Spring 2016 by Amherst Circus

CIRCUS Spring 2016

Cover art: #6 by Chloe Tausk Title page art: Lakeshore Drive by Chloe Tausk The aim of Circus is to represent the most outstanding and diverse creative talent that Amherst students have to offer. The Circus editors truly enjoyed reading and evaluation each and every submission, and hope that you continue to help us achieve our mission by submitting your best works to circus@amherst.edu.

Circus / Vol. 18 / Spring 2016 / No. 2

letter from the editors Art exhibitions and the power to categorize what is art and what is not art emerge from a history of purification, to insulate the object from its emergent social conditions. Kevin Hetherington writes, “in the modern art gallery, all attempts were made at removing heterogeneity from the display itself. The objects on display were then to be viewed with a Kantian eye by training the public to appreciate the beauty of improvement as it was represented.” But if a piece of art has a given “text” — what is ostensibly said and implicitly read — we need to reposition what is considered “art” by identifying art within a network of complex and frenetic events. Circus’ Fall 2015 issue paid tribute to the process of self-reflection as students stood in solidarity against oppression and alienation in the Amherst Uprising movement. In turn, our Spring 2016 issue is dedicated to the Frenzy of our lived realities — the Frenzy that manifests in our everyday experiences as we navigate our personhood and identity. In particular we want to challenge the pervasiveness of individualism — are your problems really just yours? If life is frenetic, is it our fault? We present pieces that we hope sparks dialogue in realizing that our lives, just like art, are situated within networks. Frenzy is more than just hysteria, it constitutes our lives and is reproduced in our daily interactions. When “art” is placed in the Met while “artifact” is placed in the Museum of Nat2

ural History a statement is made about who, historically, has been in the position to define art. Let’s challenge that. We also want to recognize the more concrete, personal connection we have to this issue’s theme through our experiences acting as first-time Editor-In-Chiefs. From the somewhat jittery sense of excitement we felt in early February when outlining our goals for this issue and sending out those first few emails to editors; to the more frantic rush of today, when we sat down to pen this very letter—the past few months have been a rich blend of elation and mania, and far more moving than we ever could’ve expected. Which is to say, that this experience has been quite the frenzy. Finally, we want to take the time to acknowledge and express our sincere gratitude to, and for, our editorial board as well as all of our section editors. We couldn’t have asked for a better team, and fully acknowledge that it is their dedication, skill, and passion that make publishing possible. Thank you, too, to the talented students whose work is featured within these pages—you all continue to inspire us to do what we do. Last, but certainly not least, we want to thank our amazing predecessor, Katarina Cruz, who guided and believed in us enough to leave the magazine in our hands. Hopefully, we’ve made you proud. Ricky Choi & Amber Boykins Editors-in-Chief

Editors-in-Chief Amber Boykins ‘18, Ricky Choi ‘18 Art Managing Editors: Shreeansh Agrawal ’19, Darya Bor ’18 Assistant Editors: Olivia Mastrangelo ’18, Mackenzie Stein ’19 Layout Managing Editors: Megan Do ’18, Olivia Mastrangelo ’18, Noah Tager ’18 Poetry Managing Editors: Illen Asmerom ’18, Faith Chung ’18 Assistant Editors: Carol Carriazo ’18 Prose Managing Editors: Hadley Dorn ’18, Julia Roch’18 Assistant Editors: Rebecca Ford ’18, Esther Isaac ’19, Debbie Wen ’19

BOARD

CONTENTS 1

L AKESHORE DRIVE / CHLOE TAU SK

L ETTER F ROM THE EDITOR

EDITORS PAGE

UNTITL ED / S TEFAN OS T RAN

H ASRAT / CAROL CARRIAZO

UNTITL ED / GEORGE LIAN G

UNTITL ED / CHLOE TAU S K

NORTH AMPT ON IN AU GUS T / R ACH EL R A V ELLI

#10 / JA CK GREEN BURG

AN EXH IB IT ION / CAROL CARR I AZO

#9 / CH LOE T AUS K

DR. BAL L OON K N EES / JOS EPH P R I V E

THREE THIN GS I PROBABLY WO N ’ T D O AG AI N / H ADL EY DORN

UNTITL ED / RACHEL BOYETTE

“BRING YOU R BOYS ” / ELIAS SCH U LT Z

UNTITL ED / RACHEL BOYETTE

UNTITL ED / S TEFAN OS T RAN

EATS UPON T HE HOS T / ALEX AN D R A LEV I N SON

CAKEF L OWER / RACHEL RAV ELLI

PHOE BE / CHLOE T AU S K

UNTITL ED / S TEFAN OS T RAN

DAISIE S / JULIA ROCH

UNTITL ED / CHLOE TAU S K

#17 / JACK GREEN BURG

ICARUS CAN ’ T S WIM / AN THON Y M AD D ALEN I

#16 / JACK GREEN BURG

#19 / JACK GREEN BURG

ROMAN HOLIDAY / ES T HER I SAAC

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HASRAT

CAROL CARRIAZO It is the promise of a red hum of corners cut up by shadows, and lazy sips of rum, and significant looks. I confess it is a willing seduction I look for the acrylic moments when time beats out a heavy thrum; yes, I am won by the thrum of my own heart. Come, it says, find me in the rain, in rooms that echo Chopin, or across the sea under the distant sunstained roofs of nowhere in particular. Now I have gone in search many times, crossed the sea many times, and still the drum of my heart never alters, beating out a song that never falters, And still I dream of lions, And still I dream of lions.

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NORTHAMPTON IN AUGUST

RACHEL RAVELLI

The night was lost for words. She sat back in a wooden armchair and thought for a moment, realizing her own mind objectively as a chair notices the room. Her eyelids closed themselves and she was locked out. One minute led to the other and well it was time to go but she had only written one word on the page: camouflage. Each word wasn’t hers heard- cutting deeper– into her spine, leaving hundreds of ridges on her pointy bones. She watched a male in blue blur in the dim coffee shop lights, she craved the strange shape his body made when he bent to pick up his charger. She stopped and looked over at the window a reflection of her own body, remembering what it looked like at 12 outside of Saint Anthony’s Cathedral on Market Street with its ivy tower telescoping her small breasts and pasty thighs, that was when she decided to start hiding from her mother. She didn’t want anyone to know that it maybe was never her fault. At least tell her it’s her fault. Now she is 22 and you’d think she’d be used to how dizzying the lamplights are when packing attention into falling objects. Everything else is uninteresting. She walked out and down to her 10

apartment beside the graveyard where the same Yew tree that the poetess she used to idealize at 15 is sitting, that misplaced spectre she cannot get back, a bleeding wind rustling a thought gone with every step taken past the graveyard. A group of Smith students turn through a corner of night and walk in front of her. Their clothes, hair, the way they smell, that laugh, an air is a certainty. And she felt an observer of groups. No soft light here, she thought, no astounding presence of something terrible to happen. The pitch of dark thanking, crating splits between her, everyone else, and the curving globe without her previous blinking headlight, the sirens going off her funneling head, and her own arms strapped to a wooden armchair that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t belong to her. It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t belong to her. And nothing did. So her skeleton was the only home she needed.

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AN EXHIBITION

CAROL CARRIAZO The walls were clean and white and had no opinion — the people were also, and made opinions to justify the silences: women murmuring among the frames, a balding man looking at them and very occasionally at the art.

The light was clean and white, and I didn’t like it so I shoved myself into a corner with Käthe Kollwitz — see here it all begins to break down — I wanted to coat the world in charcoal — here is the world in charcoal pietas in the watery light of tenement windows and this always next to the neat paved street the paved street that cuts a line in the earth from there to me and I stand in front of Käthe Kollwitz and the bald man and the women chatter about charcoal right next to the Nazi propaganda posters which are red and clean and obscene. I leave the room and find the street a child’s hand stiff with cold is in the hand of his grandfather. The two stand in the shifting traffic lights and together they sing in Yiddish of something forgotten, something far away from red letters and Michelangelo. CIRCUS SPRING 2016

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Dr. Balloon Knees JOSEPH PRIVE

Odelia had read two or three selfhelp books before she met her pharmacological savior, so she anticipated the edict that was to be repeated in the small office with white walls clumsily adorned with bright impressionistic landscapes: “alcoholism and depression, though I think you’re right,” said the psychiatrist, “they’re definitely related in your case, but they ARE two different monsters, and you can’t knock ‘em out with one stone, so to speak.” The doctor was a weird kind of fat, an old and unhealthy kind of fat, but its effect was endearing. It was like his dermis was one big, ill-fitting SCUBA suit, and a surplus of gelatinous insides followed the laws of gravity. Odelia remembered thinking, sitting with too much attention to her emotional and physical posture, that the lower half of the doctor—she still can’t remember his name—resembled that of a re-inflated balloon animal, knotted and singed at the belt. Girthy

knees. She thought, “I kinda wouldn’t mind seeing him naked, behind glass.” Odelia was jittery. She was sweating and her head felt light, like she skipped breakfast after skipping dinner. But with this, there was an alien hopefulness she couldn’t remember feeling before, which is to say, her mind’s eye’s crude painting of the doctor really was neutral, innocent. Whether it was the striking girth of the balloon knees or her high-onhope, Odelia nonetheless jumped at the opportunity to “tell me about yourself”: Almost confidently, “I’m 28-years old. I teach special education down the road at Elm Street Middle School. I love my job; I love the kids. Special Education—these kids—well, means something special to me…. I’ll get to that later on. I’m really pathologically shy, and this is kind of why I’m here. I’ve always thought that my shyness was a part of my personality

and that I’ve come to terms with it. Growing up, as a teenager, it’s gotten me in bad places, temporarily, ya know, I’ve tried self-medicating. And I’ve started doing that again, that’s why I’m here. Well, I guess I’ll just start at the beginning, because that’s the only way it’ll make sense.” Dr. Balloon Knees interjected like a mental health professional, “Whatever you’d like, Odelia.” She loved his smile, and she no longer thought of w him as a naked attraction. She started from the beginning, “I remember elementary school being the best time of my life—I know it probably sounds silly speaking of

SHE LOVED HIS SMILE, AND SHE NO LONGER THOUGHT OF HIM AS A NAKED ATTRACTION. pre-teen-me as a real psychic character—but… I was happy then. I remember having friends, being able to approach my peers, my teachers, with an unhesitant charisma and precociousness—awkward autobiographical modifiers for a loony child, I know… But family life was good. I remember my Dad had emotional problems, but…” Doctor Balloon Knees took notes here, Odelia noticed. When he finished writing he interrupted, “we’ll get to your dad in a few minutes, but if you could, let’s hear about YOU.” CIRCUS SPRING 2016

He clicked his pen, and smiled again. Odelia became frustrated and a little angry. She started to sweat again. She’d have blushed, but the anger helped keep her keep her cheeks under control. Dad was such a big part of this narration. She thought, this time not so innocently, that maybe the Doctor’s balloon knees weren’t so friendly. “I’m sorry, Dr. Balloo—… But as I remember it, as soon as I got to middle school I shut down. Looking back, I didn’t know how to talk to people, like I completely lost the facility. I had no friends, well, only a few. I wouldn’t go outside to play. These years, from 6th to about 9th grade, well maybe to 10th, were awful. I wasn’t suicidal, but I remember every night being afraid that I would sleep walk and do something bad. I had a little problem with sleep walking, doing nothing serious though. But for some reason, I had this recurring fear: I was scared I would sleep walk and grab a steak knife and slit my throat, in my sleep in the kitchen.” Odelia didn’t plan on letting that slip. It just came out. She paused and sweated. Balloon Knees looked encouragingly, “please continue,” as if that admission didn’t totally punch her ticket to the loony bin. “I have never considered killing myself, really. I ahhh love my life,” Odelia tried to disclaim. She never made that last affirmation to a real live person. There was a 30-second pause, Odelia checked the clock. The doctor stayed silent. Odelia figured that the

Three Things I Probably Won’t Do Again HADLEY DORN

I watched some bulls die in Spain once. They were large and fat and fell over like stiff trees. Sometimes you could make out the blood mixing with the orange dirt. Most of the time it was too far away. There were Australians eating peanuts behind us. They yelled loud things in Spanish and dropped peanut shells on my shoes. I liked them better than the American tourists. Occasionally there were bulls that w fell over only to get up again. When this happened a man wearing a white suit would run over and stab them in the neck. After that they lay on the dirt for a while but you could still make out their breathing. Later in the evening we went to dinner at a Spanish restaurant. They said the specialty was “rabo de toro.” I

AFTER THAT THEY LAY ON THE DIRT FOR A WHILE BUT YOU COULD STILL MAKE OUT THEIR BREATHING.

ordered a salad. My grandfather drank too much red wine. When I was in second grade I went to church with my best friend’s family. I didn’t have any nice clothes with me, so I borrowed a flower pattern dress. It was too small and dug into my shoulders. My friend was much skinnier CIRCUS SPRING 2016

than me. During the sermon my friend turned to me and whispered that I couldn’t go up for communion because I hadn’t been baptized. I was half sure I knew what she meant. The church was very large because it was a megachurch. I sat by myself in the pew while everyone else went up to the front. There was an elaborate stained glass window behind the pulpit that had an image of the crucifixion. I stared at it for a long time until she came back and sat down next to me. I don’t remember if I was crying at the time or if it was the image of Jesus. My friend and I are not friends anymore. That is another story. Growing up I had a very large backyard. The grass bled into the forest and there was no fence. Most of the time I mad mud pies under the swing set and pretended that I was a boxcar child. One summer it rained more than usual and there were large thickets of onion grass in patches across the backyard. I spent one morning pulling stems out of the ground and putting them in a large bowl filled with cold hose water. When my sister came out I made her eat it and called it onion grass soup. She said she didn’t want to, but I must have been convincing. I’ve done a lot of mean things to my sister without apologizing. She never got sick, so I don’t feel too bad about this one. 19

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eats upon the host ALEXANDRA LEVINSON

It is spring when she meets him, but there is still snow on the ground. Her breath comes too fast, perhaps because of the steep hills. They walk to the town over cement paths she does not yet know. At home, she is guarded; here, with him, she spills her every thought like the cider she holds in her shaking hands. He understands what she says, regardless of her vocabulary. And what is more, he understands what she w means. It is late, and she is lost. The end of summer is drawing near when they see each other next, the air so thick she can barely breathe at all, the leaves on the trees bright and green. They stick together: she, because he is her friend; he, because he has nobody else. She won’t know that part until much later. A recent breakup with a summer fling lingers in her mind, and she mopes. He tells her not to be sad. That doesn’t help, but still, she feels something for him. Or she needs a distraction. Or she is lonely. Or she is crazy. Or… She is his first kiss, etc. It’s not you, it’s me, he tells her, not even bothering to come up with an original line. Okay, she says, fine. She takes a shower, her nails scraping across her body until the balance of pain has shifted. In the morning, she sprawls on the floor of the laundry room, listening to the rhythmic swoosh of the machine as it washes away what was. Tears colCIRCUS SPRING 2016

lect in the shells of her ears and trickle down to soak her hair. She tells herself that she doesn’t care, but she has never been a good liar. Fall arrives, and she knows where she is going, mostly. Her steps are quick and sure on the crunching leaves. She doesn’t allow herself to look when he passes by. Sure, he treated her badly, but, as she reminds herself, things like that happen all the time. She’s not special. By now, that old wound shouldn’t hurt anymore. She doesn’t know why it still does. She may not look at him, but she always knows when he is there: her face marble, her day ruined. Winter finally hits. Her breath is smoke in the air, and the paths are covered in snow and salt. She avoids him still, even as she knows she cannot keep it up forever, even as the way she freezes when she hears his name gives her away. Though it feels like she cannot, and though the word tastes bitter on her tongue, she tries once more to forgive. Spring is almost here, and maybe the hurt, stuck to her skin in globs of rotting months-old leaves, will wash down the gutter at last.

CAKEFLOWER RACHEL RAVELLI I waltz by windows luminously peering and catch scribbled black outlines in my mouth, they plummet straight through gazing in awe I suddenly feel ashamed of wandering, terrified of what I could do. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve theorized several hundred times that I hallucinated- I never saw shapes behind scraps of windows reflecting like black coffee widows, never saw them gazing at hallucinogenic computer screens never saw them naked that I could not throw rocks at them, waking them up, like tacky â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;90s films or Shakespeare. Night lied- reddening my skin in swaddled elastic bands drawing its movements wider as I fell smaller into its cage and I race headless trees dwindling me and I am gone shut your mouth 28

don’t tell anyone what I’ve done tonight it’s embarrassing it’s shameful it tastes too much like loveI was high filling my glass with possibilities of torn-up moments like notebook frames. At a nightclub college students turn into kafkaesque bugs eating each others’ limbs, I note intensely but they don’t notice my loneliness plunging into their fuck like music into their oozing holes they don’t see me the way I feel him seeing me directly from windows and there he is now looking at me. I can feel him fumbling under my bra like a furry animal clawing my bones and dying to follow me into myself to claim it’s too dark in here.

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Daisies JULIA ROCH

Piece after piece of petals red from the light, torn from the center of this yellow heart in some guise of a childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s game but really for naught, of nothing. Was I beauty at all? Or only for the taking of others and the listing of names and the gestures of love that is not love, only silver coating glass. Do they see me? Or is my ghost of a thing only here until they grow warm and sun-dewed and no longer need to be diverted. Am I a thing to breathe air and feel wind and know the sound of bird claws on iron bars? Am I worth the sadness I am? This deep purple stain is growing. With each new limb tugged from my being I bring joy and scream and am useful.

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ICARUS CAN’T SWIM

ANTHONY MADDALENI

A rippling, effervescent haze. He reaches one hand towards the shimmering blue surface. The sun’s rays pierce through the water like jagged arrows or a fractured mural. The bubbles rise and continue to surround him, shimmering, with his precious oxygen encased within. Why didn’t he listen to his father? It was just so quick. The wax began to coalesce into a thick, pasty substance. He merely desired to touch the sun. Apollo’s domain. Were the gods jealous of him? Is that it? Is that why they’re punishing him? He claws at the water surrounding him like a ravenous beast. If he could just reach the surface he could breath. He would be okay.

The farmer trains to plow his vast field. Crops need to be sown. He must prepare for the coming winter. His family needs to eat. The farmer wipes the perspiration from his brow. The heat is thick and oppressive like a ragged wool coat filled with mildew. He sees the ocean in the distance. The waves look so welcoming as they rhythmically lap at the shoreline. Maybe he’ll go for a swim later, maybe he’ll go with his family. Icarus’ body has grown limp. His gasps for air have ceased. His cries, stifled for eternity. The boys’ body floats to the surface and drifts out to sea.

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Roman Holiday ESTHER ISAAC

I’ve never liked to answer phone calls with a question. As a semi-functional adult who owns a cat and a vacuum cleaner, it is a particular source of shame for me that the idea of speaking to a disembodied voice through a microphone -- no matter if it’s my sweet old German grandmother or the pubescent pizza delivery boy who is always exactly two minutes late -- continues to instill dread deep within me. So, in some sort of attempt to make myself feel more confident, I try never to answer the phone by saying hello in the traditionally interrogative 40 20

way -- asking “Hello?” leaves too much up to chance, so I simply assert “Hello.” That way I’m not at the mercy of the stranger on the other end, or at least that’s what I tell myself. I was not initially successful at putting this coping mechanism into practice. The first few times I tried it, the only thing that changed about my conversations was that I made the person on the other end of the receiver just as uncomfortable as I was. One day, my mother implored me to get a haircut -- “it’s really time you did something with your hair, don’t

you think?” -- and even went so far as to make the appointment for me. But the next day, the salon’s number popped up on my phone, probably to let me know my stylist had to switch my time-slot. Reminding myself of my new strategy, I picked up the phone and subsequently spat out a halting “HELLO!” An audible silence followed. All I could think was that this encounter was almost more painful than the time I closed two of my fingers in the w bathroom door. When that happened,

MAYBE IT REALLY WAS TIME TO STOP THINKING OF MY FEELINGS AS FOREIGN ENTITIES ALONGSIDE WHOM I ONLY BEGRUDGINGLY LIVED.

though, the only one to feel my shame was me. I remade the appointment for Tuesday the 25th at 3pm, and after that call, my strategy became more successful. I learned that not phrasing “hello” as a question did not mean I had to turn it into a frantic exclamation. Years of practice resulted in successful doctor’s appointments, plans made with friends, and job interviews, and I managed to make it to adulthood, phone in hand. My boyfriend, Charlie, was in Italy for a month. I counted him as the CIRCUS SPRING 2016

beginning of a new chapter in my life. We had been dating for almost a year, and he respected my fear of phone calls. There are only two times I can remember talking to him on the phone. At some point a few months into the relationship, I had decided to let the fact that I loved him settle over me like a shawl, or like a fresh layer of snow on the ground. I made the unconscious-and-yet-conscious decision to accept this reality, to grin and bear it just like Sisyphus once resolved to as he rolled his rock up that hill for the thousandth time (Camus would be proud of me). If my infatuation was something I couldn’t willfully change, I might as well change the way I felt about my lack of control over my own mind. Maybe it really was time to stop thinking of my feelings as foreign entities alongside whom I only begrudgingly lived. I imagined my worldview shifting as if I had pulled the lever on a viewmaster. I know I certainly hadn’t had a phone conversation with Charlie since he had gotten to Italy, but I was also acutely aware of the fact that all modes of communication -- Facebook, Skype, What’sApp, everything -- were more dormant than I had expected. It was all quiet on the Western front as I waited patiently in our little Bed-Stuy brownstone. Fortunately, years of therapy had prepared me for this, and I was more or less capable of calmly accepting the silence. Besides, who has time to talk when they’re doing archival research in Rome? After two and a half weeks, though, 41

my anxieties didn’t seem so unfounded. Maybe Charlie was just waiting until he got back to tell me all the details of his adventure, but I barely knew anything about where he was or what he was doing. For some reason, all I could think about was that I had no idea what he was eating. I tried to imagine his meals. Lots of fresh pasta, right? And probably good wine. I had eaten microwavable macaroni for the past three days. Week three, and I told the cat not to worry -- Charlie would be back soon. I knew, and the cat knew, that I was saying this more for my own benefit than for hers. I was actually feeling much better, though; one more week of uncertainty was something I could manage. How many weeks had I been alive now? I know I had been uncertain about something for at least 95% of them, so really, one more wouldn’t make a huge difference. I made real pasta for dinner that night (I did use storebought sauce, but you can’t win them all). Charlie messaged me and said he wanted to talk, and pure elation flowed through my entire body. Finally I would get to hear all about what he had been doing. Finally I had proof that he still cared. In my excitement, I danced around the living room for a minute -- the cat watching me with malaise the whole time -- until I heard a little ping, signifying another new message. “I want to talk on the phone this time,” it read. I froze. This was not normal. “Can I call you in 10 minutes?” he 42

continued. It took me a good minute to force my fingers to write “Sure.” I added a question mark at the end to signify my concern, but he saw my message and didn’t reply. I sat on the couch. Nervous. Jittery. Regularly, I shot a quick glance at the phone sitting next to me. Every muscle in my body was tense, and I was unsure whether this was due to my extreme fear of talking on the phone or the fact that I had no idea what Charlie had to say to me. It was probably both. I looked at my phone again, and the screen was still dark. I thought about the time I had to make that haircut appointment, and about the time I slammed my fingers in the bathroom door. Neither made me feel better. Finally, my phone screen lit up. The number was not in my contacts list, but it seemed foreign and my iPhone told me the call was in fact coming from Rome. I snatched the phone off of the couch, but I didn’t answer it right away. I took 15 seconds to run through the mental list I had made of possible reasons why Charlie would do this to me, and could find none that made me feel more confident. A deep breath. I pressed the button to accept the call, lifted the phone to my ear, and opened my mouth. “Hello?”