The Centaur Witch

14” x 21”, collage, acrylic, oil pastel

  • Dear Trowl,

    Hey, so the Centaur Witch game, Pazuzu, is a very difficult game to follow and understand. Worse than cricket. That is if it even is a game. Some say it has its origins in a ritual dedicated to the ancient Mesopotamian demon of the same name. Maybe it’s both, ritual/game? Mayan? Either way, Pazuzu incorporates a variety of elements familiar to ritual as well as sporting and gaming. I’ve been told that at times it does look very ritualistic, but at others it seems like a mashup of sports such as dressage, polo, capoeira, hockey, figure skating, even skateboarding. Yet it also incorporates aspects of popular table games like chess, backgammon, dominoes, go, cards, billiards, ping pong, etc..

    Apparently no human has ever lived to explain the rules (if there are any?), but there are rumored to be a scant few secret texts (dubious authenticity) that provide some details about gameplay. To keep this short, I’ll outline some of what I’ve learned thus far and I’ll share the sources later, if they exist.

    Each game is performed by two athletes, a Centaur Witch and her Familiar (usually an enslaved human male). The game can last a few hours, or a few centuries.

    Pazuzu is played on a large expanse of land and is sort of like golf/baseball in that every course/field is different, but the field of play is generally rectangular and resembles a billiard table the size of a small island (in fact, Centaur Witches are rumored to especially enjoy playing Pazuzu amid the rugged, inaccessible, and uninhabited islands of Finland’s archipelago during the freezing Winter months). The six billiard “pockets” are arranged about the landscape in the general vicinity of where they would appear on a standard table—four corner pockets, two side pockets. In Pazuzu, however, the pockets are large, smoking pits in the ground (graves?) lined with the smoldering bones of sacrificial children (they’re witches, they like children).

    Much like Pairs Figure Skating, the Centaur Witch and her Familiar perform a routine, a schizophrenic dance that involves lots of peculiar maneuvers, some of which move the Pazuzu pieces around the field and into the pits. The kinds of game pieces they employ are nearly infinite, but billiard balls, playing cards, chess pieces and the like are common. The various combinations of moves amount to essentially what we would call spells or incantations because they produce a wide variety of sorcery. The more dazzling the magic, the more pleased are the witches, and the higher the score (how that is quantified we have no idea).

    For example: a Cue Ball, plus the Ace of Spades, plus the Bishop’s Black Pawn, helped into the north western corner pocket via a snapshot from the Familiar’s goat jaw hockey stick is a spell that is highly appreciated by the Centaur Witches. This spell will, apparently, summon a trio of flatulent Muskox that will play an enchanting symphony out of their gigantic, musky anuses.

    It was actually through this Muskox story that I learned about the Centaur Witches and their ritual/game Pazuzu. When I was last talking to Isis Osceles she kept referring to “Triangle’s Muskox record.” I had to prod her, but she eventually explained that Triangle stumbled upon the Muskox quite by accident during one their tryptamine experiments when a trio of the massive creatures suddenly floated through the sky of their trip. The Muskox were on their way to a Pazuzu match to which they had been summoned.

    Triangle greatly appreciated that the Muskox traveled in threes and soon became friendly with the creatures and became students of their music and asscoustics. Isis claims that the frequencies the beasts are able to emit from their buttholes are capable of affecting (at a quantum level) the resonance of the electrons in your body causing them to buzz/hum in a manner that creates a euphoric, interdimensional experience for the listener. According to Isis, one of the many albums Triangle has recorded in secrecy is a tribute, as well as a recreation, of the Muskox’s otherworldly music. Isis says it’s possible under the proper conditions to actually see the Muskoxen when you listen to the recording.

    Obviously this Muskox music story is amazing, but I’m more interested in the Centaur Witches the Muskox seem to be beholding to. If this is all true, then Triangle seems to have managed to enter the Centaur Witch’s dimension through some sort of Muskox backdoor (no pun intended). And from what I’ve gathered, a Centaur Witch can bestow immeasurable powers and impart access to sacred, eternal knowledge to anyone that can successfully impress them—provided, of course, she doesn’t eat you or convert you into her Familiar first.

    That’s all for now. Just wanted to brief you on this Centaur Witch business since you asked. I’ll surely have more to tell you next week after I have a Zoom call with Isis. It’s her first Zoom call ever. I don’t think she’s going to be able to figure it out, so who knows if it’ll even happen. Talk soon. —Foonty

Louisa’s Winds

21” x 24”, collage, acrylic, oil pastel

  • The Natives were not happy when the Sailors arrived on their Shores, but the Sailors had come and nothing could be done but deal with them. The Natives summoned their Wind Witch, Louisa, to welcome the visitors. Louisa’s father, Aeolus, is the Keeper Of The Winds on That Side Of The World, while Louisa was installed as the Executive Managing Director Of The Winds on This Side Of The World. Aeolus’ Winds have been named, classified, and catalogued by Aristotle and countless others, while Louisa’s Winds have remained relatively wild and unpredictable for eons. That’s why the Natives sent her as the welcoming party: the Sailors would be completely unfamiliar with her gusts and gales and wouldn’t know which way is which.

    Louisa creates the airs with her eight areolae. She jams her nipples into massive silver flutes the size of cathedral organ pipes. Each pipe roughly corresponds to the four cardinal directions (N, E, S, W) or the four ordinal directions (NE, SE, SW, NW). Seated at the base of the pipe within each nipple is a little Wind Pixie Pilot that controls the power and direction of the breezes. The eight (mentally unstable) Wind Pixies inhabiting Louisa’s nipples are as follows:

    NORTH— a two-headed bear banging on a piano in a bathtub.

    NORTH EAST— seven farting oxen.

    EAST— a warren of hares waving thunder torches.

    SOUTH EAST— twelve Chinese school children competing in a triathlon in a small hotel room.

    SOUTH— a spiral wad of monkey hair stuck to a bathroom mirror.

    SOUTH WEST— a hummingbird in a dishwasher.

    WEST— three sheep tied to a ladder on the beach.

    NORTH WEST— a Sagittarius moth in a green plastic bucket in the center of a cemetery.

    The plan worked. The psycho squalls and cyclones emitted from Louisa's nipples so confused the Sailors that they were blown way off course and before they knew it they had sailed all the way back home. Louisa’s storms hid the shore from all Sailors for evermore and the Land remained pure, pristine, and verdant for billions of years.

The Chang Sisters

13.5” x 22”, collage, acrylic, oil pastel

  • We don’t know much about the Chang Sisters other than they were monks who had taken a vow of silence at the Tiger Nest monastery in Bhutan. They keep to themselves, don’t cause any trouble, and they manage our communal kitchen as well as anyone, so no one feels the need to pry any further. Still, all of the residents of the Phalanx are very curious what their story is, none more than I.

    I started hanging around the kitchen after morning supper to help them clean up, but mostly to watch them. They may have taken a vow of silence, but that doesn’t mean they don’t communicate. They seem to be of One Mind, completely connected, and I’m certain there is some sort of telepathic communication between them, but I’ve learned they also employ a secret coded language they’ve shown me hints of.

    Their system involves egg cartons (specifically 18-egg cartons) and the ancient Chinese text, the I Ching, or Book Of Changes. The system seems rather simple, yet I still have no idea what they’re saying. I discovered that the way they rearrange and/or remove eggs from the carton translates into symbols. Each row of three eggs, depending on the number of eggs in the row, can represent a solid or broken line. Three lines form a trigram and the eight trigrams that are the foundation of the I Ching represent everything in the universe: heaven, lake, fire, thunder, wind, water, mountain, and buttocks.

    Buttocks.

    Buttocks.

    I love buttocks.*

    With the eight trigrams the sisters are then able to construct the 64 hexagrams (six lines), along with the Judgments, that make up the I Ching. Thus, using only a carton of eggs, the Chang Sisters have a perfect little microcosm of the universe with which to communicate.

    While they’ve coyly revealed their method of communication, I have yet to understand it, but I get the sensation that it is not of this time, or of this world. They seem to be divining from another dimension for a present that resides in a dachstant future.

    #61 Chung Fu.

    JUDGMENT: Inner truth. Pigs and fishes.

    Good fortune.

    It furthers one to cross the great water.

    Perseverance furthers.

    *The Meatmen, “Buttocks.”

Picasso Horse

9” x 11”, collage, acrylic, oil pastel

  • This collage began as a sketch, but it caught the attention of a publisher I had worked with previously and they liked it enough to use it for the cover of a book on gambling. I don’t own a copy and the book is now out of print, but it was titled, The Handicapper’s Guide To Chariot Racing.

    Anyway, the horse has changed. The horse did not have that look of horror on its face when I made this collage. At the time, the horse was happy, or at least normal—I don’t know much about horses or their emotional states, they all look pretty much the same to me—now, however, he looks positively terrified.

    The reason for the terror, I’ve gathered, is because the horse has learned that his body was not drawn by Picasso, but by me. Apparently, the horse was under the impression that he was a great work of art and worth a lot of money. Upon learning that he wasn’t drawn by Picasso, however, he’s become rather violent. I recognize where his confusion comes from, I’d be a little disappointed myself, but I swear we talked about this.

    Here’s what happened: I was at LACMA walking through a gallery filled with Picassos when I overheard someone say, “Pfft, my kid could do that.”

    I’ve heard the sentiment many times and I always think, “Yeah, your kid could do that, your mom could do that, anybody could do that—but they did not do that, Picasso did that.”

    And that’s when it suddenly occurred to me: “Wait, can I do that?”

    I’ve always presumed I can do that (draw a shitty Picasso), but I had to admit I had never tried. Seems pretty easy. But then Picasso did once say, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

    Is making child art that difficult? I decided to find out by trying to replicate a childish Picasso.

    The image I chose to copy was a drawing titled, Combat des Centaures, III, which features a couple of ham-fisted centaurs scrawled with a stubby pencil—just garbage. Perfectly childish. I tried to draw one of the horses. My attempt isn’t exactly like Picasso’s horse, but it’s “close enough for jazz,” as I like to say. (Jazz often sounds like a group of people learning how to play their instruments.) So, yeah, your kid could probably do that because I just did that. I think I got the balls just right. I’m pretty good at drawing testicles.

    It’s probably my fault for not adequately explaining this to the horse, but I thought we were all of the understanding that we were just making a collage, sans Picasso. There was never an intent to pass off my drawing as a forgery, it was merely an exercise performed out of curiosity. I thought the horse understood his body’s provenance, but apparently not.

    The horse, of course, is furious. He demands that I provide him with a body by Picasso, or—much like Frankenstein’s Creature—he’s promised to murder my friends and family.

    Pfft, my kid could do that.

The Succulent Succubus

7” x 8.5”, collage, acrylic, oil pastel

  • Any time a forest celebrates the marriage of Thunderbolt to Timber, Lilith will appear soon after. The succulent succubus always arrives with her petulant pet plant, Sammy, to help her survey the scorched ritual site. Their role in the aftermath of the wedding is to essentially clean up and get the forest ready for the next wedding. Lilith and Sammy usually take up residence in the hollow of a burnt tree while they conduct their business, which can take months.

    As xerophytes, they can store a great deal of liquid that they are able to dispense to the root systems and the mycorrhizae—the underground fungal networks—of the survivors, but they are also marauders who pillage the corpses of the dead. Even if there weren’t signs all over the place—“All xerophytes must be on leash,” “Please clean up after your xerophyte”—Sammy would be on a leash at all times because Sammy is a very bad little succulent. Very, very, very bad. He makes wee-wees and doo-doos all over the place, he eats the crotches out of panties, etc.. If left to his own devices, Sammy would probably eat the carcass of every dead tree in the forest. Then he’d get too fat for his little pot, crack the ceramic, and die. Lilith’s last pet succulent couldn’t keep his nose out of anything and that’s why he died with his head stuck in a bag of Fritos—asphyxiated xerophyte.

    But mostly Sammy is on leash, with pinch collar, to help keep him focused on his job of distributing fluids to the wedding survivors. No one knows what the fluid actually is, but it’s been suggested that it is semen that Lilith has stolen from sailors’ dreams (one of Lilith’s distant succubus descendants will, in fact, become known as the infamous Lorelei). In short, Lilith and Sammy provide the very important service of network restoration to the underground World Wood Web.

    Did you know that these mycelium networks are considered the largest living creatures on earth? Apparently the largest known is a behemoth honey fungus (Armillaria solidipes) in Oregon that is 2,400 years old and covers 3.7 square miles.

    It is through this fungi network that Dacchus will orchestrate his return from the Underworld.