THE CREW Editor in Chief ................................................................................................ Ian Adams Editor/Design .................................................................................... Aaron Rosenberg Editor ..................................................................................................................Jason Khieu Press Relations .........................................................................................Jazmin Lucero Head Photographer ........................................................................... Frankie Concha Master Illustrator ................................................................... Mauricio Bustamante Commander Illustrator ................................................................. Lawrence Alfred Esquire Illustrator
..............................................................................Julia Izquierdo
Interim Photographer ......................................................................... Vivian Ortega Brigadier Cover Artist
........................................................... Emmanuel Gomez
TABLE OF CONTENTS It was Spring, and it was Late - Katie Lee McNeil
5
PHENOMENA - Josh Craft
10
The Kiss - Christopher Amador
16
Top Five: Dreams - Aaron Rosenberg
21
The Story of Life - Gregory Poblete
25
Dreams: Review & Retrospect - Christian Concha
28
Dance with the Devil - Dana Sami
32
Hey, wake up, Yes you! I must assume that you are a regular reader of the Modern Corsair, so to you valued audience member I bid ye welcome. But before the ethereal visions are squelched for monochromatic reality there are some points of physiological importance we must impart to you, valued dreamer. This Dream issue is the twelfth month of content, and we are still on the look for diversity in the voice of our collective consciousness. We love feedback, we love constructive criticism, and we love the more involved you all get with the magazine itself. We here on staff are like your cryptic symbols. We work hard to get your voices heard and bring a higher quality of living directly to you. We do it with fiction, poems, screen plays and journalistic fever. It is no secret, we have a passion for what we do here. We love good art, and good literature. So help us bring that to you all each month. If you are a creative than why not send in your essay, story, or poem to us. We want to see you have your creativity expressed no matter what it is. There are too many blocks. Too many obviations. Modern Corsair what’s to bring you to the people, and the people (aka your pears) good art and events from the still turning world. So send in any work to themoderncorsair@gmail.com and you can be in an upcoming issue. Don’t be shy. Join a conversation with the others through our e-mail, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Issuu and the Scribd pages. This magazine only stays afloat from people like you. And now- I’ve one other announcement- ha! Bet you thought I was done casual repeat reader. Well I’ll show you. This is a script flip. With the re-opening of Stay Gallery Modern Corsair Live is also making its long awaited triumphant return. We will have poetry and short fiction as usual, with an open mike for new comers who would like to try a reading for the audience. There will also be a series of announcements as to the future of the Modern Corsair. What are they? Well, that boys, girls and variants there upon is where you’ll have to show up to the live show to find out. Last Friday of the month with fine details on the Facebook page.
So read on and… Dream a little dream of me.
IT WAS SPRING AND IT WAS LATE Katie Lee McNeil
The Dyad Moon, is one of the most celebrated affair in a witch’s house. The Dyad Moon is May’s full moon and it is a celebration of love, everything natural coming into full bloom, happiness, and even the chance to reach the impossible. During this particular May, I had nothing to celebrate about. It had been one year since I graduated high school and I had no accomplishments to show for. All of my friends had already started college, and I was a year behind due to my skills of not paying attention to something important, like a college application, a job application, or hell, even join the military. Sure, I was almost ready to start the following Fall, but it was not the same. This Dyad Moon would not be the same. As one experienced witch does, my mom invited a long passed guest to the Dyad’s Moon celebration. I suppose you do not have to, but it is common for a witch to summon a person from the dead and invite them to a moon celebration or Sabbath. My mom likes to invite artists who seem to fit the theme of what we are celebrating. Ever since I was little, I have seen Poes, Whitmans, a Frost, Cooleridge, and Yeats of all kinds. Writers are her favorites. Although many times they have passed through my backyard, I was not allowed to talk to them nor sit next to them. I assumed it was because my mom thought I could not handle it or that I would be too frightened. It was not until this Dyad moon celebration that she let me in the presence of an invited spirit. I was in the dense far back of my backyard making sloppy bouquets of daisies and bright pansies when my mom interrupted another one of my daydreams,
“Sharee!” “What!” the annoyance poured as she came closer. “Nothing, my charming, I thought was an adult, daughter. I just wanted you to keep Mr. Wordsworth company while I finish the cake and champagne.” “Who is Mr.Wordsworth? “Ask him yourself. He’s standing in the patio.” She walked off without any further explanation. I sat there for a moment trying to remember if I ever met a Mr. Wordsworth before. I came to the dull conclusion that I had not. I set the flowers down on the altar and began to stand on my tip toes so I can get a good look at this Mr. Wordsworth. The western setting rays stung my eyes as I began to see the man standing in my patio. I first saw the tip of his head and I still could not make him out so I began walking towards the patio when he walked out from the darkness and into the setting sun. It was then that I realized this Mr. Wordsworth was a spirit! I could see every vivid detail of his white shirt and brown pants. His skin was pale, but not fading. Ghosts are faint, almost holographic, the closer they are to death the less you can see them. Mr. Wordsworth was not dead, he was alive. I left the morning glories and peered around the corner, “Hello, Mr. Wordsworth.” I would be surprised if a mouse heard my greeting, but he did. He turned his head and stared point blank into my eyes. My eyes stared back in an awkward meeting and as soon as he turned his head from me, I walked right up to him, holding my hand out, “Hello, Mr. Wordsworth, I’m Sharee, Jeanne’s daughter.” He
did reciprocate, so I leaned my hand forward and hit a wall. Dumbfounded, I lifted my other hand and began patting the air in front of me. I shot of panic quickly surged through me as I was trying to push the invisible wall when Mr. Wordsworth held up his hands and began to write in front of my eyes, “I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sat reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind” Was the first thing he said. He left his hands in his pockets and walked out into the falling sun. “Are you okay?” I asked from behind but he kept his eyes off me and gazed across the garden. I stood there watching him as I started to contemplate his delicate words. His stature told me he was a man of solitude, but his choice to have a seat on my bare grass protested. I made myself believe that if he did not want me to join him he would’ve sat in a plastic chair on the patio. I sat about a foot away from him, trying to conjure up what to say next but he beat me to it, “To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that though me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man” I watched the smoky white words fade as he finished the last word. I lost him. I could not tell why he was here or what he was doing and the faint burning in my chest began to grow as the confusion built and earlier’s afternoon heat set in. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, sir, but you’ve lost me, ‘What man has made of man?’ Oh, I don’t know probably the sense that what you and I are doing is a waste of time. We’re contributing nothing to society and I don’t even think that moon cares. It probably thinks we’re stupid because we have nothing better to do than sit
around thinking that this moon will finally give us happiness. I should be studying for finals and staying up late writing papers and making myself a better person like everyone I know. All of my friends have busy important lives…and I’m here with you who aren’t even alive and no one but my mom and her crazy friends believe in the Dyad Moon anymore! This moon is supposed to bring happiness and abundance of love and I obviously have neither. Don’t get me wrong Mr. Wordsworth, I like doing these things but it’s getting me nowhere.” Mr. Wordsworth continued to sit neatly on the grass, I traced his eyes and he was gazing up at the warm full moon. The Dyad moon near touched the ground and it glowed of champagne. It shimmered down to the Earth and lighted Mr. Wordsworth’s face. I didn’t want to be a foot away anymore and I began to crawl towards him and as I got closer my hands and faced bumped into the imaginary wall. In utter confusion I tried pushing the wall back with my hands and Mr. Wordsworth grinned. He leaned over and began to write with his fingertips, “The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there” The words lingered a few moments longer than the ones before and when they were gone I knew it was time to get up and give back to the moon. He didn’t wear a daisy or bright pansy flower crown, Mr.Wordsworth didn’t even hold our hands when we chanted to the moon. He sat there absorbing what was around him, although I knew he felt the pieces
missing from this earth. Later that night when everyone was gone, I went out to the backyard to help my mom clean the mess that was left behind. “Did you and William Wordsworth have a good time?” My mom asked me with the upmost curiosity. “Yeah. I don’t understand why he looked so real, like he was tangible but every time I tried to get close to him there was like this fake wall I couldn’t pass through. It was so weird. What is that?” My mom smiled wide and said, “Remember the closer they are to death, the less we can see them. Wordsworth is filled with life, as are you. I don’t think William Wordsworth wanted you to touch death.” “I guess but he seemed kind of sad and he kept questioning what has become of mankind. He never spoke in complete sentences.” My mom burst into laughter and said, “So do you, Sharee.” My mom took the dishes inside and I began collecting the flowers that were left on the floor. People came and they went as they do each moon and I was, again, left with the lonely mess I worked so hard on. That burning anger that fill one’s chest began to boil as I felt alone, hating the fact that another tomorrow would come. I hung my head low as I was beginning to walk back into the house. I walked up the porch steps and reached for the doorknob when I looked back at the moon. It was still there in the sky, giving me light not caring about the dark night.
PHENOMENA Josh Craft
Out of the glassless window Myrna watched the occasional leaf released from arms of the rustling tree. To the left and nearer to the windowframe stalked a red lark atop a smallish weathervane. Her eyes tried to follow the leaves wobbling aloft and wavering obdurately down as she stacked the wooden crates of tin-can rations onto awkward stocks of moss the moving wind kept carrying among the lanterns. As she worked the bird was an idea into which she deeply dreamed. It sailed there in its lush rose severity against the long smog of late day. What was the duration of one’s communion with such a creature? A second there, then there was motion, then it was gone. And it made no difference if you said it was elsewhere or nowhere because the thing was not here. People never think about this, thought Myrna. They took the train here and the train was on fire for one-third of the trip. No one onboard knew the train was on fire for a large amount of time. It was not until the state police evacuated the cars for a routine inspection that the smoke was seen hemorrhaging out of a critical mainline fuel pipe, as it was called. Under livening storm clouds they stood outside the train aside their riled luggage while the men with in-
frared visors and squealing handheld scanners climbed the seats of the boxcar like boys, searching to confirm that there was indeed no further threat—one of a far more nefarious origin than you’d think, they said. They did not phrase it like this but this is how they would have if they were aware of those words and how what they could do for a sentence. And there was nevertheless no further threat. Another four hours down the rails and over the bridge and they finally reached the roads crowned with rotted wooden fences and the small blue windmill along the mound. As far as the train could take them, they were told. It was then another three miles wading out to the thunderous outskirts of glum farmlands shaded in the broadening grog of city-wide refineries that drone on either side of the countryside in the packed and grumbling van. Public transportation did not run through primarily because of the recent chemical war in the nearest downwind desert, which was far worse than the coverage
implied. Noxious microscopic floating gases don’t read particularly well on camera. Some commentators tried to convince the governments to use the far more photogenic color-coded weaponry, but it proved too costly. So the trains didn’t stop by here anymore because the five-hundred mile radius was unofficially partitioned off as an accident site, and as a crime scene—one unsolved at present. The singular standing of the terrain and its contents are precisely why the government needed Myrna and the others to venture out here to research peculiar natural phenomena that was still more or less unrevealed by the hands of miracle or science. An hour passed and the leaves drifted rapidly upward in their somnolent wind-waltz to the mildewed metal gutters of the farmhouse where Elias groaned. He was easing out dim clumps of corrupt muck with a metal prod and swearing through a swiftly fogging plastic facemask. Here along the roof is where they intended to put the floodlights for the field below and the time to film was approaching. He waved to Myrna some sixty feet away to hustle up because remember lady the dusk is coming. Half of the house where Myrna stood was not there and the other half was extremely scorched. The darkened ravaged walls bore an often odd consistency and small molecular quirks seemed to abound. Amid the moss gradually lining along the staircase hanged a bluish dew, and any given mushroom amassing out of the old wood oven would sporadically pop into a similar ichor. The two masked technicians huddled around the camera give the finger signals saying aye okay ma’am. Elias called out that the lights were set. Myrna said okay. She stared at a red scarf that lay atop a tall pile of time-goldened nails and
remembered a room from before the war. She was eight years younger and there was a clock on a red wall aside a poster. It was eight years before and there was a young blonde woman on the bed beneath the political poster and the room was filled with half-light and pipe smoke. The city had been painted with rain and the windowlight was like myrrh upon their sweating young flesh. This was the stillness she knew in the days before she was paid to peer motionless into multisponsored microscopes and neon screens. It was not quite night and the moon was at midlevel, glaring across the gulf. The scale of the sky with its bewildering blue in negative glow seemed to overwhelm the flat math of the rambling land and enshroud the ruined valley with a fervent sorrow, if one were to see it as such. Elias approached the center of the field, toward the single tree. This is what they were there to film. A single nine-foot tree from some other poor age, still there somehow—ungrown, undying. This upset people. Some locals had prayed to it in times gone past and others had reported seeing it in various regions of the world—often at conflicting times, and twice it was said to have been seen on satellite printouts of the moon. A bearded exile fired a rifle at it just last spring to zero avail. It simply stood and let itself be windblown, making a sardonic point of its treehood.
The team had come here to light it on fire.
Elias called that the rig was set and Myrna stepped onto a creaking iron ladder that lead to an upper level of the half house. The two technicians started on the camera’s lever.
Myrna remembered the candles in the parlor of the theater before the war and running with the woman from the red wall up to the roof of the transit station to shoot a film. They filmed downward into the adjacent garden of a schoolyard in archaic eight-millimeter for an installation they’d been procuring. It was about the emulsion of film and the decay of vegetation and how impervious to precise regimented scientific conclusion the rates of these processes actually were.
“Set the tree and roll the film,” Myrna called to Elias.
The outstretched arms of the faint thing were clothed in the startling roil of throbbing yellow that could only ebb upward like the folds of a coral reef in brawny waves. Once the flame arose and gained propulsion the rest of the larks hurriedly ascended out of the wind-jarred willows along the mound the tree stood on. Myrna spotted the back of a sailing bird, the amber hair along its back, and she thought it was the same bird that she had seen before. This was its idle ambling home, she thought—the way back from this happenstance sojourn down, back to its fixed flotation in the twigs—its teeming tree sleep. She kept her eyes on that single
diminishing bird as long as she possibly could. When it faded she began to realize that this couldn’t have been the same bird as before. The earlier bird was on the hill across the acre an hour or two ago, and its shade seemed lighter. As she watched the men film the burning tree and try to ascertain their statistics upon their clipboards and spectral electric meters, she began to accept that she simply would just have to see this bird in any given flock from now on, but not because it was really there.
THE KISS Christopher Amador
Lucy fumbled with the keys in her grasp she couldn’t get them to push into that damn keyhole. Then as if a hand helped guide her through, the key went where it was supposed to and the door swung wide open. She felt her hands trembling but dismissed the sensation. It’s just a little cold outside in that smelly hallway, she thought. A warm rush of comfy and cozy air burst at her from within the room and she smiled a delicious smile. Her thick red leather coat went up on the rack next to the door and her keys were flung onto a nearby coffee table. The door swung shut behind her and the cold night air went with it. Mmmm, home at last? Lucy giggled as she made a rush for her great brown living room couch and collapsed into it, feeling the fluffy folds and wonderful relief of finally being able to lie down. With a quick and smooth motion, her high-heeled boots were unbuckled and shaken off. Lucy stretched out and wiggled her toes as far as they could go. She laid her head back and closed her eyes. She sensed something moving but tried to ignore it. A rude and annoying blinking red shadow danced atop her eyelids and she was forced to open them again to see her answering machine shining with life. Lucy sighed and lifted herself up to reach out and press the button that would shut off that
stupid light. The machine buzzed with life and beeped loud enough to leave Lucy’s ear’s ringing. “You have one new message.” She extended another finger and hit play. “Hello? Hello? Oh. It’s your answering machine… Um, Lucy it’s me! Anna! So, how’d your date go? Please call me back soon. I’m dying to know. I hope the guy wasn’t a creep.” The phone beeped again and went off. Lucy considered very briefly leaving it ‘til morning and just letting herself drift away into her yummy cushions. But she reached for the phone anyway and began dialing Anna’s number. The phone rang and rang and rang, and then it rang again. A beep sounded off followed by a tone. “Hey Anna, it’s me Lucy! I got your message. Look, I’ll have to talk to you about it tomorrow, ‘kay? I don’t know, the guy just didn’t seem right. Talk to ya later, bye!” With this, Lucy was off her couch and headed straight to her bedroom. She passed her gleaming white kitchen and felt her belly rumble. Ugh, no. It’s too late for snacks. She went past her pristine white-tiled bathroom. “Oh, fuck the dentist. I’m tired.” Finally, Lucy reached her bedroom and peaked inside. Even the lights off, she could still see her unwrinkled and undisturbed white sheets. She longed for her bed with deep desire and flicked her little blue lamp on. The darkness subsided and Lucy took a long stretch at her bedroom entrance. She reached up toward the ceiling and as her hand came back down she encountered an uncomfortable menace. She tugged at the offending pin and let her brunette hair drop. She tossed the pin onto her bedroom dresser and began to unbutton her red satin shirt. She let it fall to the floor without a second thought and unzipped her skirt. She let that fall to her wooden floor too and stepped out of the crumpled mess of clothing beneath her. As she walked over to her bed, she caught a glimpse of her naked self in her dresser’s mirror. Lucy looked up and down at her body covered in that soft black underwear. Hmph. You missed out, asshole. Lucy
jumped into her bed with relish. Her sheets and pillows felt so inviting and wonderful. She pushed her back into her mattress and closed her eyes. Lucy smiled as the world slowly drifted away and became a blur. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself sitting at a fancy table at a restaurant downtown. A rich and juicy half-eaten steak glistened on the plate in front of her. It was far more interesting than
the man just across from her. He sat there on that lonely other side and seemed to shiver anxiously as nervous beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. His eyes flicked from side to side, scanning the room, looking out for something, or someone. Fucker’s probably got a wife, Lucy thought. Ugh, I need to go someplace else for a minute. This guy’s giving me a bad vibe. “Excuse me for a minute; I have to go to the bathroom.” Lucy shuddered in bed and opened her eyes. The room seemed very strange to her. Her lamp was still on, but everything seemed so much darker. Her eyes darted quickly to it, looking for a failing bulb. It was as bright as ever. She looked down at her feet. That blue tinted light shone across the frame of her bed and felt cold. She began to shiver. Something just wasn’t right. Whatever, she thought. Lucy tried to reach out over to her blankets to cover herself up, but found she could not
move her arms. Then something hissed and she looked down. Then something blinked between her feet. She blinked too, not believing her eyes. She blinked again. Red eyes grinned back at her from the edge of her bed. Then a mouth opened and bared its jagged teeth. The face was obscured by shadows but she could still make out its foul features. A tongue sprang out and seemed to flick at the air, gobbling it all up greedily. Drool cascaded down its lips and the thing moved forward. Lucy tried to jump up and run but found that she could not move. She could only tremble and watch as the thing reached out with bony rotten fingers and took hold of her right big toe. That thing’s tongue licked at her foot and its mouth closed over the tip of her tiny limb. It sucked up and down her toe with a sloppy noise and then looked back at her. Lucy’s heart felt like exploding. Her ribcage heaved and jumped and fell rapidly. The thing saw this and seemed to feel encouraged. It climbed up onto the bed and let the light fall onto its face. Lucy looked at it with wide eyes and felt something gurgling in her throat. She fought the urge to vomit as the thing revealed itself further. A putrid nose-less face gawked at her with hungry intent. It pulled itself further onto the bed, its weight shifting the entire frame, making Lucy colder and panic even more. Its dangling fingers caressed her calves, feeling them all up and pushing further and further up. Lucy tried to scream but found her mouth couldn’t form words and her lungs couldn’t draw breath. The thing slowly crept forward again and rested its chin on her belly. Its left arm pushed under her thigh and grasped at her. Stop it! Stop it! Go away! Lucy shouted in her head. But the thing didn’t acknowledge it; the thing didn’t hear anything it didn’t want to hear. It licked up her belly and straight toward her chest. Lucy’s eyes watered and tears streamed down her cheeks. The thing surged forward and left its face hanging above hers. Her nose touched and brushed against the gaping hole in its face. It looked down and cupped Lucy’s
breasts. Then it looked up again and kissed her on the lips. Lucy gagged and tried to push away. She shook violently and cried hysterically. The thing didn’t let go. Then the smell of wine drifted down from its disgusting maw. Lucy smelled it and felt the tingle of something else, some other wretched scent tainting the red drink. Her eyes fell back to that fancy table at that fancy restaurant with that anxious, suspicious man. A glass full of sweet blood-red wine stood tall beside her plate of food. Lucy could not remember finishing that glass. Lucy opened her eyes. She looked up at her ceiling. Everything was wrong. Her lamp lay broken on the wooden floor, shattered into pieces. Her clothes lay scattered and torn all around her on the bed. The cold morning breeze drifted in through her open bedroom door. The air bit at her stark naked body. Lucy stood up and scooted over to the edge of her bed. She felt so terribly sore. Her head ached and her skull felt like it was on fire. A strong hurricane flushed through her belly and Lucy vomited on the floor. Then she remembered that tall glass of wine, and the night before. Lucy cried.
TOP FIVE: DREAMS YOU KEEP HAVING, BUT KEEP FORGETTING Aaron Rosenberg
Number 5: You are in a room- wait, no you aren’t. You are looking at yourself in 3/4ths of a room. (You had forgotten to look behind you. There’s an empty space leading out to a blue and red sky there.) You realize that there is a clock in the room. The clock strikes two and a cuckoo lashes at you from the clock. It misses your face by inches and you are left watching the bird sputtering around the room, somehow stuck as it keeps missing the open wall. You wander over to the clock and open its internals. As your hands push through various organs you instinctively realize that the inside of the clock is also the inside of the bird and the bird behind you is writhing in pain. You react with shock and let go of the clock’s insides and the clock and wall behind it then begins to crumble. Behind the wall is a path through the sky and at end of that path is a dead pink rabbit. You scramble across the path to the rabbit and tear it open. Inside is clockwork. You climb inside it, close your eyes, and wake up. Number 4: Remember when you were little and were dragged to an amusement park against your will? Remember refusing to ride that one roller-coaster? Well here you are again- tiny and up against a machine thousands of times bigger than you. Let’s get on with it, shall we?
I mean, we’ve sat here waiting for so long, and these things are built to be safe, right? Well, it’s too late- you’re strapped to this machine ready to load you in its chamber and shoot you out. A man to the left of you pulls a lever and the machine begins to head up a ramp. You struggle against your restraints with no luck. Your vision moves ahead of you and you realize that this machine is unfinished- the drop is not built. You reach out and grab pieces of track to build your fall but you are too slow. You fall and wake upon hitting the ground. Number 3: You realize you’ve been walking for a very long time, venturing through the woods, lost. Your hopes of finding a way out diminish further and further until you notice a light from deeper in the woods. You watch your body begin in that direction and find yourself in front of the clearing a moment later. A line of people lay on their stomachs, praying at something. They all wear burlap sacks and you feel out of place until you look downwards and find a sack on you. You become aware of the debt you now owe these people. They all stand as you lie down and you realize that you cannot get back up after lying down. As you thrash on the ground, the dirt beneath you begins to crumble under your pressure. The ground finally gives way, causing you to fall towards the center of the Earth. When you reach the center, you realize you no longer have an up or a down, or a left or right. You gaze in the direction that once was up and gain sight of hundreds of faces that seem vaguely familiar. They look down at you with eyes vacant and bright- bright as
the rest of the thousands of stars their faces outlined against. You close your eyes to block them out and upon closing your eyes they open in your room. Number 2: You’re alone tonight- you’re alone most nights, sitting at home reading. Your mind drifts towards other people- ones you’ve forgotten. You realize you’ve either forgotten every other person you’ve known, or that there are no other people. You are alone in a nondescript room with a clock in the corner. The tick of the clock reverberates through your ear canals and your memory drifts to your first alarm clock. School was about to begin and it was decided that you were old enough to walk to school in the morning. Mornings were grey and the walks were long enough to force callouses upon your feet. Every mornings began with the shrill brrrr or in this case the chimes of a grandfather clock as you realize you are still in the same room with the clock. The clock dies down and you realize that you have woken in your bed. Number 1: You come to realize you’ve been inside a white cube this entire time. There is a desk in the cube- and a computer. The laptop flips open and you look at the screen saver on it. It is one of an office building- the same one that you sit in now. You leave your cubicle and head downstairs for coffee. Jerry stops you on your way downstairs. You really hate that guy so you ask for him to join you for coffee. After grinding up Jerry and brewing coffee, you head back to your desk, drinking Jerry. You begin to browse the internet and happen upon an obscure internet magazine. You begin reading. You begin a murderous rampage. Fin.
Dreamer Lawrence Alfred
THE STORY OF LIFE WAKING LIFE REVIEW Gregory Poblete
As I was trying to figure out which movie I wanted to review for the theme of dreams, I did a quick keyword search on Netflix of the word “dream” and found a movie entitled “Dream Warrior.” I thought to myself, “This looks perfect; a movie about a warrior with the superpower to control people’s dreams or something like that. Cool.” Not cool. I couldn’t survive ten minutes of the movie without wanting to play my early demo release of Super Smash Bros. Which makes perfect sense because it is an amazing game, but that is very much beside the point. I should have listened to the one and a quarter star suggested rating on Netflix of the movie and steered clear. So what was I to do now? I hopped onto the Google express train and looked up “movies about dreams.” And of course, on these lists were “Inception,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “The Science of Sleep.” But one movie that caught my eye that I have never heard of and was on a majority of these lists was the movie, “Waking Life.” And as soon as I started watching the film, I understood why this movie was on these lists. “Waking Life” isn’t just a movie about dreams. It is THE movie
about dreams. But before diving into what exactly that means, let us talk about the aesthetic of the film. Richard Linklater (director of “Boyhood,” “School of Rock,” and “Slacker”) has done something extremely creative with his film by using the technique of rotoscoping, which means that the film was shot with a camera using live actors, and then after, artists drew over each frame of video to create an animated movie. But the artists didn’t simply just trace over what was seen in the video matching every detail, they went outside the lines and created a beautifully, bizarre dream world. As you watch the film, it really does feel like you are watching a dream because everything seems like it resembles real life but more enhanced and colorful.
The story of the film is about an unnamed guy who attempts to find some meaning of life by traveling through his dream of philosophical conversations about topics such as existentialism and free will. In his dream, he hops around the city talking to different philosophical thinkers with unique points of view about what it all means. The unnamed guy doesn’t do so much of the talking as he just sits there and takes in heaps of information and theories from these philosophers. Dreams are an extremely interesting topic for discussion because the
surreal yet real connotations that may follow them after they have been had. This movie brings into the light many of those ideas and tries to wrinkle brains with such paradoxes. “Waking Life” is basically a session of a philosophy class talking about how dreams grant infinite possibilities and can help a person gain knowledge that they may not even know they knew. An interesting discussion had in the film is the idea of a person having a dream and discovering foreign information that they never knew existed. How is it possible that someone can dream about something that they have little knowledge about? This is just one of the many questions that can be asked after watching the film. This movie is almost entirely driven by dialogue, which may make it difficult to hold some people’s interests, but the conversations and ideas talked about in this movie are incredibly insightful. These conversations make you think about how your mind works and how amazing it is to just be able to exist in a world where we can actually control our body and mind. I could mimic the topics of discussion brought up in this movie for this review, but I would find it more rewarding if the conversations were heard accompanying the abstract visuals the film has to offer. “Waking Life” is an amazing piece of art that leaves the viewer in a state of wonder. Similar to the famous ending of “Inception” with the question of “Is it a dream,” “Waking Life” throws around the idea that maybe life is but a dream and when we die, we continue to dream, or something like that. “Waking Life” is a profound film that should be experienced at least once in everyone’s lifetime because it is about a part of human life that everyone experiences. The final verdict of the film is 4 philosophers out of 5 because this film left an impression on me that this world we live in can never be truly understood, and that is an amazing thing to think about.
DREAMS
REVIEW & RETROSPECT Christian Concha
So what comes to mind when you think of dreams? When you sleep and let your dreams take you to your happy place? When you have a really weird “I’ve seen this all before” kind of thing? Or is it when you finally achieve that goal you’ve wanted and your dreams come true. Well I think those all kinda suck and are too boring for my tastes. Since I am the game man of the Modern Corsair team let’s take some time and see where dreams went for characters and games themselves. First of what I like about dreams is how wrong they can go. For instance how about Fatal Frame? In the third installment of the Fatal Frame franchise you find yourself to be in a loop of always returning to the same creepy as shit house. What made me like this so much is that it was a dream from which you couldn’t escape. You knew as the player every time you made the character sleep you would return to this house and snap some more pictures of ghosts and continue on. For those of you who have never played any Fatal Frame games slap yourselves across
the face, find any one of those games for the Xbox, PS2, or PS3 and I guess the second one is available for the Wii in Europe. Anyway, it was great how it was the same thing over with new things, stories, people, and places to see in your dreams as you advance. The best part was how things in the protagonists dreams started to come out of your head and into real life. I mean, what’s more scary than a horrible nightmare that is evolving from a nightmare to reality. At least if it was me I would be shitting bricks. I won’t say much for those idiots who haven’t played it yet but for those who have, it’s pretty creepy when you really think about it right? Another cool way to look at things about dreaming is in the game Remember Me. Now this game to me wasn’t really that great a game to me, however it did have some nice elements to it. For instance, the main protagonist of the series had this wicked ability to alter the memories and thoughts of others. What if you had someone poking around your brain and manipulating your thoughts memories and even your dreams? what if your ambitions and everything you knew was not really you and even in the idea of having dreams weren’t really the dreams you wanted in life but the fabrication of some wicked ass holes intentions? That my friends, this would suck majorly large nards. In other words dreams can be controlled, changed, tamed, even toyed with if you got the right stuff to do it. Now as for having dreams for which to achieve, let’s just say they
don’t always make you the nicest person in life. For instance look at Joel from the amazing game The Last of Us. All he wanted to do was get little Ellie back and as a result he just totally fucked the only known cure for humanity with a bunch of dead people on the side because he loved her like a daughter. Such a wonderfully sweet asshole he turned out to be. What do you guys think about his motives? Think he did the right thing? Because I sure as hell think that was an ass-move to everyone except himself. So yea dreams are fun to have but to my opinion they aren’t the greatest things in some cases. What if your dream started to affect your real life instead of just your mind scape? Dreams can turn to nightmares really quick and one man’s dream can be another man’s nightmare. So next time you find yourself hearing that everyone should have dreams think well Hitler had a dream and look where the hell that ended up. So something’s maybe just are better as they were, dreams.
SHIRTS! The newest product that you must own this season, just in time for the long winter nights of cuddling and parting is the Modern Corsair T-Shirt! Be the envy of all your friends, even Rocko, that smug bitch. On sale at the next live event before the October hiatus. Supplies limited, but be sure everyone knows that you are their intellectual superior. With this comfortable new shirt in basic black and bade of crushed cotton.
On sale 9/26 at the Stay Gallery
DANCE WITH THE DEVIL OR WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL?! Dana Sami
Alright, look- there will be no aliens in this thing. I know I said that alien’s and the weird cult-ish stuff was the topic I wanted to tackle last month, but the Ferguson shit storm of bigotry pissed on America not leaving the colors of the flag running by any means but the red, white and blue were indeed soiled by a hefty measure. So I pushed pack the crazy conspiracies related to MK Ultra, Aria 51 and the Soviet Brain Swap program with the Planet-X technologies for next month. Promise. This week I’m going to ride the line between my duty as the art correspondent and my desire to share with you all the things that have given me a beam of hope and less of the despair for my fellow man. So let’s start with Horns. Nearly a year ago I think it was issue two, this magazine published an interview with Joe Hill the graphic novel writer. In it he talked about an adaptation of his book Horns, where a guy named Ig is cursed with the
powers of the Devil and a pair of sick-ass goat horns. The movie stars Daniel Radcliffe and is directed by Alexandre Aja whose body of work is hit or miss in horror but when it’s hit, fuck, it’s good. I never read the book, but the trailer promoting Horns’ Halloween release makes it seem like a win of everyone involved. I know I’m not the movie guy I’d I should keep to my own turf. So I’ll just say I think that this film is a great starting place for what I need to say. I’ll be mostly talking about sculpture, performance art and (what the hell this is a literature magazine) fiction. Horns by Joe Hill is a book that sets out to prove a point about people and that is: we don’t need a Devil. Human beings can be fiercely evil on their own, no Satan required. And the thing is most of the time the Devil is just some scapegoat for we all as humans so that we can sort of obfuscate having to say ‘Yes, we can be really fucked up and irredeemable to those who are not ourselves (see the Missouri police in my article last month on Michael Brown’s murder). I grew up in a Catholic School by the coast. It was very old and very expensive and I was very privileged to attend the objectively horrible place. But when I was there, at what age I could not say, I learned about World War II and the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Extermination Camps at Treblinka and Dachau. Atop that and reading the Diary of Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel’s Night and seeing all manner of Holocaust Oscar gold in class I was told some things that were lies. Not anything like that David Irving, Pastor Scott Lively (Holocaust denier and one believes that Hitler and his highest officers were all gay because ‘Homosexuals are more savage than natural men and women’ respectively) but we children in the care of our devout educators were lied to. We were told that Adolf Hitler was an atheist as was Joseph Stalin and that is why they performed these atrocities. But more so, the Devil compelled these men to do what they did to millions of innocents. So here is what I find so repellent about these statements, besides
how ludicrous they are. When someone can say it was the Devil ‘compelled’ someone or ‘inspired’ an action and we do not treat that as an insane accusation then it lends credence to a wrong assumption that will ultimately excuse the wrong doer. If Hitler can implement a Holocaust not because of economic turmoil, with political unrest and institutionalized bigotry toward Jews and Gipsies but because a supernatural force of pure wickedness has free rein to play with mortals lives than how could one in that position blame Hitler for all that came about in his name and under his orders? Then with that stance it could
go broader: the famine and drought in the arid parts of the African continent are not due to colonial meddling and exploitation of the peoples and the resources, it is the Devil adding suffering to those millions who practice non-Christian faiths, like Islam. Blaming the Devil is the quickest way to pass the buck on what we chose not to maturely face up to and claimed responsibility for our actions. But art is my job. And so I will come back to art. But to do that we must talk about the ‘moral high ground’. I suspect very frequently those
who see fit to use a term like ‘the moral high ground’ seem to have a haughty way of being and more often than not they have no morals, nor groundedness to speak of. In the state of Oklahoma’s capitol, Oklahoma City a conflict came about from those asking to see a clearer separation of church and state. Out front of the capitol building there is a person sized statue of Moses’ Ten Commandments. When filed complaints to have the commandments were reserved with no response the Satanic Temple came in to enact pressure by stirring up some chaos in the capitol. Led initially by the New York Satanic Temple and their youthful president Lucien Greaves, and later joined by fellows of the same denomination for within the state, they collectively filed to have adjoining the Ten Commandments on the steps of the governmental building a seven foot statue of Baphomet flanked by two enraptured children, a boy and a girl. Baphomet is a form of Satin who has the head and hooves of a goat but the body of a man. He will be atop a throne with an inverted pentagram and visitors will be able to sit on his lap for photographs. State House representative Paul Wesselhoft got it pretty spot on when he said to local news teams “I think they’re trying to get our goat and I’m not going to let them do that.” The Satanist Temple is a sort of in-the-flesh version of the Anonymous hacker activist group. With a challenge to the constitutionality of ten edicts Yahweh lent to up on the front of a law making bodies front porch from the ACLU the Satanist Temple has gone farther with the completion of this devilish
creation (sorry but I had to). There is still an ongoing struggle but the current course of things appears to be ether the Devil is allowed to sit on the capitol steps too or the commandments must go from the public space. Possibly a few blocks over to the church? The churches are deliberately outrageous to reflect the lunacy they preserve in other religions and the privileged position they hold in America. But you see, the Satanist Temple dose and will not stop at sculpture to make their points clear. They will also do what some may call an interpretive live performance piece or what Satanist Lucien Greaves would call a dark arts spell on the dead. What should first be noted is the Satanic Temple found their way to a cemetery in balmy Meridian, Mississippi. They congregated over the grave of one Catherine Johnston who was husband to Fred Phelps the elder and mother, more notably, to Fred Phelps the younger. The same man who protested the funerals of returned military personnel. The one who gained national notoriety for his ‘God Hates Fags’ campaign throughout the nation. The same who made a website called ‘God Hates the Netherlands’ for motives you may guess. The Fred Phelps who once wrote a letter commentating Saddam Hussein for being the only true Muslim leader to let ‘the true word of god be taught’. Or how he in one 1997 demonstration decried Bill and Hillary Clinton and anal sex (you know ‘cause those things are a set that go together). Or how he agreed with men like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in notions that not only did America deserve the attacks of September the 11th but that God ordained it as punishment for Feminists, Homosexuals and several other reasons so asinine I will refuse to list them. He was the man so openly sinister, and malicious that Kevin Smith wrote a horror film premised around Phelps and his mostly blood related cult in the odd later part of his career in film. In full regalia of black clothes and spiraled horns Mr. Greaves led in a Pink Mass. They cast a spell on the departed soul of the mother of Westboro Baptist Church. The ritual involved a gay couple and a les-
bian couple to make out and ‘express love atop’ the grave. All with the whispered guidance of the religious leader Lucien Greaves who once the couples were done ‘expressing love’ where one Catherine Johnston lay dead and buried he then removed his genitals from his pants and dragged them along the length of the headstone of Fred Phelps mother. Fred Phelps is no longer alive. He is to dead and buried with a life that spanned 1929 to 2014, with no funeral to mark it’s reliving end. But the WBC is still very active, and still very related to their patriarch
and his posthumously cursed mother. So it is little surprise that this performance by the Satanist Temple has riled the congregation to the home town of Meridian, Mississippi. The police have issued warrants for the arrest of those involved, the priest in particular. What was the aim of the Satanists in doing this? Well, they’ll tell you that the Pink Mass affected the soul of Mrs. Catherine Johnston so that in the afterlife she would be gay. And that form here on any same
sex couples who did make out or ‘express love’ (as explicit as the temple would be when questioned) on that grave site, Fred Phelps’ mother would experience that gay, sexual pleasure in her spirit form. But in reality they have pulled off a performance piece of fine intricacy. A duel clowning if you will. First this is an aping mockery of a dead person’s memory committed agents those who constantly soil the memory of the dead with their zealous, fringe religious views. This is a way of picketing a WBC funeral, if they were foolish enough to open themselves up to that kind of reprisal. But a second thing this is doing is mocking Mormonism. I know that seems like a convoluted at best assertion, but follow this logic. The Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints got in hot water back around the time one of them wanted to be president. It was discovered that there was a practice called Baptism of the Dead. Exactly what it sounds like. They have a surrogate stand in and they baptize a dead person to they can convert to the “right religion” and go to Heaven. If you’re a Mormon that sounds like a very kind and loving thing. If your me, a silly but ultimately harmless thing. But if you are Elie Wiesel, the guy who wrote a book and survived the Holocaust, you find it very disrespectful to the memory of those you lost to a murder machine like Anne Frank, the girl who wrote the diary and did not survive the Holocaust. Wiesel sued and the Mormons promised to stop doing Baptism for the Dead on those lost in the Holocaust. Until they didn’t and jest kept doing it again anyway. And then it was revealed that on the list of waiting names is Elie Wiesel. So they plan to make him a Mormon against his wishes after death after he sued about it and settled out of court. That act doesn’t actually do anything to the dead since they are, you know, dead. But it does effect the living who do believe and then need to put up with this horseshit. So back to sculpture. The elegance of line. And let’s get out of the muggy, psyco-Christian south and go up to cooler, liberal Vancouver.
That’s where indie music is hip, the beanie or toke is not obnoxious, and also real free expression is fostered in the well-mannered people of British Columbia. Until one day in Vancouver Park a nine foot tall, red Devil with black horns and blue balls appeared. I don’t mean its testacies were blue. Those were red, and large like the tri-pod dick coming off the front of it. The Devil is giving the ultimate satanic salute, the rock ‘n’ roll horns gesture. Currently no one really knows who ‘erected’ (I know I’m the worst and I don’t care) this statue of the lord of lies. But the sculpture was carted off public property within a matter of hours. And my last piece brings this ouroboros in a full autosarcophagnising circle. I began talking about the real evil not requiring a Devil, that people are plenty capable of wickedness unbound on their own and how blaming the Devil is a cop out for really taking responsibility for your own actions. I also started by talking about how Daniel Radcliff ’s new film Horns is fucking sweet and ruminates on some of those themes. Well readers; here is the most evil thing I found in literary arts as of late. It is a work in progress by mother and housewife @proudhousewife on Fan Fiction.net. @proudhousewife writes that her children are gaining an interest in reading but she fears the very present danger that if they read JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series they will be swayed to practice witchcraft. So she is rewriting all of the first book in the series “Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone” into “Hogwarts
School of Prayer and Miracles” witch suffering through her chapter one, I feel that her children may become illiterate. Within three paragraphs Harry Potter, raised by his wicked atheist aunt and uncle are confronted by a Hagrid. I say a Hagrid, because @proudhousewife describes what I think is a CMT Award recipient. In this work of fiction Harry is assured science is a myth, Jesus is God and becomes born again. And so just soak in some direct quotes before I make my point: Ch. #1 Aunt Petunia laughed again; and stuck her pointy, sharp nose up in the air. “We are too smart for that. Haven’t you read Dawkins? God is dead! Dawkins proved that. “What is a Christian?” Harry queried innocently. “Christians are people who want to be good,” Hagrid explained wisely; and crouched down so he was on eye level with Harry. Aunt Petunia smacked her hands over Harry’s young ears; and her voice was sickly sweet when she said, “Thank you very much for your concern, sir, but he does not need your religion, he has science and socialism and birthdays. Haven’t you heard of Evolution? I have a very good textbook … Hagrid laughed wisely. “Evolution is a fairytale. You don’t really believe that, do you?” Ch. #3 “Pleased to meet you, Reverend Dumbledore,” Harry replied enthusiastically. [Hermione] was the most beautiful young woman he had ever come across. So different from all the girls in public school; who were focused on trying to be like the career women they saw on The Sex and the City. This little one was the picture of innocence and godliness.
So I risked going a bit far on text excerpts, but know there was so much more gold in this mine, that I could hardly contain myself. I could not deprive you of the Rev. Dumbledore now being cured of his homosexuality, as he how has a wife who ‘is as real as Proverbs 31’ (a verse extoling generosity). Or how about Hermione now being Dumbledore’s daughter. Or how eleven year old Harry who’s been Christian all of a few hours is apparently super sexually attracted to her and envisioning what a great wife she’ll make do to her lack of unfeminine interest in professionalism or shitty television. I feel confidently that this is the most Devilish thing on the roster this month. Will many read this fucking terribly written book? No. Will Harry Potter live on as an icon of children’s literature? Most likely. I feel sorry for the bastardized version of this classic story that a minority of children in places like Meridian, Mississippi and Oklahoma City and other bastions of ignorance. I will say I laughed at this dreck that has just been pumped out into the world by @proudhousewife on this fan fiction site. But then this feeble attempt to deface a wonderful selection of children’s literature made me angry. It made me angry because I know that this was a lie being told to children. The face of it being not so ethically evil (that JK Rolling’s Harry Potter series was some crap evangelical conversion track but still there’d be children deprived of this joy. You never love something as much as you do when you’re a kid. When I read Sherlock Holmes as a boy, It was the best book ever written. That is taken from them. And I think that’s just nasty. Worse is that this beautifully written series not only has been robed from them, so has it’s themes of tolerance, acceptance, love, family and making a family out of those you chose, and finding the inner strength to persevere in the face of depression, adversity and those who would destroy you. “Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles” is a shame to all who would subject children to its wrenched writing, its pitiful prose,
pointless plot, and misguided morals. I’m an old lapsed Catholic, but I can tell you those who do wrong, the Devil didn’t make them do it. It is really on them.
Letter From the Corsair:
So this is issue number twelve. Twelve months, twelve topics, twelve deadlines. One year hence I began the Modern Corsair. I am struggling to say what I’m feeling. I have done a lot with the first year of Modern Corsair. I have met many authors and artist I deeply respect. I have shaped the opportunity to work with talented and charming people. I consider this project in many ways to have been a dream for me. When I first started I had a staff of six and myself, and now I work with many more persons than that. Back then I had no confidence that I could make one issue of a magazine, let alone a year’s worth. With the live shows I learned how to organize, write and arrange everything that goes into making live theater. Having an audience react live to a poem or story you have written has, thus far, been very flattering. I am honored to know that so many people would bother to come, participate and watch the Modern Corsair Live events. I am lucky to know such kind and helpful men as those two who own and operate the Stay Gallery in Downey who have housed us on numerous occasions. I would like to share some of my favorite moments from my time with the writer staff (you can find more on our Facebook page):
I am so very grateful to them and to all of you, who actually read the Modern Corsair. I hope that this coming year will be even better. I hope that the launch of the YouTube channel and those other projects here to yet unannounced will find favor with you lot. I put myself into this project. There is a great deal of vulnerability in the creative process. Every time I don’t log on to the e-mail and have people saying I’ve wasted my time, and further there is positive feedback and reads on line, my heart slows some.
So come on and join us.
There is more adventure yet to be had here. The sea of imagination is wide and boundless as the souls who are scarcely bound by our bodies. We wish to invite you along on this voyage to explore the mind, and the world and all the beauty and dread we can. We’ve so far left to go, and we could not be more eager to embark. So- what say you? Will you come with us? There’s no time like the present to start the search.
Ian Adams -Editor in Chief
CREDITS The Modern Corsair for September - Issue Number 12 It’s been a whole year, baby! This issue was: Dream This credit section is a metaphor for the inadequate amount of sex you’ve had with your parents. Imagine a submarine floating down a long hallway, through an open doorway into a miniature replica of the Earth. The model Earth bursts open and out pours heaps of socialism, leeches, and college fees. The next issue will be: Paranoia Is this really a magazine you’re reading? How do you know for sure? You could be in a back alley right now, reading the back of a cereal box. Check out our subreddit at www.reddit.com/r/themoderncorsair Send all entries, comments, or suggestions to themoderncorsair@gmail.com. We’d be happy to hear from our readers. Special thanks to: The Stay Gallery And the biggest thanks of all to: You. Not you as the reader of this magazine, specifically you as the human reading this text in this moment. Keep on reading, beautiful person.