#24MAG ISSUE 6

- the final issue -

photo by Johanna Bobrow

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sara Eileen Hames EDITOR-AT-LARGE Rose Fox EDITOR’S ASSISTANT Kyle Watkins ART DIRECTOR Sara Eileen Hames PHOTO EDITOR Johanna Bobrow TRANSMEDIA CHAIN EDITOR Casey Middaugh COMMUNITY MANAGER Ian Danskin EDITORS Ben Cordes, Rose Ginsberg, Emily Kadish, Aida Manduley, Steven Padnick, Erica Stratton, Jenny Williamson TRANSCRIPTIONIST Rose Ginsberg DESIGNERS Jack Cavicchi, Meghan Grammer, Brittany McCusker, Abby Ringiewicz, Amanda Watkins ILLUSTRATORS Emily Lubanko, Amanda Watkins, Brittany McCusker, Sara Eileen Hames PHOTOGRAPHERS Johanna Bobrow, Jack Cavicchi, Kate Donahue, David Dyte, Walter Wlodarczyk DIRECTORS Rose Ginsberg, Emily Kadish WRITERS Jack Cavicchi, Ben Cordes, Rachel Cromidas, Ian Danskin, Kate Donahue, David Dyte, Rose Fox, Meg Grady-Troia, Rose Ginsberg, Andy Izenson, Emily Kadish, Michele Lent Hirsch, Emily Lubanko, Aida Manduley, Max Mechanic, Casey Middaugh, Steven Padnick, Erica Stratton, Jenny Williamson, Walter Wlodarczyk All content & documentation by #24MAG is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. http://24mag.org/issue-6

photo by Johanna Bobrow

EDITOR’S LETTER Dear friends, Hello, and goodbye.

This is the last issue of #24MAG. It has been exactly 687 days since our first issue—a little under two years. And although technically we have spent only six of those days making this magazine, for me this goodbye carries the weight of every minute of the full 687. #24MAG has been one of my great joys. It has been a thrill and an honor to build this space, welcome people into it, and watch it grow. I have been particularly happy to see new artists and writers find their voices here; to witness the ways in which the contributors have crossed media forms and collaborated with one another; and to create an editorial and workspace policy that reflects what I would like to see more of in creative work of all kinds.

While it is time for this publication to come to a close, I look forward to carrying these aspects of #24MAG forward to many future creations.

Of course, #24MAG is not about me. It is about you—contributors and audience.

I cannot say thank you enough. We could fill the rest of this magazine and many more beyond with my gratitude. As contributors, you have made something wonderful and kind. As readers, you have supported a weird idea with generosity and love. May we continue to make and enjoy things together for many years to come.

Thank you. Thank you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 03 Z EDITOR’S LETTER

by Sara Eileen Hames 05 Z WATERCOLOR

by Sara Eileen Hames 06 Z COLLABORATING WITH DEAD FILMMAKERS

by Michele Lent Hirsch 08 Z POETRY

by Jenny Williamson 11 Z THE SEPARATING STARS

by Ian Danskin 12 Z CONNECTIONS ACROSS SPACE

by Erica Stratton 18 Z CHASING THE LIGHT

by Kate Donahue 22 Z MAKING SPACE FOR THE BELIEF WAVE FUNCTION

by Andy Izenson 26 Z (NOT SHOWN)

by Max Mechanic 28 Z ON-SITE SHAKESPEARE

by Rose Ginsberg & Emily Kadish 34 Z THE TURTLE

by Steven Padnick 40 Z ANAMORPHIC PERSPECTIVE

by Ian Danskin 42 Z SESTINA: FIRST DATE

by Andy Izenson 44 Z A NIGHT AT BROOKLYN’S SHEA STADIUM

by Walter Wlodarczyk 49 Z DEFINING SPACES: AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT JACKSON BENNETT

by Rose Fox 52 Z “YA CAN’T GET THEYAH FROM HEAH”

by Meg Grady-Troia

55 Z POEM ON SKIN

by Andy Izenson 56 Z MAKING SPACE FOR ART

by Casey Middaugh & Emily Kadish 58 Z IMAGINING PUBLIC SPACE WITHOUT GRIDLOCK: INTERVIEWING STEPHEN MILLER

by Rachel Cromidas 61 Z SPATIAL COMPONENTS

by Brittany McCusker 62 Z NEW YORK’S INGENIOUS SPACES

by David Dyte & Michele Lent Hirsch 66 Z AN IRREGULAR COFFEE

by Ben Cordes 68 Z PLANET AGGRO FUNGUS

by Emily Lubanko 70 Z TRANSMEDIA CHAIN edited by Casey Middaugh 78 Z OF MICRO AND MACRO

by Emily Lubanko 82 Z TROUB WITH TRIBS

by Casey Middaugh 87 Z WORKSPACES

by Jack Cavicchi 94 Z CONTRIBUTOR INTERVIEWS collated by Ian Danskin

COLLABORATING WITH DEAD FILMMAKERS, AND OTHER THOUGHTS ON SPACE

By Michele Lent Hirsch

Composer Beth Custer has a dizzying number of awards to her name and a propensity for dizzying performances. Eight years ago, I had the chance to watch her and her ensemble accompany a silent absurdist Soviet film from 1929. What I remember most is the movie’s use of cramped space—the space, and Custer’s music.

Visually, My Grandmother (Chemi Bebia) blasts through our expectations of the era. Sure, it’s black-and-white and has no sound, but it’s got puppets and surprising stop-motion animation and paper figures who walk out of newspaper, all of which emphasizes its parody of Soviet bureaucracy: a landscape of crowded cubicles, the panic of being swallowed up by a top-down system, and the slapsticky desperation on the main character’s face. And if you’ve never seen an ensemble play instruments next to a screen, it can be just as visually stimulating—if not more so—than the film. When I watched Custer and her musicians toot and blow out the score, I often got distracted from the movie, in a good way. How do they decide which melodies go with which scenes? Do claustrophobic passages warrant different instruments or different notes than wide-open spaces? #24MAG 6

I spoke with Custer, who’s based in San Francisco, about how she scores films: how the music relates to spaces depicted in a scene, and how the artists who collaborate on a movie must coexist in a kind of virtual locale. The first thing she pointed out is that My Grandmother has, in fact, a lot of outdoor scenes. Apparently my space-addled mind had pruned the open, exterior moments and left only the uncomfortably narrow ones. But Custer agreed that there are “a lot of shots of office rooms that feel kind of claustrophobic.”

When Custer wrote the overture for some of those constricted interior scenes, she said, her music was “angular.” I felt the music was a bit circumscribed, maybe even nervous. And, she pointed out, it was contemporary classical in style.

Later on, when her overture comes back for an outdoor park scene, she put a “funky” feel under it, switched the melody from trumpet and clarinet to guitar, and gave it what she calls a more open quality.

Still, she said, although the way she scores a film is “definitely” related to the space within it, there’s a lot else to consider, like emotion, and

what the people (if there are people visible) are doing. “There’s not really a set solution to these kinds of questions,” she said about deciding what to compose. “It’s really dependent upon what’s going on in a scene. It depends on what other sound is in the film, too. When you’re scoring a [newer] film and there’s people talking, you have to be subservient to the action. You can’t make a cacophony unless a cacophony is wanted.” With a silent film, of course, actors make no noise. But when Custer scores current movies, she knows she has to share space with other creators. She might find that the director has quieted her music in order to let the dialogue stand out. Or sound effects might take precedence in a particular moment: the perfect cricket noise that drowns out a flute.

Everyone has an ego, and everyone wants their piece of the work to be heard. But Custer said she has to serve the film. “We’re all going for the goal of making a great piece of art,” she explained. “So it’s not like we’re competing.”

In terms of sharing that space—after all, audiences are going to see and hear just one, multilayered work, without knowing the give-and-take that the composer and other artists have danced through—Custer said she tries to physically be in

the same room when the sound designer and director are editing. “I think some composers just wash their hands and let it go, but I like to be there, to ask things like ‘Can we try this clarinet a little higher,’ and just logistically, to make sure things are in the right place.” When everyone’s together editing, watching the visuals and listening to the sound, they’re delicately negotiating what viewers will finally see.

But when Custer was commissioned to score the older My Grandmother, the director she was collaborating with, Kote Miqaberidze, was a long-deceased man. He’d filled his space the way he’d wanted—with eccentric, avant-garde, formblurring, and anti-bureaucratic themes—and here Custer was, 70 years later, trying to cohabitate.

So when the composer read somewhere that Miqaberidze had loved jazz, she was elated.

To dwell in some shared place with the filmmaker was important to her, even if they couldn’t hang out in the same studio. At that, she succeeded.

A sense of negotiation, that one-space-for-allour-ideas mentality she experiences in her present-day edit sessions, shines through. In her final composition, she certainly left her own mark. But she also left room for the director. “It was a Beth Custer–type jazz,” she laughed, “but it was jazz.”

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The Distance Between Me and Other People, Always My best self wears a scarlet dress.

On particularly blessed occasions I catch glimpses of her in far-off mirrors, a gregarious prism busy dividing the light.

No granted wish will make me this woman.

The story I’m telling is long-winded and awkwardly spun, of value to no one. Reliably tone-deaf, I do not know it until the brittle pause at the end.

The people glance away, reach for their wine glasses, wristbones clinking against the light from the jagged chandelier.

I fold, bird-shouldered, back into every empty pause, each tiny conversational betrayal.

The woman in the mirror curves her mouth in flawless exchange, a luminous scarf draping itself across her vivid collarbones.

It is moments like this when I feel her the most: so close to me, so unforgivably far.

Jenny Williamson

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The Canoes My apartment is an island in the boundless Pacific.

The one I love inhabits the middle distance somewhere between sky and horizon; he sends me postcards from the country of belonging, blankets against the dark delivered in flawed canoes.

There are days when the sea is an anvil and my heart is a needy hammer.

Days when I stalk the beaches building driftwood for a signal fire I’ll never light.

Days when I come home late to an empty home, his absence a bruise rising under my skin like a half-formed moon.

Binary System It was the distance he loved, and the way she wore it— a silk-shouldered dress she would slip off and on again just as easy as leaving.

It was a look that suited her.

For once in her life she was not too much; she was only enough.

The first time she spun him into her bed, he folded in on her like a collapsing star.

She could not help but fall.

These days they circle each other, always receding, even when drawing near; speaking I love you in so many languages but never stay.

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photo by David Dyte #24MAG 10

The Separating Stars Ian Danskin To the best of human knowledge, the universe began with all matter and energy existing at a single point from which all creation exploded, and the universe’s end will come when the acceleration from that initial event rips apart every particle in existence, until there is nothing but empty space. In the beginning, there was no distance; in the end, there is nothing but.

In the meantime, there is an era where matter can exist in the forms we are familiar with: stars, planets, trees, stones.

This era is, by human standards, very, very long. We find ourselves in this era because this is the only era in which we can find anything, in which there can be anything to do the finding. Most of this matter is empty space—there is more space between stars than stars, more space between the electron shell and nucleus of an atom than particles that make up the atom. But such emptiness is a matter of perspective.

The universe is a lot roomier than it once was, and far more compact than it will someday be.

With a bit more energy or a bit less matter at the beginning, it’s quite likely none of this—all this—would be here now. When I get to thinking fatalistically about the Earth eventually being engulfed in the Sun, the Sun burning out and dying, all the galaxies compressing into supermassive black holes, and the black holes eventually spewing themselves out as radiation, I remind myself how improbable it is that anything is here in the first place.

That gravity forms planets, that pressure sets stars burning, and that plate

tectonics form mountains; that the composition of gases in the atmosphere puts reds and purples in the sky as the Earth turns away from the Sun, and that my species long ago evolved eyes that can perceive colors at those wavelengths, not to appreciate sunsets but because so much pertinent information is communicated through light, and getting to see sunsets was a fortunate side effect; that when I look at the sky and contemplate the universe, the sense of wonder and gratitude I feel even exists, because apparently wonder is an evolutionarily advantageous emotion that made one strain of humanity more adept at survival than those that didn’t feel it; that the love I feel for my partner is, yes, part of a complex chemical process meant to pass on my genes to another generation and relieve day-to-day stress, but that the brutal mating habits of, say, bedbugs, were perfectly serviceable alternatives, but mutual love and affection won out in humans over mating with the hole you stabbed in your partner’s back; that the utilitarian function of these feelings doesn’t make them feel any less amazing; that I have a mind that can ponder these thoughts and enjoy pondering the pondering.

I remind myself that it didn’t need to be this way.

It’s been a long time since I thought of life as a gift. I think of life as the most staggering stroke of blind fucking luck.

And if I am grateful for one thing above all, it is that the magnitude of that stroke of luck is great, but not so great as to be incomprehensible to minds of human size and structure.

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Collected and edited by Erica Stratton ERICA: INTRO My friend Will and I live on different continents, but we’ve talked nearly every day for the past five years. We’ve supported each other through unemployment, cheered when we each found jobs, and wondered aloud together about our sex lives. The words we’ve shared have become the one constant in our messy postgraduate lives. Even when I’ve changed everything else about my life, Will is still there on Facebook, and he says I provide the same kind of anchor for him.

Still, a digital hug isn’t as soothing as a real hug. So, for my birthday, he sent me a plush hippo through Amazon.

Holding it comforts me, because it’s tangible in a way that easily deleted emails and automatically erased Tweets are not. Because the work Will does is dangerous, I am haunted by the idea that, if anything happens to him, he will simply disappear from the internet, and his parents or friends won’t think to email me—after all, we’ve never even “really” met!

At the same time, I wonder whether the space that separates us is what makes our friendship possible. We both think of ourselves as difficult people to live with: he’s snarky, and I have tender spots with regard to my gender. We both can have gloomy outlooks on the world and what our futures hold, but if we get overwhelmed by each other we can simply turn off our computers and take a break in a way we couldn’t if we shared a house.

Speculation on how space shapes our relationships inspired this collection of anecdotes. Together, they can help us navigate the consequences of lives that shift from online to offline and back again.

IAN: IT WAS WEIRD THAT IT WASN’T WEIRD “Digitally, I first met Itamar in 1999 on a computer game fan forum. At the time I lived in my hometown, a bedroom community south of San Francisco, and he lived in Tel Aviv. We were both around 15, as were many of the forum regulars, and it didn’t take long for us to abandon computer games as a main topic and start our teenage experiments with the internet: learning how to write, how to express ourselves, and how to have opinions. Any confluence of young boys will offer 31 flavors of sarcasm, but Itamar was quickwitted and hilarious. I admired his way of being snarky while still being enormously kind, a balance few of us could strike. His humor was for the benefit of all and at no one’s expense. He introduced me to K’s Choice and Jeff Buckley. He also mailed me a VHS copy of Harrison Bergeron, a film adapted from a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, which he had taped off TV, and which did not, in the end, play in my

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American VCR. (We both adored Vonnegut, though Itamar couldn’t comprehend how I liked Breakfast of Champions more than Cat’s Cradle.) In return I sent him a copy of the first Weezer album.

“We lost touch with everyone else from the forum after it eventually closed, but traded sporadic emails about games and Middle Eastern politics around the time Itamar was serving his mandatory two years in the Israeli military. Eventually, Facebook was invented, and our interactions went back to what they had been in the beginning: public. Some years later, we realized that we had both, improbably, ended up on the East Coast of the United States, me living in Boston and him attending a PhD program at NYU. And so, when I came to New York for a conference, he offered to let me stay with him.

“It’s a curious thing, crashing on the couch of a person who is both a friend you’ve known half your

life and ‘a stranger from the internet.’ I joked with my partner that, if this were a plan to kill me, it was a plan that had taken 13 years; such a murder would be an incredible compliment. But, though he spoke a little more slowly and softly than his sharp wit on the internet would imply, Itamar was basically the guy I had figured he was. We watched trailers for the (two) upcoming Jeff Buckley biopics and he fed me smoothie after smoothie. Our interaction was easy.

It was a logical continuation of a real relationship, and its dial-up origins didn’t strike me as all that weird. But it was weird that it wasn’t weird! I suspect this is because, to me, a meaningful friendship that begins online is still novel, which is more a sign of my age than anything legitimately strange. I imagine that before long the only thing strange about my friendship with Itamar will be that I ever thought it was weird in the first place.”

DAVID: PERSONAL SPACE “I moved from Melbourne, Australia, to New York— 10,000 miles and a world of change away. But the only culture shock I felt was from the small things: light switches, bathtub fixtures, 25-cent coins, even cereal choices.

“At age 30, it’s a little demoralizing to feel endlessly confused by simple stuff. But that didn’t account for the sudden anger burning in my head. Irritability grew to temper, then fury, at anything and everything.

When I stood on the steps of the 14th Street F stop and screamed, ‘This whole city needs to get out of my fucking way!’ I realized what the issue was.

“People.

“Not the individual people—as irritating as New Yorkers can be—but the sheer number of people: 8 million, according to the 2000 census. My old home, Melbourne, had 3.5 million. But New York covers some 303 square miles to Melbourne’s 3,400.

In other words: New York’s population is almost 26 times denser than Melbourne’s. For every person I used to bump into, an entire alphabet of invaders now crowded my personal space.

“Knowledge is power. Knowing the facts armed me to face the hordes. And gradually, I have adjusted.

Fourteen years later, I might almost be there. Just don’t smack me with your backpack on the F train.

Thanks.”

MOLLY: POSTCARDS “Excitable fan blogs” and “teenage angst” brought Molly and Annie together on Livejournal. Molly says she watches a lot of “trashy fun shows” that are “extremely problematic,” like Supernatural, while she draws. She and Annie talk about the parts that were sexist or made them uncomfortable.

Annie added Molly on LiveJournal “on a whim” when she was connecting with people with similar usernames. Molly looked through her profile and saw they had similar outlooks on life, but whereas Molly had been a “type-A art school student,” Annie had decided to just “leave where she lived and start traveling for an indefinite period of time.”

“When we started corresponding she was traveling through Europe and it seemed like she’d run away from something,” says Molly. “I only hear from her in postcards and brief one-sentence-to-a-paragraph updates online.”

Molly has received postcards from Amsterdam, France, Belgium, Portugal, and many other places.

“The last postcard I received was from Albania, but had cut-outs of an explicit Hungarian phrasebook glued to the back of it... Every time I get a new postcard she is somewhere else.” One postcard that left a particular impression was one Annie sent from Scotland, where she worked on a farm. Molly has a dream of “fecking off to Scotland” when she

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gets stressed, but Annie has actually done it. “She is doing all the things that I swore I’d do when I was younger,” says Molly, but her life isn’t conducive to traveling that way now.

Molly says that she worries about Annie, but is also amazed by her, as “the people she [meets], in my real life, would scare the crap out of me.” Annie’s postcards and online updates talk about not having enough money to get to her next destination, not having a place to sleep, and speculations that she may have been drugged by strangers she met on the road.

“I worry about her sometimes when I read the stories on the back of her postcards, but I do not know if we will ever meet, and cannot even think of how that would go down.”

JACK: A SPACE FOR EROTICA When Jack was in high school in the late ‘90s, there weren’t any local groups devoted to writing for him to join. Instead, he joined writers’ forums and bulletin boards on AOL. After seeing his work, some people contacted Jack directly, “one or two in America and a few in England.” They would email daily “to communicate with someone, to be friends with someone, [to] learn about life and learn about writing.”

Jack says that the daily back-and-forth was “a very comforting thing.” In time, some of these general discussions would bloom into sharing erotica. It was the beginning of Jack’s career in writing about sex.

The world is different for Jack in 2014. Now he won’t form a romantic relationship with someone online unless they also live in New York. For him to make an exception, he says, they’d have to be “remarkably interesting.”

In the ‘90s, Jack says, there were few enough people on AOL that the people you met didn’t tend to be close to you geographically. Now that social media has become more widespread, the friends that he talks to on Twitter are the same ones that he knows offline, and they all live fairly close to one another.

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Still, he says, groups devoted specifically to erotic writing can be hard to find. There are romance, mystery, and horror groups, but writing about sex is still considered shameful.

AMANDA: BOOT CAMP LETTERS “My husband and I met in high school. Senior year, second semester... and we were inseparable.

We spent every moment we could possibly afford together. Partly it was the thrill of new love and mutual attraction, but there was also an element we tried our hardest not to acknowledge: it was a matter of months until graduation, and thereafter a matter of weeks until he left for U.S. Navy Basic Training.

That removal of proximity forced us to grow. It tested the limits of our creativity and, some days, our desperation to communicate.

“Nine weeks of boot camp. In that time I exercised the long-forgotten art of hand-writing a letter (or 50), I learned exactly when the mailman was supposed to show up, I tended to sleep through Sundays, and I developed very low expectations of reality and space.

I began to feel stuck; most of my actions seemed arbitrary, my creativity felt stunted, and there were very few things that could rouse me from the stupor.

“We struggled to hang on to our sense of unity over the distance, sending pieces of ourselves through the mail to compensate. Kyle snatched me a flower to press inside one letter; I would draw expressive and abstract forms all over my envelopes so he would know they were from me before the officer called his name. Those bright orange envelopes, covered in doodles, could earn him an extra 60 push-ups every time they arrived. He told me this in the same breath he told me not to dare stop drawing on them. It was his way of caring about what I did from far away.

“As the weeks passed, we became accustomed to the longing. It was the stage on which we constructed our new schedules and spaces. That first break from immediate communication gave weight to our words and intensified the trust that built over future moves, emails, and deployments. It also intensified moments like missing a phone call. We lived together in

Virginia for a year after we got married, only for me to move 600 miles back to New England for college.

“I’m often asked how I managed the physical distance between my husband and me. The distance wasn’t easy, communicating wasn’t always easy, but when you trust in the possibility of a future together there isn’t anything else to do but figure it out. There wasn’t an alternative, and I’ve never really identified as a ‘military wife.’

“While we were together in Virginia, we also discovered that we were compatible enough to actually live together! It reflected the smitten beginning of our relationship. Space is flexible between us. We revel in closeness, but no longer lament as we once did when spatial proximity isn’t a possibility. Individuality and self-sufficient living are now badges we wear proudly.

Communication has become reflexive between us, and creativity paramount. He is no longer in the Navy, but we still frequently find ourselves apart. I trust in the growth borne of our struggle, and know I am a stronger person and no less loving for it.”

RACHEL: THANK YOU FOR MAKING ROOM FOR ME “I’m in romantic relationships with two people. I’ve known Ben for six years; he lives 700 miles away.

The other, I’ve known barely nine months; he lives maybe seven minutes up the street from my Chicago apartment by bike.

“The first time my new partner spent the weekend with Ben and me, he said, ‘Thank you for making room for me.’ Thus, he introduced a new variable to my understanding of how to be both nonmonogamous and good to people: space.

“Many people think of non-monogamy as a challenge, chiefly of time management. It’s not love that’s scarce, they say, but time. I knew well enough how to make time for both men in my life, for example by taking half an hour out of an overnight date with the new partner to call Ben and wish him a good night.

“But I didn’t understand that I was also intuitively creating space. I wonder if it was the first time I spent

the night at my new partner’s place, and then didn’t manage to stumble back outside for almost 24 hours, that signaled to him that there was real space and flexibility in my life for our adventures to unfold. Or the time I bought theater tickets for him and Ben and planned a date for all three of us. Does it have to do with making physical space for something like a spare toothbrush, or space in a bed? Or is the space more imagined: assuring him that there is room inside my head and Ben’s for him to have a significant, longlasting presence in both of our lives?

“Without the distance separating Ben and me, I honestly don’t think I could have made space for this new, serious intimacy. I often describe it as the ‘I want to know you and know you and keep knowing you more’ kind of intimacy, where the way a person talks to their sister on the phone, or prepares for a meeting with their coworkers, becomes every bit as fascinating as the way they kiss. And what if my new partner had a comparably emotionally close, life-entangled partner of his own here in Chicago?

Would they have been able to make this much space for me?”

“If Ben were with me in Chicago, there literally would be less space for my other partner. But now, Ben and I couldn’t make our coupledom exclusive even if we wanted to; because of the quirks of geography, rising cost of airfare, and the demands of academia and jobs, the physical distance between us has made way for the emotional closeness between me and my new partner. Now, I wouldn’t think of treating these two men as anything other than equally important to me, and demanding that my friends and family respect and appreciate them in kind. “ ‘We have so much room for you,’ my response to my new partner’s compliment, has become like the lyric of a love song to me. Distance creates room for new things.

ROSE: THE MIDDLE DISTANCE WAS HARDER Rose met their partner Xtina when Xtina came to visit Rose’s then-roommate. At the time, Rose lived in California and Xtina’s home was in Boston.

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Rose says, “I was smitten, immediately... love at first sight. I thought, ‘Who is this person? I want to be with them forever.’ ”

with each other, along with experience living in their respective cities with other partners. “We’d both grown up a lot. We’d matured a lot.”

It was the beginning of a long-distance courtship.

Rose and Xtina would phone and IM each other, with occasional week-long visits in person. Then Rose moved from California to New York City, putting them closer to Xtina in Boston.

Rose and Xtina now live happily together with Rose’s other partner, Josh. And Rose and Xtina still talk by IM every day when they’re at work.

Surprisingly, being closer to each other but still not in the same city was harder on their relationship than when they were thousands of miles apart. They usually spent alternate weekends together. Going two weeks without seeing each other and then spending a weekend in the same space meant “we couldn’t get used to anything... We had just enough time to get on each other’s nerves but not enough to fix anything.

But at no point did this feel like we were breaking up.”

“When I was 16, I moved from my home town of Seattle to Michigan for school. I spent the next 11 years moving progressively further East until I ended up in London. Those moves were more or less culturally sanctioned; your kid grows up and goes to college, and from that point on has moved out of the family home.

After a year, Xtina moved to Portland, OR, while Rose stayed in New York. “We went back to being 3,000 miles apart, but in the other direction.”

Xtina’s move to Portland made the relationship “magically get better.” Instead of the pressure of trying to cram two weeks of partnerdom into a weekend, being apart for a year or more and then together for a week forced Xtina and Rose to “take the visit as it was.” They also went back to weekly phone dates, sending each other IMs, and leaving comments on each other’s blogs. They had both been in long-distance relationships and found this space very comfortable.”

After several years, Xtina’s local relationship in Portland ended. Rose offered a couch for Xtina to crash on if they came to New York, saying, “I know you don’t like New York, but there’s lots of people you know here, and we can support you while you get back on your feet.”

After their previous experience living “in the middle distance,” Xtina and Rose expected living together in New York to be only a temporary situation. Instead, it turned out to be great. This time, said Rose, they had nearly seven years of practice communicating

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CASEY: LONG-DISTANCE PARENTS

“When my folks left, it was different. My parents moved to Taiwan a year and a half ago, and since then, I have been, in many ways, their proxy in Seattle. I stepped into their shoes. I became their representative in financial and legal matters. I became the primary tech support for my grandparents and their friends.

I acted as the landlord for their house. I continued to make improvements to that house, completing the bathroom we had begun building in the basement before they left.

“My mother says that, when they left, we swapped roles; in many ways, I became the parent and they the children. I don’t know that I agree with that interpretation, but I do know that, for the first six months to a year, my mother and I talked for up to four hours at a time, three to four days a week. I was unemployed and working on the home end of their move, and they were learning and experiencing new things at a ferocious rate and needed both the familiarity of family as well as the emotional support of someone who had lived abroad before.

I needed it, too. Talking to them so much helped me feel connected. I think that the quantity of communication I had with my mother in the first six months of their move is probably equal to the total amount I’d talked to her in the previous two or three years. Not that we hadn’t talked before, but we were talking All. The. Time.

“When people move away they tend to freeze other people in time and secretly believe that, though they are changing and developing, everyone else is staying in the same place. I think, for the first year my parents were gone, I was still preserving their house and their life for them. Then, a little past a year into their adventure, I moved all the furniture in the house. My mother and I both got jobs, and now our relationship feels more like before. Our lives have smoothed out to a new normal, a less tightly woven relationship that feels more like when I moved far away from them instead of the other way around.

AIDA: IN REAL LIFE “When I was 14, years of my writing went neatly packaged to a house in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. I waited for a similar box to arrive at my house in the Caribbean. I don’t remember how much it cost to ship, but there were definitely over 15 pounds of words in my cardboard box.

“Our parents didn’t know what we were sending, and we wanted to keep it that way. Katie and I weren’t strangers to physical correspondence, having sent each other dozens of 20-plus page letters, but this was the first time we sent each other something so meaningful.

“The two of us met on a Harry Potter role-playing forum when I was 13, and as our characters got to know each other, so did we. Our friendship blossomed over a variety of internet platforms and grew into a tangled, international web with three other people that involved a lot of teenage poetry, multiple sexual awakenings, and even a suicide attempt.

was our chance to share what each of us thought of the other person and how we’d understood our friendship in formats that hadn’t been meant for any eyes but our own.

“Did I think about the emotional fallout that would result if she returned them or used them for blackmail? Did I worry that I would lose them all in some accidental USPS fire, or that we’d somehow stop being friends after such a degree of intimacy?

If I did, that certainly didn’t stop me from shipping every thought I’d ever penned, including the bad Spanish-to-English translations my seven-year-old self had used to keep my secrets safe from prying eyes.

“Now I wonder if I felt safe sharing so many personal details because I didn’t have to face these people in person. Simply closing my browser window could shut them out if necessary. In reality, the idea of having an escape valve due to distance didn’t cross my mind. These were the people I talked to about my deepest thoughts and insecurities, the people I first came out to, and the people with whom I had honest dialogues about sex before going to college. Our lives had become so entwined that the delineation between ‘real life’ friend and ‘online’ friend became irrelevant.

We video-chatted and traded letters. We sent each other gifts and talked to each other’s parents on the phone. The internet allowed us to connect with each other regardless of geographic distance, and let us forge close relationships that were just as real, if not more so, than the ones we had with people who lived in our same cities.”

“As a way to solidify our friendship, tested by the romantic entanglements in our online friend group, Katie and I decided to mail each other every diary we’d ever filled up. There was a radical honesty in the process of sharing something so personal, especially because there were months of writing about each other collected in those notebooks.

Both obsessive journal-keepers, we saw it as an act of trust and a way to give context to our lives. This

17 #24MAG

C H A SI NG THE L IGH T Kate Donahue

#24MAG 18

I am writing this in a room full of people who get together for this sprint of creative fuss in part because their own lives are similar to mine: obligations like work and family cut into the time needed to make art, and #24MAG is an opportunity to focus on artistic work and even end up with a tangible product. In addition to having a goal and a deadline, we have unadulterated and largely uninterrupted excuses to tap into our own creative souls.

In the past, my particular brand of perfectionism (read: procrastination) has centered around the idea of having enough space: horizontal space, mental space, swing-a-cat space. And not just enough space—I needed to have perfect space. The space needed to be meaningfully adjusted to my particular preferences. Perfect art supplies. Perfect temperature, perfect sound level. Perfect space, perfect quiet. Perfect art.

All the horsing around with everything in the room would inevitably run out the clock on the time I’d allotted, and I’d end up consoling myself over my lost opportunity with the belief that I’d never really had a good idea in the first place.

The anxiety thrumming through my ears and jangling my nerves is a never-ending chorus of “not good enough” and “not going to finish anything” and “why waste the time.” Why should I even try? Even success feels unsatisfying because when

it comes easily it doesn’t feel earned, despite the work I put into whatever it is I’m working on. Photographs feel like strokes of luck rather than the successful result of my own creative choices. I’ve often looked at my pictures and reflected that they didn’t feel like mine; they somehow could have been anyone’s.

Any random person pointing a camera in the direction I was at that moment would have captured the same thing —what ’s so special about my work? What makes it mine?

19 #24MAG

In the weeks leading up to my first #24MAG I drove myself nuts trying to decide what I was going to do for the magazine. I had enormous ideas that I knew were unmanageable, and tiny ideas that felt clever but didn’t really make me happy. As the date for the magazine drew closer I became more and more convinced that I needed to do something enormous and brilliant in order to feel like I’d done anything at all. Soon the narra-

#24MAG 20

tive in my head was “be truly amazing, or fail.” I fell into despair. I nearly called it off.

Upon arriving in the magazine space, I found a room full of people who were not only excitedly engaged in creating their own work, but also enthusiastic about supporting the creative work of others. The work they were doing was amazing, and soon people were inspired by one another to reach further for interesting things to say or do or photograph.

I soaked it up and then went out and created my own piece, a little meditation on communication through photography. I went home feeling incredible.

I had no idea how nice it is to talk to other photographers about their work until #24MAG. Even as a novice photographer, I found a certain camaraderie with other people who make photos and take them seriously. We think about similar things, use similar words, and have drooled over similar gear.

Afterward, I realized how important it was for me to find ways to produce art for myself on my own. I felt inspired, and finally had a success under my belt to combat some of the negative narratives that had so far dominated my internal monologue.

I am learning to give space to the idea that art must be practiced, and time must be given to doing it. I’ve started to spend time in transit looking for opportunities for photographs, thinking about composition, and looking through photographs taken by myself and others.

I have spent the last few weeks focused on the idea that organizing my time and organizing my space to support more creative output (because all art is in some way also practice to create more art) may actually result in more art. In thinking about making these changes, I’ve also tried to become more sensitive to the

times I find myself actually thinking about my art, and what brings me to the place where generating more beautiful things can happen. When I think about my photos, I ask critical questions—what was successful? What was weak? What would I have done differently?—but I don’t criticize myself.

Most telling in my artwork is that I am beginning to feel as though my photographs are mine, not just accidents snatched from the everyday. All of the decisions I make that build up to actually clicking the shutter are my decisions. I’m taking ownership of my work.

21 #24MAG

MAKING SPACE FOR THE BELIEF WAVE FUNCTION Andy Izenson To oversimplify the idea of a quantum wave function, one could say that it is a shape that describes all the possible positions of a particle in a given moment. If you observe the position of the particle, it collapses the wave function into a linear description of the particle’s (now singular) position.

The common understanding of Schrödinger’s equation is as a cat in a box that is simultaneously increasingly grouchy and increasingly pungent. The whole idea behind this grue#24MAG 22

some image is that the act of observing something fixes it in the position in which it is observed; before it is observed, every possible truth about it is simultaneously and equally true.

The quantum wave function of a particle’s position, then, is the expression of its multiple truths – that, despite the obvious irreconcilable contradiction, it is simultaneously in every position that it could possibly inhabit.

When the particle is observed, all but one possibility disappears and the collapsed wave function

is an expression of what has become its singular truth.

When I read Translabyrinth’s interview with comic artist Egypt Urnash about her creation, the Tarot of the Silicon Dawn, I knew right away that I had found someone whose work I could connect with. “None of the decks I’ve ever seen before spoke to me,” she said. “They all tended to be full of art that looked to the past, to the same romanticized past-

England that Tolkien’s books were an extended love poem to. I have never really had much love for that kind of fantasy; I prefer fantasies of the future.” (http:// translabyrinth.com/interview-with-tarotartist-egypt-urnash-part-one/) Later in the interview, Translabyrinth’s M asked Ms. Urnash, “Do you view tarot as a tool for divination?” Ms. Urnash, like any good queer, answered with five hundred words of “maybe!” She invited the reader to consider the possible perspectives on tarot and use whichever works best for them, contrasting the Skeptic, who describes tarot as free-association based on a bunch of random and evocative images, with the Magician, who suggests that tarot is a way to increase one’s ability to perceive the shapes of the future or receive messages about it. “If ‘divination’ is the way you wanna think about it, that’s cool! And if you wanna get into stuff about contacting Jungian archetypes, or just scrambling inputs to your brain to see what kind of sense it makes, that’s cool too!” she says.

Ms. Urnash’s interpretive paradigm is comfortably flexible, uncomplicated, and internally consistent: figure out how you want to understand a tarot reading, then understand it that way. But I’d like to posit a shift from “any” to “all.” Instead of making space for whichever thought pattern is the most useful to an individual reader or querent, I want to make space for the delicate, self-contradicting structure that comprises every interpretive paradigm at once.

Every race they met on their way through the Core had a star drive based on a different theory. All those theories worked, even when they ruled out one another’s basic assumptions. You could travel between the stars, it began to seem, by assuming anything. If your theory gave you a foamy space to work with – if you had to catch a wave – that

didn’t preclude some other engine, running on a perfectly smooth Einsteinian surface, from surfing the same tranche of empty space. It was even to build drives on the basis of superstring-style theories, which, despite their promise four hundred years ago, had never really worked at all. …The universe, which seemed so harsh on top, was underneath so pliable. Anything worked. Wherever you looked, you found.

Light, by M. John Harrison What is the tarot? It could be a collection of randomly generated images through which a querent imposes an arbitrary external structure on their extant thought processes. It could also be a framework for the reader to give the querent advice that originates within the reader and is channeled through the structure of the cards.

Alternately, the advice or ideas could origi23 #24MAG

nate within the cards themselves, to be interpreted by the reader for the querent’s benefit; or they could originate from some external source or intelligence (whether identified or unidentified) and channel through the reader; or any of a dozen more possible understandings of what is being done when tarot is being read.

Let us consider the range of possible interpretations of the purpose and function of tarot to be a wave function. The curves and ranges of the wave function incorporate all the values of possibility from tarot-as-prosaic-introspection to tarotas-message-from-higher-power and every possible value in between. With the wave function intact, all of these truths can coexist, each one safe in a delicate matrix of uncertainty. With the wave function intact, all of these structures and idea systems become available for resource, interpretive power, and perspective.

If, as Ms. Urnash recommends, I were to

choose just one of those truths for focus, to identify a singular capital-T Truth, I would collapse the wave function. All other possibilities would reduce to zero as the matrix of uncertainty decohered and became the Truth, a single explanation with a single coherent set of beliefs and practices. Where she says “Any of these explanations could work! Choose one,” I prefer not to choose.

I see a great benefit in preserving a coherent wave function that leaves space for belief and contradiction. Holding the entire, often internally inconsistent, set of ideas in one’s mind without allowing them to disintegrate into a meaningless mess is a brain stretch of the best kind, like trying to hold on to one of those liquid-filled tube toys you had when you were a kid that squirted out of your hand and wiggled across the floor when you tried close your fingers around it. It imparts freedom from the tangle of “what am I doing?” and allows focus instead on “what am I accomplishing?” The goal should be to focus on finding the individual ideas that, when combined, lead to the most favorable net effect, rather than focusing on how you get there.

By contrast, focusing on what logical, introspective, ethereal, prescient, or psychic process transports you to the outcome is actively detrimental to the process of learning, because it reduces the range of “could be” into a single, one-dimensional “is.” You can’t learn as much from a tarot reading if you’re preoccupied with the manner in which it’s being told to you; similarly, the benefit you gain from having faith in a deity is diminished by the need for a singular, inflexible explanation for what manner of being that deity may be. Allowing these things to exist in a realm of uncertainty and belief makes them greater, more potent, and more able to teach, help, or heal you. Reducing the need to identify a coherent Truth and redirecting it towards the practical

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outcome permits a more flexible practice that incorporates the ideas that work best – whether inconsistent, contradictory, or downright incoherent – without resorting to dogma.

Adhering to one system of belief has never been my style. In faith, in education, in career, in lifestyle, in gender, my preference is always to cobble together a Frankenstein’s monster that fits me personally rather than to try to fit myself into a preexisting system.

My personal practice has elements of the Judaism that is my heritage, the Hellenic traditions I have studied, the vaguely animist idea of a diffuse God described by Mordecai Kaplan, and a smattering of elemental paganism. I can’t imagine a singular set of beliefs that would suit me; I look best in patchwork.

I refuse to choose a paradigm. I prefer an understanding that holds space for all possibilities at once, that allows everything to be real, everything to be true. When I read tarot, just as when I move through my own practice of faith, just as when I struggle with the bindings of any preexisting identity system, my belief is in the wave function.

illustration by Brittany McCusker 25 #24MAG

(not shown) photos and text by Max Mechanic

A street corner in early morning.

Graffiti on an overpass.

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The iconic minimally-labeled entrance to a speakeasy.

Chalk sign of a bar, advertising the establishment’s shot+beer special.

Opening day at a new “American (New)” restaurant.

Monochromatic logo on the frosted glass of an unnamed upscale boutique.

Macroscopic shot of traffic lights in the rain.

Thuds followed by quiet whining as pebbles of ice are hurled through a fence, slapping against the nylon of the jacket and tracing its silhouette to the ground.

Islands of barely-gray snow in the flooded edges of the street.

Sharp notes of metal radiating off pools of standing water.

Cold water at the edge of a sock, already beginning to seep.

Surprising tingles as blood rushes into hands you hadn’t noticed going numb.

The shiver that doesn’t leave, even after you hold your hands over the radiator until your palms are sweating and acquire a reddish quality.

27 #24MAG

ON-SITE SHAKESPEARE

directed by Rose Ginsberg and Emily Kadish with photographs by Johanna Bobrow

Few things are more exciting to me than creating theater in unconventional spaces. So when Sara announced that the theme for the final issue of #24MAG would be “space,” I knew this was my chance to use my skills as a stage director in the magazine. Finally! I have been searching for that opportunity since Issue 1. From that time I have written about directing, taken part in conversations about theater, and interviewed other theater artists, but in all of those projects I was acting as a writer and interviewer, not a director. This time I could bring my whole artistic self to the table.

I showed up in the morning with a half-formed plan to do a photo essay of site-specific theater scenes.

Fortunately, Emily Kadish and Johanna Bobrow immediately jumped on board. By challenging us to constrain our settings to the various areas in our workspace, Emily opened up the space as a source of inspiration. Johanna framed, lit, and shot each scene, distilling specific and evocative images from an often chaotic process. A company of intrepid #24MAG contributors signed on as actors, taking time away from their computers to come and play with us—even when that meant lying on the cold ground or climbing up to the roof. (Thanks, Ian!) I can think of no better way to close out my participation in #24MAG than with this piece. It’s a perfect representation of how I love to make art: collaborating with incredible partners in crime to find the heart of our material, to crack each other up along the way, and to end up with work that I’m proud to have had a part in crafting. Thank you, Emily, Johanna, Sara, and all the performers. Let all the number of the stars give light to thy fair way!

— Rose Ginsberg

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THE TEMPEST Act 1, Scene 1 Prospero: Sara Eileen Hames Ariel: Aida Manduley Boatswain: Rose Ginsberg

BOATSWAIN: Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! Yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master’s whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

29 #24MAG

RICHARD III

HAMLET

Act 1, Scene 2

Act 3, Scene 4

Lady Anne: Jenny Williamson Richard III: Emily Lubanko The Corpse of King Henry VI : Ian Danskin

Hamlet: Jack Cavicchi Gertrude: Jenny Williamson Polonius: Ben Cordes

LADY ANNE: He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.

HAMLET: Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge; you go not till I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you.

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MACBETH

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Act 5, Scene 1

Act 2, Scene 6

Lady Macbeth: Emily Kadish

Lorenzo: Aida Manduley Jessica: Ian Danskin Salarino: Steven Padnick Gratiano: Rose Ginsberg

LADY MACBETH: What, will these hands ne’er be clean?

LORENZO: Descend, for you must be my torchbearer.

JESSICA: What, must I hold a candle to my shames?

31 #24MAG

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Act 4, Scene 2 Dogberry: Rose Fox Verges: Andy Izenson Conrad: Ian Danskin Borachio: Casey Middaugh First Watchman: David Dyte Second Watchman: Ben Cordes

DOGBERRY: Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves?

ROMEO AND JULIET Act 3, Scene 5 Juliet: Aida Manduley Romeo: Ian Danskin

JULIET: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day: it was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.

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KING LEAR Act 3, Scene 4 King Lear: Casey Middaugh Fool: David Dyte

KING LEAR: Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.

FOOL: Prithee, nuncle, be contented; ‘tis a naughty night to swim in.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Act 2, Scene 2 Helena: Emily Kadish Demetrius: Ben Cordes Puck: Andy Izenson

HELENA: Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.

DEMETRIUS: I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.

33 #24MAG

THE TURTLE

by Steven Padnick Fluorescent lights flicker slightly above the reception area, casting a yellowish light on the brown wooden desk. The woman behind the counter—Luanne, if her name tag is correct—smiles her warmest smile, the one she was taught in training; the one that says, “You are welcome here. You are safe. You are home.”

It’s hard to be warm at three in the morning, halfway through a graveyard shift, and the smile doesn’t reach Luanne’s eyes. But people like me need her, and so she smiles her best and says, “Good evening. Welcome to the Believe Shelter. Do you need a place to sleep?”

I part my lips, but I don’t have the energy to speak, so I just nod. She types something into the computer, her chunky bracelets clacking against each other as she does.

“And what’s your name, honey?” My lips tighten into a frown, and she shrugs, knowingly. “It’s okay. We’ll just say Jane.” I hold in a laugh. A million names to choose from.

She goes with Jane.

bounce, but it’s enough to keep her and me moving.

She leads me around the corner down a hall of plain brown doors. The fluorescents here are slightly dimmer than the one in reception, and everything feels a little more dreamlike. From some of the doors I hear slight moans. A woman, sobbing, calls out a boy’s name. From another door come loud snores. From most comes silence. Blessed silence.

Luanne stops at one door that looks just like all the others. “Here you go, honey, this one’s yours.” She opens the door to a small room, 10’ x 10’ at most, with a twin bed on one wall and a dresser with a mirror on the other. On the far side is a window too high for me to look out of, but I guess that means it’s also too high for anyone to look in.

“You need anything in the middle of the night, you just come see me.” She smiles, leans in, then pulls back. She’s a hugger, but she’s clearly been instructed not to touch people without their permission. “Breakfast Luanne finishes entering me into the system, starts at six, in case you’re an early riser.” just the information she can tell by looking at Then she winks at me. “And it’s served until me. Five-foot six. Curly, red hair. Black tank ten, in case you’re not.” top, black jeans, Doc Martens, a large duffel bag, also black. No visible bruises.

She turns back down the hall to man the desk again. “Thank you, Luanne,” I say qui“Right this way,” she says with a doe-eyed etly. I’m shaking with the effort it takes me “poor, lost child” look. I don’t know whether talk. to feel patronized or not. In this light, it’s hard to tell if Luanne’s older or younger than I close the door and look at the empty space me. She could be 50. She could be 20. Most- she’s left me. The sheets and the walls and ly, she looks tired. Her shoulders sag. Her the dresser are all beige. No one can object light yellow sweater and floral blouse sag. to beige.

Only her bleached-blonde ponytail has any #24MAG 34

Unless you’re me, I guess.

I sigh. After everything that’s happened, I’m wiped out. But I can’t rest. Not here. Not in this strange, beige room.

I unzip my bag and dig through the tangle of clothes until I find what I’m looking for: a rolled-up poster and a roll of Scotch tape.

I place the poster on the wall above the bed and tape down the edges. It’s slightly crooked, but Kurt Cobain now looks down on me beatifically, offering me his guitar as neon red wings spring from his back.

The first time I heard the name Kurt Cobain was when he died. I was a fan of New Kids on the Block and Tiffany when I heard that this boy, this man, had killed himself. It was on the radio, driving back from soccer practice, and the DJ, he didn’t believe what he was saying. He’d stop, and I could hear him quietly asking someone to confirm the news. “Such a shame,” Mom said. “He just had a baby girl.”

After I begged her, Mom gave me Unplugged in New York on cassette and I would listen late at night when I should have been sleeping. I’d listen to that man’s voice crack when he sang that it’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have feelings, and I’d cry because I’d never get the chance to see him, or hug him, or tell him that he was loved.

In high school, Perry told me about MP3s, and how I could just download Nirvana’s entire catalog, live recordings and bootlegs and all, and Perry would just email them to me and we would stay up all night listening to them on his computer.

I touch Kurt’s face. You are loved. You are still loved.

I reach back into the bag and pull out the Eiffel Tower. It’s light and pewter and about the length of my forearm. A gift from Perry. A promise that he’d take me to see the real one someday.

We moved in together after high school. Then Afghanistan happened. Perry, that beautiful, stupid boy, thought it was his duty “to get them for what they done to us,” and when he came back to Evansville, he wasn’t Perry anymore. Things had happened he couldn’t tell me about. We didn’t work anymore. We moved apart, and I moved out.

Occasionally we email. He’s married now.

35 #24MAG

I held onto the Tower, though. I am going to see the real one. One day. My Tower has a dent in it. I place the Tower on the dresser, next to the mirror, dent facing away from me.

Next to the Tower I place Kit Reynard Zorro, the little one-eyed fox. He lost his right eye when I was eight. The button just fell off one day and rolled under the couch, or maybe the bed. It’s probably still there—it’s not like Dad cleans anymore.

When I came home, the house was a mess.

After Mom passed, Dad just let things pile up. Magazines. Pizza boxes. Beer cans. I found Kit under a mound of my clothes thrown on the bed. He was just waiting there for me. I dusted him off and hugged him.

I threw out the boxes, and Dad, I guess he felt guilty, because he shoved the magazines into the recycling bin. And for a bit, things were okay.

For a bit.

“How’s the job search going?” That was all he said. Not “You should get a job,” or “you need to earn some money.” Certainly not “I’m tired of paying for you to sit around all day and it’s time for you to pull your own weight.” Just “How’s the job search going?”

It’s just that he said it every day. Every time we sat down to dinner. Like clockwork, “How’s the job search going?”

I told him I was looking for something in an office, something with a future. That it was hard out there to find a job with just a high school diploma. And he’d grunt and nod and move on.

And then the next night it was “So how’s the job search going?”

I got the hint. I started bartending. The hours were lousy and the customers were assholes, #24MAG 36

but the tips were good if I wore a low-cut tank top. And I could always come home to Kit, and I’d hug him and feel safe.

It was at work I met Marko. Marko was... different. He didn’t give a shit about music or defending his country. He just liked getting drunk and getting high and living life. He’d complain about his shit job, and the lousy weather, and tell me that my hair looked great tonight. Sometimes, if it was the end of my shift, and I was lonely, I’d go home with him. He was good-looking enough.

One morning, curled up in my arms, he said he was done with this place. There was a whole wide world out there. “Come with me,” he said, suddenly. And I couldn’t think of any reason I shouldn’t.

I told Marko to meet me at the bar that night. At home, Dad had fallen asleep in front of the TV again, his belly slipping out from under his shirt. I grabbed a duffel bag and some clothes. A week’s worth, maybe.

I grabbed Kit for protection and the Tower for luck and threw them into the bag. I was ready to go when I had a second thought.

I turned back and carefully peeled Kurt off the walls, rolled him up and put him into the bag too.

I tried to wake Dad, but he was out cold. So I left a note for him. I left a note on him. It told him that I was going and that I wasn’t coming back.

I waited for Marko outside the bar, and threw my bag into the back seat as soon as he showed up.

We drove all night until we got to Chicago.

Neither of us had ever been there before.

We lived in the first cheap motel we could find. I found work as a bartender again; there’s always a need for a bartender in a low-cut tank top. Marko took a little more time finding work.

And a little more time after that.

But I put Kurt on the wall, and Kit and the Tower on the shelves, and things felt okay.

We saw the Art Institute and Wrigley by day, and I dragged Marko to rock shows on my nights off. There were things to do and places to explore and for a while, it was home.

Until it wasn’t. Until it was a motel room I paid for with tips I got by letting drunks leer at my tits. Until it was a man who spent my money to eat and drink and get high.

Until one day, while splitting a joint, after he was done talking about the rain ruining his shoes, I asked him, “So... how’s the job search going?”

He glared at me, his brown eyes shrinking into small black holes of hatred.

The relationship was walking dead after that.

It was just a question of who was going to pull the trigger.

Turned out it was me. I was showering after a late night at work. Marko was out and I was happy to have the room to myself. Then I heard a thud and a crash in the main room.

Terrified it was a burglar, I rushed out of the shower and grabbed the first weapon I could get my hands on: the stupid Tower.

Only it was Marko. The door was busted and he was on the floor, going through my wallet, taking out my cash. His eyes were bloodshot and he fell on his ass when he saw me.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

He looked from me to the broken door and back to me. “Lost my key,” he slurred.

He didn’t put my money back in my wallet.

“Why didn’t you just ask for help?” I yelled.

He got to his feet and shook his fist in my face, my twenties crumpled in his fingers. “So you can make me feel like an asshole again?”

37 #24MAG

I brought the Tower down on his wrist, knocking the cash from his hand. “Get out,” I bellowed. I swung the Tower back up into his face. “Get out!”

Marko stumbled backward out the door, holding his cheek. I lifted the Tower to throw it and he started running. I slammed the door but of course it just swung back open. I held it shut and pushed the bed against it, then sat on the bed and refused to cry. Not over him.

Then I got dressed.

I took everything that was mine—my clothes, my fox, my poster, my weapon, my money—and I stuffed them into the duffel bag. It took me three tries to zip it up.

I left the key on the bed and walked out the door. I found a cop, told him about the break-in, and asked him the number of a good women’s shelter. After calling a few, I found a spare emergency bed at Believe.

I sit on the bed and look at Kurt. I would always be loved as long as I had Kurt. I look at Kit, my furry protector Kit. I would always be safe with him. I look at the Tower on the nightstand. I still have a dream. I still have somewhere to go.

I make a call I’ve been putting off for months.

“Jane?!” says a panicked voice on the other end, and I start crying. “Jane, is that you?

Are you okay?”

no. No, I’m all right. I’m with friends and I’m okay. I wanted you to know that I’m okay.

And I wanted to know if you’re okay.”

The phone fills with Dad’s sigh of relief. “I’m fine, baby, I’m really fine. I worry about you, though.”

“I know.”

“I miss you, Janey.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I say. “I’m... I’m in a safe space. I just wanted to tell you that I’m okay. I’m alive and I’m okay and I’m, I’m sorry that I left you like that.”

“Miss you too, Daddy. Sorry I woke you up.”

“Any time. I’ll always be here for you.”

“Where are you? Do you need me to come get you?”

My throat swells, and I choke out, “I love you, Dad.”

“I’m in Chicago,” I say, with a laugh. “And...

“Love you, too,” he says in a relieved yawn. I

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let him get back to bed.

I pet Kit, rub the Tower for luck, and kiss Kurt goodnight. Then drift off to sleep.

In the morning, I find the dining room filled with women of all ages: teenage runaways and battered wives with their kids, senile grandmothers and coffee-guzzling recovering addicts. I’m about to take my seat with them when I see Luanne. She hasn’t changed clothes from last night and must be at the end of her shift, but in sunlight, she seems more awake and alive than anyone I’ve ever met.

I sit next to her and say, “I’m sorry about last night. Thank you for the bed.” Luanne actually blushes. “My name is Jane, by the way. It actually is Jane.”

Luanne shrugs with a shy smile. “Pleased to meet you, Jane. I’m Luanne. You feel free to stay as long as you like.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be here long. Just until I can make enough money to get out of here.”

“Of course, sugar,” Luanne says. “You heading home after this?”

I smile. It feels good to smile. “I’m always home. I’m going to Paris.”

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ANAMORPHIC PERSPECTIVE Ian Danskin photos by Johanna Bobrow

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By Andy Izenson

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Come up with me. Not that “up” has any meaning here, or in the farthest darknesses, where we are bound, my dear. Do not falter, do not fear for your flesh shell, but trust that I will hold you in the tender space inside my heart. I will preserve you in my core, touch your face with starlight, slow your fall.

I want to show you what I mean when I say “fall,” let you feel the wild seasons as they are out here, breathe the bright chill of vacuum, the passion in a star’s core, and the spring and autumn that are sweetly bound between the two, in the precisve distant spaces that hold your survival in a delicate, momentary shell.

Come deep with me, through nebulae whorled like shells, toppling in every possible direction in an infinite Luciferian fall, between the grasping fingers of stellar nurseries, the spaces where stars create themselves. See fresh suns like perfect globes here, billions of them; see satellites and moons follow them, bound joyfully through the emptiness like Cerberus at the heel of Kore.

I can’t keep you alive for long in this place. Your body’s core will crumple in on itself, the matter empty out of your shell, viscera find themselves suddenly no longer bound, and blood crystallize into sapphires and fall away. I would say “Hold your breath” if it would matter; here we are, on the breathing intractable shore of space.

Look back with me. The panoramic space fills your eyes with the dying star, but remember there is no core, no borders, no escape, nothing but the infinite spherical here, collapsing suns like phosphenes outside and inside your shell.

Take a step forward—open and let yourself fall a little. Reach with your body for the outer bound.

My dear, you and I are/will be/have always been bound for the effervescing belly of this star as it enters the space between death and rebirth, as it begins to fall into itself forever, into the plasmid glory of its own core, as it bursts what is left of its gaseous shell and turns inside out, devouring everything here.

And now we are bound inward, into our own iron core; and into the space between the shuddering electron shells of our own atoms we fall; not that “we” has any meaning here.

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Math the Band.

Math the Band.

The Shea logo.

Adam Reich, one of Shea’s founders, records every show. Shea is both a recording studio and a performance space.

Backstage. #24MAG 44

Photographs by Walter Wlodarczyk

Unstoppable Death Machines.

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Brothers Michael Tucci (left) and Billy Tucci are Unstoppable Death Machines.

KEN South ROCK tunes with the audience’s help.

KEN South ROCK.

Math the Band.

Unstoppable Death Machines prepare to close the show. #24MAG 46

Peelander Yellow performing with his orchestra, selected from the audience.

Peelander Yellow performs an interactive solo set.

Peelander Yellow paints a mural.

Peelander Yellow dances with a fan.

Peelander Yellow with his finished mural.

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An Interview with Robert Jackson Bennett

By Rose Fox YZ Transcribed by Rose Ginsberg Robert Jackson Bennett is an author of speculative fiction who also works with architects. His most recent novel, American Elsewhere, is set in a town that mimics idealized 1950s America. We caught up with him to talk about physical space, outer space, and the ways that books can themselves be spaces.

ROSE FOX: Tell me about your architecture-related work.

ROBERT JACKSON BENNETT: I work in a professional trade association for architects in Texas. I put together tours and events around the state, primarily so that architects can maintain their licenses. To maintain a license in any professional field means that you have to fulfill continuing education hours so that you stay up-to-date on the best practices of your industry.

And so, for architects, it’s things like health, safety, and welfare; sustainable design; and making sure that their designs are accessible.

RF: I was reading a couple of the interviews that you’d done about American Elsewhere, and I noticed that you said something about looking at a lot of architecture that inspired the design of the town and maybe other aspects of the book.

RJB: There’s a quality to architecture porn that’s very pristine and very antiseptic. These places that you see in the photos are perfect and just immaculate. And when I see these things, I both want to live there and can’t conceive of someone living there. I mean, I can’t see someone trying to make eggs in their underwear in this kitchen.

And so, when I was writing that book, you know, it’s all about the image, about things looking perfect. And when it comes down to actually being a person and trying to be in this perfect space as a person, a lot of the characters in that book just can’t cut it, just can’t do it. If they’re human or other, they’re just not sure how to go about being a person. Their houses are gorgeous, but they don’t have any human interaction with those houses.

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RF: And then there’s the other aspect of space in American Elsewhere that has to do with outer space, or possibly another dimension—the space where these strange creatures come from, and the attempts of human beings to understand and access that space. So, we come back to the idea of being accessible, in that we want space to be accessible to us, and then that inadvertently makes us accessible to these creatures.

RJB: That wasn’t quite on my mind as I was writing, because this is a book that doesn’t look outward nearly as much as it does inward. My fascination was mostly with [outer] space as a cultural touchstone.

You know, when we were really trying to access space, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was a point in time in which we were doing a lot of things as a country and as a culture. There was a lot of optimism and there was a lot of money, and that money was very well spread around so that a lot of people had it, rather than just a handful.

And so, it was this idea of just trying to use space, and the architects that went with it, like Googie architecture, that I called upon to create this image of a perfect town.

RF: Tell me a little bit more about space as a cultural touchstone.

RJB: I think you have to be a pretty optimistic person to want to go to space.

You have to really want to do it, and you

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have to be willing to risk a lot to do it. And I think you have to be well educated. And I think that you have to see some sort of end goal in trying to do it, as well.

Nowadays I don’t think that we have any of that. I mean, going to space is the biggest thing, I think, that we can do as a species. And, you know, we have one era in which we really want to do it, and then in the other we just absolutely aren’t interested. So it’s really a tale of two different societies.

RF: I want to go back to that word “accessible.” Talking about it in this context makes me think about books that are often described as accessible or not. I’d put yours maybe halfway between those two. I was wondering how you go about making a book accessible and deciding how accessible to make it. There might be advantages to barriers in a book that there are not with a physical space.

RJB: That’s an interesting perspective, because it’s fun to have things not be accessible. In architecture the word “inaccessible” is obviously not positive.

But when it comes to writing, having something not be accessible is fun. I mean, like, think of the structure of a fairy tale, in which one person has to do a whole lot of dumb stuff to get to the things they want. That thing that they want is not accessible. And the fun is trying to see them get to it.

RF: Or the quest story. Like, all of epic fantasy is basically about accessing the inaccessible.

RJB: Yeah. I mean, like, if there’s a journey of any kind, then by default that thing is not that accessible. And I think, when it comes to writing, you don’t want it to be completely inaccessible, because then it’s not that fun. If you can walk into a book and see everything in the first 20 pages, then there’s not a lot of reasons to keep on going. There’s not a puzzle there. There’s nothing that you want to figure out.

And so you have to make a certain level of accessibility, but you need to have a certain amount of the book that’s not accessible, because that makes people want to work. And that’s when reading gets really fun, is when the writer has seduced you to the point that you want to work and think really hard about the book.

There are certain books where I’m reading it and I get excited, and I’ll start to make, like, spreadsheets—in my head, I don’t actually do it. I’m not that cool. But you’re excited and you see this history, and you see all these interactions, and you start to think, “There’s a lot more going on here.”

The fact that you can’t get it means that it’s not accessible, at least not yet. But the fact that you walked in and it’s made itself inviting to you means that it was accessible enough to get you excited.

RF: Any final thoughts you wanted to toss out about any kind of space or spaces?

RJB: Architect Craig Dykers, who works for Snohetta, has a really cool thing in The New Yorker that’s worth checking out about how, if you go to a public space or any kind of space, the space has an unconscious effect on people. Like, there are certain things that folks will gather around, or will get in the lee side of to be protected. There are large open spaces that, for some reason, set off bells in our heads going, “I don’t want to go out there; I’m exposed.” We prefer things to be closed and intimate, but only in certain conditions.

The way that he put it was that there was a party that he was at, and a friend had a sheepdog. And the sheepdog would tap sheep and chase sheep to get them into the right pens. And when it came to his guests at this party, it would tap their knees and kind of shove them until it had herded all the guests into one room where it could watch them. And so, Dykers said that, as architects, we have to be the sheepdog and nudge people in the right directions and make sure that the flow kind of suggests the way that they need to go. And I think that there’s a lot of truth in that in writing, too.

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“YA CAN’T GIT THEYAH FROM HEAH”

My grandfather of my parents’ car. collected old maps. Not That map, unlike the the kind of old map ones my grandfather that drew fantastical had framed on the creatures across a flat wall, laid out the earth and proclaimed world as everyone “Hic Sunt Draconis!”, agreed it really was: a but the kind that circulatory system of Meg Grady-Troia showed rivers, property roads with designated lines, colonial territories, and mangled numbers, colors, and exits. I loved being the transliterations of native names for places. navigator when we drove, and being able to see not where we were—inevitably, New I used to love those old maps because I knew Jersey—but where we were going. I also they were wrong. They were obsolete and loved when we needed to find something showed the world in small, discontinuous that wasn’t on that atlas, because we got to segments. He hung maps of small Irish explore past its beige boundaries. I always counties next to maps of whole continents, wanted to annotate the atlas with whatever and they all looked the same to me as a we found. That would make the map more child. likely to go out of date, but it also marked the map as our experience.

I grew up in the era of the large RandMcNally atlas. The Rand-McNally was a Those atlases taught me the difference laminated map book that was bigger than between a map that is objectively true and a my baby brother and lived in the back seat map that is subjectively true. The maps my

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grandfather collected showed what might have been, and what people could agree on. The virgin atlases showed what was missing from the agreed-upon world, and added directions to the map. I scribbled on our atlas to include particulars, like where to find the best fried cauliflower in Altoona, PA, or which gas station had the cleanest bathroom. I also took note of the real landmarks of the spaces we passed through, like the mushroom museum, or the topless beach you could see from the highway. I wanted to illustrate not the dragons that might live in uncharted realms, but the real oddities that made each place more fantastical than the atlas indicated.

When GPS devices and online maps permeated our smartphones and our transit, I worried that our experiential maps would erode in the face of shared objectivity. I was, of course, wrong. The directions given by locals still manage to be helpful in a way that maps cannot be. Directions can rely on things that are invisible to the eye, things that happened long ago, and things that are ephemeral.

These directions are as imaginative and unique as the monsters in old maps.

To illustrate some of the ways in which

directions can be idiosyncratic and relevant without a map, I polled the contributors to #24MAG for some of their favorite directions. We pulled the examples from emails, text messages, letters, and memories.

Even without context, these directions tell stories and paint pictures.

“The restaurant is on the block where you and I made out on our first real date.”

“There’s no number on my house, but if you pass the Ethiopian restaurant with the neon sign that buzzes loudly, you’ve gone too far.”

“Keep going past the house with all the ‘beware of dogs’ signs, though they totally don’t even have dogs.”

“When you turn right, you’ll see a giant, menacing, generator-powered snow globe with a 14-foot inflatable santa behind it.

That is not my house.”

“When you get to Pennsylvania, turn right.”

“When you start to get worried that you’ve gone past it, it’s about another half a mile on the right.”

I learned to navigate Boston, my adopted home, through directions like this, and I prize the people who give me personalized directions that show me not just where to go, but what I will see on the way.

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Boston’s streets are notoriously poorly labeled and winding, and most of the maps look wrong even to locals. The common refrain is “you can’t get there from here,” or, as Ben Cordes, a contributor to this magazine and a Massachusetts native, transliterated it from the traditional Boston accent: “ya can’t git theyah from heah.” Of course, you almost always can get there, but it takes either some faith or some insider knowledge.

The other classic New England direction trick is to tell people to navigate by defunct landmarks. “Hang a right where the Dunkin Donuts used to be” and “It’s near where the old exit 8 was” are common examples. I love those assumptions of shared history because they tell me that the places around us are as changed by us as we are by them.

We etch memories into wet pavement and pliable minds, and because of those marks, we navigate differently than the maps tell us to. I rarely walk in a straight line unless I

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have to. (At my alma mater, it was de rigueur to say “gaily forward” instead of “straight”; the intent was social consciousness, but it often gave visitors enough pause to affect their mental map of the campus, too.) I choose my routes to check out the best rose bushes, pass my favorite coffee shop, or peek in the window of an interesting art gallery. I recognize the people on my regular bus and climb on, heedless of the display that says the bus is going somewhere else. I travel to my personal landmarks while remaining unaware of the street names or house numbers.

When I navigate this way, I imagine a cartographer trying to turn my routes into paths as orderly as the Rand-McNally, and throwing up their hands. As much as I loved to look at my grandfather’s maps, and as often as I rely on my phone’s GPS in lieu of the atlas I grew up with, I still look at my world as a place that directions capture better than any map. It is these ways of interacting with space that still shout, “Hic Sunt Draconis!”

Poem: Andy Izenson Model: Emily Kadish

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By Casey Middaugh and Emily Kadish

MAKING SPACE FOR ART Advice from Professional Space Organizers

You make art, which means that sometimes you make a mess. Sometimes, you’re so busy making art that you don’t have the time or wherewithal to clean up the mess, and then life happens and you really don’t have time, and the mess grows on its own and gets big enough to overwhelm you. Your clothes live on the floor, you’re not sure where your _____ is, and you’ve taken to storing your childhood poetry notebooks in the cupboard with your mugs. (What? It made sense at the time.) You need enough room to make art, and to make a mess in the pursuit thereof. Two of us at #24MAG are professional space organizers. Here’s how we encourage our clients: 1.

Start with low stakes.

Acclimate to getting rid of things by divesting yourself of duplicate books, dry cleaner hangers, and that box of stuff you got ready to give to Goodwill six months ago that you didn’t quite get out of the house.

2. Start somewhere contained.

Focus on a particular room (like the bathroom), a concept (like the things you take to work every day), or a type of object (like books, printing supplies, or tshirts). What fits in that category? Where do those things live? Get that space ready to house those things and make sure they all fit there.

3. Start with something you’re not emotionally attached to.

Clearing out can be scary and difficult, so poke it to see if it hurts and work on the parts that don’t hurt. Once you’ve cleared categories that don’t hurt, often the painful ones will have become less painful.

4. Don’t start with objects tied to your self-definition.

Unless you are really truly ready to get rid of all of the paraphernalia associated with your past as a trapeze artist, find another way to make space for the accounting books you currently have a passion for. #24MAG 56

5. Enlist a helper.

You need to use a lot of your energy on making decisions, so have someone else help you get things out of your home and over to the thrift store, the recycling center, or the house of a friend who needs a new couch.

6. Sweep and celebrate!

Any time you’ve cleared a space on the floor, sweep or vacuum that space. The visual difference of that clean space is an encouraging reminder of how much you’ve done already.

7. Store things in the room where you use them.

There’s a reason frying pans don’t often live in the garage.

8. Group like with like.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that all of your books are in the same room, for example: cookbooks might want to live somewhere different from craft books.

But all your cookbooks should probably be together.

9. Use the groupings that make sense to you, even if they don’t make sense to anyone else.

“These are things I need for school” and “these things are precious to me and I don’t want anyone to touch them” are just as reasonable a way of categorizing as “these things go in the bath.”

10. Leave yourself space to grow.

Don’t fill your shelves all the way full; you’re going to acquire more books, more supplies. Acquiring things is what people do. Plan for it.

Doing a big round of cleaning is important, but more important is setting up systems so you can occasionally get messy without getting overwhelmed. You’re awesome. Your stuff is super cool. Get your personal space in order so it can enable you to lead the life you want to live.

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by Rachel Cromidas

Imagining Public Space Without Gridlock

If New York is the city that has nearly everything, then one thing it’s likely missing is the space to contain it all.

That’s why former mayor Michael Bloomberg held a contest while he was in office to design a set of apartment units only 250 to 370 square feet in size; why some suit-andtie professionals use Razor scooters to get around Times Square during rush hour; and why a video of a man riding his bicycle on busy Manhattan streets without veering from the bike lanes—and summarily crashing into every idling car, misplaced traffic sign, and trashcan—went viral on YouTube.

As an urban bicyclist who occasionally crashlands myself, I’m fascinated by the question of how cities can reclaim some of their public #24MAG 58

spaces from automobile gridlock and create streets friendly to public transportation, foot traffic, and cyclists. This is the obsession of the folks at OpenPlans, a SoHo-based nonprofit (and my former employer) that uses technology and advocacy to address public transportation issues.

Stephen Miller is the reporter for OpenPlans’s news website, Streetsblog New York. I asked him to talk with me about how the previous mayoral administration addressed public space challenges, and what he expects the new administration to do.

Miller’s job is to follow and scrutinize the city’s major transportation plans and look at ways that public officials and advocacy groups want to help people navigate the city’s streetscape without cars.

Miller said local transportation advocates usually embraced the Bloomberg administration’s policies, especially those to expand bike lanes and special “select bus service” routes, but many plans

still sparked controversy among local community members and politicians. To Miller, the controversy over one plan, to create special bus lanes for express Select Bus Service (SBS) across Upper Manhattan’s 125th Street, underscores how tensions over community needs, public opinion, and political clout can slow change.

this bus route is that it’s the bus to La Guardia,” Miller said. So Harlem residents saw the proposed changes as benefiting outsiders, not locals. “Their reaction came from a place of ‘This isn’t for us,’ ” Miller said.

When city officials first proposed cutting into car lanes to create a special space for the M60, a bus that runs from Columbia University to La Guardia Airport, local community leaders balked. The bus is one of the few listed on the subway map, and it draws a lot of airport-bound riders from outside the neighborhood. “For a lot of people who don’t live in Harlem, their understanding of

Miller said the city officials didn’t want to let SBS go, so they reintroduced a shortened version of the plan late last year, and got the local support they needed.

The bus trip across 125th Street is typically crowded and slow; on a bad day, it can be faster to walk across town. Still, without community support, the city ended up shelving the plan.

“The modified form cut the bus lane in half,” he said. “Now it has the backing of local political leadership, even though it’s not all that different than what was proposed in the past.”

Similar stories have played out around the city in recent years as city officials pushed to take street space away from cars and

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redefine the boundaries of pedestrian spaces.

Another example, Miller said, is the project to bring protected bike lanes to East Harlem, where it can be tough to find safe routes to ride.

“So much of the ‘bikelash’ happened before I came here, but there are still elements of it going on,” he said.

Bikelash?

“Yup. Like backlash.”

Most of road bumps in the city’s bike lane saga may have smoothed over since, but the newly elected mayor Bill de Blasio will likely

photo by David Dyte

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face new challenges as he and his new Department of Transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, move forward.

Miller said the big issue to watch this year could be traffic violence, which refers to people being killed or injured while walking or cycling in the streets. De Blasio has pledged to eliminate these fatalities within 10 years by transforming the city’s most dangerous traffic corridors and installing more cameras. More than 270 people died in city traffic in 2012, according to a city report released last March—the highest number since 2008, according to The New York Times.

“Traffic violence cuts across race and class, in terms of who can become a victim, so right now there’s a lot of advocacy around that,” Miller said. “De Blasio’s goal is big, and some would say unachievable.”

illustration by Brittany McCusker 61 #24MAG

NEW YORK’S INGENIOUS SPACES

By David Dyte (photos and text) & Michele Lent Hirsch (text)

The #24MAG workspace is tall, airy, and... spacious.

New York’s birds peck at the edges of human spaces, eking out a living in the margins we leave. #24MAG 62

The Museum of Natural History contains a gigantic space of space.

Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin’s Movable Type adorns the lobby of the New York Times building, echoing the endless stream of words from The Times itself.

The lighting showrooms of Greene Street in SoHo aim to best each other in creating a dazzling, illuminated space.

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From the time that “base ball” first began to take hold in Brooklyn, all kinds of available spaces were purloined for the purpose, for as long as a block remained vacant. In 1887, the Brooklyn Eagle reported on mounted policemen scaring the life out of young urchins who dared to flout the law by playing the game on Sundays. In every decade since, the tradition of street baseball has continued, even as numerous public parks and private fields have provided a safer place to play. In some cases, ingenuity and legitimacy coincide. The Holy Name T-Ball Field in Windsor Terrace is just such a charming, Brooklynesque use of available space. In this narrow lot, a perfect gem of a diamond springs to life each season. It is as much a part of Brooklyn’s baseball heritage as Ebbets Field.

Adam Road hypnotizes a crowd at the Broadway–Lafayette stop with lush, beautiful sound. #24MAG 64

D’Espresso on 42nd Street is a little confusing—90 degrees from the everyday.

It’s not as if a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems is more scholarly or cerebral here than it would be somewhere else. But there’s something about that impossibly adorned ceiling that makes library-goers look at books differently.

When I went to my local, un-mansion-like branch as a kid, I already loved to read. The pale mustard walls met nothing more than a cracked off-white ceiling, but that didn’t take away from the hushed, house-of-knowledge feeling I got from a room of free books.

Now that I use the Rose Room for research as an adult, I do get a little of the awe that the tourists snapping pictures seem to have. The space is saturated, festooned beyond any level I would ever try myself, even if I lucked into a fortune. (It is, among other things, one of the only places worthy of “festooned.”)

In comparison, does it take away from the scrappy branch libraries, the places where kids actually go, in an un-fancy way, to borrow all of their books? I hope not. The ritzy space gives off one kind of splendor—and its basic, everyday cousins, another.

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AN IRREGULAR COFFEE Ben Cordes

“Sam! I have a tall light roast for Sam.”

in Haskell flowed off the page and into her head.

Sam looked up from her smartphone and saw the steaming mug of coffee waiting on the bar. She put her phone in her pocket, picked up the mug, and scanned the room looking for a comfortable place to sit.

“Glornak! I have a skim mocha latte in a personal mug for Glornak.”

Her usual coffee shop was more full than what she would expect for an average afternoon, and most everyone was busy with some bit of technology or another. Some folks sat with giant headphones over their ears and laptops in front of them, while others tapped away at smartphones. Still others took actual phone calls.

Sam blinked. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard someone give an odd name to the barista in order to make their drink more distinctive, but she didn’t hear the name Glornak every day. Sam looked up from her book and over to the counter, where an alien creature with blue-green skin and tentacle feet was picking up the skim mocha latte.

One man sat at a table in the middle of the room and seemed to do all three at the same time, yelling at someone on the phone and gesticulating wildly with one hand while typing on his laptop with the other.

Sam looked at the alien, and then looked suspiciously at her cup of coffee. The light roast did seem a little off, she thought. She looked at the alien again—at Glornak, she reminded herself, he did have a name—er, was the alien actually a “he”? Sam wasn’t sure, and didn’t even have the first clue how to tell.

“Laurie! I have a macchiato with extra foam for Laurie.”

Glornak slithered around the room, looking for a place to sit.

Sam found an easy chair near the door, settled in, and sipped her coffee. She opened her bag, took out a book, and flipped it open. The familiar scenery of the coffee shop relaxed her: the taste of the coffee, the baristas going about their business, the other patrons doing their own things in their own worlds. Sam dove into her book; the arcane technical details of how monads are implemented

“Frank! I have a four-shot espresso for Frank.”

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Sam looked around. Did no one else see this? Even the baristas didn’t seem to notice. A creature from another planet just walked into my local coffee shop and ordered a caffè mocha, Sam said to herself, and even brought their own coffee mug.

Do they come here a lot? How come I’ve never seen them before? What are they doing here?

Sam realized she was staring and tried to focus on her book, but her curiosity nagged at her. She read the same paragraph five or six times before giving up. She wanted to know more about this Glornak character... who was suddenly standing there speaking to her.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, do you mind if I sit here?”

Glornak gestured towards the chair next to Sam, onto which she had thrown her backpack.

“Oh, yes, of course. Here, let me get that.”

“Rachel! I have a pot of Darjeeling for Rachel.”

Glornak sat in the comfy chair next to Sam, set down an attaché case, and pulled a laptop out of it. Sam pretended to go back to reading her book but was quite distracted by Glornak’s presence in the next chair. She surruptitiously leaned over to take a peek at the laptop. What kind of computer would it be? What sort of work would Glornak be doing?

The alien was on Twitter. Figures, she thought.

“Would you mind watching my stuff for a minute?

I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Of course.”

Sam got up and walked to the bathroom, locked the door, and examined herself in the mirror. Her eyes didn’t look bloodshot. Her pupils weren’t dilated. Her tongue was a normal color. She didn’t feel sweaty or cold, didn’t seem to be running a temperature. Everything seemed to be normal.

Except for the alien in her favorite coffee shop, and she seemed to be the only one who thought that wasn’t perfectly normal.

“Dave! I have a dirty chai to go for Dave.”

Sam flushed the toilet and opened the door, determined to get a handle on herself and exactly what was going on here. She walked back to her chair and sat down, but instead of picking up her

book again, she struck up a conversation.

“I didn’t introduce myself when you sat down. I’m Sam. Are you new around here?”

“Call me Glornak. I’m just in town on business.”

“Oh? Where do you live?”

“New York.”

Sam kept up the small talk, simultaneously intrigued and frustrated. Glornak deflected some of her personal questions and gave maddeningly mundane answers to others. Glornak was “in sales,” had lived in New York for “a couple of years,” and had “traveled a lot,” but was also very interested in what Sam did for work (software development), why she lived here (nearby family), and why she hung out in this coffee shop (close to her office, best light roast in town). Glornak admitted a relative ignorance of coffee, but paid rapt attention as Sam explained what to look for in a roast and discussed the relative merits of espresso vs. drip-brew coffee.

When Sam asked why Glornak had come into the coffee shop in the first place, all Glornak would say was “I like being alone in a large group of people.”

It was a perfectly normal conversation on a perfectly normal day with a perfectly normal… person from another planet.

“Mike! Large dark roast with room for Mike.”

“I have to run. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you… Sam, was it?”

“Yes, likewise. Glornak.”

Glornak stood, put the laptop back in the attaché case, and dropped a business card on the table.

“I’m getting together with some friends for drinks tonight, over at the Black Cat. Give me a call if you’d like to join us.”

And with that, Glornak was gone.

“Sarah! I have a half-caf no-whip skim café au lait with a twist of lemon for Sarah.”

by Emily Lubanko

TRANSMEDIACHAIN Ah, the Transmedia Chain. It started in Issue Two as a bit of a fluke—my skewed interpretation of someone else’s suggestion. It’s been my baby, and I’ve delighted in gently pestering: “Are you ready to do something for the Transmedia Chain? We need something with words now...”

It was with a somewhat heavy heart that this time the chain started with the idea of “The Last Issue,” lovingly personified with a hug between Rose and Kevin, contributors to Issue One of #24MAG. Michele took on the concept with her poem about endings, which in turn inspired Max’s charming Twitter bot, @__arethenew__, which teaches us so, so many new words. Steven followed with “The New Black,” a short story of incessant competition soaring to new heights, which in turn inspired Johanna’s photograph of the spheres. Jenny wrote “Inner Space” with quiet loveliness. Amanda followed with striking illustration that led to Aida’s unsettling marionette. I collected contributors’ first reactions for Brittany’s graffiti, which sparked Andy’s poem, “Step Right Up,” which took us, finally, at 10 links in this epic Transmedia Chain, to David’s quartet of photographs.

Thank you, and enjoy.

—Casey Middaugh

0.

by Kevin Clark and Rose Fox photo by Johanna Bobrow

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1.

by Michele Lent Hirsch It’s like watching that last, famous episode— Mary Tyler Moore gathers the people she’s made fake television with who are also the people she’s made real television with and snifflingly they shuffle as one mass toward the door.

It’s meta, it’s wistful, yet it’s not my nostalgia, not when I’m eight years old and it’s 1992 and by now I know we’ve made it after all.

My father’s the one who feels the gravity, who relives the rerun.

Eager viewer that I am, I think I feel it too, but that’s what we always do, isn’t it, attach new meaning to old things, attach old meaning to new, and hope that somewhere in there it feels right.

2.

by Max Mechanic

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3.

“The New Black” by Steven Padnick

“I’m so over it,” Eddie said as they left the club, the sun just cutting through the predawn L.A. haze. “Every night it’s the same.

We go to a new space that’s the latest, hottest, sexiest, sleaziest dance party in Hollywood, and every night it’s another abandoned warehouse in the Valley filled with same twenty-year-old scenesters on E. It’s the same goddamn party in the same goddamn warehouse in the same goddamn city, just with a new address and a name that means black in some language I’ve never heard of.”

Sally stopped coughing long enough to wheeze out, “Then what the fuck are you talking about?”

His buddy Sally lit up a clove and took a slow drag. “I’ve been telling you, man, we gotta blow this town. Find some place new.

Some place on the edge. We gotta go to Portland.”

Eddie shook his head, a slow smile spreading on his face. “Naw, man. Higher.”

“Fuck Portland, man! Everyone goes to Portland, man. We need to go somewhere no one’s been before. We gotta make our own fucking scene.”

Sally took another drag, then coughed out, “Underground?”

“What, like the sewer? Everybody goes to the sewer. Diddy’s ‘Manhole’ party was all anybody talked about for like three weeks last year, remember?”

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“Everybody’s getting down. We gotta go up!”

Sally stood up and glared at the towers of downtown. “Like the pool at the Edison?”

Eddie shook his head. “Naw, man. Higher.”

Sally looked up. “Party on a jet plane?”

CUT TO: At a billion dollars, the launch of the orbiter Hei Noir was the most expensive and most exclusive party in history. It was just Eddie and Sally, and as much vodka and caviar as their fuel load would let them carry. It lasted for one day, long enough to orbit the Earth sixteen times before crashing down in the Arabian Sea. As they were brought ashore in Dubai, a team of reporters and paparazzi asked Eddie and Sally, “How was space?”

“It’s been done,” said Eddie.

4.

“Music of the Spheres” by Johanna Bobrow

5.

“Inner Space” by Jenny Williamson

Slit me from collarbone to pelvis, spread me open like a book and you’ll find me full of stars.

Galaxies spinning out their filmy webs under my skin; my heart a pulsing quasar, blazing metronome of light.

I tell you this so you’ll understand the distance I’ve traveled to find you.

On the days when the blackness fills me and my words must navigate an uncountable vastness where no language can possibly exist, I watch for you— Not for the stars’ pitiless radiance but a candle in a window; two hands cradling a light both enormous and frail.

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6. #24MAG 74

by Amanda Watkins

7&8

by Aida Manduley and Britney McCusker / photo by Johanna Bobrow

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9.

“Step Right Up” by Andy Izensom

oh my god cold trapped far from home cold cold cold ugh so still so perfectly still afraid trapped far from home what is it wait absorb expel absorb expel absorb wait perfectly still cold it’s so creepy perfectly still so strange with unfamiliar extremities reaching cold cold the mouth is really upsetting strange look trapped far from home strange sounds reaching touching pulling afraid wait can I stare at it longer afraid no wait unfamiliar trapped cold absorb unfamiliar absorb strange absorb absorb absorb

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10.

“Marshmallow” by David Dyte

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OF

MICRO

AND

MACRO

by Emily Lubanko

When I was told that our theme was “space,” one of the first things that came to mind was the work of my friend Hillel O’Leary.

I met Hillel when we were both students at the Rhode Island School of Design. His work focuses on the ubiquitous shapes that recur throughout the universe on every scale, how those shapes interact with immense physical forces keeping our universe in balance, and the breakage that occurs when that balance is upset.

EMILY LUBANKO: Where do your inspirations largely come from (textures, sounds, repetitions of pattern, grand concepts, etc.)?

HILLEL O’LEARY: There are a couple of factors. I have some general notion of what I want to convey, like a certain theme. Often this theme has to do with systems. I look at natural forms and I read about the universe, things involving particle physics, etc. It’s often about referencing and comparing systems—large systems versus smaller, more personal cross-sections (either my own or that of another person).

A book that I really love that I have never owned is called The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature and Architecture. I’ve been collecting it piecemeal in photocopies and scans as I can get my hands on them. Essentially it’s about everything—from the Fibonacci sequence and how that manifests itself in nature, to mapping out mathematical formulae and how they manifest in how certain shells are formed. That kind of thing. It’s got a lot of things where you look at it, absorb it, and then start looking at everything a little differently.

In the case of Microcosm, making that work was spurred on when I found a cross-section of a log that was very interesting. When I started inspecting it, I found that there was an ant colony in there. I knew that in making this thing I was going to have to kill all of them, and that became very profound to me in a way. And that was what it was about—that exchange, that system, that conservation of matter and mass, what was taken and what remained.

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EL: What are some things you consider when making a work, in terms of size and space?

HO’L:Presuming an ideal building and placement (i.e., a space to show the work and ideal lighting to light the thing), I like to consider the person’s relationship to the object I am creating. A point I always need to consider is whether someone is approaching a thing on eye level (so that it is on equal footing in some way) or whether it is below or above, and how that changes the perception and connotation of the piece. Looking down at an object might connote superiority. If you have to approach something from another level or move your body to view it (crouching down, or craning one’s neck upwards), that can change the read of a piece entirely. Making something much larger helps reference a very big system or a very big concept.

For example, I just put up a big sculpture in a park. It has three shapes that ascend in size—the last one is taller than the average person—so it almost has a growing effect.

Essentially, it’s the person’s relationship to the object that is most important.

EL: What is the ideal space that you envision for pieces like Speculations or Microcosm?

HO’L: With Speculations, I was thinking of space, like exploding stars, or smaller-scale organisms and how those shape me. Those same shapes carry over in scale from the very smallest to the very largest thing, and that’s what I wanted to get at. And because of that congruence, I thought a mutual space would be good.

With Microcosm, a big part of the original design was inspired by the Copernican model of the universe. With the steel, the framing, the bronze... I wanted to evoke the times when the artist was still the scientist, before those two things separated a bit more.

As corny as it sounds, I’d love to put it in some sort of old library. I think it would be great to have it surrounded by a repository for knowledge.

Ultimately, it’s more about the space that surrounds the piece—whether the space allows you to put yourself in relation to the object and maintain that point of focus, whether you can imagine yourself being very small or very large. It’s about imagining the variations of scale of yourself versus the object and how it feels to be on different sides of the equation.

EL: Your work makes me think of the grandness of the universe and the way physics shapes our experiences both large and small. When you’re working with such layered con-

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cepts, do you write them out before everything is made?

Is the object made while the idea is forming?

HO’L: The best-case scenario is usually a give-and-take between me having a strong feeling or need to communicate something and having an idea of what something will structurally look like. Once the underlying vague structure is defined, I like to experiment with the confines I’ve created, and having the experimentation coalesce with the solid foundation is when the work feels best. It’s about making a structure that is solid and then having a carved element that is more impromptu in its implementation. Knowing that some of the basic things will lend themselves to the project no matter what, but that the final nature of the project will lend itself to experimentation, is what keeps it fresh and interesting.

EL: Whenever I look at your work (or any piece of artwork) the first thing that hits me is imagining what kind of sound it makes, or what kind of sounds surround it.

When viewing sculpture, this always becomes complicated—viewing two-dimensional work, with some exceptions, feels like listening to an MP3 on headphones, whereas things in three dimensions (such as the immensity of nature) feel like sitting in a space with chamber orchestra. The other day I was running in a blizzard along the Charles River and listening to the sound of the ice cracking and shifting, the echo of the breakage moving across the vast distance of the river. It was an eerie, vast sort of echo. Looking at your piece Breach made me think of the beginning of that sound, that slow break that starts small and echoes into a vastness.

Do you envision sound around your pieces, or silence?

HO’L: I wouldn’t have really known what the sound was, although I would like for people to think of the sounds involved in the construction of the thing—things that are evidence of the process, like a sawing or a breaking of the wood.

For me, the overall ambient sound is anecdotal. I was on a road trip with some friends not so long ago. We were traveling across America in the dead of winter. There was a point where we stopped to see the Grand Tetons. Usually you’ll see these purple and green craggy mountains, but it was just snow and fog. It was a vast, heavy silence.

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EL: If you could “cite the sources” of your work—inspirations, things that consistently keep you making work, that kind of thing—do you have any that you’d like to share? (For me, for example, I might cite things like staring at tree bark, pictures of organisms under a microscope, Ernst Haeckel, Rodin, mushrooms in the woods, Egon Schiele, etc.)

HO’L: I don’t look at others’ work very often. There are certain artists’ work that I really like and I really respect, but I try to keep that separate from what I am doing.

One of the most important things is the feeling of seeing something novel for the first time. You’re traveling, and you see this huge valley with huge mountains... and it’s always so much more potent than you can imagine. It’s the type of experience that changes the way you assimilate information. The scope of the universe changes for you, and it makes you reconsider things that happen in your own life.

It’s about finding patterns in the large and the small— dealing with loss, pain, or anger of some kind and realizing that those things happen for everyone and that those things relate to the different systems that are your life, your friends, your planet. There’s a big cycle that’s going on there, and it’s important to look and see if someone’s experiencing something similar to you. These things happen on so many different scales, and ultimately it’s about the patterns that show you that you are not alone in the universe.

Hillel O’Leary is a sculptor and artist living and working in the northeastern U.S. He believes that art should be an exploration of the self and of the world at large. He is convinced that one’s work becomes more than an amalgamation of parts and principles when it is finely crafted in the service of becoming a shared experience with others. Also, he would like to be the first sculptor in space... just saying. www.behance.net/hilleloleary www.hilleloleary.com

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#troub with tribs

By Casey Middaugh

As soon as this issue’s theme was announced, my mind immediately jumped to Star Trek. I regularly fail to follow conversations because I don’t understand Star Trek references. I decided that this was something that should be fixed. With crowdsourcing. And live-tweeting. Obviously. So I asked my Twitter followers to pick an episode, and then I settled in to watch it.

I’ve never seen an episode of Star Trek. BUT TODAY THAT WILL CHANGE tell me which I should watch so I can live tweet for @24magazine space?

Current 1st #StarTrek frontrunners for #24mag: In the Pale Moonlight Sisko soon learns that in order to save the Federation, he must violate

More specificity: doesn’t matter what series, just what YOU think my first introduction should be #startrek #24mag

Current 1st #StarTrek frontrunners for #24mag: Deadlock- Voyager diverts through a dense nebula to prevent detection from two nearby Vidiian

Now @jcktxt and @InnuendoStudios are arguing and I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND #24MAG #STARTREK 17 episodes have been suggested with next to no consensus beyond 3 votes for Trouble With Tribbles #24mag #STARTREK #areyousureyouwantthis?

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Current 1st #StarTrek frontrunners for #24mag: Trouble With Tribbles Due to an error in the size of typeface, an approved version needed to Those last 3 tweets all contained as much of the Wikipedia entry for that post as would fit in one tweet. Useful? Nope. #24mag #StarTrek

RT @rosefox: @casitareina Try the Memory Alpha wiki instead. http://t.co/84QlrA4FrY

Trek #troubwithtribs #24mag so much gold braid and ricrac #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek

@rosefox There’s 36,588 articles. That’s not intimidating at all.... #24mag #StarTrek cropped pants and wrap #firstepisode shirts! (I’ll stop being most excited about the 29 episodes have been sug- costumes eventually, I’m gested, but is there consen- sure.) #24mag #StarTrek sus?? #StarTrek #24mag #Troubwithtribs #firstepisode Quadrotirticarley? QuatroVOTING IS CLOSED! DUE tridicarly? QuadtrotidiTO POPULAR DEMAND MY carli? Other options include FIRST #STARTREK EPISODE “Spelt” “Rice” “Four-wheat” WILL BE TROUBLE WITH #justsaying #24mag TRIBBLES! LIVE TWEETS #troubwithtribs START IN 5 MIN! #24mag #woo All the white men are interrupting each other with 5 seconds in an Kirk has the their importance #StarTrek smarmiest smirk I think I’ve #troubwithtribs #24mag ever seen. Also, Boy Howdy #thewheatbagsareGOLD Tight Shirts. LETS DO THIS #metaphor #troubwithtribs #24mag WHAT IS KIRK HOLDING Apparently smells in the OH MY GOD HE WHIPPED vacuum space are illogical IT OUT AND I CACKLED #firsttimeIhaveheardthat#24mag #troubwithtribs phraseincontext #24mag #StarTrek #troubwithtribs http://t.co/U7fly2Grxv Is yellow shirt historian guy supposed to be Russian? #24mag #StarTrek #troubwithtribs This is filmed in a conference room! Is this filmed in a conference room?? #StarTrek #FirstEverEpisode #Troubwithtribs #24mag Ahh! I love the theme song!

It’s so swoopy! I want to dance! #amdancing #Star-

WTF is this butterfly lingerie/apron business going on here? No, really, what? #StarTrek #troubwithtribs #24mag http://t. co/1mQIsfmizp Stupidest door design ever.

How often did actors bruise their legs on the sticky outy bit? #startrek #troubwithtribs #24mag

Uh oh guys. The “cute” tribble is eating the cwadrodidicahrlie. WHAT WILL HAPPEN??? #troubwithtribs #StarTrek #noteeth #howdoesiteat #24mag “Once this lovely little lady starts to show this precious little dolly around...” you will sell them all! #SCIENCE #24mag #troubwithtribs I’ve obviously seen the ships before because, pop-culture, but I didn’t expect the engines to be swirling *RAINBOWS* #troubwithtribs #24mag New yellow shirt guy is letting us know via skype that the khadrotridiquarly is V. IMPORTANT, V. IMPORTANT, GUYS. #troubwithtribs #24mag The Klingons are on the other ship! But...they look like people? Aren’t they meant to be all wrinkly foreheaded? No? #troubwithtribs #24mag Kirk’s trousers’s back zipper + the 3/4 length sleeves on his wrap shirt that matches his eyes = FASHION #24mag #troubwithtribs #StarTrek I don’t want to describe the ill fitting gold monstrosity that is the captain’s outfit. #24mag #troubwithtribs http://t.co/ymeLmkaAi1

83 #24MAG

YAY MISOGYNY! WOMEN JUST GOT DESCRIBED AS *wink* *lady curve gesture* “NON-ESSENTIALS” #troubwithtribs #24mag #shutupklingoncaptain Spock is petting (the really, let’s be honest, not at all soft looking) tribbles and melting. AWWW #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek Does “Kirk Out” *always* have the effect of a mic drop, or is he just a sass monster in this episode? #troubwithtribs #StarTrek #24mag There are a lot of red shirted men going on shore leave. Do they die? Is that how this works? #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek STUPIDEST DOOR DESIGN EVER. STILL ANNOYED. #troubwithtribs #24mag http://t.co/BlfIWr8T38 Vodka is soda pop! Men drink pale (V. PALE) Scotch! Which was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad! #BURNS #troubwithtribs #24MAG The tribbles (plot #1) make angry noises around the Klingons (plot #2) COULD THIS BE SIGNIFICANT?? #troubwithtribs #24MAG #StarTrek “Kirk may be a swaggering overbearing tin plated dictator with delusions of

#24MAG 84

GODHOOD. But he is not *soft*” -Klingon Guy #troubwithtribs #24mag Klingon/Earther fight! Great time to steal booze! Walk daintily through the choreographed brawl! To the stupid door! #troubwithtribs #24mag Serious question: do uniform colors mean anything? #StarTrek #troubwithtribs #24MAG Tribbles are soft + make a pleasant sound, “So would an ermine violin, Dr, but I see no point in having one” #NiceOneSpock #24mag #troubwithtribs “Dr, they do indeed have one redeeming characteristic” “And what is that, sir?”

“They do not talk too much” #micdrop #troubwithtribs #24mag “It seems to me that they’re bisexual, reproducing at will” -Dr McCoy #um #isthatwhatthatmeans #troubwithtribs #StarTrek #24MAG Does the enterprise really not have any pre-existing rules about pets on board?

This seems avoidable. #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek multiplicative proclivities! #troubwithtribs #StarTrek #isitobviousthatIlovespockalready #24MAG

Tricky tribble seller guy is a klingon operative! Maybe!

Seems totally reasonable. #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek How are the tribbles attached to the walls? I mean, obviously with double sided sticky tape. But... #troubwithtribs #24mag #startrek PLOT 1 & 2 COMBINED! No more grain, NO MORE GRAIN!! #troubwithtribs #24mag http://t.co/Z4Ht53yz1k Ooh! Do you think maybe the grain was POISONED??

And maybe Kirk will be a HERO?? For SAVING FOLKS?? #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek Oh,they identify Klingons and the assistant guy is a Klingon, which you couldn’t tell ‘cause his head isn’t

wrinkly. #troubwithtribs #24MAG GRAIN WAS TOTES POISONED BY KLINGONS! KIRK IS SHOVING STUFFED ANIMALS INTO FACES! #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek It will take cargo-coat guy 17.9 yrs to pick up all the tribs, so he puts them in his...coat? #badatlongtermplanning #24mag #troubwithtribs The tribbles are in the Klingon’s engine room where they’ll be “No Tribble At All” Ha! Oh, puns. #troubwithtribs #24mag #StarTrek Well. That was delightful. Thanks, guys. Go to www.24mag.org and get a copy of the magazine w/ SPACE POEMS #24mag #troubwithtribs

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WORK

SPACES

by Jack Cavicchi

The spaces in which we work speak volumes about what we want to accomplish. I visited three very different workspaces in New York City and spoke to the people who directed the design of those spaces. Tekserve is an Apple computer reseller and repair shop in Chelsea that is packed with a plethora of vintage electronics and gadgets. Macktez is a technology consultancy in Manhattan’s Chinatown that has both a uniform philosophy and a uniform color scheme. Darker Studio is a painting and photography studio in Greenpoint that houses a rich and vivid collection of art and other inspiring objects.

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TEKSERVE A History of Form and Function Photos by Walter Wlodarczyk As both a native New Yorker and a long time Mac user (and fanatic), I was certainly familiar with Tekserve, the largest single-location Apple reseller and service provider in New York City. I was ecstatic to be given a tour of the facility by none other than Dick Demenus, the co-founder of the company.

Tekserve has been around since 1987, though it has only been at the huge 119 West 23rd Street location since 2002, just about when the first Apple Store opened. But Tekserve could not be more different visually from the white minimalism of Apple’s retail locations. Tekserve is a warm, lively space filled to the brim with Apple computers both old and new as well as Demenus’s eclectic collection of electronics, signs, and random cool stuff.

The first example of his collection is a wall of antique radios just as you enter the store. The opposite wall houses various ancient Macs.

Though these artifacts are impressive, I had seen them before. I was not prepared for the museum of cameras, microphones, movie posters, and telephones in the lower level of the store where meetings are held. Demenus’s own desk is hidden under piles of not yet organized collectables.

“This is the first ever commercially available digital camera,” he said, showing me a huge clunky black shell sporting both Nikon and Kodak’s logos.

“Even a stairway doesn’t have to be boring,” Demenus said as he led me past one of the first ever magnetic disks and an acoustic mirror from World War II that was used by the US to spot enemy planes.

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The memorabilia is not merely for show. Most of the tables in the center of the show room were made by a company called Uhuru using repurposed wood from the old Coney Island boardwalk. There are also light fixtures designed by local artists and made out of old Mac cases, and a counter in the repair department is made out of three ancient Apple Pluses.

“Everything I put in the store is authentic,” Demenus said. “I don’t like reproductions. I think quality things have inherent history and life to them.”

As we walked through the repair section, Demenus explained how he had laid out the space.

Workers sit at desks when working on software issues and diagnostics, and they move to standing desks to do physical repairs. There are separate sections behind and on the sides of the retail floor for desktop repairs, laptop repairs, data recovery, and mobile repairs.

But Demenus moved quickly past the particulars of the store’s functional sections in favor of showing us an antique, but working, air compressor from a Ford Model T. “See this? It’s a mundane thing,” he said. “But it isn’t just designed to last. It has pinstripes and all sort of little details to make it beautiful.”

When I asked him if that was one of the reasons he works with Macs, he said, “Yes, absolutely, that is a characteristic of Apple. They take pride in details; they make products that last.” This commonality marries the objects that line the walls of the store with the products that line the shelves.

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MACKTEZ A Study in Yellow Photos by Walter Wlodarczyk Yellow. That was the first word that came to mind when I entered the Chinatown office of Macktez, a technology consultancy firm that serves design, architecture, and creative film companies as well as non-profit organizations like The High Line and 2x4.

I sat down with Noah Landow, the founder and president of Macktez, who explained that yellow—specifically egg-yolk yellow—had been the corporate color since 1996. Although the office itself was white with pale wood furniture, there were yellow highlights and knickknacks in every nook and cranny.

“The obsessive collection of yellow objects started in earnest about a decade ago,” Landow said, showing me his desk and the shrine-like display of yellow pencil sharpeners, statuettes, phone cases, lamps, flashlights, and dozens of other miscellanea.

The collection could come off as kitschy, but in the context of his office it was instead a symbol of Landow’s attention to detail, mixed with just the right amount of whimsy.

Landow also showed me an array of external hard drives and other tools that were perfectly painted the corporate shade. These were housed in a large tool cabinet alongside dozens of rows of neatly wrapped cords in plastic baggies.

Landow explained that each tool and cable was labeled with a number, all of which were catalogued.

Every few weeks the Macktez staff go through the catalog to see what’s missing.

There was a care in how he handled his fastidiously organized components, a delicacy and specificity that shows both his meticulous nature and his partic#24MAG 90

ular vision. These traits certainly seem to carry over to the work these tools are for.

Macktez’s team consists of 16 employees in the New York office, as well as two more on the West Coast and two in the U.K. Many were out of the office when I visited, because Landow liked for them to work onsite in clients’ offices.

I found it unusual that a tech consulting firm would do repairs on computers, servers, and peripherals.

Most of the consultancies I dealt with farmed that kind of work out.

Landow scorned that approach. “If you are going to take ownership over something, you are better off doing it yourself.”

Directing me to the workstations in the center of the office, Landow pointed out that the desks were minimal. Each one consists of a laptop stand, a monitor, a phone, and a small shelf for tools.

“The desks are purposely small so that they don’t just become places where workers dump various stuff. It is a refined space, since the bulk of the work is actually made up of writing.”

Actual repairs are done at benches and long desks along the wall. As we spoke, I saw an array of routers being refitted, laptops being fixed, and hard drives being taken apart.

After the superficial descriptor of “yellow,” “responsible” was the most obvious adjective to describe Macktez. Landow and his team seem remarkably focused on taking ownership of all aspects of their projects and tools. The consistency of color was neatly matched to the consistency of focus.

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DARKER STUDIO A Cohesive Esthetic Just under the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, in a very industrial building, I met up with Dorothy Darker.

She led me up stairs and into a huge freight elevator, then down a long white hallway lined with nondescript doors. Her studio door was distinguished by an Art Nouveau “DD” logo on red paper, taped over the small window.

The space inside the door is remarkably unlike both the white hallway and the industrial building. Darker’s studio is a huge square room filled with rich colors and a remarkable amount of stuff. Red, white, and yellow candles sit in wine bottles and candelabra, having dripped fat puddles of wax around themselves. Huge jars of murky liquid house bushels of paint-spattered brushes. The walls and shelves are laden with paintings—some finished, some just started—as well as photographs, mirrors, trinkets, and even stockings. Long strings run across empty spaces and hold a row of high-heeled shoes.

Darker is an artist with a very cohesive esthetic, and her entire space is draped in it. Feathers, flowers, candles, bits of burlesque costumes, and photographs of women (both clothed and nude) saturate the space with an air of lush sensuality.

While Wlodarczyk stays with photography, Darker’s own work is a bit more far-ranging. “If I were to chose one medium it would be paint, but I feel comfortable using sculpture, cutting photos up and pasting them together, and drawing,” she told me.

She also runs salons with opera singer Elsha LaRossa. “I used to use groups of people and gatherings to tease out images and inspiration for paintings,” Darker said, “but now I think of them as a sort of a medium of their own. Like performance art or at least immersive art.”

Salon Fantasia was born out of a party where Darker asked a musician friend to bring his guitar and perform with LaRossa. She also asked guests to dress in period costumes from the 1920s. As the night went on, Darker ran into some other artists in a nearby studio who got pulled into the party. They struck up a discussion about art and inspiration. Afterwards, Darker decided she wanted to shape that party into something more formal.

The theme of the first salon was temptation. Another was called “Artist and Muse,” and an upcoming one is about “the beautiful and the grotesque.”

Darker’s work builds on these symbols. Her paintings are mostly fragments of the human form: legs growing from other pairs of legs, reclining figures draped in fabric, a dancer’s feet.

Darker has also hosted drawing classes, hiring a model and helping to teach sketching, as well as a variety of other parties and inspirational get-togethers.

The Greenpoint studio has housed Darker and her work for a little over two years. She shared the space with another painter up until a few months ago. Her new studio-mate is her husband, photographer (and #24MAG contributor) Walter Wlodarczyk. His section of the studio is sizable, consisting solely of a seamless backdrop, a few lights, and a large bare white wall. He is new to portraiture, doing most of his work at music shows, performance art venues, and in the bars of the Lower East Side.

When I asked how she wanted people to feel when they enter her studio, Darker said, “I want them to feel welcome, comfortable, relieved, and inspired. I want to give them interesting things to look at and listen to. I want to invoke the idea of church, which isn’t specifically about God, but about worship.”

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What is your ideal place to work? collated by Ian Danskin

Abby: I work best in improbable corners and implausible scenarios.

Aida: Somewhere where I can be horizontal and not wear a bra.

Amanda: An illuminating, surprising, and magical community.

Andy: Underneath a cat.

Ben: A warm, dark cave with an Internet connection.

Brittany: Spaces that are outside of my comfort zone.

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Casey: Rooms full of people with small collaborations happening all over it, with whiteboards.

Erica: Somewhere soft.

David: Somewhere I can sit at the back of the room and be the wise guy.

Ian: An open, temperate space with no internet connection and a lot of natural light, in the company of either one person who inspires me or a crowd that will judge me.

Emily L: Alongside enthusiastic people with goals.

Jack: In front of a computer connected to the internet.

Emily K: I prefer to work at a standing desk, on a computer with reliable internet, among collaborative company, and with access to infinite tea.

Johanna: In a library!

Jenny: Quiet coffee shop, next to a big bay window, hot drink in hand.

Kate: Near my French press.

Kevin: I want a jug of hard cider, pencils and paper, a piano and wifi, a big wooden table, a view of a gray, rocky seashore, and plenty of oysters and clams and sardines.

Kyle: A studio workspace with motivated contributors.

Max: Places with cats and sunlight.

Meg: London. Happily writing for the Queen’s personal zine or any free-speaking magazine.

Meghan: Any place where I love the work and am inspired by the people (preferably with a chair).

Michele: Under a tree, or on the A train, which might not make sense, but it does.

Rose F: At home, in my bed, with my cat and my laptop and a bottle of water.

Steven: My bed/ bedroom in the morning, cafe/bar/ coffee shop in the afternoon.

Rose G: Any place I can turn into a theater that is not already a theater.

Rachel: Until the editors on the New York Times Metro Desk realize they need to hire me, my ideal place to work is any news organization where they are dedicated to doing smart, honest, fast work, in a quiet, nononsense environment, with fast internet and few distractions.

Sara: Full of light, colors, meticulously organized art supplies and happily created messes, and generous, talented people.

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photo by David Dyte

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photo by David Dyte