-modern life. As the reader, you might be taken aback by some of the crude-seeming language Jawn employs. But are his words really what is crude or is it in fact you who is indeed crude? At The Kreation Korner, we believe the latter. Imbibe:

That was the day. The day my balls dropped. My soccer ball and football both. Dropped right into a deep, dark pit they did. My puck fell in too, but it's not a ball so much.
"What about the games, Charlie? The games?" Heathcliff asked, tears welling in his fluorescent space-orb eyes.
"There won't be no more games, old friend," I responded, holding back some optical moisture myself. "The days of hockey and champagne are over."
Life on the farm was never the same after that. Heathcliff got a job as a successful butler, and I got back my old position at the sweater plant. Everyday I trudge through the cable knit jungle knowing those balls are still out there festering under Father Time's gnarled thumb only to be discovered someday by an unsuspecting archeologist or possibly an oil prospector.

A Grand Mistake

A little over two weeks after the Korner birthed what should have been a healthy baby boy of a new feature, we at the KKHQ have realized our folly. Since the inception of "Is This Anything?", how many replies have we received? Zero. That's how many. Unless you count spam as an intelligent discussion of a poem-in-question's validity, which I surely do not. We here at the Korner are incredibly disappointed in the undoubted multitudes which gaze upon our Kreation Korner each and every day with rapt anticipation. We thought you little people had something to say! Apparently we thought wrong. In our infinite optimism and search for truth, we at the Korner have discerned from this sorry mess that maybe we simply are more special than most. We try to remain fair and believe that all have it within them to kreate, but perhaps it's simply an endeavor meant for the chosen few. This is not meant to discourage, but if you people don't have the kajones to step over that proverbial line and say, "I am human! Hear me roar!", there is not much to be done. In the end, our resolve to blow mind, body, and soul has been strengthened by the affair, and we now kommit ourselves anew to liberation of the human nation through positive kreation. I leave you with a poem that I think is entirely relevant to this post:

clank clank clank
robotic movements
(not human)
we are motorized
slaves to the system
clank clank
CLANK
go these automated appendages
cogs in the machine is
all we
ARE
revolutionrevolutionrevolution
(necessity)

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Poet's Korner

Look at you with your
brown skin
I wish I could get
skin like that.
Every time I step
Into the sun
It's the same shit.

BURN-PEEL-WHITE
BURN-PEEL-WHITE
BURN-PEEL-WHITE.

-Jacqeau