LIBERTAS
The Bare Bones Issue v ol . 26, n o. 2
SATREBIL Editorial Staff EDITORS IN CHIEF Raven Hudson Maddy Page
ART EDITORS
WRITING EDITORS
Ben Caldwell
Susannah Cate
Hannah Lee
Jayleen Jaime
Cathy Xu
Katie Walsh
Dear Readers, The arrival of this issue coincides with the arrival of Halloween, in all of its haunting, mystical glory. It is a time when we might be confronted with our greatest fears––notions of death, the afterlife, spectors, and monsters––only they are in the parody of costumes and campy decor. In this issue, we challenged our contributors to expose these fears and to allow themselves, and their readers, to be vulnerable. When you strip a subject to its bones, you find the structure, the foundational aspects of its existence, but at the expense of its subtleties and details. Still, the works in Bare Bones manage to interweave themes of death and life, anxiety and curiosity, and defeat and humor. In Walsh’s “In the Months That I Was Religious,” the speaker wears herself down to fit society’s ideal image of a “health” body, compromising her well-being in the process. Sarah Griffin’s photograph “Last Light” catches the sun’s rays at the golden hour, highlighting a picked-clean and sun-bleached rib cage. The eyeless skeleton in Paul Stouffer’s still life almost seems to stare crookedly back at us. At its core, Libertas is a magazine for students, by students. We hope you find yourself amongst our pages--or, perhaps even better given the date of publication, we hope you find an alternate, spookier, more monstrous self. Happy Halloween! Raven and Maddy
Libertas belongs to the students of Davidson College. Contact the editors at libertas@davidson.edu.
LIBERTAS October 2019 WRITING
ART
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Aslan’s Country Laya BrynZhan
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In the Months that I Was Religious Katie Walsh
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Warm-blooded Fiona Stanton morte/more Gianna Colombo There is a Stinkbug in My Room Woody Moore
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Chokehold Lily McCalla Untitled Paul Stouffer Last Light Sarah Griffin bride Helen Sturm In Essences Rebecca Cobo
That’s Life: A Review of Joker Susannah Cate Le Birtus Offers Advice Libertas Staff
Cover: Secular Gaze by Rebecca Cobo
special thanks to... Faculty Advisors: Zoran Kuzmanovich, Paul Miller (emeritus), Scott Denham (emeritus), Ann Fox (emeritus) Previous Editors: Alyssa Glover, Samantha Gowing, Meg Mendenhall, Michael DeSimone, Jordan Luebkemann, Will Reese, Emily Romeyn, Vincent Weir, Mike Scarbo, Vic Brand, Ann Culp, Erin Smith, Scott Geiger, James Everett, Catherine Walker, Elizabeth Burkhead, Chris Cantanese, Kate Wiseman, Lila Allen, Jessica Malordy, Nina Hawley, Kate Kelly, Zoe Balaconis, Rebecca Hawk, and Hannah Wright Founder: Zac Lacy
Chokehold by Lily MCalla
AslanĘźs Country Pastor's sons and pageant queens excuse me from your savior dreams cross my name out, on the ark I'll sink smiling in the dark
by Laya BrynZhan 4
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IN THE MONTHS THAT I WAS RELIGIOUS
I
by Katie Walsh
n the months that I was religious, I am no longer sure that I am the atheist who broke my first rosary beads, a gift from my mother, on accident. At ten, wrapping them too tightly around my wrist, they made a thousand hollow sounds on our wood floor. I sat and strung them back together, my bulbous stomach straining against my kneecaps. If I had wrists, like hers, or rather like His, thin and roped about and nailed in, the jewelry would have fit. I would break less if there was less of me to break. In the months that I was religious, I said a prayer nowhere to be found in Psalms. Summoning the words in the gesture of lip’s movement. Whenever a woman on the street side pinched the small of her child’s cheek with an anxious hand, whenever the car lurched forward in traffic nauseating its passengers, whenever I pressed my ribcage on the rails of the rusting bridge between home and nothome. The prayed thing came tumbled out in aberrated hymnal, sung with silent syllable. Rushed out, past my uvula, onto the floor, into the air, into the everywhere. In the months that I was religious, I knocked my head three times with the knuckle in my right hand, and crossed myself, and crossed myself again, never remembering what direction to head to first, left or right, up or down, to the sky or to the ground. And then again, with the left. In the months that I was religious, I counted. How many outlets there were in the room, how many steps I took, how many calories were in a glass of wine (135), how many dead in the news (27), how many petals fell from the calla lilies bought two weeks ago on the kitchen counter (four). I would recount every hour or so, every hour or so, every hour or so. In the months that I was religious, I only let holy foods in my body. I only ate what was clean. I would eat meat but no eggs. Bread but no cheese. Wine but no beer. I would chew but not swallow, letting the food dissolve on my tongue. I became waifer-like. In the months that I was religious, I believed I was being tested. In line at the grocery store, with the cart creeping red lines into the nook of a weak arm, I would not let it rest between my feet. The longer I could hold my body in small discomforts, the more righteous, the less damned I was. Damned was I to an eternity of too many things to carry in my arms at once. And I dropped the eggs because of it. (Seven) broke. In the months I was religious, I sat in churches only when they were empty. Lit candles at pews, though no one I knew had died recently. There were smaller losses to grieve: the daily ones, the hourly ones, the minutely ones. Unscalable. I could fill Notre Dame with grieving candles, if it hadn’t already burned to the ground. In the months that I was religious, I treated my running shoes as sacred objects. Lifted my legs in self flagellation. Cut my back with the whip of sit-ups until the small knob of bone peeking from my skin, began to wear the skin down to rawness. In the months that I was religious, I looked in every mirror I passed, tracking the ribs in my torso as one traces the stops of the metro line before leaving the house. Twice, to double check. I looked for guidance blindly. Which is to say, when taking my second nightly walk, I often get lost in my own neighborhood, as though I do not really live here. A ghost in my own body, I’m somewhere else when I’m right here. In the months that I was religious, I blessed myself with toilet
Warning: This story discusses eating disorders.
Untitled by Paul Stouffer water, dipping my head down, my arms splayed in hapless genuflection beside me. I fell asleep and woke up with the imprint of tile on my forehead, and the faint smell of bile on my mouth like a pungent herb, feeling transformed. In the months that I was religious, I purged my self of toxins. I purged myself of water, of salt, of blood. I was the body, and nothing else. I hollowed myself out and felt full. In the months that I was religious, I no longer bled. In the months that I was religious, I fasted. In the months that I was religious, I indulged. In the months that I was religious, I did not believe in Him. In the months that I was religious, He did not believe in me. In the months that I was religious, we were even. In the months that I was religious, we were odd. In the months that I was religious, the delicate bracelet my mother gave me for my tenth birthday fit for the first time in ten years. All 33 beads hung on my wrist in silent agreement that we were finally worthy of them. Before they slipped to the ground and broke apart again. LIBERTAS Vol. 26 No. 2
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WA R M – BLOODED by Fiona Stanton The kids—there were so many of us, then—sucked on ice cream on the porch. It had been raining for days before the family reunion; one of those old testament thunderstorms that sidled up close to the sky and raged and raged and eventually boiled away into nothing. These always cast a gloom before they went, a feeling that you had just bore witness to the end of the world. We were content at first on that summer’s evening, to just lick the thick cold of the vanilla, listen to the grown-ups talk of growing seasons and bad luck, and to feel the new sun fit into the spaces between our toes. My ice cream was beginning to stream in rivulets down my wrist and thumb when the girl came out of the garden on my oldest, cruelest cousin’s arm. Red hair. Tea dress. Her arms were marble, a powdery shade of white I thought I could smell. My cousin clutched her by the waist, led her to the vast noman’s-land of the grown-up’s table and introduced the girl as his wife. Just east of Richmond, she answered their prodding with a gentle drawl, my parents owned an orchard by a lake. Her voice was gold-brushed and low so I wanted to ask her more about the orchard; I wanted to hear her tell the devilish history of Richmond. And then the governor ask’d for freedom or death, I imagined her saying, and bid his servants return to the fields. I left my spot on the porch, wedged between my sisters, and padded—shyly, on foal’s legs—toward the circle of cousins and aunts that had stitched itself around her. I didn’t pleat myself into that crowd, fearful of some unnamed rebuke, and instead watched from between the sunburnt shoulders of my relatives. The Virginian proved herself charming, laughed long and low at the jokes passed around like bread, let the light catch around her temples and altogether convinced us of her worth. She met our gazes squarely. She bit into the ripest
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oranges and licked the tips of her tapered fingers afterward. I think that’s why I admired her from the beginning, my cousin’s redheaded wife. Her surefootedness. I’d never seen a girl so pretty be so large; it was like she’d swallowed a man and now he crouched in her belly, warming his hands over a coal-smoke fire. As I watched her I became sure that she knew I was doing so; it was hidden in the set of her jaw, her knowing. I kept waiting for her to turn away from her husband(he was so close to her now, laughing too easily, a pinkish sheen to his forehead from the spirits, one hand heavy on her leg) and look at me. I waited and it never came. But when the party began to migrate away from the tables and out into the yard beneath the trees, bored with the cornbread and sausages congealed in moony grease, and she stood, she gestured to me with one slender hand. Would you like to see something? I nodded. She brought me to the edge of the yard, near the coffee tree which gave the most shade. The dark played tricks with her hair, made it seem a deeper red than was possible. The dark brought flies, too. She pointed into the depths of one of the swarms, close to the ground, there. I saw the thing they were gathered around—leaning lazily into one another, bumping exoskeletons in midair—and realized it was only rotted fruit. Look closer, she murmured. I could feel her orange breath, her orange hair, falling across my shoulder. I peered deeper into the mess of peach and dirt, determined to see the secret she’d deigned to share with me. But the earth was still. The smell of peach heavy in the air. Maybe she’s fooling, I thought suddenly: maybe it’s only a trick to see how stupid I am. My mind raced. A memory of my brothers handing me a feedsack, the texture of it in my five-year-old hands, their
stifled laughter as they pointed into the woods: it’s just in there won’t you catch it for us? It only shows itself to girls you know. They had told me the snipe was a meat-eating swamp rabbit, taller than me, with tusks like an African elephant and an alligator’s snout. I had trekked into the swamp with fear sat in my stomach like a stone, almost crying, holding the sack out like a shield. I went to sleep that night thinking the beast was hiding behind the mangrove at the edge of our yard. I went to sleep thinking I was being hunted. It was not until much later that I learned most brothers just told their baby siblings the snipe was a bird. I could feel a burning in my throat as I became convinced my cousin’s little wife was only seeing how long I would stare at nothing at all, and was ready to bolt away before she could laugh, when I smelled it, musty and unmistakable: snake. I followed the line of her gaze. The thing moved sleepily around the base of the tree, and I knew from the orange of its skin it was a copperhead. My cousin’s wife knelt, and, as if she were calling a puppy or a kitten to her, clicked her tongue. She cooed. She held out her hand, palm up, and waited. And the snake did come. And I think I must have screamed, or else gasped, and anyway the whole of my family turned as one pair of eyes. And everyone watched as the copperhead undulated up that pale arm, twisting around the elbow and wrist, gliding as if on water up the shoulder. We thought we saw her laughing. And my cruelest cousin, full, as I have mentioned, of mountain-brand liquor, slogged through the tall summer grasses as the fireflies burst all around him. In one movement—almost graceful, something of a child in the way he grasped—he seized his wife by the arm and brought her from
her kneel, picked the copperhead off like it was a leech, and cracked its diamond of a skull against the bark of the old coffee tree. The sound was like the evening splitting in half. They left quickly through the garden, my cousin and his wife; no parting words passed their lips. The aunts spoke of venomous things as they packed up the silverware and the long white napkins; they kept eyeing the spot where my cousin had dashed the snake against the tree. I knew she was a witch, my middle brother would say later, voice low like he was telling us some glorious ghost story. The other kids would bob their heads like naked birds, transparent in their need. But I wouldn’t. That is a condition of love, you see, of the deep sort of love that scorches your cheeks: you can’t blaspheme against them. There is something in you which warns against it. Like the secret ticking of a clock, warm in the space below your heart, it burns.
Last Light by Sarah Grffin LIBERTAS Vol. 26 No. 2
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morte more by Gianna Colombo wrinkly skin and fire kin, dancing eyes and languid skies, sinking souls and smothered hearts. my hands still. wretched art, I paint a smile with bloody fingertips; anticipation is the worst of it.
bride Helen Sturm 8
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There is a Stinkbug in My Room By Woody Moore
There is a stinkbug in my room, Swooping near the light, Its buzz stuttering, when it hits the bulb. I hear the crash and see it fall Straightdown, But before it meets the ground It remembers how To use its tiny wings To float its bulky body and swoopsup. I wonder if, When it came to, it was scared, Because it didn’t know where It was or how it got there. Everytime it falls, I fear it will land on me. It’s not dead yet. Imagine, waking mid-air. It hasn’t stunk up my room yet, either. I’m taking a shower. It takes its time, drowning, I crush it with the shampoo bottle. Now its smell Is all over me. I wonder if, to a bug, Days feel like years. I can feel it land on the back of my neck Just by thinking about it. I can feel myself squished and bleeding. I could also feel someone Rubbingmyback, kissingmyneck, But I’m feeling a stinkbug now - all its little feet. I hope the days just feel like days.
I flush the stinkbug down the toilet. Sitting in my room, on the floor, Back to the wall, My carpet is dotted with both Identifiable and un-identifiable Objects. Paperclip, I have no idea Where you came from. I flushed it down, but today It’s back, humming at the yellow glow. I never use paper clips. Bits of paper. Fuzz. Guitar pick. Wrapper. Hair. Toenails. Clear and stringy. Black and crumpled. Little, round and white. Sometimes I don’t notice. Sometimes I don’t hear the Air-conditioning. Sometimes it’s all I hear. Even the sound of my breath gets all chalky, When the mood’s right.
In Essences
By Rebecca Cobo
LIBERTAS Vol. 26 No. 2
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That’s Life: A Review of Joker by Susannah Cate
A scrawny man with straggly hair sits in front of a mirror. We can see his face is painted, and we sit forward in our seats. We move in closer as we hear over the radio that trash is piling up on the streets. Gotham has a garbage problem. But this man is probably only half listening, as we are, because he is also focused on the face in the mirror. He grapples with the face as though it were someone else’s, drawing up the corners of his mouth with his fingers into a horrible grin. But then he lets go, this particular scene over. This is just Arthur Fleck, and he’s harmless—for now. Here I’ll pause, and announce that it is with more than a little trepidation that I begin this review of director Todd Phillips latest film, Joker. I am aware of the controversy surrounding this super-villain-sized biopic, and I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge critics; the film is brutal, violent, and bears an uncanny resemblance to horrific real-life mass shootings. I do not mean to brush these arguments aside, or even argue against them, but rather to recognize them as legitimate, and then move beyond possible negative implications to discuss the elements that make Joker a film that keeps us talking. After the first introspective scene that forces us to imagine the thoughts running through Arthur Fleck’s mind, we begin to see these thoughts played out: in his delusions, his journal, and his condition that causes uncontrollable laughter at the worst
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times imaginable. While Gotham is painted as a derelict city, Arthur becomes his own mirror for his home metropolis. He’s beaten up by a gang of children, and bruises populate his back. His mother urges him to eat, and the shirtless moments scattered throughout the film underscore her point. But though his mother also tells him he was “put on this earth to spread joy and laughter,” he is the perpetual butt of the joke. The camera forces us to sit with him as he is constantly misunderstood, moving in close to offer up the minutiae of his pain on a disturbing platter. And these jokes are often hilarious to the characters that enjoy them, but they make us cringe, sink back in our chairs, shake our heads, bite our lips. There is an intense sense of inevitability, and even predictability, and pervades the film, by virtue of our understanding that his man will become Batman’s homicidal arch-nemesis. I found myself wringing my hands with unease (and like, who even wrings their hands?). It was a movie-going experience that was both unpleasant and exceptional simultaneously. I left saying things like “that was amazing,” and “the scenes in the bathroom? The way the camera captured his transformative dancing? Incredible.” But as I watched I was severely disturbed and there were moments I had to look away. Outside the context of our world—which in many ways parallels Gotham and could definitely be compared in a different article which is definitely not this one—this picture does a great deal of work towards complicating our superhero dichotomy of good versus evil.
Lee Bertus Offers Advice Dear Lee Bertus,
Dear Lib Haagen-Dazs,
I’m just so enervated by the basic, run-of-the-mill, costumes that infest our campus every year. I refuse to buy one of those godawful polyurethane, mass-produced Halloween costumes that flood inundate F during Halloweekend. This year, I’ve decided to be an intern from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou–Wes Anderson’s BEST film. But I’m worried that I’ll have to spend the whole night wasting my breath on these uncultured, inebriated, Marvel Universe-watching single-celled amoeba asshats. How can you NOT know about one of the greatest works of cinematography of the century? I swear, no one watches anything that isn’t Who-Loo or Netflicks anymore. Whatever will my taste-making, Sundance-film-watching, German-EDM-listening self do amongst all this culturally uncivilized garbage…… Signed, Better Than You (We had to cut this dude off here.. He went off for six pages and it made our editorial staff vomit. He also linked his VSCO account and his photography-dedicated instagram page that only featured photos of plastic grocery bags lying on street corners).
Halloween is coming up. I’ll be honest with you; I’m a hardworking freshman who spends most of his time in Base Libs. I’m looking to finally get into the social scene at Davidson, so I plan on sticking close to my hallmates come Thursday night. However, they’ve been using some Davidson-specific terminology that I’m not familiar with. I want to make sure I know what I’m getting into, so I was hoping you could explain some expressions for me: “Going down,” “Down the hill,” “Going to F,” “Apartment-hopping,” and “Narnia.” Thanks so much for your help! I can’t wait to go out for Halloween. Signed, Perplexed
Dear “Better Than You,”
Dear Perplexed,
Quick question–are you a fan of David Lynch? It seems like you’re one of those guys… My first piece of advice would be to invest in some anti-inflammatory remedies (Tylenol, ice, a healthy dose of “getting shown up in front of the acquaintances you’re trying to impress”) to medicate your swelled head. To answer your question, I wouldn’t worry about explaining your costume to people. In all likelihood, you’ve sufficiently established a reputation as “that guy who unceasingly quotes Freud in order to upstage your classmates” among the narrow field of people that know you on campus. You’ll likely spend the entire weekend aimlessly roving F in the hopes that a single person will understand your costume. If someone happens to recognize your half-assed outfit (assuming you’re too self-involved to commit wholeheartedly to dressing up as someone other than yourself ), you will find ways to claim that they are a fake fan. Even David Lynch himself would tell you that Halloween costumes are about the joy of stepping outside of yourself–you clearly don’t wish to do so. In an ideal world, you would choose a costume that feeds the spooky–perhaps even kinky–side of your personality. That being said, I can safely assume that you have no spooky (or kinky) side. I’d still implore you to go with your costume of choice. I look forward to seeing you at F in your Wes Anderson costume, where you’ll undoubtedly be talking down to some poor freshman who’s just asked if you’re Shmee from Peter Pan. Fuck yourself, Leah Burtssss
I’m happy to help! Here are some definitions: “Going out” – This refers to the devoted romantic relationships that your friends hope to find on Halloween night. The phrase “Going out” is a shortened version of the colloquialism, “Going out with someone.” It seems that your friends would like to schedule an innocent date with a new friend. Perhaps they will find that friend while they are perusing the Davidson social scene! I wish them good luck. “Going Down” – This phrase is a not-so-innocent adaptation of the above phrase. I would suggest asking a parent or legal guardian about the meaning of this term. “Down the Hill” – This term is a subtle nod to the downward spiral (as in, “This is going downhill fast!”) which your roommates will experience with each subsequent hour they spend partying after 10:00 PM on Thursday night. I hope you are also prepared to experience this downhill journey! “Going to F” – (see “Going down”) “Apartment Hopping” – This phrase is a reference to the French art of “Parkour,” the internet sensation of 2004 (and it was in one of the Bond films!). It’s pretty impressive. The goal is to get from Point (A) to Point (B) as creatively as possible. If your friends plan to “apartment hop,” then it’s a safe bet that they’ll be jumping/climbing from building to building while they travel betwixt the various Halloween parties on Thursday night. Be safe, and make sure to work on your cardio! “Narnia” – This term names the mystical realm from author C.S. Lewis’s critically-acclaimed novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” I’m not quite sure what your friends mean when they use this phrase, but I know that the novel is full of allegories for the biblical story of Jesus Christ. Whatever “Narnia” refers to, I’m sure it involves wholesome Christian fun! I hope I’ve helped prepare you for your Halloween-night adventures. Have a good time! Signed, Leif Erikson LIBERTAS Vol. 26 No. 2
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LIBERTAS last word
(Your Best Friend’s Name) and the (Month You Were Born) of the (First Initial) (Last Initial) Month You Were Born: January-- Discovery February-- Rise March-- Inevitability April-- Attack May-- Ghost June-- Mystery July-- Menace August-- Doom September-- Vanquishing October-- Revenge November-- Return December-- Terror
First Initial: A--Frantically Diligent B--Persistently Absent-Minded C--Obviously Fake-Woke D--Unconsciously Blunt E--Somehow Happy F--Suspiciously Polite G--Overbearingly Preposterous H--Unnecessarily Clueless I--Recreationally smoking J--Frequently “Tipsy” K--Fraudulently Self-assured L--Humbly Muscular M--Unknowingly Attractive N--Aggressively Mansplaining O--Worriedly Burned-Out P--Insidiously Masucline Q--Potentially Intelligent R--Effortlessly Successful S--Wholeheartedly Pretentious T--Constantly Scrutinizing U--Annoyingly Photogenic V--Tempestuously Hangry W--Initially Shy X--Overly-Passionate Y--Likely-Problematic Z--Unshakably Edgy
Last Initial: A--Econ Major B--Former Pre-Med Student C--Guy on the Aux D--Domino’s Delivery Guy E--Stray Skunk F--Classical Art Connoisseur G--Future Consultant H--Self-care Advocate I--Indie Music Fan J--Base Libs Dweller K--Caffeine Addict L--Cardio Dance Participant M--Social Media Influencer N--Facebook Conversation Starter O--Campus Hipster™ P--Woodrow Wilson Enthusiast Q--Davidson Football Game Attendee R--Loud Person at F S--Nummit Darts Specialist T--Narnia Explorer U--Flickerball Referee V--Electric Scooter Rider W--Devil’s Advocate X--Game Changer Y--Wall Cockroach Z--Apolitical White Man
Coming Soon to Theaters Near You.... ! ________________ and the ______________________ of the _________________ _________________
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