Contents
Page 2 - Potluck Program
pAge 3 - “Teeth, Part 1” by Ida Cuttler
paGe 4 - “Activity 4.3” by Miden Wood
pagE 5 - “Oppression In The Quantum Realm” by Robel Arega
paGe 7 - “Continued In A Dream” by Hal Baum
pAge 8 - “Word Search” by Lucas Baisch
Page 9 - “Teeth, Part 2” by Ida Cuttler
pAge 10 - Coloring Sheet
PaGe 11 - “White. Teeth.” by Annabel Hart Lang
pagE 13 - “Teeth, Part 3” by Ida Cuttler
WHEN I PRINTED THIS ZINE, I LEFT THIS PAGE BLANK
SO THAT I COULD WRITE THE PROGRAM OF THE SHOW HERE
MY PLAN WAS THAT THE DAY OF THE SHOW I WOULD HAND-WRITE THE PROGRAM ON EACH OF THE 40 COPIES THAT I HAD PRINTED.
I GAVE MYSELF 10 MINUTES TO COMPLETE THIS TASK
AND SO THIS PAGE REMAINED BLANK
A TESTAMENT TO MY OWN HUBRIS
A REMINDER TO DO BETTER NEXT TIME
BUT WOULD ANYONE HAVE KNOWN IT WAS A MISTAKE?
IF I HADN’T POINTED IT OUT?
YES.
BECAUSE OF THE TABLE OF CONTENTS.
1. The coffee drinking youth of today have teeth so yellow, it looks like they’ve been assaulted by a butter villain who rubbed a stick of it across their mouth. 2. We lose our baby teeth at an early age and for the rest of our lives we will not describe this event as what it was: a bloody ripping, shedding loss of tiny baby bones from our jaw. Perhaps our subconscious remembers this trauma, and perhaps this is why we have all had the nightmares of our teeth falling out. 3. The next time you bite your fingernails: save one of the fingernails between your two front teeth. See how many days you can keep the fingernail there. 4. A human adult has 32 teeth. 5. If it weren’t for her lover’s left behind tooth brush in the plastic cup on the side of her sink, it would be like he was never there and that they never were. 6. I can remember the exact moment in my childhood when, standing on a wooden stool at the sink, I decided I was too old for Tom’s of Maine Silly Strawberry Toothpaste. 7. At first she doesn’t want to believe this rumor she heard in school. She asked her mom. Not wanting to break the child’s heart, the mom doesn’t want to give her daughter a straight answer. She yelled at her mom: Just tell me, do you put the money under my pillow. FInally, her mom gave in and the small child burst into big tears: IF YOU DIDN’T DO THAT, THEN THE TOOTH FAIRY WOUDL COME. 8. A puppy has only 28 teeth, but an adult dog has 42. 9. Don’t tell me to smile. Tell me my character objective and given circumstances that is making this smile happen.
Oppression in the Quantum Realm by Robel Arega Classical Mechanics (Newtonian Physics)—Describes the motion of macroscopic objects (i.e. bullets, planes, planets), or the world humans observe with the naked eye. Quantum Mechanics (Quantum Physics)—Describes the process of microscopic objects (i.e. atoms, electrons, photons), or the world humans observe indirectly with the naked eye. Privileged People (White Dicks Get Bone Bone From Lady) — Having special rights, advantages, or immunities. Oppressed People (Not White Dicks) — Subject to harsh and authoritarian treatment. All oppressed people live in the Quantum Realm. Electrons are real. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is real. Electrons appear and disappear from one quantum state of excitement to the next. Hopping down from higher states to lower states of excitation releasing a photon, light. Without any regard for the Quantum folk. Electrons could destroy them. Electrons don’t care if they just sold cigarettes on the corner, played with a toy gun, walked in an affluent neighborhood with a hoodie, played their music too loud, or are on their third strike; loved who they wanted to love; walked home late at night with keys between their fingers; are a Sikh who’s a Sikh or a Muslim who’s a Muslim; watched their culture bastardized; watched their people become mascots; watched their family in shackles. Electrons will pop into a Quantum person’s space and ruin their life. This is everyday life. Not theory. Life. All privileged people live in the Newtonian world. Force equals mass times acceleration. F=ma. Electrons are just a mental construct to a Newtonian. Electrons help them. Electrons power their TV, cell phones, laptops, medical machines, flashlights, stovetops, ovens, washers, dryers, headphones, toys. A difference in charge controls the synapses of the Newtonian mind, allowing them to think they are in control while they’re not. Electrons are in control. Electrons are good. Electrons give Newtonian people a shock every once in awhile, a small occurrence, but as long as they don’t drag their feet and do their job, everything will be fine.
A shock to Quantum folk is not a small occurrence. A shock to an oppressed person is a lighting strike to the privileged. Electrons keep peace in nature by bridging the infinite resistance of air. The deep loud crack and blinding light throws Quantum folk off their feet. Quantum people always seem to find their way back up. Now, it is more common Newtonians can see part of the Quantum realm. The Internet helps. Quantum folk shout about Electrons their entire lives. The shouts are small reverberations to Newtonians. It is literally impossible for them to see completely. Quantum mechanics is nothing but a theory. It takes a lot of energy to bring a Newtonian into the Quantum world. Energy equals power multiplied by change in time. E = P�t. Quantum folk want to show Newtonians the Quantum realm entirely. It takes a lot of time. The longer a Newtonian has lived with classical mechanics, the harder it is to overcome their way of thinking - their intuition. Electrons won’t let them think any other way. When the Newtonian accepts classical mechanics as flawed, they step into the Quantum Realm teary eyed and in awe. The bright energy of the photons is blinding. They finally understand the momentum of a particle and its location in space are inversely proportional. This whole world superpositioned upon their own. The Newtonian can’t believe it! Every TV they’ve turned on, every shock they’ve felt, every thought they’ve had is completely influenced by the Quantum realm. Newtonians sobbing, hearts beating fast, confused decide that the Quantum world is too much. They decide to go back to classical mechanics. F=ma. But Quantum folk don’t have that luxury. The Quantum realm is real. Uncertainty is Principle.
“due to my Crippling anxiety, I ask that you never bring me to the Following places again”
airport Basements Birthday Parties Bus Bench County Fair Dentist’s Office DMV
Elevators Grocery Store Hospital Lollapalooza Post Office Press Openings Pride Festivals
Smelly Subway Train Subway The Sewer The World Series Weddings Your Dreams Your Mother’s House - LB
10. It was over ten years ago, but sometimes she is still surprised to feel the absence of the metal that was once in her mouth. 11. When the photographer on picture day told our class to say cheese, I said the Spanish word for it: Queso. And that is why I am not smiling in my 3rd grade picture. 12. Put on Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” Hold the keys to your apartment in your left hand, run your finger slowly across the teeth of the keys until the song ends. 13. TV’s talking horse Ed had peanut butter in his gums the whole time! 14. A girl in the middle of yoga class is reading a book called “A Story of My Teeth.” She has a rare learning disorder where she needs bodies making shapes around her at all times in order to process the words she sees on the page. 15. Mother and Daughter in the small bathroom brushing. 16. In my bed. In the dark. If I smile. Will you kiss. My smile. In my bed. In the dark. 17. One time, in Mexico, my mom knocked out her front tooth on the back of my sister’s head on a two person inner tube. 18. I have been told that a baby’s teething is even more painful than child birth. (What the source is on this one? Who can remember their own teething enough for this comparison?) 19. A shark has 52 teeth 20. Al dente means: “to the tooth.” It also means: “Dad made spaghetti”
White. Teeth. Perspective: The dog’s. White. Teeth. Dog screams and they go under, together. And what is under? What’s past the pluff mud and reeds and what we see from the shore? We only imagine. Dark and bleeding, the dog still screaming, but no sound now. Black. They repeated the story over and over, a doom mantra, every time we went to the beach, which was twice a summer every summer and then one or two times in fall and spring. Their tone was didactic, moral. Grown-ups talked about dog-death-by-gator the same way they said say prayers, let me put sunscreen on your back, don’t talk to strangers unless I’m here and if I’m here I better hear you say yes, mam. There were certain things Carolina babies raised near water needed to know and among them was this: do not let a little dog off the leash in the swamp. Sub-text: the world is dangerous. Perspective: My double-lidded eye. Setting: 6am and my kitchen. A hot sizzle that will work it’s way into their dreams. My roommates are hard sleepers, but still I move as though something waiting in the bulrushes will kill me: fast, quiet. I pull chuck roast apart with my hands and drop it into the pan. The oil pops. Is this how God felt in reverse? A moment of Adam without his skin on. The tissue bleeds. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t horrify me.
After a cancer nightmare, I woke up crying. Then I found blood in my underwear and I knew both of these meant I wanted to live and to eat meat right away. For years, I abstained from both meat and sex (one on purpose, the other by accident) and then I broke both fasts in the same week. It took me a minute to warm to sex but meat was so intimate, so immediate, so good. I don’t have to choose, but if I did… Setting: Sushi, first date/last date. Perspective: The woman opposite. Dialogue: Do you eat meat? Yes. I love meat. Well then why are you so broken up about setting a mousetrap? The animals you eat will suffer more than that mouse. Its death is instant. She had a point. Then she ordered the salmon. After two hours, I walked home and felt the infestation had changed me. I saw a bunny rabbit and I thought disgusting. I saw a squirrel crawling up the side of our apartment building and I tasted bile. I paused to pet a Chihuahua and the swamp story returned to me. How many times did that even really happen I wondered. How many dogs? Two, ten, fifty? It’s still sad, but it no longer horrifies me. At some point, I stopped being the dog in the story. Setting: My kitchen and 5:45am. Perspective: Omniscient. Before is already after. A mouse. A corn chip. A loaded spring. The mouse is hungry. In the distance, I’m dreaming of cancer. Of my parents insisting I wear a helmet to go to the hospital. Silver snaps. A wire. Squeak.
21. Blue Whales don’t have teeth. They have a baleen, which is a filter system made of bristles like a giant toothbrush. 22. “I am a vampire. I am a vampire. I am a vampire.” - that song from the movie Juno. 23. A narwhal has one tooth. But it’s not called a tooth. It’s called a tusk. 24. I will kiss your smile. 25. There is a raging boner in the scrubs of the surgeon who is taking out my wisdom teeth. 26. Making Jack-O-Lanterns is a messy Fall task. It’s okay if you’d rather us paint the pumpkins. 27. Lil’ Wayne’s diamond encrusted grills are worth 150,000 dollars. 28. Crunch on an ice cube. Think of a polar bear. Repeat until you either have no more ice cubes or there are no more polar bears. 29. “The Skin of Our Teeth” by Thornton Wilder. I was in it in High School. 30. Find a quiet space where you are alone. Sit down and tilt your head back. Whisper your dentist’s name out loud. 31. That scene from Transparent season 3 with the black woman dentist and the laughing gas. 32. Snails have the most teeth of any animal.
THANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYO UFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREAD INGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANK YOUFORREADINGTHATHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFO RREADINGTH The Potluck is a monthly variety show curated and produced by Abby Pajakowski, Will Sondheim, Patrick Budde, and Sammy Zeisel. It happens the first Saturday of every month at 10:30 PM at The Frontier Theater right off the Thorndale red line stop. Check it out! For more information about The Potluck, visit their website at: http://www.potluckvarietyhour.com Or email them at: potluckvarietyhour@gmail.com THANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTTHANKY OUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTTHANKYOUFORRE ADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHA NKYOUFORREADINGTH Potluck: The Zine, was curated and produced by Hal Baum, with help and emotional support from Will Sondheim, and Abby Pajakowski. This Month’s zine contains work from: Robel Arega, Lucas Baisch, Hal Baum, Ida Cuttler, Annabel Hart Lang, and Miden Wood. If you would like to submit work, or get involved email: potluckvarietyhour@gmail.com or email Hal directly at: HalBaum@aol.com THANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYO UFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREAD INGTEETHTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADING THANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYO UFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREADINGTHANKYOUFORREAD