Burner Magazine, Issue 02

BURNER magazine

Poetry, short fiction, photography, art, interviews

Susi Q., Cameras

BURNER ISSUE 02

Dandys rule, OK?

22

would YOU rather be cool than be smart? we talk to the dandy warhols 78 ArtStars* in Berlin! burner’s european correspondent, nadja sayej, reports

Personal is Political.

33

Art as Social Dialogue with Istvan Kantor 6 Girl Power! an interview with sonja ahlers

photography of

18

jESSICA TREMP

46 Le Beau Voyage!

Monsieur vagabond shares a thing or two about the open road

Poetry by...

Jason Bradford, Annik Adey-Babinski, Adam Crittenden, Kurt Cole Eidsvig, Alissa Greenberg, Lannie Hart, Max Elstein Keisler, LYN LIFSHIN, Michael J. Martin, Josh Nadeau, Fraser NelUnd, Allison LEIGH Peters, Madeline Phillips, John Stocks, Autom Tagsa, Elsa Valmidiano, Charles Wettlaufer, Maya Wren

Short fiction and prose...

Sabeen Abbas, Andrew Battershill, Karin Fuller, Will Johnson, A.J. Kandathil, Charles Rammelkamp, Angela Readman, AMANDA SHEA

Photography by...

Corey Armpriester, Eleanor Bennett, ALEXANDER BROWNE, Fabrizio CaligIuri, Erin Carlyle, Sansert Choabert, Andy Cook, Alan Harding, Tom Linkens, SusI Q, Aleks Woszczyna

cover art by

Istvan Kantor

Art by...

Xavier Castellanos, Srijon Chowdhury, Jason Fairchild, JF, Justin Hinte,, RC Miller, Fabio Sassi

dearest burner babes, It is a longstanding belief of mine that art is borne of love.

While the obvious, easily examined impetus for an artist to create a piece may be heartbreak, injustice, isolation - and, let's face it, the majority of inspiration in great literature, painting and music certainly doesn't come from contentment - why would we create if not to make our world more beautiful? How else is one to explain a girl sitting alone in a high school library, stuck in the dead middle of suburbia, with The Dandy Warhols' Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia on repeat, undergoing a sudden knowingness of something bigger than herself, of what true love feels like before she's even come close to finding it?

That girl was, and is, me. Founding Burner came from this place, and wanting to give these girls (and, for that matter, boys, women, men, aliens and possibly some really smart monkeys) a place to come home to. In a culture that inundates us with blaring headlines of doom and gloom and PR-friendly celebrity, I feel that it's more important than ever to remember love, and what makes us love art.

And I know that you, too, dearest reader, feel this way. I know that you know as well as I know that the perfect words, songs, images mean everything. They shape our worlds before our worlds are even formed, they make our sadnesses beautiful and our happinesses great.

To quote the late, inimitable short story writer, Raymond Carver: That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they can best say what they are meant to say.

Burner rules, ok?

Sarah Miniaci, Editor

Sinister lads with their multi-national corporations and oft-monarchical blood (who are all members of the so-pre-twentiethcentury, ultra-boring, hyper-elite, megapreppily-dressed Control The World Club) want us all to believe that human beings are stupid.

They teach us their so-called facts, build our ideological and geo-political systems on them, actually. Like did you know that the human condition is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short? And that philosophizing about the soul is a waste of time because philosophy should simply serve industry? And that scarcity is the reason for money? They convince everyone that we are really afraid, that cheap junk is valuable, and that human beings are inherently stupid. (Why else would we buy their shit?)

We here at Burner think that's pure nonsense.

The Burner Editors know that human beings are deep, feeling souls, who are born beautiful, loving and intelligent. We know that all those ancient philosophers stoned out of their minds on secret mushroom soup were onto something when they said the stuff that makes up existence is consciousness. We know that Burner Magazine is such a stellar success with just two issues because we are right.

You are smart, beautiful and brilliant. And you know it. You were just waiting for the opportunity to share it beyond your journal, best friend and sister. Actually, some of you are ridiculously well-published already. Burner is honoured to feature all of your wonder full selves.

So fill a glass with your favourite wine and settle in. Human beings really do strive for truth, beauty, love (in the process being ugly, sexy and full of shit). And this issue is full of those expressions.

We love you too.

xxx.

Leah Stephenson, Editor

photo by Alexander Browne

An Interview with

Sonja Ahlers

We talk to Sonja Ahlers, the bad ass and immensely talented woman behind the recently released smart girlyfantasy art book, The Selves, about rock ‘n’ roll, being terrified of Emily Dickinson and why on earth anyone would want to live in the icy Yukon.

Tell us about your artistic process and why you feel your messages surrounding childhood, women and pop culture are best conveyed via the medium of collage?

My process is an ever constant unfolding body of work: intuitive, organic and completely self-developed. Using collage in book form, you can create perfect containers for multi-taskers - a very feminine practice.

I can cram it all in. I amass images over time, assess the collection, re-configure and then distill the ephemera. It is a way of understanding my past but I work the material over so much that I attempt to remove as much of myself as I can so that it becomes more of a collective biography.

Collage is not as ego-driven as a large scale Jeff Koons public sculpture (although his ‘Puppy’ piece is incredibly feminine). It is tempting to want to make masculine art. It has longevity but so does a book that can be passed from person to person. I joked to a friend recently that I make art to survive love.

Do you define yourself as a feminist?

Why? Absolutely. There is no other way. My friend Lisa Smolkin has her Facebook

religion listed as ‘feminist utopia’. I’m tired of certain played-out male expressions. At 18, I got to page 3 of ‘On The Road’. I’m not interested in a lot of jizz. I’d rather read, see and hear more female expression. I would like to see that supported on a grander scale. I still like rock’n’roll which is super male. When I say masculine and feminine, I’m not limiting it to male or female. Men do make feminine art and vice versa. More men making feminine art is perfect. Role reversal needs to happen.

Why do you choose to work in Whitehorse, Yukon?

I like the air up here. I’m from B.C. but I’ve been going back and forth between Whitehorse and Toronto for a few years. I came here to grieve a heartbreak. I have all the space and nature I need. I can focus all of my energy on my art with very little distraction The scenery is stunningly beautiful (lots of pink clouds lately). In the dead of winter it is like living on a movie set.

It’s totally surreal and feels separate from the rest of the world and the isolation reflects my own feelings of isolation. It’s a temporary retreat for now. Eventually I’d like to live somewhere warm.

“[Anne] Sexton and [Sylvia] Plath should have had a band. If they were who they were in the 90s, they would have had a band.”

Tell us about your evolution as an artist.

I never thought I’d make books. There was never a plan. It just happened. I’ve always loved books so much I just took them for granted, like my hands. Most of my memories are associated with books. I remember coming home from the library carrying 20 stacked books in my arms up to my chin. I think as a kid I knew something interesting was going to happen to me. I remember walking home from school and would pretend I was being interviewed. I’d ask and answer the questions in my head.

Maybe all kids do that. I’ve never told anyone that before.

Being self-taught and mentored, I had a hard time trusting my evolution as an artist and for years there was a great deal of resistance on my part. I refused to admit I was an artist. I spent my 20s trying to make sense of the first part of my life. The art I was making was spew, total anger. I didn’t fit into the art world even though I was having shows. It was all therapy so it was weird to sell that back. It felt wrong. It took so long to make sense out of what was happening. I had no reference points.

Looking back, it has been a fascinating evolution. An interesting case study. (I was always the kid who could draw).

Who would you most like to collaborate with, living or dead, and on what type of project? Why? I don’t know. I’m so used to working alone.

But if I could make up some fake scenario the first person to pop into my head is Emily Dickinson. I don’t know why because she also terrifies me. And probably because it is completely improbable so that would be a challenge...like, I’d have to talk her into it. I just realized that Sexton, Plath and Dickinson are all from witch territory.

Massachusetts. They all needed help.

Sexton and Plath should’ve had a band. If they were who they were in the 90s, they would’ve had a band. Even though these women had their writing, it wasn’t enough.

They needed more of an outlet and a sense of community. But if I think that through

carefully, I wouldn’t want to work with those women because they were too messed.

I’m more interested in healing and working with healthy people. I like Louise Hay a lot and Caroline Myss. They’re intuitive healers. I am super into the idea of lady shamans. Okay, best case scenario: a rock project supergroup with Heart, Stevie Nicks some session dude drummers and back-up. I talk on and on about feminity and masculinity. Ultimately what I want is balance. A perfectly balanced yin yang. For now the teeter totter is imbalanced so high doses of La Femme needs to be injected on an epic scale until things level out.

What does perfect happiness look like for you?

Peace on earth/feminist utopia. I wish there were more opportunities for people to dance freely. And sing and grow their own food. If they want to. People need to be re-schooled.

Perfect happiness is love and health.

What's next for Sonja Ahlers?

Honest to God, I have no idea. I am somewhat ‘plans-challenged’. I don’t know what I will be doing past January. I have to work straight thru with my bunny business from now until then. Typically, I do my bookwork in the late winter. My projects are seasonal. I have a huge tome of a book I’ve been ripping apart and putting back together for five years now. That is generally how long my bigger books take to make. It is all about love. I want to work in film or make large-scale paintings or practice the guitar and sing or do some baking. But who knows? I never know what will transpire.

All I know is that I want to get better and better at what I do and maybe inspire others to do the same.

Sonja Ahlers’ The Selves is available for purchase at most major book retailers and within her Etsy shop, Make It Awesome. She will be appearing at the Toronto One of a Kind Show until December 5, 2010 with her work, and can be kept up with and contacted via her blog.

Aleks Woszczyna, 1b

ROCK PAPER SCISSORs

by Sabeen Abbas Rock-paper-scissors – a children’s hand game played in several parts of the world.

ROCK I kept the fossil we found that day for several years afterwards. Beneath the stone surface, you could see the etchings of a long dead creature. The stone was circular, about the size of a toonie and the thickness of a paperback novel. The day was overcast and a light wind ruffled the tall pines that bordered Brompton Park in Woodstock. The parking lot where we found the fossil was strewn with rocks and pebbles of different sizes. My brother was studying dinosaurs in school and the names – Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops – slip-slided out of him as we picked up, examined, discarded rocks. Later, my brother and I discussed whether we should mail our find to the ROM but in the end decided to keep it. The fossil got lost in one of our moves. I can still feel the weight of the rock in my hands, heavier than most rocks, for the skeleton held inside.

Aleks Woszczyna, 8

SCISSORS I cut the black tapestry cloth into a long panel and stitched the edges with blue yarn. The arts and crafts activity book I had borrowed from the library suggested that I use pieces of felt and white glue to create my own original door hanging. I had already made a door knob decorator and dice-shaped beanbags for my desk. I took the felt sheets and cut them up into tiny rectangular strips. An afternoon’s job stretched into evening and next day. I spelled the letters of my name, apostrophe, s, followed by ‘room’. Finally it was done. The wall hanging hung on the door for several days but the clashing colours against the black backdrop were too much and I took it down. I didn’t need the sign anymore.

Aleks Woszczyna,01

Imagined You

by John Stocks

Sunday morning, and you dawn After too much Chianti you wake up late To a crush of vibrant birdsong In a violent light of city daybreak.

The languid bourgeoisie are still loafing Smugly over orange juice and ‘Daily Mails’ Your eyes sting, face smeared with mascara The face in the mirror blotched and pale.

A flood of images; Saturday night Your thoughts drop like pebbles into water Each with a splash of avowed escape The ravenous dreams of an only daughter.

The iPod opens a drowsy subtext Of other lives and Sunday stirrings Sweet bathos of the loved and lost You doss around for hours, long past caring.

If I could show your future now I would The claustrophobic web of vague deceits And the little spurts of assertiveness Before your sullen, brooding late retreats.

I would find a city to fit your soul Then pack your bags and check the times I would book your wing and say a prayer And find you space to say your last goodbyes.

Platform 8 for Camden or Bloomsbury?

With your books, your secret looks and violin All packed and ready for a long sojourn To save your dreams; but how could I begin?

Excited About Wastebaskets

by Elsa Valmidiano The meaningless of it all As if the chatters in our daily lives were enough To fulfill us And as if there weren’t ladies Just like you Just like me Who chattered just as much you did Just as much as I did But I come home tired Willing to listen anyway to the chatters As if it were enough And nothing else mattered Except the pretty wastebaskets that decorate Our kitchen Our bathrooms Is there beauty In the way we light up our bedrooms Or the paintings we hang up in our living rooms Red brick Clay brick All I can see is beauty In the jungle of our simplicity Where is that nowadays I wish I knew I wish you did.

Jessica Tremp, broad derbyshire

Jessica Tremp, crept through the foxes den

I’ve Become a Simple Man

by Adam Crittenden I remember when I used to use big words; I would blend inquiry with art;

Tiny things

my poems really did something.

Back then, I used to know how to write a poem; now, I find pleasure in being aphoristic and quick,

by Michael J. Martin and I’m not so sure I know what I’m doing.

For instance, I avoid the bathroom mirror because it’s cliché for artists

I am hurt by little miracles: That she even enjoys me.

That the guitar hasn’t eaten her fingers.

Little miracles: to stare at their reflections.

I wake up.

And I think And still I’m coherent. my beginnings And still I’m aware of absence. as a writer No joke. Laughter from the walls.

Some animal happily chews his food are trembling bricks and it poisons him. Some weight is lifted. clutching the keystone Little. She sings miras and the cles of what I thought was a slick are in our eyes. She isn’t here and shouldn’t be. mind, a fucking genius.

(I keep talking about myself) Little miracles: our beer is cold.

She wants to hear how I once saw a ufo.

How I didn’t love her at first.

We have sex and kiss hungrily.

Today is opposite day.

Tomorrow is chalk on a cue-tip.

Tomorrow she found while sweeping half live waterbugs and lethargic crickets drunk off their battle glory. Little miracles: the panties she bunches for my mouth in the shape of Vishnu. His clean bellybutton.

Her threats: she will eat me alive, find her soul on videotape, doing things.

She will never follow through.

And still I’m choking.

And still I’m looking for her fingers among the strings.

Jessica Tremp, the salt diary

Earth’s Diving Board

by Madeline Philips Take a scalpel to your skull.

Relieve some pressure from your bloated brain.

The first thing you’ll do after finding yourself split and liberated is cast the matter into the atmosphere, hook it to Mars, get a running start and skip between planets.

Jessica Tremp, thoughts of us, fishing

You’ll stop and toss rocks, even though they’ll just sink out on the edge of the galaxy, where you’ll stand hoping for a date with the Milky Way. But she knows you’ll mock her: “No God created all the cosmos.”

So she’ll say “No.” You’ll search for the bang in AM airwaves—another verdict from Earth’s diving board.

Being a swimmer, you’ll then plunge back down to ground for a cigarette, coffee, and poetry— and with your toes still exposed, you’ll tell the masses you’ve seen the light.

Jessica Tremp, a dissection of personal treasure

(no, but really, they do)

DANDY’S RULE, OK?

Already, daylight. Sun sinking into tired cheekbones, The Dandy Warhols' COME DOWN on repeat, swirling creep outs and soaring pop songs brought me closer to earth, further and further away from coming down, and to a frightening understanding of the impossible beauty of what humans can create. Pacing dirty downtown floors, it was then that I realized that the rest could have their empty highs, too-late nights and darkened eyes. I found everything I needed to know in those mornings, running away and running dry.

It wasn't always that way. It never is though, is it? The irresistible shimmy of Minnesoter a charming, tongue-in-cheek song about a beautiful, crazy loner from the Midwest who dances Latin numbers and can't get off, permeated my skull when I was too young to understand much of anything. Much like the band themselves, my big change didn't come until later, when life and money and sex muddy things, create complexities and leave you wandering down every path but the one you expected to find yourself on.

For The Dandy Warhols, the change came when Bohemian Like You hit big, backed by a billion dollar ad campaign and putting a simple, inarguably infectious "ooh, ooh, OOH-OOOOH!" into the great canon of phenomenally viral pop hooks, placing them on a both exciting and dangerous pedestal. "It was such a giant step upwards and kind of an unrealistic one, because there's no way that anybody can follow anything like that. It definitely changed things...there was suddenly this disposable income as opposed to just getting by, and that changes anybody" Peter Holmstrom, lead guitarist and founding member of The Dandy Warhols, tells me about the boom of Bohemian. Of course I can't really know how this feels - us struggling artists spend the majority of our days working and only dreaming of such change (worldwide recognition! disposable incomes!) But I also can't help but think, when Holmstrom later speaks of his beloved Gibson SG, a guitar that's been with him "longer than most people" that "there is no replacing", of the parallel to the twentysomething crisis: the comforts in the things you hold on to, the things you leave behind. The sudden, terrifying, thrilling knowing: there's no getting off the ride now.

"Ultimately it all has to come together to mean something and be amazing, be the full trip" Holmstrom remarks as we banter about the importance of lyrics versus music in the songwriting process. Of course, this is true. And of course, in music, one cannot survive the test of the full trip without the other. By all means, The Dandy Warhols have maintained an extraordinarily high consistency rate in this respect. It's all there in the songs, lyrically and sonically: the dirtyglamorous parties at their Portland space, The Odditorium ("our first legendary party in that space we had The Strokes, The Vines, Jet and The Raveonettes all there at the same time, just hanging out and having dinner together. Spoon rehearsing with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, too. And J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. stopped in and

played on my guitar rigs, that was a big one for me," Holmstrom shares) and backstage conversations, the wine stained notebooks and intellectual hedonism. In an exceptional feat for any band who comes bearing mega pop hits and a penchant for major chord melodies that could make even melodymaster Paul McCartney himself weep, The Dandy Warhols are comfortable in universities and nightclubs all the same without falling into the expected trappings of pretension, boredom or bat-shit crazy; after all, their foray into Ride-esque heaviness and religious discourse on Nietzsche was the result of a bathroom wall at Reed College, a southeast Portland arts institution (“this crazy, amazing place that manufactured LSD until the mid-nineties�), wherein frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor

came across a bathroom wall scribbled with the words "I want a god who stays dead, not plays dead". These words, then inserted into "music that had been around since quite early in the band" as Holmstrom shares, turned into a searing, spectacular auditory experience that became, at least in part, responsible for my own interest in the song's namesake German philosopher. "Clever, isn't it?" Taylor-Taylor laughs outside of his tour bus, breath visible in the Toronto cold. Indeed.

The recent release of THE CAPITOL YEARS: 1995-2007, a retrospective compilation of the songs that have defined The Dandy Warhols' career and, to a great deal of listeners around the world, a generation, is not something the band took lightly. Holmstrom informs me that, if anything, the release of a retrospective is the band's way of "putting a final end to an era, so that we can move forward and do the next thing, whatever that is." He goes on to say that he "always felt weird about doing it, because it ended up feeling pretentious or like an end, and [he] wasn't happy with either of those things." Alas, nor should he be. Seeing The Dandy Warhols perform in Toronto on November 1, 2010, awash with the light of the Chinese lantern-like orbs that surrounded them, deftly juggling their oldest and newest material with the confidence, skill and swagger of a band who have seen more than their easy to smile faces tell, I understood Holmstrom when he told me that the Dandys' world "really does seem to be identical to what it was in the beginning...although the music has evolved and we're different people now, our trip is still remarkably the same".

In the Dandy Warhols' repertoire as captured in THE CAPITOL YEARS and on their current North American tour, there's Boys Better, a song best described in the lyrics "for all the other boys caught in your bleach job hair". It's bragging, dropping, and fills you up with chorally resonant bliss by the time you've lost your breath jumping along to its swinging, sarcastic sneer, because...well, haven't we all had (or been) that roommate who "like a bitch already spent all the dough you promised your rent"? There's Good Morning - a song I not only fell in love with, but fell in love to; in its wake, I can stand, crowded by thousands, in a downtown concert venue on a wintery dark night, eyes closed, and still feel the early moments - waking up in an empty bed with a lakefront view, sunlight making me sweat and too many cigarettes on my breath, wishing only for a phone call from the one who was, and is still, my good morning. There's the romantic and druggy sincerity of The Last High, the MOOG-driven spirituality of Godless, the clipped, charming drawl of Get Off, the driving, beautifully droning catharsis of Holding Me Up. Listening and watching, one can't help but feel that this is a best-of done right. This is everything that has brought The Dandy Warhols here: the dark, Vonnegutian sense of humor, the widely varied and, some might say, schizophrenic style of each song when compared to the next. Most of all, the uncalculated joy behind it all.

"When we're on stage, that's where [the band's] personalities make sense to me. It's perfect. If we don't play shows for six months I start questioning why I even know them.

There's so much stuff I don't understand...and then we get on stage, and there you go" Holmstrom tells me, and I can't help but think: isn't this what any listener immersing themselves in a song ultimately feels as well?

There are so many, too many, things in this world that don't make sense - be it when you're a thirteen year old girl on her way to ballet practice, pointe shoes slung over toothin shoulders, or a grown woman (objectively, of course), making your way through a city maze, desperately treading water to keep your head afloat and keep on keeping on.

Some things - most things - never make sense. And yet, if I've learned anything in my time thus far on this planet, it's that they're not supposed to. If you can find those moments, little ones, maybe three-and-a-half minutes long, of sitting in your bedroom, standing in a crowd at a concert theatre, smoking out the window of a highway-bound car, of perfection, of bliss, of being alright with nothing but this very second, soundtracked by a song that so perfectly sums it all up...well, that's where you find your compass, centre and, ultimately, self. Those moments are where you find all that could ever matter.

So perhaps we never get the disposable incomes, the freedoms that come with rock superstardom. Perhaps we do and, like Courtney Taylor-Taylor, take up wine collecting and yoga and whatever else suits our fancy, losing some of our bad habits along the way and gaining everything. But this part doesn't matter, not really - as Holmstrom shares, "it takes a little bit of getting used to, the conclusion that you're not cool...it's a little difficult to get over. And then you realize: it actually doesn't matter, and you get on with it." This is what makes The Dandy Warhols great, lasting and true. This is why thousands of us flood into a concert theatre on a Monday night following Hallowe'en, as ready as ever to remember and rock out. Seeing them up there, holding us up, illuminated by stage lights, decorative orbs, the songs that made us forget, we know: they've stayed on the ride with us, not bowing out, never backing down.

words by Sarah Miniaci photography by Alexander Browne illustration by JF

CELEBRITY

by Michael J. Martin

He's dead, dead while brushing his teeth, while flossing & humming bullshit tunes off VH1 walking misaligned streets leaning deep into the sweet shops he absorbs

the smells, eyes bulged red veined veins diabetic he craves sugarcane, blinking memories of his father: a Union Pacific gandydancer, wife-divorcer, suffocated

the one of his kids he could find & parked his truck on train irons Over the sticks. No shirt nor pants stuck slick to the truck leather, grinding bad dental

work so by his father’s standards he would have been dead before birth. This dead man thinks death every time he pulls illegal u-turns & recrosses metro

tracks dead double checking the rearview for cops, retro-fitting a striped straw to the left of his septum taking in the white like the first brother and the sea. He is

dead before understanding the mechanics of interaction synched with flashbulbs popping around the room. Gaudy. Shaded sunglasses hiding sunken eyes he's

return of the dead on his feet, mingling at a mixer where he isn’t invited but told by his publicist's assistant “This is where careers are made.” Stars align.

He's standing outside a bathroom after having closed the door on some 18 yr old transplant from Alabama trying cocaine off the tub rim for the third time, coaxed

by them Hollywood folk he's dead like a virus orbiting meat, & like that virus not really living until inside something warm or something warm is inside of him

& even then… & even then — he's dead holding a martini glass on eternal refill Oxycotin within his palm anticipating familiar mouthal salivas — oh he is dead

smiling. This man is the new celebrity. Beautiful. Passionless. A whore of his self.

& we made him alive.

Fabrizio Caligiuri, Slash

Fabrizio Caligiuri, Page

Fabrizio Caligiuri, Daft Punk

Personal is Political:

Art as Social Dialogue with Istvan Kantor

Art as Social Dialogue with Istvan Kantor

by Leah Stephenson

To be frank, I grew up a privileged girl, in a large, beautiful, park-encircled home in one of the most prestigious neighbourhoods, raised by two loving, professional parents. Then at 15, I learned about war. First in my mother's body when she was diagnosed and rushed into 13-hour brain surgery. Later, through her mind as she grappled with chronic pain and pharmaceutical drug addiction, gradually releasing to me her dark memories.

I didn't understand it at the time, but in retrospect I realized that my teenage taste in art was deeply influenced by these experiences. While others listened to happy pop music, I blasted Ministry's A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste, watched European art films and black box theatre, wrote, often produced and performed, multi-media performance installations exploring repressed recesses of the psyche. I inhaled Beckett, Waiting for the Barbarians, Between the Acts.

My mother gradually whispered to me bits of her history: a young child during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, multi-generational sexual abuse, the Detroit Riots. Before I heard any of this, I dreamed about it, my genes' memories imprinted with the psychic impressions of war, blood, exile, death.

Which is among the reasons I resonate deeply with the work of Istvan Kantor, a Governor General award-winning multi-media artist infamous for being banned from many of the world's most prestigious art museums for painting blood on their walls. When asked whether there was a specific moment when he knew that he would be an artist for the rest of his life, Istvan replied: “At six, when the Hungarian Revolution was happening, I was a little boy with a little toy gun and I stopped the Russian tanks in the street. My family was living in a bunker and somehow I got out to the street with a little toy gun that my grandfather had made me from wood. From behind a tree, I pointed the toy at Russian tanks."

"And that wasn't a very good thing, because at the time, all these little boys were fighting against the Russian army, bombing tanks, throwing molotov cocktails. I didn't have one of those, but I had my wood gun. The soldier jumped out, saying 'Come here, come here. You're going to die.'

They weren’t sure if it was a real gun. I ran back to my family's shelter and hid in a dark corner of the building while they searched for me. Finally, a janitor who spoke Russian somehow convinced them to leave. The people in the building then ritualistically broke my toy gun, and that was the end of the performance."

Among my own most vivid recurrent dreams inspiring performance installations were those full of dead babies, archetypal detritus, women in exodus, rivers with two opposing currents, Japanese and Spanish soldiers, ancient blood. So I was deeply moved by and drawn to Istvan's final pose in Bleeding to Death, the performance piece linked below. It comes from the darkest parts of our selves, from the wars.

"This event and the whole revolution stayed with me forever in my mind," added Istvan, "and all that I had seen – disaster, fire, destruction, blood, death – and all that I had heard, all the time, about the revolution and people fighting for freedom, those were very important determining factors for my whole life, for my artistic thinking and aesthetics. That's why I deal with destruction, fire and blood.

When you are a child these things are very important, you grow up and they come out and you don't even know it and then you grow up and realize, Hey, what happened to me? You face it. You know what happened to you."

Spain stamped Catholic ideology on the Philippines, framing my mother's mind. Communism held Hungary, framing Istvan Kantor's.

"I grew up a young communist," he shared. "I was a member of the young communist party. It was visually very influential. As a child, it was exciting and different in many ways, all the uniforms and everything. I was fascinated with it, because that's what you learned in school and you were brainwashed as a little communist."

"At the same time, at home you received a completely different education, which was more religious and against communism. It was very difficult, a double standard, so as a child it was very hard to decide whose side I was on. That was a struggle, and only when I was around 18 did I come to the realization that it was a very oppressive system. When that moment came, I completely left

L-R, clockwise: art rebel fashionista Andii Brooks participating in Kantor’s My Struggle exhibition; Kantor’s blood; Kantor’s performance piece How to Explain Revolution to a Broken Robot; Kantor with his work.

everything behind. But it took me some time to go through the process of learning and experimenting and having inspiration from, for example, the mail artist David Zack."

Meeting David Zack in Budapest was a turning point in Istvan's life, and Zack's mail art would spread Kantor's future persona and ideology around the world, igniting an artistic revolution fuelled by punk, new wave and Cold War political rhetoric.

Another major influence and tool in Istvan's learning, experimenting and drawing inspiration was yoga.

Yoga and his father's and grandfather's library full of books on various Eastern philosophies greatly influence Istvan's art and life.

The first time I went to yoga, my teacher hung me upside down in rope sirsasana (headstand), and asked why I was holding the world. Told me to let go. It was freedom.

"I started yoga seriously at age 14," Istvan shared. "I was learning it with an older person. There were no books on yoga in Hungary at the time because it was a forbidden language, because it was too liberating, too mystic."

The result of his merging of yoga and Eastern philosophies with revolution and Communism is Neoism.

"Neoism is probably my greatest life achievement," proclaimed Kantor, "and everything can be included in its name or... Actually, I think my greatest achievement is probably my haircut," he laughed.

"Neoism is a term that has driven me and everyone who ever gets into this neoist movement crazy ever since I invented it because nobody can define neoism, and that's the whole idea. Six o'clock is one of its symbols. The six o’clock theory is that past, present and future are not separate. Basically, everything is at the same time. Why six o’clock? Because six o’clock is vertical. We live in a linear world. We have histories in horizontal perspectives. Vertical is more non-linear; it means more accumulation, extending of information, like on the internet, with people putting more and more information and it's accumulating, getting bigger and bigger, and it's all there at the same time and you can just pick different ideas from that accumulated information so that there is no separation at all. It means that you are in the future and the past and the present."

"In New York, six o'clock is happy hour," he added. "People do what they like to do at six o’clock. I lived in New York from the ‘80s to the early ‘90s and worked closely with the New York hardcore rebel artist movements. At the time, the symbolic sign of the revolution was six o'clock. You can still find relics from it on the Lower East Side."

Of course, every revolutionary ideology needs its leader. Enter Monty Cantsin.

"The concept of Monty Cantsin," he explained, "is the very simple idea that anyone can be Monty Cantsin by doing everything in the name of Monty Cantsin. You just have to call yourself Monty Cantsin. I’ve used the name for about 20 years for everything and basically I gave up my original identity and became Monty Cantsin. There are no rules of what you are when you are Monty Cantsin.

You are free to define that person; it's not even a person. It's basically yourself when you can do everything the way you want to and express yourself freely."

While as Monty Cantsin we are free, we continue to struggle with the world around us.

Having ushered my mother through the brutalizing parts of the healthcare system, heard family tales of military and industrial labour, and used super-computers to create art, I've been compelled to create multi-media art about technology, repelled and drawn to it, critical and liberated. Istvan's robotics and performance works are arousingly astounding, so he summed up my feelings when he said: "Technology is born from military and industrial structures, but it is used for creative expression by artists.

I'm very against technology and very for technology…

Technology is extending humanity.

The human brain is still obviously more complex than any of these gadgets but these gadgets are all extensions. Stelarc talks about 'body obsolete' theories, that this process is a catastrophe for communication, that we live in an empty age and that is why we need

technology because we are not using our insides, only external devices."

"I see the human body as a transmission device. We are transmitting information all the time, from heat to thought, and also electronic-telepathic information. During an epileptic seizure, the body transmits a thousand times more information than normal.

It's like the body loses control and spits out information that it can't really understand…

You have to also give your body what it needs.

The computer can’t do that. The body can become obsolete to technology.

It's unimportant and stands to lose everything.

Maybe yoga is more technology friendly.”

I'll finish by offering the idea ancient technology too, one everything we do, including technology. As Istvan Kantor through his life and art.

that yoga is that enables interact with demonstrates

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Moving On

by John Stocks

No longer think of happiness The most wretched of all deceits, A blind alley of bleak goodbyes This raw hurt will make you stronger.

Forget the doom poems, body and soul Beyond the well of words you drown in, Renounce foolish infatuation.

Today you will rise and stretch your mind Noting, how the wind carries The dense, dead scent of eternity, Its caress in the midst of it all Imbued with the crisp fragrance of truth, Reality, a most peculiar bliss.

toothpaste

by Angela Readman The sheets aren’t clean, the cotton’s crumpled as used tissue, bunched as if someone’s still inside. I clutch the pillow, inhale. Another tremor. I curl tight and wait.

Later, rather than sooner maybe, all things pass I say.

Mitch is fevered with ‘one days’. He paces like there’s a fire in him one casting agent needs to see. Everything hangs on toothpaste. For weeks he’s practiced showing his teeth. After the none PG stuff, we lay damp and entangled. Snow-White’s dress was a puddle on the worn carpet. I handed him a beer, watched him lean against slits of sunset just visible through the air strip, the copper in his hair like a rubbed penny as he licked his teeth preswig.

‘What you thinking?’ I whispered.

‘Love you babe,’ he said. It was his answer to anything, or the only answer I could hear.

I often kept the costume on. It was a hoot to him, pinning down Snow-White as if proving something to seven men. Maybe he was. Mitch wanted to be the best at something, anything. From a distance, Snow White’s smile is on parade, but to touch she’s polyester. She smiles through smog, keeps a lip drawn over one slightly crooked tooth. There are photos of me dressed as her in a hundred pink bedrooms, face lit from beneath by a rainbow of nightlights.

I fold my clothes over the chair, watch the clock. When will he be home? Any minute, any day. The audition was Thursday. He flossed one more time and got in his car.

‘This is the one babe,’ he said, ‘I feel it.’

He looked like he felt stripes run right through him like toothpaste: success, ‘a quality’ with an aftertaste.

‘Break a leg,’ I said, meaning don’t break a tooth.

He’d be back Saturday, with no call back.

‘Some no talent guy got it,’ he’d say again.

I never asked what happened if he got a part. We’re all happily’s me and Mitch.

Before’s, like a make-over show that hasn’t performed the magic. Ever after scares me.

I’ve seen it chase the good days and guys away. I imagined Snow-White when I was a girl, imagined I’d grow up to be a princess, not sure what the job entailed. I sent Mom a picture of me in the costume when I got the job, didn’t tell her there were nine other Snow-Whites. I wanted to show her I was something. I didn’t send my return address on the card.

Sometimes there’s a yellowing to snow, a crevice. I save for treatments, smile whiter than white. The heroine didn’t have full dental. I wave the days away, not knowing how to turn my own page. Whatever after didn’t come, no parts in the movies, an audition for a porn flick I couldn’t see through.

Fabio Sassi, smile

Fabio Sassi, honeymoney

I stayed on a float, waving at no one in particular. Then I met Mitch. I waved like I was cleaning a window to his face.

I let the spaceman take me for cocktails, just to take the edge off waiting for Mitch. The spaceman looked like he only grinned to show it was perfect. He talked like he was the hero of his life, dropped his own name as if he wanted to show he’d picked a good one.

‘So, there I was, Lars I said - you got two choices. Go along with things or be your own man. Lars Carlino made a choice that day,’ he said. ‘I never did anything for anyone who was only doing it half right again.’

I wasn’t really listening. His jaw was weak without his helmet; he moved small gloveless hands. I once heard someone describe self important guys as ‘testiculating’ when they spoke. Suddenly I felt the urge to laugh. He demonstrated the word. Testiculating spaceman, testiculates on and on. Laughter swam through me with just one cocktail.

I stood for the rest room, cheeks flushed.

‘I have to go,’ I slurred, ’Wait for my sick mother to phone.’

The spaceman offered to drive me home.

My skin felt tingly, cold like the night air was sharp crystals landing on it one flake at a time. The spaceman’s face was blurry in his car. The costume rustled.

This bit doesn’t count I thought, what happened to the Sleeping Beauty or

Snow-White while they were sleeping was never in the book. My eyes closed.

I pictured Mitch at mine, waiting with a bottle of fizz and a lifetime’s supply of toothpaste. Car trouble, bad directions from a hitchhiker who used to be in Star Trek. I imagined Mitch telling me the whole story, all its twists and bends, soothing as Once Upon a Time.

Then, this morning, I saw it at my locker. A hair pale as snow on a gravestone. I licked my lip, tasted blood like rust, my head still a little foggy this morning after I found myself in my room with no memory how I got there. Rita saw me staring at the speckled mirror in the locker room, fingers perched to pluck the white hair. I remembered seven more would come to its grave.

‘Aw honey, time to start dying,’ she said, putting on her crown. ‘One grey I had under the wig; they switched me from Snow-White to the evil stepmother, really got to me, like I went from snow to slush that day. Got my boobs done, felt a little better. No one gets to be little Snow-White forever,’ she said.

Another tremor, longer than the first; they say those born here hardly notice.

I curl into the sheets, wait for the rattling to stop, for the pictures to quit shaking. Mirror, Mirror, on and off the wall. I count to seven, ten, watch SnowWhite’s puffed sleeves tremble, collapse as the dress melts to the floor. I close my eyes, imagine toothpaste, Mitch walking through the door.

: d n o b a g a V n r e d o M The A Primer.

So...days go by. When was your last big experience? Life change? World shaking conversation? When was the last time you really sat in awe of the world?

The term "vagabond" was, and still is, very romantic and old world. Just the utterance can conjure images of people on long ocean voyages, salt spray seasoning a fresh face, and legends being written everyday. Or ideas of a car trip, a young band of comrades trying to find the not-so-American dream through days, months of road and years of experiences. Even the old concept of bards and storytellers, entertaining people for a meal and moving on, is ready at hand. But the next thought to follow these, is the simple, almost Pavlovian, selfdeprecation that many are too well trained to produce. It goes something like this.

"That's amazing. I wish I could do that. But I never could; I'm not smart enough, brave enough, entertaining enough, and I just plain couldn't do it."

But the fact is, not only can you be that amazing person alive in your imagination, but it's easier than ever.

I wake up every morning, and begin the day by discussing the meanings of life and love with a man who claims to have tutored Sartre. While this may or may not be true, the ideas we discuss are incredible. The following hours are spent recording the discussion, then searching for a traveler to eat lunch with. From photographers, to painters, to other writers, everyone has a piece of life to share. Collecting them is the business. And this is my life.

Collecting and sharing stories and wonders too precious to keep to oneself. And that is the modern vagabond: a collector.

To fit this, you don't need to give up everything you own and skip showering for a week. It takes a change of mental space... While the philosophy could fill a book (and does, I'm almost through with it) the ideas can be broken down into simple bullet points.

1: Be happy with less. How long since you could make a paper airplane and truly have fun? Once you can set your mental frame so that you are happier with the moment, the now, and with simple things, then the complex things like a mortgage and your next car become irrelevant.

2: Open your eyes. There are a million things that happen every day, within a ten minute walk of where you read this, that are the most astonishing things you've ever experienced in your life. From live music, to artists, to writer's workshops, human creativity and passion are alive. You just need to look for it!

3: Seek the incredible. Is there something happening? You've found it? And you're happy to be experiencing something that most people don't? Good. Take it to the next level. Ask those traveling African drummers to teach you something. Write a short story with those writers. Go rock climbing or subterranean exploring with those people you just met. If they seem interesting, make that interest into a life experience that you didn't just observe, but were a part of.

Once you can try integrating these points into daily life, you realize that you are no longer living... You are experiencing, seeking, you are LIVING. These people, the people that live these lives, stop worrying about money and the normal "Matrix" that society loves to concern itself with, and find themselves swept away in cultures that are always just below the surface.

This morning I woke up and greeted the sun by having breakfast with a photographer from Holland, and I listened to his stories about traveling the world. Tragedies and wonders were told, and even a bit of the world and its slow change could be found in the way this man bemoaned the loss of film and the transition to digital. I agree... I still love listening to vinyl records. Lunch may find me looking at the next place I go, from one of the incredible variety of artists' squats in Paris, to a train to the south of France because Cannes has an interesting project going on. Seeking these experiences becomes almost an addiction, something to live for.

Once you feel that pull, the call of not an open road but the promises and adventure that lie upon that road, then you know what it's like to be a vagabond.

So, go to it! No one said you have to be homeless, though it does make seeking easier...

But, next time you see something incredible, don't hesitate. It's not there for you to watch.

It's there because you were born to be a part of it. And it won't be there next time.

Susi Q, texas

Jessica Tremp, on a blue day make yourself lighter

Signs of Life

by A.J. Kandathil

The first night at camp on the edge of Lake Erie, we set ourselves on fire. I wait outside in the dark, peering through the screen door of the tepid women’s bathroom in the middle of the grounds. The air inside is moist, stagnant. In the distance, a crowd of teenage kids, my friends from birth, joke and laugh at the campfire. Fluorescent light drips through the screen like water through a sieve, drawing a grid on the cement. A leaf-like, butterfly-looking insect clings to the center of the screen, cockeyed and still. Below it, there’s a sign that someone scotch-taped to the door.

“Hello. I am a Luna Moth. I am almost extinct. Please do not slam the door.”

I creak open the door, tip toe inside, slip the door shut. I crouch to inspect it. It looks dead. The moth leans its face toward the light. I hear the echo of boys’ laughter. Torch it! Dare ya! Torch it!

One of them yells from about a hundred yards away.

I stare at the Luna Moth who stares into the fluorescence. Other insects and moths spin around above me, buzzing as they ram into the light bulb. The Luna Moth just seems to watch the others, enwrapped, still.

Down the road past the bathrooms and all of the cabins, two boys dangle a stick with a sock speared at the end of it over the campfire. I watch them jockey the sock back and forth between them.

“Torch it. Dare ya. Torch it,” one of them says.

“Nah,” says the other. “You torch it.” The sock drops into fire and disintegrates. The boys snicker.

What they are doing is nothing new. Being young in a town where there’s not much to do, pretty much any summer evening ends with someone suggesting that we “burn some shit up.” I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt as the night chill sweeps inland from the black chaos of Lake Erie. I lean against the fence that separates the edge of the cliff from the steep drop to the beach, the lake to my back. There’s nothing to see out there anyway. It looks like nothing, Pennsylvania’s rocky edges.

The water remains a polluted lost cause, just gray with freezer burn form at the crests of its waves.

We are fifteen years old, and someone is always burning something. Leaves, trash, rubber, flesh.

Every boy owns his own Zippo. They flick them open, flick them shut. Becker, who is seventeen, thrusts his lighter out at arm’s length and ignites the flame. His friend aims a can of insect repellant at it and sprays. It bursts—a bluish-orange flame balloons from the tiny lighter for just an instant. We laugh. Something about it is very funny. The rest of camp is dark and the flash is all we can see.

Next Becker douses his whole hand in bug spray. I start to get nervous. He flips open his Zippo and lights his hand on fire and waves it around. His hand beams electric-blue, like the end of a lit match.

Jessica Tremp, after they shot the grizzly

“Knock it off, guys,” I say. “You’re gonna hurt somebody.”

They ignore me. I step toward them, about to protest, but Becker claps his hands together and the flame vanishes.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he says. “See?” He shows me his hands. His palms are white and soft. The backs of his hands have grown tan from hours spent mowing lawns for money. He wiggles his fingers. I shrug and step back toward the fence.

The group of boys follows Becker’s lead. They light one hand. Then two hands. Then two hands and one foot. They wave their arms around like two burning baton ends, saying, “Woooo! Woooo! I’m on fiya!” Then they all smack their hands against their thighs, stomp their feet. The flames go out.

The next morning, the Luna Moth isn’t on the bathroom screen door anymore, and neither is the sign. I search the cement and find the little Luna Moth, burnt up like a leaf. Someone torched it.

The girl who hung the notice sits in the bathroom next to the communal shower. She cries, clutching her paper sign, her tight curls bobbing. She sniffs. “Why on earth would anybody do this?”

But she knows why. We all echo this aesthetic, humor and horror in equal measure, like this campground, this lake, this evanescent Appalachian existence.

That night the boys form a line and soak their hands in bug spray. The sky darkens, then I smell the acid of insect repellant, I see the gleam of a Zippo. The flame ignites one pair of hands, and those hands light the next, and the next, and the next. The sky slowly lightens like the dark sanctuary on Christmas Eve during a rendition of Silent Night. Christmas is the closest I come to touching fire—once a year, I let hot Christmas Eve candle wax lose its form and drip onto my hand. I watch it harden and latch itself to my finger. I peel it off and leave the shavings on the floor.

The last pair of hands in the chain goes ablaze. They laugh at themselves for a minute, at how well they can cheat fire. Our way of life, endangered but not yet extinct. Not yet. One by one, the flames disappear. But the last boy hoists his hands above his head and runs away from us down the stretch of camp past the bathrooms and the cabins, hands burning like two lit torches.

“On fiiiiiiiiiire!” He laughs as he runs.

The shallow waves of Lake Erie lap against the shore at the bottom of the cliff, making the shards of empty beer bottles tinkle like the toast from a thousand champagne glasses.

“On fiiiire!” he screams again as he loops back and sprints toward the cliff. He runs straight toward the magnetic orange-blue campfire, like a moth to a flame.

Jessica Tremp, the hunt

A Sentimental Education

by Andrew Battershill

"I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation-- or, more accurately, the history of their feelings. It's a book about love, about passion; but passion such as can exist nowadays--that is to say, inactive."

-Gustave Flaubert

1. I had just finished a fairly involved nap-dream about sodomizing Louisa May Alcott in the back of my grandfather’s Toyota Corolla when it occurred to me that I might not be marshaling my education so as to maximize my potential.

2. “I’m, like, really into people with chronic illnesses.” Because there are too many people in the car my friend tells me this little factoid over the back seat, as I sit, folded, in the trunk. He says it in a manner that suggests “People With Chronic Illnesses” is a really cool band I haven’t heard of. And that I haven’t heard of them because I skipped open mic night at the Mocambo to make vague passes at a girl who found me only slightly less interesting than birth control ads in the subway.

That is to say, she was interested in me, but in the same way she’s interested in pens she has a sneaky feeling that she’s put through the wash.

3. I’ve only ever had one experience that I would call a moment of transcendent understanding. One of those quick seconds where you understand. Have you ever had one? Just that wonderful, profound time when you realize that you’re a twentyeight year old life-long chain-smoker with the chest cold from hell trying to blow crumbs off your mattress with an ice-cube in your mouth. I think everyone does, at one point or another.

world war

by Allison Leigh Peters

I was the best war. In me you confided this. Classy war, good war for historians and antique stores.

Yes. I agreed. Good for antique stores, good for fourth floors. Of course for you I was the best war to fight in. You got good at fighting in me.

You fought in me but won no medals.

Your mother didn't cry when you came back home alive. I wounded you and nurses took to you. I hurt, they healed.

I was the best war for you. You did it to defend your honor.

You did it to wear those combat boots.

So I could kill you out loud.

We have hard film to prove how much we wanted it. How nice you looked in your jacket and boots. And with your canteen.

How thirsty you were, how much I let you drink, how often I watched you bathe.

I was the best war for your tongue. You had so little to say coming home to your mother.

You had so much love to say to me. I had told you boot camp was nothing like the real thing, you had promised I only want the real thing.

I was the best war and the firing squad was late so no shots rang.

Church bells rang. We rung the blood from each other's hair, held each other's face and kissed the foreheads with purpose. It was war with you.

It was war in me.

I was the best war for your eyes. Some world with every color as this world with every color cannot color the bright undefined as you woke up from the trenches.

It was a lot for the future of bandages and lace. It was a lot for fourth floors.

I was the best war to protest, the best war to lose.

I was the best war to hear about on the news with candles lit while I ate macaroni from a mug in our fourth floor flat. For flat I was the best war.

For robust and for static and for television I was the best war.

Because you bought me that ring, for the economy I was the best war.

I got so viral, for globalization I was the best war.

Sometimes you would watch me sleep and I didn't know because how could I know and for that I was the best war.

And for language. And for the evolution of man. And for repentance—repent, repent, repent.

Chinese Lanterns

by Josh Nadeau bright greens dangle ignorant of beige, torn cushions, the parallel of walls, corners, stained paint, an empty bedroom if craning beneath these fragile spheres, a cool window on my cheek and hues of sunfall in my fists

Science Faction

by Fraser Nelund

Oh Moses: turns out it was the Reed Sea, misread, and a breeze to part.

Monet’s Les Nympheas

by Lyn Lifshin the long curved room, the walls starting to shimmer, breathe A Chinese girl sitting on the stone bench next to me, dazed, smiling The lilies moving into both of us

Srijon Chowdhury, The Birth of Joan

Hannah at the bus stop

postage

by John Stocks She gazes at stars shops, sated with streetlight

by Josh Nadeau sent from china

venezuela

north battleford christmas card between your teeth

beyond the seven hills of the city beautiful in early darkness

hands tightly round forgotten

woven

the shivering breath of winter evening.

withdraws to solitude

snow queen short skirt december

cheap diamonds

lining fauxfurboots

shoppers drift back to suburbs.

The girl at the bus stop

taps her heels

Seven o’clock. Sheffield

intuitively expectant tremulous, impatient; wonders how it will begin how will he find her as evening closes in?

melting

you in your dances

inhabit the world

Lannie Hart, Artist’s Eyes

Lannie Hart, My Garden

Lannie Hart, Emily

To Phil

by Annik Adey-Babinski

The flies here are lethargic.

So don’t sit there smug because you managed to snap an elastic into a thick fly as it tried to suntan.

Sure, it was a satisfying THWAAAHCK but it required no skill just tension resolving itself on the hardwood.

In case you didn’t realize, when Rebecca complimented the kill it was out of ignorance and lust.

You must know, if a girl travels more than half an hour to see you she is not your friend, she wants to be more than someone you turn over to in a tent in the dark.

Why do you insist on gingerly patting her shoulder in polite company while she’s got her crotch hanging out of her dress for you?

She stretches and brings out her Grecian Love Cards not to play Mao (although she does love to boss you and you could take it a little better) but because she wants to inspire in you some fire a breath of empire, a willful heat to dominate the loins so you forget you once were her TA. When a girl books an overnight train and travels alone to you it is not because she is your buddy or really liked your lectures.

She wants to fuck, yes, but she wants to fall in love.

So you could at least acknowledge it and not take her sex like funeral cookies.

But then no one has any fun.

Or play along get into it, though. Really make love to this woman, be truly big with your gestures, with romance, take up a lot of her space, and let her have something to be really mad about when you break it to her that’s she’s a great girl, but.

EQUALITY cocaine fuckshit3000 Maybe it's because I grew up on reruns of "The Twilight Zone" (the best television series of all time) that I have always had a fascination with the dark, strange, unknown corners of the universe.

I think of a particular story I read of one individual's DMT experience. A middle-aged man, after taking an injection of DMT, found himself on a spaceship with giant praying mantises. They began to feast on his

by Will Johnson

emotions. When he grew frightened, he said something along the lines of "God's love is all that matters." And the mantises answered: "Even here? Even here?"

Strange other dimensions exist alongside us - not even a foot away. As a matter of fact I recently witnessed a strange scene in a dark, forbidding section of interstellar space: Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, New Jersey.

Justin Hinte, skeletons

"Yo, let's get to-getha and consume tonight, ai'ight?" the 18 year old black boy said to the 19 year old white girl.

"Oh, yeah dawg! I want to consume tonight too! Let's consume!"

Racial harmony. Everyone still wants to pick on the KKK and the Aryan Nation, but let's face it - the ignorance of racist whites is as out of style as pet rocks, literary fiction, good sex, and authentic existence. To pick on a white racist would be like picking on the lone guy who still believes that the earth is flat or that global warming isn't happening. Racism is over. People today are now EQUALLY mediocre. Race is no longer a factor in social interactions. We are united in MEDIOCRITY! Nazis suck!

"Yo dawg, I only exist to consume," said blonde white girl.

"Damn sis, me too."

The black kid was named KanyeWestwannaBeDrone2000. The blonde girl was named BlondeWorthless901. Both were students at Brookdale Community College. Their Korean friend No-Personality Magee Park soon joined them.

"Yo, what's happenin' No-Personality Magee?"

"Hey KanyeWestwannaBeDrone2000. Did you just say 'what's happenin'? Don't you know that slang like that is from the 1970s and we're not supposed to know about anything that happened before last month? Knowing about history is gay," said No-Personality Magee Park.

"Yo, I apologize dawg."

Their Hispanic friend HotRodRacerHickSpicwithNoHistory joined them.

"Yo dawg, let's drink Fuckshit3000Cocaine Energy Drink, dawg, and watch wrestling and talk about cars and talk about hot babes and eat cheetos and smoke blunts and watch the 'Fuck and Furious' movies dawg," said HotRodRacerHickSpicwithNoHistory.

"Sounds good to me," said BlondeWorthless90l, "Let's be as worthless as possible."

Their friend ProvincialHardWorker111 joined them. ProvincialHardworker111 was studying radiology at Brookdale.

"Hey, would you guys like to go out to Jenks and get wasted?"

"Hell yeah!" they said in unison.

Then they were joined by Unimaginativeandcooltothekidsolderguyguidokindalikeablebutonlytotheherd2009. The only difference between the young kids and Unimaginativeandcooltothekidsolderguyguidokindalikeablebutonlytotheherd2009 and the younger kids was that Unimaginativeandcooltothekidsolderguyguidokindalikeablebutonlytotheherd2009 said "dawg" with a touch of irony.

"Hey everyone," said Unimaginativeandcooltothekidsolderguyguidokindalikeablebutonlytotheherd2009.

"Hey Unimaginativeandcooltothekidsolderguyguidokindalikeablebutonlytotheherd2009!

What's up, dawg?"

"Nothing much! I just heard God is coming back to earth to claim the living and the dead!

Other than that nothing else is new!"

"Oh, really? God is coming back, dawg?"

"Yeah, son. Do you know who God is? God is that corn-rowed guy 'Riff-Raff' from the MTV show 'From G's to Gents'. Well, anyway, it turns out that God has really good taste in gold chains and diamond-studded grills. Riff-Raff is actually God and he's coming down to earth to judge the living and the dead, dawg. You know how they say the meek shall inherit the earth, dawg? Well, it's true dawg... Artists and other strong personalities who care about living and creating and building great civilizations will be sent to a hell of loneliness while we get to all you know, Herd together for eternity dawg. You know that movie 'Idiocracy' was a biblical prophecy, dawg? As a matter of fact, the creator of this fictional world in which we live (which seems like reality, dawg) - Will Johnson - feels like he's ripping off 'Idiocracy' right now, dawg. But that's cool, dawg. Because he's giving us what we want, g. An eternal playa's club, an eternal thug mansion of brand names and mediocrity. Shit dawg, the whole world will be like the wigger scene of suburban St. Louis, dawg."

"I'm ready to go..." said BlondeWorthless901.

"Let's go find God aka Riff-Raff."

They skipped down the Brookdale walking paths.

"We're off to see the Wizard, the Riff-Raff Wizard of Mediocrity! We're off to see the Wizard, the Riff-Raff Wizard of Mediocrity!"

Alan Harding, Songbird

Alan Harding, Call of the Sea

Jessica Tremp, Spread Thinly

Champlain, Branbury, The Lakes at Night

by Lyn Lifshin always women in the dark on porches talking as if in blackness their secrets would be safe.

Cigarettes glowed like Indian paintbrush.

Water slapped the deck. Night flowers full of things with wings, something you almost feel like the fingers of a boy moving, as if by accident, under sheer nylon and felt in the dark movie house as the chase gets louder, there and not there, something miscarried that maybe never was.

The mothers whispered about a knife, blood.

Then, they were laughing the way you sail out of a dark movie theater into wild light as if no thing that happened happened

Jessica Tremp, head of the torchlight procession

Jessica Tremp, discovery channel

That internet Thing

by Annik Adey-Babinski

We all visit this place like ghosts mapping the traces of each other always just missing the point of contact the physical Being marks on walls, our flashlights in the night signals beeping across the dark and sometimes i think

i’ve forgotten our agreed upon code if we

ever

agreed

on

one

to begin with.

We leave gifts on each other’s doorsteps sometimes letters slipped under the door or flaming bags of shit peppered along the steps like ikea lanterns domestic and reassuring in the dark.

This internet thing lets me egg your house and wipe it clean again before you notice.

But there are always traces little glitches we can’t quite control places we didn’t want to visit notes signed with my name but written in a cleaner hand. the matrix unconscious netting my thoughts out to the waves overriding my self-destruct setting or maybe just letting the process drag out far too long

ode to twitter

by Autom Tagsa for months at social sea, unyielding to cacophony of twitter dees and twitter dumbs a chanted mantra bit by byte by sprite, like strands of loaded wind a wiz awizzing by vibrating ears, vibrating tears of agony and ecstasy, yes even that recycled shamelessly to blog a post and post a blog and blog myself into a job. we are all at sea. and once in a while, there’s this whale.

veldt rosy

by Fraser Nelund Would Roosevelt have found the veldt rosy?

Is it even fair to address in poesie the class who en masse amass so much that they’d ought us thought otherwise, have bought their commissions against time, in goods trust, and thrust seedlings already sapped, blooded, blue, and cold, into trappings?

Jason Fairchild, Crimson Facade

Jason Fairchild, Professional Widow

ode to the monkey empire

by Adam Crittenden There’s a slight fear spreading in New Delhi and it has to do with rhesus macaques: their once small Machiavellian empire rises.

The monkeys decided to assassinate mayor S.S. Bajwa Saturday at his own terrace; their screeches echoed.

The humans are troubleshooting how to thwart the empire. Killing is not an option since monkeys are sacred, and panic is swelling.

After meticulous deliberation, human strategists have deployed langurs—larger, less threatening monkeys— as guards at the Commonwealth Games.

A langur should have no remorse when it tears a rhesus to pieces.

But the Monkey Empire isn’t duped so easily.

Some human strategists suggest that the empire is plotting a widespread refrigerator raid while the humans attend the games – an attack that would dishearten the human rebellion. For now, the humans can only speculate.

Jason Fairchild,

Palace Illuminaire

1.

5.

4.

3.

2.

ArtStars* in *Berlin!

From New Romantics dance parties to radio hosts with style, here is the must-do, must-meet list of Berlin culture-makers keeping the “New York of Europe” fresh, but not clean.

by Nadja Sayej

Learning the language in Germany is hard – but nothing compared to staying home for a fortnight. Here are the top 12 amazing places and people who made October superb. Shall we?

1. As the host of ArtStars*, a web-TV show about contemporary art, the first place we hit was the Preview Berlin art fair, which had the most hype.

Here, I interview Berlin artist Adrian Hermanides, who asked: “Who are you and why are you doing this?”

I’m thinking of making a t-shirt with that as the slogan.

2. Secondly, our 50th anniversary episode covers the Stockholm-based artist Carsten Holler show on at the Hamburger Bahnhof (FYI, Peaches and Michael Stipe from REM were at the opening). Here’s one of his pieces.

3. Chlorophorm TV is like the ArtStars* of the fashion world; and they’re our new best friends. This is me with Chlorophorm hosts Laura Von Laura and Joost Von Joost at a Fotographie booth in Kreuzberg. The eye makeup is what they call Panda – we interviewed them on this in ArtStars* episode 49.

4. New Romantics costume party? Yup, at LUX. Gender-bending costumes, frills and Blitz kids, here is Laura again forming a big letter L with a friend. I think we were talking about ex-boyfriends.

5. Berlin has way too many museums – a favourite remains the Byzantine collection at the Bode Museum.

ArtStars* in *Berlin!

6. Shopping!

7. Emmy Skensved and Gregory Blunt are Canadian artists working in Berlin.

8. The Peres Projects Halloween Party had the most epic lineup outside, it was unbelievable – people were lying, faking stamps, doing anything to get in. Javier Peres has got a reputation in the art world for throwing amazing parties.

9. Canadian artist Jeremy Shaw DJing at the Peres Projects Halloween party (as the Pope).

10.

Omigod. The Direktorenhaus is a new art space in Berlin, here is a picture of me with members from the collective Artiholics who installed a faux whorehouse called Club Mindfuck – for 5 Euros you could get 10 minutes in a private room with an artist. Here I am with the doctor (not of love).

11. Yaneq is a local radio personality who runs a radio art show on Motor FM radio, curates shows in an old car dealership building and runs Party Arty. He’s also kind of hot.

12. Peaches launched a rock opera at the Hebbell Theatre to commemorate the 10th anniversary of her first album released, the Teaches of Peaches. But I’ll get into that next issue. Till then, stay sharp.

6.

11.

10.

7.

8.

9.

Nuts

by Karin Fuller Mid day downtown. Park crowded. Benches full. Legs tired. Hot dog cooling. Ketchup coagulating. Blood pressure rising.

While searching for a place to sit, I update my tallies. My last six lunches have been eaten alone. Four while standing. The last 44 days, I’ve been the first to arrive and the last one to leave. It’s been 16 weeks since my last single day off.

I see a suit start to stand. The girl beside him stays seated. Smiling, she speaks. Smiling, he gives her his wallet and leaves. Her father, I suppose.

I sit. Nod a greeting. She inches away just a bit.

“From around here?” I ask.

She shakes her head no.

Attractive. Not pretty. No make up at all. Freckles spill off both sides of her nose. Her book is open, but her eyes are distant. Not on the page.

A squirrel approaches. I toss it a bit of my bun. Ignoring my morsel, it jumps onto her lap and relaxes. Its legs dangle, limp.

She appears unsurprised. Touches its fur lightly. The squirrel shivers. She rubs its back.

“Friend of yours?” I ask.

She shrugs.

“Hard to tell them apart,” says she.

I touch the immobile squirrel. Its eyes jerk open. It leaps down and races away.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. She shrugs.

There’s a loud burst of barking. It quickly grows closer.

“Cooper! Cooper!” The frantic owner yells.

And then, there is Cooper. German shepherd. Trailing leash. Smiling.

She smiles back.

Front paws on bench, haunches down. Dog in prayer. Heavy head rests in her lap. She touches him lightly. Cooper shivers. His eyes close.

The dog’s owner races up, breathless. He grabs the leash and yanks. Cooper struggles.

Eyes of glass, slow to focus.

Coop drags his paws as his apologetic owner tugs him away.

Two squirrels are advancing, often stopping to bicker. It feels like a me first! kind of thing.

The two leap in tandem. She gives one hand to each. Both do just as the first. Legs dangle. Eyes shut.

I smile. She smiles.

“Happen often?”

“Every day.”

“Odd gift,” I say.

“Squirrel masseuse.”

Another shared laugh. She’s more than attractive, I realize. More even than pretty.

Corey Armpriester, 13 “My sister finds lost things,” she says. “And my brother turns bad into good.”

“How so?”

“Real estate mostly,” she says.

The explanation feels satisfactory, so I nod.

“My sister returns what she finds,” she says. “Lives off the rewards.”

“Lives well?”

“Very.”

More nodding. Bobblehead me.

“You need to go soon,” she says.

She’s right. I need to go. Back to the office. Back where I belong. It feels like I can now, so I stand.

“Your gift?” I ask. “Making creatures relax?”

“My gift is their trust,” says she. “Complete trust. All animals.”

“Not as rewarding as finding things, I guess,” I say. “Or turning bad into good.”

She shrugs.

“You’re going to give me your wallet now,” says she.

And I do.

And she smiles.

I smile back.

RC Miller, Katy’s Meat Dress

I’m starting to feel awful already. like one of those whorish cannibals: i’ll take one with low self-esteem no muscles a variable amount of baggage & exploit him till’ it hurts it’s an art form really some abstract rendition of cynicism and sex whipped cream chains handcuffs enough for even my mother my sweet catholic cookie-baking mother to spit i’m sorry mommy i had sex on your kitchen counter right where you used to pack my lunches it was so good i hyperventilated. he pretended to look worried but my breathing into a brown bag was enough to sketch SMUG across his corny fucking grin for 8 years maybe 12

Fat: The New Flirty

by Alissa Greenberg

i thought i found love turned out: indigestion, hormones, & pearl jam no thanks to my english professor he didn’t make me hyperventilate, just cry until i was 6 lbs. heavier ten fold lonelier

i’m the self-involved type: too busy thinking about Santiago Chile & applying Hemorrhoid ointment to give some curly-headed boy with a hairy back any shot at love these days desperation isn’t sexy maybe being overweight & constipated in a burger king lunch line is where you find it love i mean.

RC Miller, Teen Mom

untouched

by Amanda Shea

In recent years, I have come to understand that there is a vast difference between being ashamed of oneself - rather, an aspect of oneself - and simply loathing the stereotypes and judgments that one knows a majority of people default to when they learn of said aspect.

Having a disability has never been something of which I am ashamed. It is merely something that is, always has been, and always will be. Unfortunately, to entirely too many others, it is an eyesore of a label that often detracts from my value as a woman; a constant reminder that I haven’t the right to femininity, I certainly cannot be beautiful, and sexuality is absolutely out of the question.

I choose to focus on femininity and female beauty simply because these are things that, for some, are irreconcilable with any sort of disability, no matter the degree to which one is afflicted. Come to think of it, all the words used to describe any such conditions are ugly, in and of themselves. “Disability” is the word that irks me least, though that says very little. It is a word that, for me, conjures images of telethons à la Jerry Lewis, begging sympathy and forced tears. “Handicapped” is a step down on the puke-inducing scale, and immediately transports me to some condescending assembly where an audience of unsuspecting and innocent children in wheelchairs, crutches, and walkers are spoken to slowly and loudly, called “sweetie,” and told that they are all, “very, very special.” Don’t get me started on “crippled,” which I can only bring myself to use in jest or reference to an animal with a missing appendage. And so, by a word and all its unsavory implications, I am relegated to a shadowy, condemned underworld – forced to stand meekly between the Quasimodo and the Elephant Man, and swallow my status as an ugly and undesirable non-woman. No, thank you. I impolitely refuse.

I have never defined myself as disabled because, doing so, I feel as though my selfpresentation is permeated by the implications of the word. I have a disability, but I am a woman first. My femininity, my beauty, my sex appeal are not some smile-and-nod, caricatureesque addendum to some pathetic delusion of normalcy. As for those who would say it is, I truly appreciate their willingness to expose their shallow and asinine concepts of what a good woman ought to be. That is not to say that I don’t absolutely respect every individual’s right to define attractiveness in their own way; however clichéd the phrase, beauty is unquestionably in the eye of the beholder. My contempt is reserved for those who judge me based on what they assume I must be incapable of doing and the deficiencies they imagine I must possess. Time and again, growing up, I heard that, “I would be beautiful if…” I was told that a pretty face and curves were wasted on someone “like me.” So much time was spent longing for that “if only,” and even more time spent wondering why that could never be. Finally, I realized that “if only” never came because it already was. There was never a need for conditionals, as I wouldn’t be “beautiful if,” I am beautiful and. Fall back and check all preconceived notions and archaic stereotypes – or yourself – at the door.

Erin Carlyle, Float

invented from clouds to fill you up with water a second skin, tightened to your belly. a ballad, bone, pool, and puddle. june and july stick to your insides. august wrapped up in blue. back steps upright against the spaces between your backbone between your sides speech is silent to what you dreamt under waves, over rift without air and only this: that borderline between yours and mine against all odds you breathing lungs folding, expanding, and holding sea watching, new species two events occurring both speaking and hoping for rain While beaches are painted holy miles of bloom stretches of fin, flashes of rocks Cousteau would turn, tell you to hold your own do not become anything but observe what has been we are a fish to a fish we aren’t really anything “we must plant the sea and herd its animals using the sea as farmers instead of hunters” and we react just to react and that is all we know but “now” is porous leaking changing blossoms into fine strings to float among the bandits that are breathing in reeds slow moving, shy like the air mid country bending outward, wanting beasts, creatures slip whatever the captain had wanted heralded towards land he would stand awake but not aware whatever it was I was beautiful

the aqualung Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the sea

by Maya Wren

Sansert Choabert, espejo

Sansert Choabert, espejo 9

Misperception

by Jason Bradford Laying on my bed after urinating— a forest appears in the window outside the window there are houses, and fences, I know they are there, because I am here, laying on my bed, because I cannot go anywhere else, I cannot see through the trees, all I see are leaves on trees where they aren’t always making faces in the matrix of branches in the hospital windows where I saw sketches of people, some happy, some not human, some sideways some like me, some more than others, I like them, am separated from the sky by space and shake in winter’s raspy voice.

Like a Cat Trying to Locate a Barking Dog

by Jason Bradford I try to make sense of too many things like how snowflakes never seem to intersect outside the hospital window or why that star that isn’t a star appears to be a fuzzy shade of brick.

I try to make sense of why I try to make sense of writing at night: lying in bed, facing a wall, eyes closed, mouth open, I hold debates in my head, I have nothing better to do than this, dream like I never knew light, bent like a straw, the drink we sip with pursed lips, like seeing what a photon sees at the end of a tunnel.

Can you imagine my daughter

your

table?

Eleanor Bennett, See City Through Me

at

by

Angela

Readman

I watched the eggs spit, the clear bit turn milky. One yolk was bright orange, invincible. The one beside it was a pale yellow that reminded me of broken wax crayons. Hamilton kept frying, then slid his breakfast onto the back of a pizza box. I brushed lint off my suit and just went.

The facility was near the university. I passed an oriental student whose name I couldn’t remember.

Good cheekbones, petite, a prestigious scholarship. I hoped she wasn’t going to the same place as me. I clutched my bag as if I could feel my whole life in one dog eared file. I went through the smoked glass doors.

The woman meeting me wore a white coat. She looked more like a woman at a make-up counter than a scientist.

‘You’re my 1 o’clock,’ she said, scribbling something down. I was late. We walked round the building.

I handed her my papers. She winced at my childhood photograph.

‘Does obesity run in your family?’ I mentioned puppy fat.

‘Fat puppies often grow into fat dogs.’ She said puppies like a black mark placed against my name.

‘Diabetes? Cancer? Speech impediments? Depression? Acne? What does your father do? How old was your grandmother when she died?’ She looked as if she might prise my chin back and inspect my teeth.

I answered the questions. She kept walking. The corridor had door after door on one side close together. She stopped in front of one of them, her hand hovering at the handle. I was still answering questions, No, No, No, yes, but only for a brief time when my mother died. The movoman mowed further down the corridor, past the prize winners and scientists now, heading towards graduates of less prestigious universities. She looked into my eyes.

‘Blue at least,’ she said, ‘reading glasses? Conjunctivitis?’

‘No.’ ‘Religious affiliation?’ I had to admit none, she rolled her eyes. I trotted behind her further down the hall.

‘Here,’ she said, at the last door in the corridor. She wrote down a sum on paper and said I couldn’t expect much more. It was a buyers market she said. The fat class photo and my Dad’s job let me down. I’d tried to convert to some religion to bump my worth, but the woman on the phone said it wouldn’t help much, what customers wanted was lineage, a history of success and morality in the genes.

I went through the door. She closed it behind me. The room was less wide than I was tall. In front of me was a one way window. I imagined buyers peering in at each woman clutching portfolios, doing aerobics or maybe reading a book to prove they were smart. Through the chipboard partitions I heard steps. I imagined couples walking along slowly and peering in like at a dog at the pound.

I sat on the chair facing my own reflection and imagined a sticker on the other side of the glass that said ‘reduced’. Not everyone would make it this far down the corridor, only the desperate, those on tight incomes who hoped to get a donor on sale.

‘Clients want to see you, to see if they can imagine your son or daughter at their table,’ the broker said. I sat in the small room and tried to convey a face not dissimilar to mine smiling over toast crumbs, dipping soldiers into eggs, tip toeing to shake whatever was under a Christmas tree. Can you imagine it? Can you? I thought, listening to footsteps, staring at the glass in front of me.

RC Miller, Selena’s Lips

nothing

by Charles Rammelkamp

“He’d go on and on about nothing,” Amanda laughed. “Literally.” She was describing to her

friends how she and Adam had met, the Philosophy class their junior year at college.

“Parmenides and Zeno and the idea of non-being, the Christian concept of creatio ex nihlio. The tradition of Christian mysticism – Bernard of Clairvaux and Meister Eckhart about the soul becoming Nothing so God can enter. The professor was the chaplain of the college and put heavy emphasis on Christian philosophers.”

“But he also talked about Eastern mystics and nothingness,” Adam corrected. “Taoism,

Zen. The value of a window is its empty space; the value of a cup is its empty space.”

“But mainly Western philosophers. The German Idealists – Fichte, Shelling, Hegel, negation

as part of the dialectical process, Nothing the antithesis of Being producing the synthesis of Becoming. Heidegger on the dread of Nothing, capital N. ‘das nichts nichet.’ The Nothing-nots.”

“Heidegger grants ontological status to Nothing,” Adam intoned, clearly mimicking the professor, and both he and Amanda laughed.

“Sounds really sexy,” Ron Rappaport commented, and his dry irony cut to the crux of the problem, as Adam saw it. He and Amanda had not had sex in at least a year. The nothingness of their sex life, he called it. The questionable value of the empty bed.

“Sartre recognized Nothingness as a basic category,” he said, standing up. “Can I get anybody anything to drink?”

Amanda shook her head. “No.” But then she reconsidered. “Maybe a beer. Yes.”

104

by Max Elstein Keisler

Sleep most of the day in the morning smoke nargilah and write a rhyme (try to write a rhyme) i want you, but i think you're too good for me (ooh, pretty sure you're too good for me) you're a dime and i'm a canadian penny you're smarter, you write better, you're older (older) think i might make this girl a mixtape like it's 1988, right?

Jean grae, tribe called quest represent boston represent, east coast pete rock nice with beats (beats) people get your hands up if you feel it, don't fake it it's two thousand ten and k's about to make it this girl is beautiful, like cats got no idea louis logic, that's my boy outkast outlast dj premier (outlasted guru) for real, they got no idea this girl's all over my head like a dilla bassline

JF, untitled

Dear Jukebox,

I couldn’t figure out where to get quarters at the store so I left in necessity, rather than joy. Please remember not to let the milk expire; you have always been so bad at eating breakfast in the morning. This is why the sun stopped coming up before 12. The last time I checked, you were staring into the eyes of that pinball machine like you couldn’t remember what tits were. The high score looked like an elegy, and you were bowing before your tombstone. I really am sick to death of metaphor though— this is why I’m leaving like nothing ever has.

Not like light after rain. Not like smoke, or drinking— not the end of the song. Not the end of a grocery list.

I’m leaving so I can remember how to get out of here without you. Last night when you cried my cheeks stung so bad, I thought I was having an orgasm. Only now I realize the regret in completion.

Yours always, Music

by Kurt Cole Eidsvig

Xavier Castellanos, Nocturnal Landscape

Xavier Castellanos, Astronomers

Turkey Day Ramblings

by Charles Wettlaufer

I've given up sex, afraid it will lead to something awful like an STD or falling in love.

I'm thinking this as I slide my carving knife into the tender breast of a bird.

Mother mumbles something apparently funny.

I force myself to laugh, trying to hide my hangover.

Things were easy when I was a socialite; drinking, talking, fucking my way into every circle.

I could've worn a cape.

Now when people talk I tend to wonder what the ocean's doing.

White wakes and black and blue, waves are unpredictable.

I finish carving turkey and have a seat.

Someone says the word "economy," and I think about the ocean.

Tom Linkens, ‘Zinn Film’

BURNER

ISSUE 01 Launch Party October 13, 2010.

Drake Underground.

Photos.

*to get our guests involved in the process of creating art, they were given disposable cameras upon arrival; these photos were all taken by Issue 01 launch party attendees.

SABEEN ABBAS is currently an MEd

candidate at York University. The highlight of her working life has been a year teaching English in Japan. She lives in Brampton and dreams of her next trip abroad. She blogs at abbassabeen.wordpress.com.

ANNIK ADEY-BABINSKI recently

moved nine hours north of Montreal to a small community where she teaches History and runs the after-school photo club. Having no social life is amazing for writing productivity! Annik has previously been published in the Soliloquies Anthology and the Scrivener Creative Review. If you would like to read more of her writing you can find her online at www.buckseabonesy.tumblr.com.

COREY ARMPRIESTER is an artist that

lives in Philadelphia, PA. He exhibits his art in Philadelphia and New York City and writes (artists interviews) for theartblog.org a Philadelphia based arts blog dedicated to contemporary art on an international scale. Corey's art is concerned with myths, legends and at times science.

ANDREW BATTERSHILL lives in Victoria

B.C. He was the 2010 winner of Irving Layton Award for fiction, and his winning entry will be featured in the upcoming Headlight Anthology. His fiction has appeared in Ripple Effect, The Claremont Review, and Soliloquies Anthology. He is a regular contributor to The Moose and Pussy Anthology.

ELEANOR LEONNE BENNETT is a

teenage photographer and award winning mixed media artist from Stockport, England. She was the only person in the UK to be placed with National Geographic in their See The Bigger Picture competition. She has had her work published/showcased in many countries around the globe including Canada, Paris, London, Hamburg and Madrid. Winner of the UK Butterflies under 16 competition, twice winner of the Big Issue photo competition, winner of the Wrexham Science Festival and category winner the Mencap SNAP! competition.

JASON BRADFORD received the Edna

Meudt Memorial Award from the NFSPS for his chapbook of poems, Remembering the Future. His poems have appeared in The Coe Review, Colere, The Pearl and Psychic Meatloaf.

FABRIZIO CALIGURI is a web creative

and photographer based in Milano, Italy. He loves to shoot on Polaroid with different types of cameras and films, and likes the concept of light directly impressed on paper and of an unique non-replicable shot. He has been featured on FWA Photo website and on Impossible Project Newsletter.

ERIN CARLYLE is a woman who has

experience, and she draws on her experience for her work. As a young woman in the rural south of the United States, she is obsessed with the oppression of female sexuality. The idea that a woman is either pure or impure and nothing in between is a constant theme in her work. After getting her BA in Printmaking from Western Kentucky University, she decided to forget the strict technicality of her education, and is now working more instinctually. She does what she wants with whatever medium she chooses.

XAVIER CASTELLANOS

(www.xavierart.com) had his first solo show at 15. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, moving to Mexico City with his family, where he won public acclaim and admission into the Mexico City art circle, his talent has received recognition from many of the masters of Mexican art, including JosĂŠ Luis Cuevas and Raul Anguiano.

Xavier moved to New York City in 1991 to study Fine Art Painting at The Art Students' League. His credits since 1988 include more than 50 solo exhibits and more than 70 group shows in the United States, Mexico, and Europe.

Xavier now divides his time painting between Mexico and San Francisco.

SANSERT CHOABERT was born in 1988

in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2008, Sansert started to exhibit her work in several places such as MACLA (Latin American Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires), Hellex Gallery (Barcelona, Spain) and Palermo H Art Gallery (Buenos Aires, Argentina). In 2010, Sansert was awarded for her selfportrait series “Tenebrarium” with an scholarship to study Visual Arts at the University of the Arts London.

SRIJON CHOWDHURY, 23, is a

Bangladeshi-American oil painter. He co-owns ‘The Gallery’ in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is currently living in Minneapolis while applying to MFA programs, brushing up on his critical theory, and rounding out his portfolio. www.srijonchowdhury.com

ANDY COOK is a fine art and

documentary photographer currently based in New Orleans. His work focuses on the American urban landscape and our relationship to it. Born in Baltimore, MD, Cook moved to New York City in 2000 to attend Cooper Union. After receiving his BFA there, he returned to Baltimore where he co-directed Current Gallery, an art space and music venue, worked as a staff photographer for a weekly newspaper, and exhibited his work regularly. In 2009, he relocated to New Orleans, where he currently is the photo editor for the local food magazine Edible New Orleans. His most recent project is a book of photographs entitled ‘In The Air’, a collection of images from Baltimore taken between 2005 and 2010.

ADAM CRITTENDEN is currently

working on an MFA at New Mexico State University and editing for Puerto Del Sol, where he will be publishing a review. He currently teaches freshman composition and has recently taught poetry for the local Community Education program. "Skin," another one of his poems, will soon appear in the next issue of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

KURT COLE EIDSVIG’s poetry has

appeared in journals like Hanging Loose, Slipstream, Main Street Rag, BigREDandShiny, Borderlands, and others. I am a visual artist and poet who lives and works in the Fort Point Arts Community in Boston, Mass.

JASON FAIRCHILD is a modern

conceptual artist that currently uses painting as the fastest and best way to get his message out there. His art is free - form theatre that narrates expressions of our contemporary, unsettled culture that spark various interpretations and numerous associations allowing memories and questions to flow. Jeremy Sedley of New Art International said “by bringing aesthetic and isolated focus to such kinetic subject matter, as portals, fractures and psychic superimposition , Jason Fairchild ventures respectful oblations toward untested limits to human perception. His often cunning dissections of visual category veered toward an element neutral objectivity while merging with an allegiant anthropomorphic sympathy ."More of his work can be seen at www.daggerroom.com/jason

KARIN FULLER has been a lifestyle

columnist for The Sunday-Gazette Mail, West Virginia's largest newspaper, for 13 years. Her columns were awarded first place in the United States by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in 2003, and in 2008, she won an arts fellowship for memoir from the West Virginia Division of Culture & History. Publishing credits include Family Circle, Woman’s World, Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Parent, and Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers, among others.

Karin resides in South Charleston, WV, with her husband Geoff, her 13-year-old daughter Celeste, and the family’s three dogs, two cats, and two rabbits.

ALISSA GREENBERG is a hippie English major at Northern Arizona University.

She fills her life with literature, esoteric adventures and as much creative writing as possible.

ALAN HARDING (born 1989) is a visual

artist based in Leicester, UK. He recently graduated from DeMontfort University with a BA in Photography and video, and has continued to experiment with moving image, paint, mixed media and photography, holding shows and exhibitions throughout the country.

He primarily works using 35mm black and white negatives, preferring the natural grain and imperfections to digital photographic techniques, which have enabled him to develop a signature feel, by pushing the negatives to their limit, which results in high contrast, gritty photographs.

LANNIE HART is primarily a sculptor

and painter and recently had a oneperson show at SOHO20 gallery in New York City. Her work explores the roles and destinies of women in a changing society. After the show she started working on a new group of work based on poetry that has empowered and inspired women through the ages.

Her work is drawn from her rural beginnings in the South, where she learned from the women in her family to use objects found in the home and in nature to create art. She has shown at the Museum for Contemporary Crafts in NYC and at numerous juried craft shows. Her more current work has also been shown at the Katonah Museum and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. She is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA. Ms. Hart is also a graphic artist, and has traveled to and worked in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Europe. Her website is www.lanniehart.com

JUSTIN E. HINTE finds himself situated in

the lively, chaotic, brother loving, art blooming beauty of the city Philadelphia, PA. Progressing through a life of new understandings and refinement of the mind, invigorated by his loved ones, and leading a constant pursuit to give freedom from the grip of this delusional way of thought posed by the "reality" fed to us as our only option in life by the perpetrators who aim to purchase your free will by making sure that you depend on their money.

WILL JOHNSON is a New York-based

freelance writer. His work has been featured in metro, the New York Press, TimeOutNY, the Asbury Park Press and numerous literary magazines. Anyone who is interested in his readings or other events may contact him at willhjohnson777@hotmail.com."

A.J. KANDATHIL grew up in a small

town in western Pennsylvania known for its empty steel mills, four-wheeler accidents, and $1 parking tickets. She graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations and after settling labor disputes for three years, she opted for early retirement and holed up in her apartment for a year to write her first novel, Water is a Woman. She is currently a creative nonfiction student at Hunter College where she's at work on her first memoir, which may or may not be titled Amy Burns.

MAX ELSTEIN KEISLER was born in

Boston in 1992, he's lived there his whole life, right now he's doing college. When the Guru of Gang Starr died he switched from writing 'folk songs' to hip hop. He's working on a novel that should be done eventually.

LYN LIFSHIN’s recent books include HE

LICORICE DAUGHTER: MYYEAR WITH RUFFIAN, Texas Review Press, ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME from Black Sparrow at Godine., following COLD COMFORT and BEFORE IT’S LIGHT, DESIRE and 92 RAPPLE. She has over 120 books & edited 4 anthologies.

Her web site is www.lynlifshin.com

TOM LINKENS is a fashion and art

nude photographer, mostly working in New York City, sometimes Philadelphia...or places more remote in PA., like with this photo of Zinn Star.

MICHAEL J. MARTIN Letter to the

Wolfman—Dear Mr. Wolfman: How do you keep your claws from tearing the publications Michael James Martin has had his poems appear, such as The New York Quarterly, or NOO 13, or Zoland Poetry no. 5? … signed, anonymous.

Response: Well, those three have yet to be published, termed forthcoming, but with New CollAge Magazine I had someone read it to me. Juked & Word Riot on the other hand are electronic publications so I simply paw at the screen helplessly. No damage is done.

There have been times where I call Michael and have him read me poems, if I happen to shred the pages.

Would you like his number?

RC MILLER lives in Metuchen, New

Jersey and maintains a site at http:// visionblues.blogspot.com/

JOSH NADEAU has recently

transplanted himself into the heart of the city of Calgary, within a stone's throw of the Rocky Mountains. He works as a full-time Catholic missionary and spends his off-hours writing thankyou cards, ignoring his television, and playing Quidditch. His house looks like someone bought a bungalow and hired five postmodern architects to build in five different directions at once.

FRASER NELUND is, in no particular

order, a Winnipegger, student, husband, and general layabout by day. He spends his nights writing wrongs. His poems have appeared in Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology For A Prorogued Parliament and Ampersand.

ALLISON LEIGH PETERS won an

Academy of American Poets Prize in 2010. Her most recent work has appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Connotation Press, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Fortnight Literary Press and Third Wednesday. She lives and works in Ann Arbor.

MADELINE PHILLIPS, a poetess with

lyrical tendencies, was born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas. She is a recent Creative Writing graduate from the University of Central Arkansas.

She is a contributing editor for Ghost Ocean Magazine and has contributed work to Vortex Literary Magazine, The Echo, 501Life Magazine, Delsol Review, and Ellipsis. She has forthcoming poems in The Oral Tradition.

CHARLES RAMMELKAMP lives in

Baltimore with his wife in their empty nest, daughters having grown up and left home. Most recent books include a full-length collection of poetry, The Book of Life, published by March Street Press, and Castleman in the Academy, a collection of short fiction, likewise published by March Street Press. A chapbook entitled Mixed Signals is scheduled for publication in 2010 by MuscleHead Press. He also edits the online poetry journal, The Potomac: http://thepotomacjournal.com/

ANGELA READMAN’s poetry

collection, Strip, is with Salt publishing.

Her poetry was commended in The Arvon International Poetry Competition 2010. She secretly loves to write prose.

This is the first year she's sent her stories out.

FABIO SASSI is a musician,

photographer and writer. He has been a visual artist since 1990, focused on making acrylics with the stencil technique on canvas, board, old vinyl records or other media. He uses logos, icons, tiny objects and shades to create weird perspectives. Many of his subjects are inspired by a paradox, either real or imaginary, and by the news. Over the last 20 years, Fabio has been very active in the Mail Art network with more than 1000 projects joined.

AMANDA SHEA is a 21-year-old

student attending the University of South Florida in Tampa. Majoring in journalism, her passion lies within the written word. Amanda's (quasi) professional career began in high school when she briefly wrote for the Citrus County Chronicle newspaper.

She is an avid music lover and native of Queens, New York City

JOHN STOCKS is a widely published

and anthologized writer based in Sheffield, UK. His poetry has been featured in magazines in the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa, Pakistan and India, some of his work being translated into Urdu.

John is currently excited at the prospect of appearing alongside Leonard Cohen and Seamus Heaney in an anthology, ‘Soul Feathers’, produced for Macmillan cancer care, and is looking forward to completing his hilarious second collaborative novel, ‘Beer, Balls and The Belgian Mafia’, written in partnership with Big Al. He likes to think of himself as an engaging hybrid of rimbaudesquewussy poet, football hooligan, affable man of the people and citizen of the world, but is occasionally forced to admit that he is not to everyone’s taste. He can be contacted at bladeinnotts@hotmail.com

AUTOM TAGSA is a collaborative

communications and marketing professional. In addition to his longstanding passion for poetry and creative writing, he pays close attention to emerging web-based innovations and their influence on work, play and life overall. Through consistent, thoughtful connections with his social network, he appreciates the profound impact of social media, avidly participating in its remarkable evolution.

SUSI Q., originally from Adelaide,

Australia, lives and works in the New York City and Washington D.C. areas.

Susi shows her work in both Australian, New York, and D.C. galleries. She often combines simple block colours and cute sculptures to create palatable, playful, yet intriguing works that aim to effectively communicate with the majority. Susi is a passionate and dedicated artist who also has an interest in fusing visual art with public interaction and activism.

JESSICA TREMP, born in 1981, grew up in Switzerland before moving to Melbourne at the age of 18. She brought with her a love for theatrics, romanticism and nature and has started combining these with her growing passion for the art of photography a few years ago.

She hopes her work may lead you into a world filled with drama, where she tries to tug at your heart strings or into a world of imagination and humor. She draws inspiration from

Blues music, a bowl of spaghetti eaten alone, hugs, fights, the animal kingdom, uncomfortable social experiences, daydreaming of running with the wolves and from somewhere deep inside that we all feel is there but can never quite put words to.

ELSA OREJUDOS VALMIDIANO is a

writer, poet, partner, feminist, kayaker, cyclist, law graduate, and women’s freedom fighter. Philippine-born and California-raised, she currently resides with her partner in Oakland. Her poetry has been published in several literary journals, chapbooks, and anthologies in the San Francisco Bay Area and yay, one literary journal in her native Los Angeles, AND her first short story was recently published in a London anthology called Same Difference.

CHARLES WETTLAUFER is living in Las

Vegas and is the owner and operator of a small travel website, VIPFantasyVegas.com. As a recreational writer, he tries to put words to the internal feelings he has trouble making sense of. This in the end, gives him a better understanding of himself and the relationships in his life.

ALEKS WOSZCZYNA is an OCAD

graduate who has been working with a point and shoot aesthetic since she realized that what bring her most joy about the concept of photography is capturing moments of happiness and beauty, impulsively. Shooting camera flashes in the faces of people in mid laughter or capturing a road-trip driveby. Four years of art school later, you're left a poor artist shooting only what you love.

MAYA WREN is a college student in St. Louis. She writes music and rides a scooter.

JF is an artist/DJ/producer. One half of

TheFranDiscos, he learned how to draw from watching cartoons and is addicted to black crack (vinyl records). Likes: tattoos, high-tops, bong hoots & steaks medium rare. Dislikes: fake DJs, bad sound systems, shady promoters & yappy dogs

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