Fisticuffs

Fisticuffs k. 1. Ceremonial dance enacted prior to a reformatting of the inherent structure. 2. A means of achieving an end, where an end is about achieving means. 3. Final sequence in The Night of a Bit of Lunacy ritual, celebrated amanuensically by the making of shears. 4. Violent engagement enacted as a symbolic advancement-utility device, i.e., the elaboration of sleep activity. 5. A flurry of blows shared between two or more parties, rendered artfully and worthy of praise, another round of drinks, and the attention of women.

Extrapolation

Stimso Adid's sleepwalking oratorium, experimentally launched in New York in 1934 and interpreted by cartographer Mazzistow Carrington, was used to predict the geomantical location, but not the purpose or chronological spacing of this rarest of AA ceremonial ritual. Though the exact location and time were supplied to members of the group, incidents of the ritual rarely adhered to these predictions,instead they had a tendency to erupt accidentally, such as the famous anecdote told by Flintrock, as reproduced below:

"He had on this incredible hat and by incredible I really get to the root -- it was beyond reckoning. First, it was several times the natural size of his own head, fitted perfectly because he'd tightened the band with an amount of balled toilet paper. It looked like he was gonna launch something from his brow but the rocket instead languished. He couldn't walk through a crowded bar with it. It was way too fucking large -- creasing unwary foreheads, spilling drinks, it took an additional urinal when he pissed. He insisted it have it's own seat, it's own bar tab. So yeah, he'd managed to dent a few brows -- and, apparently, he wasn't keen on being cool about it. So, Alexandre called him out. It was this calling out which resulted in the mess that followed -- words so simple became a complex dance that was about as complex as preparing maize -- easy if you know the form of your material, less so if you've just knocked it from the stalk."

A Needless Jibe

Tim Wilson has been a particularly ardent choreographer of fisticuffs. The fisticuffs ritual is a dance that changes like jazz. Quite structured, complex, yet full of spontaneous variation and "improvisation." The basic characters are the monkey and the ass. In Incidentalist variations an asp goads them on, and, though trampled by the spectators at the end for his "cowardly" ways, always comes back after the curtain falls with a ribald joke, often a one-liner.

The Night of a Bit of Lunacy, itself a quasi-stationary series of movements inscribed in air, culminates in this, most fragile and drying motion in the AA sphere.

See Also

• Hand

Desiderata