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Table of Contents | Volume 11, Issue 1 4
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
. Blackout Poetry
21 CONDUCTOR
6
Stay Sharp
. Prose
22 Reluctant Angels
Alexander Pytka Annie Harvieux
Tray Drumhann
Dance Flow Elaine Dong
Tray Drumhann
. Digital Art . Mixed Media
23 casus belli
. Oil on Canvas
Ana Chavez
. Poetry
7
Writing about Writing about Vietnam
24 After the Wake
8
A day at the office
25 asexualpoem
9
HFT: Round 10, Part 1
Y-Danair Niehrah
. Poetry
J. Andrés Ballesteros
. Poetry
Stephen Liu & Will Holub-Moorman
10 Mr. Pardo Emily Wang
16x20
Elaine Dong
12 Heart
Elaine Dong
. Poetry
Nataliya Nedzhvetskaya
. Q&A
2
26 Charles
.
27 Silent Scream
Amy Chyao
Oil on Canvas
. Pen & Ink
Mercedes Flowers
. Fiction
14 INTERPRETER Tray Drumhann
. Digital Art
the four people i met in gate 7 -
. Prose Poetry
. Poetry
. Mixed Media
Jihyun Ro
. Prose
13 in his prescence
Emily Wang
Edyt Dickstein
. Prose
Tray Drumhann
. Mixed Media
28 Rocks and Rock Petters Rachel Cheong
. Essay
10, 13, 14, 11 Jenny Ng
. Photo Manipulation
30 Unsung
Saad Amer
. Photography
31 bedridden Brian Kim
. Poetry
15 Far Away Eyes
. Mixed Media
32 Pigeons
16 Two Boys
. Pigment Print
33 Long Distance Flights
Tray Drumhann
Laurie Simmons
Stella Fiorenzoli William Sack
. Photography
. Fiction
19 Laurie Simmons’s Two Boys
36 Four geometric Images
20 The Chinese Painting of Genghis Khan
38 you are my statue garden
William J. Simmons
. Essay
Anson Clark . Poetry
Cover image: 1; Jihyun Ro
Jenny Ng
Anjie Liu
. Photography . Poetry
39 Though there be no time for love Axel Snow
. Poetry
Table of Contents | Tuesday Magazine | 3
Beyond the Pleasure Principle BLACKOUT POETRY | ALEXANDER PYTKA
4 | Beyond the Pleasure Principle | Alexander Pytka | Tuesday Magazine
Beyond the Pleasure Principle | Alexander Pytka | Tuesday Magazine | 5
Stay Sharp PROSE | ANNIE HARVIEUX Stay sharp. I see you there, in the back of class, eyelids drooping, raised pencil tapping the page as you start to drift off. Sit up. Stay vigilant. In an hour, you’ll become your other self. Not all superheroes wear spandex, but you do. You fold up your glasses and your ill-fitted jeans and trade them for the stretchy red that glows in the sun. You’re not embarrassed. You don’t half-ass your spandex and wear it with running shorts. You pull that suit on, and you own it. The tiny clicks as you pull the buckles of your boots tight are a call to action. As you pace and kick anxiously in the start gate and draw in a deep breath, your throat contracts. Sharp, bitter winter air. You love it. If it could curl out of your mouth in tendrils, it would. Five, four, the official counts down, his sheepskin chopper clamped firmly on your shoulder. In three seconds, you will be brave and gritty and terrifying and graceful, and scared, and agonized, and you will feel the lactic acid saturate you, and when 32 calls track on you, you will hang on her ass, dammit, if you pass out doing it. There’s a moment in every race,
a split second, in which you decide who holds the reins: your mind or your body. You’ve gotten distracted a few times. You’ve wondered what’s for lunch or thought about the girl who went out behind you. You’ve felt it hurt and thought, I’ll take this hill easy, I’ll make it up on the next one. But what feeling is worse than thinking you’ll pick it back up on the next climb, and realizing it was the last hill you were cresting? There’s a moment in every race when you decide. The scary thing is, you can’t guess it in the start chute. Today, you could pick the easy route. You could relax, glide into the finish and place in the forties. Your coach wouldn’t give you a second look, good or bad. You’d go to the team tent and pick out a nice fat brownie off the table, and pull your heart-rate strap from its uncomfortable spot wedged up your sports bra, and huff a little sigh as you pull your shirt back down, but as you sling your bag of dry clothes over your shoulder and head for the van to change, you notice that you can walk pretty comfortably, and it doesn’t hurt that badly to lift your bag, and you’ll remember how when you finished you
could stand up and un-bind your skis right away, and how you sort of half-assed that back hill, and how when number 32 passed you, you just let her go, and you get this feeling as you pull off your spandex that you put it on with a resolution, to fight on the side of good and to fight for and defend your team and to cause yourself pain pain pain and agony and risk failure because you get this beautiful opportunity to go outside yourself, and it’s practically sacred, and you squandered it, and you squandered your power and your team’s trust for an easy out and doughy legs and an easy brownie whose calories you don’t deserve, and as you pull on dry wool socks you make a vow with yourself that tomorrow you will do it right. You made this mistake last weekend. This weekend you won’t. There is a moment in every race when you decide, and today you’re going to decide right. It won’t bring you a win. Hell, it may not even bring you points. The starter’s chopper shifts on your shoulder, begins to lift. Two. Your every muscle tenses. One.
Dance Flow Elaine Dong Oil on Canvas 6 | Stay Sharp | Annie Harvieux | Dance Flow | Elaine Dong | Tuesday Magazine
Writing about Writing about Vietnam POETRY | Y-DANAIR NIEHRAH I don’t want to grow tired of writing about Vietnam. I don’t want to grow tired of writing about the same dirt roads my father walked on in loincloth with a crossbow slung over his shoulder, or the same images of elephants crossing through rivers and streams littered with bamboo fishing poles and fishing nets. I don’t want to get tired writing about my mother and my mother’s mother pushing around carts of food in the Saigon market, or crossing over the Atlantic Ocean, smuggled under the belly of a cargo ship with nothing but a ball of rice to fill the aching bellies of her and her three siblings. I’ve painted pictures of bamboo forests and trees infested with monkeys and ants, torched with the liquid flames of napalm and hidden under clouds of black smoke - all with words that I tried to keep simple, because a teacher in highschool taught me that clutter and fluff was worthless. I’ve written stories of soldiers humping through monsoons with backpack straps digging into their shoulders, rifles raised above their heads, hoping to God their cigarettes were still dry and I’ve written about scouts and patrols diving headfirst into piles of elephant shit to dodge the flashlight of those gooks who spoke too loud and frantic.
Over coffee and French bread every morning, my Father tells me stories, stirring in three tablespoons of sugar and three seconds worth of half and half into his mug. He speaks of the little things, like how the cold mountain winds would cut at his skin during the winter, or how he scarred his fingertips learning how to play the guitar in too many different cities. He smiles even when he remembers the Tet Offensive, laughs when he remembers how fat his father was the same man who was tortured until he bled no more. He drinks his coffee fast, and works down the bread to nothing more than golden crumbs on a paper towel. He looks up and tells me to keep writing stories - to rewrite the novel I had written so poorly as my thesis in highschool. He told me he was proud of me then, proud that I had dedicated the book to his father Y-Thih E-ban Buon Kang, whose body has never been found. And I lay tired and listening to music too peaceful for those images of war and bloodshed - and I write about writing about Vietnam because that’s as close as I want to get to the smell of fish and water buffalo, to the mountain breeze and clear rivers and streams, to the coffee plantations my father grew up on, torched with napalm or orange gases - that’s as close as I want to get before I realize I’m growing tired and tired and tired.
Writing about Writing about Vietnam | Y-Danair Niehrah | Tuesday Magazine | 7
A day at the office POETRY | J. ANDRÉS BALLESTEROS
Today, We woke up Made our kids breakfast Kissed our wives and husbands goodbye Went to work Greeted our colleagues Felt a plane slam Into the building Floors 93 to 99 Left a message On our spouses’ phones and walked out the window of Floor 103 one by one.
8 | A day at the office | J. Andrés Ballesteros | Tuesday Magazine
HFT: Round 10, Part 1 PROSE | STEPHEN LIU & WILL HOLUB-MOORMAN This poet asked “O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer / are you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole?” in a poem that finishes “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” In another poem by this author, the speaker asks “How can those terrified vague fingers push / the feathered glory from her loosening thighs?” In a third poem, this author of “Among Schoolchildren” notes that “an aged man is a paltry thing” and “that is no country for old men.” This author wrote that “things fall apart, the center cannot hold” in his most famous poem. For ten points, name this author of “Leda and the Swan,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” and “The Second Coming.” ANSWER: William Butler Yeats The “good” Jeanie Johnston sailed during this event, which took place in part due to the cottier system and the existence of the ascendency class. William Smith O’Brian led a rebellion during this event, and typhoid outbreaks were frequent on “coffin ships” escaping it. Catholics converted due to “souperism” because conversion would be rewarded with soup, and this event was partly responsible for Robert Peel’s repeal of the Corn Laws. For 10 points, name this 1840s event which caused millions to emigrate to America and was caused by the fungus Phytophthora infestans, a famine that caused widespread death and hunger in Ireland due to the failure of a certain crop. ANSWER: Irish potato famine Some philosophers argue that the existence of aesthetics and the existence of qualia, or subjective experiences, can only be explained by this concept. William James took his theory of truth-as-expediency of thought as a proof of this concept, and another philosopher argued in favor of this concept by suggesting in order for anything to be judged as a particular quality, a maximum of that quality must exist. A third philosopher argued in favor of this concept by arguing that a perfect being can be imagined, and that existing is better than not existing. For 10 points, name this concept, argued for in St. Anselm’s ontological argument and the Unmoved Mover argument from Thomas Aquinas’ Quinquae Viae. ANSWER: the existence of God Heraclitus compared one of these philosophical concepts to gold, in that “all things are an interchange for it.” In the Timaeus, Plato claimed that while the dodecahedron corresponded to the shape of the universe, the other ideal forms correspond to these philosophical concepts. In the middle ages, Paracelsus added the tria prima, or three spiritual substances, to the list of these concepts. The first philosopher, Thales, held that one of these concepts actually made up all of the others, that concept is water. For 10 points, name this set of philosophical concepts which in classical thought were said to make up the entirety of the world and which consists of air, earth, water, and fire ANSWER: classical elements Sets of this type that are symmetric about the origin must contain a lattice point by Minkowski’s Theorem, and for a function phi of this type, phi of the expectation of x is less than or equal to the expectation of phi of x according to Jensen’s inequality. For this type of object, all lines between points in this object are contained within the object, and line segments connecting points on this type of function are above the function. A polygon has this property if all of its internal angles are less than 180 degrees. For 10 points, name this property, which a function possesses if its second derivative is positive, that describes functions that curve upwards and is the opposite of concave. ANSWER: convex HFT: Round 10, Part 1 | Stephen Liu & Will Holub-Moorman | Tuesday Magazine | 9
Mr. Pardo PROSE | EMILY WANG Peter thinks I’m fucking up my life. I know because he tells me this every day when we ride the subway to school. What the hell is that? He points accusingly to my shirt or skirt or Docs. My shirts are too tight and too low-cut; my skirt’s too short. The boots make me look like Combat Barbie. And he flipped out when he saw the pack of Camels in the front pocket of my backpack; I thought he was going to die of a coronary. Good thing he didn’t check any of the other pockets, or he would’ve died of a stroke and aneurysm combined. I would’ve been real sorry, too, but I still would’ve worn Docs to his funeral. Peter thinks my life is an act of penance. When he reminds me that, according to my religion, women should be modest and subservient and chaste, I reach into my blouse and pull out the crucifix that I bought from The Dollar Tree and rattle it at him. He gets all huffy about it, says that I’ve transformed religion into crass consumerist culture. But he’s atheist, so I don’t think he can say much on that front. I’m glad that we’re both graduating soon, and he’ll be off to Harvard or some other college that his parents can boast about over cocktails. I’ll be serving burgers on roller skates at that novelty diner that opened up a couple weeks ago. I’m gonna be the best goddamn waitress in
this city. I’ll shimmy over to everyone (men and women both) with a sway of the hips and I’ll stick singles and cigs in my cleavage like the girls do on MTV, and they’re gonna tsk tsk tsk at me. She’s a lost cause. A goner. But boy, will they keep coming back for more. And they’ll just say, It’s too bad they can’t save her. But damn, look at that body.
10 | Mr. Pardo | Emily Wang | 16x20 | Elaine Dong | Tuesday Magazine
I don’t need saving. I tell this to Mr. Pardo who buys bread from the bakery I work the night shift at. He buys day-old rolls even though he can afford the fresh ones, hot from the oven (steamy and soft, too). He’s a good man. He’s the only one who doesn’t twist his face into cheap twenty-cent pity; he just nods and says I
shouldn’t let boys like Peter walk all over me. Sometimes I think that Mr. Pardo is the only good man left in the city. It’s real sad that he can’t have kids because he would raise them right. Let them run around and climb trees and bandage their own cuts. Read them stories about Odysseus and Penelope (he gave me his copy all beaten up and written over – I think I liked it better that way). He would play jazz and blues in the house and let his kids dance on his toes and he’d lift them up, up, up. Yeah, he’d be the right kind of dad. But sometimes the world doesn’t let anybody have too much of a good thing. New York would probably collapse if Mr. Pardo had kids. Those pretty skyscrapers would implode and crumble to the ground; all the men in suits wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. But one Mr. Pardo could fight one hundred Peters. I wouldn’t need crucifixes no more, just The Odyssey and Plath and Heller and even real dirtballs like Anthony Burgess. I’d turn to Peter and open up my mouth and millions of these gold coins would fall out, and suddenly Peter would be drowning in a sea of gold and he’d be like What the hell? What the hell? And I’d tell him to drag his sorry ass to Harvard; Diner Girl won’t be taking that shit no more.
The boys at the diner will call me a lost cause when they see the cross dripping down my neck like a tramp stamp. They won’t even know half of it, no sir. I’m gonna get a tattoo of Neruda on my inner thigh, where no one can see it but me when I shimmy into my skirts every morning and shimmy out of them every night. Te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente. I love you like dark things are to be loved, in secret. I’m not even telling Mr. Pardo. This one will be just for me. A man whistled to me on the street corner yesterday. I pretended to be indignant but inside I wanted to hoot and holler out, You too, baby, you too.
“And they’ll say, It’s they can’t save her. But damn, look at that ”
too bad
body.
16x20 El a i n e D o n g painting
Mr. Pardo| Emily Wang | Tuesday Magazine | 11
H e art El a in e D o n g Pen and Ink
12 | Heart | Elaine Dong | Tuesday Magazine
in his prescence FICTION | MERCEDES FLOWERS
His right ear stuck out more than his left, and his breath smelled like coffee. This was not God. But in a situation like this, when in doubt, you don’t take chances. I walked two steps toward his anemic light until I felt a social compulsion pulling me to the ground; my knees hit the formless white. Prostrated before him, I actually cracked a smile as my forehead met the floor. Practicing your manners before God felt like spit-shining a machete before using it to butcher a cow. “Stand up, son,” he told me. “Look me in the face.” His voice lilted, like he was stifling a laugh. I’m naked, my first thought reminded me. And who laughs at their own handiwork? Someone who messed up. This was not God. My muscles registered effort as I pulled my spine straight. He was taller than me. I understood that. His shoulders were broader; his stance was wider; his arms were bigger. I understood these things. What I did not understand, however, was why he handed me a cigarette – lit, fresh. I’d never smoked a day in my life, but I took it. One breath and I felt the fumes like a shotgun’s spray in my lungs; I was still alive, and for this, I was thankful. Blinking, I regarded him as he had asked (ordered?) me. I get pissed when someone tells me they don’t know the color of their own eyes. But in his case, I had to admit that it was true; you could have handed me a Home Depot paint color chart and I still would have been lost. The only thing I could identify was the encircling white, and to this I latched myself; even that, though, could be illusory. Here, memory gave way to my thoughts like truth. I took a breath of the cigarette. “Thanks for coming,” he said just loudly enough for me to hear. My left eardrum’s been blown out since my brother hit me on the side of the head with a pool-noodle. That sounds like a joke, but it’s not. I wondered if you’re allowed to ask God for repairs. His bare back was creased perfectly down its center. I reached out my hand instinctually to touch what made me curious, but he was already too far gone. “You’re welcome,”
I replied succinctly, unsure of what else to say. The funny thing is, I knew that he knew what I knew, a mirror reflecting the nebulous “everything” ever-after itself. I imagine he smelled my standard-first-date-fear, the “do-I-talk-now-or-do-you-talk-now-or-do-we-both-sithere-and-hope-for-the-end-together”; maybe he felt it too. No, he didn’t. This was not God. I wasn’t really sure why he was turned away from me, but I stayed planted. The intentionality of his movement surmounted my own marble insecurity. As I looked him over again, I noticed the backs of his heels were dirty. Smooth, but tinted brown against the fluorescent underneath. “I want you to go somewhere.” I closed my eyes at these words. I want you to go somewhere. The reprise may have been inside my own thoughts, or it may have been his repeating of the words, but no matter; they were formed into existence and now rattled around my consciousness. These seven syllables mattered more to me than my first (or second, or third) “I love you,” more than dad forgetting to call on my birthday, more than the look in my dog’s eyes before we put her to sleep. I don’t know what it was, but those words weighed me down to a fierce, fierce reality. Until my calf began to itch. I rubbed my legs together to satiate. I swallowed. “Where’s that?” The question was pointless, that much I knew. Like throwing a rock after dropping an atom bomb, it was painlessly symbolic. And with those words, I realized that the communion couldn’t last; the light was fading and I slipped into a pitch gray gravity over which I had no control. My words drained from the air. I was again left alone with my unhappiness. The fact that the choice was my own struck me with a sudden sort of violence. I clenched my fists in a swell of unidentified unpleasant emotion. I decided to return to him. His light was neither warm nor divine, but I think it was for precisely those reasons that I felt compelled to follow.
in his prescence | Mercedes Flowers | Tuesday Magazine | 13
IN T E RPRETER Tray Drumhann Mixed Media
the four people i met in gate 7 PROSE POETRY | EMILY WANG i. this guy is pretty zen. he has a hemp neck rest and wears a bandana around his throat. they don’t let him on the plane due to public intoxication. he calls his wife and sounds not-so-zen. ii. she’s stuck on a long layover and can’t stop complaining. she hates waiting as a sensation of suspension. her life is probably more dynamic than mine. the wheels on my suitcase slip on linoleum from newness. iii. he’s visiting his daughter for the first time in ten years. shows me a picture that’s worn at the corners and creased down the side from sitting in his wallet. dated 1999. beautiful girl. i ask him what’s the occasion for the trip? funeral he says, beginning to shudder and sob. not much to say about this. iv. she’s like me in an alternate reality where my life is harder and i care a lot less about things that don’t matter. she tells me social justice isn’t just another medal for your trophy cabinet. i say i know. she warns me that writers care about aesthetics more than they care about causes. she asks if i have a cause worth dying for.
14 | the four people i met in gate 7 - | Emily Wang | INTERPRETER | Tray Drumhann | Tuesday Magazine
Far Away Eyes Tray Drumhann Mixed Media
Far Away Eyes | Tray Drumhann | Tuesday Magazine | 15
Boy I / Cor ner, 2 0 1 3 (right) Pigm en t p r i n t 89 3⁄4 x 59 1⁄2 i n c h e s ( 228 x 15 1 c m ) Boy I / Fl oor, 2 0 1 3 ( bot t o m l e f t ) Pigm en t p r i n t 59 1⁄2 x 89 3⁄4 i n c h e s ( 151 x 22 8 c m ) Boy I I / Si l ver Desk/ Pr of i l e , 2 0 1 3 (top left) Pigm en t p r i n t 89 3⁄4 x 59 1⁄2 i n c h e s ( 151 x 22 8 c m ) Laur i e Si mmo n s Cour t es y of t he a r t i s t and Salon 94, Ne w Yo r k
16 | Two Boys | Laurie Simmons | Tuesday Magazine
Two Boys | Laurie Simmons | Tuesday Magazine | 17
L a u ri e S i mmo n s Tour i sm : M oonw al k Apol l o I I M is s i o n ( To p ) , 1 9 8 4 Cibachrome 40 × 60 inc h e s ( 1 0 2 × 1 5 2 c m ) Pushi ng Li pst i ck ( Spot l i g h t ) ( L e f t ) , 1 9 7 9 Cibachrome 5. 75 × 8. 75 in c h e s ( 1 5 × 2 2 c m ) The Love Dol l - Day 14 ( Ca n d y ) ( R i g h t ) , 2 0 1 0 Fuji Matte print 70 × 47 inc h e s ( 1 7 8 × 11 9 c m ) Cour t esy of t he ar t i st and Sa l o n 9 4 , N e w Yo rk 18 | Laurie Simmons | Tuesday Magazine
Laurie Simmons’s Two Boys ESSAY | WILLIAM J. SIMMONS Over four decades, Laurie Simmons has written an innovative and visually engrossing photographic story. With her new work on view at the Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, she adds an entirely new chapter. Two Boys, a set of four photographs displayed in tandem with the North American premiere of Nico Muhly’s opera of the same name, presents not only a vision of the internal and communal traumas of the internet age, but also Simmons’s ever-expanding relationship to photographic practice. Long admired for her commitment to both conceptual and formal rigor, Simmons has addressed a myriad of historical, social, and aesthetic phenomena, all through adroitly maneuvered lenses. Simmons’s projects include objects on legs, ventriloquist’s dummies, impossibly manicured interior scenes, and a musical featuring a chorus of melancholic puppets, all of which reflect her desire to communicate impossibilities, despite the sincerest dreams and prayers that remain with us from childhood. These themes, rendered in films, installations, and photographs, maintain intensely personal, but always relatable, underpinnings made tangible by surrogates – surrogates for human beings, for love, for loss. In the 2009-2011 series, The Love Doll, for example, we find ourselves forging an emotional connection with a pair of high-end Japanese sex dolls. A similar operation is at play in Simmons’s earlier work, wherein we meet confined housewives and wandering tourists, dancing cameras and steely-eyed cowboy
action figures. Simmons’s photographs recall childhood nights under the covers with our eyes squeezed shut, longing desperately for the acrobatics of the imagination to become real. Finding friends or lovers was so much simpler in our youth; toys do not have the capacity for rejection. We begin to wonder about the nature of the human body and the constantly shifting realm of memory, thereby jettisoning us into an indeterminate world fashioned by the camera and gestated in the mind. Simmons has said of her cast of characters, “Now I think it is important to address their inner lives. What is making them put one foot in front of the other?”1 The answer only becomes more mysterious and complex with time. What can be said for the medical dummies of Two Boys, who normally live quiet, unassuming lives in Brooklyn’s Lutheran Medical Center? Valued entirely for their utility, no one wants to hear their stories. They are harbingers of sickness that offer no entertainment or distraction, no glitz or artifice. Likewise, the paralyzing realism Simmons offers is so palpable, so unsettlingly tactile, that the photographs merge with a reality uncannily similar to our own.2 Whether in the sheen of the boys’ skin or the pulsing void of the hospital floor, the viewer encounters details that paradoxically expose and conceal the role of the camera. It is here that Simmons offers an evaluation of the past using contemporary images; indeed, the history of photography itself becomes her focus. “The moment I
Simmons, Laurie. Laurie Simmons: Interviewed by Sarah Charlesworth. New York City: A.R.T. Press and Distributed Art Publishers, 1994. 2 I owe this point to Mary Simpson, who initially noted the astonishing details in these photographs. 3 Simmons, Laurie and Marvin Heiferman. “Laurie Simmons and Marvin Heiferman.” Art in America, 3 April 2009. 1
picked up a camera,” Simmons remembers, “I felt that I had a responsibility to know what had happened in the past, so I immersed myself in the history, saw and read everything I could, and you know what? It didn’t take that long.”3 The past of which she speaks is marked by the precariousness of her chosen craft. For most of its infancy and adolescence, the photograph was as lifeless and utilitarian as these dummies. In fact, it was not until the late 20th century that conceptual photography became the revered art historical staple it is today, a transition that Simmons, among others, spearheaded. Two Boys could thus be said to contain this history. By elevating the medical dummies from tools to conceptual entities, while retaining their basic function as material objects through unflinching realism, Simmons reenacts the transformation of photography. She illustrates the very foundation of the photographic process, an unpredictable amalgam of technical, subjective, and universal factors. Perhaps she is equally interested in the “inner life” of the photograph as she is in that of her subjects. Simmons now presents us with the antonym of much of her previous work, and, in doing so, questions established narratives not only of her career, but also of photography as an art historical category. What results is a complex deepening of our relationship to the photograph, a love affair that Simmons perennially rekindles with formidable vigor.
Laurie Simmons’s Two Boys is on view at the Metropolitan Opera’s Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met in New York City through January 15, 2014.
Laurie Simmons’s Two Boys | William J. Simmons | Tuesday Magazine | 19
The Chinese Painting of Genghis Khan POETRY | ANSON CLARK
I view the Chinese painting of a foreign Man dressed in simple white. A master of the Universe, a Columbia graduate. But the painting Is staged, the violence trampled on By stunned silence. Did the painter’s Hand tremble when applying those Emollient colours? The subject, a scholar Of Taoism and the Mohist school. But The learning tended to be submerged By the raging ocean. The painting’s illusion leaps out at me; Those sunken ocean eyes mere shutters Keeping out the inner conflict. You would, ironically, sketch pictures Of me as I sat staring at the walls of the sky; Byronic glamor my excuse. There was so much Heart in those drawings: impish fun mixed with Wry wisdom. But I’m always dragging that horse around. The white clothes are a politician’s white, And I projected both naïve whiteness and black otherness Onto you. But ha! That’s really my portrait. I made a lot of my education but your education was The same. A hunter has to show he has mastery over Others. This now seems stupid. Like watching the puddles Of Swan Lake in the rain. I wanted to recreate What Tchaikovsky wrote with us. I wanted The highs, like ice skating in New York City, To escalate to even greater highs, like kissing In Central Park. But now I’m hurting low After all those highs, both real and imagined. I stare at this empty painting and fall back onto The slab. Some women have lived their
20 | The Chinese Painting of Genghis Khan | Anson Clark | Tuesday Magazine
Lives on slabs like this. Words, action, Images – there has been violence Committed since the original fire. An Instagram of memory sees you wearing An Open-Knit Ballet-Neck sweater. You had Just beaten me at Scrabble and wanted to kiss. I didn’t listen to you like I should have done. At the end of the day everyone wants to be Listened to. But my individual drive made me Always think of the big picture, and not The minute details. A portrait cannot create Another portrait. You knew that you were, like Everyone else, not perfect. But I wanted the Picture to be perfect through the ages, Like my first piece of Christmas cake, aged nine. I was brought up by the ocean. It grew and Mutated like me. I hear it when others don’t. It thinks it cradles the womb of the earth and doesn’t Recognize the moon’s reflection and the turning Of the crust. I thought I had won you. Earned you like a trophy. I dabbled in philosophy, but like Mongol invaders Could not cover up the desire to collect things Considered exotic and alluring. You simply wanted A cool guy to hang out with, I in return gave you The Chinese painting of Genghis Khan. THE END.
CONDUCTOR Tray Drumhann Mixed Media
CONDUCTOR | Tray Drumhann | Tuesday Magazine | 21
R e l u c t an t A n g els Tra y D ru mh an n Mixed Media
22 | Reluctant Angels | Tray Drumhann | Tuesday Magazine
casus belli POETRY | ANA CHAVEZ
The electric company shut off the power yesterday Mama says we’ll be okay, keeping warm with the friction of today and tomorrow. We’re violent fires anyway. It smells of birth and electricity, acrid renewal and reckless abandon, here in the city of the clean and the cleansing. We’ve got worn soles, worn souls and the renaissance recipe for a magnificent life. Isn’t ecstasy lovely? The clean kind, I mean though the other kind too, if you need that. We’ve all got blurred contours to soften the geometry of a place like this. There are girls with mouths like razors - and actual razors - and boys with weary hands and punctuated music and fleeting impressions. There is little more than pigment in this world, but we wear our bodies like spectrums. A muse you could say, an earnest anthology: Powerless, but powerful, the striking story of us odd, brilliant things. We can’t afford morality; we leave that for those with cold eyes and heavy wrists, bitter wives and their plump kids. There’s poetry on our lips, survival on our minds; deception’s a sin, but what could be worse than lying to yourself? The rich are getting richer; the poor are getting poorer, and what naïveté to be in the murky middle. We’re just trying to keep our dishes and noses clean, living out dreams in these makeshift time capsules. The nicest thing about noise is the way that it silences the worst parts of your brain. Short, sure, but this life feels like carnal fulfillment
casus belli | Ana Chavez | Tuesday Magazine | 23
After the Wake POETRY | EDYT DICKSTEIN
Father’s shiny, “I am too a professional” salon shoes Were the last glimpse of home we gave my brother We drove away, old car shoving its way through humid air, Trunk lighter without torn posters, textbooks, and “foolish nostalgia”— Dumped in college dorm. “Four years,” I promised—months of freedom from chores and Cleaning and Father—and when our trunk closed That final time, I asked, “Is it raining?” Because droplets Were falling from my brother’s eyes; We hurried home: beat the clouds (Father said we were lucky)— We didn’t even need to help bring the stuff up: His new roommate was there first—we pushed the “up” elevator button And left, driving into the clogged highways, racing no one home. Smells of Father’s evolving Thai food saturated the air— So different than Mother’s dependable recipe (before that too changed). My stomach growled; that and my head and my heart Became a crescendo of blaring volume: I flopped down and ate—ignoring the gnawing promise My brother and I had made a year earlier in a fit of stubborn anger: Never eat the food again; never contribute to Father’s belief That he, too, could cook Thai—that he could remake tofu, Just as he had built himself a study from the old family room, Leaving Mother’s friendly rocking chair for the dump, Stuffing drooping onto the worn upholstery in the soggy night. The kitchen echoed with just two forks and knives clanging on holiday china— We were celebrating loneliness: and the oven hummed a melody For just the two of us.
24 | After the Wake | Edyt Dickstein | Tuesday Magazine
asexualpoem POETRY | Nataliya Nedzhvetskaya rice, dusty powd’ry warmth crawls beneath nails and slides so, so effortlessly from between fingers the pale salt of bones, ground to meal, left behind
a stalk of asparagus, pliable though not quite malleable to touch an elastic snap of cracking cellulose that breaks even at the point of youth and old age
red, green, blue pixels illuminate an invisible crochet of dust in which palms sink to end splayed on the firm opposition of gray television glass
steel wool chemical magenta that is alkaline cutting—aghast what unnerving residue remains on the skin after the original stain has been scrubbed clean
book spines shoulder one another risen up beneath questioning fingertips there is an answer I can read in the braille tap-tap of syllables that make no sound
stainless steel clicks and cuts keratinous nails that cover my hands my nerves cannot sense this amputation made for pain, not unfamiliarity, loss distilled
2 Jihyun Ro Mixed Media
asexualpoem | Nataliya Nedzhvetskaya | 2 | Jihyun Ro | Tuesday Magazine | 25
Charles
PROSE | AMY CHYAO
I asked her how deep the ice was, and as she peered downward, the snowflakes nestled themselves more tightly in her hair as if to pull her back. She wondered idly if filling herself with noise would overshadow this unbearable silence. Then I whispered to her that if we jumped, it wouldn’t make a difference.
Our footsteps couldn’t trace their confused paths here; I pushed the snow off the wall instead and bunched it into little mounds where I buried my face. She stood back at a distance, watching me, concerned, as a couple glanced our way, disturbed for a moment from their midnight stroll. I could barely see the puddles staring up at me from their bed of ice, taunting.
I crossed to a quiet path on the other side, where big and little footsteps lingered, side by side, in the otherwise untouched whiteness. I hoped that it had been a father and his little girl, walking home after a day of cocoa and smiles and pleasantly cold ears. My gloves were wet from relieving the bridge of its burden. She sang hollow, popular songs as loudly as she could. They rose up into the frigid air and could not mix with the enchantment around us, and the trees shrank back as if to protect their young. The tears were still dried onto my face. I remembered hoping that they would freeze there, preserved like little icicles, but they were too hot, and the wind claimed them first. My pants were cold from the snow that clung to them when we had lain on the ground where no one would find us; she told me that she hoped someone would, so I stood up and walked away.
We traced our footsteps back to familiar streets. I saw the trees I had yearned for yesterday on the tall balcony where I had waited, knowing no one would come. I walked toward them but kept several paces away as a few cars whisked past. No one saw us. We each pressed a hand into the snow that had gathered on a tablet explaining the grand historical significance of this place. I chuckled.
She took my hand and led me closer to the trees. The shining globes in them were magical. I’d never seen anything more beautiful that wasn’t alive. I had only a few tears left, but they escaped after I found myself back in a familiar place of warmth.
This time, there was no one but me. I didn’t turn the light on and hid when I heard footsteps walk past. I thought back to the trees I’d seen on the balcony. She had been with me then, as she always would be. We exhaled little clouds as the distant lights danced in a way we never would. January 28, 2013
26 | Charles | Amy Chyao | Tuesday Magazine
Silent Scream Tray Drumhann Photograph
Silent Scream | Tray Drumhann | Tuesday Magazine | 27
Rocks and Rock Petters ESSAY | RACHEL CHEONG
INTRODUCTION: A TAXONOMY OF THE FIELD Some people are rocks and some people are rockpetters. Rocks: You are a rock, so this text does not pertain to you. Rock-petters: Stop petting the rocks. The main goal of a rock petter is to enter into a beautiful relationship with an introverted soul. The main goal of a rock is to be a rock. Rocks are left alone by most people, but occasionally, someone with the potential to be a rock-petter will pass by. The rock-petter will be taken in by the rock’s quiet, but somehow impressive, demeanor. Hoping to build a relationship that will eventually result in long heart-to-heart conversations and deep-seated mutual trust, the rock-petter will begin to pet the rock.
ing.” The rock-petter feels triumphant at first, but then slowly realizes that the rock has not moved from its original position. She feels hurt, but also misses the rock. This triggers the first of several relapses.
At first, the rock-petter will be very happy while she is petting the rock. This is because the rock-petter is under the delusion that she and the rock are soulmates, and with enough time and petting, the rock will eventually return all the love she is showing it. One day, the rock-petter will pet the rock and the rock will pet her back.
THE ESSENTIAL FACT ABOUT ROCK-PETTERS
Obviously, the rock-petter is crazy. Rocks, as we know, are “naturally occurring solid aggregates of one or more minerals or mineraloids.” 1 They are not capable of petting. At first, the rock-petter will attempt to deny this. “The rock pets me in its own way,” she might say. Or: “I understand the rock so well that I don’t need it to pet me.” However, the rock-petter will eventually realize that she is putting in more ‘pets’ than she is getting out. Slowly, she will become drained and disappointed. She may become angry at the rock and talk about the rock to her friends. While she hasn’t given up hope that the rock will someday pet her back, she recognizes that it is not giving her what she needs now. In a dramatic gesture, the rock-petter may walk several feet away from the rock, refusing to pet it any longer. This gives the rock a chance to “realize what it’s miss-
28 | Rocks and Rock Petters | Rachel Cheong | Tuesday Magazine
“I can’t stop now,” she says, as she returns to her original petting position. “I’ve invested too much time and energy into petting this rock.”
Rock-petters do not understand that they are interacting with inanimate objects. They do not fully realize the distinction between rocks and elephants. Like rocks, elephants are large and gray. Another factor that makes them difficult to distinguish is that elephants, like rocks, are sometimes stationary. However, it is very important never to mistake a rock for an elephant. Elephants are introverted and/or shy. Do not make the mistake of thinking that your rock is just introverted/shy/an elephant. Another difficult distinction for rock-petters to make: the difference between a rock and someone who intends to hurt your feelings. Both are hurtful. However, the rock does not intend to hurt your feelings. The rock does not intend or feelings. Things a rock can do: 1. Remain stationary. This gets at the heart of the essential problem between rocks and rock-petters. 1
Wikipedia, Rocks.
NEXT STEPS AND BEST PRACTICES To a confirmed rock-petter, the advice that said rockpetter should not pet rocks seems overly simplistic. “What about all the memories we’ve made and the bond we’ve built?” the rock-petter will ask. “Do you want me to just abandon this rock?” If you are a friend of a rock-petter, there is little you can do until the rock-petter is willing to accept the limitations and the physical properties of the rock. When that day comes, the rock-petter may feel many conflicting emotions. Although you may be tired of hearing about rocks, recognize that this moment likely represents an important turning point for your friend and emphasize your support/lack of judgment/personal experience with rocks. If your friend has reached this crucial tipping point, feel secure that the worst of the danger has passed. Yes, your friend will likely relapse. You may find her in her old spot, petting the rock diligently, or sitting next to the rock while waiting expectantly for it to pet her back. This is normal. Although it may be difficult for non-petters to understand, the rock has likely been important to the friend for a long time. Despite the lack of reciprocity in their human-rock relationship, it may be hard for her to imagine living without it. This is because rock-petters are clingy and emotional. Instead of making her feel defensive about these character traits, remind your friend that you care about her very much, as do others who are capable of returning her feelings. In the end, your friend will probably never be able to detach from the rock entirely, but it will cease to become an overpowering interest in her life––something closer to a nostalgic object, or an occasional picnic spot. Do not be alarmed if she continues to visit the rock, as long as she seems calm and has accepted its inanimate nature. Rocks are a personality type, as are rock-petters. If you recognize yourself or others in this article, know this: you are not alone. There are people who understand and can guide you through this difficult situation. Reach Out. Get Help. Stop Petting. This article brought to you by the Former Rock-Petters Society of America (FRPSA).
10 ( left) , 13 ( top) , 14 ( m iddle) , 11 ( bottom ) Jenny N g Photo Manipulation
10, 11, 13, 14 | Jenny Ng | Tuesday Magazine | 29
Un s un g Sa a d A me r Photograph
30 | Unsung | Saad Amer | Tuesday Magazine
bedridden POETRY | Brian Kim six months ago, i was sick like robert was sick, my heart was a backwards pendulum etching words in the sky, book-writing, nail-biting with ink like clouds on a day when the earth seemed to lie tangent to space like a baseball in the corner of your room. everyone knew when i jacked off in that hospital, i could read it on their faces like lines off a screen in a staged tv show broadcast that we watch with a cup of tea in the morning, fog rolling in through the open windows, i imagine and i pray that it rolls through me, lying down with tubes and needles writing sins on my arm, if i wanted this, i would have gone to perry’s on my 18th birthday and asked for the works from the man with the bad pen who works there, writing sad stories on virgin skin for your money and whose name isn’t perry, i found out after i left that house. i’ll leave you, too, if it means that my arms will stay clean for another year or two— that’s what i told my brother the night i got drunk and carried your limp body to your car and drove you home, slipping keys from your ass pocket, praying to any god that comes to my mind that you wouldn’t disappear here, on a dead october night in the back of a ‘98 camry that belonged to your dad, really
that’s what i said to you as i put you to bed, yellow covers and a blue pillow, your room was like a nursery and i was the nurse— i felt my life and my whole heart burst that night as your eyes seemed to flutter and the hint of a smile suggested that you were just faking sleep, like i used to when my dad carried me up the stairs at 10 in the evening. i turned the lights off and our breathing matched up like winning wheels in vegas, and the bottom of my stomach fell out, depositing chips in the hundreds—we were rich! and i knew the way your jaw curved in the darkness, moon shadows making copies in your likeness, dark spots on my arm where the ink bled, where they fed me for three days and three nights— they gave me flowers and said they were from you. they asked me again and again and again if i thought i was going to do it again. half of me was screaming, “no, no, no,” like a bawling kid kneeling in front of his parents, or a grown man in front of his God, distraught, not because he was wrong, but because he craved forgiveness like a pelagic sailor craves water— and half of me was silent, eighty-four years old; what do you seek, doctor? because i have it all. my gown had tiny dots on them and fit too loosely on my body— it just made me miss you more.
bedridden | Brian Kim | Tuesday Magazine | 31
Pi g e on s Ste l l a F i o re n z o l i Photograph
32 | Pigeons | Stella Fiorenzoli | Tuesday Magazine
Long Distance Flights FICTION | WILLIAM SACK
Chauffeur to the Zebra Mussels We first meet our intrepid hero on his airplane, thousands of feet over the North Pacific, as he begins his descent to Haneda International Airport. Our hero, to be clear, is the Zebra Mussel attached to the fuselage directly below the cockpit; his name is Max, and Max flies UPS. Now, you might be wondering what Max is doing on a Boeing 747, instead of his species’ preferred mode of transportation, the luxurious Bass Hunter 9000. Alternatively, you might ask how oxygen deprivation, atmospheric change, and generally speaking science haven’t kept this little transatlantic explorer grounded. Or, if you’re the openminded accepting type, you might ask him how his flight is going. If you chose options A or B, all you need to know is that Zebra Mussels are so invasive you’re getting late night phone calls from them pretending to be market research firms. If you chose option C, Max thanks you for your concern, but says he’s kind of bored, and are we there yet? Put yourself in his shoes for a moment: The plane ride starts out as a rather novel experience. He feels so alive up here, and so natural. Air rushing past, he’s practically sprouted wings and gone to Zebra Mussel heaven (or as we call it, Liverpool). Eventually though, he realizes he’s staring at metal for the next sixteen hours. Still, Max wants to make the best of it, so he uses the functional mirror of the hull and makes silly little Zebra Mussel faces at himself for 3 hours. Then he gets bored with that and is left staring at the reflection of grey nighttime clouds - grand, but unchanging in their appearance. This gets him to thinking though, and he realizes he doesn’t have a face, and now there’s a revelation. What was I doing? Who was that guy?! Who am I!?! This existential crisis keeps him occupied for a good eight
If you
hours, but as many a seasoned traveler knows, nature abhors an existential crisis, and so Max eventually stops caring. Max steeps in his philosophical torpor for the next three hours, the only coherent thoughts emerging from his jetlagged mind: “I wish that fat guy didn’t lean his seat back so much,” and “Pretzels or Peanuts?” Finally, flickering neon Tokyo emerges on the horizon, and Max is elated. There are so many things he wants to see. Ah, Japan! he exclaims into the void. Bonzai gardens, shogun castles, koi ponds, and yakuza violence, all this and more awaits, in Ah Japan! he yells into the void once more. He’s not sure how he feels about the last one though; gang wars can be rough, and don’t Max know it. I mean, he’s from Lake Michigan, after all. Still, he figures if he stays away from Shinjuku, he shouldn’t lose a finger. AHHHHH, JAPAN, JAPAN, JAPAN! Who can blame Max if he was a little over the top at this point. Not only was he oxygen deprived on this red eye to the orient, but he received neither peanuts nor pretzels during the flight. (And he was going to write a very terse review just as soon as he found WI-FI.) The wheel hits the tarmac and the plane grinds to a halt. Taxi to the hangar. UPS Airlines flight 302 has arrived. Depressurize. The cabin door opens. Two men exit. The second one is Bill Parker. He proceeds through the motions. He’s proceeding to the pilot’s lounge to sleep. He’s triangulating around the globe. This time, there’s another stop before he flies in to Louisville this time. This time, this time, this time. I need some sleep, is all he thinks as he shambles through the terminals. He’s got three hours. He finds his cloister, gets a sofa, finds his alarm, gets some sleep. He gets up, finds his alarm, gets some
chose option C , Max
thanks you for your concern, but
says he’s kind of bored, and
there yet?
are we
Long Distance Flights | William Sack | Tuesday Magazine | 33
coffee, finds his way back to the hangar. He verb-slogs his way upstream. He’s not sleepy, but he’s only there in verb-object form. Get plane. Find copilot. Ready, and here. we. go. to Schiphol. Now, if you’ve ever tried to get a Zebra Mussel off of something, for instance your luxurious Bass Hunter 9000, you know that they’re practically welded on. Thing is, they can’t help it. It’s a serious effort for them to let go of things. So when Max landed at Haneda, it took him a couple hours, namely three, to weigh anchor, and then he had to pop his back, and stretch his legs, when suddenly two men come into the hanger and begin boarding. Hey, Max thinks, wasn’t one of those guys here before? Then, before he can resolve that question, the plane begins to move, which to our little buddy was pretty scary, so he latched back on. He can latch on a lot faster than he can latch off. Zebra Mussels are like that. Next thing Max knew, he was at cruising altitude. Ahhhh Ah AH ah AH ah Max yelled waving his hands back and forth as if to fan himself, JAAAAAPAAAAANNNNN. Max sniffled at 5000 feet. Max might have shed a tear at 6000 feet, but you didn’t hear it from me. Max definitely cried at 7000 feet. Max muttered about authentic Teppanyaki he would never taste at 6000 feet. Max encountered turbulence at 5000 feet and was silent but didn’t look happy. At 4000 feet, all the way to the ground, Max continued to have a hard time letting go of Japan. The wheel hits the tarmac and the plane grinds to a halt. Taxi to the hangar. UPS Airlines flight 461 has arrived. Depressurize. The cabin door opens. Two men exit. The first one is Bill Parker. He proceeds through the motions. He’s proceeding to a hotel to sleep. The layover is longer, twelve hours, this time. this time. this
34 | Long Distance Flights | William Sack | Tuesday Magazine
time... Little did he know, a Zebra Mussel named Max had just jumped on to his travel bag. You see, Max was prepared for this time and had begun to detach himself the moment Amsterdam came into view. Consequently, when they pulled into the hangar and Bill Parker was halfway down the steps, Max pirouetted off the fuselage with all the grace of a skydiving platypus towards Bill’s copilot. Lacking practice at this kind of thing, Max missed and ended up on Bill’s pilot man-purse tote bag. And so as Bill Parker verbed his way towards the Pilot’s Lounge, our two intrepid Americans continued into Schiphol, man and Zebra Mussel. Max was pumped. A fickle little fella, he was already over Tokyo. He was zooming along a foot off the ground swerving a little side to side with the rhythm of the pilot’s footfall, maneuvering his way through a modern European Aeropolis. He had it all planned out: he was going to stick with the pilot and they were going to see the canals, the Rijksmuseum, he might even buy a tulip for his mom back home. This was going to be great. Bill Parker proceeded to the Marriott. He checked in. He walked to the elevator. He pressed up. The elevator arrived. He got in it, and it went up. He arrived at his floor. He found his room, got the key out, found his way in, got out his toothbrush. He brushed his teeth. He found his alarm clock. He set it. He slept. There was a Zebra Mussel named Max on his bag in the corner. Max was still excited. As he sat there, on the bag, in the corner, Max thought: In the morning, we’ll get some coffee; I’ll introduce myself; we’ll have an hour or so left to sample the local fare. He pauses at this as if there’s something he’s forgetting about Amsterdam. No matter, he thinks, moving on, we could see the Vondelpark if there’s time, but really I just want to walk by the canals. He continued like this as the sun incrementally crept its way up their hotel window. Eventually, Bill’s alarm went off, and there was coffee, but it was made in the hotel room, and this saddened Max’s soul greatly. Max was
so bummed out by now that he paid no attention to the Pilot’s movements as he wove his way back through Schiphol, back to the hangar, back onto a plane. As a result, Max was inside the plane as it begun its return home to UPS Worldport Louisville. Max was sad and unzipped the bag, slid inside, and went to sleep. When the bag next opened, he was dumped unceremoniously on a bed. He looked up to see a thoroughly disheveled Pilot Parker heading towards his bathroom toothbrush in hand. Moments later, Bill Parker returned, quickly pulled back the top sheet launching the refuse of his travels this way and that. Max skittered into the hallway. Sitting there, at rest, bruised, sad, and feeling a little unloved in life, he went to sleep OWWWwww! This exclamation of pain was followed by a sharp intake of air as a small boy child stood in the middle of the common room trying to simultaneously hold the tulip in his left hand and staunch the bleeding in his right hand. Biting his bottom lip he wiggled the stem of the flower back and forth between his third and forth digits as his palm oozed. His father ran out of the bedroom slipping on his wallet, throwing his plant foot back behind him, leaving him scrambling on all fours towards his son’s pained noises. His mother, who had been kicking off her shoes by the door, hop stepped over the second shoe still clinging, taking the tulip, simultaneously thanking her son for it, patting his hair, and dabbing the cut with the hem of her shirt. Oh Max. What did you do? she asked. I cut my hand on the rock, he replied, picking up the Zebra Mussel. Picking up the supposed rock in hand, Bill Parker said That’s a Zebra Mussel, but what’s that doing here. It must have come in with your stuff honey, his wife said. Bill Parker began to fume Some stupid prank, by
one of my – His name is Max too, other Max said. That’s nice dear, his mother said still trying to gain access to human Max’s hand. He, Max continued, goes with Daddy on his adventures! What did he see this time Daddy? Wellllllluhhhhhh, his father began, faltering. Just list the things you saw, Max’s mother coached. Welllllll… Max and Max had run off though, and Bill Parker was left to think, staring out the window as human Max rushed around in oven mitts with other Max. That evening Max came into his father’s office on quiet sock feet. Daddy, you don’t have adventures. Bill sat up abruptly. Max has them; you just help, his son explained. At this Bill Parker couldn’t help but laugh at the apparent truth of the matter. Really now, Bill asked, and what kind of adventures does he have? Max began to intone in his 60 Minutes reporter voice: “We first meet our intrepid hero on his airplane, thousands of feet over the North Pacific, as he begins his descent to Haneda International Airport…” Narita’s the international airport Max, Haneda’s domestic, his father instructed. Both Maxes glowered. I’m just saying maybe Max’s sidekick might need to play a bigger role if he doesn’t know which airport is which, his dad said, trying to make peace. You have to apply, was all Max said. How do I do that? Interview. When? Now. What’s the first question? Max maintained his fierce intimidating glare and now his arms were crossed. Well, what do you do with your life then? Max asked. Bill, still unable to answer, just had to laugh. Not nearly as much as this guy does, he replied as he gingerly set the Zebra Mollusk in the front pocket of his travel bag. Max here has adventures. I just drive.
Long Distance Flights | William Sack | Tuesday Magazine | 35
36 | Four geometric images | Jenny Ng | Tuesday Magazine
Four geomet ric images Jenny Ng Photographs
Four geometric images | Jenny Ng | Tuesday Magazine | 37
you are my statue garden POETRY | ANJIE LIU
I. you are a statue garden where Fauré plays incessantly in the distance like a tireless street organ, a musée Rodin of green hedges that never grow, barred by the gates of Dante’s hell we stood before at the musée d’Orsay the Thursday we strolled together, a rock landscape of your notes and empty Riesling bottles, the pavane in slow stone and the way you once played nocturne one, your skinny black overcoat perpetually wrinkled in its soapy smell and your gentle faces iris-less, broken like stone jigsaw, the evenings we shared fixed in the late sky II. in my mind and in my bathtub I know what it is like to live among marble; you’ve left me to sink in the hot water, alone washing my rabbit feet
38 | you are my statue garden | Anjie Liu | Tuesday Magazine
III. nothing is more solid than my memory who spots fragments of your intellect and could-be-yous, a recurring ghost like the thinker you had pointed out perched high on the Rodin gates that morning, eyeless and silent IV. some time in the A.D., I posed as Venus de Milo with long black gloves against the night like she did in The Dreamers; yet I am still flesh, with hurting fingers V. I have concluded that life overlaps in you, you reborn at twenty-four, you whom I kissed as an old man, your stone garden I stroll through with eroding familiarity.
Though there be no time for love POETRY | AXEL SNOW
Though there be no time for love, my love, let us ne’er part though far we are away. Like stars above we sway we dance we swing ajar and fall back in, and close again. No, let us to the other gaze ’n such ways; and to the razen men consumed in fire, and to their blaze struck out say, “Stay awhile but roam; in foam we lost ourselves before our corps as one reborn came home upon the sea betwixt our shores.” For ne’er the bitter soul could know another heart ‘part from its own.
Though there is no time for love | Axel Snow | Tuesday Magazine | 39
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