CultureCult Magazine (Issue #11) (Spring 2019)

SPRING 2019

VOLUME THREE ● ISSUE

#

11

EDITORIAL Jay Chakravarti

02

ARTICLES

RANDAL ELDON GREENE A Rant against Myself

PAM MUNTER Hello, Dolly, Goodbye

04 15

OPINION

NIELS HAV Poetry in Copenhagen & Elsewhere (Translated by Per K. Brask)

60

CULT OF FEAR

A Magazine of the Arts, Literature & Culture

ED MEEK A Star is Born

48

FICTIONS

DRAMA

ALEC SOLOMITA

CARL SCHARWATH

Trompe L’Oeil, 1969

If it were a different play, would I be with you tomorrow

ANN S. EPSTEIN Eros Salon

POETRY

20 34 22 42 07 40 50 18

68

CINEMA

CONTENTS 62

JAY CHAKRAVARTI Films: Stree and Tumbbad

Issue Eleven● Spring 2019 Volume Three ● Number Three

LINDA M. CRATE SAURJA DASGUPTA RAJNISH MISHRA EDWARD LEE

ROHIT SAWANT That Which Trip Traps

HIMADRI KETU SANYAL Whistles

JARED MORNINGSTAR

PAT ASHINZE BILLY REYNARD-BOWNESS CHRISTOPHER HIVNER ALISA VELAJ

A Slice of American Pie

44 24 10 36 52

SHORT FICTION

MICHAEL BETTENDORF Behind Sage Eyes

72

(Translated by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj)

BLACK NOISE

BOOKS

Editor JAY CHAKRAVARTI (Jagannath) Editorial Team S. DUBOIS || SHANKAR BHUSHAN © CULTURECULT Layout Design /Cover JAY CHAKRAVARTI Published by Jagannath Chakravarti from 11/1, Khanpur Road, Kolkata - 700047, West Bengal, India. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine can be reprinted/ reused in its entire form or in part without the written permission of the publisher.

Visit culturecultmagazine.wixsite.com/home

EDITORIAL JAY

CHAKRAVARTI

Largest Democracy Between the last time I wrote something for this column and the present, my nation has come perilously close to a war with her neighbour Pakistan.

It all began with the tragic killing of over 40 Indian soldiers in a Kashmir bombing, the responsibility of which was later taken by a jihadi terrorist group based in Pakistan.

My nation got over the sorrow of the loss of her soldiers in a fairly short time (although I doubt that was the case for the immediate family of the martyred) and began baying for blood. The call for revenge became a din, a chaotic chorus that resulted in several nervewracking days for the few who had experienced, or could at least imagine, the horrors that a real war can wage upon a nation.

Eventually, in these troubling days of barrel headed news cycles, the media tired of playing a horseman of the apocalypse as the warmongering politicians moved to the popular topics of bigotry and hatred. As I sit writing this, the elections for India's federal government has officially commenced.

In India, the voting takes places in multiple phases. In my state of West Bengal, 42 constituencies would be polled in seven separate phases spanning several weeks.

The election process in India is a long and arduous 'festival' of sorts that comes along every five years. It is certainly a festival of democracy, but like all social festivals, it is a chaotic event that can have several collateral consequences, many of which seeped in violence and bloodshed.

In a move that must be lauded by rational citizens, the independent Election Commission has forbidden political parties to use the sentiment of the people towards the Army or the Indian Air Force wing commander Abhinandan Varthaman to seek votes. Varthaman had been captured by Pakistan during a counter operation by India, and was returned after 60 hours.

These rules, and others - especially those that forbid politicians to incite religious tension among different castes or communities by their fiery election speeches, are being flouted left and right by (primarily) the ruling elite who are pushing the cause of Hindu fundamentalism to arguably fight the ‘culture’ that produces jihadi terrorists!

In a bold move of defiance in this largely intolerant climate where dissenters are being labeled unpatriotic and pro-Pakistani, hundreds of artists and academics from the Arts and Sciences have appealed for a change, with Nobel-laureate economist Amartya Sen and others chiming in to highlight the terrible economic performance of the nation in the last five years and the assorted issues of joblessness, farmer suicides, religion/caste violence and the other real issues that are being sidelined by the ‘fake news’ brigade, propaganda media and right wing internet trolls, a menace that has pervaded the entire world at this time.

Let us hope that my nation has safe and fair elections this summer. []

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JAGANNATH (JAY) CHAKRAVARTI

is an Independent filmmaker based out of Kolkata, India. Besides fulfilling the duties of the founder/chief editor of CultureCult Magazine, he enjoys dabbling in several forms of artistic expression including poetry, painting, film criticism and acting.

He holds a Masters degree in English Literature.

ART: ‘In your Ears’ by Jay Chakravarti

Self portrait (1889) by Vincent van Gogh

ARTICLE RANDAL ELDON GREENE

A Rant Against

MYSELF The age demanded an image Of its accelerated grimace, Something for the modern stage, Not, at any rate, an Attic grace; Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries Of the inward gaze; Better mendacities Than the classics in paraphrase!

The “age demanded” chiefly a mould in plaster Made with no loss of time, A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster Or “sculpture” of rhyme.

-Ezra Pound: from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (Life and Contacts) i In this slice of his “farewell” poem, Pound makes a pointed point about we scholars’ abilities in an age where the modes of a “scholarly” erudition are being upset through various undermining tendencies of culture, negatively impacting our ability to absorb intellectual input and critically digest it. Well we should be able to imagine the grimace on the face of Pound should he be alive to see the gutted remnants given as a course of scholarship for us to feed upon. Undoubtedly, the difficulties of Pound’s abstruse verse, even at the time of its publication, necessitated research into his often obscure references. However, I doubt he could have believed anyone educated in a university environment to need the type of hand-holding help demanded by we children of modern Western culture (majority philistine); even us “well-educated” literary scholars of the millennial generation could not read this poem without footnotes

upon footnotes, our educational foundations—not to mention our culture’s very values toward the intellect— are so lacking. Yet you, Mr. Greene, for all your ranting, once considered yourself to be traveling a path paved precisely for the educated, critical thinker. It was a path of poetry! You were the poet who used to write with such overflowing élan as to make Wordsworth proud.

You had this overflow of feelings. But you never saw the grass. No, you never saw the birds! And now your works have moved away from the sensitive soul to the articulate intricacies of the metaphor and message. You embrace the intellectual-rational soul and reason your way to the assumed highest good. Yet here you are, writing in a medium of the modern age (ranty blog-fodder), knowing your work will be rejected by many as unreadable. This makes you laugh because you have long since realized that you don’t have the intellect yourself, as none of us seem to have, and, yes, you will pull out a dictionary to understand your own work when a lack of using the “big words” eventually diminishes your understanding of them.

So you say, “To hell with it!” and for once you write without inhibitions. You make an outline, begin to compose a new play claiming Dionysus to be the predecessor of Jesus—a thing borderline blasphemous. But you've an inkling that you've already been beat to it by Pound’s poetry, plus you’ve only had enough theater (Theater 101 to be precise) to understand that this is audacious, though to what extent you’re unsure. . . .“it takes more to shock people today than boys wearing mascara” ii. . . .After all, we no longer turn into pumpkins at midnight; rather, we turn into drag kings and queens—Rocky Horror Show style—and do the time warp thing again and again and again, etc.

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Now you’re staring into your black mirror, looking to the inside. Now you turn to the bathroom mirror and see the outside reflecting the new ideals of your heart, and your enlightened lips declare, “Stein’s The Making of Americans was the most insightful work I’ve ever read fourteen pages of.” (And you were probably right). But here you are, an indecisive dolt, claiming that there is an ever-repeating history of individual lives, while embracing change in the self, and you go so far as to advocate a motto of making it new in the communities of our country.

Reaction: Blasphemous irreverence for blanket relativism!

Because: To make it new collectively, you strip away ego—and all must be ego. Be you, like everybody else.

In That Case. . . .

“Which ideology do I follow?” I ask myself.

“There are many,” I myself say.

“Which one is the best?” I ask myself.

“Depends on what you want,” I myself say.

“What are the options?” I ask myself.

“There are,” I myself reply, “the Reform Party, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Libertarian Party, Secular Student Alliance, rationalism, strict pragmatism, Platonic ideologies, The Earth Liberation Front, Asceticism, Marxism, hippie communes, utopian societies, any number of non-suicidal cults, the Mars One mission, Greenpeace, NAACP, the Rainbow Family, Burning Man counter-culture pilgrimages, and New Age philosophies which include offshoots of Theosophist spirituality available in a variety of flavors, the most popular being YouTube-Chunk-Saccharine.”

“Can I join all?” I ask myself.

“No,” I myself say, “there are too many views. . .views within views. . .within ideals. . .within motives. . .within fallacies. . .within—” “I get the point,” I say to myself. “Which one are you in?”

“Well,” I myself say, “none fit me, none really fit me all that well. Maybe I’ll pull a Rachel Dolezal and

tan it up before joining the NAACP, and then go campaigning for a chapter presidency.”

Consequently, instead of learning how to take a stand based upon the foundations of a concrete body of knowledge, Mr. Greene, you argue nihilism for Chopin’s The Awakening, a classical example of naturalism. While you may or may not have expertise on the subject, you may also have or not have a fear of being a product of your environment. You may be like Palahniuk, a closet nihilist. But aren’t naturalism and nihilism one and the same? They both affirm, as a logical datum of their theses, that being desirous of a life of learning is completely meaningless. How sad it that?—not that they matter if they happen to be right and not that they matter if they happen to be wrong. Either way they are as destructive as sitting around typing word after word that will never be fully read, and you do it because in the end you don’t understand anything anymore than anyone else. Like Caliban, you too are earthbound and will never shine as Sirius for all to see.

No—you waste life learning things that will never fill the cup that needs to overflow to find a following. No—your works are Aa lava in their pace, and so your ideas will go to waste. No—all your learning, churning, and yearning are not enough to sway a single heart, let alone a people or place. So—all that is left to do is tug at the cord and unplug. Know this as an act of grace. []

References: i Pound, Ezra. Huge Selwyn Mauberley. Pound: Poems & Translations. The Library of America, 2003 ii Mondello, Bob. It’s Astounding ... Time Is Fleeting ... and ‘Rocky Horror’ Is 40. NPR. www.npr.org/2015/10/29/450600821/its-astoundingtime-is-fleeting-and-rocky-horror-is-40 []

RANDAL ELDON GREENE is the author of Descriptions of Heaven (Harvard Square Editions, 2016), a novel about linguist, a lake monster, and the looming shadow of death. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including 3:AM Magazine, Spelk, Public House Magazine, online with National Public Radio, Train Lit Magzine, Unbroken Journal, and America’s Emerging Writers Anthology of Fiction. His typos are tweeted @AuthorGreene and his website is AuthorGreene.com

06 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

POETRY PAT ASHINZE

Body Shaming if you think the grace of a woman is only in the curve of her hips and the shape of her breasts, and the sleekness of her body, and in the lush vitality of her portal, then, you do not understand how to read beneath the jagged lines - the sacred geometry that make up her glorious heart and her beautiful mind. if you think the beauty of a man is in the brazenness of his looks or in the gallantry of his muscles, or in the tallness and swiftness of gait, or in the heraldry of his bulging arms, or in the curly ruddiness of his frame, or in the beastliness of his nether regions: then - you do not know how to identify gods amidst a myriad lot of guns and roses. if only you could listen to the wailings of their punctured minds, you would hear prisoners begging to be released. you will see lost travelers seeking for doors to self-discovery. you will see spirits roaring at the inconsiderateness of idiots trying to play God. now listen, as the moon does to the sun: they are not flat or too thin, they are not globose or too fat, they are not malformed or maladapted, they are deities, crafted by the universe. they are pollen, blown by the wind to fill the earth with flowers and colours. they are richly filled in places we can not see. be thou illumined. []

ART: Alexandra Haynak

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 07

Death they say death ends all our woes. i do not know. not yet. maybe soon. or later. or never. my bible tells me my soul is immortal. even other holy books. and the internet. but seriously, it is hard to understand death. we run away from it everyday, like monks avoiding the touch of sin but it's all encyclical and vaguely brusque. truth is: death has a way - of making us make our way back to her macabre bosom. i have decided to write this like i am drunk, even though I'm not. seriously, i'm not. i don't feel like versing mystic aphorisms. not on this. people get bored easily. so, I'll make this simple. very simple. death screws with us all. a lot. it takes the pearls and leaves us wondering if God really cares about our miserable lives. death sucks out the things that matter, leaving dregs, dirt and regret as souvenirs. ah‌ death!. alright... I'll make it simpler: death is the middle finger that life points at us all as it whispers her cold, numbing words in our mundane ears: "Hey! Nobody has a right to be arrogant!" []

08 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

PAT ASHINZE is Nigerian by birth and citizenship. He is an hybrid of two major Nigerian tribes, Igbo and Yoruba. Writing, to him, is the only way he can talk without being interrupted. He is fluid in his writings, revolving within the axial stream of poetry, prose and whatnot. He believes in the power that poetry can wield in a universe as vast as ours.

Currently, he is pursuing a degree in Medicine at The University of Ilorin, Kwara state, Nigeria. He unrepentantly loves eating roasted plantain and drinking palm wine.

Lofty Drift nothing makes a man look stupid like misery and failure.

And love. i tell you, dear reader not because i have drank sour wines; not because i have seen the sky bleed; not because my memories have grown grey beards and have become arthritic; i tell you this to show you the vanity behind having an human existence. the mind of every man is full of grief: sorrows that sting like desert arachnids and hurt like the jests of blasphemous demons. we hide our pains behind our teeth everyday, praying in sad notes for death to run away, waiting for God to show his face in the clouds. if you see a man crying, run! his soul is filled with shadows. his memories are naked and wet. run before his misery spreads and makes you a city beneath the earth. happiness requires sacrifice. it is the reward for hearts that have chosen to ignore pain and learnt to live in a world filled with dangling windows, punctured destinies, broken stories, desolate cities and empty rooms. happiness is not for cowards. be illumined. []

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 09

FICTION ART: Evren Ozdemir

ROHIT SAWANT

That

Which

Trip Traps

Having stowed his luggage in the overhead bin, Sanjeev Mathias helped a lady a row behind with hers.

“Will we be home when it’s like this, mommy?” He smiled at the little girl holding up a roll of her dark hair, the top of her head covered in a bear-eared beanie.

“Yes, honey,” her mother said, then mouthed thanks at him.

He settled himself in his seat. Passengers bustled about him. Across the aisle, a baby goggled and spluttered words that sounded like an ode to Cthulhu.

As the plane taxied, he reached for the porthole’s cover, at half-mast like a drooping lid, and slid it up. The tail of an aircraft some distance away came into view along with part of the shimmering tarmac, which soon

10 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

fell away.

He took in the receding view of Los Angeles, ocean, city, and sky, all afire in the setting sun. If not for the Klein case, he would’ve liked to delay his return. It’s not every day your brother graduates from college.

When Sanjeev revealed he had a flight booked for the same day, Vinayak’s brow creased in a single line, an

ROHIT SAWANT’s fiction can be found in Weirdbook #40 and has been featured in the anthologies On Fire, Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.G. Wells and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India. Enjoys sketching, films, and his favorite Batman is Kevin Conroy. You can find him at rohitsawantfiction.wordpress.com

indicator of an oncoming tantrum in their younger years. Now it just broadcast disappointment. But he had a court date to keep, representing a couple who’d gotten into a fender-bender.

So both brothers made declarations guised as promises to meet up in the near future before parting.

Once the FASTEN SEATBELT sign dinged off, he was about to tamp the headphones in his ears when his glance snagged on the porthole and he stopped short.

Framed within were wing, bed of clouds and hazy horizon, but the maze of swirls stamped on the glass dominated his attention.

Reaching out, he rubbed his fingers across it. He expected to hear a squeak, his touch to smudge the fingerprint, but neither of those things happened.

It’s on the other side of the glass, his mind screamed. He low-

ered his hand with dream-like slowness.

“Drinks?”

Sanjeev held the stewardess’s gaze and she held her sweet, measured smile in place. For a second, he imagined how weird he’d look, pointing at the window. While flying, all a man with his level of melanin had to do was blink the wrong way to get into trouble.

A moment before the corners of her red mouth would’ve faltered, he declined. She moved along, grateful he imagined for being spared an awkward exchange. Or maybe he was just overthinking. Dwelling on something like that was a luxury she and her fellow attendants didn’t have. Busy folk. You’d have to be especially obnoxious to stick in their heads.

He now sat turned away from the porthole, the armrest digging into his left love handle, a slab of space between his body and the curved wall, as if a spider crouched there.

So he hadn’t noticed the print earlier. What of it?

It could easily have been left there by...

He drew a blank By what? A cleaning crew? This is an aircraft we’re talking about and not some Chevy rolling into Kev’s car wash where he worked summers as a kid, which establishment consisted of Kevin, bucket and washcloth.

Tucking away the headphones, he fired up the Kindle app on his iPhone and buried himself in a mystery novel he was halfway through but wound up reading a page over and over and gave up.

He checked the time. It was still over three and half hours till he reached New York.

Sanjeev figured boredom would outweigh the vague uneasiness gnawing at him as minutes droned on.

The idea comforted him, and he chalked up not seeing the neat concentric pattern of a thumbprint, the kind suggesting a hand which would’ve swallowed his in a handshake, to mere oversight, his subconscious shredding the memory of the blemish-free, postcard perfect view of the sunlit city.

In an attempt to divert his mind, he considered calling Alice. He hadn’t spoken to her since he left the hotel. Realizing it must be late back home, he dropped the idea.

Talking to her would’ve made things better.

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 11

She always knew just the thing to say, often with a deadpan face which never failed to crack him up.

He almost dialed her, thinking she’d understand if he woke her up. She’d want to kill him for it; but she’d understand.

But he recalled the weary set of her face when he’d Facetimed her, Ryan, their youngest, bouncing in the background with an Iron Man mask on, a slim flashlight tucked in the belt of his wrist watch. He was miffed when Ryan had picked that mask over the Batman one.

“What devil have you spawned that doesn’t like Batman?” he’d said to her as they crossed the mall’s parking lot.

“Well, at least he’s in the billionaire-turnedsuperhero ballpark, so that’s something.”

That was a good day.

He replayed it in his head until a doze took him.

In the scrap of a dream that unfurled, he was stranded in the midst of a flood, trapped in a car. Overhead, he heard the trip-trap of a heavy tread as the vehicle shuddered from the lash of a tide.

He awoke confused, still shaking in his seat, muffled clomps ringing in an ear.His head was resting against the side and he pulled away as if a mild current passed through the wall.

Sanjeev clutched the armrests against the turbulence.

He looked around dazedly then returned his wide gaze to the porthole.

What the fuck was that noise?

He wanted to write it off as turbulence but what he heard had a different beat to it, a dopplering quality.

Warily, he leaned closer to the window. Gray wing and dark sky.

He couldn’t discern any noise like the one he’d heard, like the— “Trip trapping,” he muttered.

The turbulence went up a notch.

Sanjeev narrowly eyed the wing.

His mind took him back to an episode of The Twilight Zone in which William Shatner helplessly watches a gremlin crawling on a plane’s wing, trying to sabotage it.

Funny how similar sabotaging agents were always active in your brain, just out of reach.

Any other time, the throwback would’ve been welcome. He’d enjoyed that show, although it scared him shitless sometimes. But presently, the memory of it was something he could have done without.

The stewardess startled him, asking him to fasten his seatbelt. Whispers and whimpers rose about as the plane juddered.

Sanjeev mechanically strapped himself in.

12 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

The tension in the air wound up his nerves. He mused how if a face filled the porthole he wouldn’t simply shut his eyes but would scream himself hoarse.

The turbulence diminished after awhile and they sailed smoothly.

Sanjeev barely exhaled the deep breath he’d sucked in when he heard the patter again. He jerked away as the vibrations crept into his shoulder.

He craned his neck a little.

Didn’t anyone hear it?

It came again.

Unbuckling himself, he rose and with a thudding heart, headed to the bathroom; that fabled American refuge where, as dictated by pop culture, one got one’s bearings after a kick to the emotional compass. An idea his late father, a roughed-palmed immigrant who’d left his native farmland to toil away in a manufacturing plant in Illinois, would’ve found ridiculous.

He emerged moments later, bladder relieved, face freshly washed.

Back in his seat, fingers rubbing his salt and pepper stubble, he half turned at a stewardess’s voice and thought, she’s here to tell me not to worry, to apologize for the inconvenience.

She was correcting an inconvenience, just not his. A bobbed haired woman she ushered took the neighboring seat.

“Thanks again.”

“Of course, miss. No problem,” the stewardess said.

The woman gave Sanjeev a casual glance, lips curved upwards.

“Turbulence freaked out some kid,” she offered confidentially.

“Oh.” She rolled her eyes in a You-Don’t-Wanna-Know fashion.

“Yeah, it’s been crazy. Worst I’ve experienced,” he said.

She nodded and pulled the remote free.

He considered adding something else, then fetched his remote likewise and played a Tom Cruise movie he’d already seen, cranking up the volume.

About a quarter of the way in, he was fairly distracted when the loud thwap sounded.

He yanked the headphones off and cocked his head.

The plane tipped and turned, shaking as it went through a scatter of clouds, and he made out a squeak and patter. A slip and scurry?

Thwap. Slip. Scurry. Listen to yourself. You’re assigning labels to the bone sounds of the airplane, no

different than saying the creak of wood settling in an old house was a phantom footfall.

There was a bang above him as the plane found smooth wind again.

Did you hear that?is what he wanted to ask the woman beside him, but what came out was, “Do you want to switch seats?”

She seemed to assess him in the beat of silence that followed.

“My ten-year-old self would’ve jumped at the offer, but I’m good. Thanks.”

“Sure, no problem,” Sanjeev said. “I usually change seats with my wife when we’re travelling.” He surprised himself with the blatant lie. “Just one of those things.”

Her smile was less genuine this time, and she steeply leaned away from him.

Drumming his fingers on the armrest, he strained his ears but couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary.

He shifted in his seat and gazed at her reflection in

print at all now.

His chin came down in a nod, his muscles relaxing.

The moment of respite he allowed himself dissolved when he spied something dark flicker across the glass, making it appear like the porthole winked.

He would’ve dismissed it as a thick cloud but the quick motion hadn’t occurred horizontally but had kissed the glass from bottom to top, leaving a hair-thin scratch in its wake.

Sanjeev sat ramrod straight, his heart galloping, forehead dewed with beads of sweat despite the cold.

His ears felt hot, unnaturally attuned to his surroundings.

A fragment from the dream he’d had popped in his head, which in turn led his thoughts to the Three Billy Goats Gruff. The three Billy Goats Gruff who could afford to be cautiously hopeful about their survival if they played it right; since whatever was under the bridge was capable of vocalizing, asking Who’s that trip trapping

His sanity felt slick with gasoline and each rap seemed like the scratch of a match. the glass. She was a tall, big-boned woman, wore jeans, a blouse and a leather jacket. The look she’d given him, the imperceptible tightening of her lower lids.

For the first time, he wondered if she was an air marshal.

Are there female air marshals, though?

I should change the title of my autobiography to I Married a Sexist Pig, came Alice’s voice.

He clasped his brow, as if she’d spoken in person.

I misspoke, Allie. That’s not what I meant.

He tried to sneak a look at her torso, scanning for any bulge that might betray she was armed.

The thought of her with a gun strapped to her body oddly gave him a semi-hard-on. Closing his eyes, he mentally tsked at himself.

I’m just being paranoid, is all.

The strange noises he’d heard earlier were probably remnants of the dream, and he just confused them with the plane sounds.

But what about the fingerprint?

Just a smudge.

He angled his head at the porthole. The night had robbed the print of its stark, scintillating quality lent by the golden light, and it appeared to be nothing more than a foggy blemish. It almost didn’t look like a finger-

on my bridge? The reverse was far more unnerving; to be huddled under a bridge, receiving no response save reverberating footsteps. You’d go crazy thinking about the thing lurking overhead.

What the hell am I doing thinking about goats and bridges?

Am I losing it? And over whVibrations from another tap brushed his heart.

His sanity felt slick with gasoline and each rap seemed like the scratch of a match. The sound seemed to crawl over to somewhere behind him now. trip-tap-tap “Stop it,” Sanjeev hissed, glancing over his shoulder.

A token car chase scene in an action movie played on the bobbed haired woman’s screen, the audio dialed down to zero. tap Sanjeev shot up from his seat and twisted around, his shirttail riding out of his trousers.

“I said stop that!”

The seven-year-old beanie-topped girl he addressed looked at him with complete terror. Her mother only showed puzzlement before her face contorted in anger, her arm reflexively shielding her daughter.

“Excuse me?”

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 13

“I’ve had enough of your kid kicking my seat.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Sir, why don’t you sit down?” Bobbed hair said.

She was on her feet, legs firmly planted on the floor, one hand pressed to her jacket at the waist, the other outstretched, open-palmed.

Lying bitch. Kid got freaked by turbulence my ass.

“I will,” Sanjeev said, “when this lady here tells her damn kid—” “You better watch what you say!” The woman raised her voice. She shook all over, her body experiencing a turbulence of its own. Her daughter let out a low whine and burst into tears.

“Look what you did you asshole. I don’t know what your problem is but you need help.”

“I need h-” “Calm down, sir,” Bobbed hair said.

“I am fucking calm,” he said, taking a step towards her; a mistake.

Cell phones peeked around headrests like sly little periscopes, recording the scuffle.

He tried to wriggle free but she deftly restrained him, clapping the cuff on his other wrist.

“Listen, I can explain,” he said as the marshal directed him to the back of the plane.

This time she didn’t object to a steward grabbing a hold of his arm.

“I’m sure you can. We can get this all sorted out once we land. For now, you’re coming with me,” she said.

Sanjeev sat in the company of the marshal and a steward, each keeping a watchful eye on him. He was still on edge, bracing himself for oxygen masks to drop every time the plane shuddered, for panicked wails to fill the world as they careened down. Would the marshal bother uncuffing him so he could call Alice one last time?

But as the plane steadily made its descent, the tur-

“I am fucking calm,” he said, taking a step towards her; a mistake.

Collective gasps and exclamations interjected the cabin’s woosh and the woman shrank, smothering her daughter in a protective embrace.

Before Sanjeev knew what was happening, the marshal had him twisted around and following a brief struggle, during which she snapped at one of the gathered stewards who inched closer, she clicked one end of the cuffs on Sanjeev’s right hand.

“It’s in your best interest to stop resisting.”

“But you don’t understand,” he shouted as the plane shook. “The fingerprint! There’s--” A thump near the porthole made the shutter slide halfway down.

Sanjeev’s frenzied babble convinced the marshal she was dealing with someone who hadn’t taken their pills like a good boy.

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bulence subsided altogether. Lucidity seeped in at the Captain’s voice announcing the time, prior to nosing into JFK airspace.

This is a young man’s mess I’ve gotten myself into, thought Sanjeev.

On landing, he would spend a whole day sitting in a small room on one side of the table, answering questions and repeating his answers. He could kiss his privacy goodbye until he left the airport, very likely with a disorderly conduct charge and a heavy fine.

Sanjeev had an idea of these things and mentally prepared himself for it.

But despite the awaiting gloom, a profound relief washed over him when his feet touched solid ground, and he steeled himself to step from one nightmare into another. []

ARTICLE PAM

MUNTER

Hello, Dolly,

Goodbye Nearly everything about the musical comedy “Hello, Dolly” is legendary. It’s a nostalgic time capsule set to music, not only of the early 20th century but of Broadway’s golden era. And yet, it remains timeless to audiences. Bette Midler has been playing to sold-out houses in a recent revival and in January Bernadette Peters will step into the iconic role. Both Carol Channing and Bette Midler won Tonys for their performance. For me, there is only one Dolly Gallagher Levi: the original.

It has been about a year and a half since the

SRO 95th birthday celebration for Carol Channing, held at the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert, California, just a few blocks from where I live. She was there, of course, seated in the center of the front row, right next to Tommy Tune. For the next two hours, there were film clips of her many comedic TV and film roles interspersed with live performances of her notable songs.

There were even more celebrities in the audience.

Among the celebrants on stage were Lucie Arnaz, Lily Tomlin, Florence Henderson, Carole Cook and Alan

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 15

PAM MUNTER is a Pushcart nominee and has an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. She has authored several books including When Teens Were

Keen: Freddie Stewart and The Teen Agers of Monogram (2005) and Almost Famous: In and Out of Show Biz (1986). She’s a retired clinical psychologist, former performer and film historian. Her play Life Without was produced by S2S2S, and nominated four times by the Desert Theatre League, including the Bill Groves Award for Outstanding Original Writing and Outstanding Play (staged reading).

Cumming, all Broadway veterans themselves. There were video bouquets from Broadway’s biggest stars and even a message from Barack Obama, read by local resident Gavin MacLeod. Both Henderson and Cook have since died and now, at 96, Channing is likely not far behind.

The event sold out quickly I’m told, so I was lucky to secure a box seat on the third level, stage left.

From my lofty vantage point, I could see the fragilelooking Channing in profile as she greeted her many admirers and friends before the show. It would be perfectly reasonable to say I went to pay tribute, too, to see the glittering array of talent. But it’s more truthful to admit I wanted to relive one of myown most unforgettable moments.

I was 21, alone, adrift, trying to figure out what to do with my life. I was in New York for five days on

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my way back to Los Angeles after an ill-fated short-term employment with a Boston newspaper. New York City always seemed to have my heart, even if I had only visited once before with my family years earlier. I was a lifelong show biz buff, but I had never seen a Broadway show.

As it turned out, the year 1964 was a stellar one for musicals. Channing had opened ten months earlier in “Hello, Dolly,” Barbra Streisand was starring in “Funny Girl,” Sammy Davis, Jr. was lighting up the boards in “Golden Boy,” and Zero Mostel had just created his role as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” I wanted to see all of them, even if it cost me every bit my paltry savings. Who knew when I’d get another chance?

My first day in the city, I walked up to the box office of the St. James Theater as soon as it opened and asked if there might be a ticket left for ‘Dolly.’ The man behind the glass snickered and told me he was sorry but

it was sold out for the next four months. As I started to walk away, he called me back.

“Wait, young lady. There is one ticket left. It’s for tonight.”

It was the last seat in the last row of the last balcony, nosebleed stuff. Scaling the endless stairs, I wondered if I would be able to make out the actors and hear the dialogue. The lights dimmed; I realized I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that I wanted to drink up every drop of this sacred atmosphere, relishing the fact that I was actually sitting in a Broadway theater.

The spotlight shone on the conductor, the audience went silent. He signaled for the downbeat, lowered

When it was over—way too soon for me—the audience rose as one and cheered, a phenomenon far less common then than it is today. The applause and curtain calls seemed to go on and on. I audibly wept. As the celebration abated and people started to leave, I remained in my seat, trying to compose myself. What had just happened to me? I walked back to the hotel in the chilled night air and thought about it for a long time.

Years, actually.

his baton and the orchestra began the overture. By the end of the second bar, my body had stiffened, my face flushed and tears were flowing down my cheeks. The sound engulfed me, devoured me, surfeited my senses. I thought I miss pass out or explode. Then the curtain went up to reveal dozens of singers and dancers in colorful period costumes, a visual blanket of unbelievable beauty. I wiped my eyes so I could see it all clearly. By the time Carol Channing made her entrance, I didn’t think I could feel any more intensity; my pulse couldn’t possibly race any quicker. But I was wrong. My eyes never left her for the rest of the show. I could easily see her oversized theatrical eyes and flashing ear-to-ear smile all the way up therein the hinterlands. It was as if she were performing just for me.

have the gall to simulate that magical performance? Toward the end of the two hours, the 28-piece orchestra suddenly launched into the famous intro and I knew the moment had come. The audience couldn’t help singing along and we knew all the words. As the song approached its conclusion, one of the celebrity emcees leaped off the stage holding a mic and gently placed it in Channing’s face. With that obvious cue, the still-seated Channing belted out, “Wow, wow, wow, fellas. Look at the old girl now, fellas.” Everyone in that audience knew it could be the last time she’d ever sing those lyrics. The cliché became truer than ever: there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. And it wasn’t the first time that Carol Channing and “Hello, Dolly” had made me cry. []

I knew, sitting in the balcony that evening in Palm Desert, that sooner or later there would have to be a tribute to Channing’s most famous musical. But who would

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 17

POETRY ALISA VELAJ

The Sun’s Shores “What terrifies you most in purity?” I asked.

“Haste,” William answered.

An excerpt from Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose

From now on I am your unreachable present You are my already abandoned past Over there on the shores of the shadows On the sun’s left.

Every morning on the sun’s right cactuses bloom flowers Enduring no more than your haste can handle Then, with purity, they embrace sunsets To greet light again at dawns.

You are my already abandoned yesterday Between you and me, two eyes of a distant eagle From the hardly visible mountain on the sun’s shores. []

Candles On my shoulders, I carry skies colder than yours, As well as many candles lit To cakes I lost in a place I cannot remember.

Tonight, you tell me to remain silent, Watch the stars give their performance, And see them fall, Feeling as hungry as I did once When I anxiously expected The waves to foam.

But now the candles have melted in my hands, And I don’t know where to put their remains… []

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TRANSLATION UKË ZENEL BUÇPAPAJ

There was a Time There was a time Called the time of leaves When you and I When both of us Discovered the Moon In an unknown remote forest You had found greenery Buried in darkness I had encountered you Travelling towards light.

Then we learned to find Trees and leaves with ease In the thicket of darkness In the thicket of light.

You love me and the moon.

There came a time Again they called it the time of leaves But the lost forest could not be found And the moon suddenly hid From you.

You loved me no more You no more knew what or whom you loved… []

ALISA VELAJ had been shortlisted for the annual international Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in UK in June 2014. Her works have appeared in more than eighty print and online international magazines, including FourW twentyfive Anthology, The Journal, The Dallas Review and others. Her poems have also been translated in Hebrew, Swedish, Romanian, French and Portuguese. Her poetry books include the digital chapbook “The Wind Foundations” (translated by Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj) and “With No Sweat At All” (trans. Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj), to be published by Cervena Barva Press in 2019.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Simon Matzinger

You would have been an uninvited guest, Ares The thought that I had lost you Appeared to me in a dream tonight, Ares A flame struggled to devour A crucified Christ And I, horrified, in a roofless room Protected myself from the bats running into the walls Ares, my sadness was so deep That I woke up from the dream with much haste Outside the roof tiles flew with the wind And the bats lay dead in the yard Like Pyrrhus’ soldiers after the battle…

It was better that you did not appear in that horrible mess You would have been an uninvited guest, Ares… []

There will come a Night Never force yourself into singing songs Let the sounds find the path leading to you For there will come a time A time will come When the ghosts of the hallow tree On which you are building your house Will conquer your forest, your yard, your being As if they were metastasis of darkness Invading a church that has never been a church UKË ZENEL BUÇPAPAJ is an Albanian writer who has published books of poetry and prose at home and abroad. His translation work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Seneca Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Visions International etc. He holds the following titles: ‘International Visitor’ ( USA , 1992); ‘Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing’ (University of Iowa, USA, 1992) and ‘Fulbright Scholar’ (University of Iowa, USA, 1992).

A Professor Doctor, he is currently teaching Comparative Literature, Literary Translation, Contrastive Linguistics and Study Skills at the University of Tirana.

Never trust the song For the cuckoo often hides itself in the nightingale’s voice The nightingale, yes, the nightingale is always the nightingale Train your ears so that the sounds cannot deceive you For there will come a night A night will come When the heart of the hallow tree Will be our final home Then every morning the nightingales will migrate never to return And you will remain a cuckoo sharing company with the blind nigh []

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POETRY L I N D A M. C R A T E

taking lives

LINDA M. CRATE is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has five published chapbooks, the latest being Splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018).

i won't be your spinning ballerina held on an impossible stage nor your canary hidden behind a gilded cage content to only sing songs for you and you alone i am not the kind of woman you can cage, i am wild and impossible; or so i've been told i don't rightly care i am who i am there will never be any apology issued i have already apologized for far too many things won't add myself to that list— you may think there are things i need to change, but i would knead the edges of your sharp judgment lest they impale you; because we are all different stars in a galaxy of many why not let us all shine in our own special way? you have no right to tell me my path or my journey because you never have or will know me fully only i can know my road and my sea and my vision; i can only rely on me to make my dreams come true will unravel any nightmare who thinks to stand in my path— too long i remained silent and voiceless people thought they could take advantage of my kindness they will be the first to fall in the rose gardens of my heart because they don't provide mere sweet fragrance, but thorns sharp enough to take lives. []

PHOTOGRAPHY: Jenny Huang

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needless pressure all those years i wasted thinking there was something wrong with me i wish i could have them back, and should that ever happen i am going to take these moments and smack them against your face so you can know a fraction of my pain; you've never understood me i tried saying that once but you turned it into 'you don't understand me, either'— aye, i don't understand a man who would take his pain and fashion it into a weapon to wound someone innocent; yes, i don't fathom a man who would demand authority in order to treat someone like a person—

i needed a father i was always supposed to be appeased with disappointment like my life would be furnished by nothing but the hollow noise of hearing no over and over again, but how could i be happy in a world that provided me no chance to shine or grow? you planted such horrid flowers in me those who smelled of death and decay or who weren't flowers, at all, but weeds which would spread from root to root until there was nothing left in me but a screaming scar that would never heal; and i don't understand why you had to turn your pain into a weapon and wound me— wasn't i worth breaking the cycle for? or didn't that matter to you because i was just your step-daughter? well, daddy dearest, my dreams are going to burn out all the disappointments you've given me and all the monsters, too; and when i'm finished i will be burning every memory of you because you may be kind to me now but you were mean, and you were cruel; and i needed a father not a monster. []

i have never understood nor liked cruelty, and i want my tears back; because i am not so sure my love for you will ever matter to you— all you care about is being right no matter what the cost is so don't be surprised when you drive me away from your heart forever because i can only take so much of your needless pressure. []

PHOTOGRAPHY: Cherry Laithang

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POETRY RAJNISH

IMAGE: Deflyne Coppens

MISHRA

Its time has not come This is not the poem I always wanted to write.

Its time has not come, not yet.

This one is on what I always wanted to write, but never did. I wanted to write of shiuli flowers in bloom.

No, it’s not English, it rises from the soil: the name, not flower.

What about that strange sounding flower?

Nothing. It’s just a flower, white petals, saffron stalk.

In autumn nights, in the months before and after the Mother’s puja, this flower fills dark nights with the light of sweetness. That’s not enough.

There are flowers, bela, rajnigandha: white alright, that bloom at night and smell as sweet. Yet, this poem is not on them. They can’t fill time with their fragrance. I can’t walk under their light and suddenly get hit by a pleasant wave that goes for over a meter, and few minutes or hours, or points its fingers towards ‘a long time ago’. Right?

No? Not you? This flower may not be magic for you.

The poem I want to write bangs fingers clenched in a fist at mind’s doors at workless nights, with a leisurely walk under a shiuli tree, the ingredients of the poem I always wanted to write for you.

Its time has not come, not yet. []

RAJNISH MISHRA is a poet, writer, translator and blogger born and brought up in Varanasi, India and now in exile from his city. His work originates at the point of intersection between his psyche and his city. He edits PPP Ezine.

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I tried to stay away I tried to stay away, from poetry, write not in verse but prose.

Four months I managed to stay cleansed of verse, four months exactly, not a day more, nor less.

Then it happened, the form at least.

I know now that I can’t choose it, it chooses me.

I write, I live.

It’s not easy: to live, to write and then, I need at least one good thing to live on.

Poetry, I say, is as harmless as any other addiction, its price, one life. []

Being It's difficult to be what you are destined to be, more difficult to know what you are destined to be, and then to live, not reaching there, ever.

Nothing comes for free.

The world takes the fee of life.

Sometimes it simply condemns you to live your death as you know you live, but not your destiny.

No David for that Goliath, the world not for long, not for ever.

You live compromises, one after the other.

You give some and then, some more.

My sons, they tell me that a part of my destiny will be fulfilled through them.

I smile and mask my fear.

Just think of the day they know their father, the midget, the coward, and then, hate him for not being what he was destined to be. []

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FICTION A N N S. E P S T E I N

Eros Salon As her husband set down the first of a dozen folding chairs, Gitla asked if it was too late to cancel the invitations. Professor Ernst Bendler stood between two love seats and an overstuffed couch, across from assorted armchairs, ottomans, oriental pillows, and padded stools and answered that he hoped an hour from now every seat in their living room would be filled.

Gitla wrung her hands. In Frankfurt, before the Nazis ruled Jews could no longer teach, before she and Ernst had fled, her wedding band had been nearly swallowed by her flesh. Now

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ART: Vercherinka (Evening Gathering) by VLADIMIR YEGOROVICH MAKOVSKY. This painting by the Russian painter is considered to be a subversive piece of painting depicting a gathering of secret revolutionaries.

her finger was as skinny as the chicken bone Hansel used to fool the witch.

“Clayton Dowdy said if he sees one more Negro come here who isn’t a cleaning lady or a handyman, he’ll shoot him.”

“My colleague was simply giving me a ride to campus the day Clayton saw him outside.”

“And you asked your colleague, plus other Negroes, and whites, to come inside our house tonight and spend the whole evening together. Our crazy neighbor is going to shoot you.”

“Here, eat something.” Ernst handed her a platter she’d filled with German poppy seed cake, sugar donuts, and pudding pretzels. Gitla pushed it away.

“Ach, who can think of food at a time like this?” Before their escape to the United States, she’d freely indulged in the pastries she baked for him, their two teenage boys, and the faculty and students who gathered at their home during monthly salons to discuss philosophy, art, and justice. Now she barely picked.

“Essen,” Ernst said, taking a bite

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himself. “God gave us mouths to eat.”

Gitla rearranged the cake slices and put the platter back on the end table. “He also gave us noses to breathe. I can’t do either in this place. Alabama is too hot.”

“Winter is nice.”

“It’s unnatural. No snow. Everything in the South is strange, except that here too, people hate the Jews.”

Ernst reminded her he’d had no choice. A few prestigious scholars got jobs in the North, like Albert Einstein up at Princeton, but most academics ended up at small Negro schools in the South. No other institutions would have them. Ernst was grateful that Talledega College agreed to take him. Some of his old colleagues could only find work as clerks and deliverymen, and in these hard times, even they were resented for taking jobs that other whites could have filled.

Gitla fussed with the food and furniture, trusting her instincts as a hostess to momentarily overtake her fears. Ernst stroked her gaunt, flushed cheek. “If only you took care of yourself as well as this house.” He enumerated its features: a veranda facing the street, a screened sleeping porch overlooking the back garden, and an oak front door so solid that it was impenetrable to everything except the heat. “Even if I’d found work up North, we couldn’t have afforded to rent a home as grand as this. A sitting room and a living room, separate bedrooms for Lazar and Manfred, a library for me and a sewing room for you. Big kitchen, banquet-size dining room.”

“You forgot the maid’s room and what used to be the slaves’ shacks, crumbling behind the rotting orchard,” Gitla added. They both fell silent. It was a reminder of why this evening’s salon, their first in America, was so important.

The Bendlers’ sons burst in just then, returning from their after-school jobs clerking at the black-owned cooperative general store. “Mama.Papa. You’ll never guess what happened,” said Lazar. “A man out front asked Jimmy, the manager, if we were white boys. Someone answered, ‘No, them’s Jews boys.’” Manfred picked up the story. “‘What are Jew boys?’ the first man asked.

So Jimmy says,” they both chimed in, “‘Well, they are some sort of colored folks.’”

Ernst smiled and turned to Gitla. “See, the Negroes think we are one of them.”

Gitla stifled a cry. “So do the whites. That’s what scares me.”

Her husband didn’t see it that way. In this matter, he had a choice. “Unlike our neighbors in Germany,” he’d said, “I can’t be a bystander to injustice.

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The salon brings people together to share ideas, to resist. I can’t promise them safety, but I can create a space where everyone makes a contribution.”

Gitla pointed to the bowls and platters of food.

“I baked and cooked all day in this terrible heat so your guests could eat while they talked. Isn’t that enough of a contribution?”

Ernst put his hands on his wife’s shoulders.

“Liebe, it’s a very generous one, but it comes from your hands. I need a contribution that’s bestowed from your heart.”

Gitla heard people climbing the steps to the veranda, talking quietly so as not to attract attention. Although she’d studied English as a schoolgirl in Germany, she was still getting used to the sound of the language after a year in America. She couldn’t tell a southern accent from a northen one, let alone a white voice from a Negro. Other faculty wives assured her she’d soon hear the difference, but Gitla hoped not. With an untrained ear, she could pretend she was only a temporary resident, that bigotry here was limited, hatred back home would be defeated, and her family would return.

Once inside, the guests stood in the vestibule, self-segregated, unsure where to sit. Gitla counted. From Talledega were two of her husband’s Jewish colleagues, their spouses, and the Kohns’ teenage daughter. There were four Negro faculty, including Nat Harris, the man Clayton Dowdy had seen picking up Ernst. Two brought wives, and the Hills their teenage son, but the others’ spouses were afraid to come. Six brave Talledega students showed up, however, as did three white students from nearby Birmingham Southern College, where Ernst had taken the bus one day to put up posters. Finally, Karl Hartmann, a local German who’d emigrated at the start of the Great War and made no secret of his anti-Nazi sentiments, came with his wife and two friends.

Gitla was both surprised and nervous at the even mix and number of people. She expected Ernst to be pleased. Instead he was disappointed. “I thought you’d be dancing in circles,” she told him. “You look like you swallowed the swarm of flies buzzing around the honeysuckle vine.”

“Of course I’m delighted with the turnout, except I was hoping to see Hale Carter. The incident last week must have scared him off.”

Gitla raised her eyebrows. “What incident?”

Her husband reddened. “I didn’t think it was worth alarming you. Professor Carter and I were having coffee at the Cosy Café. Apparently it’s against city code for people of different races to sit together at an eating

establishment. I was fined twenty-eight dollars. He was charged twice that and ordered to report to municipal court the next day.” Gitla asked what had happened there. “Hale didn’t say, but I imagine they threatened more severe consequences for him next time.”

“No wonder Professor Carter didn’t come tonight. Why ask for trouble?” Gitla saw whites and Negroes beginning to mingle. “You shouldn’t ask for it either. Jews are persecuted here too.”

“Not as much as Negroes.”

Gitla grimaced and ushered guests into the living room. “Eat,” she told everyone. “No leftovers.

They’ll spoil in this heat.” A few people helped themselves to cake and cookies, while the German Jews were delighted to see a platter of blintzes. Everyone else looked suspiciously at the cheese-filled pancakes topped with sour cream. “They’re like crepes,” Gitla explained.

A white student tried one and nodded his approval. He put another blintz on a plate and handed it to

ing out of their mouths would separate them from the white boys who taunted Negroes on the street.

Ernst clapped his hands to signal it was time for the meeting to begin. He led or pointed people to their seats, alternating ages and races, except for two Negro students.

“Excuse me sir, I think you lost track.” Coby Freemont moved one chair to the left.

“No, no, sit right here.” Ernst practically pushed the boy’s shoulders down into the seat next to Fay Woodruff.

People were momentarily confused, but Gitla knew what was happening. Her husband was matchmaking, just as he’d done with his students in Frankfurt.

It was dangerous for him to be so presumptuous with Negroes. Thank goodness, he wasn’t mingling races but he was crossing class lines. He’d told her that Fay came from a comparatively well-to-do family; both her parents were teachers. Coby’s mother took the bus every

“I came from a situation of forced segregation in Germany where my kind were the victims.” the Negro student beside him, who still hesitated.

“Really, it’s good,” said the white student. “It’s not that,” said the Negro. “It’s that I’ve never eaten with a white person before.”

Crossing that boundary put people at ease. Gitla relaxed a bit too, accepting their thanks. Standing on the threshold, alternately watching the front door and the living room, she studied the crowd, trying to figure out where she fit in, beginning with clothes. The women wore flowered or polka dot dresses, wide-brimmed hats, and gloves; the men coats and ties, despite the heat.

Girls’ dresses were shorter, and boys’ pants more tapered, but Gitla could discern no differences based on race. Hair was a different matter, at least for females.

Most wore it short, but whites curled theirs while the Negroes’ was straightened. Gitla touched her own wavy hair, rolled into braids at the base of her neck, the same style she’d worn in Germany. Perhaps the Alabama heat would be less bothersome if she bobbed her hair like theirs. Certainly, she’d appear more American.

She looked at Lazar and Manfred, chatting with Hanni Kohn, wiping their sugary hands on the thighs of their dungarees. It didn’t take her sons long to look and sound like their peers. Only their religion would continue to set them apart. And, she hoped, the words com-

day to Birmingham, where she worked as a hotel maid, while his father was a janitor at the college, allowing Coby to attend Talledega tuition-free.

Gitla could imagine what Fay’s parents would say about Coby. It would be no different from what her wealthy parents said about Ernst’s humble background.

“He’s not one of us, dear.” He’d risen in their estimation when he got his doctorate, but they’d never seen him as suitable for their daughter. Gitla assumed Negroes were the same as Jews that way. In any outcast group, higherups differentiated themselves from lower-downs. Ernst wasn’t mixing races, but he was stirring up class. One way or the other, her well-meaning husband was going to cause trouble.

Ernst thanked everyone for coming. “I came from a situation of forced segregation in Germany where my kind were the victims. Now, as white man in the South, I belong not to the oppressed, but to the oppressor, an uncomfortable position for me.” His Jewish colleagues nodded. “And a bad one for the rest of society.” The Negroes murmured assent. “Tonight we will explore the outrage of social injustice from the perspectives of philosophy and aesthetics. Why do I propose these two lenses? Because philosophy is the cauldron of radical

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thought, while art is the canvas of radical expression.

Also, because those are the only subjects about which I’m well informed.”

When people stopped laughing, he continued.

“For the past decade, I have been inspired by the work of the Frankfurt School, especially my former young colleague Theodor Adorno. I will share his thoughtprovoking ideas, then open the meeting for debate. That is, I’ll start things off, but I don’t intend to lead. Justice means there is equal value in what each of us has to say.”

Ernst took a seat on one side of the room. Gitla recognized the gesture as his signal that, as promised, he would not occupy center stage. All eyes turned toward him expectantly. “To begin, I offer these words from Professor Adorno: ‘Freedom would not be to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices.’ Please, everyone, share your thoughts.”

A physics professor from Berlin agreed that it was good to see all people as the same. A Negro teacher who’d been at Talledega since before Ernst’s sons were born, followed. “Equality yes; sameness no. Slave owners tried to beat every trace of individuality out of us.

My question is how can we Negroes have the same rights as whites, but still retain our blackness?”

When a student from Birmingham raised his hand. Ernst said he didn’t need permission to speak, there was no hierarchy in this room. The student pointed to himself. “I attend an all-white college.” He pointed to the Talledega group. “You go to an all-Negro school. Every other aspect of our lives is segregated too—our houses, the places we shop and go swimming, even where we worship. How will we ever learn to live together?”

The physics professor’s wife spoke softly. “By meeting like this, for one.”

Coby raised his hand. Ernst reminded him there was no need to. “We can meet,” Coby said, “but at our own risk. People are ready to kill us for what we’re doing tonight, just like they killed Nat Turner for daring to rebel more than a hundred years ago.” A collective shiver spread among the Negro men. “Professor Ernst, does your philosopher say anything about slavery?”

Ernst consulted his list of quotes. “Adorno was condemning Nazis but I believe these words also apply to slavers. ‘Only a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members, that has itself died, can inflict it administratively on innumerable people.’”

Karl Hartmann put his hand on his chest. “I am ashamed of what my country has become. Twenty years ago, when Gertrud and I left for America, I was proud to be a German. No longer.”

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Another Negro professor addressed the group.

“This meeting has value, yes, but how many of us are here? How can two dozen change the world with millions more against us?”

People shook their heads. Then Hanni Kohn, whose parents were the first German Jews to arrive at Talladega, stood. “We change it one step at a time.” She looked at the college students, Ernst’s sons, and Percy Hill, the Negro teenager whose father also taught at Talledega. “Young people especially must push for change, because we are the future.”

Lazar spoke next. “Hanni is right. But it will be a long time before people our age are powerful enough to have much effect.” Manfred seconded his brother.

“Our generation has to convince our parents and teachers because they have money and can vote.” Both boys looked to Hanni for approval. Gitla exchanged a look of parental pride with Ernst. She knew their sons spoke in part to impress Hanni, but their points were well taken.

Ernst looked at Percy, who hadn’t yet spoken, and asked his opinion. For a moment, the boy’s mouth remained shut. Then he stood and a torrent of words spilled out. “It’s not my parents I have to convince. Nor do most of the rest of you here tonight. It’s the white shopkeeper who spits when I walk past his door, even if I don’t intend to go in. The white mother who grabs her child’s hand and crosses the street when she sees me coming. No matter if I’m dressed in dungarees or wearing my Sunday best. They don’t trust me not to steal and rape.” Percy glared at the Jewish professors. “Frankly, I don’t know whether to trust any whites either, including you. Do you teach at Talledega because you want to, or because it’s the only school that would hire you? Can I count on you to treat me as an intelligent human being or can you not help seeing me as inferior to the white students you taught in Germany?”

Percy’s mother gasped at his outspokenness.

Gitla understood her alarm. When they still lived in Germany, she was afraid her sons’ brashness would get them in trouble with the Gestapo, whose eyes and ears were everywhere. Meanwhile the Jewish professors squirmed under the boy’s accusations. At last, Ernst spoke up. “I wouldn’t teach anywhere else, even if I got an offer. White students take their education for granted. Here I feel needed, and for that I owe you a debt of gratitude. The best way I know to repay that is to respect my students, and colleagues.” He put his hand on Percy’s shoulder. “You are angry? Good! Mr. Adorno says, ‘A splinter in one’s eye is the best magnifying glass.’” He turned to the others. “But he does not advocate using violence.”

Fay Woodruff raised her hand and spoke at the

same time. “Professor Bendler, you said we would discuss philosophy and art. So far we’ve only talked about the first. What does your German colleague say about art and injustice?”

Ernst quoted from memory. “Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.”

A German professor said he thought Adorno was referring to Freud’s doctrine that we should sublimate anger, for example, through painting or music. A Telladega professor confessed to having no idea what the words meant. “Can one of you students enlighten me?” he asked.

“He’s saying we can use art, not violence, to incite change.” Fay looked hopeful. Gitla recalled that Fay had talked to Ernst about switching her major from teaching to art, but worried her parents would object that art wasn’t respectable. They assumed she’d be a teacher, like them.

Coby sounded scornful. “Art alone can never

“Friends, I will close with one more quote from Professor Adorno. ‘Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.’ Please consider this proposition for us to discuss next time.”

As people said thank you and spilled onto the veranda, Gitla heard them already echoing the words fear, fascism, and democracy. She pinched her husband’s sleeve and repeated only the last two words: “Next time?”

Ernst waltzed her around the furniture. “Yes, Liebe, once a month. Other than Hale not coming, the evening was a splendid success. We agreed or disagreed among ourselves but no one from outside bothered us.”

He began folding chairs. “Theodor would have been so proud of Fay’s remark that art can garner support from less radical corners. Peace and beauty at the same time.”

“Ach, with all the ugliness in the world, how can you think about beauty?” Gitla locked the door and

“Do you teach at Talledega because you want to, or because it’s the only school that would hire you?” be enough. I don’t know about you, but the people I grew up with don’t have time to look at art or write songs about oppression. Even if they did, no one outside our community is going to pay any attention. Certainly not white folks.”

Fay stiffened and swivelled toward Coby. “Art can’t do it all, but just like these meetings, it’s a place to start. It might draw people to the movement who are afraid to protest otherwise.”

Coby’s face softened. His response was inaudible because he and Fay began a private conversation.

After a few seconds however, she smiled at him and said, “Oh, yes” loud enough for everyone to hear.

Ernst smirked at Gitla across the room. She rolled her eyes. If Fay took up with Coby and changed her major, her parents would pull her out of school.

Ernst’s maneuvering was going to break the hearts of four people. What was the Southern equivalent of “treading on thin ice?”

The group continued to debate whether meetings like theirs or the arts could make a difference beyond a small audience. At ten o’clock, Gitla lowered her cheek on her palm, the sign she and Ernst exchanged years ago when it was time for their boys, still wound up, to go to bed. Ernst raised his hands as if in blessing.

peered through its small windowpane. Her stomach knotted. She motioned Ernst to turn off the lamps and beckoned him over to look. Standing across the street was Clayton Dowdy, cradling something long and metallic in his arms. It glinted in the Alabama moonlight.

A fortnight later, Karl Hartmann knocked on the door and told Gitla he needed to speak to Ernst. When she said he was at a faculty meeting, Karl said he’d wait for him to get home. Alarmed, Gitla said Ernst would be quite late, but if the message was urgent, she’d stay up and give it to him. She beckoned Karl into the sitting room, but he recited his story standing in the vestibule.

“I was at my house with the two friends who came to the salon, when a loud banging interrupted our Wednesday night pinochle game. Gertrud went to answer but I told her to go into the kitchen and stay there.

If she heard threatening words or fighting in the parlor, she should go out the back way and tell our neighbor to call for help.”

When Gitla gasped, Karl reassured her that his wife was fine. “I opened the door to Clayton Dowdy and his two hooligan buddies, carrying shotguns and crowbars. They shoved past me to the card table where my friends half-stood. Clayton said to take our seats

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 29

Iconic picture of the 1848 revolution in Berlin.

In the painting above, one can recognize in the middle and on the bottom edge the flag of the monarchist Revolutionaries.

They wanted a unified Germany with a monarch at its head. On the right side one can see two flags of the republican Revolutionaries. They wanted a Republic based on the French example and therefore constructed their flag with vertical stripes, in the style of the French Tricolor. (Wiki)

because they’d come for a ‘little chat.’ They laid their weapons on the table, poured glasses of schnapps, and helped themselves to Gertrud’s strudel. Then they wiped their mouths and spat on the floor.”

Gitla didn’t want to hear these details, but knew Karl needed to say them. Like the Jews in Germany recounting a frightful or humiliating experience, the teller could not be rushed.

Karl closed his eyes. Imitating Clayton’s drawl, he tried to reproduce his exact words. “I understand you all been palling around with smart-ass niggers at the kike professor’s house. Rumor has it you’re fixing to meet there again. Now why would members of the Master Race such as you fine specimens lower yourselves to consort with a bunch of apes and swine?”

Gitla’s stomach churned. “How do you even answer such a vile question?”

“I told him I didn’t subscribe to Hitler’s theories of Aryan superiority, and that his ideas would bring the Fatherland down, not raise it up. Then your ignorant neighbor asked what we talked about at our little ‘tetch-a -tetches.’” Karl laughed at Clayton’s mispronunciation.

“I said that we talked about how all men are created

30 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

equal.”

“What did Mr. Dowdy say to that?”

“That if all men were created equal, Jews shouldn’t have so much power and it was up to people like him to even the score.”

“And what about the Negroes?” “‘Too uppity,’ according to Mr. Dowdy. He said justice was due for the white man whose power is being stripped away, including by traitors like me and my friends.” Again Karl laughed. “I told him he’d found one point — that there’s a hierarchy of power — on which we agreed.”

Gitla was surprised. “You agreed with him? He liked that?”

“Until I added that for Clayton and his pals, who were already scraping the bottom of the barrel, they had to cast others as the dregs. By any means, lawful or not.” Karl studied Gitla, apparently deciding it was too late to hold back now. “Clayton reminded me that around here, legal or not, lawmen took his side. He whacked his crowbar on the table to emphasize his point.”

Gitla flinched.

“Then Clayton did a surprising thing. He stared at me with genuine puzzlement and asked me to explain why I loved kikes and niggers.”

She was as curious about the answer as Mr. Dowdy.

“I handed the men their weapons and opened the front door. I told him my beliefs had nothing to do with love. The reason I would stand against him was because I hated Nazis.”

“They left after that?”

“Yes. Gertrud came out of the kitchen and told me and my friends it was not safe to return here. I think they are bluffing but I came over to warn you. I left my friends to stay with Gertrud until I got back, but I should go now. You will be okay until Professor Bendler gets home?”

As Gitla let Karl out, she looked up and down the street. Everything was quiet. A gentle breeze blew into the vestibule, bringing the cloying scent of honey-

Gitla pulled her hands away. “How can you think of romance at a time like this?”

“What better time? We must counter ugliness with beauty and answer hate with love. Did you see how Fay and Coby put their heads together by the end of the first meeting? Remember how we too leaned towards one another the first time we met for coffee, twenty years ago?”

“Clayton Dowdy asked Karl Hartmann why he was a lover of Jews and Negroes. Karl answered that, on the contrary, he was a hater of Nazis.”

Ernst wagged his head. “Nein! One must never be motivated by hatred. Even when you stand against something base, it must be because you are working for an ideal that is higher.”

Gitla listened to her husband’s now familiar speech. People at the salon would spread its ideas. Then he added, “Fighting consumes energy. Friends and colleagues bolster us, but we draw the greatest strength

“At some point, an oppressed people must stop running and turn to face their oppressors.” suckle flowers beginning to rot.

Gitla polished the condiment dish over and over waiting for Ernst to come home. As promised, she relayed Karl’s warning and repeated his opinion that Clayton Dowdy and his band of bigots were bluffing. Then she added her own. “Mr. Hartmann means well, but he’s wrong. Mr. Dowdy is dead serious. Hale Carter was right not to come to the first salon and you should cancel the second. It’s a few days away. Ample time to inform your guests.”

Ernst refused. “I spoke to Hale tonight. I haven’t given up on persuading him to join us. As for Mr. Dowdy and his ilk, they are further proof that the Social Justice Forum must continue. However, I will let the others know of the threat, so they can choose not to attend.”

“Does your own family have that option?”

Ernst’s broad hands held Gitla’s trembling ones. “Jews cannot flee like we did from the Nazis. At some point, an oppressed people must stop running and turn to face their oppressors. The time has come to stand up for justice, not just for us, but for the Negro as well.” Ernst grinned. “Besides, the forum is fertile ground for nurturing romance.”

from those we love. A fighter needs a partner. That’s why I’m so eager to play matchmaker with my students.” Ernst pleaded. “That’s why I need you by my side.”

“And what of the risk to me? And our sons?”

“Who else do you think I do this for?”

“The rest of humanity,” snapped Gitla. “And from what I see of them, you’re on a fool’s errand.

Nonetheless, if you choose to proceed, I will again prepare the food for your guests.”

Ernst circled her wrists. “How thin you’ve grown. This time will you eat as well as serve?”

Gitla asked if that would satisfy him. She put away the condiment bowl and went upstairs to bed without waiting for an answer.

The heat was extreme, even for an Alabama summer. After four tornadoes last spring that injured dozens and killed four, the weather still made people jumpy. On the evening of the second salon, or forum as it was now called, the sky was clear and the winds unnaturally still. Inside the Bendler house, the air hung heavy but redolent. As promised, Gitla had spent the day baking. Anger made her sweat even more than usual; chills of fear alternately cooled her off.

She stood beside her husband on the veranda,

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 31

scanning the street. Told of Clayton and his friends, colleagues and students had sworn to Ernst it wouldn’t deter them, but Gitla hoped last-minute common sense, might. In twos and threes, however, everyone who came last time, except for Gertrud, Karl’s wife, reappeared.

Ernst, relieved, turned to usher the last of them inside.

“Don’t close the door, unless you canceled the edict that I attend tonight’s proceeding.” Hale Carter marched up the steps. “I believe you know Professor Knight.”

Ernst introduced Gitla to Katherine Knight, one of two women on the Talledega faculty. “Your presence is as sweet as the honey icing on my wife’s German bee sting cake. Come inside, you must try some.” Ten minutes later, after nibbling at the food, everyone was eager to begin. Without prodding, whites and Negroes, professors and students, took seats next to one another.

Ernst started by repeating the Adorno quote

anything directly to Coby.”

“Their disdain for me was pretty evident in the set of their mouths.”

“But they didn’t hold back when they found an invitation to the Social Justice Forum on my desk. They said I was entering dangerous territory, that Jews were Communists with radical ideas, and that I should stick to what I was learning in class from my Negro instructors.”

A faint smile crossed Ernst’s lips. The other Jewish professors stared at the floor. Fay looked around the room, a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I told my parents the Negro teachers were opening my mind too, that everyone here was interested in feelings as well as thoughts.”

Ernst glanced at Gitla before addressing the group. “So, what are your feelings and thoughts about the second half of Adorno’s argument? If fear and fas-

People argued the pros and cons of love versus hate in battling bigotry. he’d asked them to consider last time, that fear and destructiveness fuel fascism, while eros is the provenance of democracy. One of his Berlin colleagues agreed instantly. “For centuries, Jews have been demonized as something less than human. The more successful we are, the more we are feared. Demagogues like Adolf Hitler prey on that fear. Ergo, fascism arose in Germany.”

“It’s the same in the South. Poverty breeds envy and suspicion. Poor white folks are more racist than rich ones,” said a friend of Karl’s. A Birmingham student concurred. “Those at the low end of society have to make sure someone is worse off so they can gloat over them.”

Fay raised her eyebrows at Coby. Gitla intuited, from the way he nodded, as though giving her permission, that something had happened between them.

“Hierarchies exist within groups as much as across them,” Fay said. “Last Saturday, when my folks drove up for Parents’ Weekend, they made it clear they did not approve of Coby because he came from a poorer family.”

“It didn’t help that I was in greasy work clothes.

My dad was sick, of all the weekends not to be, and I was subbing on janitorial duty. My hand was too dirty to shake Mr. Woodruff’s.”

“Of course, my parents were too polite to say

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cism destroy freedom, can love restore it?”

Karl Hartmann cleared his throat. “With respect, Professor Bendler, we have not finished discussing the first half. Fear and hatred can also fan the flames of resistance. Otherwise we get complacency.”

“The man is right,” said Percy. His parents frowned at each other from opposite sides of the room.

“My sentiments exactly,” said the physics professor. “I didn’t come here to express love. I came because it is time to show rage. If I can’t direct it toward the Nazis in Germany, I can aim it at the whites in America who hate Jews and Negroes. At least, in this country, I won’t get locked up or killed for speaking my mind.”

Karl sneered. “Don’t be so sure, professor.”

People argued the pros and cons of love versus hate in battling bigotry. Gitla found no pattern in their opinions. Negroes and whites, older and younger, appeared equally divided on the issue. And equally passionate. She eyed the front door. Raised voices would attract attention.

Hale Carter spoke for the first time. “I can’t weigh the motivation of love versus hate, but I can speak to the imbalance of power. It’s human nature to fight to gain an advantage. But it’s also in our nature to cooperate. I believe we must try all avenues of peaceful

negotiation before we resort to violence. I’m not saying we can’t be assertive about our rights, but aggression is counterproductive.” He looked at the six Negro students individually, ending with Coby and Fay. Fay stood. “Power struggles are in every relationship. Black and white. Christian and Jew. Rich and poor. Men and women.” She smiled ruefully. “Parents and children.” Coby reached for her hand. Fay squeezed it, sat down, and leaned against him.

Ernst winked at Gitla. This time she didn’t roll her eyes. A romance had been kindled, but he was wrong to take credit for being the catalyst. It wasn’t his advocacy of eros that bound Fay to Coby, but her parents’ adversity. Sometimes Gitla wondered what kept her and Ernst together. Was it because they were right for each other, or determined to prove her parents wrong?

“I propose we move on,” said Ernst. From the list of Adorno’s quotes, he read: “‘Truth is inseparable from the illusory belief that from the figures of the unreal, one day, in spite of all, real deliverance will come.’”

Ernst asked if people shared that hope.

Coby’s response was instantaneous and adamant. “If by deliverance, Adorno means some higher power will come to rescue us, then I say no.” Most Jews in the room agreed.

“But if by deliverance he means justice, achieved through our own actions, I believe it’s possible,” Hale said.

Karl was about to speak when a distant shot rang out, followed by the closer sound of breaking glass.

Shards from the front windowpane littered the vestibule floor. People crouched; someone turned off the lights.

The glow from the street lamps illuminated the room in liquid gold.

Ernst remained standing. “Whoever wants to leave can go through the back kitchen door.” The Hills crawled there, dragging Percy behind them. The Kohns beckoned Hanni to follow them too. They said they’d

also take Lazar and Manfred, who looked torn between the excitement of the confrontation and spending the night at Hanni’s house. The other guests stayed.

“Will you go with the boys?” Ernst asked Gitla.

She blinked, snapping a mental picture of everyone left in the room. “My family is here as much as with them. I don’t just mean with you. Like it or not, in Alabama, we’re all family.” She cocked her head toward the thudding footsteps on the veranda, and the curses coming through the shattered window. “Now I can hear the difference. All the voices are white.”

Ernst held his ground. “Perhaps we can try to understand and change them too.”

Gitla stared in disbelief. “How, in God’s name, when they are so different from us?”

From memory, Ernst quoted: “‘Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.’”

With a dismissive wave of her hand, Gitla told him, “Too dissimilar. Even the wisdom of your beloved Theodor Adorno has its limits.”

“I’m willing to test them? Are you?”

Part of Gitla sided with Karl. She hated the men outside who would hurt her children; they were no better than Nazis. Yet she also wanted to believe, like her husband, that love conquered all. Karl had come to stand beside Ernst. Across the room, Fay and Coby clung to each other. In the end, did it matter what she believed? Judaism was a religion of action more than faith.

Gitla went to the sideboard. It was a weekday night, but she kindled the Sabbath candles. She ate a large slice of Sacher torte and told everyone to take their seats. The street lamps and candles lit their way. Gitla passed around the food. When she’d finished serving, she herself sat on a love seat next to Hale, motioned for Ernst to take a chair, and spoke to their remaining guests above the battering at the heavy front door. “I believe we were discussing deliverance,” she said. []

ANN S. EPSTEIN is a writer of novels, short stories, memoir, craft articles, and book reviews. Her published novels include On the Shore, Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press) and A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (Alternative Book Press, 2018). Her other work appears in Sewanee Review (winner of the 2017 Walter Sullivan Prize), PRISM International, Ascent, The Long Story, Saranac Review and others. Ann has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology and M.F.A. in textiles. The social sciences and visual arts infuse the content and imagery of her writing. Many of her stories have historical settings in which fact and fiction are liberally mixed, and she is gratified to have forgotten what is and is not real by the time a work is finished.

Visit https://www.asewovenwords.com/

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 33

POETRY

GRAPHICS: Colin Behrens

SAURJA DASGUPTA

Paper Takes Flight A day of meditating over a blank piece of paper No scratches, no wrinkles then. Inspiration.

Graphite marks start to inundate the barren white; a skeleton emerges out of an idea Vague strokes are replaced by measurements The hollow body now dressed in shades of charcoal A whim places a flag on its wings The sketch has a country. A purpose.

Caught in two dimensions the paper airplane grows impatient Foreign skies await, or do they?

Million zeroes and ones hold hands inside a silicon rainforest The paper sketch looks into a digital mirror and lusts for itself Enhanced graphics, increased accuracy Purpose remains the same The screen blinks twice The paper airplane is ready to fly.

Clumsy folds and creases on a piece of paper torn from a history book The boy doesn’t need it anymore There is no homework There is no school to go to.

But there is spare time; lots of it, to fold paper airplanes that don’t fly So, he keeps making more.

Another idle morning Stepping out of his shanty he runs into a clearing and let’s his plane fly into the sky But it nose-dives straight into the dirt.

A thunderclap, he turns around.

A black military plane fades away at a distance from where his home had been a second ago He recognizes the freshly painted flag He picks up his clumsy paper airplane It is all he has now.

And now his plane has a new purpose. []

SAURJA DASGUPTA is a lucid dreamer, which compels him to search for reality. He inspects scientific reality during the day as he works through his PhD in Chemistry at The University of Chicago and artistic reality during the night through his writing.

Currently Saurja is working on a short-film project and simultaneously writing a popular science book about his scientific research.

34 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

Dark Chocolates and Body-Bags What are you doing now?

Trying to plan tomorrow?

Polishing your trophies?

Proofreading your resume?

Trying to give up nicotine or alcohol or freedom?

Trying to get off drugs, so that you can huff a healthy dose of sweet, distilled success?

What are you doing now?

Staring at the peeling paint?

That blank wall has no answers to your questions Where did it go wrong?

Why did time defect to the other side?

Why did trust seem so flimsy that night?

Why did that landmine have to explode under the toddler's shaky steps?

Why did you hunt your friends to feed your enemies?

What are you doing now?

Wondering if this is the end?

Searching for a firefly in this dense night?

Picking up pieces of your past and gluing them together with lies?

Bruises turn to scars; scars turn more hideous than you ever felt inside Is sleep an option?

Do you feel powerless now?

Or is pride still keeping you awake?

Give it time to make a mockery of itself Life got out of hand rather quickly, don’t you think?

Look for a white cloth wipe off those filthy stains your mortal ego has left behind and then you may finish eating that box of dark chocolate Your body bag is not going anywhere.

Just like you. []

ART: Ondřej Šponiar

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 35

HIMADRI KETU SANYAL is a PhD candidate in Media and Culture Studies at Albert Ludwig University. She has done her MPhil, M.A. and B.A.A. in German literature and culture which has exposed her to the world of words and stories.

FICTION HIMADRI

KETU

SANYAL

Whistles

36 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

It will still take a while. Chickpeas should be boiled for 12-15 whistles meaning approx. 20- 25 minutes on low gas flame, which gives me enough time to chop the supplementary vegetables like onion, tomatoes and prepare the spices’ paste for the chole, the chickpea curry. Till the pressure is settling down, I hastily chop down the cauliflower into little florets to make a vegetable fry to go with rice and chole which altogether will fill up the three divisions of my new serving steel plates providing a very nice look to guests, or let’s say a ‘well stocked’ look which is definitely more essential to satisfy middle-class cravings. In my opinion, chole is the best dish to serve to guests, it just requires some soaking and boiling with no chopping involved and it presents a rich look and also tastes very good, but perhaps the later reason is more to do with me since I make chole exceptionally well. That’s what Sanya, my today’s guest, has always told me. Although one shouldn’t serve chole to the same guest upon every visit, but this case is an exception, since Sanya, my childhood friend, is a fan of my chole since I started cooking, and she only insists that I cook it every time she comes over. This coming over is however taking place after three whole years and other than her short call to announce her visit to us, there was surprisingly no habitual culinary demands. The phone conversation broke abruptly after her four months old daughter started crying. Last time she was here, her two year and some months old son just went around crying and throwing things all over the house. This now reminds me timely of putting all fragile things away in a safe place, beyond the reach of her two children.

It still pinches me a little to think of the clay doll that my aunt had brought for me from a handicraft fair from her hometown which was broken mercilessly by Sanya’s son. Sanya did apologise many times since she knew my love for the handicrafts, but her mother seemed so unapologetic about the whole situation and made it obvious from her attitude that children were special blessings by gods, and therefore they stood above any such man-made things.

O.K, here goes the first whistle and now rest of the whistles will follow quickly. In a way, cooker’s whistles are so soothing, and they mark the progression in the kitchen’s life and perhaps also in my very own. I lowered down the flame some more and the cooker’s shrill went to simmer and I heard the frail voice of my

Photography: Atul Prajapati

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 37

mother- “Aparna, you are in the kitchen, aren’t you?”. I actually heard only the parts of the sentence like “Aparna” and “kitchen” but I could make out the whole sentence for myself. My mother’s long years of illness has not only eaten up her health but also her voice and if one is not in the radius of two feet to her, one can’t at all hear her. In fact, as far as I remember, I have seen my mother like this only, her frail body oozing out a mix of medicines’ smell and her voice louder only when the pain in one of her body parts becomes unbearable for her. After two more ‘Aparnas’ I went to her room to inquire if she needed something. She was standing outside of her room in desperation to call me which makes perfect sense of her voice traveling all through the hallway to me, covering the maximum distance that it could.

“What are you preparing for lunch for Sanya’s visit?” asked my mother with her hand on her waist, evidently to smother the pain growing there. Pain seems

on good terms even after they shifted from here to another part of the town some 5-6 years ago, in a bigger house, claiming they needed a bigger place since the family will grow after Sanya’s wedding, however making less sense to me, since the family will shrink after Sanya’s shift to her in-law’s place as is customary after marriage in our society.

“Ma, I am planning to make cauliflower fry, rice and salad.” I complied her with a satisfactory menu for the regular guests.

“Make pooris (deep fried bread) too as Sanya and her mother will be accompanied by children and children make a mess of rice, whereas they can play all around eating pooris, preferably with some sweet chutney. Yes, you should make some tomato chutney too. I have also asked your father to bring some sweets for them.” My mother spoke all these lines with some pauses and long breaths in between but her excitement

Sanya, my childhood friend, is a fan of my chole since I started cooking, and she only insists that I cook it every time... to shift in her body all through the day and does a full rotation from morning to evening.

“Why? Chole it is! She won’t settle for anything else, don’t you remember?” I replied with a hint of irritation and at the same time felt amused at the fact whether her illness has now started snacking up on her brain. In any case, her illness has started devouring my patience bit by bit. And on the top of that, we don’t even know how to phrase her illness in fancy diseases’ names other than pain, weakness and sometimes low pressure.

“Oh yes! I do now. But what about the dishes to go with it?”

Her interest in anything else than her pain and medicines came rather as a surprise to me. Is her health getting any better, well I hope not! There already have enough changes taken place this year with my father’s early retirement leading to a change of routine at home.

However, retirement is a wrong word in this case; the factory where he worked had closed down and he chose to idle away his time at home in his early 50s with the compensation amount that he got against the still 10year valid contract. Actually, the compensation he managed to get only after Sanya’s father’s intervention in the whole matter and his approach to the big bosses in my father’s factory. My family and Sanya’s family remained

38 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

was apparent and her planning perfect.

Before I could open my mouth in the admiration, she spoke again- “Get me coriander, cucumber and onion so that I can help you with peeling and chopping.”

“Hmmm. Right away.” Without any appreciation for her planning skills, I went into kitchen to get the veggies she asked for, the ones she is good at helping with her weak hands. These little tasks become a nuisance especially with an extensive menu and I am glad, she volunteered to share the load. And I also have to take bath after cooking and cleaning and get into something fresh. With my father being out at this time, I could use my previous freedom of taking bath at ease in mid afternoon and coming out with only a towel under my kurta and wear the salwar only after I had moisturised my legs and feet in my room. I don’t miss these small freedoms that much, but my dry skin definitely does.

Compromise is in my blood, Sanya had pointed out years ago, after I had said no to asking for extra money for buying fancy ribbons and hair clutches. I don’t agree with her on this, but we certainly have different temperaments and our friendship owed more to the proximity of our flats and the friendship of our fathers than us being on the same frequency of dreams

and desires. Again, for going to Delhi for college education, she fought with her parents and her brother supported her too but I without any complains or demands enrolled in a local college. Her list for a perfect husband was also never ending and annoying but I again happily settled for an uneventful life as a caretaker for my mother at my parents’ place. The thoughts came to a halt with the last whistles of cooker in progress. I hurried my tempo.

Sanya was unusually quiet and withdrawn.

Lunch was also a quiet affair with her little daughter sleeping peacefully the whole time in her lap and her son watching the only cartoon channel available on our local cable with the pooris and chutney. In my heart I was thanking my mother for the wonderful idea. Sanya’s mother had her lunch with my mother in her room accompanied by hushed tones of chatting. It is slightly unusual as she never much liked the medicines’ smell in Ma’s room and had always confined herself in the living area. In fact, my mother used to make hard compromise of sitting uncomfortably on dining table chair for the entire session of aunt’s chatting about Sanya’s great married life.

“Did I not make chole spicy enough for you?

You don’t seem to enjoy it.” I interrupted Sanya’s lunch of slow morsels and her preoccupied state. She has reduced some weight and lost most of the radiance. Two children are definitely not an easy job. Thank god, she had separated from her dominating in-laws after the birth of her first child making the married life less stressful for her. I have heard many horrible stories in her regular visits in the first year of her wedding and rest details were covered by her mother in her occasional visits to their previous home to meet the renters, ulti-

mately ending in lunches and intimate chats at our house. Sanya’s husband was however never a villain in these stories and after Sanya’s regular presence in our town reduced to zero from minimal after her separation from her in-laws, I got all the information about her perfect life from aunty only which also got a full stop after the doubling of the blessings in Sanya’s life, the birth of her second child.

My feet froze at the split doors of my mother’s room when I heard aunt saying to my mother’s ears that the sky now appears only dark for Sanya and her two children. And then little hesitatingly, ‘Sahil wouldn’t budge from his claim to separation from Sanya, citing Sanya’s nagging nature’ and then sobbing, ‘May god show no mercy to the other woman. Even the coming of second child didn’t help’ her voice broke down.

I was so taken aback by this unexpected conversation that the sweet syrup dripping from the tilted sweets’ bowl on my Kurta reminded me to leave the two women to contemplate about Sanya’s future. Considering it no occasion to offering sweets, I returned to Sanya who was collecting the bites of pooris left by her son on the floor. The remaining evening was as quiet as the lunch; Sanya kept herself busy with children with occasional exchange of words with me and aunty spent the record time in my mother’s room more than she or for that matter anybody had ever spent there.

Everybody was leaving now and before I could touch aunt’s feet, she took my hands in hers, and gave me her blessings of being such an obliging daughter and then she asked ‘I could never understand your recipe for such perfectly textured chole. For how many whistles you said you keep the chole on the pressure?’

‘10 on high flame’ I lied. []

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 39

POETRY BILLY REYNARD-BOWNESS

The Domino Effect Like a domino in a rally Am I part of the team?

Am I next in line?

Am I to stand or do I fall?

Like a domino in a deck Will I be played?

Will I be laid?

Will I be noticed at all?

Like a domino on the table Do I fit in?

Do I join up?

Do I answer the call?

Like a domino shuffled around Can I adapt?

Can I settle back in?

Can I hold back the gall?

Born in Lincolnshire but growing up and educated in Huddersfield, BILLY “PO FACED POET� REYNARD-BOWNESS considers himself a Yorkshireman at heart. Billy is 47 years old, a Pisces, former Legal Executive, now mad scientist and sometime bit part actor. He lives in the wilds of deepest North Yorkshire with his partner, three dogs, ducks and countless chickens. Visit https://pofacedpoetry.wordpress.com/

40 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

Like a domino in the box Should I feel safe?

Should I like the dark?

Should I welcome the pall? []

Man-Flu: The Epic A Trojan horse. As Cleopatra in a carpet Enters hidden on a breath Incubus; droplet alien drawn in, sets about its work; brooding job to do.

Awaken a little stiff, sweat and grog A scratchy throat; a swollen lymph Shower power, rinse and coffee makes well.

No. Twas not to be this false alarm, I’d grabbed.

Working fast now, growing, flooding like snow melt hitting parched desert.

Seeping into cracks; changing blood-scapes.

Reprographic virus; dissociative – to thrive.

A false pardon was granted this morning Cruel deception, such as played on Nick Bottom teased mind into belief; a surge of relief, Just early morning rust; blow away sleep dust.

I am sick of it now, the sickness; the bug.

My alien visitors; my too close encounter making things smell wrong – like vinegar and my nose pop as each side turns to unblock.

As big screen drama – epic plays out in my mind.

The white cells; the soldiers wiping out alien-kind Duelling MacDuff and MacBeth in Dunsinane cell Waging battle within me; my man-flu living hell. []

Ozark In the Boondocks of the Ozarks Salty caramel smelt of August Swathes stench of rotten trailer parks Imprisons barren mid-west dust Feral fevered kids a hunting For to cool; shoot up, or drink Arthritic railroad; tie and shunting Ferrous old town wretched on the brink Since the cease of mine and logging Depletion of iron lead and zinc Nag horse too dead for flogging Folks futures draining down the sink Some respite in the summer heat Buzzing tourists; campers for trails Like blackfly plague pick off the meat Fly fast; escape as another harvest fails Dark currents pepper darker mood Intolerance grinds in the daily way Resentment bread as only food At someone’s door the blame shall lay In the graveyard of the Ozarks Rednecks dance on industry tombs Burn brown smoke spice. Moonshine sparks Oblivion; no life. Back to mothers' womb []

ART: Edgar Curious

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 41

POETRY EDWARD

LEE

The Weakness of Scars The scars on my knuckles embarrass me more than those on my wrists, my arms,

ART: Collages by Anne Ryan Anne Ryan belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. Her first contact with the New York Avant-garde came in 1941 when she joined the Atelier 17, a famous printmaking workshop that the British artist Stanley William Hayter had established in Paris in the 1930s and then brought to New York when France fell to the Nazis.

The great turning point in Anne Ryan's development occurred after the war, in 1948. She was 57 years old when she saw the collages of Kurt Schwitters at the Rose Fried Gallery, in New York City, in 1948. She right away dedicated herself to this newly discovered medium. Since Anne Ryan was a poet, according to Deborah Solomon, in Kurt Schwitters’s collages “she recognized the visual equivalent of her sonnets – discrete images packed together in an extremely compressed space.” When six years later Anne Ryan died, her work in this medium numbered over 400 pieces. (Wiki)

42 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

a giving into anger the cause of the former, anger a weakness I can fight, most times, while a weakness stronger than anger, a weakness I cannot always overcome, birthed those on my wrists and arms, wrought by my own hand, a weakness that festers in the darkness that has coated my brain since birth, and will continue to do so until I succeed in my need to escape, or my body finally lies down, succumbing to whatever my body will succumb to, be it old age or some less aggressive disease.

The scars on my knuckles embarrass me more than those on my wrists and arms, though, in truth, I am ashamed of all of them, but at least it is easier to hide those self-inflicted ones. []

Lynch The body hanging from the tree is dead, and has been dead for some time, for so much time that it is barely there anymore, but it is there all the same, swaying slightly in the silent wind, present in the memories of those who knew it when it was a he, a man, a father, a husband, a son, a human being just like the human beings who hung him there and cheered as his feet danced until his feet danced no more, human beings just like him but for the colour of his skin, just like him but for the colour of his skin, colour which doesn’t matter, shouldn't matter, but it does, it does now as it did then, not enough colourblind minds to change the world, not then, not now,

Next Everyday of her adult life she has worn a dress of blood, though the blood has never been her own, rather it shift and flows with the ever-replenishing blood of her lovers, those pale shaking figures she leaves in her wake, barely remembered, if recalled at all, as she moves down the line of eager men ready and so very willing to be drained dry; as another semi-satisfied man falls, her deceptively delicate fingers beckon the one she wants next, the tall, handsome man, standing on my left. []

but maybe tomorrow. [] EDWARD LEE’s writings and photography have been published in magazines inThe Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll. His debut poetry collection "Playing Poohsticks On Ha'Penny Bridge" was published in 2010. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Lewis Milne, Orson Carroll, Blinded Architect, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. Follow him at on Facebook @edwardleewriter

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 43

Photography: Isabella Mariana

FICTION ALEC SOLOMITA

TROMPE L’OEIL, 1969 44 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

ALEC SOLOMITA’s fiction has been published in The Mississippi Review, Southwest Review, Peacock, and The Adirondack Review, among other venues.

He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal, and named a finalist by the Noctua Review. His poetry has appeared in, Literary Orphans, Far Off Places, MockingHeart Review, Driftwood Press, 3Elements Literary Review, and elsewhere. His poetry chapbook, “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. He lives in Massachusetts.

For Dan, sleeping with Debbie was a relief as much as anything else. The four times they did it that night put to rest worries about impotence that had haunted him on and off for three years, since he was fourteen. Other worries would immediately take their place, like the fact that when they woke up in Milo Young’s bed that morning and did it once more and he looked into Deb’s sleepy green eyes and said, “I love you,” she seemed not to hear. And then, after he figured out Milo’s coffee machine and brought her a cup in the cubby-like dining room, she seemed, her head bent and her long hair falling over her face as she pulled on her sandals, even further away. But these moments paled next to a lifelong sentence of being less than virile.

So, as they strolled through the homey rundown streets near downtown on this Saturday in May, squinting in the early morning sunshine and holding hands, he felt mostly fine, like a man of the world. In those moments, though, when Debbie would turn her face toward him and smile, her hazelly green eyes narrowing and the pale band of freckles over the bridge of her nose rising on each side, a kind of weakness hit him, a feeling that maybe the world was too much to take.

The bottoms of Deb’s bell bottoms grazing against the wobbly brick sidewalks, the ravishing green of the leaves she picked at through wire fences, the aggressive color of forsythia — small things — made his eyes sting suddenly with tears. In those moments, he was glad for the protection of his new prescription sunglasses, for the nonchalance of his easy shamble.

They were a couple of blocks from the corner where Deb would catch a bus home when someone called out across the narrow street. It was a little woman in a long dress standing on a small, pillared porch, leaning on the rail, and singing out in a high, old-fashioned voice, “Heloooo!” As the two crossed the street, Deb tilted her head towards Dan’s ear and said, “She pipes!”

“Oh, thank goodness,” the woman sighed as

they presented themselves to her on the sidewalk below the narrow, shabby three-family. She brought her palms together in front of her chin as if she were trying to find just the right words. “Well,” she said with a fluty laugh, “I guess you’re all wondering why I asked you here today.” She laughed again and, thrusting her head forward, hissed with a jokey intensity, “I need help.” Dan figured she was in her early twenties, this small corny lady in a purplish peasant dress with a ruffled low-cut bodice.

Her cheeks darkened a bit as they smiled politely up at her.

“Well. I’m having people over for dinner tonight, and I’m preparing a Middle Ages sort of feast. A real banquet. Ale in pewter goblets. Herb salad. Cider.

Pears in syrup. And, the pièce de résistance is …” Here she paused, a little breathless, “roast suckling pig … you know, with the apple in the mouth and everything.”

Deb grimaced. Dan said, “I’m getting hungry.”

“It’s got to roast for hours. Everything’s ready to go but I’ve come to a standstill of sorts,” and she rounded the porch and skipped down the steps to the sidewalk, almost crowding Deb to one side. She looked at Dan, her eyes bright with anxiety. “I can’t … take the eyes … out of the pig,” she said in three distinct bursts.

“I just can’t. Every time I think about it, I begin to panic. Could you do it for me?”

Now that she was standing in front of him, he could see the tops of her breasts. The rounds of flesh, a rush of breeze setting the leaves around him in motion, a motorcycle belching into life in the distance — again Dan felt a sudden weakness in his loins. He looked at Deb, who seemed ready to go on, not thinking, he thought, for a second that her fastidious and shy boyfriend would volunteer for anything so daunting.

“Sure, I’ll give it a try,” he said.

Debbie’s eyebrows went up. The woman hopped up and down, clapping. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” She held out her hand. “I’m Sylvia,” she said, “like

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 45

in the song.” “What song?” thought Dan. As Sylvia led them out of the yellow sunshine and up the porch steps to her apartment, Deb noticed a vase of daffodils on a glass tabletop, “Makes the porch so pretty.”

Deb approved of the living room, too, though Dan found it faintly oppressive. It was cool and dim in there, with the bamboo shades drawn. The large, framed Chagall prints on the wall couldn’t perform their whimsical feats in such darkness, and the stained wicker furniture — a long couch and a chair with a round, thronelike back — depressed Dan almost as much as the poster of an armed Bobby Seale in the short hall between the dining area and the kitchen. He was happy that Deb seemed at home, though, chirping contrapuntally along with the piping of their nervous hostess.

As soon as they reached the kitchen, Deb turned on her heel, saying, “I’ll wait out here.” “Oh, yes,” Sylvia called to her, “Please make yourself com-

the spoon gently beside the pig and wandered across the stained black and white checked linoleum to the small kitchen table, where he sat down. He looked out onto the sunshiny side yard and the neighbor’s house. A squirrel was unburying some winter treasure at the bottom of a chain link fence separating the two properties.

Dan put his face in his hands for a few moments, then stood and took off his jacket, draping it on the back of his chair. He returned to the pig and picked up the teaspoon. He gently prodded an eye, which turned out to be firmer than he’d expected. Scoop it, he whispered.

The spoon hovered above the eye. As Dan thought out the maneuver, planning to home in on the edge of the socket, he felt a small wave of vertigo. Think of something else, he instructed himself. The leer on Milo Young’s long, white, mole-spattered face as he handed over his apartment keys. “Y’all make yerself ta home.” “Thanks, man.” “And don’t forget to strip the

He gently prodded an eye, which turned out to be firmer than he’d expected. Scoop it, he whispered. fortable.” Next to Sylvia in a pan on a sideboard lay the naked pig.

“Well, here it is,” she said with a little giggle.

She looked at it appraisingly for a moment, then said brightly, “I think maybe a spoon would be the thing.”

“A spoon? Oh. A spoon.” He nodded thoughtfully, “I guess so.”

“Do you want anything? A little brandy, maybe?”

“A glass of water, please.” He picked up the pig. It was more like a piglet, smaller than he’d expected and its skin was cool and dry and a healthy-looking pink.

Its eyes were pale blue. He rested it back in the pan.

Sylvia perched a glass of water and a teaspoon on the gas stove next to the sideboard. “I really can’t thank you enough. I’m just not brave enough to do it myself.” He picked up the spoon, “That’s fine.” He smiled, “Just … um … leave me alone with my pig, please.”

“Sure, of course.”

While Deb and Sylvia chatted in the living room, Dan stood in the small kitchen. Sylvia was doing most of the talking, “I’m not a medievalist, just been in love with that time since I —” The rest of the sentence was lost in a rush of clicks as she pulled the blinds up.

The apartment glowed suddenly with light. He rested

46 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

bed, man, ya hear?” “Sure thing, Milo.” Searching for the light switch as they entered the funky smelling place, turning it on. “The accommodations,” said Deb, “are not particularly deelux. But,” she added with a consoling smile, “they’ll do.” Deb undressing and lying on the pale blue sheets. The spoon dove. Perfect. He exhaled sharply. The eye was intact, the spoon lodged firmly in the socket. The handle of the spoon stuck into the air, its bowl filled with the pig’s blue eye.

Dan stepped back and listened for a moment to the twittering from the other room. Sighing, he took hold of the small handle with both hands and rotated it to get the eye loose. The resistance was greater than he’d expected and he pressed harder. When the spoon ground audibly into bone, he was instantly nauseous. He swallowed down the taste rising in his mouth and let go of the spoon, watching the handle vibrate. Again he tried to divert himself —Debbie’s body glowing faintly in the half-moon’s weak light, the raspy patch of darkness in her center, her sour smell, her arms reaching out to him, fingers beckoning. He grabbed the handle of the spoon firmly and pressed it down like a lever. With a slight sucking sound, the eye was loosed into the air. It landed on his forearm, just above the wrist. His arm jerked spastically and the eye was launched again, this time landing on the toe of his boot. He looked at it

looking up at him. Then he reached for a napkin on the sideboard and bent to pick it up, wrap it, and put it on the table.

He whispered to Bobby Seale on the wall as he went into the living room, “Tough guy.” Sylvia stood when she saw him and said, “Oh, you poor thing. How’s it going?”

“Halfway there,” he said with a small smile. He winked at Debbie, whose face, half-lost in the full morning sunlight behind her, looked caught between impatience and sympathy. “I could use some of that brandy now,” he said to Sylvia.

“Oh, sure, right away,” and she flew over to a cabinet.

“Was it awful?” said Deb. “No, it wasn’t so bad.”

“You OK?” “Great. Just great.”

“You poor thing,” said Deb, patting the space next to her on the wicker couch. He sat, blinking in the sun. Sylvia handed him a tumbler with a couple of fingers of brandy.

“Take as much as you like,” said Sylvia. “I really do appreciate this.”

He handed back the empty glass as he stood.

“Good luck,” Deb called after him.

Facing one eye and one empty socket, Dan was more confident. Ignoring the illusion that the pig was winking at him, he located the spoon and, this time, a napkin. Holding the napkin over the eye with his left hand, he brought the spoon down swiftly and, he thought, accurately. It bounced off the eye. He tried again and again the spoon bounced back. His stomach swooped. “Oh, God,” he muttered. Deb’s laughter drifted in from the living room.

Dan shook his head, the spoon dangling from his hand. Now he could smell the animal, a high, pondlike odor. He backed up and stood, staring at the small head, the pink folded ears. He squinted in concentration. An image hovered just behind his eyes, shimmering close to consciousness. “Grapefruit,” he said aloud.

He found a small, serrated knife in a drawer. He poised the blade on the edge of the eyeball against the socket. “God, please don’t burst.” Once more, Dan summoned the night before. Deb tickling him awake at three, leaning over him and waiting for his eyes to open.

Then lying full on top him with a cozy moan. Holding him in her small hand. The knife slid in easily, and he began to saw around the edges, half looking, half looking away. In a moment the eye was loose. Napkin.

Spoon. Deb poised above him, shifting around as both of them tried to guide him home, her little grunt as she slid down him, and then her wide, unnerving grin in the wan light of the moon. With a tiny pop the eye was in the napkin. Dan gently laid it next to the other and then sat at the kitchen table.

In the living room, the women were silent, almost dozing, facing each other, their legs curled up underneath them, each with a little snifter of brandy in her lap. Deb’s hair and eyelashes were fringed with sunlight.

Sylvia started when Dan sat down next to his girlfriend.

“Oh!” she said, “Oh! Is it done?” “’Tis done,” said Dan. “Thank you! Thank you so much.”

“Anytime. What should I do with the eyes?”

“I don’t know. The disposal, I guess.”

“Oh, no,” moaned Deb. “Of course,” Dan said.

He opened the napkins over the sink and the eyes reluctantly slid into the drain. He turned on the disposal, certain that Deb was covering her ears in the other room.

They said goodbye with as little ceremony, Sylvia thanking him over and over as they walked outside.

“Sorry,” she said, “I can’t invite you to dinner.”

“That’s OK,” Dan said.

He put his arm around Deb’s shoulder and she leaned against him. “Was it really just horrible?”

He answered her with a squeeze of her shoulder.

“You’re so brave.” He glanced over to see her expression. “No,” she said, “you are.”

“I am, ain’t I? I just am.” []

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 47

CINEMA ED MEEK

A Star is

Born Again If A Star is Born had not been directed by Bradley Cooper you might have been under the assumption that the Director was particularly enamored of the male lead. The camera lingers on close ups of Cooper and he is really the object of desire in the film. In that sense, it’s similar to The Way We Were with Redford and Streisand to which it seems to allude when Lady Gaga claims her nose is the reason she is not a star. Lady Gaga is no Streisand but she does have a set of pipes and one way to look at A Star is Born is as a vehicle for Cooper’s acting and Lady Gaga’s singing. The romantic angle fits the profile of all of those movies in which the handsome dude falls for the girl next door.

A Star is Born is also the classic bad boy/good girl hook up of The Lady and the Tramp and Titanic. As in The Titanic, Cooper’s Jackson is an artistic, sensitive soul who appreciates Ally’s artistic promise. In this case it is Ally’s ability to write songs that he values. He wants her to be herself and express what she has to say in her own unique way to her audience (just as Cooper does

by Acting, Directing and writing the movie.) This begs the question; can one be an artist if one is merely a vocalist? Or merely an actor? Cooper seems to be saying, no.

The first half of the film, leading up to the moment when Gaga is brought onstage before a huge audience to sing her own song with Jackson’s backing, works like a charm. We all want to believe in that myth and Gaga is able to pull it off because, here, ordinary looking sans make-up, she is fully capable of knocking our

48 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

A STAR IS BORN Writers ERIC ROTH, BRADLEY COOPER, WILL FETTERS Director BRADLEY COOPER Country UNITED STATES Language ENGLISH Year 2018 Cinematography MATTHEW LIBATIQUE Editor JAY CASSIDY Producers BILL GERBER, JON PETERS, BRADLEY COOPER, TODD PHILLIPS, LYNETTE HOWELL TAYLOR Based on A STAR IS BORN by William A. Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell A musician helps a young singer find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

Lady Gaga (right) and Bradley Cooper in a still from the film

socks off when she performs.

The second half of the film runs into problems as we watch the predictable demise of Jackson who is both a drunk and a drug abuser. Following the Cinderella script, Jackson marries Gaga when he is prompted to go for it by none other than Dave Chapel. He should have known better than to take him seriously. In real life, either Jackson would have slept with Ally once and then dumped her or if they’d actually gotten hitched a la Brittany Spears, they’d have gotten divorced a week later.

Here they stay together and Ally disappointingly transforms from the plucky empowered individual to a girlygirl who stands by her man.

After that the movie kind of slows down to focus on the self-destructive Jackson, culminating in a repulsive drunk awards scene followed up by a rehab stint. Mean-

while Ally gets an agent who tries to remake her brand and implausibly attacks Jackson for ruining her career.

By this time, we’re waiting to find out how the Director is going to get rid of himself. Jackson seems to be heading for an O.D. but instead he takes a more dramatic route. Luckily, he wrote a romantic song that Ally can close with to prompt weeping in the audience.

For a romantic musical to work the singing and the songs must be good and the music, written by the son of Willie Nelson, though it seems a little out of time, delivers. Whether it might have been a better idea to have Cooper lip sync to someone who could actually sing is a toss up. At least A Star is Born does not make the mistake of La La Land in which neither of the principles could sing or dance. Well before the end, if we didn’t know it already, we’re convinced that Lady Gaga really can sing and Bradley Cooper really can act. []

ED MEEK is the author of three books of poetry and a collection of short stories. He also writes articles, reviews and commentary. His work has appeared in many magazines, journals and newspapers including The Paris Re-

view, The North American Review, Cream City Review, The Boston Review, The Sun, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. He has taught composition, creative writing and literature at the high school and college level. He lives in Somerville with his wife Elizabeth.

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 49

POETRY

CHRISTOPHER HIVNER writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books and the echoes of music. He has recently been published in Record Magazine, and Antinarrative Journal. He has had 5 chapbooks of poetry published, the newest is “When Science Collapses” published by Writing Knights Press. Visit: www.chrishivner.com

CHRISTOPHER HIVNER

When the Sun Goes Down Hand-me down clothes and a river run dry, the tale is in the constellations, light through a prism like Pink Floyd in ’75.

I’ll give you the details when the sun goes down because I can’t think in the heat.

The sky turns to gray primer before the black coat is applied, that’s when the music starts inside my head and I can make a plan better than yesterday’s, better than a full moon, now I’m alive and dancing, now you can talk to me before I fade away. []

Sooner, Quicker Sooner, quicker, that’s when I need you, right now I wish you were here in front of me, aside of me, surrounding me, a moments’ light where your fracture doesn’t separate us, when the devil in white dresses in black so you recognize him.

I could breathe again if you’d get here sooner, quicker. []

It Will Always Burn There were fires on the horizon reaching out to me with distended arms of blue-orange flame.

If I keep walking, they will consume me.

I think of your eyes for the last time before placing one foot in front of the other. []

50 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

14 Gauge Drops of shivering light sparkling on black silk, the sky speaks with a tongue fluent in dead languages, speaks to some in mathematical equations, to others with love and romance, and to me without words or numbers, but in the mystery of the time and space between the space and time, the darkness that screams void but holds all the treasure, winks because it knows.

The fabric pulls taut to make the stars dance on the wires strung in the darkness. []

ART: Untitled, by Rudolf Bauer

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 51

FICTION JARED MORNINGSTAR

A Slice of

American

Pie

“Is it ready?”

“Yes, Mr. Price. Everything is in working order this time.”

“You better be damn certain.”

“If anything goes wrong, it’s my ass. I get it.”

“Then let’s roll. Guards, bring him in.”

The door opened, and the guards escorted the condemned into the death chamber. The prisoner swallowed hard and took a deep breath before sitting in the electric chair. The guards quickly fastened him in. They attached the electrodes to his body and began to fire up

52 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

the fatal apparatus.

“Logan Anderson, electricity shall now pass through your body until you are dead. Do you have any last words?” asked Price.

“Damn right I do, you son of a bitch. This was no accident. You set me up to lose, Christopher Price.

You set me up—“ Price motioned to the guards, who quickly placed the hood over the condemned prisoner’s head.

The executioner flipped the switch, and the prisoner’s body lunged forward in the chair. He groaned loudly,

ART: ‘Prometheus’ by Theodoor Rombouts

JARED MORNINGSTAR is a high school English teacher, an adjunct English professor, and a citizen of the world who is concerned about America's current moral and political direction. He loves reading, writing, Route 66, and his wife and children.

and smoke started to rise from the chair. Before long, it was over. The combined stench of burned hair, cooked flesh, and the vomit of those in attendance with weak stomachs filled the room. When enough time had passed for the body to cool down, the physician ap-

proached it and checked for any signs of life. After he decided that there were none to be found, the physician pronounced the man in the chair dead.

The room went dark. Within seconds, two spotlights turned on. One shined upon the dead prisoner; the other shined upon Price, who was dressed exquisitely, with his hair slicked back as always. The audience rose from their seats and gave the execution staff a wild ovation “Another man meets his end in the electric chair and loses his fight for freedom. Now only two prisoners remain,” Price announced as he pointed to two men standing off to the side. “Brothers Darryl and Johnny Turner will compete in the final survival test in order to determine who will walk out of Burnett Prison a free man and millionaire and who will be the chair’s

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 53

final victim. Tune in next week to see the shocking finale of Surviving Death Row.” The cameras turned off, and people in the audience slowly started to file out of the death house toward the massive gates surrounding the prison. Years before it had been converted for its current use, the prison had been used as a television studio. The network used to tape sitcoms there before that style of show had completely fallen out of favor. Even though sitcoms had been evolving into something more realistic and violent, ever since reality television started to hit its stride, after a time, the format could not compete. There simply wasn’t money to be made in stories about fake people living fictional lives.

Although its security was second-to-none, the prison was very small. It only consisted of a cell house, which held the ten contestants, a dining hall, an exercise yard where all of the survival tests took place, a couple of lookout towers, and of course the death house auditorium, which was now being cleaned up by the crew.

While the clean-up took place, Price felt a hard slap to his back. He turned around to see the show’s creator, Wallace Griffin.

“Brilliant work as always, Price. Brilliant work.”

“Thanks, Mr. Griffin. Pretty amazing finale we’re going to have on our hands. The two brothers made it to the end. Couldn’t have planned it any better!

I wonder how many ratings records we are going to break next week.”

“Well, if the ratings for our past episodes are any indication, we should shatter them all,” said Griffin, with a slight chuckle. “And that’s not an exaggeration.”

“You deserve all the credit. It’s your baby,” said Price.

“The show still needed a host. And you were just the man for the job. I could have gone with some well-known, hotshot bastard, but you know those Hollywood types. Cowards. You have real brass, Price. Real brass. You’re special.”

“Damn kind of you to say that. I’m thankful to be a part of this. And the finale will be quite a moment for all of us.”

“Yes, of course.” Griffin paused for a moment.

“The first live televised execution. Damn it, Price, I hope nothing goes wrong. The rest of these were taped.

We’ve only botched one so far; I know odds are that it won’t happen again. But the screams, the flames coming from that poor bastard’s head. If it happens next week, we aren’t going to have the ability to edit anything out.

I’d hate to piss the sponsors off…”

“Don’t worry. Nothing like that will happen.

Just go home and relax. The finale will be a huge suc-

54 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

cess, and the network will be throwing a huge amount of money our way for a second season.”

“I can smell the money now,” said Griffin.

“Kind of makes you forget about the smell of burnt flesh, eh?”

“You sick son of a bitch, you kill me,” Griffin laughed. “I’ll see you later.”

He turned around and walked towards the exit while Price summoned a couple of the guards to the two remaining contestants. They were brothers, but their appearances certainly didn’t suggest it. Darryl, the older brother, was 28, a mountain of a man. He stood 6’3” and weighed about 240 pounds, not an ounce of which was fat. Even in his orange prison suit, one could tell he was in incredible shape. He had been the show’s star, winning every survival challenge that involved any physical element, and his good looks, dark hair, and dark eyes made him a favorite with the female viewers. His brother Johnny, on the other hand, was the show’s surprise. The 24-year-old hardly looked like either Darryl’s brother or someone that would have survived a show such as this for as long as he had. He was a good eight inches shorter than Darryl, his frame was rail thin, and unlike his brother, he was consistently edgy.

“Okay guys, time to go,” said Price.

With that, the guards led the brothers to the cell house, Price in tow. Outside, the cell house was 2031, but inside, it was a century prior. The building was made of dark red brick, and even though there were plenty of lights inside, it was never bright enough for the contestants to feel comfortable. The guards led the brothers into the cell house, and once inside, opened the creaky cell doors. The brothers entered their cells, and the guards slammed the doors behind them.

“You two sure have become big stars,” said Price.

“Fuck you,” muttered Johnny.

“You’ve got a smart mouth. Enjoy it while you can,” said Price. “I’ll see you both soon.”

The guards settled into their usual night watch duty, and Price headed towards the parking lot. He got into his brand-new dark red luxury sedan and started home. It was a fairly long drive home for him, a good 45 minutes, and the busy day’s activities had made him a little hungry.

That’s right, he remembered. We’re having Italian tonight.

He was immediately in a good mood. Life was good now, especially since Price could remember the times when Italian night meant Spaghetti-O’s instead of spaghetti. Ever since he decided on a career in television, he had dreamed of making his mark. He ignored

the advice of his family and friend, who warned him that he’d be living a life even less profitable than even that of a starving artist. In college, Price met his future wife, Julie, who fell in love with both him and his big dreams.

Those dreams were just big enough to help Price stay the course, even when the only entertainment jobs he could get in involved running errands for studio executives. Eventually, he managed to secure a couple of small-time, local game show hosting opportunities, but even then, he wasn’t exactly striking it rich, and since Price had taken out so many loans just so they could continue to live in the area, he barely managed to make enough money for he and Julie to live on, especially after their two sons were born. Julie had tried to convince him to leave Hollywood and that they could make a better life elsewhere, and if not for his pride, he would have given up years before Wallace Griffin finally noticed him and gave him the chance both to live his dreams and prove his doubters wrong.

fucker!” Jake shot back.

“Shit, kids, just take turns okay?” asked Price as he began to walk towards the kitchen. Julie was standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Glad you’re home, dear,” said Julie.

“Yeah, me too. I’m hungry as hell,” said Price.

“Well, dinner is waiting. I fed the kids early.”

She led the way to the dining room table, and both she and Price took their seats. A delicious lasagna dinner awaited, complete with garlic toast. A wonderful aroma of tomato sauce, parmesan cheese, and garlic filled the room.

“This is delicious, dear,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“How was your day?”

“Oh, it was a day. You know how it goes,” she said.

“Yeah, I hear you. Those kids are something else. They take after me.”

“The first live televised execution.

Damn it, Price, I hope nothing goes wrong.”

Pulling into his long driveway, the sight of the mansion he had recently purchased for his family was more welcome than usual. The mansion was white, three stories high, and had large windows. For some reason, Price had always loved large windows, especially now that he could afford them. Compared to those owned by the major actors and actresses, his home wasn’t that large, but it was more than Price could have ever hoped to have.

I can’t believe this is all mine, he thought. No one can take this from me, and things are only going to get better for me, for us.

With a huge smile on his face, Price got out of his car and walked to the door.

“Babe! Kids! I’m home!” he shouted.

Within seconds, his two sons ran out from the entertainment room--both with disturbed, angry looks on their faces. David was 9 and Jake was 7. They were both the spitting image of their father.

“Hey boys, what can Dad do for you?”

“Dad, this piece of shit won’t let me play the fuckin’ game!” yelled David. He shoved his younger brother to the ground. Jake quickly got back up, and shoved him back.

“Dad didn’t just buy the game for you, mother-

“And I know you are proud of them, I do,” she said, smiling.

“So, want to hear about my day?” he asked.

“Yes, of course, I—“ Julie paused. Her smile collapsed and her stare fell to the table. Great, he thought, she’s having one of those moments. He stood up and walked over to her chair.

“I know what will make you feel better,” Price said as he began to massage her shoulders. He noticed she had more tension than usual.

“Julie, what is wrong with you?”

“We really have to talk.”

“What about?”

“The kids,” she said “What about them?”

“Seriously,” she said. “doesn’t it bother you at all to hear them use that language?”

“Oh hell, Julie, not this again. They’re just words. They hear those words on television or when they’re at school all the time. It’s not like they’re going to kill someone by saying them.”

“It’s not just their language,” she said. “These games that the boys play are unreal. I remember a time when the most violent thing you would see in a game was blood, and yeah, there was prostitution. But I was

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 55

watching David and Jake play that game you bought them last week. Bodies sliced open, the blood, the organs, everything. For God’s sake, a guy ripped someone’s heart and ate the damn thing.”

“Yeah?” he said, laughing. “Look, it’s a game.

It’s not going to hurt anyone. I talked with everyone I know, and all of their kids have it.”

“But--“ “Listen to me,” he said. “I get it. The shit bothers you, but you have to realize that the times are changing… hey, what time is it?”

“6, why?” she asked.

“Shit, almost missed it. They’re talking about the show on the news tonight,” he said.

Price and Julie headed for the living room, and he called for the boys to join them. They all sat down and on their big, comfortable couch, and he turned on their 100-inch 3D, high definition television. Luckily for him, he hadn’t missed it. The segment he had been hoping to catch was just beginning.

“Tonight’s lineup includes the last regular episode of the new hit reality show, Surviving Death Row, with host Christopher Price,” said the reporter. “Next week’s live finale will feature the first ever nationallytelevised live execution. The show gives ten people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole a chance to not only earn their freedom, but a million dollars as well, if they are willing to put their lives on the line. The show’s creator Wallace Griffin stated in a recent interview that he and the network made sure to give all ten contestants rigorous psychological testing to prove they had been completely rehabilitated. This revolutionary show…”

Julie did not wait to see what else the reporter would say. She stood up and walked out of the room.

Price jumped off the couch and began to follow her.

“Is another one of those fuckers going to fry tonight, Dad?” asked David just as Price was leaving the room.

“Yes, son, and one will next week too!” he said proudly.

“Yay!” screamed Jake.

Julie headed into the kitchen. When Price came in, he found her holding her hands to her face. Tears welled in her eyes. He took hold of her arms.

“What in the hell is wrong with you tonight?” he asked.

“The show, Chris… just the show I guess.”

“What’s wrong with the show? Things have been going so well,” he said.

“I just wish you hadn’t signed on,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Julie. Don’t you real-

56 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

ize what this show has given us? Look at this house.

Look at the cars we drive. Look at all the wonderful things we have been able to buy David and Jake. You have a problem with the show? Everything we have is because of the show!”

“I know, but sometimes I wonder if the money is really worth it,” she said, lowering her head.

“Well, I’m sorry you feel bad for these damn murderers, Julie. All of them deserve to fry. You can feel sorry for them, but I’m looking out for me and my family.”

“How do you know they are murderers?” she asked. “Witnesses said that Johnny was involved in that robbery, and they know he shot the guy. But they don’t know that Darryl was there. Someone that looked like Darryl, but they never knew for sure it was him, and he’s always denied it.”

“Well, Johnny says otherwise. He said that Darryl was with him that night, and that he helped him kill the clerk,” said Price.

“Yeah, but Darryl also slept with Johnny’s girlfriend shortly before the robbery. Johnny admitted that on the show,” she said. “He was obviously furious. You cannot tell me you haven’t considered the possibility that he was lying.”

“You worry too much. Besides, Johnny is a sawed-off little runt compared to Darryl. Next week’s survival test is an obstacle course. There is no way in hell that Johnny will win, so if Darryl is innocent, he’ll get off anyway.”

“I guess,” she said.

“Good,” said Price. “Now let’s enjoy the rest of our night. Imagine all the wonderful things you’ll be able to buy when the network gives us that big contract for the next season.”

The week passed quickly. Price slept well the night before the finale, ready for the big day. He fixed himself breakfast and hurried to get dressed in his black suit and his favorite red tie. Before leaving the house, he told Julie and the boys to have a nice day.

“I know you aren’t comfortable with all this, but whether you watch or not, make sure that the boys are tuning in tonight,” he said.

“I will, Chris,” she said reluctantly as he walked away.

The drive to the prison seemed faster than it ever had. The sun was shining, not a dark cloud in the sky. This is going to be a good day, he thought. Upon arrival, he parked in his usual spot and headed to the cell house to retrieve the prisoners for the obstacle course survival test, which would be taped and aired before the execution. He entered the cell house, and approached their

cells.

“It’s time,” said Price. “One of you is about to win your freedom, and the chance to begin your entire life anew. You both are the envy of so many prisoners right now that are serving the same sentence as you are.

I hope that you both take this very seriously not only as though your lives depend on it, but also knowing how many others would trade places with you. You are both very lucky.”

Their cell doors were opened, and Price and the guards led Darryl and Johnny to the exercise yard where the obstacle course was set up. The cameras were also set up, and ready to begin taping. Price cleared his throat and found his perfect television grin.

“Welcome to Surviving Death Row’s final survival test,” he said to the cameras. “In a few moments, either Darryl or Johnny Turner will earn the right to become a free man and millionaire. The other will be the chair’s final victim tonight. You both have survived the compe-

was already approaching the wall while Johnny was struggling to even make it through the monkey bars.

Damn, this is anti-climactic, thought Price, laughing.

Then he heard an ungodly scream. Price couldn’t believe his eyes. Darryl had fallen from the wall; his grip on the rope had slipped, and he appeared to be badly hurt. When Johnny caught up to him, he stalled for a minute, but then climbed his side of the wall and swam the distance of the pool.

Well, everyone loves a surprise ending, Price thought to himself as he motioned for the camera’s attention and for the guards to get the cart to retrieve Darryl’s soon-to -be corpse.

“We have a winner: Johnny Turner!” he announced to the cameras. “Johnny is a free man, and this country’s newest millionaire! When we come back, we’ll be live, and we will present Johnny with his key to freedom, and show you our final execution, the very first

“Someone that looked like Darryl, but they never knew for sure it was him, and he’s always denied it.” tition provided by your fellow contestants and the grueling survival tests. You both have been incredible competitors and contestants, but only one of you can survive our death row: the winner of our final survival test.

Over the past few weeks, you’ve both had to endure a variety of rigorous tests combining physical, mental, and emotional elements. Your last survival test is fairly simple in concept, but very physically demanding, and that is this obstacle course you see before you. First, you must complete a 100-meter hurdle race. Make sure you jump over every hurdle or you’ll have to begin again.

You’ll then proceed to our monkey bars, where you’ll cross them from start to finish without falling off. Next, you’ll move over to the third leg of the course, where you will scale a ten-meter wall, using the rope provided to help you climb to the top. Once you are there, you will dive into the pool below and complete the 25-meter swim to the other side. The course is divided into two lanes, and both of you must stay in your own lanes.

Anyone that doesn’t will be disqualified. The first to the end wins. Get ready… GO!” With that, he pulled out his pistol and fired it into the air. Both Darryl and Johnny started fast, but it wasn’t long before Darryl began to take the lead. The first two legs of the course were a breeze for him and he

live execution in the history of television! You won’t want to miss this!”

The cameras turned off. Price shook Johnny’s hand, and began to leave with the crew to prepare for Darryl’s execution at the death house. Suddenly, he heard a voice calling him from behind.

“Mr. Price, Mr. Price, can I talk with you for a second?” It was one of the guards who had helped load Darryl on to the cart.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Yes, sir, I know, but I have to talk with you about Darryl.”

“What about him?”

“Something happened to him on that rope. On the ride back to the cell house, he kept asking us to check the rope, check the rope. So after we took him back, we cut it down to look at it. About three-quarters of the way up, it was all slicked up, sir. Real slippery.

Then we checked the rope Johnny used. Dry as a bone.”

“What are you trying to say?” asked Price.

“I don’t know sir, but me and the boys, we sure think this looks like a fix.”

Price remembered what Logan Anderson had said before he had been executed, and he suddenly felt out of breath, like someone had slugged him in his

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 57

stomach with a cocked fist. Quickly, however, he managed to shake it off.

“Bullshit,” said Price. “Mr. Griffin and his executive crew set this course up personally. They wouldn’t fix something like this, not without telling me first.”

“Sorry, sir,” said the guard. “Just bothered us is all.”

“Don’t you have a job to do? Well, I do. Get the hell out of here!” said Price as he walked away. He couldn’t shake what the guard told him, and Julie’s comments about Darryl’s possible innocence crept into his mind. He began to sweat as he approached the death house. Griffin was waiting for him.

“Damn it, Price, could we have ever asked for a better final result?” asked Griffin. “Not only do we get the two brothers in the finals, but that little bastard wins.

No one will see this coming.”

“It has been perfect, Mr. Griffin!” Price said. “I

paralyzed.

“What else is bothering you?” asked Griffin.

“Mr. Griffin, Wallace, for God’s sake, we’re playing games with someone’s life here. You know the story of Darryl and Johnny’s case; we could be killing an innocent man!”

“What the hell is wrong with you, Price?” asked Griffin. “Who the hell cares about either of them? Ratings are what we need to care about. This result gives us that.”

“But…” “But what? What?!” Griffin shouted. However, he quickly calmed down. “Chris, you’re a good guy, and I’m proud to call you my friend. That’s why I want you to keep your priorities straight. No matter what happens, I’m doing fine. Hell, I’m doing damn fine. But you, well I have seen how happy you’ve been lately. You have a great family, a great family, and I know how

People argued the pros and cons of love versus hate in battling bigotry. can hear the phones ringing now with calls from the network. Money’s in the bank!”

“Just make sure you and the boys get through tonight okay,” Griffin said. “I don’t want any fuck ups.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to worry?” replied Price.

“We’re on it.”

“Good.”

Griffin started to walk away, and Price almost let him.

“Hey Mr. Griffin…”

“Yes?” “Can I talk with you a second?”

“Sure, but only for a second. We have to get things finished.”

“It’s about the obstacle course,” said Price.

“What about it?”

“Someone told me that Darryl fell because his rope was tampered with. That’s not true, is it?”

“Oh Price, you crack me up!” laughed Griffin.

“You got me. Yeah, we fixed the course.”

“And you didn’t think I should know about this?”

“I meant to tell you,” said Griffin, still laughing.

“I’ll find out who failed to give you the message and fire his dumb ass. Satisfied?”

Price couldn’t answer. It was as though he was

58 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

much it has meant to you that you have finally been able to give them the life they deserve.”

“Yeah, and I thank you for that, Wallace.”

“Don’t thank me. You’re one talented son of a bitch, and you deserve it all,” Griffin said. “I’d just hate to see you lose it. I get it, you have a conscience, but so do I, and I will feel terrible if you lose everything you deserve. So ask yourself, Price, who is more important to you: your family or that stupid motherfucker in the cell house?”

“That is not a question that needs asking, Mr. Griffin. Sorry that I bothered you.”

“Hell, don’t worry about it. Let’s just get back to work. This guy is going to fry in a few hours.”

“Yes, sir. Let me know if you need anything,” said Price Griffin nodded and went about his business while Price helped the crew with the tedious task of setting up the electric chair, and making sure the lighting and cameras were set. By the time they were finished, the audience was beginning to file in, and it was time to retrieve Darryl and Johnny. Price walked to the cell house where one of the guards was waiting for him at the door.

“How are they doing?” asked Price.

“Darryl’s actually pretty calm considering his ass

is about to cook,” said the guard. “But Johnny’s a little more anxious than usual.”

“Probably just anxious to get his hands on the money,” said Price, and he and the guards approached the cells and opened the doors. The guards lifted Darryl up and carried him to the cart outside, while Price led Johnny out of the cell house. During the walk to the death house, he noticed Johnny begin to shake.

“What is wrong with you, man? It’s your backstabbing brother that’s dying, not you.” Johnny didn’t reply.

When they arrived at the death house, Price directed Johnny to go and stand by Griffin. The guards lifted Darryl from the cart and carried him to the stage where the electric chair awaited him. As soon as he became visible, some in the crowd cheered, some booed, some hollered obscenities. The guards sat him in the chair and shaved his head, preparing him. Johnny looked ill as he watched from the background.

9 PM. Show time. Price, still trying to force the fix to the back of his mind, walked on to the stage, and the cameras turned on.

“Welcome to the finale of Surviving Death Row,” he said. “You just finished viewing the final survival test, taped earlier today. Johnny Turner beat his older brother Darryl in the obstacle course, and he has won his freedom and one million dollars. We’ll get to him in a second, but first, you at home and those of you here in the audience are about to witness the first live televised execution in American history.”

Price approached the electric chair and shook Darryl’s hand.

“I’m sorry that it has turned out this way, Darryl. You were an incredible contestant. Do you have any last requests?”

Darryl simply shook his head “Okay,” said Price. The guards began to get the chair ready. Two of them fastened the electrodes while another made sure the electricity was turned on.

“Did you check the sponge?” whispered Price to the guards. “It better be wet, or this son of a bitch is going to be on fire in seconds. If we mess up, it’s your asses.”

“Yes, sir,” one of them answered.

Good, he thought. Price turned to face Darryl again.

“Darryl Turner, electricity shall now pass through your body until you are dead. Do you have any

last words?” Price asked.

Darryl uttered nothing. The hood was placed over his head, and the executioner flipped the switch.

Darryl’s muscular body convulsed and violently shook when the electricity hit him. Within seconds, though, it was over. After the body had time to cool down, the physician approached Darryl and pronounced him dead.

A clean electrocution. Price was elated.

Absolutely perfect. Relieved, he turned to the crowd.

“Now let’s bring out our winner!” he said, motioning for Johnny to approach the stage. Johnny wouldn’t move, so the guards pushed him out.

“Johnny Turner, on behalf of everyone involved in Surviving Death Row, the network, and our wonderful sponsors, we would like to present you with this key to your freedom and this check for one million dollars,” said Price.

Johnny’s shaking hand accepted the key and check, turned around, and began to walk off stage. Price looked at Griffin, who had a huge smile on his face that shouted dollar signs. He then noticed, though, that Johnny had stopped and turned around, heading back towards him. Johnny faced the audience.

“Are you all happy now?” screamed Johnny.

“You all just watched an innocent man get murdered. Is this really the kind of shit that entertains you all? You’re all fucking sick! I don’t want your money or your freedom!”

Price felt the color drain from his face. He started to back away when Johnny turned and looked at him. He was frozen in fear.

“I know I’m as much to blame as anyone that this happened. I can’t believe I’ve lied all this time and said he was guilty,” said Johnny, dropping his head. “I let my brother die for something he didn’t do. I deserve to be buried right along with him.” He raised his head again, his eyes fixed upon Price.

“This is your spectacle, you bastard.”

He lunged at Price, knocking him down. Johnny wrapped his hands around his neck and choked him as hard as he could. The guards quickly pulled out their guns, but then Griffin quickly motioned to them, and they lowered their weapons.

As life slipped from Price’s body, his last thoughts were of his children, who he knew were watching at home. The last sounds he heard were Griffin’s maniacal laughter and the audience’s wild ovation. []

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 59

OPINION NIELS

NIELS HAV is a full time poet and short story writer with awards from The Danish Arts Council. In English he hasWe Are Here, published by Book Thug, and poetry and fiction in numerous magazines including The Literary Review, Shearsman, Exile, The Los Angeles Review and PRISM International. In his native Danish the author of six collections of poetry and three books of short fiction. His work has been translated into several languages such as Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch, Persian, Turkish, and Chinese.

HAV

Poetry in

COPENHAGEN And elsewhere It seems that God has chosen a few hundred, or at the very most a couple of thousand, in each nation for the buying of poetry. The genre is published in small print runs and the shelves of poetry doesn't take up much space at the bookstore. That’s how it is in Denmark and in most other countries – even in China with a population of 1.4 billion it is rare to see a collection of poetry among the real bestsellers.

When travelling the world and spending time in airports, you are plainly confronted with these brutal facts. There is always a bookstore in the airport, but too often the shelves hold no poetry whatsoever. At the front of the counter are mysteries and current bestsellers with flashy covers. More modestly placed you may find a section of classics, but no poetry! I think this is rather un-ambitious, poetry has aesthetic dimensions you cannot find in prose. It evokes emotions in a more direct manner and focus on themes of importance for everyone.

Recently I had to change planes at Heathrow and was in transit there a few hours. I went into the bookstore and was presented with the gloomy fact: No poetry. Astonishing! The UK is an old national culture with proud traditions in poetry. British poets have written so much exceptional and emblematic poetry. Would it not be appropriate for every bookstore in the country to carry Blake, Yeats, Pound, Auden, Elliot or Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney? In order to find a solution to the mystery I approached the friendly young clerk. “Sorry,” he said without shame, “Poetry doesn’t sell.”

You could receive the same answer in a book-

60 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

store in Copenhagen. And we are very well aware of it; the market forces drive life on our planet. However, the problem is that if poetry isn’t to be found in a bookstore it will never get the chance to prove its viability. If readers are only fed mysteries and bestsellers we will all become more stupid, our brains will wither and our souls lose their wings. There ought to be poetry on the shelves of every bookstore with a sense of professional pride and self-respect.

I actually don’t think that the current situation among booksellers gives a true picture of the esteem of poetry among readers. Poetry lives, is doing well and flourishes like never before. It follows its own channels to connect with readers. Readings gather many enthusiasts who enjoy listening to poetry and who may buy a book or two at the same time. And that makes sense because poetry originated in the market square and in the bazar, where poets have recited since antiquity.

That’s how it is: poetry is the necessary breath and oxygen of language. The purpose of poetry is to restore language and prevent us from being insane, and there is every reason for optimism and to feel good about the state of things. Maybe poetry is not displayed at the front of the bookstore and it rarely reaches the top of the bestseller lists. But instead good poetry is long-lived. As the classical Chinese poets Li Bai (701 – 762) notes in a fragment: Perfect poems Are the only buildings That always stay standing. [] Translated by Per K. Brask

‘Portrait of a poet’ by Ilya Mashkov

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CARL SCHARWATH, has appeared globally with 150+ journals selecting his poetry, short stories, interviews, essays or art photography. Two poetry books 'Journey To Become Forgotten' (Kind of a Hurricane Press), and 'Abandoned' (ScarsTv) have been published.

Carl is the art editor for Minute Magazine, a dedicated runner and 2nd degree black- belt in Taekwondo.

62 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

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ARTHUR [stirs his coffee and looks annoyed]: Why do we have the television on all morning? Is that all you do at home all day when I am at work?

NADYA: Maybe if you went to church with me we might have a more civil communication with each other?

NADYA: I wish. You are never here when I am cleaning your house, paying your bills, running your errands and making calls for you. Notice I said your....I no longer feel like I am part of your life and our marriage seems like a shell of what it once was.

ARTHUR: I am sorry Nadya, I have so much yard-work to do this morning and will not be able to attend church. You are right, let's start over and talk about your feelings.

NADYA: Thank you.

ARTHUR: Wow... looks like we are going to have another long argument before you go to church?

ARTHUR: I know I have not been there for you. My

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 63

job has become so stressful and the hours are taking their toll. I am sure you have noticed how irritable I am?

NADYA: I think I will start to write again. I have the perfect short story.

NADYA: Like now?

ARTHUR: I would love to hear it.

ARTHUR: Yes like now, tell me why you feel that you are not a part of my life?

NADYA: Oh it will be about a husband and a wife, they have been married a long time and the marital problems have made it difficult for them to be happy together.

NADYA: I can't remember the last time you said you loved me, held me or asked how my day was. This is simply a marriage of convenience, you are out doing god knows what and I am left here alone. I know you work long hours but how tired can you be when you are out almost every Saturday with friends? Friends I have never met.

ARTHUR: Twenty five years of marriage should prove my love for you.

ARTHUR: Hmm, sounds familiar.

NADYA: Yes and the husband is away every Saturday, cheating on his wife.

ARTHUR [Looks around the room and is clearly nervous]: And how does she know this?

NADYA: Because she is not as stupid as her husband thinks.

[ARTHUR looks at his watch.]

NADYA: See you will not even say it... Why are you looking at your watch?

ARTHUR: It seems you have a good outline already for your story?

NADYA: Arthur?

ARTHUR: I love you...I love you...I love you...happy?

ARTHUR: Yes? NADYA: Sarcasm fits you so well and no I am not happy. Not happy with you, this marriage or my life.

ARTHUR: OK...I do love you and I am sorry. I just wish you could be happy with yourself. You can't rely on others all the time. You have to make your own happiness. Turn off the TV, and start thinking about some activities you might like to do.

NADYA: Do you have a mistress? Are you cheating on me?

ARTHUR: No Nadya I am not don't be ridiculous.

NADYA: Where are you every Saturday?

ARTHUR: With my friends. I know this will not be as exciting for your story.

[ARTHUR rises from his chair and turns off the television.]

NADYA: Maybe for once you are right Arthur. I do need to find something else to keep me happy.

Remember a few years ago when I started to write?

ARTHUR: Yes and if I recall... your poetry and short stories were quite good. Wow for once I was right?--hallelujah, the heavens are about to open.

NADYA: Oh my God do you always have to be such a wise-ass?

ARTHUR: Guess you missed my compliment?

64 CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019

NADYA: I don't believe you. You come home so happy and you seem to avoid me and go right to the bathroom as soon as you walk through the door.

ARTHUR: Yes...I am washing away my sins, is that what you want to hear? I have a long ride home and need to go to the bathroom.

NADYA: Why do you always have to be so sarcastic with me? Can you ever just answer my question like a normal human being?

ARTHUR: Yes I will, once you stop with you accusations and grilling me about where I am.

NADYA: I have enough of this and am going to get ready for church. You sure you don't want to go with me? Maybe we can talk to the priest about our marital problems

NADYA: Look... I am no expert on the theater but don't great plays tell a story and have some kind of meaning? Arthur and I are just bickering back and forth, even I am starting to be bored with this.

ARTHUR: I already told you I can't go because of the yard work. You can ask God to slow down the growing of the grass and then I will go next week. As far as us talking to the priest... no way, if we have problems we can resolve them. The priest probably sins more than you and I put together, so no thank you, I will talk to God directly with any problems.

PLAYWRIGHT: Wow!

NADYA: You're such a typical man, afraid of asking someone else for help.

ARTHUR: You are so right, just like we guys will never ask for directions when lost.

NADYA: [Nadya stands up to leave the room and sees the playwright behind the curtain]: Hello.....Hello........ I see you.

ARTHUR: Who are you talking to?

NADYA: The playwright, she is over there on your right.

ARTHUR: You're amazing, first you ruin my morning, now you want to ruin the play?

NADYA: [Waving for the playwright to come on stage]: Please come over here, I want to talk to you and then we can get on with your silly play.

PLAYWRIGHT [Walks on stage carrying the script for her play and a pen]: I can't believe this.

NADYA: Oh believe it, don't worry you can just write this part out or add an intermission, I just want to talk to you.

PLAYWRIGHT [Nods her head. Looks on in disbelief and does not answer.]

NADYA This play isn’t going anywhere. No one wants to sit and listen to a couple fight. They are paying good money to go to the theater and some may have their own marital or family problems. Who wants to be reminded of this with a poorly written play?

PLAYWRIGHT: Excuse me?

NADYA: Some playwright you are, you have not even spoken a complete sentence to me. Let me tell you how you should write this.

PLAYWRIGHT: Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way. You're the expert playwright now.

NADYA: You must be hanging around my husband, you both share the same epithet.

You could have written about just us falling in love, no failing marriage, no affair, just two people who met and were destined to be together in love.

PLAYWRIGHT: Go on, tell me how you would write this.

NADYA: The beginning would be the same, my husband and I having our talk and yes a little verbal fighting. But then we realize how deep our love is for each other. We both acknowledge our problems and talk about how we can work together to save our marriage.

Arthur agrees to have marital counseling, stays home on the weekends and goes to church with me today.

PLAYWRIGHT: Yes and he doesn’t cut the grass this morning and you live happily ever after. Your husband is searching...searching for a more exciting life and it may not include you.

Your play is a fairy tale, and my play will explore the human condition, the psychology of fading love and offer a lesson in life how a marriage can fail when each spouse takes the other for granted.

NADYA: Arthur?

ARTHUR: Yes?

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NADYA: You haven’t said a word. Look how she is talking to me.

ARTHUR: Nadya, you dominate every conversation, you don’t need my help.

NADYA: [Tears begin to become evident and NADYA sobs the next line]: Screw the both of you, I don't know what happened to you Arthur.

ARTHUR: Sweetheart.

NADYA: Don't sweetheart me, I am going to church now.

[NADYA slams the door on the way out.]

what I am doing to you and my wife. I want us to be together. I no longer love my wife, yet I still think and worry how this affair and leaving her will ultimately cause so much pain. Sometimes I think she is unstable mentally and who knows what she might do?

PLAYWRIGHT: You are so selfish and I know you still love her or you would not care about her feelings. You have told me many times how bad she treats you. Why did you not think of this before you started an affair with me?

ARTHUR: Perhaps Nadya was right when she talked about your play and how it could have been different?

You could have written about just us falling in love, no failing marriage, no affair, just two people who met and were destined to be together in love.

PLAYWRIGHT: Looks like just you and me now.

ARTHUR: I do feel bad, she left here crying and upset.

PLAYWRIGHT: You didn’t seem too worried about her when you made love to me last Saturday.

PLAYWRIGHT: Now you are telling me what to write as well? I really can't take this anymore. I am so tired of the both of you. How did my characters take over this play? This was suppose to be my first play and was wishing I could just be honored by a nice small local playhouse.

ARTHUR: Shh......

PLAYWRIGHT: Don’t worry, your precious wife is gone.

[PLAYWRIGHT runs offstage still holding her manuscript and returns with a lighter. She returns to face Arthur holding the manuscript and the lighter below the right corner.]

ARTHUR: Now you're going to start in on me?

ARTHUR: What are you doing?

PLAYWRIGHT: No Arthur, I love you so much and what I said is deplorable.

PLAYWRIGHT: I am going to burn this play, right here on the stage, I want both of you gone from my life.

ARTHUR: I love you too, and trust me I know this is difficult for you. You are the one who brings light, love, happiness and meaning to my life.

ARTHUR: Please don't, I love you. I know you deserve more and our love means everything to me. Think about this drastic action you are about to take. Yes my wife and I will be gone from your life and your play will cease to exist as well. Have you thought this through sweetheart? Your life will also be extinguished with the very flame you are about to light.

PLAYWRIGHT: Yes and I feel after three years of sneaking around we are ready for the next step to be together.

ARTHUR: Sweetheart we have talked about this. I just need more time. I do love you heart and soul and want to be with you for eternity. Just..just more time please.

PLAYWRIGHT: How much time Arthur? Three years I have dedicated myself to you and put my life on hold waiting. Is this fair to me?

ARTHUR: No, it is not fair to you. I also feel bad with

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PLAYWRIGHT: Our love has been the greatest part of my life. I have given myself without question and know my faith in us has cheated me from true, forever happiness. Why is it that love can sometimes find us at the wrong time in our lives? Love should be pure, innocent and a blessing whenever it comes. Love is not conceptually irrational, love conquers the emotions and defies all rational examination. Perhaps the magic of our love was only created in my head, a wish or a dream that every-

Photographs: Brandi Redd

one has? No!...our time together does feel absolute.

Your touch awakens my soul, your breath quickens my heart, your words fill me with life. I feel so sad, I can't sleep and don't know why I am so sad. I have been crying and wish you were here to comfort and hold me next to you but that will never happen. Maybe that is why I am so sad—that we will be separated our entire lives. I’m alone night after night with no hope while you sleep with another woman. Sometimes I just want to die it's all so painful. You're a million miles away and oblivious to my feelings and suffering. I also know by burning this play I too, am committing suicide.

Beyond the philosophical paradox there is a complex rationale on why I might take this final action. The play is a disaster and can no longer be saved, our love will never be complete and if we continue as is you will hurt your wife and force us to make a decision I already know the answer to. Perhaps my life can be saved, the answer is not in my emotions and heart but in my psy-

che. We can all continue our lives and admit to ourselves we never ever will truly be happy. I can replace you with the faith I will find love again, a love every woman deserves and can come to her if she believes in second chances.

The flame will be ignited, its amber glow will seduce me to look into the burning colors of a life past and the dying embers of a mistake. The brightness, the brilliant, scintillating luster can also capture my vision of a future inflamed with optimism, love and achievement. With this fire nothing will come because nothing is. Loyalty will fail in the echoed words of seared hope and our life together. The past will never arrive, the future will drown, and we will fail each other.

[Playwright starts a flame with her lighter, holds the play script dangerously close]

CURTAIN

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[]

COLUMN JAY

CHAKRAVARTI

Horror

India

India has had a long tryst with tales of horror, the ghosts and the supernatural - and they have come in so many shapes, sizes and storytelling garbs that this "culture of spooky tales" might merit a good article or two for a resounding academic discussion. The issue I am trying to point out, however, is the strange absence of the genre as far as the serious Indian filmmaking milieu is concerned.

Now don't get me wrong. Since there has always been the demand for darker tales, a section of the moviemaking industry did churn out a selected number of horror fare every year. Most of them are not worth writing home about, not unlike the efforts of the Ramsay brothers in the 70s and 80s. The Ramsays are a family of filmmakers who were the Hammers of the East, sculpting horror films seeped in superstition, skin and gore for the conservative Indian audience. Many of their films have since achieved cult status.

There has been the odd original horror gem like Ramgopal Verma's "Raat" or a classic like the final

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STREE Director AMAR KAUSHIK Writers RAJ NIDIMORU KRISHNA D.K. ‌‌ SUMIT ARORAA PAWAN SONY Country INDIA Language Hindi Year 2018 DOP AMALENDU CHAUDHARY Editor HEMANTI SARKAR Producers DINESH VIJAN RAJ NIDIMORU KRISHNA D.K. In the small town of Chanderi, the menfolk live in fear of an evil spirit named "Stree" who abducts men in the night. Based on the urban legend of "Nale Ba" that went viral in Karnataka in the 1990s.

segment of Satyajit Ray's "Teen Kanya" (adapted from a story by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore) but even the most successful of Indian supernatural efforts (Vikram Bhatt's "Raaz") were remakes of tried and tested Hollywood or Asian scare fare.

Even as I write this, I feel I should demystify the entire concept of "Indian films" before I can establish an objective plane to speak from. The Indian filmmaking audience has broadly been divided into those who speak the Dravidian school of languages in South India and those who speak in tongues belonging to the Indo-Aryan family of languages in the North.

We who (roughly) belong to the North seldom watch South Indian films, unless they are badly dubbed or shoddily remade in other languages. Thus, when I speak of the drought in the genre, I am ignoring the smart, clever and twisted South Indian films that often breach the fine line between the natural and the supernatural.

The drought has been so severe that for most (North) Indians, the term "Indian horror film" often manages to conjure a disdainful smile on their faces that is reminiscent of the chuckles that intense scenes of horror in those films would (inadvertently) inspire.

Meteorologically speaking, 2018 was a pretty good year. We were treated to two well crafted fares in the genre, two radically different pieces of Art that manage to get themselves clumped together in this little column of ours! Woe this mad obsession with genre!

STREE

The debut feature of Amar Kaushik is an interesting

mix of fear, fun and feminism. It subverses the ideas associated with the 'mysterious feminine', tracing the inherent power structures as the female (Stree) manifests herself as the ghost, lover, prostitute, absent mother and the omnipresent mother Goddess, whose yearly festival is when the spectre called "stree" visits the streets of a sleepy North Indian suburb, looking for men wandering alone outside their homes. The spectre calls out to them and whisks them physically away with her, stark naked, leaving the poor man's clothes back at the scene of the crime as a testimony to the ghostly abduction.

The writers have been inspired by a real myth from the southern state of Karnataka, and thus they weaved the story of the "Stree" and at its centre, a gifted tailor named Vicky (Rajkummar Rao). He is enamoured by a nameless, mysterious woman (Shraddha Kapoor) who comes to town as the yearly festival comes by.

While the spectre "Stree" begins to strike and abduct men as the festival comes by, Vicky begins to notice certain discrepancies about his mystery woman which prompts him to wonder whether she is the ghost "Stree" in human form!

Kaushik's debut feature excels in its moments of clever humour, from the Vicky's father (Atul Srivastava) who is in awe of his son's weaving prowess and believes Vicky to be tailor-avatar of Vishnu, to the graffiti in red paint thay implores the ghost to "come tomorrow instead". It is believed that the houses which has this message written outside are spared by the ghost who must have a sound sense of civil propriety.

Since we are speaking of humour, the brilliant Pankaj Tripathi deserves a special mention for his portrayal of Rudra - the alcoholic, lovestruck bookseller who specializes in the legend of the Stree. Tripathi's performance strikes the perfect comic pitch throughout.

Rajkummar Rao has proven himself to be a gifted actor time and time again, and in "Stree", he is no different. Aparshakti Khurana and especially Abhishek Banerjee, make their mark as two of Vicky's friends.

Shraddha Kapoor is as believable as a contender for the ghost as that which her character eventually turns out to be, which brings us to a particularly symbolic scene at the fag end of the film.

Without giving away any spoilers, let me say that the final scene deftly hints at the power struggle associated with women, their

Rajkummar Rao in Stree

CultureCult Magazine Spring 2019 69

names or professions or simply their gender - how one of these variables forcefully create a limiting "identity", which effaces the memory of a ghost to such an extent that she is simply called "Stree" (the female/the wife).

Perhaps this is how it is believable that someone like Vicky can fall for a woman without even knowing her name.

Then again, "Stree" does not intend to preach.

In fact, the film would rope in Vijay Raaz for a cameo to spew some (funny?) bile at women, the next moment delving into a touching tale of lost love and ghostly grudges.

To conclude, "Stree" deftly touches upon various aspects of suburban North Indian reality and its malleable form in the face of fear, faith and superstition.

The best thing about this film is that its satirical target is 'the culture of fear' rather than fear itself.

The fear is good. It is the fear of the "Stree" that keeps the men off the streets at nights. In our society, now there shall be no need to warn girls to remain indoors at nights for fear of getting raped outside. It is the fear that prompts men to reprioritise their masculine identities, since they begin to believe that walking around in a Saree might fool the Stree. The fear, by and large, is harmless and good!

The culture of fear, however, isn't. It is the culture of fear that fears change, that created the spectre Stree, a prostitute wishing to be a wife, who did not have the social standing to change her 'identity' at will.

Thus her lover was killed and she died, vowing to exact revenge on men for aeons to come.

If women did hold historical grudges, men wouldn't have remained in a social position for so long to rant against feminists. Then again, those ranting men often forget that the Stree has a confounding sense of 'social propriety'. She would not come to haunt you if you simply write outside your home, "Oh Stree, come tomorrow instead!"

TUMBBAD

I am tempted to begin this piece by mentioning the brilliant, singular song penned by Raj Shekhar and arranged by the composer duo Ajay and Atul Gogavale. The lyrics speak of fortune and fear and the whipping music and Maratha beats create a resulting frenzy, reflecting the mood (and central themes) of Tumbbad the film.

The Indian culture of film music (a topic that certainly deserves a lot more space than this piece can afford) has been at its finest when music has been both situational and a conductor of the plot itself. The title track of this period film ticks both these checkboxes,

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TUMBBAD Directed by RAHI ANIL BARVE ADESH PRASAD Writers RAHI ANIL BARVE MITESH SHAH ………ADESH PRASAD ANAND GANDHI Country INDIA Language Hindi Year 2018 DOP PANKAJ KUMAR Editor SANYUKTA KAZA Producers SOHUM SHAH AANAND L. RAI MUKESH SHAH AMITA SHAH A mythological story about a goddess who created the entire universe. The plot revolves around the consequences when humans build a temple for her first-born.

besides fulfilling the neat little duty of encapsulating the soul of the film in a succulent web of music and lyrics.

Tumbbad is about the fictional village of Tumbbad where a great treasure resides in the bowels of its earth. This treasure has its roots to a quasi-mythological beginning of time itself. Hastar (Lovecraft, anyone?) was the firstborn and the most beloved offspring of the Goddess of Prosperity. However, God Hastar was greedy for all the gold and food in the world. Naturally, the other Gods attacked Hastar and the Goddess was only able to save him by agreeing that he would never be worshipped and would be forgotten by history.

A still from Tumbbad

The connection of the treasure to Hastar, not to mention the nature and mystery of the treasure itself (consider this: each time the protagonist visits Tumbbad, he only manages to bring a few gold coins back) are some of the variables set to roll the story to its eventual conclusion. And quite a conclusion it is! It is a road laced with greed and gore, the co-horts of fortune and fear.

Tumbbad is the story of Vinayak Rao (Sohum Shah), the illegitimate sire of the local landlord of Tumbbad, who comes to know of the treasure and accesses it from time to time in order to lead a life of affluence and debauchery. When he grows old, he teaches the art of retrieving the treasure to his son, whose apparent cleverness brings the downfall of their entire enterprise in a horrific turn of events at the fag end of the film.

The allegory of this entire morality tale that traces the lineage of greed through three generations,

can quite simply reflect the history of humanity (or closer to the couch: human sexuality) itself, or if a soul prefers, a warning about the dark side of nature, both within and without the human body.

The essential need that the human body has for power increases with age, while the capacity for seizing said power decreases. Thus comes the next generation who is trained the art of seizing the instrument of power. As the hunger for power increases, evolution moulds our brains to accumulate and accommodate more and more of it. However, the price of sacrifice that comes with such ventures of expanding falsehood often begin to outweigh the benefits associated with power.

This realization is often cited as one of the mellower reasons why the British 'vacated' its colonies in the Indian subcontinent. It is certainly easier to muse upon the price of sacrifice than the oppression that powerful entities inevitably exercise.

But this afterthought is for the survivors. For those in the heat of the power play, it is a struggle of fireflies to stay closest to the fire without actually falling into it. In the heat of the moment, the allure of being close to the fire far outweighs the fear of falling into it.

The natural world plays a significant role in the narrative of Tumbbad. The rain soaked village; the dank roads leading up to the village, the grandmother who has been turned into a tree, and the red womb of the Earth itself. The images, canned by Pankaj Kumar , and designed by Nitin Zihani Choudhary & Rakesh Yadav, have been lauded by critics and the awards circuit alike.

Tumbbad has reportedly gone to the floor three times. The perfection, the synchronicity of each aspect of production, was achieved after several missed starts and a complete reshoot post-2012. A brainchild of Rahi Anil Barve, the film has been impeccably directed by Barve and Adesh Prasad. Mitali Shah and Anand Gandhi pitched in with the screenplay along with Barve and Prasad while Sanyukta Kaza has edited the film. []

The new column that celebrates the nuances of Horror, ‘Cult of Fear’ invites contributions from aficionados of the weird, fantastic and the supernatural to determine where horror truly stands in the realm of the Arts.

Send in your contributions to CultureCultMagazine@gmail.com

SHORT FICTION MICHAEL

BETTENDORF

MICHAEL BETTENDORF is a freelance writer, editor, and educator based in Nebraska - a place he will vehemently argue is not a flyover state. His work has recently appeared in The Weird Reader Vol. III. You can find some of his previous comics criticism at Comics Bulletin and YourChickenEnemy.

Behind Sage Eyes It sits there in the bathroom trashcan, covered in urine like the instructions say. I stare into the bathroom mirror, speckled with dots of toothpaste. I take a good look at myself. My mom’s foggy blue eyes. My dad’s thinning hairline. My grandfather’s wide, chubby nose. My grandmother’s stubbornness, only visible by the beard I refuse to shave. An amalgamation of multi-generational DNA. My brain, a hereditary chemistry set, a living test.

I can’t help but wonder where the experiment went wrong. How the formulas were screwed up. How the measurements were doubled or miscalculated somewhere down the line. And I have to ask if I’ll pass the burden along. Whose fault is it then, if anybody’s?

I took no part in wars like my grandfather. I didn’t struggle to survive during the Great Depression like my grandparents, forced to eat apples until they no longer resembled anything close to the American Dream. I didn’t see unforgettable tragedy like my mother.

I didn’t scoop bodies off the pavement for a living like my father.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the embodiment of my ancestors’ anguish and pain and suffering. Some sort of sins-of-our-fathers thing. Depression sneaked in through genetic code. A miscalculation. A dose of prudent worry accidentally doubled until it bonded with fear and became anxiety.

The mirror is one of those trick mirrors shown in detective shows. The kind you see at Target, near the Employees Only door. I see myself, but I know behind the glass–behind the reflection of my eyes–there’s somebody else looking back. I want to believe that the other person is me or, some version of me–trying to show me how I truly am. And they want to tell me something, but they don’t know how to speak it. And I believe they want to tell me that this was how we all see ourselves in the mirror, behind sage eyes.

I have to believe this.

I have to.

Because I can’t be the only one.

But I realize that it isn’t me behind the glass. It can’t be, because despite the fact that we know ourselves best, it’s hardly ever honest.

Truly honest, anyway. And so, I see my mother and my grandmother and my father and my grandfather hiding behind the mirror telling me that it’s okay. That they see it too when they gaze into the mirror. And I’ll be the eyes behind whatever life comes out of the urine-soaked stick in the trash. I’ll be the one staring back, telling them it’s okay. They aren’t the only ones. [] Photography: Elena Saharova

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