Buried letter press June/July 2012

BURIED

LETTER

PRESS

JUNE/ JULY 2012

Buried Letter Press June/July 2012 ŠBuried Letter Press 2011-2013

Cover Image by Stephanie Falk Design by Matthew C. Mackey

Buried Letter Press Akron, Ohio

June/ July 2013 Summer Obsessive by slm young

Life’s a Beach: Two Bibliophiles Share Their Summer Reading List by Molly Fuller & Angie Mazakis

Other Fascinations

Travel &

by Matthew C.

Painted Braille by Heather Haden Sailing to Byzantium?

by Brian Young I’m an Artist because I Jumped by Robert Mackey

Balla

Summer Obsessive by slm young I’m obsessive. I’ll admit it. When I decide I am invested in something, I am totally, one hundred percent, dive into the deep end with my shoes still on, all the fucking way in. This is probably why I am so exhausted by the time the semester ends because I behave the same way with the courses I teach. I’ve been living on the edge of insanity for fifteen weeks—sleeping too little, eating too much sugar and drinking too much caffeine, and grading essays in super-sized batches—so when summer hits, I can hardly wait to set down my purple grading pen and decide what I will obsess over until I have to start planning again for fall semester.

My summer obsessions usually are something along the lines of watching every film ever made by Alfred Hitchcock, or practicing yoga every day, or reading all of the diaries of Anaïs Nin. Most often, what I do is read a lot.

The worst part of being an English teacher—apart from grading essays, of course—is that while I am constantly reading in preparation for my courses, I rarely am able to choose what I want to read and read it when I want. So by the time summer arrives, I usually have both a list of titles and a pile of books next to my bed, and by a pile of books, I really mean three piles of books, waiting to be read. Choosing the books I will read each summer is made a bit more difficult because my sister and I usually try to read books together (a.k.a. the Sister Summer Reading Club), so there is a decent amount of compromise that needs to happen before we can commence. And what I mean by compromise is that I am the “little sister,” so my big sister is usually able to convince me that her choices are better than mine despite the fact that I’m the one with the degrees in writing and literature. To be fair, my choices aren’t always suitable “summer” reads because they are so depressing. (For example, my early list for this summer contained Blue Nights by Joan Didion; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer; and We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. In the order of listing, the books are: a memoir of a mother losing her daughter, a novel narrated by a boy who has lost his father on 9/11, and a novel in letters by the mother of a boy who committed a school shooting. In my defense, I’d just like to say that I don’t really care if books are depressing if they are well written. Didion’s memoir The Year of Magical Thinking about the year following her husband’s death was remarkable. I couldn’t put it down, despite my own sobbing. One of my favorite Paul Auster books is The Brooklyn Follies, which in true Auster fashion compels the reader to fall in love with characters that are doomed to be doomed, ends on the morning of the 9/11 attacks. And my favorite of Wally Lamb’s books, The Hour I First Believed, is a novel that addresses the fallout of the Columbine shootings on a fictional family.)

To be sure, my choices for the Sister Summer Reading Club are almost always depressing, or mandated by the Common Reading Program choice for the next semester, or both, so it’s good, really, that my sister throws in some choices that we can get through without wanting to cry, or

wallow, or stick our heads into ovens. (I was thinking of adding Sylvia Plath’s diaries to the list, but figured they’d get the veto.)

One of the things that the Sister Summer Reading Club tends to do, which is good for morale, is read for the first time, or reread, some fantastic children’s book or series. Last year we read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which I would recommend to anyone. Seriously. You’d have to be dead inside not to enjoy this book. Annoying orphans, tweetering birds, and a little patch of land to call your own? Shut up and go get this book. You’ll be a better person if you do. This summer I’m hoping for a reread of Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, which is at least part of the reason why I don’t kill spiders or pigs, and a damn good book.

I also enjoy rereading my favorites during the summer—going back to Charles Baxter and remembering why I fell so madly in love with him twenty years ago, or rereading the first novel of a novelist who is all established now, and realizing that even she started somewhere. (I’m thinking specifically of Katrina Kittle, who recently published her fifth novel, but whose first novel, Traveling Light, still moves me to tears.)

Let’s just be honest here: I don’t choose good summer reads in the traditional sense. I hardly even know what they would be, probably something that will eventually become a movie starring Cameron Diaz. I guess a good summer read is one that you can read while keeping one eye on your kid, so that his brother doesn’t bury him too deep in the sand. I don’t read those kinds of books. If I’m not all in, I’m just not in at all. Didn’t you read my first paragraph?

My current teetering piles of books contain Invisible by Paul Auster, The Boys of My Youth by JoAnn Beard, On Balance by Adam Phillips, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris, The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I also know I have to read The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore and A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle for courses I’ll be teaching next year. I’m sure that my sister will agree to read at least one of the above books, even if the reason is because she will read this essay and won’t want to admit to being bossy, and I’ll agree to any number of her choices, because let’s face it, I am the little sister and I will forever desire the approval of my big sister. (Of all my obsessions, I suppose wanting to be like and be liked by my big sister is one of my earliest.) This summer we will begin our trek with The Help by Kathryn Stockett, which I heard about long before it became an Oscar-nominated film, but never got around to reading, probably because my big bossy sister was telling me to read something else last summer.

Life’s

a Beach: Two Bibliophiles Share Their Summer Reading List

by Molly Fuller and Angie Mazakis

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had time to read, let alone really figure out what I want to read, so, luckily, I have at my disposal a stack of books that have been waiting for me by my bedside like lost loves throughout this past academic year.

Grab a beach towel or cuddle up on a hammock—bring a refreshing summer sipping drink—mojito, margarita, a long-island iced tea—and indulge with me. These are the titles on my to-do list by category: Books to read as inspiration. These writers inspire me; the language level of these books requires a concentrated, but joyful effort. I have to pay attention as I read. These books, I feel, have something important to say to me. Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Nadine Gordimer’s The Essential Gesture, Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Opposites.

Books to read for craft. Once I find time to work on my own writing, I’m hoping these two books prove inspirational. Rose Metal Press’s A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness and The Art of Brevity: Excursion in Short Fiction Theory and Analysis edited by Per Winther, Jakob Lothe, and Hans Hanssen Skei.

Books to read as research for a conference paper I am working on: Raymond Carver’s Where I’m Calling From and Beginners.

Books that my friends have written that I want to read: Brian Morton’s Starting Out in the Evening, Robert Miltner’s Hotel Utopia, and Carrie Oeding’s Our List of Solutions.

Books that I have already read, but that are beckoning to me again from my bookshelf: Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, A.M. Homes’s The Safety of Objects, and Mary Morris’s Revenge.

I am off to lie on the lawn, grass between my toes, and a novel held up to the blue, cloudless sky… * I don’t read as fast as Molly does, so my reading list is more abbreviated. Once, Molly was at my apartment and in the time it took me to apologize for all of my embarrassing text messages from the night before, Molly had read all of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. No exaggeration. I read one.

Word. At. A. Time. And until I go to secretary’s school and take those speed reading classes, I’ll just have to take fewer books to the beach.

Miranda July’s It Chooses You—I’ve wanted to read this for months, but I’ve been waiting for it to come out in paperback. Because I can’t just go to the library and check it out, I have to have it on a shelf in case I want to “reference” it later. Or in case its spine looks really nice on the bookshelf with the other nice spines.

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse—I want to read this every summer.

Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe—I put this on my amazon wish list almost exactly 10 years ago in some unreasonable quest to understand everything about the world. Of course, I never

got around to getting the book and understanding everything about the world because I had to get a job.

In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard—As you can see, because I’m not a speed reader and because I’m cheap and never spring for hard backs, I’m usually about 1-10 years behind the new releases. So, this book is the newest I want to read this summer. Molly actually introduced me to Jo Ann Beard when she made me read Boys of My Youth, which quickly became one of my favorite books ever. It was Beard’s only published book for so long that I was kind of shocked that this novel seemed to come out with so little fanfare. I expected at least a small flare. Maybe I was too busy sending embarrassing texts, while Molly read half my bookshelf. I don’t know, but I can’t wait to read this. Or the rest of the books on my list…even though it will probably take me the rest of my life.

T

ravel and Other Fascinations

by Matthew C. Mackey June 1-3 Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer, France Richard Aldington Society and Imagism Conference The night I arrived was a Thursday. I came in on a train from Paris to Arles and then a hot, dusty bus ride to Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer for the Richard Aldington Society and Imagism conference. It was nice to have an air-conditioned room after the trip. Saintes-Marie was hot, settled in the Caramague region of southern France and leaning against the cold Mediterranean. I could hear the waves crashing on the jetties as I smoked on the balcony.

My French isn’t so good, and ordering a drink that first night, a bottle of local red, proved comical. I stayed with fellow conference members at the Thalacap Hotel, a nice place with a tender view. I kept thinking of all the people I’d like to bring here as I poured glass after glass. I was co-writing a paper about the Ezra Pound controversy with my friend Jeni Stewart, who also runs Burlesque Press. Of course “writing” meant we talked for long hours about his political views, his literary prowess, and the reconciliation of the two over booze before waiting until the pressure of a deadline sparked our diligence. We were interested in the confluence between the ideology and the art. We drank a lot of wine and muddled our way through. Our presentation was the following Saturday.

I wandered around when I first got into town with a head full of wine and found the only bar still open at 11:00 o’clock at night. I followed the sound of glass clanking and laughter for a few blocks before the neon sign of La Bodega drew me off the street like a cross on a church steeple.

There, I ran into my old friend Justin, who was also presenting at the conference. I hadn’t seen him in a few years, but kept up correspondences online. We talked about his work a little, reminisced about our time in Italy, and drank whisky and beer before a stranger offered to share his bottle of white wine with us if we taught him some English. As a student, he learned all our best expressions.

Finally, he sang to us and bid us goodnight before stumbling home.

The conference members met for a brief reception the next day at Katherine Aldington’s house. Katherine Aldington was the daughter of the British writer, Richard Aldington, who married Hilda Doolittle and helped start the Imagist movement in the early part of the twentieth century. We toasted to Katherine’s memory, drank copious amounts of wine, ate dinner, suffered the wrath of mosquito country, and shipped ourselves back to the hotel where a few of us scrounged up more wine and made our way to the beach. It’s a strange thing discussing the relevancy of people like Richard Aldington, Ezra Pound, the Imagists, etc. on the shore of the Mediterranean at night while strangers swam naked and our thin blood drummed through our bodies.

I went to a bullfight the day of our presentation. Jeni and I had just delivered our paper, and I stepped outside for a cigarette. Across the street at Les Arenes, a sign read: Tradition Taurine du Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer La Course Carmaguaise 16h:30 5€ Général Entrée

I’d never been to a bullfight. In the south of France the tradition isn’t to kill the bull, just piss it off I guess. It went like this. A certain number of objects called “attributes” are attached to the bull’s crown, and it is the duty of the “raseteurs” to fetch them of the bull’s head. The bull doesn’t die, but nonetheless, people shouted when the raseteurs pulled of the attributes one by one, and they roared and laughed when the bull jumped out of the ring. I drank my beer and watched, not knowing exactly how to react.

After the presentations, some of us wondered through town, trying to understand menus and signs as we walked past. Justin, Galateia, Jeni, and Xristos, met Fernando and I smoking on the corner, and we decided to have dinner at La Brasserie Belvedere. I ate Steak Chaval. We toasted to our health and drank beer and wine. We left for the beach, having bought more wine and a bottle of Grand Marnier, and the salt air blowing off the Med emboldened us. Still more friends came, and we were glad to see the familiar faces of Jeff and Courtney as we poured wine into plastic cups and smoked our unfiltered cigarettes. The moon was low on the horizon, reflecting in clean, rolling splinters off the dark water.

The next morning we walked to the docks and took a boat out into the wind tossed sea, finding our way up the little Rhône where we stopped for lunch at Le Close de la Barque, a small ranch only accessible by river or a 30 mile trek down dirt roads outside of Saintes-Marie. We ate fresh mussels in garlic and oil, bull roast and rice, and had custard for dessert. We drank sangria with friends and recited poetry into the quiet fields and pastures.

We parted the next morning with wine and song still sunk in our veins and headed to Arles, where some of us caught a train to Barcelona, others for Paris, and still some for Marseilles. Jeni and I were pointed toward Spain, and I rolled my time in Saintes-Marie around my head like a grain of sand beneath a tongue.

Barcelona June 4-8th 2012 The Sagrada Familia and the Picasso Museu Uno We got in to Barcelona late Monday night. Wine and tapas made for a quiet first meal along the esplanade. I sat on the Rambla de Catalunya, watching people there take their paseo, or after dinner walk. I wondered who was a stranger like myself and who made their homes in the city. I was tired from a long train ride, and I could tell my friend Jeni was just as exhausted. It was nice to have another magazine writer in company, and it was great to have a friend to share the travels.

Dos

After a late breakfast, Jeni and I made our way down La Rambla, a promenade that stretches from Placa de Catalunya all the way to the Mediterranean. La Rambla was lined with street performers, kiosks, tourist shops, merchants, caricature and portrait artists, and gelaterias. Our heads were on swivels, and my ears, out of tune to Spanish, ached for understanding. I wanted to talk to everyone, to be a part of their lives, to let them know that I existed. Jeni spoke Spanish very well, and I was impressed by the level of fluency she maintained even when some of the people spoke Catalan. By the time, we sat down for dinner it was already too late for the unfinished church and

the Picasso Museum, so instead we raised our glasses to our friends back home and around the world.

Tres

We made our way straight for The Sagrada Familia, watching little children squeal, cry, and shout as we passed schools and playgrounds.

Looming in the distance, I could see the spires from Gaudi’s design teething up the skyline. In 1883, work began on the church, and it still has yet to be completed. Antonio Guadi (which is where the English word “gaudy” derives from), a Catalan architect, designed and implemented the project as one of the first unions of religion and modern art. The church was dedicated as an UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in 2010 was sanctified and declared a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI. It is clear from the exterior of the church that there is hardly another building that creates such an acute awareness of humanity’s constant wrestle with the mysteries of the spiritual, which may be symbolic of its continual progress, never quite finished.

The Museu Picasso is the ultimate expression of the city’s strong ties to the artist. Picasso moved with his family to Barcelona in 1895, and from there began his illustrious career as a painter, visiting and living in the city throughout his life. I had looked into, albeit briefly, Picasso’s work, but my experience didn’t extend much further than textbooks and Google images. Standing there in front of the work, and watching his career take shape and form, was unsettling. I’m not a painter, but the force in which Picasso’s work struck me, and the fierceness of his vision created an impulse to “see” better or at least differently. For me, Picasso’s paintings, his sketches, his studies, sculptures, and artistic meanderings challenged the particular way in which I interacted with the world. Like listening to the city around me speak a different tongue, being in the Picasso I left the museum, not fully understanding, but more aware somehow of something deep and important, yet inarticulate.

From the museum we headed south, again towards the Mediterranean, where we were baptized with a great congregation of strangers in the cool waters, burning our tongues with salt, and washing our eyes with light.

June 8-11 San Sebastián, Basque country We spent five hours on a high speed train from Barcelona, zooming through Spanish country side, looking at old rundown farm villages and sprawling metropolitan centers. For the most part, the landscape held a serene voice, like a strange bucolic poem, echoing out of my mind. I was delirious. Travel can be exhausting, and I was

feeling the call for rest when I stepped foot off the train in San Sebastián. I needed a room. The Hostal Bahia was more than accommodating, and we found inexpensive lodgings for a few nights.

Here the inheritance of tradition and legacy is best found, not in a museum or church, but in the eyes of the people who live there. A friendly smile, albeit tired from use at all the dumb tourists like myself, was one of the best monuments to life I’ve found in a while. I started this leg of the trip with a severe burn from the beach and a pit in my stomach I most likely developed from the diet change. But, I was in a forgotten, tiny city that washed over me in the gray-golden dusk.

Surrounded by the foothills of the Pyrenees, San Sebastián, otherwise known as Donostia, lays its head at the Bay of Biscay. It is a warm and friendly place, only twenty kilometers from the French border. The area is dominated by a rich Basque heritage and general sense of happiness. My favorite part was the txakoli and the pintxos. Everyone was going round in the streets, and I ran into a half mad French man with his wife from Venezuela.

He told me a joke about how a Canadian, a Brit, and an American called everyone jaguars in South America. He laughed a hoarse smoker’s laugh I understood. We traded cigarettes, and he told me all about bullfighting where he came from.

Dinner in San Sebastián is a roving experience.

Similar to tapas in Barcelona, pintxos are little servings of strange concoctions, mostly on bread and ranging from cured ham and anchovies to prawn salad and little mysterious croquettes. Starting in one bar and perusing an assortment of delectables, then moving to another bar offering equal variety, all the while sipping the crisp, local sparkling wine, txakoli, created a sense of place and movement, as if I could take a small portion of each stop and sew it into my consciousness: a piecemeal evening.

It was nice to relax for a few days after the busy streets of Barcelona, knowing that in a few days, we’d be in Madrid, devouring the heart of Spain, soaking up the Spanish capital. In San Sebastián we had no agenda, and it was nice to walk leisurely through the streets of a quieter town.

Everywhere I went I could hear the soft scattering of the tide over Playa de la Concha, and filled my lungs with the Atlantic’s rich breath. I wondered if I would ever feel as bravely insignificant as I did just listening and breathing to an entire world. I thought about my friends back home, and how the earth I stood on eventually touched the bay, which ran into the ocean, finally crashing on the shores of America, and still the shores slowly forming the earth over hundreds of miles to my small-town, Ohio, and from there to the rest of the great states, where my loved ones made their homes.

I walked the streets falling in love with faces, wondering what this young girl was laughing at, why this old man folded his hands the way he did. Had he always worn glasses? Would the girl wearing her bright blue scarf fall in love with me? What color are the bartender’s eyes, and why did he get that haircut? How long has that young mother been a mother? Was her mother a young mother too? I didn’t recognize anyone, but I saw everyone in those faces. I noticed everyone’s doppelganger. That one was an old roommate.

That one was a guy I knew one summer in Italy. That other face was my boss. I was flooded with romantic notions of friendship and intimacy. Time doesn’t stop in San Sebastián, but space does. It’s as if I could stand in one of my mad dreams like a lunatic saint, occupying a rare delineation from

concrete and tangible. I was a myth in the territory between folly and security. I was hyper-present.

Maybe travel causes an acute awareness of position. Maybe it was the feeling of unfamiliar that causes the familiar to be so sharpened in my mind. Regardless, I knew that some great dichotomy I once knew had failed, and the thing that made the place alien also made it transcendent.

June 12-16th Madrid, Spain I was mangy wandering the city. I was hungry and tired, and there were so many people and birds and shops and cafes and buildings my eyes couldn’t stop falling onto this window or that precipice or those eyes or that scooter or that…

Eventually one needs to stop and make a home somewhere. For me, that was Madrid. Arrangements were made, and I found myself sharing a nice two bed apartment with my friend Jeni, complete with kitchenette. I could buy groceries. I could do laundry. I could sleep or work. I could just be. While the city went about the noisy business of life, I went about mine. Jeni and I decided to stay in, make a meal, and watch TV. I thought to myself, “This is what people who live here do when they’re tired, so what the hell. Give me rest.” It was a good first meal, spaghetti, salad, and Kellogg’s chocolate bars for dessert. I slept soundly.

The next day, I slept in and milled about the apartment for hours, not fully ready to throw myself into the frantic nature of exploration, where each thing is a new discovery, every walk a new frontier, but Madrid knew I was there. She waited.

Jeni and I decided to lug ourselves at least to a coffee shop to check our email, connect with worried parents, say hello to friends, and monitor the steady suck on our bank accounts. We must have looked like tourists as we saddled up to the bar for café con leches, our laptops tucked under our arms. I didn’t say much. I still don’t know Spanish. Jeni understood everything, and I challenged everything.

“What did he say?”

“He said it’s five euros and 75 cents.”

“Really?”

“Yes, look right there on the menu,” She said, rolling her eyes.

Nothing felt real. It was like trying to read or speak in a dream. Jeni was getting irritated by my questions. I was getting irritated by my lack of understanding. I take a lot of things for granted back home. Communication is one of them.

We went out for Mexican food that night and ate at a little place called La Panza es Primero in the Chueca area of Madrid, the gay section of the city. The food was styled after the cuisine in the Oaxaca region of Mexico. To a foodie like Jeni, it was incredible. To a starving mad coyote like myself, it was amazing. We drank margaritas and went out into the night. I was after something in Madrid and every lovely face I watched from the bar spoke to me of what “home” might mean. I wondered if people were the same in every place. I wondered who I would fall in love with and who would fall in love with me as I drank dark, red wine.

After waking in a stupor, my head floating somewhere between the burning sunlight and the tilted horizon, I grabbed a pen and made my way out for postcards. There’s no return address for

these sorts of things. I sat in a corner of the café sucking down water and coffee, hoping the sun would slowly fade. The air-conditioning made me feel a little better.

There is a carousel right outside of the grocery store, wrought in a turn of thecentury art deco exuberance. The horses and mermaids were gilded in rubies and the lions had braided reins of gold. I spent some time watching a few kids squeal and holler as the thing lit up. A ragtime melody plinked and tuned its way out from some hidden speakers, and the machine slowly cranked its way around in a never ending wheel, one rider constantly chasing the next. A little boy made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and shot as his older brother instinctively dodged the invisible bullets. Some mothers talked in Spanish, keeping an eye on their cowboys and Indians. I thought of my family.

I met Jeni back at the apartment and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of milk for lunch. I’ve also taken peanut butter for granted. I was full of crazy mind junk, and kept narrating my life as we walked through the burning white streets of windy Madrid. I felt like I understood my context in history and geography. I’m sure the peanut butter was working like magic in my system, and I’m pretty sure the milk had soured before I drank it. Whatever propelled me through the streets like a lunatic, I was glad for it. Each time I passed a face, I knew exactly who it was and what our relationship was. I wasn’t dreaming. I knew this was all fact somehow and somehow unrecognized. It was as if I’d been living in that space my entire life and everyone was there with me. For a few brief hours I climbed up hills, walked over streets, darted through crowds, and moved with a fierce and graceful mind. I couldn’t stop. Jeni had become irritated with me because it was hot as hell, and we had missed several turns, and we had walked a very long time.

We were going to the Hammam, a Turkish bath, this one actually leftover from the Romans.

I’d never been to a Hammam, and Jeni convinced me it had healing properties. As we entered the Hammam, two of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen welcomed us whispering Spanish. Again, I had no idea what they were saying, but I would have done anything they asked. The incense, burning, saturated the entire building with lavender, rose, amber, and sandalwood. After the long, frantic walk, the silence and peace of the bath were intoxicating. I changed into my bathing suit and headed down a winding stone staircase into the pit of the bath house. Here there were three pools, a warm water pool, a hot water pool, and a small, cold water plunge. A person is supposed to mingle between the three, letting the relaxing warmth and heat detoxify and de-stress as the plunge reinvigorates the body and the mind. And although, there were probably fifteen people down there, you couldn’t but hear water, pouring, running, washing. Young lovers were there with hope in their young lover eyes. I felt guilty every time I swam by, ruining their solitude with my bald head and round belly. I must have looked like an old man to them, and maybe, somehow, I had become one.

After the Hammam, we left to buy alpargatas, handmade shoes, famous in Spain. I paid ten euros. They didn’t fit. I’ll gift them to someone. Jeni had bought potatoes at the market, and decided to make potato soup, which was fine with me. By this time, I was stark raving mad with hunger. I had no idea what possessed me earlier, but now I was again at the mercy of biology. I needed to eat.

We stayed in that night, eating unseasoned potato soup, drinking wine, and watching more TV. We were both getting tired of the road.

The next day, we had two goals. First, Jeni wanted to show me the Parqe del Retiro Madrid, a wonderful city park that boasts over 320 acres of landscapes, statues, and further curiosities. The park was hot. The temperatures in Madrid can reach well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t

think it was that hot, but we stuck to shade and drank as much water as possible. The heat may have been appropriate anyway because somewhere in the mess of the park there was a statue. I’m told it’s one of only two statues of its kind in the world. It was a statue of the devil, or Angel Caído, the fallen angel. The statue depicted an angel, wings outstretched, mouth opened in terror, being dragged into hell. I’m not sure if that’s the way it happened, but I like to think that before God and the rest of the angels moved into heaven, there was a party. Lucifer and a few others got really drunk and passed out in hell. Upon there waking, God and everyone had left, and Lucifer had no idea where they went, so he and his boys went back to hell for more bop, booze, sex, and kicks. Meanwhile in heaven, all the other angels were sitting on cushions and sipping tea and telling everyone how nice the other’s hair was and some angels were playing music, but it had no soul. I’d like to see that statue of the devil, raising a glass in hell, with friends in arms.

We found the Crystal Palace, an expansive glass house, erected in 1881. There is a lake in front of the Palace and we watched ducks and turtles mill about. The park was cooling off a bit and we found rest in some shade near a creek. From there we made our way through the streets one more time to the magical Reina Sofia Museum. The promised Picasso painting, Guernica, lay in wait for our visit.

The whole museum was brilliant. I can’t begin to describe the many halls I walked down with masterworks hanging and speaking of history, culture, and humanity, but when I came across Guernica I was immediately humbled. The painting is in protest of the bombing of Guernica by Italian and German warplanes at the behest of Spanish nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. Again, I had no idea how to react, speak, move. It was gripping.

Our time in Madrid was coming to a close. Our last night, we ate paella negra, squid prepared with rice in its own ink. Delicious. Jeni and I continued drinking wine and debating our different philosophies about life. We made friends with David and Sergio. They’re musicians and were sad to hear we wouldn’t be around to see their gig. Jeni and I ended up at the famous watering hole, Café Gijon, where greats like Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali used to frequent. We drank flaming coffees and made our way back to the room, and slumped into our beds. Morning was not far off, and we had to make our way to the airport for Athens. Home was still a long ways off, and I was eager to get back on the road. My dreams that night were disjointed and haunting as I slept with the museum’s transcendent images and the ephemeral quality of my own experiences rattling together in my brain.

June 17th-23rd Athens and Crete Athens & the Acropolis Dogs roamed the streets of Athens. In the heat, they slept on the sidewalks, under park benches, on the stairs of the Parthenon. With temperatures reaching close to the hundred degree mark, the beasts lay wherever they could find shade. When darkness slowly crept over the city, they

shook out their dusty coats and once again picked up their old dog ways. I listened to them howl and prowl in the midnight alleys from rooftop bars.

Constant movement, lack of rest, lack of understanding had created an arid atmosphere in my spirit. I too, like those wild dogs of Greece, wanted to find some means of survival, and at times, we all must find a small measure of shade and sleep, and wait for the coolness of night to heal our burning skin. Sipping white, Grecian wine, smoking cigarettes, I wondered, while the Parthenon lit up that first night, If time changes people or if place does and how coming to Greece was changing me.

Like most children, I grew up entertaining the fantasy of swordfights, monsters, damsels, magic, cleverness, as my little brother and I ran the woods behind my house swinging sticks at each other. The first long novel I read was Clash of the Titans. The mechanical owl, Bubo, I still have a fondness for. I was fascinated by the heroes and heroines of ancient Greece. I can remember watching on nights my parents left me and my little brother at home TV shows, like The Adventures of Hercules, and Xena, Warrior Princess. They were terrible shows, but to see those personalities of legend come to life was exhilarating. Then, as I got older and began my studies in literature, I had classic allusions to tackle, and foundations to build. I once again found myself swept over the Grecian frontier. And when I started to look into philosophy, I had to unknot long lineages of western thought, tracing their sources to Greek discourse. Finally, I stood on the ground that once Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Pythagoras stood on, the very home of Zeus and Hades, Aphrodite, Eros, and Olympia, the birthplace of Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and the beginnings of the great Odyssey.

Jeni and I had been on our feet for the better part of a month, and we took that first day to rest in the shade for a while. We ate ice cream and wandered underthe enormous palms of the National Gardens. Jeni drank her preferred white wine as the sun began to set the western hills on fire, and I swallowed the stone of experience, the heavy, hard truth of time and place with many Jack and Cokes. The next day, we made our way to the Acropolis, walking down bleached streets lined with merchants selling tourists anything from hats to leather jackets to shirts that say, “I heart Greece.� Jeni and I must have walked for days in the dog heat of tourist alley. Finally, we climbed up the steep winding paths upward toward the ancient citadel, the same path that has led millions of people through centuries to stand in utter humility at the monumental Propylea. Here on the rocky peak, the temple of Athena, the Erechtheum, and on the southern slope, the Theater of Dionysius lay in ruin for longer than western civilization has dreamed of their secrets.

With camera in hand, I meandered the stony trails, feeling like Indiana Jones in the city of Tanis, looking for lost Ark of the Covenant. We could see The Temple of Olympian Zeus across the slope of the hill to the southeast side of where the Acropolis stood next to the National Gardens. With only pillars remaining, the temple is an imagined palace. The realization of each edifice was constructed in our minds from the

crossbeams and columns that crisscrossed the pale sky. I too imagined where the priestess of the temple would have walked, where her servants would have slept with their holy dreams. “Who would wander the grounds at night?” I thought. “What would they be prowling for?” I immediately felt connected in the chain link of time. I felt the strain from time immemorial pulling on all the links that connected to me. It was almost too much to take in. My place in the world, my philosophy, linked through centuries and ultimately passing through this city, this kernel of geography, this ever blooming flower of the west.

Crete & Knossos We flew out of Athens and watched the islands of Greece fracture out in the blue Aegean beneath us. Olympic Air was more than accommodating, offering full beverage service, including wine and beer without extra charge. Jeni and I helped ourselves. It was a short flight and just as long a taxi ride to our hotel on the sea.

While Athens may have been under the heritage of the Mycenae civilization, Knossos was a center of Minoan culture, just south of Iraklion, the great Minoan port. Here, as Odysseus says, “Minos reigned when nine years old, he that held converse with great Zeus, and was father of my father, great-hearted Deucalion.” And here, the mysterious labyrinth and the terrifying Minotaur are forever entombed in legend and ruin.

Jeni had been to Knossos before. She was a fountain of information, and she helped bring the rubble and stone of the palace to life. Famous bull leaping frescoes hung on the restored walls. Bull leaping was a common and dangerous practice in ancient Crete. In fact, Jeni tells me, the number of deaths from bull leaping may have led to the legend of the Minotaur and his demand for sacrifices.

I traced the lines of a secret labyrinth as I walked the well-marked paths around the excavation and waited in long queues to see the throne room or the cistern. I was unraveling myself like Ariadne’s thread, but I couldn’t tell if I was making way towards the center or trying to find a way out. Traveling for such an extended amount of time is revelatory, and being in the fabled home of King Minos was like existing in a physical allegory.

It was hard not to see myself in these myths. I was pulled in. This is where Icharus and Dedalus were held prisoner before their infamous flight over the sea. Would I be Dedalus craftily making wings of freedom or would I be Icharus and fly too close to the sun? There was also the heroic Theseus and the horrific Minotaur, fighting to bitter end. I wondered about the epic battles that were playing out within myself.

We left the ruins of Knossos, and headed into Iraklion, quiet and pensive. We ate dinner, talked over wine, eventually breaking the silence with “What’d ya think?” and “Did you see this or that?” It was nice to mull over the experience with a friend even if I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I realized that there was a lot of experiences I couldn’t articulate or understand at the moment. It might take me years, centuries, millennia to understand what it’s taken the world just as long to piece together.

We decided to get tattoos in Iraklion. Jeni had gotten Bastet, the Egyptian goddess she had wanted for a while, on her wrist, and I struggled with what would make sense of all this experience.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever unlock the mysteries of what has happened in my life, but on my left arm, I now have a key.

June 24-29 Paris, France It took me thirty years to see La Ville-Lumière. For many of us, Paris exists in our minds, similar to the recent Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris. I’ve been told that I too romanticize people, places, ideas, so on.

Maybe I do. I think it’s a good habit. Even as I read the sign in the apartment complex, “Il ya des rats dans le bâtiment,” I thought, “yeah, but they’re Parisian rats.” I know, I know. Over-romanticizing leads to delusions or something. That’s what I’m told. Maybe it’s jazz or literature or philosophy or burlesque or wine or _____________, but Paris has and always will occupy a romantic place in our collective consciousness.

We taxied our way into the City of lights late the first night. Paris was our last stop on our grand tour of Europe, and we were keen on settling in for the next few days. After six flights of winding stairs, schlepping our luggage, which at this point had seemingly doubled in mass, and an exhausting 6:00 am flight-all-day-moving-and-waiting-standing-and-yawning, we were ready for wine, something very cliché and French sounding.

Jeni and I ordered our first full Parisian meal in a little bistro just down the block from our flat. We were staying in the 19th Arrondissement, the northwest section of Paris. We ate at Le Conservatoire. I ordered escargot, red wine, and a croquet monsieur, which is a hot ham and cheese sandwich. In this case, the cheese was a decidedly perfect Gruyère. I didn’t expect anything less from France.

The night ended with a constant drizzle and through accident we had a coffee in an Indian restaurant. I was out of cigarettes and so headed out into the wet-gray, Jeni reluctantly following my nicotine withdrawal.

To get out of the rain, after paying 7.80 € for a pack of Marlboro Lights, we ducked into the quiet restaurant, lured by the warmth. We slugged off the rest of our fatigue with the espresso and headed back to our flat, hoping to find Paris in a sunnier disposition.

The next day, I made a stand at McDonald’s. I know, “But, you’re in Paris! Why would you go to a McDonald’s of all places?” There is one thing that can be said of Europe and the States in terms of a superlative comparison. Europe is not the best place to find the convenience and ease of Wi-Fi. Something else I took for granted as an American. Sure, Wi-Fi exists, but it is just isn’t as “everywhere” as it is in the States, and I had work to do. Jeni found a much more suitable location for her breakfast, and I chased down a hash brown with a cup of coffee. A few hours later, Jeni came back to round me up, and we both headed out into the heart of Paris.

We plucked our way down to the Seine, and after about an hour we could see just the top of the Eiffel Tower prowling in the distance to our right, and to our left, the grand entrance to the cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris. First on our list was the famous gothic masterpiece. I was beside myself with wonder as Jeni and I walked past the statue of Charlemagne who still keeps vigil over the city.

Notre-Dame began in the medieval age, dating back to 11621163, and onDecember 12 of this year, Paris will begin to celebrate the cathedral’s 850th birthday with festivities and symposiums lasting until November 24th, 2013. It is impressive to say the least. Architecturally speaking it is one of the most important buildings existing today as it bridges nearly a millennium of structural design art. The line to enter was massive, so we resigned ourselves to tracing Notre-Dame’s shadow around its flying buttresses and stunning apse as the high afternoon sun silhouetted the infamous dangling gargoyles.

From there we went to find Shakespeare and Company. Actually, we went to find food, but found the bookstore instead. Shakespeare and Company was a crucial place for artists, philosophers, musicians, and writers to gather in Paris, and included such notables as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford, and many others, such as Allen Ginsberg, Anäis Nin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Henry Miller have rested their heads on the shop’s famous pillows and slept between the bookshelves.

I bought a copy of Henri Micheaux’s Stroke by Stroke, a phenomenal book of poetry and image. Every book purchased comes with a souvenir bookmark and stamped first page.

Even though I knew I was just passing through, I still felt like I belonged in the upper room playing piano or flipping through collections as rich as the bookshop’s history, but I could have been overromanticizing again.

After we left Shakespeare and company, we headed west, following our stomachs into the streets. We ate at a little restaurant off a side street.

Jeni and I were trying to avoid the touristy meals, but figured since Paris, on average, brings in roughly 15 million visitors a year, we’d have to compromise. It was a terrific meal. For an appetizer, we ate frog legs. Jeni got the mussels and I had onion soup. We ate egg and spinach crêpes and had ourselves espresso for dessert.

It took us nearly two hours to walk the usual 4.4 kilometers to the Eiffel Tower, but we followed the Seine along the Quai d’Orsay, stopping to snap photos, to peek in street vendors’ shops, or just to view Paris leaning in the powder rose of the setting sun.

The tower jutted up like a tongue past the toothy buildings. My feet hurt, but I was determined to stand in front of this imposing symbol. Paris had been a dream for me, and the Tower was fundamentally linked to that dream. I had only been traveling for a month this trip, but I felt like I had been trying to understand something, some truth of unknown consequence for a long time, as if I needed to know the context in which I fit into the world. I kept repeating to myself, “This is mine now. This is mine. I’m here and this is mine.” I drank dark, red wine to get my feet back on solid ground.

The mornings in Paris are a deluge of sound and movement. Thousands of residents and thousands of visitors amble to the boulangeries desperate for pain au chocolat, baguettes, and croissants to eat on their never ending commutes to wherever it is they are going. Nearly every morning, I ate a croissant with my coffee on my own commute.

We headed west into the eighteenth arrondissement, the Basilique du Sacre Coeur as our destination. It took us a good amount of time walking, and we were pretty well beat by the time we got to the steps of the church in the Montmartre area of Paris. There, men from Senegal talked me into buying a bracelet, which was tied and blessed on my wrist as the young man talked to me of the future and his fears. Jeni was not amused by their persistence and even less amused that I left her to her own devices. We walked up the stairs in silence. The cathedral stands on the highest point in Paris, and from the doorway, a panoramic vista of the city lay in front of us, sprawled out like an ancient garden, folding into the history of its own color. After an unknown amount of time passed, we descended.

The famous windmill at the Moulin Rouge caught our attention as we moved deeper into the red light district. We were enchanted by the blushing cabaret. “The Gallop” from Jaques Offenbach’s famous Orpheus in the Underworld is the tune most associated with the can-can, and I couldn’t get the song out of my head. Founded roughly the same time as the Eiffel Tower during the peak of La Belle Epoch by Joseph Oller, Moulin Rouge still embodies the optimism of the early 20th century. We didn’t see a show, but I promised myself the next time I’m in Paris, I’d spend more time tramping around Montmartre, getting to know the salt of the earth.

Our last destination on our last day was Père Lachaise, the famous Parisian cemetery where the talented, inspiring, and often expatriated were laid to rest. The cemetery is the largest in Paris and is supposedly the world’s most visited burial ground.

It’s located in the 20th arrondissement, so we decided to snake across the city on the metro. We entered in the main entrance from Boulevard de Ménilmontant and walked straight up to the imposing Monument to the dead. Père Lachaise was opened on May 21st1804, exactly two hundred and eight years before I began my trip through Europe, and I was finishing my month of exploration in a graveyard. Still, I searched. I found the graves of Georges Méliès, Marcel Proust, Isadora Duncan, Gertrude Stein, Molière, Edith Piaf, and Oscar Wilde. It was a tiny homage at the end of a tiny pilgrimage. We left in need of wine and food, realizing that “ephemeral” and “eternal” are eventually the same word. ~POSTSCRIPT~ The next morning, we threw ourselves on a train headed for London. I slept most of the trip as we rode under the waters of the English Channel. I was headed to Scotland for the residency portion of my MFA program in poetry. Jeni had her own endeavors to accomplish, and so we parted after a long, last train from London to Edinburgh. I watched her walk into the first taxi out of the train station, both of us waving. We knew full well that it was inevitable, and we both knew we’d be happy to see each other again. It was cold. I put on a scarf and told the taxi driver to take me to the Golf Tavern on Barclay Terrace. It was a pub I’d never been too, but knew about from my previous summer in Edinburgh. I wanted a drink. I wanted to forget, and I wanted to remember. I wanted to write about everything, but I knew if I did, I’d start missing something.

Painted Braille

by Heather Haden Close your eyes and trace your fingers along your computer screen. Flatness finds your fingertips and the gentle murmur of your computer fan meets your ears.

Now, with eyes still closed, allow your hand to glide across the keyboard. Smooth, neatly arranged, round-edged rectilinear shapes are recognized. Two raised, elongated forms are felt and upon opening your eyes, you see that these small forms mark the F and J keys on the home row of the keyboard. Glancing upward, flat images of threedimensional objects are recognized on the computer screen.

These same images were hidden beneath the guise of twodimensionality, yet a three-dimensional form is now represented to you with open eyes. Yet without the ability to see, the computer screen would have remained a cipher.

How can the two-dimensional realm of photography, images, and paintings, be made accessible to the visually impaired?

Photo of Belle Johnson’s 1895 Three Women with Long Hair juxtaposed to Brittany Steigert’s threedimensional rendering and artist statement in both visual type and in braille as displayed in the 2011 exhibit “Faces of Rural America”. Image courtesy of the Massillon Museum.

Last summer’s exhibit at the Massillon Museum, “Faces of Rural America,” featured not only photography by Belle Johnson (1863-1945) and Henry Clay Fleming (1845-1942) but also sculpted counterparts to four of the exhibition’s photographs that allowed the blind to see the portraits by touch as a form of pictorial braille. Brittany Steigert’s three-dimensional rendering of Johnson’s 1895 photograph, “Three Women with Long Hair,” was created from a foundation of painted bisque-fired ceramic bas relief with a combination of doll hair, embroidery floss, and jute twine to represent the womens’ floor-length hair. Thus, the blind were invited to experience through touch what would otherwise be hidden behind the smooth two-dimensional surface of a photograph, but that very same surface from which the seeing audience was able to transcribe a literal two-dimensional image into a figurative three-dimensional entity. Steigert’s creation was a structure by which the blind could experience Johnson’s iconic photograph.

The study of the structures of experience, known as phenomenology, includes sight and touch, as well as all other senses both real and metaphorical. At no point in history has phenomenology been explored more fully in literature and visual art than in the twentieth century.

Literature, devoid of visual imagery, relies on illustrative language to guide the reader’s internal paintbrush. Representational painting, that which is categorized by depictions of recognizable imagery such as landscapes dotted with figures and props, can be equally narrative without the written word. Yet what does non-objective painting, lacking identifiable shapes, tell both the artist and audience about the human experience? How does an artist depict and an audience, both seeing and non-seeing, experience reality when the familiar image disappears? The result is the abstraction

of the most human element: tactility, or the sense of touch. While tactility coexists with the visual, tactility does not rely upon the ability to see. Thus, it may be experienced by both the seeing and the visually impaired. The Russian-born Abstract Expressionist painter, Mark Rothko (1903-1970), and Russian author Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), both explore the nature of blindness in painting and literature, respectively. Through philosophical analysis, their work collectively beckons for a creative approach to curating museum exhibitions of non-objective painting in order to reach a visually impaired audience.

In 1688, long before Nabokov set pen to paper or Rothko brush to canvas, Irish philosopher William Molyneux questioned how a congenitally blind man would experience the world if cured of his blindness. He wrote to philosopher John Locke that same year, positing this question and intriguing Locke. Molyneux’s Problem, as it would come to be known, asked if sight exists as intrinsic knowledge or if sight must be learned. Locke was so interested in exploring the concept that he included the question in his second edition of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1694.

The fundamental experiment most often considered under the Molyneux Problem concerns a man’s ability to identify a cube and a sphere separately by touch and sight. Could a blind man, who had learned to identify these forms by touch, also correctly identify them by sight alone after being cured of his blindness? Locke agreed with Molyneux that such a man would not be able to distinguish the two figures by sight itself.

He differentiated between ideas we obtain from one sense, such as touch or the idea of an aroma associated with a potent object, and ideas we obtain from another sense, such as the colors associated with atmospheric perspective. Since familiar tactile knowledge would be isolated from new, visual knowledge, the ability to identify these forms would not transfer seamlessly from touch to sight without being taught. The exception to such compartmentalized sensory experience lies manifest in synaesthetes (Nabokov, in fact, was one). Synaesthetes are people who have the involuntary ability to break the barriers between isolated experiences and may, in one particular brand of synaesthesia, experience tactile sensations inseparable from the experience of color.

Without the exception presented by synaesthetes, Locke proposed that a man blind from birth, and uncured, will never understand the concept of color. The knowledge of color, derived by sight, is phenomenologically isolated from the knowledge derived from the senses of touch, taste, hearing, and smell. As a result, the cured man would learn to synthesize his tactile knowledge with visual knowledge only by initially combining the two senses: learning to see would necessitate touching the cube and sphere while simultaneously looking at them. He would thus over time and through associative touch, learn to recognize how light and color interact with form to produce a three-dimensional shape.

Rothko considered the Molyneux Problem in his manuscript, The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art. Much akin to the impetus of Buried Letter Press,The Artist’s Reality was stashed away in Rothko’s studio after he penned it in the early 1940s, not to be discovered until the artist’s suicide in 1970. It remains a mystery as to whether Rothko intended to publish the manuscript or if it was

merely a place to explore his ideas. However, after much consideration, Rothko’s son, Christopher Rothko, edited the manuscript and had it published in 2004, much to the delight of art historians.

While Rothko did not formally cite Molyneux’s Problem by name, he philosophically considered the same basis in his chapter entitled “Plasticity”: The newspapers have reported the experiences of a young man who had been blind from infancy and whose sight was restored by a surgical miracle. This man actually had to learn how to see. At first he could not get any sense of reality from sight alone and had to corroborate what his eyes showed him by touch before he could satisfy himself as to the existence of an object. For example, a nearby dog and a horse three blocks away seemed to be the same size. He had to learn that things diminish in size at a distance, and that colors are grayed. In other words, he had to learn how things looked in space in relationship to others, just as we must learn through touching that a shadow represents volume.

In order for the eye to independently distinguish plastic space, the eye must be trained to feel in lieu of the hands. Plasticity is defined as the sense of movement in a painting created by the interaction of advancing and receding forms. Instead of fingertips tracing along a surface to identify it, the eye must be trained to move without the aid of the hand. As the eye seems to travel within and around three-dimensional mountains and valleys, simulated on a two-dimensional representational painting, the eye inevitably is manifesting fourth-dimensional motion. Rothko writes of the motion that the eye takes to understand a botanical image: In the case of the flower, the plastic journey is up and down the crags of petals, down its curving sides, passing through the crevice between the petals, and climbing up the curved inclines of the next. The sum total of that journal is the metal flower, yet it cannot be perceived without having taken that journey. One has gained knowledge of the flower by taking a topographical tour.

When standing in front of a Rothko painting, if you allow your eyes to relax, the broad washes of color begin to advance and recede as though they are physically moving in space, adopting plasticity. The first time I felt this movement was at the Akron Art Museum, standing before Rothko’s Untitled of 1949. I was brought to tears, yet I could never imagine something so sobering as when a blind man, cured, sees for the first time, or conversely, when a man discovers that he has been irreparably blinded.

Nabokov’s 1933 novel may be seen to explore Molyneux’s Problem in reverse. Albert Albinus, a middle-aged art critic and the main protagonist, has an affair with the antagonist, Margot Peters, a saccharin-coated, vile girl much his junior. Throughout the novel, she also conducts an affair with Albinus’ friend, Rex, unbenknownst to the former. When Albinus is later permanently blinded in a car accident, Margot relocates Albinus and herself to a mansion in Switzerland to care for him. Meanwhile, Rex is living silently within the house, laughing from beyond the brink of Albinus’ darkness at the scheme which he and Margot have concocted to fuel their sordid affections.

In Laughter in the Dark, Nabokov questions the necessity of sensory deprivation in experiencing blindness, for under love’s heavy veil, Albinus was equally blind to the affair even before his fateful accident.

Following the wreck, Albinus awoke in a hospital bed, his head wrapped with a heavy bandage that covered his eyes. When distant sounds confirmed that Margot and his nurse were securely in the next room, Albinus dared to unwrap his bandages. To his mortification, the darkness

remained. Heaviness began to settle upon him from the mist as he weighed his present sensory experience: These sounds, these footsteps and voices seemed to be moving on a different plane. He was here and they were somewhere else, but still, in some unaccountable way, close at hand. Between them and the night which enveloped him was an impenetrable wall. He rubbed his eyelids, turned his head this way and that, jerked himself about, but it was impossible to force a way through this solid darkness which was like a part of himself.

A similar saturation of light’s absence, yet penetrable, is part of the human body. The pupil, the very mechanism of sight, is similarly an entity of absence. It is a lack of light and a lack of muscle; as a void, it is the surrounding iris that heaves. If we allow ourselves to anthropomorphize the iris as not only a piece of the larger eye and even larger human being, but as its own entity, the iris itself can be seen as humanized. The iris breathes light.

Expanding in reaction to light, the iris inhales; in darkness, the iris exhales, growing smaller. Yet for Albinus, the darkness of his pupil only registered its mirror image: more darkness.

In addition to considering the blind experience, Rothko stated that he painted with what he called “breathingness.” His diaphanous, rectilinear forms breathe with the very same light as the human eye that observes them. Rothko veils the viewer’s eyes with fields of color much as Albinus’ eyes were wrapped in a heavy bandage. His canvases extend beyond the human scale, engulfing the viewer, and enveloping him in a void of palpable presence. Rothko asserted that the ideal position from which to experience his paintings is a distance of eighteen inches away from the canvas. From this vantage point, color extends to the eye’s periphery, and the iris breathes light thick with vibratory color. Vision is devoured, blinding you with your eyes open so that you only feel the colors shifting like a primordial pulse, so that you tap into the most human part of existence, that of the human drama.

Like the “impenetrable wall” which enveloped Albinus, Rothko, was inspired by Michaelangelo’s “blind windows” in the Laurentian Library in Florence for his 1958 Seagram Mural commission. Instead of allowing light penetrate window panes in the library, Michelangelo filled them with opacity. Thus, where one expects light, there is darkness. In Laughter in the Dark, Albinus tests his sight in his hospital bed by feeling for a book of matches. After striking the match, he hears the sizzle and smells sulphur but sees no light. How can Rothko’s work extend beyond the chronic impenetrable wall of a blind audience? If Rothko’s work holds that much presence for a viewing audience, how much more potent would the tactility of his work be for an audience whose very sense of tactility is more acute?

Rothko’s classic works allow viewers to take an optical, hands-free topographical tour.

However, an understanding of his work must not be reserved for only a viewing audience. As an aspiring curator, I feel that the next step in engaging a visually impaired audience within the museum setting is to take impetus from the Massillon Museum’s impressive tactile models of photography in

order to create tactile counterparts to non-objective painting, especially those of Rothko, as his paintings are intrinsic hybrids of the seeing and blind experience. While creating a tactile counterpart to non-objective paintings will surely pose a greater interpretative challenge than will creating counterparts to representational paintings, I believe such an obstacle can be overcome. Multiple tactile models can be created to accompany a single non-objective painting to represent for the blind the multiple ways of experiencing the work. These models will not only benefit the blind, however.

As Nabokov proves in Laughter in the Dark, visual impairment is not the only way to forget how to see. In the digital age of online museum initiatives, we are bombarded with an incessant barrage of hyperlinked images. The digital age induces its own brand of blindness by overstimulation; the more there is to view, the less we see. Despite online museums’ benefits in bridging spacio-temporal limits to attending physical museums, the resulting cacophony results in overstimulation that can blind our attention span. As though cured from blindness and learning to decipher a cube from a sphere by touch and sight, the only way to truly learn to see art is within the physical museum institution. By marrying the visual with the tactual, all museum-goers may learn to better see and feel non-objective art in a way that the internet cannot possibly provide through the computer screen.

Sailing to Byzantium?

by Brian Young Two of my favorite things about summer are books and movies. Really this love is the product of the singular fact that I have more time on my hands while I break from teaching, but there is more to it than that. Sitting on the couch to read or watch a movie and going to the library or the theater take on a liberating spirit of adventure as the days get longer, warmer, full of light, and my curiosity grabs the reigns. I don’t worry about eating my literary vegetables, or keeping up with any particular genre, although glaring weaknesses in the craft of writing or filmmaking do still bother me, and will chase me away if I don’t have a compelling enough reason to push past them. I want to be able to immerse myself in the work, to be obsessed such that I’m imagining the work’s universe away from its text—I want it to enter my dreams and disrupt my life. This isn’t the same as escapism; it’s a change in perspective, which allows for new insight, rather than shutting the eyes.

I started the summer by reading The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins and was taken in by two of the main characters—Peeta and Katniss. I connected with the unhappy young boy who always knows the right thing to say to please everyone else but who can’t convince the girl he loves of his true feelings; what happens to his mind after events in the story left me with a lot to think about in terms of propaganda and torture. I found Katniss to be not entirely sympathetic in her potential for a ruthless cruelty, the source of her strength but not always what allows her to survive. She doesn’t realize the impact she has on other people, and when she tries to give them what she thinks they want, she always fails. Her limitations as a human being are painfully and semi-comically obvious at times in the books, and she often isn’t likable. This interest allowed me to look beyond the misuse of sentence fragments in the writing. I wonder what happened with the editors of this series—did the author refuse to correct them, and why didn’t the editors insist, at least in the places where it wasn’t clear whether the fragment should be attached to the previous or the next sentence, such that the meaning became needlessly garbled? The literary technique can work if rendered in such a way that the intended meaning is clear, even if it requires concentration and consideration from the reader. If one is simply writing a commercial novel, why not let the devices sink into the background as much as possible, rather than call attention to the shortcomings in one’s writing?

I could get caught up in analyzing what this reveals about the dynamic between writer, audience, and publisher in the commercial literary biz, but that’s something to earmark for the dreary, blustery winter months, perhaps. I consciously chose not to see the movie before reading the books. This allowed me not to impose the portrayal or even the physicality of the actor on the character in the story. Jennifer Lawrence is the only actor that I knew would be in the movie, although I really didn’t know very much about her when I was reading. Her talent impressed me, although the film did soften the harder edges of her character to make her more sympathetic and bland. The shame in this is that I think Lawrence is a capable enough actress to make a more dynamic and less digestible Katniss compelling, had she been given the chance.

This led me to the movie that got her the role of Katniss: Winter’s Bone. Since the actress’ performance brought me here, I didn’t read the book first, but both the cinematography and Lawrence anchor the movie in its brutal wilderness. I couldn’t help but see parallels between the

devastated backwoods of both films, though they are rendered very differently. Lawrence is given much more focus in this movie, and she handles it well. I even watched another movie of hers— Like Crazy—which carefully rendered the recklessness of its central romance in a way I enjoyed, despite its annoyingly ambiguous ending, when it seemed the difficult work of the relationship was just getting started (the cliché in films used to be the happy ending, but now it’s the ending that’s open to interpretation depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist—designed perhaps to get the audience debating something that it’s not possible to resolve in the details of the film, rather than forcing the writer or filmmaker to struggle with the challenges and implications of what he or she has constructed), but not because of Lawrence’s performance (she’s barely allowed to speak).

This is how a good summer goes: one moves between various forms of expression—text, image—and interpretations of the same concept or story. I suppose my interest is in craft—how the author, the filmmaker, and the actor strategize, concoct, experiment, and improvise their way through the scene, and the divergences that can result. I’ve finally got around to reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and, once I finish, I plan to watch the original Swedish version of the movie, as well as the recent American one. The central female character is so dynamic that I feel my understanding of her evolving every chapter. Some readers have mentioned that the first book drags for a while, but the family web and all its tangles actually drew me in, fan that I am of works

by Faulkner.

The movie version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was nominated for several academy awards last year, and, looking over the list of nominees, one finds many movies that were first books: The Help; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Hugo; and War Horse to name a few, so there’s lots of potential to explore the differences in expression between these two mediums. I doubt that I’ll get to all of them, but who knows? One can’t chart one’s course when there are no maps.

Since this is the poetry column, I should also mention that I have a few authors at hand that I heard about last winter and whose work I can devote more of my attention to now. I like to move slowly through poetry books, allowing them to filter through my mind. It isn’t as easy, however, to explore how poems get expressed in other genres. The description of things that aren’t poems as poetic is ubiquitous in our culture, but rarely do people try to render actual poems in these media. Most often one encounters in film the biography of the author, and the most interesting moments of these movies occur when, as in Sylvia, the filmmaker juxtaposes actual lines of the author’s work with images not just of the author’s life but the particulars of her environment, or, as in the captivatingHowl, the imagination is rendered graphically. This does provide me with some basis of comparison, so that I can read the poet’s work and consider how it is portrayed by the filmmaker, but I wish that more attempts were made to do this. We can judge all these works not just by the impression they make on the audience, but also whether or not they compel the reader or viewer to follow the thread to other works, regardless of their form.

I’m an Artist because I Jumped

by Robert Balla At a recent art show where a number of my artist friends were exhibiting their work, I began talking to them about their inspirations for their respective pieces. Some of these gifted artists had clear and focused explanations about the impetuses for their creations. Others had only vague notions or concepts which only began to take form as the pieces developed. While the reasons for the existence of the varied artworks were, well, varied, I was struck by a large number of similarities or commonalities with regards to why they became artists and why they create art in general. I could try to synthesize these ideas, develop some sort of thesis, craft a loose narrative or summary, and try to tie it all together, but I fear that this would unintentionally and artificially put my stamp or spin on their words. Therefore, let me present the insightful answers I got to my simple question “Why are you an artist?” with as little interference from me as possible. I’ll leave the interpretation to you. For convenience’s sake, I’ve linked to samples of the work from all the wonderful people and gifted artists who contributed to this endeavor. Please click through to get a sense of their compulsions.

“No Outlet” Nigel Sade: Oils Asking me why I am an artist is like saying why you are right handed or why you are A.D.D. I don’t think this is something that is a choice. In a lot of ways, I see it like many of my gay friends see being gay: why would I choose to have no one understand what I am thinking and wander through life seemingly alone and compelled to do this thing that will be misunderstood. Not to be unclear, it has given me much more happiness than I see others in the world getting, but it does come with a price. To clarify further: Being an artist is to know that I have something inside of me that I have to share with the world.

Maybe this is beauty, maybe this is philosophy. But I know without doubt that this is something that I should do for the world. Showing this to the world may hurt me at times; it may even kill me. And I can choose to never show it. But if I do, I will experience all I can hope for and more.

The ideas and emotions that I as an artist am capable of are beyond description, yet I have the singular ability to describe them with what I have inside. Artists see the world as it is, and we are compelled to tell others about it. I have used an analogy for years to describe what it is like to be an artist: being an artist is like looking over a cliff, and being compelled to jump. You can choose to stay safe and never find out why you want to, or you can leap off, and when you do you hope and pray you grow wings before you reach the bottom. What you will find will be a Journey either way.

So why am I am artist? I am an artist because I jumped!

“Spiral Celtic Cross” Brian Laughlin: Glass I create art for several reasons. The simplest is because I can. On the other hand, it’s just part of my nature. Since I have had and developed skills in art, I have wanted to keep it alive and not dormant. I think really everyone has some sort of creativity or artistry in their nature really, but for myself, I have always had more of a tendency to seek it out as a prominent part of my life and work. I feel more at home and in my element when it’s incorporated into a job.

One of the other basic reasons I create art is to provide for my family and self. There is a necessity to utilize any skills I have and make a living by their means. I’ve been lucky to work within an art field. Glass was something I had fallen into doing out of a need for work and again I was lucky to continue to being able to create artworks. It’s fun for me, which is probably also one of the reasons I keep with it as opposed to being stressed by something if I had to do it and it gave no pleasure. So far it’s worked out well.

I also create art for myself – a personal need to make things. I enjoy the stimulation it brings to the imagination and a less stressful work environment. It does become a challenge to give some type of form to what is in my head. I’m not sure it always comes out as matching the images bouncing around in those thoughts to a physical form, but I am happy to be able to give a physical form once it’s finally adapted into whatever it will end up as. I have ideas floating about in my head all the time. If I don’t grab them from within that swirl and give them some type of form then they may be lost back into the pool of spinning images. When I can actually bring that virtual world into a physical realm, it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I’m not always happy or satisfied in what comes out, but at that point, I can choose to develop it further or toss it.

Trying to translate what I see in my mind onto whatever medium I’m using is a trial and error process. Some things I can get down a basic to it, but then defining it is the more tedious part, and then working to be satisfied if it is acceptable to me or not becomes a courthouse case. It is like deciphering a different language in some ways and always ending up discovering new words or phrases – sometimes it comes easy while other times it just doesn’t click what you are hearing (or seeing). I, of course, am like many artists who find ourselves to be our own worst critics.

“Zombie Squid” Meg Lyman: Gouache and oil I started because I like creating shapes. I continue because I love making people happy and hearing them laugh. I love the improvement I see in my art as my experience grows. I like doing the cute stuff, but I feel like I’m stagnating in it. I won’t stop doing cephalopods, but I want to explore other ideas, mostly because I think I have the potential to do a lot more with my art. My next goal is to add messages to my art that come from concepts that are meaningful to me, but without getting all artsy-fartsy. Several artists and/or juries have said I should expand my horizons, and they’re

usually right. I’m not sure of the messages yet, since this idea is still oozing out of my brain, but juxtaposition of nature and technology is one, and ridiculing the infuriating religious right is another.

Tony Steele: pencil and ink So why do I do arts? My mom got me started when I was four years old. Saturday morning cartoons like Johnny Quest, Thundarr, and Space Ghost got me liking to draw monsters, robots, and the like. Although I’d draw for free if I didn’t have to pay bills, my ultimate dream was always to have my own office where I got paid to draw. After 15 years, I realized the office wasn’t necessary.

I love creating because my brain fills up with ideas all the time, and I have to make room. I appear to be one of those people who are pelted in the brain with ideas constantly. Sometimes I manage to get them down and remember them, but I can tell you I’ve lost as many wonderful ideas that are just as good as whatever I’ve done. Also, there are things you just can’t let go of that will “get in the way” of working on other stuff, so if I at least sketch them out, it relieves the idea pressure and gives me notes for later. The optimum moment though is to drop everything and start on it because I’ll never be in quite the same frame of mind again even with notes. That’s why many artists hate being interrupted, their mind is in the zone and they’ve got this thing on lock and then the phone, baby, pet, family, friends, etc. blow their groove, and despite what many may think, artists can’t just drop back into where they left off.

Art is also something that I can do and do well, and it’s nice to have people ooh and ahh over my efforts. What can I say, I’m a fame and attention whore. But seriously, I’m not a giant Mardi Gras head of ego. I like me and what I do. I also enjoy people enjoying my stuff, and a compliment usually follows. Would I like to be lauded for my expertise far and wide? You bet I would. I’ve spent my whole life honing my craft and occasionally glimpse moments where I can pat myself on the back for a job well done. I’m my own worst critic, so when the drill sergeant artist says “Well done,” the masses better be putting my work on the fridge cuz I just got a gold star from teacher, but would I ever go “don’t you know who I am?” Never.

“Little Dragon 7” Scotty Lees: Various media including acrylic paint and sculpture For me I don’t think it’s ever been a question of why do I do this. I am not sure I have a choice. I am an artist because that is what I am. My brain freely creates things all the time, and if I did not find ways to get the ideas out of my head (by making them in the “Real World”) I am fairly certain I would go mad. I get to test this theory somewhat now that we have had a baby. I am the primary caregiver, and since her arrival, I have had almost no time for producing art. That has not stopped my brain from working, so I am really starting to feel the back-flow of ideas insisting on being born. I have to say so far it is unpleasant. I expect it to get better as baby becomes more independent and I will have time to work.

For now, I get ideas all the time, from just about any source you can imagine. Things inspire me constantly; situations, objects, emotions, just existing give me ideas. These are often abstract

ideas about design or beauty or humor or just general cool stuff. As soon as I have the idea or concept, part of my brain takes off and starts building on the idea or design, taking it apart and putting it back together, testing it against all of my life experience. Given the situation or inspiration, it may already be in a particular form. Often abstract ideas or concepts solidify into art I can produce.

I have people tell me they wish they could be their own boss, or paint all day for a living.

They admire my ability to make myself work. I have never seen it that way. I need to do this. I enjoy it, thankfully, but I am compelled to be an artist. I can’t control when the ideas come, or how good they are. Sometimes they come too fast, and I start losing things. My brain gets full. It makes me horrible to be around. This is what I mean when I say have to make room. The ideas don’t stop. The good ones deserve to be done, and I only have so much time, and so much room in my skull.

Ok. I’m not sure I have ever expressed that before. I feel naked.

“Flower” Eric Shook: Wire sculpture When I was younger, my father regularly found stainless steel wire discarded at work and would dumpster dive for it. I found basic instructions on the internet on how to make chainmail and started changing this trash into treasures. Years later it truly became not just an interest but a necessity for me.

My personal life took an unexpected turn in 2005, leaving me with more free time on my hands and too much on my mind. In order to preserve the sanity that remained, I needed to find something to keep myself busy. I picked up my pliers and wire and started crafting to pass the time.

I soon found more in those little rings than just simple jewelry. I was reluctant to take up the title of artist but started accepting it when I realized I rarely made the same item twice and was constantly driven to develop new patterns and pieces.

So, “Why do I create art?” Many times it is because I see something in my head and curiosity compels me to bring it into this world. Incorporating copper wire sculpture with the chain mail has opened up many possibilities. Nature inspires me more than anything. While I enjoy when I can give a bit of life to the inanimate, it is when I can give a bit of love to the living that I find the most joy.

Eric Brooks: Prose and music I’ll start by saying that my preferred medium is writing with the goal of putting it to music.

I’ve thought of many reasons for why this is important to me, usually in inebriated or emotional moments. These, however, are the reasons that tend to stick.

First is control: To pick apart moments in an attempt to find the meaning of them; to determine what everything means to me to better know my place in all of it; and to organize chaos into a clean storyline of events. While we all have very little control over our surroundings, I find peace in the feeling that I control my reality because I control my perception of it without actually having to try and exert control over those around me.

The second reason is an incessant fear of the passing of time and any day that passes without consequence. Life is full of moments, but it seems as time passes, those moments become fewer and further between simply for their inability to live up to the ones we’ve already had. It is my task then

to examine every day for something meaningful, to not let any day pass without finding at least one reason that it was worth living. In this way, I feel as if I can slow down time (or my perception of it) just a little bit by figuratively reaching out and grabbing as many experiences as I can before they pass. I think time seems to speed up because we take less time to notice things as we get older.

This brings me to the last reason that I’ll discuss which is simply to remember. To me, the most respect I can pay to any person, time, or thing is to make sure they are not forgotten, that they don’t fade into the noise pollution of our monotonous obligations. To be able have those moments written down in some cinematic or even mundane way, means that I can relive those moments by retracing the trail of breadcrumbs I’ve laid, not to escape a future, but to build on the past. I guess the common theme in all this is to either recognize or give meaning to moments, because whenever I really look at my life and the things that meant the most to me, I realize that, essentially, it’s like connecting the dots between those seemingly transcendent moments.

What did I learn from all of this? First, artists are far more forthcoming and open about their work than I had thought. I expected them to guard their secrets and veil them in mystery.

Instead, their verbal expression is just as eloquent as their visual and aural embodiments. Thus I was able to be more like a film editor, where I had to make hard decisions about what awesomeness to leave on the cutting room floor. Second, there is some sort of compulsion to artistic endeavor. It goes beyond job or craft. There is a force behind it which drives the artist to create. And third, the expression of these inner forces is what brings order to the artists’ lives. Artistry, it seems, is an embodiment of chaos theory. Order can be assembled from life’s disorder through herculean effort where hands guide the instruments of visual, written, and aural artistic endeavor.

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