The Petrel Gazette

I shoulda went when I shoulda went. Now I got this here bum knee and I can’t went nowhere nowise. Carrying a book can getya into a conversation. You don’t have to read the book, just carry it. Carrying a dog, a cat, a snake works just as well. But people with a bird on […]

Why did Hart Crane commit suicide? And why did T. S. Eliot not commit suicide? T. S. Eliot should have slashed his wrists in the bathtub. He was probably too neat to make a bloody mess like that. But think of the possibilities. He puts on a toga, pretends to be a noble Roman too […]

Dear Ray Johnson, Thank you very much for yours of the 27th instance. I hope you will forgive me for not responding sooner. That is, assuming that a response to your communication is required, or even appropriate. The nature of mail art makes it unclear whether either pertains. In any case, I did intend to […]

Sidney, the umbrella man, decided to diversify his business and added mandalas. The mandalas were geometric representations of the universe used as an aid to meditation. Nobody bought umbrellas except when it rained. Mandalas were good any day of the week. “Umbrella, umbrella,” Sidney sang. The next day, “Mandala, mandala, mandala.” One day he was […]

Don’t let evil doers or slow walkers ruin your day. Keep your neighbor in sight at all times. A bottle of water will keep the doctor away. If you are pregnant, report this to your draft board. If you are not pregnant, you are probably not the right gender. Crying towels are available beneath your […]

  Tony Kröger arrived home one day and found librarians sleeping in his bedroom. He went to the kitchen and talked to the maid. She was on a stew about all the smoking in the house. “Lord, I tell you, these people. I serve them coffee, and all they do is puff on their cigarettes […]

  During the summer of the year 509 B. C. Lucius Junius Brutus (no relation to the later Brutus who took part in the assassination of Julius Caesar) was struggling up a hill near Rome in company with Ludwig Büchner, brother of the German poet and playwright, Georg Büchner, and William Buckland, an English geologist. […]

John Cage was on the telephone. At first neither of us said anything. Then an operator broke in and said, “For the worldly wise we use regular ink. Spiritual contracts, however, are written in blood, or in some cases in red ink intended to simulate blood.” Stimulated, I started a succession of “Who Dat?” and […]

Dear Honorable Secretary, Please believe me that it is with reluctance that I approach you this way through the mails. I realize your time must be extremely limited, busy as you must be with thousands of daily communications just such as mine. I realize there are many others in our country eager to communicate with […]

  At the library my call slip was returned as if the material could not be found. I was instructed to speak to a librarian. What the library staff did not realize was that this item consisted of the actual body of the author squished down into a paper box and placed on a shelf […]