Beacon No. 12 — Air Head by Beacon Quarterly

NO. 12

AIR HEAD

Many a time miraculous events have occurred from whims of spontaneity and unplanned events. Many a time a general Air Head-like behavior leads to answers that we were searching for, while we were unaware that they actually existed right beneath our very nose. However, being an Air Head is a statement loosely defined to a society of non-conformed persons. You see, we now live in a society that strives to have it together 24/7; that picture-perfect life. A constant control and ability to not fall ‘vulnerable’ to the supposed weakness of not seeing life through in its vigorous affect. We cross reference the word and associate it with many other attributes of being human, be it within sexist remarks and gender stereotyping, to as general as associating it with personality traits. Yet what if we have misunderstood the term completely and there is much more to be said about the word AirHead? Could it not be deemed as a term, to represent a moment for ourselves to have that timeout within the 100 miles per hour life we have been leading? Being an Air Head could be an outer connection to the universe around you; a moment's peace from the chaos down below. A retreat and self-meditation from a reality that we spontaneously perceive, often without a will of doing so. A rejuvenation from the pressures we forcibly put down upon ourselves, to find the inner creativity that has been put at bay and suppressed. We all are guilty of it, neglecting our day dreams and distant thoughts of stars and the great beyond to survive the modern-day. So maybe, just maybe, stay a little while longer up in the clouds and embrace the inner Air Head that you have had at rest and dormant all this time. Because it may be your release, it may be your sanctuary, and it may be something you have not quite found yet and still in search of. That is the art of being human after all; discovering the hidden and most apparent parts of yourself and owning every angle that defines you and makes the true honest essence of you.

00 02 04 06 09 11 13 14 16 20 23 24

YUCHEN ZHANG Postcard 10

KSUSHA ITWAZCOOL Love in Bubbles

NES VUCKOVIC Butthead Bong

JUSTIN ANANTAWAN Portrait of Mr. King

GERARD COLETTA Sonnet

EVA BLACK A Poem

ALEXANDRA GÓMEZ

When You Ask Me What I Know,

EUNI

Reason To Breathe

DELA CHARLOTTE Sneakers & Cars

DAVID WEIN Brain

GERARD COLETTA

Song of the State Highway Patrolman

YUCHEN ZHANG

The Garden of Earthly Delights

28 30 32 33 34 35 36 37 40 41 42 44

STEFFEN DURANT XFiles, Dark Corner

KSUSHA ITWAZCOOL Untitled

SOPHIA LE FRAGA Adora

YUCHEN ZHANG You No See

YESSICA KLEIN

I Make Myself A Cup of Tea

ERIKA LEE SEARS Balloons

CRAIGN DUNCAN Untitled

LAUREN PRADO Untitled

SEBASTIEN NOTRE Bubble

JESSICA GRATIGNY Air Head

S. M. VAN DE CAMP Form And Unform

YUCHEN ZHANG Abstract

AIR HEAD

ST I

AN TAW AN AN

AIR HEAD

On the weekends we tear us from ourselves

& the Monday reports suggest it’s grand fun

Oh to be thought of wanted watched

Or to spend the day contemplating the above

Then take a couple pills and jump into a cab

At night though I like to sit on the rockpiles

& look over the bay at the island of money

The water is cruel yes but it’s full of animals

I love the animals because they do not know

They have no fucking clue at all I can relate

I believe the atoms are made of ignorance

So I’m scared to death of asking the right questions What good comes of knowing, feeling is bad enough & every answer I think holds a kernel of the last one

AIR HEAD

The voices in my head say you are not dead and gone. Illness did not claim you, disease did not settle in your bones. The voices in my head say if I close my eyes and really try and see you, I just might. And if I talk to you, the responses will consist of only nods and head shakes but who am I to complain of a lack of sound? The voices in my head say I can find you in all of the places I have yet to look. The places in my memories that you loved most. Forest, Field, Stream. The voices in my head say that you miss me, just as much as I miss you. And whether when we die we simply cease to exist or there is an afterlife of warm golden light, you've not decided and that's why you're still here with me. A casper to follow my day. The voices in my head say that it is most likely not healthy for me to refuse to accept reality. To refuse to accept that 8 years ago I laid in your death bed facing you, and told you more than once that you were the best Father a girl could ever ask for. And that you died less than 24 hours later, because fighting any harder than you already had simply was not in you. Not in my strong powerful Daddy. The voices in my head say, that holding onto your ghost is all I have left. Because once I let him go too, That's it. And you will slip away to the abyss beyond where I can not touch you, or talk to you, or see even a transparent rendition of you because when you follow that light... the voices in my head leave too. And I am really alone. Without you.

when you ask me what i know i will answer with this

AIR HEAD

alexandra gómez

I know that I am craving pan sobao and a pair of hands that do not stutter to reach for the azúcar on the counter to grit in between the teeth before any words begin to pour. I know that honey sticks and oranges bleed and my sentences make an altar for all of the pennies you left at the bottom of your purse. waiting to make change. I know how to dance my abuelita taught me one day when the wind was hot with the blood of every woman before us breathing down my back, do i whisper or scream? Tell me what you know about pleasure and how quic k l y it can become prey and thick and less about knowing. I know that by the time you finish reading this, millions of your cells will have died, a hurricane will have hit my island and someone somewhere is not here. I told you that this is an altar . ( for your hands to feed sugar my hands are somewhere behind my back ) Sometimes I do not know how to speak. I know that I do not know much but you asked so this is the tending to or the telling of with this mouth because heat (hold me) I know how to heal make a touch like heat. the kind that eats before war. is this war? I think the women found me.

REASON TO

BREATHE What if I told you that the only reason to breathe

Is to fill my head with something other than thoughts of you. That these inhales are an attempt to take over the space That is occupied by visions of your face.

That breathing isn’t an action to continue to live. Not right now, not for me. Currently, it’s an action to collect every morsel of oxygen In order to piece them together To fill my brain with something grander Than the memories left behind of our times together.

Not all of it is bad. It definitely is not all good. And in the end, none of it matters. The only thing that seems to hold weight these days. Is the stories made up from the mind.

My mind, it spins. And I can’t help but question What if I fill the space in my head with air. Will this stop the chaos created in passing of time? Will this slow the circles that keep me running

AIR HEAD

Feeling overwhelmed,

Sad, Left behind.

What if I push my nose so deeply

So I breathe deep.

In to the pollen of the budding flowers of every plant I pass.

I breathe so deep

And fill my nostrils with the sweet scents of nature

As if to fill my head with air like a balloon made for a birthday.

Will the memories of the odor of your person Continue to last?

So deep that my heels lift off the ground And the only thing that ties me down

What if I peer my eyes into the sun

Are the tips of my toes who refuse to let me float away.

As it sets into the horizon over the ocean at the end of each day. What if I continue to stare out into the darkness of night.

I inhale and exhale and inhale again.

That has stolen my ability to see clearly in the light of day?

And each time I breathe deeper, Than the time before.

What if I touch myself. My shoulder, my hair.

And each time I hold the air in longer.

Caress my arms down to my thighs

In an effort to clear out the corners of my mind.

With the tips of my fingers, one at a time.

To try to free my heart, my body, my human, my soul.

What if I grab my own hand and hold it. Will you somehow still be here, lingering behind?

I don’t know how long it takes to get over someone like you. I don’t know anything other than,

What if I scream,

If I keep filling my head with the air from the outside

From the depths of my belly.

Then somehow, the memories will walk away too.

Outpouring the untold secrets of my spirit.

All I hope is that when they leave me,

What if I create streams of salty water.

Like you did.

To flow endlessly from the corners of the windows to my soul.

They return back home to you.

But none of this matters. The actions that fill the minutes and make hours that turn into days. None of it matters. Because the mind, it continues to race.

EUNI

“AIR HEAD ALSO KNOWN AS

BASIC

AIR HEAD

BITCH

Both can be understood as elements that had a big impact on American culture. Having fresh sneakers and fancy cars with popping, bright colors seem like a never ending trend in America. But it is definitely not only a white women “Regarding the term Air Head, I could not really interest, it is more a common American interest, get any specific idea of what it all could mean, which spread all over the world. especially not as a native English speaker. I tried to see what the dictionary said about the term Therefore I combined the term Air Head with and found that "Airhead", also known as "Trixie" an episode of Complex sneaker shopping with (in Chicago), "basic bitch", or simply "basic," is Bella Hadid. She seems to be the perfect match a slang term in American popular culture used for this description; and that is actually what I to pejoratively describe middle class white immediately thought about when I found the women who are perceived to predominantly definition of Airhead, "basic bitch".” like mainstream products, trends, or music. I thought it would fit my previous editorial work about a series of sneakers matching old cars. Dela Charlotte Lampacher is a Berlin based photographer and graphic designer. Her collection “Sneakers and Cars,” is a unique take on the theme Air Head.

DAVID WIEN

AIR HEAD

Lately I’ve grown more used to the condominium, its rose shag, the persistent owl hoot of the commuter rail trains. I’ve memorized the photons’ transit through the blinds and alimony flows from me easy as water from the tap. Underfoot, my son is a glitch, stuttering with television, and when I sleep in my big crypt of a room noon to dusk I cannot hear him. The little fish keep dying and we keep replacing them, and forgetting that the new ones are new. And the highways...is it that they’re a bloodstream and I a white cell, or that they’re rivers and I a gar, or are they merely time in its inexplicable formulations webbed out over everything but taking me only forward, ever forward. When I get a little time to myself I like to go running down by the viaduct, through the park the local Rotary maintains in the name of some First Lady from the 70s, and wonder what of me I here convolute, as the rocks were once made viaduct. And later, when I wake, bat-winged, throw open the curtains to scatter the little horrors the hour after dark, I wonder what looks back at me from the waste, awaits me.

by Gerard Coletta

AIR HEAD

Steffen Durant

AAI IRR HHEEAADD

THIS IS WORK BY KSUSHA ITWAZCOOL

33 00

THIS IS SOME MORE WORK BY KSUSHA ITWAZCOOL

ADORA

A lot of my time online is spent Stalking the woman you were married to When you slept with me. She posts funny selfies, motivational quotes And from time to time I can tell that she looks me up too. Some days on Instagram, we chat for hours.

AIR HEAD

S O P HIA

YESSICA KLEIN

should time bend its inexorable regulations to our whimsical wishes, it wouldn’t be so wasted on tomorrows. spread afloat over our bed instead, time lingers statically, its butterfly effects unknown

AIR HEAD

& unwelcome. we kiss good-bye; I wait for the kettle to boil. I am happily waiting.

AIR HEAD

CRAIG DUNCAN CRAIG DUNCAN CRAIG

DUNCAN CRAIG DUNCAN CRAIG DUNCAN

CRAIG DUNCAN CRAIG DUNCAN

DUNCAN CRAIG DUNCAN CRAIG

AIR HEAD

AIR HEAD 44 00

Sebastien Notre

FORM & UNFORM

AIR HEAD

S.M. VAN 42

DE KAMP

rolling in and out of my tongue runs against the edge of dream in sculptured culmination these buttery buttresses coddle all consciousness then on the edge of dusk i melt

AIR HEAD 44

YUCHEN ZHANG

VISUAL CONTENT

WRITTEN CONTENT

CRAIG DUNCAN SOURCE MATERIAL

FATIMA ELMUSBAHI FORWARD 2020 fatimaelmusbahi.com

DAVID WIEN BRAIN Davidwien.com DELA CHARLES X CONCRETE JUNGLE SNEAKER STORE SNEAKERS & CARS ERIKA LEE SEARS BALLOONS @erikaleesears FRANCES KOSARICH UNTITLED JESSICA ESTRADA AIRHEAD jessica-marie.com/ JESSICA GRATIGNY PLEASE RECYCLE Model: Jolie Clark Jessicagratigny.com @jgratphoto JUSTIN ANANTAWAN PORTRAIT OF MR. KING Model: Mr. King Location: Fajara beach @justin_anantawan KSUSHA ITWAZCOOL THE BIRTH OF SNEAKERHEAD, LOVE IN BUBBLES , TIRED behance.net/itwazcool LAUREN PRADO THE AMERICAN DREAM & THE KARDASHIANS May 2019 Photographer: Sage Cortez NES VUCKOVIC BUTTHEAD BONG nes-draws.com/

AIR HEAD

SEBASTIEN NOTRE BUBBLE @sebastiennotre STEFFEN DURANT X-FILES, DARK CORNER durantcollage.com/

4 6YUCHEN

ZHANG NO SEE COPY, POSTCARD, THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHT yuchenzhang.net/

YESSICA KLEIN AFTER YOU LEAVE I MAKE MYSELF A CUP OF TEA 2018 @yessicaklein SOPHIA LE FRAGA ADORA SEPTEMBER 2019 @badideasophia sophialefraga.com GERARD COLETTA SONNET 2014 SONG OF THE STATE HIGHWAY PATROLMAN 2019 gerardcoletta.com/publications EUNI REASON TO BREATHE OCTOBER 2019 pg. 26 @euniquedeeann Notwithoutdirt.com ALEXANDRA GÓMEZ WHEN YOU ASK ME WHAT I KNOW I WILL ANSWER WITH THIS SEPTEMBER 2019 @alexxandrawho EVA BLACK POEM S. M. VAN DE KAMP FORM AND UNFORM 2014 @sarahmarievandekamp

CHACHA SANDS | editor-in-chief Since I go days without driving sometimes, I literally walk around my neighborhood for half an hour saying, "dude, where’s my car?" because I forgot where I parked. ZACH WESTERMAN | director of design hmm, I'll have to give this some thought BRITT MOHR | director of visual content I'm scared of balloons popping. KAILLA COOMES | director of written content I've had more concussions than I can count. REID KILLE | director of video production "" APHELION CRAMPTON | digital communications I once threw up over the side of a hot air balloon. GRACE POUTNEY | co-lead graphic design intern My parents mailed me oven gloves and safety equipment when I moved out because I am so clumsy. MIA PINZELIK | co-lead graphic design intern My mind was blown when I figured out that playdoh is doh you play with. SETH DEARMAS | graphic design intern I literally have air in my head—I have nitrogen in my right eye to repair a retina detachment. AMANDA WILSON | graphic design intern When I was younger, I always butt dialed my parents when I was partying.

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