DEEP SCRATCH

Category: santa claus

  • The birth claws and death of santa by Steve Fly

    THE BIRTH OF SANTA

    snowdon falls

    king kong is out hunting

    mynah birds

    blizzard strikes

    kong shelters in a barn

    where merry mary

    is giving birth next to

    a mare also giving

    birth to two colts

    the next morning

    kong awakens

    at new-grange

    the barn has gone

    child and colts remain

    child is called santa

    arguments begin

    in the village about

    who will be foster

    father

    a decision is made

    on several dwarfs

    SANTA AND HIS LITTLE WEAPONS

    santa aged 9

    overhears dwarf nick

    speaking to his pals

    about the future police

    state

    santa decides to

    design some survival

    weapons

    kong’s weapon of

    brute strength is the only

    one capable of withstanding

    the santa spasm

    age11 santa returns

    from America where

    he raged for 90 days

    still in his battle fury and

    everyone afraid

    women reveal breasts

    perform bum shaking

    and twerk

    to ease the frothing frenzy

    santa catches

    glance of a large pair

    he stumbles

    and quickly townsfolk

    wrestle him into a

    trash can full of cold

    deer piss

    which explodes

    HOW SANTA GOT HIS CLAWS

    at 14 santa

    begs to join the boy-scouts

    but is refused and runs off

    hiding in chimneys

    and barns

    santa arrives at a

    football field

    he joins the game

    takes the ball to his feet

    and nobody can get it

    back from him

    eventually the other boys

    gang up and attack santa

    he goes into a red

    hulk spasm and

    beats them all upside

    the head

    shortly after

    king kong spots santa

    from the hill

    and invites him to his

    solstice barbecue

    but kong forgets

    after going fuzzy over

    a girl called fay

    and when santa arrives

    at the kong palace

    a guard dog is loose and

    attacks santa

    thinking him a red

    faced intruder

    santa kills the hound

    in self-defence

    throwing the dog down

    a well

    santa makes a vow to take

    the dogs place as

    guardian of the palace

    a druid poet called penny

    announces santa

    will have a new name

    santa claws

    SANTA SCRUBS UP PRETTY GOOD

    his hair was 

    blue at the base

    blood-red crimson

    in the middle and

    a crown of emerald

    green

    a triple helix

    flaying out

    shining strands rappelling

    the shoulder

    78 neat red-blue curls

    around his neck and head

    covered with one

    hundred crimson

    threads encrusted with

    gems and weird fungus

    four dimples in each cheek

    yellow green crimson

    and blue

    seven bright pupils

    eye-jewels in each

    his feet have seven

    toes and each hand

    seven fingers

    his nails shaped

    like a hawks claw

    SANTA CLAWS AT DEATH

    santa was fed reindeer meat

    stolen from reduced food

    isle at Tesco by an old crone

    tired and on the road

    santa dropped his guard and lost

    his magical red

    spasm power

    his reindeer and

    his sleigh-driver were killed

    outright by police horse

    meat poison

    santa was badly wounded

    and entered the death trip

    he tied himself to a rock

    covered in lichen

    he starts the perilous journey

    through the bardo

    questioning death

    and the beyond

    immortality and presents

    flash-backs descend on his brow

    the well

    the dead dog

    suddenly a crow lands

    on his shoulder and whispers

    the word rudolph

    in his ear

    which kills him with grief

    and dispair

    li sao

    for sorrow

    after one brief

    reincarnation in a

    bottle of sugar

    santa came back again

    in a cauldron

    when a group of

    kids started spitting

    and singing to the

    bubble-full elixir

    new santa climbs out

    the cauldron

    only to be attacked

    by more angry dwarves and

    brutally cannibalised

    his blood was drained

    into two separate socks

    frozen and put into storage

    in the old kitchen next to

    a dark wooden barn

    as the snowdon falls

    –Steve fly agaric 23
    Amsterdam

    23/12/13

    Steven James Pratt

  • Fly Agaric: Look but don’t touch (Highland News)

    I Love this article from Highland News! –fly

    Look but don’t touch “Alice in Wonderland” toadstool

    By Laurence Ford

    Keep a weather eye out for fly agaric.

    Keep a weather eye out for fly agaric.

    PEOPLE across the Highlands are being asked to look out for one of the most recognisable, highly toxic and mind-altering toadstools.
    The distinctive red and white fly agaric is said to have inspired both Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Caroll’s hookah-smoking caterpillar and the colours of Santa’s suit – but is also a useful indicator of the changing seasons.
    Now, Woodland Trust Scotland is asking people to keep an eye out for fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), the classic red and white spotted toadstool, during walks and record any sightings online.
    Fly agaric is widespread throughout the UK and commonly found on light soils in mixed woodland and heaths among birch and pine.
    Rory Syme, from Woodland Trust Scotland, said: “The best place to spot fly agaric is close to birch and pine trees. The wet summer we’ve had may mean that it will appear early this year. In previous years sightings have been recorded as early as the end of June.
    “Keeping track of key events in nature helps us record the changing seasons. Natural phenomena such as bird migration, changes in leaves and the appearance of flowers and fungi are some of the best indicators for climate change.”
    Fly agaric is toxic and was traditionally mixed with milk and left out in bowls to kill flies, which is where it gets its name.
    He added: “Fly agaric can be dangerous, so the best advice is to look but don’t touch.”
    Five facts about fly agaric:
    • Fly agaric was traditionally used as an insecticide, the cap broken up and sprinkled into saucers of milk. It’s now known to contain ibotenic acid, which both attracts and kills flies
    • The ‘spots’ are actually remnants of a white veil of tissue that encloses the young mushroom, and can sometimes be washed off by the rain
    • It was commonly found on Christmas cards in Victorian and Edwardian times as a symbol of good luck and its colours may have been the inspiration for Santa Claus’s red and white suit.
    • Fly agaric is mycorrhizal, forming a mutually beneficial relationship with its host tree. This association provides the tree with increased absorbtion of water and minerals, and the fungus with constant access to carbohydrates
    • One of the effects of consuming fly agaric is a perceived distortion in the size of objects. It has been said that Lewis Carroll’s hookah-smoking caterpillar in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was inviting her to take a bite from a fly agaric.
    Sightings can be recorded through the Nature’s Calendar Project at naturescalendar.org.uk

    http://www.highland-news.co.uk/News/ook-but-dont-touch-toadstool-appeal-20072012.htm

    Steven James Pratt

  • Untitled 1.0 and Fly Agaric at WIKIPEDIA.

     “Wasson and his school have demonstrated how mushroom language tends to be euphemized, masked, coded, buried in etymologies and even “false” etymologies.–Peter Lamborn Wilson, Irish soma.

    AMANITA MUSCARIA AND THE THUNDERBOLT LEGEND IN GUATAMALA AND MEXICO. BY L.LOWRY. 1973.–http://www.samorini.it/doc1/alt_aut/lr/lowy4.pdf



    UNTITLED 1.0

    “Lo saturnalia,

    Drink new flesh back with kwantum mechanix
    Fliegenschwamm gerr,
    Mukhomor flowing moments drunken bards piss somert,
    Tue-mouche Amanite,
    Born from nothing into La picene.
    Dark mother Earth: early autumn,
    Nourishing dark belly of night
    Receptive southwestern mother,
    Weak yielding
    It is difficult to get the news from poems.
    Jesusland economy seems symbiotic with the dollars role as reserve Currency
    Monstrous and oily-veined bloodhungry pricks feastupon
    Dharmadollar ghosts
    Holla,
    The great Eastern sun saves and radiates.
    All perception as gambowl
    And under the almond-trees, gods,
    lo! lands of Cyberia, Siberia and Peteurasia
    Persian Haoma + 5 indole Eztheotextz +
    Chinese + pranayama, may = “stoned” perception.
    http://www.maybelogic.org/maybequarterly/01/0121FlyUntitled.htm

     

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria

    Cultural depictions

    Children play on Jose de Creeft‘s sculpture Alice in Wonderland in Central Park, New York. Alice sits atop a mushroom, inviting children to climb up and join her. Whilst the mushroom in the sculpture is not a faithfully reproduced Amanita muscaria, the reference within Lewis Carroll‘s original literary work upon which the sculpture is based is often discussed.[112][113]

    Moritz von Schwind‘s 1851 painting Ruebezahl features fly agarics.[114]

    The red-and-white spotted toadstool is a common image in many aspects of popular culture, especially in children’s books, film, garden ornaments, greeting cards, and more recently computer games.[32] Garden ornaments, and children’s picture books depicting gnomes and fairies, such as the Smurfs, very often show fly agarics used as seats, or homes.[32][115] Fly agarics have been featured in paintings since the Renaissance,[116] albeit in a subtle manner. In the Victorian era they became more visible, even becoming the main topic of some fairy paintings.[117] Two of the most famous uses of the mushroom are in the video game series Super Mario Bros.,[118] and the dancing mushroom sequence in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia.[119]

    [edit] Literature

    The journeys of Philip von Strahlenberg to Siberia and his descriptions of the use of the mukhomor there was published in English in 1736. The drinking of urine of those who had imbibed the mushroom was commented on by Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith in his widely read 1762 novel Citizen of the World.[120] The mushroom had been identified as the fly agaric by this time.[121] Other authors recorded the distortions of the size of perceived objects while intoxicated by the fungus, including naturalist Mordecai Cubitt Cooke in his books The Seven Sisters of Sleep and A Plain and Easy Account of British Fungi.[122] This observation is thought to have formed the basis of the effects of eating the mushroom in the 1865 popular story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.[112] A hallucinogenic “scarlet toadstool” from Lappland is also featured as a plot element in Charles Kingsley‘s 1866 novel Hereward the Wake based on the medieval figure of the same name;[123] fly agaric shamanism is explored more recently in the 2003 novel Thursbitch by Alan Garner.[124]

    [edit] Christmas decorations and Santa Claus

    Fly agarics appear on Christmas cards and New Year cards from around the world as a symbol of good luck.[125] The ethnobotanist Jonathan Ott has suggested that the idea of Santa Claus and tradition of hanging stockings over the fireplace is based centrally upon the fly agaric mushroom itself.[75] With its generally red and white color scheme, he argues that Santa Claus’s suit is related to the mushroom. He also draws parallels with flying reindeer: reindeer had been reported to consume the mushroom and prance around in an intoxicated manner afterwards.[126] American ethnopharmacologist Scott Hajicek-Dobberstein, researching possible links between religious myths and the red mushroom, notes, “If Santa Claus had but one eye [like Odin], or if magic urine had been a part of his legend, his connection to the Amanita muscaria would be much easier to believe.”.[127]

    The connection was reported to a much wider audience with an article in the magazine of The Sunday Times in 1980,[128] and New Scientist in 1986.[129] Historian Ronald Hutton has since disputed the connection;[130] he noted reindeer spirits did not appear in Siberian mythology, shamans did not travel by sleigh, nor did they wear red and white, or climb out of smoke holes in yurt roofs. Finally, American awareness of Siberian shamanism postdated the appearance of much of the folklore around Santa.[131]

    …
    http://www.maybelogic.org/maybequarterly/01/0121FlyUntitled.htm

    TRANSLATED BY GOOGLE FROM GIORGIO SAMORINI.
    http://samorini.it/site/en/antropologia/asia/amanita-muscaria-siberia/

    The Amanita muscaria from Siberian populations

    amanita koriako

    Koriako Shaman who plays the drum inside a yurt (tent). From Jochelson, 1905
     

    The fly-agaric Among the Siberian Populations
    The use of the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria (Fly agaric mushroom) is attested in Siberian regions in the images of prehistoric rock carvings of various archaeological sites in the rivers Yenisei and Pegtymel . The ethnographic reports of the last century documented use as intoxicating in different populations.
     
    Its use is attested in two vast regions of Siberia. The first concerns the territory of Siberia to the north-west including the rivers Dvina and Kotuj, including the peninsula of Tayma. In this region the people involved in the use of the fungus belongs to the Ural language family, and they are: Khanty (Ostiaki), Mansi (Vogul), Forest Nenets, Selkup (Samoidei group), Nganasan, Ket (Yenisei Ostiaki of) . According to recent observations of Saar (1991), with these people today use the fungus became extinct.
     
    The second region covers the eastern part of Siberia from the Kolyma River, including the peninsula of Kamchatka and the people involved are: Chukchi, Koriaki, Itelmen, Eskimos, Chuvanian (one of the tribes Yukagir), Yukagir, Even Russians who settled for centuries and along the Kolyma River.
     
    The use of the fungus has been reported by ethnographers of the nineteenth century, even among the Lapps of Inari in northern Scandinavia (Wasson, 1968) and at the northern Komi living in the Urals (Dunn, 1973).
     
    Anthropologists of the Russian post-revolutionary period reported that, with the advent of Soviet power, the Siberian populations stopped their old practice of fly-agaric ingestion dell’agarico, “Socialist soon reaching the stage of social development” (in rip. Wasson, 1968: 151). Following the political change in post-Soviet 1990s, anthropologists, more free from censorship, they returned to report the use of the fungus in these populations, showing that this use was in fact never been stopped (see Saar, 1991) .
     
    Depending on the populations of Fly agaric mushroom was and is used collectively for ceremonies and parties, or used by shamans to promote healing trance during practices or to contact the spirits of the dead, in divination and the interpretation of dreams. And ‘as fortifying used during long journeys and hunting. And ‘highly probable that originally was exclusively use shamanic and subsequently weakening the institution of shamanic power and the use of the fungus has spread to other members of the tribal society.
     
    During the fly-agaric dall’agarico induced visions they occur in siberian investigator of anthropomorphic figures without arms and legs, and regarded the spirits of the fungus called “man-love” or “dummies”, which communicate with the investigator and the lead for hand in the afterlife journey. These “men-like” to play an important role in the interpretation of the experience with the fungus, are depicted in prehistoric petroglyphs of the ancient Siberian peoples and are a recurring theme in mythology and stories of Yakuti, Chukchee and other tribes present.
    See: The Amanita muscaria among the Chukchi (V. Bogoraz)
     
    The Siberian populations have found that the urine of those who have eaten the Fly agaric mushroom is also equipped with psychoactive properties and are known for the bizarre habit of drinking his own urine or that of other individuals to prolong the effects of the fungus.
    It is very likely that these people have discovered the psychoactive properties of the urine of those who have eaten the same mushroom fungus and observing the behavior of the reindeer, which are both tasty and intentionally become drunk with the Fly agaric mushroom, which the urine of other reindeer that have eaten.
    See:
    The Amanita muscaria among Koriaki (W. Jochelson)
    The use of Amanita muscaria among Siberian Koriaki (J. Enderli)
    The Amanita muscaria among Ugri (Ostiaki and Vogul) (KF Karjalainen)
    The Amanita muscaria among Kamchadal (Erman)
     
    ri_bib
    ETHEL DUNN, 1973, Russian Use of Amanita muscaria: A Footnote to Wasson’s Soma, Current Anthropology, vol. 14, pp.. 488-492.
    GEERKEN HARTMUT, 1992, Fliegen Pilze? Merkungen Anmerkungen und und zum Schamanismus Sibirien in Andechs, Integration, vol. 2 / 3, pp. 109-114.
    WALDEMAR Jochelson, 1905-1908, The Koryak, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
    Langsdorf GH, 1809, Einig Bemerkungen day Eigenschaften des Kamtschadalischen Fliegenschwammes betreffend, Annalen für die Wetterauischen Gesellschraft gesammte Naturkunde, vol. 1 (2), pp. 249-256.
    ROSENBHOM ALEXANDRA, 1991, in Der Fliegenpilz Nordasien, in: W. Bauer, E. A. Klapp & Rosenbhom (Ergs.), Der Fliegenpilz, Wienand Verlag, Cologne, pp.. 121-164.
    SAAR MARET, 1991, date from Siberia and North Ethnomycological-East Asia on the effect of Amanita muscaria, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, vol. 31, pp.. 157-173.
    R. Wasson GORDON, 1967, Fly Agaric and Man, in: Daniel H. Efron, Bo Holmstedt & Nathan S. Kline (Eds.), Psychoactive Drugs Search for Ethnopharmacologic, U.S. Department of Health, Education and welfare state, Washington, pp. 405-414.
    Father Wasson VALENTINA & R. Gordon Wasson, 1957, Mushrooms, Russia and History, Pantheon Books, New York, 2 vol.
    R. Wasson GORDON, 1968, Soma. Divine Mushroom of Immortality, HBJ, New York.

    Steven James Pratt