the
b’k
bitchin’ kitsch
Vol.
8 Iss. 7 July 2017
The Talent
Cover: Untitled by Rebecka Skogg. Vince Barry 24-26 Sissy Buckles 4-5 Bob Carlton 16-19 Giada Cattaneo 30 Natalie Crick 12 Holly Day 3 Darren Demaree 14 Emma Fuhs 22 R.E. Hengsterman 8-11 James Croal Jackson 28 Sara McClory 6 Mark J. Mitchell 15 Emily Rose Schanowski 7 Olivier Schopfer 13, 27 Michael Schrader 23 Rebecka Skogg cover, 21 Michael T. Smith 20
holly day | when freedom becomes unbearable | poetry We invite the government to read our minds, the aliens to beam new instructions with jagged fingernails and broken glass Give us a purpose! we shout into the night sky, praying that at least one cruise vessel bent on world domination is heading for Earth. We want to make wallets! we plead, eyes on the stars in supplication, heads matted with drying blood, fingernails ripping at our tin-foil hats and flinging them into the air. One of the tiny moving pinpricks of white above us must be an alien spacecraft, aiming subliminal messages into our prefrontal cortexes—we dig into our scalps with the hope of making mind control that much easier for our oppressors the communications satellites circling overhead, our hands outstretched, cracked and broken.
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Sissy Buckles | decompensation | Poetry It starts with the little things. Your dog’s ear infection no matter how diligent well meaning relentless as Sisyphus or how much gentian purple mix you pour into that swollen canal but the white smelly stuff keeps on pouring out or take a simple thing like cockroaches you try everything traps fog spraying cleaning like a maniac and every morning you continue to see the bitsy bugs scattering madly on the desolate counter like Kerouac’s carcass of a mouse at Big Sur his first kill -- “it looked at me with ‘human’ fearful eyes” and all this gets you meditating on real Self-Reliance and Emerson’s edict that we must take ourselves for better for worse
(as his/her portion) like this woman my sister met in Austin an original Arcadian lived across from the crazy hot rodder’s place in a big old rambler away back out in the hill country she’d had food saved for four years along with a 500 gallon water tank on the property just in case the Zombie Apocalypse really comes down and get this, she keeps AK’s in every room of her ancient turn of the century rambler, even in the bathroom for reals, I guess she had some issues with the Government at one point but of course not really polite to ask the details my mama didn’t teach me much but she sure taught me manners like the nice family who lives down the block from me now in a two story frame house. The mother vacuums the beige shag merino wool rug
every day she gets down on her knees and pulls at the nap with her fingers so it’s perfectly standing up. Every day. Of course they never wear shoes in the house. Their bed is perfectly made not a wrinkle you could bounce a quarter off the spread and at night the mother and father sleep on the floor so they don’t mess it up.
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Sara McClory | Rumors and all the things they say | Poetry We laugh, now, about the time we were almost murdered on Christmas Eve, the night the sky barely wept any snow as the T.V. soothed with the hum and glow of its moving parts, the sound of reruns drowning out tipsy but heavy steps moving into the room. The fuzzy colors illuminated his features, but were absent in deep forever running wrinkles hoarded on his untanned skin. And you, my mother, leapt from the tattered goodwill couch in a speed that defined science; your torso a mountain and pool-noodle arms flailing at the sight of a sharp dagger nestled tightly in his fist, eyes as vacant as a hole. All three of us careened to that place — face against face against face, spit sputtered in all directions like acid rain, heat radiating from skin as lips receded to show animal like teeth. It fizzled, and in the morning we sat, in the tepid leather seats of his Lincoln, engine warmed but didn’t move, as exchanged looks and apologies reflected in the mirrors. And then, as we pulled on the black road gifts tumbling against my shaken body, cold sores tingling on my lips, I knew the measurement of a rumor, untamed and raw and that what they say about parents is true: They brought you into this world. They can certainly take you out.
Emily Rose Schanowski
Emily rose schanowski | sea jellies | ink on paper
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R.E. Hengsterman | The Anniversary | Fiction If anything needed relief, it was the top button on her white, pressed shirt. The constant manipulation of plastic between her fingertips caused her hands to linger at her neck. I stepped inside and set my bag on the floor, eyeing the stranger who paced back and forth; her body moving; a slender, fleshy pendulum inside a giant grandfather clock, stopping only to peek into the street as if she were expecting someone to burst through the door at any moment. “There’s no pressure,” I say. The proper woman, aloof, mid-thirties, tall and athletic, with jet black hair and green eyes, stood rigid with a stern smile. “No, please. I’m sorry, a little distracted today,” she said, extending a single hand in my direction. From the outset, this job was a little off. “No worries,” I say. Three days ago I received a frantic email. And that email is the reason I’m standing here shaking the slender cold hand of a stranger. James, I am desperate to hire a film photographer. I’ll double your standard fee. Contact me as soon as possible. Elizabeth Calder Money’s tight. So, I dropped another job and told her 11 am Thursday. Now I’m arguing with the voice inside my head, the one I often dismiss and then regret. She lived in an immaculate home in the heart of Wilmington. With a front yard wrapped in magnolia trees and manicured shrubbery. And a driveway closed off to the street by a large wrought iron gate. Not the home of my usual clientele. “You sure you’re okay?” “Yes, I’m sure.” I wasn’t qualified to analyze my clients, but something didn’t feel right.
“Is there anyone home,” I asked. “No, my husband’s at work, can we get started?” She gestured toward a door off the entryway. I followed. The room, bordered with floor to ceiling book shelves, a stone fireplace, two dark earth-tone leather chairs, and a large mahogany desk, was remarkable. “My husband’s office,” she said. I was about to tell her how impressive the home was when I caught sight of her undoing the buttons on her shirt. She slid off one sleeve, the other - slipped through her bra and loosened her pants. “I need you to photograph me naked,” She said, never dropping eye contact. A million scenarios had rushed through my mind, but this wasn’t one of them. “This is what you do, isn’t it?” She added, sounding annoyed, as she continued to undress, until she stood, naked. “Yes, but never quite this way.” Her body was stiff and angular, yet soft in the relevant places. I removed my camera from the bag, checked the light and snapped a few shots. Before I could ask, she had turned her right side towards me. So I snapped a few more shots before she turned again so that her back was now facing the camera. She turned one final time, completing the rotation, to bring her left side into view. The whole shoot took ten minutes. The woman dressed efficient and emotionless. She withdrew cash from her purse and placed the money in my hand. “Thank you,” she said, as she escorted me toward the front door. “It will take a few days to develop these. Does that work for you?” “I need them by tomorrow, before noon. Bring them to the house. And I need you to hold onto the negatives.”
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R.E. Hengsterman | The Anniversary
“Okay,” I said, heading down the steps with the same curious feelings I had when I arrived. Because she doubled my fee, I felt compelled to finish her order on time. I stayed up all night developing the partial roll of twenty-two images. From fixer to wash and now to hang, I could tell something was wrong. And my heart plunged. How was I going to explain that I screwed up her shoot? Once the negatives were dry and scanned into the computer, I gave them one last look to see if there was anything to salvage. The first image opened on the screen. “Holy shit!” With all twenty-two images loaded, I sagged in my chair, rubbing my eyes to focus. There was visible bruising to her breasts, torso, and buttocks. Welts on her upper back - scrapes on her face and neck. And bite marks on her arms. The injuries looked recent. How is this possible? I clicked each image. Enlarging, rotating, and cropping -adjusting the monitor. What I saw was real. I turned off the computer and went to bed. Maybe an hour or two of sleep would help. I tossed and turned for fifteen minutes before finding myself back on the computer. I went through each picture again before printing the images. With the twenty-two photos in hand, I grabbed my coat and headed to the car. After a forty-minute drive, I pulled up next to the wrought iron gate. The street crammed with heavy traffic drew a few honks. So, I drove around the block until I found an empty spot, walking the short distance back to the house while trying to work out what I had seen, and how I would explain it. I rang the bell. At the front door, a tall, well-dressed woman answered, “Can I help you?” she said.
“I’m here to see Elizabeth Calder.” The color discharged from her face, and her body shuddered. “... I’m sorry,” she said. “But Elizabeth Dean passed away a year ago today.” As she spoke, she rubbed an area of discoloration on her upper arm as if the bruising and Elizabeth shared a connection. I looked around. “No, that can’t be right. “I’m Mrs. Dean. Alex is my husband. Elizabeth was his first wife.” I considered my options; call the police, have myself committed, excuse myself and leave, or turn and run. Tucking the photos into my pocket, I backed away. “I’m sorry, my mistake.” I was half way down the sidewalk before a nagging feeling spun me around. “Ma’am, I believe I’m supposed to give these to you,” jogging back and handing over the photos. At the gate, I turned and looked back. The woman, now in a pile on the steps, photos spilled across the walk, had one hand covering the discoloration on her arm. And the other seized against her chest just above her heart–a wounded bird who had struck one too many windshields.
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Natalie Crick | Wedding Cake | Poetry We eat the top of your wedding cake, Stale sugar pieces cracking our teeth, Promising each mouthful To be the last, Buttercream drooling from Sticky fingers, Pregnant with cream, Pink pearls to be kissed. Plump lips wait, Shivering from loneliness. We listen to the screaming downstairs The plastic bride and groom Sucked clean of sweetness.
Olivier Schopfer
Olivier Schopfer | threshold | photograph
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Darren Demaree | blue and blue and blue #119 | Poetry occasionally the rise of a wave will kiss me flush on the lips & i will taste the kiss the same way i would taste any kiss & it’s that process that allows me to leave the ocean completely
mark J. mitchell | Playful angels | Poetry Fog forms pearls that vibrate because a melody composed for ships tickles them. Light reflects off glasses worn by sleepy women. At the bus stop, young men believe they’re smiling.
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Bob Carlton | The Man who demonized gluten | fiction You have never heard of me, and chances are you have never heard of the company I worked for. It is one of those corporations that operates in spheres of size and power that make world leaders and national boundaries completely irrelevant. It does not matter if you drink the most carcinogenic energy drink or the purest organic jasmine white tea—their hands are in your pocket. So who am I? You can just call me the man who demonized gluten. So what do I really know about gluten? Not much. A composite protein, found in wheat, barley, rye, and related grains. It is formed by the cross-linking of glutenin molecules to form a network attached to gliadin. Gluten’s elasticity is proportional to the content of glutenins with a low molecular weight, since they contain most of the sulfur atoms responsible for cross-linking. And that elasticity is what gluten is all about if you are baking bread. Kneading, or a dough with high moisture content, promotes further cross-linking, as strands of gluten become longer and more elastic, which makes it possible to trap the carbon dioxide given off by the yeast, thereby allowing bread dough to rise. While a lot of people may know the importance of gluten in baking, probably not as many know that gluten is found in many cosmetics and hair products. It is used to provide a thicker, firmer texture to things like ice cream and ketchup. It is also sometimes added to foods low in protein. Got all that in ten minutes on the Internet. Anyway, gluten, I discovered, was everywhere. Traditionally, a company of a certain size makes a product, then hires an advertising agency to sell it. Ads would be taken out in print, on radio, on television. Quaint. In my company, we did not necessarily eliminate the middle men from the equation; we were all middle men. Synergy and integration, fancy words for creating and servicing need, were our operational tools. At the highest levels, where control over the means of production, distribution, and information dissemination reside under one roof, your job is no longer selling a specific product, but selling concepts, plural—the spontaneous generation of the effect of vertical cascades and horizontal ripples. Let the grunts in the trenches half a world away come up with the snappy slogans, the irresistible image that will sell an extra million units; my task was to come up with the linkage to connect them all. Call it, branding the zeitgeist. My particular Operations Group was, as you might imagine, not your typical advertising types; no traditional copywriters, no math nerds or techno weenies with their market surveys, focus groups, and mathematical models forecasting spending trends. All of these things are valid and important, and indeed we fostered the illusion that our kind had long since been replaced by the algorithms of modern mass-marketing. Our work remained unseen, ideas trickling down through hierarchies unaware we even existed, popping up simultaneously in the minds of a hundred middle managers across the globe as their own original thoughts. We were the Invisible Hand, our meetings secret, no minutes, no memos, written communications to the lower levels filtered through a
dozen different departments. My boss was a man named Crowley Allison, and he was legend, at least among the few of us who knew who he really was and what he really did. He made nothing, he invented nothing, but his nuanced and abstract ideas led to others coming up with such concrete acts as: 1) selling hot dogs in packs of ten and hot dog buns in packs of eight (self explanatory); 2) selling vacuum cleaner belts in pairs (essentially doubling the price of a single belt, since by the time you would ever need a second belt, you have long since forgotten where it is); 3) producing gasoline pumps with digital readouts to the thousandth of a gallon (swayed by the illusion of value, people will drive halfway across town to get 10.778 gallons of gas for the same money as the 10.763 they could get a block away, costing themselves 1.012 gallons in the process). His passing remark that one day he’d like to charge people for air resulted in the invention of whipped cream cheese. “Gluten,” I said. “Gluten?” Mr. Allison asked. “Yes,” I replied, “gluten.” “Seems a little on the narrow side,” one of my colleagues commented. Let me say here that, Crowley Allison excepted, I feel no need to differentiate among the rest of those present at this meeting. Their names would mean nothing to anyone outside that room, their disembodied speech the only thing of tangible worth I can relate concerning them. Suffice to say that apart from Crowley Allison and myself, there were three other middleaged white American males in attendance. In response to the objection made, I laid out a handful of facts, that usually being all that was needed for the butterfly to take effect, the most intriguing fact being that in developed countries, one in every one hundred thirty-three people have some kind of adverse reaction to consuming gluten. “So how many people in, let’s say, the U.S. have celiac disease?” With the first question, I could see the gears grinding in the evil little weasel-brains of my co-workers. “No one knows for sure,” I replied, “two million, three million.” “All well and good, but aren’t there already gluten-free products out there being marketed as substitutes for things like bread? Beer, even?”
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Bob Carlton | The man who demonized gluten
“Sure,” I said, “but that stuff only appeals to the celiac crowd and most of it tastes like crap. Look at it this way: the FDA classifies gluten as GRAS. Any food that contains less than twenty ppm can be labeled ‘gluten-free’. And all such labeling is completely voluntary.” “I think I see where you’re going with this. Even foods naturally gluten-free can be labeled ‘gluten-free’, like we’ve somehow made them safer and healthier. If this works it’s like printing money!” I thought the man might have to change his underwear. “What then, young man,” Crowley Allison said, looking over his glasses and barelytouching finger tips at me, “is the next logical move here?” “Fear, Chief.” “Fear?” he asked. “Yes sir,” I replied. “No one really knows how many people are affected by celiac disease. About forty percent of adults don’t exhibit symptoms and the average time it takes to diagnose is four years. The damage done to the small intestine can cause temporary lactose intolerance...” “I smell a cross-promotion with lactose free milk here!” came a voice from across the room. “...and celiac disease may contribute to the cause of type one diabetes. Then add in the fact that your chances of having celiac disease increase significantly if you have first or second degree relatives with it.” “Does that mean that gluten is actually bad for you?” “Not at all. But throw enough statistics at them and people will sure start seeing it that way.” “But if we go down this path, what happens to plain old white flour? What about everything we have invested in that?” “I would advise,” said Mr. Allison, in his most august, authoritative manner, generally reserved for the dispensation of some small nugget from his vast store of wisdom, “that we take the long view here. We are currently riding a trend tending toward a more seemingly healthy lifestyle. Soon enough, only Grandma Johnson will be using white flour so she can make the family’s hallowed biscuit recipe. Her passing will be the death knoll for bleached, enriched, white flour. Young, affluent Americans, who after all are the bell cows here, are looking to eat as if they were medieval French peasants. Whole grains, rustic appearance, traditional preparation methods. Place the word ‘artisan’ in
front of any product and it is an instant winner. White flour was once the preserve of the upper classes, and take my word for it gentleman, it will be once again, and when it is, we’ll be there ready to capitalize on it. Nothing, gentleman, and I mean nothing, is as predictable as the gentle sine wave curve of human behavior.” Once the thought had settled into our very souls, the real brainstorming began. “So you say some cosmetics contain gluten? Sweet. Just think of the possibilities with gluten-free lipstick. No more danger of suffering a gloss-related death.” “I still like the milk idea, too.” “And of course we can slap the ‘gluten-free’ label on damn near everything, make even the most wretchedly unhealthy stuff look good for you.” After several minutes of this, I threw out one last thread to weave into our deceptive little tapestry. “Think about this,” I said, beginning with confidence, but finding as I went along, for reasons I could not understand, that I was less and less sure of the true path. “Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder. A study done at the University of Chicago found that AID rates double every twenty years or so. But here’s the kicker: only in developed countries. One theory for this is that we’re too hygienic, washed so clean that it compromises our immune systems.” A broad smile crossed the face of Crowley Allison as he listened, hidden fault lines wrinkling and cracking to reveal the truly ancient malevolence buried there. I continued, ensnared in his gaze and unable to stop, only dimly aware of the possibility of my own damnation. “So you see, Chief, we have here the possibility of creating a positive feedback loop. The more soap we sell, the more celiac rates increase, the more we sell the healthy lifestyle concept, including gluten-free products and soap.” Had I really just said that? That is when I walked away. I quit my job and invested my savings in a small farm. We grow organic wheat, though I suppose we are doomed to failure at this juncture. Agriculture in the U.S. is a 300 billion dollar a year industry and there’s blood in the water. Soon, all the little fish will be gone and only the sharks will remain. Oh, we’ll stick it out, fighting the good fight. I guess my conscience moved in once my illusions left town, so at least when I wash my hands at the end of the day I know they’re clean. The only blood on them is my own.
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Michael T. Smith | Outlaw | Poetry There’s a man outside every window round Catching breaths in little glass jars. His hat’s brim shades the world. It’s a cold day With the winds of a compass Whipping said hat from off his logic. It’s liposuction on a day too fat, Making an loose art of accubation — For the man that trod along slowly on a rocking-horse. It’s speaking without punctuation, A Naology of skinny books, Whose pages are But alleys of le grande discourse, Their collective town not big enough for two. It’s unscrewing each of his nitid glasses Like it might as well be Pandora’s Box, Like it might be a stomach, trapping a collection of low-brow punnets. It’s hiding round a tree too starved To hide a secret in its bark (Other than a bullet hole). It’s this man Who slid down the alp of memory, Reading the illiterate notes thereof Scribbled much too soon, Trappings of a hare of habit Much too quick. He is no one, But himself — and so he does not belong here.
Rebecka Skogg
Rebecka Skogg | Untitled | Illustration
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emma fuhs | enter | Prose Enter a MAN. He smells of Clive Christian No. 1 and his suit is neatly pressed but his rings are unpolished. He’s talking into a Bluetooth headset loudly about vegetables, attracting the attention of everyone in the office.
Michael Schrader | Taste the Pharmaceutical Rainbow | Poetry Take the red one to lose touch. The green, taste. The blue, smell. Yellow makes your hair detach from your scalp and run down your naked body clogging the shower drain. Purple reduces the pain but requires more faith than Christians muster for a man who’s dead. In a lifetime, we’ll have tasted the pharmaceutical rainbow; in a lifetime, we’ll no longer be human.
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Vince Barry | A Grave Matter | fiction
Last year in a slaty drizzle we buried my sister-in-law in Calvary Cemetery. We’re mulling the headstone. The hazard of moving has thrown us into propinquity with Calvary, located—no jest— just off Hope and Sunset. We didn’t acquire the house for its proximity to Ceci’s final resting place. But now that we’re here it seems an asset, to me at least. “It concentrates my mind wonderfully,” as once was said of being about to be hanged. Today, doing my daily constitutional up Hope’s hill, something Ceci said in the early days of her illness overtakes me, wondrously, like dead letter mail from a lost, loved friend: “Yesterday,” is what she said with choleric frankness, “I was fine. Today I’m dying.” She meant she had become aware of the enemy. Had named it. Given it objective existence. She had, in a striking vitalistic sense, created it by becoming conscious of it. That done, she wasn’t fine any more. Later, when in a different place, when her gray temples had sunk under bands of “chemo curls,” and when long pauses punctuated her slurred words, she allowed with a stonyeyed stare out of bone-rimmed sockets, “I feel stronger than—” pausing before adding, with a hard swallow and a defiantly thick confidence—“it.” After a meditative space she touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Then, as if brooding over every syllable, she said with a tremulous voice: “Like the first—” her voice trailed off before recovering, “—the first—” again her voice clotted in her throat before she could get out, “overlooking the wonwondrous Rift Valley!” Then, as if to the darkness, she said, with a ghost of a smile, “Recognizing”—she meant, I filled in, her mitochondrial Eve— “this is the world!...Only,” she went on, startlingly clear—her dark-ringed cavernous eyes full with disarming inwardness beneath a great bony forehead the color of oatmeal—“she doesn’t know…that at that moment…she is creating it!” Then her husky whisper died soughingly in her throat.
At the time I attributed Ceci’s ignis fatuus to two things: the treatment she was undergoing and her Peace Corps experience years ago as a volunteer in Kenya. I shamelessly admit that I dismissed with a bland nod and some musty commonplaces what she was saying, until—well, right now, on my way up Hope when, suddenly, there breaks from me, preposterously, the question: Is it the case that what is precedes what we know about what is, or is it that what we know precedes what is? Imagine—the very question, of metaphysics vs. epistemology that I used to pose before I retired from posing. Now as I inspect the involute surgings of my mind, I am brought to admit, excruciatingly, as I ascend Hope, that that question, I now see, meant nothing to me back then—not really. I approached it as one of the many such I was paid to ask, like—, well, somewhat like a hitman is paid to kill—nothing personal, you understand—just a job. I was paid to ask such gauzy questions to insouciant youth and trot out stuffy, time-honored opinions. Aristotle and Aquinas, in this case, my intellectual cognates, both of whom came down squarely on the side of metaphysics. The hour ran out. The semester ended. The years passed. Now, though, as I’m catching my breath, I’m asking myself, prosecutorially, Did you ever mention Kierkegaard? The startling query jerks me to a halt…compresses my chest…makes me swallow a lump of panic, just where Hope meets Sunset. Kierkegaard… From the straggling mists of memory come flashes of the so-called “Fork,” for puncturing scholastic casuistry; the “father of existentialism,” for first confronting the human condition (absurd, anxious, depressed)…The “dizziness of freedom,” the “leap of faith,” “Life can only be understood backwards; but must be lived forwards”— Like a busy bee flitting about in pursuit of the sweetest nectar to dip its tongue into, my mind finally lights upon the most piquant interest of the lyrical Dane: Death. Its contemplation: • intensifies living
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Vince Barry | a Grave matter
• brings one into touch with one’s dead self • awakens one’s dead conscience to the scarcity of time • frees one from vain pursuits • fills one with tasks and goals one must complete that will in the end constitute the meaning of one’s life… Death, in sum, makes one conscious…of life, the world, of being!... Phew! There. Kierkegaard. I’m breathing stertorously now, not unlike, in my imaginings, Ceci’s mt-Eve, who, having mounted the steep escarpment, beholds from its crest, laid out before her, teeming herds of grazers and browsers, and first recognizes The World but does not yet realize that she’s also the first to create it— to illuminate with being the long leaden night of non-being…Which will give her—when she realizes, or those to follow will—a most awful power…a power far greater than the power to kill. The power to create… Ah! So that’s what she meant, I mutter between my teeth, of Ceci’s: “‘I feel stronger than it.’” Then, on to Calvary, “the place of the skull.” There, stirred and curious, I ask the dead, not for signs or help, but an opinion: “What about a tree?” Unanswered, I whisper at Ceci’s unadorned grave: “Perhaps a gnarled Yellow Acacia or twisted Umbrella Thorne?” To the deafening silence I plead my case: “Something, say, that’s found on the savannah plain, with its droves of plodding, head bending, senseless herds that would have shambled on eternally— but for you…I mean,” I amend, “your mt-Eve, Ceci.” Then my peroration: “Its bark, the tree’s. What if pealed back it revealed frightfully, fancifully, something like:
Make the darkness conscious?
Would that do?” With an upwelling of emotion I await a response, like a motherless child praying, then head home, the breath back, a dull ache worrying the heart side.
Olivier Schopfer
Olivier Schopfer | vintage | Photograph
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James Croal Jackson | to never return to l.a. | Poetry I hiked through the backwoods of Yellowstone wondering why my life did not change with every step. That beauty could become so manufactured. Looking over another massive canyon– my third in the west in three days– what’s so good about it? You could fall into it, sure. You can fall into anything. Love, of course. Art. Self-loathing. Escape. I drove aimlessly for three months, watched landscapes lose their painted strokes. The bristled edge of sky inside me turned and dried, brought me back to deserts I camped in on the side of the road many freezing nights, my breath the hot air on windshield, blocking my sight of stars, those lost things guiding me that smog made me forget.
History — The B’K
The Bitchin’ Kitsch (2010-present) or The B’K is a compzine edited and published by The TalbotHeindl Experience, LLC in Denver, Colorado. The Bitchin’ Kitsch was created as a monthly zine for artists, poets, prose writers, or anyone else who had something to say. It was born out of a necessity to create an avenue for editor, Chris Talbot-Heindl, to remain artistic after school, with her subversive style, while continuing to live in Central Wisconsin. It exists for the purpose of open creativity and seeks to be an outlet for people who may not otherwise have an opportunity to show their work. Although the idea was created as a “what-if” brainstorm between the Talbot-Heindls’ whilst in bed and sort of groggy, it has since blossomed into a legitimate publication that has gone international Through the grace of the Internet, The B’K has had the opportunity to create a juried book and the opportunity to publish four juried chapbooks. Here’s to the past seven years, and hopefully many, many more.
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Giada Cattaneo
Giada Cattaneo | Untitled | Illustration