Very disappointed that, in a full spring of concert listings, you leave off the most anticipated date of the first half of this year. By that I mean, of course, March 9. The Pageant. Elvis. Costello. Unless the calendar, in the spirit of Gadfly, is entirely tongue-in-cheek, this omission is inexcusable. I expect to see it in the list of Errata in the next issue. Ciao, Frank Hello reader, As you can see, we left out a date on our concert calendar. That’s OK, though, since Mr. Corley is the only one who reads it. Anyway, we’re always looking for essays, poems, short stories, reviews, recipes, how-tos, jokes, microfiction, proofs, drawings, illustration, designs, photoshops, small children, donations, gyros, kidnapping plots, bananas, etc. If there’s something you want published, send it our way at gadfly@sluh.org or by slipping it under the door to M125. Thanks for reading this little stack of paper. We hope you enjoy. —Giuseppe Vitellaro and David Burke
“…our city is like a large horse which because of its size is inclined to be lazy and needs the stimulation of a gadfly… before long you will awake from your drowsing, and in annoyance take Anytus’s advice and swat me; and then you will go on sleeping.”
GADFLY APRIL 2015
DEEPEST DESIRES Giuseppe “None” Vitellaro David “Award-winning” Burke Sam “Jazz, darn it” Fentress Jack “Spinbrush” Carroll Kevin “Gap life” Thomas Joe “Tim Kieras, S.J.” Slama Michael “Más acción” Neuhoff Nate “Facial hair” Cummings
Sam “John Mueller” Sextro Paul “Lustrium” Daus Kevin “Your happiness” Strader Dominck “Sick bass solo” Gherardini Salvatore “Hogan, S.J.” Vitellaro Mr. Frank “Senior Filets” Corley Dr. David “A book, darn it” Callon Mr. Joe “Appease the insurers” Komos
CONCERT CALENDAR Dates listed are opening nights.
5/01 5/01 5/01 5/02 5/02 5/02 5/02 5/02 5/03 5/03 5/03 5/04 5/05 5/05 5/05 5/06 5/07 5/07 5/07 5/08 5/08 5/08 5/08 5/08 5/09 5/10 5/11 5/11 5/11 5/12 5/12 5/12 5/13 5/13 5/13 5/13 5/14
Andrew W.K. Flying House SLSO: Bolero Hell Night/Cathedral Fever Quitting Amy Alejandro Escovedo JJ Grey and Mofro Cécile McLorin Salvant Dave Dickey Big Band Wolf Alice Hurray For The Riff Raff Wilco Step Rockets Daniel Lanois Welcome To Night Vale Kaiser Chiefs Pedrito Martinez 36 Crazyfists SLSO: Aida Miss Jubilee and the Humdingers Bad Suns Matt Pond PA Matt and Kim SLSO: Fanfare for the Common Man Bottoms Up Blues Gang Denise Thimes & Friends Melt Banana Interpol Bob Dylan and His Band Flaw/Seasons After Milky Chance Chamber Music Society of STL Regina Carter’s Southern Comfort Young Fathers Death Cab for Cutie SLSO: Pulitzer Concert #1 The Damnwells
The Firebird Blueberry Hill Powell Hall The Firebird Blueberry Hill Blueberry Hill The Pageant Sheldon Jazz at the Bistro The Firebird Sheldon The Pageant The Firebird Blueberry Hill Sheldon The Pageant Jazz at the Bistro The Firebird Powell Hall Jazz at the Bistro The Firebird Blueberry Hill The Pageant Powell Hall Sheldon Sheldon The Firebird The Pageant Fox Theater The Firebird The Pageant Sheldon Jazz at the Bistro The Firebird The Pageant Powell Hall The Firebird
5/14 5/15 5/15 5/15 5/15 5/15 5/16 5/16 5/18 5/18 5/19 5/19 5/20 5/20 5/21 5/21 5/21 5/22 5/22 5/22 5/23 5/23 5/26 5/27 5/27 5/27 5/28 5/28 5/28 5/28 5/29 5/29 5/29 5/30 5/30 5/30 5/31
All Time Low Jeff Radford Bella & Lilly Atmosphere SLSO: Music from Final Fantasy The Rat Pack Is Back Money For Guns They Might Be Giants Bad Manners Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts Fidlar/Metz Jeff Beck Filibusta Halestorm Avishai Cohen’s Triveni The Bros. Landreth Kids Rock Cancer Benefit Concert Mardra & Reggie Thomas Joe Jack Talcum Turnpike Troubadours Members of Little Feat with Jake’s Leg Bob Costas Benefit Late Nite Reading Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio Emily Kinney St. Vincent Surfer Blood Falling in Reverse Alabama Shakes Alarm Will Sound Emery Angel Flight Central Fundraiser John Mellencamp Chris Stapleton The Decemberists Youth Orchestra Concert No.3 SLSO: Lost In Space
The Pageant The Firebird Blueberry Hill The Pageant Powell Hall Fox Theater Blueberry Hill The Pageant Blueberry Hill The Pageant The Firebird Fox Theater The Firebird The Pageant Jazz at the Bistro The Firebird Sheldon Jazz at the Bistro The Firebird The Pageant The Pageant Fox Theater The Firebird Jazz at the Bistro Blueberry Hill The Pageant The Firebird The Pageant Fox Theater Sheldon The Firebird Sheldon The Peabody The Firebird The Peabody Powell Hall Powell Hall
ELVIS COSTELLO
W
BY FRANK CORLEY
HEN I left St. Louis to go off to college, I thought of myself as pretty sophisticated with regard to rock music. Influenced by my older brothers and sisters, I brought vinyl albums—every scratch, every click—that included Dylan and The Band, The Allman Brothers, Neil Young and The Who. When I made friends with a lot of guys from the east coast, though, I encountered musicians I’d never even heard of, let alone listened to. The soundtrack of my college years was played by the likes of Lou Reed, The Talking Heads and Southside Johnny. After having been struck by that new wave of rock and roll, I still believe that The Grateful Dead is the greatest rock band of all time, but I consider it one of my most significant achievements as a father that my kids are into Elvis Costello. My oldest, Rick, called me during the intermission of the concert Elvis played with the LA Philharmonic, and eldest daughter Cate brags that she still has the CD of the Juliet Letters which she stole from me. So it was with great anticipation that my wife Teresa and I landed at The Pageant last night to hear Elvis Costello on his 2015 Solo Acoustic Tour. We’d seen him two or three times together before, all in the last ten or so years. We’d seen him twice with The Imposters, once at the Pageant and once at the old American Theatre. Elvis opened for Bob Dylan at the Fox one night, a show remarkable only for Elvis’ set and the encore
the two played together. Bob was decidedly off that evening, his age badly diminishing his already shaky vocals. Last night’s show was not a disappointment. Walking on stage, like the professional he is, promptly at 8:50, he gave it all for nearly two and a half hours, opening with “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes”, through three encores. Walking out, neither of us could think of a song we had wanted to hear but didn’t. Well, maybe “Less Than Zero”. The crowd was about what you’d expect: a smattering of porkpie hats with an approximately equal number of Cardinals caps, a lot of couples who in sum had seen a century. Many were as old as Elvis himself, born, as we know, Declan McManus nine years after the end of World War II. When the Pageant opened years ago, I was unenthusiastic, expecting lots of Formica™ and faux brass. It turned out to be a great venue for this show, however. Though he started as that Angry Young Man, Elvis has mellowed into a playful, even mischievous performer who clearly enjoyed being on the stage in St. Louis and interacting with the audience. The hall is small enough and he was accessible enough that when a woman standing at the bar at the back of the house yelled “Play Oliver’s Army”, he shrugged off the song he had been introducing and accommodated her request. That was pretty darn cool. I love seeing aging rockers do the solo acoustic concerts. Whether
it’s Clapton Unplugged, Bruce doing Ghost of Tom Joad or, as Teresa and I had seen at The Fox some years back, Neil Young with piano, pipe organ and a rack of wooden guitars, these guys seem to be more authentic without their back-up bands. As with black and white photography, home made cooking, or modern dance, when you take away the rocker’s electronic pickups and amplification less is freed to become beautifully more. Thus, when Elvis sat down and sweetly plinked out a few songs on the piano, or gently strummed his way through “Beyond Belief”, he tapped into something genuine that seemed to come from a different place than we used to get. His older self was no less real; this was just another Elvis. Like the married couples in the audience, he and we had grown old together. At one point, sitting stage left, bathed in purple light, giving a sprightly, jazzy cover to Nat King Cole’s “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home”, he sounded as if he could’ve been sitting in with the house band at Preservation Hall. Performing several num-
FOR ME, ELVIS IS JUST FUN; HE FEELS GOOD. bers seated, with guitar, he gave new meaning to the term “rocking chair”. Finished, he raised the guitar, as if giving a hand to his accompanist or band partner, as the ensemble would recognize the orchestra at the end of a musical. Stepping to the microphone, grabbing an electric box guitar and growling out “Watching the De-
tectives”, we became aware that this concert might be solo acoustic, but it would not be solely acoustic. As if to emphasize that fact, Elvis cranked up the reverb on his guitar and wielded a truly Kestersonesque bullhorn. The opening act, Larkin Poe, consisted of two sisters from Atlanta, doing some original stuff and covering some truly old tunes. Their set was brief, probably less than the time they were on stage accompanying Elvis on his first and third encores. In that accompaniment, they did more than just provide harmony. The younger, who played electric mandolin, had a powerful voice and the elder, herself with strong vocals, played a vibrant steel guitar. For the second encore, Elvis stepped into the enormous television set which before the show had played videos of his days with the Attractions and finally played “Allison”, a song I would have been disappointed not to hear. The video which played between the end of the show and the extended, almost second-set long first encore was quite engaging in that it showed the elder McManus, himself a band leader in England in the sixties, white-suited playing “If I Had a Hammer” for the Queen Mum. Earlier in the night we had learned that the young Declan had followed his pop to the pubs of coastal England, even backing him up at times. (Apparently dad was disappointed with his son for not growing his hair long.) At one point in the video, we got a close up of dad; the glasses, hair and especially gap-teeth leaving no doubt that the genetics are strong in this family. Song after song in the show gave us this simultaneous hit of blast-
MR. COSTELLO PERFORMED MARCH 9TH AT THE PAGEANT.
from-the-past and re-awakening of old friendships. Some of the songs were new, or covers, or not familiar, and it was good to have those wash over us. The old standards, the ones which brought back memories, those of course are the ones we go to live shows to hear. They were different in this calmer, acoustic setting, however. Looking at pictures of your grown children when they were just kids, you see them as they were in the context of who they have become. So, too, we hear these songs as they and he and we were, but now we hear with different ears and he plays with different voice. With ripening, they have gained flavor. Mr. Kovarik could teach a course on the poetry of this, the greatest lyricist of his generation. Mr. Kickham could explain how Costello captured the zeitgeist of the baby boom as it turned its back on the Sixties and headed toward Y2K. Mr. Linhares would not interpret the question
“What’s so funny about peace love and understanding?” (which Elvis saved for the third, yes third, encore) rhetorically, but instead would reply with a learned and erudite answer. I can’t do all that; for me, Elvis is just fun; he feels good. He takes me back to nights in the dorms at Carleton with great friends, to air guitars and dancing the pogo at my brother’s wedding, to cranking the volume on Imperial Bedroom while housecleaning on Saturday afternoons (if it’s too loud, you’re too old), to sharing songs and memories with my wife. Though Elvis still wears the horn-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses, he is no longer the knock-kneed proto-punk gripping the steel microphone as if it were Eden’s Apple. He’s older now, as we all are, which gives him the opportunity to speak to us as we are while we listen to the history that we were. He showed last night that his appeal is enduring, that he is certainly not a man out of time.
HOW NOT TO START A LOVE LETTER BY KEVIN STRADER
YOUR ears are big but that’s ok because I talk a lot.
YOU remind me of my mother… THE first time I tried to talk to you I got so nervous I peed a little. PLEASE excuse the picture of Snoop Dogg saying “Merry Chirstmizzle” I couldn’t find any blank cards.
“EVERY rose has its thorn.”
I HAVE never forgotten the first time I saw you through your 2nd story bedroom window.
BEFORE I start this I’d like to say that I wasn’t crying I just spilt some water on the paper.
YOU remind me of my gran—
I WISH I could be your pillow. YOU radiate an aura of angelic ooze from every orifice.
I SAW you kissing Bobby. DO you remember me? I told you how good you smelled and you asked me to go away.
BEAT THE DRUM BY NATE CUMMINGS
“THIS RIGHT HERE IS AN ALBUM ABOUT PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING.” The first page of the liner notes bears what seems to be disclaimer, seemingly meant to turn away anyone who thought the Mountain Goats’ new album Beat The Champ was about anything else. The Mountain Goats is a band whose genre I find hard to categorize. Technically, they’re an alternative rock band whose subject material ranges from Dinu Lipatti, a Romanian pianist who died early, to the often over-looked Diaz Brothers from Scarface. Needless to say, it’s an eclectic bunch of music. John Darnielle, the lead singer, is the dominant force behind the band. It was his pet project, and he’s been one of two constant members since the band’s creation in 1991. Darnielle had a rough childhood, having been abused physically by his stepfather. Darnielle writes what seem to be incredibly upbeat and happy sounding, but deeply sad songs about deeply sad people who hate everything, but that’s an oversimplification. In an interview on the Colbert Report, Darnielle described his music as “Cheerful desolation.” Darnielle’s most soulbaring album is The Sunset Tree, an autobiographical look at abuse and an abusive father. It’s a melancholy album that ends on a bittersweet note, a rare beautiful moment between Darnielle and his stepfather: Mike, the stepfather, would take Darnielle to “Watch the horses run their workouts,” at the horserace track. The liner notes for Beat The Champ mention that professional wrestling
was a point of contact for Darnielle and his stepfather. Mike, the stepfather, would take great lengths to cheer and support the heels, the villains of the wrestling world. Darnielle, faced with the chaos and terror of an abusive parental relationship, violently feared and hated the heels, that his stepfather loved, as befits a “hyper-fan.” The philosopher Roland Barthes writes, “What wrestling is above all meant to portray is a purely moral concept: that of justice.” Wrestling, at its core, is a fight between two men. One’s good, and the other is evil. Darnielle posits that these wrestlers were “Comic-book heroes who existed in physical space.” One wrestler in particular gave the young Darnielle a great deal of hope: Chavo Guerrero, Sr. In fact, Darnielle dedicates the album to him, “This album is for Chavo Guerrero, Sr., master of the moonsault, on whom I pinned my hopes when I was very young.” This album has a cast of characters that pulls mostly from small-time professional wrestlers. One in particular is Bull Ramos. His song, “The Ballad of Bull Ramos,” is essentially one tough man’s look back at his life, and his reminiscence about the good old days. Ramos retired from wrestling to start a wrecking company in his hometown of Houston. Ramos steps on a piece of glass and loses a toe. He gets diabetes, goes blind, and eventually dies of a massive shoulder infection. All of this is related in the song, as he “Sits on his porch in Houston, [and] let[s] the good times dance across my mind.”
The second song, “Legend of Chavo Guerrero,” is my personal favorite. It’s a ballad about the life of Chavo Guerrero, “The middleweight champ of all Mexico.” The song’s chorus, played three times throughout the song, rings like a mantra, “Look high, it’s my last hope Chavo Guerrero coming off the top rope.” The narrator is obviously an autobiographical Darnielle, talking about how his stepfather would insult Chavo, in an attempt to belittle his son. Darnielle has this to say about his stepfather, “You let me down, but Chavo never once did.” Chavo’s son ended up going into professional wrestling, and is
now very famous, surpassing his father. Chavo Sr. doesn’t seem to mind, and Darnielle posits “It’s real sweet to grow old.” I want to disagree with the warning I related in the beginning. This album is about professional wrestling, yes, but it’s about way more than that. It’s about tough men and women, an abused kid given hope by images on a tiny black and white TV, it’s about love and disappointment. Most importantly, though, it’s about humanity. No songwriter writes people and creates characters better than John Darnielle, and I am proud to say that I am a Mountain Goats fan.
IN JUNE OF LAST YEAR, MOODY GOOD, formerly one half of the electronic duo 16bit, released his self-titled LP on OWSLA and MTA Records, winning the Bass Music Awards best album of 2014. One of the best parts about getting a release like this is that it is in fact a full-length album, spanning fifteen songs in a bit under an hour (just about an hour if you include the two bonus tracks). This comes as a breath of fresh air when a grand majority of electronica nowadays is released in singles or short EPs, getting only a handful full albums a year. Eddie Jeffreys displays a clever juxtaposition of audible violence and beautiful intimacy, tying it all together with masterful composition. The downtrodden depressive of “Living Off the High” contrasts the head banger that is “Docbond” and complements the solemn lyricism of “Grumbles n Sparkles”. This dark diversity is highlighted by short jazz eulogies effectively dividing the album into acts and reminding me of the party at the Overlook Hotel in The
Shining. Featuring a vocalist on half of the tracks gives voice to the literal moodiness of the album, but as the rest of them are instrumentals, it is clear that, as powerful as the voices may be, they are but icing on this deliciously marbled black and white cake. “Hotplate” is a hard explosion of sound placed just before the fluid and terse percussiveness of “Raindrips”, while “Musicbx” finds itself, in all of its beautiful melody, right before “Ziambey”, keeping this EKG of an album beating. Moody spans the full spectrum of UK bass while keeping the tone consistently enjoyable and keeping the listener engaged throughout. At the very least there should be a song or two that anyone can enjoy. One should, however, listen to the album in its entirety to take in what Jeffreys’ has accomplished here. “By elevating grime to an artform,” as Rich Meads of Killer Queen Magazine puts it, Moody Good gives bass music its due credit. Though I mentioned the “instrumental” tracks of this album, you would be hard-pressed to find a real instrument. Jeffreys’ skill here is in composition and direction, both done masterfully and sure to leave a lasting impression on not just electronica, but on music as a whole in this, as Meads says, “distinctly British” synth concerto. Oh and also, Rich pointed out and as I would like to address here, any of us tea addicts would do good to watch the award-winning music video for “Musicbx.” Steep your leaves and enjoy. —Jack Carroll
The trio hits on some of the most serious issues out there such as gangs, relationships, depression, and marriage while also fitting in some of the most rag-tag, jaunty, and downrightfun tracks you can hear. One of the best parts is that Alt-J has released the audio for each of its tracks on this album on YouTube completely free of charge. Give them a try; maybe you’ll like them. I sure didn’t think I would. —Max Prosperi ON MY WAY TO SLUH ONE MORNING, I came across a new, Google-recommended album release, Alt-J’s (stylized as ∆) second studio album This Is All Yours. I had never really cared for the spunky and goofy experimental indie the trio conjured up but still decided to give this album a try. Now four months after the release, I have tickets to their July show at Red Rocks, own both their albums, and have listened to “Nara”, track number 3 on the album, 149 times for a grand total of 679 minutes or 11 hours. Bottom line is this: This Is All Yours is undoubtedly one of the most unique and riveting new albums out. It’s a far cry from anything you hear on the radio and very different compared to any other recent indie tracks. The first track-Intro, one of my favorites, gives me chills from the get go. The rest of the album and excuse this cliche, is a journey. From the moment you “Arrive in Nara” to when you “Leave Nara” thirteen tracks later, you are immersed in the weirdest indie music out there, a Miley Cyrus sample, and controversial and relevant pleas. There just isn’t anything like this out there right now.
WE ASKED SLUH SENIORS TO WEIGH IN ON THEIR EXPERIENCE OF SLEEP OVER THE YEARS. HERE’S WHAT THEY HAD TO SAY.
SLEEP AT SLUH
AMONG THE THINGS THAT MARKED the end of my grade school career was an odd shift in my sleep patterns. Before eighth grade, I had lived with a regular (and at least partially selfenforced) 9, 9:30 or 10:00 (on occasion) bedtime. But for some reason (I can only guess that the grade school version of senioritis did this to me), in my last year I began pushing this back to 10:30 or even 11. Speaking now as a senior, I honestly can’t comprehend what I could’ve been doing with that time without essays, calculus, and Prep News articles; my guess is that I mostly spent it re-reading Harry Potter, playing with the family dog, or conquering the Metroid series. Sigh. Those were the days. A new sleep pattern didn’t come without consequences, of course. I was often exhausted each morning with only seven and a half hours of sleep. I was slogging my way through school mornings more than ever before. Fast forward to the first quarter of freshman year, and my average hours of rest per night tanked even further. This began a long-lasting vicious downward cycle of stressing over a workload, staying up past midnight to get it done, and the lack of sleep compounding to create more stress as homework built up through
the year. I remember that around this time, I saw some magazine claiming apples are better at waking you up than caffeine. If I’m wrong, forgive my scientific ignorance, but I tried this and it didn’t work. Like most, I dealt with this simply by adjusting to the new lifestyle, frying my brain until a nice three-day weekend would come to give me some mental respite. They like to tell you that senior year’s so easy. For most people, this turns out to be a half-lie; the first semester will probably involve about as much sleep as parts of junior year did as colleges, cocurriculars, and a couple challenging courses take over your schedule. And while for many it’s a blast, you still aren’t getting those z’s you so desire. At the end of my senior year, I’ve reached a point where I can eventually say “no” to myself as it gets later, quit whatever I’m in the middle of, and get something of a good night’s rest (though for the most part, I’m still lucky to get those seven and a half hours that so agonized me four years ago). Maybe this is the senioritis, or maybe I’m gaining some control over my compulsive desire to get everything done ASAP. More likely, it’s a bit of both talking. —Joe Slama
“WAKING UP IS GOING TO SUCK tomorrow, but that’s for ‘Morning Michael’ to deal with.” —‘Night Michael’ I was all geared up to tell you about the best way to go about getting more than just a glorified power nap each night and how it will change your life, but I’m not really a perfect model of
healthy sleep habits. It’s not like I prolong my daily pinball sessions until the wee hours of the morning, but I usually I fall asleep sometime after 11:00 and end up sleeping just under seven hours in total. I also usually have at least one night per week where I stay up past midnight. How does this stack up against the
MONOPHASIC
EVERYMAN
BIPHASIC
UBERMAN
recommended amount? The Mayo Clinic’s website says that “Schoolage children” should get 9-11 hours of sleep and that “Adults” should get 7-8 hours of sleep. Regardless of which category I fall in, the truth is that I’m not really getting enough sleep, and I think this is reflected in my end of the week lethargy. The way I see it, I have a few options as to how to improve my sleep habits, but I can’t figure out which is the best. I could become a dolphin and sleep by inducing low slow-wave sleep in one brain hemisphere at a time. Downsides to this method include include the necessity of abandoning life on land, and also the harassment
from tourists and amateur marine biologists. On the other hand, I could adopt a polyphasic sleep system. The real trick to this one is getting a free period and activity period to line up with the naps in the “everyman” schedule. I suppose the most straightforward and effective solution would be to just change my habits. The bottom line is, I need to drop some of these extracurriculars like Gadfly which keep me from sleeping by having me stay up until 2:37 a.m. writing about how much sleep I don’t get. In all seriousness though, I probably ought to just get started on my homework an hour sooner. —Michael Neuhoff
IN EARLY MARCH, I WENT EIGHTYseven hours with only four hours of sleep. It was a pretty weird experience for me. It started on a Tuesday, when I woke up for school at 7am. Well, I don’t suppose it really started then, but that’s just when the clock started ticking. It was tech week for the show I was in at Villa—opening night was on Thursday—and I didn’t have many of my lines down, even though I had a pretty big role. I got home from rehearsal (I only call it rehearsal because theater kids will get mad if anyone calls it “play practice”) at around 11pm and began working on my homework. Around 3am, I still wasn’t done, so I took one of my prescribed ADHD pills—with full knowledge that it would keep me awake and working through the night, which it did. Wednesday morning was fine— I was still feeling some energy from the night before— but around 2pm I crashed and fell completely out of sync with the world. I didn’t fall asleep, but I basically was comatose. But tonight was our final rehearsal, and I knew that I had to be there and I had to be awesome, so I slapped myself a few times and did the old “hopup-and-down-and-tell-myself-I-haveenergy-so-that-I-think-I-have-energy” which worked—and then I fell asleep at 3am. Those four hours from then until 7am—when I woke up—were the only four hours of sleep I got until Friday night, at 10pm. Thursday was weird. It was opening night, so the entire day I was full of nervous energy
and exhaustion. But somehow I didn’t mess up on stage that night. I was even told that I did quite good— so that was neat—but that night I couldn’t fall asleep. I laid in bed for several hours, staring at my ceiling and thinking about metaphysics and epistemology. I don’t recall any of my exact thoughts—other than thinking that I was a genius for being able to rationally think about complex philosophy with almost no sleep (though I can assure you that my thoughts were anything but rational)—but I remember thinking about things until I decided it was time to watch whatever had been recorded on DVR. There are three things that I remember from school on that Friday: my right eye feeling like it was constantly twitching from its desire to be closed, thinking my body wasn’t actually mine and it was about to be reclaimed by God, and being told by the priest I went to for confession that my penance was to sleep in the chapel, which didn’t happen—I wrote a poem instead. That night, I remember being told that I was extremely good in the show that evening—but I don’t remember driving myself home, which is rather frightening. Moral of the story: Go to sleep so you can live. However, no one actually knows if you can die from a lack of sleep. It hasn’t been proven in humans yet—I looked it up when I thought I was dying—so maybe be a pioneer in this field and don’t sleep? I don’t know. It’s up to you. —Kevin Thomas
DAYDREAMS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MY favorite type of dream. Some people like to doze off when class gets boring but I prefer to let my mind wander free. Even when I feel the physical need for rest, my mind has other ideas. “You’ll miss everything if you go to sleep,” it says, but in truth it’s the same no matter what type of dream. “Think how silly you’ll look when you’re called on.” Not much worse than when I’m out of the zone. My mind hates going to bed early. “It’s a waste of precious hours you could be awake imagining, creating.” The dreams of sleep are random, but daydreams are mine to control. My best ideas come when I’m not looking for ideas at. One day after scouting out a location for an up-
coming Gadfly, we stopped at the old switchboard to talk. “You know, we should really do something with this empty space.” Thus the Switch Bar. We never used the location we were originally scouting. Daydreams can torment too. “It’s a C now, but what about the quiz on Thursday. Then what?” My mind loves pushing things to extremes. It’s never as bad as I imagine. Daydreams are just that, dreams. In some ways I hate daydreams, but in other ways I wonder how I’d survive the school day without them. Sometimes they’re worthless, other times invaluable. Either way, I don’t think I’ll stop having them any time soon. —David Burke
Two potatoes, both alike in dignity, In fair Spudland, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil chips unclean. From forth the fatal french fries of these two foes A pair of skin-cross’d lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their burger combos’ strife. The fearful passage of their deathmark’d love, And the continuance of their combos’ rage, Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend A potato’s intimacy it does express Toward one, hath slain, amidst the Lays chip press Alas! Tis’ quite the story often untold Where french fry straitened and french fry fold. That unveils its presence uniquely to us a new romance kindled, but not truly thus. The love of two so departed so gone and yet we’ve forgotten this somber tone? May we the reader, remember and seek
the bonds of a hold that remained yet weak. The power of a womb, newborn as kin thus broke among he among those skinned. The triumph and disparage shared none-the like whose crude brown crust stood prim and ripe. Slice through slice, shall live the toil as ye unfortunate begins the boil. The crushed soul of one’s desire as he who burns labors the fire. The tempest bellows and howls do shriek as starchy flavor brims from the meek. The crisp of touch and sign of strife last breath of air, last grasp of life. Rid of stature, diced and creamed scalloped and mashed, stripped of dreams. Alas it is told, the story of spud whose great potential, lay only a dud. Through great measures and vast persistence, lay shorn as slaves, stripped of existence. —Dominic Gherardini
Moisture Drips down Like liquid manna Slaking the thirst of Souls —Salvatore Vitellaro
Thursday, 9:04 Were the sickly mountain children too fluid for your cold-cut postulates? You can’t blame it— water doesn’t inebriate Salisbury. And if the sticky pungent waste of a thousand Subarus comes close, tastes your tongue and likes it? Or: should pheromones be allowed to fly with pharmacological minnows inside and outside of three-eyed prose gators? Could: scar-faced geckos leave arms and legs bubbling in carroty froth for those darling dandiprats? Don’t take grins for granted. Don’t Fling rat-noses into my bureaucracy, you lily-livered, soda-sucking, poplar-popping gringo.
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How much deeper could a walrus dog? —Sam Fentress Crazy as a coconut, she said. Pop pop fizz fizz, oh, what a relief it is! Jim said that to me last Christmas. He Hath Dead. I am wishing that it were the end of the day, as I do not want to go to my other classes. Hayah, hoyeah, hiya. Grunge, and gunk, define modern living, am I right? Oh yeas, there’s a train. Nice one, Mr. Boner. Grahg, boolay, spey, and handerlamb. I like Moby Dick, but only because it has the word Dick in it. And then, course, there’s the Word-Dick. Really Cool Motorbike with Skulls and Flames—Hell Yeah AHHHHasdasdsadadsadas—————Wehner Fire that burns down the whole town (shout this line) —Giuseppe Vitellaro