I am gonna hiatus this blog a while. I’ve posted here every month for like seven years so you can trawl the archives I’m sure. If you are desperate to read new words and they must be mine, I continually microwrite microthings on the microblogging platform twitter (username @ johannespunkt) or you could email me at johannespunkt at gmail etc. I might even respond.
I would be remiss not to mention that the third (amazing) issue of Reckoning, which we’ve worked all year on, is out now. You can see the cover below, made by Stylo Starr, and if you click on it or the link below you’ll be whisked away to a page where you can buy the ebook for a mere 7 American dollars. Come read about extinct animals and endangered justice. 
Faithful readers few,
Back in the long-ago, in those distant foggy times when I had a Twitter account, I used to tell people to give me a topic, any topic, and I would produce for them a rhyming couplet about that. That was fun. Since I no longer have that avenue for boring and political reasons, let us say that you can email me at johannes.punkt @ gmail . com, and politely request a poem. Then, as if by magic, one will appear. I reserve the right to make it a bad poem and also to change the rules. This offer is open indefinitely. Do let your poetry- or weirdness-loving friends know. I need things to do in idle times.
Here are a few examples of such poetry, from those dark days long past:
Sometimes your thoughts are gold and you feel wise
and other times it’s like “…view 18 more replies.”
— On “The Missing Link in the Otherwise Perfect Chain of Thought”
You wear long dark gloves alone
in solidarity with stone.
— On “Statues Missing Limbs”
They rub their hands together not
for God but cuz they hatched a plot.
— On “Just How Athetistic Praying Mantises Really Are”
One pill, two pill, red pill, blue pill;
I’m a bit uncomfortoobill.
— On “Medication”
A while back I asked my Twitter friends and strangers to ask me for life advice, because I felt the urge to write life advice on post-it notes. This very quickly became very difficult, as I squeezed all my wisdom out pretty quickly and had to generate more by having offworld adventures and learning deep lessons in deeper space, but eventually I pulled through, and everybody who asked for a post-it in a certain time period, and also everyone whom I mistook for having asked for a post-it, was given one. I thought I’d share them here too.
Some of these are for people I don’t really know, and as such I’ve simply given them advice I would give myself. Some of them are for people I know very well and, as such, I’ve given them advice I wouldn’t dream of giving a stranger. If something here feels like bizarro evil-twin shenanigans to you, that piece of advice is probably not for you. And that’s okay.
Sorry that these images are not captioned. There are a lot of images.
Advice for @jakespecialk.
Advice for comradesputnik.
Advice for @prismofstars.
Advice for @sciphotogastro.
Advice for @ohmydeardreamer.
Advice for @light_thief_.
Advice for @muffinlab.
Advice for @lambdagrrl. The Charlotte Shane writing is from a piece titled Gave Freely.
Advice for @vaguelyberd.
Advice for @taylorshannonn.
Advice for @NDXON.
Advice for @___liwanag.
Advice for @suntzufuntzu.
Advice for @vecna.
Advice for @Panterdjuret.
Advice for @streamofpixels.
Bonus life advice from Piet Hein, who wrote little aphorisms he called grooks. He helped keep Denmark fighting against the nazis during their occupation. He’s worth reading/reading about.
Advice for @Croxus. “What did you do for the revolution today?” is from an Unwoman song called The Future, the Boot.
Advice for @derelictmemory_.
Advice for @earlgreyhot. The Trista Mateer quote is from a blog Q&A thing, if I remember correctly.
Advice for @effIuences.
Advice for @MitchDokken.
Advice for @fictionaljosh.
Advice for @kerastion.
Here’s an email I sent, which was never answered. It’s from a business idea that me and Jenny H are running.
Dear Steven,
Greetings from AlterDream. As you can guess from us not having our own domain email yet, we are a small start-up. Unlike most start-ups though, we have a big and nearly untapped market of potential customers just waiting for us, and we would like to work with you on this. As our name implies, we represent an alternative to the current industry, which we feel has grown insular and detached from its customer base, even though no competitor has (yet) risen to challenge their authority. We believe, as you do, the customer has a right to choose who they dream with, just like they have a right to choose their phone operator.
Let me give you the pitch we give our potential customers, almost all of them still subscribed to the network in an agreement they believe is binding. Are you tired of the network? Did you have bad dreams last night, again? But are you somehow still worried about signing up for some garage-run indie lucid that will curse you to low-resolution dreams with even less coherence and structure? Are you worried about their cost-cutting, that they would save money by regurgitating old träuma? We know your pain. We’ve been there. At AlterDream, we seek to provide high-quality dreams to our customers, available at the tips of their ears when they hit the pillow. You can see us as the Neflix of dreams, if you like.
So you might be wondering, what could a brood dreamscultptor want with you? Well, here is our business secret, something our customers do not (yet) know: to save money on production cost, casting, and symbolism, we are letting several people have the same dream simultaneously. We have the tech for most of the senses, but what we don’t have is good solutions for voices in your head. In short, we want you, as the best telephone company in the UK, to run the telecom side of our venture. Imagine offering new customers the dream deal.
There are many details to be smoothed out, of course, and many numbers to be run, but I hope I have enticed you. Do call back soon — the offer is not indefinite.
Best,
Johannes Punkt, head of Recurring Motifs
A few pictures of OTHER PLACES IN DREAMS in situ:
By Lena Bohman:
YOU WAKE UP WITH THUNDER IN YOUR SKULL. THERE IS A DREAM AT THE EDGE OF YOUR COGNITION. IT FEELS JUST OUT OF REACH, LIKE IF YOU TRY TO REMEMBER MORE IT MIGHT ALL FADE. THERE WAS SOMETHING IMPORTANT IN THE DREAM. HOW DO YOU TRY TO REMEMBER IT?
RETELL THE DREAM?
LET IT COME BACK ON ITS OWN?
RETELL THE DREAM
YOU HOLD THE STRUCTURE OF THE DREAM IN YOUR SKULL, BLUEPRINTS OF A MASSIVE BUILDING. YOU TRY TO REMEMBER IT ALL, BUT THE CHALK MARKS DISSOLVE, YOUR DREAM GIVES WAY TO REAL WALLS, CEILINGS, FLOORS. YOU’RE IN YOUR BED.
GO BACK TO SLEEP?
OPEN DREAM JOURNAL?
By @jakespecialk:
TAKE A PHOTO BEFORE IT FADES
THE FIRST POLAROID COMES OUT WITH ALL THE TEXT ON IT, BUT IT BLEACHES TOO QUICK TO READ. THEY ALL DO THAT. MAYBE YOU PUT THE FILM IN BACKWARDS.
BREAK SOMETHING?
TRY TO HOLD ON?
TRY TO HOLD ON
WAS IT A DREAM YOU HAD?
IT WAS MORE LIKE
A LONG MOVIE OF A MEMORY YOU HAD, BUT IT WAS NOT YOUR MEMORY. YOU REMEMBER: THE WORDS YOU COULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE WORDS YOU WOULD USE FOR THE DREAM. WORDS LIKE ELDRITCH, HOLLOW, FLUID.
NO, IT WAS A MEMORY THAT HAD YOU.
The signs are ripe like fresh fruit. If you’re in St. Louis or somewhere within a four-hour radius of it with time to kill, find Tower Grove Park, the corner of Grand and Arsenal, and begin your journey with OTHER PLACES IN DREAMS.
Pictures to come.
I bet you’re all wondering why I gathered you here. It’s simple: you’re in the St. Louis area and I have something that will interest you. Within the next week or so, a contract of textboxes will appear in the South Grand neighbourhood. Or rather, the artist will make the textboxes appear. They will become appeared.
OTHER PLACES IN DREAMS is a project by Lena Bohman. Text: Johannes Punkt. Artist: Lena Bohman. Technical Assistance: Rachael Telleman.
It is a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure, where the story is something to do with a dream you just had, and you want to remember it. You have to make choices and then read what those choices lead to.
THIS IS THE PLACE IN DREAMS THAT IS INSIDE, DREAMED BY SOMEONE LIKE YOU
I am very excited about this. This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever been involved in.
THIS IS THE PLACE IN DREAMS THAT IS OUTSIDE, WHERE IT DREAMS, LIKE IT MIGHT RAIN OR SNOW OR HAIL
I will make another update when the thing kicks off for real. When I do, you should find yourself in Tower Grove Park, at the corner of Grand and Arsenal, and you shall read
PREHENSILE NONSENSE, BRIGHT BLUE WORDS WRITTEN ON THE SIDEWALK WHICH YOU CANNOT READ OF COURSE
If you go on this adventure, please take pictures and send them to me. Please let me know what consequences your actions have, and what emotions are wrought from this paint.
Good talk, friends.
Three trees that fall from the sky: confetti, propaganda, burning paper wings.
Triad written by me and Rob Mitchelmore (@kerastion).
Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost 