CCLaP Weekender: May 2, 2014

CCLaP Weekender From the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography

May 2, 2014

New fiction by Catherine Cooper Photography by Ruslan Varabyou Chicago literary events calendar May 2, 2014 | 1

THIS WEEK’S CHICAG

For all events, visit [cclapce FRIDAY, MAY 2

6pm Hair Trigger 36 Reading & Release Party

Columbia College Stage Two / 618 S. Michigan / Free colum.edu Hair Trigger is a student anthology from the Columbia College Creative Writing Department.

6:30pm The Interview Show w/Veronica Roth and Aleksander Hemon

The Hideout / 1354 W. Wabansia / $8, 21+ theinterviewshowchicago.com Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series (now made into a hit motion picture!) and Aleksander Hemon, brilliant author of The Book of My Lives, stop by The Hideout to discuss their latest projects with The Interview Show host, Mark Bazar.

7pm Susannah Lang and Tim Hunt

The Book Cellar / 4736 N. Lincoln / Free bookcellarinc.com Poets Susanna Lang (Tracing the Lines) and Tim Hunt (The Tao of Twang) stop by to read from their new collections 7pm Once I Was Cool Release Party

Women & Children First / 5233 N. Clark / Free womenandchildrenfirst.com Join Curbside Splendor in celebrating the release of Megan Stielstra's new essay collection.

SATURDAY, MAY 3 2pm Ina Pinkney

Near North Public Library / 310 W. Division / Free chipublib.org The local chef and restauranteur discusses her book The Things I Know For Sure: How I Began and What I Learned.

3pm Saskia Sassen

Seminary Co-op Bookstore / 5751 S. Woodlawn / Free semcoop.com Sassen discusses her book Explusions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy.

2 | CCLaP Weekender

GO LITERARY EVENTS

enter.com/chicagocalendar]

4pm Elizabeth Warren

Spertus Institute / 610 S. Michigan / $25 spertus.edu The U.S. senator discusses her book A Fighting Chance.

5:30pm Chris Hollenback

City Lit Books / 2523 N. Kedzie / Free citylitbooks.com Chris Hollenback reads from his new novel, Sleep When You're Dead.

7pm Trubble Club Draws Your True Inner Self

Quimby's Bookstore / 1854 W. North / Free quimbys.com This year, the Trubble Club has modified the Quimby’s photo booth to capture your true essence. Come hang out with some of Chicago’s best comics artists as they collaboratively reveal your inner self by interpreting psychic signals from their magical photobooth. Snacks and refreshments will be provided by the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE), and free comic books will be available for pick up (while supplies last).

SUNDAY, MAY 4 3pm Uday Prakash

City Lit Books / 2523 N. Kedzie / Free citylitbooks.com Prakash discusses his new novel, The Walls of Delhi, with Jason Grunebaum, who translated the book to English.

7pm Uptown Poetry Slam

The Green Mill / 4802 N. Broadway / $7, 21+ slampapi.com International birthplace of the poetry slam. Hosted by Marc Smith.

MONDAY, MAY 5 7pm Wendy Doniger

Seminary Co-op Bookstore / 5751 S. Woodlawn / Free semcoop.com Doniger discusses her book The Hindus: An Alternative History with writer and social theorist Leela Gandhi.

May 2, 2014 | 3

8:30pm Open Mic

Kafein Espresso Bar / 1621 Chicago Ave., Evanston kafeincoffee.com Open mic with hosts chris and Kirill.

TUESDAY, MAY 6 7pm Sharan Newman

Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore / 7419 W. Madison, Forest Park / Free centuriesandsleuths.com Newman discusses and signs copies of her book Defending the City of God: A Medieval Queen, The First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem.

7pm Wit Rabbit Reading Series

Quenchers Saloon / 2401 N. Western / Free, 21+ witrabbitreads.com The featured readers at this outing include Jake Hinkson, Elizabeth McDermott, Willy Nast, Toni Neale, and Karen Shimmin.

7:30pm Tuesday Funk

Hopleaf / 5148 N. Clark / Free, 21+ tuesdayfunk.org "Where good writing and good beer mix." The featured readers for this edition are Gint Aras, James Finn Garner, Dustin Monk, Jeremy Owens, and Melissa Wiley. Sponsored by GapersBlock.com.

7:30pm Homolatte w/Maya Marshall and Abby Brown

Tweet Let's Eat / 5020 N. Sheridan / Free homolatte.com A twice-a-month, all-ages, queer music and spoken word series in Chicago.

Enter through Big Chicks at the same address; performance in adjoining Tweet space. Tonight's event features Maya Marshall and Abby Brown.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7 12pm Deborah Tuerkheimer

Barnes & Noble, DePaul Center / 1 E. Jackson / Free depaul-loop.bncollege.com Tuerkheimer discusses her book Flawed Convictions: "Shaken Baby Syndrome" and the Inertia of Injustice.

2:30pm Luigi Zingales

University of Chicago Bookstore / 970 E. 58th / Free uchicago.bkstore.com Zingales signs copies of his book A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Generation of American Prosperity.

4 | CCLaP Weekender

6pm Carl Smith

Seminary Co-op Bookstore / 5751 S. Woodlawn / Free semcoop.com Smith discusses his book City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago.

7pm Poetry Off The Shelf w/Adrian Matejka

Poetry Foundation / 61 W. Superior / Free poetryfoundation.org Adrian Matejka reads from his latest book, The Big Smoke, a finalist for last year's National Book Award.

7pm Ben Tanzer and Friends

Powell's Bookstore University Village / 1218 S. Halsted / Free powellschicago.com Ben Tanzer reads from his newest book, Lost in Space, with special opening guests Susan Hope Lanier (The Game We Play), Elaine Short (Let's Be Awkward Together), Peter Anderson (Wheatyard) and Joseph G. Peterson (Gideon's Confession).

7:30pm Janice Clark

Women & Children First / 5233 N. Clark / Free womenandchildrenfirst.com Janice Clark reads from her new novel, The Rathbones.

7:30pm Reading Under the Influence

Sheffield's / 3258 N. Sheffield / $3, 21+ readingundertheinfluence.com The long-running literary reading celebrates its ninth anniversary. Featuring current and past RUI crew members Julia Borcherts, Jesse Jordan, Amanda "Mandy" E. Snyder, Naomi Huffman, Bronwyn Mead, Frankie Migacz, Jon Natzke, Behnam Riahi, and more. Doors open at 7:00, and early arrival is recommended.

9pm In One Ear

Heartland Cafe / 7000 N. Glenwood / $3, 18+ facebook.com/pages/In-One-Ear Chicago's 3rd longest-running open-mic show, hosted by Pete Wolf and Billy Tuggle.

THURSDAY, MAY 8 6:30pm Dante's Poison Release Party

Campagnola / 815 Chicago, Evanston / Free campagnolarestaurant.com Join Lynne Raimondo for the release party of her new novel, the legal thriller Dante's Poison.

May 2, 2014 | 5

7pm Poetry Off The Shelf w/B.H. Fairchild and Peggy Shumaker

Poetry Foundation / 61 W. Superior / Free poetryfoundation.org B.H. Fairchild (The Blue Buick) and Peggy Shumaker (Toucan Nest) help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Red Hen Press.

7pm Patrick Hicks

The Book Cellar / 4736 N. Lincoln / Free bookcellarinc.com Patrick Hicks reads from his new novel, The Commandant of Lubizec.

7:30pm Megan Milks and Cris Mazza

Women & Children First / 5233 N. Clark / Free womenandchildrenfirst.com Megan Milks (Kill Marguerite and Other Stories) and Cris Mazza (Various Men Who Knew Us As Girls) read from their respective books.

To submit your own literary event, or to correct the information on anything you see here, please drop us a line at cclapcenter@gmail.com.

6 | CCLaP Weekender

Like millions of other only-child Chinese twenty-somethings, Turtle Chen is graduating college and vicariously desperate (via parental pressure) to find a job, though he would probably settle for a girlfriend. He speaks English. He studied abroad in America. Employers, ladies, what’s not to love? With a bit of bravado and some hometown luck, this engineering grad lands himself an entry level position working for the state news agency; not that he particularly cares about politics or journalism, not that they particularly want him to. Through a class assignment, Turtle learns that his grandmother’s village will soon be inundated to make way for a dam construction project. His parents tell him not to worry about it.

His bosses tell him not to worry about it. He would be only too happy to oblige, and yet despite his best efforts not to care he finds himself on the front lines fighting bulldozers, next to what some villagers claim to be the ghost of Chairman Mao. There’s bribery, corruption, computer games, and text messages imbued with uncertainty. Air pollution, censorship, and a job fair where students attack employers with paper basketballs.

And it’s all told through the eyes of a young man with impeccable English (‘impeccable English,’ that’s correct, yes?), who’s right there in the middle of it all. Welcome to the delightful world of “Turtle and Dam,” the literary debut of Washington DC analyst Scott Abrahams.

CCLaP Publishing

Download for free at cclapcenter.com/turtleanddam

May 2, 2014 | 7

ORIGINAL FICTION

The man had a guitar and the sweetest voice anyone had ever heard, so they let him sing for a while before they asked who he was and what he was doing in their kitchen. He said he was on his way to California and asked if they would be willing to let him stay for a night or two. Ida said he shouldn’t have soaked her floor with his wet boots, but Henrick said they couldn’t put him out in the cold, and it would be fine so long as he put in a day’s work and didn’t mind playing some more.

1890, THE SO 8 | CCLaP Weekender

Photo: "Camp of Buffalo Hunters at Wolf Springs, Taylor County, 1874," by George Robertson.

Released into the public domain by SMU Central University | flickr.com/smu_cul_digitalcollections

OLOMON VALE

Catherine Cooper

May 2, 2014 | 9

In the kitchen that night there were Ida and Henrick De Jong, whose house it was, and Henrick’s brother Bram De Jong, plus Walter Finch and some men who worked for him, and George Craven and his eldest son, William. The De Jong children were lying awake in bed, listening to the sounds below. The eldest, Florence, recognized some of the songs the stranger was singing, but mostly he played old gold-mining tunes and cowboy hymns that she didn’t know.

After a while, the man stopped playing and talked a bit. He said his name was Alphonse.

“Why do you want to go to California in the middle of winter?” Henrick asked him.

The man looked down at his hands. “I’ve been on my way there for some time, but I never seem to make it,” he said.

“It’s the same with me,” said Henrick.

“What’re you going to do when you do get there?” George Craven asked.

The man looked up at Henrick, ignoring George’s question. “You a farmer?” he said.

“Yes,” Henrick said.

“I always wanted to be a farmer,” the man said, and then he cocked his head to the side as if speaking to a copy of himself. “What do you do Alphonse?” he said to the place where his head used to be, and then turning back in the other direction, he answered himself, “I’m a farmer.” He laughed at his joke, so the men laughed too, but they all thought it was strange, and from her bedroom Florence thought so as well.

“You all farmers?” the man asked.

“Except George. He works for the county.”

“Doin’ what?”

“Surveying,” George answered, without warmth.

The man was clearly impressed. “I tell you, I’ve always had an interest in surveying. Ever since I was a boy I was interested in that work. How you like it?”

“I like it fine.”

“Well, we should go into business,” the man said. “You seem like good people, and I got some capital I’m hoping to invest from my prospecting days. I’m waiting for the right opportunity, you know?”

“Why don’t you play some more?” Henrick said, not liking the way things were turning.

“You know ‘Sweet Betsy from Pike?’” asked William.

“No,” said the man, “but I know a song about her.” He began to sing again, and so sang Florence to sleep.

The next morning the man was gone, and Henrick checked his hiding place to find his pocket watch gone too. That was the watch his father had given him, which had been given to him by his father, who had died within a week of arriving in America. He checked the barn. His horse was missing, and in its place was the man’s bony mare.

He told Ida and the children to stay inside while he rode Ida’s horse to Bram’s farm.

Bram and Walter were standing outside. Henrick’s horse was tied up next to them.

When they saw Henrick coming, Bram held his finger to his lips, and Henrick slowed to a walk until he was within earshot. Before he could ask what was going on, Bram pointed to the barn. “He’s sleeping in the haystack,” he said.

“Cunt stole grandfather’s watch,” said Henrick, who seldom cussed. He tied Ida’s horse next to the horse the man had stolen and walked through the thin snow toward 10 | CCLaP Weekender

the barn, followed by Bram and Walter.

“What’re you going to do?” Walter said, but Henrick ignored him. The man was asleep, cradling his guitar in his arms. When Henrick was within a few metres of him, the man woke up and held out his hands to defend himself. His guitar slid down the haystack to land on the floor with a discordant sound. “Careful,” he said.

“You cocksucker,” said Henrick. “You devil.”

“What, what?” the man said. “What I do?”

“Hold him,” Henrick said, and he looked around the barn for some rope. Bram held the man’s arms and Walter put a foot on his chest. The man didn’t try to get up, only kept asking what he he’d done and what they wanted.

“Please tell me what happened,” he said as Henrick started to tie him. “I swear I don’t remember nothin’. Did I do something bad?”

“Shut your mouth,” Henrick said. “I knew there was something wrong with you the second I laid eyes on you. Why I didn’t do something about it then I don’t know.

Should’ve thrown you out in the snow, walking into my house like that.”

“Listen,” the man said. “I’m sorry. I should’a asked before coming in. There was a lot of people though, and I was cold. I thought you liked my playin’.”

“You chose the wrong man to steal from,” Henrick said.

“What?” the man said. “I never….unless…is it your horse?” He tried to peer outside, but Walter pushed him down with his boot.

“Stop talking,” Henrick said.

Henrick bound the man’s hands and legs before tying him to the bars of a stall.

The man kept talking, saying how he had started drinking after they went to bed and he couldn’t remember much when he was drinking, but no harm done because the horse must be there outside, and who didn’t make a mistake every now and then when they’d had too much to drink?

When he’d finished tying the man, Henrick left him with Walter while he went into the house, followed by Bram.

“Where do you keep your razor?” Henrick said.

Bram’s wife and baby were sitting in the rocker by the door, but she didn’t look up, not wanting to get involved in a fight between the brothers.

“Come on, Henrick,” Bram said. “We’ll get the watch back. Where can he have hidden it?”

“It’s not about the watch,” Henrick shouted, and Bram’s baby started to cry. “It’s about respect, goddamn it. You don’t walk into a man’s house and take his hospitality and then help yourself to whatever you want. We can’t let him get away with it.”

“Agreed,” said Bram, “but you can’t kill him.”

When they got back, Walter was standing outside of the barn. “I didn’t want to listen to him no more,” he said. When he saw the razor in Henrick’s hand he said, “What’re you gonna do?”

In the barn, Henrick took an old saddle blanket from a stall and shoved a corner into the man’s mouth. “We’re going to give this fellow a haircut,” he said. He broke through the ice on the trough to collect some water in a pail. He poured the freezing water over the man’s head, and the man screamed. He directed Bram and Walter to hold the man’s head still while he shaved off the greasy brown hair on the left side and the beard and eyebrow on the right, leaving a rough, bloody mess. When he had finished, Henrick removed the man’s gag.

“Now where’s my grandfather’s watch?”

May 2, 2014 | 11

“What?” the man said. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He had bitten himself in his struggle, and when he spoke blood and spit sprayed from his mouth.

“I guess you aren’t happy with your haircut,” Henrick said. “You want some more off the top?”

“Fuck you!” the man said.

Henrick reopened his razor. The man continued to bawl and protest as Henrick held his head to the side and cut through his ear, making a clean horizontal slice through the cartilage. After that, they searched the man’s clothes thoroughly before leaving him alone in the barn.

Walter offered that if they could find out where he had hidden the watch it would be all right and they could let him go. Henrick didn’t respond. When they came back into the barn, the man was staring off into the distance behind them. Walter roughly prodded him with the toe of his boot. “We’re gonna let you go,” he said. “But we don’t ever want to see you around here again. Understand?”

“Yes,” the man said. “I’ll never come back here again. I promise. And I didn’t take no watch.

Henrick bound the man’s I’ll promise that too.” hands and legs before tying

“You’re not going anywhere him to the bars of a stall. until you tell us where it is,” Henrick said.

The man kept talking, saying

“I told you, I ain’t took no how he had started drinking watch.”

Henrick went to the spot after they went to bed and where the man had slept, picked up he couldn’t remember much his guitar and held it over his head by the neck as if it were a living when he was drinking, but no thing he meant to brain against the harm done because the horse wall.

“Please,” the man said. “I must be there outside, and promise I didn’t take your watch. I who didn’t make a mistake don’t even know how to tell time, every now and then when what use I got for a watch?”

“Last chance,” Henrick said. they’d had too much to drink?

“Please,” the man said once more.

Henrick smashed the guitar against the bars of a stall, breaking its back, then took it by the neck and cracked it over his knee.

They rode with the man to Henrick’s house to get his horse. He was silent the whole way, not looking at any of them, the blood from his ear frozen on the side of his face. When Ida saw him, she felt terribly afraid, so against her husband’s wishes she gave him some food and made him a bandage from an old dress. She stood behind Henrick as the man silently mounted his horse and left. The two of them watched, Ida peering out from behind her husband, until the man had disappeared among the trees.

Three days later, Henrick was walking across the frozen creek on his way back from Walter’s house. He sang to himself and occasionally ran a few steps then slid on the ice. He had just completed a series of three running slides when he was hit from behind with a wooden fence post. Some barb sliced through his nose when the post 12 | CCLaP Weekender

came down on him a second time. He lay still but conscious on the ice.

The man’s hair was cropped shorter on the right side now, but the left was still patchy and scabbed, his beard motley and spotted with blood. Filthy shreds of a woman’s dress blew around his ear. He brought his face close to Henrick’s ruined nose, and steam rose around him as he hissed, “I could’a screwed your wife, I could’a screwed them kids you got, I didn’t do none of that, only accidentally took your horse ’stead of my own on account of I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doin’. I could’a screwed that little girl you got, but I didn’t do nothing, I left her lyin’ there sleepin’. And you bastards come after me talkin’ about I took a watch. I never took no watch. I been blamed my whole life for shit I didn’t do. I’m sick to death of it.”

He raised the fence post again and continued to beat Henrick until he was dead or unconscious. Then he used the post to make a hole in the ice to push Henrick’s body through.

In the spring, Henrick was found half buried in the slimy grass along the edge of the creek. Everyone assumed it was the strange man who had killed him, but there was nothing to be done. It wasn’t until ten years later that it came clear. A man in Wyoming had been sentenced to hanging for beating his wife so badly she ran outside to get away from him and froze to death. When he was up on the gallows, he admitted to killing a man named De Jong some years earlier. He said that they were business partners, and they’d had a dispute over an investment. By the time the De Jongs found out, it was too late for the pleasure of vengeance or even much grief. They were used to it now.

“I guess he never got to California,” was all Bram said when he heard the news. C

The word nostalgia comes from two Greek roots—nostos, meaning the return home, and algos, meaning pain or longing. The Western Home tells the story of the folk song “Home on the Range” through characters seeking to integrate their experiences of upheaval and alienation into meaning and identity—to transform their longing into belonging, their pain into understanding—by retreat to the safety of an ideal. “Home on the Range” is the protagonist of The Western Home, and the supporting characters are the people who helped shape the song’s destiny by writing, rewriting, singing, recording, claiming and disowning it. Each story in the collection takes place in a different decade following the year of the song’s composition as a poem, in 1872. Beginning with the lonely, alcoholic pioneer, Brewster Higley, who wrote the poem, and concluding with a disaffected teenager who works in a rural Kansas tourist kiosk near the original site of the poem’s composition, this collection explores themes of collective memory, collective forgetting and the loss that is implied in both. Whether they are seeking out ideal landscapes, or pursuing invincible beliefs, or trying to make meaning out of chaos, the characters in these stories are all trying find a way home. Order a copy of the book at pedlarpress.com.

May 2, 2014 | 13

NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, in conjunction with Columbia College, is proud to announce Chicago’s first-ever “City All Star” student anthology, a themed collection featuring work from over twenty different colleges and universities across the city and suburbs. This year’s theme is “Chicago After Dark” (being released as a 300-page paperback book on September 15th), and we are looking for YOUR creative interpretations on this subject, whether narrative fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. The submission process is free, and there is no minimum word count, with a maximum of around 5,000 words. Contributors will receive a free copy of the book, will be able to order additional copies at their wholesale cost and will be offered numerous opportunities to perform across the city in the 201415 school year, both on college campuses and in commercial venues, including possible appearances on radio and television. The latest deadline for submissions is June 1st, but the sooner your submission, the more consideration it will be given. All contributors will be paired with a member of CCLaP’s editorial team upon acceptance, and their piece given a professional editing before the book’s release.

Please send all submissions as a Microsoft Word or Open Office attachment to cclapcenter@gmail.com (and let us know which educational institution you’re a student of), or visit [www.cclapcenter.com/chicagoafterdark] for more information.

We look forward to seeing your own take on “Chicago After Dark,” whether funny or serious in tone, dark or light in subject matter.

More at cclapcenter.com/chicagoafterdark Submit to cclapcenter@gmail.com 14 | CCLaP Weekender

RUSLAN VARABYOU PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURE

May 2, 2014 | 15

Location: D端sseldorf, Germany photography makes it possible for me to become my introversion, visible to other people. a huge part of my photography is documentary photography, where i try to concentrate more on anthropological questions by snapping the human traces, without showing the human itself.

16 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 17

18 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 19

20 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 21

22 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 23

24 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 25

26 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 27

28 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 29

30 | CCLaP Weekender

May 2, 2014 | 31

ruslanvarabyou.com flickr.com/varabyou

32 | CCLaP Weekender

THON 0 3 S Y A HN M S JO IN ON G S BE MA N est O S gu A E ial S 4 pec 1 20 h s t wi

one writer thirty minutes 20 audience members free food and liquor

the cclap sessions @cclap's studio 505 Clarendon and Buena Avenues Uptown, Chicago cclapcenter.com/studio505 May 2, 2014 | 33

The CCLaP Weekender is published in electronic form only, every Friday for free download at the CCLaP website [cclapcenter.com]. Copyright 2014, Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. All rights revert back to artists upon publication. Editor-in-chief: Jason Pettus. Story Editor: Allegra Pusateri.

Calendar Editors: Anna Thiakos and Taylor Carlile. To submit your work for possible feature, or to add a calendar item, contact us at cclapcenter@gmail.com.

Did you like this? Pay us 99 cents and help us keep them coming! bit.ly/cclapweekender

34 | CCLaP Weekender