Brautigan Salad
July 17, 2012 9:56 AM   Subscribe

"In 1968 Richard Brautigan published 'Please Plant This Book' - poems printed on seed packets. I'm growing a living copy...."
posted by mippy (18 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Scroll to the bottom for the poems and related seeds (and nice b/w illustrations).

Or visit this flash version.

Some background on Brautigan's project.

Thanks, mippy. I really enjoyed this.
posted by notyou at 10:35 AM on July 17, 2012


Thanks for this post. I am a Brautigan fan and a gardening fan and I see a Brautigan salad garden in my future.
posted by Isadorady at 11:14 AM on July 17, 2012


Thanks for this post. Longtime Brautigan fan. A friend once described him to me as "Mark Twain on acid". I think he had just finished reading Trout Fishing in America.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:30 AM on July 17, 2012 [2 favorites]


Related Brautigan poem:

Lions are growing like yellow roses on the wind
and we turn gracefully in the medieval garden
of their roaring blossoms.

Oh, I want to turn.
Oh, I am turning.
Oh, I have turned.
Thank you.



Unrelated Brautigan poem:

All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it.
posted by the bricabrac man at 12:05 PM on July 17, 2012 [6 favorites]


Love Brautigan... "in Watermelon Sugar" is a book you can start reading at any chapter, and read
it as a round. I know a guy who knew him just before he did his Hemmingway Maneuver....
posted by eggtooth at 12:21 PM on July 17, 2012 [1 favorite]


Thank you for the post! Another big Brautigan fan here.
posted by trip and a half at 12:43 PM on July 17, 2012


There's only one Brautigan I can quote by memory, and it's a short story.

"The Scarlatti Tilt"

"It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin." That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.

The only other one might be called CalTech:

I don't care how fucking smart
these guys are.         I'm bored

Troutfishing, Revenge of the Lawn, and The Abortion are my three big faves. I always liked the stories and novels better, though I have a proofreader's copy of Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork.

Cool site. I wish there were photos.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:50 PM on July 17, 2012 [1 favorite]


Hawkline Monster, one of his later ones, is snarkingly good...Confederate General From Big Sur and
Trout Fishing I would say are his most seminal.
posted by eggtooth at 1:00 PM on July 17, 2012 [2 favorites]


I think my thoughts on Brautigan were tainted by my having read The Abortion when I was in elementary school. I never really wanted to read anything else of his after that...
posted by limeonaire at 3:01 PM on July 17, 2012


Trout Fishing should be read aloud with........well, with just about anyone. I never failed to be moved and touched by his writing and was deeply saddened by his death.
posted by rmhsinc at 3:45 PM on July 17, 2012


Unrelated Brautigan poem

Having come in to post that exact same poem, I'll now have to content myself with plugging Keith Abbott's memoir Downstream From Trout Fishing In America.

The author writes of his young son instantly bonding with Brautigan as a "fellow agent of chaos".
posted by Egg Shen at 7:03 PM on July 17, 2012


a lovely project. thanks for posting!


December 30

At 1:03 in the morning a fart
smells like a marriage between
an avocado and a fish head.

I have to get out of bed
to write this down without
my glasses on.

- Richard Brautigan

posted by quiteliterally at 9:56 PM on July 17, 2012


Troutfishing in America, Richard Brautigan.

Novel, 160x90 cm.
All the text of the novel on one single page.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:34 PM on July 17, 2012


Thanks for this. I have loved Brautigan since high school when my favorite teacher (Hey Crow!) pointed me to "Trout Fishing in America" It didn't so much change my life as map out the journey I was already on.
posted by evilDoug at 8:55 AM on July 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


"All good people dig Richard Brautigan.

They just might not all know that all the other good people do yet."

Listening to Richard Brautigan
posted by mrgrimm at 9:09 AM on July 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


"If you've never read Richard Brautigan or heard a digital accordion .... oh dear."
posted by mrgrimm at 9:10 AM on July 18, 2012 [2 favorites]


"We make a great many things out of watermelon sugar here."
posted by mrgrimm at 9:23 AM on July 18, 2012


A site called "AmericanPoems.com" has the entirety of Troutfishing in America (parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) (advertising warning: interstitials and the like)

A favorite selection:

"America needs no other proof. The Red shadow of the
Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse has fallen across Ameri-
ca, and San Francisco is its stable.

   Obsolete is the mad rapist's legendary piece of candy. At
this very moment, Communist agents are handing out Witness
for trout fishing in America peace tracts to innocent children
riding the cable cars.

posted by mrgrimm at 9:32 AM on July 18, 2012


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