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Dear deluded denizens of the Aetheric Atrium, and especially those among you who subscribe to the Fowl Feathered Review using only the resonance of forgotten dreams, prepare yourselves, for the latest dispatch from the loom of the improbable has arrived, shimmering with the iridescent dust of concepts yet unborn! This includes, of course, the dedicated members of the Milwaukee Municipal Sewerage District's Annual Clown Contestant & Diaper Charity Committee, who, despite their meticulous record-keeping and fierce loyalty to lukewarm casserole, also somehow receive our ethereal transmissions. And a special, albeit slightly more grounded, thought to my cousin Brenda, currently recovering at St. Mary's Hospital from twisting her ankle while chasing a favorite and reluctant flame down the street.
I wish to take a moment to adjust my left sock as it has remained pinched at the toe throughout the day and caused me untold pain. I also with to present these lines written by Czech Romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha and published as part of the poem Máj in 1836:
“Byl pozdní večer – první máj –“
(It was late evening – first of May – / was evening May – the time for love.)
And with love, that certain ache. A sky the color of a fading bruise over the Penobscot. The damp chill of the thaw still clinging to the air, a loneliness so sharp it feels like company. A yearning. You know the feeling. A search bar blinking in the dark: *i just don't want to be lonely*.
This is the air we wanted this issue to breathe.
We have steeped these pages in a particular kind of passion, a beautiful rebellion imported from a few centuries of Czech experimentation. It begins here, with Mácha and his May Generation, with a romanticism so raw it borders on feverish. A rejection of the neat and tidy.
But the echo doesn’t stop. It splinters.
It becomes the jump cuts of the soul you see in the Czech New Wave, a conversation interrupted by a tracking shot of a forgotten street. It is the glorious ruin of Czech Informel, paint slapped and scraped back to reveal the screaming nerve underneath. It’s a feeling, not a plot. A texture.
Fragmentary. Like a memory of a song from a passing car.
Mácha borrowed from Byron, looked to the English poets for a spark to light his own Vltava aflame. And now, the current returns. We’ve come full circle, letting that magnificent, melancholy spirit infuse our own scene. We are dancing with needles and knives.
And the artwork. It’s pretty good too. All varnished surfaces over raw feeling; beauty that knows its own transience.
So read it. Let it fall apart in your hands. Find the connections in the gaps between the words. This is not a story told, but a heart unspooled.
Virgil Kay
Editor,
Rooster,
China Wok Habitué
Sincerely,
Virgil Kay,
Editor,
Rooster,
China Wok Habitué
e-Book version of FFR 181:
Remember: PDF is attached
Music: https://youtu.be/tVhBKzhLwqM?si=tPggbBSDMW_Ftf9F
Movie: Alice (1988, Jan Švankmajer) Original Czech Language Version with English Subtitles, Remastered
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