Okay, so I stumbled upon this thing, "Karawane" by a dude named Hugo Ball. Wild stuff, seriously. I was just poking around online one afternoon, probably trying to avoid doing actual work, you know how it is. And then this poem, if you can even call it that, pops up.
First glance, I was like, "Huh? Is this even a language?" Just a string of sounds: 'jolifanto bambla o falli bambla'. Looked like someone just mashed their keyboard. But then, the instructions, or maybe just the vibe, seemed to be, "Say it. Out loud." So, I did. Felt like a total goofball in my living room, making these noises. 'gaga di bumbalo bumbalo gadjamen.' My cat definitely judged me.
Getting into the spirit of it
I got curious, so I did a quick search. Turns out this Hugo Ball fella was part of this whole 'Dada' movement back in the day. They were all about shaking things up, being against the grain, art that wasn't really 'art' art. You've probably seen pictures of him, looking like a bizarre robot bishop in this cardboard suit. That image alone told me this wasn't going to be your typical poetry reading.
So, I went back to "Karawane." This time, I really leaned into it. I tried to imagine being this guy on stage, just letting these sounds fly. 'zitti zatta hollara hollala'. It's funny, once you stop trying to 'understand' it like it's English or something, it kind of takes on its own life. It's all about the rhythm, the texture of the sounds, the sheer, unadulterated nonsense of it. It was less about reading words and more about making a kind of vocal music, I guess. My "practice" was just letting go and being loud and weird with it.
- No real 'meaning' to decode.
- Just sounds and the feeling they make.
- Kind of liberating, actually.
Trying to share the... experience?
The thing is, I actually got a kick out of it. It was so different. I even tried to "perform" a bit of "Karawane" for my little cousin, Max, who's about eight. He was over, bugging me while I was trying to fix his tablet. So, I just launched into 'higo bloiko russula huju'. He stopped dead, tablet forgotten, just stared at me with wide eyes. Then, after a second, he just burst out laughing. Started making his own crazy sounds back at me, total gibberish, but he was having a blast.
And I thought, yeah, that's kind of it, isn't it? It’s not about some deep, hidden message. It’s about the sound, the playfulness, maybe just being silly and breaking out of the usual box for a few minutes. Max didn't need a lecture on Dadaism to get the fun part. He just heard the sounds and jumped in. My little experiment with "Karawane" sort of ended there, with me and Max just making weird noises at each other. Good times. It definitely made me think that sometimes, not making sense makes the most sense.
