take over the monitor? covid has made it hard for certain things to stick around, and the monitor is one of them. this may be the last issue. i’ll be unable to continue it next semester, so for now i am putting it into a dormant sleep mode. if you wish to take the reigns of the monitor, you can always email us at trumanmonitor@gmail.com or email me at rowenc23@gmail.com and ask how you might start it up again. it’s a fun zine and i’m glad it’s been around. hopefully it comes back someday, or at least something similar. it is also very easy to make, so don’t be afraid of that. until next time, friends. it’s been spectacular. CHEERS, rowen :)
2
submit
connect
Next deadline:
email: trumanmonitor@gmail.com instagram, twitter: @trumanmonitor facebook: the monitor
20XX General Guidelines Email submissions as attachments (any file type) to trumanmonitor@gmail.com!
Words We encourage submissions of original articles, essays, prose, and opinion. Due to space limitations, please limit pieces to 2,000 words. If you would like to publish something longer, please submit it and we’ll try to accommodate your piece. Please include a short one or two sentence bio.
Poems Let us know if you have any specific printing or formatting requests. Please include your title (real name, pseudonym, or anonymous).
Visuals We encourage submissions of original art, comics, videos, and photography. Due to publication limitations, we print in black-and-white (except in the online issue). Keep this in mind when submitting your piece. If we like your piece enough, it may end up on the cover! Let us know if you don’t want that. Our contributors retain all rights to their works. Submissions will be published online. If you would like your work not to be published online or would like us to remove previously published material, send us an email.
ads As members of the Kirksville community we love to promote local businesses and organizations! We can help spread the word about your upcoming events, meetings, or anything notable really.
Rates Quarter Page 5 Half Page 10 Full Page 20 30% discount for student organizations Contact us at trumanmonitor@gmail.com
contributors mere harrach larry iles rhi conry kim ramos olli sure lauren frazier lynn connell rowen conry
p. 4 p. 5 p. 6 p. 8 p. 10 p. 11 p. 12 p. 16
Imee’s Horny Cowboy Penpal by mere harrach
Howdy Imee, I’m s’posin it’s now my turn to apologize for the delay in conference. The world is mighty wacky where i’m at. You see, I was so astonished to receive such tender, beautiful, sinful photographs from someone like yourself, i rushed atop my hunky steed Rosebell to the nearest town’s busiest alcohol-servin’ establishment, which happened to be Casper’s Toe-Dip Saloon on Wagonbench and Warnoll. Well, the Angry Troup, a gang of travelin wayward rebels, had tumbled into town just the night before unbeknownst to myself and Imee, let me just say: “I OWE THEM $800 AND A JAR OF LINGONBERRY JAM FROM MÄRNE THAT I DO NOT HAVE RIGHT NOW” and leave it at that. Long tail chopped short, they found where i was camping from Watersnake Jeff, that guy, and came and nabbed me of your fine images! I was so pissed in the hole, you coulda swam in it. Pardon my french, but you coulda got third-degree burns from the amount of heat comin off my clenched fists. However, there was nothin i could do. Of course I wanted to protect your honor with all my heart, however I begun to thinkin’— maybe $800 and a jar of lingonberry jam from Märne were worth the trade? Then I started to think, “NO, THAT AIN’T SITTIN RIGHT WITH ME.” I scrambled right back on top of Rosebell in to the Toe-Dip on that very night and aimed my ‘37, 46” barrel silken lady pistol right in the spot i knew they’d be sittin. You shoulda seen them scramble out the door. I guess that made us a buncha eggs. You see, they were scramblin’ because 4
Casper’s has a “guns-at-the-door” policy. Well, they surely ran me right outta town and into the next until I really fell in a hole. A 16ft deep one, bless me. Took Rosebell 7 days and 11hrs afore she finally caught whif of my hide. She’s a smart girl. Had some rope on her that she was able to throw down, plus a gatorade and some soup tucked away in her satchel. Long story short Imee I am so sorry from the bottom of my cowboy heart, but i do not have your filthy, heavenly images and gifts no more. I ain’t got a hand for drawin much, aside from drawin’ my pistol in a dire moment, but I can repay your kindness & patience in me with an answer to your question in the last note: My favorite song is the one Rosebell lady herself is named from. An ol’ cowpoke tune sung by the singer Conroy Marx. I recorded a version of his tune myself, and it would be my honor to pass it along to ya. https://tinyurl.com/y3m2rh4p
Please take some sympathy out for an old dusty heart as mine. I am direly in love with you as a flowering yucca aches for a spring drop of water, I should like to keep hearing from ya Imee, if you’d do me the honor and reply soon. I promise to be less hory horny. All my love & every star I couldn’t count for you my dearest Imee, Clem Zimet
PS I AM 32, I HAVE A MUSTACHE, LOOK LIKE THIS
NIXIE 63 CE 1 2203/11/21 …..RETURN TO SENDER…….
…...NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED………...…UNABLE TO FORWARD…………………… BC: 50314166010 *0976-00661-28-37 My Dearest Imee, I hope you do not think i have forgotten you. That Express Man fella told me that you din’t exist! That you’d never even set foot in the building i’ve been sendin my heart in letters out to. I do not trust him. I know he loathes my jobless, care-free lifestyle— the way time touches me gently and while crumpling up his heart and skin like bad poetry. He resents my partnership with Rosebell. His own horse, Michael, is nothing but an
ugly mophead who bites to him. Old, flea -ridden, and simply a tool. The years have destroyed any kind of friendship they could’ve had. After all, how could a horse who is only a vehicle feel any love for a man who is just his owner. My Pony Express man is nothing but an employee, and I weep for him and michael both, truthfully. But trust them, I do not. I think they like telling me wicked falsities. That my mother no longer remembers my name, that the vegetable seller can no longer give me discount, that you have never received even one of my letters… I know it’s untrue! You are my angel, not a ghost in my mind. You exist to my east, no coincidence that you are my Eden. And one day I will travel to you and we shall take off on my Rosebell to the north or the south or any other way, babe. You’re my compass, I’m your wind. With all my cowboy love, CLEM ZIMMET P.S. I AM 32 YEARS OLD, HOW OLD R U?
Notice
by Larry Iles PLEASE NOTE: TWO LOSSES IN KIRKSVILE---GEORGE BARLOW AND, IN SWANSEA WALES, ANOTHER RADICAL, PHOTOGRAPHER TO HIS ELECTRICAL REPAIRER OCCUPATION, RHYS JONES. BOTH DIED SUDDENLY, TO IMMENSE FAMILIES’ AND FRIENDS’ LOSS, IN LATE 2020. THEY STOOD FOR KINDNESS AND TOOK ANTI CONSERVATIVE STANDS GLOBALLY, OFTEN MORALE RAISINGLY. THEIR WORKS CAN BE WELL FOLLOWED IN PUBLICATIONS IN THESE AREAS WHICH THEY GRACEFULLY ACTIVISTLY FIREFLAMED AND TO WHICH THEY BOTH INSPIRED LIFE AND HOPE AMIDST APATHY. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE AND LOVE TO ALL LI and BLMI 5
a series of short poems by Kim Ramos rot is not the absence of you but the presence of small lives in spite of it— do you hear all the small mouths chewing down the house?
my mother is the bellow of a church organ, my father the precise movements of a skink. my youngest sister a beheaded tulip, my middle sister a sturdy spoon. i am the dark and empty space beneath the couch.
listen, i am going to escape myself. you can come along, too. bring a mirror, a pen, and a pocket knife. oh, and don’t forget your toothbrush.
either/or will kill me, eventually. i forget i’m not flat, a coin spinning in the air, the wall between two confessionals. remember when sin was small?
gauzy veil, fuzz-fluff of dreams, take me to clear cut memory and let me drink it like freezing water, a sharp cut, a sobering slap—no more distortions of long-stemmed flowers.
the end…or is it? cheap trick as if after end credits you’ll be on the doorstep with a bouquet of question marks bent in your hands.
stop sipping the sorry out of other people’s cupped palms. what a sweet demeaning thing. pardon, my throat is blooming so many roses and i don’t know where to put them.
kool aid critters! look at all the sweet-rot. not long before the whole body goes, synapses widening, neurons dying, rickety bones and slanted floors. i was a fluke to last this long. 6
socrates goes to a house party by Kim Ramos
i. who let this socrates bitch into the house party no, i don’t know what the gods want. my cup is full of pride and hubris, a caustic warmth in my belly. i imagine i was split off from something in the beginning: another person, a floor of clouds, a bright gold sound. and this is why i’m stupid and smoking like it’s a part-time job, just something before my photography takes off, you know? hey, you’re not so bad my guy. you’re ugly and you ask too many questions, but you’re not so bad.
ii. oh shit, socrates died at the house party cover the body in a white sheet but not before we mistake his stillness for sleep: death in sunglasses, death on the floor, death with a sharpie-covered face. we’re not heathens, just very far from what’s sacred. we feel closest to the gods when we’re stumbling, half-blind, prophet by the sea: run through the woods and fall for a beautiful deer. your children will be half-spirit and not belong anywhere.
7
“on this day poem” [sept 30 2020] by olli sure drag myself across the floor i cant take this any more this is me in the winter this is me in the fall last year 3 years ago trying to keep the familiar from keeping liminal im wearing the same thing i was the last time u saw me everyone is some young queer everyone is someone's trans daughter everyone's painting w the sound on
“checking up poem” [aug 8 2020] by olli sure binging euphoria say it back how many people are checking to see if u ate today im done proving things to myself except this
ya know i woke up and dont feel anymore dont feel any kinda way anymore it actually takes no time @ all does my face have to be in the picture did u eat today ??
8
“posture poem 2” [sept 20 2020] by olli sure promise ill lean forward 4 u screen cracked to shit it's hard to say any of the time let alone now sharp speed bump probably did some damage green cotton too big on the sides
Femme Fatality by Lauren Frazier
breathing the same air your're breathing
I slipped your hands over newfound hips Budded breasts and rose-hued lips Exploring at your behest I can’t escape your well-meant care I am forever trapped upstairs Scratching and clawing in protest You have achieved much more than I Given me natural endorphin highs I am the problem with us You swim, run, move for miles I beat you against bathroom tile Yet you never waver in your trust Purple tattoos are etched into your limbs I promise I won’t do it again My reliable, stale claim You bear my torture and utter disdain Without means or will to complain And still we remain one and the same 9
hard days work by Rhi Conry
Alienation: How We Are Taught To Value Ourselves by Lynn Connell
How valuable are we? This is an important question not only for somebody’s self-esteem, but also to capitalist economics. Let’s take a look. We’re going to be crude and look at things from the perspective of a market capitalist. A person’s value is how much money they can make me. That is how capitalists are taught to view people. This bleeds from the capitalist to the rest of society, and it just so happens that this is a pretty important concept right here. The capitalists pay our politicians (they fund their campaigns and whatever else they seem to need), so they have a lot of control over what is done in politics. Their control over our society is pretty total. The way they think is pretty well distributed to society because they are the people who supposedly keep society running. We’ve already run into a pretty big problem. For the most part, long-term employers are massive businesses. And who runs these businesses; who are the people who keep this well-oiled economic machine running? It isn’t the executives. It isn’t the shareholders or the board of directors. It’s the workers. I hear a lot of talk about a white working class. Of course, there’s a white working class. I’m not going to argue about that. I’m going to argue something completely different. The oppression of the white working class is made possible by the oppression of the colonized masses. The black and Latinx and foreign masses within the United States are the most marginalized. And this lets the 12
capitalists oppress the white masses. First, though, we need to ask another important question. How does capitalism continue? I would say that the only thing keeping capitalism afloat during this trying time is the forcing of workers into competition with one another. And now we get back to the question of value. To the capitalist, the people who are most valuable are those they can pay the least for the same amount of work. So, in reality, who is the most useful? The people whose labor is, in reality, worth the same amount as anyone else’s are now paid the least. This drives the price of labor down overall. What does this mean for how we think about ourselves? In a capitalist society, it means that the people with the highest labor costs are those who are actually not as useful to capitalists. Of course not! It is out of self-interest that they seek to oppress people! And so to keep labor prices down for all involved, they must force them down further, convince people that they aren’t worth the same amount in wages! This is a contradiction of epic proportions. Now we look towards the central argument again. What does this mean for how we look at ourselves? Let’s try to get to our assumptions first. I assume that under a capitalist society, all people act in their rational self-interest, as the classical and neoclassical economists do. This means we act in a way to experience the least oppression. We do this without thinking about it, because it is so well embedded in society!
So when we act, we try to become the least useful to the economics of capitalism! And now we understand! The capitalists seek at the same time to make people more useful to them, and the people seek to make themselves less useful! And the value assigned to that person (who I’ll say is a measure of labor performed) is not determined by how useful they are. The use-value and the wage-value of the laborer are two totally independent things. And here is the contradiction!
And now how does this divide us from how we view ourselves? All of our actions are subject to how we are viewed socially, and they become commodities. Too much of one style of action, and we become lesser in wagevalue. Too much of another, and we become greater in wage-value, but lesser in use-value. We make ourselves in ways
that make it easier for us to exist materially, so that we have greater wagevalue. Yet it does not benefit the capitalists to hire those greater in wagevalue! We create ourselves as commodities. We make ourselves act in certain ways so that we are not oppressed, and thus bring oppression upon ourselves and others. We make certain portions of ourselves, and consider them as outside of ourselves, activities that affect our value! And so parts of ourselves are not parts of ourselves, and we make ourselves into people that we are not, all in the name of capital! This is how we are so often urged to attach value to ourselves, and yet we are all the time showing how absurd it is. It is a drive of the market forces of capitalism, and built on contradictions.
Do Not Despair, Organize! by Lynn Connell
In leftist movements I have observed a certain tendency to despair that the masses will never be ready for revolution. These movements, of course, come often from institutions that do not actually engage with the masses. They pontificate, teach, and lecture, and at this not even to the masses, but to each other! They do nothing for the masses and expect their loyalty in return! And then they wonder why the masses are not ready for the revolution! It is absurd! In all reality, the masses will listen to you if you listen to them. We cannot allow ourselves this pity, this despair that we are a marginalized ideology. We have not organized the masses, so we have no
ground on which to stand. There is great strength in communist doctrine, and yet these leftists do not read it! They talk about how to make the communist concepts understandable, and yet they do not realize that the easiest way to do that is to live, breathe, and organize along the communist line. It becomes accessible instantaneously. How do you explain that there is strength within the community and in community organizing when you have experience in neither? You cannot. It is an impossibility. We have to engage with the oppressed classes, those materially disadvantaged classes in the community 13
and learn from them how to actually organize them. Otherwise we yank the tablecloth off the table and all the dishes come with it! Stop dealing in abstractions! Engage with the masses! These are the two greatest tools in organizing the masses themselves; when somebody says “communism doesn’t work in practice,” strive to prove them wrong. You are the measure of whether communism and organizing along class lines can work. And so when I say that we need to engage in class struggle, I mean we need to do so! If we talk and talk and talk about how we will change society, we will never change it. Talk only gets us so far. We cannot be totally afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes happen. We, as communists and organizers, are people, too. The problem is when we allow our mistakes to demoralize us. As communists, we have to realize that we will be criticized, and we will criticize ourselves. In the words of a well-read and
well-spoken comrade, “Criticism is a gift, not a curse.” It is a blessing, and it results in greater understanding of doctrine and organizing itself. We “do not fear criticism because we are Marxists, the truth is on our side, and the basic masses…are on our side.” But they are not on our side automatically! We must work with them to win them over to the cause of class struggle, and increase their consciousness in class struggle. When we say “x will not work,” or “y will not work,” perhaps we ought to try x and y first! Nothing will happen if we do not engage with the masses in the struggle against intolerable conditions! So what do I mean when I say do not despair? It means that “we can get rid of the bad style and keep the good,” and that we and the masses are the people that make the revolutionary moment. The masses have a boundless creative energy to organize themselves, they must only be made to realize it! Do not despair! Organize!
On Revolution: by Lynn Connell
We have, in the last year, seen the boundless energies of the masses on full display across the United States. They have arisen as a result of intolerable conditions of oppression, and they build upon the pattern of wrongs and injustices of centuries. What does this mean for the revolutionary now? We have two distinct choices: Fight or Die. The first choice is obvious. Fascism and white nationalism are dangerous forces, and the bourgeois democracy of the country is unraveling into dictatorship, stripping itself of its old trappings and acting in brutal, naked 14
force. As a communist, I predicted that, in 2016, we would have a dictatorship within the next 15 years. We have seen that, during the pandemic, the conditions under which the masses have toiled have grown to brutal and more intolerable heights than we thought possible previously. And now what have the masses done? They have organized themselves in resistance! Just as Marx and Mao have predicted, the Masses have a boundless creative energy! The revolutionary moment is coming,
and that is no hazy prediction. It is apparent that the right is increasingly militant, that white supremacists and their allies in the government are fighting desperately to eradicate the strain of revolution that is arising. We are here to ensure that the people organize themselves along the right lines and in the most effective ways. Ultimately, that is to organize, not for elections, but for communal self-support and mutual aid.
The American Empire is crumbling, and we are witness to it. If we merely stand by and watch, we have played the part of the oppressor to the colonized and others of the oppressed masses. What do I mean? We must organize and rally along with the oppressed! That is what I mean. We have the unique opportunity to attack at the root the repressive and oppressive economic institutions of the American Empire! For all is not well in the land. Food insecurity is rising, unemployment still increasingly high. Corporations are filing for bankruptcy, and at least half of households who lost employment during the pandemic do not expect those jobs to return. We see another downturn, another recession, and if we continue in this manner, likely another depression. The free market proves once again its endemic instability.
We are watching in real time the attempts of the ruling class, the white settler-colonial bourgeoisie, to destroy and appease the revolutionary forces, through two means. One is the attempt through the Democratic Party of pacifying the revolutionary masses with reforms that will achieve little. The second, however, is the attempt through the Republican Party to crack down on those same masses, and there is little debate in between. These two methods are proof that the ruling class is weakening. What should we do? We cannot fall into despair! We have seen the great energy with which the masses have turned towards organizing themselves! We understand the revolutionary moment is near! We must do three things: unite with the masses, educate the masses, and arm the masses! Gesturing, posturing, and commanding are useless in the face of masses who do not care for us. Unite with the masses! Talk to the masses! Understand their struggles! These are the things to which we must dedicate ourselves. For understand this: “the masses and the masses alone are the motive force in the making of world history.” Will we join with them or turn on them? It is our choice, now.
15
z.u.r.n.
by Rowen Conry they were feeling horny, galactically. set out to fuck a planet, maybe a star. zurn, they wear boots all the time. zurn, they got skin filmy, bathslimey. little dust motes travel around the hairless skinsurface, travelling from wartport to wartport. little civilizations on little dustmotes in zurn's slimesea. students with little dustmote glasses, writing out the changing positions of the stars. in the left boot, grimlick makes her home. she is working on a tiny little table to give to a family of tiny little dustfolks. she likes to run the tv in the background and munch vegetable straws out of the bag, sucking in through them before she cronches down. "damn," says grimlick, "hard to build table when fucking zurn is this damn horny." boots moving and moving and moving, stepping semicircle across the galactic plane. "it's no rush," the little dustmote family tells her, "the table we've got works fine enough. though we do appreciate it, we do appreciate it." .. zurn is ancient rivers from the nose and intermittent rivers from the eyes. they stop to pet a dog the size of a galaxy. they twirl of cord the size of a thousand lightyears that has their keys on the end. thumb in a belt loop or something. 16
grimlick and longlost meet for an early lunch. "your thumb's red 's a fir'truck" says longlost. "bapped it with a hammer," says grimlick, "the damn gait changes when they're this fired up. i can't get nothing built for shit." "i give up on work, times like these," says longlost, "i'm playing a video game. out to beat m' own high score." "slime's more mucused, times like these," says grimlick, "bath runs weird. feel like i haven't gotten a decent shower in days." she sighs and sighs. longlost is playing a video game with cowboys in it. she shoots at cowboys with her cowboy. the cowboys say things like "durn tootin" and "wrustle 'm up, boys!" "durn tootin'" says longlost, "wrustle 'm up!" ..
horny, galactically. setting up dates with pCB 0.001 PLANETOID A. flirting with sirius, like that's gonna go anywhere. zurn has all the apps. their mucusfingers slide around the phonescreen, size of a starcluster arm of the spiral universe. planets and stars love big ol mucusfolk! the websites tell them you're hot, you're hot, you're hot!
planetoid a's looking for something serious. the cobra nebula isn't interested at all. delphi and longstar are dating when the fuck did that happen?
make is gonna fade away. nothin i make is gonna blink out snap, just like that."
grimlick swims through the inside of zurn, coming up through an artery to one of the vestigial organs where little dustfolk play poker and harmonica and sing songs about the couch potato days when nothing shook and the slime seas were tranquil.
when zurn fucks, folks have to decide. folks can see the star looming closeby, its heat warming the mucus on zurn's frontface. grimlick takes a good shower.
"i gotta stop drinking so much" says grimlick, "gawd, i've gotta stop chewing fucking tobacco."
she sees boats of dustfolk on the horizon, making their way across zurn's ******** to the connected star's *********.
she watches games on the tv. dustfolk scramble on the top of a zit, kicking and punching. chaos, disorderly. grimlick sits at the bar and plays "one or the only" on the jukebox.
"fool dustfolk think they oughta live on a star," says longlost, sitting in a beachchair, reclined, sunglasses on, playing video game. "dustfolk thinkin they can live on a star. hooey! gonna burn right up, all the same."
"thanks for the armoire" says a dustperson, "it's held up after all these years."
..
course i'm stayin, thinks grimlick, stayed this long. no sense in headin out now.
longlost spits.
"damn right" says grimlick. "nothin i
… See ya next time!
17
theaquadome.org
Stay in touch w/ the Aquadome: Follow us on social media! facebook.com/kirksvilleaquadome instagram: @theaquadome the dream lives as long as we do
