Mania Magazine Spring 2012 by ManiaMagazine UCSD

mania maniamagazine magazine spring 2012 spring FREE 2012

spring

In the last few issues, Mania has published more poetry, fiction, and art than we used to, and fewer reviews and articles. As part of that change, the magazine grew monsters in the margins, spun DJs into the table of contents, and we managed to make a whole issue that was black. This Spring, though, we rethought how we wanted to present our artists’ work. The result is the issue you’re holding right now – clean and fresh, with the artists’ work bravely printed on the crispest pages we could put together. We hope you like it. This is also the last issue that I will be Editor in Chief. We’ve been through some stuff, that’s for sure: all-nighter editing sessions with the Layout team, racing to beat deadlines, making them in the nick of time, not making them and saying, “Shit, how do we fix this?” But Mania has always been there. The incredible people who work on Mania have stuck with me, despite me being probably the most disorganized editor the magazine has ever had. And the awesome people who will be running things next year are primed and ready to go, so keep sending in your submissions!

mania magazine

Adios Mania. And thanks. Steve Bass

spring 2012

This issue’s cover artists is Yerrie Choo. Choo spends most of her time drawing creatures and human genitalia, combined and separately. Other than that, she enjoys breakfast foods at anytime of the day.

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editor in chief Steve Bass contributers Aimly Sirisarnsombat Armin Chan Cass Curl Charlotte Curtis Edmund Wong Erica Oneto Hannah Saitta Iliya Peyson Josiah White Justine Hopkins Lauren Andra Mary Manu Monica Csikesz Nadia Soerjanto Nidhi Khullar Nika Reyes Rachel Karp Rosa Cho Sean Burdeaux Shannon Fox S.K.Rhee Steve Bass Yerrie Choo Young Yi

layout editor Stephanie Nowinski assistant layout editor Nadia Soerjanto publicity officer Cindy Lam text editor Shannon McPeak

cover artist Yerrie Choo

copy editors Armin Chan Cindy Lam Hannah Saitta Mindy Lam Monica Csikesz Rosa Cho

The publication may have been funded in part or in whole by funds allocated by the ASUCSD. However, the views expressed in this publication are solely those of Mania Magazine, its principal members and the authors of the content of this publication. While the publisher of this publication is a registered student organization at UC San Diego, the content, opinions, statements and views expressed in this or any other publication and/or distributed by Mania Magazine are not endorsed by and do not represent the views, opinions, policies, or positions of the ASUCSD, GSAUCSD, UC San Diego, the University of California and the Regents or their officers, employees, or agents. The publisher of this publication bears and assumes the full responsibility and liability for the content of this publication.

MANIACS

letter from the editor of mania magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS REVIEW

FEATURES 1 3

A Rave Story by Steve Bass Artist Spotlight: Francisco Sandoval by Hannah Saitta

POETRY

Alone on a Saturday Night by Edmund Wong let it be by Hannah Saitta river run by Hannah Saitta After a nap by Rachel Karp Ser by Lauren Andra Revealed by Iliya Peyson Where Can I Find the Reset Button? by Mary Manu #2 by Sean Burdeaux Close one. by Aimly Sirisarnsombat Sundress by Simon Rhee OJAI by Cass Curl Hope. by Monica Csikesz Cigarette by Iliya Peyson The Legend of the Phonograph by Rachel Karp Jetsetting by Nika Reyes Kaash by Nidhi Khullar

Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen by Rosa Cho

FICTION 28 29

5 5 6 6 7 7

Fragment of an Extrasensory Life by Shannon Fox Tramping the Celestial Sphere: Chapter 1: In Which I, the Protagonist, Do Travel Across Our Domain for Your Pleasure by Josiah White

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

ART 18 19 20 21 21 22 23 23 24 25 26

“Untitled” by Erica Oneto “Untitled” by Armin Chan and Yerrie Choo “Sake” by Nadia Soerjanto “Untitled” by Charlotte Curtis “Dangi” by Young Yi “Portraits” by Justine Hopkins “mindfulness” by Nadia Soerjanto “Plug into your creative outlet” by Armin Chan “balance” by Nadia Soerjanto “Here” by Young Yi “Nurture” by Lauren Andra

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SPRING 2012

FEATURE

A Rave Story

by Steve Bass

The Music Pierre David Guetta is forty-four, has long blond hair and a Frenchman’s nose, and quite frankly isn’t a stud. Nonetheless, he and nearly a dozen other house DJs (quite a few of whom are also not studly) have bounced their way onto the radio, into dorm rooms, and have taken over the club scene in the last few years in the U.S. They’re old news in Europe, of course. Guetta’s been around for almost thirty years, Paul van Dyk (yeah, the guy in the dance area at Sun God) since the early nineties, Armin Van Burin since 1995… and the list goes on. However, in the last few years, Guetta has found immense American commercial success with the help of one little conjunction: feat. He broke into the American music scene’s spotlight by being featured on tracks – Flo Rida’s “Club Can’t Handle Me” (2010) was one of the first mega-hits. He didn’t plan on staying a guest in the American music scene, though; in the same year, he released a slew of chart-topping songs, this time with his name on the other side of the tag line. They include “Memories” (feat Kid Cudi), “Sexy Bitch” (feat Akon), and “Getting’ Over You” (with Chris Willis, feat Fergie and LMFAO). By first piggy-backing on artists that were already getting airtime here, then tagging them onto his own tracks, Guetta made his name one that most radio-savvy Americans recognize.

Peace, Love, Unity… & Rave What Guetta and other DJs that have successfully broken into the American media market have accomplished isn’t just commercial success, though. By introducing the mainstream to

EDM, they’ve blown open the doors to a culture that’s been not-so-quietly raving in warehouses and underground clubs for decades. Raves have been a part of the underground music scene in the U.S. for almost as long as they’ve been around in other parts of the world. But for the most part, raves had been subculture stuff. And the idea of PLUR – Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect – was the glue that kept the subculture together. Ostensibly, PLUR is about being good to each other at a rave – not exactly a revolutionary concept – but common interest in the music, the tight-knittedness of the community, and (arguably, though not many people bother to argue the point) the drugs involved in PLUR made the idea work, so the acronym stuck and became an integral part of why people went to raves. Crash course on rave drugs: many people take Ecstasy, or its pure form MDMA (known as Molly), when they go to raves or shows. Someone who’s taken a pill of Ecstasy is described as rolling, which describes the overwhelming euphoric sensation some people experience in their muscles. Most people who take Ecstasy feel elation, exhilaration, and really really like (Love) the people around them. Great drug for a party, right?

Beyond Wonderland I can’t comment first-hand on what PLUR was like before DJs like Guetta brought EDM music to the mainstream, but I can tell you about Beyond Wonderland. It’s an annual rave organized by Insomniac, the same company responsible for Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC). Beyond Wonderland sold all of its 40,000 general admission tickets, which started at fifty dollars each, in a couple hours. I didn’t queue my computer at the ticket purchase screen before the website pooped out from 40,000 eager would-be ravers flooding the servers, but

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since I have a friend who works for Red Bull, and Red Bull is one of the sponsors of Beyond, I managed to finagle my way into the event. Beyond Wonderland was held in San Bernardino this year. The evening before and morning of the event saw one of the biggest storms of 2012, and the city looked like it had just been hit by a tsunami. Poncho time. After parking in a super secret (free!) spot, we jumped over a gutter river and joined a bigger river of people streaming to the gates. I had everything searched but my actual body cavities, waited for everyone else to clear the gates, and we entered. Beyond Wonderland is organized around six stages. The two biggest tents could probably each hold 10,000 people, and the four “smaller” stages were around a third the size of the big ones. Forty-foot long spiky neon-colored inflatable caterpillars, giant bubbles, and a bunch of other stimulating decorations hung from the roof of the house tent, there was a twenty foot tall flaming spiral in front of the entrance (people huddled for warmth in the mud around it), and rows of food vendors were selling hot dogs, water, and fruit skewers. In spite of the rain outside the tents, the air was filled with the unmistakable buzz of a festival. The rain outside the tents petered off by the time the sun went down and the big names took the stages. From an elevated platform at the side of the house tent I watched the crowd. As the sea of people echoed lyrics to one song, they all put their hands above their heads, palms up, and I was reminded of church; Christians put their hands up during worship all the time, and from the platform the house tent looked like a giant Christian rock concert at its most intimate moment. Walking through the crowd was a slightly sweatier if mostly friendly experience. The lights, lasers, melody, and bass blowing out of the front of the tent had nearly everyone dancing.

What’s Left As EDM and the rave subculture have been absorbed by popular culture, the drugs that are involved in raves have attracted more attention. Madonna, whose next album is titled MDNA, infamously asked the crowd at Ultra, a Miami uber-rave, who in the crowd had “met Molly.” I don’t think Madonna deserves credit or blame for anything more than identifying a growing market and shamelessly trying to get a piece of the action (really, it’s her job, and she’s pretty good at it). Clubs have started playing more house music, pop songs have house elements in them, and house songs have pop elements in them. So where to draw the lines between the culture where house music came from, drugs and dancing, and an intelligent music market staying relevant? Some people, people who had backpacks of kandi (brightlycolored plastic beaded bracelets exchanged as a token of PLUR), people who gave back rubs and light shows, people who had rave names and rave families, defend the culture as legitimate and loving. Some people justify the taking of drugs and dancing to loud music with the PLUR culture. Some people say the first group is dying out under waves of the second – others maintain there is no and never was a difference between the two. A friend whose rave name was The Thizzard (and who thought remaining Anonymous would give him more credit – I’ll let you decide) put it this way: “Where there is loud music, there will be people on drugs. And where there are people (on drugs and not), there will be those that believe in ideals. The question of whether or not these ideals actually exist depends on who you ask.”

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FEATURE

Artist Spotlight

by Hannah Saitta

Francisco Sandoval There’s a fairly good chance that if you are not a Thurgood Marshall College student living on campus, you haven’t been to Ocean View Lounge (OVL) lately, but you really, really should. During fall quarter, TMC and student club S.C.O.R.E. commissioned a mural which has transformed the lounge into a mixture of colorful abstractions and pop art. It highlights people like Thurgood Marshall and presents a beautiful juxtaposition between an eye and a globe. After having a campus-wide contest for designs, Francisco Sandoval was chosen as a collaborating artist.

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Francisco Sandoval, a sophomore majoring in Physiology/ Neuroscience at Revelle College, hails from La Puente, California, where he started drawing in his childhood. Using cardboard, sharpies, and pastels, he started creating what some would call his cartoonish art, though now he prefers the term “pop art.” It wasn’t until high school, after he participated in an art show and got first place, that he considered art as more than just a hobby. Once he came to UCSD, he decided to pursue this hobby of his even further. Besides on the wall of OVL, you can see his designs on random pillars and posts all over UCSD in the form of stickers (I just spotted one near Pepper Canyon Hall). He is also anticipating having an art show in OVL during Spring Quarter and participating in the Undergraduate Art Expedition. In the near future, he hopes to pursue a studio art minor and start his own clothing line of graphic tees called “Mojo” which you can find on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/ Mojo/156816821061025).

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illustration by Armin Chan

photo by Hanna Saitta

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Alone on a Saturday night

POETRY

river run by Hannah Saitta

by Edmund Wong

To be one alone on Saturday night, On a strange street a stranger nondescript, A distant witness to a hardy fight, A hooker cursing at a failed stoplight, Amidst the zealous honks and swirling wheels, Neon lights flashing the flesh of human sins, Uniform half-skirts and stiletto heels, Steroid-alloyed muscles and painted skins, Heavy-metal music like hot mercury Filling up the caverns of the spine, Chatters, laughter, noises, glances cursory, Precursors to the real beyond the line, The body, the scent, the faint touch and kiss, I wonder what is it in life I miss?

you make my heart skip a stone when one is lost another is thrown

let it be by Hannah Saitta

she told me a dandelion losing itself would be the perfect tattoo once she found herself a job and moved out of her in-lawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and is December a good time to conceive and I sipped my peach tea and wondered whether she misses wishing.

if all have gone below to bed the waves will echo my love instead

After a nap by Rachel Karp the Canyons in your eyes Bounce back the light dripping through the Maplewoods and Elderberry thickets. You sit on the ground, Your shirt unbuttoned, your legs smuttered in dirt and pine needles. You are most beautiful When your hair grows long and your lips part with gentle respiration.

POETRY 5

MANIA | SPRING 2012 | MANIAUCSD.COM

POETRY

Revealed by Iliya Peyson this morning atop the blue bridge four islands hidden almost always outlined brown rocky substantial against sky Las Islas Coronado. the westernmost northernmost tip of Baja Norte Playas de Tijuana bullring by the sea and a definite coastline rinsed clean for a day.

Ser by Lauren Andra Whether by atom or Adam was built the first breath, still it ripened, an unfolded flower of respiration on the branches of a family blooming.

less than a tenth of a tenth of one inch last night but Mt Laguna driving east in the afternoon.

by Mary Manu To All Those Gamers Who Make Their Second Home in the Worlds Created by Video Games

POETRY

Where Can I Find the Reset Button? Even human-looking animals have to pay mortgage… Or I am human living in an Animal world? I capture my Monsters, those wild beings They weren’t mine to begin with I tamed them to become their master As if I could carry them in my Pocket The world is always changing even when I am not fully there… I search for fossils They often sit in Rows Crossing to and fro I consider myself a woman Others see me as a Saint Even as The Third coming. A mole pops up when I hit reset… Life isn’t a game he says But I live it As if it was

In beginning from our lungs fertile breath roots the story, sings the sensory along, extends seven-billion stories towards the sky, and the voices rise highest by the veins of this body.

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illustration by Armin Cha

Better still, how dreams do not afford detail and we are dressed in a color we don’t know to name.

POETRY

don’t trust the synesthetes to palatably describe their tastes don’t you see that they are serpent-tongued merchants of rotting fruit? colorful and calculated, all pretense veiled in a façade of spontaneity all analysis sidestepped to faster finish the fixed race to the rainbow-tongued spit fest to the chaffed place where bullshit heroes, draped in painted plastic medallions, stand like unsuspecting accidents, knowing full well the time and date of their explosion and ensuing expiration.

dare I say, Menalque, that this is exchange here is my story to tell I will use words and characters to delineate the content of my ideas I will use synonyms to draw parallels and antonyms to erect jarring perpendiculars and rhythm to make the structure seem meaningful despite the content, despite the context

Close one. by Aimly Sirisarnsombat

POETRY

by Sean Burdeaux

Closeness I feel your breath sinks into my skin Your essence losing, feeling—

yet winning.

We tip-toe around it, side-glances transpire [but these Kodak moments expire] When we set them adrift to the wind Silent agreement— we are not for each other. nods. Can’t remember who did it first. We sat across from each other on the train, communicate by our eyes A sigh breaks ….the wedge only for the barrier to spring back UP [between] us (when we let the seconds slip by

US. )

Somehow we achieved comfortable yet nothing is worse than settling, and I for one would take you up on any standing offers to tilt the affixed angles of the faces in the portraits we’ve painted of each other if only you’d bother with Closeness I detach your feel kill the touch your distance near, far— a triumph with a crutch, a bittersweet compromise. The last swell, [[CRESCENDO]] before the close.

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POETRY

Sundress by Simon Rhee

I know a girl who wears innocence like a sundress setting every night around her ankles and every night there is a boy with kerosene in his eyes that she turns to and sometimes that boy is me

OJAI

by Cass Curl

GOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Ball the jack! Discussing William Gibson with writer ‘rents. Wander the backyards and schoolyards. Monica Ross + 826 form swashbuckling continuities. And the magic of your lofted roost. Bishop is brought back. But how serendipitous - wordfest! - so down to used book heaven for kitschy local composition. Scabby younger brothers earnestly quip unrequited love mush. Megalomania of MC sparks awkward hilarity. Average score: 9.6 “IM GONNA LOVE YOU, / EVEN THO YOU DONT WANT ME TO.” Cruising the groves, stealing oranges tho T.I.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. Kisses that are no longer stolen, but earned, like dog biscuits. Ojai - A moth larva that winds back into the dells + over low mtns of route 33, a longboarder’s endless slide. Smoke weed with your mom, an elegant quipper, serious razzer. DO the good ol’ boy routine with father, it’s easy when fathers have same name. Perched on the gable, coyote has been proactive in his pointilist panorama across night sky, the screen is off your window like high school. But this above all: The recalled image of you letting yourself out with the dog to piddle in the rock quarry, squat popped, giggling at Penny’s snaggle tooth. illustration by Young Yi

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POETRY

Hope. by Monica Csikesz The scent of sweet breath, The sound of sweet whispers, Softly scraping wooden chairs on soft wooden floors Devour the sound of their soft, sweet promises Churning memories of greater things Beautiful trinkets of the mind’s eye That one’s eye will never see, Like the dark bottom of a black well Can you see the stars in the night sky? Only after you press down your eyelids What can you see in the swelling darkness? Nothing, until you turn on the light Light inflames a heart Coals of love fuel a stagnant life force Fire feasts upon fire Endlessly, without question And there is no answer to redeem You, light worshipper – you, fire-eater There is no escape from that dark house Chiseled deeply within sheltered grooves of genius

Sweet martyr, do not stray too close Such a source for strength has the strength to burn Unforgiving, relentless pain – you may Recover, but you may not soon comprehend A new moon could be your guide among star-dusted trails You could transcend the grip of electric satiation And board the ship bound for shoreless seas, Freed by the promise of your eternal migration That hope remains, but it will not keep you Suspended in the light of your deep love. You keep Churning your buttermilk without any questions Veiled in stubborn forgetfulness to ask why Why are there moths drowning in the buttermilk? What triviality to your eyes, until the last embers die. Glasslike, that undisturbed sanctuary breaks when you Drown in that buttermilk, lathered in mourning waves The scent of smoke rising, The sound of broken promises, Of A memory that sounds like cracked wooden floorboards That sound of sweet death, of fluttering wings

Crawling upward from shadows and darkness You have found your divine stimulus And you keep it – you desperately cling to it Like a moth that always returns to the light Loyal resident of the safe house, Devoted practitioner of blind faith, You are not forsaken – you are not blind For you, certain blindness will consume blazing glory

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Cigarette by Iliya Peyson certain beverages require it coffee beer whiskey and sometimes I eat only so it tastes better

MANIA | SPRING 2012 | MANIAUCSD.COM

POETRY

by Rachel Karp

In the heat of WWII, there was a prestigious Lieutenant: Lt. Friedrich Heisel. Lt. Heisel was a legend in Germany’s eyes. He fought without fear inside the training grounds and eagerly manned his troops on the war front. In his commander’s headquarters, he read maps, polished his luger, and plotted his enemy’s demise. He would also listen to his phonograph.

Jetsetting

It was with this phonograph that the Lieutenant spent most of his time - after he had set his men at ease and his luger on the table. This musical player was rather a legend itself: in fact, it was the most recognizable item in the war. Friends and foes were quick to fear

This is New York leaving you cold and dirty and L.A. breathing down your neck This is a cocktail in your right hand and a Continental cushion under your ass This is you being lonely in Paris staring at the Eiffel Tower alone next to the ghosts of men who died on motorcycles or couldn’t afford the plane ticket This is Madrid where someone stole your wallet and Rome where you got the flu These are your eyes in Ibiza burning out of your skull This is London giving you the cold shoulder Athens touching your fingers San Francisco trying to play guitar your hair in a hot Honolulu breeze the sunlight in Tokyo and you stewing softly loving sweetly

once they heard it, for fear is what the phonograph projected best. While on the war front, the Lieutenant would play it, the musical legend, and would then point his luger at whomever he saw next. He would then press his finger to the luger’s trigger and BLAM! the fellow he saw would be dead. “Fear the music and steer clear of the legend:” that was the motto of all men. The phonograph embodied the Lieutenant’s irritable temper and the fact that war was his favorite pastime. One day, in the middle of the war, while Heisel was routinely cleaning his luger, the Lieutenant decided to turn up some fear in his men. Hence, he cranked-on his phonograph. As legend has it, the legend himself went to war with his reflection. As the notes on his phonograph tinkered out a melee, he pointed his luger at the first person he saw. With fear being the last thing in his mind, the lieutenant looked into a mirror. In it, he saw another Lieutenant and as legend goes, feeling fear far behind him, he placed the luger to his chin and left the war with a BANG! The phonograph still playing beside him.

POETRY

The Legend of the Phonograph

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by Nika Reyes

illustration by Young Yi

POETRY

ART

Kaash

by Nidhi Khullar

Art Gallery Kaash. It’s a Hindi word with no exact English equivalent. Some might say that it means “I wish,” but I believe that it is closer to “I wish…”, a wish with a hesitancy, bordering on “if only,” wondering if it truly exists or not. Kaash. It is a word that begins strong and hard, like the conviction with which you begin to pursue this wish. Its middle fills your mouth much as this wish will fill the waking moments of your days. And finally, the word comes to end with a soft shh, a sound like that of sand shifting on the shore of our consciousness as the ephemeral and eternal waves come in, washing away old kaashes and bringing in the new. Kaash. It has a certain delicate beauty about it. Perhaps its delicacy comes from the fact that it is the very beginning. Any great endeavor begins with a wish, a desire, an urge that if strong enough, evolves from a wish to will. But the delicacy which makes it so precious is also its biggest weakness. Mishandled, and a wish can be forgotten or worse given up on, shattering, leaving only the shards of regret. Kaash. It is a glass prism. Transparent yet solid, delicate yet substantial. And it has one other quality. During the latest of my countless examinations of it, I took into account all that I had learned from its previous examinations and turned it just…. so. Color. My grey water was awash in color. Wow. Kaash that you could have seen it. And perhaps you can, for I hope that your crystal may turn and your gray matter may too find its rainbow.

“Untitled” by Erica Oneto

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ART

“Sake” by Nadia Soerjanto

“Untitled” by Armin Chan and Yerrie Choo

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ART

“Untitled” by Charlotte Curtis

“Dangi” by Young Yi

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“Portraits” by Justine Hopkins

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“balance” by Nadia Soerjento

ART

“mindfulness” by Nadia Soerjanto

“Plug into your creative outlet” by Armin Chan

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ART

“Here” by Young Yi

“Nurture” by Lauren Andra

MANIA | SPRING 2012 | MANIAUCSD.COM

REVIEW

Fragments of an Extrasensory Life

Years later, I would remember that I was wearing a bandana. He and I have the same smile.

by Shannon Fox

I forgot how to be happy.

The hands are thin and spidery. I can feel the tension contained in the bridge of skin between fingers. The joints are thickened by carpal tunnel, thousands of tiny scars cutting across the whorls of the fingers and hand. The ring finger of the left hand is slightly thinner, as if a wedding band had only very lately been taken off. I find your nails to be short and square, manly for such delicate hands.

oot Gen” by from “Baref

At 8:15 in the morning, Hiroshima was destroyed in a flash of light. Within hours, the entire city was decimated in a “sea of red…flames everywhere engulfing everything and everyone.” Keiji Nakazawa, like Gen of his 10-volume graphic novel saga Barefoot Gen, was only seven when the atomic bomb destroyed his home and took the lives of his father, older sister, and little brother. Before that fateful day, Gen and his family, like so many other families throughout Japan, were struggling with poverty and food shortages caused by the war. However, his father was adamantly against the imperialist sentiment common throughout that time and loudly criticized the glorification of war. After the disaster left Gen and his mother without a home and struggling against the threats of death and poverty, they managed to survive thanks to the charity of close family friends as well as Gen’s determination and relentless spirit, which gains him the love and kinship of survivors, orphans, and disheartened civilians alike.

awa

Keiji Nakaz

The destruction caused by the bombing as well as the horribly burnt and mangled bodies of the dead and the survivors are horrors that Nakazawa himself witnessed and portrays with grim scrutiny. Yet, the cruelty and selfishness of those who refused to aid the survivors in the wake of the war – the yakuza preying on young orphans and the school system, notorious for applying militaristic principals on students – are also rendered graphically and in brutal, honest detail. While Barefoot Gen is a testimony against war, is also a harsh criticism of those who whitewash the Second World War in glorious, imperialist sentiment. Keiji Nakazawa spares no one and especially damns the Emperor for his blithe and deliberate ignorance of the suffering of innocent civilians, both foreign and Japanese alike, caught in the destruction. Barefoot Gen is something that shouldn’t be overlooked because of the simplistic style of its artwork, and is certainly not for the weak of heart. This series is truly a cry for peace and an end to destruction.

- Reviewed by Rosa Cho

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Your fingers lightly scratch at the top of my hand. My free hand fingers the hair on your forearm, unexpectedly soft. With those hands, though our voices float with those around us, I know we are connected. Those fingers say, “I remember you. And I love you.” Later, you splay your fingers across the supple plane of my stomach, stretching far apart like a hand on an old yellowed globe. “Here there be dragons.” Your thumb is on Brazil, index on Florida, center in the middle of the stony Atlantic, ring touching the coast of Africa, and your pinky lovingly caressing Kenya. If you were in Kenya, would you remember to say I love you? When someone else stroked the hair on your arm, tenderly as I did, would you remember who I am? I can’t imagine my fireplace without you. The confusion softens your eyes, the long eyelashes that graze your cheekbones when you look down. “Don’t you understand it?” Fingers press a little harder into your hand, small dents in the cracked and weathered plateau of your skin. “Of course I love you. Why do you worry so?” A basset hound hangs its head out the car window, drooping ears brushing a trail in the faint dust of the van. The girls hug each other goodbye; neither understands that they will only see each other once more in their lives, but only for a moment. My hands grip the smooth leather of the pommel of the saddle. Dad holds the halter of the saggy pony. Mom prompts me to smile, following us along the rail of the fence.

You notice that your body has a certain awareness. You suddenly know it exists as people see it. It is no longer just a machine to propel you along, to house the morsels of food you savor, to feel the sensation of hot pricking sun on pale legs.

FICTION

Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen

The hardest. The best. You found the strength to survive after passing a cold night sleeping on the balcony, a few feet from the bed in your dorm room. As you sit in the sun and listen to the sharp voice of your mother on the phone, you wish that her words didn’t carry knife points. These are certainties: The fine shower of dust from a hay bale. An unbroken crust of snow, glittering in the last light of a winter’s day. The gingerbread men with the perfect candy buttons. The opalescent buttons on your shirt. You. Giving into the complete deadness of the ocean by night. The moon, hanging heavy in its orbs, descending low over the rippling ocean tide. The copse of aspen trees, nodding to each other as red and yellow leaves catch the breeze. Hooves pounding across summer-hardened dirt. The feeling of waking up warm and loved. The regal face feathers of an owl. A pile of freshly typed pages. The interplay of shadows and light across a silent human face. There is a secret in this house. I fold my pillow over my ear and pretend not to hear it. What is it? What is it what is it what is it what is it what is it I have cheated death too many times. I could have died as I was being born, the cord of life tightening against my throat, squeezing off the breath I had yet to give. If the driveway had been a foot or so higher, the car would have slid through the glass window into the kitchen. I had my back to the window, eating salty cheese poison crackers and watching some brain degrading show. Was it a way to get my attention? To prompt me not to waste the moments of my life? The wind was blowing with the hell of six demons and a midwife. I never saw the pole before – it must have been there ten years – it never chose another moment to fall or come loose except for the day I stood under it, where its trajectory took it in the path where my shoes had been had I not leapt back, staggered by the fear that vice-gripped my heart. Is there a limit to how many times you can cheat death?

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FICTION 29

by Michael Chang

by Charlotte Curtis

Tramping the Celestial Sphere:

- Some fancy-ass bread (like a baguette) – under $2 Chapter 1: In Which I, the Protagonist,

These chewy drop coo kies are perfect for special occasions, picnics, or long days at work when you need a little sugar rush. Even staunch oatmeal haters love these cookies. Essentially,Do I take aTravel basic chewy,Across oatmeal cookieOur and add anything I have in the cupboard that would go well in cookies. Sometimes I use raisins and dried apples, but my favorites are cherries and cranberries. Feel free to pick your own extra ingredients! You can also add ½ cup of white chocolate chips for extra sweetness, but you should reduce the brown sugar to only ¾ cup to compensate. I lay in the grass one day, counting the number of blades What need: area, when I decided to try something. I withinup a modest - stuck 1 ½ my cupsfoot Flour out in the open air, probed a bit, and felt a - precarious 1 tsp Baking Soda Ah, there it is, I can walk on light. How platform. - convenient! 1 tsp Cinnamon Probing with my other foot, I found a slightly - more ½ tspstable Salt hold. With a push off the ground and a warbled - dance, 1 cupI Butter, softenedsuspended on a sunbeam. was airborne, - 1 cup Brown Sugar - I have 2 Eggsto admit that it was difficult at first. You think - otherwise? 1 tsp Vanilla Tryextract balancing on a particle that has a surface area - less 1 tsp Almond than a moteextract of dust! With a few steps, though, I found - the 3 cups Fashioned Oatmeal (instant is okay) best Old photons — deep and sumptuously violet-colored - —1 in cupwhich Coconut – sweetened, shredded, flakes to support my weight. My legs, having long been - atrophied ½ cup Walnuts – chopped from only walking on the rather pedestrian terra - 2 cups Dried Fruit of your choice (Recommended: firma, needed a little stretch, and a short jaunt to the upper Cranberries, Cherries) atmosphere only a handful of kilometers away seemed apropos. 1. Heat oven to 350°F and line baking sheet with parchment paper Simultaneously, Earth’s curvature manifested as the shadow 2. In a bowl, whisk dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, of night marched across its surface. I dipped my hand into a cinnamon and salt. stream of orbiting junk and snatched out a wayward screw 3. In another bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy, – small and pristine, with slowly meandering threads. There is then add egg and vanilla. no rust in space. 4. Pour wet mixture into the dry and stir until just combined. This year, so near periapsis, is perfect for walking Addtime oatsofand remaining ingredients: dried berries, nuts, on light. I prayed to Michelson and Morley to conjure me coconut, white chocolate chips. cane from thewith aether, a nice sturdy knotted 5.a Scoop dough generous spoonfuls: pressone andwith form a into worndisks handle speaking silently of past adventures. Of approx. 2” diameter and ½” tall. (Small, fat course, the oldlightly codgers refused. bitter about failed little cookies, pressed flat)Still Cookies will notyour spread experiment, gentlemen? the Earth thethem sun much because they areAs dense, so youocculted can place leaving only the fiery corona to pave my way, I struggled to close together. keep my footing. But, somehow, some way,be I kept 6. Bake 12-14 minutes, outer edges should firmupright to the bytouch. some philanthropic object. Who could it be? I scanned What — ? Is on that...? Orion’s Nebula! Thy to 7.the Letheavens. stand for 2 minutes baking sheets then move haziness doth supporteth my path! Capital! To think: for wire rack to cool completely. hundreds of thousands of years, humans have looked at this dot and thought it to cookies be just another star. The arrogance. Makes about 2 dozen Serendipitously, the first Übermensch raised His fancy polished glass and — what do you know! — it’s a big splotch of fiery gas, dust, and infant stars.

What you need:

- Tomatoes (as wide as the baguette) – On sale, you can find them at $.99 a poundPleasure Domain for Your - A few cloves of chopped garlic, as fine as you can get them to be – $1 or cheaper by Josiah White - Butter (or olive oil if you’re worried) – Hopefully you have some left over from whatever, otherwise it’ll be around $3-4 - Optional - Grated Parmesan Cheese (the real kind, not Kraft trash) - $5 ifmynot on sale. cap. Now I that passed bypowder-like Beteigeuze and doffed proverbial - this Youris favorite of Mozzarella Cheese - $3-5 a star, mytype friends! Bloated and boiling! Our star is but - an Basil or dried) – Fresh: $4.eventually Dried: $1expanded at the 99 cent ant,(fresh an aphid! Orion’s Nebula so storeas to fill my field of vision. Plenty of paintings have been large - inspired Dried Oregano - $1 dust at the 99 cent by this tepid cloud, and store I can safely say they got the colors all wrong; too heavy on the fuchsia, or magenta. Total cost: $18the if you go all thebyway fanciness or lack I recognized Horsehead theinbreed and maneuvered some roughlyastronomer 30 pieces were to point myselfingredients, such that ifmakes any learned their engorged tubes this way they would see a man 1.straddling Don’t freta over thehand lack of measuring utensils.face Only horsey, raised in mid-gallop, contorted worry about that. You’re not a beginner, are inbeginners a yokel grin. you? Having had my fill of this particularly average universe 2.formation, Cut the baguette slices. walk, Use astrolling serrated knife (as I set outinto on athin random across in it has teeth – think sharks), piqued as they’re for gamma rays towards whatever mydesigned fancy. I passed cutting super-heated into things with a crust. A normaland knifegiggled will do, through clouds of electrons asbut the it won’t do a great job. The sharky-er, the better nanoest of amps tickled my feet. I crawled inside the core of a neutron star and played marbles with free quarks, keeping 3.inSpread butter, parmesan garlic on mind to collect three forcheese, Musterand [sic]chopped Mark. I stumbled top oftwo baguette slices. You do knowin what garlicdance, is, right? across merging galaxies, frozen a chaotic which had torn apart their bodies but left their cells intact. A 4.wayward Bake at 350 degrees forMatter 5 minutes. you as chunk of Dark lent Congratulations, itself as an ideal chair just made garlic bread! But if you’re not lazy you’ll go on I waited for the galaxies to make a pretty picture. They never and make the rest of it. But garlic bread is pretty darn did, not even a bunny rabbit, even after a hundred thousand nice too. Friends will be impressed when you tell them years of melancholic observation. you made it yourself (friends that don’t know how to make it, at least). There was little left to see in this universe. Dark Energy turned out to be a simple misunderstanding. Really, just a 5. While the bread is baking, begin to slice the tomatoes. mistaken sign somewhere. I’ll explain later. For a bit, the jet of Make sure that the slices are about as wide as the bread. a blazar propelled me towards The Great Void, but eventually Eat the other pieces that are too big or small. EAT THEM. the friction from lonely hydrogen slowed me to a stop. There rotated,the watching the Great “Nothing” 6.I When bread isasdone, take itBlack out and put oneorbited slice me. Sure, fine, I’ll walk towards it and try to find this and fabled on each piece. Then top with mozzarella, oregano, Supermassive Black Hole with its postmodernist properties. basil. Be careful to not put too much oregano. You don’t want to bite into something that looks like a pizza but On exactly thirty-third step, a photon beneath my tastes like my spaghetti. left foot gave way and I tumbled downward. Despite my the radio photon I nabbed — a let 7.lightning-fast Bake again atreflexes, 350 degrees for five minutes. Remove, regrettably A note from some ancient and cool for a redshifted moment, then serve.

by Steve Bass forgotten civilization — was not enough to support my weight. I fell. My flailing arms and legs eventually quit from exhaustion, my voice had noyour medium in which send When yourand stomach is empty, meal points aretoout, and out As for the alights ofmake even some the closest galaxies youvibrations. need to eat week, of these enchiladas. They’reout, prepared in layers, so it’s easy to blinked I resigned myselflike to lasagna, an eternity of real meditation throw together. towards the single-minded task of converting mass to energy. Only then would I be rid of this cursed existence. What you need: Two cans of enchilada sauce. out the ingredients on I -struck something and heard myCheck back snap. Several decades the labels; I waslike surprised to see how of them have passed as I rolled a terrapin trying to many right myself. high my fructose cornbreaks syrupof asfrustration the secondI ran or third ingredient. During frequent my hand over A pound of shredded chicken. It’s easiest to buy a whole the surface below me: smooth, not chaotic like the other cooked chicken and pull the meat off . Youbut canfound also cook photons. I tried to push through the surface it rigid. chicken yourself, butand buying it already cooked is back a lot into When I righted myself popped two vertebrae faster Iand not that muchofmore expensive. position, explored a shell colored light, stretching off to A pack of corn tortillas. the horizon of four-dimensional space. - A big glass pan. - A pound of shredded Jack cheese, Only when placing my eyeMonterey yoctometers away from the shell did I notice a variance in the color: mostly blue and green, Extras: with a few scant islands of yellow and red. My silly Earth- Zucchini and bell peppers. Cook thema almost all the centered culture resurged when I found huge patch of way blue before putting them in the enchiladas. in the shape of South America. - Cotija cheese to sprinkle on top. It’s yummy. The sight, feel — and, why not be literary, smell! — of the Oven: 350 degrees Fahrenheit and weary traveler. Its gentle shell pleased this universe-wise caress and cool temperature soothed the knowledge that Dump a canbreach of enchilada the bottom of I 1. would never it. Nonesauce of myinto species would. The the pan. aggregate of the joy and suffering felt beyond the wall, the 2. Lay down a layer of corn tortillas. thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and — oh — of 3. Sprinkle chicken, cheese, and a thin layer of sauce over the course I would forget the rest of the damned quote now! tortillas. 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you’ve reached the top of It was then I decided to take a nap. I lay back against the the pan. shell and caressed it lightly with my fingertips, trying to differentiate between the colors as I lulled to sleep. Put the pan in the oven for twenty minutes. After that, let it cool, then cut it into squares. Makes enough to feed six or seven really hungry college students at once, or one hungry college student for about a week.

25C off a bagel or samosa at The Food Cooperative

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MANIA | SPRING 2012 | MANIAUCSD.COM