THE PAPER MIXTAPE Issue 6 by The Paper Mixtape

ISSUE 006

SIDE A

The Paper Mixtape is about locality. Since its premier in 2015, UCLA students have set themselves to the task of exploring Los Angeles culture and their position within it. This magazine—as reporters, fictionists, photographers, designers, artists—does not deny its predispositions or biases, but seeks to test them and grow. Our environment is not made for consumption. We hope that you can learn with us as we make contact with our place. For Advertising please contact thepapermixtape@gmail.com Subscription Information Individual issue – $15.00 1 year subscription – $28.00 Contact Information Email – thepapermixtape@gmail.com Website – tpmmag.com Instagram – @ThePaperMixtape Printing American Foothill Publishing 10009 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, California 91042 ISSN: 2378-086X Paid for in part by:

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Editor in Chief Aaron Peretz Creative Director Sophia Arriola-Gibson Section Editors Conor Cusack Shamik Maganlal Shayan Saalabi Patty Viramontes Photo Editor Samuel Han Contributors Adam Araiza Garrett Gregory Annika Karody Krystal Lau Anna Lee Kalena Tamura Beliz Urkmez Cam Vernali Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand Photo & Video Joyce Ding Claire Moon Katerina Papanikolopoulos Emily Perkins Rock Michelle Stensby Illustration Marion Moseley Jordi Ng Peter Yang Leslie Young Design Stefanie Tam Michelle Wu Finance Managers Selina Che Leslie Young Finance Brian Chuc Rebecca Wu

Sponsorship Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand Ingrid Sorensen Rebecca Wu Marketing Alia AlHaj Emma Moriconi Marísa Pearce Ruth Perez Alara Saygi Events Emanuela Boisbouvier Vivian Chen Petek Kuscu Rachel Autumn Lee Celeste Martinez Seline Naqi Amanda Tovar Joey Wong Yvette Yang Online Editor Laney Chiu Blog Brendan Benjamin Cierra Djokovich Kendra Djokovich Jackson Hau Lexi Julien Connie Lu Ciara Mandich Miranda Montenegro Sara Rashidi Hannah Rexinger Dustin Rios Michelle Stevens Zoe Yang

I Moved Here Yesterday (P. 6) Joyce Ding

Close But Not Quite Shayan Saalabi

(P. 12) Dance in L.A. Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand

A Tale of Two Cities Jordi Ng

(P. 18)

Being a Girl Alone Cam Vernali

(P. 24)

Stars Fall in Tokyo Krystal Lau

(P. 28)

The Cartoon Cult Kalena Tamura

(P. 36)

Evocations Anna Lee

(P. 40)

10 11 12

Things We Lost in the Atlantic Annika Karody Seviye Beliz Urkmez Of The Mundane Stefanie Tam

(P. 44)

(P. 52) (P. 56) (P. 60)

Collaboration Through Laceration Garrett Gregory

The Groomed (P. 68) Aristocrat Katerina Papanikolopoulos

Santa Monica: There’s Something About the Pier Samuel Han

(P. 10)

Let’s Meet Again Adam Araiza

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(P. 64)

(P. 74)

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Many emails were sent to produce this magazine. There’s an uncanny phenomenon of the corporate world I’ve observed centered around the exchange of emails. I’m not entirely sure how to describe it, or whether it can be described at all. Most of the time it feels like emails are sent past their recipient. The majority in any inbox don’t enjoy an effect on the final product. Indeed, the gears of industry turn independently of one another as though the emails were in toto inconsequential. Who or what turns these wheels? Culture, too, is produced in a similar way, I think. The values of any culture, for example, are reified through stories of the tradition. There is no action besides speech behind culture. Granted, music is composed and tools are made; but these follow the rules set by the language of their day while the language of their future challenge how these acts could have meaning. The emails for some corporate entity stand in as a mythos to be reified. The constant sending and receiving likens itself to the storytelling and interpreting of the past, with its own goals and projections waiting to be made real. I don’t mean to demean or diminish the capacities of either culture or the corporate. I suspect however there’s at least one difference between the two in which culture finds an added dimension, though the gap between the two becomes increasingly narrow. At some point culture was for someone. It recollects and it instructs. The corporate, on the other hand, is ahistorical and asocial. While our form of communicating invariably runs along the same lines as the corporate, I see no necessity to preclude those most human qualities of culture. In fact, as an arts and culture magazine I take it as a responsibility to approach culture with culture. In this sixth issue of The Paper Mixtape, our staff returned to questions of culture, without eschewing the other force seemingly accountable for its unraveling. This was our approach to understand the status of the dwindling gap between both worlds and its consequences. And I think this approach paid dividends. In this issue, dear reader, you’ll find investigations of personal genealogies like “Seviye” and “Let’s Meet Again.” These family histories see through the lenses of the matriarch while trying to reconstruct voices suppressed in their own time and searching for their advice now. “Collaboration Through Laceration” questions the authenticity of performance art when weighed against the artist’s relationship to their audience. The unsettling “Being A Girl Alone,” finds a narrator who shows us how the joyful is a privilege not equally possessed. In addition to essays and stories, this issue again features photo essays like “I Moved Here Yesterday,” and illustrative narrations to boot. I speak on behalf of our magazine in extending our warmest thanks for reading and supporting artistic exploration. I hope we can learn about our worlds together. Aaron Peretz Editor in Chief

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Issue 6 Winter 2018

I Moved Here Yesterday

PHOTOS Joyce Ding

Joyce Ding

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Issue 6 Winter 2018

I Moved Here Yesterday

Joyce Ding

Maybe you’re too comfortable. WORDS Shayan Saalabi

(But Not Quite)

But you’re never comfortable. 10

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Issue 6 Winter 2018

You pace around your empty apartment three or four more times before you finally get back to writing. It’s still early so you don’t bother to check the time. You walk out onto your cramped balcony and sit in the white rocking chair, your black journal on the foldable table to your left. You only write in journals because dead poets didn’t use word processors. You lean forward and look at the oncoming cars below and wonder if they’ll ever stop. LA is beautiful but it’s always trying. You begin to sweat so you take off your white shirt. Even if nothing comes of this, at least your shoulders will be tanned. You prop yourself up to stare at all of the empty pages in front of you and think of what could happen. You flip through what you’ve already written but your handwriting is indecipherable—a terrible left-handed mix of cursive and all caps. Your biographers will probably hate you for it. You forget your pen inside. It’s a uni-ball ONYX micro point and it’s fucking great. You go back inside to get the pen but you get your phone too. You stop to sit on the couch for a little while and look at photos of people you’re not close to. It’s not so early anymore. You head back out to start writing but you make a mess instead, filling pages with awful caricatures and scratched out first lines. You wish it were easier to be Virginia Woolf or Frank Ocean. You stop again. You grab the broom from the kitchen and sweep the balcony. If your mother saw how dirty your feet were, she’d kill you. The cars are still coming. You replace the broom with your acoustic guitar. You play folk songs from the ‘60s and hum the words. It comes easy and you don’t think. You even close your eyes. You put your guitar down to try writing again. You sit in silence and scribble nothing wildly. You begin to brood a little but mainly you check your email inboxes on your phone. Your English teacher said to write while uncomfortable. Maybe you’re too comfortable. But you’re never comfortable. You turn to another page as the cars continue to hum below. 11

Close But Not Quite

Shayan Saalabi

CalArts Dean of Dance, Dimitri Chamblas

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Issue 6 Winter 2018

WORDS Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand

DANCE IN L.A. PHOTO Katerina Papanikolopoulos

Los Angeles is not the city one immediately thinks of when talking about dance. But with more choreographers, innovative dance schools, and renowned arts institutions moving here, LA is truly becoming a dance capital, rivaling cities such as New York or Paris. Truly interdisciplinary and diverse in its styles and communities, Los Angeles is inventing the dance of tomorrow. We explore our city’s dance scene through interviews that reflect the mindset of a foreign choreographer and dance school dean, Dimitri Chamblas, a dance student and hip-hop dancer, Alex Almaraz, and an arts institution programmer and curator, Amanda Hunt.

Dance in L.A.

Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand

DIMITRI CHAMBLAS Dimitri Chamblas is a French dancer and choreographer. Trained at the Paris National Opera, he performed in numerous contemporary dance companies and created the “Third Stage”, a digital space for dance creation. He was recently appointed Dean of Dance at CalArts [California Institute of the Arts]. To many people, Los Angeles is becoming a dance capital. What is so special about L.A. for dance? What is happening in the L.A. dance scene right now? There’s a real momentum for dance in Los Angeles right now. There are a number of artists like William Forsythe, Benjamin Millepied, Lil Buck, Aszure Barton who are not from L.A. but who came here because this city has all of the elements that can build what dance is today. Today’s dance collaborates with technology, cinema, and visual arts but is also linked to yoga and meditation. And all of that is in California. Dance is everywhere; a cell phone can be a stage, the street can be a stage, the city of Los Angeles can be a stage, magazines, movies, museums can be stages. All of those territories for dance have to be explored and L.A. has everything to do that. What about CalArts convinced you to leave France? What makes this school so interesting for dance education? CalArts is the embodiment of everything I just mentioned. What I love about CalArts is that you come in as a dancer but that through our curriculum you get to not only study and practice dance but to explore dance and animation, dance and experimental drawing, dance and cinema, dance and photography, dance and musical composition… This allows students to first and foremost familiarize themselves with what makes dance today but also discover what other disciplines they are interested in making dance with. CalArts allows one to experiment with every territory within dance underneath the same roof. And this does not exist anywhere else. CalArts is a place where you can say “I am a dancer and my next choreography will be a book” and people will think it’s normal. CalArts knows how to create new artistic and pedagogic forms, how to create a dance school that corresponds to what dance is today and that will invent the dance of tomorrow. Nowadays, a dancer dances, choreographs, makes movies, writes books, creates exhibitions…

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What is the Los Angeles dance audience like? Is it more important to mix dance with other mediums here than it is in other cities? Obviously the Los Angeles audience does not exist, L.A. has multiple audiences. I feel there is a whole conservative fringe that goes and sees the dance they want to see, they already know it and they just want to see it again. But there are also people who want to see something they have never encountered, and that’s specific to Los Angeles. They are okay with being lost. They like to be surprised. Here, the more singularity and newness there is to a dance piece, the more people are going to like it. But the real common denominator to Los Angeles is that people love projects that are visible, that are big, that are spectacular. But that can take endless numbers of forms and that’s what we need to explore to appeal to L.A. audiences. You’re exploring dance through new mediums but you are also trying to take dance to the streets of L.A. How are you doing so? Why is it important to bring dance to the actual city of Los Angeles? What inspired me when coming to Los Angeles was the city itself. It was asking myself “what if the streets were the stage?” What makes L.A. unique is also that it’s hot, it’s sunny, it’s beautiful. But despite that people are not outside. And that shocked me. Not seeing people in the streets, not seeing public performances, not seeing any spaces where people could encounter art unexpectedly. I feel like the streets of L.A. need bodies. So we had this project in December where 70 dancers performed in DTLA, in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall and I wanted people to drive by and wonder what it was, passerby to stop and share this moment with strangers, workers to look out their windows. I want to shake up the streets with bodies, not only cars. And Los Angeles is so beautiful, seeing dance in those urban landscapes is sublime to me. The streets of L.A. need bodies. What role do you think the formal art institutions can play in the Los Angeles dance scene? Are they hindering the evolution of dance in any way? What potential do they have in making dance move forward in L.A.? I think that there are too many physical foundations and theaters being built in Los Angeles. I will never be opposed to creating new cultural spaces but there are new ways to share culture, to make it more accessible, that need to be invented. For example, Los Angeles is a mobile city and cul-

Issue 6 Winter 2018

tural structures should be able to move too. I feel like there is a lack of creativity around the physical object of cultural institutions. I would love to see digital foundations, itinerant foundations that would exist within pre-existing institutions, schools, museums, tech companies, or prisons. People here love to be lost and to not understand, they don’t like recurrence, rituals, routines. So as long as we do something unprecedented, Angelenos will come see and enjoy dance.

Even though hip-hop is what I do, I use every single dance form within my own pieces. I’ll go from a patty duke into a chassé. By mixing all of those styles, by bringing ballet and modern to the streets you are creating a new community, you are bringing the underserved communities and the high-class people together, you’re bringing everyone under one roof. But it is important to note that in a way ballet is already in the streets. There are a lot of people from lower income communities who love ballet and who dance it in the streets all the time.

ALEX ALMARAZ

L.A. is so varied that it is extremely hard to define what and who the Los Angeles audience for dance is. In your experience what does the L.A. audience like? What is it looking for?

Alex Almaraz is a fourth year Dance major at UCLA. He has been a member of the LA-based non-profit hip-hop company Versa Style since 2010 and teaches in correctional facilities. To a number of people, Los Angeles might seem like an unusual choice to study dance. So why Los Angeles, why UCLA to study dance? L.A. has a large dance community and many companies that are extremely diverse. It is also heavily focused on industry so those who come here are seeking industry and/ or non-profit work. The UCLA Dance major is focused on theorizing and analyzing the knowledge of world arts and culture as well as actually dancing. We get to analyze dance as a practice. For example my work is focused on Arts and Corrections. My research argues that dance enables agency for people that are incarcerated as well as upon release, when they can create agency in their own community. How do you fit in the L.A. dance scene? Hip-hop wise, I am known in L.A. People know me by my aka, I go by Swift. But I wouldn’t be known without Versa Style Dance Company. We are a non-profit organization that serves the underserved communities. We go to local schools but we also are a hip-hop theater company. We take true authentic hip-hop movements and we just relay that on stage. That gives it a lot more meaning because we have a theme to focus on, we have a set of emotions tied to it, costumes, lighting… A lot of LA-based companies, choreographers, and dancers such as the L.A. Dance Project are trying to bring more formally recognized styles of dance to the streets. What do you believe this entails?

Dance in L.A.

The L.A. audience is looking at dance as a way to converse. It’s always about what was being said in a dance piece. L.A. is extremely diverse and although it can be segregated at times, when it comes to dance, it’s not. We’re all together. Additionally, I think that L.A. is okay with not understanding what they see because they know that they are all so different and that not everyone can relate to the same dances. But they comment on that and they question it. New York has the Lincoln Center, Paris has its Opera, most major cities have one dance institution that they are famous for. Los Angeles does not really have that. What role do art institutions play in the L.A. dance scene? I think that places like the Hammer Museum or LACMA need to stop looking at art and dance as something so prestigious. These places need to bring us in. They need to let us show our art. It would first create a new community but also bring in more people to see LACMA and get an artistic experience. And it would get to show what L.A. is about. We need to all be together as dancers. So ballet should go to our smaller venues and we should go to their big venues to allow diverse communities to be shown and to meet. More and more people are saying that L.A. is becoming a dance capital. What do you think is happening in L.A. right now that is making this happen? What is it about L.A. that cam make it a major dance city? Los Angeles has bookings, agencies, a community, diversity, industry, studios. There are also callings for castings all the time. And people want that. Dancers and choreographers are coming here because they know they can make a living here. Dance in L.A. is only getting bigger.

Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

AMANDA HUNT Amanda Hunt is the Director of Education and Public Programs at MoCA [Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles]. She previously was a curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem and has worked on many projects in Los Angeles such as the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA performance and public art festival. Working at MoCA, how do you see dance and art institutions working together? What can such formal organizations bring to dance in L.A.? Being at MoCA and being the director of education and public programs is an opportunity for me to bring dance into more institutional and formal settings. Because I still think that that’s a relationship to be expanded on. The kind of backing provided by such institutions allow for experimentation. It gives space to create what can sometimes be non-finished works. And more institutions are trying to do that. L.A. is in a process of evolution, everything is solidifying. A community of artists, institutions, audiences, performance spaces is building. Maybe it’s not sticking just yet, and maybe that will always be an element true to Los Angeles; you can’t quite fix it in one spot. But we will explore the possibilities within that.

Los Angeles is so vast, there is a sense of wild West opportunities that gives creators infinite freedom. There is something epically cinematic about L.A. The sunsets, the vistas, your car always framing things. Those are new territories to explore for dance. Dance can be on billboards, on buses, on stores. That’s another way to make dance more accessible. Los Angeles is also all about marketing and visibility and dance can and has to work within that. It can be everywhere and needs to work with the mobile nature of Los Angeles. And as the director of education I also want to emphasize that dance is not always a performance, it can also be education through larger programs. And if we want more Angelenos to relate to dance I think that it’s something to really focus on. Additionally, L.A. has always been about pioneering and it has a deep history of dance that needs to be acknowledged. Los Angeles’ time is now, forces are coming together.

What other ways than institutions can make dance move forward in Los Angeles? Institutions are just one perspective. The challenge is to make art and dance more accessible. When I talk about accessibility, I am talking about art in public spaces, and that also means dance in public spaces. What can you put outside of the museum, outside of the institution that will capture people? But not in a cheap way. When you encounter art unexpectedly it can be profound, it can be exciting, it can be distracting, and I think that putting people closer to that is extremely important. Because not everyone feels comfortable in the institution. Not everyone can pay the $25 admission to see something. So how can you flip that? That’s really important to me as a curator, as a director of education and as a programmer. We are in downtown and there’s an incredible artistic community here but who else can we touch? Our job is to share culture with others and that’s what I love about I do. What about L.A. makes it so suitable for dance?

Dance in L.A.

Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand

ities A Tale of Two Citie

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Issue 6 Winter 2018

ies A Tale of Two Cities

WORDS & ILLUSTRATIONS Jordi Ng

As a native Singaporean and a Los Angeles transplant, much of my time has been divvied between the two metropolises. In the constant ricochetting between each place Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve grown from uncomfortably straddling the geographical entities to finding my peace in the superposition between two homes. The following illustrations document those discrepancies only offered for discovery to the experienced traveler.

A Tale of Two Cities

Jordi Ng

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

A Tale of Two Cities

Jordi Ng

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

A Tale of Two Cities

Jordi Ng

BEING A GIRL ALONE WORDS Cam Vernali PHOTOS Claire Moon

I sit, I occupy my own space. He starts off with a line about my hair: “Hey, I really like your hair there.”

it’s a Saturday and it’s a fine time to sit.

interest was paired with a quick but harsh pinch of my thigh.

He gives me a drawing of his Rastafarian beliefs, an organic avocado, some

And with that, my friend needs me to pick her up at the airport or my house has caught on fire or my mother wants me home for dinner in the Bay Area; the route I chose to go changes by day but in any case, I must go now.

I give a smile, a thanks, the standard procedure of being polite when I’m not in fear. My shoulders are already angled away from the guy when he continues.

Line 1: How old are you? You look like you could be anywhere between 16 and 24.

“Are you Italian?” I only manage to get a brief stutter out before he goes on. “Yeah, I can tell you are by your hair.”

Me: I’m, uh— Line 2: Don’t worry, that’s a good thing.

I don’t get it—what hair is considered Italian hair, anyway?—so I pause. “Do you want to sit down?” He seems friendly enough in offering, and though I would usually decline, I

“Being alone and young doesn’t mean I’m malleable” sit in the green lawn chair beside him because it doesn’t feel too off with the vibe of the day. It’s just warm enough to encourage minimal movement and

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mint tea, two small vials of sandalwood oil. It’s nice to talk with someone when it’s just an exchange of ideas and experiences, nothing more or less. “Cam, Cam, we love Cam!” He reaches over and hugs me tightly in a full body embrace. This is the first strike—his words haven’t referenced my appearance, but his actions are giving him away. Being alone and young doesn’t mean I’m malleable to physical interaction, though some people think so. Strike two comes when I realize that he’s speaking in third person about himself, which is…interesting. “Do you do yoga? You must work out, look at how small you are!” His faux

It’s not always as direct as that. Most of the time it’s in the subtle details; the change of tone, the eyebrow raise, the phrasing of sentences that shifts power away from me to them. It’s not difficult to recognize. I exist as a person, or I exist as a young and alone girl. It’s not mutually exclusive in theory, but I’ve found it ranges on a spectrum for some when they place “person” on one end and “young girl” on the other, like my personhood is some tug-of-war. Since my identity is shaped by both what I am and what others think I am, who decides what I become? Red Baseball Cap: Hey, howya doing there, miss? Red Baseball Cap: Hey, I’m talking to you right there! You’re really not gonna answer me like that? What kinda— Issue 6 Winter 2018

Blue Hoodie: Some girls man, I tell ya. They just ain’t got manners—

We only walked into the lifeless sandwich shop so that my friend could use the bathroom to adjust her contacts before the hour-fifteen bus home. When it’s the two of us, the employee behind the counter doesn’t even look our way; when I’m alone and waiting, he talks to me like it’s his last 10 minutes of existence.

Red Baseball Cap: No manners! Blue Hoodie:—and no respect for guys or nothing. They complain they want a gentlemen, and then they pull acts like this. Unbelievable man, the rudeness.

“So, why are you out here? What have you done today?”

No one on the bus interrupts because it’s not worth it.

Nothing, I respond. We went to an apothecary on Haight and are going home soon.

Though I’m not of one extreme or the other, the moments I do get to rest on one end of the spectrum is more comical than mildly terrifying. When I was in the middle of the crowd for a James Blake concert and on my way to the bar to get water, I rested against a pole and relaxed. I was zoning out into the

“Where do you live? Do you smoke? Do you drink? Are you even old enough to drink? Are you going to a party tonight?” I smile and nod but glance at the bathroom door every 5... 3? seconds.

lit crowd, when—

“Are you going to a party later?”

“Are you looking for your parents?”

It’s this relentless request of information that makes me want to crawl out of my skin. I can’t tell if giving away disjointed information about myself to round out his impression of me is worse than a factory-made stereotype of me. I say nothing. At least this way, I’m not feeding his illusion.

She said it in the most genuine way a drunk person could express themselves, so I took no offense to it. I smiled and really, really hoped she wouldn’t repeat the question. That would give me relief from trying to prove that I wasn’t actually a pre-teen, despite my pre-teen appearance (it’s not a fun concept to dispute). She walked off, and besides being mildly embarrassed, I wasn’t bothered; it was funny, after all. Other people are always going to slightly miss the mark on who you are—it’s just the nature of how it turns out—but when it’s so far off, it’s humorous.

It’s not hard to get separated from someone during a concert, but it took about 30 seconds of Jamie xx’s set at

“At least this way, I’m not feeding his illusion.”

Being a Girl Alone

Gov Ball for me to lose my friend. It was a new personal record for me, I’m pretty sure. I was alone with a dead phone. I was walking around with slightly rising anxiety, realizing it would be near impossible to find my friend quickly or easily. The oscillating specks of red light from the oversized stage lights moved next to me, calm in contrast to how I’m feeling. I’m brainstorming my next move before I realize someone is talking about me right next to where I stand. “Oh, is she lost? Are you freaking out right now? Why are you freaking the hell out?” A group of guys in their twenties are giving baby voices about

how “Scawy it is to be lost in the Big Apple.” A young girl alone is helpless, and while I’m not helpless most of time, they’ve hit upon one small fleck of truth and are running with it. I’m focusing all my energy on following the red lights to distract myself from how hard I was biting my tongue. I usually wouldn’t even mind comments like these, but given the state of things, I’m more inclined to respond. “I’m fine, thanks.” “I’m fine, thanks,” they mimicked before launching right back into their act.

Cam Vernali

I’m jealous of these red lights, I think to myself, I’m jealous because they can float between the leaves of the trees and the wall of this stage tent and I’m stuck here. There’s no use in responding with something either harsh or annoyed or charming to this man because it all hits a brick wall—red and stationary, red and non-moving.

replaced with a version of me I didn’t choose for myself. I am a light. I’m a light to these men but I start to feel dull when it becomes clear that I’m a light with no substance, no weight of my own to claim. I’m stuck in this situation and I zone out trying to find the red lights again, following their repetitive path like it will change anything.

I’ve been reduced to a caricature of myself and once I’m seen this way, I’m

Red flickering lights, young frightened girl; are they more than just a gleaming object to consume?

“I’ve been reduced to a caricature of myself” 26

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I don’t know how they piece together their version of me with their conception of a girl, of someone young, of someone in front of them with only the puzzle pieces at their feet. Using those stereotyped packaged ideas like scanning through a Where’s Waldo? picture and crossing out what doesn’t look the same, holding their train of thought when they come awfully close to it. Do they find it?

I had a history of being terrible when it came to eye-spy games; I would never be able to find it and would say that I did, using the excuse of not wanting to spoil it for anyone else as a cover for my bluff. Can I call anyone out on their bluff when they assume my role as a young girl alone? I hear a car honk behind me as I run across the intersection, but it’s mellow and soft, a gentle hello. I’m running through Paris to the Parc de Belleville, to see the sunset over the 20th arrondissement. The yellow light creeped into the apartment for just a moment before I had the impulse to see it at this windy, nearby park. I didn’t bring much of anything with me as I ran out and hoped that my memory to the park would serve me right. Running through the cobbled streets and pale grey buildings, running and Issue 6 Winter 2018

not thinking about what or who, I’m running and I’m turning the corner before the park gates appear. The windows of houses masked themselves with a pink glow as I felt as temporary and omnipresent as the light itself. As I was zig-zagging myself across the park, I feel present and not holding any weight of my own among the orange-tipped tree leaves. I sit at the top of the park on a ledge, alone, with others all around me in the same position. Being young and alone was freeing. It didn’t manifest itself into the familiar weight I had to shift and figure out where to place. I sat and watched the colors wind down to a soft glow, a cooling of myself before the walk back.

my identity comprised of, because it removed myself entirely from the situation. My identity had no factor in the moment, was under no scrutiny, no codes or cues that anyone could try to pick up on and interpret. I exist outside of the realm of others and myself, outside of anything. I’m no more or less myself here than there.

It was a very simple moment in time and led to no revelation about what

Being a Girl Alone

Cam Vernali

Stars Fall

in Tokyo

WORDS Krystal Lau

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Issue 6 Winter 2018

It rains at last, on a Tuesday. Regardless of the day, the hour, Igashi is ready.

“Mama, I’m going out!” I yell, shoving my feet into already-wet sneakers.

“Shibuya Station. 21:00.”

“Don’t skip cram school tomorrow then!” comes the answering reply. “And don’t forget an umbrella!”

The text pings before the first drop of rain. I peer out the window; sure enough, misting rain fogs the glass, light as a veil of silk, but the thick, wooly clouds overhead suggest something more in a little while. Igashi is patient, and he has an unerring eye for the right conditions. He is never wrong. “But I’m hungry...and just finished practice,” Haru replies, and I can almost hear the whine in his voice. “It probably won’t rain for long anyway.” Haru is usually wrong. “Then don’t come.” I laugh out loud. This is the reason most people can’t stand Igashi. He doesn’t cut corners. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t make friends. And yet, he doesn’t need them–he already has us.

When I arrive, Shibuya Station is its usual chaos. People jammed so close together, you can’t see the street beneath. The umbrellas only make it worse. One whacks me on my face, but I only tighten my grip on my equipment. You see, you guard what’s most valuable to you. You leave the rest to the elements. “Kuro!” An excited roar hits me moments before the actual bear hug does. Haru jumps me, swinging a sweaty arm around my shoulders. His shout earns an alarmed look from the nearby mother of two. Hurriedly, she steers her kids away from us–the bears, the dangerous ones. Haru laughs, oblivious. It’s how he gets away with everything. He doesn’t notice the bad things; he doesn’t get hurt. “You smell like sweat,” I say, pushing him off. Haru chuckles, prodding me towards the bus terminals along the boulevard.

“I’ll be there,” I write. “Damn it, Kuro.” Haru’s text comes mere seconds later. “Fine.”

Stars Fall in Tokyo

“And you smell like nerd,” he answers, patting his drenched-through baseball jersey. “You know, Yumi likes nerds. Or that’s what her friends say at least. From the intel I’ve gathered, I think she’s really after the artsy type.”

Krystal Lau

His crush on Yumi is prehistoric; he’s liked her since before middle school, but then again, hasn’t everyone? The class beauty, the dream girl. Another thing about Haru: he’s not so original. “Basically, she’s not interested in you.”

doesn’t mind, he’s a puppy dog practically: skipping in the rain, tongue out. Igashi is a different story. Every time, stepping out of the darkroom with a scowl on his face. He minds. A lot. “Next time,” he always says. The difference between me and him: Igashi doesn’t want there to be next time.

Haru makes a grunt of disbelief. “This thing–” He points to my equipment box. “–will be my ticket in. I’ll show her my work, my award-winning work, and then I’ll say, ‘But it’s not as beautiful as you, Yumi.’” Like I said, not so original. We find Igashi right on time. I’m getting tired of rolling my eyes. Of course, Igashi doesn’t bother to greet us. “Hold this,” he says, without looking up. Haru takes the umbrella. It’s unopened. Igashi, too, is drenched through. But his prize is secure. Igashi’s camera is on, the light flashing, the world dizzying and bright and infinite beneath its crystalline gaze. I feel my heart rate ratcheting, knowing what is to come. It started like this. Two months ago– we are returning from cram school, all three of us, when the rain starts to pour. Igashi hesitates in the middle of the street. He sees the way the signal lights meet the rain-splattered streets, the way the terminal glass magnifies the colors, distorts the angle. Then he’s off running, before we even knew what’s up, but of course Haru is game for anything, and he thinks it’s funny, so he starts running too, and of course, I follow along. Because I always do. Now, the rain’s come three times since, but we still haven’t got it. The exact angle, the perfect shot. Something about it is too stock-photo, too cliché. Too clear, too blurry. Haru

The Paper Mixtape

As Igashi steps out from under the overhang, Haru pops open the umbrella with a snap and holds it out like a responsible chaperone, or maybe a chivalrous date. Igashi’s only answer is the impatient shake of his head, motioning for Haru to protect the camera, not his face. Typical. Meanwhile, I’m screwing on my dad’s old lens and Haru is fishing out his own camera from– “You put it in your pocket?” I say in disbelief. “I forgot my bag,” he says. “Practice ran late. I jumped out of there as soon as I could.” He shrugs. “Who knows, maybe the water will mix with the camera magic and make the perfect shot. Then Yumi will really be all over me.” “Maybe,” I say, and Haru smiles, unsurprised. And why would he be? It’s what he expects of me. You see, I am the one who never interferes. Like the rain, flowing, but never forcing, traveling down gutters, drains, pipes. Following the rhythm set by the streets. Following the rhythm set by the streets. I jolt upright, my gaze trailing down the road. The rain is escalating, coming down in buckets around us. The honks gets louder, the screams and giggles too. It’s a madhouse out there, but that won’t come across on film. On film, it’ll look as if everything was perfectly in place. Everything coming together–just for this one moment.

Issue 6 Winter 2018

I run out, towards Terminal 44. A car screeches behind me; “Oh man, you just missed it,” Haru says. He likes the I turn – obvious. He likes the obvious because it’s the only thing he sees. “Next time, man. It’ll always rain again.” And the lights blare. Lights all around me. Reflected in the sidewalk, the pavement, the glittering concrete. The Igashi says nothing, only goes to collect his things. Haru lights in the sky, the glowing clouds, like cotton-swathed shrugs at me. “Did you get your shot?” lanterns. The lights in the people, in the cell phones, in the faces, in the eyes. The lights in the rain, little beads reflect- I look down at my empty hands, my camera-less hands. ing, distorting, sending schisms across the surface of every “I think Igashi got it for me.” moving thing. It’s like catching a falling star, like witnessing a perfect miracle. The thing about falling stars – they only fall once. The camera clicks and a car blares its horn at me, swerving out of the way. I hurriedly jump to my feet, only to find Igashi right behind me staring at my camera with his unnerving black gaze. He hunkers down beside me. “Lower the ISO. It’s too bright. Make the lights blur more, add the depth to the frame.” I follow his suggestion, angling the camera lower. The cars are starting to disappear, the traffic lessening, the rain returning to mist. “Higher,” Igashi’s voice sounds disjointed. Behind this camera, it’s as if he’s not really here. I can’t see anything beyond the frame. “Get the bus terminal in the lower third.” He watches impatiently. “Higher.” It’s too late. I take the shot, the flash blazes the world, then fades. “Why don’t you try it then?” I say, blinking as I pull the viewfinder away from my eyes. I pass him the camera. He accepts it wordlessly and adjusts the settings, considers, then lowers the camera. The rain mists, stops. The world is quiet again.

Stars Fall in Tokyo

“You should be working on your college applications,” Nakamura-sensei calls as the bell rings. “Make sure you submit before the deadline!” We squeeze out the classroom. Haru straightens mid-yawn as he spots the group of girls passing through the courtyard. I don’t have to take a closer look. There she is in the middle. Takahashi Yumi, her black hair shinier than the rest, her legs longer than the rest, her pleated skirt higher than the rest. Haru is a lost cause. Without missing a beat, he bounds towards the lawn. “Yumi,” he calls, his voice shifting lower. “I saw your name in the roster. You showing your art at the exhibit tonight?” They don’t quite stop for him, but they slow. It’s painful to watch, almost as if I am out there myself, a raw steak for the chopping. “I saw your name too,” she replies carefully. “I didn’t know you draw.” “I don’t,” he grins. “I do photography.” Beside me, Igashi snorts. So he’s listening after all. “I’ll see you there then,” Yumi says. Her voice is soft, but her expression indisputable: conversation over. Haru may catch a baseball flying in from a hundred feet Krystal Lau

away, but right now he can’t see three feet before him. “Do you want to grab dinner before?” Yumi’s expression sours. That’s my cue. Time to interfere. “Haru!” I yell, internally wincing as heads turn my way. “Let’s go! We’ll be late for our meeting.” Haru looks bewildered, but offers Yumi an apologetic wave before striding over.

The exhibit’s held at the Ito Art Gallery, right on the border of Sasazuka District. I come directly from cram school, complete with uniform slacks and tie. Clearly, I’m not prepared. It’s not the building, which is modest, or the people, who are the same crowd since elementary school. No, it’s on the walls, and it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before. I think.

Once we’re safely around the corner: “What was that for?” he grinds out. “You’re blocking my–” “The showing’s tonight?” I ask, turning to Igashi. I don’t want it to bother me, but it does. “I didn’t realize.” Igashi nods.

A blur of light, a disorienting frame. You wonder if you’re staring at the photo backwards, or if perhaps you’re standing upside down. It’s hard to make sense of the scene, but once you place yourself, you can’t un-see it. You wonder how you didn’t realize in the first place, right away. Number 44 Bus Terminal. Rain–half-pouring, half-misting. The in-between stage of a storm, of a night.

Haru sighs, a kettle releasing its steam. “Whatever. See you tonight then?”

Of a friendship.

“You submitted as well?” I ask, surprised. Neither told me about this.

My eyes fall to the placard beneath the photo. Untitled by Kitano Igashi.

“Of course, man. How else am I going to see Yumi outside of class?”

I feel his presence before I turn. He is right there in front of me. He always does beat me to it, doesn’t he?

My thoughts are a mess. Usually, this is my cue to move on, forget. Yet right now, I can’t help myself. I plunge in. “You should’ve told me.”

The silence lasts only a second, but it feels like an unearned victory on his part, an acquiescence on mine. This time though, I won’t concede. This time, I can’t.

“Why? It’s not like you care about any of this anyway. You’re just doing it because Igashi–”

“This isn’t your photo,” I say.

“Don’t miss your train, Haru.” Igashi looks at his watch. Haru swears. “Catch you all later.” He winks, “I’ll be looking my best.” Igashi is watching me. “Will I see you tonight?” he asks. I raise my head, surprised. Normally, we come and he doesn’t question it. But then again, if we didn’t show up, he wouldn’t question either.

“No,” he agrees. I glance from the photo to his face; they are opposites, but only as mirror images are opposites. One reflects light, the other denies it. “You took my photo.” “I took your photo.” I hesitate. His words are like alien script, indecipherable. “What do you mean?”

“I guess,” I answer. I can’t be sure, but I think I see his eyes narrow. “See you tonight then,” I say, parting at the crosswalk. He nods. I watch him disappear into the crowd, merging with the crowds to turn into an anonymous stranger. After all, you can only delay the inevitable for so long.

The Paper Mixtape

I hate that. I sound like a little boy, like a child. What do you mean? Why do I always care what he means, what he thinks? Why do I value his thoughts, his time, when he couldn’t care to even spare a glance? Now he spares a glance. Now he stares full-on, cold and unflinching. Perhaps the camera has always suited him Issue 6 Winter 2018

more; now, he becomes one entirely. “How do you think the photo came to be?” he asks.

what’s valuable to you. You leave the rest to the elements.

I turn back to the frame. The bus terminal is the same. The lights on the cement are the same. But still, there’s no denying: the photo is more whole, surer of itself. It’s edited, unmistakably by Igashi’s hand.

He hears my footsteps and raises his head.

“Make the lights blur, add depth to the frame,” he’d instructed. Igashi, who knew the lens exactly, who knew the results exactly–who knew what he wanted and stopped at nothing to get it. And what about me? Why was I there in the first place? Why did I take that subway and stand in that street and press my finger down on that button? “You don’t care about photography anyway,” he says, lowly, as if an afterthought. But I know it’s on the forefront of his mind, as it is on mine. I open my mouth– “Kuro! There you are,” Haru swings an arm around both of us with impeccably terrible timing. I jerk my shoulder out from under him, then hike my bag over my chest. Haru barely notices; he turns to Igashi.“Igashi, you’re the worst, man. I think Yumi…” I can’t hear clearly. It’s like the camera has flashed, and reality has hit, and I can’t see black and white any longer. This is how it is, I think. This is how it’s always been. Igashi doesn’t take his eyes off me. See me, his expression says. Accept me–my version of the truth. Edited photo, edited reality. But his game is over. I turn around. Walk away. Igashi wanted me to see him. He didn’t realize I was always looking.

Days later. It is raining again, and the storm brews thick and heavy, the kind Igashi always wanted. I guess I wanted it too, if only for a short time. Tonight, there is no Shibuya Station. No crowded bus terminals, no heavy equipment. This time, I head home from cram school, umbrella in hand, face sheltered from the rain. My cold hands are empty. But my street is not. Outside my apartment, a figure sits against the edge of the sidewalk, head bowed against the rain. His hair is plastered against his neck, and his bare arms are wrapped around his knees, skeletal in the lamplight. Beside him, I spot his usual coat and hood wrapped around a box-shaped object instead. Typical. You protect

Stars Fall in Tokyo

“Kurosaki.” “What are you doing here?” He stands, and I offer him the umbrella. He looks startled, uneasy. A ghost out of the grave, or perhaps, just a photographer, venturing out of the darkroom. “Gomen.” The rain is a curse, or a blessing. I cannot hear him well, and so I have room to imagine. “I’m sorry,” I think he says. “I didn’t respect your work.” He takes a step back, bows. “Kurosaki–” “Stop calling me that,” I shake him upright, dropping the umbrella. It lands on top of the camera equipment. Typical. “I’ll always be Kuro to you. You know that.” He looks up, wary. “I didn’t respect your work.” “You didn’t respect me,” I say. “I couldn’t care less about that stupid picture.” His mouth drops. “Oh.” His eyes go big. “Oh.” He looks so lost now, I wonder how I ever thought he had it all figured out. The rain–it washes away his quiet confidence. All that’s left is uncertainty. “Why’d you choose that photo anyway?” I ask, more out of curiosity than resentment. “You must’ve taken dozens. Just as good, or maybe even better. Why’d you choose mine?” He coughs. “I don’t know. I guess… it was the perfect photo. No, it wasn’t the perfect one, but… it was the one I wanted most. The one that wasn’t mine.” An idea takes hold of him and he grabs his backpack. “Here. Let me show you.” He passes me his laptop, the photo library open. “You went back,” I realize. “You tried again.” And again. So many shots of that same terminal, that same angle, that same stage of rain, misting against the cement. And yet, when I spot my photo, I recognize it immediately. Like a falling star, I remember. I thought I was capturing the perfect moment. Sure, stars only fall once. But the thing about stars–there are millions. Krystal Lau

He watches me, head slightly bowed, as if awaiting his sentence. I almost want to laugh. In that moment, the camera clicks. Igashi, who loves his art, who knows his lightings, his textures, his camera like his own face–Igashi, who doubts himself as much as the rest of us. He is just like me. “Hey!”

the paper-thin moon I wonder if this will be our last–our last rain, our last year. It doesn’t matter, I guess. I look at us–the three of us. The moment’s been captured, the shot, taken. I’ll always have that.

We both turn. Haru comes barreling down the street, a streak of light in his white baseball jersey. “Haru? What are you doing here?” “What kind of hell were you throwing me in? Leaving me alone with Igashi,” Haru smirks at Igashi, who doesn’t take note. “He asked about your address today. Forgot where you lived. I figured it meant he was planning something.” He pauses for breath. “So, what are you guys going to do?” Igashi looks at me, but I just shrug. Haru notes this new dynamic with surprise. “Maybe I’ll submit to the next show. Who knows? I might even win this time, under my own name.” I grin, and Haru laughs, and Igashi looks vaguely happy. The rhythm resets, a well-practiced melody. And like the usual melody, Haru turns the chorus back to him. “Kuro, man, you’ve gotta help me with this Yumi situation. She’s all about Igashi’s work. She can’t talk about anything else. ‘Kitano this, Kitano that.’ There’s got to be a way to spin this somehow.” A devious grin lights his face. “How do I convince her I’m the actual mastermind behind the art?” I snort, turning to Igashi. “And how do you feel about the whole thing?” He shrugs, his attention refocusing on the camera equipment at his feet, covered by coat and umbrella. Meanwhile, the rest of us are shivering, but the mist still comes as a relief. I feel the water curling against my skin, the metallic taste in my mouth. At last it’s as if I have left the camera– living the moment, not watching it. “And to top it all off, she wants to go to Keio University! Just like our Igashi here,” Haru grumbles. “All the damn artsy types…” The clouds part, and the rain dies, and as I glance up into

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Stars Fall in Tokyo

Krystal Lau

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

The Cartoon Cult I was fifteen and shivering in my pleated mini skirt, my knees knocking together from the cold as I wrapped myself in his oversized denim jacket. Facing the sea, I watched as the waves rose up to their tips as if to touch the sky, only to crash back down over and over again. I sat, exhausted, as it dawned on me how the moon only loves the ocean at night. It was two in the morning, my sobriety returning in a painful, head-pounding fashion, and all I wanted was to escape the cold and shroud myself in a blanket of unconsciousness. Harley was still preaching in the same enthusiastic manner, his purple fur knee-length coat making him appear as if he’d been pulled out of a bad ‘70s sitcom. He was speaking to Steve, one of the homeless people living under the Hermosa Beach pier that he had recently befriended. “And that’s when it hit me man. I mean it just makes sense,” Harley said, his voice booming with enthusiasm. “I am the reincarnation of Gandhi. When I told the cats at school, they all called me whack. But I feel a connection, something way deeper than this life. Besides, why shouldn’t I be the reincarnation of Gandhi? What’s stopping me?” Later that night, I sat in the car silently, flinching more than usual at Harley’s reckless driving. “Babe, you have to listen to this. It’s the most incredible jam in the history of jams,” he said turning up the volume. He thrashed his head in time with the beat. The car swerved with each distinct whip. The bulged moon hung, bloated in the sky. The road opened up before us, trees on either side bleeding into the night.

The Cartoon Cult

WORDS Kalena Tamura ILLUSTRATION

Leslie Young

“You said that last week about that Rolling Stones song,” I shouted over the music. “Nah trust me, it’s all about the funk now. I’m tellin ya, it’s like I have a whole new perspective on life.” I clung to my seat as I watched the speedometer creep past 80, feeling the screech of the tires reverberate within my bones. His arms were tense, the pronounced whites of his knuckles sharply contrasting against the black leather of the steering wheel. “Things are gonna be different from now on. Just you wait and see,” he said to himself, eyes blazing, “Just you wait and see.” My stomach was churning and I thought I might be sick. I fell in love with Harley Hart my sophomore year of high school. At the time, however, he was a senior and half of Hermosa High was already in love with him, as well as more than a few of the female faculty. He was an actor, naturally, due to his charismatic persona and fluid ability to erase himself and fully embody any character with ease. But aside from Harley’s gift for theater, his piercing green eyes and effortlessly shaggy pitch-black hair, he also had an incredible way with people. He possessed a magnetism that had the power to ensnare anyone, choking you with his charm until your head was drowning in riptides and your lungs were turning blue. He surrounded himself with a crowd of artists, musicians, and a few rogue druggies. They were the most motley group of individuals that walked around campus carrying guitars and dressing outlandishly retro. Their extreme exclusivity made them a marvel at Hermosa High, yet it was Harley as their unspoken ringleader that elevated their status from dirty hippies to enticing outcasts. Kalena Tamura

That February, Harley and I were cast as the two leads in the spring musical, Next to Normal. We spent hours together practicing lines and he drove me home from rehearsal in his beat up cherry red 1979 Chevy. He read me his poetry in the ripped up back seat of that pathetic hunk of scrap metal that smelled of cigarettes, wet dog and Fireball. I started wearing ripped tights and stole over-sized flannels from the dust-ridden back corner of my dad’s closet. I started smoking and I kept smoking until it didn’t make me cough anymore, until I grew to like the taste of ash in my throat and ash in my chest, the taste of ash on Harley’s tongue in the backseat. Eventually, I molded myself to fit into the fascinating world of Harley Hart, one that was saturated in rebellious eccentricity. “I feel like I never see you anymore,” my friend Abby said to me in the hall once while passing. “But I suppose you don’t have time for us, now that you’ve joined the acid cult,” she sneered, her words were dripping in disgust and envy and perhaps pity, I thought, as if it wasn’t all the same. At first it was interesting, simply observing a world that was so intensely different from the innocence of my own. As the closest one to sober, they often asked me to jot down things that they would do or say throughout the night to use as inspiration for their art the next morning as they poured coffee into their veins and swallowed Advil to cure the pounding hammer slamming the insides of their brains. Most of it was nonsense. One Saturday night we were all smoking at Valley Park. I was lying with my head in Harley’s lap, twiddling grass blades between my fingers as one of Harley’s followers, Whirley, was so high he couldn’t speak except to repeat the same two sentences over and over again: “Augustus Gloop is my president. All hail Gloop.” The next morning while Harley was in the kitchen cooking eggs in his underwear, I told Whirley about his Willy Wonka related epiphany from the night before. “Gloop?” He asked surprised, “Really?” “I dig it, man,” Harley said peering his head in through the kitchen entryway. “If there’s one brother who’s got it all figured out, it’s Augustus Gloop.” Whirley immediately picked up his guitar and wrote a song called “The Electric Gloop Riot.” It sucked.

existential jazz-age pimp, listening to no one and preaching to everyone. Harley Hart had always been different in that he should have been born in a different era. Yet suddenly he was an outrageous cartoon, as if he was from another world, as if he thought himself to be a God. The day we all became completely disillusioned by Harley was the day he gave a speech before drama class one Tuesday morning in the auditorium. He sauntered up to the front of the room and waited for complete silence. Before him sat a crowd of ravenous, judgmental eyes, all feasting off the peculiarity of The Harley Hart Show. He stepped forward to the microphone as my teacher held back along the side of the room, curious like the rest of us, to see what his next enormous revelation would be. “It has come to my recent discovery,” Harley paused, taking a deep breath “that I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.” Harley Hart’s come up was a spectacle, his peak a phenomenon. His come down, on the other hand, was altogether and uncharacteristically unextraordinary. As the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, Harley’s comedic preaching morphed into jarring sermons, his points often bizarre and irrational, attacking and aggressive. People grew disinterested and stopped providing Harley with the attention he so craved, which only spurred greater acts of desperation disguised as nonsense. The Harley Hart Show became a program we all no longer wished to watch. We turned our heads and shielded our eyes out of courtesy, or shame or both. His disintegrating state was palpable, permeating from his body and pervading the surrounding air, diseased. No longer a source for entertainment or curiosity, Harley Hart faded into oblivion. The last I heard, he had dropped out of his acting program in New York. He could be doing great things by now, I suppose, like we all once thought he might. He could be anywhere doing anything; more likely, he could be in the middle of nowhere doing nothing. As always, the elusive nature of Harley Hart forever remains a mystery.

When Harley Hart cracked, it wasn’t a slow splintering. It was a rapid shatter, and it consumed him. He stopped sleeping and began tripping for three days at a time. His poetry became manic, his manner completely unrecognizable. He wore flaming leather pants to class with enormous fur coats, adopting the persona and voice of an

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

The Cartoon Cult

Kalena Tamura

EVOCATIONS

WORDS Anna Lee ILLUSTRATIONS Marion Moseley

APOTHEGM ’a-p - them n. a concise saying or maxim; an aphorism

01.

There’s a sucker born every minute, but God, doesn’t that number sound sorta low? It’s about time we adjust for population growth. There’s a sucker born every second—now, that’s more like it. All the more sheep for vacuum salesmen, pool hall hustlers, and slot machines to prey on.

BARMECIDE ‘bärm sīd adj. illusory or imaginary and therefore disappointing

02.

“Oh,” he said, looking at the second dove, “so that’s how you do it.”

CACOETHES kak ’wēTHēz n. an irresistible urge to do something inadvisable

03.

They didn’t fear cars screeching to a stop inches away from them or wandering down paths with warning signs that screamed DANGER. They made a game of how many tabs they could take as if it was an achievement to make their minds tremble. Cigarette smoke clung to their clothes and kissed their lungs—like a mother’s love. On rooftops, they would stare into the depth below, compelled without reason to hurl themselves off the edge, pulling back only when their heart seemed to stop inside their chest.

CREPITATION krep ’tāSH n n. a crackling or rattling sound

04.

The boys set off the firecrackers on Mr. Smith’s lawn. They catch quickly, burning hot and loud through the yellowing night.

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Issue 6 Winter 2018

THIS PAST YEAR, I RESOLVED TO EXPAND MY VOCABULARY BY WRITING DOWN EACH UNFAMILIAR WORD I ENCOUNTERED. WHAT FOLLOWS IS A LIST OF SOME OF THOSE WORDS AND THE ACCOMPANYING SNAPSHOTS THAT CAPTURE THEIR MEANINGS.

FUGACIOUS fyoo’gāSH s adj. transient or fleeting

05.

On the car ride home he drifted silently in and out of consciousness. The moon’s glow lulled him to sleep only for the odd dip in the road to jolt him awake. It was strange to catch only throwaway phrases of the conversation up front—a nonsensical exchange about wolves and old spirits which his half-awake brain slipped into the landscape of his dreams. A flash of teeth, an estate, and a frayed rope end. Even the view he glimpsed outside the window joined his mind’s illusion. When they reached their final stop, he was still blinking through a helpless limbo, such that the operation of his mind was now slurred and his reality deeply, darkly unsettling.

LIMERENCE ‘lim r ns n. the state of being infatuated with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one’s feelings but not necessarily for a sexual relationship

06.

e e

She sleeps in your bed for three hours without you in it. You’re sprawled on the carpet pretending to read comics, stealing a glance at her every few moments. When she wakes, the sun is high noon and you are both, for once, stone-cold sober. Her hair brushes against the balanced edge of her cheekbone as she leans in close to whisper in your ear, “Let’s get out of here,” as if there’s someone else around to hear. You go tearing down the road in a car littered with crumpled receipts until you stop at the first smell of bacon grease. She’s a girl straight out of a ‘70s lookbook, swinging her legs on a diner stool. Her red lips, teeth like a dentist’s daughter, curl around a candy striped straw. You pay. It’s not as romantic as you might imagine, but you imagine anyway.

Evocations

Anna Lee

EVOCATIONS ONEIRONAUT oʊ’naioʊn t n. person who explores dream worlds, usually associated with lucid dreaming

07.

He closed his eyes as he trudged up the stairs to the school’s main entrance, so accustomed to the path that he could picture the number of gum stains on each individual step. “Good morning,” Gina shouted from the top of the stairs. He looked up just in time to witness her head burst into pieces, brain matter turning into glitter mid-air. “Good morning,” he called back. Class that day was split into two periods: the study of cryptids and fishing, during which they all filed into the grassy quad and cast their lines high into the air. He snagged a tuna with three heads. School ended when the fog finally rolled in. He walked home with vapor swirling around his ankles. His mother, who was holding a bowl of pig fat (they were redecorating), greeted him at the door. “Welcome home, honey. Did you have a good day?” He shrugged and hid in his room. After a tense family dinner in which the dog threatened all of them at gunpoint, he skipped his homework and flopped onto his bed. He dreamt of a world where Gina’s head stayed on whenever she spoke and animals couldn’t operate firearms and schools taught mathematics and the ocean was by his feet instead of rippling in the sky. He dreamt of a life not his own.

08.

PRELAPSARIAN ,prēlap’serē n adj. characteristic of the time before the Fall of Man; innocent. e

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

PRELAPSARIAN (cont’d)

08.

It’s playground games and pinky swears and one fish, two fish. It’s laying on the patch of grass outside your house, between the gravel driveway and the hydrangeas, watching the clouds sail slowly overhead. It’s crying when Dad yells and burrowing your face in the covers like it’s all that will help. It’s a gentle goodnight and loving the taste of anything that isn’t yours.

antonym: POSTLAPSARIAN ,pōstlap’serē n adj. occurring or existing after the Fall of Man.

09.

Men bent over brick and sand and stone, whips striking their sallow skin, a child sunken into itself, pawing at his own jutting ribs. Factory smoke rising in plumes from a geometric city cut into squares, shuffling the right folk into brighter spaces. Megaton-strength nukes, a program to see where we could drop it. The looming glass window of an office, the slow drag of seconds on the clock as life passes by outside. Schools that never sound the last bell. Save us, they plead, cowering under a table. The gunman sweats bullets as he walks. This is how far we’ve come.

10.

VELLEITY v ’lē dē,ve’lē dē n. a wish or inclination that is not strong enough to lead one to take action. e

I wanted to be a doctor as a kid. Or a fireman or a basketball star or a writer. These nebulous fantasies coalesced like clouds. This past week I thought, maybe I’ll start going to the gym. Maybe I’ll join a dance team. More ifs, maybes, and half-hearted jogs toward a goal. I tack hopes onto wooden charms and whisper at shooting stars, as if someone up there is actually watching.

Evocations

Anna Lee

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

PHOTOS Samuel Han

SANTA MONICA: THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE PIER SANTA MONICA: THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE PIER SANTA MONICA: THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE PIER 45

Santa Monica: There’s Something About the Pier

Samuel Han

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Santa Monica: Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Something About the Pier

Samuel Han

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Santa Monica: Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Something About the Pier

Samuel Han

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Santa Monica: Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Something About the Pier

Samuel Han

THINGS WE S LO IN THE ATLANTIC

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

WORDS Annika Karody ILLUSTRATION Jordi Ng

A series of pencilled tally-marks stretches down the wall next to the door frame of my father’s childhood home. My eight-year-old mind, (fascinated, for whatever reason, by anything remotely secretarial), runs wild with possibility. Maybe they’re coded messages left by previous tenants, or some kind of tabulating method devised by a neighborhood thievery ring. My mom takes note of me staring at them, tracing my finger over the graphite and plaster. “Those’re just the mosquito exterminator’s way of noting that he’s been here every year,” she says. On a particularly uneventful day, I count them all the way back to 1963, the year my family moved into that little house in Hyderabad, a bustling metropolis in what was then the state of Andhra Pradesh, south India. It’s my proof that they had been there, too.

America is a young nation. The majority of its inhabitants are “newcomers” relative to their own familial timelines, and the result is a prevalent sense of being American by way of somewhere else. When it comes to cultural identity, many of us still reach back across oceans and continents, through decades and centuries, to a past that better rounds out our concepts of personal heritage. The degrees to which people adhere to these pasts fall on a spectrum from something as minimal as passing down an old family recipe to something as consequential as preserving an entire cultural value system. Those of us who fall close to the latter extreme exist with one foot in an entirely separate geographical, cultural and temporal space, and another in the American present.

Meanwhile we’ve been here. And we’ve stayed here, two oceans and two and a half continents away. Our space is sterile suburbia, where the Terminix guy would get an earful for leaving so much as a scratch on the house’s fresh coat of paint. We worship in an old bank building refashioned, to a degree, as a temple. For our parents, that’s enough to recall the kind of reverence and community they felt worshipping in the puja-room at home and celebrating with friends and neighbors in the streets. For those of us who’ve grown up here, it is a bit more difficult to drum up that cultural substance. We are left, instead, with a sum of disjointed parts: a nondescript, whitewashed building and brass deities.

From my second-generation perspective, this is overtly destabilizing. I am acutely aware that I span a cultural gap. I find myself moderating a dialogue between two different cultures and sets of expectations: those that correspond to the principally Indian culture I was raised in, and those that correspond to the American culture I was socialized in. The destabilizing aspect of my own second-generation experience is that I don’t have the culture that I’ve learned at home to corroborate the one that I’ve grown up in. The result was an adolescence spent attempting to fill in the gaps between the two. I have never felt able to stake claim to a completely Indian identity, but contrary to what I believed growing up, I no longer feel able to claim a fully American self either. As a country whose inhabitants mostly descended from immigrants, many of us have this loss in common. It is the reason we hyphenate our identities and make pilgrimage to Ellis Island and pay good money to spit into a test tube and send it off to have our DNA analyzed. We are bridging some kind of a mental gap between here and there, between present and past.

The second generation is, too, a sum of our parts: internalities that don’t always align with our external world. This rift is jarring, especially for those of us raised with the American “melting pot” ideal. Melting into the pot isn’t the smooth change of state that image may suggest. It is stepwise and generational, it is loss and disconnect, and at some point in the majority of American family trees it happened. Whether you came here as a newborn swaddled in your mother’s arms, or you can trace relatives back to colonial times, all immigrants struck an implicit contract of assimilation when they left familiar shores. The caveat is that for many Americans, this assimilation is, as of yet, incomplete.

Things We Lost in the Atlantic

A group of “aunties,” my mom included, know the religious songs for the festival we are celebrating by heart. The festival originated from where they grew up, and these bhajans are in their native language. Twenty years of Marathi falling on my ears has made me a master at imitation. I let the Annika Karody

“ The destabilizing aspect of my own secondgeneration experience is that I don’t have the culture that I’ve learned at home to corroborate the one that I’ve grown up in. The result was an adolescence spent attempting to fill in the gaps between the two.”

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

syllables lilt and roll off my tongue, all the while clueless to their meaning, unable to even differentiate among the sounds and parse out individual words. We walk around the altar and kneel in front of it as we’ve always done, and light the wick in the oil lamp for aarthi. When discussing religion with a friend a few weeks later, I can’t explain why we do it. The external performance remains, but its meaning has all but disappeared. I’m in my best: a coriander-green kurti with black and gold accents, costume jewelry, and an intricately-designed bindi. I am reminded of my grandmother worshipping every morning at home, clad in a simple sari, dabbing an understated bindi of powdered vermillion and slaked lime into her hairline. She continues her day in that garb. I change into sweatpants as soon as I get home and rub the the powder off my forehead before it stains my skin. Such are the things we lost in the Atlantic: a pinch of tempered mustard seeds, a spoonful of turmeric and, eventually, the traction of an entire cultural footing. A year and a half ago, in the middle of an identity crisis all my own, I took it upon myself to regain this footing. I found it in my grandfather or, rather, I found it in his music. He was everything my eighteen-year-old self wanted to be: artistically accomplished, well-respected, with a thriving family to boot. Since childhood I’ve been told that we are similar: both stubborn, crabby as hell and musically-inclined. I wouldn’t know about those first two traits empirically; we hardly ever spoke. It wasn’t a language barrier that kept us apart, just that a grade-school kid from the suburbs of LA doesn’t know what to say to an eighty-sixyear-old composer and playwright from the suburbs of Hyderabad who dedicated his life to a form of theater rooted in Hindu mythology.

members I hardly knew. Among them was my grandfather. I had just begun training to sing in the Hindustani (Indian) style and had entirely three songs in my repertoire. I chose to sing a bhajan: a religious song passed down through the ages, the kind of ubiquitous cultural relic that binds generations. My little five-year-old lungs could barely compete with the capacious bellows of the harmonium, but once my family caught on to the lyrics I was singing, they joined in, buoying my song up over the instrument for all to hear. My grandfather passed seven years ago and left a rich body of theatrical work behind: some regular plays, others musicals, all of them crafted in the Karnatak artistic tradition: a style of music and theater specific to the South Indian region where my father’s side of the family is from. In the midst of a desperate search for my roots, I found them. They were in my dad’s car -- two identical CDs with devanagari script (unintelligible to me), and an unmistakable portrait of my grandfather on the label. I took a copy and never gave it back. It’s been with me ever since. It’s travelled the world digitized on my laptop. It’s traversed every Southern California freeway in the CD player of my car. It’s survived trend after fad after fleeting interest as a mainstay of my musical collection. Amid all kinds of change—temporal, spatial, cultural—it has remained intact; a piece of tradition and myth as told by my grandfather for me to hold onto. In the midst of my cultural crises, it has held up. The ragas (scales) feel familiar, and the undulating improvisation of the musicians riffing on them feel strangely concrete. It isn’t a thin “performance” of culture; it’s a piece of my heritage that resonates with me and that I fully understand. It is neatly packaged and perhaps incomplete, but it has sustained me nonetheless. And for now, it will do.

In fact, I didn’t need to say anything at all. I remember sitting behind a harmonium in the living room at age five, singing songs I didn’t know the meaning of to family

Things We Lost in the Atlantic

Annika Karody

Seviye WORDS Beliz Urkmez ILLUSTRATION Peter Yang

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

My grandmother reminds me of Turkish böreks. The smell of pastry and spinach tickles my nose when I walk into the apartment ornate with white-laced covers. On the wall, the black and white portraits of her serious-looking parents remind me that her past not only is rooted in Turkey, but also in Silistre, Romania, her birthplace. The dining table is squished between the antique wooden cupboard where the vintage TV stands and the enclosed balcony door. Beyond the door is a colder climate for storing fresh produce, grains and the occasional oat biscuits for when I come over for tea. The most captivating part of the apartment though is the collection of photographs of her grandchildren, her source of pride. She made it her duty to inspire and guide us, with her kindness and emphasis on education – something that was held from her. Many women in the past have faced the same 20th century mentality that Seviye faced – that women are to root themselves in the home and not to extend themselves towards education or a career. While men grew into bearers of ideas and progress, unequal opportunities limited women into the only suitable role: motherhood. Just as a tree starved of direct sunlight grows in new directions to stay alive, these women, starved of a life of their own design, extended their branches and roots out so that a little life could bud from the darkness. It is from this place that the seeds of community germinate, the roots of culture extend, and a nation’s identity blossoms, finally gathering the strength to grow gracefully in any direction it needs to thrive. These women create the fabric of a country because it is built upon their wisdom, sacrifice and sense of culture and community. When my grandmother’s family emigrated from Romania to Turkey, the country was only spreading its seeds. In 1920, after the Turkish Independence War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the new Turkish Republic was founded. The blood on the flag still wet, the first President of the Republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took the first steps to make Turkey a modern, secular state. His reforms included equality of the sexes in education, political and social life. In need of a bigger population, the government called every Turk living in the Balkans to emigrate to Turkey for a new life in a new country, far from the political turbulences caused by the First World War in Eastern Europe. This exchange of citizens reunited many Turkish people with their original land, promised to them with ready homes and jobs. The nation was young and free, the people shedding many years of oppression from their backs, ambitious to build a country of their own. A novel and patriotic atmosphere greeted my grandmother when she set foot in the country. Seviye, only six years old and as optimistic as Turkey’s people, yearned for the prospect of a life of opportunities. The same longing a tree gets when it patiently waits for the sunlight, for that bit of water, to bloom limitlessly. She would start school soon and also blossom, just like the nation growing under her feet. Her first years in Turkey were spent in the rural city of Tekirdağ where agriculture and produce dominated labor and lifestyle. Witnessing Turkish industrialism in the countryside, she absorbed an organic way of life through her parents and a community of farmers. She would always meticulously tell me how her mother would raise chickens in their farm and use the grease left from the chicken in her soups, how she never even touched a bottle of sunflower oil—the greatest import of Tekirdag at the time—because it was processed. Even now she keeps her prepared tomato sauces for the winter on her balcony and gets her dolmas from her neighbor down the hall who wraps them herself. Her virtues lie deep within personal interactions and sharing with others: a warm, elegant way of connecting with people. Today, my fondest memories of my grandparents are of us sitting around the table, drinking

Seviye

Beliz Urkmez

tea, sharing homemade pastries, talking endlessly and laughing tirelessly. A welcoming summon home. These gatherings over food make up Turkish culture. Every plate on the table made by caring hands, bringing together a sense of character and bonding. She carried that culture from Tekirdağ to Istanbul and I hold it close to my heart here in Los Angeles, when I’m cooking dinner for my friends on a Friday night. Seven thousand miles away and she still brings me back to my home, my country and my culture. Around when she was 10 years old, her father—a strict, disciplined man—decided that they would move to Istanbul, the big city. She continued and finished her primary education in the friendly neighborhood of Erenköy where she also met my grandfather Recep. Having lived a quite comfortable life until then, her awareness to the country’s lack of teachers invoked in her a greater purpose. She desired nothing more than to teach the next generation, as a thank you to this country who had been so generous to her. Despite her father’s disapproval, she managed to enroll in typewriter courses after finishing middle school, where she became top of her class. Eventually, her father did not let her continue studying, asserting that she already had enough education. She was already twenty years old and it was time for her to get married and build a family. This came as a crushing heart ache to Seyive, a burgeoning idealist. That the path she originally envisioned had to come to a halt was the hardest thing she ever had to stomach. She was sprouting and blossoming, only to find out a tree cannot march forward. When she talks about it now, a sense of fatalism escapes from her bittersweet smile and soft tone. It was what it is and she could not prevent it. I feel indignant that a woman as brilliant as her could not follow her trail because a man told her so. She seems reconciled to her past, but never a day passes where she does not utter that this was her biggest regret. I wonder if her chest still aches. She still has a glow in her eyes when she talks about how her teachers admired her hard-working character; how they were ready to support her education in every way so she could become a teacher, which was still hard to achieve at that time. Women had a right to education and could participate in political and social life, but in a society dominated by men, realizing this proved difficult. Fathers still had the last word over their daughters’ lives and most women could not even go to primary school. Yet in the face of a blocked path, she was able to grow her branches to reach over the barriers. Seviye listened to her father and knowingly sacrificed her dreams because she saw a bigger purpose in raising us. As a mother of four, she realized that being a teacher and a parent were not mutually exclusive. If she raised her children by her own values, they would still grow up to do wonderful things not just for themselves but for their communities and country as well. Those moments in the garden or precious time in the classroom, witnessing a country rise to its feet and growing up with it, being stripped of her dream, all of these experiences became her teaching credentials. She grew up knowing what limitations meant and she wanted her children to know that they could do anything that they set their minds to, especially my mom Gül, her only daughter. Seviye developed a vision for what her future might be even though it wasn’t what she originally wanted. She chose to sacrifice her own so that she could prepare not just her children, but us, her grandchildren, for their own future. When I tell her about college, my academic life and my future aspirations, I see that same glow and know that her biggest struggle was not in vain. Focused on the big picture, she always puts others before herself. When we were celebrating her birthday last year, she held my hand and said, “I couldn’t do it but you should do something good for the people, Beliz. You have to give back to your country.” Though not aware, she did more than she imagines. She

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

gave me hope, a sense of responsibility not just to accomplish whatever I want to in life, but also to look after the people around me. Giving back means getting back because there will always be people by your side. Her manners, her compassion, her existence inspire me everyday to be good, because she is the best person I have ever known – a delicate soul that wants to nurture a better life for everyone. Her story is woven deep within the fabric of Turkey and mine is woven to hers. A tree may not move, but it is the pièce de résistance of the forest. The forest then becomes the symbol of sagacity, custom, value, tradition, community and sacrifice for the nation. We, the grandkids, reap what they flower and keep that with us forever, wherever we are. My grandmother is my nation, and my nation is my grandmother and I cannot think of anywhere else than that humble apartment in Erenköy when I think of home.

Seviye

Beliz Urkmez

OF THE MUNDANE STORAGE SPACE LOS ANGELES, CA

CRICKET GAME EPPING, UK 60

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

PHOTOS Stefanie Tam

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE MARKET PARIS, FR STREET SIGN GHENT, BE DISCARDED BED FRAME AND MATTRESS PARIS, FR

Of the Mundane

Stefanie Tam

STORAGE SPACE LOS ANGELES, CA CONCRETE SLABS LOS ANGELES, CA

TRASH IN CANAL LOS ANGELES, CA

DETACH HUBCA LOS AN LES, CA 62

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

SIDEWALK OVERGROWTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA LAUNDROMAT SAN FRANCISCO, CA

CHED CAP NGECA 63

Of the Mundane

Stefanie Tam

COLLABORATION THROUGH LACERATION

WORDS Garrett Gregory

ILLUSTRATION Marion Moseley

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Telling the music industry to go fuck itself is a favorite pastime of musicians. The popularity of this act can make distinguishing oneself incredibly difficult for enterprising artists. Nonetheless, Sacramento-based experimental rap group Death Grips found a way to do just this in 2012. Epic, their record label, had decided to delay the release of the group’s second studio album, No Love Deep Web, until 2013. In response, the group leaked the album online. For its cover artwork, they chose a picture of the erect penis of Zach Hill, the band’s drummer, with the album title scrawled on it in Sharpie. There is typically a point of saturation for groups employing such visceral imagery. New efforts to create visual spectacles often lose their impact with increasingly jaded audiences. On September 19, 2017 Death Grips proved with a cryptic Instagram post they are far from reaching this point. The post was a picture of a man grinding his face against a broken pane of glass, simply captioned “Working with Lucas Abela.” With no further explanation provided, beholders could only ask “Who is this guy? Why is he doing this to himself?” In a certain respect, Lucas Abela is a musician who defies classification. Experimentation in media most people would find inconceivable has led him to his current and most recognizable project: a shard of glass attached to a contact microphone. To produce music, Abela presses the glass into his face and blows into it. Butchering his own visage is not an end goal, but a functional inevitability. Self-mutilation would seem divergent with the goals of most musicians. For Abela, it fits well into a larger body of work that uses idiosyncratic production techniques in making music. Among them are two interactive installations rooted in arcade games—Paku Paku and The Temple of Din. Paku Paku invites the participant to use a joystick to steer a hovercraft loosely resembling Pac Man through a maze with a floor composed of luminescent tiles. The light from these tiles is converted from the audio frequencies of local radio stations, which are read by the hovercraft and converted back into sound. The finished piece, in Abela’s own words, “creates an aural zeitgeist by randomly mixing music, advertising, and spoken word plucked from local

Collaboration Through Laceration

Garrett Gregory

broadcasts.” Repeated conversion and reconversion between light and sound presents a strikingly circuitous approach to music production, but a straightforward route to making music is clearly Abela’s last concern. The pinball machines that make up The Temple of Din are instrumental Frankenstein’s monsters. Music is generated when the user hits a ball with paddles, which are in some cases controlled by piano keys, toward an assortment of guitar strings, piano wires, and chimes. What is produced as a result is predictably cacophonous and disorienting. At its debut at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the installation was a big hit with children, something difficult to predict based on the grotesque picture that drew Abela to most people’s attention. How exactly Abela’s work will mesh with Death Grips is anyone’s guess. Rather than provide insight, an examination of his largely disparate past work means that his contribution could come in virtually any form. On his Instagram, he recently posted a video of his infant son inadvertently hitting himself in the face with a play rattle. The caption, “hurts himself making music,” lends insight into a fundamental tenet of his art—that the two activities he mentions are inherently inseparable.

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

“The caption, ‘hurts himself making music,’ lends insight into a fundamental tenet of his art—that the two activities he mentions are inherently inseparable.”

Collaboration Through Laceration

Garrett Gregory

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

The Groomed Aristocrat

PHOTOS

Katerina Papanikolopoulos

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

The Groomed Aristocrat

Katerina Papanikolopoulos

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

The Groomed Aristocrat

Katerina Papanikolopoulos

LET’S MEET AGAIN To you, Grandma:

The last time we were together was 13 years ago, February 23rd, 2004. I will never forget this date. I can still remember the phone call mom received about your death. The terror in her voice still haunts me to this day. The memories I shared with you are blurry, yet I still carry around a few recollections of our times together. I often remember moments when we’d get together at your house with grandpa and eat yakisoba and fried rice. Fried rice is still my favorite dish. Sometimes we make it at grandpa’s house, but it just isn’t the same. I miss your fried rice. I realize now what a blessing you were to our family. Sharing little nuances of japanese culture with us like taking our shoes off in the house, using chopsticks, and Totoro. I loved the way you flavored grandpa’s house, it reminds me now of a modern Japanese home: simple and clean with Japanese art draping the walls. I remember going into the house as a kid and feeling like I stepped into a different world. Grandpa still has pictures of you together in Japan when you first met in the

The Paper Mixtape

late ‘50s. It makes me so happy seeing my youthful grandparents. When I’m looking at those photos, it’s like I’m seeing you and grandpa together for the first time. Growing up I always wished I was more Japanese, But once you passed, I just went on living mostly forgetting about my culture. I can recall one specific candy you would give us, they were little milk caramels called “Morinaga’s Milk Caramel.” Do you remember giving these to us? Whenever I want to chase the feeling of being a kid at your house again, I eat those little milk caramels you so lovingly gave us. The second the taste hits me, my mind is flooded with nostalgia. I try to eat them sparingly because I never want those feelings to float away. I do remember seeing you on some of your worst days. When I was a kid I couldn’t understand what was happening, I only knew you were “sick.” But what was “sick?” I now ask myself this 13 years later. You were homesick, you never gave up your citizenship to Japan and you never properly learned English. You always lived in Japan even when in America. Japan was in your house, you language, your life. You created

Issue 6 Winter 2018

またあいましょう。 your own comfortable world. But nobody came to visit your world and I’m 13 years too late. Your world still exists though, it is only missing you. Grandpa kept the house the way it was during your last days. Everything in the house is exactly the same, your room, the pictures on the walls, and the smell of cheap soap still lingers in the air. I found all the notes and recipes you wrote to yourself in Japanese scattered throughout the house. I tried to read them but they didn’t make any sense. Not because my Japanese ability wasn’t good enough, but because you were writing everything in a weird Japanese and English mix. This put into perspective what the language barrier must had been like for you and I’m sorry. I think this was the moment I began to think about you everyday. I had never thought about it, the struggles you faced. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was a very heavy thing for me to realize at the time, but very important that I did. Forgetting Japanese as well as English is still too much to think about. Such a dark hole with nobody

Let’s Meet Again

WORDS & PHOTOS Adam Araiza

but yourself, nobody to share your feelings with. When I went through the tales of your past as told by the ones closest to you, grandpa and Aunt Karen, I could feel your loneliness. I wish I could have been there and told you everything would be okay. Moments when you felt discrimination, as if it were Mitsue versus America. The isolation you felt by not being able to speak English and nobody learning Japanese. The terror you felt when Cheryl, your daughter, died at 6 months old. The helplessness you felt when your mother died 6,000 miles away from you. No way to say goodbye. The way you felt unwelcomed, not wanting to become an American citizen. I learned from grandpa that you always kept your Japanese citizenship because you were proud to be Japanese and always thought you would one day go back. The day never came for you to return home. I’m 23 years old now and I’ve been studying Japanese for the past 2 years. I’m majoring in Japanese in hopes of following you back to Japan one day. All the little Japanese things you introduced to us were all an attempt to bring Japan to us. It’s as if you left me a map leading to Japan. I finally picked

Adam Araiza

up on those clues and want to help you get back home. I’m proud to be the first in the family to start learning your native language and culture. It’s as if I’m continuing your journey back home. Everyday I am thankful you helped me find this path, it has given me much needed support in my life. The rebirthed love I found for Japan came when I decided to revisit community college. The first time around I failed all my classes and dropped out. I didn’t have any dreams to shoot for, so I always kept the bar low in middle and high school. But school came so easy once I had Japanese to look forward to learning. Pushing myself for better grades in the subjects I didn’t like was all worth it because it helped me get deeper into Japanese Studies.

I’m wearing your engagement ring to grandpa. I keep it very close to me cause it’s the last I have of you other than the fading memories. I hope it fits forever. Japanese filled the place in my heart that you took when you left. I want to repay you for all that you have done and sacrificed for us. If only I could have been there for you to help drag you out of your lonesome world. I know now that you had always wanted to go back home and I want to guide us there. The point of this letter was to tell you that I love you and I haven’t forgotten about you. Speaking Japanese with you at your grave just isn’t the same, I thought this would be better. One day we’ll meet again, but in the meantime, I will look forward to meeting you in dreams. I love you grandma. またあいましょう。 [let’s meet again.]

Everything I’ve been doing the past three years has been the result of your early influence on me. From the art that I consume, the clothes I dress myself in, and what I’m interested in pursuing in the future.

The Paper Mixtape

Issue 6 Winter 2018

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Meet Again

Adam Araiza

Adam Araiza, Anna Lee, Annika Karody, Beliz Urkmez, Cam Vernali, Claire Moon, Garrett Gregory, HĂŠloĂŻse Hakimi Le Grand, Jordi Ng, Joyce Ding, Kalena Tamura, Katerina Papanikolopoulos, Leslie Young, Marion Moseley, Peter Yang, Samuel Han, Shayan Saalabi, Stefanie Tam

SIDE B

THE PAPER MIXTAPE Issue 6

Articles inside

Let’s Meet Again Adam Araiza

Seviye Beliz Urkmez

Things We Lost in the Atlantic Annika Karody

Collaboration Through Laceration Garrett Gregory

Being a Girl Alone Cam Vernali

The Cartoon Cult Kalena Tamura

Dance in L.A

Close But Not Quite Shayan Saalabi