Cabildo Quarterly.
Issue number ten! Fall 2016. Pittsburgh PA; Cape Cod. They’ll crucify you, you’re not part of the establishment.
Dance to the Music an excerpt from Medication Time: An Epic Poem by Kat Georges The local college bar deejay plays the current hits including one dubbed in a review that went viral as “kinda rape-y.” Kinda rapey. The uncensored version of the video featured naked young women in heels dancing with men in suits. “Nightclub lotharios.” The song used a riff ripped off from another song popular in an age where no songs were dubbed “kinda rape-y.” A women at a college bar who had read the “kinda rape-y” review informed the deejay playing the song that hearing it made her “uncomfortable.” She suggested that he stop playing it immediately and instead play more pleasant songs, aligned with her identification of the bar as “a safe space.” Safe. A bar with 20 shelves of liquor filled with men and women eager to drink, get drunk, have sex, and sleep in late the next morning. In another era, the leader of a popular band was quoted as saying, “The purpose of a bar band is to make people relax on Friday nights, dance and drink, and feel so happy by the end of the night that they just want to go home and screw.” The purpose of a bar. A band. Music. Kinda rape-y. The deejay told the woman that he refused to stop playing the song. The woman complained to the bar owner. The dee jay was fired that night. Word got out online and soon the name of the woman did too. She was condemned. Vilified. Shamed and called filthy names for years. The deejay remains unidentified. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? We keep pointing fingers at each other these days while the real villains stare down at us from afar, chewing gum and handing out pills. Medication time. Time for a change. Medication time. Spit it out. Then run like hell. KAT GEORGES is the author of Our Lady of the Hunger and co-director of Three Rooms Press, a fiercely independent press inspired by dada, punk, and passion. She lives in Greenwich Village, NY.
Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, Ken Filiano an exceprt from The Other Night At Quinn’s by Mike Faloon
“Sarcasm is the week at work. Snarky shouldn’t even be a word.” —Minus 5, “Sweet”
*** I have a morning flight out of LaGuardia. It leaves too early to take a train to the airport and a taxi would cost too much. My friend Pedro has been working near LaGuardia for the past several weeks. He usually leaves for work long before sunrise. He offers me a ride and before I know it his headlights are gliding up the driveway at half past four. I offer him money for gas, but he declines. I’m extremely grateful and tell him numerous times. He politely changes topics. He’d rather talk about the Mets. *** Vocalist Ingrid Sertso gestures, places her fingers to her lips, like a chef who’s found the right blend. Karl Berger’s glasses rest on the tip of his nose as he moves to his left, dances behind his vibraphone. He finishes a run, then bounces, skips, back to his right just in time to reel off the next one. Sertso pauses, tunes into Berger’s vibes, and lets her fingers move across an imaginary keyboard. Between them sits bassist Ken Filiano, tethering the lighter-than-air sounds of his bandmates. *** I arrive at the airport to find that my flight’s been delayed, which puts my connecting flight in jeopardy, which makes me wonder if I’ll be able to contact the friends picking me up in L.A. I’m tired and hungry and growing impatient. I’m starting to feel the day slip away when I drop my water bottle and accidentally spray the woman standing behind me. I kneel down to clean up and notice that her bag is wet too. Before I can apologize she’s handing me a tissue. Then she takes out one for herself and asks if I got any on me. First Pedro, now the water bottle lady, at every turn the day is marked by uncommon generosity. Even the book I’m reading, Mike Sacks’ Poking a Dead Frog, fits the profile. Much of the book is devoted to young writers and performers. It could easily slide into a series of chats with the self satisfied, but his range of subjects and ever-present curiosity are too great. He interviews sitcom pioneer Peg Lynch, 96-years-old and still writing each day, about Ethel and Albert, the radio and TV show she created, wrote, and starred in back in the ‘40s. Later, when he references old television shows, he provides bits of context (“Taxi (1978-1983)”) rather than presume he’s preaching to the converted. *** Sertso sits on a stool. A black scarf rests around her neck, a half a dozen bracelets on each wrist, her purse hanging from a music stand. She often sings with her eyes closed, like the notes are there to be sensed, felt more than seen, found rather than created. She guides the lyrics, shepherds language into the world. Her lyrics are unflinchingly earnest but the rhythms consistently connect. “Time is in this Time is in Time is Time Is” She loops back to the first line and repeats the sequence: “Time is in this Time is in Time is Time Is” Seeing that pattern on the page reminds me of a computer class I took in high school, probably ’85 or ‘86. Dave Finney and I were trying to skate by. We typed up a list of our favorite groups, including his band: 10 Kinks 20 Yes 30 Minutemen 40 Moody Blues 50 Milk Cow Pumpkin 60 Traffic 70 Eric Clapton 80 Black Flag 90 Monkees 100 Go to 10 Run It seems that we spent all of our class time running that simple program, watching the names scroll over and back across the green-on-black screen, then adding more band names. This is the future, we thought dismissively, distracting and fun and useless. (If only we’d started developing apps.) *** After each song Sertso, Berger, and Filiano grin at each another. They reach out and clasp hands, call out each other’s names. My old punk bands used to exchange looks of pleasant surprise whenever we ended a song in unison. But this trio has been active for decades, landed thousands of songs, and yet each one still merits a momentary celebration. They are uncommonly generous and supportive. Tonight it’s not about bending time signatures or displays of virtuosity. It’s not about venturing into the unexpected. It’s about reframing the expected. *** During my layover in Dallas I step aside to charge my phone. Still no word from my friends in L.A., but fate insists on reiterating its “People are inherently good” theme for the day. As I’m checking the phone’s progress I hear a gentle voice over my shoulder. “Excuse me, am I in your way?” I turn to see an elderly woman’s kind face. She too is holding a charger. Hers is attached to a portable respirator. A few minutes later, walk-
ing away with her family, wheeling her respirator, she stoops over to pick up a candy wrapper that someone else has carelessly dropped. *** Sertso and Berger, synch up, voice and vibes. They match rhythms but it’s the combination of their timbres that floats to the foreground. Meanwhile Filiano thumps along, a sound so sweet and reliable and there, always there, providing the fulcrum on which everything balances. Their music is light and breezy, yet grounded. It’s like seeing my kids fly kites on the beach last summer. Watching from a distance the kite string was invisible, as if their hands alone maneuvered the kites. They sprinted across the beach, kicking up puffs of sand, working like mad to keep those flimsy plastic sheets aloft. The whole thing seemed magical but it was sweat and exertion that yielded that beautiful sense of verticality and stretching, that sense of trust and release. *** “The joy is in the existence / To know love is to know” Taken in isolation, Sertso’s lyrics give me pause. Combined with the bass and vibraphones, though, they yield songs that stimulate rather than numb. In lesser hands they might tumble into the ravine of hippy naivety. But there’s something wiser, time-tested that keeps them on terra firma. I see another glimpse of this after the show. A fan approaches Sertso to buy a CD. She says the disc costs $15. He has a twenty. He waits for her to offer change. They chat a bit, chanteuse and fan, and moments later he’s saying “keep the change.” “Are you sure?” she asks. He is now, and glad of it. It’s not a hustle. Not a mind trick. Just part of the routine for a seasoned performer. The exchange doesn’t detract from the band’s idealism. To the contrary. Moments like these provide contrast, round them as people. *** I arrive late in Los Angeles. My friends were stuck in traffic so they’re late, too, just pulling up when I get to the curb. My worrying was for naught. They ask if I’m hungry and minutes later we’re in a burrito joint in East L.A. They let me pick up the tab and I’m finally able to return a favor. MIKE FALOON is the author of The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock and the co-editor of Fan Interference. He has contributed to Cashiers du Cinemart, Razorcake, Submerging Writers, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. His next book, The Other Night at Quinn’s, is due out next year.
Impulse by Katelyn Kenderish
Voice can be the fact of structure. Cell by cell, trees know to elongate, replicate and stretch so leaves unfold. Chlorophyll knows nothing but thirst to turn light to sugar that surges down, while roots braid thicker, spin thinner at the tips, netting ground. Urge built by unconscious calculation, signals determined by need, measured by intensity of hunger for change. Branches arch towards the lightest sky. Filament roots plunge to stratospheric substrate, recognize in the place to pause its total rest, relief of cool damp. KATELYN KENDERISH lives in Seattle, writes, and collects images and stories about earrings at the Lost Earring Archive.
Closure by Robert Walicki
A tiny lobe crusts, stuck with a prick of metal. Little hole on my left where I kept diamonds stainless studs, then I let them close up, waited for a bus to sell my my Thompson Twins and Dead or Alive’s for five bucks. New Order and Joy Division for in store credit. I checked the display case for my reflection and rare Bowie bootlegs, cut my hair and washed the color from my face, The ghost in me, breathing. “I want everything you’ll give me for six Erasures and The Smiths”. “Do you have anything harder?”, I say, “Something loud. I want it to hit like a fist” Something to turn me into a man. ROBERT WALICKI’s work has appeared in journals in print and online. His latest chapbook is The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press, 2015).
Dear Dave In Human Resources by Wred Fright Dear Dave in Human Resources, It's been a few years, hasn't it? I imagine that you have resourced many humans since you resourced me. As a result, you probably don't remember me. Frankly, I barely remember you. I recall a thick head with blondish hair and a plump body filling out a polyester suit, like a creampuff where the baker sneezed and squeezed out a little extra in the puff. Otherwise, you were always indistinct like a figure crossing the street far off in the background of a photograph. I only had to deal with a few human resources types in my time, but blandness seemed to be part of the vocation. Perhaps it made it easier to deal with the streams of human beings flowing past your office door and them I remember. They were quite something. I liked some of them like the Elvis fan whose job was to pour in vats of chemicals. I don't remember his name, but we had some nice conversations discussing our favorite Elvis songs. And I do remember Bootsie's name. You probably remember her also since she seemed like a lifer in the factory. She probably was there until the end. I even went on a couple of dates with her. It fizzled out when she refused to have sex. She said that she was saving it for marriage. She wouldn't even do oral because she thought it was gross and she seemed to push my hands away anytime I reached inside her pants. She said there was only one thing she would do, but I never figured out what it was, and she wouldn't tell me. I was a more innocent lad in those days, and she seemed innocent as well, so that was a puzzle. What else was there? Looking back now, I suppose she meant anal. What do you think, Dave? Did I miss my chance to peg a factory hottie? Anyway, I digress. The point is that you had your college students, your immigrants, your trailer park dwellers, and your down on your luckers like me. You even had your old people that that eccentric owner kept foisting on you. I never quite understood why the company had an assembly line staffed by senior citizens. And, of course, after that horrible accident with the stuck walker and the lost hearing aid, the company didn't any longer. How did you decide to hire them though when you did have them? Whichever one had the most infirmities? It sure seemed that way. My favorite was the guy who used to crawl to the breakroom on breaks. I respected his perseverance but never understood why he bothered since by the time he reached there it was usually time to head back to the line. Anyway, you get the idea. You've seen a lot of people in your time, so you probably don't remember me. I do remember you though. Mainly, I remember one annoying thing you did. When I left that job to jump on another opportunity, I wasn't able to give you two weeks' notice. This seemed to vex you, though I sincerely apologized. I couldn't let that opportunity pass by though. Personally, I didn't see what the problem was. Just find another human being to plug in the line. It's not like anyone needed any skills to work in that place. Just look at Walter. I bet you remember Walter. He was probably there when you got there, and he was probably there up to the end. God knows what's become of him now that the factory's closed. I doubt many other employers are eager to hire someone who likes to have loud arguments with the ceiling. I used to especially enjoy when he would threaten to fornicate the ceiling's mother. Some of the women in the factory seemed disturbed by his behavior, but I thought of it as a benefit, free entertainment. One much better than that chintzy health insurance you offered by the way. Anyway, with workers such as that, I couldn't understand why you couldn't have had a fine employee such as myself come back when he wanted to. Instead, you said I was banned for life. That was quite distressing to me. I always like having a backup plan. I mean it wasn't like I enjoyed the factory or anything, a man just likes to have options. I didn't appreciate the fact that you wouldn't let me go parttime or return if things didn't work out with the new job. It was all quite disappointing. I did form a grudge against you. Not so much the company, just you. Even though you said it was company policy, I suspect it was actually your policy. Anyway, so. Isn't it annoying, Dave, how everyone likes to start off sentences these days with "so"? But it seems to fit here. So, I heard the news. I read recently about your recent misfortune and decided to very decently be decent about it. Thus, this letter! By the way, don't waste your time dusting it for fingerprints or doing detective work. You might note that the return address is that of our former employer's, which is currently an empty building up for sale. I can't imagine who wants to buy a factory that looks like a horse farm, but maybe there's someone out there. Maybe a glue factory will move in, and they can house the horses in the fake stables, though I suppose they would be real stables then. What do you think, Dave? Never mind. Let me tell you what I think. I did dream for several years that our positions might be reversed, and you would have to come to me for a job. I put aside this unlikely fantasy, but I did nurture my grudge. Why not? It's always refreshing to have a hobby and revenge is just like any other hobby really, something to tinker around with in one's spare time or when an opportunity comes one's way. Fortunately, I never had need to return to our place of employment, so the grudge was never actively developed. So, if anyone ever slashed your tires in the parking lot, Dave, it wasn't me. I had other concerns. Like I wrote earlier, I barely remembered you. For, since I left our employment connection, I did have several jobs, and, indeed, I met many other human resources professionals, but, for some reason that I cannot precisely identify, you always stood out to me as the human resourciest. Probably because you said that since I didn't give two weeks' notice, I couldn't come back and be employed again there ever, and that irritated me. I was a model employee. Some of those people weren't. Hector. Jesus, Hector. He used to go to the bathroom ten times a shift. Sometimes he'd fall asleep in the middle of a bowel movement. We'd have to go wake him up when we got tired of filling in for him. You tolerated many a Hector over the years. But me, I was good. I did a good job. I just couldn't stay there forever making widgets for the company and making a pittance for pay. Still, a fellow likes to keep his options open, so that's why it bugged me. Anyway, whether it was company policy or just your policy, it was still a dumb policy. Not that it matters now. The company's gone. That
idiot owner finally ran it into the ground, huh? That must have been a bummer for you. You had been there, what, 15 years? That's a big chunk of your life. It's probably been a decade since I saw you, so I thought I would fill you in on what I've been up to. I worked in some more factories since I worked for you. Then I got into the office mode. That paid better. It was easier too generally, which was kind of weird. In any case, I haven't worked in a few years, not because I'm unemployed or anything like that; it's just at the last job I went in along with everyone in the office on a lottery ticket. Yes, I rather know that lotteries are a tax on the mathematicallychallenged. I just gave in out of peer pressure. I mean it was only a buck anyway. What's a buck? 10 minutes of my time? Five minutes of my time? I can give that up if it keeps the ladies of the office happy. Actually, I really only bought the ticket because I found fetching the woman who was going around collecting the money. Hey, Dave, you ever hire anyone just 'cause she was hot? I bet you have, you little minx. That's probably how Bootsie ended up there. I sure would. I mean I know work has to get done, but it's nice to have some pleasant scenery along the way. Anyway, back to the lottery. We won. Someone's got to win, right? It might as well have been us. We all quit, except for Marion. Ugh, Marion! Who would want to work when one doesn't have to? Marion. You don't know Marion, so I'll stop mentioning her. Anyway, I was done with work. I had no need for a job anymore and no need for human resources humans. Indeed, I barely have a need of other humans in general, except for distant commercial transactions. I'm not growing my own food, so I do depend on other humans for products and services such as that. I spent enough time wearing ties and grinding it out on the line. I had better things to do with my time. Except I didn't. After some time, just being able to do whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, got a little boring. I needed some purpose. I wanted to do something good for the world. That's when I thought of you. Not that you're good for the world or anything like that. I just thought of your type, you know, the h.r. person, the personnel manager. I never liked you folks. How does one become an h.r. person anyway? How do you get hired to hire people? None of you h.r. folks ever seemed to have any skills whatsoever; it was puzzling to me. Yet,--by the way "yet" is a cooler word than "so"--you all had jobs and I wanted one so I had to make small talk with you and answer really dumb questions and take it seriously just so I could put some food in my mouth. I mean, "Why do you want to work for us?" What a stupid question! "Because I'm not independently wealthy and I need a job!" Plus the landlord wants cash, despite my frequent entreaties to pay the rent by sex. And I got angry because of thought of all those people in the world who were just trying to get a job, who weren't going to go out and rob a pizza store or some nonsense and instead just spend eight hours a day doing some mundane, boring activity that someone getting paid money would only do. And those poor people had to go get interviewed by some h.r. hyena like you. Ah, sorry, Dave! I'm getting a little fired up. Please keep reading. I promise it will be worth your time. And, you're unemployed now, right? So, honestly, your time is not worth much. No one's paying you for it. So you might as well keep going. Maybe you will learn something about what it is like to be a job applicant nowadays and how hard it is for you to find a position. Anyway, I thought of all the people that really couldn't tell the h.r. hyena what he or she really thought, or tell the boss what he or she really though. Instead, they just had to take it. Worse, they had to pretend that they liked it. Whenever someone tells me that they loves their job, I know to get far away from that person. Either they are lying or delusional. Whatever the case, I don't want to deal with them. So, anyway, I decided to avenge them all, all those people who had to work for a living. If they couldn't stand up for themselves because they needed to make a paycheck and feed their families, then I could do what they couldn't. I don't want to get all voice for the voiceless on you, Dave, because it wasn't all that. It was also fun. Like the time I went to an interview, said, "It's hot in here," and started taking off my clothes one by one until I was just sitting there in my underwear when the interviewer--a skinny blonde--finally called security. I didn't get that job, Dave, let me tell you. That was fine. I didn't want it anyway. I had plenty of money to live on. I didn't need a job. I just needed a purpose. And my purpose was putting the human back in human resources. You'd think that people who have a job where they have to deal with people all day would like people, but, Dave, I'm telling you that isn't often the case. But, anyway, I went on a lot of interviews, and I had a lot of fun. Looking back, I probably did take things to a pretty far limit. For example, there was the time I defecated in my pants during an interview. The interviewer--a portly, balding white man who reminded me of my Uncle Gus--oh, you don't know my Uncle Gus. He was a character, let me tell you. Never mind. Anyway, I shat myself, and he didn't say anything. The smell was pretty bad, but I give the old man credit. He kept going through the paces anyway, explaining to me all about some stupid job I had no interest in anyway. Finally, he just puked right on his desk. I felt a little bad about that one, Dave, but revenge isn't pretty. I'm sure he tormented a few jobseekers in his time. Another time, I got up on a table in the middle of an interview, pulled my pants down, and had a nice poop, right in the middle of the table. That was a group interview. They all ran out of the room. By the way, that was my response to the question, "Tell us about a challenging situation you had at work and how you dealt with it?" I bet you've asked that one in your time, Dave. Is there some stupid website where h.r. types all get their stupid questions from? Please let me know, so I can hire some hackers to launch a denial of service attack against it.
Oh, that's right, you don't know who I am, so you can't write back to me Never mind. I'll put that on my to-do list. Anyway, some interviews I don't remember because I showed up too drunk. Some of the drunk ones I remember though. This one time I was taking a personality test, and I just kept giggling and doodling penises on the answer sheet. Security escorted me out that time also. Security and I tend to get along real well, so that's not a problem. One guy even thanked me. He said everyone there hated the h.r. department anyway, so they were glad someone was punking them. Another time, I picked up some homeless guy, bought him a forty, and we went to the interview together. I told the receptionist that he was my therapy animal. I didn't even get to the interview on that one, but the homeless guy had fun. He wanted me to take him on more interviews, but, since I didn't even get to the actual interview, I didn't. Falling asleep was another good one. One time, this plant manager was giving me a tour of the factory when he got called away. I found a supply closet and took a nap on some rolls of toilet paper. They were all boxed up, so I just emptied out the boxes and made a little pile to lie down on. Surprisingly, no one ever woke me up. I just woke up on my own, stumbled out of the closet, and left the plant. I think the one who got the most angry at me was this old woman, and she was mad that I was chewing tobacco during the interview, especially when I started spitting into her trashcan. That was a quick interview, Dave! Now, Dave, I don't want you to think that I think it's all right for people to shit and spit and do disgusting things on job interviews. I really think people should be polite and thoughtful and take care of one another. But this is war, Dave, and war is unpleasant. So, when I take the war to h.r., I can't always use the finest of etiquette. It's humiliating enough having to work for a living; having to grovel just to get some work is just too much for me to bear. True, it's a one-man war, but it's important that even though the job applicants of the world are going to lose, have their time wasted with inane forms, inane questions, and other timewasting stuff since no one cares about their time, it's important that it's not a shutout, you know. So I took my shots. I bet those h.r. folks were different after meeting me. Maybe not. I might be crediting the average h.r. drone with a bit more humanity than he or she is capable of In any case, I tried to spice things up. I remember during one interview I started hitting on the interviewer, chatting her up. I think it was almost working too until the department head showed up to interview me as well and I started hitting on him also. That was quickly the end of that, which I was quite relieved about. I'm no switch-hitter, Dave. Despite my fondness for doodling pensises, I only like the ladies. Unfortunately, they don't like me, so I have a lot of time on my hands, which works out, since I have this important project on my hands. Well, did. I am retiring. Too many close calls with law enforcement, plus the h.r.ers seem to be tightening up demanding i.d.s, blah blah blah, security cameras, biometrics, yadda yadda yadda. It isn't as much fun as it used to be. I mean there's only so many times one can answer a phone call in the middle of an interview and have a conversation about venereal disease test results or what brand of cat litter to purchase. At this point, I think I've gotten the entire range of reactions from the h.r.ers, so it is a good point to call it a career, er, noncareer. Which brings me to you, Dave. You might be wondering at this point, why such a distinguished human resources professional with your experience is having such trouble finding his next gig. Well, Dave, I don't know how to gently put this to you, so I'll just put it to you roughly, the way Bootsie probably wanted it, but in all those years when I was defecating on desks, showing up drunk to interviews, and so on, I was using your name on the applications. So no matter how accomplished your human resourcing is or how demonstrated your success is, probably no one's going to hire you. I mean somebody out there might, but I was interviewing pretty heavily for a few years. I would sometimes do two or three a day. Hey, everyone needs a hobby, right? You know that resume you just threw up on Monster a few years ago, I just used it mainly. I changed a few details such as the phone number, but you are still "a Human Resources leader who can provide" oh, I can't recite that resume tripe even in this case. So I do apologize, Dave. It was nothing personal. You were just a human that I needed to resource. WRED FRIGHT is the author of the novels The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus and Blog Love Omega Glee. www.wredfright.com
Sound Spirals by Saloni Kaul
Sound like a breathing spiral moves both ways Has its all-highs and has its lows. Tight-ribbed spine and bone curled clays, At either end when you’d imagine it would come to blows The ear has had its fill and reels under silence’s sway.
(ii) Coining Silence
Sounds blaring loud as in pretence, Sounds soft as muttered oath, Coaxed into a coil tense! For us who’ve had enough of both Breath lithe and bone dense, Someone coined Silence.
First published at ten, SALONI KAUL has been in print since. Saloni Kaul's fifty poem collection was published in the USA in 2009. Subsequent volumes include Universal One and Essentials All.
Cabildo Quarterly, Fall 2016. Issue number ten! (This quarter: a paltry seven months. We’re stepping up out game!) First press of 609 copies, 10/15/2016. Lisa Panepinto: side silver; Michael T. Fournier, side black (ask your phone). This issue’s tag quote: Link Wray. We’re available online via cabildoquarertly.tumblr.com, issuu.com and pdfsr.com. Hard copies available for free in and around greater Pittsburgh and Cape Cod. For additional hard copies or for back issues (of which we have plenty from our entire previous nine-issue run), write cabildoquartertly@gmail.com. They’re a buck per, or five bucks for a big stack. Hell yes we’re looking for your submissions: send 3-5 previously unpublished poems to lmpanepinto@gmail.com; or previously unpublished fiction up to 3000 words to the aforementioned cabildoquarterly@gmail.com. Simultaneous submissions are okay: we know how it is out there. Please include a bio of 25 words or less. Please don’t send us .pdfs, as they are murder to format. The vault is pretty well empty after this issue, so it’s a good time to submit. While you’re at it, check out cabildoquarterly.tumblr.com, where you can find additional work from Katelyn Kenderish and Bob Walicki, as well as reviews and sound clips and tour dates and whatnot. Longtime readers might’ve noticed our change in geography: after spending the first four years/nine issues of our existence in Belchertown MA, we’ve moved CQHQ to Cape Cod, of all places. We’re still looking for a venue for readings and general hoo-ha, so drop a line if you have any leads or hot action. Mike’s hard at work editing his next book, which will hopefully be finished and out soon; Lisa’s working on new poetry. There’s starting to be talk of summertime capers for 2017, which is funny because it feels like 2016 just started a little while ago, you know? Ah well. Stay posted for said capers, and for our imminent fifth anniversary issue, which will be summer 2017-ish. Five years means it’s probably high time for some shirts. Anyway: thanks to Ryan and Bec for putting up with us/this, as always. And one more thing: listen to Dead Trend!