M A G A Z I N E
Spring 2013
Cover design by Natalie Rainer
Spring 2013
Chronicle M A G A Z I N E
Editor-in-Chief Parker Essick
Managing Editor Jillian Danson
Submissions Editor Joshua Kulseth
Layout Editor Alice Wannamaker
Business Manager William Chelton
Promotions Director Emily Mattison Webmaster Emerson Smith
Staff Members Alex Barry, Nicholas Frederick, Joe Hendricks, Aileen Marrero, Savannah Mozingo, Gabby Nugent, Jenna Richard, John Richard, Re’ven Smalls
CONTENTS Spring 2013
Fiction Farris Steele Johnson STATIC..............20
Meghan Jeffcoat WATERLOO OF AN ARROGANT EX-HOMESCHOOLER..............24
Caleb Smith SLEEPING PILLS..............55
Joe Hendricks HOLD MY PICK..............59
Alex Barry TWELVE RED..............66
Features Re’ven Smalls PEOPLE PEAK ON POP CULTURE..............37
Jillian Danson POP ART INTERVIEW WITH ANDREA FEESER AND TRAVIS WOOD..............38
Poetry David Kerfoot THE WORKING..................11 THE VICTIM..................51
Creg Mcada QUAKE..................12 FINE ART..................28 SACCADE..................33
Ethan Moore CALLA..................13 ON THE NATURE OF POETRY TO A PROSE STYLIST..................18
Nicholas Frederick WHEN GOD CREATES A WRITER..................14
Josh Martin GRAD SCHOOL..................16
Michaela Phelan UNFAITHFUL..................22
Joshua Kulseth THE GOODLY FERE FROM GALILEE..................30 FOR J.B...................31
Madison Lindsay-Smith SEAMLESS..................35
Jenna Richard A BRAND NEW AIRPORT..................44 MOMENTARY POEM..................63
Poetry (continued) Re’ven Smalls PEOPLE WATCHING..................48
Aileen Marrero CODE 296.24..................52
Jillian Danson A LITTLE HELP..................60
Trey Martin SOUTH..................64
Art Travis Wood MODERATION SERIES: COFFEE..............10 FOOD LANGUAGE..............43
Rebecca Beaird UNTITLED..............15 LAYERS..............50
Natalie Rainer MOUNTAIN..............19
Lansing Dodd UNKNOWN..............21 ETERNITY..............61
Art (continued) Ashley Davis UNDER PRESSURE..............27
Alice Wannamaker ICE TREES..............32
Evan Goodwin COOPER LIBRARY..............34
Spencer Kohn AESTHETE..............49
Jacqueline Kuntz UNTITLED..............54
Morgan Cole PHYSICS: SPACE-TIME..............58
Ben Hines UNTITLED..............62
Editor’s Note January 1 of this year marked the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. In this year and the next two or three, we will be surrounded by memories and consequences of both the Civil War one-hundred and fifty years ago, as well as the Civil Rights Movement only a brief fifty years ago. We will celebrate the freeing of slaves because of the words of our former, lanky, tall-hatted, bearded, Illinois lawyer president. Likewise, we should remember the sacrifice of those who have fought and are still fighting for the equal rights of all. On the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation’s centennial in 1962, author James Baldwin wrote, “You know and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too early.” In 1962, maybe he had a point. But what about in 2013? It’s strange to commemorate President Lincoln and his great actions by sticking a Chronicle logo on his forehead and making him look like a Warhol piece, but maybe this is the kind of kick-start that history needs. By injecting Lincoln into the main vein of popular culture with our Spring 2013 issue, we hope to reinforce the words of his Emancipation Proclamation that freedom trails “the considerate judgment of mankind.” If we are living in a time where this considerate judgment is yet not followed, if we are still celebrating freedom one hundred years too early, we must remember the past words of men like Lincoln and Baldwin to lead us on to a better time when we are all both free and equal under the provision of law.
We live in a strange time now when some people are free but not free. Prejudices still exist. Racial and sexual stereotypes still shape the way we see our neighbors and peers. We still deny the right of marriage for men and women who love the same way we do—even if under different circumstances, but I think we’re finally starting to see that this is just as wrong as denying a man in his right to vote. Lincoln believed, as our founders did, that this nation was “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Andy Warhol was gay, and he was created just as equally as Emmett Till, Harvey Gantt, or John C. Calhoun. Maybe that’s where Lincoln and Warhol come together. As we celebrate the sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s great proclamation and the semicentennial of the Civil Rights Movement, I’d like to move the argument into the popular vein and remember some words from Macklemore’s song “Same Love”: “Whatever God you believe in / We come from the same one / Strip away the fear / Underneath it’s all the same love / About time that we raised up.” On behalf of the Chronicle staff, I hope you enjoy the Spring 2013 issue of the magazine. Thank you for all the support.
Moderation Series: Coffee Travis Wood 10
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THE WORKING David Kerfoot We wake to sleep and take our coffees black. We feel our fates in gloomy epilogues. We learn by taking the pre-determined track. We think by feeling. Feelings, though, we lack. We hear our beings from money’s mystagogues. We wake to sleep and take our coffees black. Of us so close, we’re nearly chest to back, God bless the massive, human, working flock. We learn by taking the pre-determined track. Light takes the tree and darkness takes it back. The lowly clouds intermingle with fog. We wake to sleep and take our coffees black. Great Nature fears the corporate smokestack. To you and me there’s no retreating back. We learn by taking the pre-determined track. The shaking minds retaliate and crack. What falls to chronic’s never ceded back. We wake to sleep and take our coffees black. We learn by taking the pre-determined track.
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QUAKE Creg Mcada Where can I set my things? Well I don’t see why not, It seems as good as any other table. I only have these few bags They can’t be that heavy So what if the table wobbles Perhaps they were a bit more substantial than I may have first supposed. The table was a bit wobbly
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CALLA Ethan Moore “Consider how the lilies grow,” “They do not toil nor spin.” They merely wait in quiet loft, to see the fears of men. Perhaps when the sun has risen high to his place among the clouds, the dew will drip from longing leaves and away from desperate towns. The people there will yawn and gaze; they’ve seen it all before. They need more than miracles. As you and I need more. And where should we turn, my sweetest prize, when Winter’s time arrives?—and frost, the cold, that frozen hold, has left our flowers lost? There’s something relentless about you, dear, that I am yet to crack. Even Solomon, the wisest man, can’t bring the lilies back. But just as you and I, sweet girl, were buried long ago, I know that my redeemer lives, if under mounds of snow. 13
WHEN GOD CREATES A WRITER Nicholas Frederick When God creates a writer he gives him a spark to shine brightly forever to light up the pages. When God creates a writer he puts in him a storm a tempest, that is never satiated always blowing. When God creates a writer he fills him with a dissatisfaction toward this reality he can’t fix. When God creates a writer he gives him a pen and simply tells him go.
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Untitled
Rebecca Beaird 15
GRAD SCHOOL Josh Martin I do not like Derrida Baudrillard with a lit cigarette Yeats suspended between indented lines of modernist poetry, x does not equal x or maybe it does. Post-colonial interpretations of this and that a little Marx curled between my fingers Nietzsche swirling around in my coffee mug I like it black imperialism dadaism mental schism untied shoelaces a buck 25 in my pocket a pencil with teeth marks running up the shaft eraser I do not like cubicles rough cuticles, 20 pages no exception H.D.’s on top slow, steady, faster, faster oooh 16
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train of thought derailed I do not like awkward glances trances, books that say “not welcome” or aren’t written to pleasure me. me. me. All I want is x=x two pillows cold sheets Nietzsche tucked away and you and me laughing like all we ever knew for certain were the crayons in the box.
Martin/Grad School
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ON THE NATURE OF POETRY TO A PROSE STYLIST Ethan Moore Poetry flickers more delicately than prose, whose bulk and transcendence often make it droll and pedantic. Poetry mimics the language more perfectly— from image to thought to word to feeling to meaning. Poetry need not concern itself with the Truth, so long as you can feel truth in your hands— and feel it flow through unforeseen spaces in your fingers. Poetry is more lucid than life, lingering on the tip of your tongue. The good words always causing your face to scrunch up, either in delight or disgust— like licking lemons off linoleum. Poetry decays. But more like ancient ruins than a corpse— Ozymandias probably smelled better than Emily’s husband in that Faulkner story. Even with the rose. Poetry is intrinsic. You hear its music constantly—whether someone took the time (a myth) to put the words on the page or not.
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Mountain
Natalie Rainer 19
STATIC
Farris Steele Johnson I. David, in his too-short olive button up, lifts his arms to reach the fortune cookie. The ribbon reads, “God is a microbe.” He laughs. His tablemate asks the fortune and David tells him, “Good luck and prosperity. Greatness is in your future.” They laugh to themselves. David imagines standing before a microbe on Judgment Day and laughs again. He envisions putting that microbe under a microscope, cranking the adjustment knob further until god is pressed against his lens; he would turn it once more to crack the glass and see god like a smashed dragonfly against his windshield. Across the table, his cohort opens his own crescent. “God is sobbing in her bed tonight.” II. First, the slight movement of chemicals before the stimulus, one step ahead of the reality to come. Then, the stimulus, rapidly followed by the instant race of molecules. They speed into the receptors, like a key in its proper lock. The receptor shivers with electricity, sending a firing squad shot towards its Siamese-neuron. The synapses spark. The second’s dendrites flash and the signal flies off down the axon through the fatty myelin sheath across the second forest of dendrites, which are tethered to a nerve. The nerve winces as the shock hits, and it pulls hard on the reign of the muscle. The thick, rubbery bands contract in violence, pulling the extended finger into a shrinking worm. This is when ‘I’ pulled the trigger.
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III. There is a tiny white T.V., with crackling reception, which allows the viewer to see into the next room over. Babies are crying, and the single woman tending the nursery is attempting to soothe their red faces. She is holding a newborn that is wailing and pulling at her shirt. I watch from the leather seat as the preacher hands me a glossary of terms: Atonement, Salvation, Grace. She picks up a second baby, one in each arm – each of them balanced on her hips. The new child beats its tiny fists into her chest. Atonement: Reparation or expiation for sin. Salvation: Deliverance from sin and its consequences. Grace: Unmerited favor. She sits down in the rocking chair, and the tiny white T.V. now blends her muffled sobs in with the infant’s cry.
Johnson/Static
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UNFAITHFUL Michaela Phelan Unexpected secrets, All weaving through the trees, Whisper of the untold truth. A single leaf becomes unfastened, Released and fallen to the ground, And she becomes uneasy Watching her love drift away, Panicking at the thought of being unloved. But the coming of a new season is unstoppable And the cycle, regrettably, unchangeable. So as the cold makes its sudden arrival, She crumbles with disappointment And watches helplessly as everything becomes unattached. Because the shock unsettles him so terribly, Since through it all he was completely unaware, And tended to their love with unwavering affections, Thinking they were unflawed, No idea she was undeserving. For him it was unflappable. For her it was unmanageable, With the problems, the secrets, the lies Running untamable through her mind, Unable to be slowed, Like the whistling wind, Shaking even the strongest oak. And as the secrets become unhidden, She becomes undone. 22
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Unknown
Lansing Dodd 23
WATERLOO OF AN ARROGANT
EX-HOMESCHOOLER Meghan Jeffcoat
C
ollege: A magical place of barbaric debauchery, rigorous academics, and ceaseless moments of enlightenment. Every high school kid dreams of that first savory taste of freedom, the realization that they could streak across a crowded parking lot if they so choose, and Mom and Dad would never know. It is a land where dreams are made, squished, and virtually every lucky participant quickly learns that they are not destined to be the next pioneer in neural surgery. Here, would be scientists quickly switch their major from chemical engineering to undeclared before anybody else asks what they want to be when they grow up. I tromped off to Clemson University with the confidence of a naked body builder. I knew I was destined for greatness, me and my homeschooled knowledge. All my life, I had been coddled and petted. I didn’t need to be told how clever and wonderful I was, yet every day that was the tune sung. Meghan the Marvelous. For four years, tests were returned to me, smothered in cheerful stickers and adorned with three digit numbers accompanied by 24
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an expected exclamation point, and a customary hand written note from the teacher: “Good Job, Meghan! Wonderful work! May I use YOUR paper as an example for all the other poor souls?” I received these comments with gracious dignity, nodding my head and frivolously tossing the gilded papers in the garbage. Material things, darling, material things. Before heading to school, I realized that the only course of action to be taken was to return home after four months, a triumphant crusader, flaunting a pristine Grade Point Average and a roaring social life. Aware that I had been blessed with a higher level of consciousness, I arrived at school like a peaceful god among mortals. I was ready to take on the University and benevolently grace the professors with my knowledge and cool presence. The first few lectures weren’t half bad; consisting primarily of me marveling at the professor’s eloquent speech, and imagining myself effortlessly absorbing their wisdom. I would sit and play my own theme music in my head, pretending my life was a movie and this was the scene where the brilliant, mad young scientist (me, of course) was discovered. Soon, the professors would ascertain my massive mental capabilities, alert the authorities, and shower me with gifts. And then came The Tests. The Tests are foul implements of the Devil, contrived for the sole purpose of flinging ambitious young students down to earth and to the bowels within. The Tests crush souls, seize control of student’s minds, and force them to consume massive, impossible amounts of chocolate and ice cream. Before taking my first exam, I studied (I thought) sufficiently, and was confident in my obvious mastery of the subject. B-bopping into the auditorium on exam day, I plopped cockily into my squeaky chair, glanced over the test, and blanched. From that moment on, life was a blur of studying and failure; an array of monochromatic, sleepless weeks. Day after day, my hair grew fuzzier, and a crazed glint entered my eye. Having been immersed in the soft, cushy world of homeschooled splendor all my life, it took one week of the university to realize what an idiot I am. And as college is a four year extension of childhood, I could only imagine what the real world would do to me. I envisioned myself stepping into the world, only to have Life squash me like so many grapes. Christmas Break arrived, and I retreated home, tail between my legs, and ears drooping. I was branded with a GPA of somewhere around -7.9. My social life was minimalistic, to be generous. My gracious family said nothing of my failure, instead showering me with cake and cautious side glances. They Jeffcoat/Waterloo
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were wise not to poke the beast. Thankfully, my first semester was not entirely wasted: I discovered that Schilleter spawns slightly more palatable food then Harcombe, whining helps nobody, and your entire value as an individual is not determined by a test grade. In closing, I offer this word of advice to all incoming freshman of 2014: Run. Run while you still have legs.
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Under Pressure
Ashley Davis
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FINE ART Creg Mcada My happiness is measured at times by the number of strands of your hair I find on my coat. My pillow. In my own hair. No sedative will ever be as calming As your fingers loosely encircling my wrist As soothing as your gaze meeting mine from inches away. And surely no fire No caged beast Can be as fierce As your fingertips searching Neither can they force A pulse as erratic as a man on his deathbed No, not a deathbed Dying is the act of living Living; the art of dying. This is no deathbed The beast is uncaged The fire unquenched To sedatives, I am immune. And my life cannot be measured in these coffee spoons Single servings 28
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A who, not a what Beyond measurement Can rein me in Fan the flame Tame the wilderness
Mcada/Fine Art
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THE GOODLY FERE FROM GALILEE Joshua Kulseth The windows shine with painted glass: Distracted thoughts in holy mass. The Savior, there, upon the tree: The Goodly Fere from Galilee. A censer swings to lift our prayer, But too much incense chokes the air. He cried aloud, forgive them all— No slight regarded mercy call. The Holy Gospel here proclaimed: Has by and large become defamed. That Holy Lady wrapped in blue, Stands in sorrow: her son they slew. A learnèd sermon in array, Is lost upon my mind today. Likewise John, the one belovèd: Mourns below his Savior dead. The peace that Christ has bidden thee— Instead, He turns away from me. But at His feet, th’accuser cries. With Jesus’ death, it’s death that dies. In darkest doubt I dare not dwell —Now rings the consecration bell. The morning star has ceased to grin, For Christ today has bested sin. 30
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FOR J.B. Joshua Kulseth A solitary old crow— Squat upon a leafy bough, tears a tuft of feathers from his wing, and sets them aloft the breeze. Below, a wayward wren, snatching at the dirt, filches the old feathers, and flies to thatch his nest.
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Ice Trees
Alice Wannamaker
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SACCADE Creg Mcada There are dimensions beyond our three, or four, should you include time. We cannot know them, only feel. When you feel your body hum, When you see that reflection on the inside of your glasses When the clock stops ticking just for a moment when you catch it off guard. You are close to knowing it. But to pursue them Is to chase steam And drink molasses You can snatch at their coattails But all you grab is a sleepless night. Your fathers, and theirs Said that these were ghosts vampires leviathans But for us, it is just the un-hemmed Fabric frayed at the ends as it unravels off into the horizon
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Cooper Library Evan Goodwin
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SEAMLESS Madison Lindsay-Smith A rhythmic sea, like glass, Creates an endless seam. The sky and sea are one, All boundaries slip away. The sky steadily melts, A haze of peach and gold. The colors glide along the coast, And entangle within the waves.
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POP AND CULTURE Peeps peep on pop and culture. People peep on pop and culture. There’s a peep on pop and culture, With not a poop to stop. They peep on pop and culture. People peep on pop and culture. There is a peep on pop and culture, Without a poop to stop. Lady Gaga got that pop. People peep on pop and culture. Taylor Swift’s got Country Rock. People peep on pop and culture. And Kanye’s a social poppa. People peep on pop and culture. With Beyonce and Jay-Z, Seen on top in magazines. Peeps peep on pop and culture. People peep on pop and culture. There’s a peep on pop and culture, With no poop to stop. Peeps peep on pop and culture. People peep on pop and culture. There’s a peep on pop and culture, With no poop to stop. We feed on Beatles. Those songs of Beatles. 36
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We feed on Beatles. And... Prince is there with beats. And Michael Jackson’s Pop is sweet. We feed on Beatles. Those songs of Beatles. We feed on Beatles. And Lady Gaga just rocks. We feed on Beatles. And they introduced this culture shock. Peeps peep on pop and culture. People peep on pop and culture. There’s a peep on pop and culture, With not a poop to stop.
-Lawrence S. Pertillar
PEOPLE PEAK
ON POP CULTURE Re’ven Smalls
P
op art: the kind of art that pretty much speaks for itself. It’s full of bright colors and contrasts, literally allowing the subject of the artwork to pop out at the observer. But can the same concept be applied to writing—more specifically, poetry? Technically, poetry is a kind of art: the written kind. Still, there is no doubt that it’s almost impossible for poetry to “pop” out of a page like pop art, even if it is shape or concrete poetry that takes the form of whatever subject it discusses. In that
case, it is easy to see that poetry has the ability to still capture the eyes of the reader visually like art but in an entirely different way, allowing the reader to imagine the contents of the poem in their own minds by the aid of the verbally shaped image. Still, the best way for poetry to be like pop art is for the poems to focus on the influence of pop culture on people. In Lawrence S. Pertillar’s poem “Pop and Culture” (2011), he makes the poem pop out by incorporating several well-known artists from the past and the present. In fact, he brings out some of the artists 37
that seem to have made the news the most. Pop singer Lady Gaga has been known for her outlandish outfits and music videos. I mean, who could forget her infamous meat outfit or her “Paparazzi” performance at the 2009 Video Music Awards (VMAs), one of the popular awards shows with which college students are familiar? Moving on to a singer in a slightly different genre, Taylor Swift hasn’t left the news since her first celebrity relationship, and some of us may feel that she should’ve stuck with her singing to progress her public fame. Ironically, Kanye West interrupts the country pop star’s fame in Pertillar’s poem by following her allusion, just like he interrupted her speech during the VMAs of the previously mentioned year. Beyoncé, who Kanye deemed as having a better video than the one Taylor won “Best Female Video” for during his daring but “Swift” speech break-in, connects the three previously named artists. R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and her husband, rapper Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, have collectively been a power couple since the early 2000s, and Beyoncé herself has been a powerhouse since the first original group of Destiny’s Child. (Maybe even before then, since she appeared on Star Search before her teenage years.) From the looks of it, there’s nothing stopping them from 38
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pushing their success to the limit. The pop culture in this poem doesn’t stop at singers who have only been famous for a decade or so, and pop culture today wouldn’t be the same without reference to past pop culture. Pertillar gives tribute to the British band, The Beatles; the “King of Pop” Michael Jackson; and R&B sensation Prince. All came from different decades and genres, though their influence hasn’t really stopped. Except for maybe that of Prince— you can barely find his videos and songs on YouTube because he doesn’t want people to enjoy his songs on the Internet. (I guess you could say he wanted pop[ular] culture to stop.) The poem presents present pop culture and past pop culture because the people are always peeping the pop culture. Aside from the content of the poem in regards to its allusions though, techniques used in the poem itself are additionally sufficient to catch the reader’s attention. This brings another interesting part of the poem to the mix—the “p,” short “o,” and long “e” sounds. “Pop and Culture” appeals to the reader’s ears with those sounds by creating emphasis on the pop in popular. Another part of this poem that pops out at the reader is the use of words that begin and end with the letter “p.” Perhaps this is necessary for memory and human nature—humans have a
natural tendency to pay more atfor almost every other genre there is tention to repetitious and rhythmic and was not mentioned in the consounds. This could additionally text of the poem. That may be the account for the quatrains that occur reason for the lines “We feed on the over and over in the poem. There is Beatles/And they introduced the culalso the repetition of the line “people ture shock.” Therefore, it seems that peep on pop and culture.” This line because it’s so hard to put this band is essentially the into one genre chorus of the due to the music “We feed on the Beatles/And poem and is used they played, they they introduced the culture over and over, became the realm shock.” possibly to show of pop culture that pop culture and paved the repeats in history with the different way for other genres—especially pop trends that come and go or stay for a music—to peak in today’s pop culwhile. ture. In regards to the artists of People do peep on pop current pop culture, Pertillar has said, culture. As a matter of fact, it sur“Those particular artists I chose to rounds them so much that they can’t highlight in the writing of ‘Pop and help but see it. That might be exactly Culture,’ I thought represented, both why “Pop and Culture” can exist. musically and lyrically, a freshness It captures the reader through the that depicts today’s youth and their very thing that people are drawn to interests.” He does not comment without the need for bright colors, on the older artists, but it’s still very just familiar people who have become interesting that Pertillar picks out pop culture. the song artists that he does. All of them seem to be representative of the genres that dominate culture today: Taylor sings “country” pop; Beyoncé, Prince, and Michael Jackson all sing R&B and/or pop; Kanye and Jay-Z rap, and Lady Gaga sings pop. But what was the Beatles’ genre? Did they even have one in which they sang or played? Some say rock, but quite possibly they could have accounted Smalls/People Peak
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POP ART
!
By Jillian Danson
An interview with Clemson art professor Andrea Feeser and senior art student Travis Wood J: How would you define the pop art movement? A: Art produced from the late fifties on
that engages deeply with popular culture and commercialism in terms of content, process, and sometimes material. As examples, the British artist Richard Hamilton composed images with figures and objects from advertising, the American Andy Warhol regularly produced silkscreened works, and the French artist Arman became known for “poubelles” (trash cans) filled with discarded goods. Some critics believe that pop works celebrate popular culture and consumption while others find such art critical of these phenomena. T: Art that realizes (in the sense of
recognizing and deploying) the power of commercial imagery and tactics. J: Would you say it was the birth of modern commercialism? A: Not at all! There are good arguments
for that beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century. But pop art definitely rode the wave of post WW II economic renewal and consumerism was a big driver for that. 40
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T: Dada art, specifically that of Marcel
Duchamp, set the stage for pop art ‘s involvement with consumer culture. Duchamp began the use of what he called “readymades” as or in artwork. These readymades were often mass-produced consumer items. J: Do you see remnants of the original movement in modern culture today? A: Certainly: not only in art, but also
in advertising, fashion, graphic design, and music. Warhol’s work straddled all of those spheres and was and remains extremely influential. Pop artists like him brought commercial products and media icons directly into fine art imagery and did so in literally colorful ways. Pop art is visually and conceptually stimulating so it’s bound to reverberate in culture for a long time. T: The strategies of pop artists – to use
the seductive messages and images of advertising - are still utilized in art today. I actually use these strategies in my own work. I also think it’s interesting that, just as pop artists realized the strategies of commercial imagery, it seems like commercial designers are now imitating
the strategies of pop art.
first pop artwork. Whether or not that is true is not important to me, but the J: Was pop art more of an indictpiece is – it is my favorite pop piece. It ment—our superficial selves reis a funny and thoughtful meditation on flected back at us—or was it more the power and the absurdity of investing aimed towards using everyday life in advertising’s promise of fulfillment to create art? through consumption. A: I think the former to a degree, how-
ever I believe the best pop art isn’t about finger pointing. I am interested in pop art that makes superficiality seductive at the same time that it undercuts that seductiveness. I suspect that’s truer to many people’s experiences and therefore harder to dismiss. In terms of pop art drawing on the stuff of everyday life – that’s true of just about all art in varying degrees. Pop art dramatizes that condition. T: I think pop art is more about reflect-
ing back the viewer’s self, but it could obviously be associated with everyday life, since we are exposed to consumerism all the time (whether we like it or not). Everyday life in art sounds a little bit more like the dadaist and neo-dadaist artists, who often used mundane objects and processes in their work. J: Who is your favorite artist of the movement and why?
T: Claes Oldenburg: I enjoy his gimic-
like approach, his use of the recognizable, and his play with size and scale. Also his light surrealist touches, which are dream-like. J: Why was Andy Warhol shot? A: Writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol
for reasons that are hard to gauge. She fought against male privilege, felt undervalued as a creator, and resented Warhol’s superficial contact with her. She acted upon her rage and shot him when she was unbalanced. T: There is a good documentary about
Solanas: the 1996 I Shot Andy Warhol.
J: How did the movement change American culture? A: I think pop contributed mightily to
the feedback loop of so-called high and low culture whereby a powerful development in one part of the loop makes its A: Pop art is usually discussed as a way into another part. I don’t think it largely American phenomenon, although changed American culture per se, but I some historians point to its British mani- think it made this loop really stand out. festations as getting the ball rolling so to speak. In fact, English artist Richard T: Pop art approaches were already Hamilton’s 1956 collage Just what is it popularized by commercial advertisethat makes today’s home so different, ments. But pop art itself makes possible so appealing? is sometimes seen as the art today by Jeff Koons and Damien Danson/Pop Art Interview
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Hirst, both of whom draw on popular culture and consumerism and who have larger-than-life personas like Warhol. J: Was the movement happening abroad? A: As I’ve noted, certainly in Britain and
Velvet Underground had an important place in Warhol’s factory, the place where Warhol created his art (often with others) and promoted work by those he admired. J: What is a fact you enjoy about the movement that most people probably don’t know?
also in France, where a pop sen“I enjoy the fact that Warhol sibility was called Nouveau Réalisme A: Warhol colrealized Basquiat was the (New Realism). laborated with the better artist.” These two nations artist Jean-Michel and the United Basquiat in the States were affected differently, but dra1980s. I enjoy the fact that Warhol realmatically, by postwar consumerism. All ized Basquiat was the better artist. three nations also possessed important centers of avant-garde art production T: The actual level of communication and display: London, Paris, and New and power that icons and type can conYork. So it makes sense that pop became tain and their ability to control how we a major phenomenon in these places. think and feel. J: What made it so popular? What are your most and least favorite aspects of it? A: I think the work gained notoriety,
and a degree of popularity, because of its perceived accessibility. It also had a hip factor, largely because Warhol – pop’s most famous figure - was really good at merging art with all things fashionable. I like pop art that makes me reflect critically on consumerism (especially when the critique is both pointed and funny). I don’t like pop art that doesn’t have that kind of critical dimension. 10. Is there certain music associated with the movement? A and T: You bet: Lou Reed and the 42
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Food Language
Travis Wood
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A BRAND NEW AIRPORT Jenna Richard My name is Jenna and I am sitting on a chair, at an airport, in a Dallas, Texas. The one across from me, she, is eating a bagel, squished between a woman holding a dog in a bag and a man holding a baby on his lap. She takes a bite of her bagel. Cream cheese coats her teeth and gets in their gaps and crevices. She jams her tongue up between the jelly surface of her stainy teeth and her top lip’s back. It grosses me out and I look past. Behind her head— back of a blond one, next to a brown one. I wear red lipstick in my airport. In my airport I know no one and everyone. In my airport I wait 44
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for my name to be called cause the lady says I don’t have a seat. Fuck that lady, man. I am writing a poem on whim without knowing its destination. My destination is Denver. My name is Jenna and I am wearing red lipstick. My name is Jenna and I am drinking black coffee. My name is Jenna and I have a seat assignment now. I inexplicably apologize to the lady. She doesn’t know of her own whereabouts in my poem. She doesn’t know that I once wrote, “Fuck that lady, man.” She doesn’t need to. I spare her that. People say airports are all the same. I hate that saying and find it offensive. (One time I met a man on a plane and he was fat and his gelatin skin grossed me out cause every time turbulence Richard/Airport
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came, he grazed my hip with his over indulgence. That was his job. To indulge and report on the quality and taste of olive oil. Naturally I thought, he must eat lots of bread with fine wines and whatever else benefits from an olives glaze. And he was playing some chicken game on his electronic plane and it all seemed so inappropriate and if all airports are the same, each stranger a fixture, each stewardess a robot, then I would be an expert on olive oil by now-the difference between virgin and extra virgin, the differing tastes of Italy and Spain. I would know these answers because I’d ask these questions. And the man would always want to talk and I’d give him that.) I enter my plane. Locate 16C. I Sit, strap, and buckle. The stewardess hands me a can of ginger ale and a mismatched plastic cup filled with ice cubes that are not cubes at all, not even square-like. I sip. An ice… tube(?) slips past my lips and I spit it out as to avoid the freezing over of my brain. Because who needs another ice age?
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A red smear marks the destination of my mouth’s next sip. It takes 3 pours and empties to finish the can. I place the empty aluminum next to its drinking counterpart in the compartment in front of my knees. The containers are squished and morphed to fit the leather pouch. Remaining droplets jump from cup to airline magazine cover. Inside the Sky Mall are advertisements for exercise machines and engraved bracelets. I think, as many others before, “Who actually buys this shit?” I’ll laugh and place an order for one of those bracelets. It’ll say, “I’ve been sucked into consumer manipulation.”
Richard/Airport
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PEOPLE WATCHING Re’ven Smalls red wool pea coat black glossed buttons bee is her best friend telling her secrets when she gets too close to the pearl lily singing so loud the long, skinny, green-white tongues blackened at the tips being tired from shouting at books leaning back on the barking willow tree trying to see the words on the pages all the leaves fluttering in the breeze multicolored scarf, solid dress plaid shirt, Lee jeans stroll on cobblestone hand in hand grasp click clack heel toe pond rock ripple skips the stone to the middle solitary bench taking it all in observation.
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Aesthete
Spencer Kohn
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Layers
Rebecca Beaird
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THE VICTIM David Kerfoot A wintery mix draws near of panic, despair, and fear. The climate cools to quiet and children pull their blankets, as mothers cull their worries, and murmurs ride on flurries. Walking through the blizzard’s surge I see the victim’s form emerge; lying, pallid, against the snow, a child, dead, I think I know. His eyes are dusky brown as mine, but lifeless with an eerie shine, and though I see, I can’t believe, the boy was me, beneath the eve. And buried now, a sigh’s resonance remains to grieve my innocence.
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CODE 296.24 Aileen Marrero It’s as if this house were a home to you. With shuttered windows and a not so good looking yard, It seems that it’s the home you always wanted. You watched her play day after day until Every leaf had blown down, tired, tuckered out Onto an unsustainable ground. Yet, you refused to go in – To see not from the outside in, But from where her leaves decayed Into a silent, succubant plane Filled with mother daughter days And now empty picture frames. Decades of her love blew away With the ever increasing airs of ignorance They soared farther and farther Into an ever rifting valley you refused to journey. All she could do was stand and stare As her mother’s shrilling screams proceeded To crack her fragile façade. Case Code 296.24: Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode, Severe With Psychotic Features. Your tears were nothing to her As she laughed as they carried her away And proceeded to place a daughter you once knew 52
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In a white room, cold and hollowed from earlier disaster days. The sun had risen fourteen times from then And on her fifteenth day, You came to see her – if her soul could sleep in peace, But only ended up seeing a stranger – Half girl and half drugged up fucker. You took her soul away – they just took her in, And for ten years you watched as she fell, Over and over and over again. They say her last day was more gracious than miserable, But you wouldn’t know, you never did know her.
Marrero/Code 296.24
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Untitled
Jacqueline Kuntz 54
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SLEEPING PILLS Caleb Smith
“P
ossible side effects include risk of suicide?” he said, leaning forward in his chair, speaking more to the television than to his basically-wife, who was sitting in the armchair on the other side of the room ‘shopping’ for wedding dresses. “It’s not like I wake up and think ‘Oh, I better not do x today because I might commit suicide!’” His sarcastic voice had always put her off. Sometimes they had informal sarcasm competitions. The winner got to relish in their pride but also had to endure the company of a grumpy loser. The television didn’t respond. Neither did his wife. He sat back in his recliner. “One minute we’ve got Ron Paul telling us we should have the liberty to decide whether to use heroin or not, and the next we’ve got commercials telling us we might just commit suicide if we take this sleeping pill.” “Why don’t you run for President. You could add that to the ‘war on terror’ agenda,” she said matter-of-factly without looking up from the screen. She was of course mocking him, but a part of him had always entertained it as a possibility. It was the part of him with a law degree from Harvard and 55
not the part that had a criminal record. His rhetoric was more or less that if you can get into Harvard Law you can become President of the United States, the other part was that if Bush could convince the country he wasn’t a complete idiot they could be convinced of almost anything, including that a criminal record shouldn’t discount you as a presidential candidate. It wasn’t true of course, and he knew it, but the logic was sound. “So are you gonna grow some balls and take the bar exam so you can propose to me and make a dent in the hundred thousand dollars of debt you’re in?” She looked up from the screen now. The glow of the computer illuminated the wrinkles in her pale, unpainted face, and he decided he would decline sex if she asked. He turned his head back to the television. “I told you. I don’t want to be a lawyer.” “Why the hell did you go to law school then?” she said in the voice that annoyed him most, the one she received the most satisfaction from using. She was an accountant. She didn’t love her job, but she was good “So are you gonna grow at it and she knew it. some balls and take the bar “I don’t know. I got really high and exam so you can propose to watched Paper Chase. And I like those me and make a dent in the logic hundred thousand dollars games.” He was good at the logic games. of debt you’re in?” He scored a 180 on the LSAT, which was why law schools didn’t have a hard time overlooking the simple possession charge he’d received in undergrad. She rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, apparently not satisfied with the answer. “You know.” She closed the laptop and placed it on the coffee table. It both pleased and annoyed him to have her full attention. “I can’t believe you sometimes.” She was hunched over with her elbows on her knees, doing her you’re-giving-me-a-migraine- even-though-I-don’t-get-migraines massage technique with her fingertips. “I mean really. You never follow through with anything. What the fuck are you going to do?” He reclined all the way back in his chair and looked up at the popcorn ceiling; it was his I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-I’m-doing-but-it-doesn’tmatter-because-I’m-a- genius thing. “Maybe I’ll become a monk.” “Oh my God,” she snapped back, throwing he arms up and rolling her eyes nearly out of her head. “Can you be serious for fucking once?” He 56
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continued staring at the ceiling, which annoyed her more than anything. “Why do you say that?” The specs in the ceiling reminded him of stars. He was the armchair philosopher version of Thales. “You don’t even believe in him.” “It’s just something you say! Who are you now, the freedom of speech police?” She got as animated as possible when she said ‘freedom of speech police’. What she did believe was that a ridiculous question deserved an even more ridiculous response. She went into the kitchen and started emptying the dishwasher, glancing over the counter at him frequently. He was still staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know what kind of world you think you live in, but it’s not this one,” she said, clanking dishes around a bit more than necessary, not really on purpose but just because she wasn’t very focused and therefore her movements weren’t precise. “I just can’t live like this.” She stacked the grey Ikea bowls on top of the matching plates. “Sometimes I just feel... stuck.” After receiving a sufficient amount of wisdom from the ceiling, he got up slowly from his chair and walked over to her. He put his hand on her arm and looked into her eyes without paying attention to the wrinkles underneath them. “I’ll start studying tomorrow,” he said. She sat the stainless steal pot on the counter and looked up into his eyes to gauge his sincerity. She deemed it sufficient, smiled, and kissed him. “Let’s have sex, I have to be up early,” she said. And he followed her into the bedroom.
Smith/Sleeping Pills
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Physics: Space-Time Morgan Cole
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HOLD MY PICK Joe Hendricks
These girls were screaming for me and they didn’t even know my name. They didn’t know that I was their age, that we probably went to school together, that I almost certainly had less money than them. No, they just knew that I was in the corner of the bar with a guitar in my hands, my callused fingers warping strands of metal to reverberate through the air and into their tiny little hearts—or wherever they landed. I always wondered if any of them recognized my face. Granted, the bar was dark and these girls were flying high enough to cheer on a monkey beating cymbals, but I still wondered. Would they cheer harder? Would they cheer at all? I figured they thought I was from some city much more interesting than our own. That I had jumped out of a van just an hour before, ready to play my gig and get my money. I guess it didn’t really make any difference. They never recognized me later on campus, even though I could sometimes pick out a face I’d seen. My fingers were sweating. The pick was getting slippery. My two fingers gripped it tighter still; this was the part of the song I needed to focus on. I wasn’t even that great of a guitarist; we weren’t even a decent band. But on a Thursday night in a small college town, we were the best these girls could get.
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A LITTLE HELP Jillian Danson Please, baby, keep your hands and feet inside the boat. See the sea’s broken, glittering glass rising like teeth? People used to be made of diamonds--after the world became too much, it pressured us until we crystallized, discoed & shattered. All chunks of jagged fairy dust. All those souls, now just precious stones to slice our toes. Here, take this oar and help me row. We barely have time to skirt the pass of Quier Hurts and duck Thrown-Mug Mountain. Follow my lead and paddle, like so, past the Valley of Things Left Unsaid (between our backs, in our bed.) Hurry--the ocean of busted gems is breathtaking, but we can’t tarry. Always stare into my eyes so our pure jewel hearts can guide us down the road. Honey. Look-The world won’t crush us to dust if you will just help me move this god-forsaken boat.
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Eternity
Lansing Dodd 61
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Ben Hines 62
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MOMENTARY POEM Jenna Richard I know I have ADD. My hands do much travelling During class. From cupping the bottom of my Thighs to making x below my B’s to writing this poem, To fucking with my hang-nails. To being still, Momentarily.
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SOUTH Trey Martin Dusty heat Fills dusty roads, Between yellow green fields and rows. Penetrates the skin, Permeates the soul. Beneath the shade Where the silence speaks Loud, dulling questions of Tradition, Loss and Hope Questions beyond Spanish Moss mysteries And uncomfortable histories To people filled with both. To people Of Sweet Tea sweetness Of genuine concern With presumptions, and assumptions Deep ingrained in the floor boards they tread. The Fabric continues to weave itself, Old both in and out Threading out the shame, and the pain Until only good remains
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Understand it with me, Tread with me if you can From the front porch swing, across the fresh cut lawn Into a ragweed sunset and a honeysuckle dawn.
Martin/South
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TWELVE RED Alex Barry
I
was sitting alone at one of the roulette tables, halfway through my first gin and tonic of the evening, when my friend Martin came in. Martin would look more at home in front of a history class than in an illegal, smoke-filled basement casino under a deli in Capitol Hill. He was a nerdy little guy draped in a cheap brown suit, and he kept this ridiculous beard, like a tiny brown forest on his face. And I wouldn’t call him fat, but at only five foot six his slight paunch stood out from the rest of him. Almost everyone else in the room, including me, wrapped in a tailored suit. That place was always packed full of alpha male types. He spotted me across the floor, made his way around the crowded poker table in front of the stairwell, and took the cheesy, green felt-topped stool next to mine. “Chris,” he said to me, “why do you still play this game?” “It keeps me busy. I don’t lose too much money. Everyone else here sticks to the cards. I can hear myself think over here. And this is better anyway, you should try it.” 66
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“I don’t gamble with money,” he said, waving off my offer. “Did the doctor call yet?” I said. He ignored me and flagged over a waitress instead. I slid a $50 chip onto twelve red and the dealer sent the ball around the wheel. “You play singles,” Martin said. I wasn’t paying him much attention, though. The ball began to slow down and dip toward the center of the wheel. I had a good feeling about this one. “Yeah, so?” “So you get thirty-five to one odds, right? So on a one dollar bet you have a one in thirty-eight chance of making thirty-five bucks, and a thirtyseven in thirty-eight chance of losing one dollar.” “Yes, Martin, that’s why people play it.” I watched the ball slide down into the numbers and my heart skipped a beat as it neared mine, and then it skipped over into red three. The dealer swept my lonely little chip back toward him, and I looked over at the smug smirk fixed to Martin’s face. “What did the doctor say?” I said. “So, one out of thirty-eight of earning thirty-five, plus thirty-seven out of thirty-eight of losing one. What you get is the expectation that you’ll lose on average about one nineteenth of your bet. About five point two six percent, on average, loss. No matter how much you bet, that’s what you should average.” “Only two options here. Good news or bad news.” The waitress returned with the gimlet cocktail Martin had ordered. He thanked her and tossed a ten onto her tray. “Your usual bet is fifty bucks. So you average a loss of a little over two sixty.” “I’m up over a thousand today,” I said. Martin shrugged and took a sip of his drink. I tried to read his expression for some sign of what was on his mind, but I didn’t get anywhere. The guy just stared right back at me with his blank, curious kind of stare he was always giving people. I gave up trying to work an answer out of him and turned back to the table. “You know, chemo is a gamble,” he said as soon as I placed another bet on twelve red. “So bad news.” I tried to keep my eyes locked on the spinning wheel. Of course it was bad news. Out of the dozens of sleazy, smoking, drinking, Barry/Twelve Red
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fucking, stupid sons of bitches I had to deal with on a daily basis, of course it’s the one decent human being I had to call a friend who got brain cancer. “It’s poison. It destroys living tissue.” I nodded. “You basically bet that the poison kills the cancer before it kills you.” I took a long drink from my glass. “You getting better odds than I am?” I said. “Unfortunately, the math is a little more complicated. But at first glance, no.” “Well, people beat odds all the time.” I gestured at my small stack of chips careful not to make eye contact with Martin. The ball made its descent toward the center and I held my breath. Six black. I stared at the number until the dealer collected my chip and picked up his ball. I heard Martin take another sip of his cocktail and I forced myself to look at him. He pointed in the vague direction of the roulette wheel with a bitter grin on his face. “No they don’t.”
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The Chronicle would like to thank the following for their generous donations to the Spring 2013 issue: Dr. Jeffrey Fine, Political Science Dr. Meredith McCarroll, English If you would like to offer a donation for the next issue, please contact our editor at editor@cuchronicle.com
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