Tag Archives: Tim W. Jackson
Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, February, 2022
Temperature: 77
Humidity 63%
Precipitation – Not today
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Blacktip Island Literary Society Begins Growing Organic Poetry
The shredded bits of Anne Bradstreet’s poem Contemplations are being transformed into a new poem in a laboratory dish at the Blacktip Island Poesy Society. The poem is one of a dozen poems society members are growing organically. (photo courtesy of Stefan Wolkowski)
The Blacktip Island Poesy Society this week announced members have begun an organic poetry contest to discover if, under the right conditions, literature can be grown in Petri dishes, BIPS members said.
“We all wanted to work on something different, not rehash the same old sonnets and couplets,” BIPS prefect Doris Blenny said. “Joey Pompano mentioned organic poetry, and we figured, ‘well, why not’ The idea caught fire from there.
“Each member chose their favorite poet, shredded a poem by that poet and put the scraps in a Petri dish with the saline solution of their choice,” Blenny said. “There’s already growth in all of them, but we can’t make out any words yet. For now, it’s mostly just green scum, but that’s exciting in itself.”
Society members say the experiment has multiple aims.
“We want to grow new poetry, sure, but we also want to see if the style and syntax changes,” Corrie Anders said. “Will a Kipling poem produce another poem with rhyming couplets, or will it morph into free verse? We could have a situation where theme and sensibility change radically with the passage of time. And the strength of the saline solutions.
“We’re working with poems in English from across the spectrum,” Anders said. “I’m doing John Donne. Lee’s Helm’s doing a translated page from the Iliad. Marina DeLow’s got Edna St. Vincent Millay. Hugh Calloway’s working with Christina Rosetti. And ‘Tonio Fletcher picked Ezra Pound—no telling what’ll grow out of that one.”
Literary experts cast doubt on the experiment.
“Organic poetry is literary work springing naturally from the author’s connection to the world around him or her,” Tiperon University-Blacktip literature adjunct Edwin Chub said. “It’s not something literally grown from organic matter. Seriously?
“It’s based on the idea of man and nature being part of the same form, and the poem’s meaning springs from that,” Chub said. “The goal isn’t to literally spawn new poems from older ones. The only thing the BIPS people are going to grow in their dishes is algae.”
BIPS members brushed aside that criticism.
“Old stick-in-the-mud Edwin can read, and believe, whatever he wants,” Antonio Fletcher said. “We’re creating a new art form. They laughed at Emily Dickinson with her dashes and slant rhymes. They laughed at Chaucer writing in English. We’re not gonna be constrained by hidebound mockery.
“Me, I mixed a little iguana poop in with my Pound-and-saline, just to see what that’ll produce,” Fletcher said. “And when everybody’s finished growing their poems, we’re gonna harvest ‘em and have a poetry slam to show off our creations. You’ll see.”
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Temperature: 68
Humidity 52%
Precipitation – Not a chance
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Blacktip Island Distillery Inadvertently Creates Hallucinogenic Whiskey
Blacktip Island’s wild chortleberries are the key ingredient in Seaberry, the new hallucinogenic whiskey being distilled on the small Caribbean Island. (photo by Paloma Fairlead/BTT staff)
Blacktip Island’s sole distillery, attempting diversify its product line, this week inadvertently created a batch of rye whiskey with hallucinogenic properties, distillery owners said.
“We were trying to come up with an island-themed, flavor-enhanced whiskey to appeal to a niche market,” Bunghole Distillery owner Lefty Wright said. “Rosie Blenny suggested we use native Blacktip chortleberries, since the birds and iguanas love ‘em, so we added a handful to one of our ageing barrels. It taste’s phenomenal. We call it ‘Seaberry Rye.’
“What we didn’t know is Caribbean chortleberries are a natural source of psilocybin—that’s why wildlife likes ‘em,” Wright said. “And apparently the distilling process enhances the effects. First hint we had something was amiss was Alison Diesel complaining her left hand had stopped breathing. Then Gage Hoase belly-crawled onto the road and just lay there, soaking up the heat with the iguanas. Our marketing folks are in high gear figuring the best way to promote this stuff.”
Island residents praised the new whiskey.
“Seaberry’s quite lovely,” Reg Gurnard said. “It tastes of a nice, dry, small-batch rye, then it takes one on a brief holiday. No telling where you’ll be when the berries wear off. That’s part of the allure. When I came back down this morning, I found myself sitting on the edge of the bluff, staring down at the sea. That was quite the eye opener!”
Local authorities had a dimmer view of the new product.
“This is precisely what we warned about when Lefty got that liquor license,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Lack of oversight leads to irresponsible brewing, and distribution of dangerous substances. It’s a public menace. People who consume this hooch put themselves and others in danger.
“Just today I found Jessie Catahoula perched on top of a power pole, with her shorts on her head, insisting she was a kingbird,” Marquette said. “She said she flew up there. I had to fly up and get her down. We need to shut that distillery. Yesterday.”
Distillery owners, however, plan to step up production.
“Folks can’t get enough of Seaberry. We’d be crazy to stop making it,” Wright said. “We’re not doing anything illegal. People just need to partake in moderation and exercise some personal responsibility. Worst case, tie yourself to a tree before taking a drink.
“There’s an upside to all this, once you know what to expect,” Wright said. “Just yesterday Elena Havens spent the afternoon watching a giant eye on the ceiling chant, ‘love, love, love’ at her. What could be more positive than that? We didn’t mean to make a hallucinogen, but now that we have, we’re gonna keep catering to Blacktippers wants and needs ‘til somebody makes us stop.”
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, January 23, 2022
Temperature: 76
Humidity 59%
Precipitation – Passing us by
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Blacktip Island Sees Surprise Crypticcurrency Boom
Detritus and abstract concepts have replaced physical currency among many Blacktip Island residents. (photo by Wendy Beaufort/Blacktip Times)
Blacktip Island merchants this week were surprised by a sudden uptick in the use by many of the small Caribbean island’s residents of what has been termed ‘crypticcurrency’, business owners said.
“It’s sort of like cryptocurrency, only different,” said Peachy Bottoms, owner of the island’s sole grocery-and-sundries store. “Folks’re basically swapping out physical goods and services for items, gestures and concepts they say are of equivalent value. Just today Linford Blenny paid for his groceries with a dried iguana foot and a mumbled prophecy. Like with cryptocurrency, I don’t quite get it, but folks sound convinced, so I’m willing to give it a try.
“The first one to use it was cousin Dermott and, frankly, I was too scared to say ‘no,’” Bottoms said. “The way he explained it, it’s a form of semi-formalized bartering. And everybody’s doing it now, so I guess it’s here to stay. As long as I can pay my suppliers with it, I’m good.”
The currency’s creators say crypticcurrency is still in its formative stages.
“Can people make up non-physical items to exchange for physical ones? Sure,” Christina Mojarra said. “But so far no one’s really abused that. We’re all working together to come up with some kind of rough metric we can use multilaterally for our transactions.
“While we gather data, it really all depends on what the other person’ll accept, Mojarra said. “It’s actually kind of fun—no one’s sure what things are worth when put in these terms, so it’s a great cooperative, community-building exercise.”
Some locals say the currency is backed by island spirits.
“Saying nobody knows what things are worth, that’s a bunch of hooey,” handyman James Conlee said. “The duppies set the value of everything. Always have. Their island, you know. They just let us live here.
“They’re the ones’ll be policing everybody, too,” Conlee said. “Don’t doubt the duppies. Don’t cross the duppies. Not sure you can hear ‘em, or what they’re saying, ask me. I’ll tell you what’s what. Trust me on that.”
Other island residents refuse to use, or accept the new currency.
“They’re all deadbeats making it up as they go,” Eagle Ray Cove owner Rich Skerritt said. “Nut jobs like James and Dermott are robbing everybody blind. Me, and my businesses, we still use money. And’ll only accept money. Duppies? Bring ‘em on. Dermott tries to pay rent with a chunk of driftwood and the color orange, I’m chucking him out on his ass.”
Others were more open minded.
“Today Finn paid off his bar tab with what he had on hand,” Sand Spit bartender Cori Anders said. “There was no cash involved, but at least he paid it off. Sort of. The wild part was making change when the payment was neo-Hegelianism, a Humphrey Bogart impersonation and the number 42. I gave him a bird call and photographic reciprocity. He seemed happy with that.”
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The Blacktip Times 