Look-Look Magazine Issue 5 by DeeDee Gordon

NICHOLAS KIEHLE, 19, ANAHEIM, CA

The High Five High Being that this is our fifth issue, we’ve been running around the office respect-knuckling, chestthumping, high five-ing, and generally congratulating ourselves for making it this far. All that faux jive plus our recent viewing of “Hustle and Flow” got us to wondering about the origins of the high five. A couple of Google links later we’ve got no real explanation, but a couple of hypotheses. The high five either started a) on a college basketball court in the Seventies or b) in Vietnam as a hello or thank you when a medic would come upon a fallen soldier. Both of those sound plausible, but lame. We’re sure the high five originated in jail just like all other trends. Which has us sending out a big Leavenworth salute to everyone who sent their stuff in to us this time around. Not only have we made it all the way to Number 5, we made it here in style. Please note the nearly grown up caliber of the artwork (we are, after all, 35 in dog years). Please examine the intricate way the words dance over the page and actually make sense. Please look at all the pretty colors. Please don’t take away our meds. For every great photo, for every brilliant word, for every brushstroke we were able to include in the magazine, there were countless others we just didn’t have room for. Ah, if only we had a micro-percent of the NBA’s operating budget, we could print thousand page issues! But alas, we are mere mortals who have never even bothered to catch a Laker game even though the Staples Center is apparently just a short freeway ride away. What we’re getting at is this: if you don’t see your work between the covers this time, don’t despair. Keep making it. Keep sending it in. Your time will come. Respect, Look-Look

LOOK-LOOK CONTRIBUTORS

YOU: THE PHOTOGRAPHERS, WRITERS, AND ARTISTS.

NICHOLAS KIEHLE, 19 Anaheim, CA

GINA LIBERTO, 25 New York, NY

TANJA-TIZIANA BURDI, 24 Toronto, Canada

KAELEEN O’NEILL, 20 Los Angeles, CA

NAT JOHNSON, 26 Portland, OR

PAUL GANSKY, 19 Colorado Springs, CO

RYAN WOLFF, 21 Boulder, CO

CHRISTINA RINALDI, 24 Milwaukee, WI

KIM MARKS, 19 Toronto, Canada

KYLE GILKESON, 17 Portland, OR

MAYA WHITMAN, 28 Beverly Hills, CA

MARTINA GULLI, 23 Genova, Italy

MAXIMILLIAN MONROYMILLER, 27, Glen Arbor, MI

CARRIE LEVY, 25 Long Island, NY

NICHOLAS GRAHAM, 22 Winter Park, FL

GLENN PAJARITO, 22 San Diego, CA

GONZALO TUDELA, 18 Vancouver, Canada

AMANDA SPITZER, 18 San Marino, CA

ORIANA LEWTON-LEOPOLD 23, Brooklyn, NY

JULIA WICK, 16 Los Angeles, CA

MILES COLLYER, 22 Willowdale, Canada

We are the champions

The net profits from the sale and sponsorship of Look-Look Magazine go to the advancement of young people in the arts. Here we go again, finding ways to pat ourselves on the back. Building ourselves up so that you’ll like us, you’ll really like us. This past summer, we sent 12 more lucky and talented individuals to the School of Visual Arts “Summer of Art” Residency Program in New York City. Despite the insufferable heat and Calcutta-like air quality, they had a ball, made some great art, and returned home saying things like, “schmear,” “Go Yanks” and “Noo Yawk.” For the record, we are still censor-free and completely committed to printing your art exactly the way you send it to us. And in the spirit of tooting our own horn, we didn’t even need a megabucks deal with satellite to print it like we see it. We do it for the love. Strictly for the love.

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JENNIFER PAPPAS, 23 San Francisco, CA

CHARLES PIEPER, 18 Tenafly, NJ

JEFF HAHN, 15 Hong Kong, China

ALAINA CUGLIETTO, 21 Pleasantville, NY

DAVE GULICK, 26 Portland, OR

SCOTT FERGUSON, 19 Denver, CO

AYLEE RHODES, 17 Woodland Hills, CA

AMANDA MCKENNA, 21 Kalamazoo, MI

AUSTIN KENNEDY, 23 Braintree, VT

SALOME OGGENFUSS, 21 Brooklyn, NY

LENNY NAAR, 22 New York, NY

TREVOR POWERS, 19 Burlington, VT

CHRISTI GRAVETT, 21 North Little Rock, AR

ABDUL MOSES, 26 Cape Town, South Africa

WINNIE AU, 23 Boston, MA

WES DRIVER, 26 Brooklyn, NY

ELIJAH TELLER, 16 Los Angeles, CA

ALANA CELII, 18 Rockwall, TX

CATHERINE KIRK, 15 Staten Island, NY

JEN SCARBOROUGH, 20 Toronto, Canada

EMILY GALASH, 16 Portland, OR

CHRISTOPHER LEAL, 18 Fullerton, CA

ANTON TCHAJKOV, 17 Toronto, Canada

LINDSEY PICKARD, 15 Norman, OK

Contributors not pictured: Zoe Beyer, 16, Pacific Palisades, CA; Khavi Lesley, 23, Amherst, MA; Brittney Krier, 17, Warner Springs, CA; Carmen Higueras, 20, Seville, Spain; Robert Johnson, 21, New York, NY; Nicole Litvin, 23, West Linn, OR; Grant Levy, 23; Long Island, NY; Patrick Morris, 17, Hartland, MI; Marie Claire Whittaker, 15, Oak Park, IL; Carlen Altman, 21, Brooklyn, NY; Alexia Quik, 18, Girard, IL; Jayal Chung, 17, Thunderbay, Canada; Leanna Kaiser, 18, St. Louis, MO; Fiona Ryan, 23, Los Angeles, CA; Tracey Keilly, 29, Los Angeles, CA; Poppie Vanherwerden, 18, Pacific Palisades, CA; Ben Reyer, 20, Santa Monica, CA; Cathrine Taylor, 19, Tuscaloosa, AL

The twelve artists chosen to participate in the 2005 School of Visual Arts “Summer of Art” Residency Program were: Aleksandra Arutyunova, 16, Pompano Beach, FL Kelly Burgess, 18, Vernon, CT Dejanira Cruz, 20, Tustin, CA Sarah Delgadillo, 16, San Jose, CA Elizabeth Hershey, 20, Bloomington, IN Nicholas Kiehle, 19, Anaheim, CA

Charlie McRay, 19, Center Point, TX Danielle Napier, 20, Garden Grove, CA Kristen Rhodes, 19, Fresno, CA Bob Tiflinsky, 20, Brooklyn, NY Erin Wallace, 17, Seattle, WA Grant Willing, 17, Castle Rock, CO

Created and Published by: DeeDee Gordon and Sharon Lee, Creative Directors: Lisa Eisner and Román Alonso of Greybull Press, Editor: Cat Doran, Associate Editor: Lauren Edson, Senior Designer: Anna Agapiou, Look-Look Crew: Emily Bronkesh-Buchbinder, Nancy Callahan, Melissa Cunningham, Kristin Epps, Sigalle Feig, Shayne Globerson, Liana Morgado, Tony Pierce, Marc Precilla, Alycia Rican, Angie Sarris, Eric Webb, Magazine Interns: Nora Benavidez, Joyce Liao, Jen May Pastores, Front and Back Cover Art: Miles Collyer, 22, Willowdale, Canada For PR, please contact: Brandy Fons, brandy@look-look.com. All other inquiries: info@look-lookmagazine.com. To subscribe or for further information on how to contribute to Look-Look Magazine: www.look-lookmagazine.com

ÂŠ 2005 Look-Look Inc. All worldwide rights reserved.

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GINA LIBERTO, 25, NEW YORK, NY

MAILBOX ETC good afternoon! i am a massage therapist with a thriving practice in northampton, MA. my clients are a combination of smith college/mt. holyoke college/ amherst college students and faculty, who enjoy your excellent articles and wonderful layout. i have an old copy in my waiting room currently, and everyone comments on it! many thanks! leah fifield, c.m.t. Hey there, So I was wandering around Penn station waiting for my train and I went to go look at the artsy magazines and I found this one. I was SO excited to find your magazine I must say it was exactly what I was looking for. As soon as things settle down at school I will be submitting some of my work! Well thanks for listening to me, Shannon Fogel We LOVE the magazine! You had us (my 14 year old and I) with the cover and until the final page! And I'm 47. So good to see our youth express themselves freely. Laura

I am a student in college, and I love what you guys are doing. It is very important for young people to have an outlet to be creative and get a good boost in to one day influencing and inspiring others with their art and talents. Thank you, Ilija Atanasovski Today was my first exposure to Look-Look Magazine and I must say that I was nothing less than ecstatic. The quality and professionalism present upon every page of the publication is quite impressive and long overdue. As a young writer and painter, I continually find myself misplaced in the realm of "artists" and have yet to find a forum that I truly feel apart of. Please continue the course of expressive freedom and integrity. As well, nothing would please me more than to be a part of something so inherently honest and progressive. Thank you, A. Johnson Hi, I just picked up my first copy of LookLook at a Barnes & Noble in NYC. The

magazine is gorgeous. I was especially struck by the cover photo, which I have fallen completely in love with. I just canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get the photo out of my head. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s haunting me! Thanks, Susan McCarty Hello I recently discovered Look Look Magazine the other day when I happen to be browsing and I think you guys are pretty genius, trying to help out the little guy. Sincerely, Anthony T. Martinez

MIXED MESSAGES ANYTHING GOES

BEN REYER, 20, SANTA MONICA, CA

KAELEEN O’NEILL, 20, LOS ANGELES, CA

POPPIE VAN HERWERDEN, 18, PACIFIC PALISADES, CA

RYAN WOLFF, 21, BOULDER, CO

GLENN PAJARITO, 22, SAN DIEGO, CA

OUT AND ABOUT SOUTHERN DEBUTANTES

SouthernDebutantes

PHOTOS BY CATHRINE TAYLOR, 15, TUSCALOOSA, AL

HOW TO MAKE A RECORD

BY NAT JOHNSON & DAVE GULICK, 26, PORTLAND, OR

A BEGINNER’S 8 EASY STEPS TO MAKING AN ALBUM {AS EXPLAINED BY A BEGINNER, DERBY}

WAKE-UP CREATE COLLABORATE (SHAPE) REHEARSE RECORD LISTEN/MIX WASH, RINSE, REPEAT MASTER COPY AND PASTE PUSH PLAY

If the numerical instructions* are not detailed enough, the following may help explain the process we followed when making our debut album, “This is the New You.” *Remember, deviation from these strict guidelines is not acceptable. Creativity is about rigid structure and analytical thought. There is only one way. Yeah, right.

STEP {1} WAKE-UP This sounds difficult, and to the aspiring musician it usually is one of the toughest parts to making an album, yet crucial to the process. We can’t stress this enough, get up from that bed, chair, couch, beanbag, gutter, bathroom floor (whichever your preferred place of rest), and wake-up!

STEP {2} CREATE Now that you’ve opened your eyes and found a source of caffeination, it’s time to create. Easy, right?! Every songwriter works differently, but for us the lyrics and music come all at once. Usually Dave comes up with a core piece of the song and then starts adding in syllables and lyrics until there is a cadence for the words that starts working with the music. The music and lyrics push each other along hand-in-hand until there is a tune and completed lyrics to go with it. 21

STEP {3} COLLABORATE (SHAPE) After following super-simple Step 2, you’ve obviously created the basic structure of a mega-hit, and are ready to collaborate, or shape, your new song into something more complete. It’s time to start thinking about how to make it a song for the whole band. In our case, Dave will come to Nat and together they will fill in the gaps.

STEP {4} REHEARSE After locating and leashing all the important parts of your new song, practice playing them with the band. It's important to make it sound the way you want before you start putting a mic in front of it. Knowing drummers and bassists as we all do, try calling them 72 hours in advance just to make sure that they show up on time. You know what I’m talking ‘bout. Once you’ve assembled the troupes, try the new song, jam, and let it flow, man.

STEP {5} RECORD Rehearsed and ready, the physical recording component of the album-creation has come upon us. We recorded "This is the New You" in my basement. It was a simple, easy-to-use set-up that was nothing fancy. Anyone could do it. All we needed was a Mac with two audio inputs, ProTools, and two mics. Once we had that, each member of Derby took turns laying down their track. Although this is involved, the key is to do what makes you as comfortable and happy as possible. Therefore we’ll tell you what makes you comfortable and happy. No exceptions. Point microphones in the general direction of your instruments/amplifiers of choice, and push what is usually a big red button on your specific audio recording device. At that point, start playing in unison ‘till the song is complete. Do it again and again, then stop when you’re happy. Once you’re smiling, over-dub anything and everything your mind tells you is good, just don’t do it if it’s bad. In the end, don’t think too much. That comes later in the process.

STEP {6} LISTEN/MIX Having recorded with no regard for anything (we told you not to think), it’s now time to use your noodle. Brain. Ears. Fingers. That’s all. In this step, you or someone you trust is responsible for making all of those sounds you recorded come together in a manner that makes sense. This is where the tedious work starts and the anal side of everyone comes out. It's not that hard to learn the technology, but it can be hard to get the mix just like you want it. The trick is really, really lis-

tening and then stepping away and coming back. Adjust the levels accordingly. If you’re the drummer you’ll say things like “Turn up the snare.” The bassist will contribute with, “It needs more bottom end!” The lead singer will say things like “Does this really show how big my biceps… ego… I mean vocals are... damn.” Then someone invariably will remark “Can you turn the Suck knob down!?”

STEP {7} WASH, RINSE, REPEAT It seems as if you’ve finished a song. Congratulations! Now there’s only ten+ more songs to do. So stop smiling, sit down, shut up, go to sleep so that you can wake up and start with Step 1 again. Only move onto Step 8 when you’ve completed all songs that will be represented on the album. Until then, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Get to work. Got the songs like you want ‘em? It’s time to move onto album mixing. Make sure all the songs flow into each other well, that there’s a method to the madness… It’s just like making a mix tape, right? Sorta.

STEP {8} MASTER Songs written, recorded, and mixed? Time to take the album to get mastered at a studio. The mastering process runs the album through high-end equipment to make it sound big, clear, and strong dynamically. We asked around for recommendations from other musicians and then listened to what they had done on other musicians' albums to find one we thought would fit with our sound.

STEP {9} COPY AND PASTE Once the album was done we asked a friend of ours to design the album art. Pulling in favors is a good (and not to mention cheap) way to go. We then went to a local CD duplication company (you can do it online if you want) to get copies made. You hand over your tunes and the art and they handle the rest. We ordered 1000 copies and it cost us about $1400, which is a pretty good deal, especially when you split it between everyone in the band.

STEP {10} PUSH PLAY My you’ve come a long way. An album full of sounds, feelings and coffee. Good for you. Once assembling all of the pieces you can do the best part, push play. Do it, don’t be afraid. Crank the volume and push play. Listen to what you did. We’re so proud. Now go get yourself a show and sell those cds.

WORD UP POETRY

A MAP OF DOWNTOWN LA {AND WHY THINGS FELL APART} By Zoe Beyer, 16, Pacific Palisades, CA

I saw, out of my rearview mirror, A boy of nineteen begging Shirtless On the freeway underpass.

II.

Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. While he pumped gasoline, I read a magazine in the dark At the 76 off of the 405.

III.

If you take the 10 East, You’ll hit Chinatown and if you’re Lucky, You won’t miss the exit like we did.

IV.

I pulled up, along the curb at LAX. He got out, I popped the trunk, And when he was gone I drove away.

Later, I cut a lady off Merging into the carpool lane. She said, Bitch.

PHOTO BY KIM MARKS, 19, TORONTO, CANADA

FIELD TRIP

By Khavi Lesley, 23, Amherst, MA I remember... Concrete drinking fountains at The Franklin Park Zoo Outside the Tropical House Inside, warm, and humid Gorillas, gazelles, fuzzy tarantulas MEET ME? The leopards, one spotted, one black By Tanja-Tiziana Burdi, 24, Toronto, Canada Lounging in shallow rock caves Aloof and beautiful We have 9 ways to communicate Not as fierce as we thought they’d be Synthetically. The big fish in a dark, blue room That is, Stairs down to a glass wall Digitally. Peer through the murky water at their smooth forms Still we can’t find each other Appearing and disappearing, catching the light Metres away. The tiny hippo Running on its toes, in circles Two feet below the surface And not quite touching the ground

WHEN VOICES COLLIDE

By Brittney Krier, 17, Warner Springs, CA Insecurity was stabbed today Reason tried to control him But Hope got in the way Fear jumped and actually fell So Kind picked up pieces Just-give-up didn’t give a hell Your-worthless set up the crime To kill It-will-be-alright But, Just-breathe came just in time Don’t-kid-yourself then slit wrists I’m-strong tried to handle himself; Stood up tall and fought with two fists Sad just chased pills with a few tonics Crazy was too hyper to realize the accident And A.D.D. was too hooked on phonics Innerself was found dead today Let’s all take a moment of silence Bow our heads in sorrow, and pray

PHOTO BY KYLE GILKESON, 17, PORTLAND, OR

Asyndeton

By Jennifer Pappas, 23, San Francisco, CA

There are 49 ways to die. Just from this view Just from this chair. I looked out the window To find you Swollen By the moon. Your hands the size Of ceramic Bowls. Your lashes like ribbons of silk, But You Werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t looking At me. You had Better things to do-and To hold. Comparatively so: I was Almost a puddle, but You wanted A lake. Out The door With no hinges, (heartbroken) I hitchhiked all the way to Havanatapped an awkward melody on a trash can lid and waited for it to rain... when I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find a place to park I simply leave town to try somewhere else.

PHOTO BY CARMEN HIGUERAS, 20, SEVILLE, SPAIN

I awake from a nightmare to find myself in another one: I am in the land where the stench wafts across the scuttling cars and the smoke rises from the industrial maws that line the edges of the roads like hungry sphinxes. And the roads spiral into the highway’s clogged arteries and the rubberneck’s veins and all of traffic’s hells. The birds are flipping out the car windows. Ahead, the tolls await, greedy and smiling, wanting coins to clink and scatter down their gluttonous gullets. Oh, this nightmare is New Jersey, the state of enigmas and hot dogs, of industry and the shore. The state of fog and pollution and of the crumbling palisades. Sand drifts over the state’s rickety boardwalks, erasing the history within the splinters. Diners watch wearily from every corner. And then I am there, deep within the dark forest, stark and bare. Around me sway the pines, sentinels guarding lost secrets. A howl erupts from somewhere deeper and darker within. Through the whirling trees, I see the vague outline of a winged thing. Through the twirling trees, I can see it dancing a jig from hell. The Devil dances down in Leeds. ___ Elsewhere rots the beginnings of cinema, for none now remember its dawning on the cliffs, on the Palisades. None today, with their big doos and puffy boots, with their dime and quarter hair salon gossip and bubbling empty minds, remember. And the castle on the cliff watches as the clouds go by. This is the state where the old men sit in their old men bars. Statues they seem, that move ever so slightly, to sip from the thick mugs they hold in their clammy, wrinkled hands. Sunlight streams in past them, through the greasy, grimy windows. Stone people. Aging, forgotten silhouettes crumbling away in the murky air. In I walk, unobserved by the ancient ones, to sit and rest, my mind weary from its mental journey across our vast state. A cup of coffee is all I ask for, and I sit and ponder the highway that crawls off into the distance beyond the window.

NEW JERSEY : LAND IN WHICH I LIVE BY CHARLES PIEPER, 18, TENAFLY, NJ

And from out that diner window I see that the cars are driving past Jersey’s borders. They have given birth to a new generation of terrified children, who have watched the smoke claw at the sky with pointed fingers, and win the battle. The Muffler Men wave them all goodbye as the cars wisp past.

PHOTO BY GONZALO TUDELA, 18, VANCOUVER, CANADA

Tennis shoes make no noise on marble floors, except the occasional squeak-and beneath the glaring light of overhead windows, brunettes in lime green t-shirts serve out smoothie drinks with a smile. Everything is twenty percent off at the red and white Body Shop, where folded paper cranes advertise tea tree oils from Japan. And grandmothers shuffle with swinging arms, walking to live another twenty years, as the Stride Rite salesgirl steps out for a cigarette break. And Steven, over at Zales, hands out illustrated fliers for the holiday payment plan. A swipe of authorized plastic, and this diamond bracelet can be yours.

2 82

PHOTO BY JEFF HAHN, 15, HONG KONG, CHINA

annapolis mall

by Robert Johnson, 21, New York, NY

mama gave birth to a voodoo daughter she was in labour for just 2 hours, and pop! out she came the doctors thought she came into the world laughing like a gypsy rebel, & when i held her in my arms i knew what was her fate: cigarette poison and perfume dreams, making love to the moon & wearing whipped cream. (she makes me feel ancient, i’m only sixteen...)

and she was not a poet, but a muse by Nicole Litvin, 23, West Linn, OR

my woman

By Maximillian Monroy-Miller, 27, Glen Arbor, MI I WANT A LANE BRYANT WOMAN, A NON-COMPLIANT, NEVER SILENT WOMAN A SPEAK HER OWN, INDEPENDENT TONE, LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE TYPE WOMAN A PICK UP THE CHECK, NO DISRESPECT, SHAKES FOR A KISS ON THE NECK TYPE WOMAN I WANT A LOVE IS SUPREME, SHOWERS THE TEAM, WALK IS MEAN TYPE WOMAN I WANT A CASUALLY DRESSED, PREFERS PEACE OVER STRESS, PUT HER HEAD ON YOUR CHEST TYPE WOMAN CUZ YOU KNOW YOU WANT ALL THREE AND THATZ MY TYPE OF WOMAN A LOVE AND HAPPINESS, TAKE A BATH AND KISS, EMITS A SIMPLE BLISS TYPE WOMAN I WANT A TELEPATHIC FOREPLAY, SHADOWS MY BRAINWAVES, FIND ME IN LIFE’S LOVEMAZE TYPE WOMAN N’SHIT THATZ MY TYPE OF WOMAN SO GO ON AND GET YOU OWN PHOTO BY ANTON TCHAJKOV, 17, TORONTO, CANADA PHOTO BY MARTINA GULLI, 23, GENOVA, ITALY

SMELLS LIKE... PHOTOGRAPHS UNDER THE INFLUENCE

GERHARD R ICHTER

PHOTOS BY AYLEE RHODES, 17, WOODLAND HILLS, CA

POSSESSED BY TRACKSUIT TOPS & MASKS

I have over 300 balaclavas and 45 tracksuit tops. The balaclavas were more of a long-term collection that started as a kid basically having them to use in the Canadian winters. You know, going tobogganing with them. And then I kept expanding my collection just through an interest in visual associations with simple things like superheroes. I’m a thrift store shopper and these are just things I came across. I worked in a factory that basically sorted used clothing. So the tracksuit top was one of millions of garments that would come across my path everyday. I would throw t-shirts in the t-shirt bin and keep the tracksuit tops for myself. This work came from a slow progression. It didn’t happen all in one day. It wasn’t my intention to find them. It wasn’t until the project was finished that I realized what I had and what I was working with. It wasn’t until I stopped collecting them that I made the association between the two. I had fewer track tops than I had masks. The track tops were the main element. They had the design, they had the colors. For sure the track top and the balaclava in recent years, at least to me, have been huge elements in everyday culture. You see them all the time. Those two things kind of just came together, not for any particular reason, but just to me because they coexisted together and I wanted to match them up. And they were also interesting to me because they had two different sides. The track top is passive, it’s all about style, it’s all about fashion, it’s visual. And then there’s the mask. It can have much more serious underlying issues—where it comes from—be it terrorism or crime. A lot of people connect it with that. I personally don’t, but it’s there in the subtext. This work may have underlying currents of social commentary, but I’m not trying to expound on those. In this series it was basically two elements coming together—a collection of them both. If you put on a mask, you aren’t yourself anymore, you aren’t representing yourself. And, depending on how you use it, you could become whatever you want to be. It eliminates the personality and creates its own personality. In this case it doesn’t really matter who’s behind there. It’s strictly stylistic. It’s strictly visual. It’s about this person and how they’ve ornamented themselves with these two things. I am the subject of the photographs, but they’re not about me. I’m not trying to portray myself. I’m just the vehicle. It’s just out of convenience. It’s easier to use yourself than it is to recruit people. It’s hard to direct people. I’ve never been comfortable being in the studio and telling people what I want. In this case since it wasn’t about the person, it wasn’t about if it was a guy or a girl, it had nothing to do with that, it was just as good to use me as it would be anybody else. I can tweak it because I know what I’m looking for. I’m not trying to say something about myself. It’s strictly about the masks and the track tops. I didn’t really intend the photos to be funny. A lot of people take them like that, so I’ve learned to recognize that they can get a humorous response. I don’t try to control a person’s reaction to the photos. If people come away thinking that I’m funny and goofy and odd, I would not be insulted. I would be completely happy with that. I am that person.

PHOTOS BY MILES COLLYER, 22, WILLOWDALE, CANADA

MIND’S EYE PHOTOJOURNALISM

BEAUTIFULLOSERS

text and photos by Elijah Teller, 16, Los Angeles, CA

My good pal Louie and I have shared the same favorite artists for as long as I can remember. We always loved Robert Crumb for his insane comix and sketchbook work, Jean-Michel Basquiat for his raw paintings and New York graffiti, and Raymond Pettibon for his Black Flag album covers and fearless social commentary via his ink drawings. Later we started admiring new, young artists like Barry McGee, who we found initially from his graffiti as Twist, and Ed Templeton, who we knew through his esteem as a skater. I saw the ad for the museum show “Beautiful Losers” in a magazine, and the list of artists included literally every single one of my favorite contemporary artists. I think it was then that I figured out that Louie and my old favorites (Crumb, Basquiat, and Pettibon) were the ones who, to put it simply, influenced the newer artists, whether in style, method, or attitude. The hip-hop and graffiti of New York and the East and the skate/surf and punk of the West set the context for these newer artists (who, in addition to McGee and Templeton, include Mark Gonzales, Chris Johansen, Margaret Kilgallen, and Clare Rojas, among many, many others). I never understood this until curator Aaron Rose brought this show together. Through a good friend I had met Aaron Rose a few times, and called him up to see if he needed help setting up the show. Needless to say, he did need help so Louie and I left school early a couple days to jet down to Orange County. Our first jobs were fun. We nailed together some plywood for Os Gemeos to paint a mural on, and we coated a wall for a background of Jo Jackson’s piece.

Then later we actually got to help our two favorite artists, Ed Templeton with his Teenage Smokers exhibit, and Barry McGee with his painting-lined truck. Helping our two favorite artists set up their exhibit was a really cool experience because we got to just chill with them. In between being asked by Ed if we had our “shred-sleds” with us (or in other words, if we wanted to go skate with him), and being told by him to drop out of school, we also talked a bunch with him and his wife Deanna about art, and people’s reaction to his art. While helping Barry hang paintings inside his truck and playing with his beautiful young daughter, we talked about painting and art classes. I learned so much more about each of my favorite artists just by talking with them. For instance, it turned out Ed and I have a different favorite artist in common—Egon Schiele. Thinking back, that influence is quite apparent in some of his portraits, most notably a small self-portrait with a distinct green and red palette on the skin tones. I was also curious about both artists’ two seemingly separate arenas of talent and fame—Ed in fine art and skating, and Barry in fine art and graffiti. Being able to talk to them about that was cool and even inspiring, as I myself have many separate interests. Talking to them I learned that you don’t have to pick one interest and focus all your energy on it to be successful. It’s much better just to do what you like to do. In fact that seems to be what makes a Beautiful Loser—being more than just an artist. Also being a maybe a surfer, a skater, a graf writer, a musician, etc. Beautiful Losers has more do with the whole culture than just art. Thanks to Barry and Ed I get that now.

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inside my head: one personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art

PEOPLE I LIKE

INTERVIEW WITH CARRIE LEVY, 25, LONG ISLAND, NY

My father went to jail on my 15th birthday on January 16th, 1996. I have never asked what happened, and to this day I still don’t want to know. Nevertheless, a prison sentence for a family man is a sentence for his family. We were an average Long Island family and we equally, or so we felt, endured the 51 months my father was imprisoned. All we could do was wait. During that time, my mother, my two brothers and I wondered about his return. At the end of the 51 months we were different people. In my father’s absence my mother undertook the roles of both parents for myself and for my two younger brothers. She had three jobs and cared for three children, always loyal to my father. Every weekend she would drive the ten-hour round-trip to Allenwood Federal Prison Camp. Sometimes we all went with her. My mother kept the family together, and she still does. Taylor, my youngest brother, was too small when my father went to jail to comprehend the transition in his life. At first he thought the visiting room at Allenwood was my father’s new office. As he matured, Taylor began to understand the reality of his father’s life, but made no accusations. He was as he is today, quiet and accepting. Even as the youngest child Taylor made it a priority to make sure everyone else was happy, but always looked to his older brother to lean on. My brother Grant, who rarely appears in this book, is two years younger than me, and several years wiser. Grant watched over me and was the calming force in our family. There is no one I admire more. I recorded the 51 months behind my camera. Making photographs is what I knew, and I felt safe with the distance. This is my diary of his absence. Nine years later each image makes me want to remember. The photographs that have stuck with me are those of detail. These images are what filled the void my father left behind, and oddly represent a nostalgia for a life I no longer live. I can feel the green-blue carpeting pressed against my feet, the changing seasons through my basement window, and the sound of my brother’s video games overtaken by the rattle of the Long Island railroad. I can still feel the touch of my mother’s beautiful bony hands after she applied her moisturizer, or see the three lines around her neck. I can recall the speed at which Taylor turned from a child into a teen, and Grant from a boy into a man. I remember my father’s initials around my mother’s neck and the mail that continued to come after he had gone. Alongside these brief details exist memories of prison visiting rooms, my father lifeless and scared, and my family. They are still there. -Excerpted from 51 Months by Carrie Levy 52

THE FOLLOWING IS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN CARRIE AND HER BROTHER GRANT: Grant: As I was reading your personal statement in the book, I was shocked to learn you still don’t know why dad was sent to prison. Carrie: It never really mattered to me. It was a way to cope and defend myself from the situation at hand. Grant: I remember we both knew something was wrong before we found out Dad was going to prison, but don’t you feel like his emotions invaded everyone in the family and it was like we were all confused once he left? It was like we didn’t know how to function as a unit without him. What did you feel were your responsibilities once dad left? Carrie: Dad has always been an intense character, but I always felt that mom pulled through with her amazing survival skills. She kept us together, always made sure to visit dad, and motivated us to go to college. After dad left, I become very uncomfortable on Long Island, so I decided to graduate early from high school and go to college. I felt responsible to help support you, Mom, and Taylor. Yet, being a teenager, I think it’s hard to get the balance right. I tried to be there the best I could, and now I can only hope my presence was strong. I think the photos prove that I was there, maybe hiding behind a camera to cope, but a presence nonetheless. Grant: How would you say your relationship with Dad has changed over the years? Did you find it difficult to remain close to him while he was away? Carrie: I hated the visiting room at Allenwood. I still hate the smell, and the forced conversation about movies and the weather. It was difficult visiting him and our relationship was strained during his incarceration. I think photographing him after he

returned let him glimpse into my world. It created a way to communicate. Let’s face it, our family didn’t, and doesn’t, have the best communication. Grant: Was Dad open to you documenting his story when he returned? I think it made him uncomfortable, but he did it because he felt guilty and didn’t want to let you down again. Carrie: You are probably right. Dad probably didn’t like it, but it was guilt. Yet the process brought us closer together over time. Grant: When exactly did you start photographing all of us? I really don’t remember you making a conscious decision to start annoying us every second. Was it a decision or was it more of a pre-conscious coping mechanism? Carrie: I just was comfortable behind the camera and found it was more of a natural instinct to start photographing everyone. It was never something I approached as a project. Grant: You know I was never comfortable in front of your camera, especially since the swimming pool incident, which involved floating with some flowers! So I am rarely in the book, but Mom makes up for most of the images. Did she give you a hard time at first or did she embrace the idea? Carrie: I always respected that you didn’t like being photographed. I tried the best I could to keep you out of the book. Mom, on the other hand, never really minded. She only got annoyed at moments when she was overwhelmed. I always put my camera down when she needed me. Grant: Much of the book is about her struggle. Was that a choice you made or am I reading into the work? I mean, you must have shot over a thousand pictures how did you decide which ones made it into the book? Carrie: Editing a book is difficult. To link photos together to tell a story was a new way of working for me. I did the best I could with what I had since, I had never intended for these photographs to be for anyone other than myself. The photos just sat under my bed for all those years. Gigi, my publisher at Trolley, really helped me, and Mom’s story was compelling and many of her troubles were all of our troubles. I chose her pictures because she represented each of us in the family. As far as the rest of the pictures, I chose them because they each told one piece of our story, and represent the time passing as we waited. Grant: As you have said, it was not your intention to document our story, but when did you realize the work was coming together on its own and would be interesting to share with the public? Carrie: I don’t think I ever realized it would all come together at one point. The photographs worked on their own as documents of isolation and absence, like I said it was not even my idea to create the book. The photographs were dormant for so long and I had moved on as a photographer.

Grant: Was it difficult for you to delve back into all these old memories when trying to edit and create the book? You never mentioned how it felt, but I imagine it was hard to put yourself back into that time in your life. The truth is we had really moved on when your publisher found you. Did some of the work seem contrived or stale? Carrie: It was difficult to relive the memories of Dad’s incarceration. I didn’t fully realize the impact of displaying such a personal story. I was seduced by the idea of having a book before I recognized the public performance that it involved. But I think the book has proved to be good therapy for me and the family. Dad and I have certainly had some great discussions since the publication. So, I guess they still contain a powerful impact. Grant: What would you say to someone who might imply our story is without a happy ending because our parents were unable to make it work upon our father’s release? Carrie: I feel there is a positive ending to this story because we all survived alongside one another and managed to grow closer over the years. But it does make me sad that Mom and Dad did not pull through as a couple. With that said, I feel my relationship is strong with everyone within our family. Besides, the book does not need a happy ending, it exists as it happened and that’s what makes it powerful. Grant: Have you fully recognized what an achievement your book is at such a young age? What do you think your next artistic step or aspiration may be? Carrie: Everything has not sunk in yet. I find it difficult to separate my work from my achievements. I love my book, but my ideas are not finished here. I think the older I get, the more politically active I have become. I also believe working as a photo editor at Newsweek has had a large influence on my work and the way I view images. It has changed my perception of the photographic language and for me has raised many political questions. Grant: Alright, well you’re free to go. Perhaps next time we can have a normal conversation. Carrie: Not likely. Does this interview sound smart? Grant: What do I know? I am extremely proud of you, even if your success has come at the exposure of our family secrets. Carrie: Love you, speak to you soon. Grant: Yeah, just tell your agent to give me a call.

WORD UP

PROSE

pause.

Christopher Leal, 18, Fullerton, CA

coincidental. red growling at his own reflection from drowsy confusion. interrupted to calm him down. scratch his belly. sit back down. are you even reading this? it’s ok. sniffle. now red’s staring at me with interrupted confusion. one space. not two. sniffle. i wish i was african american, british, french, and living in madrid. i have a cold. it’s not that i regret being white, i’m fine with it. but what i’m not fine with is coughing until my throat is raw. good. i mean. i want to photograph lauren in every possible way. pause. i want to travel to: wait. pause. i have to say goodnight to lauren. click. i want to travel to: alaska new england (who needs commas, anyway?) lake tahoe france a photobooth chicago new york every road of the united states germany london scotland ireland new zealand... that’s enough for now. my left shoulder is sore as usual. me and my shitty posture. exhausion is starting to kick in. david letterman. repetition. oh, canada too. i want some new videogames. my car is completely fixed and i feel so good. turtle wax. rubbing compound. i think woody allen is more wise than jesus. not hernandez. the other one. i want to play racquet ball. i’m killing them with kindness. blue bird. pink toes. green eyes. soft kiss. soft skin. pause. sweet voice. just you. stop. end of letter.

PHOTO BY JEN SCARBOROUGH, 20, TORONTO, CANADA

A CONFESSION, PARTS 1A AND B AMANDA SPITZER, 18, SAN MARINO, CA

You were always the coolest girl. I harbored a major crush on you since my friends told me of a girl “who’s married two guys. And they all live together. And it’s cool. Maybe she should be your role model.” And so I always stare at you, but God forbid I speak. Let me be forever silent. You have always seen me thus, or else be callow and bitchy. I have always loved the coolest girls, ever since Caitlin in the second grade, who was a diabetic and ate bananas for fun. I hated bananas, they were so mushy, but she compelled me to freeze them. The still-banana taste was my first disappointment. If I used the toilet after her, I’d think, “how close! how close! how delicate and sweet!” I wished I could be full-blooded Asian, and not just two percent, like milk. She lost my admiration by picking her nose in class. Earlier there were others, but not loved, not with that same fervency. Mostly I feared them, awesome dainty creatures comparing Little Mermaid underwear in the school bathrooms. I was like a gaijin in Japan there, being at least a full head above my peers til I hit junior high. I shunned my mother’s coquettishness, her quick wit; those attributes on me would be like a Brazilian on an ape. And not just any ape, but a silver-backed gorilla, if you’ve seen pictures, trying to fit in with chimpanzees. I was almost in high school when I realized the value of the coolest girls, those alpha bitches with a self-assuredness which only the prettiest of pretty boys ever hope to match or conquer. Tenacious Tina eyeing trendoid Tim, crying “fuck love, let’s fuck!” Or perhaps we are one and the same-- genitals roped and ropy, pouched and fluted, purulent and distended like a curse . . .

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER LEAL, 18, FULLERTON, CA

I’M GOING TO WRITE MENUS FOR A LIVING Patrick Morris, 17, Hartland, MI

Sat at the table, across from my wife, contemplating my order. The grilled chicken pita, yes, that was it. It had a star next to it that meant it was one of the restaurant’s specialty dishes. I bet it wasn’t really special, though, I bet I could have ordered a grilled chicken pita at about any restaurant in the country. What really sold me was the description about the grilled chicken pita. It came stuffed in a pita with grilled chicken, fresh tomatoes, lettuce, and onions, all covered in a bleu cheese dressing. On the side was a delicious cole slaw and homemade fries. I mean, how could I go wrong with that order? The bleu cheese dressing came on the side, so I did not have to use it if I did not want to, the cole slaw was delicious, and the fries were homemade. I was sure I could find something good to eat. I looked over the menu, reading the description of each item to pass the time. I read about fresh vegetables, toppings of sour cream and guacamole, 100 percent beef, succulent onions, lettuce, chicken, and tender New York strip steak. It all seemed very interesting to me, and made me think of the person who came up with the food descriptions. I am sure the person had no real background in any sort of writing, they were just assigned the task of writing these descriptions. Or maybe it was not assigned; maybe it was just the job of one person, like the manager. I bet that one person did not write all the descriptions, but it was the work of a team. I could see them sitting around a table, throwing around adjectives to fit the grilled chicken pita. “A delicious blend of tender chicken and fresh vegetables.” “No, we’ve already overused ‘delicious’. We’re already using that for the Caesar salad and house cheeseburger,” the owner would say. “I got one, mouth watering chicken in a full pita filled with lettuce, tomato and onion all topped with a bleu cheese dressing and fresh Parmesan cheese, with cole slaw and homemade french fries on the side.” “What the hell is that Frank? That’s the longest sentence I’ve ever heard with no punctuation.” “Hey, sorry, Bill. I wasn’t aware that everyone here is all of a sudden an English professor.” “Guys, guys, let’s cut it out. I think we need it to talk more about the pita and the ingredients inside the pita, because in my opinion, the chicken is just average. I really like the tomato in the pita and the dressing that accents the meal very nicely. Figure this out for me tonight, it’s getting late and I’m going home. We’ll work on this more tomorrow. Have a good night.” And the workers would disperse, sleeping with dreams of creamy ranch dressing and charbroiled cheeseburgers topped with sauted onions and barbecue sauce. I caught the eye of my waiter and ordered my grilled chicken pita, telling him how excited I was to try it, and that I was hopeful I would like the bleu cheese dressing. He sort of smiled awkwardly, trying to say something, but nothing came out. My wife ordered the portabella mushroom burger. From the description, it did not sound very appetizing, but of course I did not say anything to her. I really do not like mushrooms at all, but apparently my wife does. He brought back our meal within ten minutes. I tested the bleu cheese sauce with a fry, then realizing its greatness, I poured the rest of the cup into my pita. I was tempted to ask for more, because it really was great, and the cup was not very big. I would have liked a bigger cup of bleu cheese dressing. The pita was very messy, but in the presence of my wife, I was not worried with my appearance. She asked me how my day was as I engulfed a bite of the pita, dressing dripping down the corners of my mouth. It took me a full minute to chew my bite and wash it down with water before I could answer her question. I quickly ate the rest of the pita, then moved onto the fries. They were indeed homemade, and they tasted good, as did the cole slaw. In all, I would give the meal an eight out of ten rating, on a scale of one to ten. It was very enjoyable, but lacked enough sauce and fries. I quickly ate all my fries. The cole slaw lived up to its description as delicious. I commended the waiter for the restaurant’s descriptions. They painted a clear picture of the meal, without a picture really there. I told him that the great description of the grilled chicken pita really sold me. 58

PHOTO BY CHARLES PIEPER, 18, TENAFLY, NJ

ben came from vermont to drop out of music school, take charge of frozen food and form a one man band in the downstairs studio of his museum of a house. chris got the hell out of encinitas to drop out of art school, rove the streets and find he’s becoming a man, “Do you think I’m tough?” “Yeah.” “Damn Straight. Let’s go.” vicky followed tina because it seemed the safe thing to do, found her own black and white, her own nude beginnings, and now befriends all the strange, wounded men from her windowsill, with her lens. jared from somewhere in the middle, has no one to practice french on anymore so often speaks in witticisms and Cure lyrics, dates younger women because his exclusive Cairo education didn’t necessarily teach him anything about the opposite sex. esther came from kansas where the fountains abound but where there was also a lack of open-mindedness about all of the things she truly cared about: feminism, politics, sex, and Jews. Popping pills from a small metallic lunch-pail, rosy when she laughs. sean too from the mid-west, a loner in his own right, finally cut his hair, but still just waxes philosophical on his dirty couch in a beer-strewn room, wondering what the mornings look like. nick, hobbit nick, drove straight up the Hollywood freeway with drumsticks in his hand and Japanese on the tongue, both transparent tactics—one day he’s gotta get a girl.

brad, another transplant from San Diego County, sent to document carnivals in film and twist himself through plastic hangers. We wrestled and we harangued, the one and only manchild tina still pines for with any legitimate reasoning. adrian’s been here the longest, but has never crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. Still enough time to break all the women’s hearts and hang his precious arts on nearly every wall or forearm. lis is in the icebox, crafting quilts and stuffed animals with funny names, drawing birds with lovely perches— in fact the sweetest feathers we know. Such a different nest from that Virginia commune she once called her sort-of home. lauren hasn’t come from anywhere, commuting four days a week from the pride of her Oakland habitation. But always, always returning to divide her time into equal amounts of laughing loudly, patrolling the pool and Xeroxing ‘zines about bones and the failure of boys. and tina, dear tina, the first to leave that calvacade of San Diego, mostly i feel, to practice grinding stones, ink up a plate and reach out strong hands, begging for poems.

FR I ENDS

By Jennifer Pappas, 23, San Francisco, CA

PHOTO BY ALAINA CUGLIETTO, 21, PLEASANTVILLE, NY

TUITION MONEY Paul Gansky, 19, Colorado Springs, CO

Brenda McClain is dead. I didn’t know her, but I knew she weighed over 400 pounds. I knew the caretaker’s assistant forgot to dab makeup on the IV bruises on her forearms before the open casket; one niece counted 57, like tiny purple stars in a sagging constellation. The past months my parents kept getting letters in the mail, always in green envelopes. Brenda’s husband was sending these to all his wife’s friends; long letters telling everyone the pus had been drained from the bedsores, the doctors were considering amputation, the firemen nearly broke Brenda’s back getting her off the floor when she fell in the bathtub, she was really appreciating the flowers. Her brother, Tony, who lived about a mile from us, said “She was always a big girl. Big at 300 pounds when she lived in Texas. But when I last saw her in D.C. - god....” He gave his beard a low stroking. When the call carrying Brenda’s death ran up into Tony’s phone, Tony didn’t cry. Tony came from the personality school of latter-day cowboys. He shot sparrows off his porch, smoked Marlboros and ate fried venison. Emotion came through a stroke of his beard, slightly yellow where he touched it. Tony was friends with my dad. They sat on the leather couch in the living room and talked every Wednesday night while Tony’s Marlboros swelled the room with fine smoke. A few months before Brenda died, they both passed a Polaroid back and forth, turning it over, eyes blinking over each inch. “Come here,” my dad motioned for me as I passed the living room, on my way out to a party. I sat down and picked the Polaroid up off the coffee table. There were two pairs of legs standing on tired carpet, washed out in the camera’s flash. One pair of legs looked like a lot of busted watermelons stuffed into sagging sweat pants, legs running up to a waist that engulfed almost the entire top of the picture. “That’s Brenda,” my dad said. Later, at the party, I sat on a couch and watched all the legs around me. Tall, thin, taut, shaved, proudly curved against the 60

wood floor. Human, not watermelon. I kept drinking, but every time I looked down into my cup I could still see Brenda’s legs flooding over my beer. Why would someone let their body bloom into a vegetable? Was it a choice? The idea of choices had always swam out of my grasp. Nobody had ever held sway over me long enough to sour my belief that everyone has a choice. You had the choice to be lonely or make friends. You had the choice to gun through the red light. You had a choice to put the girders on your weight. The brain behind these legs in the Polaroid must have made a choice. I counted Brenda one of the few people I could remember who seemed determined to sink. Anyone else that came to mind was either a newspaper clipping or a film character. Laying in bed, after I had drunk enough at the party and gone home, I saw watermelon legs bleeding all over the ceiling in the dark. I saw them when I got up the next morning, stamped on the porcelain of the bathroom sink while I brushed the beer taste out of my breath. They were drawn under the grade of my math test the next week. That Wednesday I sat in the kitchen, looking at homework so my dad didn’t notice me listening to him talk with Tony. Tony fired up a Marlboro and said, the past four years, since she’d been laid off, Brenda had eaten fried ham sandwiches and read grocery sacks full of books. One or two books a day, on average. Any kind, though dime store westerns always made her sit up a little in her chair; hard-line dialogue that sharply etched the line between what was right and wrong, who could be trusted, the sunbaked desolation of riding alone for years on end. Every day for four years she’d get up, boil coffee, eat a frozen waffle for breakfast and sit in her chair and start reading. Fried ham sandwiches came for lunch and dinner, always with a quarter-liter of diet soda. Ankles swelled with lack of circulation. Her upper arms and chest sagged and bloated under the weight of all the ham, crisped slices of Wonderbread and pulp knowledge. Brenda’s husband began studying the arms of her chair, watching them bow out. He would go into the living room late

in the evening, while Brenda rolled into bed upstairs, and eye the new splits in the chair’s upholstery. Conversations with his wife rarely carried any real momentum, so he watched the chair flatten and the Wonderbread disappear silently. He felt the mattress tilt to her side every night, smelled the compounded rubbery steam of fried cheese and ham in the house, saw the oily fingerprint stains on the spines of her paperback westerns. His wife always liked her food; her family was a big, heavy-laughing parade of Texans whose weekends were grounded on bowls of homemade cobblers, casseroles, puddings, hunks of meat from any animal, all baking under the sun in miles of Saran Wrap. But Brenda also liked to move, liked to walk, visit the Smithsonian for entire days, drive to co-workers’ houses with trash bags full of coupons and a few political bones to gnaw on. Food was never the gravity of the day, it just snaked along under conversations with friends. Brenda’s husband could only surmise that some tiny mechanism in her had failed. Astronomical cholesterol, weakened hearts, clogged veins. After three years and two months of the ham sandwich and paperback routine, Brenda slipped coming out of the bathroom and couldn’t right herself. An ambulance was hailed. Being eased on a stretcher out of the front door carved out the beginnings of dependency. Her life narrowed to morphine drips or those little green letters her husband sent out. It was in one of these letters that my dad got his idea. “We had to wait sixteen hours for the hospital to send an ambulance to the hospital Brenda is currently stationed at. None of the regular ambulances are large enough or have the right girders to hoist Brenda properly without hurting her back further,” the letter said. Almost immediately, my dad was looking for a ballpoint pen and a yellow-lined steno pad. My dad’s jobs always began with a series of ballpoint scribbles: inventions like a foldable hunting chair and copier ink feeds. In two days he drafted a body lifter, a padded engine hoist with a larger grip. He had enough cheap scrap metal to make dozens of prototypes, and by the time Brenda climbed into a

deep coma after a stomach stapling procedure, he had his Human Hoist. In another six months it was selling to private homeowners, fifteen a day, $250, awaiting official testing in hospital safety inspection boards in three different states. The last letter came and I forgot about Brenda until I moved away to college, voted “the thinnest in the nation - four years and counting.” The Human Hoist paid for my first semester. I had long since stopped listening to Tony talk with my dad. Their conversations after Brenda became a pile of sneezed words: new hunting regulations for the coming bird season, steel indexes, intense struggles to remember a certain show’s hilarious dialogue, all spliced up with bursts of soot-lunged coughing. I kept waiting for Brenda to resurface but her end had been cleanly swept, a tragic but exact biological hiccup. But wasn’t there a chance these men had missed the stand their wife and sister had made? No mention had been made of Brenda as laid off, snipped from the daily birdcage of co-workers, another lonely housewife chased by her weight. Without those phone calls and bags of coupons there was only food and fake cowboy swagger. These men could catch any episode of Oprah and hear the same gasps for attention play out. Whatever position Brenda would have chosen, neither seemed unique enough to survive her death. Did she ever fear being swallowed and forgotten instead of engraved, taped or inked and then featured prominently on the summer sale table in a book store? I never saw a picture of Brenda’s face but her legs seemed to qualify for something more than a running tally of ailments collected inside a few green envelopes. I came home for Thanksgiving and asked my dad if this fear would burn off with age, as we sat in the living room, the couch still leaking Tony’s Marlboro fumes. He nodded slowly at my question and twisted the top off a beer. “You have to watch,” he told me. “There’s a thing on about the most dangerous bull elk, coming on in five minutes. They call him Bodacious, and he’s already gored five people.”

PHOTO BY MARTINA GULLI, 23, GENOVA, ITALY

OPEN PAGES

INSIDE MY HEAD: ONE PERSON’S PHOTOS

AUSTIN KENNEDY, 23, BRAINTREE, VT

PHOTO GEOGRAPHIC The people, places and things that live in your world

ADAM BRAGG, RICHMOND, VA

AMANDA MCKENNA, 21, KALAMAZOO, MI

CATHERINE KIRK, 15, STATEN ISLAND, NY

LINDSEY PICKARD, 15, NORMAN, OKVON CURTIN, 25, NEW YORK, NY

TREVOR POWERS, 19, BURLINGTON, VT

ABDUL MOSES, 26, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

LINDSEY PICKARD, 15, NORMAN, OK

MARIE CLAIRE WHITTAKER, 15, OAK PARK, IL

TREVOR POWERS, 19, BURLINGTON, VT

ALANA CELII, 18, ROCKWALL, TX

JULIA WICK, 16, LOS ANGELES, CA

WES DRIVER, 26, BROOKLYN, NY

TANJA-TIZIANA BURDI, 24, TORONTO, CANADA

ORIANA LEWTON-LEOPOLD, 23, NEW YORK, NY

SALOME OGGENFUSS, 21, BROOKLYN, NY

WINNIE AU, 23, BOSTON, MA

SALOME OGGENFUSS, 21, BROOKLYN, NY

AMANDA MCKENNA, 21 KALAMAZOO, MI “This is a photo of my brother, Scott, the youngest in a family of seven children. We all have qualities that make us unique, Scott’s greatest being able to make other people laugh by simply being goofy and loveble.”

CATHERINE KIRK, 15 STATEN ISLAND, NY

LINDSEY PICKARD, 15 NORMAN, OK

TREVOR POWERS, 19 BURLINGTON, VT “A doll collector/designer’s living room. I want to document how things collect over a period of time, or a lifetime.”

ABDUL MOSES, 26 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA “These images were showing the big steps that have been taken in my country. We are done with race hate and pushing people down. We celebrate together and we campaign together--no to war. The punk in my photo says it all with the ‘Fuck USA’ tattoo on the side of his head.”

ABDUL MOSES, 26 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA “The pictures come from a day we all marched against the war in Iraq, and the freedom for Palestine. It sure came true for one of the causes. Freedom for a marginalized people is always a good feeling and makes me smile.”

LINDSEY PICKARD, 15 NORMAN, OK

MARIE CLAIRE WHITTAKER 15, OAK PARK, IL

TANJA-TIZIANA BURDI 24, TORONTO, CANADA “I took this photo because it asked me to...because something about the dark symmetry and shadows of Mont Royal Station seemed to whisper to me from another time and space.”

TREVOR POWERS, 19 BURLINGTON, VT “An abandoned car, November 2004 in Vermont. Ishot this because I am interested in learning how easily people can leave objects and parts of themselves behind and never look back.”

ORIANA LEWTON-LEOPOLD 23, NEW YORK, NY “I’m so sorry I missed your wedding.”

ALANA CELII, 18 ROCKWALL, TX “Giraffe and elephant figurines. Foster’s art class. October 2004.”

SALOME OGGENFUSS, 21 BROOKLYN, NY “She said she had only had two jobs in her life. She used to be a model and a cocktail waitress. She was eighty years old. I photographed her outside Las Vegas in December 2004.”

JULIA WICK, 16 LOS ANGELES, CA “I was taking pictures for my school yearbook at a basketball game and I really liked how the back of the hoop framed the action going on in the court, it made everything seem more interesting.”

JULIA WICK, 16 LOS ANGELES, CA “I have a new-found respect for cheerleaders and am very glad all I had to do at the game was sit on the bleachers and take pictures.”

WINNIE AU, 23 BOSTON, MA “Bambi always hung out in this small, stuffy, and hot vestibule that is the entrance to my apartment buliding. Whenever I came home, I would open the front door and then Bambi would be sitting, staring off into space.” SALOME OGGENFUSS, 21 BROOKLYN, NY “This picture was taken on Christmas Day outside Las Vegas. Jackpot! All you can eat! Las Vegas made me feel so alone. I had to walk until the edge of town, where the green lawns stopped abruptly and the endless desert began, to find out what Las Vegas was about for me.”

WES DRIVER, 26 BROOKLYN, NY “How can you go wrong with something so American?” WES DRIVER, 26 BROOKLYN, NY “After I moved to NYC I realized that the best subject matter was back home in the South. I mean, I can take pictures of bums sleeping and pissing on 5th avenue or Ican take pictures of my uncle’s neighbor who appears to have a questionable relationship with her pet racoon.”

How to Contribute: Want to get published? If you have photos, writings, drawings, musings, insights, critiques, scribbles or anything else you can think of that you want to see in the pages of an upcoming issue of Look-Look, all you have to do is:

1. 2.

Be someone between the ages of 14-30 who does not get paid for your art (i.e. be amateur in the pure sense of the word).

Go to look-lookmagazine.com and follow the submission guidelines on the web site. By the way, your images MUST be at least 300 dpi in order to be reproduced in the magazine. So if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not sure, con tact us and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll set you straight.

Send your work via snail mail to: Look-Look Magazine Submissions Department 6685 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028

Please note: We are not able to send any submissions back to you so you should be prepared to part with your work on a permanent basis. See you in the next issue! look-lookmagazine.com

LAST LOOK-LOOK A PARTING SHOT

LENNY NAAR, 22, NEW YORK,

The Ad Gallery. We were taught way back in art school and other preciousness training grounds that The Man was evil, that he would steal our soul, that nothing good could come of our flirtation with him. Clearly the sanctimonious keepers of the purity flame who sold us that load of crap never met companies like the ones who sponsor Look-Look. Issue after issue, they serve it up real. Without them, we literally would not exist. You would have nowhere to showcase your art and we would no doubt still be back in Potsdam working over at Amesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s selling fishing tackle. On top of giving us the money to make this magazine, they go one step further and actually allow young people to create their ads. They are one of the things that is right with this world, and for that we thank them. We tried sending over some fruitcakes to show our appreciation, but they were returned for extra postage. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hear it for The Man. Look-Look

The Sponsors

The Artists

FREECITY

Maya Whitman, 28, Beverly Hills, CA

Sony Pictures Classics

Row 1 { L-R } : Alexia Quik, 18, Girard, IL Jayal Chung, 17, Thunderbay, Canada Christi Gravett, 21, North Little Rock, AR Row 2 { L-R } : Christina Rinaldi, 24, Milwaukee, WI Leanna Kaiser, 18, St. Louis, MO Fiona Ryan, 23, Los Angeles, CA Tracey Keilly, 29, Los Angeles, CA

Calvin Klein

Nicholas Graham, 22, Winter Park, FL

Virgin Mobile

Carlen Altman, 21, Brooklyn, NY

JAYAL CHUNG

numb to everything around me. Taking these photos has become the only solution of mental and physical stimulation to temporarily alleviate these spells.

THUMBSUCKERTHEMOVIE.COM

LEANNA KAISER

CHRISTINA RINALDI

I’ve taken these self-portraits during these moods that seem to come on more and more frequently. I might prefer to call them “spells” rather than moods. It’s as if I feel completely

CHRISTI GRAVETT

My young friend, Ness, sits and writes songs in her mother’s little apartment on Buffallo Court. She writes them about everything from Svend Wiig Hansen to green paint on scraps of wood. She can’t play an instrument, but the tunes coalesce in her mind— tragic lyrics, minor keys, and thumping guitar.

TRACEY KEILLY

FIONA RYAN

She has thousands.

Art inspired by themes of the movie.