Dec 13–Jan 14 Fluent

ARTS | CULTURE | EVENTS

Dec 2013 – Jan 2014 | Vol 2 No 3

Next Stop: Home Angel’s Perch Fabric, Reinterpreted: The Textile Art of Kweli Kitwana Energy & Hue: The Art of Neal Martineau Imaginary Stories: Real Voices in Appalachia The Reluctant Artist: Joanna Athey Agri:Culture Predicting the Future Eyes, Ears & Soul Kate MacLeod Ed:Cetera Get Back in Your Cubicle and Think Outside the Box! Poetry Georgia Lee McElhaney Fiction Like a Peddler Opening His Pack Coda Beam Me Up, Scotty

“Never, never give up” by Neal Martineau

CONTENTS

Dec 2013–Jan 2014

Next Stop: Home Angel’s Perch

Fabric, Reinterpreted: The Textile Art of Kweli Kitwana

Energy & Hue: The Art of Neal Martineau

Imaginary Stories: Real Voices in Appalachia

The Reluctant Artist: Joanna Athey

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Agri:Culture Predicting the Future

Ears, Eyes & Soul Kate MacLeod

Ed:Cetera Get Back in Your Cubicle

Poetry Georgia Lee McElhaney

Fiction Cathy Baker

Coda Beam Me Up, Scotty

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C O N T R I B U T O R S Todd Coyle is a journeyman musician who has performed in and around the Eastern Panhandle of WVa and around the country for over 30 years. He has worked in folk, blues, pop, jazz and country bands as a guitarist, bassist, singer, producer and sound man.

Ginny Fite has won national journalism awards for her writing. She was editor of the Gazette Newspapers in Frederick, Lifestyle editor at the Herald-Mail and Executive Editor at Phillips Publishing before retiring to Harpers Ferry.

Shepherd Ogden lives in Bakerton, WVa. He is the author of five nonfiction books, one novel–memoir and a book of poetry. His photos and collected poems are at justsopress.typepad.com/facing.

Cheryl L. Serra is an award-winning writer who began her career as a journalist. She has served as a marketing communications specialist and a magazine founder and publisher.

Sheila Vertino is returning to her roots as a freelance writer and journalist, after a career as a magazine editor-inchief and book and research publisher.

Based in Shepherdstown, she describes herself as a culturally curious word nerd.

Ed Zahniser’s poems have appeared in over 100 literary magazines, 7 anthologies, 3 books and 3 chapbooks in the U.S. and the U.K. He is co-editor of In Good Company, an anthology of area poets celebrating Shepherdstown’s 250th anniversary.

F LU E N T W E B S I T E

See the Fluent website (www.fluent-magazine.com) for additional content, updated daily: Calls for Artists lists opportunities. Classes lists organizations offering arts instruction for children and adults. Back Issues is the Fluent Magazine archive.

O N

T H E

C O V E R

“Never, never give up” is No. 9 in a continuing series of paintings by Neal Martineau.

His work will be on exhibit through December at the Devonshire Arms Cafe & Pub in Shepherdstown and at Exhibitions Art Gallery in Martinsburg in January. His website is www.nealmartineauart.com.

A D V E R T I Z E R S

Skinner Law Firm Berkeley Art Works The Bridge Gallery

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MAGAZINE

Dec 2013–Jan 2014 | Vol 2 No 3 Nancy McKeithen Editor & Publisher Sheila Vertino Associate Editor Kathryn Burns Visual Arts Editor Zachary Davis Fiction Editor Tom Donlon Poetry Editor Contributing Editors Amy Mathews Amos, Shepherd Ogden, Paula Pennell, Cheryl L. Serra, Ed Zahniser Submissions For information on submitting unsolicited fiction, nonfiction, plays and poetry, please see the website: www.fluent-magazine.com/submissions.

Please submit events and arts news to submissions@fluent-magazine.com.

Fluent Magazine is published bimonthly and distributed via email. It is available online at www.fluent-magazine.com.

To subscribe www.fluent-magazine.com/subscribe All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be duplicated or reprinted without permission from the publisher. © 2013 Fluent Magazine

Fluent Magazine is grateful for the support of the Jefferson County Arts and Humanities Alliance (AHA) through its Community Arts Impact Award program.

Jefferson County, WVa is a Certified Arts Community.

You Are Here NEAL MARTINEAU HAS BEEN PAINTING and drawing since childhood but it’s only in his retirement from a long career in advertising and a move to Shepherdstown, West Virginia, that he’s decided his work is good enough to hang on a gallery wall — and now it is. Conversely, Joanna Athey began painting when she retired and moved to WVa. Athey is a member of the Potomac River Artists’ Guild and the Washingnton Street Artists’ Cooperative, and her work has been shown extensively in the region. Writer Ann Pancake, a WV native, spent time overseas teaching because, as she says, “I thought I had to get out of West Virginia to have something to write about.” Her short stories and books are filled with the lore and people of Appalachia. For J.T. Arbogast, a return to his grandmother’s home in WV inspired his screenplay for Angel’s Perch. The film, in which he plays a lead role and produced, has been shown around the country and is now available on cable and CD. These artists and writers fill the pages of this issue of Fluent. And they represent the vision of the magazine — to share the arts and culture of the Eastern Panhandle of WV and the surrounding region.

“Fluent is a magazine for this place and its people,” says contributing editor Shepherd Ogden. Fluent demographics confirm the majority of subscribers are in the Shenandoah Valley region — but they also come to Fluent from across the United States, and from Belarus, Turkey, France, United Kingdom and Israel. How did that happen? In part, through online word-of-mouth: forwarding email; Facebook friends, likes and shares; Twitter; and other social media.

And because good art transcends region and distance.

Shepherdstown Train Station

by July Olsen

Nancy McKeithen, Editor & Publisher

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AGRI:CULTURE

Predicting the Future

BY SHEPHERD OGDEN

AS WE ALL KNOW, weather can be fickle week to week or month to month, even if over the long term it shows some sort of climatic regularity. This known, we can consider predicting the weather a fool’s game or a wise man’s game; experience certainly shows that to be the case.

This truism holds true weather whether [sic] you are a trained meteorologist — with all the latest data and technology — or (just) an experienced outdoors person attuned to the turn of a leaf or the pelt of a Woolly Bear.

The editor of this magazine came to me a few months ago, knowing I had not yet put in the wood with which I heat my shack, and mentioned that she had heard it was going to be a cold, wet winter. As you might imagine, I asked where she heard that.

“I just heard the Woolly Bear bands were thin this fall and that means a hard winter,” she said.

“But who told you?” I asked, numbering among our mutual acquaintances many people who might or might not have the basis for such a prediction.

“I don’t remember,” she said.

PHOTO Shepherd Ogden

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So I checked around. It turns out that this woolly prediction method (examining the alternate color segments of the coat on the moth larva of the species Pyrrharctia isabella) has a significant basis in folklore and perhaps some basis in fact, although not completely what we might expect.

For eight years starting in the late 1940s, Dr. H. C. Curran, curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, collected Woolly Bears each fall from nearby Bear Mountain State Park and measured the width of the brown bands of bristles that encircle them. Apparently, he found an almost 80% correlation, although he was quick to point out that his sample was way too small to have any kind of scientific certainty.

In fact, one of the few scientists who did entertain the idea of a correlation between Woolly Bear bands and the severity of the winter was an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Michael Peters.

As reported in the 2013 – 2014 Old Farmers Almanac, his analysis took a slightly different tack: “The number of brown hairs has to do with the age of the caterpillar — in other words, how late it got going in the spring. The [band] does say something about a heavy winter or an early spring. The only thing is… it’s telling you about the previous year.”

The various almanacs published in the United States over the past two hundred-plus years have been a fount of weather prediction, using a number of different methods, usually related until recently with “cosmic” forces like sunspot or Saros (eclipse) cycles that are thought to have large-scale effects on land and ocean systems, and thus trigger atmospheric changes (i.e., weather).

More recently, some U.S. almanacs have incorporated more “scientific” cycles, like the El Niño and La Niña water temperature cycles in the Pacific Ocean (there are many others as well), which are predicated on Earth-based, empirical data collected by government agency satellites, balloons and many other sources rather than mathematically derived (though still observational) cycles.

There is always some art in the so-called science of prediction, though, as well as a certain art of expression that ties forecasting back to its agrarian or pastoral sources.

“No worries: It’s only flurries. Mild and beamy, then the opposite. A thaw feels dreamy. Rain (just a drop of it). Snow bursts, at worst. Drip, drip, mixed precip. Bright, bracing for toboggan racing.”

— The interline poetic rendition of January 2014 weather from page 125 of The Old Farmers Almanac Even the most modern, scientific expressions maintain their own specific vocabulary that is unique, as in this forecast (above) for December 8, 2013, from the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Predicting the weather is also big business, even outside the ads we see in almanacs selling home health cures. Any mail-order nursery that can afford it u

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PHOTO Wikipedia.org

hires a weather service to predict temperature and precipitation at the customer’s home around shipping time so they can ensure the plants arrive at the optimum time for planting. Pizza delivery companies use weather reports to predict when they may have increased demand (people stay home during storms) so they can buy extra supplies and schedule more drivers.

That may be a good cash flow for the data provider, but it’s insignificant compared to larger internet plays. The same kind of weather data that feeds into product delivery businesses also provides strategic guidance for such diverse industries as electric utilities (where should we station our crews as a storm approaches?) and global investment firms (especially insurance and re-insurance firms) whose future profitability depends on accurate predictions of future weather at given locations.

In all of this, “data provider” means just that, and in a very limited way. Historical and real-time temperature and humidity and barometric pressure information that any of these services (this includes Fox TV weather forecasts) depends on data from government sources. Cut the funding for this data acquisition and all these data-driven services (and

sources of morning commuting information) go away.

They serve not only the gardener, but the farmer, the processor, the shipper and the consumer.

Fact is, it seems that most of us would rather have a solid prediction about the future (even if wrong) than to stick with the daily ambiguity that would otherwise be our lot.

I am guessing that my local report of hard winter weather (and thus why I should get to work on my firewood) was based on a “Morning Edition” radio story that aired back on October 15th about the annual Woolly Worm Festival in Lewisburg, PA. After all, who is a better friend to the desk-bound editor than National Public Radio, another source of government-supported data? fluent

PHOTO Shepherd Ogden

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MISSED ANY ISSUES THIS YEAR? C L I C K

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New Location — 116 North Queen Street Martinsburg, WV

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New session begins Jan. 13

http://artworks.berkeleyartswv.org Full schedule and Registration online; call 304-620-7277 or visit.

For young artists: Egg tempera painting (11-14 yrs); Art History for home schooled; Junior Art Academy 7 - 10 yrs.

Featured techniques: Watercolor Workgroup (Int.-Adv.) Pottery - handbuilding Pastels basics & more technqiues Sketching: Beginning or Intermed.

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Writing a Mystery Novel; Adding the Thrills and Chills (2 series) To save your space, register at least one week ahead.

2014 EXHIBITS January 23 - February 9 ALL MEMBERS’ SHOW Work in multiple media by members of the Berkeley Arts Council, Inc. www.berkeleyartswv.org PO Box 984 - Martinsburg, WV 304-620-7277 berkeleyartswv@gmail.com fluent | 9

EARS, EYES & SOUL

Kate MacLeod: Connecting Through Words & Music

BY TODD COYLE

FLUENT You live in Utah and travel all over the globe. Your mom lives here. Tell us about your connection to the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and why you keep coming back.

KM I was raised not far away, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. My parents built a house in Harpers Ferry about 25 years ago, and I've been spending time there ever since. It being one of the most beautiful spots in the country and famous for historical reasons, I’ve enjoyed the chance to explore the area over the years. My curiosity also extends to finding out what is going on musically. I really do find inspiration for the music and songs I write in the people and places that I visit and spend time in. My mother, Marian Auer, is an artist and has created much art work based on the town and its surroundings. I suspect that by this time she has one of the largest collections of original penand-ink drawings of historic buildings in Harpers Ferry.

FLUENT You have a new album. Tell us about it.

KM My new recording is a collection of songs inspired by books, and it ranges over a thirty-year span of my songwriting. It was recorded with an audience in a bookstore in Salt Lake City and is titled “Kate MacLeod — At Ken Sanders Rare Books.” It’s my first recording from a concert format, and it was a surreal emotional experience revisiting some of the songs that I wrote so long ago. Some of the songs are titled the same as the source book, but some of them seemed to call out for new titles, depending upon how the song was unraveling. It’s available through Waterbug Records (www.waterbug.com), a small record label near Chicago.

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FLUENT Books are a big part of your life. What makes you pick a book to read? What’s your favorite? What author do you recommend to the beginning musician?

KM I have no favorite book at this time. There are just so many good ones. Most of the books I read are either given to me by friends or bought because of word-of-mouth discussion. In fact, I think most of the songs on the new recording were based on books that were given to me. I remember clearly who gave each one to me. Humorously, now that I have published this recording, people are giving me books all the time, in hopes they spawn a song. I receive them in the mail, and I can hardly keep up with them all. If I was left to my own, I would be browsing the shelves of the local libraries. Two of my grown children have worked fulltime in libraries, and my sister was a literature major in college, so despite my focus on music, books have been everywhere in my life for as long as I can remember.

For adults, there are two really interesting books related to music and the brain: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin, and Musicophilia and Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks.

FLUENT You’re known for your workshops and teaching. What’s your favorite thing to teach? What’s the first thing you say to a beginner?

KM I love to teach people to become comfortable enough with their own approach to music to allow themselves to feel free of criticism, opening them up to their possibilities instead of their limitations.

I love to teach improvisation on the violin. I tell beginners that music should be fun and enhance their lives, that music is a universal human expression. I think that if you can’t seem to play the instrument you have been trying, then you just have not found the instrument that resonates most with you—yet. Find the right instruments for yourself and then you won’t want to put them down.

FLUENT Could you talk a little about the importance of the local “minstrel” in community building and fund raising?

KM Local and community musicians are struggling in recent years with the displacement of musicians by technology. But honestly, most of us musicians don’t let that get us down. We understand the importance of the art, and we refuse to allow our culture to be plowed under. Musicians are usually still called upon to perform music for local benefits and on such occasions as weddings and memorials. These occasions are where the heart is and are the most meaningful events for people—a sign that music is at the heart of things.

FLUENT If you could recommend two books to the United States Congress what would they be?

KM A Faith and Practice manual of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). This will help them learn how to work together and find consensus for the good of the whole. 1491 by Charles C. Mann, a book that can update members of Congress on North American history.

www.katemacleod.com

FLUENT OK, I have to ask about influences and songwriting. Who are they, how do you use/channel them and... words or music first?

KM Traditional music is a huge influence, but so is contemporary folk and pop. I’m influenced by famous people, such as Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash and Richard Thompson, as well as lesser-known musicians, such as Jean Ritchie, Norman Blake and Mary McCaslin. I’ve worked with some influential contemporary artists who are quite famous, such as Tim O’Brien, who is from West Virginia and was recently inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. Tim produced my last solo recording, and his sister Mollie, also from West Virginia, has recorded some of my songs. Current artists influence me as much as the historic musicians do. You ask about who and how I attempt to channel? At this point, I am trying to channel myself. That is a big enough task. u fluent | 11

FLUENT One of the workshops you offer is “History of Song.” What is the connection between traditional song and the modern pop song? Has it changed? Or is it the same old thing in a new package?

KM Popular new music was not created in a vacuum.

Song structure was created by folk music as was the use of poetry and story line joined to melody. We still use most of the instruments that have been used for hundreds of years. Many famous music stars have had enough experience with older music to understand the “staying power” that enables a song to withstand the test of time, to be passed down through music experience.

I get into detail about this in classes, with examples of songs old and new. I enjoy writing songs that sound “old” and experimenting with things that are not the usual.

FLUENT The time genie has granted your wish to go to any time period and stay as long as you like, then come back to the exact moment of your departure, un-aged. When and where? Who do you hang with?

What do you want to learn? Take us on your fantasy.

KM Well, I don't know of a point in history when women had the human rights that we experience now.

So, I can't say that if I went backward in time I’d be able to do any of things I am interested in. Truth aside, I’d like to visit with Johann Sebastian Bach and his wife, Anna. I’ve always wanted to hear her sing the music that he wrote for her, as she was a vocalist. I’d want to hear them play and sing together. I would take some music lessons from him, as he was known as a great improvisor. Perhaps Anna could give me some voice lessons. Bach composed so much music, it was nearly unbelievable, a bottomless source of beauty.

FLUENT WV and UT. How do they compare?

KM Well, they could not be more different in landscape. If you need trees, stay home in West Virginia.

But in other ways, they are similar. There are many small towns and few metropolitan areas. The people create their own fun; they don't need to be impressed by anything from the outside. They live close to the land in many ways and enjoy their local resources. fluent

The Bridge Fine Art & Framing Gallery Holiday Exhibit 2013 • Through January 5, 2014 Featuring Paintings, Ceramics & Photography • Holiday Gift Ideas

8566 Shepherdstown Pike, Shepherdstown WV 25443 • 304.876.2300 Fine Art, Ceramics, Photography & Custom Framing 12 | fluent

Making a poem is like exhaling, and love is the inspiration for breath in this new book of poems by Ginny Fite.

Anyone who has ever loved, or lost, will find themselves in the poems in THROWING CAUTION. Somewhere in this book is your experience of love.

THROWING CAUTION is available on Amazon.com and also at the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative in Charles Town, WV.

things you’ll find on the fluent website all free, all the time the magazine: current & past issues to read and download gallery exhibit information calls for artists / contest info / audition listings arts & culture events listings arts class listings arts news how to subscribe, how to advertise, how to submit work, how to contact us <updated daily>

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Next Stop: Home “Set almost entirely in the small, historic logging town of Cass, WV, Angel’s Perch examines the delicate relationship between past and present, memory and loss,” reads the film’s web site. It’s about a grandson’s relationship with his grandmother, named Polly in the film, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s also about family and obligation, choices, and the beauty and kindness of the land and people of Cass—in 2010, the population was 52—located on the Greenbrier River in Pocahontas County.

Angel’s perch is the second-level seat on a train caboose. When the mill in Cass closed down, writer J.T. Arbogast’s grandparents helped to convince the state of West Virginia to commission the town and the steam railroad as a State Park. u

by Cheryl L. Serra

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PHOTO Walter Scriptunas II

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S

eventy-year-old Homer Hunter was nervous.

He was at dinner before going to the WVSU Capitol Center Theatre in Charleston, WV, with his lady friend, Faye Cregger. About 40 other family members and friends would be there, too. Surely it was going to be a big night, one not soon forgotten.

“I wasn’t certain if I was going to look like a fool,” Hunter recalls thinking.

But Hunter was great, a natural actor. And at the premiere of Angel’s Perch, a story set in Cass, WV, and showcasing WV artists’ talent and the state’s beautiful lifescapes, there were lots of winners.

Bringing Life and Respect to a Story and a State For J.T. Arbogast and his wife, Kim Dilts, the premiere was both the end of one journey and the

Setting up to shoot Polly’s big night.

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beginning of a new one—having brought a story that meant so much to them to life and now figuring out how to distribute the film they’d spent two years producing to a wide audience.

In a telephone interview from LA after three weeks of screenings in Florida theaters, J.T. says of Angel’s Perch, “It’s humbling how much people have enjoyed it and been touched by it.”

“Crazy” is how Arbogast describes the ride that first began in 2010, when the project began and he wrote the script loosely inspired by his grandmother, Odessa “Dess” Kane (1924–2008), and his family’s experience with Alzheimer’s disease. Many scenes were actually shot in her home. Once the screenplay was written, a small detail remained to be worked out: how to fund its production.

The Angel’s Perch movie poster, showing the angel’s perch, the second-level seat on a Cupola-style caboose.

Arbogast says he didn’t think the film was edgy enough for independent film festivals. If he sold the script, he feared he’d lose the story that meant so much to him. And he didn’t have the nearly half a million dollars lying around to pay A-list actors, producers and crew to make the film. Instead, he banked on what he and others involved in the project knew was a fine story, well told, genuinely acted, and set in a gorgeous location.

And it worked. A Kickstarter campaign was launched in 2011.

“Suddenly, you are not just two or three people [working on the project],” Arbogast recalls of the

The cast: Ally Walker (Judy), Michael Holstine (Doc Snyder), Ellen Crawford (Betsy), Homer Hunter (Delbert), Joyce Van Patten (Polly), J.T. Arbogast (Jack, writer/producer), Ashley Jones (Ginny), Charles Haine (Director).

Jack, played by J.T. Arbogast, who wrote Angel’s Perch, and his grandmother, Polly, played by Joyce Van Patten. The story is loosely inspired by his real-life grandmother, Odessa “Dess” Kane (1924–2008), and her family’s experience with Alzheimer’s disease.

fundraising campaign. Some 300 people contributed “and suddenly people all over the country were excited to be part of the team.” From there, they continued to chip away at the budget, partnering with local organizations, like the West Virginia Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and Snowshoe Mountain Resort.

But while word of the film went national, Arbogast and Dilts wanted to maintain as much of the winning hometown feeling as possible. They sought to balance the need to get industry-recognized actors and crew with maintaining the small-town flavor of the kind of folks that make Cass and West Virginia so special. Initially, they were a bit concerned they would be able to find the type of characters they envisioned for each of the parts who also had a knack for acting.

Clearly, once you see the film it’s easy to see their fears were unfounded.

Arbogast became the unintended lead actor. Once he wrote the part of Jack, the grandson, he and Dilts couldn’t think of anybody else to play it. Arbogast wrote, co-produced and acted in the film—and still finds it difficult to watch himself in it because “it’s such a strange experience to see yourself in a role.”

Arbogast recalls thinking at this juncture, “Well, if nothing else, we finished the movie.”

So, with the production challenge mostly worked out, they began screening the show with objective (read: non-West Virginia) audiences. To their delight, it 18 | fluent

was very well received. Next challenge? Distribution, or how to get Angel’s Perch before a wider audience.

Tugg, a web-based platform that allows audience participation in bringing films to movie theaters, has allowed Angel’s Perch to be shown on the big screen more than 140 times across the country. In Martinsburg, WV in October, the film played to a sellout crowd. Arbogast participated in a Q&A after the show, while Dilts sold merchandise and talked with audience members in the lobby.

Measuring Success Arbogast set out to write a movie that would accurately represent the people and the community of which his family was a part. He also wanted a story that would show the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on the person diagnosed and on their family members and caretakers. And he wanted to show the beauty of West Virginia, a state so often mocked in the media.

“We’ve made the story that we wanted to tell and we reached audiences. We saw that those people were touched and that was a great success for us. Now it’s about getting it out to as wide an audience as possible,” says Arbogast.

Betsy, played by Ellen Crawford, takes good care of Polly and summons Jack home when Polly becomes ill.

PHOTO Suzanne Stewart, The Pocahontas Times

Country Doc Michael Holstine used his “real” office at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank, WV facility as the doctor’s office in the film. Here, he performs a run-through of a scene with J.T. Arbogast and Kimberly Cullotta, Angel’s Perch director of photography.

They recently announced a distribution deal through Gravitas Ventures — Angel’s Perch is available through cable on-demand providers such as Comcast and on digital streaming services such as iTunes. The DVD is also available for purchase on the web site.

“Our idea of success evolves,” he says, now that the film is out there, a reality. “We have achieved those expectations.” He adds, however, that he still has a day job to pay the bills.

Michael Holstine: Angel’s Perch Country Doctor As Doc Snyder, the country doctor who counsels Jack about Polly’s future, Michael Holstine’s natural warmth and lilting West Virginia voice portray a feeling of professional confidence and personal caring.

In real life, Holstine knew Kane, whom he describes as a staple of the community. Since the film’s completion, many of Holstine’s Pocahantas County neighbors have commended him on his acting. At a recent trip to the supermarket, though, he ran into an elderly woman he knows who said she liked his performance, then added, with a stern face, “You were going to put her away,” referring to the doctor’s recommendation in the film that Polly go to a home to be cared for. The woman in the supermarket appeared to be miffed as she walked away from him.

Holstine, Business/Operations Manager for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank, WV facility, got involved with Angel’s Perch when he

offered the observatory’s housing, which was vacant, to the Angel’s Perch cast and crew. He also helped with the logistics of shooting the film and learned there would soon be casting calls.

“I said, ‘You know what? I think I’ll do that,’ ” he recalls. Holstine was familiar with acting. He worked as an extra in John Sayle’s Matewan (1984) and as a farmer in the upcoming James Franco’s Child of God (2013).

Was he was nervous trying out for the part? “It’s a strange feeling,” says Holstine. “Yes, I was nervous, but I also felt like it was an opportunity to have some fun. To act, you just have to step outside yourself and become what you think this person [you’re portraying] should be.” He credits Arbogast and the cast and crew for creating a comfortable atmosphere, “which allowed me to do what I needed to do. They are just really nice people, great folks.”

“It really is a beautiful film,” he says. “The subject matter touches so many people’s lives.”

Tandi Stephens: Art Within the Art It wasn’t Tandi Stephens’ acting ability or command of West Virginia language that wowed Angel’s Perch audiences. In fact, most people in the audience don’t know what her contribution was. People who fell in love with the art created by the film’s character Ginny, Jack’s longtime friend, played by Ashley Jones, were really admiring Stephens’ art, which she makes in Pax,

Ginny, played by Ashley Jones, and Jack are friends from long ago and reunite when he returns to Cass. The artwork Ginny makes in the film is actually the work of Tandi Stephens, a West Virginia artist.

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WV and sells online and at a few brick-and-mortar WV businesses.

Stephens was commissioned to create six pieces for Angel’s Perch and was able to show some of her other work in a scene in the art shop she runs in the film. “It was pretty special,” she says of seeing her art in the film.

The “final reveal” piece at the end of the film measures 4 x 6 feet and is a mixed-media montage that visually brings together several pieces of the film’s story. It’s also the most historical piece in the show and a larger piece than what she’s used to creating.

As a mixed-media artist, Stephens incorporates “found” pieces into her work. “Creating assemblage art, you’re always looking for that last piece of junk or object to finish a project,” she says.

Polly and Delbert sing with Delbert’s band at Polly’s big night.

Stephens saw the Angel’s Perch premiere in Charleston with friends and family. “I honestly teared up.”

Homer Hunter: Music Brings Him to the Screen Tandi Stephens’ artwork played a key role in Angel’s Perch.

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When contacted to audition for the part of Delbert, the affable post office clerk always ready with a wry comment, Homer Hunter says, “I told them I’ve never played any character, I’ve never even been in a Christmas play.”

Hunter was considered for the part, he says, after film scouts saw him playing guitar and singing with his Stony Bottom Blue Grass Band, which is featured throughout the film. The scouts were looking for someone who could sing and hoped he could act a bit, too.

“There are two kinds of people I like to direct,” Hunter recalls the director, Charles Haine, telling him: “The kind that doesn’t know anything about acting and the kind that are great actors.” Later, he told Hunter he was the best non-actor he had ever worked with.

Once his scenes were shot, Hunter was so interested in the behind-the-scenes activities involved in producing the film, he couldn’t leave the cast and crew alone. He stayed on scene to help out, retrieving props or running errands.

Arbogast recalls Hunter’s early involvement with the project. He jokes that despite Hunter’s relative anonymity in the world of acting, he requested script approval, asked that the shooting revolve around his band performance schedule, and “other things that A-list talent” usually asks for.

It’s fitting that as postmaster Hunter also knew Kane, who in 2008 was still walking to the post office.

And he’s pleased with the entire Angel’s Perch experience. “It just worked out so nice and I was so pleased with the quality of the film and the way they put it together,” he says.

Perhaps what makes him proudest, though, of his new acting gig is that his two granddaughters, Grace and Olivia, love what Paw Paw’s done. fluent

To learn more about Angel’s Perch, please visit http://angelsperch.com.

To learn more about Tandi Stephens’s artwork, please visit http://tandistephens.com/Tandi_Stephens/Welcome.html.

Angel’s Perch official trailer: http://vimeo.com/62707078 Facebook: www.facebook.com/angelsperch

Jesse Sharp plays Kevin, Jack’s partner in the architectural firm.

Above, Polly and Jack board the train to take them through the WV mountains and many memories while Delbert looks on. Left, Kimberly Dilts, Angel’s Perch Producer, and J.T. Arbogast at the world premier of Angel’s Perch in Charleston, WV, last June.

Above and all photographs not otherwise credited: C. Ball at ShutterThugg Photography

Fabric, Reinterpreted: The first thing you notice about Kweli Kitwana’s Memory Flower textile is the simple, stylized daisy pattern repeated throughout the fabric. But as the design draws you in, you realize that rather than flower petals, you are looking at seven “coffin ships” from the African Diaspora, arranged into a sunburst and detailing how human beings were stacked and transported like cargo. In the background, a ship’s log lists goods on board: gin, knives, salt, negroes.

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The Textile Art of Kweli Kitwana

By Sheila Vertino Fabric is Kweli Kitwana’s canvas on which she tells the stories of her culture, past and present. “Textile has a prominent role in every body’s life. You interact with textile every day, all day long.

In my opinion, textile is one of the best mediums for storytelling.”

Kitwana’s fabrics dealing with slavery always prompt people to ask her two questions. “They say, ‘Why would you want to perpetuate this?’ ” Her answer? “My ancestors had to go through this. If they hadn’t endured this, I wouldn’t be here. There’s no shame for me to have to confront this.… It’s not our history because we chose our history. But it is our history. We should honor and respect our ancestors.”

Then comes a second question about the utility of such a fabric. “What would I do with this?” Kitwana, who considers herself a storyteller and fabric supplier to textile artists, replies, “I don’t think about that. That is not my place…. My thing is, you let the fabric speak to you. Take it in.”

Kitwana finds images of mammies, slaves with exaggerated facial features, children eating watermelon on things like “Black Memorabilia” tablecloths highly offensive. “My whole thing is if African-American imagery is immortalized in this way, it just perpetuates this image. Textiles are around for a long time. My own personal campaign is to correct this.” u

Left: Memory Flower (top) and Slave Mask (bottom) textiles. “Stony the road we trod, bitter the chast’ning rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet, Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come, treading our path thro’ the blood of the slaughtered, Out from a gloomy past, till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.“ — A passage from “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sometimes referred to as “The Negro National Hymm” or “The Black National Anthem,” written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1899 and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson in 1900.

Above: Kweli Kitwana. Below: Urban Summer, a “funky, fast sketch” of a woman with an Afro against a batik-like background drenched in vibrant, warm colors.

Below, Beauty Is a Sister, a memory quilt of three sisters — Kitwana’s mother and aunts. The background is the actual census record of their families from the 19th century. Every summer Kitwana’s family traveled to Arkansas to help her grandparents pick cotton. “I was one summer away from cotton picking. When I got old enough to do it, they stopped! They got too old.” The quilt includes apple blossoms (the Arkansas state flower), photographic images of Kitwana’s family and even a needle from her grandmother’s pin cushion that she inherited and treasures.

Kitwana muses, “Culture is a hard thing to capture. What is culture? It’s how you live. It’s your history. It’s who you are and how you celebrate, and where you get your spiritual energy from.”

With that vision as a springboard, her designs range from darkly provocative to historical to whimsical. One of her most popular, Miss Mary Mack, captures children jumping rope. “I drew it with my left hand (she is right-handed) to make sure it had that childlike feeling to it, and captured the fun, the joy, the energy.”

Based in Harpers Ferry, WV, Kitwana has designed hundreds of fabrics, but her favorite is Feed the Soul, with its stylized depictions of soul food staples — black-eyed peas to shrimp and grits, fresh okra, cornbread and butter, to name just a few of the

Far left: The joy of childhood games! Kitwana brings chants like “Miss Mary Mack” and “Shake It Like a Milkshake” to life. Left: Reminiscent of block prints, Sweet Potatoes is one of the bold, happy images in the Soul Food series. Below: Haiku — diverse images of facial beauty — originally appeared on the 100 windows of the Teahorse Hostel during the first Art Walk in Harpers Ferry. Kweli Kitwana website.

Kweli Kitwana on Pinterest.

fabrics in this series. “I had so much fun creating those designs. It just made me hungry!” she recalls, laughing.

Kitwana maintains a Facebook page, and more than 280 designs of Kitwana’s fabric, wallpaper, decals and gift wrap are available through Spoonflower, a small family-owned business in Durham, NC, that specializes in turning digital designs into short-run, customized fabrics. Honored by Martha Stewart as one of her 2013 American Made Tastemakers, Spoonflower has allowed Kitwana (Spoonflower.com/profiles/kkitwana) to transform her designs into textiles that celebrate important moments from African American history, culture and tradition and achieve her goal of “the reinterpretation of fabric.” fluent

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Energy & Hue: The Art of Neal Martineau

“Cheer up, Pablo”

NEAL MARTINEAU, the artist, in his Shepherdstown, West Virginia, studio. It’s unclear whether he’s a painter who writes or a writer who paints — he does them both well — but he titles his paintings with the creative twist of the Copywriter, Creative Director and VP he was during a long career in advertising, most of it in Manhattan. In his latest series of paintings, No. 1 is “Fantasy Tango.” Most likely, it’s not named in reference to the dance of color, movement and energy he takes you on through all 55 paintings in the series, but in retrospect, the name is so appropriate to that. Titles like “Will you ever dance with me again” and “Sliding down the razorblade of life” beg to be seen. And when you view them, don’t be surprised to hear your inner voice saying, “I can see that.” Martineau’s work will be on exhibit through December at the Devonshire Arms Cafe & Pub in Shepherdstown, and at Exhibitions Gallery in Martinsburg the month of January. View his work on his website: www.nealmartineauart.com.

PHOTO Keely Kernan, www.keelykernan.com

“It’s All About Love”

“Too much picnic”

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“Brook”

IMAGINARY VOICES:

A

fter Ann Pancake started interviewing people in West Virginia coal mining towns in 2000, she began to hear imaginary voices. Those are the voices she later turned into literary fiction in her first novel, Strange as This Weather Has Been.

Pancake grew up in West Virginia, living first in Summersville; when she was about eight, the family moved to Romney. She says she feels most at home in the Eastern Panhandle. As a child living on the periphery of coal towns and coal culture, Pancake would think about where energy comes from, what it takes to get to the coal, and how people suffer in the extraction of it. She often saw men covered in coal dust after a day in the mines. Kids from coal camps, she recalls, didn’t have plumbing in their homes and had to sit in a separate place in school because they smelled different than kids who didn’t come from the camps.

Pancake remembers hearing the blaring sirens during the Hominy Falls Mine disaster in Nicholas County in 1968. Four miners drowned and 21 were trapped.

Interspersed with those somber memories is her heartfelt sense of community, children running wild in play and feeling safe. It was at this time, says Pancake, that she developed a strong tie to Appalachian culture and people.

Mining Lessons When she was six years old, Pancake’s father, a Presbyterian minister, told her about strip mining — stripping rocks, vegetation and earth from above a coal deposit so the coal can be mined. He also gave a sermon about the practice, since so many of his parishioners were affiliated with the mines, and the sermon was picked up by the local radio station.

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PHOTO Shepherd University

When Pancake heard the broadcast, she says, it was the first time she realized her father had an accent.

She also began having a conscience about strip mining.

Later, Pancake, who earned a BA in English at West Virginia University and a PhD in English Literature from the University of Washington, went overseas to teach “because I thought I had to get out of West Virginia to have something to write about.”

Clearly, she was wrong.

Much of her writing, including stories in her book Given Ground, speak of Appalachia. Pankcake’s work has won numerous awards, including the 2000 Bakeless award for new writers. She is currently finishing a new short story collection.

Mountain Top Removal Another lesson in Pancake’s mining education came when she learned about mountaintop

By Cheryl L. Serra

Real Stories in Appalachia removal — “blowing the top off the mountain” to get to the coal within. Often, the natural material taken from the mountaintop is tossed to the valleys below, filling in streams and creeks and altering the natural flow of the water. Mountaintop removal began in the 1970’s, she says, but took off in the 90’s and has continued unabated ever since.

In 2000 Pancake’s sister, Catherine, a documentary filmmaker, was developing a film on the topic.

Pancake went with her to interview miners and their families in Appalachia, thinking she might write an article about it.

That was the plan.

Then she started hearing their stories — some of the most horrifying, compelling, saddest stories she’s ever heard, she says. Yet, in the midst of their troubles was a generosity. Pancake was stunned by their grit.

“I never planned to write fiction about mountaintop removal,” she recently told an audience at Shepherd University’s Frank Center Theater in Shepherdstown, WV. But she started hearing the imagined voices.

Voices of characters-in-the-making. And they wouldn’t stop.

“I started freaking out because I thought, ‘I don’t know how to write a novel.’ ” She had written short stories up to that point.

The experience of meeting those people and sharing their lives, she says, “planted a real fertile seed in my heart and my imagination.”

Pancake’s debut novel is told through four main characters: Lace, Bant, Corey and Dane. It details their lives and the destructive reality of mountaintop removal.

There haven’t been any happy endings in the 13 years she’s been writing about the damage caused by

mountaintop removal, says Pancake. And there aren’t happy endings in the book, either, which makes some readers unhappy.

Shifting Paradigms “I went in with some naiveté, thinking that if enough people were educated and against mountaintop removal there would be some government response to halting or curtailing it,” she says. The lack of such a response has pressured her to think about ways to bring about change that differs from non-responsive, u

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traditional ways. She’s looking at non-Western paradigms, which she says vary from the Western paradigm in that they value the connection between people and the natural world. And she likes programs like Shepherd’s Common Reading Program that allow her to speak to students about the need to move forward to solve the “environmental mess” we’re making, which she believes requires radical changes in how we think and what we value.

Perhaps Pancake’s legacy will be the elusive happy ending she couldn’t muster in her books. “I want to help change the way people see things,” she says. “I’d like to inspire people to honor and respect things that this culture does not currently honor and respect.” fluent

PHOTO Cheryl L. Serra

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Below, Ann Pancake signs books for those attending the October 2013 Shepherd University Common Reading Program book reading and signing event.

For more information on Ann Pancake, please visit her web site at http://annpancake.blogspot.com.

For information on Catherine Pancake’s documentary, “Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice,” please visit http://blackdiamondsmovie.com.

For information on the Shepherd University Common Reading Program: www.shepherd.edu/commonreading/whyacr.html.

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The Reluctant Artist Her work has developed from watercolor to acrylics, inks and collage. Abstracts, landscapes, still life and flowers, especially sunflowers, are her favorite subjects. Collage allowed her to take her watercolor and acrylic paintings to another level.

“I enjoy experimenting with texture and color,” Athey says. “I create original works in my own style.”

That original, sometimes quirky, style is what catches the eye and makes her work identifiable from across

the room.

Athey, a member of the Potomac River Artists Guild and the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative, has shown extensively in the region, including at the Delaplaine Art Center in Frederick, MD, Art at the Mill in Millwood, VA and the Arteco Gallery in Cumberland, MD. She exhibited at Artomatic@ She has now studied with noted artists from all over the United States as well as Canada and England.

By Ginny Fite

J

oanna Athey never intended to be an artist. Art didn’t interest her. She didn’t take art classes in high school or college. She didn’t feel drawn toward art or think that it was missing in her life.

“I felt that I did not have the ability to express myself in any form of art,” she says.

She did other things: knitting, needlepoint and crewel embroidery; she designed and braided rugs from used wool clothing as well as new wool. She didn’t equate making things with making art. She had children. She worked at life.

But then she retired and moved to Charles Town, WV, in 1994 and began taking watercolor classes from local artists. She had to be persuaded to take the first class where, she feels, she “didn’t do well” and had

to be pushed to continue. It was a collage class that hooked her, that showed her the materials and methods that spoke to the art she was meant to make. She has now studied with noted artists from all over the United States as well as Canada and England.

Left: In creating “Vase of Flowers,” Athey put a heavy layer of gesso on canvas board, formed imprints while it was still wet, then painted it when dry. The vase is formed from discarded pieces of old paintings; her “paints” included acrylics, glitter, ribbons and netting. Below: For “Life in a Fishbowl,” Athey first applied blue watercolor ink and acrylic ink to watercolor paper, then used saran wrap, waxed paper, bubble wrap and other objects to form texture, and finally added collaged pieces of rice paper and ribbons.

All photographs provided by the artist.

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Her work has developed from watercolor to acrylics, inks and collage. Abstracts, landscapes, still life and flowers, especially sunflowers, are her favorite subjects. Collage allowed her to take her watercolor and acrylic paintings to another level.

“I enjoy experimenting with texture and color,” says Athey. “I create original works in my own style.” That original, sometimes quirky style is what catches the eye and makes her work identifiable from across the room.

Athey, a member of the Potomac River Artists Guild and the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative,

has shown extensively in the region, including at the Delaplaine Art Center in Frederick, MD, Art at the Mill in Millwood, VA and the Arteco Gallery in Cumberland, MD. She exhibited at Artomatic@ Jefferson this past October..

When she talks about art, it’s in terms of doing and being. “There is something in you,” Athey says, “that wants more color and texture.”

Studying and using many colors has caused her to look at nature differently. She has discovered the different blues in the skies, the reds at sunset, the

In “Sun’s Kiss,” Athey applied different shades of acrylic paint to watercolor paper, then used bubble wrap to create the base for the sunflowers. Torn pieces of rice paper form the petals, and other objects complete the painting.

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blues and yellows in the green trees and the shades of purples in the mountains. The world just isn’t flat anymore.

Athey is not interested in making the same thing over and over or of adhering to any particular art dogma. “I don’t want to do anymore art unless I have fun,” she says. “Maybe as a child, I did what everyone else was doing. Now, at my age, I am doing what I want to do.”

She is an explorer, an experimenter; she is inventing a world of her own creation. “My work seems to be

always changing. What I might start out to accomplish may turn into something different. Many times I will change directions in the painting. That is the beauty of collage. You can continue to change the parts you don’t like.”

Being an experimenter means she discovers new directions from each painting. Often, a realistic picture inspires an abstract painting. She concentrates on color, shape and texture, developing her own style.

“I continue to experiment and grow as an artist,” Athey says. “An artist never stops learning.” fluent

In “On a Clear Day,” a watercolor, Athey used collage pieces of rice paper and paper towel — “any scrap I can find that looks decent” — to make the work as abstract as she could with a touch of realism. “Much of my work is experimental,” she says.

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ED:CETERA

Get Back in Your Cubicle & Think Outside the Box!

BY ED ZAHNISER

JONAH LEHRER WROTE A BOOK about imagination and creativity called — how creative is this? — Imagine: How Creativity Works. One of his ideas that may spark your imagination and enhance your creativity is to paint your workspace sky blue.

Sky blue, Lehrer says, puts you in mind of the wide-open, spacious, outdoors, if not the sky’s the limit, as they say, and also the ocean.

Or you might simply take a word apart and see where that leads you: The hardcover version of Lehrer’s book breaks the world IMAGINE into three lines of large, bold type: I MAG INE This works even better in Fluent’s publishing venue, because there’s no book under it. A rectangular book under the split-up word puts it in a box, if only a psychological box, like your cubicle at “work.”

No matter that this split-up title might not be Lehrer’s idea but instead the idea of the book designer. Authors have little or no control over book covers, jacket copy, etc. Even wildly creative authors aren’t considered up to those tasks, because they aren’t market savvy.

The split-up word on the book’s cover might spark a great publishing concept itself: for example, I Magazine. For the me-first generation — or is our entire culture now me-first — that’s way better than People Magazine or Us Magazine. Those titles are far too suggestive of community.

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Can you imagine a magazine about the present U.S. Congress being titled People Magazine or Us Magazine?

That would defy imagination. I Magazine already has the better demographics, not just for Congress but for the people the Congress daily fails to represent.

Lehrer also reported in Imagine how Apple put the bathrooms in the most central location in their — office building. The objective was to force its people to interact. Studies show that interactions are creative.

Nor must their substance be related to the problem you’re working on at the moment. In fact, those ideas’ lack of relation may deliver their main value.

Did you know that people in cities — the bigger the better — are more creative than people in backwaters like Charles Town, Ranson, Martinsburg or Shepherdstown, WV or Sharpsburg, Frederick or Hagerstown, MD? Backwaters simply give you fewer human interactions than big cities do, and the interactions spark creativity. The next time a state trooper pulls you over, think “creativity.”

When I was in college I studied in my room until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Then I would repair to a nearby restaurant to study at the counter over a 10-cent fountain softdrink. I rarely studied in the college library; it was TOO QUIET, too artificially quiet. I never talked about my study habits, because they went against everything my parents and teachers drummed into my brain box. “You need peace and quiet to concentrate and do your best.”

After decades of writing in restaurants, I found solace in playwright David Mamet’s title

essay in his book Writing in Restaurants. Mamet places great value on the practice, largely from overhearing or mis-hearing other patrons or staff. The day before I finished editing this column I overheard this in a restaurant: “She said she was having a dinner for fifty of her closest friends. I don’t even know fifty people I would invite to dinner.”

Marcel Proust could imagine that comparison of self with other into a 400,000-word novel. J.D. Salinger would be content just to italicize that many words in two short sentences.

This past June my longtime writing habit of writing with real background noise suddenly went mainstream in American creativity research. You can join the mainstream, too.

In The New York Times health and science blog, “Well,” Anahad O’Connor writes: “Pulling up a seat at your favorite coffee shop may be the most efficient way to write a paper or finish a work project.”

His words were music to my ears.

Apologia pro vita sua. Justification for my years of writing in public places. For the past five years or more I wrote in the Blair Road EZMart and then the Bolivar (rhymes with “Oliver”), WV, 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven’s closed-circuit TV programming gives what all writers need and want, great writing prompts. Consider this from a daily “Didja Know” feature: “Didja know an octopus has three hearts?”

How many heart attacks would it take to kill an octopus? Could you be monogamous if you had three hearts? Would it then work to explain: “I know in my hearts golf is the love of my life.” For sure, it would give new meaning to the expression: “I know in my heart of hearts….” That would then exhibit coronary favoritism — and who wants two of your hearts revolting against your third?

O’Connor continues: “But now a new Web site lets you bring the coffee shop to your cubicle.” The site is “Coffitivity.” The idea is inspired by the same ilk of behavioral studies that are both the text and subtext of Jonah Lehrer’s book Imagine.

The researchers, O’Connor reports, “…found that a level of ambient noise typical of a bustling coffee shop or a television playing in a living

room, about 70 decibels, enhanced performance compared with the relative quiet of 50 decibels.”

About 85 decibels… “roughly the noise level generated by a blender or a garbage disposal, was too distracting, the researchers found.”

It’s too bad that Lance Armstrong and his U.S. Postal Service competitive cycling squad didn’t know about performance-enhancing background noise. I don’t see how Coffitivity would show up in a drug test.

Would it leave a perceptible aural imprint on your eardrums? But what current test examines blood or urine for a past sound?

A caveat: One mustn’t present imagination as fact if the medium in which you present the imaginative element purports to be fact-based. Unfortunately, Jonah Lehrer, then a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, made that mistake in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works.

Julie Bosman, in the The New York Times “Media Decoder” blog, writes that Lehrer “…executed one of the most bewildering recent journalistic frauds, one that… cost him his prestigious post at the magazine and his status as one of the most promising, visible and well-paid writers in the business.”

Lehrer finally admitted that he made up most of his quotations attributed to Bob Dylan in support of the book’s view of imagination and creativity. The article that brought down Lehrer was written by Michael Moynihan in Tablet Magazine online.

“I’m something of the Dylan obsessive — piles of live bootlegs, outtakes, books — and I read the first chapter of Imagine with keen interest,” Moynihan writes. “But when I looked for sources to a handful of Dylan quotations offered by Lehrer — the chapter is sparsely and erratically footnoted — I came up empty and in one case found two fragments of quotes, from different years and on different topics, welded together to create something that happily complemented Lehrer’s argument. Other quotes I couldn’t locate at all.”

Al Sharpton has been known to say “You just can’t make this [stuff ] up!” Nevertheless, people still do make it up. Remember, however: Keep facticity and imagination distinct. And maybe you should paint your workspace sky blue. But in the meantime, get back in your cubicle and think outside the box! fluent fluent | 41

POETRY

Night Visit

To This Spring, or to Any Spring

A night owl, wandering around the house at 2:00 a.m., reading Merrill’s Poems from the First Nine and gathering poems from my friends, I bump

Today the day goes cautiously to spring and tonight, months past my forty-sixth birthday and five days past the winter’s last snow

into your 3:00 a.m. awakening, your shade prowling about in the spaced dark. You fiddle with the T.V. dials, pour

I slow to realize that my daughter is twenty-three, a year older than I was when she was born, just as I am, now, four years older than my own mother

cups of day-old coffee, roll cigarettes and spill clumps of tobacco in odd, untouched places. Distinct, each of us, in our separate strolls we collide

was, when my mother died. Today, pussy willows stretching to spring and the hedge threatening a righteous growth that appalls my orderly neighbor

on fields untilled, in intersections, and at busy construction sites, where Caterpillars scrawl moratoria in the earth. Seeing you, I have learned

(who is all trim, and lawnmower neat) I am months past a forty-sixth birthday, and he, at twenty-three, is the age of my daughter,

to turn off the two-way radio. My hard-hat hangs always at hand and close enough for me to snatch it in emergencies, like when your skies give way

or the age my husband was when he and I were young and first married and certain new. How was it then we seemed, husband and wife, so old and wise,

to tornadoes, or when your mountains give in to rock slides, or when the temperature in this room rises.

and how is it now that he at twenty-three seems a man-child? All long-legged and fingernail biting, strident and silent, like a book always

The Cabin: Snow

ready to be read and open, spring morning gentle?

So old at twenty-three? A bully planning to plant the whole damned world in time to harvest it for this spring? That he may plan well, this son I never had, boy-child like the man I loved so long ago — that he stay open and curious and caring to this spring, or to any spring that comes, I have planted a poem and a garden in his name, a book in the year’s library for his learning as he turns his earth toward harvest. In the four corners of his universe I have planted as guardian angels such scarecrows as are needed to scatter rabbit and mice, to move the hungering birds skyward.

And when he comes to love, as he must certainly come, this son that I never had, may she move among his fields like spring rain, deft fingers mending the fences of his fears. May she be open and curious and caring, the book in the library of his years.

Sharp against glass which weaves its own design, early snow shapes and scatters the birds reckless at the feeder — goodwives at gossip: the downies at suet, blue jay circling international flight patterns, titmice and cardinal, finch, sparrow and wren move just beyond a window filled with cactus and ivies: a culture shock of desert and snow, white on white except where tiny crowsfeet etch arrivals and departures.

I think of all of the arrivals and departures this room has known.

The doorway, smooth as stone, forms a downhill path, and pine boards, white on white, form a sort of floor and storage place for the snow circling at the door.

We play the drama out, you and I — you to the lake to gather firewood, to celebrate this first snow — we come together — and I to window and rocking chair: the goodwife at gossip….

I am struck by the silence that is left where your coat was hanging.

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October: Graveside, Bennington — For Robert Frost — Harsh-hammered, like the Vermont weather, under shrill land where mountains peak and carve their pound of flesh out of the dimming sky, they lie together now, among Georgia Lee McElhaney, Poet Laureate of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, is a former editor of Pivot and co-founder of the 50-member Bookend Poets, now in its fourth decade. She edited for 17 years “In Good Company,” the monthly Shepherdstown Chronicle poetry column.

McElhaney’s poems are widely published and anthologized in, among others, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry and Doubleday’s A Controversy of Poets. For her poem “The Judas Tree,” she was awarded an Artist in the Community Grant from The Jefferson County Arts Council and WVa Arts and Humanities Commission.

All of the poems included here were published in Pivot.

At Anchor

the frail tombs of infants, fleshed and fused, wrought together like iron churchyard gates. She cannot deny him access. Doors she once slammed closed open now, beyond her control. Winds feather his nest with flowering leaves. Where grasses lean against the lawn a lone red-bellied woodpecker sings, its wings rattling like the restless pages of an abandoned book. Earthbound, bound together, where bird and tree attend their grave she and the earth shall cradle him, snow shall bring something like a peace, and the bird shall sing, that he may know

something like a sleep.

At night, when silence is picked clean like a feast of gulls at fish on the outgoing tide, and the fireplace gleams like a solitary shell white against the wet sand — when wind and rain blast at uncertain windows, and fog rides Saco Bay Wood Island Light bends and breaks in the fog and I ride at anchor and in snug harbor the waves, the breakers, under the length of you, moored on ingoing and outgoing tides, blood pounding urgently, louder than the rain behind the door, wilder than the spray against the rock rough shore.

We bend and break. At high tide we beach together.

Sharp against the waves we surface the whales’ way, shot from the sea. Bursting, our lungs ache. Under the length of you, under your hands, we weather the wind’s work, thrust from surf’s leap into the sand, shell-clean. At low tide we sleep.

Hunter’s Moon A stand of pine; tamarack, yellowneedled. Plague of gypsy moths, pine golden-arrowed and the year narrowing, coined, old gold. Candles bloom like bunched banana trees, like Christmas trees, tentative penetration, like first love-making.

The full moon looms like a first-day dollar, a mint clean issue, an ache in the sky. A cloud tissues like spider growth an outcropped stained-glass web where the moon hangs candidate, a lying-in patient. On northern winds where geese collide their victory patterns glide the laterals; beagle voices rock the sound. Down below the darkened stands of pine the loon speaks in tongues.

In this night at its quietest where all things speak in languages known to the dead, where unknown alphabets unlock the dictionary of the trees, where the dying of the trees is illuminated by the silence of the quickening moon, I break the fast of silence. I ride the laterals to the quick of homecoming, of feather and needle shaft: I speak in tongues like the prophets, each pattern in leaf-fall plain, each feather read. I home to nest in needles stained by hunters blood red. In cold of full moon, first ice of frost, first gold of full moon, inside a stand of pine I home to you.

I home to you.

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FICTION

Like a Peddler Opening His Pack

BY CATHY BAKER

KENNETH BODINE WAS STANDING at the edge of the Nicholson Motors showroom with Vivienne from the Aftermarket Department. They were both looking at Santa Claus sitting in the driver’s seat of a black sport utility vehicle. The car, decorated with garlands of flashing red and green bulbs, was in the center of the showroom on a counterclockwiserevolving platform. Santa was honking the horn in short bursts and shouting, “Ho ho ho!”

“Go on,” Kenneth nudged Vivienne. “Do your job.”

“I don’t want to sell him undercoating. I don’t want to go near that man. He scares me.” Vivienne pointed to the skinny man in a green elf suit standing with arms crossed next to the revolving platform. Santa waved to the elf each time he circled by, but the elf did not wave back. “He’s even creepier.”

Kenneth agreed. There was something spooky about the customer in the Santa suit. He didn’t speak; he just belly-laughed. And he didn’t look authentic, especially not after he’d taken off his prosthetic stomach (stashed in Kenneth’s office) and cinched the waist of his too-large trousers in place with a bungee cord (fetched by Kenneth from Service). There was something off-key, too, about that man in the elf costume who did all the talking.

Kenneth wondered whether he ought to tell Santa to climb off the display. He had some responsibility in the matter; the costumed man was his customer. But he’d already closed the deal, and it had been hard work.

And he didn’t feel like getting crosswise of the elf again.

No, Santa was now in the hands of Aftermarket. “Go on, Vivi. Santa needs a car alarm.” He nudged his colleague with an elbow. She gave him an offended look before squaring up her shoulders to walk across the showroom.

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Kenneth turned into the hallway to head toward the wash bay and encountered Larry Petrosian coming out of a side hallway. The dealership’s top salesman was tall and slender, with a head not much broader than his neck and an S curve to his spine.

His serpentine appearance reflected his personality for he was a ruthless salesman who lied as readily as he spread flattery. He always addressed Kenneth in an unctuous voice. On this occasion he slithered, “Congratulations, Mr. Bodine!” He grasped Kenneth’s hand in both his own.

Kenneth accepted the handshake; he had a certain respect for his adversary. He admired the man’s success, if not his style.

“Christmas Eve, and you close a deal with the busiest man on earth. Everyone is talking of it, everyone is in awe.”

Kenneth silently accepted the praise.

“You are very good,” Petrosian murmured.

“I walk in your shadow,” Kenneth replied. “You could sell snow to a snowman.”

“Your talent is wasted on the floor, Mr. Bodine.

You should be in the tower. You should be a manager.

“And leave all the customers to you? I think not.”

Kenneth continued down the hallway to the wash bay. He saw Santa’s SUV was third in line. The bay was busy. Already twelve cars had been sold, two of them

by Kenneth and one of those to Santa. God willing, the dealership would continue to be busy, because if eighteen cars were sold on Christmas Eve, there would be an extra $200 bonus per car — and anyone who sold three or more cars would reap a $500 bounty.

The sales manager, Mickey, energetically reviewed all of the particulars at the sales meeting

early that morning before the doors opened. He scribbled numbers and sums, arrows and circles on the whiteboard. What with the various commission escalations, the math was dizzying, and though Kenneth could follow it, most of the others in the room didn’t bother trying, because it all boiled down to one thing: more cars out the door equaled more cash in pocket.

In any event, Mickey’s purpose was not to explain but to energize, and today at least it was working for Kenneth. He’d sold two cars, and he had a lead coming in at two-thirty. If that turned into a deal — and Kenneth was confident it would — that would make three. He was closing in on 20 for the month and 200 for the year — in other words, he was approaching the big-time bonus numbers. It was the first Christmas in years that Kenneth had felt flush, and as he gazed

at Santa’s SUV in the wash bay lineup, he allowed himself a little smile and a quiet “ho ho ho.”

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was two-twenty — almost time for his appointment to arrive. He turned back toward the showroom and was startled to see his wife and daughters in the hallway.

Jodi was smiling; she liked to surprise Kenneth.

Bonnie and Betty ran up and hugged his legs. He put his hands on the tops of their heads and tousled their hair. When had they gotten so tall? Jodi started to say something but was interrupted by the girls, who had turned to press their noses against the glass front of the hallway vending machine and were badgering for quarters. They were still at the age when it was exciting beyond belief to watch a candy bar edge forward and drop off its shelf. Kenneth fished in his pockets for change.

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Petrosian reappeared in the hallway. “Ah, the lovely Mrs. Bodine. The lovely children.” He always fawned over Kenneth’s family, and the women were suckers to his attention. The girls hugged him and Jodi gave him a kiss on the cheek. Petrosian turned to Kenneth with his snakelike smile. “You are a fortunate man. You should go home, enjoy the holiday, relax with your family.”

“You are persuasive, Kind Sir.” Kenneth wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her away.

“Yet I see through your scheme. You want a clear field.”

Petrosian winked at Jody and disappeared into the showroom.

“Ho ho ho!” The sound came from the side hallway, where the Aftermarket Department had its cubicles.

Bonnie, who was seven, did not hear; she was too engrossed in tearing open her candy bar. The fouryear-old Betty, however, jerked up her head. “What was — ” she began, and then her eyes got wide and she clutched at her father’s arm. “Is Santa here?”

The thought of his children sitting in the lap of that peculiar Saint Nick gave Kenneth chills. “It’s probably the TV in the waiting room. Why don’t we go check?”

Judging from the girls’ faces, this was a tantalizing idea, but Jodi nixed it. “We don’t have time. We were just making a run to get wrapping paper. The girls made me stop as we drove by.” Something about Kenneth’s expression caught her attention. “You look jolly.

Are you in the big bucks today?”

Bonnie pulled at her father’s belt and reached toward his ears. As he bent over, she whispered, “Will you help me wrap my present for Mommy when you come home?” Kenneth nodded. Betty pulled him down even lower so she could whisper, too. “What are you getting Mommy?”

Kenneth stood up straight. What was he getting Mommy? He tried to think. Had he gotten Jodi a present? Or had he just thought about it? He wiggled his eyebrows at his daughter, as though to suggest he had something very special indeed for Mommy but was not going to reveal his wonderful secret. At the same time, he was thinking: I am such an idiot. Granted, he had been busy at the dealership all December — so busy he’d hardly had time to turn around — but still, he was an idiot.

Jodi buttoned up her coat. “We’d better get going. You’re busy, and we’ve got to get ready for the 46 | fluent

pageant!” She said this in a mother’s this-is-going-tobe-fun voice as she glanced over at Betty. The youngest Bodine had been cast as the Star of the East, which required only that she stand in one spot on stage.

However, as Kenneth was aware, the girl was on the brink of balking. Bonnie, on the other hand, was an enthusiastic Shepherd Number Three. At mention of the pageant, she trilled: “What shall I give to the new King! For I am but a poor shepherd!”

I am but a poor schmuck, thought Kenneth. Jodi gave him a quick kiss. “It starts at five, remember. I’ll save you a spot near the front, but I can’t sit with you.

I have to tend the sheep.”

She and the children departed out a side entrance, and Kenneth continued on toward the showroom. His step was slowed by the unexpected weight of the unobtained gift and the impossible time constraint. He felt his mood unraveling and knew this was dangerous.

He had to maintain a winning attitude. Despite his efforts at self-control, his agitation grew palpable as he entered the showroom, especially because Petrosian was poised just inside the main entrance, stealing Kenneth’s two-thirty appointment. Kenneth was furious.

“Mr. Felsenstadt?” he called out, forcing a jovial tone.

“I’m Felsenstadt,” answered the man in Petrosian’s grasp.

“Here to look at the QZ4 in burgundy?”

“Yeah, that’s me. You the guy that e-mailed me I’m supposed to meet?”

Kenneth put his hand on the customer’s shoulder to steer him away from the desk. “Thank you, Favored Friend,” he said, “but I can take over now.”

“Ah, Mr. Bodine, since you were busy,” Mr. Petrosian answered softly, letting go of his prey. “Since your customer was unattended….”

“So very kind of you, Esteemed Colleague. I’ll be sure to return the courtesy.” Kenneth turned to the customer and said, a little too sharply, “I’ve had the car you were interested in brought up front. Let’s go outside and take a look.”

Within ten minutes of test-driving, Kenneth discerned that the customer would indeed purchase the QZ4. Mr. Felsenstadt intended it for his wife for Christmas, and given that it was almost three on Christmas Eve, he had little bargaining room.

Nonetheless there were ominous signs that this would be a slow deal. The customer hemmed and hawed

over whether Cissy really would like the burgundy and whether Cissy might be unhappy if she got this particular model with a sunroof but no heated seats.

Usually Kenneth carefully guided each customer through such quandaries and would, if it seemed warranted, recommend ordering what the customer truly wanted rather than grabbing the bird in the lot.

He didn’t shove anyone into a car, not only because satisfied customers often led to repeat business and referrals, but also because he actually liked making the proper fit between client and vehicle. On this Christmas Eve, however, his only concern was that Felsenstadt hurry up and decide.

“Maybe I should just put one of your dealership’s glossy brochures under the tree and let Cissy pick out the one she wants,” the hesitant Felsenstadt mused as they pulled back up to the dealership and stepped out of the car.

Kenneth tried to look as though the idea was worth considering. “You could do that. But wait one second.” He ran into the showroom and returned with something behind his back. “Do you think your wife would prefer a picture in a stocking”—he paused for dramatic effect — “or this?” He held against the roof of the burgundy car a three-foot gift bow in holiday plaid.

As Kenneth drove the QZ4 around back for its final wash, he considered the truism that sales was in the details. A $45 gift bow could indeed close a $25,000 deal. He considered also how average Felsenstadt seemed to be, and yet that man was somehow in a position to throw 25 grand on a gift for his wife. About $25–$50 max was what Kenneth felt he could spend on his own wife. It would be reckless to spend more, despite his banner year, especially after Jodi had shelled out so much on the new play kitchen and talking globe for the girls, on top of so many previous Christmases sponsored by credit card. But the real question was not how much to spend but what to spend it on, and how soon he could escape the dealership to spend it.

Maybe he could pick something up from the electronics warehouse across the street. No. He couldn’t repeat the mistake of the waffle iron. Who knew a gift that has to be plugged in isn’t romantic? Jewelry then.

Wait. Hadn’t he given Jodi a necklace last year? And wasn’t that the necklace she never wore because the clasp was too small? Who buys necklaces for the size of the clasp? Jewelry out. Too complicated.

Kenneth turned back to the hallway and walked toward Aftermarket. Felsenstadt of the QZ4 purchase was now hemming and hawing over undercoating and an alarm system with a weary Vivienne. Kenneth continued down and turned right, where Finance had its cubicles. The first was empty, but in the second sat Nestor, Santa, and the elf. Nestor looked up at Kenneth with relief.

“Temporary tags, title, lease papers, we’re finished!” he exclaimed. “Kenny will take care of you now, happy holidays, it’s been a pleasure!”

The two men in costume looked up at Kenneth.

He bared his teeth in a smile. “Okay. Just a few more minutes and you’ll be on your way.”

“Ho ho ho!” said Santa.

“What a rigmarole,” said the elf.

Kenneth’s heart sank as he realized finishing with this pair would not be just another few minutes: every exchange would take twice as long.

“What kind of vehicle are you looking for?”

Kenneth had asked when, two hours earlier, he had first tried to qualify his red-clad customer.

“Ho ho ho!”

“A big one, duh.”

“Sport utility vehicle? If you order, we can get you anything you like. If you want to drive away today, we have several models to choose from on the lot.”

“Ho ho ho!”

“Look, bud, we wouldn’t be here Christmas Eve if we wanted to order a car that comes in six weeks.”

“Here’s one that’s nicely decked out” — Kenneth tapped on his keyboard and pulled up the inventory list — “Jet black with leather interior. We also have a black in stock with the premium bumper package.

Which one interests you more?”

“Ho ho ho!”

“What are you thinking? Black is for morticians.”

The triangulated conversation took on even pointier edges when they started talking price.

“This one comes to thirty-eight-five.”

“Ho ho ho!”

“Don’t give him your retail price, Commission Boy. Give him the price you’d give your mother.”

“Well, I can’t reduce it by much. But if we close the deal right now, perhaps the manager will let me throw in some floor mats and . . .”

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“Hello, we’re talking dollars here. Santa doesn’t want trinkets. He wants the best price on that car.”

So it had gone, all the way to a below-dealerinvoice thirty-two-five, and so it was sure to go through the final steps.

Kenneth looked at his watch and saw it was already twenty to four. He deposited the two men in his office and excused himself to escort Felsenstadt, who had finally exhausted his options in Aftermarket, over to May Ann in Finance who, unlike Nestor, had not cut out early; she was a committed atheist.

Kenneth walked over to the wash bay, but Santa’s SUV wasn’t there; it had been moved to the side drive. The keys weren’t in the car, and they weren’t in the tower, either. By the time he tracked them down to the desk of some salesman who had picked them up by mistake and never put them back, it was nearly four. When he returned to his office, the elf was gone.

“Ho ho ho!” Santa pointed across the hallway to the men’s room.

Kenneth sat down. He wasn’t sure if it would be polite to talk to Santa with the translator out of the room. He began chewing his nails.

“You you you. You know, you’re wor wor wor.

Working late.”

Kenneth was too shocked to respond.

The elf stepped out of the men’s room and leaned against the doorjamb to Kenneth’s office. He looked at Santa, then at Kenneth. “That guy there, you may think he’s just a bozo. But he’s a genius. He’s the best in the business.”

Santa blushed as red as his shirt.

“The business?” Kenneth asked. “The Santa business?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he’s good at that.

I’m talking about his portraits. He could make you look half-pretty.”

Santa blushed an even deeper red.

Kenneth addressed Santa. “Aren’t you photographers awfully busy this time of year?”

Santa started to mouth “ho ho ho” but was interrupted by the elf, who said, “Nah . . . we just sat around in an empty studio till December 24, when we looked at each other and said, ‘Hey — let’s go shopping!’”

As Kenneth walked the pair down the hallway to the side exit, he made one last attempt to create a 48 | fluent

relationship with the elf who, after all, might someday be in the market for a car himself. “So. Why the outfits tonight?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” The elf ’s snap contained a notable lack of sarcasm and an unconscious twitch of the head toward Santa.

Kenneth tried again. “You a photographer, too?”

“Not on your sweet patootie. I run the back operations. I hate the public. Hate the public.”

Kenneth turned to Santa, a potential source of referrals. “The car’s for your photography business?”

Santa shook his head, and Kenneth thought he might be starting to say, “No no no,” when the elf interjected again. “He says it’s for his wife. I say it’s for the tax write-off.”

All these people buying cars for their wives!

“You you you. You know, you’ve beh beh beh. Been nice.” Santa looked at the elf.

“Oh, crap. He wants to give you a free sitting.”

Kenneth knew enough about sales to realize a free sitting implied a purchased portrait, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He suddenly felt the Christmas spirit course through him and wrap itself around that sweet, misunderstood Santa and his crusty sidekick.

It actually was just another few minutes before Kenneth was ushering Santa into his new, bright red SUV and the elf into the car the pair had come in, after a final exchange of “ho ho ho” with the former and a gruff “see ya, chuckie” from the latter. Having recovered his jaunty step, Kenneth reentered the dealership to find a very unhappy Felsenstadt. “We forgot one thing. How am I going to get Cissy’s car and my own car home, too?”

Normally Kenneth would have already worked this through, but distractions had gotten the better of him. He looked at his watch: four-twenty. The curtain was rising on Bethlehem in forty minutes.

“Excuse me one moment.” Kenneth hurried to the tower. “Mickey, I need a couple guys from Service to shuttle a car.”

“C’mon Kenny. They’ve got to finish up the deliveries so we can clear out. Handle that yourself.”

Kenneth turned around in desperation. There was no one left in the showroom but Petrosian, who was putting on his overcoat.

“Sage Mentor, don’t leave me.”

“Ah, Mr. Bodine, I concede the floor. You may have all the customers who come in.”

Kenneth wondered whether it showed that he was really groveling this time. “May I delay your departure one moment, O Wise One, to confer regarding a small dilemma?”

Petrosian put his finger to his lips. “Say no more.

I am at your service. I’ll follow in that fine QZ4 out front.”

It was ten to five when they arrived back at the dealership. As Kenneth shook hands with his nemesis, he knew there would be a price to pay, but that would not come due until after December 25. He jumped into his car. When he reached the church at five fifteen with the other latecomers, the organist was still playing the prelude. Jodi was standing in the narthex— herding sheep, just as she had said, along with donkeys and innkeepers and various other short actors. “Look for my coat in the second row,” she whispered.

As he slipped into his seat, he patted his breast pocket, inside of which was the holiday card he’d picked out at the pharmacy. In a five-minute sweep he’d also snatched up two bagsful of stocking gifts.

Inside the holiday card was another card, a business card from Hovey Brothers Photography Studio. It was just a symbol of a gift, he was ready to acknowledge, and not the gift itself. But, spruced up with a threefoot gift bow in holiday plaid, the promise of a family portrait well over his intended budget might turn out to be the most romantic present he had ever given to his wife.

And so with some complacency and relief, Kenneth was able to watch the pageant from his excellent seat and to see his younger daughter execute a command performance as the Star of the East and to hear his older daughter proudly sing out her misremembered line: “What shall I get from the new King! For I am not a poor shepherd!” fluent

Tao “In dwelling, be close to the land.

In meditation, go deep into the heart.

In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.”

— Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: “Eight” Into Thomas Merton’s The Way of Chuang Tzu I have stashed dried letters and flowers from David; my friends may decide what to do with them when I have gone. As for me I keep things; things are part of people, things are nonreplaceable parts, parts of friends. I run on my own terms a night depository, a library of congress repository: this plant, that book, a painting, an earthenware pot, a rock from Nova Scotia, a fossil shark-tooth from North Carolina, sea pen and sea urchin from Florida; feather from Africa. Someone else’s poems. Letters. On the other hand, friends save nothing; kept busy at cleaning house they lead whitewashed lives. Every other month a dog eats rat poisoning, a cat falls into a creek. A goat becomes a scapegoat. Things become clean. A man or a woman is exchanged for a Fourth of July picnic, pyrotechnics perfected to an art. Fireflies of an evening wax to fleet convoys, skirting locust husks, skirting the shells of lives. They are kept busy breathing, tiny hot-air balloons. Ants clean up. It is all quite the same to them. Here, along the beach, it is quieter.

I see on occasion that a beached sand dollar will bleed, that a collection of dried sea urchins is not the same as a clump of nettles, that driftwood burns a fire more comforting than green pine, that the seagull is a great loner, that loons loosely in pairs laugh like madmen laugh at inscrutable jokes, that waves roll in like whales after a storm, that ebb-tide waves uncover green wakes

Cathy Baker is a native Minnesotan living in Bethesda, Maryland. She is a professional writer who specializes in “plain language” publications on health and science. Her first book of fiction, To Do the Deal at Bed & Bunk, will be published in 2014 by Demitasse Press.

left by periwinkles moving slow. I see that the sea changes but does not erase. My friends may decide what to do with this.

Georgia Lee McElhaney Previously published in Pivot.

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CODA

Beam Me Up, Scotty

PHOTO Shepherd Ogden

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