DAHA EQUINOX

EQUINOX

DAHA MAGAZINE

welcome bienvenidos

photo by Chi-Ting Tsai

is DAHA Magazine as in De Adentro Hacia Afuera as in from the inside out

As each of these pages formed from blurs in my mind into virtual visuals, all I could clearly see was pure unadulterated talent. You are about to witness the magical ex perience created by 20 students studying at New York University’s Buenos Aires campus.

This is DAHA Magazine and I am Stephanie Farmer: the founder and editor-in-chief! Three months ago the idea for this literary art journal came to me as I was prepping for my journey below the equator. The magazine was birthed from a deep desperation to house all the creative ener gy that floats around our young minds. NYU is a tight-knit fabric of every kind of artist–I knew we all just need the encouragement to finally share all of the passions we nurture in private.

Our meaning is written into our title, which, as earlier stated, stands for De Adentro Hacia Afuera. In its name, DAHA is grounded in its South American home; however, for our English readers, this translates to from the inside out. The goal of the zine is to foster a strong community both inside NYUBA and beyond. I believe the easiest link between the two to nourish is that born from art. If you ask any of the fifty students here, they will tell you that the experience hasn’t been flawless. But in art and writing and creativity we stay connect ed and we realize that we are not alone. We are not alone in our struggles but also in our joys. And in art, we are connected to our host city. Buenos Aires is a metropolis of enormous vibrant

murals and iconic raw literature. These expressions of beauty reflect us foreigners; we can see ourselves and feel at home.

EQUINOX is our first-ever issue! After a month of collecting articles and weeks of fighting with Adobe InDesign, the magazine is finally done. I couldn’t be prouder. Our theme is our visionary way of representing the second spring sea son we are experiencing. As most of us study in New York City, this is our first chance to dive into the southern hemisphere and expe rience a repetition of a season. Springtime is essential in the cy cle of nature and the flow of hu manity. Inspired by Buenos Aires’ inconsistent weather and blos soming trees, we decided to use this issue to highlight the first day of this strange season and speak about our arrival in this country.

I’m so proud of each creative who bared a bit of their soul to fulfill this vision I have. DAHA is here for people to tell their stories and find a home for their creativity. That doesn’t stop here. In one month, another issue will come togeth er. In my dreams, DAHA lives on beyond this semester. In my dreams, this magazine becomes more than just a little project but rather a fuel for artistic fires.

Please enjoy this issue we worked incredibly hard on and stay tuned for all of the magic being formed on the horizon. with all my heart,

L E T T E R F R O M

T H E E D I T O R

6 art by Cecilian Dang photos by Leah El-Ouazzane

On The Road how quickly it all comes and goes, dark green in the ramble. hands slipped in raindrop leaves. until we bruised brown from the state line we dreamt in thrift store clothes i know my father left us for the canyon once, he’s a dust storm in my cinnamon mouth dirty man dirty man dirty girl in her faded overall dress gets a new blouse when he comes home when i remember he has olive eyes and i’m just a girl. on the road he never sees snow so i invite him to the field. i say i have a new favorite tree and he lifts me up to its neck, left foot on his elbow he looks smaller with the branches underneath i think he loves me like he loves the road fast falling leaves and white lipped crows.

poems by Laura Zhang

Summer Wallow

it’s too hot for this you said as you pulled down your boxers and touched more of the earth. water holding up your smile, in that blue-green.

i told you when i was little my dog died and she loved the river. for some reason it reminded you of being shorter in the morning time. that night when we heard coyote howls we took loose leaf paper and crumpled the sound- everything, falling through we loved phoebe who sang: You are sick, and you’re married/ And you might be dying/ But you’re holding me like water in your hands to us in a shadowless cave.

that burning day i saw a pig breathing in a mudhole and hoped soon i would have a soft body.

it’s so much bluer at the bottomwhere i joined you at the tip of a cliff, wiped the spit from your burnt shoulder and jumped. when does rain become rain again?

when you splashed i felt the water in my eyes melting like a sun shower and thought i’d like to stay. under water

cliffs are not cliffs but hands holding each other. we were so dirty in mud and looking for color you, burning the three page letter from your father at the campsite. our backs held to our backpacks, lukewarm. yesterday, like a summer swallow. like leftover lip marks in the clear, in sky under the half moon lightbulb.

directed by Damla Önder

These cards are an imi tation of the immigration cards that were recorded for the waves of immigrants arriving in Argentina in the begin ning of the 20th century. When seeing shelf after shelf filled with these cards at the Museo de la Immigración, I found it fit ting to honor this tradition by creating our own version as we learn about Argentina’s history and culture. We’re lucky that we get to per sonally learn how people migrating over time has influenced culture and language –this is our way of ac knowledging everyone who came before us.

writing

The morning beckons for a white dress and I initiate a meditation on delivery. Celestial orbitation has spent nearly 14 hours undressing me and I’m left with its mess: a naked body and bleeding uterus, moments from being on display. Yet I’m delighted to be here, my hands fingering the scope of the dress and sunlight peering on the markings of my body through the closet opening. Undeniably, I am an object, fixed in this plane of existence and I’m doing the work to cope with being a skin and flesh and nurturing it. It expires in four thousand weeks, Oliver Burkeman writes, and I’ve spent nearly one thousand being an awful mother to it.

As I walk through life’s rings, I real ize that mortality is not what I fear: in Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, the author writes that we yearn to “feel the rapture of being alive,” rather than discovering “a meaning for life” (1). I imagine this to be the mo ment in Doctor Strange when Benedict Cumber batch is penetrated by what Tilda Swinton calls ‘the astral dimension.’ This experience merely ac celerates his heart rate in the material realm, but crafts an inclination to know more of this beyond that, if less merciful, could have scissored him to shreds. He recognized the body as an operative of a temporary condition―mortality only exists within our skin and bones. How, then, can something in tended to decay induce irreversible friction in our societal functions?

After dressing in the morning, I feed the kitten a meal of mushed salmon and give her pets until she runs away, an eager trait she cannot shake from her seven-month-old frame. “I love you and would do anything for you, Clem entine,” I say.

Leaving the apartment, I use my walk as a cari cature to communicate what my face behind a mask cannot: I feel intensely hot. My body is only here for a few thousand more weeks and Man hattan is growing colder soon. I don’t want to be any stranger’s sexy girl or pretty thing but I’ve learned how to differentiate between welcomed

attention versus the propertization of my body-it stems from years of mitigating the impact of being objectified in the dense history of life. Some days, it bothers me. Others, I’m dancing with reclama tion.

It’s only a Thursday, but pristinity is a subjection I cannot afford to deny.

In a poem, I write that “the new york city wind / is telling me different things / about the body” and contemplate the aromatic chamber of my apartment: lavender and rose petals mixed with nature’s stigmatized healing substance. There, I don’t falter as much to the perceptions of the out side world as I’m too busy with the netting of my own. Often thought: the expansion and fluidity of the body. Ideally, we exist within parallel univers es, perpetually ruptured by scattering light and matter unimaginable on Earth. Once we imagine new possibilities, we realize the simple trajectory we’ve been set on as earth-beings. We’ve seen miracles, but are passive to their suggestiveness. I love to ruminate on the beyond because it is inherently inclusive, that if we knew of expanse, we wouldn’t be so concerned with our own limita tions.

COLLIER Planetary Fiction

an exerpt from a longer piece of the same title

photos by Chi-Ting Tsai

photos by Leah El-Ouazzane

The tiny shop shivers in the silver shadows of stores and residence buildings, one of many metal boxes situated on a tight corner or narrow pathway. Patchouli, white sage, lavender. The thin sticks sizzle in silence and kiss the air sweetly before turning earthy. A ceramic plate catches their fragrant embers as the gentle smoke sneaks up on nearby pedestrians now restricted to single-file on the sidewalk. Most continue unphased, glazed eyes and clear direc tion. The smoke briefly mingles with the city musk until perfume, gasoline and winter consume it. Still, it meets me, desensitized by the buzz of taxis and footsteps, with an embrace. I slow my pace, lingering long enough to let the smoke settle on my skin. I remember. Mother. Amethyst room, soft music, warm hands and a singing bowl. Buy and burn or buy and sell. A quiet store with fairy statues and quartz displays. I smile unconsciously. A customer draws the attention of the shop owner and selects three packages. Sandalwood, jasmine, and frankincense. I imagine asking why those. I imagine myself buying the same ones. The taxis lurk sidewalks, police evade traffic and the ornate packages sit neatly on their shelf. The ash falls into a perfect line on the plate, leftovers of a marketing expense, a parallel timeline, a shadow mem ory. The floral clouds simmer and dissipate. I take a final glance at the array of cardboard sheaths, the vibrant colors, the eccentric fonts, the familiar names, the unfamiliar names and continue on my way.

photos by Leah El-Ouazzane

the DAHA spotify playlist

fromNYU BA Students curation and writing by Ebun Adebonojo doodles by Leah El-Ouazzane listen to our music at

spring time existentialism

Sasha Alter

Long last we reach the summer’s end and the next one starts anew. at Home the petals start to wilt Outside they’re in full bloom.

It all seems so Distant now, what was just impending… it’s something new and maybe better just not the Fall I’d been expecting

I pass by the botanical gardens

I remember the day exactly it felt like time had gone reverse

A reminder of my own temporality

Still, reality is warped to me down in this hemisphere and the unknown feels more Foreign So now that Spring is here.

I catch my reflection outside Havana I walk down Santa Fe alone this street I encountered a month ago is starting to feel like my Home

the friends I’ve made, the people I’ve met have opened up my mind

I’m starting to feel comfortable but adjusting still takes Time.

this menial gap in time zones has honestly thrown me off. that single hour feels much worse because it’s almost the same, only it’s Not…

It’s a fresh start in some ways, in others, nothing’s changed. Wherever you go is where you are, you are more than where you stay.

navigating this new life lost on the bus and in my head trying to adapt each day, but letting go instead.

WHAT DO YOU

Four months ago, I was packing up my en tire life. Again. This was the sixth time I had to move cities since I was born and this time, I was moving to Delaware for a few weeks before finally settling in Maryland for who knows how long.

My things fit into two distinct groups: my pre-college life and my college life. My college life was easy to put in a suitcase. I had already been doing it for the last four semesters. My pre-college life, however, made me look like I was a hoarder. I had to make a decision: what will I carry into the next part of my life and what gets dumped into the black garbage bags?

It took me four weeks to make those decisions. At the end of the day, I knew I wanted to carry the good parts of my life. The parts I wanted to remem ber. I packed all my school t-shirts from field days even though I will never fit into them again. I packed my trophies and my cross-country tags because

I never want to forget the late-night matches and chocolate milk runs. I packed the quilt that I slept on as a baby in Miami and as a young woman in Mem phis because I’m desperate to hold onto something constant in my life. I packed all 5000 evil eyes in my room because they are from my family in Turkey and you can never have too much good luck. I threw away all my high school notes that I still had (who the hell knows why) two years after graduating. I donated old clothes that I bought to fit in during high school. I threw away all things related to my ex-boy friend in an attempt to fully obliterate that relation ship from my life.

Even though I chose to hold onto the good things, I still carry the bad.

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien dives deep into what we carry in our lives. The novel is centered around the Vietnam War, and O’Brien

Leah carries her grandma’s jewelry, one of them being this ring. She cherishes all things passed down in her family, whether it be stories, hobbies, or artifacts. Leah is com forted carrying her grandma’s jewelry to the places she goes as it is a representation of traveling and seeing the world, something her grandma taught her to appreciate.

Siegrid carries a cro cheted frisbee – it’s “much cooler than a normal frisbee”. It be longed to their dad until two years ago. Now, it’s become their tool to bond with both with close friends and strangers, something Siegrid loves to do. It’s easy to pack, fun to play with, and “not a hat, to clarify”!

Chi-Ting carries two bracelets with him, both connected to a close friend. He made one of them in her workshop and she made the other one. Since getting them, he’s worn them ev ery single day. They’ve been with him through his multiple solo trav els. They’ve become a momento of his friend, the importance of tak ing care of himself, and him traveling the world.

YOU CARRY?

writes about what people carried as a part of them selves as their humanity was being stripped from them during the war. He illustrates the intimacy of terror and trauma bonding and death - not that I think terror and trauma and death are cool, but it’s something that happens in our world, and he ex plains it in a way that makes the reader’s body get a glimpse of what it feels like. What they carried, liter ally and figuratively, is connected to their humanity, their burdens, and who they are.

Literally, we all carry menial, miscellaneous things with us. We bring our phones everywhere we go. Some people carry a book, a pack of cigarettes, pepper spray, their favorite mascara, a lucky lighter, chic sunglasses or anything else they deem es sential for a good day. What we carry figuratively is something else.

I believe the things they carry, the things I carry, are both good and bad. I think we choose

Corey carries a Ken tucky agate with him that his brother gave him as a gift from a hiking trip. He was born and raised in Kentucky, making it a big part of who he is. Ever since he left when he was 18 years old, he carries the agate to keep both Kentucky and his brother close to him at all times.

to carry good things in our lives that remind us of where we come from, who we are, and who we want to be. We get to have some say in what that is. As for the bad things, we have no say in what we carry and for how long. And because we don’t get to choose the bad things we carry within ourselves, it haunts us all the time. Of course, there are moments where we forget the traumas and the burdens and the shitty feelings they give, but there will always be a trigger to remind you of what you will continue to carry in life as it has influenced who you are and your perspective. As much as I like to scream that it’s not fair that we have no control over carrying these traumas, they’re why we hold on so strongly to the good things.

And we need to hold onto the good things as tight as possible because we can’t help but hold onto the bad.

-damla önder

Juliana carries Ed, the Loch Ness monster. She got him when she visiting Edinburgh during her semester abroad in Paris. Ed has become her trav el buddy, someone to take pictures of as she travels the world. He has become a momen to of where she’s gone and everywhere she wants to go.

Ryan carries a neck lace he got as a gift from his time studying in Guatemala in 2016. Since then, he’s nev er taken it off. On the necklace is the Mayan God Kan, the god he was assigned based on Mayan culture. Not only does it remind him to go back to Gua temala one day, but it has become some thing constant as he is someone who has moved around a lot.

photos by Chi-Ting Tsai

To be Read in my Voice: Memos of a Gay California Benjamin Galloway

Leah El-Ouazzane

She’s got electric boobs, a motor suit

You know I read it in a magazine, oh B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets

“Bennie and the Jets,” Goodbye Yel low Brick Road, Elton John

For most, I just have one name, but for mom and dad, I ex ist in plurality. It’s like when I call mom and she talks about Flip py and Goose and I have no idea who she is talking about because she’s tired of loving her dogs and has decided to rename them to keep them young. But, we all still keep the same names. They’re almost not even a memory. It’s like they’ve been in grained in my walk, how I feel when I lis ten to music, how I see the Blue Angels in the sky, and how my hair waves from my scalp. So Bennie was the first name I came to know through song. And maybe she came to know me as we be gan to drift togeth er. She sticks with me now, as for a long time, when my own name was spo ken it was her’s that I heard. For, to be lulled by the Rock et Man in taught blue sheets on a red corduroy chair is what it was for me to come into con sciousness. It wasn’t until I had learned to live with out the comfort of names I’d never worn did I learn that he sings boots and not boobs and mo hair, not motor.

I think about high school and I think about Spanish class. I think about where I met Tallula and we gossiped and she told me why she’d been out of school for so long and I nev er knew what was happening so I got the brother and sis ter confused for lovers and every one laughed at me when I said it aloud to the class. The kindred of heart brought together by the lasting trau ma of the American high school Spanish dream. One of the teachers is a perv who likes talking to her in his office alone when he doesn’t do that with anyone else and the other is an angry lit tle gay man. And I’m stuck with the angry little gay man. Now I’ve found my way and I’m grasping with my tongue at every thing I know is right. But I’m still asked to stay after class. It’s me and Eli who talks like he owns the lan guage. So if I were to say why the two of us would be doubled out, asked for more of our time to let our tongues weave, I would not say it’s about the control of our muscles but the way that they flow out of our mouths. And we’re here for a meeting when nobody else was asked to be here. The Spanish is Castilian and em pirical and our loose tongues just can’t get a grip. I’m told my mouth drawls and Spanish is quick and enunciated. But my throat stays lazy and I sound like Lib erace dances from my mouth when it should be James Dean.

I’m David Sedaris and I’m yelling Go Carolina!

My hair is braided and my mind swad dled. There are two twin beds pushed together. One for me and one for you but it’s really just one for us even though we keep fall ing in the crack. My mouth is running and I don’t think I can make it stop. I’m standing at the start line and you’re firing the gun over and over and I’m running around the track of my life and your life which feels like our life now. If I stop I’ll be a heap which is keeping my tongue sprinting. You say sweep er and I say vacu um. Get a shower, take a shower. I can hear the first time you called me when you were drinking and you’re friends said I was hot and I couldn’t believe they had my name in their mouths. Now it wasn’t just something I heard with the familiarity of voices slowed by the ocean that are tucked into bed by the fog and bump Mac Dre. Now I could hear a twang in it and for the first time, I started turn ing my head when ever someone says ‘then’ because that’s what it sounds like when it comes out of your mouth. But you really just call me buddy and that feels like the most honest I’ve ever heard you be. You’ve given me a second name and it’s like I exist again as two, but I’m fighting to make that one.

photos by Leah El-Ouazzane

¿Que es el Voseo?

Corey Terrell

¿Vos has eschucado el voseo? Para un estudiante estadounidense, es algo que nunca escuché en las clases de castellano ni con mis amiges hispanohablantes. Sin embargo, si venís a Buenos Aires, es impossible que no escuchás el uso de ‘vos’ como el pronombre relativo de segun da persona. Al principio de oírlo, no pude entender, pero con poca practica, es muy facil! En este arti culo, te voy a demostrar como se lo usa y la his toría de este pronombre uníco.

Cuando el rey de España colonizó a los americanos en los siglos XV y XVI, se consideraba el voseo como una degradación del castellano. Por eso durante muchos años, en toda la literatura y en la educación se usaba el tuteo, pero la población en general lo seguía usando. A partir del siglo XIX y XX, hubo un cambio en la literatura Aargentina a favor del voseo. Ahora, el voseo es un emblema de orgullo nacional. A pesar de que el voseo fue desaprobado durante la colonización de América, hoy día, gracias a la literatura y el uso de la población general, vos es el pronombre preferido en Argentina y muchos otros países latinoamerica nos.

Cuando el rey de España colonizó a los americanos en los siglos XV y XVI, se consideraba el voseo como una degradación del castellano. Por eso durante muchos años, en toda la litera tura y en la educación se usaba el tuteo, pero la población en general lo seguía usando. A partir del siglo XIX y XX, hubo un cambio en la literatura Argentina a favor del voseo. Ahora, el voseo es un emblema de orgullo nacional. A pesar de que el voseo fue desaprobado durante la colonización de América, hoy día, gracias a la literatura y el uso de la población general, vos es el pronombre preferido en Argentina y muchos otros países

latinoamericanos.

Antes del siglo XIX, ‘vos’ era visto como un lenguaje barbárico por los españoles que contro laban la mayoría de América. Querían que todos hablaran como ellos y otras maneras de hablar eran impuras. En todos los espacios oficiales, se tenía que usar ‘tú’ en lugar de lo que se usaba en situaciones de todos los días. La imagen del voseo

en los años antes de la normalización del pro nombre cuando escribió “el voseo constituye un ‘calamitoso rasgo’ y una ‘ignominiosa fealdad’ que conduce al caos espiritual, y señala que el uso de vos es síntoma de incultura y barbarie” 1. Habiendo visto lo que pasó con el latín a lo largo de cientos de años, los españoles querían mantener el cas

tellano como un idioma singular para mantener su imperio colonial.

Argentina se rebeló contra España al prin cipio del XIX y tomó el control de su propio destino. Con la independencia política, vino la indepen dencia lingüística. Las obras de literatura empeza ron a usar ‘vos’ en lugar de ‘tu’. Por ejemplo, en El Gaucho Martín Fierro por José Hernández, el libro naciónal de Argentina, se usa ‘vos’ porque el au

el ‘tu’, los maestros se dirigen a sus pupilos con el ‘vos’2. Está evidentemente demostrado que la aceptación del uso de ‘vos’ ha aumentado en la literatura y todos los aspectos de vida. No obstante, nunca se les enseña el pro nombre a los estudiantes de español. Un reporte de la Universidad Nacional de La Pampa da cuen ta que “la enseñanza del español como L2/LE en países latinoamericanos y Estados Unidos y Canadá se observa la falta de inclusión de prácti cas de otras variedades del español”3. Entonces, cuando estudiantes de NYU vinieron a Argentina, un país voseante, estaban extremadamente con fundido. En realidad la gramática de vos es muy sencilla y fácilmente aprendida por todos estudi antes. Por eso, voy a explicar!

Para empezar, ‘vos’ es usado en lugar de ‘tu’. La conjugación es casi la misma pero hay pequeñas diferencias. Con -ar y -er verbos, se añade un acento por encima sobre la terminación. Para los verbos -ir, se mantiene la ‘i’ en lugar de ‘e’ y se añade un acento por encime sobre la ‘i’. Para los verbos irregulares, bueno, vas a tener que recordarles como todos los verbos irregulares per son muy simulares a los verbos irregulares de ‘tu’! En terminos de pronombres, solo usa ‘vos’ para el pronombre personal y el pronombre personal. Siga usando ‘tu’ como pronombre posesivo y ‘te’ como pronombres objetos. Mira el grafíco para otra expli cación.

tor escribió como se hablaba en esta epoca. No obstante, la educación pública en Argentina sigue enseñando la gramática común del español con ‘tú’ siendo el pronombre preferido para que los estudiantes puedan interactuar con el mundo his panohablante sin problema. Aunque se enseña

1. Fontanella de Weinburg, M. B. (1971). EL VOSEO EN BUENOS AIRES EN LAS DOS PRIMERAS DÉCADAS DEL SIGLO XIX. Thesaurus De Centro Virtu al Cervantes, XXVI(3), 497–514.

2. Myers, George (1997) “A Diachronic History of Spanish Second Person Pronoun Vos,” Deseret Language and Linguistic Society Symposium: Vol. 23 : Iss. 1 , Article 14.

3. Miranda, L. R., Suárez Cepeda, S. G., Nieto González, A. E., & Rodríguez Chaves, D. M. (n.d.). El voseo en el español de la Argentina. Descripción del fenómeno y propuesta metodológica para la clase de ELE. celu.edu.ar. graphic by Indie Suresh

With Argentina being well known as the country of many prominent writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, I felt that it was essential to visit the International Literary Festival in Buenos Aires (FILBA), one of the biggest cultural events in South America. In addition to my interest in fiction writing, I wanted to learn more about how the writers viewed their role in society and what motivated them to share their stories. I also hoped to connect more to Argentinian culture and understand better the val ues and issues that people in this country want to discuss.

Despite my interest, however, I faced a major chal lenge. Given that I started learning the language shortly after coming to Buenos Aires, I barely knew Spanish. Even though the festival had many inter national guests, the majority of the speakers as well as the audience were from Latin America and spoke only Spanish. Nevertheless, encouraged by the amount of various multilingual events offered and the promise of the available translation, I decided to give it a try.

I went to Centro Cultural Recoleta, a very beautiful

cultural center with incredible architecture, where the vast majority of the literary events were hap pening. The façade of the main building with the entrance, repainted every few years, at this time featured a mural of two birds with human bodies on a bright blue background. The cultural center was made up of several buildings of completely different architecture styles that somehow managed to work together perfectly.

Right after entering, I found myself in the whirlwind of art – walls covered with murals and prints, rooms featuring art exhibitions, and numerous bands per forming in front of a giant graffiti wall in the backyard. All I expected were a few lectures in classrooms. But in reality, there were so many unique and fun events – although many of them took place at the same time. One of the events consisted of writers knitting together, while reciting their poetry and short stories, which I think took a lot of pressure off their perfor mance. Outside, there was a free book stand with large cozy pillows spread on the floor of the terrace, where many people were just lying and reading. I really liked the event called “draw your cause”. There

It is our goal to enjoy the world outside our bubble. This piece on visiting the International Literary Festival by Varya Rodionova is an example of just that!

was an artist who drew a visual representation of a social justice issue or cause that you are passionate about. I really wanted to get a drawing too, but by the time I decided on my cause, I was late for my next panel.

The panels with famous writers from Argentina and guests from around the world were definitely the highlight of the experience for me.

There weren’t that many people in the audience, and I relished the opportunity to ask questions and go into more in-depth discussions with the authors.

I loved the genuine comment by Julia Armfield, a fiction writer from London: “In a short story you only need to convince people for 5 minutes. For a novel, it’s harder.” It once again reminded me how I can relate to all these people as an artistic person, no matter how much more accomplished and influential they are.

During the first panel I visited, called “Toda Literatura es Politica”, (All Literature is Political), there were, of course, many discussions regarding current global events and mass media, as well as its effect in our ev eryday lives. The comment of McKenzie Wark, a writer and a scholar now based in New York, on this topic, left a strong impression on me: “This is information war. And I have been fighting that war my whole life.”

McKenzie Wark is also a trans rights activist, and one of her main goals is to create a trans community of both writers and readers in New York. She has been facing many challenges throughout her life regarding her own transition as well as in her journey in writing and activism, which is why it was so important for me

to hear this from her – it shows how so many com munities are suffering from fake news in this age of abundance of quickly changing information. In the second panel, which discussed different genres of fiction and non-fiction writing, I was really excited when the writers started talking about the portray al of dystopias and apocalypses. I am a huge fan of George Orwell, who is well-known for that type of writing, so it was particularly interesting for me to hear what these writers would add about this. I couldn’t help but laugh at the words of Tim Maughan, a jour nalist and a writer, when he was talking about his fic tion writing on apocalypses: “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” It was interesting how during both panels that I have visited, I witnessed many discussions come to the topic of capitalism and its influence on society in Argentina as well as in the rest of the world.

Leaving through the doors of the brightly colored building with birds, I felt like I had just left another real ity – a colorful, musical and lively scene, made up of art in all of its forms. This experience showed me what it’s like to be a professional writer, the challenges they go through and what moves them to keep sharing their stories. In addition, it also helped me understand more of the general sentiments and views of Argen tinian public. But the most important thing that I will take away from this experience is the writers’ pas sion. It inspired me to further pursue fiction writing, since it sounded like the writers had the best time of their life doing their job.

Somethings, like allergies, get in the way of that fun.

comic by Indie Suresh

Today a man followed me for blocks.

A tour guide said being with us was like a funny party. Then he grabbed my waist and pulled me close so I couldn’t leave.

A woman stared as she passed us and doubled back to do it again.

Our order was interrupted by a man demanding to know where we were from only leaving after we didn’t answer the fourth time he asked.

A couple switched to English so we could understand them talking about us being Black.

poem

A man turned his chair away from his table to stare us down during lunch for an hour saying things we’d rather not understand.

I went to an afro-poetry reading full of white people. They made all 3 black people sit together for a picture.

A man stopped us at the corner to repeatedly say “As-salamu alaykum”. When we crossed the street he stayed in place, staring, pretending to masturbate. He began to follow us.

photos by Leah El-Ouazzane

Jennifer Quran Yang

Her mouth opens with a street.

Slick tar that cuts across cobblestone-paved ground, a tongue for pedestrians, tourists, tango dancers. It’s colorful in here, beautiful blue sky canopied over buildings painted yellow, red, orange, blue. They are lined up like her teeth, corru gated and metallic but warm from the sun. Most of them are stores as crowded with trinkets as they are with people. Anything is sellable these days; shirts, postcards, trav el books, effigies of the wretched hand of God. There are effigies on the balconies too, ghoul ish and cheerful as they peer down at pedestrians. They are singers, athletes, heroes, a woman who never left. Artists and their work hug the edges of the streets. Their paintings render the same scene ad infini tum. There’s a million faces of this street for them to cap ture, but still they always choose the same one. You can’t blame them, though, it’s the easiest one to take home. A man stands with three dogs with three different coats. Two tourists walk by in blue and white shirts. You can hear the deep growl of car engines be- neath floating conver- sations and clinking cola glasses. You try to take deep breaths in and out, in and out, but the crowd swallows and you’re tunneled down an esophagus by moving masses of warm and sticky flesh who are also trying to breathe. Then, you’ve escaped. There is suddenly river. It’s vast, calm, murky beneath your feet. If you look over it you will become part of a mural whose walls end a few blocks out on either side. Its mirror image on the opposite side of the river, several worlds of distance away, is less a copyist’s reproduction and more an overexposed picture of her hunched back.

the end, for now

DAHA is brought to you by the students of NYU Buenos Aires. A spe cial thank you to Anna Kazumi Stahl and Paula Di Marzo for being ex cellent adult supervisors. To Leah El-Ouazanne for photographing our models (Sade Collier, Sebastian Parra, Ebun Adebonojo, me :), Benja min Galloway, and Ajani Boyd). Jennifer Quran Yang and Cecilian Dang for their art work. Indie Suresh and Natasha Cicogna for their help with the graphic design of the magazine. follow us on instagram for more updates!

-Stephanie Farmer

photos by Leah El-Ouazzane

@DAHAZINENYU

photos by Leah El-Ouazzane