CalArts Eye, No. 4, Vo. 5

VOL. 5

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MAY 2015

NO. 4

IT’S SUMMER AND I’M BURNING AND I FEEL MY LIMBS MELTING AWAY. IT’S HOT BUT IT’S BEAUTIFUL AND I WANT ONLY TO LIE IN THE SUN UNTIL I BECOME PART OF THE EARTH.

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CONTRIBUTORS 666not_cool666 Patrick Behnke Gingy Q Aimee Goguen Harri Gould

EDITORS

Stephanie Taglianetti Lauren Artiles Ben Levinson

Ixty Charlie Latan Sirap Leakim Ben Levinson Salina Mahoney

Luke Martin Drew Straus AJ Strout Stephanie Taglianetti Margaret Andersen

DESIGNER Cover text excerpt from L’été 2015,

by Itxy. Cont. on page 9 Photo credit: Patrick Behnke

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THE CALARTS EYE IS AN UNCENSORED, MULTI-MÉTIER PUBLICATION COMPOSED & CREATED BY

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STUDENTS AT CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS, LOS ANGELES.

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3 Photo credit: Patrick Behnke

BOOK ONE: LIKABLE Always Joyful Strout This book dedicated to Dreamy Kremlin Introduction: Being likable is easy peasy most anyone can do it well by following these simple rules.

Chapter One: Gender Performing dike-able is not an approved likable virtue and should be avoided.

A display of dude-li-ness by any girl or woman is a threat to the male position.[1] Likewise, men should avoid being feminine, girly, whirly, sweet, or cute or be deemed weak wispy wymens.

Forget your reality and accept that positivity is more important than the truth.

Chapter Four: History Tell no one that you've almost died or faced any kind of trauma cuz that's a bummer-rama.

Never bring up your past life since it's a testament to all that made you un-likey-likable.

Simply forget all that is neutral or melancholic-ish and be positively positive.[4] Chapter Five: Behavior

Once you accept your rightful gender it's appropriate to thoroughly address identity issues.

Be pleasant and outgoing! these are the ingredients for acceptable-ness and love.

Chapter Two: Identity

Smile a lot and forget about the unapproved events that shaped you into unlikableness.

Forget yourself altogether fashion an identity of newness [2] made from what isn't wrong with you.

Being likable takes practice fake it 'til there's nothing left but newly new yew.

Don't talk to the likable you may scare them away with your unlikable conversations.[3] Spend time with likable people likableness transfers quite well from one person to another.

Chapter Three: Transformation

Buy things for the likable cuz they're more worthy and may acknowledge you in return.

Conclusion: If all else fails, learn to like alone-ness.

Footnotes [1] Female athletes are an exception [2] For a list of approvable identities, see book 2 [3] Buy Commendable Conversations by the same artist [4] Overly positive-ness is also unacceptable

Take anti-depressants in case your unlikableness is due to super sadness.

Get plastique surgery as it may increase confidence-ness and confidence is completely likable.

Exercise more! endorphins make you happy and happy is likable, unhappy is not-able.

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THOUGHTS ON VISITING ARTIST, CHARLES CURTIS, and Beauty (i.e. Cognitive Consonance) ∆ Ben Levinson

∏ Charles Curtis visited Friday1 to tell us about the wolf tone on the cello and the ways in which he and Eliane Radigue (in their piece, “Naldjorlak”) approach something near magic through fault and failure. Although, he didn’t say that. I suppose, I am saying that.

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5 A place to start: the wolf tone is a disturbance on the cello. It wavers, croaks, and insults the ears in the settings that we most often give the cellist. We give the cellist directions: eliminate the wolf, obfuscate the change in bow, maintain a nice tone (rich and warm), etc. The cellist obliges. She may be lauded for her doing so (all the while achieving cathartic expression nonetheless!).2 This is the classical mode. The cellist is a channel, an avenue for the heart of God, perhaps. The composer: an everlasting divinity that must be expressed. She allows breaths of style and ornamentation to be left to the machine—the cellist, the stylist. This is not to say that the cellist becomes a slave. A certain cellist may be relieved by this divine capability of transmittance.3 He is suddenly free and able to receive the composer and her content. 4 This is no condemnation. This is fodder for an essay into the troubling matters of music-making: beauty, agency, voice, style, material, and ideology. If I make one decisive statement in all, it may be that beauty itself is a normalized construct, built up from a tradition of claiming certain qualities as beautiful (i.e. positive).5 I think I can make this statement and back away without much repercussion. But, if this is so— if beauty can be conceived as an expression of power (a norm to be wary of )—what can one do about it?

We know the traps: hold too tightly to the patterns of beauty and we find kitsch, or worse, cheap material for propaganda; divorce ourselves from beauty (i.e. recognizable patterns) altogether, and we find nothing: true noise and the experience of drowning in a sea of information all the while floating among it.6 What of stretching the bounds of beauty? One might push the elements of beauty until the edge of a breaking point. Surely, it has been done, and where does it get us? To new styles and new voices! New iterations of that disturbance, beauty. How do we approach it without expressing and reinforcing the powers that act through this beast?

is a product only of the entirety of the experience it took to make it—an investigation of sorts of the prospect of attempting to tune the entire cello to resonate at the normally decried of wolf tone. The resultant sounds of this experiment are otherworldly and doubtlessly beautiful, yet they seem to purport a removal from the ideals of beauty. They are supposedly nothing more than the full exploration of the sounds typically tossed aside. Here is a materialist approach to the task of beauty. It’s appealing.9 Music Workshop (Prof. Michael Pisaro): Friday, April 17, 2015 Experimental 2 Not to say that there is no virtue in navigating the harshest constraints! Many find freedom in this terrain, and who am I to tear them from it?

3 Freddy Perlman said it was the only –ist that he would allow himself to be called!

4 A reiteration of the dead, of dead iterations of beauty, that aesthetic purity which we gather around and devour its essence. It will make us all the more human, we beg of it.

5 We project its patterns upon all that we view. Michael Pisaro tells us of the grids of Agnes Martin: perfectly imperfect so we know their aspirations despite their failure. The viewer is only aware of the flaws of the grids because the viewer’s reductive perception supposes that the grids themselves wish they were not flawed—a sort of suspension of disbelief. Perhaps all beauty works something like this.

6 Of course, this is an appealing prospect to some.

7 But he has no interest in claiming authorship!

8 Without a score it can hardly be replicated by another or even analyzed compositionally. Furthermore there is no reasonable way to discern what each collaborator lent to the piece in the first place.

Through a process of collaborative authorship, the piece becomes somewhat illusive.

9 But, to be certain, the listener (myself and others) must then bring their own ideals of beauty to the piece. They project their beauty on top of it, denying its denial. Betraying it. These sounds are beauty and will continue to shape beauty. It doesn’t matter that you found it in the trash, it will be beautiful nonetheless.

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We come back to Eliane Radigue’s “Naldjorlak” for Charles Curtis’ cello. Curtis explains that it was written cooperatively.7 It has been born out of experience and leaves no mark other than its own.8 The piece

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From Girls To Blob I once knew a slippery lady. She slipped and slimmed on me. She slid and slopt off me. She made it sloppy. She made it wet. She ran and jumped on me. and shinned. and sloughed away. Her house was a cream house. She smelled like a milk boy. She ghosted me. A shut in, a lock down, a runner up, a registered offender of crime.

Hosing Photo credit: Patrick Behnke

My mouth has thrasher teeth. They call me dog mouth. They call me.

They bite at me and I bite back. They are also dogs with twisted mouths. We lick dog and eat dog. My mouth has a dog inside of it. When I open my mouth the inside mouth dog takes a deep breath of air. I shut my mouth on the mouth dog. I win with my mouth shut. I open my mouth to breathe and bark and bite. I howl and growl at her. I open mouth kiss never. My mouth is filthy from all the licking. My mouth opens for inside out girl. My teeth chew her hard. My teeth are dog teeth.

Dogs Of Church I turn her over and force her to look at a life-sized porcelain tiger.

Her heart pooped and tiger grrrrd. I turn her over and force her to look at other things that are weird. She is possessed. I can’t tell if I was the demon entering her body or the priest performing her an exorcism. I turn her over and force her to look at the church. I turn her over and force her to look at the dogs barking at the church. I turn her over and force her to look unconscious. I turn her over and she eats freely off my lap. She is a lap dog. Lapping up milk and just eating. She eats dog of farm. She eats 23 year old bulldog. She eats thick butch women. Strong women; women athletes like basketball players and long distance runners. She eats women that build boats, women that race sail boats, and women that cut down wood. Women that stomp around kicking cannibal chimpanzee. She eats slow and fast and hard. She eats for pleasure. She eats police officer, deputy, dispatcher, and 911 Operator. She eats so many things. I turn her over and force her to fuck her own face. I bend her further and longer away from me.

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7 Photo credit: Patrick Behnke

JONI

Funny that Joni Mitchell’s California sits in Paris, France. James walks towards me.

He grabs me & he pulls me from my seat.

I’m not Joni, I’m with her. A song & a poem sit side by side in a park in Paris, France.

The only thing she does is sing on & on about California & what she will do.

A poem won’t sit and it moves back to James in New York, who won’t let it sit. He’s reading the news and it sure looks bad. The news, it’s all here too. Joni knows it, but that’s all.

She just sings. She’d kiss the sunset pig, but she’s sitting in a park in Paris, France.

Meanwhile, the poem has moved on.

I’m living with James Chance in New York now. Things are pretty good. I think about Joni from time to time & when I do, she’s still sitting, singing about California. She dreams about it too, I imagine. I wanna see the folks I dig. Joni, you sound too chipper to know that the news looks bad. My apologies if I sound a little droll, I can’t handle leaps as well as you do, sitting in Paris, France, all the while placing the song in California.

Did it help you get there? I’m just stuck, waiting for someone to force me out of my seat. It sure looks bad. It sure does.

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LOVE NOTE �

Salina Mohoney

There was a customer at work today.

This morning he had shaven half of his handle bar mustache off.

Before ordering, he mutters, "let's skip the mindless and typical consumerist transaction and let's actually care about each other's day." He speaks out of the corner of his mouth, eyes watery and wandering.

"How is your day?" Me. "Good. And yours?" Him. "Fine." Me. He tries to haggle the price of his coffee (black, no room) like they do "back in Tibet." Like he went to "this summer." Which was a very "enlightening experience."

He then joins his group of equally half shaven, sharply dressed friends. They huddle in a group discussing important things.

Like books and facial hair.

I thought about sharing this experience on Facebook. I thought about telling my friends about how much he annoyed me. I thought about shaving the other half of his stupid handlebar mustache and making it a nostache, a sad-statche.

He seemed to be missing that he was sitting in a Barnes & Nobel Inc. and worse, I didn't really hand him that coffee at all.

In fact, Fifth Avenue New York handed him that coffee. 41,000 employees handed him that coffee. Even our crumbly, 73 year old executive chairman from who-knows-where handed him that coffee before I did. The man was just a walking question mark in funky, red suspenders like all the other walking question marks in funky red suspenders.

If ordering coffee and the "transaction" seems forced: Step 1 is checking you're not douche bag. Step 2 is not lecturing your neighborhood coffee gal about the woes of consumerism.

Especially when I have the power to either make a really great (or extremely crappy) cup of joe.

Thanks sweetly, Your local, sassy barista

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9 The heat permeates through my tan skin and I feel restless and fatigued. It’s summer and I’m burning and I feel my limbs melting away. It’s hot but it’s beautiful and I want only to lie in the sun until I become part of the earth. I want warmth and sleep but summer seems only to offer an inferno and insomnia. Itchy uncomfortable sad and eager. I coin this the worst summer ever. I cry at best twice a day. I’m trapped in a sauna with the same depressing playlist playing over and over again. In my house. In the car. From my phone through my earphones.

Reminding me that summer feels like a long slow period of time filled with agitation and desire for movement. It’s late June now and I’m a plank of sad, sad wood. I’m immobile. I write sentences in my head, think of texting my friends and asking to hang out, but instead I rest without movement for weeks. I stare at the damaged wooden floor, at the chipped walls and grime between the cracks of tile on the kitchen counter. I sit in the sun and melt into the concrete. Now it’s mid July. I’ve made myself move but I do so with great diffi-

culty. My body, sluggish and yawning always. My eyelids fight to remain open and I can’t seem to stop scratching. The itchiness is intensifying- the sadness maintains a consistent existence. Panic attacks are decreasing. I lie in my mom’s messy queen sized bed staring at the ceiling fan as it attempts to cool me. I hug the pillow and cry, wishing without end that it would stop. I enter a vortex of self pity. I feel so bad for myself. I’m too young to be this sad.

I need attention, I need someone to hold me. I sweat, and I cry, and I cover my face. I’m so sad and it won’t go away. I scratch and make myself bleed and I cry until I can’t take it anymore and I need someone to make me stop. I cry into their arms, they tell me it’s only a season, I deny and declare that this is permanent. She holds my sweaty hands, hugs my itchy body, reminds me that it is only a season, Fall will come, and I will thank myself. She says we should do something, I’m melting into a clump of self-pity and depression. I stop scratching, I wet my face and we move. It disappears.

It returns. It digs deeper and deeper until

L’été 2015

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a knot forms in my throat and tears trickle down my face as they dance to old school Missy Elliot and sip on their beer. I feel distant and hot and I’m melting again. Inside I am falling apart, inside I am grimy countertops and scratched wooden floors and chipping walls.

Inside I am melting. On the outside it is beginning to show. Now it’s mid-august but my summer still has a month to go. The movement is ending, the momentum is at its close, and I only look forward to one thing. There are moments of bliss and infinity when I stop crying and see harmony in the world. It’s getting better I

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think. I see my favorite band play my favorite song; I move without lethargy, I am happy and inspired and reminded that this is only a season. I remember the day weeks after and wish to relive it. I place it in a special crevice in my heart.

It’s early September and it’s almost over. I coin this the worst summer ever because I cried for more than half of its entirety. I’m lazy and unmotivated. I promise never to return for months at end again. I remember how much love I receive, how grateful I should be, I cry because I’m leaving. I cry because the season came to an end but the feelings remain. I cry

because I won’t have my mom’s bed to lie on. I sleep it off. I don’t think about it. My playlist replays as we get a ride home, drunk and depressed with glitches of happiness as the cool air touches my face, making sure I don’t melt away. One time we stayed awake until the sunrise, drove home on an empty freeway at 90mph, and I felt the wind blow my sadness away. I was finally exhausted from lack of sleep, I fall asleep in my sisters arms as the day begins.

Poem for my mother on her 70th Birthday DR EW STRAUS So, this is you at 70, sitting by the library window.

Your tinsel hair, lank and gleaming, sends glowing fish over the surface of the books, all the way to where the canaries lay sleeping, near the stacked flutes. Your hands fold and shift in your lap like tiny bellows. The shelllike room fills with echoes.

Let’s walk together, past the garden, where the trees bloomed in violence, to my table

CHAR LI E LATAN tucked between valleys cupped by leaves.

How loud does one speak to the dead? Across the table you sit with you hair like stars.

Your voice whistles past the house, and rustles a book in the library.

After you blow out the candles, I wait for you to speak. Some sounds are found so far from their origin, that the source has long since dried up.

It is no surprise to hear your voice now. Lift me to your ear to hear the sound of the sea.

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11 Photo credit: Gingy Q

A STUDY OF DISSATISFACTION: the prophet.

Perception, an extension of privilege.

2 beings.

1 Intrinsic reality.

Is it not insecurity who breeds environmental reflection?

“Speak, so that I may hear you!”

HE, the social being, erased the past So that we could contemplate.

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∆

Stephanie Taglianetti ∆

nce there was a Little Dirty Girl who didn’t have a house. She had many houses and none of them were pretty. And none of them were really houses, but her Momma liked to pretend. Little Dirty Girl was pretty, which made her Momma jealous because her Momma used to be the most beautiful.

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13 The horrible people from the lousy village would tell her Momma, Oh what a beautiful Little Girl you have, and they’d pretend she was clean the same way her Momma did.

And this made Momma mad, but she’d never say anything.

had to wear his cousin’s old clothes with holes, right?

Because clothes are for wearing, not for choosing. And clothes are just the product of stupid people in this stupid country and their stupid goddamn money.

And this also made Slapdaddy mad because no one was supposed to think that Little Dirty Girl was pretty because no one was supposed to look at her, ever. So he cut off all her hair and treated her like a boy.

And a boy wouldn’t care if he couldn’t have breakfast sometimes or lunch most times and a boy wouldn’t need someone to look at him or Momma and they should both just wipe those sad, stupid looks off their sad, stupid faces or else someone will.

And a tough boy with short hair wouldn’t mind sleeping on the ground, right? Because the ground is where all things start and where all good things are built and where the best things last.

And the ground is where Little Dirty Girl belongs anyway, with her pit-bull and the coldest air.

And a boy wouldn’t cry if he THE

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excuse me, stew, i disagree, what are we serving so i know how to sell it, those tee shirts are here, black coffee?, never gonna see this, yeah but it’s a, no this is fine, i think i’ll have a, they’re like, what’s that?, yeah, bank between, aw yeah, there’s a tattoo, ooooohhhhhh, i appreciate you, what is it, i’ll have a, habañero, no its French grilled, it’s a pas-

medium, uncountable rivers, too many streams, please, yes, yes, that’s good, yeah thanks, i’m waiting for my, to get together, how’s it going, boxes, even, dream that, seen, have you, seen it, have you, no, seen, no, nada, out front, he wants, it was like a sad, oh i was seven years old, this is, this good, cash, check, get you, i was sure, i

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was behind me, have a good day, you too, see you later, like a little warm up on the coffee?, sure thanks, oh i see, everything ok?, sure, no it’s not, no, no it’s not, two three four, oh!, yeah, do you like, he was like why?, to not be, i’ll have the, ok, seep together, seep apart, you should never, you couldn’t have that, i mean, if i didn’t do it right,

sit down, and in: egg plantation transcription 3.15.15 Luke Martin

ta sauce so it’s like spicy, i’ll be right there with a cup, yes, she said, i want cream, absolutely, oh my god, absolutely, right this way, oh yeah yeah, here we are, the history,

think we rollin’, speaking of, move, that’s crazy, we’re just, they’re just, that was good, were going and, what’s that, step on and calm down man, is that ok, mud, so

i’m proud of, that, are you crazy, i love that, please, how are the two of you doing today, oh wait till she takes the, what can i start off you with, the seventies?, choose your sides, fruit, cheese, i i i just, marshmallow,absolutely,

we went to the, yeah, i’m so sorry you were, yeah i mean, right, right, no, no, my back has been, frozen, well, thank you, this they had, take the time to ask, my father never, he yelled at me, hold up, thank you, yeah, figure out, it

photo: Salina Gallegos

yeah, it was, but, we’re good, yeah yeah, here tonight or this is our, and eleven, the whole thing?, only the same, no seriously, seriously, two years, yeah, yeah, drag, pull, here, yeah, make it, i’ll leave this here there’s absolutely no rush when you’re ready, hi!, so nice to see you, first heat of, they run though they run though, have a good day guys, yeah exactly that’s the problem, hi, you ready for

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15 another?, you know i, you the name that the name that know i, five six two, how was i know, it was an insurance, this one?, more coffee and yup, i mean it’s not, okay so, more, let’s do ok well is the it’s just a service, he works, pasta, well i don’t, like spice, i’m sorry, one hundred, who ok, ok, i can’t, ok, yeah well did math, oh no eggs, the it should be out pretty soon person, wouldn’t worry too, oh oh, here what, so about it on me, hi!, we saved much, too much, thoughts, you a seat, good morning, it’s alright though she’s, yeah five seats, mommy, not at all, last semester, everywhere, let’s not do that, it’s so, look crash, crumble, let’s not stay i just, turn it to me, i have long, we move but, see that’s just the thing, and even if he, we can’t, we can, it’s working and it’s not, and we float, so are you guys, i just faced it, oh no, that is customary, good morning, it’s not like that, it’s like a, good morning, Artwork: Sirap Leakim good morning, alright, how are you, how are no idea, can i ask you someyou, good, sliding and slip- thing?, my mom likes, is ping in a circle that, good, there an S there, i divided by coffee, you good, you good, half, i was thinking, oh well i’m good, don’t even like it, my god!, of course you can, i fight, i keep telling you is i’m so proud of you, scared, round, yes of course, where on this good morning, those were you?, thi¬s is taking, of were for, okay okay, no worcourse, there’s green salad, ries, morning how are ya, is round is wound around, let’s just imagine we are the, we do, yeah but we’re just thank you, brisket, how are giving away, no more, you you, awesome, smallest of and through me, has to be, pebbles, pushing, punctur-

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ing, if we are (un)lucky, the continuum, yes, of course, you may go, with chips, you want two, she said why?, she told me that, just just go, yes i’m meaning to say, would you like two?, bonjour, the way i see it, oh no i’m sorry well, uh oh, is this what you, i’m having, number, i know, six of them, see that last one, right, i didn’t have, dog paper, are they flying?, i’ll have the, is that going to be it for you?, no, warmed up, hey Vinny nice of you to wear the right uniform, led to the, i know, i know but um, the tickets are, yeah, fifty percent, are you serious, one, one, i cried, nice watch, are you ready for this?, we’ll make it happen, ah she said, you know what i said, well you know, is it so, like some more coffee?, no thanks, go down, how are you, good how are you, good thanks, sit down.

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dr. drew was talking about love on loveline

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loveline makes me sad, but i don’t know why because i don’t think love is real and it’s stupid to be sad about things that aren’t real but if i was jillian and i loved david and david and i had been dating for five and a half years and i found out after reading david’s facebook messages that david had been fucking a lot, like a lot, of other women i guess i might think that was something ‘real’ to be sad about most of the time, dr. drew is pretty nice to the people who call in even though they seem like sad and pathetic losers who are totally incapable of understanding that david just doesn’t love them anymore and suggesting an “open relationship” won’t make david love them, again dr. drew said on loveline that a person can form an “addiction” to another person dr. drew also said that there is a big difference between loving someone and being “addicted” to them i’m pretty sure jillian isn’t still listening to dr. drew because she keeps crying and suggesting different things that could “save” her relationship but, honestly, i’m not really listening to dr. drew, either, anymore because i’m, like, 99% sure i’m a “person-addict” and i’m, like, really freaking out about it

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JOIN THE TEAM! WE ARE SEEKING EDITORS AND DESIGNERS FOR THE 2015-2016 ACADEMIC YEAR! EMAIL EYE@ALUM.CALARTS.EDU FOR MORE INFORMATION

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