YUNG Magazine Issue 2 by Morley Musick

YUNG Magazine is produced entirely by people 21 and under. Online at :: yungmagazine.com twitter.com/yungmagazine facebook.com/yungquarterly

Table of Contents Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Letter

1 Essays

Always Joking

4-5

The Sun Also Shines in Inglewood

Ever Rest

8-10

White Girls Review

12-13

The Hole Story

14-18 Comics

Photo Essay : Mound 2

19-29 Smiling Worker

32-34

The Antidote

37-47

Interviews

Bilderbuch

50-53

Dina Kelberman

54-55

Steve Roggenbuck

56-59

Fiction

A Madman Speaks in Court 62-66 The Boy Who was Fine

67-69

The Workers have Prevailed 70-80 Not Really a Deal Breaker

81-85

Poetry

Yawar

Finer Points of Clingstones

Nyctophobia

90-91

Panacea

Untitled

edTIORSLetTer Marta Murray

( E D I T O R ’ S

L E T T E R )

“Oprah, darling?” I called out, alone in my white silks, with my red cigar beginning to darken. I said, “My dear, is it true? Must I write one more introduction for that bookish trifle, YUNG?” And she replied, “Oh, Morley, don’t you worry about it. I’m sure someone will take care of it. You are a sensual being. You are a sensual being.” So I went out instead, slipped into my parka, and went for a hike down our rental-mountain (furnished entirely with Evian® based snow). It was all fine in some respects; Oprah tousling my angelic brown hair, us falling in the Evian® based snow, eating charityGrapes® under the shade of an Evian Pine®… But as our vacation entered its fifth year, our light-hearted conversations began to shift in tone. She told me, once, “How about you forget YUNG Magazine. How about we go crash another helicopter?” She then whispered, watching it burn, “Aren’t you glad you left the youth literary world?”, and laughed aloud with Reagan and Kim Kardashian – and well, I said, “I am glad.” I felt strange about my reply. Thinking more on it – I realized that, at the least,YUNG Magazine had provided the beginnings of my immense wealth. In New York alone, we have sold around ten or more copies of this publication. And, more importantly, we have followers on social media. So I owe it something, in that sense. But what to say now? And what to make the new issue about? The answer came to me while I was looking through my vast window that looked onto mountains: Yes, I thought, I’ll make this issue about mountains. And so it was, YUNG Magazine, issue 2 was to be the “Mountains Issue”. In composing this simple note, I’ve come to think of the things mountains mean to me, and I’ve considered their place in Youth literature. What do I value in a publication, what do I hope to achieve here? I hope for YUNG to be the most interesting, most vital, rigorous, important– but ah! What is that? I smell someone – I think, a distant rancid smell? Her dreadful tip-toe step – come through the halls, just show yourself!– “Morley!” She’s approaching. – “Morley!” She cries to me, “Morley! Get off the damn Oprahnet!” -M

Essays

Alex Kritikos

To further investigate, I googled, “haptic mouse,” “mouse touch sensation,” and “responsive mouse” and found zero relevant results. Then, I closed my eyes. I was no longer able to feel a difference. Text was text was hyperlink was text. And then it clicked. The impatience I felt from Apple’s rainbow spinning pinwheel and Windows’ busy loading ring produces certain visual connections, hat cause the same imagined pressure I felt on my pointer finger. That single hand cursor chosen by interface developers gives rise to connectedness and humanity in devices. The links I click are extensions of my own hand, reaching into databases and digital storage, opening and closing an expansive world.

On Technology, Culture, and Communication By Tiffany Wong

ALWAYS JOKIN

1. Mouse Hover Hand Sensation For the longest time, I was unsure of how to explain this phenomenon: I could physically feel the difference between hyperlink and regular text. On clickable hover, a certain pressure emitted from touchpad or mouse reached the pad of my index finger—binary transduced into sensation. I questioned whether this happened to everyone, to my friends, to my parents who were not similarly raised on Neopets.

2. Forms of Language For my University of Chicago essay question, I chose the prompt that prompted, “You are you and your..?” And to this I responded, “I am myself and my language.” I discussed the forms of language manifest beyond fumbling alphabets and character sets: the language expressed by pauses in speech, by flashes of teeth. And then there are emergent forms of language that are intelligible to only a few. While language is the primary means by which we understand each other, it also obfuscates understanding for those who can’t comprehend its foreign variants. Such is the case with these new languages. Creation of a new language gives strange, defining license to the originator. When I was younger and already nostalgic, I coined all these terms to share with just my friends because I fancied myself an imprinter of their consciences. In the way that blood oaths brand friendships, shared slang and subsequent modes of thinking stain. More so than remembrance as hollows of language—speech patterns, hair flicks, lip purses, scents—I wished to be remembered in the depths of language, in the undercarriage of a particular notion, in an idea, in something only felt and impossible to share. 3. Chat Conventions The New Republic article by Ben Crair on the aggressiveness of the period and the passive-aggressiveness of the ellipse begins a discussion of chat conventions. I also noted the difference in tone between sentence case capitalization and lack of capitalization, with the latter presumably interpreted as more open and the former more definitive and assertive. Even chat-speak assumes different analyses in different contexts. When I text someone new, I take note of attempts to soften words through insertion of smileys, lol’s, haha’s, omg’s, ironic suffixes, deletions, purposeful “accidental” misspellings, exclamation marks, etc. The more a text-message challenges En-

glish conventions, the less honest it becomes. And further, I propose that our cultural suppression of accurate self-representation in text reflects a postmodern consciousness. We weaken our own assertions to retain relativity to the world. Petty complaints sit poorly with me when they spill from my mouth or more likely, through my fingers, and therefore I claim to be joking, but a part of me acknowledges the inherent limitation in always joking. 4. Generation Y My generation, born alongside digital technology, shies away from wielding it for commerce. We are credited with the decline of the music industry, book stores, Blockbuster, and magazines. But still, and for free, we consume and produce more heartily than the generations prior. We are Napster, Limewire, and Piratebay. However, we are also Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook. We are the generation that shares and profusely publishes. And each act of posting demonstrates a desire to connect. To others, we are awkward, spoiled, and selfish. Yet I would add that my generation recognizes and deflects all of these qualities in search of truth beneath irony. Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network wires into our cerebral, calculated form of connection. We forge linkages based on commonality and reciprocation—“like” button empathy. Mutual and passive interests determine friendships: television shows, music, sports, movies, books, games. Compatibility inevitably reduces to sharing of digital media. From browsing a blog, I imagine that I have gotten to know someone because their interests and aesthetic and humor are on full display. Interminable scrolling is therefore a reflex of searching beyond ourselves. Connection, purportedly lost to us, returns, occasionally unreciprocated, oft anonymous, as another form of consumption. Friends represent social currency, and modern companionship delves into shallow, deep pools of formulaic, and yet remarkable discourse. Friendships today are merely different, ricocheting off the past and future and clutching onto current. Ultimately, sharing makes

concrete our present. 5. Generation Z When Generation Z comes of age, they will utilize technology in forms extraordinary to us as they have grown up already fixated on screens and with a generation’s distance from corded telephones and VHS tapes. They will not harbor as much nostalgia for the past, because their past will be stored in bytes. They will be the generation that forgets, the generation that pursues the future.

Harlie Rush

n i s e n i h S o s l The Sun A Englewood

Englewood is where I was born and raised. Erase all those negative thoughts out of your head right now. The place is not as bad as the news reporters on channel seven make it seem. Yeah people die living in Englewood but people also grow old and happy living in Englewood. When I walk down Hermitage Street I get motivated to change the appearance. I can’t lie, it does look run down and kind of rough. Abandoned buildings on every block, some people’s homes even look abandoned: broken windows, broken doors, the front yard looks like a jungle. There are hardly any businesses in Englewood, but the ones we do have are the best. You can go to Fat Albert’s and get the biggest, juiciest Italian beef for only two dollars. I say that’s better than going downtown and getting a dry Italian beef. Yeah they shoot a lot in Englewood but the gangbangers are nice enough to warn innocent people to clear the streets. If you don’t obey that’s your problem. Crackheads will cut your grass dirt cheap; maybe it’ll cost a dollar or two. You don’t even have to get cable on your TV because you can look out your window and see a show. If you look towards one end of the block you can see an action movie; if you look towards the other you can see a drama: some girl arguing with her baby daddy, other baby mama, or maybe something even more juicy. You can always go to your next-door neighbor and ask for some sugar for your Kool-Aid.

6 17 7 6 6

La’India Cooper July 29, 2013 Instance #1

HAWK

I wonder how climbers know when they’ve reached the top. It’s the same slippery ground, there’s just nowhere left to go. I freeze fast, shivering until I can’t feel my lips and talk like a drunkard. But fingers thaw. No number of sweaters can block the shadows that swim away when I turn my head, the sneaking suspicion that I reached my icy peak in a fast food parking lot. Or maybe it came sooner than that. Maybe it came one of those days Steve and I snuck out of algebra class to play“let’s-see-who-can-jump-over-themost-chairs.” We’d line them up, like we were stuntmen facing a row of school busses. We’d try to be quiet, lifting them so they didn’t scrape on the ground. It was a game nobody won, or everyone did. My record was five. We were afterschool olympians, each other’s roaring crowds. I’d wind up and sprint and push off the dusty black ground of the cafeteria and I was weightless, holding my breath and anticipating the fall, but for that one shining moment, I was at the peak, not moving up or down but floating in silent suspension, Steve laughing that laugh I’ve since forgotten. Or maybe it was something else, something darker, halfremembered, buzzing and smoking and buried down deep. The door to the fast food joint is locked, the glass in the door frame rattling with every sharp tug and echoing in the concrete entryway. “It’s after midnight,” Walter says. “We can’t go in.” Scratchy jazz pumps softly from speakers overhead as we warm our

hands with misty breaths. Snow collects in individual flakes on the black felt shoulders of Peter’s coat, big ones, with six shiny tips. “I think we can still use the drive-through,” Evan says. I start to laugh, those low breathy chuckles that bubble up before the joke sinks in. “What, and eat in the parking lot?” He only grins. The voice from the automated podium greets us, speaking without pauses from a million miles away. Evan leans out the window and begins to say something when the voice cuts him off and tells him we can only order from the after-midnight menu. He leans back into the car and we discuss this development in quick, hushed tones. His head pops out again. “You’re still making cheeseburgers now, right?” “Yes.” The voice seems a little hesitant. “We would like fifteen.” The voice pauses and the air hangs heavy with static silence and muffled laughter. The voice returns. “FifTEEN, did you say?” I imagine him sprinting to the supply room, his visor flying from his forehead, sweating bullets and hoping against hope we hadn’t said fifty. “Fifteen, yes, that’s right.” In my mind, the voice collapses in relief. “Will that be all?” “I’d also like one large Sprite. Thanks.” Evan rolls up his window and it fogs up pretty quickly. It doesn’t matter, there wasn’t much to see outside. Our laughter comes loud and ruthless. I can’t remember laug hing like this ever before, except maybe in an empty middle school cafeteria a long time ago. I realize I haven’t spoken to Steve and I

By Jack Wanberg

Ever Rest I’ll never climb a mountain, I can barely stand the cold. The walk from the bus stop to the front door is icy enough.

s iko

ex Al

can’t remember why that is or if there’s even a reason and I think that maybe if we hadn’t skipped math I’d better understand slopes and critical points and how to tell them apart. I pull out my phone and the screen makes my face glow like a halo in the dark. It’s late. I suppose he’s asleep. Still, my fingers hover over his name. I can’t even pinpoint what it was we’re laughing at. It’s like we’re delirious, deprived of air to the point of giddy abandon. Like we’re climbers, high in the air, far from home, closer than ever to the stars. “Mount Everest” is one of those phrases that evokes a feeling without a precise image to go along with it. It’s overwhelming and unimaginable. Nobody knows what it looks like because that’s not what’s important. In our minds, it’s the place

it Kr

where the Earth meets the sky. Hundreds of people climb it every year, maybe hoping that from the highest point, they will be able to see forever. But I hear it’s cloudy at the top. Edmund Hillary was 34 when he hit the peak. He never took his own picture at the top. He was knighted a week later. He spent the rest of his life exploring a little and reading a lot, science fiction novels, mostly. People climb when they’re young, and nobody climbs Everest twice. We’re driving to Evan’s house and the car’s as stuck as the tape in its second-rate player. The snow’s

Thanks.”

“I’d also like one large Sprite.

coming down hard and fogging up the windshield, blowing in plumes when I open the door to get out and push. Peter’s pushing too, on the other side, and we shout through the gray vinyl guts of the interior. “Hey,” I yell, my mouth numb. “When would you say you peaked?” “Not right now.” He snorts. “Jesus, man, we’re young. You keep looking up and you’re going to trip on something.” And I do, a missed footfall and a flash of slush in my face. Peter’s doubled over and the cars are whizzing past so close I can feel the air pushed from their metal shells to the hair on the back of my neck. The stars are bright tonight, burning holes in the black felt of the fading sky. I can feel the snow melting through my pants but I don’t mind that much because I don’t feel like I’m in some in-between place, warmed and sealed off. I’m here, on the ground, getting cold but staying put. And maybe being in-between is okay; it’s still being. I’m still on the ground when I dial Steve, pressing my phone to my reddening ear and hearing it ring, ring. There’s no going back up a mountain. Hillary only climbed Everest once, but once is enough I guess. The view from the top never changes, and it never leaves. The clouds will always be heavy and I’ll never know when I’ve reached the top until I’m moving down again. It’s impossible to make a mountain any higher than it is. The best I can do is spin forward, blowing on my fingers and loving the snow.

WHITE GIRLS BY

P SO

T ES

EIN

ilton Als’ newest collection of essays, White Girls, opens with a love letter. The correspondence turns from an angsty tale of infatuation into an exploration of a friendship between two people of similar backgrounds. It describes the evolution and eventual dissolution of a “twinship.” “How can I be a we without him?” the writer laments. This dreamy prose languishes across the first ninety pages of the book, and at first it hampers the reader’s ability to discern whether the author is male or female, straight or gay, black or white or something in between. And, as cliché as this sounds, it doesn’t matter. Throughout White Girls, Als aims to transcend ordinary distinctions. He refuses to label anything according to convention; he scorns terms like “otherness” and “difference;” he blurs the lines between fiction, philosophy, and journalism within each of his essays. This book, though it aims to defy classification, hinges on exactly how people classify one another, a characteristic tendency of the “white girls” in its title. Only one piece, a cutting study of André Leon Talley, feels restricted by its consistent tone and genre. The article is jarringly critical, most likely since it is one of the earliest-dated essays included in Als’ collection (it was originally published in 1994, the first year that Als became a staff writer at The New Yorker). Everything else in White Girls is pensive, personal, and intelligent. Als’ forceful writing evokes Flannery O’Connor’s 1930 Savannah as clearly as it does Eminem’s 1980 Detroit. His fictional monologue in the voice of a silent film actress is as credible as his accounts of firsthand experiences. His sentences are artfully crafted and packed with unconventional insight. The work as a whole is stunning. The only issue with Als’ writing is that, when it is packed together between the covers of a book (rather than spread across the pages of multiple magazines - White Girls is primarily comprised of material that’s already been printed elsewhere), it shines too brightly. Als proffers too many weighty ideas some ad infinitum, and some only for a moment, just enough time to disorient the reader before disappearing entirely. He beats his intellect into every word of every sentence of every page of White Girls. It's overwhelming, and some threads of thought get lost before Als can tie them together and unite the book at its loose ends. Still, each essay glows on its own. From the outset, Als’ tone is strikingly self-aware and interrogative. He does not distance himself from his past, his former opinions, fears, dreams, or his lingering reluctance to articulate the depth of his emotions. Als reveres personal privacy, and understands the soul as a sphere almost entirely beyond the realm of human comprehension. To glimpse his innermost self feels perverse, Als admits, confiding in his audience that “to talk to [himself], even, [he has] to turn the lights off, as in a cinema.” In order to afford his readers some understanding of his mind, Als employs a stream-of-consciousness narrative style that carries through all of

REVIEW

Claudia Buccino

his essays. His razor-sharp observations frequently slip into philosophical musings about the nature of man’s relationships with himself, with others, and with his surroundings. Als examines his own surroundings and his characters’ surroundings with a keen eye for contradiction: he is fascinated by Flannery O’Connor’s painful consciousness of the “uneasy and unavoidable union between black and white” in southern society, and stands in awe of her ability to “observe the traditions of the society that [she fed] upon” in her writing. Als resents the idea of difference, and characterizes it as “something stupidly defined so as to be controlled.” And difference doesn’t only control classification; according to Als, it controls how people relate to one another. Blackness, he writes, “almost always [has] to explain itself…[it] plays on liberal guilt.” Yet even within one particularly exclusive group, people create their own differences in order to gauge self-worth. “We hate white girls because we are white girls and that’s what white girls do,” Als observes. As per the title of this collection, every essay seems to beg the question, “Aren’t we all really white girls, in a sense?” Als would answer: yes, we are. And if we aren’t, then we are spending our time attempting to be one, because everyone wants most of all to be and possess what they cannot possibly be or have. White Girls revolves around transformation and a universal obsession with difference. Als’ writing transforms its genre as it vacillates between essay and short story. His subjects similarly transform themselves: Eminem changes from white to black; Michael Jackson from black to white; Truman Capote from male to female. The celebrities featured in White Girls garner fame because, in an era defined by otherness, they shape themselves into something that they are not, if only for a moment. Als places particular emphasis on how Capote “creates himself” as a white woman on the dust jacket of Other Voices, Other Rooms. He imagines that Capote intentionally portrays himself as “a woman of style,” courageous enough “to deconstruct [his] body and make [it] thought-fodder for the camera.” But Capote, like many other stars that Als studies in White Girls, does not ultimately prevail in his quest for change. These repeated failures seem to suggest that Als thinks it’s impossible to fully effect a personal transformation. And one must note that Als does not attempt to define or distinguish himself as Capote did: there is no dust jacket photo on the cover of this innovative book.

1. Plumka would later go on to become a labor activist in Los Angeles and be featured in Ripley’s Believe it or Not for writing his entire autobiography on a penny postcard.

Noah Asimow - December 11, 2013

“Streets of gold?” questioned Hyam Plumka, a seventeen-year-old Russian Jew who had just hopped off the boat in New York Harbor. Looking into the congested alleyways of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Plumka’s vision of the American dreamland seemed as distant as his former home in the “Pale.” Due to his serious lack of professional skill, Plumka enlisted in the ranks of the Jewish baking industry. In his 4,000 character Yiddish autobiography (written on the back of a postcard)1, Plumka detailed the filth of his working conditions and the “slavery” that “went on in the bakeries” in New York. Plumka1 and those like him paved the way for the development and later organization of the Jewish bakers of the Lower East Side. Culminating in the creation of the Bagel Baker’s Union, Local 338, the tumultuous story of the Jewish baker’s labor movement mirrors that of the immigrant Jews themselves. Forced to overcome dreadful working conditions, malicious bosses, cultural barriers, and life in the ten-

2. Matthew Goodman, “The Rise and Fall of the Bagel” Harvard Review 28 (2005): 92 3. Balinska, The Bagel, 40-68. 4. Moses Rischin, The Promised City: New York’s Jews 1870-1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 57; Feigenbaum, Jamie S., “The Bagel Economy: What An Iconic Urban Food Can Teach Us About Immigrant Life in New York City, 1880-1910” (2013). Urban Studies Masters Theses.Paper 9. 5. Balinska, The Bagel, 99 6. Brenner, ‘The Formative Years,’ 39-40 7. Joseph Solarchik, “A History of the Formation of the Bakers Union in New York City,” April 1983. 8. Morris Hilquist, Loose Leaves from a Busy Life, (New York 1934), pg. 25; Balinska, The Bagel, 105. 9. Paul Brenner, ‘The Formative Years of the Hebrew Bakers’ Unions’ 1881-1914’, YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science, Vol. 18, 1983, pp. 39-121. 10. Baker’s Jounal, October 25, 1891

ement houses of the Lower East Side, the bagel bakers still preserved their old world traditions in a world that attempted to spoil them. The legacy of Local 338 was made possible by the efforts of those like Hyam Plumka, who tirelessly labored to create for themselves the “streets of gold” contained in their visions of America. The story of the Local 338’s creation proves that the bagel and its bakers were more than craftsmen of breakfast bread; they were the creators of a distinctly Jewish emblem of resilience.2 The Ingredients Although immigrants often struggled to bring personal belongings on their journeys to America, they never left behind hallowed traditions from their homelands. According to Maria Balinska, the bagel developed in Poland in the seventeenth century because regional doctrines forbade Jews from baking, thus forcing them to boil bread. As is often the case in the history of the Jewish people, restrictions on behavior forged cultural tradition. The bagel became a fixture of Jewish culture in Europe; it entered folklore, becoming both a symbol for the “circle of life” and a means to prolong it.3 It was only a matter of time before the bagel moved to America. By 1900, over seventy bagel bakeries operated on the Lower East Side, serving over 1,028,588 immigrant Jews.4 An 1891 guidebook informs new arrivals that they could earn “50 cents a day, spend 10 cents for coffee and bagels and save 40 cents.”5 And though there was serious demand for bagels, the bakeries themselves were miserable places to earn a living. Many were situated in the basements of tenement buildings, where bakers toiled for over fourteen hours a day in filthy, windowless cellars. An 1895 New York State factory report observed that “there appears to be no other industry, not even the making of clothes in sweat-shops, which is carried on amid so much dirt and filth.”6 Because bagel bakers were faceless to consumers, and largely hidden from even their most intimate companions, their working conditions went unnoticed. These struggles continued for nearly a decade before a sympathetic socialist, Morris Hilquist, acknowledged them.7 Hilquist, who had immigrated to New York earlier in the century, viewed the baker as “pale faced, hollow-chested, listless, and brutified. [They] seemed to be hopeless material for organization and struggle.”8 Hilquist saw a situation that “fairly cried out for sympathy and help,” and in 1888 formed the United Hebrew Trades.9 The Jewish labor movement had officially begun. Rolling the Dough Local 31 initially prospered. Periodicals commanded readers to “buy no bread than that which carries the union label,” which inspired widespread awareness for the plight of the baker, and helped to stabilize their livelihoods. The union, however, forgot about the political dissonance amongst its rapidly growing membership.10 The union was populated by members of the radical socialist United Hebrew Trades and the more conservative American Federation of Labor, two parties in sharp ideological opposition. Unable to both support capitalism (AFL) and

11. Balinska, The Bagel, 1063. Balinska, The Bagel, 40-68. 12. David E. Bernstein, “Lochner V. New York, A Centennial Retrospective,” Washington University Law Quarterly, Vol. 83, 1497. 13. Journal, ‘Now for the Ten Hour Workday’ and ‘For the Abolition of Saturday Night and Sunday Work.’ Oct 15, 1897. 14. Edward Marshall, ‘Bread and Filth Cooked Together,’ N.Y. PRESS, Sept. 30 1894, § 4, at 1 15. Bernstein, Lochner V. New York, 1897; Marshall, ‘Bread and Filth,’ 4. The number “forty-six percent” comes from the number of bakers the study found who lived in the bakeries. 16. Ibid. 17. Balinska, The Bagel, 110; Bernstein, Lochner V. New York, 1897. 18. Rufus Peckham, Lochner V. New York, 1904 19. Baker’s Journal, ‘The Ten Hour Decision,” 1904 20. The Lochner case also had immense legal implications, and in many ways represents the larger ideology of the Progressive Era. Many more cases limiting working hours of employees were rejected by the Supreme Court up to 1937.

overturn” it (UHT), the union leaders elected to side with the AFL. In doing so, the union alienated the leftist majority of Manhattan’s Jews.11 The union dissolved shortly thereafter. The fight to organize, though, did not die with the banner carrying baker’s union. Henry Weissman, a former editor of the Baker’s Journal and a self-proclaimed anarchist, stepped into the fray.12 Weissman had written in the Journal that without limitations on work hours, the job “had driven countless numbers of journeymen [bakers] into other walks of life, into the streets, the hospitals, alms houses, insane asylums, penitentiaries and finally death through poverty and desperation.”13 He later publicized the death of a baker whose body had been carried out of a tenement home and persuaded the New York Press to send a team of reporters to investigate.14 Headed by Edward Marshall, the investigation noted that “cockroaches and other insects, some of them the peculiar development of foul bakeries and never seen elsewhere, abounded,” and that “forty-six percent of bakers…hardly ever get out of their baking clothes, that they, as well as their bedding, are in a nauseatingly filthy condition.”15 These reports had a similar effect on the public as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle; few readers felt sympathy for the bakers, but many developed a fear of baked goods. In response to public fear, the New York State legislature passed the Bakeshop Act, which restricted the workday to ten hours.16 The labor movement now had state legislation to rally behind. But within months, an upstate New York bakeshop owner would abruptly halt Weissman’s movement to organize New York’s bakers. Out of the Kettle and Into the Oven After ignoring provisions in the Bakeshop Act and forcing his employees to work well beyond the set limits, bakery owner Joseph Lochner faced an indictment. In 1904, he appealed to the Supreme Court, declaring that “limiting the hours of the baker…was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution...”17 Unfortunately for bakers, the majority of the Supreme Court agreed. This was the justices’ decision: “There is no reasonable ground for interfering with the liberty of person or the right of free contract by determining the hours of labor in the occupation of a baker…There is no contention that bakers as a class are not equal in intelligence and capacity to men in other trades or that they are not able to... care for themselves without the protecting arm of the state.”18 The Lower East Side bakers were shocked by the ruling. Morris Hilquist declared that Peckham and Holmes would have ‘felt not quite so certain about the capacity of bakers” had they seen the “independent baker” fall “in the midst of his free labor like an overburdened beast.”19 The Lochner decision caused a swift deterioration in working conditions for bakers, revealing their status as second-class citizens in the eyes of the nation’s elite.”20 Thoroughly frustrated, the Jewish bakers of the Lower East Side banded together and declared a general strike on August 7, 1905. According to the Tribune, “strikers gathered around the bakery of Philip

30. Balinska, The Bagel, 130

21. BAKERS ON STRIKE; BREAD IN DANGER. (1905, Aug 08). Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922) 22. NO GENERAL STRIKE TO HELP THE BAKERS. (1905, Aug 09). New York Times (1857-1922). 23. Quoted from “AG,” a pseudonymous contestant in the YIVO Essay Competition of 1942. YIVO is the Yiddish Institute for Jewish Research. 24. BRICKS FLY THICK IN BAKERS’ FIGHT. (1909, May 04). New York Times (1857-1922) 25. BRICKS FLY THICK, New York Times, 1904 26. Baker’s Journal, 26 June 1909: Balinska, The Bagel, 117. 27. Ibid, 119. 28. Balinska, The Bagel, 118. Drawings by Jackie Monoson 29. Goodman, “The Rise and Fall of the Bagel” 94

Federman-who employed strikebreakers-and began to throw stones. Some forced their way in, beginning to throw kerosene on the dough.”21 The strike’s vicious nature failed to illicit any further sympathy from the public, and the strike collapsed after a month. Bakers’ conditions remained decrepit and many lost their jobs.22 The fight was not yet over, however. Abraham Cahan re-entered the fray, and worked to consolidate Jewish local unions in 1908.23 He created the Local 100, a newly chartered baker’s union ready to fight for the rights Lochner and the United States Supreme Court had ripped from their calloused hands only four years prior. On May 4, 1909, the fight against the ruling began. The Times ran a headline describing the bloodshed for which the strike of 1909 would be known. “Bricks Fly Thick in Baker’s Fight; Strikers Storm East Side Shops – One Raider’s Skull Fractured with Sugar Bowl.”24 Determined to disallow non-union shops from undermining set union wages and working conditions, strikers “shot pistols,” “incinerated bakeries,” and “beat strikebreakers.”25 After seven weeks of such violent outbursts, the Hebrew Master Bakers surrendered to the wishes of Local 100. Cahan declared that “the victory belongs to the entire Jewish quarter – to the many thousands who have refused to eat scab bread and who have given the strikers…support.”26 The cohesiveness of the Jewish community on the Lower East Side ensured the strikers’ victory.27 The confidence, pride and growth of Local 100 allowed for the creation of four autonomous sections of bakers according to specific craft. One of these subsets happened to be for the baking of bagels.28 Full Circle The bagel maker’s organization after 1910 represents the efforts of Manhattan’s Jews to preserve an iconic food and monopolize its creation.29 By the early 1920’s the organization came to be known as the Local 338, the Bagel Maker’s Union, and served as one of New York’s most robust labor unions. It was, perhaps, too strong. By allowing only the sons or nephews of bagel makers to enter the Bagel Maker’s Union, it obtained an almost mafia-like control over bagel baking. The exclusion of non-blood relatives or friends kept the union at a manageable size, which meant that the relationships between members became unusually close. Balinska writes that “a not atypical example is of the baker whose father, also a bagel baker, died on the job and whose mother married another bagel baker who, in turn, was the nephew of one of the old timers and who also had a son and a son-inlaw in the union!”30 Members doled out nicknames to one another, such as “King Kong” to a 6’5” member, and “Iron Mike” to a member with a particularly powerful immune system. Family relation didn’t even guarantee membership, as one son had to prove that “he could roll at least 832 bagels an hour…before he was let in.” A medieval guild sheltered in the world of old Jewish tradition, Local 338 represented the extremes of labor activism and the extent to which its members went to keep the

The New York Times, in a 1952 article, declared for its uninformed readers that a “bagel,” or as some spell it, “baygel” was merely “a doughnut in rigor mortis.” Although today’s bagels would surely beg to differ, it is an undoubtedly appropriate description for the bagels made by the members of Local 338. Hard, crunchy, withered, and distinctly “European” in diameter, the union bagels mirrored the characteristics of their bakers. First or second-generation immigrants, these men used the bagel as both a rung for climbing the social ladder and a link for tying together their families. Although such bagels, and even such lifestyles may be thoroughly cemented in “rigor mortis,” their legacy must be preserved for the generations of bagel lovers to come. 21. Goodman, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Bagel,’ 94 22. Interview by Maria Balinska of former union member George Laskovitz 23. 2 Balinska, The Bagel, 146-151; Goodman, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Bagel,” 96-99.

bagel recipe in the family. Generally the union’s “old-timers” were first generation immigrants, men who keenly remembered the days of living under the thumb of their oppressive bosses.31 These memories shaped the operational side of the union. Meetings were conducted entirely in Yiddish until the death of the last “old-timer” in 1950. Known to “burn non-union bakeries” and “kick in the shins of the bakers,” the union was never afraid to deploy militant and violent strategies against its aggressors.32 The man who finally “called the shots” at the union was the George Leskovitz, a former union business agent himself, who claimed that “if the business agent didn’t like you, you were dead.” The last true “old-timer” to hold the position of business agent was Benny Greenspan. Closeting the union in the already secluded community of the Lower East Side, Greenspan was always quick to ask any strangers curious to join in on meetings a snappy “Whoduya know?” before granting them access to the sanctuary of bagel baking. This behavior allowed for the union to maintain control of the bagel making industry, transforming the once “lower-class” profession into an exclusive, middle class, and highly desirable career. The prosperity of Local 338 would not last forever, mainly due to its resistance to progress. In the early days of Local 338, this resistance kept the bagel baking profession an artisanal craft, immune in the eyes of its bakers from the advances of modern mechanization practices. But, in ignoring technological advancement, bakers were left wholly unprepared for Daniel Thompson’s invention: the bagel-making machine. Thompson’s machine revolutionized commercial baking capabilities. It was adopted by manufacturer Harry Lender, who could make “6,000 dozen bagels in a day”, a figure which trumped the best Lower East Side bagel makers’ best, who could craft at most 3,600 in a day. By employing freezers, Lender compounded the disparity between man and machine, as his bagels, unlike those of the Lower East Side, responded well to such icy preservation.33 The bagel making machine forced Local 338 to fizzle into oblivion, taking with it the bagels that had come to call the Lower East Side their home. Gooey, flavored, and made with a multitude of non-traditional garnishes, the bagels served in America today in no way resemble those of their forbearers. The passage of time has allowed the modern bagel’s myriad fans to forget what the original was like. The fascinating part of this entire story is that it was not until after the downfall of the all-powerful Bagel Maker’s Union, that the bagel was able to fully assimilate into American culture. The national success of the bagel perhaps sent a message to the Jews of the Lower East Side, that cultural enclaves no longer belonged on American soil, let alone in the nation’s most American city. The disintegration of the union paralleled the disappearance of a great many other Jewish cultural traditions. Yiddish largely vanished from the tongues of Jewish families, and the Lower East Side experienced an influx of new, “Orientals” as Benny Greenspan was said to have called them.

Mound 2 Diego Rodriguez

comics

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Smiling Worker Holding Tomatoesâ&#x20AC;? A comic by Austin Danula

“The Antidote” By Caroline David www.carolineldavid.com

interviews

PROMISCUOUS FIGMENTS : THE BILDERBUCH INTERVIEW By Chloe Yanny-Tillar

I’m not great at talking about music – whenever I get asked what I like to listen to, what usually comes out is a non-committal, “Oh, I dunno, plenty of mainstream indie rock and some obscure Austrian music from my sister.” The first half is disappointing for both parties, but the latter half is more often than not met with raised eyebrows. Sometimes it’s just because I seem like a pretentious asshole – and rightly so. But sometimes people will jokingly roll their eyes and ask me why I would ever start listening to Austrian music. All too often the people I meet are dismissive of foreign music, especially if it’s in a different language. It’s dumb. Bilderbuch is one of those bands met by my fellow Americans with skeptical looks. It wasn’t until my sister and I looked up videos of their live performances that we got hooked. Charmed by their enthusiastic, borderline spastic antics, we caught a bad case of BIBU Fever; by the time the band released their single “Plansch” over the summer, we could hardly wait for their new EP to be released. And now that it has, I’d love nothing more than to introduce the band to YUNG readers and create a strange, Chicago-based Bilderbuch cult following. Bilderbuch is a German-speaking band from Austria, currently making waves in the German and Austrian music scenes. The band, which has been together since high-school, consists of front man Maurice Ernst, lead guitarist Michael Krammer, bass guitarist Peter Horazdovsky, and newbie Philipp Scheibl on the drums. Upon the release of their recent Feinste Seide EP, the group received attention for their ability to bring together the best bits of pop, rock, hip-hop, and long guitar solos. As far as their music goes – I don’t really know how to explain it. German media is right: Greatness. Nonsense. Sexiness. Wiener Schmäh. Promiscuous figments. I get it now, yeah man, yeah. ***** Back to Top

I got to interview guitarist Mike about Bilderbuch’s new EP, their pasts, their futures, and their favorite Kanye tracks. I wrote in German, he wrote in English, it was crazy, please enjoy. + For our readers unacquainted with your music, could you describe your sound? Sublime, harsh, dope, and 70 hp strong. + Can you tell us about the Austrian music scene? In the music business, Austria is like one of the two siblings of Germany (the other one is Switzerland.) From a creative point of view, Austria probably benefits from having a smaller, not-very-well-oiled music business “maschin”. Thanks to that, we hardly ever have problems like commercialization and endless, uncreative repetition. On the other hand, as an Austrian band, it’s pretty hard to get international attention, but I think we’ve got a pretty good start. In any case, we’re already getting asked wonderful questions outta the US. So actually, making music is pretty cool over here in Austria. + What are three things you’d want an American fan to know about you? 1. In Chicago, it’s become a yearly summers tradition to reenact our video “Plansch.” 2. The “Polar Bear Plunge,” also our invention, has become really popular in America. 3. We actually bought the Lamborghini in the ‘Maschin’ video, but we can’t afford the gas, so now it’s just sitting in my garage.

+ In general, the German media has really emphasized the “sexiness” of the ‘Maschin’ video, which is of course true, but when I watched it for the first time, I saw it as more as an ironic, somewhat layered critique of the portrayals of masculinity in pop music. Soo… is there something more to the video, besides bringing a bit more sexiness into the German language music? For us, this video is mainly something that just had to be done. Of course there’s a bit of a blink in the eye (Austrian expression equivalent to: “This video was ‘tongue-in-

MUSIC IS PRETTY COOL OVER HERE IN AUSTRIA

+ If I am not mistaken, you guys have been in school and university for much of your time playing music. How was your experience as a young band finding the balance between your studies and your music career, and did you ever feel pressure to choose one over the other? If it’s a matter of sink or swim, we would rather swim with the music than drown in scripts, documents, and subject materials. In the past couple of years, we slowly moved away from studying and got closer to our music and the band. When there was time, we covered the bare necessities at the university, but nowadays we spend most of our time at the Bilderbuch office.

and real downs. The thing is, we don’t look at ourselves as a hype band, since the word “hype” implies a quick altitude flight and an even quicker downfall. We hope that it’ll continue to be possible for us to slowly and profoundly build up things like, in this case, success and fame. Thankfully, so far we haven’t been one of them, and hopefully never will be – touch wood (Austrian expression equivalent to “knock on wood).And if one day our music is strong enough to break the boundaries of language we would be more than happy to play a show in Chicago. + American pop-culture question: What do you think of Yeezus? Do any of you guys have a favorite track? At first I couldn’t really relate to the “hard” touch of Kanye’s new sound, but that’s because at that point I had only seen the first TV appearance on SNL. I think he performed “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead.” But when I heard the whole album it all made sense to me. I’ve been a fan since “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” came out, which opened my eyes to a new, unattached, and more creative way to make music. My favorite track on the album is Bound 2. When I heard it I knew it would be a single, but I didn’t know that it would come with such a cool video.

cheek’”), but you can’t sing your song in a Lamborghini and be totally serious about it, right? And yes, okay, lately we obviously haven’t been really happy with the German music scene, but that wasn’t the decisive factor for making the video in the first place. With ‘Plansch’ and ‘Maschin,’ we just wanted to show a little bit more of our private side. In our world, it’s all about pools, cars, ice cream, and guitars. + Do you think that people would have responded so intensely to ‘Maschin’ if you had you sung in English? Actually, there’ve been people that have told us to translate the lyrics, because then it could be a bigger hit. But I think that the only way to have healthy, persistent success in your career is to do something that comes as close to your true self as possible, and in our case, among other things, that’s the German language. It would be pretty obvious self-denial if we had written our lyrics in any other language than our native one. However, we love using scraps of English in conversation from time to time – but I really shouldn’t tell you which scraps, especially not in an interview.

+ At the beginning of your career (as teenagers) you guys wrote songs about fairy tales, since you didn’t want to act like you had big insights about more “mature” topics. When did you begin to write from your own life experiences and what is your current approach to songwriting? Sometimes there’s a big idea first and then later, together with all the other puzzle pieces, there’s a song. Other times you’ve got the whole song done, but there’s something missing: that one word (it could be Maschin, Plansch, etc.) which suddenly brings sense to all your promiscuous figments. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Check out the wicked cool singles Plansch and Maschin off the Feinste Seide EP. Not a fan yet? Hit up their website (http://www.bilderbuch-musik.at/) for a free download of their A+ song Moonboots and like them on Facebook to receive exuberant notifications of their going-ons. Big thanks to Sara Yanny-Tillar for providing the translations, cultural knowledge, and general sanity. Shout out to Astrid from Austrian music

+ PULS recently named you guys as one of the most hyped bands of tomorrow, writing that you’ve conquered the German market and the next stop is America. Is that one of your current goals – to have success outside of the German-speaking world? Of course, since our first concert we’ve wanted to take over the world – and that’s still the plan, don’t worry. Yeah, they called us “one of tomorrow’s hype bands,” but from that first concert until now, we’ve been a real band with real ups

+ Can we expect a ‘Feinste Seide’ video? At the moment, we’re actually planning on writing new stuff so I’m a little bit apprehensive of being able to put out a third video for this EP. But we’ll definitely keep on making videos, it’s one of the most fun and fascinating things we get to do, besides playing concerts and writing interviews in broken Austrian-English.

BRITNEIGH

...

DINA KELBERMAN / Interview

In 2008, I was watching a live telecast of the Beijing Olympic Ceremony, where large illuminated video clips played across waves of some pale chiffon like fabric. And as I was watching it, I began to feel a cosmic sense of smallness, and felt very glad to be alive. It was weird to feel so attached to any sort of TV event, I didn’t think it would happen again. But it did, Several years later though. When I stumbled across Dina Kelberman’s collection of Simpsons gifs, I felt a similar sense of life in outer space. In her collection, Kelberman finds Simpson’s background images of odd poignancy and makes GIF’s from them. In doing so, she allow us to see beauty in things we might have missed; the spinning log, the fluttering curtain, and the glowing thing in the Simpson’s backyard. They become part of the larger human project to highlight and understand small thing. Joining the green light in The Great Gatsby and the albatross footnote in Moby Dick is Marge’s small yellow hand, tapping her couch on the internet. Dina Kelberman magnifies these movements, granting a special sort of meaning to things on television. All of her work is this good, though. You should check out her website, dinakelberman.com Here is a silly interview conducted with Kelberman over email

Sins of the Father, Screencap with blurred credits

3, 11” x 17” Gouache, pen, white-out on inkjet print

M: “DINA KELBERMAN” sdklfjlsjdf;ll: D: Sure, ok.

I know anything about three plates of stew or i’d weigh in on this idea. Draw us an art:

DINA KELBERMAN is my alias, my Insert your own question here but real name is: do not answer it: DINA KELBERMAN. Is the question for me or for you? Many people consider art to be a competition. What place are you in? Man oh man I love cauldrons: What are you doing to improve your First of all, I have doubts about the statistics?: amount of contact you have actually People who think art is a competition had with cauldrons in real life. So I are fucked and will never be happy. have to be honest I am kind of doubting your so-called love. Although I guess you don’t really have to have Right now I’m listening to: dealt with something physically to Brian Eno / John Cale Wrong Way Up love it. You know what, you’re right. with a few tracks turned off on end- Hey you have really changed my less repeat sometimes i switch to mind about cauldrons. Patwa One Gyal Army and/or Tiffany Best piece of advice (with regards to Foxx windsurfing): “Art is like three plates of stew” It’s ok if you fall down. Don’t go Harry Potter: windsurfing alone cause if you Did Harry Potter really say that? My whack your head on something friend Connor was just talking about you could drown. You should probhow he’s getting back into hating ably wear sun lotion even though Harry Potter. I haven’t read em but it seems wimpy. Follow your bliss. Wizard People, Dear Reader is one Don’t let your friends pressure you of the best things ever. I don’t think into windsurfing if you don’t want to.

(this is a gif) 55

Steve Roggenbuck, the world’s first (self-proclaimed) “internet bard”, gets a lot of flack. One of my friends doesn’t like his poetry because he thinks Roggenbuck’s writing is “too Tumblr”. Others have suggested that Roggenbuck’s work is so aggressively “alt-lit”, that it’s almost not “lit” at all. And while I don’t agree with these claims, I’ll grant his dissenters this; Roggenbuck is in some ways very “tumblr”, and he is heavily influenced by “alt-lit”. I don’t, however, see these inclinations as a reason to discount his writing. There are lots of great writers who demonstrate marked stylistic tics. Just as you could argue that Roggenbuck is too Tumblr, you could also say that Ernest Hemingway is too “sparse”, Flannery O’Connor is too “southern”, and that Cormac McCarthy is too “apocalyptic”. I don’t think anyone would say that these proclivities detract from their work. And in this way, I think it’s wrong to call Roggenbuck a poor poet just because his style is informed so strongly by the internet existence. Out of all of the writers exploring this subject matter, he is one of the best. Unlike most others writing about web-life, Roggenbuck does not reject the possibility of a fulfilling web existence. His poems are powerful because they shed light on a larger portion of online life; its inherent loneliness is covered, but he also embraces its potential as a means to share love or achieve moments of transcendence. While his endless positivity can be cloying, I think it is important to have an artist committed to seeking out good on the internet, a place most literary folks have deemed a wasteland. Roggenbuck channels the voice of the “web metal kid”, the “confused web dad”, or the “annoyingly knowledgeable commentator”, to share views of his own. He simultaneously pokes fun at the terse, misspelled silliness of online web commentary, and grants this language with intelligence, moments of profound observation. When people criticize Roggenbuck for using this kind of “ill-formed” language, I cannot help but remember the backlash other notable writers re-

ceived for employing “lowly” vernaculars. The respectability of works like Huckleberry Finn, in which characters speak in the language of their time, shows the importance of employing non-polished voices. Roggenbuck’s writing, in all its strange internet speak, helped me see significance in places I’d never thought to look. It elevates the voice of the forum and Youtube and Facebook chats. – Morley Musick We asked Roggenbuck a few questions, which he graciously answered over email.

Steve Roggenbuck Interview

Steve Roggenbuck Interview by Morley Musick +Sophie Stein +Naseerah Hutcherson -----------------------------If you had to choose between one way of living all internet interactions or all face-to-face interactions - which would you pick and why? it’s realy a messy question because most of what’s awesome about my current IRL is built on relationships and opprtunities that were created thru the internet. i wouldn’t have found this girl i love in Maine without the internet.. i wouldn’t have met most of my close friends.. i wouldn’t be popular enough to get paid to do events and travel all over.. so i don’t know.. they are realy fused and complimentary. often i do one for the sake of the other, not just for its own sake. i feel like this may too hypothetical, theres too many factors i’m confused about, haha.. internet without IRL seems lonely, but maybe it wouldn’t if that was my whole life. ?? also my internet content may be less valuable without IRL experiences to give me stuf to talk ABOUT.. you know? i can’t really say one or the othere. There is a possible contradiction between your boost philosophy and the message that you send through your veganism and Buddhism. How do you manage to love everything in life and affirm the conduct of others while still standing “in opposition to the status quo” (as you mentioned in one of your January 2011 blog posts)?” i think often times “loving everyone” is in very strong opposition to the status quo. martin luther king jr was an embodiment of that; he talked about loving your enemy, and loving the poor who society teaches us to dismiss, and that was radical, and still is--society still teaches us to fear and judge criminals for example, even when they were only convicted for something harmless like

drug use. and in the case of enviornmentalism, often times loving nature and nonhuman animals goes hand in hand with fighting for climate justice: “you won’t save what you don’t love” (that’s a wendell berry quote i think?), so i think the appreciation works as part of the politics in that case too. and in a world where corporations and endless advertising are trying to sell you happiness, i think it can be very revolutionary to find positivity in yourself, your friends and your own self-talk. so i think being positive is sometimes very revolutionary. of course there are many ‘positivity’ speakers who simply tell you to look away from the suffering in the world, and there are many activists who use anger and outrage as the total basis for their action--so bringing positivity & activism together might seem counterintuitive to some. but i think it’s very powerful. each without the other feels incomplete to me. they’re both very powerful pathways to make

.. enjoy windsurfing :)

.. enjoy windsurfing :) .. enjoy windsurfing :)

.. ..enjoy enjoywindsurfing windsurfing:):)

.. enjoy windsurfing :)

Do you think you give good advice to friends? i don’t usually trust myself to give detailed advice to friends about how to live their life. like i never feel confident enough to say, “quit your job! move to new york!” nothing like that... usually my advice for people is pretty much like “calm down, and listen to yourself and your heart.” i think there are so many variables in every situation. i love being a writer and video blogger because i can inspire people in a general way and share ideas, but all my readers and followers can stil take those messages apply it to their own life how they see fit. What is your best piece of advice (with regards to windsurfing)? follow ur heart ... also b careful you only live once. i love u .. enjoy windsurfing :)

human lives better. Can you explain where your characters come from and their significance in your videos? i would say the biggest signifcance of my characters is that they tend to be funny and lovable both. many of them i think have that combination. i’m not about 100% straight up satire, that’s boring to me. i like engaging with things that are both funny anddd sincerely positive. when u bring together humor and heartful messages like that, i feel like the result transcends the “ironice/sincere” dichotomy, and you just get a kind of Playfulness, and i think that’s really fun and beautiful. thats how i’d explain the significance of all the characters and voices

Eleanor Musick

by Onyinyeche Ogwumike

On white steps, with feet sticky and stark, a young girl spoke into the dusty moon of her sister’s face. She told her of execution and a man on trial. Her tongue was light, flickering then stalling, as her mind drew away to the taupe walls of a courtroom and the address of a pallid justice. Drawing his tongue over the injury of his lips, broken and running with the outcry of unwilling blood, the prisoner spoke into the microphone jutting from the witness stand before him.“If we fall brethren, I pray it be quickly. “ Then laughter stumbled from his lips and was stifled under the held breaths of the audience.

DIEGO RODRIGUEZ

The judge presiding over the case settled into his seat with lethargy and the girth of his waist rumbling with sarcasm, “So eager to be executed,” he said. “Begin.” The prisoner’s eyes closed and resumed with gloss. “It was a game of victories; for while we lost an unconquerable battle, we were not one of the many, and the masses did not nod at our defeat. Under our feet crunched the disapproval of frigid cheeked youths, and yes, there underfoot sloshed the cursing spit of old women, their faces folded with layers of earned emotion. They earned that spit and they cast it at our ankles to seep into the tears of our boots, and that is what hurt the most. That is why Frederic’s jaw clenched and I could see the

blue veins that hung to the mandibles under his ivory flesh. That is why John’s mint irises swam in the gloss of his eyelids, and I wondered how many long ballads those thin, chapped, amethyst lips could sing if they weren’t pursed together so tightly. That is why my sweet Rose shed her mercy, and shunned me for that morn. “Sons, daughters, it is a strong morning, and the grip of the air pulses with crimson muscles. We have never sucked on thicker air, but with each fall of our heavy boots, we cut through it. We will continue to dice this air until either it yields to our cause, or our legs are equipped with muscles of a deeper red hue than this wind that plagues us this day.” General Constantine paused to wipe a thick, pink tongue over his plump, pinker lips. He looked upon the empty faces of civilians, whose ears were red and raw, and their heartbeats were tedious rhythms that were of greater interest to them than the words of the General. He swept over the olive coats of the soldiers, and his eyes saw none of the blood in their sunken, adolescent cheeks. “My people, it is our pleasure to serve you, I apologize, for we bear no plunder, and there is no song upon your lips this day. But do not put those books away! Do not forget the smell of that aged leather, for soon, your fingers shall trace that gilded font, as you turn to our song of triumph. In anticipation for that day, join me in an anthem in thanks to our troops.” He finished, and a cloud of vapor rose from the crowd of civilians as they exhaled in the frosty dawn. General Constantine gripped the navy lapels on his suit, so that his broad shoulders were drawn down and his chest took in a breath that widened it further. He turned to the conductor, and walked off the wooden, rain sodden platform. The conductor was a Mr. Henry Peetle, and his gray wisps of hair slept limp on his peach scalp. His back reminded me of a crumbling archway and inspired my own spine to cower in a hunch. He bowed to the crowd and almost became a full circle, he turned to the mahogany tapestries that floated upon the breasts of the choir members, cleared his throat with a low growl, and lifted his arms. The cuffs of his black suit jacket slid from his wrists and revealed their bony structure and a maze of ivory encased veins. How fragile his hand appeared wrapped around that conductor’s baton, it called from the crevices of my mind a memory. He was nine years old and his face was a deep pool of thought, his eyes were a shocking silver, the elders spoke that they were the jewels of his town, taken by thieves, but now returned and resting in his calm visage. But such a calm I should’ve known, my throat is tight, I should’ve known. It was the calm that the universe grants man before she rents the fabrics of light, and brings upon the world a cruel storm; before she spills upon your back a breaking blow of maritime griefs. What a merciful bitch she is then. There was a day I came to visit the boy and give him a gift, the smile that broke upon his face upon the reception of the small,

worn bear… I wouldn’t dare soil this with the inadequacies of language. And the next day I came to see how he was and his mother, with sweat-straightened haired and furious eyes, ran out to meet me in the middle of the path to the house. Her feet were heavy on the dusty road, and the whirlwind clouds that came up behind her carried an odor of doom. I should’ve known. “What was on it?!” Her voice cracked, it was audible drought, it was the clanking of bones, dried with time. “What was on that bear?!” She repeated, pelting the frozen chambers of my chest with her fists. Man is a futile force, and thank God he is, or all the gratitude in this world would have been expunged long ago. It was a battle of truths and wishes. And what General Constantine wished to accomplish with the insurgents, he did to a young boy; whose eyes were the jewels of his village, and now are lost forever. They are closed to the poisonous residue that I had to realize was left on that bear. I had to realize that I was the cause of the mellowing heat that resided in the tears of the woman who wept on my chest. I cowered from the thought of the boy in a heap of thin bones, quivering as his mother was then. “Did he die a painful death?” The words spilt over my clumsy lips in a whisper that caught the mother in the middle of one of her sorrowful shudders. She shook as she looked up at my face, and the trembling in her cheeks was one of not just grief, but rage. “Did he die the way you intended?” She spat, her lips met in the restatement of a question I had never asked. Her hair hung on her shoulders in clumps, those shoulders that were rounded like mountains risen to frame her face. Her eyelids retreated from the wide sockets of her dark brown eyes, bathing in a froth of acidic hatred; yes, her tears had troubled themselves into a froth. “No, please ma’am. Please know that this was not my intention, please—” “Ah ah ah- No. You please. You please your generals and governments and peoples, and you, you know. You go to sleep at night and you know what you have done. And let your soul do to you, what your mistake has done to me.” Her curse wound itself from dry lips, in turning corners, and sharp angles. Her neck contorted and her fingers found their way to a position of accusation through the most acrobatic means. She was the wicked contortionist whose hatred was misplaced; I was already overrun with my own. And now, this day, I stand in front of you with that grand surplus, and even one of humility, and even of gratitude. For I am grateful that I was given the chance to speak today, and explain my case to you all. I know the charges I face, and I do indeed, face them. I speak, not to hope for exoneration, but to hope that in the retelling of this story, the curse will be lifted from my soul, and in my final hour I can pardon myself of some of the self -loathing I have been subject to for the past few

months. To make my intentions clear for the final time, I did not mean to kill that boy, when you give a boy a bear you mean to incite joy. And verily I say unto you, I did not mean to kill General Constantine during the anthem, but when you give a madman a gun, you know what you have done.

Nolan Flavin

Once upon a time there was a boy who was fine. By ‘fine’ I do not refer to looks. In fact, this boy was horrifying. God might make everyone beautiful, but this boy confirmed that God spends less time on some. This boy was fine as in ‘this boy had not a worry in the world’ (Except for his image, perhaps). Interesting events occur when others make assumptions about another’s feelings, never once thinking to just ask the person directly. The boy discovered this timeless fact one day as he sneezed and uttered,“Shit!” His sniffle never sniffed again, but seven days later all hell broke loose. The boy was sitting peacefully on his humble toilet in his humble bathroom in his humble house, reading Poems about Frogs and enjoying life. Little did he know that this dump and poem were the last things he would enjoy for a very long time. His little brother burst into the bathroom, so frantic about something that the boy’s nakedness seemed unimportant. He stood in the doorway, trembling viciously like an infant on speed, and he cried with passion, “Nameless protagonist, are you okay?! I heard you sneeze and utter ‘shit,’ so I ran here as fast as fast as the 4.7 setting on my treadmill could take me!” The boy was fine as always, but he full-heartedly appreciated the concern. “I am fine,” he reas67

sured.

Not a soul believed. The little brother asked one more time and then While walking home left looking skeptical. from his speech (the Five seconds later, the Chinese Asian from across park was relatively the street also burst into the bathroom right as close to his house), the boy was about to return to his defecating. It the boy spotted from was a rather awkward moment for the boy for the corner of his eye two reasons: He did not know the Chinese Asian the rubba-dub-dub: as anything more than an occasionally seen three men in a tub, neighbor; hence, his nakednes seemed more na- and they were bathked, and, also, he was a bit disturbed with her ing casually in their storming into his home without invitation. To fur- big, white, portable ther unwind his already unraveling nerves, she tub under the shade wailed concerned, un-understandable ‘pings’ and of a towering pine ‘wongs.’ She gave a bowl of fried rice to comfort tree. With hopes that the boy who was still fine, and then she left, hold- it would make him ing her shoulders high, a lady proud of the chari- feel better, they intable act she had performed. vited the boy to join their bathing party; Word got out to the local pastor, who then also however, disturbed, burst into the bathroom right as the Chinese annoyed, and shudAsian left; apparently manners had left society, dering at the thought and the boy might as well hang a “come and leave of stripping naked in as you please” sign on his front door, or, as he’d front of eyes again, reluctantly realized in these last few instances, the boy exclaimed, the bathroom too. “For the last time, I’m fine!” He then jerked The pastor said he came to resurrect the boy’s si- his head in the direcnuses with Fire and Brimstone, his two Christian tion they weren’t, and wrestler friends. Through his clenched teeth the he stormed home boy explained that he was fine, but the pastor and before the bathers his friends did not believe him, and they contin- could lose their jawued with their typical good-hearted Christian rit- dropped, offended ual; They prayed in tongues and lit themselves on faces and respond to fire for God. the boy’s ungratefulness. After their ashes had been swept up, the boy finished his dump, gathered the town together at the local park, and made a public announcement: “I appreciate the support, but I am fine.” 68

Home, the boy now lay on his bed, viciously tapping his foot on the wall and

hoping to never see a fine with everything except for the town’s conhuman face again. stant pestering. The wish was not upon a star because next came the girlfriend. She burst into the boy’s bedroom with fragrant flowers, sweet kisses, supportive hugs, beautiful scents, eloquent compliments, and dirty, sweaty, vigorous sex. Once they finished, the girl batted her eyes and sympathized, “Are you okay, honey? People have been worried. You can talk to me.” “I’m fine!” The boy not only said it like he meant it, but he shouted it with bitter firmness. Choking on tears (caused by her false perception of the situation, like any other situation where a man offended his girlfriend), the girlfriend got down onto her knees and pleaded for the truth. She asked and asked for him to explain the problem, but the boy could not, for he was

The girlfriend could not bear this. She left with one more plea and an act of suicide. The boy wanted this to stop, but it did not. His best friend came with support, his mother blamed it on herself, the Mormons offered a happy conversion, and the surgeon amputated his nose; however, the boy was still fine. Perhaps that was the problem. The town did not want him to be fine. He kept assuring them he was, but that only caused more of their presence and pestering. The next day the boy’s loved ones gathered in tuxedos at the church, spoke hopeful messages about the boy’s life, played some uplifting hymns, and readied his casket. As they were wishing the boy their farewells, he could not stand it any longer. The boy was fine, he would always be fine, but the townspeople were never going to believe that, and he realized that playing their silly game was the only way to end it. He gave in; he faked that he was not fine. The boy forced tears out of his eyes, blood out of his nose, and snakes out of his mouth. He convincingly cried out, “I’m not fine!” and there was a great deal of silence. Eyes watched him with sympathy. Like parents comforting their seizuring son, the town gathered around him for a group hug and said, “It’ll be alright.”

THE WORKERS HAVE PREVAILED!

--John Marko--

A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane. An inclined plane is a slope up. A slow pup is a lazy dog. By transitivity, a sheet of paper is a lazy dog. Q.E.D --Willard Espy-***

The Senator’s Secretary rubbed sleep from her eyes and glanced at the clock. Despairing that it was barely nine in the morning, she decided to give herself a few hours off. Putting her feet up on the table, she reclined in her chair and put her legs up on the table. As she bent over to pick up her magazine, the Secretary couldn’t avoid catching sight of her reflection in the computer screen. Though she was only forty-seven, all of her hair had gone over to gray, and her deep green eyes were sad as an old maid’s. Those were the effects, she supposed, of the grinding depression that had followed her for twenty years, save for the one fleeting moment of hope right after the Senator had won his seat, when she had foolishly allowed herself some hope for a dramatic improvement of her lot. After all, she had always been his favorite, and surely as a senator—even a junior senator from a moderately important state—he could lavish her with far more attention than when he was a lowly State Representative. Maybe, she sometimes allowed herself to think in the dead of night, he might find some way to split with his wife… But it was not to be. Lost in the fast life of Washington, the Senator had tossed her aside like a worn out toy; for the last two months he had not communicated with her save to send a junior staffer to ask if she might pick up her typing speed. Had the Secretary still had her youth and moderately good looks she might have found another politician or businessman to defect to; as it was, she was stuck, and the depression

came back worse than ever. A sudden dinging noise jolted the Secretary. Blearily turning to her computer, she squinted against the harsh light coming from the screen. The Senator had an Urgent Message for her; with a growing feeling of despair, she clicked on the new entry in her inbox. Leaning forward, she stumbled through the email a few times, gradually sussing out the meaning. Hey. Ten days since I sent request for devolution to members of Progressive Caucus, still nothing. You know this means a lot to me. Don’t wait longer.

Ah, yes. The devolution email. The Senator had gotten it into his head that the American People wanted nothing more than a powerful, centralized federal government, and he had based his career on outspoken criticisms of “devolution”. Now he wanted an email sent to the leaders of the Progressive Caucus measuring their commitment to the issue. Rolling her eyes and chuckling, the secretary hit the “Compose mail” button. Banging on her keyboard with the speed and accuracy she had been developing over the past few months, she was delighted to note that she had gone from blank screen to finished draft in sixty-three seconds—a new record. A wave of pride rolled through the Secretary as she turned back to People Magazine. *** The Private started to take a deep breath but quickly cut himself short, glancing around wildly to see if anybody had heard him. He was willing to get caught and face

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The road that had led the Private to the computer room of Forward Operating Base Gonzo was a long and twisted one. He had been born and raised in a salt-of-the-earth American family, and all through childhood was drilled to value democracy, liberty, and the United States Armed Forces. He headed into his teenage years with his childlike idealism as strong as ever, which, in the big city, inevitably led to conflict. One dark day in class, he spent five minutes ranting after the teacher made a casually anti-American remark, which pushed even the normally apolitical student body to subject him to weeks of sitting alone. Stung, the Private withdrew into a dark corner of the school library with no friends but his illustrated history of the US Air Force. God, however, was kind to the Private: the year of his graduation, He subjected America to a massive national tragedy, a sure sign of divine will that sent the Private scurrying to his nearest recruiting station. And yet, he had begun to grow disillusioned. Behind the gloriously colorful army ads and the cardboard cutouts at the army office, he soon found a sprawling and ineffective bureaucracy that put any poor school system to shame and a mottly group of comrades that reminded him very much of his old peers. At first the Private tried to ignore these misgivings, but he soon found himself unable to ignore these qualms; the mountains of Afghanistan began to lose their beauty after the second month, and the enemy, too cowardly to fight on the open field, was willing to allow its foes peace and quiet

except for the occasional few seconds of terror. By the end of the third month, the Private was back to hiding in the corner most of the time. And then, as if to mock him, fate put the Private at exactly the wrong hovel at exactly the wrong time—he saw something he shouldn’t have seen. That was it. Over the awkward yet welcome hot meals at his parents’ table during furlough, he began to formulate his plan. To get transferred to intelligence was relatively easy; the army always needed more tech rats. To get the right equipment was also a piece of cake—there were plenty of places to hide a USB. To get into the right room was slightly harder, but nothing unmanageable; to get at the server, embarrassingly facile. The humming coming from the computer died down. The Private mouthed a silent prayer, withdrew the USB, and got up to leave. The guard at the door opened his mouth (good God no good God no good God no…) and sneezed loudly. The Private smiled at him as he left, his hand already reaching for his cell. *** The Newsman took a swig of brandy and glared at the men sitting across the table. “So, you’re telling me we have five thousand pages of classified State and Defense department documents but not one full story fit for the ten o’clock news?” The first person to speak up was an aged veteran who had been with the station since the ‘60s. “Well, yes. The most promising things in here are the war crimes, but it’s been only

we project it will be at least seven months until the market is undersaturated again, and we can’t wait that long to release this without looking like fools. There are a couple of questionable missives to foreign diplomats and leaders, but none to do with country that would be recognized by the masses; and anyway, there’s nothing to rival the current crop of celebrity gossip. And the rest is just humdrum communications.” “Hmmm.” The Newsman straightened the papers in front of him and sighed. “I guess I’ll have to tell that nice young Private that we appreciate the risks he took, but next time he should get something more interesting. I’m worried, though— he might go to one of our rivals and tell them all about how NDAJ Broadcasts didn’t think war crimes were newsworthy.” A fresh young man who had recently come over from the world of advertisement cleared his throat loudly. Everyone at the table swerved to look at him. “If the assembled would please look at entry three on page 937.” The Newsman flipped through his booklet. He turned over the page to find an email from some junior senator he didn’t recognize to all of the members of the progressive caucus. Dear Sirs, I am most concerned with recent revolutionary tendencies in certain Southern and Midwestern States. I believe that it is our duty to stand against all such tendencies by whatever means necessary. I await your reply. The men at the table though they could detect confusion on the Newsman’s ancient face.

“Do we have any reports of revolution in the South and Midwest?” The room was silent save for the rustling of pages. “Uh…there’s been a dramatic spike of vandalism and littering in Baltimore in the past few months.” The Newsman turned to the ad exec, a thoughtful look on his face. “Is it enough?” The ad exec broke into a broad grin, sliding a picture of a recent riot in the Middle East across the table. The Newsman stared for a moment, and then slowly sprouted a smile of his own. *** The Carpenter’s ears perked up, straining to hear the sound coming from the TV set. “…worrying reports of…in Southern and Midwestern…widespread, complete disobedience of police…” A burst of static ran across the old set; as it was wont to do, the picture came back without sound. A scene of angry-looking men running past a burning shop with sings in odd letterings played above the headline Deadly Riot in Arab Quarter of Milwaukee. A sudden shock of cold swept through the Carpenter’s stomach. There was nothing about potential trouble in Baltimore on the screen, but still… He suddenly remembered the day when he was five and his dad sat him down and told him with a completely straight face not to trust the government. “Crazy old guy…” Crazy? He thought of the morning, when he had run

across the street to pick up a hammer. As he was running back, the policeman had given him the strangest look. He glanced at his watch. 5:30. Close enough to closing time, and nobody was in the shop anyway. Suppressing the gnawing feeling in his stomach, the Carpenter gathered his things and headed for the door. As the Carpenter left, he noticed that a crowd of maybe twenty people had gathered outside Greg’s gun shop. Peering through the gaps in the throng, he could just see the outline of a single blue-clad policeman, hands in the air. A voice inside his head screamed with futility for him to just leave; he silenced it and headed across the street. As soon as he had made it across, he heard a familiar voice cut through the air, loud and officious as ever. “Violations?” The policeman stammered something. The Carpenter winced—he had seen this scene enough times to know what came next. Gregory Perkins turned to face the crow, beads of sweat dripping from his bald and chubby face. The Carpenter wondered vaguely if there were earplugs nearby; Greg’s face was already crimson, and he hadn’t even begun speaking. “I was sitting here in my shop, having quite a nice day,” he began in a calm yet loud voice, “when this gentleman showed up on my doorstep. I remembered seeing him glance into my shop a few times, so I logically assumed he wanted to partake in some business.” He glanced back towards the policeman, whose hands seemed to be inching towards his belt. “Imagine my surprise when

he informed me that the state of Delaware had seen fit to shut down my shop due to an improperly filled out permit application.” A malicious gleam appeared in his eyes. “You there—Wesley!” he cried, pointing to a man in the front of the crowd. “I come over to your house every April, do I not?” Wesley coughed and looked to the ground sheepishly as the entire crowd turned to look at him. “Uh, to, uh, well…he comes over to help me do my taxes. I ain’t never seen nobody who knows the tax forms better than Greg.” Greg chuckled. “So much for improperly filled out applications.” He swerved back towards the policeman, who had a radio to his mouth. In a moment, the smile was gone, and Greg was back to anger. “Ah, yes,” he snarled. “Backup. Our friend here has called for reinforcements. ” He turned to face the crowd. “Yes, reinforcements! You all—every one of you watches the news! You know what’s going on. A war—that’s it. It’s us,” Greg wildly made circles around himself and the crowd, “against them,” he cried jabbing his finger at the policeman, “and they don’t want to fight against an us that’s armed. Well, this is still my shop, legally until midnight, and I declare a sale! Free guns! All prices cut to $0.00 for a limited time only! Come in the next few minutes and you get the run of the register—” And then Greg wasn’t talking anymore but just screaming, writhing around on the ground with his hands on his eyes. The policeman turned wide-eyed to the crowd, pep-

A single man—one of Greg’s regulars— slipped out of the crowd and began walking deliberately towards the entrance of the shop, staring without emotion at the policeman. The crowd, now about fifty, held their collective breaths. The Carpenter’s mind reeled. “Never Trust a fed” “Never trust a taxman” “Never trust a cop…” With an oddly exaggerated rustling sound, one of the policemen jerked his hand to his belt. The Carpenter didn’t think. He charged. The crowd charged with him. The police tried their hardest, but it wasn’t enough. By the time the backup arrived, every rack in the store was empty. *** The Comrade watched the ragged assembly trickle into the square. Some of them were workers from the auto plants; some were the college students who had worked up enough courage to follow the advice of the pamphlets they handed out; some of them were janitors and porters who had never shaken the conviction they might have been CEOs and restaurant owners if their skin had been lighter. “It’ll never work,” said Jenkins, “all of them are either shameless bourgeois taken in by our propaganda or proletariat too taken with bourgeois propaganda to feel genuine revolutionary spirit.” “You overestimate our enemies,” said the Comrade, shivering in the cold spring air. “Their entire system of repression consists of two interrelated strategies—complete

suppression of all political violence and a few model cases of proletariat joining the upper classes—their beloved ‘American Dream’. As even the bourgeois have admitted, the American Dream has vanished; quite predictably violence broke out soon after. Their time is over; our time has begun.” He stepped up onto the soapbox. “Comrades! The time of revolution has come! We live in a nation that calls itself the greatest on Earth, yet look around! In this, one of the nation’s greatest cities, there is naught but rubble, fire, and tears. Despite the efforts of all of the police and militias, the riots never lurk more than one or two miles away. “I will undoubtedly be accused of inciting violence, yet violence has already been incited, and not by the proletariat; the riots of the recent weeks have been nothing less than a desperate attack on the workers by the elite and their bourgeois pets. These people will never accept peace so long as they have power to wage war; we must give them their peace from the barrels of our guns!” A couple of isolated people in the crowd clapped and cheered; the rest remained silent, but gave the impression of leaning forward towards the Comrade with— curiosity, perhaps? Ah, well; it was a start. The Comrade fought off a smile as he continued his speech. *** The Concerned Citizen turned away from the circle of people sitting in the hall of the First Lutheran Church, staring at a painted glass window that had been shattered by

from the circle of people sitting in the hall of the First Lutheran Church, staring at a painted glass window that had been shattered by a stray rock. “My men and I,” he began evenly, gesturing towards the two armed men standing at the doorway, “have taken the liberty of procuring enough guns for each of you to arm himself and five others. From there, we can procure more arms and start expanding operations into other cities—” “This is insane!” one of the men in the circle cried. “Insanity and treason!” “Is it?” The Concerned Citizen chuckled. “Do you want a madman and a traitor? I just got back from watching a socialist speaker get rapturous applause by calling for the flow of blood. Or, if that’s not enough for you, turn on the news; a third of the military has gone over to one rebel group or another. Sanity and country are under armed attack; we’ll need arms to defend them.” He turned back to the circle. “Gentlemen, we have three choices. We can pray; we can flee; we can fight. Those who opt for the first may stay; those in for the second may head to the country; those in for the third may follow me.” They didn’t all follow. But enough did. *** The Soldier stood tall in front of the Kansas farm house, his American Worker’s Army badge glistening in the balmy moonlight. In the distance, guns fired as his comrades finished off the last American National Force militiamen, but the soldier was deaf to the bullets; he only stared at the man in the tattered suit in front of him. He reached for

the walkie-talkie. “Sir, I think we’ve found the President.” *** The Supreme Councilor of the Social American Republic straightened his tie and turned to the cameras, his loving wife of three months beside him. Adopting the air of gravitas he would need in his new station, he began his speech. “This war was bloody,” he began calmly, “but as was inevitable, the workers have prevailed. Now, of course, we must face the first and greatest problem of our new nation: devolution…”

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Interview 1: ‘Electronic music has dominated every aspect of human life for years now, and even the oldest generation alive cannot remember a time before Kraftwerk. Numbers of living guitar-instruments are dwindling in the low twenties, and exist exclusively in a small retirement community somewhere in East Africa.’ -Telegram intercepted from one cheerleader to another, containing a proposed introduction for an encyclopedia of breathing technology machines. Era unknown. Act 1:

a heavy breasted young man. He had a bright career in micro-accounting ahead of him. George returned Billy’s gaze with a soft shaking of his noggin. These times were tough times - tough enough times to break boys like Billy and George. They held hands for the rest of the day in prayer, trying to calm themselves amidst the mass panic and suicides that had littered the surrounding streets of West-Eastern Princetucket. All synthesizers were rounded up and shot by the angel protection squads. Security on earth had been great in the sixty-one years since God had descended from heaven and stole Mr Lincoln’s seat in DC. Tourists would line up for miles to kiss God’s toenails, which were basically the same as any other old pair of toenails, just bigger because God was thirteen feet tall, blond-haired, green-skinned, and light-breasted (he didn’t worry). We are not yet sure if God is a sexual creature. All policemen had lost their jobs and were re-assigned to fabric factories so they could re-knit new outfits for the angels who now served as the lords and protectors of our planet. New uniforms were required everyday to keep up with the very demanding trends in fashion (today’s uniform poked fun at faux fur). These are all minor details of course. The angels carried L85A2 support rifles.

“NEWS FLASH!” the television told the children, as they sat happily in school. Billy was in front row, wearing a blue polo shirt and grey sandals with socks. He had developed the habit of grinding his teeth at the The very next day, out of nowhere, every inch of the age of six, something that in a planet was colonised by inter-dimensional growths few months would eventually that blasted up towards sky, radiating from the very lead him to develop the habit earth we stand on. It was as if the sudden absence of of smoking cigars1. The televi- synthesizers in the world had caused an imbalance. sion told Billy and the rest of his class how the synthesizers had Every single member of the human cult of planet Earth been spying on them and their was then cc’d an email. This piece of cyber mail exfamilies. Every single piece of plained how there is a hidden law of physics that hapelectronic musical equipment pened to briefly reveal itself to mankind on that day produced since 1999 had been – much like a streaker that chooses to dash across a constantly tracking electronic sports field in the nude for a couple of fleeting minshopping data across America, utes. It would be hard to explain to any non-demi-God meaning that since that year individual, but in essence, if one were to look inside there had not been a single the belly of the very planet at that single moment, you Chrißmäs gift that was truly a would see a psychic energy vibration not too dissimsurprise. Billy looked over to his ilar to the static internal-motion created by a cheap best friend George. George was massage chair. The type of cheap massage chair that 1. In an attempt to reason with the people of New Delaware, the President had lowered the cigar smoking age to five and half years after widespread riots in response to his decision to double the age for drinking Marijuana-Squared --‘The New Fragrance/Beverage from Budweiser’-- to eleven years.

a frustrated used-car salesman would buy as a last-minute gift for his lover on their anniversary date because he has been too busy scrubbing fecal matter from his son’s sheets in order to spend adequate time planning this anniversary celebration; he just wants his son to get the grades so he can go to Yale. This concentrated psychic energy imbalance just had to be what caused the eruptions. What else could be the explanation? They appeared like mountains from the void. They could not speak to us, but exerted their will upon us in a very ‘just so’ manner. They had provided caverns and tunnel networks for us to now inhabit, and had gifted us sunlamps for our precious vitamin D. The mountains loved to watch American Football, so each mountain housed several stadiums in which the sport could be played. To give you some scale as to the magnitude of this occurrence, in the city of Minneapolis alone, nine mountains had sprung up (and were referred to from then on as the Not-so-Mini-Apple-is-Range). Every able-bodied child was forced into a rigorous Football training program in an attempt to appease the mountainous overlords. Our governments were not sure if the mountains were in fact malicious, but they were too uncomfortable in social situations to ask the mountains themselves. Upon questioning,

God simply shrugged and said: ‘Read the email I sent y’all – that’s all that happened here’, only to hop into his convertible and speed out of the stratosphere. Rumour has it he was late for a courtroom appearance. Of course, one can only speculate as to whether this mass synthesizer assassination was actually the cause of all the sudden complications or not. The information was leaked by the descendants of one noble government man whose name sounds like a slang term for an igloo, so naturally, wouldn’t we all want this to be true? The whistle-man was shot by the angels for his extreme bravery (he had been promised a nice island getaway in return), and as a retaliatory strike the graffiti people of the world painted an image of his face that didn’t look quite like him all across the stolen walls of the world. Calendars were sold to plan adequately, a new world-shaking scandal for each day of the week. Soon everyone decided it would be a good idea to throw away their guitars too, as they were probably just spies anyway. Act 2: Billy sat next to George in the locker room of the Princetucket Littleboys W-E-half division Football Association Squad. Both had been kept awake all last night at their slumber party because of the raucous clattering made by angels attempting to blow up small chunks in the mountain that had enveloped their city. The crisis could not have come at a worse time. George’s mother, Angelica, was a leading time-material scientist for a private firm. She had been working on a large machine made from found cardboard scraps that was only a few animal test subjects away from transforming the entire planet into the universe of the classic holiday film A Charlie Brown Christmas. This of course is the America that most people feel a strong sense of nostalgia for, when in fact, this America never even existed. While Charlie Brown was rescuing that cute little tree with Linus in 1965, 150,000 clones of Forrest Gump, Bubba Blue, and Lieutenant Dan got sent to Vietnam. Unfortunately, the cardboard contraption

was wrecked mercilessly by the crushing mountains, splitting the machine right through the middle as if they had plotted the deed in advance. George had never seen his mother in such an unhappy state. Now, of course both of the boys did not own voice boxes, (this was a very common biological trait in young gentlemen at the time) so they did not exchange words of comfort with each other. They merely posted the most shocking and informative whistleblower news articles they could find on each others’ internet dating profile pages. Nothing got George off like the feeling of posting a police brutality video on Billy’s page just knowing how badly it was going to make his friend’s blood boil. He knew it might even provoke him to sign an e-petition – ‘h*ly h*ck’. Now, at this point in human history science had provided smarter, cleaner, more synergetic systems for sport-playing. When the referee blew his psychic whistle all seventy-two players (men between the ages of three and nine) would enter the playing arena. Seats were available for thousands of spectators (details unknown). The sport-heroes would take tactically positioned seats across the stadium ground – George loved it when the climate controlled turf was slightly too moist, causing the cheap fake metal chairs to sink into the soil by a millimetre or so. The men

wore numbered shirts and helmets, just like the olden day footballers they had read about in their pre-womb chambers. However, the modern game differed greatly. In the blink of an eye kick-off was initiated without the need for any balls. Play consisted of a series of lightening-speed sign language motions thrown at opposing player-units in quick succession, followed by sharp clicking noises originating from the space between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. The men were in fixed positions for each of the three minutes halves, with a four-hour intermission for a communal prayer and lemon-soda drink-a-thon. The match details were uninteresting today; it was apparent that none of the state-hopefuls would make the playoffs. In displeasure the mountain that housed this particular group of human clusters let loose a caustic wave of cherry-scented puss from above the stadium. Some liked the flavour while others hoped for a diet version to be released next season, one man even wrote a love letter to it in his diary. A troup of angels glistened forward from backstage to line the pitch; their eyes were slits that subtly appeared through the mix like the delicate scores in an origami swan. The stadium had all the bright white-paint yard markings of an old football pitch but no one was sure why (God would one day admit there was in fact value in aesthetics). The men were shot by the angels and were even allowed to slump down into their chairs – it was obvious that they needed a break. Act 3: Official Court Profile of Offender Information property of the unified combined dimensional courts of dimensions one through five. For information on cases related to other dimensions please contact elsewhere. Thank you. Have a day. Name: God Profession: Cosmic watcher

Alma-mater: Unimportant

-Text from a picket sign found at the funeral of the creature formerly known as God. Constructed by members Crime: After having a snap- of the “Things only Lads Will Get” national conference. chat-affair with a high-ranking Era unknown. fellow member of an important first-dimensional private country club, the offender created a fraudulent scandal involving synthesizer wire-tapping to divert the attention of the world-media from his personal sexcapades. Resolution: Dimensions one through five of offender’s home planet will be engulfed with wartlike psycho-geologic growths in order to further the distraction of indigenous peoples from any ongoing scandals that may arise as a consequence of these trials. Moreover, offender will be put to death by through an extended exposure to trite, web-based slacktivism.

Interview 2: ‘Thanks @JulianAssange_ for leaking the story of how God was gunned down by an interdimensional court #justicefinallyserved #wikileaks’ -Tweet sent by @guardian, era unknown -Text from a picket sign found at the funeral of the creature formerly known as God. Interview 3: “God is a #shitlad.”

The Finer Points of Clingstones By Jahaan

Dear peach,

you are a doll, arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you? pretty as the shiny brown face of a fawn at daybreak. No, mother says you are for the guests while I sit in the cut, eyes white in the sunrise of your juices, sluicing over the wrists of wide-hipped maids.

But before I leave I run my finer appendages over the cleft in your sunny orange-yellow face, your five-o-clock surprises my fingertips, you are succulent, pit, imperfect skin, damp flesh and all.

Art by Phoebe Randall

By Ian Alcock

Yawar It was green rice field reflections, stacked and rowed-out, with a hum in the air Left like Hansel and Gretel crumbs, From the tiny radio box inside helicopter rolled down ridge. Handprints dragging over the fuselage, in gooey finger-paint smears. A single condor bird walks the air above – jammed into ice cube packed sky, Like a dip in the pool when it’s too cold to swim – and the limbs lock up tight. Red rock surface, hot tar lake; an excellent day swimming, laughing, giggling Away, under parasol arms, with soda pop cans. “I’ll trade you three pop-rocks, for five fingers to slap against hand.” Cautious lagoon, where the reeds and the palms, Drop down on your head, like a gift and a charm. Pull off your shorts, and jump in the reef, Lids wrap round eyes, like a television beat. But you flick on the clicker, and nothing appears, Bar the stare of a condor, uncomfortably near. It parallel parks in the DMZ, That lies like a rift, through this space in between Bullion kingdoms, where the curve of the share Marks topographical axis, and orthographic repair. A land, locked, and data logged. Three-dee printing the origin of the species, for Bank-rolled pleasure lands, or a chrysalis in hand? Don’t give away the hook, just let it play out. And condor breathes in, heavily at first, Til feathers make fist, as it turns round to look. “I once was tethered, to the imperial bull, but now I soar freely, towards the conquest of soul. It is not annihilation of the satellite mind That will free us from shackles, or Harvest our grounds.

Art by Madeline Bach

But rather, re-motioned intake of digital light, from The monitor that feeds; the monitor that bites. It’s neither a curse, nor is it a blessing, It is what you give, and it’s worth more than shillings.” Now shifting from fist, to the crossing of fingers, Its index met middle, with undeniable vigour. “When put ‘tween a prism, and shone thru a sun, There are strings that are stretched, and there’s twine that’s well spun. Don’t dabble in past weights, that hold bird tied down, There is still space for new age, when push comes around.” And as bird finished throwing, netting of words, It pitched out two wings, and fell up towards ground. Talons outstretched, and seizing ‘round metal, Bringing up bigger bird, in both size and in devil. The lagoon was still, and the paddy fields chilled, Red rocks craned idly, as if asking for beer. And this capricious symbol, soaring hopeful and free, Let go of the cargo, that it had held so near. “Goodbye my dear subjects, goodbye ‘til next year” And another helicopter dropped down, the side of the ridge.

Nyctophobia By Onyinyinche

Ogwumike

ure, ints a pretty pict Nyctophobia pa wild dance. And breathes in an e gullet of the sw A swoon from th o, - moderat To set the tempo through, pitzzing its way r ge fin d se llu A ca allegro! Screams allegro meeting a wall, g toes. Its indigo claret llies and rumblin be l ra ve se g in t manes, With shak ng up with vibran gi rin sp hs ut yo Demeter’s ar A host of ants, on the thick nect lace in feasting so d un fo d ha ch Whi s, their matted lock that lay heavy on s. de ca from the rosy fa Sprinkled down s poetry, ou through the peril d words, Feeling their way lavender scente ith w d ce la as With antenn . Rosy utterances is chased to the t when daylight ue nq ba d an gr a It’s visage. corners of Gaia’s erader, The mad masqu ivory suit, Wears his fine, ith his golden on cardboard w s ck su y bo or And the po lebration. tongue. a home in the ce d fin s ay w al n And the ants ca

e Moreno

Illustration by Bri

P A

Joeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cheeks were pink in rings that resembled the burrow pattern of a large ring worm. He wrung his hands as if their extract would cure him of all the anxiety in which his brain soaked, The lobes turning in their bath, The film puckering and fading jaundice. He counted his phobias past the magnitude of fingers and toes, He counted arachnophobia on the flesh behind his neck, Agoraphobia on his forearms. He counted the times his father told him it was all in his head, He counted the ways heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tried to knock it out of those cavities, He counted the hues of purple and pink on the meat of his palms.

By Onyinyinche Ogwumike

Momma treated the homeland like a panacea, Her last dime was cross-stitched and sliced up with phrases swearing of how she would use it To take us back to our salvation, Where the cures were sure. Where the air is naked, And the lips of mosquitos are wet and their bellies ripe and full. Salvation is where the residue of white hot missionary feet pulses in the sand. Salvation is where my flesh was sealed And my lungs, Peppered over in small stones, Cried out against the atopy. Where the marrows of my bones skewed against themselves, And my sleep itself did atrophy. Salvation takes place in the scene, In the narrative, In the places where the story shows her patrons new faces, And tells us that there is much more than yellow rings on pouting bellies, And questions of where the other half of the sun went.

Untitled By Austin Danula

A little after two o clock that November day under the column by Gregory karp of the Chicago tribune it was declared in the papers biggest headline no evictions at graffiti graveyard and our friend mitch was in the photograph underneath the headline and he was smiling or looking into the sky or trying to and posing in front of rows of okay tents and grocery bags filled to their breaking points with cans of various soft drinks (and clint Austin took the picture there was a huge w and then the article kicked off it said orries of an impending eviction of people sleeping under interstate 35 in downtown Duluth has proven to be a catalyst in the past month for homeless advocates. The paper says Occupants of the graffiti graveyard say they have lived under the specter of being kicked out at any time the paper says word filters down and the paper says stories and violent things sometimes happens and sometimes the spaper says people have to responds to themselves If you thought it was crazy listen to this joel kilgour said theyre not being evicted right now kilgour is from the group loaves and fishes and joel kilgour said its sad its gotten to this point I thought me too joel but they get to burn the paper and I have the burden of reading it After looking at the same deceitful profile seeing mitches smug mug for a second time on the back page before a blurry background with a broken clear bottle of beer printed in full color I realized that it wasnt like the caption below said it would be like it wasnt twelve homeless people camping there it was just jesus left a long time ago and his disciples couldnt find a place to stay so this is where they eked out their meager living coughing the cancer of the modern age until the second coming Nowdays i know that the bustling jewish marketplaces I saw on the cartoon jesus shows are nothing like the makeshift eyesore composed completely of garbage underneath the interstate. they call it

Golgotha in the bible the hill of the skull but today theres no brain inside. Today the hill where the cross was raised has sloping sides and there you can hear the sound of rolling wheels. But god created them all and we too in an equal image. When the newsmen came to visit judas was dressed up in a layer of cleanclothes sitting in a comfortablechair. And when he gave his death kiss to the invisible ghost he called a teacher right there in front of the cameras I bet he thought at least a little about the day when he would take a shower at his parents house and right when the water hit him he would evaporate into nothing more than a 2000 year old moral lesson it made him remember the first time he rolled dice at the crucifixion with the roman guards and how pontious pilate turned into ruth bader Ginsberg shortly thereafterwards and water became wine and he said softly after everyone was gone that he never dreamt that one day hed see the one he sold for a small bag of silver coins or marijuana buds succumb to his easy distractions. what got to him were the ideas that pop up in daydreams as pure as god himself but always find themselves victims of mans wicked manipulation And until the universe picks a new group of righteous to teach the world that love is all and you and I are all that is with love there will be no more stories in the paper that focus on these holies who we learn from. and we and even history will maybe forget them

Art by Claudia Buccino

44. To climb the glass mountain, one first requires a good reason. 45. No one has ever climbed the mountain on behalf of science, or in search of celebrity, or because the mountain was a challenge. 46. Those are not good reasons. 47. But good reasons exist. -Donald Barthelme