Subtopian eighteen

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The Adventures of Vernon Q. Public

by Eric Suhem

Be on the lookout for Subtopian Press’ upcoming release of

Collaborating with Angels Rob Lee’s photo-memoir

Summer 2013

Coming Soon from SUBTOPIAN PRESS

Road Notes The Time Machine Jeff Costello Page One Stuck on Repeat The New McCarthyist Hysteria Arthur Brand Page Three Jonathon Burgess Self-Made Author and Publisher an interview by Kirby Light Page Seven An Excerpt from Discord Isle Jonathon Burgess Page Twelve The Death of the 99% G. Martinez Cabrera Page Seventeen Watching Big Brother Jennifer Hollie Bowles Page Nineteen Artist Spotlight Loren Kantor: Woodcut Afficionado Talks Us Through A Rare and Ancient Art Form Page Twenty-Four

Dystopia This is Not a Drill -Big Brother Really is Watching This Time Trevor D. Richardson Page Twenty-Six Utopia Down with DOMA and Putin says, “You’re Gay!” David Renton Page Thirty-One Pearls for Swine When Good Food Goes Bad Kirby Light Page Thirty-Five Poetry by Holly Day Page Thirty-Nine More Poetry Robert A. Davies Page Forty-Four The Critic’s Critic Superman, Man of Steel, and the Man of Tomorrow Today Trevor D. Richardson Page Forty-Six

regulars

The Time Machine

People who do things test my endurance Give me a man who solicits insurance.

-- Dorothy Parker

T h e Ti m e M a c h i n e Jeff Costello People who do things test my endurance Give me a man who solicits insurance.

-- Dorothy Parker T h e s c i e n c e - f i c t i o n f u t u r e h a s a r r i v e d a n d s e t t l e d i n c o m f o r t a b l y.

Does it matter? A new sub-category of minor journalism, appears to be comment on the relation between electronic gizmos and individual i s o l a t i o n . A r e c e n t e x a m p l e i s a b o o k b y M I T p r o f e s s o r S h e r r y Tu r k l e c a l l e d “ A l o n e To g e t h e r. ” N o t h i n g m u c h n e w t h e r e , o t h e r t h a n a n u p d a t e o f sorts, examining the “social networking” phenomenon. (Aside: Is there anything more perfectly suited than facebook for providing volumes of information to the FBI, CIA, or any other intrusive, predatory agency or creepy individuals of any number of stripes? If I were a government spook 1

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Ethan Loses Again: o r His s t a l Friend k e r, i t w ould be hard to believe my luck).

From His Diary

I t o c c u r r e d t o m e t h a t t h e r e ’s m o r e t h a n a h i n t o f H . G .

We l l s ’ “ T h e Ti m e M a c h i n e ” i n a l l t h i s . T h e t e c h i e s a n d their devoted consumers are the Eloi, not cavorting 1940s p l a y f u l l y i n a p a r k a l l d a y, b u t t h e y m i g h t a s w e l l b e , spending all their time pushing electrons around in little devices that convey a sense somewhere between e l f -of g r asimple t i f i c a tjoys i o n a n d m e a n i n g f u l u r g e n c y. I t i s b e s t He wants as life not to consider what might happen if the electricity free of the w spectator e n t o f f .sport of politics,

perhaps the scout’s embrace

When the digital Eloi do participate in three-dimensional , i t ’s o f f t oof tinnocents. he bike trails, properly costumed on we knew ofl iaf ebrotherhood gourmet bicycles, or the gym or the like. Perhaps a And I had changed h i k e a l osince n g a the l o v ewar. l y, w e l l - m a i n t a i n e d t r a i l .

S o m e w h e r e o u t t h e r e h o w e v e r, a r e t h e M o r l o c k s , d o i n g the actual work that enables everything to function.

1950 Someone must grow and prepare the food, build and r e p a i r t h e m a c h i n e s a n d d w e l l i n g s , p l o w t h e s n o w, c l e a n the toilet. Where did that toilet come from, anyway?

Now he was good with men

I nhisWe l l s ’ not s t oinr y, and women, heart it. t h e M o r l o c k s w o u l d o c c a s i o n a l l y emerge from the hidden underground industrial area, For me sexr is o uall n d frustration. up some Eloi and eat them. There was no free lunch. In any post-apocalyptic or emergency scenario Both of us - hate o r jcamp u s t Land i f e drag 101, survival would depend on certain i l l s , the a n dlies. managing email folders or shopping on ebay giggles, buts kmost will not be among them.

1960s

When Ambrose Bierce says “Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths,” he isn’t being merely cynical, assuming one understands that G.B. Shaw is also He had kept my manuscript, not being “merely” cynical: “The power of accurate r v adesk tion is commonly called cynicism by those who (bad poemso bins ehis haven’t got it.”

kindly returned by a succeeding editor)

Post-yuppie liberal correctness, the province of the d i g i t a l E l o i , h a s n e i t h e r u s e f o r, n o r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f cynicism. This is good news for modern-day Morlocks.

E v e r y b o d y ’s g o t t o e a t .

a sentiment still alive.

2012

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“THE NEW McCART Tw o y e a r s a g o t h e Wi k i L e a k s mania came to a head. Senators, congressmen, Canadian politicians and even Sarah Palin were calling for the head of Julian Assange on a s i l v e r p l a t t e r. I n s o m e i n s t a n c e s , that statement was almost literal – To m F l a n n i g a n , f o r m e r a i d t o t h e C a n a d i a n P r i m e M i n i s t e r, was quoted as calling for the man's assassination. It was an hour of paranoia, mud slinging,

misinformation, bloodlust and f e a r. I t w a s , m o r e t o t h e p o i n t , a rare moment where our political l e a d e r s h i p , a s o n e b o d y, s t o o d n a k e d before the mirror of the media and we saw all their flaws, scars and i m p e r f e c t i o n s . We s a w a n a t t i t u d e of insecurity and a hatred for disobedience that Julian Assange quite poetically referred to as a new McCarthyist hysteria.

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Rachael Johnson, the founder and writer of this particular regular feature in Subtopian, has moved on to new challenges and has, to use a familiar comic book expression, hung up the cowl. But the mission continues and the search for a replacement will likely be long, difficult, and bittersweet. Her insight was as keen as her journalistic sense for story and it seems to me that if she were here writing today she would have something important to say about the recent shootings. I guess, like so many heroes hanging up the cape, the responsibility falls to the next in line, the one nearest by, someone fighting the fight beside them. The cowl goes to me until we can find a suitable replacement.

THYIST HYSTERIA�

Yo u c a n s e e i t a l l o n D e m o c r a c y Now's video with Amy Goodman:

cell phones, borrowed cash, and surrounded by an entourage of youthful outlaws who, like Assange, aimed to misbehave. At the time this video was taken Assange was on house arrest, fitted with an ankle m o n i t o r, a n d f a c i n g e x t r a d i t i o n t o Sweden on sexual misconduct charges that some said were trumped up just to get him into jail under any means n e c e s s a r y. A s t h e s a y i n g g o e s , i f y o u can't catch Capone for bootlegging,

h t t p : / / w w w. d e m o c r a c y n o w. o rg / 2 0 11 / 7 / 6 / a _ n e w _ m c c a r t h y i s t _ hysteria_wikileaks_julian In his time in the sun, Assange lived on the run, fleeing to countries off the beaten path of typical western civilization, hiding out in Ecuador for a time, living on disposable 44

regulars hit him with the taxes.

They also showed that the government had worked through the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gather socalled metadata - such as the time, duration and telephone numbers called - on all calls carried by s e r v i c e p r o v i d e r s s u c h a s Ve r i z o n .

Now we turn to the current news.

Edward Snowden, our most recent b a d b o y w h i s t l e b l o w e r, o r i n s o m e c i r c l e s h e r e t i c a l s p y, e n e m y combatant or information terrorist, is on the run, reportedly in Hong Kong and facing a long extradition process.

Like Assange, he took credit for releasing the information and makes no apologies. According to a recent Huffington Post article:

So there it is. Assange, Moussaoui, Hanssen, now Snowden... and there are tons more. What is the line between whistleblowing defender o f l i b e r t y a n d p r i v a c y, t h e m i r r o r o f justice held up to the shady dealings of national leaders, and an enemy spy dealing secrets to men who would h u r t u s w i t h t h e m ? I d o n ' t k n o w.

But I do know that it shouldn't be decided by the men accused of the injustices, the attacks on liberty o r p r i v a c y, o r w h a t e v e r o t h e r aforementioned shady dealings up for debate. That makes as much sense as an accused murderer being allowed to decide what evidence against him is permissible in court. And what do we actually do with accused murderers? Third parties decide what evidence is permissible and the people, a jury of regular folks, determine guilt.

When they catch Snowden they will likely hold some sort of military tribunal or other secret trial. It won't be held in a public court. He won't be judged by his peers. He will be judged by the military leaders, the arbiters of secrets,

He disclosed documents detailing U.S. telephone and Internet surveillance efforts to the Wa s h i n g t o n P o s t a n d B r i t a i n ' s G u a r d i a n n e w s p a p e r.

The criminal complaint was filed i n t h e E a s t e r n D i s t r i c t o f Vi r g i n i a , w h e r e S n o w d e n ' s f o r m e r e m p l o y e r, Booz Allen Hamilton, is located.

That judicial district has seen a number of high-profile prosecutions, including the spy case against former FBI agent Robert Hanssen and the case of al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui. Both were convicted.

'ACTIVE EXTRADITION R E L AT I O N S H I P ' Documents leaked by Snowden revealed that the NSA has access to vast amounts of Internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from large companies such as Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.

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regulars N a t i o n a l S e c u r i t y A g e n c y, o n t h e carpet for what they were doing.

The frightened few that stand to get hurt by these secrets being revealed will call him a coward and a bad A m e r i c a n a n d a t h i e f . I r o n i c a l l y, we could say the same about them.

This bad habit cropping up almost annually in our nation will not go away so long as the strong stay quiet a n d t h e w e a k h a v e t h e i r w a y. p p

and the button pushers behind the missiles. And that seems wrong.

That IS wrong.

Assange was right. In the days of the McCarthyist witch hunts all the power of judgment and punishment w a s i n t h e h a n d s o f a f e w. T h e House Un-American Activities Committee. They had all the power and if you were accused by them you were basically ruined for life. There were no checks and balances against

-----

them because it was a time of fear and paranoia. The kind of moment in history where someone could call, l e t ' s s a y, f o r t h e a s s a s s i n a t i o n o f a n individual and no one batted an eye.

S o u n d s f a m i l i a r. N o t s u r e w h y.

The days of Joseph McCarthy are now remembered as a dark blot on the tapestry of America's honor and c o u r a g e . We l e t o u r f e a r r u n a w a y with us and it ran away with the futures and reputations of thousands.

It happened quite simply because the strong kept silent and the cowards t o o k c h a r g e . We w e r e l e d a r o u n d by a spineless few and the damage they wrought still echoes through our h i s t o r y. A n d w e ' r e d o i n g i t a g a i n .

There are those of us out there that think that what Snowden did was brave. He knew he would be hunted.

He knew he would be accused of serious crimes. He knew he might never go home again. But he did it all anyway because he believed it w a s r i g h t t o c a l l h i s e m p l o y e r, t h e

Arthur to

Brand

know

d o e s n ’t

anything

about

want

you

him.

He

believes strongly in the power of people as individuals and has zero faith in the power of people in large groups. He is suspicious often, angry a l w a y s , a n d d u m b f o u n d e d re g u l a r l y.

He dreams of a free America and h a s n ’t

seen

it

in

his

lifetime.

Sources: h t t p : / / w w w. h u f f i n g t o n p o s t . c o m / 2 0 1 3 / 0 6 / 2 1 / edward-snowden-charged_n_3480984.html

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This month I took some time to Interview Johnathan Burgess about his series of self-publihsed steampunk novels, The Dawnhawk Trilogy, and get his take on writing and the publishing industry.

Kirby: So tell us about your new book, On Discord Isle, and the Dawnhawk Trilogy.

Jonathon: On Discord Isle is the second book in the Dawnhawk Trilogy, a trio of tales that revolve around the airship Dawnhawk and its sky-pirate crew at the beginning of a steampunk age. In this story, the ship’s crew tire of being used as proxies in the personal struggle between their married co-commanders, Captain Fengel and Natasha Blackheart. Committing mutiny, they desert the fractious couple on an island to work out their disastrous relationship issues. However, the place proves far from empty, and before long Fengel and Natasha escalate their conflict to an even more dangerous level, while the crew of the Dawnhawk find that the path they’ve chosen might just doom them all.

Kirby: Why are you interested in writing fantasy as opposed to other genres?

Jonathon: I love fantasy! That’s the heart of it, really. I’ll read something with dragons in it over a dry treatise on the nature of platonic reality any day of the week (I expect this is true of most people). But if I had to give other reasons, I’d say that the sheer freedom appeals to me.

Other worlds and other whens, secret histories or alternate realities, larger-than-life villains and underdog heroes; fantasy lends itself well to all of these things. That’s not even considering the kind of mashups and genre-bending you can create.

Kirby: What inspires you to write and what made you want to become a writer in the first place?

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Jonathon: What inspires me to write? Other artistic work, usually. I’ll watch a movie, read a story, look at a painting that makes me stop and think, “What if that guy went that other way?”

And that question will boil and simmer, and connect with other such questions, until I can’t take it anymore and finally sit down to answer them.

That’s the artistically interesting answer, at least. I’m a fan and a rabid reader first and foremost, though, so occasionally the truth is that I go “goddamnit, why is there no decent sky-pirate steampunk fiction close at hand?Fine. I’m going to write some out!”

As to what made me want to write...I don’t know. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.

Clichéd, but there you go. I’ve strayed over the years, but I always come back to it, in one form or another.

Kirby: You’ve been writing for some years now, what made you turn from trying the traditional publishing route to going indie?

Jonathon: Ohhh. There’s a story, here. Let me tell a part of it, raconteur that I am.

The path to being a traditionally published novelist over the last twenty years has been somewhat obfuscated, but relatively straightforward; write a saleable novel (a topic in itself), get it in front of an agent who likes it (this is not easy), have agent get it in front of an editor who might buy it (even less easy), have editor get internal approval from higher-ups and marketing people (this doesn’t always work, especially today). Get a contract. Haggle over it. Publication at least one year later.

This was what you did. And everything I tried for over two years went towards this process.

Writing query letters, submitting to agents, submitting directly to editors, developing an elevator pitch. Attending conventions to meet people in publishing, etc. And I failed. There was some interest, here and there. A few small successes. But nothing close to my end goal; a novel in the hands of readers.

Still, I persevered. What else could you do? Rejection is expected in the industry. If you don’t have over fifty rejected agent queries, you’re probably not trying hard enough. You’re supposed to sweat for YEARS, up to a decade or more. Finishing a novel and getting a publishing deal right off the bat is impossible, unless you’re a celebrity or a politician.

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So, soldier on. Yet while I did, something was happening. New technology was appearing.

Ebooks were starting to finally get off the ground. The Kindle became a hit. But it was so new and different that no-one knew what to think. No traditional publishers were making ebooks, at least. In fact, the only people who did were the self-publishers. And up until a few years ago, “Self-Publishing” was considered a dirty word in the publishing industry.

And yet.... One day last year, I happened to receive a series of rejections. The first three were query responses from a number of agents I was pursuing. One wasn’t taking on any more clients because of the economy, one wasn’t interested in genre fiction unless I had a Hunger Games rip-off, and the third had somehow conflated my sky-pirate story with Land of the Lost. I’m still trying to figure that last one out.

Then, a week later, I received another submission response. This time from an editor that I’d submitted my work directly to. The turnaround had been three weeks, which is amazingly fast.

The response turned out to be a form letter. But what got me was the subtext. It basically said that if I wasn’t already published, and a best-seller at that, they couldn’t take me on. Economic considerations, hardship, etc.

I had an epiphany. What I really cared about was getting my work before readers. But what I was trying to do was sell to an industry. And that new technology let me reach out to people directly.

Half an hour’s worth of research online told me what I’d need to make an ebook.

So, I allocated some resources, found some freelancers, and started a Kickstarter project. The results were positive enough that I haven’t bothered with the traditional way of things since.

Kirby: What do you think of the world of publishing as a whole? Many people say that print is slowly dying and ebooks are the way of the future, given your experience do you think ebooks are going to replace print?

Jonathon: I think that the traditional world of publishing is a brontosaur (apatosaur?) looking up at a falling meteor, aware that they’re doomed, but not quite sure what they can do about it. Or maybe an old man in a busy subway tunnel that has dropped his keys in the crowd.

Do I think that print books are going away? No. Not in the least. People like physical books. But ebooks are also incredibly convenient, cheap, and still perform the function that they are intended 9

for perfectly. I do think that the traditional New York based houses are seriously threatened by a changing paradigm which they can’t react to.

Seriously, remember the RIAA madness of early last decade? How well they dealt with MP3’s/filesharing? We’re watching it happen again in slow motion. Don’t believe the tale that traditional publishing act as the defenders of fine literature - in the end, it’s all about money. And they are ossified business that don’t know how to innovate. If they did, maybe they wouldn’t currently be mixed up in a lawsuit with the United States Department of Justice for anticompetitive practices.

Borders is dead. Barnes & Nobles is going the same way. When that happens, I think the great publishing houses of yesteryear are going to be exactly that.

Kirby: Is it difficult being an indie publisher? What things do you find yourself doing that you didn’t think you’d be doing or have to do as a writer?

Jonathon: Yes. It is hard. Success and failure for any part of the endeavor is all on you. You’re responsible. Personally. And the readers? They don’t owe you anything. You can write a damned good piece of work(you think), sweat blood and tears and long hours and put it up...only for it to just fall flat. You’re going straight to the market when you’re an indie publisher, and part of that is dealing with the market, like any business has to.

So that means marketing, and advertisement, and distribution. Reaching out to people. It means, really, becoming small businessmen, with all that entails. That’s not something I particularly enjoy, or really expected to do when I set out to publish my novels.

But here’s a secret. That dream everyone has? Where everyone thinks that getting a publisher means that you’re taken care of, that you just write and let someone else deal with all the nasty parts of publication? It’s a lie. It’s always been a lie.

So if I have to do all the marketing and promotion and whatnot as well as the writing, why don’t I arrange the covers as well? Or the price of the book? Or who I want to do the editing? Why can’t I decide when it goes on sale and for how long? And while this is all on me, at the same time, that means I don’t get stuck with a crappy cover, or no marketing, or 15% of the cover price as opposed to 70%.

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Not unless I want to.

Kirby: How can people find your books for purchase and what events might you be currently involved in should people wish to learn more about your work or the world of indie publishing?

Jonathon: The Dawnhawk Trilogy is available in ebook form on Amazon.com, of course. In a few months it will likely be back up on Kobo.com as well. In print, Third Place Books and the Seattle University Bookstore in Seattle , Washington have it in stock. It can also be found at Otherworlds (a VERY cool place) in Edmonds and Village Books in Bellingham, both again in Washington. Down in California, Bookstore Santa Cruz stocks it as well. You can also print off a fresh copy of both novels at any store with an Espresso Book Machine, such as Powell’s City of Books here in Portland . It’s a very neat process that prints a quality paperback in less than three minutes.

Seriously, you can get my novels at Powell’s, the Harvard University Bookstore, and the Library of Alexandria at the same time. How cool is that?

Should you wish to learn more about my work and what I’ve got to say on indie publishing, check out my blog at www.jonathonburgess.com. My Facebook hookup and email address is there as well, and I’m always happy to answer any questions that people have for me.

In the near future I’ll be attending Gearcon 2013 here in Portland , Oregon as a panelist. I’m also scheduled to appear at Steamcon later this year up in Bellevue in the same capacity. I should also be doing some readings at various locales as well. I suggest checking out my site for more up-todate information on any of this.

Kirby: Any parting comments or advice?

Jonathon: Neither method of publication, traditional or independent, matters one bit if you don’t have anything written. Sit. Write. Even if it’s garbage (especially if it’s garbage), get it down.

Then start over. Do it again. Keep writing. pp

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But how did I stumble?

Fengel stared after the airship as it floated away without him. Natasha’s struggles with the net pulled him back and forth, yet all he could do was watch the retreating Dawnhawk. What mistake had he made, to push them so far? Never let them see you stumble. That was his personal motto. So how had he stumbled? Fengel did not know.

Natasha growled as she tried to free herself. She fought with rope mesh until she found the mouth, and stretched it just wide enough to crawl through. Then Natasha pulled herself out onto the hot sand of the beach and clambered to her feet, running into the surf with both fists upraised at the airship.

“You goat-sucking bastards!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “You yellow-bellied cowards! Thieves!

You Goddess-damned sky pirates!” She waded out until the water was waist-high, each wave pushing her back toward the island. Natasha floundered and fought against them, trying in vain to chase after the Dawnhawk.

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Fengel pulled the rope mesh over his head and freed himself. He did not stand, however. Instead, he hugged his legs up to his chest and rested his chin on his knees. His hat lay beside him in the net. He did not put it back on. Why did they get rid of me? I was a good captain, wasn’t I? And I was straight with them, respectable, even when I didn’t feel it. I tried to be fair, to project that image. Image is everything. Never let them see you stumble.

Where did I stumble? Where did I go wrong?

Natasha jumped and beat at the waves, now too far out to stand. She screamed and yelled incoherently.

Fengel glanced at his wife, annoyed at the distraction from his train of thought. Then it hit him like a sledge.

“You,” he whispered. “You’re the one they meant to get rid of.”

Natasha tired quickly. Though mighty, her rage was no match for the ocean. She lashed out once more, sending a light spray of sun-dappled seawater after the retreating airship. Then she collapsed. The waves picked her up and pushed her back to the shoreline. There she lay a moment, gasping and exhausted. Fengel glared as she rolled over onto hands and knees, the surf surging over her.

He leaned forward and jabbed an accusatory finger at her. “You’re the reason they did this.”

Natasha glanced up at him in confusion. “Go drown yourself,” she said reflexively. She staggered to her feet and stretched, puffy blouse now limp and clingy. Natasha ruined the effect by loudly hawking a great gob of mucus and seawater down onto the sand. Then she stalked up the beach towards him.

Fengel climbed to his feet to confront her. Natasha ignored him however, walking past to a small wooden crate that had landed behind them, presumably also left by their mutinous crew. She sat down cross-legged beside it, working at the nailed-down lid with her fingers.

How dare you ignore me? He opened his mouth to give voice to his thoughts and stopped as he took in the panorama past her. The white, sandy beach ended a dozen yards farther inland, stopping at a dense jungle of palms and thick underbrush. Tropical birds flew through the branches and made raucous, high-pitched cries as they went. A mile or so deeper into the isle, the jungle rose to meet the slopes of a great steaming mountain dominating the center of Almhazlik. A ridge descended from both sides of the volcano, running all the way back down to the ocean and encompassing this part of the island shore in a pie-shaped partition maybe half a mile at its widest.

The mountain struck him most of all. Its slope rose up from the jungle to a dimly glowing crag that puffed white clouds off into the bright blue sky, like the boiler steamstacks of his own rogue airship. Weird monoliths dotted the outer skin of it, sharply triangular pillars of rock. One was larger than all the rest. It rose up several 13

hundred feet above the western tree line in a form that could only have been carved by human hands: the shoulders, neck, and reptilian maw of a dragon, all weathered and covered in jungle foliage.

Almhazlik Isle was not as deserted as his crew had believed.

A loud crack brought him back from this discovery. Natasha lay back upon the sand, and was ramming her boot heel down atop the crate. The lid took two blows before breaking inward. Natasha chortled at her success and sat upright to pry aside the broken planks of wood still nailed to the crate.

Fengel refocused on what was important. “It’s true,” he said to her. “It has to be.”

Natasha ignored him. She pulled objects forth from inside the crate; a tinderbox, some rope, foodstuffs.

These she tossed aside. Heavy packets of hardtack and rolls of rock-hard, razor-thin salted jerky landed in the sand between them.

“They meant to get you with the net, but I got caught as well,” he insisted. “They couldn’t let me out without freeing you, so that’s why I’m here. They’ve just flown off to the other side of the island, waiting for me to find them.”

The mound of supplies between them ceased growing as Natasha hit the bottom of the crate. There wasn’t much, enough for maybe a week or more of rough living. His wife gave a cry and sat back happily, holding a dark bottle of rum with both hands.

“What I’m hearing,” she said wickedly, “is denial.” She placed the cork between her perfect teeth and bit with a pressure than Fengel knew could sever fingers. With a hollow noise, Natasha pulled the cork from the bottle and spat it to the sand. “A gentleman has certain standards to maintain,” she mimicked mockingly, “if he doesn’t want his crew to toss him overboard. Oh, I have to look nice and talk like a stodgy Perinese jackass if I don’t want my crew of brigands to find a manlier captain.” She tittered to herself and took a long pull off the bottle.

Fengel felt himself flush. “I am not in denial. You’re the one whose been so Goddess-damned obnoxious that you’ve been pitched by a crew. This is the second time this has happened this year!”

“That was Mordecai,” Natasha growled.

“Oh,” said Fengel with a false lightness. “You’re right. It was the fault of your nasty first mate. You were perfectly innocent.” He hardened his voice. “Probably because you were drunk on a raging four-day bender that left half the men back in port crazed or blind from the pox.”

Natasha glared at him. “You pompous, insufferable bag of wind.”

14

“Floozy.”

“Jackass.”

“Slattern.”

Natasha smiled suddenly.

“Mock me all you want,” she said. “Use that creatively bankrupt brain of yours to come up with all the highsounding insults you can. Do whatever you have to in order to keep looking away from the truth; that Lucian, Henry, and all the rest didn’t want you anymore.”

Fengel froze. He found it hard to breathe. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint tunnel, with Natasha’s mocking smile at the center. She was infuriating. Obnoxious. Dreadful.

And right.

Past the excuses, past his irritation with her, he knew what she said was true. They’ve turned on me. She’s right. And after all that I’ve done for them. His stomach seemed to drop into an abyss. The sky threatened to smother him. He should have known better. They were pirates, after all.

Fengel’s irritation ignited into a burning ball of anger. His face flushed. His monocle fell free. Calmly, he wedged it back into place, deciding to set rationality aside and give an output to this growing rage. It was the only sensible thing to do, after all. He reached out and snatched the bottle of rum from his wife. Flipping it, he caught it by the neck and whipped it down hard at the crate. The glass shattered into dozens of pieces, soaking the wooden box and the pale white sands with rum.

Natasha stared at him in unbelieving startlement. “What’d you do that for?” she cried.

“Because I didn’t want you to have it anymore,” he said smugly.

Natasha screamed and threw herself at him. pp

Watch for the upcoming release of Part Two in the Dawnhawk Trilogy!

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16

“For years now, we’ve been doing the same tired thing. People get old or sick, or they’re born in a terrible place or have an accident, then they die and I go get them. And what do they have to show for their trouble?

That’s right. Nothing. Not a dime.

Now, I know you’re all getting sick of it.

You’re looking for a new approach. I can’t tell you how many times people just like yourselves come up to me and say, GR (that’s what they call me for short, and you can, too, by the way), they say, ‘GR why’s it always the same thing? Why can’t we do things a different way?’ They want

to know why I only show up when people are sad and down? ‘How come,’ they ask me, ‘we never see you when things are good? The graduations?

The baptisms and Bar Mitzvahs? Christmas?

Ramahdan? Earth Day? Why’s it always got to be sad with you?’

Look, I’m no sadness-monger. I wouldn’t mind being around for the good news, too. But the reality is that that’s not going to happen. Let’s keep our eye on reality. Death is not great. I’m the first to admit it. I mean I could go into the advantages of mortality: how it saves the world from overpopulation and disease, how it helps put 17

value on life. I know you all know those things, so I’ll spare you. That said, I have taken your questions to heart. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not heartless.

So, I’ve decided to shake things up, take it right to all of you, my future customers. I’m here to tell you all that I want to be more than just the servant of death. I want to serve other things, like a bottom line—YOUR bottom line.

I’m still going to be that constant force you’re trying to ignore and run from. I’m not going to deny my responsibilities in that arena because, really, that would be impossible. But I want to do more for you. I’m thinking outside of the box and yes, I do mean the coffin. Seriously, folks, it’s time to get away from thinking of death as only a losing proposition. There’s opportunity here. There’s money in it. That’s my message to all of you. That’s what I want you all to leave here with.

Effective immediately, I am going to make it possible for you to make money on the day of your death. Here’s how it works: let’s say you have this feeling that you’re going to die at the age of 80. You make that bet, and if you are right, your kids, or whoever you have in your will, will get a pay-out based on how much you bet. If you live past 80, then you lose your money, but you get to live longer, which I think you can agree is also a win, unless you’re a jerk I guess. If you die early, there is no penalty. You don’t win the bet, but your family will receive the original amount of the wager as a consolation.

It’s that simple.

Look, I understand the doubts and the nay-sayers. I am breaking the mold here. But I’m different from my predecessors. This is a new time, exciting times. Look at me. I’m done with the long gowns and those darn sickles and the old musty thinking that comes along with that get-up. Have you ever tried to drink a latte trying to hold a sickle? Those things are dangerous.

So yes, you can believe it. I’m all about the new. Look at my car. More than a few of you have already commented on it. Death always drives American—right? Isn’t that what you all think? But why should I be relegated to Lincoln Towncars or worse, a Ford Taurus? And why should you? Come on! Don’t be intimidated by the black Beamer shining in the lot; take it as a sign of the wealth that could come to us all if we just play our cards right.

The times they are a changin’, my friends.

People bet on all kinds of ridiculous things: The Nobel prizes, whether or not some poor person in North Carolina will default on his home loan and lose his house. Some people even bet on which way a groundhog will turn. Nuts? Maybe, but those nuts are getting rich. Isn’t it your turn?

So why not make money on something meaningful, like the day you stop breathing?

Death is coming for you. You can’t do anything to change that, but at least you can make some money in the process. You might be a member of the 99%, but if you bet right, after you die, your family won’t be. pp ----G. Martinez Cabrera has had his short fiction featured on the public radio show, VoicesRadio.

His published credits include The Externalist, Verbsap, The Broome Review, Drunken Boat, Segue, Eclectica, and Sparkle & Blink.

He has completed a short story collection, Real Magic Doesn’t Sell, and has produced a graphic novel with the artist, Zac Finger, Ostenspieler & the Book of Faces, that is currently being considered by a number of indie presses.

18

The round stone tower towers above my head with its uneven metallic-gray stones, a 21 st century building, somehow medieval. # Years ago, you heard them talking about the chips they were going to place underneath our skins for identification. “Conspiracy Theorists” hid behind their websites and glasses the way they always have, and “Bible Thumpers” organized groups to fight “the-mark-of-the-beast,” but who, north of the MasonDixon line, was going to believe hell-fire prognostications coming from guys in white suits pimping Jesus dolls? The media debated the various social benefits and uses of the chips, while hob-knobbing for political enemas and facial reconstruction, as usual. Most people where I lived simply didn’t give a damn about the chips. But what nobody--not even Bible-Belt-Bubba--told us was that you’d have to 19

be a fucked-up asshole to choose watching a child starve to death over getting a chip.

I considered, deliberated for a very long time in fact, about whether or not to receive a chip implant, and more importantly, whether or not I was going to allow my family, my wife and two children, to get chips. They even gave us a good fifteen years to be totally prepared. I think a lot of us didn’t want to follow through with it, but then one day, all of a sudden you had to either get a chip or not buy food. # A dark red glow emits from the gray sky, and I can’t discern the top of the tower, only a slight folding that hints at its top. # A few of the southern states, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, fought against the chips, which resulted in a temporary succession of these states, and then –- nothing. No one that I knew of traveled to those states afterward, and there weren’t any reports concerning the status of the state governments or citizens. Not even a squeak about the states from the media after November 11, 2067.

I thought the states were nuked, but I never knew. No one talked about it, not even alternative news sources, since the whole world used chips. I felt sure other areas around the world had rebelled, but of course, the media never discussed that either.

I might have left Pennsylvania and joined the southern states had I known everything, even if it had meant death. But once I didn’t go, well, I couldn’t think of anything worse than watching my babies starve to death. I remember looking at my wife Caroline sitting on our bed, her head drooped to where I couldn’t see her expression, but could just feel it, a look of sheer terror at the thought of our baby, then only six months old, starving to death. Chips were unimportant compared to that look on her face. # I am now inside the tallest part of the tower. # Chips were mandatory, and people didn’t discuss them. Period. No colons: life went on. I mean there had been surveillance in stores, satellite views of streets, and tracking devices in phones and merchandise for decades. In theory, chips were no different. Little changed, day-to-day or even politically, but the difference hovered so subtly yet magnanimously that it caused me physical pain to walk down the street and sense it -- a feeling, hesitation, a subterfuge, so much worse than worrying about World War III or “terrorist” attacks or prostate cancer. It was as if the whole world gasped toxic air, a dormant 20

contamination thicker than smog, capable of enveloping humanity in exponential wretchedness. But somehow, some way, we all knew not to talk about it. We knew the future looked grim, but we said nothing, as usual.

Helter-skelter and holocaust had never usurped the passive will of society, so we continued to do nothing. The perfect apathy of the world system had atrophied within each individual. I wondered what might happen to all of us with these chips, these alien things in our collective body. Who knew what “they” could do, and who knew who “they” were? The fears developed their own complexes until surveillance seemed just as likely to hover in Bagel Shops as inside the bagels, as on the little blackflecked grains in the concrete, the reflections on spoons, the wicks in candles. I could neither confirm nor deny. # Lots of people, dirty, crying, starving, and half-naked are reaching toward the opening of the tower. # In the midst of mass “delusion,” we made jokes about it. The biggest running joke was that some omniscient Big Brother watched and controlled everything. Sure, there were a few people--mostly big fat bald men--who held more money and power than Joe and Jane Blow, but they were mostly interested in having more things, just like the rest of us. Consumerism was the Universal Paradigmatic Monster that could take all forms and didn’t care a whit about the big three -- class, gender, and race, let alone some fictitious archetype.

We all knew there was no such thing as Big Brother because that social condition would have been a familiar, almost safe place to be. What pervaded into our minds held no safety whatsoever. Everyone smelled the noxious possibility of fallout, or worse, chaos without destruction. Either way, entropy loomed, and we all turned schizophrenic, seeing red signs in the blackest of skies. # I stand on top of the tower, and I fall down, down into the sky that brightens from blackened red to a gentler hue of purple and orange. # Orwell would have rolled over in his grave if he knew how easily mass media brainwashed us. How we all simply begged for the technology with which to be brainwashed, to spend our time being brainwashed and following through with the brainwashing of others by working and purchasing, purchasing, purchasing. Orwell was a genius, no doubt, but he didn’t figure that the pigs would be too 21

busy stealing from one another to develop any grand scheme about the drones. He couldn’t have known that all of the surveillance in the world would be controlled by different people looking for different, specific things, some just for purchasing trends -- perhaps the propensity for a middle-aged woman to buy a purple vinyl mini-skirt? # I am flying. #

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, including my mealy-mouthed-advertised self, had a damn camera on his person 24-fucking-seven, and all of us watched those nauseating reality TV shows. What was left after seventy years of that mind-numbing vicarious horseshit? One last straw held captive in billions of pixels.

It turned out the chips weren’t just for identification. We didn’t have Big Brother on screens in our private rooms because we were already watching ourselves. You can only split the hair once: We were Big Brother. # It’s 2084.

-----

Jennifer Hollie Bowles writes poetry, horoscope columns, fiction, essays, and sometimes even op-ed.

Her first full-length poetry book, Anarchy in a Dresser, is forthcoming in early 2014. As a child, Jennifer was fed conspiracy theories for breakfast by her Southern belle Grandmother, and while she doesn’t believe that Jesus is coming, she still doesn’t trust the government.

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Artist Spotlight

Loren Kantor Woodcut Afficionado Talks Us Through Rare

and

Ancient

Art Form

The Process:

My interest in woodcuts began in the 80’s when I attended a German Expressionist art show at LA County Museum. I encountered the woodcut prints and paintings of George Grosz, Kathe Kollwitz and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. I was mesmerized. I loved the stark lines and bold imagery. I was also blown away by the dark subject matter. Characters expressed emotional angst and the images focused on the violent and unpleasant aspects of society. I was writing screenplays in those days and I never envisioned attempting woodcut carving myself.

But the images remained in my subconscious and whenever I saw a woodcut print I felt a sense of excitement.

In 2007, my wife surprised me with a woodcutting set for my birthday. I checked out a few online tutorial videos and I dove in, head first. The

24

a

carving process was difficult at first. I cut myself often, the blocks were ragtag and I felt like a kindergartner with his first set of fingerpaints. But before long I got the hang of it.

I’ve always been attracted to classic writers and old movies. I decided to carve images inspired by older artworks since we needed art for our walls at home.

When carving the woodcuts, the process begins when I find an old photo or image that I like. From this image I make an initial pencil sketch which I then transfer to a wood or linoleum block. I use standard woodcutting blades and gouges and other odd tools (awls, dental implements, sewing needles.)

Once the image is carved I clean the block, apply a thin layer of ink and hand press the image on archival paper using a Japanese Baren (a bamboo tool that look kind of like an air-hockey paddle). The entire process takes 40-50 hours depending on the size and complexity of the image. If I make a major mistake I have to start over. Minor mistakes I live with; they add to the organic nature of the print.

The process is slow and meditative. I’ll put on music, immerse myself in the carving and hours will go by in a flash.

In these days when everything is moving so fast it’s nice to have an activity that forces me to relax. I guess woodcutting has become my personal yoga.

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the Artist Loren Kantor is a Los Angeles-based Woodcut Artist and writer. He worked in the film industry for 20 years as a screenwriter and assistant director. He is a huge fan of iconoclastic American Writers and Classic Cinema. He’s been carving woodcut images for the past five years. check out his blog at woodcuttingfool.blogspot.com/

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27

dystopia

THIS IS NOT A DRILL --

BIG BROTHER REALLY IS WATCHING THIS TIME...

BY

TREVOR D. RICHARDSON 28

dystopia

The simple fact that a dissentor in this country had to flee for his life, go underground, embrace the life of a fugitive, and escape to Hong Kong pretty much says it all. He’s been branded a traitor and accused of treason, threatened with the fullest extent of the law – a punishment reserved for men who traded state secrets with the enemy, information that could win or lose wars, that would end the lives of American soldiers or put politicians at risk of assassination. Tom Clancy kind of stuff. A traitor is someone that would tell your iconic Russian bad guy where the plans were going to be located on such and such a date or just steal them and hand them over.

But what did Edward Snowden do to put him in the category of those worthy of the death penalty for betraying their leadership and their homeland? Did he give up information that put the president’s life at risk? Did he steal plans for advanced weapons technology and sell them to Iran? Oh, I know, maybe he told the Taliban where to find our soldiers in the field and got them ambushed?

to those motivations. No moral or ethical ramifications will be considered. No question of whether or not the perceived enemy may be right. Instead they will act to preserve their ranks, to hold on to their power, and to fear, beyond what even reason might hold for them, all that is not of their own kind.

No. Nothing like that. He told the press that US citizens were being spied on by their own people.

The whistleblower, the betrayer, is just a young man with ideals. He made a conscious choice, plotted over many years. He was recently answer questions via Twitter for The Guardian, the same publication that published his original story, and said a lot of intriguing things. For those who don’t know, Edward Snowden has known about the shadowy truths behind “Prism” for much longer than just the past few weeks of revelations and running.

Snowden has known about the lies that girded the darker truth behind the program for many years and planned to out the project since his discovery. When asked why he didn’t tell people about the NSA program sooner he said what we all did. He felt hope for positive change when Obama was elected president.

He thought he might not have to do this very hard thing, that maybe this new, idealistic president would do it for him.

He told the world that the US government is acting more like the bad guy than the hero.

And they responded like all good villains do.

They rallied the troops. They called for his arrest and his silence. Ultimately, like all violent men, they responded with violence.

Or, at the very least, the threat of it, the desire for it... as a hammer can only crush, they reacted with the only tool, the only purpose known to them. A hammer doesn’t grow. It doesn’t learn. It cannot improve or discern.

It merely crushes nails, blindly performing the function it was designed for. A leadership motivated by self-preservation, paranoia, and power will always respond according

But that was not the case. If anything, the Obama administration tightened the noose.

Increased surveillance, granted more powers to the program and those like it, and ended investigations into the unconstitutionality of these endeavors. Now, after a second term of this administration confirmed, he decided it was him or nobody. And the truth had to come out. So he did it. He told the world and now he’s running for it. This is not the story of a traitor against America, it’s the story of a revolutionary standing up for her. You might disagree. You might talk about the risks he’s put us at by revealing to the world or our enemies how our intelligence operations 29

dystopia

work. I might counter by saying that your fear of that notion is what has empowered this leadership to take things so far that they are listening to conversations, monitoring Google, or tracking Facebook updates. What has been quoted so many times before and was maintained by Snowden himself is a now infamous line from Benjamin Franklin.

be much more than that. The NSA through programs such as PRISM and subsequent programs, BLARNEY and Boundless Informant, allow for combined access to internet community information ranging from cloud data, metadata, anything on Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft, all foreign information funneled through US internet infrastructure (a vast majority runs through the US as it is cheaper, albeit not always the most direct). In otherwords, like the whole freaking internet is in their clutches now. Furthermore, it wasn’t just being accessed it was being stored part of a vast information gathering project which Snowden perceived as an attack on privacy and Democracy.

“He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.”

Maybe you’ve heard it said before, but freedom isn’t easy, it isn’t safe, an it isn’t something to take for granted. It can go away in an instant, or even more likely, in little bites over time. It is the responsibility of the free to protect their freedom. It is also the burden of the free to embrace the challenge and, yes, even the danger. Being free to make your own choices, to enjoy your life, your thoughts, your privacy and your own mind, means a lot of the hazards of living fall on your shoulders, not someone in a position above you. To relinquish the weight of that burden is to relinquish your rights to freedom.

That’s what this Ben Franklin quote is all about. That’s what this choice from Edward Snowden stands for. He says the privacy, the individuality, like the risk of destruction, are mine and not to be trifled with by politicians, spies or police. Period.

So you want our look at Dystopia for the month? There it is. Big Brother really, truly, absolutely is watching you. It isn’t a metaphor anymore. It isn’t a joke. It doesn’t matter if you think you have nothing to hide or you question the merit of these claims.

It’s real. And on principal alone you should be outraged. You are being monitored, with every piece of technology the people in charge have available to them. It doesn’t matter what they find, it matters that they’re watching without your permission. It’s that simple. pp -----

Trevor D. Richardson is the founder of the Subtopian, author of American Bastards and the upcoming Dystopia Boy.

But what are the claims? What did Snowden actually disclose? It wasn’t weapons plans or locations, this isn’t a Bond film. If anything, it’s an Orwell novel.

Prism, the NSA’s civilian surveillance program, presented itself as a system that could be use to delve into internet and cell phone records during an investigation. It was approved of by legislation on these grounds but was revealed by Snowden to 30

31 13

Down with DOMA and Putin says “You’re Gay!”

David Renton 3214

UTOpia

We have good news and bad news this month: First the good, the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act and for those who don’t know what that is, it’s simple, the federal government used to say that marriage was a pact that could only be made between a man and a woman. Now they say it’s not that simple. They haven’t gone so far as to legalize gay marriage nationwide, but they have stepped out of the argument for those states that choose to legalize it.

What that means is the federal government has finally woken to at least one truth about democracy. They have yet to learn many others, but we have witnessed them learning this one: what a free citizen chooses to do with their lives, family, or love is not the concern of a democratic government. It does not matter what the beliefs of the politicians may be. It does not matter how they view the constitution or the “institution of marriage.” What matters is it is none of their business and never, ever was. The debate should never have occurred because the authority in this area of civilian life is not theirs, it is ours – more specifically, yours. Yours alone.

accusations was swift and generally consisted of a lot of “I ain’t no homo,” and “My wife says otherwise.” But China, and the rest of the world at large is not convinced. Passing this bill told the world everything they needed to know about us.

Irani leadership said, “We knew that whole Iraqi invasion thing was just compensating for something.”

And you should have seen the UN this week!

It was a back and forth battle of homoerotic mudslinging and macho demonstrations of one’s manhood and uber heterosexuality. The whole thing has caused tensions to mount world wide as America, the global leader, slides backward into immorality and what some have deemed “unnatural behaviors.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying, “I knew America was queer.”

And we can’t even print what Kim Jung Un had to say.

Schoolyard accusations aside, let’s try our best to put a positive spin on these troubling events, Unfortunately, the bad news is this also means ladies and gentlemen. that all of the Republicans’ worst fears have finally been realized. Now that we have all but This facet of a glimpse at Utopia is a simple legalized same sex marriage the world leaders one, and in need of very little analysis. In have spoken out and says this is proof positive simple terms, our government woke to realize that we’re all gay. In a recent press release, that it was meddling in the affairs of its people President of the People’s Republic of China, in a way that was neither necessary or, in my Xi Jinping, stated, “We knew you guys were all opinion, constitutional. And so they had the fags.” wisdom and the grace to bow out. We will see what states come forward in liberating the The statement went on to say that overturning people to do as they wish, but I take great hope the Defense Against Marriage Act was a and comfort in the federal end of things being confirmation of our national weakness, our love simplified. This coming in right after the recent of cock, and (it’s difficult to translate) the closest NSA controversy in which Edward Snowden, approximation to the last part is a “general limp whistleblower, implicated our government in wrist-edness.” The Republican outcry to these monitoring private citizens without a warrant, 33

utopia but I will take the encouragement and relief One man’s hijacking of democracy is another where I can get it. woman’s tireless defense of her personal choice, rights and liberty.

You may also have heard about Senator Wendy Davis’ fillibuster of new abortion restrictions We must never mistake the person stopping the in Texas. big wheels from turning for someone stopping The woman talked for more than eleven hours democracy from working.

Halting a vote to prevent the passing of legislation that would in the Senate is not the same as stopping the severely limit the woman’s right to choose democratic process. The democratic process pregnancy in the state of Texas. To prevent is what happens when someone stands up to the vote she had to speak until midnight, which defend what they believe in or argues for those she did, and, of course, the governor promptly who can’t do it for themselves. The entire called another special session to push the vote concept of representative government is that through anyway. Wendy Davis says she plans to a few represent the needs and rights of the fillibuster again and the governor claims to be many. Rick Perry and those like him may be ready for such an event, whatever that means. doing that, or they may be fighting for what they themselves believe in, I don’t know, but I In a recent CBS News article, it was reported will say that Davis’ fillibuster is not a hijacking that Texas governor Rick Perry referred to her of democracy, it is democracy incarnate. The fillibuster as “mob tactics” and “nothing more true spirit of democracy is, and always has than the hijacking of the democratic process.” been, rebelling against the system to state the truth of our time. Systems, order, and law are Interesting words, considering that the fillibuster mechanized by nature, democracy is the urge to is a longstanding part of the democratic process break up that mechanism when it is trampling and has been used by parties on both side of the the real people on the ground. For this reason aisle since the beginning of our nation. You ever it will always be chaotic, but that doesn’t make hear that old chestnut about freedom fighters? it wrong.

It’s that thing where people say, “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.” Or This month’s Utopia is simple. Some of our maybe it’s the other way around. The point is, leaders, not all of them, have come to understand there’s a sort of transitive nature to the words that less is more. Get out of the way and let we use that hinges heavily on your own point of people live... and let the chips fall where they view. For example, if someone had fillibustered may. That’s it. That’s the real truth to how for a cause that somehow synched up with Rick to live, how to rule, and how to be free. No Perry’s beliefs he would have called that person matter what you think your god has to say or a guardian of democracy and a hero. But, since what you’re afraid your neighbors will think or they disagree, she’s hijacking democracy and how gay Benjamin Netanyahu says you are the his enemy. This is why the question of whether answer is always the same. Less is more. Just or not humans can self-govern has been raised let it be. pp time and time again since the days of Greece. We are incapable of looking at an issue beyond our own perspective, belief systems and agendas.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. One man’s rebel is another man’s saint.

34

When Good Food Goes Bad Bobby Flay ran into his bedroom, panting wildly, his heart like the war drums of a tempest. No place to hide.

He looked around the room.

with the reflexives of a scared little boy he jumped under the bed. He pushed himself up against the wall and into the fetal position, wrapping his arms around his legs.

The heaviest. The dresser.

Bobby Flay lay quivering under his bed, where he and his wife sleep every night. The silence there was profound, so great was it that it

He jumped to one side of the old oak dresser and with all of his might he pushed it in front of the door. Then 35 33

dissolved the noise of his breathing.

All there was was the silence. One minute, two minutes, a millennium.

And then like the beating of his heart in the first sentence came a horrendous pounding at the bedroom door.

got it open, and he then tried to pull the window up, but with no luck. He jumped around franticly.

“You are going to die Bobby Flay!!!”

The voice cried.

“I’m Bobby Flay, my ratings are too good for me to die.”

Bobby Flay whimpered like a little girl, even peed himself a little. “I’m Bobby Flay,” he cried, “I’m too cocky and arrogant to die!”

The trembling chef picked up the stool from his wife’s vanity. He used it to smash in the window until there was no glass. Bobby Flay put one leg though through the window and was sitting on the seal when he looked at the door.

But his girlish cries did not stop the pounding, it continued, until there was the sound of a lighter thud, then another, then another.

There in the center was a hole the size of a human head. Through this hole and onto the dresser popped a featherless, skinless, footless, headless, chicken—wielding a kitchen knife.

Bobby Flay tired to be brave and inched forward, just enough to see the door.

Thud Thud Thud, and with each thud Bobby Flay’s body jerked until he shrieked like a banshee at the large kitchen knife coming through the

The hole in its neck where the head was once attached opened and closed as it spoke. The small FDA approved poultry extended its wing and pointed the blade at the chef. “Now, Bobby Flay, I will cook you!!!!!”

door, then it came through again and again. And between stabs of the knife through the wood came a voice with a bad Japanese accent.

“Bobby Flay, you cannot hide from me,” stab, “I will get you, Bobby Flay,” stab, “you will die, Bobby Flay.”

Bobby Flay screamed and then jumped out the window. He fell down to the side of his house and landed in the bushes. Moans escaped him as he crawled out. An old pine tree acted as a place for Bobby Flay to lean, but only for a few moments, as the

Bobby Flay quickly got out from under the bed and leaped to the window, he fumbled with the lock but 36

Bobby Flay ran through woods, all with the chicken chasing him in the trees, from branch to branch. He cackled with mock delight, scrapping his fork and knife together. Sparks burst from each clink of metal, monetarily illuminating Bobby Flay.

chicken followed, hollering “Banzi” as he fell.

Bobby Flay bolted faster than a Jew across Nazi Germany. He huffed and puffed through the trees and into the hills. The moonlight came through and its beams acted as a guide through the trees and growing fog.]

Out of the trees and past a corn field, over a fence, down a road, up steps; Bobby Flay jerked open the farm house door and jumped inside, slamming it hard behind himself.

If you were awake that night, you could hear a faint voice float through the night air.

Standing there in the dark was Emeril Lagasi holding the chicken under his arm. Emeril shouted “Bam!” and then kicked Bobby Flay in the testicles.

“I’m Bobby Flay, my wife’s too smoking hot for me to die.”

Bobby Flay got far too tired and stopped a moment to rest. Moonlight seeped through the trees, casting spider shadows on the ground. The wind blew gently, making the leaves rustle a night melody.

Bobby Flay fell into a hole in the floor and then deep into darkness, he landed hard on something.

“I’m Bobby Flay, I’m too much of an ass hole to die.”

It’s a chicken, just a chicken, that’s all. I could just kick it and that would be it. Why am I running?

And then came the heat, blistering.

Then the fire, all around the giant plate he had landed on. The laughter came, deep, no, deeper Japanese accent. The chicken rose from the flames, two hundred feet tall. He laughed and laughed, stiffening then pointing his huge knife at Bobby Flay.

Bobby Flay stood up. Then came the laughter. He jumped around to see where the laughter was coming from.

It was deep and blunt; Bobby Flay looked up to see the chicken standing on a tree branch.

“You look delicious Bobby Flay!!! I will eat you now!!!! Hahahahahaha!!!!

Superfluous exclamations!!!!

Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!”

Dear God! He was in the Trees! That’s amazing, I mean, how did he get up there? Chickens can’t fly!

37 37 35

At that moment Alton brown jolted up out of his bed with a short scream, his body covered in cold sweat.

“What—what is it?” his wife said, sitting up a little next him and putting her arm on his shoulder.

“Oh god,” he said, wiping his head, “I had another one of those damn dreams.”

“Not Bobby Flay again.”

“Yeah, I’m going to have to call doctor Huffman today.”

Despite popular misconception, Kirby Light isn’t real. He’s an illusion. He’s been published in various online and offline magazines and you can find his ebooks “Cheap Thrills and Night Terrors” and “No Solace for the Innocent” on the Kindle store

“Just lay down and go back to sleep.”

Alton sighed and cracked his neck.

“No, it’s almost six. I’ll just stay awake. Maybe…make some crapes.” pp

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poetry

Holly Day The Photographer’s Notes so profound, your disfigurement, I can’t help but wonder if once you were pretty, whole, perhaps in that long before when you were prepubescent, a child, before you grew into the angry adult with all the bumps and scars on the inside. did once friendly hands friendly eyes, friendly voices look into your innocent eyes and see the happy, beautiful baby you were? struggling to stifle the screams, the lost dreams, labored breath labored breath clinging to damp, dying lungs, struggling to spit out those last angry words at my retreating back, I think about that lost child I want to be buried deep inside you, still, somewhere in that dark fog I married, I want him to be there.

39 13

poetry

The Seamstress

she makes her quilts out of institutional clothes, squares cut from blue paper pants and orange jumpsuits. she snips carefully to center bloodstains that won’t wash out buttonhole stitches the outlines of cigarette burns appliquÊs name tags of the released against those of the more fortunate dead.

40 14

For Now

every Halloween I get to see a cavalcade of police cars in my yard, oh Midwest police are so strong and steady, I know my neighbors are glad to see them there. Oh no, my best friend on TV just found a gun now you should knock first before coming in here. I know, I should have warned you that we were considering gun options but lost all track of time in the shopping, the choosing.

I know, you and I, we were once so close we could have exchanged skins, identities, but this new friendly friend of mine, beamed flat and bright on the screen from a station somewhere else is company enough. He’s more than enough.

41 41

The Things I Know

I read headlines about cannibals living in plain sight, drunk driving accidents, children bringing guns and knives and drugs to school and I wonder how I’m supposed to send him out there when five years old seems much too young to see this world.

I read headlines about priests charged with raping boys daycare providers caught with child pornography school janitors hiding secret murders for years trusted neighbors with basement torture chambers, and I wonder how they can ask me to let him go when it seems my whole life has been about hiding from the monsters waiting for us just beyond the door.

42 42

The Very Last Drop

on the last day, when the world finally ends, I hope I’m sitting in my car, driving somewhere nice, thoughts of the day ahead filling my head with anticipatory joy. I hope my favorite song is playing on the radio, and I hope that I have just enough time to sing along all the way to the end of the song. if the world was to truly end on a perfect note, then I would have a cup of coffee by my side hot but not too hot, and just enough to last until the very last second. I don’t really care how it all ends, so long as I don’t know it’s coming, so long as I don’t have to think about it, have to prepare for it, have to dread it in any way. I don’t want to live through global starvation, a prolonged, senseless war, weeks of television shows featuring children dying somewhere else.

I want the end to be something nobody saw coming but the sandwich-board prophets, standing crazy on street corners, waving their dirty fists up at the sky as if at some god up there was glaring down at the earth, making maniacal plans to destroy everybody and everything we’ve taken so comfortably for granted.

I want to end up like those mammoths dug out of rock ice in Russia found completely intact, flash frozen, with food still in their mouths caught by disaster in mid-chew, mid-thought completely surprised.

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MORE

Robert A. Davies Bluff Hollow At the corner of Bluff and Folsum a high picket fence meets a maple stump with a hole cut in it for entrance.

A gate seems to open, peering spaces through its woven sticks.

Come in, it seems to say but you don’t go in.

Maybe you would see a house built close to the ground and behind it a carriage house facing a charming alley, all so familiar in Boulder.

Beyond the gate shadows on trackless snow a mysterious invitation.

You won’t go in.

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Snapshots of My Grandmother My grandmother walks in, pauses briefly at the dining room table, passes.

We almost smother our giggles.

Years later, older than she I recall and see her knowing grin.

Scrunched under the round table we straddle the lion’s claw feet myself, my sister, my cousin.

No one will discover us eating raisins snatched from the pantry.

After cleaning my bloody nose my first fight (at age 11) my grandmother teaches me to make a fist fingers surrounding my thumbs.

It is years before I learn otherwise.

In my grandparent’s bedroom I am very happy to shellac the floor.

She shows me how to use the brush.

As we walk to the Ave, my grandmother holds on to me and I match her steps.

She is very frail.

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The Critic’s Critic

Superman, Man of Steel, and the Man of Tomorrow Today

by Trevor D. Richardson

Here's what I want to say about Man of Steel: If your argument is based on the Christopher Reeve movies get out. It's not 1978 anymore, the world moved on and when it did a few things happened all at once. First, your beloved Superman became really campy and has, in the past three decades, been reduced to a smoldering turd. Next, people want different things from their superheroes now and a grinning idiot in a spandex suit pulling cats out of trees ain't it.

People want epic, they want speed, they want concussive bursts of flight and they want raw, streamlined power not lithe, whispy gliding in the clouds with a chain smoking dame that can't spell and is somehow the best reporter in the world... yeah, not seeing it.

Also, if your only complaint about the movie was that the action was too excessive get out.

It's action, by it's very nature it is too excessive.

That's what makes it action. If it isn't excessive it's not action, it's drama, or worse, every day life. Action is escapism from reality because of its gratuity. You don't get to blow up buildings or smash cars in normal life because you have to pay the bills or... damages. That's why the excessive is so fun. So, if you have a problem with action you probably shouldn't be watching superhero movies anyway and therefore your argument is invalid.

Really, just get out. As a general statement.

I've heard a lot of arguments and a lot of reviews on this movie and I feel like everyone is missing the point entirely.

For one thing, any review that is saying how this one is untrue to “the original” doesn't know squat. The original was untrue to the original.

The entire canon on Superman is inconsistent, over the past seventy years it's been rewritten more times than I feel like counting. It's been 46

The Critic’s Critic “done to death,” then killed and brought back to life again. There are varying back stories, some in direct contradiction to each other. In one comic story line Superman's dad is still alive, in another he is dead from a heart attack. In this one, he's killed by an effing tornado which is both bad ass and a huge pillar in the architecture of the new story.

So there.

All the changes these old fart critics don't like because they're different from the Donner film were smart changes that expanded the story, gave it power, legs to stand on and above all, logic. The old story is so full of logical fallacies it makes my chest hurt trying to think about tracking them all. For example, I never understood why Jor El would allow himself and his wife to die simply because he was told to keep his mouth shut about the planet blowing up or it would be considered “insurrection.”

Marlon Brando's Jor El says, “I promise that neither I nor my wife will ever leave Krypton.”

Here's my thing. If I have a choice between saving my wife, myself, and my son or being a liar I will lie to the whole freaking world.

I would lie, steal, and commit all kinds of insurrection all over a system that was too corrupt and irresponsible to recognize the world literally crumbling below its feet and I would be flying away on a ship of my own design that was, hey, big enough for three. But Brando's Jor El would rather let an entire world perish, with him and his wife still on it, than break the rules.

This never made sense to me, even as a kid.

This new Jor El fights to save his people. He fights to save his son. He fights to defend the honor of his homeland and the memory of his race and he is killed in the fight before the planet starts to burn. That, for me, was smarter, cooler, more action packed, and, like I said, more logical. Kind of important when you're a writer, that whole logic thing. But the critics are complaining that the Krypton stuff was too long,

or that it changed the story too much, or that it was too “sci-fi.” What? Nevermind the fact that it made the story better, let's complain about change, let's stay set in our ways and pretend its still 1978 and Marlon Brando is still anything other than a dead slob that ruined several movies by being fat and rude. Lets do that.

I would like to say, just for the record, that this issue of old movie critics and their inflexibility in the face of a next generation take on old standards is more than just why I wanted to start “The Critic's Critic,” it is a metaphor for everything that is wrong with this country. We are being led around by old decrepit bastards who are unable to make way for the next generation, for the new take on American standards... who are still making like it's 1978.

Catch my meaning? I have no better defense for the purpose and importance of death than the fact that it makes way for new ideas, new dreamers, and better Supermen. End speech.

In conclusion, on the topic of comparing Man of Steel (2013) to Superman (1978), just stop, you're embarrassing yourself. Heroes evolve just as much as audiences. If you want to see a robber-fighting, cat-rescuing Superman I'm pretty sure you can get Donner's flick on DVD. If you want to see a modern Superman with modern powers, a modern attitude, and a logical development go see this.

Now, to the other criticisms. I've heard people complain that this was too much of “an alien movie, not enough superhero.” News flash: Superman is a freaking alien. He comes from a planet called Krypton. It has space ships and one of them even crash lands on earth where the passenger is found and raised by farmers called the Kents. If you haven't heard of this stuff then maybe reference any Superman thing ever made going back to 1938. That's all I have to say on the subject. Superman = alien. So if you don't like that there's alien stuff in this movie you're a moron who doesn't understand Superman and maybe you should go watch the Donner flick 47

The Critic’s Critic with the old fogies and be quiet.

The further point is this: there are many misconceptions you have about fiction that is based on flawed pop culture. Darth Vader never said, “Luke, I am your father.” That's not the line... for example. In all of the literature, Sherlock Holmes never said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” That was a gimmick created for television. Dorothy's ruby slippers were originally silver. Ingrid Bergman never said, “Play it again, Sam.” The line was “Play it, Sam, play 'As Time Goes By.'” Should I go on?

Wait.

One more thing on the Donner movie and then I swear I'm done with it. It's really bad. It's seriously bad. Lex Luthor is an idiot who hangs out with idiots. Lois Lane is a chain smoking moron who talks out of one side of her mouth and manages to be both totally unattractive and a damsel in distress love interest. The romantic relationship is grossly underdeveloped. Supes always has that shit-eating grin for no good reason. His Clark Kent is a white guy Steve Urkel that never saw a farm a day in his life.

And it is so utterly riddled with corny moments that would never happen in reality (I refer you to Lex Luthor managing to reprogram nuclear launch codes by pretending to be a lost truck driver) that the movie is threatening to crush under the weight of its own absurdity. Oh, yeah, and don't forget, there's a random pimp inexplicably hanging out in front of the Daily Planet who compliments Superman's costume by saying, “Say, Jim, that's a bad out-FIT!”

What I'm trying to say is almost everything you think you know about Superman is wrong because most people only have one source for reference: Christopher Reeve in the spandex gym suit. There is much more to the character, there have been many more writers, and most of them were better than what we got in that movie.

Sorry, it's just the truth.

Other arguments for Man of Steel against the critics: Product placement.

The implication, Superman's totally Pimp... even the pimps say so.

People are complaining about product placement, especially in the Smallville fight. To this I have one remark. Have you seen America?

Our country IS product placement. It would be an innacurate depiction of this country to leave the Sears and IHOP out of the shot. I want you to picture a fight in Times Square and then I want you to imagine yourself complaining that you saw Virgin Megastore, Red Lobster, Coca Cola and M&Ms in the background. Then I want you to picture yourself beating the shit out of that version of yourself because that self is an idiot. That's what Times Square looks like. Now I want you to understand something.

The fight is in a small town in Kansas. That's midwest America. Do you know what midwest America looks like? What isn't farm land and billboard signs is Applebee's, IHOP, Sears, Dairy Queen, and 711. Why do you think so many people from Podunk, Illinois think the best pizza on the planet is Pizza Hut? It's literally all there

It's not a good movie so stop defending it.

Okay, I feel better. I've wanted to get that off my chest for years. The thing is, I'm not a Superman hater. I know that movie so well because I watched it four million times as a child. I wore the red cape. I had arguments with my mother about the flaws in the story as a six year old kid. I recall her insisting that the emblem on his chest was just an “S” and me insisting that it only looked like one, but was actually a symbol from Krypton (why else would Marlon Brando have it on his chest at the beginning of the movie? Why would his symbol be “S” when his name is El? Makes no sense.)

Anyway, the point is, I loved that movie once, but I have moved on and so should everyone else.

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The Critic’s Critic is there, they wouldn't know a brick oven pizza if it slapped them in the face. In other words, the product placement was accurate, hilarious, and, in my opinion, nothing to be ashamed of... if they had Supes holding a McDonalds cup taking a big sip and going, “That's what I'm talking about,” then we can have a conversation, but they didn't so we're done. Next argument.

The movie is too dark, too slow, or too humorless.

Um... that's DC Comics. Did you see the Dark Knight movies? The only thing that made those movies bearable was the brief instances in the second one where you pretty much have the Joker going, “Wow, this movie is too dark, too slow, and too humorless... I'm going to make this pencil disappear.”

That Batman is emo, stiff, stoic, downtrodden, and navel-gazing, but somehow listening to him whine about it for a year while listening to Dashboard Confessional is art. Watching Superman work out his daddy issues on Zod's face... that's not light-hearted enough. What the hell, man? Superman is an incredibly serious character by necessity. If he loses his cool for an instant, I mean a split second, people get killed. If people get killed then people get afraid of him. If people get afraid of him they attack him and then it's war on Superman. Everybody fails to realize the level of responsibility this guy maintains every single second of every single day just by living around us. Imagine you have to write a note on a piece of paper because you're a reporter and it's your job. Duh. Now imagine the pen is made from that crap they make those hard shells at Taco Bell out of, you know what I'm talking about. And the note is being written on that weird crumbly wax paper you get at Chinese food restaurants with like sushi or whatever.

Now write your note and don't break anything or people will assume you're a freak. This is what I'm talking about. Every action, every movement is a controlled gesture, you can't hold

on too tightly to Lois, even in the adrenaline rush of saving her, or you'll crush her. You can’t shake your boss’ hand too tightly or you’ll break it, but too loosely and he’ll think you’re a pussy.

And don’t even get me started on that goddamn cat in the tree.

But that's only one part of it, never mind just staying poised in the physical gestures or you blow your cover or crush the guts out of your girlfriend like a tube of tooth paste, there's also the emotional stuff. Superman can't lose his cool, ever, or people die. The reason he is such a saintly, perfect little boy scout of a hero is because he has to be – it's the consequence of his power and ultimately the greatest drawback to his abilities.

People say he's too perfect and so he's boring.

People say they want to see a more troubled, darker Supes, but they don't. Not really. If they did see it he would be Zod and they'd be begging for someone to kill him. That's the real point here, as of now it is thoroughly unoriginal to criticize Superman for his power and how it makes him inaccessible to the people. Be original, think for yourself, and try to look at it from his point of view. Here is a guy that lost his entire world and just wants to adopt a new one so he can feel like he matters in the universe. Only he can never fully touch the world he adopted or he'll crush it. He can never scream or cry in front of that world or he'll frighten it away. His birth parents are dead and his adoptive parents have told him to lie about his identity for his entire life or people will try to kill him. From all sides, from all angles the same is true: Superman can never fully open up, he can never touch, never let down his guard, never be himself, and never embrace or experience his dark side or he will wreak havoc and devastation with nuclear consequences. The reason he seems like a one-sided character is because he can only show that side to the world.

Worse yet, he can only experience that side of himself because any others are too dangerous.

He is a prisoner of his powers and an outcast 49

The Critic’s Critic because of them and all he ever really wants is to be home. That is not boring. That is a poetic and tragic and twisted pathos that puts the dressup games and vigilantism of Batman to shame.

Batman has it easy. He can get as mad as he wants and all he'll do is beat some criminals unconscious and drag them off to jail. Superman has to remain calm, even as he's fighting for the whole damn world.

Believe what you want, but my hero is better.

Plus, there was totally humor in this movie.

I grew up with was the daughter of a military general who would charge into enemy fire if she thought it would help the story. She wasn't a damsel in distress, she would fight to save Superman's life as much as she fought for truth and freedom. Her integrity as a journalist was as much a guideline to Superman in his quest for “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” as Jonathan Kent's cornfed hoakum. In the end, Lois, like the other people in Clark Kent's life, were the compass that kept him on the pure path and showed him how to be the saintly hero he always was. Without them he might

go the way of his enemies. I never saw those traits in the Margot Kidder Lois as she fell from countless whatevers or stood around useless and distracting the hero. This Lois embodied all the traits I loved about the comic heroine, and I loved that through most of the movie she isn't even after the story, she's just trying to protect Superman. That faith and loyalty made any hint at a love story ten thousand times more believable than the gay-ass meeting on the rooftop in the Donner movie and the little flight montage with the weird poem voice over in the

That face plant when he was trying to fly would not have been in a movie without a sense of humor.

Okay, I think that's enough proving the critics wrong. Lets talk about what the movie got right.

Everything about Lois Lane is right. One of her first lines, “I get writer's block if I'm not wearing a flak jacket” is the most “Lois Lane” thing I've ever heard. Forget Margot Kidder.

Forget what you think about Lois. The Lois 50

The Critic’s Critic clouds. Bad. Just bad. And this Lois was a bad ass. End of story.

I already addressed the better Jor El. But let's discuss the better Jonathan Kent. He believed in his son. He believed the idea of Superman would some day make the world a better place.

But he also believed that revealing his identity before Clark had become “Superman” would be bad for everyone, especially Clark. Clark needed time to grow, time to become the man he needed to become, and Jonathan knew that so fervently that he sacrificed his own life just to help Clark protect the secret long enough to become Earth's Mightiest Hero.

Donner's Mr. Kent has a heart attack while running to the barn.

Mrs. Kent played by Diane Lane carries most of the parental emotions, while Mr. Kent embodies the wisdom and the protective spirit. Diane Lane's Martha is hilarious, ballsy and cute. She says “Go to hell” to a supervillain and gets choked out for it without even crying. And when her house gets wrecked in a fight she shrugs, “It's just stuff, Clark, it can be rebuilt.”

Donner's Mrs. Kent cries in whispy tones “I knew this day would come, from the day we found you... remember, Clark, always remember...”

Though we never find out what it is he's remembering, possibly just that she's a worthless old biddy who added nothing to that movie.

Also, Donner's Clark sends home half his pay every week because apparently his mother is useless and can't manage a farm that has at least one employee that we know of and possibly more (watch the movie, they reference a Ben Hubbard.) Man of Steel's Martha Kent has been running the family farm alone for years, in the absence of both husband and adoptive son, and is doing just fine. In short, I was impressed by Diane Lane's performance.

impressive. The concept of turning the ageold “Phantom Zone” into a hyperdrive was a stroke of genius. And implementing a controlled birth culture on Krypton gave them a level of utilitarianism and creepiness that was never present in previous incarnations. Add to that the fact that Kal El is the first natural birth in centuries, the symbol of that, and the fact that his mind and body were free of an implied genetic tampering that determined the role a person plays in their society and you have the first truly free Kryptonian in generations. This made him more important to the world and not just to one scientist with a tiny space ship that wanted to save his kid. Again, this alteration added a depth to the backstory and a logic to why baby Kal needed to be saved above all others. It also added an important element to why Zod hates Kal so much and that was very, very needed.

Suffice to say, despite the many places this movie goes, the crazy pace, the almost schizophrenic amount of information, and the intense, even tragic property damage I think this movie is a win, maybe not in crowd appeal, but definitely in honoring a character and a story that has been long overdue for a rewrite.

I think it's foolish to take a character that has been loved by comic fans for decades and say the movie is a failure because it didn't appeal to everyone. Wise words were once spoken to President Roosevelt regarding his being wheelchair-bound, “Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” You make a superhero movie that is good and true to the lore, for the fans, because they're the ones who truly care. Changing it to make it appeal to everybody is a great way to alienate your loyal fanbase while simultaneously churning out a piece of dross like the camp fest of '78 with a Lex Luthor that wouldn't be bald, a Superman that barely fights, and a leading lady that doesn't lead shit. When you make a movie for the fans you get a movie like Man of Steel. That is all I have to say about that. pp

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