YAREAH Magazine Issue 22. March 2012
Sea and Trips Liberation Figurative by Xavier Landry
Where I am supposed to go by Penelope Przekop
Art: is month Penelope Przekop and Xavier Landry’s paintings, and the special collaboration of Francis Piep and Rinat Shingareev. Literature: Short Story by Bobby Fox ‘e Dog Shit Incident’ and Michelle C Eging ‘A goldfish isn’t the only one living in a fishbowl’. Poetry: Morning War by Michael Pacholski; e Feast of Preserved Emotions by Tatjana Debeljacki; ‘What Makes a Grown Man Cry’ by Kim Wilson; and ‘Another Love Story’ by ierry Saintine. Opinions: Charles Kinney Jr., Martin Cid, Isabel del Rio, John Glass, IZara, ISartosa and Michael J Metcalf. is issue has been dedicated to Frederic Edwin Church.
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
Jack London, a travBy Michael J Metcalf eler
What could we say of a man who knew all of the good and bad things of the life? What could we say of a restless spirit who looked for peace and for fight at the same time? What could we say of Jack London, au thor, wanderer and pirate? Nothing… and everything, since he had to know the essence of humanity.
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ome people spend their lives obeying rules, some others without questioning their dreams; Jack London always put his thoughts into practice. Jack London was born in the sunny California (San Francisco). We know his mother (Flora Wellman) but his father is unknown, also to him (maybe the astrologer William Chaney). Therefore, from the beginning he had to confront the biggest problem for a child: where are my roots? And, also, the greatest shame of the 19th century: to be an illegitimate child. Poor and autodidact, he spent hours in public libraries. One day, he read the novel ‘Signa’ by Ouida and he identified with the main character: an illiterate Italian farmer who got success as musician: he could get success as a writer. Then, all of his life he tried to go to the University. He gained some money working as sailor and travelling to Japan, he attended to the Oakland High School and entered in the University of California in 1896, but he had to leave it soon due to economic pro-
blems. He was a pirate in his own oyster boat (it seems he had stolen the money to buy it) and after the ruin of the boat, a decent drunker oyster fisherman in other boats. Constantly, he had problems with the law. We know he spend 30 days in the prison (in Erie County in Buffalo), as an Niagara Falls. Frederic Edwin Church industrial worker and socialist, he participated in he numerous violent protests, and he was produced silly novels or short stories, accused of plagiarism several times. only to earn money and worrier to his However, when he started to earn rancho than to the quality of his texts. money with his books, he bought a big Even, his elder daughter, Joan London, wonderful rancho in Glen Ellen (Cali- recognized this point. fornia) and started to behave as a lan- He married twice because, of course, downer and to study agronomy (he had he had to know the pain of a divorce interesting ecological ideas). and he died in strange circumstances, Contradictory to the end, Jack London victim of a strong medication or beis the author of some master books: cause he committed suicide. ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘The Game’, He is buried beside his second wife, ‘The Valley of the Moon’, ‘The Mutiny Charmian London, in Glen Ellen. Only of the Elsinore’… but in his last years, a green stone signaled the place.
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
Travelers on board and good riddance! I
was nine years old when I travelled by ship for the first time. It was a tanker and it was in Huelva (a port in the South of Spain). My father was the Captain. I lived in Madrid with my mother and brother. My father was always on board, going around the world or something (in fact, I saw him only once a year), but my mother used to go to meet him the few times that his ship docked in Spain. Usually, I stayed in Madrid with my grandma but this time, it was Christmas and I didn’t have to go to the boring school. The tanker was so big that it couldn’t dock in the port (insufficient depth) and it was at some distant: a small boat took us to it. The idea was to see my father only some hours since they had to continue to the Canarias islands. All was perfect but when we had to return, it started a big storm and we couldn’t disembark. I was excited since I had to go to Canarias (a great experience for me… or at least that was what I thought). A ship is boring, more for a child, more than the school. From the first minute, my father banned me almost all. I could only be in the cabin or in the playroom (fortunately, it was a big ship with a playroom) and I couldn’t even go to the deck (you know, to see the wonderful sunsets and so). Apparently, all of the children who had disobeyed before, they had suffered serious accidents and
By Isabel del Rio
my father’s descriptions were so eloquent as to be closed in the sec u r e cabin (at least, for s o m e days). Furthermore, my The iceberg 1891 Pittsburgh. Frederic Edwin Church mother inters (no high literature precisely) but: sisted in the bad words the sailors said: good result, I was really intrigued about my mother has been always a little eso- their plots. teric and she thought I had mental po- Days later, in Canarias, my mother wers too, since at this time I only spoke asked me if I would like to buy someSpanish and the crew spoke (including thing, a Christmas present. I said the bad words) in whatever other lan- ‘books’. ‘Books?!!,’ she was surprised. guage (maybe English, I didn’t know). ‘What kind of books?’ ‘Books of saiI was really bored. The playroom was lors, I answered’. usually empty. One day a sailor took She bought me Lord Jim by Conrad pity of me and he tried to teach me to (well, a children’s version) but I was deplay ping-pong. Bad result: I was leted and afterwards, I kept on asking clumsy and I have disliked ping-pong for books of sailors. forever. This issue of Yareah magazine is titled Other sailors give me sweets. Bad re- ‘Sea and trips’ and, of course, dedicated sult: I have always loved salt meals. to travel books: Jack London, StevenEven another one showed me his tat- son, Jules Verne, Salgari, Pio Baroja, toos: yes, you know, I was not interes- Henry Miller… all of the authors that ted at all. I loved from my first trip by ship. However, in the cabin of my father, I hope you enjoy the issue so much as there were a lot of books. On the co- I’m going to enjoy its preparation. vers, illustrations of cowboys or gangs- Travelers on board and good riddance!
Frederic Edwin Church
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
The meaning of Moby by Martin Cid Dick If someone forces me to choose within all my favorite books, maybe I would choose Melville’s book Moby Dick. Any reason? Of course I find many of them every time I read this fantastic epic book, this awesome adventure travel, this heroic story about a tragic character hidden inside his obsession. Capitan Ahab is the madman who convinced a whole crew that the madness is the same as the good sense, that the madness is the only way to find the wisdom at the end of this road we call life. he trip of Pequod is an injury in our religious hearts… the crew looking for the sense beyond the whales, the man looking for the sense beyond the Humankind and the words of prophets. Moby Dick is the end of this travel and the beginning of the man’s longest journey to eternity. Moby Dick is the final fight between Humankind and Mythology, between old religious stories and new beliefs… the most wise man in a ship that contains all types of diseases a man could imagine. Moby Dick is the animal memory, the greatest fish ever written and the slightest forgotten dream ever told… Moby Dick is the sleepy beast who lives in all of us, the sensibility that lives in every war and the man who dreams to reach the infinite with his wasted hands of his lost years. Great White Whale who
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still waits for us, Great White Whale who still obsesses us, Great White Whale who will live with us forever. The beast is here now, he can see it. Now, we are ready. We have our harpoons in our wasted arms, we have our illusions pending on the madman’s good sense, pending on the end of a trip that began with the beginning of
times and the Creation of Man. The winds breaks our faces, we need to close our eyes trying not to see the image beyond the mirror, the secure reflect of the whale who dresses a mask with our won faces, who dresses the mask of all human sins. Call me Ishmael, call me Moby Dick… call me God.
Frederic Edwin Church
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
Pio Baroja: Pilots of High Seas By I Zara S
ince I knew Yareah next issue is going to speak about ‘Trip and Seas’, I thought I had to speak about Pio Baroja (my favorite author) and ‘Pilots of High Seas’ (my favorite book). Pio Baroja (don Pio, as usually Spanish people called him) was a Basque writer: therefore, he became of a land full of sailors, adventurers, and incredible stories (maybe legends). He has a prolific work: novels and more novels by an author who was not very worried about grammatical problems (he has been criticized for his grammatical mistakes) but for the impact of his plots and characters. And yes, his novel is absolutely impacting. It tells the story of two Basque sailors on a slave ship (Embil and Chimista). The route was the usual: from Basque lands to Gulf of Guinea (when they took the slaves) and afterwards, to Cuba (to sell them). Most important: with the profits, they returned to the North of Spain to finance the Industrial Revolution (same England did 80 years before). However, at this moment, England didn’t want slave trade (it didn’t need)
Frederic Edwin Church
and the main characters are a lot of problems. It’s a bad trade in a bad world with horrible people. White men (Pio Baroja shows all of the different nationalities) are not soul and they only think on money but black people is not better, some of them help white men with the same materialistic intentions. No concessions and fantastic descriptions and a complete lesson of History about how first factories got their money. Better to return to the countryside and to start being peasants again.
Knopf •The Quest (1922) A.A. Knopf •Weeds (1923). A.A. Knopf •Red Dawn (1924). A.A. Knopf •The Lord of Labraz (1926). A.A. Knopf •The Restlessness of Shanti Andía, and other writings (1959). University of Michigan Press •The Tree of Knowledge (1974). Howard Fertig •Caesar or Nothing (1976). Howard Fertig •Zalacain the Adventurer (1998). Lost Coast Press •Youth And Egolatry (2004). Kessinger Books by Pio Baroja avalaible in En- Publishing glish: •Road to Perfection (2008). Oxbow •The City of the Discreet (1917). A.A. Books
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Literature
Best Travel Books
Yareah Magazine
1.- Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes, 1615 2.- The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, 1894 3.- Odyssey by Homer, end of the 8th century BC 4.- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 1903 5.- The Call of the Wild by Jack London, 1903 6.- Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne, 1876 7.- The Travels of Marco Polo, 13th century 8.- The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron, 1937 9.- Anabasis by Xenophon, 5th century BC 10.- The Conquest of New Spain by Diaz del Castillo, 16th century 11.- Zalacain the Adventurer, by Pio Baroja, 1908
12.- The Innocent Anthropologist by Nigel Barley, 1983 13.- Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), 1937 14.- Tuareg by Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa, 1980 15.- Treasure Island by Stevenson, 1883 16.- The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck, 1931 17.- Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, 1839 18.- The Road by Cormac McCarthy, 2006 19.- Journey to the Alcarria by Cela, 1948 20.- The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
Coppola vs Conrad: two cultures into the same story by Ignacio Zara ome of us saw Apocalypse Now when we were just children. Some of us said that child typical phrase ‘boring, so boring’.
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e just loved the scene with helicopters and Wagner (of course, we didn’t also know anything about Parsifal’s author)… Years passed and all of us watched the film again… Now, with years, the movie had converted into a true reflection of human heart, with Marlon Brando representing the end of all, the end of guilty and the beginning of the human-god. At Conrad work Heart of Darkness, the trip is the seeking of the sense of life… one human that tries to find in other lands its own land. Land is in the novel the birthplace of conscious and the beginning of a new man that found on prosaic lost words his own kind of madness. In film, Brando is
perfect for this role: Kurtz the wise man, Kurtz the criminal, Kurtz at the end of his way. Adjectives are photograms in films and the Storaro’s photography was a true combination between realistic and baroque, the perfect mix to create a metaphoric canvas about paradoxical human condition. Book talked about a man without country, film talks about a man without the human condition. But Coppola was an intelligent guy when he moved the movie action to the Vietnam War. Apocalypse Now is not the faithful adaptation of Heart of Darkness, is the film inspired on the Conrad’s novel. Kurtz is based on Kurtz, of course, but Kurtz’s novel is not the Kurtz’s film. We needed to masters to make two different pieces of art, to make together a reflection about the wise work of making movies, of writing books, of making true art.
Michael Jackson. by Rinat Shingareev
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
A Goldfish isn’t the only one living in a fishbowl By Michelle C Eging Bernice sits with her fishbowl in her lap, her eyes closed. The Waiting Room smells like wet fur and urine, preventing her from taking deep breaths. She counts to ten and back again, her bouncing leg trying to wake her left buocks. Two dogs bark at each other. Another whines. Bernice judges from the pain in her right ankle that the whiner broke its leg, probably from chasing a car. The pain searing from forehead to neck comes from the cat two seats over, who had been on the wrong side of a feline brawl.
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he sticks her hand in the bowl’s water. Her goldfish rubs its nose against her finger. Bernice woke up three days ago knowing from the numbness in the left side of her face and the stiffness in her left hand that her fish was dying. What she doesn’t understand is why the fish fell ill to begin with and why it’s taking so long to die now. Bernice hears panting from a few inches away and opens her eyes. One of the dogs sits in front of her, wagging its tail and lolling its tongue. Bernice doesn’t know much about breeds. She can’t remember the last time she ever touched another animal besides her moist breath smells like Help. By Penelope Przekop ther, whom she huggoldfish. Her limp arm presses the fis- carrion. The dog’s wet nose smears ged good-bye before locking the front hbowl against her stomach and she sli- across her knuckles. door. He had whiskers too, that scratdes her free hand to her knee. Her It has been eight months since she last ched as his wet lips brushed her cheek. fingertips brush the dog’s whiskers. Its touched another human being: her bro- He gave her the fish.
YAREAH Magazine A fish she still hasn’t named even though she talks to it every day. The dog sticks its nose up her skirt. She slams her knees together. Both she and the dog yelp. She pinches the bridge of her nose as her ears begin to ring and her temples throb, wishing the receptionist would let her sit in a separate room, one without bleeding cats and intrusive dogs. It’s not a poodle, she decides, scowling at the pest as it trips over itself into its owner’s arms. She thinks of 101 Dalmations and the opening montage comparing different dog breeds to their owners’ personalities. She looks at her goldfish, which leans against her finger so it doesn’t have to flap its left fin. What did owning a goldfish mean about her? “Bernice Polowski,” the nurse says. Her jowls hang to her collarbone and three inches of brown roots betray her dye job. Bernice stands, smoothing her blouse and skirt and rearranging the muscles in her face so they won’t twitch. She notices she skipped a button on her blouse when she dressed that morning, making it bunch. Is that why the receptionist made her sit in the crowded, smelly Waiting Room? Bernice hobbles towards the door, clutching the fishbowl against her chest with her right hand while her left hangs limply. One of the nurse’s thin eyebrows arches as she takes the fishbowl. “Follow me,” the nurse says, holding the fishbowl away from her body as if someone had smeared it with STDs. The nurse must have noticed the buttons too. Bernice doesn’t look back into the Waiting Room. She keeps her gaze on her feet, humming to drown out the whi-
Literature nes emanating from the Exa- Michelle Eging mination Rooms. Her gait Michelle Eging received her Bacheevens with each step away lor of Arts in Humanities from Brigfrom the pet menagerie. The ham Young University. She is the Copywriter and Social Media Expert rake of pain fades from her for Five Star Franchising and face. She avoids crashing into spends her free time working on Michelle Eging anything breakable, and the her novel and trying new recipes https://plus.google.c nurse closes the door to Examination answers, running om/u/0/1159113634 24601214957 her index finger Room 7 behind them. “What brings you here today?” the around the fisnurse says, placing the fishbowl on the hbowl’s rim. “I think she had a stroke.” “You think?” the nurse says, her jowls Examination Table. Bernice licks her lips and swallows a quivering. few times. The receptionist at the front “What else would explain the numbdesk had been the first stranger she’s ness?” Bernice says. talked to face to face in three months. “Of course,” the nurse says. “Well, the The woman had an infected paper-cut doctor will be in to see you soon.” She on her index finger, spurting pus, no hurries towards the door, her shoulders doubt, onto her keyboard. Bernice rubs shaking. her fingers against her palm, wondering “Don’t you need to weigh her?” Bernice says. if the woman would need a shot. “My fish is dying,” Bernice says. She The nurse doesn’t reply. She just closes doesn’t recognize her voice. It belongs the door. to the owner of a mouse, not a gold- Bernice wraps her limp arm across her stomach, curling inward. She shouldn’t fish. The nurse presses her lips together, have come. They were going to turn scribbling on her clipboard. “How long her in. She wants to go home. Surely she missed something on the Internet. have you had your, ah, pet?” “Six months.” Bernice places her hands Surely someone has had this problem on the bowl and drags it towards her. before and blogged about it or posted Yesterday, she called the Pet Store a question that a real vet responded to. where her brother bought the fish. The She just has to keep searching. She manager told her to flush it down the picks up her fishbowl to leave. toilet. Bernice presses her eyes shut as The door opens. Water sloshes onto water pours into the Examination her blouse as she halts. Room, swirling round and round, cat- The doctor smells like vinegar, repeching her in its grasp. Coating her eso- lling Bernice back several steps. Her right arm hugs her fish to her chest as phagus, filling her lungs… she swallows. “Ms. Polowski?” The nurse touches her arm and Bernice “Hello, Ms. Polowski,” the doctor says. pulls away, her eyes opening. The water He’s balding and spit build-up crusts the edges of his lips. He’s wearing a lab is gone, only florescent walls remain. “Ms. Polowski, what are your fish’s coat and Birkenstocks. Even though he’s a foot shorter than she is, her symptoms?” “Numbness in the left fin,” Bernice palms begin to sweat.
YAREAH Magazine She nods her head, eyes fixed on the door. She moves the bowl to cover the bunch in her blouse, hoping he hasn’t noticed it yet. “I hear your fish is dying,” he says. She nods once more, still swallowing despite her dry mouth. He glances at the fishbowl. “May I take a look?” She shakes her head, backing up a few more steps. She wants to go home. She shouldn’t have come. What made her think she’d find answers here that the Internet didn’t have? She should have been more diligent. Should have kept looking. There must be an alternative to drowning. She counts to ten but can’t remember the way back again. “What breed is it?” he asks. “Tosakin,” she says. “Do you know how old he–” “She.” “–she was when you got her?” Bernice shakes her head. Her right arm
Literature The doctor tilts his head to the side. No expression passes across his lips or eyebrows. “Interesting,” he says. “How do you know it was a stroke?” Bernice nibbles on her bottom lip. A trap. Her right arm resumes its grip on the bowl. She wants to go home. She shouldn’t have come. She needs to leave. Now. The doctor reaches into a cabinet and she backs into the far wall, her bottom lip trembling. She said too much. She shouldn’t have come. She counts to ten but makes it to five before starSmile Until You Feel Like It ting over. “I’m by Penelope Przekop. not sure how to treat a fish for restroke,” he says, turning around with a laxes a bit. “The nurse said you think it’s a stroke. small, bright-blue bottle in his hand. Did your fish begin exhibiting unusual “Here’s an antibiotic for fin rot. The behavior before its symptoms emer- instructions are on the label.” He places it in her right hand. “It was a pleaged?” sure meeting you Ms. Polowski. I wish “I don’t know. I woke up three days ago and she was like this. The pain is unbe- you and your fish the best of luck.” The doctor holds open the door and arable.”
YAREAH Magazine she scurries through, keeping her eyes on her feet. More water sloshes onto her blouse. She zips through the Waiting Room, pain crackling through her side from a big dog’s dislocated hip. She steps into the fresh air and pauses. Onetwothreefourfive. Sixseveneight. Nine. Ten– –the big dog’s agony sheds away— Tennine. Eightseven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Her face and arm settle back into their now familiar numbness. Her goldfish looks at her, its nose poking out of the water. She sighs. The antibiotics won’t work because it was a stroke. The Pet Store manager’s laugh echoes in her head. There has to be an alternative to drowning. She walks across the parking lot and down the sidewalk, her fingers white against the medicine bottle, the breeze cold against her wet blouse. Bernice has heard of stroke victims surviving, often with permanent neurological damage. Her brother gave her a goldfish because they can’t feel pain for more than a few minutes. Now she’ll spend the next seven to fifteen years with a frozen face and immobile arm. What if the fish becomes worse? Bernice trips on the sidewalk, catching herself before she falls. A kid laughs through the open window of a passing van. A dog from the yard beside her barks, tugging against the chain tied around a tree. She pictures the ten blocks she has to walk, six straight and four to the left, and for a moment, she can’t move. She considers leaving the fish on the sidewalk and sprinting to her townhouse. She wouldn’t have to go far to regain use of her left arm and the left half of her face. People would blur past, their troubles glancing off her skin.
Literature
I never meant to upset you. By Penelope Przekop
She looks down at the fish she still hasn’t named but talks to every day. The fish looks back. It had been overcast on her walk to the vet, but now the sun shines on her scalp. Bernice hasn’t felt unfiltered sunlight since the day she locked her door. Taking a deep breath, she hugs the fishbowl to her sternum. She can’t abandon a creature that upheld its end of the relationship with perfection—it isn’t the fish’s fault it had a stroke. She continues walking, this time with a slight limp because her ankle rolled from catching her balance. Who will she talk to when the fish dies? Plants don’t offer the same companionship, they’re too busy sipping sunlight and photosynthesizing to listen. Fish have a small universe. Their existence consists of swimming in circles and forget-
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that circle every three-seconds. Bernice jumps off the sidewalk as a teenage boy in tattered jeans skateboards by. Her heart thumps against her ribs as he jumps and the skateboard flips underneath his feet. The bottle of medicine slips from her fingers, rolling off the curb. He could have crashed, could have busted open his lip or broken a bone. Mindless of the possibilities, he continues forward, leaving a trail of aquatic-smelling cologne behind him. Bernice leaves the medicine where it landed. With each footstep, she thinks, “There must be an alternative to drowning.” She almost walks past her townhouse. She lingers on the stoop’s top step for a moment, the door partially open. The sunlight makes the skin on her face tingle. She wants to stretch and suspend
YAREAH Magazine in that light, to breathe it in and out. A little girl holding a pink balloon totters by, her Grandmother close behind. Across the street, a boy rides his bicycle, the training wheels still on. For a moment, she loses herself in their elation. For a moment, she forgets why she locked her door eight months ago and never looked beyond it. The pink balloon slips from the little girl’s fingers as she wobbles and falls. The balloon rises into the air and the girl begins to cry. Bernice turns away before the boy can do something impulsive and wreck his bike. Shaking her head, she enters her home, setting the keys on their hook and locking the door behind her. She looks down at her fish and knows what she must do. She slides to the floor, resting her head against the door. “At least you’ll have a proper burial,” she says, placing her finger in the water and rubbing the fish’s dorsal fin. Fin rot, what a hoax. Her fish has the most beautiful red fins, curling from its body like smoke. “Celia,” she says, unsure of why she didn’t think of that name before, wishing she hadn’t thought of it now. She could put something in the water, like soda or a sleeping pill. She pictures the toxic water slipping through the goldfish’s gills, hitting the heart and brain; pictures it convulsing, its mouth gaping, confused by the water’s betrayal. No. Poison would take too long. What if she puts the fish in a blender? That would be quick, the pain minimal as blades puree bone and scales, blood smatters against glass. Her stomach shoots into her throat and she swallows it down. She could cut off its head. Her hand
Literature goes to her neck as she thinks of the light leaving those black, mysterious eyes, eyes that remember God molding the universe with his hands. What about the freezer? Sure, it might feel discomfort at first as the water temperature drops. A slow, euphoric death, as the cold seeps through its scales, arresting its fins and tail before claiming its heart. Would it feel pain then? Would it stare, confused, into the dark space? That would be no different from leaving Celia on the sidewalk. There must be an alternative. “It’s nothing personal,” Bernice whispers. Tears splash into the bowl of water. “Anything is more merciful than living in constant pain. You’ve been a good fish. Always listening. Never complaining. If it weren’t for this mishap, I’d keep you forever.” She runs her finger across Celia’s dorsal fin. A merciful death means no violence, no mutilation. It means no abandonment. There has to be an alternative to drowning. Bernice swallows a few times. Her dry tongue traces a stinging circumference around her lips. She counts to ten and back again once, twice, three times. She cups her hand in the water and scoops the fish from the bowl, draining the water between her fingers before placing the fish in her mouth. The fish wriggles on her tongue, thrashing back and forth, choking on carbon dioxide and saliva. She can feel its lungs expand and contract, its pulse race through its skin. Although Bernice breathes deep through her nostrils, her diaphragm still convulses for air. Her heart ticks behind her nose. Her eyes bulge. Arms shake. Body collapses. Legs kick. The ceiling turns fuzzy, dar-
kening into sepia. Tears snake into her hair. Slower. Slower. Hula-hooping in the sun, hair in braids, the backyard green with grass and leaves. Her tongue cradles the fish against the roof of her mouth. It tastes like fish food. Celia’s florid tail hangs limply against Bernice’s chin. Droplets of salt water hit her face as sand surges and disintegrates beneath her toes. The smell of sunscreen mingles with that of primordial fluid. Slower. Slower. Stubby fingers ripping iridescent wings from dragonflies while she pleads for mercy. Hands shove her against blacktop, skinning open her knees. Blood drips down her legs. Pebbles indent her palms. Slower. Her mother’s white teeth and shiny lips. Slower. Spelling “Appalachian” and winning a blue ribbon. All goes dark. All goes still. No tunnel of light greets her. No aquatic god welcomes her into an eternal school of flashing silver. She awakens, her eyelids heavy, snot dripping from her nose. Her throat hurts as if she’s been screaming. Celia lies limp in her mouth, its body oddly cold, oddly heavy on her tongue. She flexes the corners of her lips. Flaps her left hand. Both move with sluggish dexterity. She buries the fish in a pot of ivy, kissing its drooping fins before placing it in store-bought dirt. From her window, she can see a group of girls playing jump rope. The plastic rope hits one of the girls in the mouth. Bernice closes the blinds.
Frederic Edwin Church
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
The Dog Shit Incident by Bobby Fox
The defining moment of my childhood took place on a cold, winter day, on the playground of my elementary school. I was in the 4th grade. It was mid-morning recess. And I dreaded it. Most children can’t wait until the recess bell rings. But when you have no friends, recess can be a lonely, frightening place. Bobby Fox I was about to go down my fa- As I was saying, I was prepa-
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vorite slide for the 8th time in a row when I saw him coming in the distance: Johnny Perkins. This kid was trouble from the moment he showed off a comb disguised as a switchblade knife in the 1st grade. With this in mind, then it should come as no surprise that Johnny Perkins later went to jail for stabbing somebody in a bar fight. The victim survived. Johnny did his time, which wasn’t much. It was just a flesh wound – nothing a large BandAid couldn’t fix. Besides, it’s likely the victim deserved it. Then again, if I learned a thing or two about Johnny Perkins, his victims probably rarely deserved it. Then again we change over time, don’t we? Morphing out of one experience and into another. If so, then it should be no surprise that Johnny Perkins ended up doing time for having sex with a 17-year-old at the tender age of 25. It may have been consensual. But why any woman would give Johnny Perkins consent for sex is beyond me. Although I’m sure he’s tapped more tail than I can ever dream of. Assholes tend to have the easiest time getting laid. At least, that’s my impression. But I digress.
ring to slide down my favo- Bobby Fox is the award-winning of several short stories, plays, rite slide for the 8th time that writer poems, a novel and 15 feature day. After much debate, I de- length screenplays. Two of his screcided to go down on my sto- enplays have been optioned to Bobby Fox He is also the mach this time around, just Hollywood. writer/director/editor of several http://foxplots.com to mix things up a bit. Plus, award-winning short films. His remy ass was getting sore from cent stage directing debut led to an Audience Choice at the Canton One-Acts Festival in Canton, MI. Fox going down so many times. Award graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in It needed a break. As I pre- English and a minor in Communications and received a pared my descent, I looked Masters of Arts in Teaching from Wayne State University. In addition to moonlighting as a writer, independent filmout into the distance. There maker and saxophonist, Fox teaches English and video he was. Heading in my direc- production in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, where he tion. And although I couldn’t uses his own dream of making movies to inspire his stuto follow their own dreams. He has also worked in be certain, I knew he was co- dents public relations at Ford Motor Company and as a newsming for me. I quickly aver- paper reporter. He resides in Ypsilanti, MI. ted eye contact and “What’s up, Bobby boy?” pretended that I didn’t see him coming. “Nothing,” I said in return. It was the Half way down the slide, I got stuck, best I could offer. giving Johnny more time to greet me at “Come with me,” he demanded. the bottom of the slide). The moment Weighing my options, I realized there I landed, he grabbed me by the scruff were none. So I allowed him to lead me of my neck like a helpless kitten. Of toward a patch of grass not far from course, my teacher was nowhere in the slide – my one and only loyal recess sight. It always seemed to work out that friend. But unlike a real friend, this way. She was probably somewhere in playful tower of metal was of no help the bushes, nailing the gym teacher. Or to me now. It did not have my back. maybe the band teacher. After all, he Nor would it ever. Then again, I’m sure was in far better shape than our gym if I had real friends at the time, they teacher, who dropped dead of a heart would have scampered off by now in attack the following year. fear of what may happen to them. Su-
YAREAH Magazine rely any friend of mine would be a target for Johnny Perkins. But I didn’t even have those kind of friends. “Get down on your knees,” he commanded, years before I ever saw Deliverance. As always, I did as he asked of me. And that’s when I first laid eyes upon it: A frozen, pile of dog shit, staring me right in the eyes. “Lick it.” “Please, no.” “Lick it. Before I make you eat it.” I froze in terror, like the frozen turd pile that laid before me. “Lick it or eat it.” By now, a small group of classmates stood around to watch. They watched with morbid curiosity. They weren’t there to cheer him on. But they weren’t there to help me, either. “Do it!,” he shouted. But I silently refused. Something deep from within compelled me to do something I had never done before: I resisted a bully. And this is what it took. Johnny placed his chubby hand on my neck and whispered seductively into my ear: “If you don’t lick this poo pile, I’m going to force feed it to you. Do I make myself clear?” “My teacher, my teacher, why have you abandoned me?!” I cried out in my mind, holding out hope that Mrs. Fitzsimmons would come to my rescue at any given moment – after finishing off the band teacher. Or was it art? In any event, she had forsaken me. Yet, again. Since I knew there was no way I would ever tattle on Johnny, my only saving grace was for her to lay witness to one of my daily tortures. Once would be all it would take. But it wasn’t going to be that day. And I wasn’t going to bank on
Literature the next day, either. “Last chance!” Johnny warned. But like a determined fighter, I refused to go down for the count. I held my ground. But no matter how much I resisted, I was rewarded with having my face slowly lowered toward the ground. Inch, by inch, centimeter, by centimeter, he lowered my face toward the frozen turdsicle. Textures and colors of the like I’ve never seen before began to reveal themselves to me. A layer of frozen crystals coated the entire surface of the turd, sparkling in the sunlight, only to lose their vibrant luster when the shadow of my face extinguished them. Or was it Manipulation. By Xavier Landry the warmth of my face What he that melted them from their glowing ultimately could manage was shoving existence? As my face was pushed my face against the shit. Despite my lower and lower toward its frozen best efforts to withstand the growing brown target, I continued to resist with pressure of his hand, when it was all all my might, but Johnnie persisted on said and done, the turdsicle certainly pushing my face toward impending grazed more of my face than I would doggie-doo-doom. have preferred: the tip of my nose, my “Open your mouth,” Johnny insisted, cheeks, my forehead and ultimately, my as he applied more pressure on my lips. But due to my sudden burst of neck. stubbornness, grazing was all he could But I refused. Nothing he could do manage. Sure, the texture scratched the could get me to open my mouth. surface of my flesh a little, but I was Johnny Perkins could take away my fortunate nonetheless. It’s a good thing soul, but no matter how hard he tried, it wasn’t summer. If I had my druthers, he couldn’t make me open my mouth. I would much rather have my face
YAREAH Magazine scratched by poo, then smeared by it. And no matter what, I did not open my mouth. I would never succumb to that. It was my victory. As a sidebar, incidentally, it wasn’t the first time my mouth and poop hooked up. It had just been awhile, that’s all. The first time was my own doing, perhaps preparing me for this moment several years later. I was two. My parents were getting ready for church and I was waiting in my crib. Apparently, I got tired of waiting. At the same time I had a bowel movement. When my parents walked in to retrieve me from the crib, I greeted them with a giant shit-eating grin on my face. Literally. My teeth were smeared with my own excrement. Only God knows why. Or perhaps not even God does. Looking back, it certainly prepared me for this moment. But I digress once again. When Johnny decided that I had enough, he warned me: “If you tell anybody—“ “You know I won’t,” I confidently interrupted him, sealing my fate that this vicious cycle would live to see yet another day. Satisfied with my response, Johnny ran off to join his friends in a friendly game of tetherball. And I returned to my one and only friend in the world – my favorite slide, filled with a sense of pride that I survived yet another Johnny Perkins attack, relatively unscathed. Deep down, I knew that I was going to be okay. And that Johnny Perkins probably wouldn’t be. Looking back after all these years, I realize now that I was right.
Pastourelle. By Xavier Landry
Literature
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Literature
Tatjana Debeljacki. Poems Tatjana Debeljacki
To-uncaring Lost in the grey loneliness. Cognition intruder – rustling from the mind. Unclear thread, passionate, cruel, is awaken. The fruit is not conspiracy. The lunatic, genius of silence! Get closer to the unspoken. The analysis of reason- slavery! During walking, visible shame! Exciting autonomy, Opened door, the windows, Draft! In the mist the stairways Leading to heaven. Paralyzed conscience, Portable mirror. In the plural against the fluency, Conducting, behavior, And admit the guilt. The line connecting, The road to the spacecraft. We walk on by in dishonor. Bronze woman, Brass man!!!
Tatjana Debeljački, was born on 23.04.1967 in Užice. Writes poetry, short stories, stories and haiku. Tatjana DebelMember of Association of Writers jacki of Serbia -UKS since 2004 and Haiku Society of Serbia – HDS Ser- http://debeljacki.moj bia, HUSCG – Montenegro and blog.rs/ HDPR, Croatia. A member of Writers’ Association Poeta, Belgrade since 2008, HKD Croatia since 2009 and a member of Poetry Society “Antun Ivanošić” Osijek since 2011. Deputy of the main editor (cooperation with magazines & interviews). http://diogen.weebly.com/redakcijaeditorial-board.html Editor of the magazine “Poeta”, published by Writers’ Association “Poeta”Union of Yugoslav Writers in Homeland and Immigration – Belgrade, Literary Club Yesenin – Belgrade. Up to now, she has published four collections of poetry: “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS “, published by ART – Užice in 1996; collection of poems “YOURS“, published by Narodna knjiga Belgrade in 2003; collection of haiku poetry “VOLCANO”, published by Lotos from Valjevo in 2004. A CD book “A HOUSE MADE OF GLASS” published by ART in 2005, bilingual SR-EN with music, AH-EH-IH-OH-UH, published by Poeta, Belgrade in 2008. Her poetry and haiku have been translated into several languages.
Japan in April Truly stunning, sometimes careless, I crave silently and far away! Naked, filled up with perfection, I am attending enjoyment!!! Where there is trust there is always glee. He never painted my passion, Dreams from the color to the word, Without suspense and shivers. The moment of light strikes me. Pressing Japanese air onto my face. April is slowly spilling its colors, above duplicate shadows dancing away.
Ridiculous Anger by Penelope Przekop.
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Literature
Poems by Kim Wilson Kim Wilson is an original deep author from San Antonio (TX). You can now read two by Kim. Enjoy them! Kim goes directly to you heart.
What Makes a Grown Man Cry Women and men whom are accomplished, as you weather the storm trying to build a nest, but being mediocre and plain, to explore your creative ideas would be insane. A role model is a strong black achiever, but in you your family is not a believer, so the act is to disappear, and instill in them a real fear. Martin Luther King spoke, “I have a dream” out loud, a dream that drew an enormous crowd, that day still rest in my mind, though the facts are sometimes hard to find. All Afro-Americans are great and notable, a grown man cries when his life is unsuitable, caught in a world not innocent, sometimes omitting what’s flagrant. Aiding in providing for the essential cause of the family, you think the world owes you something, you’re taking a gamble see; for what once stood for respect of the next man, now stands for less for the blessed at hand. What makes a grown man cry, is what makes a grown man lie, soon makes a grown man die, some resort to getting high, on whom can they rely.
Foretold Adventurous Silence ADVENTUROUS SILENCE What can they mean?! Watching, Waiting, Living, Dying. Reckless Innocence RECKLESS INNOCENCE Now tarnished unclean. Crying, Praying, Aching, Bleeding. Noble Pretense NOBLE PRETENSE False domestic scene. Mending, Defending, Blending, Unending. Spontaneous Vengeance SPONTANEOUS VENGEANCE Why is your makeup so mean! Enslaving, Betraying, Displaying, Portraying.
No one told me about her. By Penelope Przekop
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Literature
Thierry Sainttine. Poems
Thierry Saintine
Another Love Story
by Thierry Saintine
All she rescued out of the storm is a ten-year-old disaster playing to happen and a pair of boxing shades He updates his MySpace page, forgets his image He calls his daughter collect, confuses his tangerine suit number for her mother’s cell She survived her high school scaffolding but tripped over life after college She ordered the combo: child-long distance father He goes to his firstborn interview, dressed late He rents his daughter for the weekend,
Frederic Edwin Church - Broken column The Parthenon 1869
Thierry Saintine is the recipient of an MFA from the City College of New York. He’s currently working on a collection of poems. His dream is to continue working to keep creative writing and thinking alive and a necessity in the world Thierry around him.
Saintine
quotes his late pick-up fees She subleased her pillow to midnight friends to eat morning flakes in bed with her daughter slipping into adolescence He wheels his mother to church, smokes a sin He drives his sister out of her car, picks up a friend’s twenty to life She reminds him of the promises He replies he had all the pieces. They met many sorrys ago on her way to the library.
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ARTS
Frederich Edwin Church
By John Glass
Yareah magazine next issue (22) is going to be titled: Sea and Trips. We would like to study travel literature (Stevenson, Conrad, London…) but also artists who have reflected the feeling of a trip, maybe interior or perhaps exterior (first cannot be without second and vice versa).
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rederich Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 in Hartford – April 7, 1900 in New York) represents both kinds of trips. He was a central figure in the Hudson American School, artists centered in landscapes and fond of traveling to know and love what they would paint. Frederich settled in New York soon (he was 19 y. o.) and every year, from spring to autumn he travelled sketching, often by foot. He returned each winter to the city to sell his work. But he wanted to go far and from 1853 to 1857, he went to South America: Heart of the Andes, in the Metropolitan, it’s his most known work of that period and a complete success at this time. He married and had family, but his children died soon of diphtheria. Frederich Edwin Church was a fighter and overcoming this tragedy, he had more children and together with his wife (Isabel Carnes) travelled to Europe and to the Middle East (Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Egypt…). He knew and painted all of the colors of all the regions: from the bright greens of the Northern Lights to the warm oranges of holly lands; from the
By Frederic Edwin Church
pale blues of high mountains to the strange yellows of forgotten flowers… He painted East and West, North and South, and his paintings reflect the thoughts of a calm humanity who wants to know its reality but who wishes to fly always higher, to progress and to arrive someday to the Heavens. My favorite Edwin Church’s painting is, no doubt, Broken Column. In the foreground, broken ancient stone: stone of the Parthenon, the temple of wisdom, which represents all of the problems that people have during his life and which sometimes break their he-
arts but, beyond, the Greek sky, the sky of the hope, the sky of a promise made for centuries: if you are strong enough you will go always farer. Frederich Edwin Church had rheumatism, what adversely could affect his work. No problem, he was a traveler and started to paint with his left hand on a slower pace but always happy and smiling. Other artist of the Hudson American School: Asher Brown Duran: http://yareah.com/?p=256
By Frederic Edwin Church
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Social Sickness by Yareah main artist: Xavier Landry by Isabel del Rio
I’ve studied Art History in Madrid and the Prado Museum was my second home during some years. The best pictures of Western Renaissance and Baroque paint are there, with their best achievement: incredible realism, perspective and deep narrative. an der Weyden, Raphael, Greco, Ribera, Murillo, Rubens… and of course, Velazquez and Goya. Great artists who got to move the reality into a frame, a window opened in front of the viewer as a perfect movie which manages our imagination, the imagination of an active admirer… Complete worlds, frozen in time, speaking of eternal stories, stories with background. However, in the last years I have been presenting art exhiOphelia, by Xavier Landry any interest in three dimensions. bitions by young artists, heavily influenced by the expressiveness of Ethnic Art or by the simplicity of I normally was silent hearing those explanations but thinking Eastern Europe icons, interesting influences which should ‘yes, Picasso (looking for meanings and subjective perspectives) was the last Classic... a pity.’ not make us forget our achievements. Then, when I interviewed them about the meaning of their Nevertheless, last week I saw Xavier Landry’s works and I pictures, they usually answered ‘No meaning, it’s only optical feel relax: ‘At last someone has inherited the ancient knoeffects, color and shapes’. Definitively, they had only a de- wledge and he has been able to evolve and to mix with cucorative intention, beautiful but not very deep, and without rrent meanings, foreign influences, and personal dreams. His ‘Ophelia’ is (as classic Ophelia by Millais) talking about
V
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Liberation Figurative, by Xavier Landry
the ephemeral beauty but with a Baroque expressiveness and current brutality (TV cruelty). His ‘Liberation figurative’ is Pop but it’s much more, it’s the Baroque movie of a new virgin going out of her icon to dramatically change the world with American colors. His ‘Pastourelle’ has the great technique of Flemish old painters and the true spirit of African artists (any concession), and ‘Manipulation’ encloses a complete novel: art and literature marching together, as it must be, as it was and new artists will make. I hope you can take time to think of Xavier Landry’s paintings. They are not painted to decorate the living room or to sell any product. They are not quickly painted to earn money without effort. They have been painted to reflect our great truths: time and death, the two big subjects of any master piece. Congratulations, Xavier.
Xavier Landry My work is a kind of religious interpretation of Canadian and American pop icons with a hint of dark humor, decrepit pity and paranoid social engagement delirium. Just Xavier Landry like a drunken ride in the woods with a Six Flags abortion queen, http://xavierlandry.c om/ eating plastic, petting dead pets. The images that I create are often inspired by current events and by what I could call « social sickness ». I mix up themes in an interpretation delirium and the result tells a story. The magic is that themes seem to stick well together and keep a truly serious meaning through humor and stupid looking characters.
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ARTS
Artist Penelope Przekop: I never meant to upset you
A person is the sum of a map of people. At the beginning we are a white canvas, usually the first color is painted by our mother using the brush of her own mum
Fauves=wild beasts, ‘Ridiculous anger’, they called to those painters who felt the subjective intensity of colors at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, a hundred years later, we need sometimes their strength to paint our own self-portrait, to make the difference with other portraits but to learn of them too and, like in a clean mirror, to project our new image full of past memories and opened to the future: ‘I never meant to upset you’. I was born this way. Please stay, by Penelope Przekop
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ifferent relatives, teachers, friends, unfriends, neighbors, burglars of souls or nurses of broken hopes will include new shapes and colors…, and one incomplete day, we will feel tired of so many layers of strange paint: ‘My back is breaking’, someone will claim. ‘I need help’, some others will shout. I still remember that day, ‘Where I am supposed to go?!’, when I ran away with my little bag, looking for my personal canvas and rejecting the bizarre one which other hands had painted. ‘I was born this way’ but I forgot the flowers around me and now, I must forget the silly rules of the grey school: ‘No one told me about her’.
Penelope Przekop Penelope Przekop is an emerging artist able of creating interior worlds where everybody can see its eyes… and smiles. Her work has been shown in Penelope Przekop New York City, Philadelphia, California, and Italy, including an http://www.penelopeprzekop.com/ exhibition focusing on Human Rights sponsored by Amnesty http://www.aberrationInternational. nation.com/
My back is breaking, by Penelope Przekop
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ARTS
Artist Rinat Shingareev: only positive emotions
By ISartosa
Graduated in Fine Arts in Russia and Italy, Rinat Shingareev has a cosmopolitan vision of our world, so busy and noisy that only a brush of saturated colors and a mind of electric thoughts can imagine.
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s a successor of Pop Art, he uses the daily images of famous and powerful people, which appears in newspapers, adverts and TV (our current icons), to approach them to unknown and ordinary viewers, who admire (and sometimes fear) those personalities so far from their environment, so influential in their decisions. But Madonna (at home) is not different to our neighbor and even Berlusconi can result friendly in Rinat’s canvas. We are mankind, we all have our dreams and fears: Does Berlusconi want to be a Roman emperor? Does Madonna to be a nun? Do you want to be the president of the United
Lil Wayne, by Rinat Shingareev
States? Who does not? Everybody has wanted to be the King Arthur in a sleepless night (others, a little crazier, Napoleon). With his technically perfect portraits, Rinat Shingareev wants to question people role in society, because nobody is so different if you see them with new colors in a new dimension: from Elisabeth I to Elisabeth II of England only a dress and a smile is the gap (maybe the glasses too, the older queen would use a monocle) and from the prince Charles to a young in jeans only the fringe makes a difference. Rinat is looking for unions, he dislikes disagrements: only positive emotions. See more: http://shingareev.blogspot.com/ www.facebook.com/thebestartistalive www.youtube.com/LuxuryartMilano Prince Charles, by Rinat Shingareev
Madonna. Oil on Canvas, by Rinat Shingareev
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ARTS
Baruer Trilogy by Francis Piep BARCELONA – BRUSSELS – BERLIN
Three cities, three cultures, three stories, many links in com mon, neuralgic capitals of Europe and the world, marked by very re cent past, bridges of culture and art, future and imagination. Parts of an idea formed in the 80’s and a finally signed trough the links by author of Baruer. Fraternal ties in part, other parts art and above all driven by the union of the creative spirit through that triangle connec tion.
Francis Piep The initial idea, the retained image and the development perspective, they are the cloud which is created in the mind and which inspires the imagination, they are the first step of the creation, a base or support, Francis Piep a form and a series of objects, http://www.franciswhich possibly after having serpiep.com ved their social purpose, would disappear or be transformed through a mechanical process into other components and other uses, will form part of the initial idea in transformation.
58x86x13 cm. BRUSSELS Francis Piep
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58x96x14 cm. BARCELONA Francis Piep
60x90x17,5 cm. BERLIN Francis Piep
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ARTS
René Magritte: five great By Isadora Sartosa ideas Q.- What it would happen if we were only a dress han ging in an closet, waiting for other similar dresses unknown in the other closed half? A.- We would be li ving a current day because we usually only know appea rances. What is in our interior soul? Behind that closed door? Nobody knows.
Rene Magritte
Q.- What it would happen if a shower of bureaucrats will fall over our town brin ging his strict rules, only suitable for those who don’t want to think? A.- It has already happened and we must obey them. They have ordered when we have to start working and when we must rest. They have ordered what we have to study and to eat. They don’t allow us even smoking or shouting into a smart bank.
Rene Magritte
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Q.- What it would happen if we were unable of distinguished reality and fiction? A.- Reality is so Surrealistic that ‘confused’ is our adjective. Enlightenment and its ra tional ideas is now a forgoen religion. With our effort and work, we don’t solve anything… It is beer to have contacts (and money). Q.- What it would hap pen if we knew that Mme. Reca mier’s spirit is dead and the only woman that exists is buried in a coffin? A.- Loneli ness is the flag of our materialis tic time. Couples b r o k e n every day, Rene Magritte couples are not interesting Q.- What it would happen if René Magrie had reason, if we for our powerful were our objects, if our objects define our personality? states: lonely pe A.- Car brands or clothing, the price of the sofa or the child’s ople spend more school define us in front of our neighbors… But we are not in money and (even nocent, because our opinion about them, it depends on what more important) we are seeing (and thought or intentions are invisible). they pay more taxes.
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Interview with Isabel del Rio about Women artists in the History By I Sartosa In Yareah magazine, you are publishing different old women artists. I know you are being studying the subject for years, and you have already published a book in Spanish called “The Girls of Oil” (“Las Chicas del Oleo”). .- Why does this subject interest you so much? A.- Well, I have always been very fond of Arts. I have painted and I have I degree in Art History. To me, in my youth, in the University, it doesn’t matter if Velazquez was a man or a woman, or if there were women painting at this time. To me, it doesn’t matter at all, Art was Beauty, Art was my Religion, and I wasn’t a feminist fighter. However, one day visiting the Prado Museum I saw that a portrait of Philip II (1565) had changed its artist name. I knew the portrait very well, I had seen it a thousand of times before, but it had been painted (they said) by Sanchez Coello. This day it had been painted by a woman, by Sofonisba Anguissola. The change was not very important in my opinion, I was happy (of course) seeing a woman painter in the Prado Museum but I didn’t feel very confused. When I started to comment the new with some friends or colleges at work… Yes, I started to be angry and
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to feel as a feminist fighter for the first time in my life. Q.- Why for? A.- Well, people don’t believe me and they said stupid things as ‘that is a joke’ ‘all ancient women were taking care of children and doing nothing more.’ I knew perfectly well (the Prado Museum was my second house) the strict rules they have to catalogue a painting (for instance, they have hidden some Rembrandt’s due to some little doubts about the author). Therefore, if the Museum claimed such a thing, it was true. Q.- What do you do then? A.- Well, I looked for information about why and who had discovered the true artist and I started to know the name of a lot of hidden old women artists while people denied my discoveries and, what was worst, I discovered that women started to be hidden after the French Revolution (in the portrait of Philip II by Sofonisba Anguissola, they cover her signature with oleo in the 19th century, and the same happened with Judith Leister, for example). Q.- Don’t you like the French Revolu-
tion? I think it was not well for women, it equaled us only for the guillotine, any right for us. In fact, the problem was not the French Revolution but the Industrial Revolution and the new society they needed. A society based on social groups fighting. Q.- Why ‘fighting’? A.- If you need to pay law salaries, it is better to confront people and the gap between sex is the first and most important confrontation. In old times, it’s idiot to thing than women were at home cleaning the furniture (it wasn’t furniture). Women were working in the ateliers together with their parents, brothers or husbands. since all the family had to collaborate to make the paintings (they were not sold as today in the drugstores). Some of them were good enough to get a name, a famous name. Q.- In your book, you speak about 500 famous old women artists? A.- Yes, and the list is endless. I stopped the investigation since, to me, it was enough. Now, I am sure in old times a lot of women stood up and got
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independence and freedom, same as men: life is never easy. However, with the Industrial Revolution (and the marketing of the French Revolution), women had much more problems living in a lie (I think, I lie is always the bigger problem). Q.- What lie? Can you explain this point?
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lived very well without asking for money to any man. In the 19th century, in the Victorian society, believe me: it was more difficult. As women, we should study them, because they encourage us, much more than the idea of obedient mothers, doing nothing and always obeying. My mothers are the Girls of Oil.
Philip II portrait by Sononisba Anguissola
A.- Official powers are claiming (constantly) that our current world is the best. They are very interested in convincing us of being quiet and they are against the idea of ‘Past times were better.’ A lot of my old Girls of Oil left their husbands or maintained them or married without asking for permission or
Batumi and Hamsun
By Charles Kinney Junior
The Black Sea is a micro-version of the Mediterranean: predominately Christian to the north, heavily Muslim to the South. Like the Mediterranean, the Black Sea links many diffe rent nations, languages and people.
T
he cities on the Black Sea, Yalta, Sochi, Batumi, like Athens, Rome, Alexandria, have represented not only different ideologies and competing nations throughout history, but viewpoints of the people who have traveled there. Batumi is Caucasus Georgia’s jewel in the crown. Tucked away in the southeast corner of the Black Sea, it is a thriving tourist metropolis. It is a lively, open place, where Georgia has the most contact with foreigners. They come for the sea, the sun, the wine and the warm hospitality of the Georgian people. It is the same place that forged a strange but strong cultural link between Georgians and (oddly) Norwegians. Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) is recognized as one of the forefathers of stream of consciousness writing. Using interior monologue, now familiar to most readers, was revolutionary when Hamsun started using it. Norway’s King Haakon VII called Hamsun, “Norway’s
soul.” His backlash against realism and naturalism was exci- Charles Kinney Jr ting, daring and Charles Kinney, Jr. is married to a controversial. He won the Norwegian, actively involved in the United States, and is currently Nobel Prize for literature in based in the Republic of Georgia. 1920. He is credited with in- He has written for publications in Charles fluencing some of the heavy- Greenland, Denmark, Norway, the United States and the United Kinney Jr weights of the genre of the Kingdom. He has taught and lec20th century, including He- tured at universities and educatio- http://www.charlesmingway, Kafka, Hesse, and nal institutions around the world. kinney.blogspot.com He is currently on a two-year teaMiller. cher-training assignment with the US State Department Hamsun was also a travel to the Republic of Georgia. writer. Given a grant by the LIVED IN THIS BUILDING, honor Norwegian government, he traveled via Hamsun throughout Tbilisi, Georgia’s Finland to Russia, to Azerbaijan, Ar- capital. menia and finally to Georgia, with the Somehow, there is always a somehow prize being Batumi and the Black Sea. in literature, something happened to It was this trip that inspired “I Hamsun’s vision. Batumi, like the rest Æventyrland – opplevet og drømt I of Georgia, was swept under the SoKaukasien” (In Wonderland – Expe- viets. It fell into stagnation and decline. riences and Dreams in the Caucausus) Hamsun fell under the sway of the in 1899. Nazis, including giving his Noble Prize The sea and the travel opened Ham- medal to Joseph Gobbels and praising sun’s eyes and allowed him to create be- Hitler, all the while Norway was occuauty. 100 years later, his book is widely pied by the Nazis. Hamsun even wrote read in multiple languages by visitors to a eulogy for Hitler, saying, “He was a Batumi. The Geor- warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a gians have an infinity prophet of the gospel of justice for all for a man from a far- nations.” Hamsun, put on trial for cooff mysterious land llaboration, fell into disrepute. who praised Georgia Batumi is hellbent on rebuilding itself and Georgian society. at a breakneck pace, with the remnants The Georgian Ham- of the Soviet era crumbling into nosun Society counts thingness. Norway, rich on oil and looover 100 members, king for international stature, has and plaques, such as carefully re-cultivated Hamsun’s image. AN OUTSTAN- It opened the Knut Hamsun Center in DING NORWE- 2009. Time makes (nearly) everyone GIAN WRITER forget.
Knut Hamsun photo