Spiral Collective Mission Statement We believe in art for art’s sake. Our aim is to provide opportunities for non-competitive creativity while promoting a culture that builds a sense of community. We are doing this because it makes us happy. If art makes you happy, making it or taking it, we’re with you.
WHY SPIRAL? A message from the editors. Thanks for your interest in this issue of Columns. This zine is the result of an artistic collaboration currently underway in Lowell. You will notice above that we have included a mission statement for an association called the Spiral Collective. As you may have deduced, this magazine has been produced by members of that collective as part of a broad initiative to foster both growth and appreciation of local art. We have among our ranks writers, musicians, visual artists, bakers, crafters, and people who just plain like creative expression. We are also interested in promoting awareness of political issues relevant on both a local and global level. To this end, we have assembled this magazine in hopes of simultaneously showcasing the talents of local creative minds and promoting awareness of political and personal issues. This magazine will always be open source, and will always be open to submissions. We are committed to knowledge, creativity, cooperation, compassion, and equality. Read our mission statement, and if you feel you can contribute in some way to either this magazine or the collective, please get in touch with us. Please direct submissions, questions, comments, and concerns to columns@spiralcollective.org. Also feel free to send any submissions, letters, or things for review to the PO Box listed on the next page. A spiral begins at a central point and works its way slowly outward, growing exponentially larger with each pass. We aim to be that central point.
Is This All Really Necessary? ..................................................................1 Relax and Have a Homebrew .................................................................4 Let’s Call It Like It Is ................................................................................7 Sound Matters .........................................................................................9 Movie Reviews .....................................................................................12 Record Reviews ....................................................................................14 Let the Stars Play ..................................................................................18 Poetry ....................................................................................................22 EDITORS Matt McCarthy Katherine Quinn Adam Caires
PUBLISHING Jarrod Delong
GRAPHIC DESIGN Jarrod Delong
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Adam Caires Matt McCarthy Katherine Quinn Jarrod Delong Sarah Lamothe Kitty Featherbottom Danielle Leone Dave Eger
CONTACT US Website: http://columns.spiralcollective.org
COVER ART Amelia Morris-Cronin
Email: columns@spiralcollective.org Postal Mail:
ILLUSTRATIONS & PHOTOS Amelia Morris-Cronin Danielle Leone Sarah Lamothe
Spiral Attn: Columns Zine PO Box 725 Lowell, MA 01853
Is This All Really Necessary? By Adam Caires
Back in the spring, myself and a group of my friends, best defined by mostly being artistically inclined Lowell lifers and returned expatriates, all found ourselves living again in our old stomping ground. We were fewer in number than in our earlier youth, but equally high in spirits, and at a stage in our lives where it was conceivable to embark on tasks out of organized planning instead of what used to more closely resemble chaotic spontaneity with just enough planning injected to get multiple people in the same place at the same time. Since at least the previous autumn, I had been doing what I do best, and complaining in the most acerbic and dour way possible about the state of things, whatever they were, because the grass is always greener and all that. My self-validating hope is that in some way my incessant bitching caused some good by providing even the smallest impetus to my friend Amelia, a decidedly “good doobie,” who instead of complaining so much decided to test the waters by openly asking our social circle if they would be interested in combining efforts to change our lot. She was met with overwhelming positive response, schedules were cleared, and the Spiral Collective was born. I don’t say this to attribute credit. I say it to point out the fact that I see how our intentions were similar, our modus operandi and their results dissimilar, and that I somehow learned nothing on any fundamental level about the merits of my general attitude. When it became apparent that releasing a “zine” would be among our earliest endeavors, I found myself somehow polarized by the idea. It was the single immediate direction taken by our group that I outwardly expressed disinterest in. Regardless, I quickly found myself sticking my nose into the zine meetings. To be fair, I should mention that they have all taken place, at the behest of my actively interested roommates, in my living room or in the bedroom next to mine. Being a man who fancies himself a writer, I considered contributing to this endeavor, but as usual it was easy enough to find something problematic with the idea and create an even more problematic question to answer it with. Why would I bother to write something and who would bother to read it? Take this moment to consider what it says about my previously men1
tioned general attitude that I consider both aspects of this to be a bother. I’ve not yet mentioned that I’m a musician, but I should now, in case we’re acquainted and you’re wondering whether it’s daft or hypocritical of me to take such a stance on writing. I’ll argue that writing music is different, at least to me, than writing for a periodical, and I’ll paraphrase my confidant Rich, who just this past weekend said something to me about how he ‘tends to rely heavily on rhyme schemes and song structure because he’s less intimidated as an artist by a smaller canvas.’ I couldn’t have agreed more. I just got off the phone with him, in fact. I recently started reading Women, by Charles Bukowski. He told me I would probably drink more when I read it. Fifty pages later I find myself at one of the few bars in town where I won’t look like a complete douche bag with a laptop, writing this column and drinking my third bourbon. I chose to call him primarily because I respect him as a writer, and also because he is high on my short list of other males who won’t call me a faggot for calling him “just to talk.” He’s also a musician (in fact, we play in a band together), and last week we were discussing the column he wrote for the first issue of the zine. We were supposed to be working on music, but shenanigans have our number. He was questioning the ability of the masses to identify with his subject matter when a goodly woman came outside of the coffee shop where we were chasing the black dragon, pointed his article at him, and asked, “Did you write this?” When he answered, “Yes,” with only slight hesitation, she sang his praises and encouraged him to keep writing. Ironically, we both found ourselves on the receiving end of many unsolicited compliments from passers-by that day. It was nice. Knowing Rich, this probably assuaged his doubts for a day or two. It’s important to point out that Rich is more well read than myself, and has more experience writing outside the confines of song. This is partly to blame for my admittedly unreasonable and nearly decade long insistence that books were “prisons for the mind.” In typical fashion, I was finding the most conceptual and alienating way possible to express one of my simple ideas and its subsequent observations: that minds are more willing to accept without question the written word than the spoken word, and that the thought made me
uncomfortable. Recently however, a conversation coincidentally chasing the tail of the last zine meeting made me question the ways in which I prioritize my time and the absence of literature from my life. I’m only mildly ashamed to admit that a newly discovered Facebook application that tracks your personal library also added some intrinsically appealing and competitive desire to begin reading again. It’s been a week and a half and I’m on my fourth book… let the back patting commence. The decision to enter into this crashing tirade came recently as a by-product of one of my many failed attempts to mix philosophy and humor when I was told I should write something and remarked that I don’t know what I could write about that anyone would benefit from reading, or why I would do such a thing, even if I did. My roommate Katherine, who receives less credit for her wisdom than she deserves, suggested I write about just that. I found it off-kilter and philosophical enough to align myself with, and here I am, now drinking a double jack and coke (no ice) at a different bar where I definitely do seem like a total douche bag. The bar I was at earlier closed and I knew that if I went home and allowed myself to sober up before completing this article I would certainly wake up and convince myself to delete it come morning. I feel like this is the kind of piece that will serve its best purpose in just being spit out then published without tireless filtering, so I’m staying out late to finish in an attempt to protect it. On almost all levels I’ve always felt alienated from my peers and society, but recently I’ve felt the gap widening. Last Saturday I was out with someone I had only just met and I found myself speaking about the world in the pseudo-detached philosophical manner I tend to favor. On one hand, I deeply respected the lack of anxiety I had about it all. On the other, I greatly feared that I was alienating this person, and potentially that I do the same to anyone I meet these days. Thinking about it now, I worry that I’ve somehow grown incapable of engaging in “normal” conversation and participate on much more of a survival level than a social one. I’m a social worker by profession and had a client some time ago with mild Asperger’s Syndrome. He called me one day to ask me if I would be his reference for a resume he had submitted. I said, “Yes,” but the conversation on his end seemed very scripted. There were no frivolous
niceties. Everything he said was purposeful and curt, in the most socially acceptable way possible, as if he had been taught how to perform the task of social interaction, but didn’t truly understand it on any emotional level. Our conversation was succinct, cordial, and convenient; and while I recognize that the society around me views this as being “abnormal”, I appreciated it very much. It was beautiful in its simplicity. I find myself more and more frequently wondering whether or not I come across similarly to others… only others who view such interactions as being awkward as opposed to relieving. Just yesterday I was talking to a friend about how I fear I’m losing my ability to engage in any conversation not philosophical in nature. When people comment on the weather, I cringe. It’s such a cowardly and desperate way to force a connection. “Yes, I too live on planet Earth and experience the sensation we humans call ‘feeling’.” We all just want to make connections, and I’ll admit I’ve also done this, but I guess my point is that I used to be able to bullshit about whatever innocuous events people chose to identify with, and I feel as though I’m having a harder and harder time mustering the energy required to play the part expected of me in such conversations. This scares me because (excuse the reference if you don’t understand it) I’ve made a practice out of breaking all humanity down into two groups: people who saw the movie “I Heart Huckabees” and felt like it was life-changing, and people who saw it and didn’t. To explain with as little critique as possible, this guy viewed it as a particularly plot-less movie geared toward expressing the most unenlightening aspects of existentialism to modern day society’s avid non-philosopher. I attribute the ability of people to be taken aback by this movie singularly to the phenomenon of a person existing in what I consider to be a very profound world and somehow having no profound thoughts about it. I know I sound judgmental; I usually do. In this instance, it’s not my intention. I just don’t identify with such a mindset. I’ve always considered the world around me to be incredibly mind-bending and questioned as much of it as I could think of questions for. I don’t say that to seem rebellious, but through the foggy memory of my childhood I faintly remember telling my parents that I no longer wanted to attend Sunday school because I wasn’t convinced of god. 2
I was in third grade and had just received my first communion, the last of the so-called Roman Catholic sacraments I would participate in before relegating myself to the ironic ideation of being a “sinner.” Now, in the year of our lord, 2009, I’m 26 biological years old and what I imagine is somewhere in the ballpark of 35 spiritual years old. I’m not sure if that’s a product of modern medicine in the early ‘80s allowing me to remain in utero for upwards of 10 months before inducing labor, or if it’s a testament to the fact that I seemed to get along better with estranged aunts and uncles within my family more than my alleged peers throughout my youth. Either way, as I sat down to write something for this issue of this particular zine, I couldn’t find anything better than the diatribe I’m currently presenting to answer my original question: Why would I bother to write something and who would bother to read it? I’ve been thinking about how this would go for over a week now. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I was afraid to undertake the responsibility of writing such a piece. I wanted to wait until I had found the answer to my question and then write a piece to detail that process and leave some sort of ego-mad philosophical landmark in my wake, but I, for no good reason, decided to start with what I started with, and am for no better reason ending with what I’m ending with.
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I’ve never considered myself to be good at introductions or conclusions and I’m not about to start apologizing for it this late in the game. I will say, that regardless of the question that I have asked and have yet to answer, or the infinite others like it, I act and exist. I think that’s probably just as important as asking these kinds of questions in the first place, or answering them, for that matter. We all exist, and at the end of even the most harrowing day, no one can deny that the most unifying factor about human existence is that we all do, in fact, exist. It’s maybe the only unifying factor, aside from our uniform awareness of the weather. The extents to which we choose to concern ourselves with our purposes, their actions, intentions, or consequences are our own life-shaping experiences. Whether I obsess endlessly over some infinitesimally small event in the universe or stare blankly at some epochal event worthy of a Tolkien masterpiece, I did choose to write something to perpetuate a cause and a movement I earnestly believe in, and even if I wake up and feel I’ve failed to express whatever profound sentiments I set out to record, maybe I’ll find inherent value in the process. Maybe you will feel similarly about having read my hopefully coherent ramblings, and in accordance with my typically unexplainable and obstinate ways, I’ll have found an unnecessarily complicated way to deal with the relatively simple task of writing an article for a zine.
Photo by Danielle Leone
Relax and Have a Homebrew
boy is used to store the fermenting beer. The airlock allows gasses to escape the carboy without letting potentially infectious ones in.
By Matt McCarthy
So there are tons of reasons to brew your own beer; saving money, not helping AnheuserBusch grow their market share, upgrading from the beer you drank in college to real beer, but ultimately it’s all about fun and the satisfaction of enjoying something you made. Home brewing is a slippery slope towards massive levels of beer snobbery. It will give you a new found understanding of what goes into the beer, the effects and taste of each ingredient and how each plays off and complements one another. The instructions that will follow are for use in partial mash brewing, which is appropriate for brewers at an intermediate skill level. The reason that I’m starting in the middle rather than at the beginning is because it’s a bit more interactive but still very approachable to a novice. My aim in writing this tutorial is to provide an easy introduction into brewing and to offer support for a growing DIY culture. So now that the “why” is out of the way, let’s get to the “what” and the “how”. Before you start brewing, you are going to have to acquire some equipment. Included below is a list and description of the different pieces you will need to get this rogue brewing operation underway.
Funnel – Again not much left to the imagination here, but I do recommend something about six inches in diameter. Strainer – Get a steel mesh strainer that will fit inside the funnel you get. Grain Sock – A nylon mesh bag that you will use to mash (steep) the crushed grains in. Auto Siphon – Perhaps the most essential and under-appreciated device in all of home brewing, this will allow you to transfer your wert (pronounced wort) from the various apparatuses to other various apparatuses. Wert Chiller or Ice Bath – A wert chiller is a coil of copper or stainless steel that you immerse into your wert after the boil, the coil has cold water flowing into it and through the wonders of thermodynamics it takes the heat from your wert and flows out the other side. Thermometer – Used to measure temperature
Burner - You can either purchase a propane burner from a homebrew shop or use your kitchen stove. If you opt for the kitchen stove be prepared to make a considerable mess.
Bottling Bucket and Filler – Once your beer has fermented appropriately you need to put it into bottles for conditioning (carbonating) and then for drinking.
Boil Kettle – You will need a 5-7 gallon stockpot to use as your boil kettle. The larger you can get the better, as you will be able to brew more beer at a time and be less likely to have any boil-over. Recommended: A second pot; not necessarily the same size but something around 3 gallons will be fine.
Bottles and Caps – Helps keep good beer in and bad everything else out. Either save some bottles that you have rinsed thoroughly or buy new ones. For a five gallon batch you will need about two cases of bottles, but it doesn’t hurt to have more.
Stirring Spoon – Pretty self-explanatory here, just get a spoon and make sure it’s a big one. Carboy and Airlock – A 6.5 gallon food grade bucket or a glass car-
Capping Press – Helps with the above. Priming Sugar or Caps – Either measurable priming sugar or pre-measured priming caps are what you use to bottle condition (carbonate) the beer. Oxyclean and Sanitizer – absolutely the most important thing you can get, pivotal, of crucial importance.
DL
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All the above items can be purchased from your local homebrew shop or the larger national web shops, but your best bet would be to just buy an all inclusive kit and ideally online or from someone on craigslist (buying one from a local shop can be pricey). Now that you have all the puzzle pieces, its time to get your ingredients and put them all together. Below you will find a recipe for pretty standard American IPA which is not only my favorite type of beer but also an easy start to home brewing because the powerful flavor of the hops will mask many small mistakes. 5 lbs. amber dry extract 4 lbs. American 2-row barley .25 lbs cara-pils barley .5 oz. Centennial hops (boil 60 min) 1 oz. Cascade hops (boil 30 min) 1 oz. Cascade hops (boil 15 min) 1 oz. Centennial hops (boil 5 min) 1 tsp. Irish Moss (boil 5 min)
Step 4: Remove the grain sock and discard the spent grain, then bring the water in the kettle to a boil. Once you have a rolling boil, take the extract, which has been loosening in the other pot, and with your spoon and empty the necessary amount into the boiling water. Cans of extract, you will notice, come in increments of 3.3 lbs. so you will have to either weigh the remaining 1.7 lbs. out or estimate. Then following the schedule listed above slowly include the necessary hop additions. Your total boil time should be 60 min. Step 5: Once you have finished the boil, shut the burner off and start chilling the wert. Ideally you would like to get down to about 72-78 degrees.
DL
Step 1: Clean everything with the Oxyclean being careful not to use too much and to rinse thoroughly so there is no slimy residue. Once you have cleaned everything, you need to sanitize. Follow the directions on the particular sanitizing solution you have and then set all the pieces aside. Step 2: In your boil kettle bring 6 gal. of water to 152 degrees Fahrenheit and simultaneously in the other pot place the two cans of extract in water on medium heat and let sit. Also, following the instructions on the back of the yeast package, begin to prepare the yeast. Note that not everyone will have access to a kettle large enough to fit 6 gallons so in that case use what you can manage and subtract half a pound of the 2-row barley for each gallon short you are. Or, since you aren’t trying to be too exacting for your first time you can simply add boiled water at the end to make up the volume. The first alternative is the best alternative.
Step 6: Once your wert is cool enough, start siphoning it through the strainer and the funnel into the carboy, let as much aeration as possible take place. Once the wert has been emptied into the carboy and is at the appropriate temperature, pitch the yeast and place the airlock, with about one or two oz. of vodka, in the opening of the carboy. Store the carboy in a cool dark place for about two weeks. Step 7: Take your bottles, which aren’t dirty, and sanitize them, if you have dishwasher run them on a steam cycle with no detergent. Step 8: Take the bottling bucket which you should have cleaned and sanitized and siphon the beer from your carboy into the bucket. (If you opted for priming sugar, follow the directions on the package and prepare the sugar in boiling water then pour the mixture in the bottling bucket before siphoning the beer. This way it mixes properly.) Step 9: Bottle and cap the beer being sure to add the priming caps if you decided to buy them rather than using priming sugar in the step above.
Step 3: Once you have your kettle temp. set, place the milled grains in the grain sock and then into the Step 10: Let the bottles sit in a cool dark place for water like a tea bag letting them steep, bobbing two weeks before you move them to a refrigerator for at least another week, at which time it is safe to every now and then, for 40 min. drink. 5
If you are anything like me, then something will absolutely go wrong. If and when you run into trouble, fret not, there is a wealth of information on brewing available online and for just about any issue you will have there is a solution. Remember
that this is only one of the different ways to start home brewing and it will take a few batches before you hit your stride. But above all other things remember to sanitize everything and just relax and have a homebrew.
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Let’s Call It Like It Is
most recent move was to introduce a non-binding poll about whether there should be changes made By Katherine Quinn to the country’s constitution. Many have speculated that this was a ploy to lengthen his term, a move On Sunday, 28 June, the Honduran military that Hugo Chavez just recently made and that the staged a successful coup against President US does not agree with. When the head of the Manuel Zelaya. Troops entered his home Sunday Joint Chiefs of Staff, Romeo Vasquez refused to morning, arrested him and sent him into exile in help distribute the materials to voters, Zelaya fired Costa Rica. Every news source seems to think that him. He was then arrested and exiled. Making this coup more fishy is the fact that it is important to add that he was in his pajamas. He thinks that it is important that the people know Romeo Vasquez was trained at the School of the that bullets were being fired as they dragged him Americas, which was renamed the Western Hemiaway. To the general public outside of Honduras, sphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) why does any of this matter? Honduras is one of in recent years. The School of the Americas is fathe poorest countries in the world, with up to 70% mous for many of its alumni, including dictator of the population living in poverty and 50% in ex- Hugo Banzer, officers of Augusto Pinochet’s junta treme poverty. A huge chunk of their annual GDP and the founders of Los Zetas, the mercenaries of is money coming in from Honduran emigrants, with one of the largest Mexican drug cartels. The SOA most of the rest coming from their exports of ba- is a part of the US Department of Defense and nanas and pineapples. The only thing that seems many of the instructors are from the CIA. A handful notable upon a first glance is that the United States of South and Central American countries have maintains a military base within the country, but pulled their armies out of training at the school in that is true of many places. How does this coup af- the past ten years; in 2008, Bolivia removed all of fect us? To be honest, it doesn’t really, at least in their troops. any basic, day-to-day way. Kind of the way that Michael Jackson’s death did not affect any of us but for some reason we cared anyway... except that this actually is important. Let’s start with the basics. Manuel Zelaya was elected president in 2005 in a fair and democratic election. He ran as a center-right candidate who supported the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) of 2004. Basically, he was what the United States wanted to see in a Latin American leader; he was willing to open his country up to US capitalists for cheap labor. As his presiHours after Zelaya’s arrest, congressional dency progressed, he came to realize that free markets were not helping Honduras. They were as leader Roberto Micheletti was sworn in by Conpoor as ever and people were trying to scrape by, gress, claiming that Zelaya’s move to find out if sewing the labels on Hanes t-shirts. He befriended people supported changing the constitution was ilregional leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, a legal and that he and his interim government were leftist pragmatic leader who has been trying to bet- simply upholding the law and not staging a coup ter his country’s and the region’s situation after d’etat. So far, the coup has been condemned interdecades of repression and turmoil. So, knowing nationally. Several European countries have rethat his centrist policies were not effective, Zelaya moved their ambassadors and regional leaders are moved to the left, trying to improve social welfare refusing to cooperate with the new government. in Honduras. In 2008, Zelaya signed an agreement The US has had a more lackluster response, simto join the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas ply saying that they hope democracy prevails. The (ALBA), which is a regional alternative to CAFTA US government has not officially labeled the situathat focuses on social welfare above free trade. His tion as a coup because to do so would legally cut 7
off aid to the country and would force the US to effect sanctions against the country. Only weeks ago, President Obama and other government officials were calling for change in Iran and demanding action; why have they toned down their language in the case of Honduras? Historically, the US has not supported socialist leaders in the region, going so far as to support military coups against those leaders. Government and economic leaders have had an obsessive drive to spread the gospel of free market fundamentalism to the area, regardless of its effects on the people who live there. When South American leaders come into power who do support social ideals and refuse to accept detrimental free trade, we get upset. With the new regime, whose time may or may not be short, we would see increased acceptance of traditional western values and pure, free trade. Maybe free markets work somewhere (I’m still looking for a good example) but the economic system of a country needs to be decided by the people, not the businessmen in first-world countries looking for a quick buck. If the true ideal is democracy and freedom, the United States needs to look at the situation objectively and not put business interests ahead of the welfare of an entire people. Let’s call a coup a coup.
Photo by Sarah Lamothe
Photo by Danielle Leone
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Sound Matters By Jarrod Delong
I’ll start with this simple fact: the compact disc is a dying format. CD sales decreased by almost 25% in 2008, while vinyl sales increased by 124%. In fact, vinyl was the only format of physical media that saw an increase in sales. As CD sales are falling, much of that market is being replaced by digital downloads, while full-album downloads rose by about 34% in the same time frame. While many still purchase CD’s, a lot of people have turned to MP3’s as their primary music format. A smaller, yet significant, amount of people (myself included) is all about vinyl. For added convenience, many vinyl releases now include a code for a free digital download with purchase. In this article, I’ll delve into just what MP3’s are on a technical level, and how they affect sound quality. I’ll also take a look at the reasons behind peoples’ decisions regarding their music, on a more theoretical level. So many people these days are all for MP3’s, but generally people don’t know what they are. They are sound files, yes, but why are they the de facto digital music format for consumers? MP3 is short for MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3. MPEG is an acronym for Moving Picture Experts Group, which was formed in 1988 to set standards for audio and video compression and transmission. When you listen to an MP3 file, you’re not hearing the same thing as the original recording, nor are you listening to the same thing as the CD that it was taken from. One reason that it’s such a popular format is because of the small file size. It makes them quicker to download, easier to manage, and gives you the ability to put a whole lot of songs on a tiny device like an iPod. However, the small file size comes at a loss of audio quality. DL To explain this, first I’ll mention that all digital music has what is known as a “sample rate”. You see, with analog audio (tape, vinyl, etc) you have an uninterrupted sound flow. This is not pos9
sible with digital music, so what you have are samples of the music. There are so many samples per second (a measurement known as Hertz, or Hz) that the fact that the sound isn’t continuous is not perceivable by the human ear. For example, standard sample rate for a CD is 44.1kHz; that’s 44,100 audio samples per second. For the rest of the article, don’t try to factor in what I’ve told you in this paragraph, because sample rate is not something you, as a consumer, have any control over. I just wanted to explain that to show one of the main differences between digital and analog audio. The MP3 is a patented format of digital audio encoding using lossy data compression. “Lossy” is an important term to know here. It basically means that when the data (audio) is compressed, it becomes different from the original when it is decompressed. This is what makes for conveniently small files, but at a loss of quality. Just as there are lossy formats, there are also lossless formats such as WAV, AIFF, and FLAC files. These take up about ten times as much disk space as MP3’s, but without the quality loss. Bitrate is a term you might be a little more familiar with, as it relates to MP3 files more directly. It refers to the amount of bits per second in a file. Since digital audio is just data, it’s all measured in bits. All data on your computer, from text documents to images to audio files, are comprised of bits. Bits, in short, are just the way information is measured in the digital realm. You may see numbers like 128, 192, 320, etc floating around when dealing with MP3’s. These are all bitrates. MP3’s can be encoded in a variety of bitrates, and all vary in quality. 128-160kbps (kilobits per second) is (unfortunately) considered standard bitrate quality, but can sometimes be of noticeably different sound quality. For instance, it might be lacking bass, or it might have a washy effect to it. Personally, I don’t listen to MP3’s lower than 192kbps, and preferably I’ll have them encoded at 320kbps, which is the highest possible for the MP3 format. If it’s not already obvious, the more bits per second that are in an audio file, the closer it will sound to the original. This may seem like technical jargon that you shouldn’t concern yourself with, but if you like to really listen to music, sound quality matters.
On that note, I want to change direction and take a look at why people choose one audio format over another. CD sales have decreased as computers and digital media players have become more common. It wasn’t so long ago that you’d find somebody with a CD book in their car with hundreds of CD’s scattered throughout. They take up more room, they get scratched, lost, stolen, etc. They just seem inconvenient as a mobile way to listen to music. Now, instead of that giant book of CD’s, you’ll find a relatively small device like an iPod, which takes up minimal space, keeps music very organized, allows maximum portability, and ultimately holds more music than that giant CD book. Still, many people buy CD’s, but what the statistics don’t show is that a large portion of those sales result in the consumer taking the CD home, converting the songs to MP3’s on their computer, and putting them on their MP3 player. For people who don’t DL care all that much about having the physical artwork and packaging, many are just cutting out the middleman and downloading songs and albums directly from the internet and not buying a CD at all. It is easy and convenient, and relatively cheap, or even free if you use any of the multitude of ways that the internet offers to illegally obtain music. While many have gone the way of digital music, analog’s best consumer format, vinyl, has made a huge comeback. For a while, it was more common in the underground punk/hardcore community. It has however gradually made its way back to the mainstream. As somebody who actively buys vinyl, it’s been great to have labels (after seeing the trend of rising vinyl sales) re-pressing albums on vinyl, so I don’t have to constantly scan eBay for one of my favorite albums that has been out of print in that format for years. If you’re not privy to this scene, I’ll just say that some records have gone for hundreds of dollars or more on eBay since they’re so hard to find. You may ask, “why vinyl?”, and that’s a valid question. The artwork and packaging is a lot bigger and sometimes have pretty intense layouts.
There’s something about holding a vinyl record that just feels better. But aside from the aesthetically pleasing elements of this format, the sound quality is superior. I mentioned earlier that analog audio had an uninterrupted flow of sound, and that’s the easiest explanation. I will try to explain further without getting too deep into the science of audio. Sound is made up of waves, and these waves are cut into grooves on a vinyl record. When the needle of a turntable runs through these grooves, it transfers the vibrations through components turning it into an electrical signal. From there, the amplifier boosts the signal to an audible level, which you can control. All in all, it’s a much more natural process. Without all of the sampling and compression of digital audio you’ll obviously just get a much richer sound. Some people notice this, and some people don’t, which is why there’s a line in the sand when it comes to which format you use for your music. Yet at the same time, many vinyl releases now come with download codes so that you can download the MP3’s and put them on your MP3 player. To me, that is the ultimate convenience. I can have my preferred format, but still have the ability to bring my iPod in the car, to the gym, etc. Places where vinyl can’t go. In addition to your average person who buys vinyl, there are another group of people who are avid collectors. And, like collectors of anything, they will spend a lot of money acquiring rare items. One thing that always leaves me in awe is seeing a collection of every color of every pressing of a single record. Or bigger yet, every record in an artist’s catalog. I’ll give you a quick example of
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what I’m talking about. Labels such as No Idea Records tend to press vinyl on many different colors with each pressing. For instance, Against Me’s debut album, “Reinventing Axl Rose”, is currently on it’s 26th vinyl pressing. Each pressing having various colors, and as I just counted the different colors on the website, there are 77 different variants that this one album has been pressed on. Some people are such avid fans/collectors that they’ll have every single color, and they’ll quite possibly do this for every single release, not just this one album. That’s record collecting. One last thing I want to touch on is colored vinyl. The color makes no difference whatsoever in the quality of the sound. I feel, however, that it does affect the overall vinyl experience. In much the same way as having the artwork and liner notes in such a large format makes it all more aesthetically pleasing. Bands, labels, and vinyl pressing plants are constantly pushing the boundaries of what can be done. Pirates Press is one of the plants at the forefront of this movement, as they produce some of the craziest looking records you’ve ever seen. The first to come to mind is Torche’s “In Return”
EP. It was pressed on 10” vinyl, but the packaging is what made it extraordinary. With a full-color gatefold sleeve, and a CD included inside held by specially cut notches to hold the CD. The vinyl itself was pretty amazing as well, with the first pressing having what they called “planets” on the vinyl. My copy is clear with three different colored circles radiating out from the center. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and it made it well worth buying. You can get one-color translucent or opaque vinyl, or split colors, mixed colors, one color splattered over another color, or swirled throughout. I hope I’ve cleared up some of the differences between analog and digital media. Not to sway your opinion one way or the other, but to inform you of how things work. I believe we should always seek to understand what is unknown to us. Everyone has their own opinion on such things, and people will always be saying “analog is better” or “digital is better”. But, really, the only thing that matters is what sounds good to you. Let your own perception dictate your listening habits. Just remember, sound matters. Photo by Danielle Leone
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Movie Reviews By Sarah Lamothe
Re-cycle Director: Pang brothers Starring: Angelica Lee Sometimes being such a movie nut has its unwanted side effects. I often find myself contemplating the lighting of a shot or obsessing over annoying editing instead of just watching the damn movie. Worst of all is that I have become too jaded to really get scared during horror films. Like a junkie, I have to increase my dose to really feel the fear I used to, or try a new drug (any innovating horror is welcome in my home). That is why I have chosen to review Re-cycle, a film that came out in 2006, but is still found on the “new release” wall. After seeing this carnival of nightmares I was positive there were creepy creeps behind me anytime I was alone, and I loved it. Ting-yin is a successful author attempting to write a new novel about the supernatural, a change of genre for her. She begins her story, but discards her start just a few sentences in. This action sets in motion an unraveling of our dimension and binds Ting-yin to a world of abandoned things, angry, malicious, abandoned things. Once completely inside the other terrifying realm, she befriends an old man and a small girl who want to help her find her way out and back into her previous life. Ting-yin faces many challenging obstacles in this visually obese land, all while being chased by a terrible ghost woman and her hoard of zombie-esque ghouls. The Pang brothers create for us a visually rich, vivid and imaginative world of pain and anger, a landscape dotted with colorful but degrading remnants from our collective pasts. Of course there is use of cheap clichés here (raspy baby voice on the phone, dark hallways, herkey-jerky demons, and of course the long wet black hair we have come to know and fear) but the Pang brothers somehow find a way to add more depth and vigor to these parlor tricks. Ironically Re-cycle does not simply recycle the same old scares of the past twenty years. The level of supernatural terror in this fantasy-saturated flick is just…not ok. Re-cycle is not only a spooky creep of a film, it is also a modern fantasy gem. Think Jacob’s
ladder meets The Never Ending Story. It succeeds in creating the beloved “absorption” for the audience into its world of the abandoned. The use of CGI is nice and even, and hence not obvious. Note the Pang brother’s choice of color; their use of saturated reds in a grey-washed-blue and sepia world is a well thought out attack on your optics.I love a film that toys with my subconscious. Yes, Re-cycle does make for a good hairraising ride. However, the plot that is supposed to be deep, thoughtful, and twisting just comes off as a cheap dime store tale used as a canvas for the unsettling images the Pang brothers are known for. But that’s all right, that is what they do well. The moral of this story is a little in your face, and to be honest is a little hokey. I would love to see this film with much less of a plot, it’s horror guys, keep it simple.
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VINYAN Director: Fabrice Du Welz Starring: Emmanuelle Beart, Rufus Sewell This film sells itself as a horror movie, and that is a lie. It is a long and tedious stroll starting with tragedy, floating on down a sleepy river of naivety, moseying through a jungle of not surprising, and ending predictably with another tragedy. I want to not like it, I want to tell you to not see it so that you won’t resent me for suggesting you watch such a long haul through such an uncomfortable movie about the two dumbest and most arrogant yuppies ever. Unfortunately this film is good, like sticks to your bones/think about it for a monthgood. It just has to ferment in the dark cool recesses of your brain for a bit before it is palatable.
A married couple loses their five-year-old son in a tsunami. A year later at a fund-raising party, while watching footage of young boys sold into slavery on the last outskirts of civilization, Jeanne becomes obsessed with the idea that one of the boys is her lost son. Paul sees no option but to go along with his wife’s whim and start the long 13
dirty journey into the jungle and eventually into madness, on a quest for their boy. They are duped, financially raped, sent on wild goose chases, and are mentally destroyed all while being guided by a mysterious and ruthless snake of a man. They are eventually shipwrecked on an island inexplicably inhabited by a tribe of feral boys. The elephant in the room is the films striking resemblance to Apocalypse Now: a long journey on a Jungle river to find someone who may not exist and has probably lost their mind, all while you are losing yours, with a few vignettes on poverty and culture shock along the way. Even the style and color saturation of the shots reek of Vietnam as portrayed by Mr. Coppola. This was obvious from the get go, however, what I wasn’t expecting was how capable of standing on its own Vinyan is. Beart’s performance is just right, her switch from a mother to madwoman to monster is so seamless that it becomes completely possible in the practicality of your mind. Sewell wears his guilt like a well-fitted and broken-in cellophane jacket, always there but not quite visible. The pair paint an uncomfortably accurate portrait of how the mind justifies anything when the heart becomes devoted. Fabrice Du Welz delivers to us a sickening tale of how inhuman humans can be, a reminder of how love, and especially loss of love, can disintegrate one’s moral fiber. He shows us how easy it really is to loose your grip on yourself and reality, like a wet hand slipping out of another wet hand. Despite its beautifully raw portrayal of a couple losing their son and their minds, Vinyan is a dragging and slow picture, especially if you were expecting the awesome horror movie about creepy little kids the box promised and the film just barely delivers. In the end, I find it extremely difficult to give you a yay or nay on this film. As soon as it ended I was super glad that it was finally over, and really disappointed in the lack of horror. Yet, in the morning I found I couldn’t stop thinking about it. By the end of that day I came to realize that I really enjoyed the film. It is a beautiful and lush drama; its downfalls are an unrealistic plot and a mistake in genre title.
Record Reviews By Jarrod Delong
Olehole Holemole CD/LP Admittedly, at first, I didn’t give this band a chance because I thought the name was stupid. However, when a friend of mine played a few songs for me, I forgot all about the name (which, by the way, is pronounced o-lay ho-lay). After hearing a few songs, I couldn’t help but feel like I’ve heard that voice before. And for good reasonit’s Brian Moss, the former singer of Chicago (via Berkeley, CA) rockers, The Ghost.
There seems to be a lot of bands that strive for a sound similar to what Olehole has created. It’s somewhere in the realm of the post-hardcore (you can hear a little Fugazi and At the Drive-In), beardrock (more of the Small Brown Bike, Hot Water Music variety), and some strange disjointed indie/punk (akin to The Honor System and The Ghost). But Olehole really nail this sound better than so many others that have tried, and no comparison is really going to do justice to their sound. The album opens with “Gatekeeper”, a back-and-forth guitar riff that immediately pulls you in, with the bass and drums coming in to create the
kind of groove that makes you nod your head. Brian Moss delivers the first line in a bellow that demands your attention. His vocals switch between this clamorous barking and melodic singing that more closely resembles what he did in The Ghost. When the vocals aren’t front-and-center, there’s always some great riffing going on. The guitars work as well together, melodically, as the bass and drums do, synchronously. Throughout the album, the band creates a flow of assertive aggression, sometimes forceful and jarring, and sometimes balanced and driving. The sound never gets stale, but it also never goes too far. It’s one of those albums that flows well, beginning to end. The album’s second track, “Ostinato”, delivers that jarring sound I spoke of, but launches into a heavy rock riff in the chorus, over which Moss yells “We’re such money-makers, we’re such earth-shakers”. The way the song moves between the scratchy and the disjointed, to the harmonious riffs, to the heavy chorus, and makes it’s way to a groove-oriented bridge laid out by the bass line, to end back on one bar of the chorus. Another song that stands out to me is “Talk the Walk”. It starts with driving, washy-sounding guitars, and switches between that and a more riffbased part with the same driving feel. The middle of the song switches into a driving, riffing, prog-rock groove for almost two minutes, until it kicks back into an earlier part to end the song on a more rocking note. The last song is kind of mellow, comparatively, but ends with a minute of unexpected upbeat rock, repeating the words “You’ll wake up in a cold world today; try hard to dodge the ricochet”. Wellplayed, Olehole, well-played. This is a solid album through and through. You can buy the LP (which comes with a CD) from Underground Communiqué Records, who also recently put out records like The Honor System’s “Single File”, and The Methadones’ “Not Economically Viable” on vinyl for the first time. According to the band’s most recent news update, they’ll be recording and releasing “a few singles, split 7"'s and a cassette series in 2009”, as well as possibly doing some touring. http://www.myspace.com/pronouncedolayholay http://www.myspace.com/undergroundcommuniquerecords
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The Mountain Goats & Kaki King Black Pear Tree 12” Tour EP When I first heard this EP, I didn’t know who Kaki King was. I mainly listened because it was a new offering from John Darnielle, and I’ll listen to pretty much anything he does. If you’re not familiar with Darnielle, he’s a singer/songwriter who mainly plays under the name The Mountain Goats. The band has had a rotating cast of other musicians (except that Peter Hughes has pretty much always played bass in the band). The Mountain Goats have 16 albums (according to a quick look at Wikipedia), and countless EPs and singles. Also, more recently, they’ve been releasing collaborative efforts with other artists, such as the one under review here. After hearing “Black Pear Tree”, I wanted to know more about Kaki King, so I listened to all of her albums and read about her. She is a singer/songwriter/musician from Atlanta. She has a unique style of playing the acoustic guitar, in that she utilizes fret-tapping and something similar to slap-bass to create a percussive element to her playing, while employing arpeggiation to inject melody over the percussion. The title-track on the EP features a beautiful, fairly static piano melody over miscellaneous layered sounds. King changes up her usual vocal style by leisurely singing the words that sound typical of a Mountain Goats tune, with Darnielle adding in the occasional backing vocal harmony. On the second song, “Mosquito Repellant”, King tones down her usual intricate guitar playing in favor of a few chords tastefully plucked in a constant rhythm throughout the song. Darnielle sings this track, and washes his voice into a multi-part harmony in the chorus. “Bring Home Our Curses” sounds more typical of a Kaki King song as far as the guitar-playing and backing soundscape. Though hearing Darnielle’s voice over her playing makes it even more compelling, and though this may be my least favorite song on the record, it’s still one that I’d never skip. “Supergenesis” is one of my favorite tracks, even in its simplicity. It’s just a few strummed chords with an intricate soundscape keep the song afloat. Darnielle, being the wordsmith that he is, draws you in with his strange verses and poetic 15
vocal delivery. “Roger Patterson Van” seems to be about the deceased bass player of Floridian deathmetal band, Atheist. This song shows a guitarstyle more typical of Kaki King’s solo work, with quick chord plucking and arpeggiation. Darnielle’s storytelling lyrical style is ever-present, however King’s fancy guitar-work is what really stands out on this track. The final track is named “Thank You Mario But Our Princess is in Another Castle,” which I’d hope everybody knows is from the Super Mario Bros. video game. In fact, it’s sung from the pointof-view of Toad, a character from the game. This one finds Darnielle on piano and vocals, and King handling glockenspiel, drums, and vocal harmonies. This is probably my favorite song on this release. It’s such a simple song, though it is brilliant in its delivery, and in contrast with much of the rest of this release, it ends on a note of relief. They harmonize “When you came in, I could breathe again”. Which, in the context of the song, would be Toad thanking Mario for rescuing him. Which offers a fitting end to an amazing collaborative release.
The Beggars Group pressed this EP in October of 2008. It was vinyl-only, and limited to 2000 copies (the first 200 of which were on a yellow/black mix color). This review may be a moot point since this is, unfortunately, now out of print. Although, while I was just checking out Kaki King’s MySpace page, I noticed she posted a news up-
date saying that you can buy leftover copies of this in her webstore, so check that out. Also, I’m sure if you try, you can find a place to download the songs. Kaki King is playing a handful of scattered shows this summer. The Mountain Goats recently played an acoustic set at the Zoop festival (in
Watkins Glen, NY), which is a benefit for Farm Sanctuary (farmsanctuary.org), but they have no news updates online regarding upcoming plans for more touring or recording. http://www.mountain-goats.com http://www.kakiking.com http://www.beggarsgroupusa.com
Photo by Amelia Morris-Cronin
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Let The Stars Play By Kitty Featherbottom "It’s been three years, Tony. You have to move on!" He said to me with his father knows best voice. "Yeah, it has Dad and you know what? I can’t, and if you can’t understand that, this conversation is over!" I yelled. There were a few moments of silence, during which I was feeling so many emotions I thought I would explode, and I am sure my father didn’t know what to think. I said goodbye and then I hung up the phone. These types of conversations have been extremely hard for me to handle since… well, since Gina died. Gina and I were together since birth. Our moms were best friends and we were destined to be the same. At three, we were playing in the dirt together and making spit bubbles. We would crawl around the grass on warm August evenings and coo at the fireflies. At seven, we were in second grade together with Mrs. Barmachi, who always said we couldn’t work together. She said we were too close for such young children and always kept us separated, but during recess, we were free to be together for twenty-five glorious minutes. Ten was the best year for us though. Our families went to the beach for the summer, and Gina and I were able to spend every day with each other. We would go swimming, build sandcastles, lie in the sun, and look at the stars at night. Gina loved the stars; she said they were shiny bits of happiness all the way up in the sky. She had the most beautiful imagination. When we were eleven though, things got bad. We were put in different classes for the first time and never got to see each other. To make it worse, her friends said I had cooties and mine said she was buck-toothed. You know how kids that
young are so easily influenced by what their friends say. Although I still thought about Gina constantly, we didn’t talk again until we were fifteen. It was the summer before we were going into high school. I don’t know what possessed her to call me on that day, out of all days, besides pure luck. That day, I was sitting in my room, thinking about how my life was worthless. I was young, and at that time, a pimple was the end of the world. I was thinking that day about how if I died, or killed myself, no one would really miss me. I mean, my mom and dad would have, but Gina was all that mattered, and it had been five years since she talked to me. I was certain that she didn’t care anymore. The way I saw it, she had new friends and a new life, a life that didn’t need me. But I was wrong. As I sat in my room contemplating my demise, she sat in hers bawling her eyes out, trying to catch her breath enough to stop shaking and dial my number. I remember it perfectly; the phone rang and startled me. When I answered, it was Gina. I knew it was before she said a word, her sobs were a give away. She always cried so softly, like an angel, if you can imagine that. She said she needed me, to see me, to hug me. She said she missed me, and she said something horrible had happened, and that I was the only person she wanted to talk to. She told me to come over, and then hung up the phone. I peddled my bike so fast I thought it was going to break. I made it to Gina’s house in a record breaking six minutes. I opened the door and Gina’s mom told me to go right upstairs. Gina was sitting on the floor of her bedroom with blankets wrapped all around her. She was bawling her eyes out. I sat Indian-style next to her and she laid her head on my lap. She told me through tears that she had gone to the doctor that day because she had been really tired lately and her mother was worried. The
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doctor had run some tests, and he had called the house with results right before Gina called me. The doctor said she had cancer. A tumor was growing in her lung, and the doctor said it was already too big to remove, but with chemotherapy they could stunt the growth of it. Then Gina fell silent. This was all too much for her to handle, and so much for me to try and take in. Gina looked up at me like a child looks at a stranger who will hopefully be the guide to finding a lost parent. She looked at me with so much hope in her eyes, crushed dreams in her heart I ran my fingers through her hair and wiped the wet tears off her rosy cheeks and she sat up. She looked at me, right into my eyes, for what felt like an eternity, and then she kissed me. She leaned in and gave me the softest kiss possible; her lips were like silk on mine. From then on it was official; Gina and I were a couple. We didn’t care what anyone would say or think, we just knew that for however long we had, we wanted to have each other. We did everything together. We went to the movies or the mall, and when Gina wasn’t feeling well we would sit in her living room, watch T.V. and eat junk food or even do homework. Her parents let me sleep over as long as we slept downstairs and that was great. Holding Gina and waking up with her hair all around my face was amazing. She used this great strawberry shampoo that made my spine tingle whenever I caught a whiff of it. When Gina and I spent time together, it was like we were the only two people who mattered in the entire universe. We were young, but not naive, and although things between us couldn’t have been better, Gina’s cancer was always on our minds. By the time we were seventeen she was doing much worse. She was losing her hair from the chemotherapy and she was very weak all the time. The tumor wasn’t
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growing quickly, but all the treatments really took a lot out of her. She still managed to get great grades in school though. She was always on honor roll. She would say that she wanted to make the best of her life and she always wanted to feel like she was accomplishing something. She wanted people to be proud of her. When we were eighteen, prom came around. Gina decided she didn’t want to go, and I understood. Prom wasn’t a big deal to me, so we made prom night a date night. I took her out to dinner at the fanciest restaurant in the area and then we went for a walk through the park. In the middle of a beautiful opening Gina looked up and said how beautiful the stars were. I told her that the glitter of the stars could never match the twinkle of her eyes, kissed her forehead, and asked her to marry me. Of course she said yes, but she was scared. She didn’t want to marry me and then die. She didn’t want to do that to me. I told her that even if it’s only for one day, even if I only get to say it one time, my one wish was to be able to call her my wife. Our wedding was beautiful. It was in the same opening in the park. We invited our closest friends and family. Gina looked like a goddess. She wore a beautiful white gown and what was left of her hair curly with little gems clipped in it. The ceremony was magical and everyone there was crying. After we were officially husband and wife, we moved into an apartment downtown. We had already graduated, but Gina was too weak to go to college. Her parents promised to help us out with her medical bills, but for everything else, I was the man of the house. I started working with my dad’s construction company and I made pretty good money. Gina’s health was sort-of in a slump. She was very ill, but she had this drive to live that kept her going. She decorated the apartment whenever she wasn’t sleeping,
and we enjoyed our time there so much. After about two years, Gina’s health went from bad to worse. She had to stay in the hospital for weeks at a time for testing and recovery and more testing and we all knew what was coming. She was strong though; she did not spend all her time crying. Instead, she was writing. She had been writing in the same journal since we started going out, but she never wrote this often. Now, with her in the hospital and me at work all day, she had a lot of time to write, so that’s what she did. It wasn’t long before we could feel our time together coming to an end, and I needed to do something special for her, for us, to always have in our hearts. One day, I went to the hospital and begged the doctor to let me take her out for the day. He protested that in her state of extreme weakness she should not leave, but I told him that it was something I just had to do with her. He agreed to let me take her out for the night, as long as I promised I would bring her in early in the morning. I took her home and made her a wonderful supper. Then, we got in the car and drove. I drove to the same beach that we had gone to when we were children. I spread a blanket out and helped her to it. We lay on that blanket so close it was like our bodies were one. We didn’t speak; we just held each other there. It was our perfect moment, our memory for a lifetime. I kissed her forehead and then she looked up at the sky. She saw a shooting star and I saw it too and we both smiled. She said it was beautiful and I said she was beautiful. I kissed her cheek and we both fell asleep right there on the beach with smiles on our faces. When I woke up in the morning, I felt the same butterflies I used to feel when we’d slept in the living room at her parents’ house. We had a perfect night, but I did feel bad that I didn’t get her to the hospital really early. I woke Gina up and drove back to the
hospital with her. When we got there, she said she was feeling very uneasy, and asked me to stay in the room with her. I figured it was because we had slept outside the previous night. We had both agreed we wouldn’t tell the doctors because it was our moment. We didn’t want anyone else to be involved. After all the doctors left us alone, Gina asked me to get her journal. told her that she was too weak to be awake and writing and that she should sleep, but she said there was something that she wanted to show me. I got the journal out of a drawer for her and placed it in her tiny hands. She picked it up with much effort and handed it back to me. I was very confused, and she could tell by my face. She said that she started it the night we first kissed, the night she first found out she had cancer, and she said she only wrote about me. About how much she cared for me, how much she loved me, and how wonderful it was to have me care for her like I do. She said she wrote poems, songs, and just some thoughts. She wanted me to have it, to always have the memories, and to always have the knowledge that she loves me. I cried, we kissed lightly, and I told her to rest. She told me she loved me and always would and then she fell peacefully asleep. I didn’t leave the room once that night, and I eventually feel asleep too, holding her hand. That night, Gina died. She knew, she could feel, that it was her time. I didn’t feel or hear her move at all, but I was startled awake by something. The air changed, I could feel it. When I woke up, her hand didn’t feel quite so soft and warm. I knew she was gone. I kissed her forehead and whispered "I love you" and I wept. I called for a doctor and one arrived immediately. They said she didn’t feel any pain when she passed, and that she had been gone for only about 5 minutes. I know that somehow she
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found a way to wake me, to say one final goodbye as she left. Her funeral and wake were standard, lots of people crying and offering their condolences. I didn’t need their condolences though, I had her words and her words are what got me through. Now it’s three years later, the same day that I last took her to the beach. My father, he is always giving me speeches about how I have to "move on"
Art by Amocro!
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and "get over it". He doesn’t understand though. You see, I know she is gone, I know I can’t have her back or hold her or kiss her again, but I don’t want someone else. That’s what my father wants for me. He keeps telling me that I have to be a man, be happy, and be with someone. If only he knew the way it feels when I look into the sky, he would know that I am not alone, not one bit.
June 1st By Danielle Leone Art by Amocro!
The first day of the first month that brings in the summer season. The very beginning of lazy, hazy, days. The smell of blossoms blooming in trees above. Hot tar being laid down on the roads ahead. That little squeak in your shoe without sock. A fine line of sweat right in the center of your back. Damp rolled up jeans in the sweltering sun. Bandana tight around your moist head of hair. Crammed in basements singing your favorite songs. Sneaking into your neighbors back yard pool. Weekend plans for camping under the stars. Getting lost in three months of memories to come. Accepting every adventure thrown your way. Open fields for open minds. Lets do this summer right without even trying. Summer photos for fall albums And a winters escape.
Keeping the Beat Alive By Jarrod Delong Art by Amocro!
We keep the beat alive, we’re following the night through cloudy skies. With tired eyes that never shut, we cling to life with no need for luck. I still remember the days when we’d roll joints from the pages of Gideon bibles in seedy hotel rooms, where we’d stop to catch our breath while driving through the middle of everywhere. Absorbing days and weeks from the calendar until our spirits were full of every feeling that you can find on the side of the road. The stories told by strangers in familiar places that we’ve never been rang out in our heads and fade out slowly as the music swells and our realities bend. There were basements with electric air, where the rhythm of the kick and snare was the pulse that brought our collective heart to life. And even sour notes would still sound right. And on to the next town, next show, next mission. We make every move with strength and conviction. When home is on the road, you’ve got everywhere to go.
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Just Right By Danielle Leone
Awoke in a frenzy what day is it? Is it time for action, or mere relaxation? Thoughts form with slits of vision. Remembrance of a former night, when it was comfortable, perfect, and right. Roll over to nearest form of communication and recite my ideas of a past that swam in fine line. Let the shades up only a quarter of light. Cast a shadow of what seemed to resemble stationary. Wait it out she said. Just wait it out. Summoned by a whisper, door unlocked, back turned, and under the covers I spoke. I just wasn't impressed, until I made a few encounters right. 3:42pm sounds like the grab of a refrigerator door, and the open of a bottle. Consume not one but two releases and watch as he tries to make sense of it all. A narration of fate, or just the soft hand that led him. Here I am three times deep, with a radio echoed inside a bathroom. All I could think just then...was just right.
Words Will Work By Danielle Leone
uncertainty certainly summons a new nervous notion feelings fleetingly fall face first into indifferent incidents rush right round another awkward account slowly slip side by side avoiding an avalanche of emotion constant casualties cause chaotic crashes beyond beautiful backdrops memorize many magnificent makeshift mishaps truth tells tender tales let long lasting love live like lazy licks help hit hard hips gorgeous growing gestures with wincing weary expressions everlasting ecstasy change chance cause soon soothing seems so far from fetch. Photo by Sarah Lamothe
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Post-Structuralist Balancing Act By Dave Eger
Seasonable Starvation By Dave Eger
Oddly written the message is mistakable With words that are more than one way take-able Each reader interprets from a different view What it means to me is different to you
Boney cheeks peek out from under weary eyes With every week they shrink in size But each day makes the meal more dear As the farmers say the harvest is near
But then the task turns out to be For each to help each other see The message from every other perspective Strengthening the meaning of the collective
Photo by Sarah Lamothe
Everyone Was Dead By Jarrod Delong
I had a dream that everyone I knew was dead. But still I lived, it was not the end. The trees were almost bare, and the ground was cold and hard. I felt an icy wind. My world was torn apart. In the basement of my childhood home, I sat and moved mechanically. Peeling skin off from my hands, searching for reality. There was blood and I was cold, and I didn’t feel at home. Everyone was dead. And I wished for this to end. I woke up alone, in a cold sweat, my heart was racing. I walked to the porch and looked over the skyline of the city. As it slept, I watched to keep you all alive. For the night. The sun came up, my eyes were shut. And I dreamt that I had died. 24