mantis meets mate

While waiting patiently for prey to pass, stagmomantis carolina female Z’zhhchk’t spied an apparently suitable mate coming slowly over nearby rocks. Curious, she cocked her grey head toward him, focusing him squarely in her binocular vision, and made subtle sounds to indicate she was in heat. The male began his mating dance, swaying this way then that and rearing up in playful menace on his hind legs.

Finding him properly strong and graceful, Z’zhhchk’t moved into a welcoming position, flashing her eyespots seductively. The male approached further. Once copulation had commenced and he was firmly locked within her grasping fore-claws, she used her powerful pincers to remove his at the base of the neck, eating it as his genetic material fertilized her.

Once impregnated fully, Z’zhhchk’t consumed the rest of his body before settling back into ambush-predator mode, her speckled exoskeleton and complete stillness making her all but disappear into the surrounding terrain. Within her abdomen, cells split, then split again.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 15 Oct 2017

Rich clods of earth break
Stalks are cut for composting
The harvest was good

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

squirrels make peace

squirrels make peace

In the aftermath of a series of nearly-fatal shootings, the squirrels native to UCLA's botanical garden in a written statement sued for peace with humans. 'We see the error in our ways, and swear to mend them,' the short document read. 'From this day forward we will tolerate being teasing with, and attempts at play.'

“Those bushy tree rodents chap my buns,” said the alleged gunman, a Mr. Windthrowp, while hanging from construction beams rigging the underside of a nearby freeway ramp. “The little bastards should be happy I didn't have more than that derringer with; concealed permee is up though and with the heat on my ass I keep two shots.” “What?” he said upon reading the squirrel's statement. “This is clearly a ploy: trust them less than Stalin.”

At last observation, the situation appeared calm, these squirrels having adopted a posture of aggressive but civilized disdain toward the park's visitors.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

leisurely summer, “satisfying”

Choosing to lounge around in his boxer-shorts instead of going about his wood-chopping, garden-tending, and home-maintenance chores, 29 year-old Maryland native Frederick Rillenhof said just this morning that his summer of abject, sun-soaked leisure was far more satisfying than performing any of the duties he admitted were necessary to keep him alive through the upcoming winter. “I hope to have a job by fall,” the home-owner said while trying to find a way to make his window-mounted air-conditioning unit produce more cool air. ”And I'm going to need one to pay for all this electricity I'm using, and for all the heating oil I'll have to buy in order to keep this damn place warm when it starts to snow.”

Sitting by an open, southward-facing screen door of his four-bedroom home, Frederick, who lives alone, said he enjoyed feeling the cold air stream past him, because it cooled him off a bit before escaping into the blast-furnace heat outside. “I just love that,” he said while poking at a brand-new, touch-screen-equipped tablet computer. “Feeling the breeze that the A-C is making, knowing that I have a fridge full of food just waiting for me to eat. I got a call from my credit card company this morning asking for payment on last month's bill, but what are they going to do, cut me off? I pay my mortgage with that platinum card, bitches.”

While poking around in the tall weeds behind the house (after being shooed outside to pee unless we, “Wanted to go all the way up to the third floor to use that bathroom, since all the other ones are clogged”), this news team discovered a discarded ax and a decrepit bow-saw, both of which were rusting away atop a woodsman's sawhorse. Next to these forgotten tools was a large mound of good lumber, the ends of which were however beginning to show signs of rot. When we asked him about the wood wasting away in the backyard, Mr. Rillenhof declared that he was too busy watching a marathon session of a popular reality-television series that focuses on crab-fishing off the coast of Alaska to get to sawing or splitting anytime soon, and that he would handle it once the weather turned a bit cooler. He declined to comment on his vegetable garden, however, which was in a sorry state, indeed.

場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit

goodbye, national victory garden month

Contrary to attempts by lobbyists hired by sellers and manufacturers of grilling-related materials, they who make and market charcoal, compressed natural gas, roll-away cooking tops, and the flesh of animals, to have the federal government of the United States of America officially designate the month of May something as utterly foolish as National Grilling Month, that selfsame government has come to its senses and passed such legislation as is necessary to promote the common citizen's assistance in her nation's various war efforts. By designating May as National Victory Garden Month (and striking down previous efforts to hoist aloft such a petty, consumption-driven, non-victory-related activity as lighting a fire in one's yard and heating upon that fire meat, or vegetables), the federal government has recognized, and dutifully underlined, the role that each and every citizen in expected to play in helping her nation to end the multiple acts of aggression it initiated – against sovereign foreign peoples who had not really done anything bad – swiftly and without too much additional bloodshed.

Championed via a bi-partisan panel filled with the more intelligent, forward-thinking, non-corruptible members of the U.S. House and Senate, National Victory Garden Month (NVGM) will feature a nation-wide series of classes (held at most United States Postal Service locations) to teach the People how to grow sustainable, organic foods in Their own square-foot gardens. Furthermore, NVGM will feature the distribution of organic, heirloom seeds and the distribution of high-quality gardening tools made in America by proud, upstanding, victory-conscious citizens, not by aloof foreigners who care nothing for this nation's success in her armed conflicts. Additionally, good, dark soil, and the materials needed to make raised beds, will be available for pick-up at any of the NVGM certified, small-scale mom-and-pop stores that have survived, over the last decades, the Assault of the Big Discount Retailers, which have reduced our once-high wages, lessened our once-high standards of living, and generally helped to make America a more homogeneous, worse place, a place all but devoid of self-sufficient, self-respecting individuals who actually reuse things.

Gone are the days when the good honest people of this nation were asked to do little else than to burn things and to stand around eating fatty burgers and drinking warm beer; arrived are the days when we as individuals are given the tools to guarantee victory, when we are expected to do our part in shaping for America, for ourselves, for our children's children's children, and for the world, a better, greener, and more sustainable future. So please, my good honest fellow ketchup-eaters – rip out your backyard BBQ and plant a garden in its place; sink your hands into a cool heap of soil instead of digging those hands into the couch cushions in search of your TV's remote control. Every piece of steel you do not absolutely Have To have made into a ride-along lawnmower can be used by our brave warriors overseas; every scrap of leather you don't absolutely Have To have made into a reclining armchair can benefit our proud claw-lads and talon-lasses. Together, we can fight the dangers of consumption for the sake of consumption while helping our boys and girls to win the wars we have asked them to fight for us. Arise, masses chewing lazily at your bits – together, we shall can make America a better place for all.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit