Rem Magazine Vol 1 November 2010

Š Rem Magazine and individual contributors, November 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without the written permision of the publisher. No individual works may be reproduced without expressed permission from the authors. online edition

ISSN: 1179-8696

THE REM GEIGER COUNTER MANAGING EDITOR:

Orchid Tierney

ASSOCIATE POETRY EDITOR:

Simon Todd

MAGAZINE ASSISTANT: Tamara Azizian

SUBMISSIONS Rem Magazine is an biannual journal. For submission guidelines visit the website: www.remmagazine.net or email the editor: rem@remmagazine.net

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vol 1. November 2010

ATOMIC CONTENTS 4 Castle Romeo

editorial 43 Plutonium Press Release motherlock 32 Castle Bravo shockwaves 56 Isotopes contributor bios

ALPHA

DECAY POETRY

6 Amanda Anastasi black sea 8 Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé a last song is an area-mapped haiku 12 Iain Britton syndrome 14 Kevin O’Donnell concussion no 17 22 Corey Mesler heliolatry 23 Joan McNerney untitled 26 P.A. Levy castle rave 27 Felino A Soriano approbations 597 —after Trygve Seim’s Search Silence 30 Zarah Butcher auto-immune 31 RC Miller sense of poetic decay 38 Vaughan Rapatahana hong kong is rhomboid 39 reduction of the ego 40 Mark William Jackson teardrop 41 Howie Good rumble strip 44 Ricky Garni #75 54 Nalini Singh unicol, otago 55 Kevin Simmonds anti

BETA

DECAY PROSE

9 Travis Macdonald time 15 Matt Dube collar 24 Kyle Hemmings ss girlfriend 28 Matthew Dexter mouse trap 45 Michael Botur zero the hero

GAMMA DECAY VISUALS 5 Katie Robinson the wall 7 Lei Wen in a dream of goldfish 13 Gabrijel Savic Ra chose your way to be forgotten 20 Bonnie Coad

cubist nude 21 embrace 25 Kyle Hemmings dancing at the club 42 Sudhir Kumar Duppati transcient vol. 1 November 2010

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CASTLE ROMEO

‘E

xperimental.’ What this word defines is a matter of conjecture. Perhaps it refers to the boisterous shaping of both form and meaning? Maybe it describes the process of bringing 72 dpi subject matter into high resolution? At times, the word feels like a petri dish in which writers merge genres and media to create a hybrid- a new species- of expression?

Realistically, none of these things are ‘experimental’. ‘Experimentalism’ is simply the process of invention which led to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, to Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men, to Ladislav Nebeský’s Light-Dust. Now we arrive at Rem.

The purpose of this journal is to provide an alternative platform for the creative endeavours of our contributors whose works expand (or nudge) the narrow boundaries of established literary canons. Yet even as I write that statement, I am aware that these works are only temporarily ‘experimental’ until such time their forms become established - in which case, we must again rebel against what we have created!

For our New Zealander contributors, Rem plucks them from island literary isolation and plants them alongside the fine actors on the global stage. National borders are geographically obsolete (even if nationalism is not). Being an island nation is simply no excuse for literary shyness or ignorance of overseas trends.

As you flick through the pages, you will notice something very different about this journal compared to other literary adventures - the overt presence of the editorial voice.

As I was marking out Rem, it occurred to me how difficult it was to segregate my personal experience from the voice of the journal. Why did I place this poem here? For what reason did I chose that artwork over another? The editor cannot be separated from the overall work and yet when you read any magazine - be it literary or a women’s tabloid, one almost forgets the editorial presence. Consequently, I decided to make the journal itself an ‘experiment’ - to include the editor’s subjective voice as a living entity within the reading experience of Rem. The result, I hope, is the dislocation of traditional journal practices and the contextualisation of the editor as a fallible human, existing in a particular space and in a particular time. Having a background in historical study makes me predisposed to rage against anachronistic and perceived objective points of view. In hindsight, this position is, in itself, somewhat arrogant.

Yet these endeavours are always a play. After all, I am only ‘experimenting.’

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It’s T-minus 10 seconds.

Stay fissile.

Start fusing.

Operation Rem is about to reach critical mass.

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vol 1. November 2010

rt . a t s s KATIE ROBINSON Le t’ “ d , n s u y o a the wall tor s h. Look a r it, i d E e h t a e T b re ou se r u Y o . y e l Hold n er. Exha r ou?” y t ’ the c o n do

commissioned artwork, oil, aerosol, acrylic on canvas, private collection, 2010.

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AMANDA ANASTASI black sea

snaking from the gulf down the Louisiana coast and through the mouth of the Mississippi, the gush of car fuel, the sealant substance to jars, cans and bottles, the dust binding coating of fertilizers, crayons; ink and rubber, the thickening agent in paintballs, moisturizers and make-up; surf wax, glide wax for skis and snowboards; additive to chewing gum, wax to beauty therapy baths; paraffin wax for the shine on candy and cheese surfaces; candles, bullet lubricants and hybrid rocket motors - adhering to the fur of preening sea otters, the feathers of wading birds, entering the mouths of turtles and whales, the nesting ground of fish and plankton

The Editor is sitting at the computer, wondering what excuse she can use to avoid that dinner party. ‘Black Sea’ has the hallmarks of the Janet Fra me list style. What makes this poem different, however, is the transference of that list technique to the visual format of the poem...

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LEI WEN in a dream of goldfish

acrylic on canvas, 610x460mm, 2010.

...The list mimics the restlessness of the ocean and the violence of human commercial enterprises against nature. There is no excuse for it.

I think I’ll take a salad. vol. 1 November 2010

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DESMOND KON ZHICHENG-MINGDE

a last song is an area-mapped haiku

tumbling into a beach puddle my room without sail know the eleven days that count to mirrors yes to yesterday’s shared dream at alban lodge brokedown caravan by the road mid-week picnic

The Editor queries whether “this section of the journal jumps from a personalised world of truth to the external global search for it. I’m sure it is instinct that compels me to place the experimental haiku alongside the rewriting of the 9.11 Commission Report: both are deconstructed experiences; both are fragments of a point of view.

Both are beautiful.”

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TRAVIS M ACDONALD time

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TRAVIS M ACDONALD

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TRAVIS M ACDONALD

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IAIN BRITTON syndrome

Exclusive newsworthiness.

Maybe.

Apocalyptic?

A red knot of light has darkened flashed once too often.

I define

phenomenon

as a dolphin surfacing to balance the sun on its blunt snout.

Words incubate words lightning briefly offers a glimpse of apprehension but I am no better off.

Who is this who returns each day to clean my rooms poking about the collected fragments of a beach walk.

What’s in it for the inquisitive?

Fossilized life forms

glazed brittle like coral a history lesson turned yellow a lexicon for learners on how to suck eggs.

Stickmen

pop up all over the house

emaciated reminders of a modified species and everyday she chases them down burns them like kindling for the sake of the neighbours.

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The Editor wonders: “Z or s? Two letters that represent the linguistic battle for dominance between American and British English. Perhaps they are both correct but I can never remember to which alliance I should belong...”

vol 1. November 2010

GABRIJEL SAVIC RA chose your way to be forgotten

performance by Gabrijel Savic Ra, SPOT Festival of autoperformances, Belgrade, Serbia, 2009.

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KEVIN O'DONNELL concussion no 17

blue hills throw no shadow cattle wait to hear an apple drop the vine holds the dead branch to the tree a seventy year old comments that eighty looks like hell a child runs barefoot on concrete the mahoe cling with patient strength to the hills a seagull cry to answer the one in my head sixty days I’ve stood at the crux of those blue hills

ays, s r d ito ur nal E o The d a j tory l S h o u i t i on a l s trad 14

ons. i t n on v e i k e a c l reak ence end?” b e t’s l sequ nd a n L p. logica dle a o t S “ a mid , g w follo beginnin a with

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MATT DUBE collar

I

t was after I had finished making lunch for myself and before I sat down to eat it that I noticed the kitchen wastebasket was full. I stared at the wall beyond the crust of my sandwich, trying to decide which I should do first. The trash, I decided, and pulled the bag from the basket and made pony tails from the white plastic, tied it off, and took it outside.

The door from our kitchen leads to a small backyard, fenced in on three sides with low metal fences, and on the fourth by a ten foot high wooden wall that blocked us from ever seeing the neighbors who lived on the other side. Our garbage sits against that wooden wall on the small cement court that rises only an inch or so above the small green lawn that stretches from the cement to the boundary fence. I lifted up the lid on our garbage can, dropped in the trash, and was ready to go back inside to my sandwich when I saw the collar. It lay there beside the garbage can, turned over on itself like a very thin snake.

There are lots of dogs in the neighborhood. It is easy to imagine these small yards as a selling point for a lot of the tenants in our development, that even though the yards were small you could put your dog out there and they’d live a happy life. You and I don’t have any pets. I heard the neighbor dogs pretty much all day; if one of them wasn’t drawing attention to itself, another one would in less than a minute. So one of them had lost its collar, somehow, and the windstorms we’d been having lately, serious enough the television warned of tornadoes south of the interstate, had lifted this collar from around a furred canine neck and carried it into our yard, then left it curled beside the garbage.

I picked it up and brought it inside with me, I don’t know why. I set it on the kitchen table beside my sandwich, and then I ate my lunch. By the time I had finished, rinsed off my plate and put it in the dryer rack, I’d forgotten the collar was even there. I swear to you, that’s how it happened.

I was napping and then you came into the room. Or was it different than that, I was waking up and there you were already? Regardless. You reached over and tugged on the collar that you’d put around my neck while I slept. “Come on,” you said, and I rolled over and out of bed.

You walked out of the bedroom and I followed, down the stairs and through the kitchen, stepping softly. You opened the door to the backyard and I stepped out. It was cold enough I could see my breath. You rubbed your hands together, stomped your feet in tiny fur trimmed boots to keep them warm. I faced the white vinyl siding and tugged downward on my zipper.

I pulled out my junk and let it go, peeing a glorious steaming stream against the side of the house.

“Are you done there?” you asked, looking at me from inside a cloud of your breath. I looked around, frantic for a minute to find something else to pee on. But I was finished; you knew it even before I did. You went inside and I followed you. You shut the door behind me.

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MATT DUBE We were sitting on the couch watching something on the TV. Maybe it was the show about the girls from poor families who aspired to be models, or maybe it was the show about the extraordinary nanny who taught manners and to sit on the naughty mat. A bell rang, not a real bell but an electronic one, from the kitchen. I lifted my head up from where it was resting in your lap. “It’s my tea,” you said. “The water’s hot enough now, but it’s got to steep for a minute and then it’ll be ready.”

I waited, my head back in your lap but alert. And when a minute had passed, I got up from the couch to fetch your tea.

You were out and I didn’t know when you’d be back. If I knew when you were going to be back, I never would have done what I did. If I knew when you were going to be back, you never would have caught me like you did.

There was water set out for me, water in a pitcher in the fridge I could see through except for the white plastic parts of the filter. There was a shelf that held all kinds of glasses and mugs. There was a shelf that held up my favorite glass, a rose colored one that I liked to look through.

There was a white porcelain bowl of water upstairs and another more or less like it downstairs. But I liked the one upstairs better; it felt more special. I liked to pull down the shining metal handle and watch the water rush around the bowl till it frothed and then and drain out the bottom. I liked to drink from the water, to lap at it knowing that I could never drink all of it. That was pleasure, just to know there was so much of it.

So there I was, holding onto the bowl with both hands, wanting to tip it forward like a tremendous bowl of soup, only of course it was held to the floor with bolts. That didn’t stop me because the size of the bowl was big enough for me to stick my whole head in there. So I did, lapping away at it, using my hands to hold me suspended above the water.

It was magical; the sound of the lapping of the water in the bowl echoed around me and made the whole world near to me. And that’s why I didn’t hear you parking the car or opening the door to our apartment, didn’t hear you climbing the stairs to the second floor, or hear you shouting at me after you saw what I was doing. I also didn’t hear the sound of your feet as you sprinted from where you first saw what I was doing, at the top of the stairs, to where I was doing it, in the bathroom at the other end of the hall.

I was so into what I was doing I didn’t know that you were there at all until you were pulling on my collar so that it choked me, bit into my soft throat with its canvas grain. That’s when I lifted my head up out of the bowl and saw that you were home. And that made me happy.

There was another time when you and I were sitting together on the couch and watching some show on the television. I was bored by it, not really paying attention to the show. I was paying attention to the way you were sitting on the couch.

There was a sound coming from outside, and then there was a knock on the door nearest to the couch. I was interested in that, very interested. I raised my head up from where I was letting it hang and pointed it at the door. I let the muscles in my back push up against my shoulders like they wanted to, and they moved into place till they felt like armor, or at least some super-thick padding like the kind baseball umpires wear. I was ready to get up off the couch and do whatever was necessary to take care of whatever was happening outside of the 16

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MATT DUBE door. I wasn’t worried, not really. I was bored with what was on the television and this was so much more interesting.

“Stay right here,” you said when you saw I was going to get up off the couch. You put your hand down on the couch cushion like you wanted me to stay there so I did.

You walked over to the door and opened it, talked for a minute to the man who was standing there with the pizza you’d ordered for our dinner. You gave him the money he asked for, and he gave you the square white box with our pizza in it. You shut the door and set the box on the coffee table in front of me. I wanted to tear into it right then, to pull the box open and drag out that steaming pie with my teeth. But I didn’t want to make you angry, so I waited for you to come back with plates.

We were having sex and I was totally into it, the way you were riding me and I could lay back and look at your breasts as they moved in their circular orbit as you moved above me. “What are you looking at?” you asked me, breathlessly, and as I watched your breasts stopped revolving. I reached out to cup one of them in my hand, the best answer I could give at that moment.

“Get behind me,” you said, and crossed one leg over my torso, knelt, then rested, hands and knees on the bed. I walked on my knees, up to your behind, wondering how to crouch my body low enough to make contact. But it wasn’t so hard, and after a minute or two it started to feel natural, natural enough to reach out my hand and cup one of your titties with it and stabilize my body through the shakes and shudders that are to come.

This other time, the two of us were out walking around the park. We have a circuit that we like, around the man-made lake until we got back to where we’d started and then walk, handin-hand, across the metal trestle bridge that crosses the kidney shaped pond at its most narrow point. We like to come here when we are tired of the gym, and it’s easier to talk, even about nothing, when we aren’t on the machines. It’s easier to slow down enough to be able to talk, to follow one thought with another, when we are walking around the lake like this.

You were telling me a story you’d heard from a co-worker who lived with a woman he’d never married. This woman the co-worker hadn’t married also worked in an office, a different one, and she’d developed a taste for sheet cake, or so the story went, from too many office Christmas parties, birthday celebrations, cubicle-bounded baby showers. This woman would buy sheet cakes for herself, or so the story went, for no occasion at all. She’d drive home from work on Friday and stop at the grocery store and buy a cake for herself. Once, the boy who worked behind the bakery counter and should have known better asked her if she wanted anything written on the cake. She left without the cake, crying, and now, the man you work with was explaining that she wouldn’t eat the cake, even when he brought it for her and she wouldn’t smile, either.

It was the kind of story I liked for you to tell, one that painted me a picture about a world I didn’t really know (the office) but which I loved to form conclusions about, even though I knew they were imaginary. About this story, I concluded to myself that life in offices did this to people, that people did this to other people. The main thing, though, was that you didn’t require me to respond at all; it was enough for you to tell the story and for me to just listen and that gave me the freedom to do what I really wanted to do, which was to watch this red haired squirrel that was standing alert near the edge of the cement path we were on. vol. 1 November 2010

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MATT DUBE This squirrel, its hair was long, puffed out from its wiry body enough that it made the squirrel look bigger than it really was. But as I watched it rub its hands together in front of its mouth like it was a criminal mastermind, I could tell that if I took hold of it, it wouldn’t be a substantial thing at all. It would be lighter than a rag doll, and about as firm as a piece of rope.

We got closer to the squirrel, and you kept telling your story and I kept forming my conclusions, adding new details of my own to the story in my mind, about what else people did to other people in these offices I didn’t know about, and the squirrel kept rubbing its hands together. We got closer to the squirrel and I was so excited that I don’t know if I could’ve stopped myself from reaching down to pick it up when we got close enough to where I could reach it. I could tell from the silence of your voice that you’d reached a part of the story where you needed for me to say something, but I couldn’t. I was too distracted. That squirrel for a minute was my whole world. And then we took the step together that brought us too close to the squirrel, and it bounded off into the wiry, fake-looking grass.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was in my own world there for a minute.”

“I said, I told him I think he should bring home a puppy for her. That a puppy was better than any sheet cake.”

The collar itself is a drab olive green, maybe an inch wide and long enough to easily fit around my throat. There’s a buckle at one end, made of iron or something else that once used to shine silver but which has dulled without rusting, and at the other end there are five holes in the canvas that you can use to adjust the size. It think it’s canvas; that’s what it feels like, but it’s got an odd braided texture, too, little beads or seeds of material arranged neatly in rows.

Against your skin, it feels like stubble, only more regular. Like the way a field of wheat, or corn or something like that might feel to the sky, if that makes sense: a perfectly ordered, a machine-planted patch of stubble. Near the buckle end, there’s a ring from which hang two medals, one in the shape of a heart and one in the shape of a cartoonish dog bone. The heart shaped medal has what looks like ID information, too distressed by weather and wear to read.

The dog bone proudly announces that the wearer has had all its shots and is free from rabies.

I’m thankful for that.

It was the time of year when leaves turn belly-up to catch the rain, and the grass underfoot has spring enough in it that it feels like I should bounce across the back yard like an astronaut walking on the moon. But you couldn’t enjoy it because you still had grading to do. Piles and stacks of essays and final exams covered the dining table so that there was barely room to eat. (I started to eat in front of the television.) I wanted to be outside, away from all your work.

Our backyard felt like a little scrap of paradise, postage-stamp sized, yes, but with fare enough to take me from my workaday office blues, and I decided: even if you couldn’t join me, I wouldn’t abstain. I was in the backyard daydreaming when our neighbor Steve came to the fence that separated our two yards.

“Hey there,” he hailed me, brisk as a sailor, and I trotted over to the fence, happy that there was someone to talk to. We stood talking face to face for a while, each of us holding down our side of the fence by pressing our open palms against it, and then I turned my back, 18

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MATT DUBE still talking, every now and then turning my head to make eye contact and arching my back against the fence’s cool metal links. He put his hand out and patted my head, scratched behind my ear gently, at the soft-solid bump where neck met head. “Good girl,” he cooed, and “Who’s a good girl, that’s a good girl,” as I arched my back into the fence, pressing it toward him.

Through the fabric of my blouse, I could feel the crisscross of metal against my back.

It was delicious. I wasn’t looking at anything and then at the door that led to the kitchen opened. You stepped through the door, first with a smile of excited sociability lifting your face, and then your mouth drooped. Your eyes found the ground when you saw Steve and me.

“Ruh-roh,” I said, turning my chin up to Steve.

There are all these dogs in our neighborhood. The collar must have come from one of them, but it’s hard to imagine it, precisely. Every time I try, I end up in some weird wonderland of my imagination, where Dorothy and Toto are one, a white wire terrier in a gingham dress, swept up in one of the tornadoes that are a concern around here, around this time of the year. Some concern comes along and sweeps her up, a gust of wind that can take her anywhere. She goes spinning off to some Oz down the road and her collar ends up on the cement staging ground beside the garbage can.

I thought, somehow, that the dog who lost the collar, or at least its owner would come looking for it, for us, but that hasn’t happened. Instead, we hear the dogs barking out there each night, and when I’m at home alone, many times throughout the day. It can be anything that sets them off, but a few things guarantee a reaction: one of my neighbors, I think, runs a business out of her duplex, and whenever the UPS man comes, which must be at least three times a week and likely more than that, it’s enough to send all the dogs into a chorus of barking pleasure.

Other things that make the dogs excited: birds that fly overhead; anyone who brings out the trash, or even opening the back door from your kitchen alone is often enough to excite one of the dogs, and if one is excited it’s certain that soon they all will be. The sun behind the clouds, or the clouds moving over the face of the sun in certain shapes that are hard to identify with any precision can start the dogs barking. So I guess it’s also, therefore, fair to say that the wind blowing is itself sometimes enough, for the way it disarranges the natural world.

I sit here sometimes, at our dining room table and listen to the dogs, trying to judge from the noise they are making what they make of the world. I was doing this one day recently, and it must have been a weekend day because you were home instead of at the office, but I did not remember this. In my mind, I was listening to the dogs bark. I’d been listening for five minutes or more when you came down the stairs, surprising me. You had a towel around your head; your body dripped water on the carpet. “What’s going on down here,” you asked me, suspiciously. I hadn’t even known I was making noise until then.

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BONNIE COAD cubist nude

textured acrylics, 764mmx382mm.

The c on c E d i t o r l read usion: a makes f e to r r requ ter a s the follo ec up ir u w era t es a b bsta nti ing log al e; a r ic v i s u a e a t h - t ex t , a l th a l for ms mom e e n the pa us t e.

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BONNIE COAD

embrace

textured acrylic, 912mm x 610mm x 370mm. vol. 1 November 2010

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COREY MESLER heliolatry

The sun cannot be a negative.

The day may open like a grocery store.

The words that describe it are wee.

The day may open like a negative.

The sun may be a grocery store.

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JOAN MCNERNEY

P E E L rings coils off

of pencils complicity. scissors rationality index cards

paper clips white bond telephone M

I

N

G

L

E

stars

with strapped hipsters newspaper hawkers diamond

pan- handlers in night

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with boiling licorice perfumed

in speech- less black.

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KYLE HEMMINGS ss girlfriend

Your SS Girlfriend with the sleek belly & gorgeous scars from ripping off Avenue A dealers has you on a leash of short-term amnesia. You can’t recall the last time you got off from being trigger-happy inside her & you formed an neo-Expressionist stained impression of a barbed soul. You could go crazy counting the nights that border on Nordic numbness, reindeers dying in a child’s eyes, a hit & run on 7th ave. South. When she calls you don’t say what the fuck, where you’ve been? Something inside you trembles like a victim, and you ask where & when. You curse the rain. At the university cafe, she shows you a new tattoo from the place on St. Mark’s open until 3 a.m. She hits you up for some paper tongue because there’s a new drug rumored to cure the virus called living by numbers. It’s fatal but so is being born, she says with a smile that tangles up your peek-a-boo soul & leaves you misty for your father’s polyester suits before he came down with a rare strand of sleeping standing UP. Tonight, after a frenzy of unsafe sex, in a hotel owned by an excaptain of steely eyes, she sings you an old lullaby the very one her grandmother once sang when your girl’s SS eyes were too babydoll blue for this world. And the two of you collapse into each other’s jack box, the night taking no prisoners only the half-shadows by the fireplace, only the soft flickering.

im ental’ r e p x e ‘ e efin e th d poem I A o d . s n w io o t h a asks “ terpre t in r o e l it ip d t E l u e text is h m t s The n e it h w in e joy is nd scape h a l T ed b ut l d a ? t n m n e t e e o in p im r r e o t h e ex p e script h o t t in t a s h e w v l on de ead er.” t r n a e h d t n e p in e d s no longer e pleasure it e voke on t h 24

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KYLE HEMMINGS

dancing at the club

digital art, Adobe Photoshop, 2010.

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P.A. LEVY castle rave

From Oxford and beyond this is the last roll of the Dark River, twisting and turning its great weight under bridges and thick with journey, collides into the violent snatch grab sea. Head-on crash.

We dance on the high ground in the ruins of a castle, our silhouettes turn battlements bleed our colour into sky.

Around the fire flicker light licks; ‘let’s again be tribal’ With drum and bass mix heavy duty dub, kick out the moves from strobe motion to mental, the jig the flames reeled set the tower walls alive.

Them blue flash blue flash; they ain’t disco!

Aspidistra condemnation and the Essex Constabulary on crusades with shields held up, visors down, batons drawn against the lo-fi static crackle hiss graffiti.

You and me, like tiny creatures, scarper onto the Downs.

Creep as whispers stealing secrets, morph ourselves as night and hold our breath… hold phat bass heart beats hold hands dodging moon glint; stay still like ruined castles, as all around storms the mirror of the sea.

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FELINO A. SORIANO approbations 597 —after Trygve Seim’s Search Silence

Resuscitate its welcome. Mood Janus-faced

spectrum, haze | glory curtailed freedom

need of hankering responsibility : fire, foray splayed motion less yes, the mood must alter. The mind’s halls of intoxicated maze

x x //\\ parallel-straight mathematic thought

: historic.

Now challenge one, one-the-self multiplied by randomness causation fury undoing thread of peace’s hemming hand.

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MATTHEW DEXTER mouse trap

W

aiting in line for the business class bathroom a few miles above the Atlantic, beautiful stewardess brushes her stinking lunch cart past me and smiles, while I hold my penis through the hole in my pocket.

The lavatory door unhinges and the red OCCUPIED sign changes to green VACANT a few inches above the lock. It was here where I met this majestic woman with identical icy blue eyes as my own, which shone and sparkled so bright that it made me feel haunted, like I had known her my whole life, like we had come from the same cloud, four dancing pupils connected twenty-seven thousand feet above the earth. Best Virgin Atlantic Airlines flight of my life.

“Excuse me,” she said, squeezing her hips against my thighs in an awkward attempt to enter the cabin. One of the buttons on the bottom of her cashmere sweater caught the adjustable strap hanging from my jacket, pulling our bodies together and drawing our faces a few inches apart.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. She laughed. Perfume filled my nostrils with enchantment.

“It’s ok,” she said, seized by laughter, freeing herself from my Patagonia fleece like a feather from the fur of an ostrich. Her teeth were so white, pure, mouth open like a puma, sheepish as she swallowed my words with her intoxication. As suddenly as it happened, it finished, and she was gone. I entered the lavatory and hit the OCCUPIED sign. I was tempted to masturbate in the bathroom, but some lady was knocking and her voice sounded like a demented hooting owl. Bright blue water sucked my heart through its circle as it flushed. I clicked the door open and waddled out like a duck down the aisle, rubbing my hands on back seat cushions of my fellow passengers, turbulence my magic carpet.

I ate a grilled turkey sandwich and a salad with Thousand Island dressing. Studying my notes, sipping Southern Comfort, warm whiskey burning my belly, after an hour my bladder’s ready to burst. Goddamn OCCUPIED sign again; waiting behind a lady that smells like debauchery and Cheez Whiz. She has a sleeve of Ritz crackers peeking out the front pocket of her oversized Overalls and a piece of melted cheese in her hair. She reminds me of a muddled mouse and I imagine she has more than two cats, as evident by the scratches on her arms and the Hello Kitty patch on her ass and the ハローキティ tattoo on the corner of her forearm and lower biceps. She looks back in my direction, but I stare at the carpet and admire the intricate details of the stitching.

The door clicks open and again the lady disappears into the abyss of a toilet seat too small for her extremities, shredding all dignity from a life of small pleasures like cheddar on a cracker.

“Not vacant,” a voice like a flower observes from over my shoulder; so close I can smell the perfume and the warmth of her breath. I smile and introduce myself: “Name’s Don Mateo. Have I seen you someplace before?”

She laughs, lifts her neck toward the ethereal overhead FASTEN SEATBELTS and NO SMOKING sign. “I’m Jamie,” she says. Her voice so soft, mellifluous, innocent like rainbow sprinkles and chocolate syrup on a Sunday afternoon. We shoot the shit and when I get back from the can she’s still standing there, looking out the oval window in the flight attendants’ area.

“Looking for someone?” I say.

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MATTHEW DEXTER

“Always am,” she says. “This flight’s too long, I hate sitting for hours….Say, would you like to join me? There’s an empty seat in the middle--”

“Of course,” I said. Wish I never met this woman when I discovered the Cheez Whiz lady was sitting in the aisle, Ritz crackers spread out in a smiley face on her tray compartment-no napkin under them or anything--half smothered with cheese. It angered her to have to let us in. She scowled and stacked up her crackers. “Why is he here?”

“Don’t let her bother you,” Jamie said. It took the woman with whiskers two minutes to shuffle into the aisle. She looked like she was going to beat the crap out of me. I felt like I was trapped in a canoe with a mousy lunatic, crackers crunching as she stuffed them into her cheese hole.

After a few minutes with Jamie the lady drifted away and I sailed into the sea of this new woman’s eyes, guiding me to a world of majesty and illusions, clouds surrounding angelic face, she spoke and we laughed and the hours passed like seconds. We decided to enter the lavatory together as members of the Mile High Club, and when we returned the rat lady said she could “smell sex dripping from your loins--you sick bastards.”

As it turns out we were both on our way to an international convention in London about mapping the genome and using fingerprints, search history, and other Internet documents to link up lost-long relatives. We both knew little about our siblings, and had been participating in a clinical study of the methods to find the links to our ancestry. We were both speakers, and on stage were introduced by the lead scientist as “miracle twins-- reunited after twentyseven years to prove the simplicity and efficiency of the findings.” In Jamie’s eyes I could see four oceans, one child, two serpents, and a raging current swirling clockwise into the blue water of an airport lavatory.

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ZARAH BUTCHER auto-immune

Why can’t the loading mimic attack in a volunteer.

A film bounces around inflame. Well piles around inflame.

Inflame publishes the tailored luggage under cunning silicon.

The orbit counts stuff with an unset river.

Well stirs the sector opposite opposite an autumn guideline.

Beside the sequential coat flashes well. Well rants over a cured dependence.

How does inflame yawn throughout well. Opposite the alert Lusts the dealer.

A prototype tacks well. Above the altered bell.

Well binds inflame in the lyric. A frog demises well underneath the contour.

The sea race pretends to be the paper. Inflame dates the Peripheral before the sentence.

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vol 1. November 2010

RC MILLER s ense of poetic decay

I’m scattered throughout multiple hotel rooms so Clones clean my toilet.

The second asteroid is groundhogging.

The satellite sends or responds according to its blams.

I near the rest ahead and become The novelty of a hammer just hovering a moth.

In multiple hotel rooms are cloned STDs, breezes.

If I survive repeated operations We’ll eat soup on the threshold of conversion.

Blame this on masked strangers who spot the holy cucumber in a racing accident.

“At this point, I refuse!” The Editor collapses into her chair. Tamara sighs irritatedly at the interuption. “I refuse to act with purpose,” the Editor contines.

“Why can’t I place two unlinking works together! Why must I have work within some predetermined and referential frame!” She pokes Tamara with the end of her pen. “Tammy, I am going to act randomly! Instinctively! Listen to me! I am going to disobey!”

Tamara rubs rudely her eyeballs. “Let me understand this right,” she says slowly. “Your intention...is to act without intention?” Tamara fold s her arms. She mutters. Something Russian. Of course, the Editor is no longer listening.

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CASTLE BRAVO shockwaves

translation by tamara azizian

I

И

nternet memes are an interesting phenomenon On the surface, they are simply units of cultural information that serve to either generate commercial promotion or group cohesion. However, as particles of culture, memes have the power to reinvent people, trends and influences that existed prior to the availability of the internet.

Eduard Khil is one such example. When a 1976 video of Mr. Khil, singing the non-lexical song, ‘I am Glad I’m Finally Going Home’, appeared on YouTube, it introduced him to a young, western generation whose fascination has re-sparked his popularity.

Without exaggeration, he is one of the finest baritone singers to emerge from Russia.

Eduard Khil (born 4 September 1934) has had a varied career. Graduating from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1960, as a soloist he has achieved considerable prize-winning success in his native country, singing both classical and popular songs.

Rem’s interest in Mr. Khil stems from his stunning vocalization of ‘I’m Glad I’m Finally Going Home’ which challenges the role of the spoken text and the songwriter in music.

Secondly, Khil is the testament of the power of cyber technology to dissimulate cultural icons across borders. Rem Magazine was fortunate to catch up with Mr. Khil to discuss that song,

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нтернет-мемы интересные явления. Внешне, они просто единицы культурной информации, которые служат для создания либо коммерческой рекламы либо групповой

сплоченности.

Однако, как частицы культуры, мемы имеют способность возрождать людей, тенденции и направления, которые существовали до появления интернета. Эдуард Хиль является одним из таких примеров. Когда видеоклип Хиля, исполнившего нелексичную песню 1976 года «Я очень рад, что наконец возвращаюсь домой», появился на You Tube, это привлекло внимание молодого западного поколения, чьё увлечение им сбособствовало возобновлению его популярности. Без преувеличения, он является одним из лучших певцов баритонов России. Эдуард Хиль (родился 4 сентября 1934 г.) имел разнообразную карьеру. Окончив Ленинградскую консерваторию в 1960 году в качестве солиста он добился успеха на своей родине, исполняя как классические, так и популярные песни. Интерес РEM в Г-не Хиле связан с его потрясающим исполнением вокализа “Я очень рад, что наконец, возвращаюсь домой,” которое оспаривает роль текста и автора песен в музыке. Во-вторых, Хиль является примером мощности кибертехнологии в распространении культурных ценностей, преодолевая границы. Журналу PEM повезло получить возможность обсудить с г-ном Хилем эту песню, его карьеру и возможности Интернета.

vol 1. November 2010

REM: Let’s start with that song “I Am Glad I’m Что вдохновило Вас на исполнение песни Finally Going Home” What inspired you без слов? to do a non-lexical piece?

KHIL: Composer Arkady Ostrovsky’s music was known for its joyful, beautiful and memorable melody. This particular piece was filled with energy and positive emotions and I was inspired to perform it.

It reminded me of the classic vocalization composed in 18th and 19th centuries.

“

Мажорная, радостная, красивая и запоминающаяся мелодика композитора Аркадия Островского всегда отличала его песни. Именно, большой заряд положительных эмоций и сама мелодика вдохновили меня на исполнение. Музыка “Вокализа” Аркадия Островского напомнила мне классические вокализы 18 и 19 веков.

The song is unusual due to its wide range that not many can perform/deliver.

”

REM: One of the fantastic things about this song and its filmed performance for contemporary, western audiences is its ‘otherness’ - it is completely unlike anything anyone in New Zealand has seen before. Was it considered unusual for the time?

Самое удивительное в этой песне и в ее исполнении для современной западной аудитории - это ее неповторимость, то чего не слышал новозеландский зритель до этого. Считалась ли эта песня такой же необычной для того времени?

KHIL: The piece “Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой” - “I Am Glad I’m Finally Going Home” - was composed in 1965. During that time I often performed this “song without words” in my concerts as well as other wonderful songs by Arkady Ostrovsky.

We began searching for a poet who could write the lyrics. We tried a few options but they didn’t work out. Composer Ostrovsky said to me: “Sing this piece as a classic vocalization in different keys.”

Orchestration took a while to compose.

A few musicians were simultaneously working on orchestration of this piece day and night. We recorded the song in three takes. Many liked it! The song is unusual due to its wide range that not many can perform/deliver.

Этот вокализ с названием “Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой” был написан композитором в 1965 году. В то время я часто исполнял эту “песню без слов” в своих концертах, как и другие замечательные песни Аркадия Островского. Хотели найти поэта, который смог бы написать стихи; пробовали разные варианты, но ничего не получалось. И композитор Островский сказал мне: “Пой это произведение как классический вокализ в разных тональностях. Оркестровку сочиняли очень долго. Сразу несколько оркестровщиков-музыкантов трудились над этой песней и день и ночь. Записали, сделали три дубля. Многим понравилось! Песня необычная, у неё большой, широкий диапазон, не каждый сможет исполнить.

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CASTLE BRAVO REM: Why do you think it has become such a Как Вы думаете, почему она стала таким contemporary popular hit? современным популярным хитом?

KHIL: The internet is still unpredictable and surprising; no one in the world can say for certain what it is still capable of achieving. I’m very pleased that the energy and dedication invested into this piece by the composer, singer, musicians, conductor, sound engineers, camera operators etc. after 45 years have echoed in the hearts and souls of many people from various countries. The Internet is an engine of progression of our times; it provides further opportunities for people to seek information and to educate themselves.

Интернет - вешь непредвиденная, никто в мире не может сказать на что ещё способен интернет. Мне очень приятно, что та затраченная энергия композитора, певца, музыкантов, дирижёра, звукорежиссёров, операторов и т.д. через сорок пять лет, вдруг нашла отклик в сердцах и душах многих людей из разных стран. Интернет - двигатель и множитель в наше время; он помогает людям познать то, что мы не знали ранее.

Right to left: Eduard Khil and Arkady Ostrovsky Справа налево: Эдуард Хиль и Аркадий Островский

REM: How do you think the meaning of this Вы думаете, насколько значение и song has changed from 1976 to 2010? восприятие этой песни изменилось в 2010 году по сравнению с 1976 годом?

I find it hard to be the judge of this.

KHIL: The judges are the internet users. Мне трудно об этом судить. Судьи - это A competition recently took place in люди сидящие в интернете. Сейчас в St. Petersburg to write lyrics for this Петербурге идёт конкурс на написание tune.

The competition attracted a к этой мелодии слов. На конкурс large number of contestants. Lyrics откликнулось огромное колличество were written by professionals as well желающих. Пишут слова и профессионалы as amateur writers, based on their own и любители; кто как чувствует. Самые feelings of the music. Very different разные темы в словах.

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CASTLE BRAVO KHIL: topics and themes were covered. October 7, 2010 was the day for final performances by all the winners and contributors.

Lyrics were sent from USA, India, China and many other exotic countries. The contestants speak a variety of languages; it was amazing to receive poems written in Chinese characters for example!

“

А 7 октября в интернете будет заключительное выступление всех победителей-участников. Многие из приславших стихи, из Америки, Индии, Китая, и других экзотических мест планеты. Этих участники говорят на разных языках. Поэтому, было удивительно увидеть стихи написанные, например, иероглифами!

.

”

REM: Do you feel performers today are less Считаете ли Вы, что в настоящеe время conscious of what makes a great song исполнителей больше интересует слaва, and more focused on the aesthetics of чем просто хорошая песня? fame?

KHIL I do not think so, but life, its development and internet show otherwise. Words and music should complement and reinforce each other. I believe that music, poetry and culture should not only entertain, but also add something new to man and his development.

Я так не считаю, но жизнь, её развитие, интернет считают по-другому. Слова и музыка должны дополнять и усиливать друг друга. Я считаю, что музыка, поэзия и культура должны не только развлекать, но и приносить новое человеку для его развития.

REM: Tell me about Prepinaki. How did you Как началось Ваше сотрудничество с рок become involved with this retro rock group? группой Препинаки и продолжается ли Are you still collaborating with them? оно до сих пор?

KHIL I met the members of the group “Prepinaki” here in St. Petersburg during the mid 90s.

After lengthy rehearsals we performed at a joint concert in the Variety Theatre. We mainly performed the music from 60’s and 70’s with most songs composed by A. Ostrovsky. An outstanding pianist and musical arranger who was a joyful and optimistic person; he often rang me in St Petersburg and sang his songs over the telephone. He would re-do vol. 1 November 2010

С группой “Препинаки” мы познакомились у нас в Петербурге, в середине 90ых годов. Долго репетировали, потом спели совместный концерт в Театре Эстрады. В основном, это были песни 60-ых, 70-ых годов; большинство песен, которые мы исполняли, принадлежат композитору А.Островскому. Прекрасный пианист, аранжировщик, весёлый, жизнерадостный человек. Часто звонил

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CASTLE BRAVO KHIL: them several times. If something didn’t fit or work for me he would write a completely new tune, at times with various other options. We still occasionally meet with the group “Prepinaki” and sing and perform at concerts together.

мне по телефону в Питер и напевал свои песни; он мог по несколько раз переделывать их. И, если мне не подходило, или было неудобно, он мог написать совсем другой мотив, причём даже несколько вариантов. С группой “Препинаки” иногда встречаемся и поём на концертах вместе.

REM: Looking towards the future, do you have any new musical projects/plans in development?

Заглядывая в будущее, будут ли у Вас новые музыкальные проекты?

KHIL: I have new projects. I’m often performing with my son, Dmitri, who’s a composer with a beautiful baritone voice, he’s also an arranger and a conductor. Sometimes I work together with my son and my grandson, who’s also Eduard. Our show is called: “Daddy, Grandpa and I - musical family.”

Новые прoекты есть. Часто выступаю со своим сыном Дмитрием, он композитор с красивым баритоном, аранжировщик, дирижёр. Иногда мы работаем вместе с сыном и внуком, тоже Эдуардом. Наш концерт так и называется: “Папа, дедушка и я - музыкальная семья”.

“

‘Love!’ This inspires me to live and to still sing and perform.

”

REM: You visited New Zealand and Australia in the 1970s. What were the circumstances?

Я была в восторге узнав, что Вы посетили Новую Зеландию и Австралию в 1970 г. Какими обстоятельствами это было вызвано? Каковы были Ваши впечатления?

KHIL: In 1970 I was on tour in Australia. Our team of 16 visited many cities in Australia, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong, Phillippines and many other fascinating places. This trip was organized by the Ministry of Culture and personally by Catherine Furtseva, who was the Minister of Culture at that time. A leader of our group was the great singer and pianist Nadejda Appolinarievna Kazantseva, an artist with one of the rarest voices with a range of 3 octaves! Australia – was a country that many would have liked to live and work in. The tour has left the most vivid impressions!

В 1970-м году я был с гастролями в Австралии. Наш коллектив в составе 16 человек проехал многие города Австралии, Куалолумпур, Сингапур, Гон-Конг, Филиппины и многие другие интересные места. Эту поездку нашей группы организовало министерство культуры и лично Екатерина Фурцева, она тогда была министром культуры. А руководителем нашей группы была великолепная вокалистка и пианистка Надежда Апполинариевна Казанцева, обладательница редчайшего по красоте голоса с диапазоном в 3 октавы! Австралия - это страна, в которой многие хотели бы жить и работать. Очень яркие остались впечатления от тех гастролей!

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CASTLE BRAVO

REM: Finally what lasting impression do you Какое впечатление Вы хотите want to leave with your fans? произвести на своих поклонников?

KHIL: My fans constantly impress me, the fact that they can seek out from thousands of songs, tunes, melodies and artists something that is familiar to them in spirit, in feelings and thoughts captured in one word – “Love!” This inspires me to live and to still sing and perform. Me and my fans, my fans and I - we complement, nourish, ignite, surprise and love each other.

Это мои поклонники произвели на меня впечатления, то, что они могут находить среди тысяч мелодий, песен, артистов, близкие им по духу, по мысли чувства, которые называются одним словом - “Любовь”! Это помогает мне жить и до сих пор петь и выступать. Я и поклонники, поклонники и я - мы дополняем, подпитываем, зарожаем, удивляем, любим друг друга.

Readers can visit his official web page: http://edhill.narod.ru (have an e-translator hardy) or view the official YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/saitEdHil.

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VAUGHAN RAPATAHANA Hong i k s o r n homboid g

living in a small box

SQUARE

one

becomes

a

Hong Kong is rhomboid

r e c t t a v n r a l u g IN COMPUTER

A

SCREEN

Hong Kong

is rhomboid

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VAUGHAN RAPATAHANA

vol. 1 November 2010

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MARK WILLIAM JACKSON teardrop

morning follows

follows

night

night

breath

breath

a weak

a weak

breath

breath

silence

silence

gives way to

gives way to

life

life

in screams

in screams

year

year

echoes

echoes

age

age

I held your hand

I held your hand

we walked

we walked

apart from time

apart from time

precious minutes

precious minutes

fell into

fell into

anonymous days

anonymous days

the great middle

the great middle fell into

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vol 1. November 2010

HOWIE GOOD rumble strip

1 You’re gathering the baby’s things, disturbed all day by your previous night’s dream. You remember someone pursuing you down crooked streets. You wish you could remember who.

You ask a relative stranger what it means. Start from the premise that everything is broken.

2 Alone with your thoughts, open windows can be hazardous. Orphaned parents dozing in wheelchairs along the boardwalk turn like sunflowers to face the sun, the silence at fault and the remaining light oppressed by the presence of what can’t be mended.

3 The hammer falls on an empty chamber, the lethal injection misses the vein. Nothing comes easy after dark. Although the body heals, memory never recovers. Pieces of the gallows sold for a dollar a pound. Until we know why, we won’t know what happened. The man in the window insists that truth is a moving target. The bird on his chest is bleeding, too

The Editor cra ms the rice cake into her mouth. The fingers of her free hand tap away as she finalises the mark up of the journal when that cat walks in, the young black one, with this song thrush between her teeth. Drops it at her feet.

Bird is dead although when the Editor picks it up, its bod y is still giving heat...

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SUDHIR KUMAR DUPPATI transcient

600X800mm, acrylic on canvas 42

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vol 1. November 2010

PLUTONIUM PRESS RELEASE motherlock

‘A woman who has, conceived, given birth to, and raised a child.’

‘To confine to imprison, to shut in.’

Motherlock is about challenging the traditional perceptions of modern motherhood.

Based on the experiences of New Zealand playwright Melissa Fergusson, this semiautobiographical drama follows a woman living in the United Kingdom and New Zealand over fourteen years through four pregnancies to different British men.

These experiences of trauma, intimacy and adversity are bravely rendered on stage in this one woman showcase by hot new talent Virginia Frankovich (Fitz Bunny, The Young and Hungry Festival of New Theatre, The Vagina Monologues, Wellington Fringe Festival.)

‘At each crucial age 21, 24, 26, and 33 the character of the mother reinvents her identity,’ explains Fergusson, a disciplined and focused arts practitioner who has an extensive background in acting, directing and makeup artistry within theatre.

Motherlock is inspired by Fergusson’s three children and the importance of them knowing their paternities and the circumstances of their early lives. The play includes authentic letters written by two of their Fathers to Fergusson injecting Motherlock with a raw sense of emotional weight.

Produced by Anya Varezhkina with script advice by Wellington-based script writer and playwright Donna Banicevich Gera, Motherlock made its smashing debut at The Melbourne Fringe Festival 2010 from September 28-October 2 at The Australia Centre for Performing Arts.

Watch out for performances in Auckland and Wellington 2011.

Media Enquiries Kristina Hard Mob: 021 054 7682 kristina_hard@hotmail.com

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RICKY GARNI #75

In my perfect world, I would walk down the sunny streets every day And go to the Pink Sand Box for a drink, maybe an ‘Electronic Radar Grill’ on the rocks or an ‘Otto Preminger’ which is a frosty gin drink with mulled Winesap apple and Otto Preminger right in the middle of it sloshing and yelping about like crazy And Sammy Davis Jr. would pop his head out the window of the brownstone next door and says “Hey Man, What’s happenin’?”

And I would say JAMBO! and give him the little OK sign with my hand and there would be Milton Berle right there in a big limo across the street and I would say “Hey Lefty!” and he would frown and act annoyed because really he is right handed and he wonders what I know that he doesn’t but that’s the best part I’m not telling and in my perfect world all my enemies would be tied to pretend electric chairs and all my friends would be loafing around telling electric chair jokes and I would tell them “That’s what you get for you-know-what” every confounded day and say “Just call me Mortician To The Stars” and they would get all nervous and I would pop over to the studio still nursing my delicious Otto Preminger On my perfect day Robin Hood would be hiding in his dressing room with his head in his hands with the lights off and he would look up when I open the door he would say “Just give me a minute...I can do this...”

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vol 1. November 2010

MICHAEL BOTUR zero the hero

T

he turtle was hard on top but squishy on its belly, and it ate bits of tomato real funny. The teacher let Zara look after it during the holidays. The teacher said Zara deserved it more. It was the best day of her whole entire life. But she wasn’t normally allowed pets at home. Dad said the teacher was a Simpleton.

She nodded and squelched her mashed potatoes between her teeth, except they weren’t really mashed, just crushed, because mum had taken the masher when she left. That was another sign of her immaturidy, Dad said. Served him right for marrying someone so young.

Zara patted the turtle and whispered to it, making stuff okay. Dad had broken its shell – it was just a accident – and Zara had cut her hand on the sharp bit. She showed the girls at school the cut, told them she was the turtle’s blood brother, now. Blood sister, retard, they corrected her. She shut up and stood in the shadow of the netball hoop.

Dad read rare books instead of watching the Idiot Box. He wore clips around his ankles when he cycled. He wore woolly jumpers which itched when he devoured her in his Sometimes Hugs. When he kissed her, his white moustache itched coz of the paint and wood shavings in it. He would hold Zara in a hug and read one of his First Editions behind her back, and the itching didn’t matter coz the hugs only happened once a season. He always licked his moustache and fixed his glasses, and licked his finger before he turned pages. Checking the time on his watch took about twenty actions. He found arguments at the bank, at the library, and he even argued on his own, reading books. Zara would listen through the banisters on the stairs.

He loved his First Editions more than anything, he said, and dabbed his eyes with his hanky.

He used to have a job doing books for the university, after the army didn’t have a use for him, and now he had a different, harder job. One time, Zara showed him a book she’d brought home from school, and he laughed because it wasn’t worth very much, then handed it back like an ugly baby.

Zara crossed the litter of magazine pages she’d been cutting out and hauled the computer seat under her bum. Her computer’s monitor was real big and embarrassing, it was as big as a minibar. She usually covered it with one of mum’s old wigs from when mum’d pulled her hair out. Dad should’ve worn a wig too, Zara thought, coz Dad went bald real quick after Mum left.

Out the window, Dad had gone to fix his bicycle. He rid real far every day and always got thorns in his tyres. Dad said a car was a Luxury for the Lazy.

On Facebook, one of the girls from school had posted about this short story competition.

She flipped up MSN and got yakking, except hardly anyone yakked back in the boxes she opened, so it was more like talking to a mirror. She went back to Facebook and and read the short story competition thing. She couldn’t find the word ‘book’ anywhere, the word they used vol. 1 November 2010

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MICHAEL BOTUR was creative writing. 1500 words, you had to write. In class on the whiteboard it said 10 Mins Silent Writing. She worked it out on her fingers…1500 words was like a short book, like a Golden Book. She liked short books better anyway; she wasn’t allowed to touch the big heavy books. She counted up all the things she’d said out loud in the day and there was only eighteen.

The wig was looking at her. She kicked it under the desk. There were two things in the world that Mum had decided she didn’t want when she had gone. The wig was one. Zara typed WORD onto a white page, copied the word, pasted it, and then she had two WORDs. She copied it, pasted it, and grew four WORDs, then eight, sixteen. Soon she had over a hundred words on the page. It was funny, being able to grow words like that. Copied and pasted until she reached two thousand WORDs, so that was cool. 2048 words it was, altogether.

Smiley face. She had bloomed the story in eleven steps, grown this whole amazing thing from nothing.

She couldn’t stop seeing in the dark.

In the poster, she could make out Edward’s white cheeks, Bella’s stick-coloured hair.

When it was quiet enough that she could hear cats treading on the roof, it was time to get up.

Zara put the wig over her head – if her Dad burst in, he wouldn’t know that it was her, up late, being pernicious. Pernicious was why he held her wrists when she was trying to get away from him. That was why he had squeezed the pet turtle so tight, and broke its shell, to stop it walking around being pernicious. He wouldn’t tell her how to spell the word, coz that was cheating. Her tears were Completely Nonsensical.

In the screen’s glow, she re-read the short story rules. It sounded like someone real old had writted the rules, he used real stupid old people words, plus his name was Mr Gruel, which made her think of a bowlful of wet gravel. It might’ve just been a competition for old people.

On MSN, nobody was yakking to her, so she started writing before she’d even thunk of a story. She squeezed her eyes like lemons and then a story came to her.

Zero the Turtle by Z. O., age 149.

She started saying how Zero lived in a Africa swamp, but she used up all the Africa words she knew– hippo, cheater, swingbok – and she got the spelling of Zambezi from a Zambezi bag deep under her bed. She hadn’t brought anything from Zambezi, she’d just found the bag in an alleyway, to wrap her samwidges in, coz she never had lunch money.

Zero was a girl orphan turtle. She was nicer than a hippo and if she was real, real scared, she could run faster than a cheater. She lived with a real pernicious crocodile what always tried to eat her but it couldn’t coz her shell was hard and sharp. One day when it was real hot, Zero fell asleep when she shouldn’t of sposed to. She sleeped on her back with her belly up and the crocodile ate her from the belly.

Zara had 90 words so far. 90!!! She put her fingers over her lips in case Dad heard her smiling.

When she really, really couldn’t sleep, and the numbers on the alarm clock got real small, she put the wig on and crept through the ink and added one last teency weency bit to the story: After the crocodile ate the turtle, he was full and he needed a nap, but his belly was talking.

Then, to make it more valuable, she wrote FIRST EDITION on the front page, and went to sleep.

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Her friends didn’t ask about the story competition. Heaps of words lined up inside her head, but didn’t come outside.

She played handball with them, but even when she got one of the cool girls out, there was something wrong about it.

‘I’m first!’ she chirped.

‘Eew,’ a girl whose shirt was the right size said, ‘I’m zero. Zero’s better than first.’

‘No… ’

‘Zero the hero, first the worst, second the best, third the nerd.’

One of the other girls said ‘I’m second!’

‘I wanna be zero,’ Zara said, ‘Pretty please?’

Then some boys came and told her her face was stink, so she spent the second half of lunch in the toilets.

Later, after lunch, the teacher got them all to write stories for a short story competition, and the teacher asked who wanted to be first to read theirs, and no one put their hand up, and Zara smiled sneakretly. The teacher handed round permission slips. A class trip to the National Library was coming up.

She walked home, dragging her bag along the ground. In her head she heard what Dad would say about scraping the buckles. Then she tried to do mum’s voice, but she couldn’t remember what it sounded like.

Dad mashed his potato with his fork and kept looking around and sniffing and going, ‘Hm.’ Zara kept quiet in case he said something.

After tea, he read her the Tripe that was on at the movies and the town hall. Plays and films, he said, were nothing, they lacked backbone. Books were better because in books, there were endings to break the cycles. Zara pictured Dad’s bike wheels being broken.

She made him a cup of tea and he said, ‘It’s probably too hot.’ He went and made his own tea, a better one.

Heaps of people were on MSN messenger, but instead she added stuff to her story.

They were probably missing her but she decided she didn’t care.

Zara wrote how Zero the Turtle’s friends all couldn’t live without her and there was a big mama turtle what’s shell could never be broke. And the pond she lived in was magic coz people put money in, and it became a wishing well, didn’t matter if you had a dollar or five hundred dollars. And the crocodile ate the gold coins what people wished with but he drowned coz he was too heavy with gold and –

Dad donged her on the head with one of his books. ‘Go to bed,’ he said, ‘Remember who loves you.’

Zara had 505 words now! She posted on her profile, ‘I writ 505 words for a short story compertition! Kewl ;o$’

Her smiley face smiled for her. She would do some more on the story then cross her fingers extra hard and send it off.

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Mr Gruel’s family had left him for no other reason than because they were selfish.

He was confined to a wheelchair after a lifetime of scoliosis and twisted posture which had resulted in some mockery during his Second Platoon days. Nobody deserved such a fate. Now, his estate was obscenely empty. What his family had done to him was a crime, and they would rue their actions when they read the will and learned that Mr Wolf would inherit his estate and his remnants of cash.

His selfish family kept coming back to debate things with him. They would eye up his rare books collection, HIS collection! Oft times, he toothed and tore the books in front of them.

He liked it when they punched the walls and left in tears. Because he was in a wheelchair, nobody could touch him.

His library was cool and dry and dusty and it was from his library that Mr Gruel conducted his daily correspondence, which was increasingly done on a computer machine. While he composed threats and curses, he was having the shell of his house sanded by the helper, the only man he trusted. The helper had been there in Saigon with him, a fellow medic. Even now, when Mr Gruel’s wheels snapped a twig, the helper ducked and covered his head.

Sometimes Gruel fired his airgun at the helper’s bicycle as the man came up the drive, then Gruel would laugh so hard he’d have to put on his respirator mask and suckle oxygen. He was only keeping the man alert and ready, for Christ’s sake.

Due to his employ, his helper could no longer be a mate, but that was life. The helper had to wheel Mr Gruel around the network of planks and paths on his vast, oaked property.

An Owie kept the helper bonded to him.

Mr Gruel found new things to kill each season –bees, hedgehogs, borer, cabbage moths. He grew a monkey apple hedge which popped the neighbours’ brats’ balloons. Once, like an early birthday present, Mr Gruel had witnessed the neighbours’ Jack Russell trapped in the hedge. He’d telephoned the Police, complaining that the dog had his fish hook in its lips.

Of late, Mr Gruel had decided to use his intellect to become an editor of fine fiction. He would enlighten his community with his short story competition. He himself was an exceedingly good writer, but he didn’t skite about it: In fact, he wouldn’t even enter this competition, to give others a chance. The prize money was nothing – it was the prestige of having Mr Gruel digest your work which would bring admirers to him. He even sent advertisements around the local schools, for their benefit. He would erase the stain which school had left upon him, by changing its very culture. The tiny voices of nagging, mocking playground boys and girls still returned on occasion. Jellyfish! Twisty-spine! O’Shaugnessy, yes, that lad was one of the offenders. Indeed, he was sure he remembered it correctly. If he could reach the children now, across time, he would strangle them.

Dad had a job doing something for his old mucker out at this country mansion, but he always came home again, without telling, to catch her being pernicious. He still wouldn’t spell pernicious for Zara, because to help her with her spelling lists would be Cheating. He’d said the special after school catch-up classes were Cheating too, and that’s what’d made Mum crazy.

She hanged around the turtle tank in the science room a lot, but a new turtle was never there. But there could’ve been turtle eggs in the sand! And at least there was a turtle in her story. She’d looked on Amazon for a new turtle, but she didn’t have any money and neither did Dad, plus he would just say No.

One Saturday afternoon, when he was supposed to be home, Dad went out, suddenly, taking gross brown bread samwidges with him. He said there was a rare books symposium 48

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on.

He said goodbye to his first editions, and didn’t come home.

Zara boiled her own potatoes. She didn’t stay up late or watch anything sneaky just in case Dad came home. The only bad thing she did was eat sugar with a tablespoon, coz she thought maybe it was bad enough that it would make him come home.

On MSN, whenever she tried to talk to people, they always said GTG and had to go.

But the computer said they were still there. Stupid old computer.

By Monday night, her story had gotted over a thousand words. She brung the crocodile back to life and wrote how it liked turtle soup, but she suddenly started seeing Zero getting eaten and her cheeks got all hot and wet and she ran to the telephone.

Dad’s mobile phone number was written with the emergency phone numbers. The buttons on the phone were real hard to press coz they hardly ever used the phone. Dad answered real grumpy and said he was negotiating a sale You Miscreant and she burst out crying and begged him to come home.

‘Very well,’ he sighed.

He found her on the kitchen floor with her head between her knees. She told him about the competition and he snorted and got out his hanky, but he didn’t blow his nose, he wiped her eyes instead and she didn’t even care if there were bogies on the hanky. His sleeves were wet and stinky. He squeezed her head and she listened to his belly purr, like the car window rumbling against her skull as Dad read and mum drove them humming towards the holidays.

He told her that she would have had a little sister to play with, but the little sister’s skull wasn’t firm enough. ‘You were our first,’ he said, ‘And that makes you exceptionally special.’ With his eyes closed, he took a long, deep sniff of her hair.

He didn’t tell her she was pernicious for writing her story. He actually gave her a stamp to put on the envelope, and said he wouldn’t charge her for the cost of printing it in his study.

He told her that his boss loved books, too, and that was the only thing which was keeping him from being sacked. He’d even started helping read some short stories for a competition.

There was one last thing she had to change – she made the author Zara O’Shaughnessy, coz she didn’t want to go around being sneaky. She wasn’t gonna win the $500 anyway.

He was absolutely disgusted that the neighbours hadn’t invited him to their barbecue.

Its bloody, charcoal tang seethed under the door of his study and irritated the white curls inside his nostrils.

It seemed that a classful of children had entered the short story competition, but he fobbed those off on his helper. Nobody thanked him for his time. Nevertheless, Mr Gruel surrendered himself to the task of editing, and selected a winner from the entries.

He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out the tablet on which he recorded Owies. This “winner” would certainly owe him. He reviewed the debt owed to him by his helper, too. The debt had accrued further interest.

Mr Gruel regretted having offered five hundred bob as prize money. His finances were a dying star hardening into a black hole, which was why he was racing against time to renovate this mansion and up its value.

Often he didn’t pay the helper, and instead would generously let the man choose a book to take home. Mr Gruel had no idea what the helper told his family. Such deceit!

He compiled the entries into a book, which he would print and attempt to sell to each entrant to redeem his expenses. In the foreword of the book, Mr Gruel complained about being jabbed by staples as he compiled it.

The entry fees barely covered the prize money, he wrote, But ho hum, I do what I do for love. He wrote letters of regret to each entrant. vol. 1 November 2010

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MICHAEL BOTUR Mr Gruel kept his piss saved in jam jars, so that the council wouldn’t steal his DNA, and it was the helper’s job to transfer the piss from his colostomy bag to the jars. From his bag, Mr Gruel flecked droplets onto some of the letters. The only letter he actually signed went to a woman named Zara something, who had constructed a chilling tale told from the point of view of a little girl with domestic malaise, escaping to a fantasy world – clearly an homage to Alice In Wonderland, mixed with Dickensian references, a little Dahl, McEwan and Maurice Gee. All in all, Mr Gruel’s letter of congratulations listed 26 authors whom Zara’s writing was derivative of.

Being robbed of five hundred dollars was going to make things mightily hard come Christmas, but don’t worry Zara, the letter said, I’m sure you’ll spend the money on those who most need it.

Enjoy it while it lasts,

Mr F. E. R. Gruel.

As he angrily urged his wheels across the wide floor of the study, he smashed his elbow against the door frame. He wheeled back too hard, kicked his feet and the ceiling tipped. Now there was a wall in front of him and the floor cold against his cheek.

He yelled for aid, and heard his own voice unsettling the dust. He noticed through his wet eyes that the skirting board needed varnishing. His war shells, precious, precious, resting on the bottom shelf, gleamed at him. Mr Wolf waddled over to him, gold tags rattling, and licked his tears. The ceiling was far away.

He watched the piss-puddle creep across the floor as slow as age. He had to angle his face upward so that the piss wouldn’t go up his nose. His nostrils flickered.

The helper found his boss lying on his side, pinning his own arm. Once righted, Fraser Gruel demanded to be wheeled outside so that his sticky legs could dry in the sun.

‘Now bugger off home,’ he growled.

‘The exterior though, there’s but five hours to– ’

The helper’s bicycle was parked on the porch. Mr Gruel rammed the bike’s rear wheel, breaking a spoke.

‘Buzz off!’ Mr Gruel’s chin was wet with spittle. ‘And post this, on your way.’ Mr Gruel proffered to his helper the envelope containing prize money and letter and order form for the compilation. He held onto the envelope a little too long, and then released it.

‘And watch out for punctures,’ he added.

Dad crossed the floor in one stride and swatted her ear with an envelope.

The letter was signed by Mr Fergruel himself. The news knocked on her brain door for ages before she let it enter.

‘Well?’ Dad said, ‘It’s not a fine from the public library I hope?’

‘It says how I won the Great Short Story Competition. It says I got five hundred bob!

What’s bob?’

Dad took the letter and said, ‘We’ll see.’ He wiped his glasses clean and read it like it was a first edition. ‘Well. Not quite a trouncing, but one should be proud of this.’ He handed the letter back, kissed her with his wobbly jowl bits and left.

She fired up Facebook and put as her status, GESS WOT :o)

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MICHAEL BOTUR At school the next day, she brought Cookie Times and bottles of Coke for all the girls.

You pwned that competition, they kept saying, you go girl! Between interval and lunch, they became BFFs. They made her friendship bracelets from their hair. She would buy them stuff forever! The tuck shop change came in gold coins and it made her kilt heavy. It was the best day of her whole entire life, even better than the day she got the turtle. That had been her First Bestest Day, but this one was her Zero Bestest day.

Mr Gruel drafted a mental letter during the drive home from the Small Claims Court.

The neighbours arrived home at the same time. Mr Gruel would need some extra dosh for the dispute regarding the thorny hedge, as his legal aid was running shallow. He needed his prize money back. He also needed an affidavit from his helper. Where was the blighter?

He wheeled excitedly into his study, blood full of urine, head full of caustic words, pausing briefly to stroke the spines of his first editions, the noble, upright leathery spines. He drew up a letter to that Zara woman, politely requesting the urgent return of his prize money.

Then he screwed up that letter and wrote a more deserving one. He called the woman a Nothing, a nobody.

He then drew up another letter, less heartfelt but more civil, more likely to yield the return of his money. He had to lower himself for this purpose. In his restrained letter, he reminded the prize-thief that her use of the voice of a ten year old girl had been done before, therefore it had been a mistake to make her feel worthy of recognition.

He sealed the envelope, pushed the letter away and closed his eyes to calm himself.

He was under a nosy sun, which baked his skin to leather, as he approached Singapore on the bow of a frigate dotted with scabs of guano. He was tossing rare books into the sea, to drown with the jellyfish, rather than have Customs confiscate them. Those ingrates should have appreciated that he’d been generous enough to enlist, considering his Condition.

He felt the books condense in the pressurised depths, their value compressed infinitesimally, into priceless nothingness.

Then, eyes open, feeling redeemed, Mr Gruel fetched the telephone. Excitedly, he informed his helper that the man wasn’t needed any more, but before the helper left his employ, there was a letter needing posting.

When Dad biked up the driveway, midges spattered on his glasses, Zara was on the porch holding a letter in her hands, glowing white. Her eyelids were bloated and red.

‘He was meeeean!’

‘Fraser. The competition convenor. I’ll warrant he wants his money back?’ Dad wheeled his bike to the garage. He adjusted his glasses then read the letter standing up real straight, shaking the letter like it was biting him.

‘He goes how I don’t deserve it. He wants me to send him back the money. But I don’t have it, still.’

Zara’s Dad put his hand on the back of his neck and stared upwards. He licked his thumb, pulled a coin bag from his pocket and handed it to Zara.

‘The fee for your field trip to the National Library. I’ve signed the requisite form.’ vol. 1 November 2010

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MICHAEL BOTUR

Zara sniffed and nodded and clutched the money.

‘You didn’t lie on your entry form, Zara? You didn’t mislead the man?’

Zara pulled her jersey up over her face, burying her head. She sucked delicious runny bogies back up her nose.

‘I suppose I’d best talk to the man. There anything else I need to know before I ring, hm?’ He shook her shoulders. ‘Anything?’

Zara hid behind a curtain as her dad rang Mr Gruel. The curtain was a extra layer of shell. From the way Dad held the phone away from his ear and squinted, it sounded more like the man had rung Dad, instead of Dad ringing the man. Dad said, ‘Yes, I see,’ three times, and ‘I do apologise,’ and ‘I suppose I can get it in the post by six, presumably a cheque will suffice,’ and then there was a loud ringing in Zara’s ears.

Before first period, the girls crowded her and hit her sides like bumper cars. They asked what she got up to after school yesterday afternoon – true, girlfriend? They plaited her hair.

At interval, the stream of girls gushed towards the tuck shop. They flanked her to the window.

‘What can I get for $2.30?’

One of the girls said, ‘W-T-F?’

‘I almost run out of money. I had to send it back to the competition man.’

‘But I’m hungry.’ Some of the other girls said, ‘Mm, she is.’

At lunch time, they moved too fast for her, and she had to run to catch them up. One of them tore a poster off the noticeboard, crumpled it and biffed it at her.

They sat down in a circle and took shots of an energy drink. It was hard to break into the circle, like scraping through a hedge.

All that was left was the $12.00 for the field trip. The money was inside two coin bags with the openings sealed all the way up, and the permission slip, signed and stamped with Dad’s family crest and seal.

The twelve bucks bought three giant cookies, a Coke and five bags of 50c lollies. Zara had a dollar left at the end.

They wrote her notes in last period. She tucked the notes into the itchy bra she was supposed to wear. The notes warmed and softened.

The teacher came around and collected all the moneys and permission slips for the field trip. Zara pulled her head inside the collar of her shirt and held out the empty coin bags.

She could hardly make her legs move towards home. She snuck into the school pool perniciously and threw her last dollar into the deep end. It was weird, doing that – it was like someone else was moving her heavy arm. The coin sunk real, real fast. Zara was scared of the deep end, coz if you let yourself go down, it crushed your head like a eggshell.

She had bought a lot of food today, and she dawdled home without a appetite. As she walked, she made a dollar worth of wishes.

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If he was gonna sell his First Editions, he needed to know how Amazon worked, so Zara showed him. He kept chewing ulcer tablets and looking out the window to check on his bike. She showed how you could check the normal price of First Editions and use that as a first point, a zero point.

Dad stared at her mouth when she spoke, like he didn’t know who owned her lips. He didn’t call her any big words when she set up his Amazon.com account, but that stuff was easy, they done it in Computers at school.

Later, Dad came into her room with the books in a big rubbish bag, puffed his cheeks and laid the bag real gentle on Zara’s bed. His backpack rattled, all full of jam jars. His back was very straight and his body was like a ruler. He took one book and put it apart from the others.

‘See what you can raise, Dummy,’ Dad said. ‘I’m off, and I may be some time.’ He would talk to Ol’ Jelly and make things right. Zara closed her eyes and waited for what else.

‘You’re a good’un, Zara,’ he went, walking to his bike, his jars tinkling. ‘You should start by reading this,’ he said, waving at the book, what was called A Christmas Carol.

Zara had a upset tummy, but she was super-excited too!!! She set the Reserve price real low so they’d be all sold by the time Dad got home. Dad could sell the dumb crusty books and buy new shiny copies from Whitcoulls instead, with better pictures. She auctioned old copies of Peeper’s Diary and Alice In Wonderland and old lame stuff like that. Their only good thing was that they had no scratches or loose bits and the spines had gold sewing, but apart from that they were super-boring. She took them out of their plastic sleeves and ripped off the bits inside the cover what didn’t even say what edition they were. Zero edition was better than first edition, Zero the hero. She sprinted down to school and burned the covers behind the bike sheds.

By the time she got home, the books had all sold. Zara got a whole twenty dollars, and for only twelve books! She could pay back the field trip money, plus buy cookies for her friends! She went and sat outside on the porch and waited for Dad to come home. He would hug her so hard she would fall through his skin and into his belly.

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NALINI SINGH unicol, otago

chaplipped stars flag out the night; smooth-busted moons curve from the darkness like hyacinth thorns splitting the axis of the sky in two, and you turn the pages of lecture notes by rodlight inside, batting stray moths and the reflections of silvermouthed dogs on your window. the crickets are drowned in bass, they cower in shellshocked crevasses, bodies crumpled like cravats while outside bearbellied stereos assert themselves and bludgeon out sound, the bricked arms of amplified longitudes sweep sideways and plunge through the wooden walls, tightening around your eardrums. you wear earplugs. the string theorists are discussing quantum gravity, a supernova erupts a billion light years away and we catch the photons minutes apart. they unravel the ten dimensional universe – manmade invisibility cloaks now worn, microwaves bent to a sliver of light where your body might be; how here you tap out the eighth symphony of skybugs unzipping the inkstained palms of space, guilty, refusing to conform into a bundle, the grand unified theory coalesces in shaky-spined numerals that could taper off after the nearest astronomer’s eye pinpoints the straitjacketed slingshot that usurps the string. and they are rolling off metal, off aluminium sheets doused with vodka, rum; laughter roars like the horizon crashing open, mouths fused and legs that hiccup along the sidewalk – the shameless crunch of glass underfoot and stereo shot right up to the stars. you dig the earplugs deeper but the muffled slam of sidedoors, the eel-screamers streaming on the footpath work through thought past calabi-yau space and branes folded in coloured florets, gluons and bosons and mesons and quarks of jelly, the jelly that warps around their legs as they totter into windows, lampposts and you squeeze your eyes, sifting out of these four dimensions into the next.

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KEVIN SIMMONDS anti-

Starts with the gel cap, then oozing from its soluble cell, time-released harnesses. The head pulling, pulled into a ladder. Each revolver lifts its blues.

No press conferences. Play dates, finally, & wormholes. Everything for art.

...“I’m not happy about this,” the Editor scold s the cat. Cat doesn’t care.

Cat lies down, pleased as punch. Little shit. Of course, cat is just following its internal truth - that instinctive sort that command s a kill. “You have no moral being.” The Editor takes the bird outside, buries the corpse under dirt, under coffin leaves then returns to her computer. World goes on.

Although, she has mixed feelings about this. vol. 1 November 2010

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ISOTOPES The Editor is deeply grateful to the people who have made this edition of Rem possible.

Amanda Anastasi is a poet from Melbourne, Australia and studied Professional Writing and Literature at Deakin University. She won the 2010 Seagull Poetry prize, and has been published in various magazines and anthologies in Australia and overseas, including the Short & Twisted anthology, UK’s Hearing Voices and Ireland’s Abridged magazine.

Bonnie Coad is a self taught artist and has been exhibiting and selling her art for about 12 years. She is the House Artist for the Riverside Cafe in Upper Moutere, Motueka, Nelson region. Her art is all about self expression. She loves to experiment with paint application and discover new effects. Her art is active and dynamic and she believes it is important to challenge people to experience a personal connection to art. Email: bonzshack@xtra.co.nz or visit her website: http://artatbonzshack.vpweb.co.nz/default.html.

Corey Mesler’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published four novels, a book of short stories, numerous chapbooks and one full-length poetry collection.

He has been nominated for a Pushcart numerous times, and two of his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He runs a bookstore in Memphis.

Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé has edited more than 10 books and co-produced 3 audio books, several pro bono for non-profit organizations. A recipient of the Singapore Internationale Grant and Dr Hiew Siew Nam Academic Award, he is an interdisciplinary artist who also works in ink and clay.

Felino A. Soriano is a case manager and advocate for developmentally and physically disabled adults.

Gabrijel Savic Ra, born 1978 in Belgrade, is a multimedia artist, poet and theorist. He has published two books of poetry: The Power of Fallen Angel (2002) and The Last Lovers (2002). Published in various collections of poetry and art magazines with articles about theory of modern art (Scriptures, Remont Art Magazine, BAP Quarterly, Alma’s Collection Of Short Stories And poetry, Word In Space…). As an artist he exhibited worldwide. Currently he lives and works in Portland, Oregon, US. Howie Good is the author of 21 print and digital poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Lovesick, published by Press Americana.

Iain Britton has had poetry published here and overseas in many magazines on and off line/ soft and hard back. Oystercatcher Press (UK) published his 3rd poetry collection in 2009.

His first New Zealand collection will coming out in 2011. Visit his website at www.iainbritton. co.nz Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Boston Review of the Arts, Kalliope, Mudfish, Spectrum and Word Thursdays. Four of her books have been published by fine literary presses. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky, A.P.D. Press, Albany, New York.

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Katie Robinson is a New Zealand artist. She is the founder of pink noise art listing: www. pinknoise.co.nz. Readers can view her art at www.katierobinson.co.nz.

Kevin O’Donnell has recently begun to write poetry. He is recovering from a mountainbike accident.

Kevin Simmonds is a writer, musician and photographer originally from New Orleans. His writing and photography appear in Chroma, FIELD, Fuselit, jubilat, Muzzle and elsewhere.

His music has been performed throughout the US, the UK, Japan and the Caribbean and opened the 2006 Poetry International Festival at Royal Festival Hall. His latest project is huggingasians.com. He lives in San Francisco.

Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey. His work has been featured in Viral Cat, Nano Fiction, Literary Tonic, Calliope Nerve, and elsewhere. In his spare time, he talks to pissed-off cab drivers and ex-hookers working on their first memoir.

Lei Wen comes from a family with a long history of artistic tradition. For generations, most of the members of her family were either designers or artists, including her parents of course.

When she was very young, her father took her to classes in an art academy where he was teaching, so she could learn alongside the adult students. In 2003, when it was her 18th birthday, her parents said to her that she could choose one present and one only, but it could be whatever she wanted. So she chose to come to New Zealand, to continue her study as an artist. Lei experiments with various techniques and styles, which ultimately helps her to develop and improve on her own. Her most preferred media is acrylic on board or canvas.

Lei’s works have been exhibited throughout New Zealand and overseas. Her works have been collected by many well-known art collectors such as The James Wallace Arts Trust. www.lwartonline.co.nz Mark William Jackson was born into 1970’s England. Today he lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife, Silvia, and daughters, Julia and Sonia. Mark’s work has appeared in various print and online journals including Going Down Swinging, Popshot, Cottonmouth, The Diamond & the Thief and SpeedPoets.

Matt Dube is the fiction editor of the online journal H_NGM_N. His stories have been published in 42Opus, Pindeldyboz Web Edition and elsewhere. He teaches writing and American Literature at a small college in Central Missouri.

Matthew Dexter lives and breathes in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. An expatriate author and poet best known for eating shrimp tacos and drinking enough Pacifico to kill six blue marlins, he’s the Lil Wayne of literature.

Michael Botur has published fiction and poetry in Takahe, JAAM, Bravado, The Lumiere Reader, Prima Storia, Deep South, Catalyst, and most other New Zealand literary journals and a bunch of overseas ones. He has won some extremely obscure writing competitions.

Nalini Singh is a budding writer from Wanganui who enjoys writing poetry and short fiction.

In 2010, she won the Junior Open Division of the NZPS International Poetry Competition.

Born East London but now residing amongst the hedge mumblers of rural Suffolk, P.A.Levy has been published in many magazines from A cappella Zoo to Zygote In My Coffee. He can be found at www.cluelesscollective.co.uk.

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RC Miller lives in Metuchen, New Jersey. He is author of the chapbooks GORE (Calliope Nerve Media) and A Large Retailer (Ronin Press), and maintains a blog at http://visionblues. blogspot.com/ Ricky Garni is a graphic designer and father of two, living in Carrboro, NC. His most recent work can be found in Mad Swirl, Evergreen Review, and The Pedestal Magazine. The biographies he loves best and confuse him the most always end with this kind of a sentence: “At which point he quit work and decided to devote his life entirely to poetry.”

Sudhir Kumar Duppati is a practising artist engaged with painting, installation art, performance and environmental art. Born and brought up in south of India, he has a university gold medal in painting at graduate level from JNT University and a Masters degree in Art History and Criticism from M S University, Baroda. Ever since he completed his masters, Duppati has been teaching art while researching at various national and international institutes and galleries around the world. He has exhibited in more than 50 solo and group shows and has contributed to national and international art research and journals. Sudhir was commended for his public art projects by DCC in the recent past. He currently lives and practices art in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Travis Macdonald’s first book, The O Mission Repo [vol. 1] is available from Fact-Simile Editions (www.fact-simile.com). His second collection, N7ostradamus, is forthcoming from BlazeVox Books (www.blazevox.org) in 2010. Basho’s Phonebook, an e-chap of experimental translations can be found at E-ratio (www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com). He currently lives, works and writes in Santa Fe, NM. Vaughan Rapatahana is a Kiwi (New Zealander), a Maori in fact, who lives and works in Hong Kong, with another home in the Philippines, from where his wife hails. He has indeed been fortunate to have been published in a wide variety of places and publications as a poet.

Zarah Butcher is an undergraduate student at the University of Auckland. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Turbine, Snorkel, Takahe, Poetry NZ, Landfall and Colorado Review. She was the featured poet for Poetry NZ#39.

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I’d settle just to be the lone dancer...

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