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Table of Contents | Volume 9, Issue 2 5
Wings
6
Fighting
6 7 8 9
George Pocheptsov Amy Robinson
Resonance
Amy Robinson
. Painting
. Poetry
29 Plucked Notes
. Painting
Animal Farm
. Photography
Maura Church
. Poetry
10 Contrast Always Works Max Schulman
13 Untitled
Ann Cheng
. Interview
. Pottery
14 Epeolatry
Gillian Kassner
. Poetry
15 Wrightsville Beach Flotilla George Pocheptsov
. Painting
16 Untitled
Marisa Beckley . Photography
17 Self-Portrait
Zak Aossey . Poetry
18 American Eagle Film Sarah Ngo .
.
28 Perhaps It’s Best
Kayla Escobedo
Ingrown
.
Devi Lockwood Poetry, Prose Jihyun Ro Photography
. Poetry
Traffic Time Jihyun Ro
22 Hidden Spaces
Photograph Series
. Poetry
Daniel Burack Alex Méndez
. Poetry
30 Mangal on the Eve Louis Evans
. Poetry
31 Primavera
George Pocheptsov
. Painting
32 Less Taken Than Made
.
Katherine Reed
Criticism
35 Kayla Escobedo Kayla Escobedo
36 Untitled
Marisa Beckley
.
Mixed Media
. Photography
37 Christmas Mass in Valladolid Ben Lamont
. Poetry
38 Stamped, Past Paste, Stationary Voyage Anna White Lavigne
. Drawings
40 Interview with Elizabeth Doran Melanie Wang
42 Scales
. Interview
Gillian Kassner
. Poetry
20 There’s a Place I Know Daniel Burack
. Poetry
Cover image: Untitled, Ann Cheng Table of Contents | Tuesday Magazine | 3
www.tuesdaymagazine.org
Staff Louis Evans, President Katherine Xue, President
Editorial Board Lauren DiNicola, Editor-in-Chief Alex Méndez Max Schulman Matthew Wozny Art Board Sarah Ngo, Director Marisa Beckley Jihyun Ro
Doreen Xu, Managing Editor Xinrui Zhang, Managing Editor
Staff Writers Emily Marie Boggs, director Amy Robinson, director Xanni Brown Devi Lockwood Nikita Makarchev Melanie Wang Katherine Xue
Business Board Doreen Xu, Director Max Schulman Design Board Samantha Wesner, Director Sarah Ngo Anna Kiyantseva Xinrui Zhang With Special Thanks To: LuShuang Xu The Office for the Arts at Harvard The Undergraduate Council
Tuesday Magazine is a general interest publication that engages in and furthers Harvard’s intellectual and artistic dialogue by publishing art and writing, with an emphasis on student and non-professional work. Staff applications are accepted at the beginning of each semester, and submissions are accepted on our website throughout the year. Visit tuesdaymagazine.org for more information. Copyright © 2012 by Tuesday Magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.Tuesday Magazine is a publication of a Harvard College student-run organization. Harvard name and/or VERITAS shield are trademarks of the President and Fellows of Harvard College and are used by permission of Harvard University.
4 | Staff and Contributors | Tuesday Magazine
Win g s George Pochep t so v Acrylic on canvas 36” X 48”
Wings | George Pocheptsov | Tuesday Magazine | 5
Fighting POETRY | AMY ROBINSON We pretend fight. Hit me. I will hit you. I want to yell, to hate. But we rammed our heads together and decided nothing more than that it hurt.
Resonance POETRY | AMY ROBINSON
Don’t give me that onomatopoeia shit. I don’t want the allusion to sound, the sugar coated descriptions. Hell, I want to hear Lucifer’s wings. I want to hear the essence of postlapsarian when everything collided the physical churning of good and evil. Our scruples are screaming like monsoons. So we blush and we lie. But I want to hear us blink. I want to hear us touch. — Amy Robinson is a staff writer.
6 | Resonance | Fighting | Amy Robinson | Tuesday Magazine
Traf f ic Time Kayla Escobedo acrylic on canvas 3’ X 2’ 2011
Traffic Time | Kayla Escobedo | Tuesday Magazine | 7
A n imal F arm Jih yu n R o
Two photographs 2011
— Jihyun Ro is a member of the art board.
8 | Animal Farm | Jihyun Ro | Tuesday Magazine
Ingrown POETRY | MAURA CHURCH The skinny, angry man in the corner knew my nails. I dug deep, maneuvered, bit, chewed, spit, wrestled, and created something. –a haphazard craft project of bone and cuticle. Half-painted, half-bare, wholly disgusting. Rough edges, split ends, sore spots, and blood spots. The skinny, angry man saw it all. I imagined my fingers gripping his thinning hair. I thought of screaming, swearing that I am not F. Scott, that I know not the focus, precision, elegance, style and wit of a genius. Instead my mind wanders among a shore littered with Bud Lites and empty sunscreen bottles. “You pick the most horrible metaphors,” he told me. Glancing at my nails, those ugly white brittle beasts, I told him I’d lost whatever I once had. Somewhere between my afternoon run and my midnight meltdown it had escaped me. Working furiously, I trimmed and shaped late into morning. Later, the thin angry man congratulated me. But instead of grinning I spat on my fingers and rubbed the polished spots raw.
Ingrown | Maura Church | Tuesday Magazine | 9
Contrast Always Works A Conversation with Milkman INTERVIEW | MAX SCHULMAN After the release of his third full-length album Algorithms last year, I interviewed pioneering mashup artist Milkman, a.k.a. Gregg Luskin. What follows is a selection from our conversation about Luskin’s career, his creative process, and the past, present, and future of the genre. Thanks again for agreeing to talk with me, I’m working on an article about mashups and about how the form is changing, and a lot of the piece centers around Algorithms. I’m a big fan of that release. Thank you. Yeah. So what do you call this style you do—mashup or glitch pop? Or do you just consider yourself a DJ? I like the term mashup, I mean, when I first started, that term was just starting to be thrown around. It wasn’t as known as it is now. So that’s what I started out as and I feel like that’s a good description of my music. I don’t think it’s as much glitch pop as some of the early Girl Talk albums or some of the other mashups out there that are actually more glitchy, you know? I feel mine has much more flow to it, so I personally wouldn’t call mine glitch pop, but to each their own. That’s one thing I wanted to talk about—there’s a lot of people, you know, Girl Talk, etc., who make extended album-length mixes and there’s a lot of people who do simplistic one-on-one mashups, but I don’t know if I’ve seen a lot of people who do your specific form. They’re short pieces, but they’re also very complex and mixing a lot of things. I was curious how you arrived at that form or whether it was just natural for you? When I was first starting, like six years ago, I was listening to Girl Talk, who was just starting to come out as a somewhat known name. I would listen to verses, you know, one song, layer on others, and I liked it and everything, but, playing an instrument in a band I’ve always been all about—my music is about songs as a whole, each song should have a unique feel, and get across a point or a message in itself to the listener. So when I listened to a lot of the other stuff, I’m not criticizing, but it just seemed to me like there was no balance between point A and point B. It just jumped from one segment to the next. There was no structure to the song, there was no intro and buildup and chorus—what the listener would feel as a chorus—so I wanted to bring the more structured aspect to this new, emerging, fast-paced, quick, ADD, whatever the hell you want to call it, type of music. I wanted to keep that in it because that’s what I do. I wanted the listener to feel like listening to one song through and not have it go from being really soft, like easy listening, to a really hard, dancey track. That’s why I don’t do my album continuously all the way through, because I feel like there needs to be stopping points in each song. You should have a beginning and an end, and the listener should be able to decide which song they want given their mood and which they want to listen to. So it sounds like you’re saying your background as a conventional musician has informed your work now a lot. Even though it’s maybe a less conventional medium, you’re still recreating the same kinds of musical structures? Yeah, exactly. I’m taking everything—you know, I’ve always been performing live. Before I was doing my DJing stuff, I was a drummer in some bands, I was a guitarist, I did some keyboard and synth, so I was always in the songwriting process. Like I said, the song structure works. There’s a reason that every song has choruses and verses, and although you don’t have to follow that strictly, I really do feel that just going through sections and sections and sections doesn’t do as well as when you do something that has more energy, and then slow it down for a little bit—this would be a “verse”—and then bring it back up to more energy. That anticipation, that musical resolution, even if the listener doesn’t realize it, that is going to add more to the song than just a bunch of really cool parts put together one after the other. 10 | Contrast Always Works | Max Schulman | Tuesday Magazine
Yeah, I’d say just listening to your albums, they’ve definitely increased in sophistication since Lactose and THC. Would you say that partly that’s just a function of technology getting better, getting easier to use? I guess what I’m interested in is whether mashups are in part just a novelty thing, and whether in twenty years, stuff that seems impressive now will seem crude like old special effects in movies or something like that. I definitely agree with that. I mean, when I was starting, it was much harder to make mashups than it is now, but as good as the technology will get, no program’s just going to mash two songs perfectly. Even songs that are in the same key with the same beats per minute and are even following the same chord progression. A lot of times they just won’t sound that good together. So technology can only go so far, and I really do feel that the ear of the producer is really where you’re going to get quality songs from. Makes sense. So I’m curious about some more technical parts of your music. I feel like listening to your music, there’s a lot of recurring characters, people you like to sample a lot, you know. I hear a lot of Jay-Z, a lot of Kanye, Dr. Dre—is this just a reflection in general of what you like or listen to or have you found that there are certain people who, I don’t know, have certain voices that are more conducive to being mashed up well? Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s definitely a combination of the two. If there’s a lot of artists that I sample more heavily on my albums, it’s definitely because those are the songs that I grew up listening to and those are the artists that I was listening to at the time. The way I’ve always gone about my music is that I make mashups that I want to listen to, I don’t try to do something just hoping that other people will like it, or try to make something just for other people. I make it solely how I like it to sound and how I would want to listen to it, so it’s definitely a reflection of my style and what I’m into and what I’m listening to. But there is also the fact that there’s just some artists that just sound great mixed, you know? Those artists, their songs are also just such classics, “99 Problems” or something like that—you can put that on almost anything and it’s going to sound good if you do it the right way because it’s just such a classic song. Anytime you rework a classic song, at least for me, it rings in the ears because I love it, so I think it’s a combination of those two. You were talking about your background as a conventional musician, talking about chord progression and key, and I was curious—when you sit down to start a mashup, do you plan that out in advance or just pull together things that sound good and it grows organically? Because it sounds like you, definitely more than some people, are keeping in mind things like melody, chord progression, and things like that. How do you go about composing a piece? I’m very meticulous, like I said before, when I actually get into doing the song, about structuring it. A song basically starts when I hear something on the radio or a new song comes out or I re-find some song from back in the day that I haven’t heard in a while, and I just have that stuck in my head. And then I’ll hear something else and—I’m not trying to make myself seem like I’m a fucking musical prodigy or anything along those lines at all, but a lot of times I’ll just be walking around and just mix stuff in my head, different vocals with different background beats. That’s actually how I come up with a lot of mashups, just in my head, at the grocery store or whatever, just cruising around and thinking, “Oh, that would be a cool mix together,” speeding up the tempos and beats and stuff. And then a lot of times I think they’re going to work great and then I get into the studio and they sound like absolute shit, and a lot of times I’ll just accidentally bring in the wrong sample and then I’ll think, “Hey, this could actually work,” and I’ll throw it on and work with it for a few minutes, and then I’ll realize that that worked. There’s really no one way I do songs, sometimes I start from the end and work forward, sometimes I start from the intro and work in, sometimes I just find something, like, “This would be a great middle to the song, the high point of a song,” and I’ll work outwards from there. Every song is different. With Lactose and THC, this one song on there, “Trial and Error,” was the first song I ever made. I actually made that on GarageBand, which was the hardest thing ever to do mashups with back in the day because it didn’t do anything. So I was using all these side programs to try to match the tempos right and bring them in, and then I’d have to literally go in and cut out milliseconds of blank audio in between vocal lines, trying to get it to line up. That whole process, when I used to do it like that, was trial and error, you know, you didn’t know what was going to work well until you got it and actually made it, so that’s where “Trial and Error” came from. But now I have other methods of figuring out what’s going to work, easier ways to do a rough sample to see if it’s going to work. Contrast Always Works | Max Schulman | Tuesday Magazine | 11
When you were talking about each song, you said you want it to be cohesive, you want it to be its own thing—can you talk a little bit about whether, when you write a song, you’re trying to keep a meaning or message in mind, or something loose? Would you’d say there’s ideas behind your songs or just associations? Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, most of the songs I do, even if it’s kind of far-fetched, I definitely do put different lyrics and stuff into a song and make a song around a general theme. For example, I don’t know if you’re allowed to print this or not, but “Tribute to Ms. Lonely,” which is one of the first songs that got popular for me, was actually—“Lonely” was the name of my first bong I ever had in college and my brother got it for me as a joke college gift and you know, I didn’t smoke that much, but we used it a little bit, and then Lactose and THC was obviously—that’s part of the reason that album is titled that. What happened was one night, we were hanging out and we left it in my living room, and then woke up the next day and it was just gone, never saw it again, and we just grew to love Lonely. So the next day, being heartbroken that our beloved Lonely was gone, I sat alone in my room, closed the doors and I wrote “Tribute to Ms. Lonely.” And that whole song is about, you know, “Life’s a bitch and then you die that’s why we get high” and then like, “Lonely,” you know, and then it’s like, “Mama, let me show you how you work it” like all that, even though it seems kind of abstract, like I was just using random stuff—the girl is Lonely and that’s me just mourning the loss— That makes sense! Which sounds like really stupid and is kind of funny and that was like half of it also, but it also, it means more and a song comes out better when you actually have a purpose for it other than just doing it to do it you know? You should pull a Jay-Z and release a book explaining all your songs and everything, you know, “Milkman Decoded.” One thing about mashups in general is that a lot of this music, especially the vocals, is overwhelmingly hip-hop, as you’re talking about, and so mashups—I don’t want to stretch it too far, but in general there is sort of this trope of a generally white musician, and this form allows you to appropriate and say things on your record that you wouldn’t be able to say in your own voice, you know, you can quote Tupac— Oh, a hundred percent, yeah. I don’t know whether you ever feel uncomfortable or make decisions to use people’s voices, whether you feel you’re endorsing messages, or is it ironic, are you mocking something when you sample it? How do you feel about it? No… I think it’s more so that … a lot of times I’m not using the lyrics specifically because I endorse their message, I’m using the lyrics because I think that the original song and the lyrics are creative and that the lyrics themselves have a good point and are saying something by themselves, not so much that I think that I’m trying to say or get across what he said myself. Tupac will get on there and he’ll be like, “Wake up in the morning and I ask myself / is life worth living should I blast myself.” It’s based on a song about how hard it is being poor and black, and clearly I have no relation to that whatsoever, you know I’m like a pretty well-off white kid. But I mean I totally think that’s a great message and when he wrote it, it was powerful and strong, and I would love to get that out. It’s funny, when I’m doing a lot of shows like in the South there’ll just be a bunch of Mississippi or Texas kids that are jumping up and down, just loving when I play stuff that has nothing to do with their lifestyle whatsoever, you know? That’s how it always is, you know? But yeah, a lot of the times I do stuff straight just because it’s frickin’ hilarious. For example when I do, it’s not Celine Dion, it’s, “Make love to me, you’re still the one I love,” you know that one? Oh, yeah… On “Circle of Fifths”, and on top it’s just like, “Fuck me!” and it’s just … this song. It’s this sappy love song from the 90s and then I … throw some dirty nasty lyrics on top of it, so it’s like yeah, … “Fuck me like this.” I think stuff like that is hilarious—which I do a lot of, as you mentioned, when I put “My Dick” over “Alejandro,” you know? So random, but it’s fun to dance to! It’s catchy, and some of my stuff is a little bit serious, but for the most part I think it’s just fun. Fun to listen to. Contrast always works. — Max Schulman is a staff writer. 12 | Contrast Always Works | Max Schulman | Tuesday Magazine
Unt it led Ann Cheng
Pottery Photographs by Keren Rohe 2011
Untitled | Ann Cheng | Tuesday Magazine | 13
Epeolatry POETRY | GILLIAN KASSNER We didn’t have our hands to use, They were tangled in the crooks of our arms and knees, In our hair, Or else we would have shaken on it. Why put it in writing? Official-ize, textualize, when language has produced malapropism, pleonasm, amphigory, anomia, cacoepy? Paranym. If we exchanged poetry, yours would be better, the phrases less worried-over, your trust in language reflecting your trust in people. Words are fickle, they mimic their masters, change their minds, misremember, get lost. So I won’t speak. I’ll press thoughts of you in-between other people’s problems, other people’s stories, call them fiction. Fiction you can trust.
14 | Epeolatry | Gillian Kassner | Tuesday Magazine
Wri g h ts v ille B ea c h F lo tilla G e o rg e P o ch ep ts o v Acrylic on canvas 24” X 30”
Wrightsville Beach Flotilla | George Pocheptsov | Tuesday Magazine | 15
U n titled Ma ris a B eckley
2 photographs Taken with a pinhole camera made from a Pringles can
— Marisa Beckley is a member of the art board.
16 | Untitled | Marisa Beckley | Tuesday Magazine
Self-Portrait POETRY | ZAK AOSSEY Should I pray for affection rather than protection/Will the next election matter on the day of resurrection/Maybe I should pray for protection/From the surrounding society/Focused on propriety rather than self piety/Why do I sit alone these nights and contemplate/When everyone is out drunk, salivating at Satan’s plate/While I remain…alone trying navigate through this subconscious state in which no one else seems to relate/Is it wrong to dream of setting the world straight/This beautiful creation that in turn creates hate/how am I supposed to dictate when society is in this state/Where Gods words rest under dust and lil Wayne’s are considered great/Maybe its fate that I’m standing on this stage/Maybe one day this will all change/And they’ll stare shocked in disdain/Starting to pray but nothing to gain/ Face to face with Heaven’s master, hoping for Satan’s grace/A lost being amongst a lost race/Summoned to the vilest of places/Embraced by the faceless racist/Who previously preached hate to man/Now he’s covered in flames like a crucifix of the Klan/Burning, cursing, raping/Escape from this place/Then surrounded by grace/And greeted by the angelic face/Am I any less a Human being/Because I prostrate in front of a Lord unseen/During this realistic dream/Surat al mustaqim/I embrace it/Yet some disgrace it/Should I remain complacent/When the wealthy spend thousands on facelifts/While impoverished children starve in basements/I pledge to erase it/To take advantage of my blessed placement/……. save it
Self-Portrait | Zak Aossey | Tuesday Magazine | 17
A meric a n E ag le F ilm S a ra h N g o
Five minutes of still photographs American Eagle billboard in Times Square Read top right to bottom left 2011
18 | American Eagle Film | Sarah Ngo | Tuesday Magazine
— Sarah Ngo is a member of the art board.
American Eagle Film | Sarah Ngo | Tuesday Magazine | 19
There’s a Place I Know POETRY | DANIEL BURACK
Wedged between two old shoddy good-for-nothing mattresses arranged parallel to form some sort of weird parallelogram not like the ones in textbooks, with imperfections too imperfect there’s a place I know of, best inhabited between the hours of 10pm and 2am for the pseudo-nocturnal among us the wanna-be crazies the insomniacs who after a couple of Benadryl (neat pink capsules like gumdrops) will fall asleep and dream about nothing, nothing worth remembering nothing worth cockamamie psychoanalysis nothing at all really there’s a place I know where there’s just enough room to squeeze a pillow (preferably not your favorite pillow, the one whose temperature seems divinely controlled, softness unmatched over nights and nights) but best not to have the pillow at all when here, here is the spot in which, yes, the average human male, 5’10’’, 168 lbs, hopelessly hopelessly average can lie face down as if one were doing that devilish trick on water of looking like a floating corpse, everyone knows you’re going to stop, drowning one’s self is impossible; but because anyone watching can’t help but watch can’t help but wonder (thoughts whizzing by like racquetballs hit with immense rage) for how long are you going to hold your breath how close, but never quite there the limit approaches zero are you going to get, to death, and why, at first no one was watching you, you just wanted to know what near-death feels like for the sick surreal thrill of it for the pang your lungs feel as your vision starts to worsen, suddenly not seeing is frightful or rather seeing what you can’t see, and afraid, gasping, out of the water, breathe, it’s over back to the cabana; wonder if they remembered salt on the margarita this time well that’s the position one should assume between two so-called beds in this situation
20 | There’s a Place I Know | Daniel Burack | Tuesday Magazine
at the times previously detailed, fuck the times (those and all others), and look (with your eyes) at the rusty wooden floorboards whose lines follow no discernible pattern and you want to call the floor vintage, antique, any of those cutesy adjectives for the wearers of Nantucket red (or any adamant on the particular definition of that color) for the connoisseurs of the purposefully obscure ready to tell you each and every last thing they know about it, but the wood is humble, looking almost oxidized in spots, coarse, unkempt, and the seemingly arbitrary lines are only partially filled by the molding or fixative and it looks like the Nile’s dried up or the waves of the Red Sea really have parted ways leaving an empty, vacuous hole like when you want to cry because of that something that happened to you, insert traumatic event here, death, love lost, but you didn’t even know her what’s worse is you want them to come, want them to flood the room for 40 days and 40 nights but there’s nothing to be upset about, but you are upset, but now you’re upset at yourself for being upset when there’s nothing to be upset about, but maybe that’s just it there’s nothing in between those spaces in the wood or maybe there was and someone plucked it out of you like a ripe apple but more likely it evaporated away, corroded like some innocent rock whose only fault was being too close to the sea that briny sea whose smell so distinctive you’re not sure if you love it or hate it as long as it’s there; as long as there’s a place I know wedged between two good-for-nothing lifeboats just out of reach and Moses has already made his way to the other side smiling as the two ends of the sea come rushing back to meet you to wrap you up in some eternal embrace.
There’s A Place I Know | Daniel Burack | Tuesday Magazine | 21
Hidden Spaces POETRY, PROSE | DEVI LOCKWOOD PHOTOGRAPHS | JIHYUN RO
Dudley Garden location: behind Lamont Library. entrance to the left of Wigglesworth A open during daylight hours, April to October walk along the daffodil-lined path to this perfect spot for a picnic or study session there’s a spot-on sundial at the center that tells time in shadow (on a sunny day) leave your technological burdens behind in memory of Thomas Dudley Governor of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, b.1603 surrender to a 400-year-old stream of white butterflies and Mass Ave traffic a population of chickadees that chirp flowering trees & ivy covered walls & all that is good about Harvard’s oversized landscaping budget.
22 | Hidden Spaces | Devi Lockwood | Tuesday Magazine
Bow & Arrow Press the letter press behind Adams (back entrance) not exactly at the corner of Bow Street and Ar row St. like a commercial press but hinkier. learn to print ink letters at Thursday night open press make friends with ink and paper and typeset and Ted Ollier who will guide you through the crash course info about classes at: http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/bowarrow/ Press/Open_Press.html
Hidden Spaces | Devi Lockwood | Tuesday Magazine | 23
Top floor classroom in Annenberg a.k.a. the Room(s) of Requirement four in total: 202, 203, 302, 303 enter the back door of Memorial Hall and walk through the transept with all the dead civil war soldiers’ names turn left. loop around until you see the box office window. turn 180 degrees. this is a door. swipe your Harvard ID. ascend. {bonus points if you trespass the Egress Path}
these rooms have almost everything you need: mosaic stained-glass windows a chalkboard on wheels and, if you’re lucky, chalk. bring a reading, a pencil let everyone else’s stress go. not even Malfoy can find you here
24 | Hidden Spaces | Devi Lockwood | Tuesday Magazine
Adams House Tunnels how to get there: you’re going to get lost, anyway. find any Adams house entryway and go down.
Hidden Spaces | Devi Lockwood | Tuesday Magazine | 25
Warren House Lore take the stairs up to the second floor move the bench lift
This trap door, it is told, used to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. Folklore and Mythology concentrators, post-thesis, are shut in the space between the floors. It’s dark. Ask Holly Hutchison, the department administrator (first floor, desk immediately on the left once you walk in), for a complete story. The building also has a rotating supply of Reese’s cups, candied ginger, and individually-wrapped pieces of dark chocolate.
26 | Hidden Spaces | Devi Lockwood | Tuesday Magazine
Robinson Library history department west wing 2nd floor (these) non-circulating lamps a-la Pixar logo clusters of not-uncomfortable but not-sleep-inducing purplish chairs tall windows to let in the afternoon (this) main attraction: the spiral staircase that leads up to a balcony lining the perimeter of the room and down to a non-exit but fun to explore anyway rolling ladder to reach high-up books & other perks include: outlets for your laptop, hand-crank pencil sharpeners that #occupy a liminal space between second grade and profound spirals pencil shavings and staircases have much in common.
Science Center Observatory Deck take the ele va tor to the 8th floor then follow the signs “to the telescopes” for the best view of campus.
for swipe access get on the STAHR** list-serv and look out for training classes don’t forget to sign the logbook. **Student Astronomers at Harvard-Radcliffe
— Devi Lockwood is a staff writer. — Jihyun Ro is a member of the art board.
Hidden Spaces | Devi Lockwood | Tuesday Magazine | 27
Perhaps It’s Best POETRY | DANIEL BURACK Perhaps it’s best if we don’t speak, if the tannins can breathe if just for a while, let loose like drags on cheap cigarettes, leisurely, flowing outwards, tiptoeing downstairs like a child on Christmas morn’ whose eyes sparkle fantastically, topaz, amethyst shine like a fresh spade, plunging into granulated soil count the petals empirically at first, before relenting with a sigh play the silly roundabout good-for-nothing game of loves me/loves me not look up, the birds indifferent to whatever message might be formed, I thought I saw an advertisement for toffee up there, or the letter “V” at the very least, but the sky is cloudless, the sun beats dully like some disgruntled percussionist, I hear Bartok playing convoluted rhythmic stretches, evoked by impeccably trained feet of Austro-Hungarian folkies dancing madly, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three, up delicate limbs and twisting torsos to chests full, brimming with the pride of generations, the sorrows of generations, the scowls and smirks, to lips not pursed, on the precipice of doing nothing at all, save for clutching at fistfuls of air, coming to the inevitable, unwavering set-as-stone conclusion that despite noble efforts, it’s best if we don’t speak. Perhaps.
28 | Perhaps It’s Best | Daniel Burack | Tuesday Magazine
Plucked Notes POETRY | ALEX MÉNDEZ
A wise man once told me that all sounds live forever. Launched from a trembling mouth an eager cricket wing a tired floorboard or an anus, they scythe past jittery, caffeinated wifi signals windswept satellite beams fugitive radiation from Japan frantic breath racing to scald foreign lips— each sound its own stubborn beat weaving through cold oceans that were once pooled at the base of Mozart’s glass wet green blades sprouted from dry soldier blood ancient threads of speech that feel like spider webs ghost whispers that a word of scorn has buffeted astray and they continue singing till the tenuous infinity of canvas.
— Alex Méndez is a staff writer.
Plucked Notes | Alex Méndez | Tuesday Magazine | 29
Mangal on the Eve POETRY | LOUIS EVANS
Before the flood the water was for the mangrove trees and their roots like filigree fingers dipping slyly into secret pools wasps as bright as fireflies wove stories with their stingers you and I we two would steal down there late nights kiss with our fingertips and feel against our shoulders the spying leaves stealing upward towards the sunken summer sun and in the quiet hours then we sometimes— But that was all before the flood of course and the water was otherwise then.
— Louis Evans is a staff writer.
30 | Mangal on the Eve | Louis Evans | Tuesday Magazine
Primavera George Pochept sov Acrylic/oil on canvas 96” X 72”
Wings | George Pocheptsov | Tuesday Magazine | 31
Less Taken Than Made CRITICISM | KATHRYN REED
It is 1932 and the location is Berkeley, California. There are seven, but no one remembers the context and no one truly cares because Ansel Adams has had an idea. Oppressive pictorialism is dead. Photography is art, but it is pure. The print does not derive from other mediums and the camera is not an extension of the paintbrush. Adams is 30, just beginning his photographic career. His earliest works imitate the style of paintings—abstract and imaginative—but tonight, Adams’ new vision is clear: a group will be formed, straight photography will be the aspiration. Imitation will not be tolerated. There will be no more qualities deriving from the other. The location is Berkeley and a group of seven is being formed with ten-dollar dues. “And for a name?” It is night and the drinks are passed. “US 256,” Preston Holder thinks of aperture and large depth of field. US 256 is the smallest aperture at which cameras of the day can shoot. The diameter of the lens decreases, the depth of field increases, and all that is captured is in focus. “US 256 is not good. It sounds like a highway,” Adams drinks a martini that will soon require attention. The thought—that concept of depth, of clarity—is, however, the right one. Adams picks up a pencil, presses and curves its point along a sheet of paper: f/64. The focal system is gaining popularity over the Uniform System and f/64 is roughly equivalent to US 256. The smallest aperture, in which the entirety of the image is seen in sharp focus. Adams’ martini is straight up—dry and
fast—but he wants of nothing to soothe the taste. “That is what the group should be, f/64. That’s what you want to stop down to anyway and that’s a good rationale for it. A catchy name and a good symbol.” The name is not reminiscent of infrastructure and all are in agreement. A manifesto is typed and typed once more, x’s indicating mistakes and notes in the margins. Membership will be limited by invitation, though the dues are not likely to be remembered again. Photography has been limited in the hopes that it may grow. Purity is the desired effect.
on accurate representation of expression. “Something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without”—understanding and control of both seer and scene as necessary to convey artistic consciousness of the self as well as a consciousness of the self as artist. Pure photography was recorded verisimilitude of image and of response, with neither compromised for the sake of the other (and certainly no contamination from other mediums). Inherent to the image was the photographer’s decision for the scene to become. Photographs were not taken but made.
Manipulation was inherent in Adams’ “pure” photography. Focal length exaggerated actuality, dodging and burning modified exposure—“steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships,” Adams assured. Proportion, contrast, lighting, film, aperture. Backgrounds were softened and features emphasized. Long-focus lenses compressed space and objects suddenly seemed larger than they should. “There are fewer good photographers than painters and there is a reason. The machine does not do the whole thing.” If the camera was not an extension of the paintbrush, it was also not merely an adjunct of the eye. To take binocular vision and capture more, to isolate upon a single moment within incessant instability and flux—for the photographer, photography was seeing, plus.
Such images were light, imprinted at a precise interval in space and time. Adams’ equipment—8×10 view camera, Cooke Convertible, 9-inch Dagar, 6-3/4-inch Wollensak wide angle, 8-1/2 Apo[chromatic] Lenter—recorded the scene; his darkroom developed the expression. Climbing Yosemite’s Diving Board, Adams brought only 12 plates with which to capture the views. Two exposures to recover a handsome image of Mount Galen Clark, six to waste on lesser views, some to spend on his wife, Virginia, and Adams had only two to reach the summit. At the peak, it was two-thirty in the afternoon. The first of the last slides was lost on a yellow filter—conventional for the setting, but somehow the shadows were not quite right. More was needed; what was there—the brooding cliff, the dark sky and snowy Tenaya Peak—was on the plate, but what it instilled in the viewer, that expressive-emotional quality, was not. Adams changed the filter, increased the exposure, released the shutter.
Adams’ images were reality, but his reality was managed. While accurate depiction of scene was considered paramount, great emphasis was also placed
That evening, he developed the plate. The sky had been light and hazy but the filter and darkroom deepened the background to an oppressive black. The
——–
32 | Less Taken Than Made | Kathryn Reed | Tuesday Magazine
shadows on the cliff intensified and the already great cliff towered over the viewer. “Monolith, The Face of Half Dome” represented the near-actual while approaching an emotional state. Visualized on the side of the mountain, realized in the darks of a room. “The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance.” Though Adams’ devotion to straight photography held in theory, his work had transitioned from the scene through lens to what he had seen through the lens. The firmament was darkened, sunlight enhanced, drama heightened, and everything felt just a little more distant—“but I want the sky to be richer.” If print was performance, each piece must be performed differently. The “simple dignity of the glossy print” had become the result of hours spent with chemicals, editing plates. This transformation of photography from “I know this is there” to “I see this and I assert this is there” would be only furthered by the development of digitalization in the latter half of the twentieth century. The Sony Mavica— the first commercial electronic camera—was released in 1981, producing freeze-frames of video that could then be connected to a television monitor or printer to be seen. A decade later, Kodak sold the DCS-100, equipped with a 1.3 megapixel sensor and aimed at photojournalists so that they may “define color in the digital environment of computers and computer peripherals.” When the Nikon D1 was introduced in 1999, the price of the digital camera had dropped from $13,000 to $6,000 and megapixels had increased from 1.3 to 2.74. Within two decades, major manufacturing had shown photography to be an increasingly accessible medium.
stored, duplicated, and altered, digital photography allowed photographers the authority not only to determine but to enhance the moment. The photographer, upon taking an image, would exercise infinite authority over that instance in space and time. Graphic editing programs allowed raw images to be endlessly transformed with mere keystrokes, enabled the photographer to make the command while the technology enacted the change. Capture in the moment, process at the computer. Every photograph Adams shot had been envisioned in his mind yet before he released the shutter; with digitalization, aesthetic decisions no longer needed to be made at the scene. As lowered production costs increased accessibility and advanced technology fueled control, the only setback was a virtual lack of limitations themselves.
For Adams, Death Valley had always proved difficult to photograph—“few obvious opportunities and a vast number of recalcitrant situations that try the photographer’s patience and craft.” He slept atop his car—the camera platform lessened the steel—and woke before dawn. The previous night’s beans reheated and coffee made, tripod across his shoulder and camera under his arm, he scaled the dunes. Adams must continue climbing, descending, climbing again— the timing needed to be just right and the lighting just so. The image could be enhanced, but there was only so much that the chemicals could do. He waited for the sunrise to trace the perfect line down a dune, a clear divide of light that would recede in shadow. Adams had conceptualized the image, needed only for nature to comply. And then, suddenly, “image became substance.” “Sand
“ Pure
photography was recorded versimilitude of image and response, with neither compromised
By transposing images into binary files that may be endlessly uploaded,
for the sake of the other...” Film photographers argued that such lack of constraint lessened creativity and diminished artistic value. The digital photographer was not required to form the image in his mind prior to shooting—shape, meaning, texture, form could all be imposed through editing after the fact. With film, there were limitations. Images shot in black and white would never hold color; color negatives were never as vibrant as slides. High-speed film could prove grainy and grain-free film was often slow. Shots could not be previewed until they were developed nor erased once they were shot. The photographer must consider every element of composition for there was not always a second chance. With digitalization, the element of forced deliberation had been lost.
Dunes, Sunrise, Death Valley National Monument.” Descending, climbing, descending again—plates in pocket and camera under arm, Adams returned to his car. A single image on his only plate. That night Adams would find out whether or not it had been for waste. With digital photography, truth is no longer a representation of scene and of reaction, a union of seeing and of self. With infinite control over the captured image, the image-taker as image-maker is no longer confined to the limited development of film. Whereas images were once created by waiting for the absolute instant and envisioning the ideal
Less Taken Than Made | Kathryn Reed | Tuesday Magazine | 33
frame, vision in design has now given way to vision in renovation. Retouching augments and omits and it is unclear as to whether or not in so doing quality and impact are increased. Digitalization has determined that the image captured need not be perfect—filter, saturate, enhance, elevate—computer literacy produces more. “I think I quite obviously see in my mind’s eye something that is not literally there, in the true meaning of the word.” Adams’ image-as-creation has become only more pervasive today; manipulation is now so ubiquitous that it is assumed. Photography is no longer verisimilitude, truth of authenticity is not seen in the response. With digitalization, photographers are able not only to assert but to see and the images produced are merely personal versions of the scene; much is fictionalized long after the shutter-release is pressed. ——– Ansel Adams is departing Chama Valley, South to Santa Fe. Dusk is on the highway and the day has been passable, barely. The image was there, quite clearly, but intrusions interrupted and efforts foundered on the form. But the sun is touching the highway and he is now on the returning drive.
“Hurry! Grab the camera case! It’s under there—get that out of the way! Where’s the tripod? Film holders!” If not for the equipment carried on his shoulders, one might imagine wings. The 8×10 is there, Cooke Tripe-Convertible lens, and Wraten No. 15 filter too, but where is the damn Weston? “The light’s going!” The sun trails the clouds in the west. The exposure meter is not to be found, but—250 footcandles!—Adams knows the luminosity of the moon. Settings approximated, the image is captured, the slide removedflipped-replaced in the film holder. Shadow passes over the crosses before a duplicate is burned. A single image and the day is not a waste. The attempt to capture will soon prove successful, though the dark room will require many more tries to produce. Adams’ early prints of “Moonrise” will show what others saw as the sun set outside of Hernandez, New Mexico that night in 1941. In time, they will show what was seen by Adams as he blundered to calculate the light of the moon. He will place the negative in
Banter continues—it, too, passable—and he glances at his son in the back. And then, looking left, the extraordinary situation—the inevitable photograph! The car to the side of the road, Adams is up to the roof. There is gravel underfoot and the surrounding expanse of land and air is uncertain at the shouts.
34 | Less Taken Than Made | Kathryn Reed | Tuesday Magazine
the enlarger, burn the sky blacker and underexpose the clouds. Chemical enhancer will be added and the moon will appear brighter than reality says it should. Meaning will seem to vary, though the scene will remain largely unchanged. No two prints will ever be quite the same. But now, it is 1941 and Ansel Adams is returning to Santa Fe. The moon is on the highway and the time has almost come for a drink. Martinis straight up have always been reassuringly direct, but lately Adams has preferred to add ice. The water dilutes only a little and for now he wishes to prolong the taste.
‘K a y la E s c o b e do’ K a y la E s c o b e do
ink, acrylic paint, and marker on paper 25” X 30” 2012
‘Kayla Escobedo’ | Kayla Escobedo | Tuesday Magazine | 35
Unt it led M arisa Beckley, Anonymou s 2 found photographs
— Marisa Beckley is a member of the art board.
36 | Untitled | Marisa Beckley | Tuesday Magazine
Christmas Mass in Valladolid POETRY | BEN LAMONT Valladolid’s Supreme Being is its two-towered church, Where we came after Christmas dinner At the colonial hotel opposite on the square. A few already occupied the wooden benches. After an unknowable time the people became So many that I knew soon the service would begin. I was joined in my row On both sides, And then they began to fill the side aisles Until there was no more space in that church. From the crowd standing in the doorway the procession emerged, Clearing their way by waves of incense. The boy a row in front laughed with his sister And his father scowled. The baby on his mother’s shoulder Looked up at me with surprise. My eyes cast forward, Above everyone, With everyone Onto the Crucifix, Then down, wondering If my neighbor’s eyes were open, And if they were, If she was reading the lyrics I held out between us, Trying to share with her.
Christmas Mass in Valladolid | Ben Lamont | Tuesday Magazine | 37
38 | Stamped, Past Paste | Anna White Lavigne | Tuesday Magazine
S ta mp ed , P as t Past e, St at ionary Voyage A n n a Wh ite L avigne 3 charcoal drawings on paper 2011
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Interview with Elizabeth Doran INTERVIEW | MELANIE WANG The Grolier Poetry Book Shop stands at 6 Plympton Street. It is just one room, with dark wooden shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling. Its tall storefront window is full to bursting with poems, ads for readings, and other announcements from the Grolier staff. Legend holds that Allen Ginsberg used to frequent a couch long since removed. Today, Ifeanyi Menkiti, a philosophy professor at Wellesley College, owns the store. Elizabeth Doran holds the title of bookseller. This interview was conducted in the Grolier, with occasional guest appearances by customers - mostly poets, students, and tourists. Where did you grow up, and how did you come to work at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop? I grew up in Boston, so I’m from the area. The first time I came here I was eighteen, so it was a long time ago. I fell in love with the store back then. What do you think appealed to you about the store when you were eighteen? I just thought it was so beautiful. You know, it was a little bit messier. The previous owner carried a lot of journals and newspapers of poetry. The shelves were stacked a lot higher, and there was a dog here. So it was just very homey, and just, you know, all that poetry and poets. I remember the first couple of books I bought – one was Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. It was a bilingual book. I just thought it was the most beautiful book I had ever read. I had a roommate who was from Argentina, so she knew who Pablo Neruda was. She used to read the Spanish to me and I would read the English to her, in that little book. At that time I wasn’t steeped in poetry. I didn’t know a lot. But as soon as I came up the stairs I felt at home. Louisa Solano, the previous owner, has said the exact same thing. She’s going to think that it’s plagiarism because she said the minute that she walked up those stairs and looked in, she knew that she was going to be here, someday. But it was the same feeling for you? Yeah, yeah. She said almost word for word what I felt. Do you feel like that’s changed at all, or does that still stand true? Well, it’s home. I love the place. It’s such an amazing fit. I’ve never had a job that fit the way this fits. It suits me. Why is that? Is it the poetry, the rhythm of your day here? Yeah, you know, it’s the perfect job. There’s people from all over the world who just come here, and they want to talk about something I’m in love with, which is poetry. I had someone in here the other day who wrote some sonnets. He published a book of these sonnets where he wrote in three different languages. He wrote in English, he wrote in German, and he wrote in French – the same sonnet. And then he read the sonnet, in those three languages. And, you know it’s just wonderful to have things like that happen. You have a job where somebody comes in and reads you a sonnet in three different languages. Quite unusual, but very pleasant. So poets are in and out of the bookstore a lot… A lot of people who come in here are poets, not everybody, but a lot of them. A lot of times you have poets who are not as well known, but they’re still fairly well known, and they come in and look for their 40 | Interview with Elizabeth Doran | Melanie Wang | Tuesday Magazine
books… and it’s embarrassing if you don’t have them, especially if they’re a more well known poet. I think my biggest embarrassment was C.K. Williams – he didn’t say anything, but there weren’t any of his books here when he came in. It’s not that we didn’t ever carry his book, but when he came in the store, his book wasn’t in stock. And that’s not something you want to happen. So what kinds of reactions do you get when a poet comes in and their book is here or not here? Well when it’s not here, sometimes they’ll ask me why, or sometimes I won’t even know, they won’t tell me. And then you get to talking to them, and you’ll find out their name. Then they leave, and you realize they were on the shelf… Are there any tell tale signs – body language, or you know, a particular method of browsing? Sometimes. Sometimes I suspect. Are there particular poems, books, or writers that you associate strongly with your time at the Grolier? You know, there’s so many poets. I mean I feel like I try to be open as much as I can. And to help people with wherever they’re at. Because some people say, “I don’t know anything about poetry. Can you help me?” You know? That’s an interesting thing, because then you have to ask more questions about the person before you can know how to help them. For example, what kinds of things are you interested in? What kind of writing do you like? What do you think about those kinds of things? Then you can say, “Oh well, there’s a new poet here – or maybe you’ll like Robert Pinsky – or Mary Oliver…” It depends on where they’re at. So if I was to ask you for a recommendation right now... Well, I’d be curious – what are you interested in? What do you already know about poetry? The first poet I really got into was e.e. cummings, who sort of opened it up for me. I was in eighth grade. I’ve read a lot of 20th century poets, like Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams. I like Elizabeth Bishop. But I think also I’m definitely where you were at eighteen, in that I like poetry but I don’t know poetry. I don’t presume to know things, is what I’m saying… I also – I did say I started with Neruda but my father read e. e. cummings to me when I was child, because e.e. cummings did write for children. He also wrote erotic poems and he wrote for adults. My father, he didn’t read me the erotic poems, but he also didn’t necessarily only read me the poems for children. There’s a poem about tulips, a spring poem In just spring Mmm. he would read things like that to me when I was very young, and it definitely had an effect on me. But to get back to where we were with you, if you’re saying that you’re familiar with e. e. cummings and you read e.e. cummings and you liked that experience – because he’s one of those poets who is more difficult – I would say to you read John Ashbery’s translation of Rimbaud’s Illuminations. That’s what I would say to you. Just because. Something to do with instinct. Your instinct? My instinct about you. That’s why I would recommend that particular book, based on what you’ve said. If you’re familiar with Bishop, e.e. cummings, you like William Carlos Williams, maybe you’ll get something out of a French poet. I read French too. See? So my instinct is right. — Melanie Wang is a staff writer. Interview with Elizabeth Doran | Melanie Wang | Tuesday Magazine | 41
Scales POETRY | GILLIAN KASSNER We drape ourselves in words like scales like shields lined with thin vertical lacerations, gills letting in air, sifting water out, they slither, wet dominoes aligned so perfectly, years of experience threaded through their roots, all the practice and advice, our own perceptions knotted in the shingles that line our vulnerable bones, our veins, our hearts. Two fingers, three, a press, a single stroke, and sudden electricity pierces these stagnant waters, periodic and unmerciful, vibrating waves that conquer these walls, these layers of cloth and flesh, my skin covered only by goosebumps from these failed feathers, failed fur
42 | Scales | Gillian Kassner | Tuesday Magazine