by INDIRA CHARUNDER-MACHARRUNDEIRA, Alternate Reality News Service Fine Arts Writer
With their lobster-shaped turrets and lip treads that seem to have a tongue moving back and forth in them when they're rolling, you'd be hard-pressed to recognize the vehicles as tanks. Nonetheless, the fact that they are being massed on the border between West Surrealisma and The Dada Nation is being seen by many as a provocative act.
The Dada Nation has responded by sending three platoons of performance artists, including the much feared Seventh Cabaret Voltaire Infantry, to the border. Should the tanks cross the border into Dada, the performance artists will don masks and recite nonsense poetry at them.
"The Dada Nation may seem overmatched," analyzed eager Military art historian Brendan Boomish, "but you may recall that in the Battle of the Brunch, they caused the Fauvist Fourth Soft-Focus Tank Brigade to laugh so hard that they fired on each other, decimating their own forces. The Dada Nation military is an awesome fighting machine!"
Since their founding, there has always been tension between West Surrealisma and The Dada Nation. The Dada Nation constitution (written in smoke and mirrors) claims nonsense as the country's highest value; they believe that the West Surrealismists have abused the power of the subconscious for material gain. The West Surrealismists, for their part, reject the use of nonsense for its own sake, arguing that without a radical agenda to alter people's consciousness, it's just fun, and we can't have any of that.
Despite these differences, the countries managed to maintain a fragile peace until two weeks ago when Andre Breton, President in Chef of West Surrealisma, sent a sternly worded communique to the government of Grand Self-inflicted Leader in Chief of Distracted Integrated Nationalist Pig Farmers Tristan Tzara which read: "Fishtail antagonists tread blue criminal through bleeding feeding trout."
"This is a classic Breton diplomatic maneouvre," Boomish said enthusiastically. "It was probably written using the Exquisite Corpse method taught to all of the country's diplomats."
The response was not long in coming. Two days layer, Tzara wrote back: "trout.tread bleeding blue Fishtail through antagonists feeding criminal"
"Tzara cut up Breton's message, rearranged the pieces and sent them back to Breton!" Boomish was so excited that he practically vibrated. "It was a stunning counterstroke! They'll be studying this move in political science art classes for decades to come!"
Two days after this harsh exchange of diplomatic rhetoric, Dada Nation Minister of Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, May-September Romances and Assorted Other emotional Entanglements Allen Ginsburg amusedly mused to the L. A. Times that the government had been developing plans to levitate the Pentagon. "That would be, like, a really groovy way to let the West Surrealismists know how seriously we take them, which is, like, not at all, man," Ginsburg considered considerately.
The West Surrealisma response was quick and, if the Dada Nation had actually been paying attention, would have been devastating: Minister of Warts Christo told the Washington Post that troops of visual artists could be deployed to wrap the San Franciso Bridge with paper at a moment's notice. "Not only would this cripple West Surrealisma by effectively halting all civilian traffic between the island and the mainland," Christo explained, "but it would also recontextualize large scale engineering projects so that we might think more deeply about how we create the environments in which we live!"
So far, the military of Midwest Futurista, a country that borders on both West Surrealisma and The Dada Nation, has not gotten involved in the dispute. Considering how much value the Midwest Futuristans put on speed, the sleek lines of our modern vehicles and, frankly, disastrous military adventurism, this seems to be out of character. However, it is rumoured that Midwest Futurista is supplying cubist tanks to both sides, which is totally in its character.
How serious is the confrontation? "Well, the older European nations - countries like the United Kingdom of Representationists and Central Religious Iconographia - are unlikely to get involved," Boomish, his excitement having left him drained, quietly explained, "which would keep the fighting local -"
Well, no. What we meant was: how much damage can lobster tanks and donning masks and reciting nonsense poetry really do? "Physically? Not much, perhaps," Boomish allowed. "However, to the extent that they can change people's conceptual frameworks, forcing them to see the world in a new way, this war could be devastating!"