Janet Kuypers performs in the
poem/pr... Janet Kuypers
performs in the poem/prose
'Peunderstood' during the July
17 2007 performance art show
'Living in a Big World', live
07/17/07 at the Cafe (5115
North Lincoln Avenue, in
Chicago, Illinois). The show
comtained poems and music from
assorted musicins from
Wisconsin, Ohio, Ten
more

Janet Kuypers performs in the
poem/pr... Janet Kuypers
performs in the poem/prose
'Peunderstood' during the July
17 2007 performance art show
'Living in a Big World', live
07/17/07 at the Cafe (5115
North Lincoln Avenue, in
Chicago, Illinois). The show
comtained poems and music from
assorted musicins from
Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee,
New Mexico, and even Canada,
as well as original sampled
music, include the writings
listed toward the bottom of
this show explanation. But in
this show, Janet Kuypers,
because shw was exemplifying
living in a big world (the
title of the show), she drew a
large chair, painted it onto a
white canvas (which actually
was a bunch of pieces of 8.5'
x 11' paper stuck together)
and attached it to a wooden
base, so she could literally
sit in a drawing of a large
chair (it was 60' wide,
actually). The visual display
of the artwork projected onto
a large paper screen for this
show (which once again was
actually a bunch of pieces of
8.5' x 11' paper stuck
together)was a drawn TV, and
inside the TV a bunch of Janet
Kuypers photographs from
around the world was shown in
this 'drawn' TV.

Artwork included in the
projected 'television' display
included:
The Reischtag in Berlin
Germany, Tiananmen Square in
Beijing China, a building in
Agrigento in Cicily Italy, Air
Force One with Presiden Geroge
H. W. Bush at Pease Air Force
Base in Omaha, Nebraska, a
downed airplane in Joliet,
Illinois, an airplane in
Naples Florida, the Arbeit
Macht Frei gate at the Dachau
Concentration Camp in Dachau
Germany, Arches National Park
in Utah, Arlington National
Cemetery in Arlington
Virginia, Bad Gastein Austria,
as bamboo frest in Oahu
Hawaii, a building in
Bruxelles.Belgium, castles in
rome, the Chicago skyline from
Lake Michigan with
superimposed landmarks like an
Egyptian pyramid and a
building from India and the
eiffel Tower and Big Ben and
Russian churches and a
mountain from the Alps, the
Colloseum in Rome, a mermaid
statue in Copenhagen Denmark,
the White Cliffs of Dover in
England, the Eiffel Tower in
Paris France, el Yunque
tropical rain forest in Puerto
Rico, Tallinn Estonia,
Gettysburg Pennsylvania, a
gondola in Venice Italy, the
Great Wall of China, the
Senate Square Cathedral in
Helsinki Finland, highrises in
Shanghai China, the Hollywood
sign in California, hot
strings in Wyoming, a
destroyed house after Katrina
in New Orleans Louuisiana, a
King Tut like human Egyptian
statue in Paris France, the
Last Vegas skyline, the
Louvre, Luxembourg, Michael
Stipe of R.E.M. in Urbana
Illinois, a painted building
in Montreal Canada, a
lefe-side replica of the
Parthenon in Nashville
Tennessee, a glove statue in
front of a church in Omaha
Nebraska, a pagoda near
Beijing China, salvages wall
art work in Pompeii, the
Pyramid of Cestius in Rome,
St. Petersburg Russia, San
Francisco, the Seasttle Space
Needle in Washington, Siberia
from the sky, a video still of
shydiving near the Rockies in
Longmont Colorado, the space
shuttle in Cape Canaveral, the
Statue of Liberty in New
Jersey/New York, a stop sign
in Mexico (that says 'alto'),
Stockholm Sweden, Olympic
Natl. Park Temperate Rain
Forest in Washington, the
Temple of Vesta in Rome, the
Vatican, and Zurich
Switzerland.

These are the writing included
in the live show:

the poem: Paranoia

we sit here at dinner.
I try to breathe.
My hands rest on my thighs.
I must watch to be sure,
everything must be right:
the silverware, small fork,
large fork, plate, knife,
large spoon, small spoon.
Water glass. Wine glass.

I know no one else sees them:
the fish, the red fish, in
the curtains along the wall.
You have to watch them.
My eyes always glance there.

They are evil fish. They sit
in the curtains, they wait,
and then they come out.

And the yogurt, the yogurt
is the only thing that can
save me from them. throw
the yogurt, take a spoon,
use your hands. Anything.

And we sat there before
dinner, and he ate his
yogurt with his first spoon
before I could stop him.

How could you do this? How
can you save yourself now?
Will I have to save you
again,
do you even understand
the danger

â??

the prose: Man Who Talks
Loud... Say Nothing

I try to learn about the
world, try to understand the
world. While first traveling,
I did a MidWest tour of
poetry, then was in a Chicago
poetry show at the National
Poetry Slam in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. I sell my
performance art audio on
iTunes & Naster, I try to
share myself with the world,
but I wonder if I'm actually
getting through to anyone.

I heard a Native American man,
whose parents were from two
different tribes (meaning that
he could never truly have an
allegiance with just one
tribe), say that after he
traveled extensively, he tried
to tell his story to the
people of either tribe, and no
one wanted to even listen to
him. They called him
Ex-eh-ba-che, which means 'man
who talks loud... say
nothing.'

Ex-eh-ba-che.
'Man who talks loud... say
nothing.'

Oh, what am I saying, I've
been around the world, but
I've never talked to a Native
American. That was actually
from a movie I saw, I don't
even know if 'Ex-eh-ba-che' is
a real word or means
anything.

But... If I want to see
something about the world
around me, maybe I should turn
on the tee vee, I mean, if
news channels can have
reporters in war zones,
there's got to be something
worth watching. Maybe I'll
just get out the remote and
turn on the tee vee, then
press the play button and see
what's out there in the
world.

â??

the poem: Fighting I Can Do

I know these are normal
things
for me to be going through

I know that I have been raped
and beaten
I know they've tried to kill
me
and lucky me, I survived

I think I can survive
everything they throw at me

But as time wears on
little pieces of this statue
are chipped away
everybody wants something,
right?
well, they've been taking from
me and taking and taking and
taking
and my defenses are getting
weaker
and I don't know how much
more
fighting I can do

â??

the poem: I Want

you know what I want?

i want a big house with
filtered central air
and i want a big lawn so i can
recreate nature

and i want a big fence so i'll
know what's mine

and i want the evergreens
trimmed into neat little
balls, because it has to look
neat. plant everything
in a row.

and i want to spray chemicals
on my lawn
to keep the dandelions away

and i want a plastic lobster
bib
over my fancy dress at the
fancy restaurant

and don't forget the hundred
dollar champagne

and i want a big fat car, and
i want
someone else to drive it

and i want the two kids, one
boy, one girl
and i want a nanny to take
care of them for me

i want to be famous
i want everyone to love me

i want it
i want it all

â??

the prose: Adjusting Your
Beliefs

We lived in Pennsylvania for 6
months, and while I continued
my work with cc&d magazine, I
got a P.O. box in the town
Intercourse Pennsylvania. And
actually, it was an amish
town, and we would go to the
store there to stock up on
spices, and the amish people
who worked there were all
short -

Now, I know I'm tall, but when
I say they were short I should
also say that their heads
looked child-like... that the
people working there looked
like they had a mild form, or
early stages of, downs
syndrome. We could only guess
by looking at the faces of
these people that the Amish
had too severe a history of
inbreeding, and no one new
came into their community.

And recently I was in
Champaign to plant a tree, and
we stopped at a mall and there
was this hydro massage store
in the mall - it was this
temporary place that had
booths set up for individuals
to lay down in, and many jets
of water pulsated into plastic
sheets over the person's body,
it was a massage thing that
people could pay for. Now, I
had seen things like this
before, but I was told I
should try this, you know,
just splurge, so I was in this
thing that looked like a
tanning bed for your body with
your head sticking out at the
end, and John talked to a few
girls there, because he
noticed how they looked liked
they were dressed in near
Amish, or Mennonite, clothing.
And he found out that these
girls were in their late
teens, and they came in from
out of town on a bus trip;
yes, they were Amish, but yes,
this was a trip sponsored by
their Amish community, and one
of the girls said she was on
this trip to hopefully find a
husband.

And it seems that they were
doing this, they were allowing
this much technology into the
outskirts of their lives, to
find someone else to have
children with.

Ah, the choices we make. The
sacrifices we make to help our
lives, or the things we are
willing to destroy when faced
with insurmountable
decisions.

â??

the poem: A Retired Policeman
Talks About Suicides He's
Seen

As a cop, I remember one lady,

we found her in her bathtub,
she cut her throat. That's
odd,
for women, normally they take
pills,
they don't like to disfigure
themselves. But she knew what
she was
doing, cutting her throat in a
full bath.
Less messy that way. Autopsy
said
she was full of barbiturates.
She was
a nurse, that explained how
she knew
how to do it, but then we
found out
that she was pregnant, too.
And to top
it off, her brother was a
priest.

â??

the prose: Technology and
Communication (which is prose
that has a bit of the poem
'Communication '05' in it)

Oh, I'm sorry. I was listening
to my iPod.
Oh, wait, let me see, maybe I
can hook this up to play the
music for you.

You know, I was thinking about
it - advancements in
technology have been a
wonderful thing, and many say
it's brought the world closer
together, have kept people
more connected. And on some
levels I can totally agree
with that - I mean, I read
submissions from email, saving
paper and ink and postage, I
keep magazines on line so
people around the world can
read good writing, I've even
had musicians from Wisconsin,
Ohio and Tennessee find my
readings and set music to my
words.
But in the same respect, I sit
all day at the same desk,
staring at the web sites for
the domain names I run,
instead of actually meeting
and working with people.

I mean, at one point, the
people i emailed the most
lived in the same city as me,
and were only a local call
away.
in fact, one of my friends
lived a block-and-a-half away
from me,
on the same street as me, but
i still emailed her as much as
i'd call her,
even though i could just walk
over to her house
and have an actual
conversation with her.

And even the phone, with cell
phones you can carry a phone
with you wherever you go, so
you'll never be lonely, but it
seems to give teenagers
another reason to talk
endlessly on the phone... And
I can't tell you how many
times I've wanted to attack
someone at a bar, who is there
with friends, who gets a
walkie-talkie-style call from
someone, and they take turns
screaming their heads off to
get little phrases to someone
who couldn't even be there
with them.

I mean, the iPhone just came
out, combining a cell phone
with an iPod, as well as email
and Internet web browsing. But
some bits of technology allow
you to tune the world out,
like the iPod here. When
people see these headphones on
someone, they know that you've
apparently found something
bigger and better than them
for their lives right now...
But even without technology,
when I go for walks every
morning, I wear the iPod, but
I also wear sunglasses, even
if it's overcast, so no one
knows if I am studying every
person I pass. With a lot of
the technology we have now, we
can learn about the rest of
the world - or we can tune out
the rest of the world and
ignore any news that doesn't
fit in with what we want to
believe.

â??

the poem: The Carpet Factory,
The Shoes

i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor

in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory

he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten

but the people from the
factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve

and then people complain to
me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china

now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these

will somebody have to die
for these

â??

the prose: Differences in
China: children & trains

Children in different parts of
the world... I saw in China
once a little boy outside, a
toddler, drop his pants at the
street side at a market and
just start pissing on the
sidewalk. And as I saw this, I
saw that all the people there
weren't even bothered by
this... Someone explained to
me that while they're little,
toddler boys in China can go
to the bathroom like that
outside - but if he goes
number 2, the mother has to
pick up his feces (you know,
like they were taking care of
a dog).

But on the trains in China,
they had a television screen
in every car, with clips from
what seemed like 'America's
Funniest Home Videos.' Well, I
couldn't understand a thing
anyone was saying in China on
this show on the train, but
you couldn't help but watch,
and you couldn't help but
laugh. It was a great means of
bringing levity when you're on
a public train, like when
you're on your way to work
every morning on the el.

â??

the poem: Private Lives 2005

sitting on the el train
i saw a middle-eastern man
sitting across from me
holding a large Zip-Loc bag
of some sort of food paste,
i couldn't tell,
it looked like some sort of
curry-filled food paste

and the man looked unhappy,
and after a few minutes
i saw him open up
the Zip-Loc bag,
throw up into it,
then close the bag again

so, he was carrying
his vomit with him
on the el

at least he had a bag
he could seal it up with

â??

the prose: Passport To Outer
Space

And a lot of us have
experiences around the city,
and I've tried to see the
world, not just this
continent, but 15 European
countries, Russia, China...
I've searched for these
stories around the world, I've
gotten my passport stamped
like mad... but my sister told
me about Don Stump, a friend
of my dad's who ran a
restaurant, well, his
father-in-law apparently
bought and had the rights to
the space in outer space (you
know, like all of the space
beyond out atmosphere between
planets and stars and comets
and asteroids and stuff...).
My sister even said that his
father-in-law stamped the
passports of the astronauts
that went into outer space,
since they were crossing the
areas he owned.
But Don Stump was pushed away
from their house once, because
at least two men from the FBI
were there... Apparently Don's
father-in-law was minting
coins, it wasn't money that
was valid anywhere, but it's
illegal for U.S. residents to
try to make any sort of profit
this way, the way they might
have potentially done.
Now, Don and his wife and
parents have passed away,
so.... I guess there's no way
I can pay them for having my
passport stamped for going to
outer space. But when you're
up high in the Earth's
atmosphere, a lot of places
look the same. I mean,
Siberia, with snow peaks and
mountain lines along the
eastern coast, looks like the
Rockies in America in the
winter. It's only when you get
closer to the ground do you
see the real differences.

â??

parts of the poem: In The Air

Chicago looks grand from the
sky
with this huge expanse of
lake
next to it, like civilization
crept up
as far as it could but finally
had to stop.
The power of nature stopping
the power
of mankind... Daylight, and
the snow
on the ground in the winter
time looks dirty,
too many cars have splashed
mud on it as they
drove by. And in the winter
the sky
always matches the shade of
grey of the snow:
fitting for the city of the
Blues.
Maybe the snow is already
that color, that perfect shade
of grey,
when it falls from the sky in
this city.

When I'm in the air, I like to
look
out the window. Clouds look
like
cotton balls when you're above
them,
and when you're landing cars
look like
little ants, on a mission,
bringing food
back to their hill. And the
streets look like veins,
capillaries in some
massive, monstrous body. And
the
farmlands look like little
squares of colors.
I wonder why each plot of land
is a
different color, what's
growing there
that makes them different. Or
maybe it's
that some of them are turning
shades of red
and brown because they are
dying.

And it always seems on a plane
that you're stuck
sitting next to someone that
is either
too wide for their seat, or is
a businessman
with his newspaper stretched
out
and his lap top computer on
his little
fold out table. Once, when I
was on a
flight back from D. C., a
flight attendant
walked by, stack of magazines
in her
hand, Time, Newsweek,
Businessweek,
and I stopped her, asking what
magazines
she had. And she replied, 'Oh,
these
magazines are for men.' This
is a true
story. And I asked her again
what she
had. I had already read Time,
so I took Newsweek.

â??

the poem: On An Airplane With
A Frequent Flyer

'I was once on a flight to
Hawaii and I was waiting in
line
for the lavatory. There was
always a line for a flight
this long, you know, it seemed
the washrooms
were always on demand on a
flight this long. So
I finally got into the
washroom, you know, and I
looked into the toilet, and
someone, well, lost the
battle
against a very healthy
digestive system and left the
'spoils' in the toilet, stuck.
Maybe it didn't want to go
down into the sewage tank
where all the other
waste from this long trip went
to. Can you imagine
all the stuff this airplane
had to carry across the
ocean?
Well, anyway, so I saw this
stuck in the toilet, and I
went to the washroom, and when
I was done i flushed and
it still wouldn't budge, and
so I opened the door and
walked
out into the aisle of the
plane again. And there was
this
long line of people waiting to
use this cramped
little washroom, and I just
wanted to tell them all,
'you know, I didn't do that.'
And then it occurred to me
that everyone, when they leave
the bathroom on that
plane, will think the exact
same thing.'

â??

and the prose: Around the
World, & sweet home Chicago

And you know, I talk about
travel around the world, but
where we come from shows who
we are. I mean, once I was on
the other side of the world,
at the Summer Palace, and an
older man came over to me,
knowing little english, and
said, 'My daughter and I
wanted to know where you were
from.' So... not knowing how
much geography they knew, I
said, 'I'm from the United
States, in Illinois, in
Chicago.' And that's when this
old man from the other side of
the world said, 'oh... my kind
of town.' And I started
laughing, knowing the song,
and then he said, 'Frank
Sinatra sang that.' and I
laughed more, then realizing
that although I try to learn
about the world, but my soul
still hold on to my Chicago
roots, other editors even
comment on my style of writing
being affected by being from
the MidWest, being from
Chicago... being from here
affects my style and my art,
oftentimes as much as my
family history.
I talk about learning stories
from around the world, but I
think we can also learn from
stories right here, and as we
live in this big world, it
helps us to not feel small,
but to grow larger than life.

â??

For more information on this
writing and other writings
from Janet Kuypers, go to
http://www.janetkuypers.com
for more information and
details. (more)

Category Entertainment

Tags Janet, Kuypers, poem, poetry