VHm - VividHues

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VHm - VividHues

VIVIDHUES
A MAGAZINE BY AND FOR C REAT IVE INDIVIDUALS
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Table of Contents
Comics Pages
The Creative Life
What I’m Reading
VHm Models
Film Negatives
VHm Models
Extreme Sports
Random Poetry
Sex & Relationship Advice
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Audio File
Artists
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Body Art
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“The White Cube”
Artists
“The New Boss”
Artists
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Fresh New Tatts
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Random Poetry
Same Same but Different
What’s Cooking?
VHm Models
Random Poetry
Artists
Kurt Smeads
Ptim Callan
Khalil Newton-Perez
Simone Fung
Kasey and Brooke
Allen White
Meagan Van Matre
Onetruebill
Larry Fullford
Vanae Tran and Donna Walker
Joie Franco
Dakota Kwan
Tmothy Robert Gratkowski
Alex Suelto
Mona Franciscus
Shira Ganz
Danielle Fonseca
Cookie
Colleen Corcoran
Berkeley Deitch
Ted Travelstead
Christopher Bettig
Krissy Munroe
Our subscribers!
Katherine Charm
Katelyn Bryan
Amber Toohey
Roger Lai
Joanna Schneier
Tina and April
Christina Owen
Fariel Shafee
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From the Editor
What VHm Is All About
You’re looking at the first ever issue of VividHues Magazine. Welcome.
VividHues is a free semi-annual magazine to be distributed for the foreseeable
future purely in electronic form. We chose the PDF format because it’s the closest online technology to a printed journal. You can move it between computers or send it to
a friend. You can leaf through it and make printouts easily. You can open it on your
computer and see something that really looks like a magazine page.
The reasons for going electronic are quite compelling and are directly
connected to the magazine’s larger purpose. VividHues Magazine is not a commercial
venture. We don’t sell ad space and don’t charge for subscriptions. This magazine is
produced by a group of designers, writers, and photographers who do it strictly for the
love of self-expression. They have something to say. That’s the only reason they do
it.
There are certain fixed costs to producing even a free magazine. You need
computers, software licenses, expertise, broadband connections, and Web hosting.
We gladly make those investments in order to make this production fly. However,
once you talk about physically printing up magazines, costs go through the roof.
That’s where our fiscally responsible side has to draw the line.
But in fact there’s a more compelling reason even than money to produce a
magazine like this one on line. That is reach. As of the time of this writing we have
almost 1000 subscribers and others who have expressed interest in being a part of
this venture. We receive new subscribers each day. Just as with many other ventures
in the realm of community or personal expression, the “zero-gravity” nature of on-line
information makes it possible for creative, interesting people from all over the world
to join the VividHues family as contributors and readers both. It’s hard to imagine a
printed booklet with a couple staples in the middle having quite the same impact.
We have a good premiere issue lined up for you. Our team of regular
columnists explores new music, mountain biking, comics, digital film piracy, adventure
literature, and even open mic poetry. We have great selections in fiction and poetry
as well as art and photography from contributors and VividHues staff alike.
So enjoy it and pass it on to a friend or two. If you’re one of those friends,
make sure you subscribe at www.magazine.vividhues.com. Remember, it’s free.
Cheers.
E*y*t*i*h*i*a
Publisher
Ptim Callan
Editor-in-chief
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Comics Are Not
Superhero
Stories
by Kurt Smeads
The difference between a medium and a
genre, and how some smart people are
using that difference to tell interesting
stories in the graphic medium.
Welcome to the first installment of “Comics
Pages.” Each issue we will discuss some aspect
of the graphic novel medium with an eye to
aiding thoughtful readers in getting the most
out of the graphic novels available to them
today. For the moment I will use the terms
comic and graphic novel more or less interchangeably. Perhaps in a future column I’ll
explore the two terms and how we might profit
from using them in different contexts.
I want to spend this first column detailing the lay of the land in graphic novels today,
in particular when it comes to genre and
comics’ relationship to superheroes. You see,
comics and superhero stories are not the same
thing and in fact need not be connected in any
way. One is a medium and the other a genre.
Comics as easily can be westerns, science fiction, crime stories, horror, romance, nonfiction, or any other genre of content that’s ever
been invented. Superheroes can appear in film,
television, prose fiction, painting, poetry, or
any other form that makes it possible to tell a
story or have a character.
It’s easy to see examples of superhero
stories outside the comics medium, most
notably in the realm of popular films.
Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Dare Devil, and
The Incredible Hulk are a few highly visible
examples. And though less well known, superheroes have appeared in other media as well.
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One sterling example is George R.R. Martin’s
Wild Cards series, each volume gathering short
stories set in the same superhero-rich universe.
Wild Cards does a good job of presenting interesting, literate, well-told superhero stories in
prose form.
More important to this column are the
many examples of comics in non-superhero
genres. Most popular are action-oriented and
plot-driven genres, especially crime fiction, but
there exist examples of any genre you can
imagine. Quality crime genre graphic novels
available today include Frank Miller’s noir-influenced Sin City series, various books by Brian
Michael Bendis, and The Road to Perdition. In
the horror genre we see the perennial Swamp
Thing. Samurai comics include Frank Miller’s
Ronin and the long-running Lone Wolf and Cub.
Character-driven realism might be Ghost
World. Zot! is SF, and historical non-fiction
includes Frank Miller’s 300 and Art Spiegelman’s
groundbreaking and universally acclaimed
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. There are even a few
books about comics in comic form, most specifically Scott McCloud’s brilliant Understanding
Comics and Reinventing Comics. Look forward
to discussion of some of these works in future
columns, in particular the work of Frank Miller
and Scott McCloud.
There also is a strong thread of work
that to some degree becomes possible because
of the medium. Some titles take advantage of
their hand-drawn nature to present stories best
described as surrealism or irrealism. For example, Fun with Milk and Cheese stars two “dairy
products gone bad,” Milk and Cheese. The fundamental gag behind the strip is that these
anthropomorphized food items run around
boozing it up and committing random acts of
violence and destruction. This kind of material
is common in comics, uncommon in prose fiction, and very rare anywhere else.
All these points made, we should
remember that the level of correlation
between superheroes and comics is far higher
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Comics Pages
than for any other pairing of medium and content. Though I haven’t seen a comprehensive
survey of the matter, I believe that well more
than half of published comics are about superheroes and that almost all superhero literature
comes in graphic form.
These two entities grew up together and
fueled each other’s growth. The strength of
this historic marriage has created an environment in which, even though we know the medium and genre are different, nonetheless we
associate the two very strongly in our minds.
Many writers and artists take advantage of this
association in various ways, playing with one
genre or another. Particularly popular (and I
think interesting) is the superhero genre
crossover. That’s where the writer combines
more than one genre, and one of those is the
superhero genre. Many superhero stories begin
to intrude into horror or crime fiction or science fiction anyway, but true genre-crossers
can be quite interesting by combining the
assumptions of the two genres in surprising
ways.
Powers, for example, is a police procedural about a detective squad in charge of
crimes involving superpowered beings. The first
installment Who Killed Retro Girl? starts with a
superhero who has died in superheroic combat.
The police investigate it to find the culprit,
just as they would for any other murder. That’s
the substance of the story. Alan Moore’s Top
Ten mixes the same two genres in a very different way. He postulates a city inhabited by
nobody but superheroes. Superheroes are janitors and cab drivers and hot dog merchants.
Now he goes to the police department for this
city and shows us what life is like for these
superhero cops in a superhero world.
Alan Moore’s a very clever gentleman who likes
to riff on the superhero genre, and he also has
given us the pulp fiction version of a superhero
team (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
featuring the invisible man, Captain Nemo, and
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, among others) and
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metafictional superhero comics (Tom Strong).
All this comes after he created the definitive
superhero team narrative with Watchmen,
which is yet to be topped and which is the single best graphic novel I’ve read. Look for more
discussion of Alan Moore as well.
Well, I think that’s it for this installment. Everything you see here makes good
reading and is a decent place to start. Look for
more detail in future columns, as well as many
additional interesting works in the comics
medium.
Kurt Smeads
Kurt Smeads is a QA manager and longtime
comic book aficionado.
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(VHm) The Creative Life
Speak, Muse
by Ptim Callan
Get up there and express yourself at an
open microphone near you!
Do you have a poetic soul that nobody ever
sees? Is there a performer in you dying to get
out? Do you yearn to connect with an audience?
If the answer is yes, then open mic readings
may be for you. The mic stands for
microphone, and an open mic is exactly that.
Rather than providing entertainment, the
establishment relies on the audience members
to fill the air with their own performances.
For those who have never been, open
mic nights (and they seem to happen at night)
are a lot of fun. Each member typically has a
few minutes in the limelight, so there’s a great
deal of variety. Ordinarily only a few of the
performances are actually bad. Most are entertaining enough and once in a while you see
something truly impressive. Your typical open
mic attendee either is performing or knows
someone who is, but more audience members
are always welcome. Nobody will hassle you to
get up to the mic if you don’t want to, so you
should feel free to head on down.
Open mic performances fall into two
basic categories, music and poetry. Music is any
sort of musical performance. Sometimes
they’re the performers’ compositions. More
often they’re not. All has to be performed on
what you can sit with in a bar and carry up to
the stage, so you don’t see a lot of drum sets,
pianos, or amplified music. You do see a lot of
acoustic guitar, saxophones and other wind
instruments, and a capella singers. Poetry isn’t
just poetry but rather any spoken word piece.
Usually it is poems or fiction, and sometimes
you see what would best be categorized as rap.
Occasionally people read the work of others,
but the format is primarily intended for your
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own writing. I’ve never seen anyone get up to
read a non-fiction article, but I suppose if it
were short enough someone could.
Open mic is not karaoke. Karaoke
involves singing popular songs to backing music
in the style of the original recording artist.
Open mic features original artistry by musicians
or writers and has no recorded accompaniment.
Some open mic scenes mix poetry and
music in a single format, but most seem either
by explicit rule or by unspoken consensus to
have settled on one or the other. Practitioners
of the wrong medium ordinarily will be treated
politely, but the audience won’t be there to
hear what you’re doing and shouldn’t be
expected to display quite the same enthusiasm
as they would for performances in their preferred medium.
Open mic music isn’t really my scene,
while open mic poetry very much is. So I’ll
focus on poetry for the remainder of this article. Let is suffice to say that if you’re a musician who seeks to perform in front on an audience, you should see your newspaper for an
open microphone that takes musicians and go
check it out. You may be very glad you did.
The basic rules of open-mic poetry are
pretty simple:
X Each participant performs only once and
keeps it to the allotted time (several minutes).
X Ordinarily people perform their own original writing. Sometimes you can perform another’s writing, but you must credit the writer
(and make it clear that’s not yourself), and you
shouldn’t make a habit of performing exclusively writing by others.
X You may read one piece or a series of
them, so long as you stay within the time limit.
Try to be polite and attentive when others are
reading, even if you don’t care for their work.
Be aware of what is acceptable content and
language for any given scene. Ordinarily there
are only adults present, and most acceptable
adult conversation goes. If children are present
The Creative Life
or groups of people who would be sensitive
toward particular language or topics, you might
want to choose something else to read. There’s
no need to shy away from controversy. Just
don’t be offensive.
Other than that, anything goes. Give us
a short story or a personal, emotional poem or
a manifesto. If you wrote the words and are
proud enough to read them in front of an audience, go for it.
For best effect it’s good to remember
that open mic poetry is very situational. You’re
reading to a group of specific individuals in a
specific venue. You seek to connect with them
in a very immediate way. They can’t reread
what you said. They can’t dwell on it and have
another look tomorrow. You’re best off reading
pieces that will resonate with this particular
group in the context of this place and time.
Over the years I’ve evolved a series of
guidelines to maximize my own reading experience. You may feel they all don’t apply to you
or that you have additional guidelines you’d be
well advised to follow. Knock yourself out. For
some this may still be a starting point.
Ptim’s rules for open mic poetry:
1. Keep it to the easier stuff. It’s not
that the audience is dumb, just that they have
to take the words at your pace in a distracting
environment. The written word tolerates subtlety, precision, and difficulty in a way the
spoken word does not.
2. Don’t read anything that depends on formatting or visual puns or whatnot. You can’t
explain them. They simply don’t work.
3. No foreign languages, please. We don’t all
know them, and we just lose your point.
4. Likewise, try to keep the obscure references to a minimum. If I don’t know the first
names of the Brothers Karamazov off hand,
that shouldn’t be a barrier to our communication.
5. Read the very best pieces you have. It’s
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not like you can’t read them again elsewhere.
6. Stay in the time limit. Even if nobody gives
you the hook or boos you off stage, they’re still
getting bored, and you’re losing your chance
to make a good impression.
7. Careful of the off-color stuff. See my discussion above.
8. Personally, I don’t think the real maudlin
stuff goes over too well. Some people write
poetry as a form of therapy, and that’s great
for them, but it seldom results in memorable
literary moments.
9. Likewise, the really intensely personal,
emotional, and introspective poetry doesn’t
necessarily resonate with an audience. They
aren’t inside your head and don’t know you or
your experiences the way you do. Ask yourself,
“Would an intelligent stranger understand or
care about what I’m saying?” If the answer is
no, you can probably find a better piece to
read.
As a final, closing thought, I’ll encourage anyone who’s ever tried his hand at poetry or fiction to give open mic a spin. There’s no feeling
in the world like that when a whole room of
strangers bursts into laughter or applause based
on what you just read to them. At that moment
you’re a champion, no matter what other pressures you’re under or how badly your day went.
And that connection, after all, is why we write
in the first place.
Ptim Callan
(see next page)
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The Creative Life
Ptim Callan
Two-time Pushcart Prize nominated Ptim Callan's
fiction has appeared in over thirty literary magazines including Mississippi Review, ZYZZYVA,
and Fiction International. His independent
films have been screened at major film festivals. He took his English degree from UCLA
where he studied writing under Robert Coover
and John Barth. His name is pronounced “Tim.”
Read more at www.ptim.org.
Are you a writer?
Want to publish your
work?
Send your work to us for
consideration in one of
our next issues!
For more information,
click here to look at our
submission guidelines!
7
What I’m Reading
Adventure
Stories for the
Intelligent
Reader
by Kahlil Newton-Perez
McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of
Thrilling Tales, Vintage Books
479 pages
Not too long ago a very clever man named Dave
Eggers started his own publishing company. It
goes under various rubrics, all of them starting
with the word McSweeney’s. Among other
things, Mr. Eggers puts out a quarterly literary
magazine called McSweeney’s Quarterly
Concern.
You may know Dave Eggers not as the
publisher of the hottest literary magazine to
emerge in recent years but rather as the bestselling author of book-length memoirs A
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and
You Shall Know Our Velocity. Eggers is connected to some other important young writers
including David Foster Wallace and Michael
Chabon. McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of
Thrilling Tales represents the product of
Eggers’s connection to the latter of these two,
and a very welcome product it is.
Chabon (himself the author of several
books, including The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier and Clay) tells the story of this volume’s creation very will in its forward, and you
can read this account first hand at on this
book’s Amazon description.
<link to http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/140003339X/ref=sib_dp_pt/reader-page >
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For those who just want it netted out,
Chabon feels that there exists a consensus
among those who control publication of short
stories that only a certain, very limited genre
of story can be published. These stories are
character-driven, contemporary, mostly urban
minimalism with a minimum of plot, mystery,
or excitement. All other kinds of fiction are
ghettoized by what Chabon calls the Ban to
various genre publications (SF, fantasy, mystery)
or worse; if they don’t fit into the specific
strictures of these genres then they simply cannot get in front of readers at all.
This wonderful collection seeks to return
wonder, adventure, and plot to the short story.
And it succeeds, marvelously.
The list of authors is quite impressive,
featuring never-before-published stories from
such a diverse group as Stephen King, Elmore
Leonard, Michael Crichton, Nick Hornby, Harlan
Ellison, Dave Eggers, Neil Gaiman, and Michael
Moorcock. The stories themselves are equally
impressive. All are clearly created by masters
of the writing craft. And they’re exciting.
Things happen. There’s a plot. People struggle
and aspire and sometimes succeed heroically
and sometimes die trying. The stories occur in
distant places and times and feature unusual
characters and events. It’s refreshing.
To give you an idea of the content, this
book’s first dozen stories (in order) are:
X A zoopaleologist travels to an obscure corner of Antarctica in search of the last living
specimen of a giant, prehistoric shark.
X A circus elephant commits murder.
X A man is haunted by his abandoned
son’s ghost.
X A witch’s son and cat seek revenge
for her murder.
X A prohibition-era lawman stalks a
murderer.
X The last rebel leader of a conquered
people hides from his pursuers.
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What I’m Reading
X A haunted playhouse hunts over curious
children.
X A teenager can see the future and
the disaster awaiting him there.
X In a post apocalyptic future a small
community readies itself to fight off
roving bandits.
X A private detective snaps and kills
his tormentor.
X A woman alone in a forest cabin
must solve a mystery despite her failing eyesight.
X A science fiction writer travels in
time in order to find out the ending of the
story he can’t finish.
Kahlil Newton-Perez
Kahlil Newton-Perez is working on his MFA at
the Fullerton Institute for Interdisciplinary
Studies in Fullerton, California. He has held
many jobs in many fields.
And there are more beyond that, of
course. These stories are fun and adventurous
and mysterious and exciting, but they’re not
campy or schlocky or half-baked. They feature
complex characters with believable motivations
and backgrounds. They offer plausible plots
with endings neither predictable nor arbitrary.
Some of them are quite adventurous literarily.
It’s a great blend.
Kudos to Michael Chabon for recognizing
that a story can be both exciting and intelligent. This collection proves him right and is
perfect for anyone who wants fiction both literate and fun.
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Simone Fung
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www.magazine.vividhues.com : February 2004, Issue 1 : Photography by Eytihia Arges
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Kasey & Brooke
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Film Negatives
Bits Bite Back
by Allen White
There's a digital filmmaking revolution happening. Just not where you
might think.
Early in December I attended a preview screening of The Last Samurai. As press, I get inside
screenings before the rest of crowd. After I
had sat down in the empty theater, I noticed
that two security guards were talking near the
front row. One man was showing the other
how to use a night vision scope to surveil the
audience during the show in order to prevent
an unauthorized recording from being made.
Preview screenings are now fraught with
such precautions. Guards question audience
members upon entry whether they have cell
phones with imbedded cameras, which are then
confiscated for the duration of the show.
Onscreen warnings appear before screenings
(akin to the FBI notice on videos) that remind
the audience of the illegality of making a
recording. Also occasionally shown are the
same commercials run on television that feature film industry employees asking people not
to take away their livelihood by distributing
and downloading illegal copies of films.
All of this, of course, is an exercise in
futility, a desperate effort by the film industry
to stop what cannot be stopped. The great
irony inherent in these 21st century issues of
digital piracy is that, in effect, relentless
entertainment industry marketing has worked
so well that the public's desire for product outweighs any obeisance to copyright law.
Film, the greatest mass medium, is often
seen as product. Certainly this is Hollywood's
position. The expense of making and marketing a movie is such that every attempt must be
made to recoup costs and make enough profit
to justify making more. The long-promised dig-
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ital video revolution has materialized in only
the most marginal fashion to date and has not
yet made a dent in how 99 percent of films are
created and sold. The real digital revolution is
not one of filmmaking, but of film theft. While
a good (i.e. high enough image quality to shoot
a feature film) high-end prosumer digital video
camera costs at minimum $2500, a desktop PC
of amazing power and storage capacity can be
had for less than $500. Add a DSL line at
SBC/Yahoo's bargain introductory price of
$29.95 a month, download a free copy of Kazaa
Lite (the hacked, spyware-free version of the
popular filesharing program), and you have all
you need to suck the best of Hollywood off of
the Internet and into your living room without
repercussions. And even if the film industry
were to go an a customer-alienating rampage in
the manner of the music industry, the sheer
volume of online swapping means that you are
more likely to get gored by a bull moose in rutting season than busted by the copyright cops.
Film piracy has led to its own creative
sideline: The proliferation of fan films and
music videos. Because of an unlimited supply
of free downloadable movies and TV shows,
anyone with editing software (also available in
pirated form on filesharing networks) can splice
together snippets from their favorite programs,
lay down a stolen MP3 music track beneath it,
and create instant GeekTV. An especially popular subgenre of this form is the anime music
video, with chunks of Japanese cartoons like
Pokemon, Cowboy Bebop, or Rurouni Kenshin
re-edited on beat to Pearl Jam, Green Day, or
Enya in loving fusions of Eastern and Western
popular media. The same treatment has been
given to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape,
and the Lord of the Rings films. All these
videos are shared for free by their creators on
the same filesharing networks that provided
them with the digitized source material.
I read once from some long-forgotten
source that “the black market is simply the
real market driven underground.” Nowhere is
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Film Negatives
this truer than online. The Internet is certainly
a market, and its main currency is not cash but
popular culture. Many of its users, unlike passive consumers of other media, possess a
relentless, driving hunger not only to consume
this culture but to digest it, repurpose it, and
personalize it. This is no longer a simple oneway creator/consumer relationship but twoway communication between consumer and
product mediated by software, an emerging
form of language.
In a digitally literate society, the reworking of mediasphere product into a neodigitalcreole, a language that crosses all digital media
– text, image, design, sound – is inevitable and
ever-increasing. Because this process is
freeform and chaotic and empowers users at an
individual level by the technological tools sold
to them by in many cases the very corporations
that generate the media content that flows
through these tools, it cannot be easily controlled. And the very ease of sharing, copying,
and storing that makes digital content so
attractive to use is also its Achilles' heel when
it comes to theft.
Yet, for media corporations whose very
existence is predicated on identifying trends
and selling them back to the public, this is one
trend they misidentify as plain theft and do
not, as traditional Adam Smith marketeers,
have the language to understand. The digital
sharing tidal wave ignores copyright and the
demands of free-market capitalism as if they
were simply blips to avoid in some global video
game. Digitally repurposing various media
(what the Situationists called detournement)
also explodes the notion of these media works
as sacrosanct, integral, unbreakable entities,
and instead snaps them apart into Lego blocks
of sound and image and meme, reusing them as
tools or toys. This process has gone far beyond
the bricolage of postmodernism, with collage
as its foundation. Not only is it an elaborate
system of language, with its own grammar,
slang, symbolic shorthand, and insider humor,
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but it represents a deep subversion of operant
free market paradigms. In other words, it's
fucking with The Man.
By their very nature, such consumer-created works as fan films cannot be bought or
sold because they are made up of owned, copyrighted components. Creators of these assemblages have in effect become mini-media outlets. Internet users can create “original” work
and distribute anonymously it at almost no cost
to themselves. What greater threat to a monetary system can there be than to undercut the
dollar value of a product by giving it away? Yet
to look at the situation in only this linear, simplistic fashion undercuts and ignores what is
really going on; not everything, despite what
copyright defenders would have you believe, is
about money.
Media companies, instead of being horrified by what they see as loss of revenue,
should (and eventually will) embrace this new
game and turn it to their advantage. Instead
of trying to stop the hemorrhaging, they should
just amputate the gangrenous limbs of everlasting copyright and traditional media distribution and replace them with their cybernetic
improvements.
Lucasfilm Ltd., creators of the Star Wars
movies, quickly embraced fan film as a marketing tool, as it was rightly seen as an extremely
desirable outgrowth of consumer enthusiasm
for their movies. Fan films, often wholly original works that were digitally shot and filled
with new special effects by their creators,
were loving paeans to Lucasfilm product.
There have been several company-sponsored
contests that award prizes and recognition to
the creators of these films. This seems like a
healthy, desirable outcome for both parties;
Lucasfilm gets free publicity in a form often
more imaginative than the films they reference, and fans get to play in the Star Wars universe without fear of getting sued.
Oscar Wilde's adage from The Picture of
Dorian Gray, “There is only one thing in the
Film Negatives
world worse than being talked about, and that
is not being talked about,” is magnified by a
factor of a hundred thousand in our media-driven culture. To be mentioned in the news, a
gossip column, or a web site is to be actualized. And marketers live to create the kind of
buzz that gets their products inserted into the
daily conversations of consumers. Therefore,
in a very direct fashion, piracy is not merely
the sincerest form of flattery; it is the ultimate
result of an advertising-saturated society and
perhaps the greatest measure of a product's
popularity.
Citizens of our vogue-fetishist, addrowned world have had it beaten into their
brains that:
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they deserve in the form of a population of
copyright scofflaws, some of whom are also the
new generation of digital filmmakers.
Allen White
Allen White is a writer, screenwriter, and actor
living in San Francisco.
X They need Cool Stuff.
X This Cool Stuff must be gotten
immediately.
X Cool Stuff should, whenever possible, be
had at a bargain price.
X Not getting said Stuff is social suicide.
X Convenience shall determine all
courses of action.
What better, easier, more convenient
way to get what you desire than theft without
consequences? Aren't consumers only doing
what they have been only too well programmed
to do?
Lest we've forgotten, the 1992 Los
Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict
were not particularly about political unrest or
rage at the authorities but rather a glorified
excuse to loot. People knew a bargain when
they saw it. Although such overt anarchy is
rare, the sacking of LA revealed the true character of a population bottle-fed on the science
of desire, yet not given the means to easily
achieve that desire.
If indeed advertising has created a
nation of self-serving, amoral product junkies,
then corporations have gotten exactly what
22
Meagan Van Matre
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Extreme
Sports
Extreme
Section
Sports
Header
Product
Review: The
Right Jacket
by OneTrueBill
Though they cost a little more, Pearl
Izumi jackets are just the thing for
mountain biking on a cold morning.
So I love to ride my bike, but I hate to be cold.
As I live in Santa Cruz, California, I get plenty
of both. We are lucky enough to have both
mountain and ocean cliff terrain legally at our
fingertips, but at 10 a.m. if I can't feel my fingertips, somehow the great terrain isn't
enough.
Now, how cold could it be at that hour in
central California? Well, we get serious fog in
Santa Cruz. It rolls in and covers my favorite
riding trails and then just kind of sits there
until the nice chilly wind picks it up and rams it
down that little space between the top of your
riding pants and the bottom of your jacket.
Mmmmmm, refreshing.
Like a lot of people who ride, I spend
most of my budget on the two B's: Bikes and
band-aids, leaving not a lot for clothing. But a
person has to stay warm, right?
So I went down to my local bike shop to
get myself some cold weather gear. I had in
mind a windbreaker to go over my jersey or tshirt and keep out some of that refreshing air. I
found some bright yellow "Saran Wrap" style
jackets in the $50 price range, about what I
was looking for, and at not too bad of a price.
But I was a little hesitant to spend my money
on something that looked like plastic and felt
like it might tear if it snagged on a tree or
rock.
About then the woman who worked at
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the store pointed me to some jackets from
Pearl Izumi. I was familiar with the name, having had some of their riding shorts years
before, but had always thought of them as a
little too expensive for my taste. I looked over
the rack of jackets and found one that was
exactly what I was looking for: A windbreaker
with a lined neck, removable sleeves, a drawstring, and a large pouch pocket on the back. I
did have to do a little deep breathing when I
saw the price tag, $110. Now that's quite a
jump up from my $50 plastic wrap. Would it be
worth it?
I liked the Pearl Izumi jacket better the
more I handled it. It was made not of a plastic
material but a breathable, lightweight, soft,
water resistant fabric that was much more
attractive than the scratchy plastic jackets and
the considerable noise they make. Cutting to
the chase, I bought the sucker and have been
out four of the last six days with it. My timing
was perfect because we have had really chilly
weather the last week, and I don't know if I
would have been riding without it.
I am extremely happy with my new jacket and feel that I spent the extra money well.
The fit is very good with enough room for a jersey underneath. The wind closure on the bottom works well and keeps the drafts out almost
completely. I haven't had a use for the removable sleeves yet, but I expect them to be great
in the spring and fall (all of the zippers on the
jacket are metal and work smoothly). I also
have not had a chance to ride in the rain with
it, but when I put it under the shower at home,
it held up better than I expected with that volume of water. (It's water resistant, not waterproof.)
So, do you always get more when you
pay more? This time I think I did. And this story
has a moral and a lesson:
The moral is, “Give your business to the
local shop or one day you won't have one.” The
Internet might be convenient, but it can't give
you the personal advice and service a local
26
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Extreme Sports
shop can.
The lesson is for you married men out
there. If you can't afford the fancy jacket at
your local bike shop, point out to your wife
that you will have to stay on the couch more
during the cold weather season and she will
buy it for you. Mine did.
OneTrueBill
OneTrueBill is a 39-year-old professional paintball player and extreme sports enthusiast living
near Santa Cruz, CA. His hobbies include
mountain biking, motorcycles, surfing, snowboarding, kayaking, and cooking.
27
Random
SectionPoetry
Header
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SPOTLIGHT ON PERFORMING SONGWRITERS
by Larry Fulford
Lounging in front of hotel air conditioning,
the coldest of all cooling units.
If this pen dies, I’ll be totally alone,
save for the “Songwriters Spotlight”
on TV
and a mosquito.
On the outskirts of Little Rock
and Memphis-bound,
flying solo in a room with 2 double-beds,
I’ve somehow managed to drop out of the lives
of nearly everyone I know,
with the exception of the TV
and the mosquito.
It’s a smoking room.
Almost wish I had a pack of cigarettes
to burn through
in this lonesome, glorified rest stop.
I wonder what the Alamo ghosts
think of the gift shop.
28
Sex
&
Relationship
ADVICE
Matters of the heart and the libido
are difficult and oft disputed. So
we’ve decided to present advice on
love, lust, and relationships by not
one but two experts on the subject:
“Love Letters from Vanae” and
“Donna’s Tough Love.”
Who’s Vanae?
An Aries born in Florida, Vanae Tran made her
way across the country to California, where
she is working on a degree in Human Sexuality
and Gender and Communication studies at
California State University. Nicknamed “the
therapist” by friends and family, Vanae has
dedicated herself to listening and helping people learn about themselves and how to improve
their lives.
Who’s Donna?
Donna Walker is a Pisces who likes to tell people what she thinks. Never blunter, she’s been
putting people in their rightful place for over
30 years.
Do You Have a Sex or
Relationship Question?
Send it to [email protected], and we’ll
do our best to answer in an upcoming issue.
29
Love Letters from
Vanae
So lonely in Vancouver: My boyfriend is always
ignoring me. Is there some way I can get him
to be more affectionate?
Vanae: First, sit down and talk to him and let
him know you’re feeling ignored. Sometimes
men don’t realize anything is wrong until
someone tells them. Communication is essential, so tell him exactly what he can do to better show his affection. He may not understand
the value of public affection, kissing your forehead, cards, love notes, or a million other little things. Remember, your boyfriend can’t
read your mind, so be direct. Make sure you
don’t start with a statement that he might
construe as an attack, something like “You
always do this.” Instead phrase your statements in terms of your own feelings about the
specifics of your relationship. He will see that
you’re taking your share of the responsibility
for this disconnection, and that will make it
easier for the two of you to work on it together.
Rhymes with bike: I just found out that I’m a
lesbian. I’m not sure how to tell anyone. What
should I do?
Vanae: Once you’re sure you’re a lesbian, feel
“comfortable in your own skin,” and want to
announce your sexuality, start by opening up to
people you trust. Sit them down in a nice setting; be honest and open to any questions they
may have. Be emotionally prepared for both
positive and negative reactions, and don’t be
discouraged if you do not get full support from
everyone you tell. It is very important to be
true to yourself and expect your loved ones to
respect you for who you are.
2-Confused: I’ve been married for a year, and
I’m in love with my wife’s sister. Should I make
Section Header
a move on her sister? I think she wants me to.
My wife will want to leave me of course.
Should I make the jump?
(VHm)
Vanae: Boy, oh boy. I’d say you’re not in love
but in lust. If you were truly in love with your
wife’s sister, you would have figured that out
before you married her, since you would have
been able to spend time with her family. This
lustful state is temporary and may have to do
with your jitters about being newly married. It
will go away with time. You definitely don’t
want to jeopardize your marriage for such a
fleeting satisfaction. In other words, “No! No!
Hell, no!” Making a move on this woman is
making the move to divorce.
- Vanae
Donna’s Tough Love
So lonely in Vancouver: My boyfriend is always
ignoring me. Is there some way I can get him
to be more affectionate?
Donna: Of course not. What the hell are you
thinking?
- Donna
Donna: Cover your naked body in clear plastic
wrap. That or get a sex swing and hang it in
the middle of your living room. That’ll get his
attention.
Rhymes with bike: I just found out that I’m a
lesbian. I’m not sure how to tell anyone. What
should I do?
Donna: Enjoy yourself and sleep with as many
women as possible. Use safe sex of course, and
don’t put yourself in too strange a situation.
Don’t worry about telling anyone. They’ll figure it out eventually.
2-Confused: I’ve been married for a year, and
I’m in love with my wife’s sister. Should I make
a move on her sister? I think she wants me to.
My wife will want to leave me of course.
Should I make the jump?
30
joie
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32
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Audio File
Barbarasteele, the band, clockwise from left:
Interview by Dakota Kwan, Photography by Eytihia Arges
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Section
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Smart and
Sexy Sounds
by Dakota Kwan
barbarasteele, like their namesake,
creates art both intellectual and visceral.
Having played together less than a year, barbarasteele as a musical entity is still very new
to the world. However, they’ve already developed an interesting sound and put together a
nice set of songs for their live performances.
They paint their sonic landscapes using the
instrumentation and vocabulary of alternative
rock, but they’ve learned enough from jazz
and industrial that they can escape the formulaic songwriting that dominates the popular
examples of that genre. Their musical sensibilities are sophisticated, and they put together a
structurally complex song that still rocks pretty
hard. Think Tool or Fugazi with the volume
turned down a little on the punk/industrial
scale. Think Radiohead without quite the
range.
I saw the band perform at Kimo’s in San
Francisco and enjoyed the music quite a bit.
They didn’t engage in any on-stage theatrics
but rather stood and played their pieces. In
another act I might have disliked that, but
their music is cerebral enough that I found
myself closing my eyes to better listen anyway.
The band consists of four core members.
Nero Nava sings and plays a variety of instruments. Mike Jalali plays bass and handles
“technical stuff.” Jessica performs on lead,
rhythm, and noisy guitar. Justin Vial plays
drums. A guest keyboardist often sits in.
After the show I mentioned these other
musical acts as possible influences to founder
(VHm)
and bandleader Nava. He flatly told me no,
they weren’t. That’s when I decided it would
be best to let him speak for himself.
VividHues: How do you compose your songs?
Nero Nava: For the most part I think the band
would say I’m the songwriter. I usually write a
rough draft or skeletal structure of a song and
bring it to the band. I bring the melody and
chords, and they add the body. I'm really lucky
to know these people. They “get it.” Mike's
melodic/funky bass lines add depth and harmony to my ideas. Justin is a genius drummer.
Jessica keeps us honest. She keeps us real and
true to the original idea, not trying to be too
polished or too cute.
I usually write the words last. It’s the
toughest part. Once I commit to tape (or computer) I won't change it, but I usually re-write
things at least ten times prior to that. I cringe
when I hear some things I said. Usually it’s an
abstraction only one other person than I can
relate to, or my sincerity is spiked with a little
melodrama. I think, “Man, I said that?”
When we jam, we can be really funky,
really different from what you hear at a show.
We enjoy making noise. A lot of our most
recent songs have a looser jam vibe. Usually
we find a groove, record it so we don't forget
it, and come back to it until it is naturally
structured.
Mike is self-taught; Jessica is selftaught, and so am I. Justin played in school
band at the college level. He's the best and
smartest drummer I've ever heard anywhere.
Period.
We're an ambitious bunch. Mike and I
have a strong interest in one day producing
other artists’ records. And I'd love to be more
involved in film making—directing, scoring, and
writing.
39
(VHm)
Audio File
VH: What are your most important musical influences?
NN: I love the forum of recorded music—the history of it,
who's who, studio trickery, all that stuff. But as an artist I
don't feel indebted to any musicians besides the ones in
barbarasteele. I'm influenced by artists, cultures, and
thought-processes that exude distinction. Anything counter-counter culture.
As a band barbarasteele is very inspired
by film (obviously). Foreign cinema, high art, low art—
Fellini, Argento, Truffaut, etc. An eclectic mix of film
influences. Silent films. We try to convey a quiet, subtle
theatricality.
We stay original by being candid with our abstractions. We want people to have to swallow their pride and
admit they like us. We enjoy making the basic seem complicated. I think that concept relates to everyone, complicating the natural. People enjoy secrets and seem to enjoy
relating to things that seem foreign and new but still
familiar.
VH: How was the band formed?
NN: barbarasteele has been around for almost a year. It
was kind of formed by accident. Mike and I used to work
at the same place. He and this other person were shooting
CD-Rs to each other of some studio stuff they were doing.
Just from overhearing them talk, I wanted to get involved.
I had been doing a lot of avant-garde weird stuff and was
kind of on the scene. But I wanted to bring more of a
songwriting aspect to my work. Mike offered to
engineer/co-produce, and the three of us started laying
tracks. Over time we got bored with our process and started bringing in some other players to lay tracks. We found
a really raw drummer named Kelly Greer who kind of
stripped us of our studio meddling and got us to focus on
live music. We lost the other person in the change, but
Mike and I discovered the other side. When our drummer
left to pursue other things, we threw all the stuff we'd
been doing in the last three years together and decided to
form a “real band.”
We were searching for a drummer and stumbled
across Justin by chance through a good old craigslist ad.
1
VIVIDHUESMAGAZINE
MAGAZINE: :QUART
QUARTERLY : FEBRUARY 2004 - APRIL 2004 : ISSUE 1
VIVIDHUES
Section
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File
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We wanted a real nasty, raw, rough-sounding guitarist but with a delicate twist. Jessica was recommended by her girlfriend (another co-worker/friend
from another job). After that the sound and songs
came fast and easy.
VH: What are the challenges of trying to establish a
name in a crowded market?
NN: A lot of the challenges and difficulties come
from our urban culture. Even in an art-nurturing city
like San Francisco people are more into going to
swanky bars, downing cocktails, and listening to hip,
mind-numbing, electronic music. So the venues are
disappearing, musicians are becoming a little obsolete, and the audience (music fans) is disinterested—
or maybe just unchallenged. Or just to lazy to be
challenged.
It’s also hard to make a name in a crowded
market due to the fact that music is like all art, very
scene-driven. So it’s going to take time for anything
really new and substantial to develop and bubble to
the top of the mainstream or even the non-mainstream. People come here to be in the scene. People
devote their lives to belonging to scenes. And these
“kids” are not eager to become something new.
You've seen some of these kids, I'm sure. It takes
time to cut those cute asymmetrical haircuts and
pick out the right look. They'll hold on to “it” and
“its” music when they get it right. So there’s a lot of
loitering on the art scene. God bless them if it’s
warm in there.
I'm a native San Franciscan. My great-grandfather was here from the beginning, really. I love my
city, but something has happened in the last six
years. I think it was robbed of its spirit somewhere
along the way. Maybe some dot-com company moved
it out of its rent controlled apartment and sent to
the East Bay or something. I'm not sure what happened.
I think the main problem with the music scene
in San Francisco is too many casual, peer-party, sideproject bands. You take four people in one San
42
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Audio File
Francisco band, and I swear there are about
ten bands between them. The drummer plays
in a punk band, an alt-country band, etc. The
guitarist plays bass in another band, and on and
on. It’s so incestuous. So you have four people
attached to ten bands that only split bill with
bands in their peer group and their band circle.
Clique shit. There are a handful of venues and
clubs, and low and behold the booker plays
with one of those ten bands. So you see the
same faces with different names. There are
just to many musicians unchallenged, uninspired, and unfocused to really create meaningful groundbreaking music. No one wants to
commit to something. They have to have their
hands in everything, so they never really get
43
hold of anything. They're just touching it. It’s a
shame.
barbarasteele will play with anyone. We
want to be seen and heard. We like to play to
everyone, because we know we aren't for
“everyone.”
VH: I understand that film is an influence for
you, but why are you named after actress
Barbara Steele in particular?
NN: Barbara Steele is most famous (subfamous) for being in the film Black Sunday, aka
The Mask of Satan. It was an early Mario Bava
horror film. She was mostly in low art horror
movies in the 60s and 70s—exploitation horror,
Section
AudioHeader
File
stuff like that. But she also had a semi-co-starring part (and very memorable one) in Fellini's
famous masterpiece 8 1/2. It intrigued me and
inspired me that this actress could on one hand
be in smutty B-movies and also have a standout
part in one of the greatest high art films ever. I
love the ambition, beauty, and common thread
in her career, whether it’s high art, B-movies,
or TV. She was always striking by her balance of
intellect, sex, and smut.
Dakota Kwan
Dakota Kwan is an amateur jazz saxophonist
and an admirer of music’s many forms. She
took her B.A. in Musical Composition from UC
Berkeley and frequently performs with bands or
ensembles around the San Francisco Bay Area.
(VHm)
Invite VividHues
Magazine to
your next show!
Put us on your guest list
and we’ll do our best to
come by and review your
show.
Hey! We’ll even take photos
of the band.
barbarasteele’s photos
were taken by Eytihia,
publisher of VividHues
Magazine.
44
tmothy robert
gratkowski
Alex Suelto
Age 24. Born in Germany and living in California.
Alex, or "Reflex," expresses himself in artistic forms.
Alex Suelto : VividHues Magazine - February 2004 - Issue 1
Mona
Franciscus
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VividHues Magazine - Fine Body Art
the art of
Danielle
Fonseca
Danielle Astryd Fonseca
Contact info: [email protected]
Graduate of SUNY New Paltz, 2001:
BFA in Painting, BS in Art Ed
President of the Student Art Alliance 2000-2001
Hosted artists such as Spencer Tunic, The Art Guys, Bread and Puppet, Gene Poole, and many
more….
Danielle is a 25 year old resident of Queens, New York. She is not only described as a visual artist,
but a sensory artist as well. Having worked in oils for the past ten years, Danielle has branched
out into multi-media using sculpture, installation, body art, and photography. She has continued
to integrate her painting into whatever form the work takes shape.
Past work shows a focus on a child’s conscious and subconscious through a mature perspective.
She has taken the imagery from her own childhood, and created familiar environments where
intimate, personal, occurrences have taken place. With a background in theater scenography,
Danielle has successfully created the side of a school building, a classroom black board and desk,
and even fragments of a playroom with a working television and stampede of plastic toys.
Danielle’s current work takes on the human body as a canvas. Inspired by the participation in a
Spencer Tunic shoot in 2001, Danielle’s work focuses on the person becoming the art, and not just
observing it. As a working freelance make-up artist, Danielle uses make-up and body paint to
portray this idea. Each piece is inspired by the model’s personality and unique form of their body.
The body painting is therapeutic, and inspires emotions from the partaker. It is the creation of
the image on the body that evokes a variety of feelings by the model such as strength,
vulnerability, confidence, sexuality, beauty, release of inhibitions, and power. Combined with the
striking image portrayed in the photograph, this gives the idea of art more of a tangible threedimensionality.
Charlie
Danielle Fonseca
Zahra
Danielle Fonseca
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62
THE WHITE CUBE
by Colleen Corcoran
Art living, art dying. Intelligence, self-mockery, and irony. So much irony.
The contemporary art scene can be a difficult thing to get your hands around.
“The sky was blue. The square was leafy. The
buildings were picturesque. The air was buzzing
with creativity and irony. Everybody was an
artist.”
–Matthew Collings
This Is Modern Art (1999)
*
Contemporary art is the story of celebrity and
hype, anti-art, the unnormal, and the body; of
white squareness and black squareness and
nothingness; of circles and wax heads spinning
in a void and voids in general; of annoyance
and screaming and gags and silly things and
masses of seething desire. It is of beauty and
loveliness and being painterly; of well-made,
industrially mass-produced objects and the
unfinished, the unsatisfying: The stuff of life
and of nonsense.
What is genius? Why do we want to
be shocked? Are artists clever? Are
aesthetics important: These are among
the questions posed by art now. The tone of
the times is hard to place. Intelligence collapses into imbecility, contempt. Maybe it’s amusement. There is a general aroma of indifference,
of just reveling in it. Being didactic and outlining principles, including and excluding aren’t
on the agenda. Entertaining, irreverent, horrid, unsettling: These are some of the adjectives that come to mind.
Art is getting more relaxed into everything else—popular culture, commerce, politics.
63
Innovation and creativity are public domain.
And yet the dealers, the buyers, the curators,
the decadent cocktail-drinking swingers, the
critics, and the artists still converge, converse,
condemn, or condone, in that clinical whitewalled space—the gallery.
For example: The White Cube Gallery,
Duke Street, London:
You go in. Nobody talks to you. You
browse. You leave.
If you are a collector or critic: Someone
will acknowledge you.
If you are an artist: You go in. Nobody
talks to you. You ask if you can leave some
slides for consideration. You are asked to leave.
The White Cube is located on London’s
most traditional art-dealing street surrounded
by Christie’s auction house, Old Master galleries, and art bookstores. It is literally a white
cube. “Small” would be an overstatement. It is
rather “smaller,” “smallest.” Although intimate, the gallery is nonetheless influential,
showcasing the top artists of the times.
1980: Sophie Calle: Suite Venitiene: Wearing a
raincoat and sunglasses, Calle stalks and photographs a man from Paris, where they had been
briefly introduced, to Venice.
1985: Richard Prince: Jokes: Hand-painted,
recycled, anonymous jokes. For example, “I
pick up hitchhikers. When they get in the car I
say fasten your seatbelts. I want to try something I once saw in a cartoon.”
1991: Damien Hirst: The Physical Impossibility
The White Cube by Colleen Corcoran
of Death in the Mind of Someone Living: A
tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde.
1995: Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual
Dependency: A photographic chronicle of barrooms and parties, drugs and prostitution, in
New York City’s East Village.
(VHm)
stimulation and success—celebrity and wealth—
and if art is driven at all, it is by these things.
And yet the art world proceeds, partially
unaware.
And so the hypothetical artistic discourse in reference to Apocalypse unfolds as
follows:
All artists exhibit solo.
None is invited back. Policy.
The visitor would be wise to know the
codes, the manner in which artistic discourse
proceeds in such places. The piece may consist
solely of neon tubes, yet it can be regarded in
this or that way. This or that way is often the
problem of yellow or brushstrokes, of charcoal
or compositional harmonies or tension or referents or signifiers or the signified. This or that
way may unfold as follows:
*
- It has the panache and grand sweep of mastery to it.
This hypothetical conversation occurs at
the opening of Jake and Dinos Chapman’s
recent exhibit, Apocalypse—a diorama of
30,000 or more Nazi figurines, some in uniform, some with genetic mutations. This work
was preceded by the mutant child mannequins
and the plastic diorama version of Goya’s
Disasters of War etchings. The Chapman brothers draw on history and religion to deal with
issues of morality and innocence.
They operate a gallery themselves.
This gallery, however, is not so much a
gallery as it is an empty room in a rather shady
part of town below the living quarters of Jake
and Dinos themselves with one painting resting
against a dark corner. Around 9 or 10 am, Jake
or Dinos will descend the staircase in order to
turn on the light. A younger assistant appears
at semi-random intervals.
If The White Cube epitomizes art alive
and well, the Chapman Brothers Empty Space
is the physical manifestation of art sick and
dying. Some argue that there is no longer a
cultural demand for art. There is a demand for
- The scene demands such a close study of
something so pathological.
- There’s probably enough lyricism there for an
opera or something.
- An excessive and horrible, post-humanist sort
of lyricism in any case.
- Of course.
- If it weren’t for the semblance of normalcy
that a gallery opening creates, I might feel
somehow implicated in what you might call a
sort of Mobius strip of torture.
- There’s a quality about seeing a work alone
with nothing between you and it but your own
lonely experience. It’s not a learning activity.
- I wouldn’t want it to be.
- But of course something is learned anyway.
This quality is, for me, priceless.
- Here, there is a fine line between fascination
and repulsion.
- The human and the grotesque.
- The fascination with the abomination. “Our
work makes hallucination palatable for non-
64
(VHm)
The White Cube by Colleen Corcoran
narcotic users:” That’s what it says in the program.
- In Artforum, G--- says that this show left
more of an impression on the mind, not the
heart. He thought it was cold.
- That’s too bad. I certainly think higher of it.
- He compared it to their earlier piece, Zygotic
acceleration, biogenetic, de-sublimated libidinal model (enlarged x1000), and called it less
engaging.
(Zygotic acceleration, biogenetic, de-sublimated libidinal model (enlarged x1000) was a ring
of conjoined mannequins wearing Fila training
shoes.)
*
Frames line the walls at the appropriate
intervals. The piece is intellectually stimulating yet easily digestible. No one goes hungry.
Food and drink are continuous, bite-sized, and
organized in hierarchical tiers and concentric
displays. The overhead, directional lighting is
daylight-balanced for those sensitive to fluorescents. The conversation is an appropriate
blend of irony, critical commentary, and anecdote.
The event is historic.
Outside, night falls across the city.
The sky is filled with stars.
Colleen Corcoran
- As Jack Nicholson once said, “Comparisons
are odious.” Take each on its own terms.
- I believe I remember Dinos being quoted as
saying that the organisms wear sneakers so
that they can run like super-powered nomads.
- Yes, I remember something like that.
- Would you agree that Apocalypse uses the
monstrous as a sort of reverse, anti-aesthetic
device to access the sublime?
- I might not go that far.
- I must stop trying to read so much into
everything.
- Most likely it comes from having to work so
hard to read so little from nothing.
- Art certainly falls flat when it gets stuck in
the rot of clashing intellectualism. The university is the place for that sort of thing.
- Indeed.
65
"The Line Up"
Berkeley Deitch : Impressionist Photography
VividHues Magazine : www.magazine.vividhues.com : February 2004, Issue 1
Berk is a student that's attending community college. She described herself to us as a girl that
loves to write, read, photography and cats. You can expect to find her at local shows and movies. Berk says,
"I'm a big dork. Keep your eye out for my artwork at local galleries." Berkeley lives in California.
"Making Love to Houdini"
Berkeley Deitch : Impressionist Photography
VividHues Magazine : www.magazine.vividhues.com : February 2004, Issue 1
THE NEW BOSS
by Ted Travelstead
Secret games in the workplace could make things interesting. But would the
New Boss put an end to all that?
Today New Boss would be here. Timmons was
in a tizzy because he hadn't secured all his hiding places and he was almost sure that at least
half of his secret games would be discovered.
He rubbed his knees together under his desk
and looked across the expanse of the office
space. The desks were all empty at this early
hour except one. Bunting. Bunting was always
trying to show up Timmons by arriving as early
as he did. Timmons was onto his game, and he
had plans for him, but not today. Today the
new boss was arriving. Timmons did a mental
inventory of his secret games and where they
were hidden, and a shudder worked its way
through him. Would New Boss do a sweep of
the floor for secret games? Surely not, but
maybe secretly he would. He heard Bunting
pick up the phone, “Flexfast Quikchange, how
may I direct your call?”
Bunting looked up, “Timmons, you have
a call on line one.”
He leveled a gaze at Bunting and said,
as coolly as he could, “I don’t hear you unless
you page me. Those are the rules.”
“C’mon Timmons, knock it off. I think
it’s a client,” said Bunting.
“You knock it off Smartpants. You're not
following the rules,” Timmons replied.
The intercom crackled above his head
and let out a long sigh. Bunting’s tired voice
amplified throughout the open area, “Zachary
Timmons, you have a call on line one. Zachary
Timmons you have a call on line one.”
Timmons looked at him satisfied, and
68
then picked up the phone.
“You’re holding for?” he said into the
mouthpiece.
An elderly woman's voice answered
back, “Mr. Zachary Timmons, please.”
Timmons thought for a moment and
then spoke, “He’s on another line. Would you
like to hold, or can I have him return your
call?”
“Zachary, is that you?” said the woman.
Timmons paused, then, “No.”
The woman spoke again, “This is
Zachary Timmons’s grandmother.”
“Zachary left his wet bathing suit on the
bed again,” said his grandmother.
Timmons fumed. How could she think to
call his work of all places and reveal intimate
details of his shower time?
He would show her, “This is Zachary
Timmons’s new boss. It's my first day, and I
don't think it’s appropriate to talk about
Zachary’s personal habits before I have met
him as it may bias my decision on his receiving
the special prize for best worker.”
“What?” said his Grandmother.
“You heard me Ma’am.” He didn't want
to repeat all that.
“Zachary’s winning a prize?” she asked.
“Yes, for being best, but don't tell him
or it won't be a surprise,” he said (boss-like).
“Oh no, I wouldn’t dare,” she said.
“And be very nice to him by making him
a pie,” he said, wondering if she would bite.
She bit, “I certainly will. When will he
The New Boss by Ted Travelstead
get this prize for being best?”
He could hear her trying to control the
raging curiosity that enslaved her.
“We’re not sure yet Ma’am. Maybe
today, maybe next month. Now if you’ll excuse
me I have to go review my speech for the ceremony. I’ll have Zachary call you, but you may
want to remove the bathing suit yourself and
hand wash his linens as he may be tied up for
a while being the best,” he said.
“Oh okay, thank you... what's your
name?” she asked.
Timmons felt a bright stab of panic in
his stomach. Of all the stupid traps to get himself into.
“Hello?” pleaded his Grandmother.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. We’re getting a new system installed and sometimes
there’s glitchy glitchy,” he ventured.
She repeated herself, “I said thank you
and asked what-”
He put the phone in its cradle and
looked up at the ceiling. Bunting, he thought
and shook his head. A pencil hung stuck in the
corky white square of prefab ceiling, the eraser pointing down at him. No doubt Bunting had
been using his desk as a play area again, probably trying to develop his own secret games.
He looked back at the phone, knowing she
wouldn't call back. His Grandmother would
accept his lie with the elderly’s confused complacency when it came to electronic devices.
Other people had started to arrive and
he watched them file in one by one, or in
clumps, and take their places at their faux
cubicles, little square areas with walls four
feet high, built only to define space. No one
had privacy here.
Edwards, Phillips, and Ms. Terri Melcher
(who actually had her own office) were just a
few that came in alive from the morning commute and still steaming from the energy of the
city. The sounds and smells reverberated off
them, dissipating quickly in the huge dead
(VHm)
space.
Timmons looked back up at the pencil
and smirked. If this was Bunting’s idea of a
secret game, it was ridiculous. He looked over
at Bunting’s sad face, small and red as he
chewed vigorously on a roll, Baby Bunting with
his baby secret games. Knowing his luck, New
Boss would stumble across some of Bunting’s
shoddy secret games and think they were his.
Then he would be not only found out but
viewed as an amateur as well. He felt a smoldering anger start to overtake him.
Timmons shook his head vigorously and
flapped his hands at his sides like a huge
ungainly bird trying to get airborne. Once he
felt his head was clear he got up from his desk
and walked to his closest hiding place, three
steps to the right.
The facsimile center was a bank of five
fax machines on a shelf. They were set into a
proscenium-type opening in the wall and lit
from above. Rory Lankham’s job was to properly maintain this area, and today he was running late by approximately, Timmons looked at
his watch, six minutes. Moving a stacked ream
of paper to the side, Timmons reached behind
the second machine and brought out a tiny
mechanical pencil the size of a small rectangular piece of gum. He palmed it and looked
around to see if he was being watched. No one
was looking so he leaned over Fax 2 and pretended to be loading paper into it. He slid the
pencil into his grip and wrote on a piece of
blank fax paper in tiny letters, kachoo.
He closed the feed drawer and smiled,
knowing that some random person would
receive his message. This was one of his secret
games, called, “sending small sneezes.” He
reached behind the machine and put the tiny
pencil back. Turning around, he found himself
face-to-face with Rory Lankham, hands on his
hips.
“May I help you Zachary?” Rory inquired.
“Oh Rory, no not really,” said Timmons.
67
(VHm)
“Was there something you’re looking
for,” asked Rory.
“Well actually Rory, I was looking for
you,” Timmons replied.
“Very funny Zachary Timmons, now if
you'll excuse me I have work to do,” said Rory.
“Certainly Rory, I’m sure there might be
work to be done,” said Timmons. Timmons
walked back to his desk and smiled as he
peered back at Rory Lankham fluttering around
the facsimile station.
Then something interesting happened.
Timmons saw a memory picture.
In his memory, Timmons saw his boyhood friend Whit putting a very large grasshopper down the back of his little sister’s summer
dress and her look of terror as she danced a
squirmy jig in efforts to remove it. He remembered laughing at the time, but the prevailing
feeling in him then, and now, was utter sorrow.
He rubbed the sweat from his hairline
and brought a hand to his belly, soothing himself with some gentle rubbing. The memory
slowly subsided, but he was left with the palpable residue of grief.
Timmons was wrested from his thoughts
by a commotion near the reception area. Ms.
Terri Melcher and a portly gentleman were
laughing it up with William Steegs from
accounting. Steegs shook hands with the portly
man and walked away, and Ms. Terri Melcher
escorted the gentleman to another block of
cubicles where he shook more hands.
The hair stood up on the back of
Timmon’s neck. New Boss. This thick-bodied
laughing man was the New Boss.
Timmons thought for a moment of Old
Boss, Gregory Stans. Tall, ruggedly handsome,
and ramrod straight in stature and code of
conduct, Gregory was a challenge that
Timmons could appreciate. The two of them
made great cat-and-mouse together. The
Secret Games were never secret for long, and
68
Timmons was constantly forced to reinvent the
rules and find new hiding places for them. For
when Old Boss Gregory put his mind to it he
could sniff out a secret game in no time at all.
His record, as Timmons had noted to himself,
was seventeen minutes. That was the time Old
Boss had found a small adhesive label inside
one of the toilet paper dispensers with the
word, starlight on it. He'd attached the discovered label to a yellow post-it, which Timmons
had discovered on his desk. His stomach had
dropped at the discovery of his “bathroom
galaxies,” but he had also been secretly
thrilled.
He looked at the portly gentleman gladhanding his way toward him and wondered if
he would be half the competitor that Old Boss
was. Somehow he doubted it.
“Zachary Timmons you have a call on
line four,” the loudspeaker boomed overhead.
Timmons picked up the phone with his eye on
Bunting talking sweet sugar with New Boss and
pumping his little baby fist up and down in the
stout man's grip.
“You're holding for?” Timmons spoke into
the phone.
“Skreeeeeee!” A high-pitched electric
squeal stabbed Timmons through his ear.
“Jeez-Louise!” he screamed, bringing the
phone down hard and hitting his thigh.
“TURN YOUR RADIO DOWN!” Timmons
yelled into the phone, garnering a brief stare
from those in his vicinity.
“ZACHARY IT’S YOUR UNCLE RICHIE,” he
heard from the receiver.
“I know who it is. Turn your radio
down.” He spoke into the phone’s mouthpiece
microphone-style as if he were crooning to his
co-workers, the earpiece pointing towards the
ground. He could hear the buzz of words from
his Uncle's end, but they were no longer blasting forth, so he put the earpiece to his head.
“...and they have curly fries now!” said
his Uncle.
“Hello?” said Timmons.
“BOOGER!” yelled Uncle Richie.
“Shhhhhh,” Timmons hissed into the
mouthpiece. "What do you want?”
There was a pause. Then a whisper,
“Mama says you gettin’ a prize.”
“Maybe I am, and maybe it’s none of
your business.” Timmons said.
He thought of his Grandmother's big
mouth and squinted.
“Zachary would you like to come over
and see my trays?” said Uncle Richie.
“Uncle Richie, goodbye,” said Timmons
and hung up the phone.
He was through being polite to Uncle
Richie about his trays. Six porcelain trays,
each one with a different adverb on it, all
lined up in a row on his couch. One time, as a
boy, he had taken GENTLY and put it under the
couch until Uncle Richie had started to cry and
he had to reveal its whereabouts (which he did
in an anonymous telegram). The tray collection
had grown twofold since then and Uncle Richie
beamed over it every chance he got. It
exhausted Timmons with boredom.
“Hello Zachary!” said a voice behind
him.
Timmons turned around slowly. He knew
that his conduct in the next few moments was
crucial. Facing him were Ms. Terri Melcher,
who had said hello, and the New Boss.
“Zachary this is Ennis Toots; he's the
new Regional Supervisor,” said Ms. Terri
Melcher.
New Boss's hand popped out like a rabbit punch and stopped six inches from
Timmons's midsection.
“Hello Zachary. Pleasure to meet you,”
said New Boss.
Timmons, feigning a clumsy demeanor,
stepped forward into the extended arm and let
it sink into his soft midsection a fraction
before grabbing the hand attached to it. He
called it rubbing the shake and watched to see
(VHm)
how New Boss would react to the first of his
Secret Games.
“Nice meet you,” he said fluidly.
“Welcome New York. I'm looking forward working with you.”
A barrage of skipping the tos was always
a good way to gauge a new acquaintance. He
watched New Boss’s eyes.
“Likewise,” said New Boss.
“Zachary has been working on the
Fielding Report,” said Ms. Terri Melcher.
“Oh, how’s that coming?” said New
Boss.
“Aces!” chimed Timmons.
“Well I can't wait to hear about your
progress,” said New Boss.
“There’s so many good surprises in store
for you!” said Timmons.
New Boss stared at him for a moment,
and then it came, a flicker in his eye lid.
“Well Ennis, let me introduce you to the
New Accounts Group,” said Ms. Terri Melcher.
“Nice to meet you,” said Timmons.
“We've all been very excited for the New Boss
to arrive, and now he has.”
New Boss laughed, and said, “Well I’m
excited to be here. See you later Zack.”
As they walked away, Timmons’s jaw
dropped. He’d just been short-named. He hadn’t short-named anyone in years and didn’t
know anyone else was aware of the technique.
Maybe New Boss had some tricks up his
sleeve after all.
Timmons sat down at his desk to think.
He glanced at the framed picture in front of
him: Grandma, Uncle Richie and himself, sitting in a porch swing sharing a platter of
Nachos. Grandma was wincing because Uncle
Richie had placed the oven hot platter on her
unprotected lap, and the swing was shimmying
this way and that. Timmons remembered it as
a horrible place to eat Nachos. It was two
summers ago when Uncle Richie had broken his
wrist and Grandma had sprung for a trip to the
69
(VHm)
countryside. Timmons studied his own face. He
remembered being annoyed, but that wasn’t
the look he recognized staring at himself. It
was almost as if he was trying to convey a
message to the here-and-now. His face seemed
to say it would suffer no more surprises. He
was ready for any challenge.
He opened a drawer, pulled out a Ziploc
bag filled with large marshmallows, and started, chain-puffing them. One by one they
entered his mouth, were chewed, swallowed,
then replaced. When there were seven left he
took them from the bag and lined them up in
front of him on the desk. With a green felt-tip
pen he began labeling each one with a letter:
n, e, w, b, o, s, and s. He put the labeled
marshmallows back in the bag, zipped it up,
and stuffed it in the inside pocket of his coat.
Later when he figured out exactly what to do,
he would use them, but first he would have to
consult with Jeremy.
Whenever Timmons found himself in a
bind he would meet with Jeremy to sort it out.
He got up and walked over to the window. The
sun was bright in the pale blue sky, and he
watched it gleam on the windows of the skyscrapers surrounding him. FlexFast
QuickChange was on the nineteenth floor and
from his window Timmons could see a radius of
about six blocks before taller buildings blocked
his view. The Four Seasons Hotel was only a
few yards away, and the proximity always fascinated Timmons. Each window, when not
shaded, revealed a different story.
Timmons gazed in the window directly
across from him. A hotel Maid made the bed in
a practiced mechanical manner, and her large,
black body rippled gently in her tight uniform
as she moved this way and that. He watched
her move about the room tidying up until she
looked up at him suddenly with a large grin
and waved. He was struck by her good cheer
and raised his hand reflexively but found himself unable to smile. His embarrassment at
70
being caught watching contorted his face into
a tight-lipped wide-eyed mask. She went
cheerfully back to her work, and only then
could Timmons force a smile on to his face. It
was too late. He rubbed his belly gently until
the shame subsided.
On the window sill in front of him was a
large planter box filled with some sort of outof-control creeping vine that spilled over the
sill and hung halfway to the floor. Behind the
planter box, between it and the window, sat
Jeremy. Timmons looked around carefully and
then reached down and gently picked up the
little potted cactus that he'd stowed there. His
Jeremy. He took his handkerchief from his
breast pocket, carefully covered the plant, and
walked briskly towards the washroom.
Timmons backed carefully into the bathroom. He looked around to make sure no one
was there and then opened one of the stall
doors. Slowly, he slid into the stall, carefully
holding Jeremy so he wouldn't topple over.
Then he heard the door to the bathroom open
and fumbled desperately, grabbing at the stall
door in a panic, trying to shut himself in. He
was unsuccessful, and the stall door swung
slowly out, revealing Bunting standing half in
and half out of the doorway.
“I was just going to use the bathroom,”
said Bunting.
“So use it,” said Timmons.
“Did you need a hand with something?”
inquired Bunting.
“No, Bunting,” shot Timmons.
Bunting stood planted in the doorway.
“Why don't you like me, Zachary?” he said.
“Don't be ridiculous, Bunting,” said
Timmons.
“I've never done a thing to you, you
know,” said Bunting.
“Bunting, I'm busy with Jeremy,”
Timmons said through gritted teeth.
“What are you talking about?” giggled
Bunting.
Timmons pulled the handkerchief off of
the small potted cactus and held it towards
Bunting.
“I have to talk to Jeremy!” he
screamed, “I have to talk to my Jeremy!”
Bunting's eyes widened, and his nostrils
flared. His lip quivered, and his face lost its
color. “Screw you Zachary,” he whispered, and
ran out of the bathroom.
Timmons watched him go, then looked
at Jeremy and sighed. A memory picture
flashed before his eyes: Whit's little sister
shrieking and squirming to get away from the
locust scrambling inside her dress. He
squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, but
she kept shrieking and reaching effortlessly
behind her while her older brother howled
with laughter. She looked towards Zachary,
pleading, turning toward him, motioning for
him to get it out, get it out, get it out.
A tear plopped out on his cheek, and he
opened his eyes wide.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
He held Jeremy close to his chest, taking care not to injure himself or the small
plant, and then stepped into the stall and
clasped the door behind him. He carefully set
Jeremy on the flat surface of the paper dispenser and proceeded to wipe the toilet seat
with a bundle of tissue. When it was sufficiently clean, Timmons let his pants fall and sat
down. He didn’t have to move his bowels, but
knew this would help camouflage his conference with Jeremy. He reached over and took
the potted cactus in his hands. Holding it in
front of him, he started the conference.
“Hello Jeremy. Hello Pal. How is Jeremy
today?” he said.
The cactus stared silently back at him.
“He’s here Jeremy. He’s here, and he
may be a match for us after all.”
Timmons looked through the crack in
the stall door to make sure he wasn’t being
observed.
(VHm)
“There’s still Secret Games unaccounted
for. Do you think I should challenge New Boss
to a Duel of Hints?”
Only once had Timmons directly challenged someone to a Duel of Hints. He had
been a sophomore in college, and Mr. Snates
the Library Administrator had caught him rubbing the pages of a vintage ship building manual on the skin of his face. Snates had roared
something unintelligible and struck Timmons
with a Thermos, knocking the nautical guide to
the ground. This had upset Timmons greatly,
and he had stood on his tiptoes and whispered
the word, shadows, to Mr. Snates, setting the
challenge in effect. He had seen Snates whither at this challenge, before promptly firing
him.
Timmons smiled as he thought about his
wistful College days, and then he remembered
the marshmallows in his jacket pocket. He
cleared his head of fantasies and retrieved the
Ziploc from under his coat. He was glad he
wouldn't have to resort to a Duel of Hints. It
was rather extreme. Holding up the bag, he
examined the Situational Treats, as he liked to
call them. Then he held them up for Jeremy to
see.
“Well Jeremy, here they are.”
“I used a green marker this time.”
The bag that Gregory Stans had found in
his briefcase, on the way home from his last
day at work, had contained twenty-one Vanilla
Wafers, each one lettered in red: G, O, O, D,
B, Y, E, O, L, D, B, O, S, S, G, O, O, D, B, Y, E.
Timmons looked hard at the labeled
confectionaries. This would be the test; he
would drop the bag on New Boss’s vacant desk,
and if the candies were traced back to him
then he would know he had his work cut out
for him and would tighten the security surrounding his Secret Games.
If New Boss brought the marshmallows
to Bunting or, worse, ignored them altogether,
Timmons would know that his time here was
71
(VHm)
done, and he would leave. There was a feeling
inside him that a new chapter had begun here
at FlexFast QuickChange. Things were different. Bunting and others like him were infiltrating the place, and things were becoming
dumber by the second. He wanted no part of a
place that wanted no part of him. It was the
Secret Games he lived for, and if there was no
one to acknowledge them, then they didn’t
exist. For what makes a secret a secret but
the potential for telling?
Timmons put the bag back in his coat
pocket and held Jeremy in front of his face.
“Don’t worry Jeremy. Don’t worry Pal.
We’ll be fine no matter what happens.”
He covered the small cactus and set him
once again on the toilet paper dispenser.
Pulling his pants back up, he decided to check
on one more of his Secret Games before presenting New Boss with the Situational Treats.
Timmons reached up the back wall to
the top of the stall, and found a length of
twine hanging from the ceiling tile. He tugged
gently on it, and the tile above jerked slightly.
A small paper glider flew gently by him and
skidded to a halt under the stall door. He gave
the twine a second small tug, and another
plane coasted by his nose and collided with
the stall door before going belly-up at his feet.
He called this contraption Hiding the Glider. It
had taken him two weeks to make and store
two hundred small paper gliders in the crawl
space above the tiled ceiling, each one
attached to the other by a small fold, like tissues in a box, so that when one was released
the next was moved into a ready position. All
it took was a gentle pull on the twine to shake
the tiny jet loose from its runway above the
tile. He was very proud of this contraption.
Timmons opened the stall door and
picked up the little planes from the floor. He
pocketed them and quickly but carefully collected Jeremy from atop the paper dispenser.
Exiting the bathroom, Timmons walked
72
slowly back to his desk, as if he was carrying a
full cup of piping hot liquid. He didn't care
who saw him. His mind was on getting the
Situational Treats on New Boss’s desk without
being noticed. Since he could see the man’s
office from his desk, he figured it wouldn’t be
too hard to find the right time. Some paperwork or a folder would be a perfect decoy for
the walk to the office and then he would take
the Ziploc from under his coat and place it on
the man’s chair. When something was placed
on your chair, you had no choice but to notice
it.
Timmons placed Jeremy tenderly down
on his desk and pulled the handkerchief from
over him. He would let him stay here for a bit
while he waited to hatch the plan. His hand
went to stroke Jeremy as he looked up to spy
on New Boss. As he peered into New Boss’s
office, his hand grasped Jeremy's small stalk
and slowly tightened around it. His jaw
dropped, and a low moan came from his throat
as he saw his Grandmother and Uncle Ritchie
sitting and chatting with his New Boss, just
fifty feet from where he sat. He quickly
removed his burning hand from the cactus and
shook it in front of him. Jeremy fell over, and
dry soil scattered across the desk, but
Timmons didn’t see it, for his eyes never left
the ghastly scene playing out before him. He
could see his Grandmother nodding vigorously,
a ridiculous smile plastered on her face. Uncle
Richie’s head swiveled back and forth, taking
in everything at once, like an idiot child
brought to the Fair. When his gaze moved
towards Timmons’s desk, Timmons ducked
down below the line of his cubicle in panic. He
hadn’t seen New Boss's face but could only
imagine what he was thinking, and rage bubbled up inside him. It was inexcusable. It was
his first day with the New Boss for Heaven’s
sake! He thought about all of the things he had
said to his Grandmother under the guise of
New Boss, and shame poured through him. He
was done for.
When Timmons ventured a peek over his
cubicle, his Grandmother was holding up what
looked like a small flag and waving it back and
forth in apparent glee. With a cramp in his
belly, Timmons realized that it was his very
own bathing suit, what he liked to call his
Showering Trunks, being held on display for
everyone to see. He put his head in his hands
and was reminded of the pain in one of them.
Looking down at it he caught sight of Jeremy,
toppled over and floundering like a fish out of
water. A gasp escaped him, and he quickly
scooped up the small cactus and did his best to
get it upright in the little clay pot. He picked
with futile effort at crumbly dirt, trying to get
it back in and provide some leverage for his
downed friend, but it didn't seem to make a
difference. Jeremy wouldn’t stand. Timmons’s
vision blurred with hot tears, and he felt himself breathing heavy. Suddenly a sing-song
voice rang out over the loudspeaker above.
“Zachary is a liar, Zachary is a liar,
Zachary is a liar, Zachary is a liar.”
Over and over again it chimed. Timmons
wiped his eyes with his good hand and looked
around wildly, searching for the source. He
found it at Bunting’s desk, where Uncle Richie
was standing, holding Bunting’s phone and
singing into it. Bunting had a strange expression on his face, like he wasn’t sure what was
happening but was nevertheless entertained.
Timmons picked up the remains of Jeremy and
started towards his demented Uncle, who had
hung up the phone and stood there giggling
over Bunting. He had made his way around the
block of desks that separated his cubicle from
Bunting's when a hand grabbed his arm.
“Hey Zack, got a sec?”
Timmons looked up into the face of the
New Boss and felt a panic rising.
“I didn’t ask her to come here,” he
said.
“She didn’t say you did. Why don’t you
(VHm)
come talk to us about it?” said New Boss.
“We could have had some good times,”
Timmons mumbled. “I think you were really up
to the task.”
“What do you mean Zack?” the New
Boss inquired. “We can still have good times.”
“No. They’ve ruined all that. It’s over.
All over. Even Jeremy’s dead,” whispered
Timmons.
“Who is Jeremy?”
“Pull the string in the bathroom for
starters.” said Timmons. “That’s one of the
better ones. I think you would have liked it.
And it’s mine, not Bunting’s for God’s sake.”
Timmons pulled one of the crumpled
paper gliders from his pocket and handed it to
New Boss, who stared at it curiously. He saw
his Grandmother standing in the doorway of
the office wringing his shower trunks in her
hand.
“Zachary, come talk to Grandma!” she
croaked loudly.
Timmons stepped around New Boss and
grabbed the Ziploc of marshmallows from his
pocket. He winged it at his Grandmother, striking her in the neck. The bag fell to the ground,
and she stared at it, shocked.
“Go on, take it. There's your prize, you
ol’ Coot,” Timmons hissed.
She stared at him wide-eyed and held
out his swimsuit to him. He looked incredulously at her then turned on his heels for the
door. Uncle Richie stepped in front of him.
“Booger!” he taunted.
Timmons retrieved Jeremy with his
already injured hand and looked down at him
lovingly.
“Goodbye, Jeremy. I love you,” he whispered.
“Who’s Jeremy?” barked Uncle Richie.
With the greatest of care for his dying
best friend, Timmons shoved Jeremy hard into
Uncle Richie's teasing face. Uncle Richie
screamed with pain and flailed his hands at
73
(VHm)
the thorny pickle attached to his face as
Timmons stepped around him and
walked out the door.
In the elevator bank Timmons stood for
a moment, listening to the pandemonium he’d
left behind. He bypassed the elevators and
shoved open the fire exit that led to the stairs.
The alarm started immediately and drowned
out Uncle Richie's howls. Timmons stood on a
small balcony that led to a second stairwell
door. He supposed he should leave before he
was apprehended for his mayhem but couldn’t
help noticing how beautiful the city looked
before him, and beyond that the Hudson River
and the lush green of New Jersey. He thought
for a moment of the possibilities of life, and
for the first time they extended well beyond
the trove of Secret Games that lay hidden in
the pandemonium behind him. A breeze ruffled
his hair, and he smiled. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the second small glider he’d
retrieved from the washroom floor. He
smoothed out its mashed nose with his injured
hand, the palm covered in a multitude of tiny
red dots, and held the paper jet up to the
breeze. The wind took it from him kindly, and
it floated for a second in front of his eyes
before cascading smoothly downward on a current of air that would take it somewhere new,
somewhere unknown. He watched it go as the
fire alarm blared above his head, and when he
lost it in the distance, he turned and made for
the stairs, starting a journey of his own.
Ted Travelstead
74
Christopher Bettig
Krissy Monroe
79
81
Whitney Goin
FreshTatts
Submitted by our subscribers
Jessica Nguyen
Katherine Charm
83
84
85
(VHm)
Random Poetry
POEM
by Katelyn Bryan
.you.
were the light
light that poured into the room first thing in the morning
morning that
.you.
woke up and found me sitting
sitting up all night thinking
thinking of life and how much I love
.you.
said you didn't want to be bothered
bothered me that you couldn't get it together
together forever.
forever forgetting how to love
love me and all I've done for
.you.
couldn't see who I am now
now that we've parted ways
ways we were the same
same arguments everyday
everyday I can't help but think of
.you.
were lost
lost without each other
other days were good
good bye to what we had
had to make a change
change the ways we lived
lived my life for
.you.
never wanted to try
try although we were young
young ones have so much to learn
learn to finally live for
.me.
86
(VHm)
Random Poetry
SPEAK IN THUNDER T ONES
by Amber Toohey
Speak in thunder tones
let the heavens crack under your weighty voice
and spill your ancestors, female rain.
Steal their sweet breath into you and live,
the infant soul squirming to realize itself;
become the sky.
You who choose to be silent
no more! Show them your song
angry lightning, burning timbre
resonating;
become the sky.
When death tiptoes in, creeps under your door
when the songs and words are quiet
and no one knows who you are...
who will be there,
who will tell them?
Become the sky.
87
Same Same Section
but Different
Header
On the Road
in Cambodia
by Roger Lai
Gangsters, Land Mines, and Eminem—
Just a Day in the Life of a VividHues
Traveling Correspondent
According to the Lonely Planet guidebook,
these were some of the roughest roads in the
world. I supposed they ought to know, considering that they’d probably been on a lot of
awful roads. Somehow here we were, ten of us
on the back of a pickup truck and another four
in the cab, flying along at who-knows-howmany miles per hour, on our way from Bangkok
to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
The Cambodian countryside is beautifully surreal. The terracotta red dirt of the road
contrasts with shamrock green fields that
seem to stretch on forever. It takes a special
kind of adventurer to be on this road. The
flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap is about $50,
already quite a bargain. But if you’re really
adventurous, the truck is the way to go. By
adventurous, I mean cheap, stupid, broke, or
abundant with free time.
My British friends and I paid 250 Bhat
each for the trip—about $6. The Aussies across
from us paid 150—they were on a very tight
budget, so they bargained on everything. We
would go on to be great friends and to travel
together for the next month. That’s just the
way things go when you’re backpacking, I
guess—you meet interesting people and you
hang out together for a while.
The Japanese guy and the guy from
Florida were definitely the most daring ones
on our truck. Daring or stupid—sometimes it’s
hard to tell. There were some clues, though.
(VHm)
At the border crossing they were the only ones
to give money to the begging girls who offered
to hold parasols over our heads. Across the
border they were swarmed by other beggar
kids who already knew that the rest of us were
stingy. The guys with the parasols over their
heads, those were the ones to hit up for cash.
You gotta either glue your butt to the
metal rail or hover it way up in the air. It’s
really that in-between state—when your butt
comes off the rail and suddenly lands back
on—that hurts the most. If you’re glued to the
rail, it’s not so bad. Hovering completely off
the rail would be great (basically no pain)
except for the strain on your thigh muscles.
Don’t forget, there’s six hours of this.
There were some strange sights along
that bumpy road. Towns with dirt roads had
sculptures and fountains in the center. Nothing
too elaborate, but surely that money could
have been better spent on paving the roads.
Shacks on the side of the road had big ads for
Milo chocolate milk on them. Land mine victims, having lost their legs, move around on
tricycle carts modified so that they can pedal
with their hands.
We stopped briefly a few times to buy
drinks and use the bathroom. Or to pay off
guys at military checkpoints. We paused to pay
off local gangsters, nicely dressed middle-aged
men sitting in chairs by the side of the road.
These bribes were to be expected, I suppose,
for a country still rebuilding after some nasty
civil wars. But my favorite payments went to
the guys that would help us through the really
treacherous parts of the road—those parts that
had been “washed out” by rivers. It seems to
me that these farmers benefit from having the
main road flooded near them – after all, they
got paid to guide people through. So I’m a bit
suspicious of the washouts.
The village dance was the strangest
thing we saw on that trip. We flew by on the
road, so the details are a bit fuzzy, but
88
(VHm)
Same Same but Different
here’s what I remember. A group of young
girls, maybe sixteen years old and dressed in
matching black dresses with red trim, performed a choreographed dance around a pole.
Strings of lights hung over their heads, and all
the men sat, drank beer, and watched the girls
dance. Probably the same dance that they’ve
been performing for generations except this
time the P.A. system blasted out Eminem. To
us, this seems like an example of cultural
imperialism, but I think to them, it was just
another piece of music.
As we neared Siem Reap at about 10:00
pm, one of our guides jumped out, and a new
guide jumped in. We were taken to the new
guy’s guesthouse. The town has been so overrun with guesthouses that they now pay the
drivers to bring guests directly to them. The
rates at the guesthouse were reasonable, and
the rooms were practically new. After fourteen
hours of travel – six of those hours on that
truck, we hardly felt like comparison shopping.
Roger Lai
Avid Burning Man participant, extensive world
traveler, and sometime professional fire spinner, Roger Lai has the unique opportunity to
see the sameness and difference in all walks of
life.
89
magazine.vividhues.com : www.magazine.vividhues.com : www.magazine.vividhues.com : www.magazine.vividhues
lola's beef soup:
2 pieces of beef shank cut crosswise (this you can get at your local butcher in the mission)
2 carrot medium dice
2 celery medium dice
1 large onion medium dice
1 head garlic minced
3T olive oil
1 bay leaf
water
in a large pot heat olive oil, add vegetables and cook until translucent.
add meat. add enough water to cover the meat and fill the pot 3/4.
add bay leaf. cook for one hour at a simmer or until meat is fork tender (i
remember reading that for the first time and thinking, "what the hell
is fork tender?" in this case it means almost fall apart.) remove the
meat and cut into cubes. add to soup.
this soup can have any vegetables added to it but here is a good
suggestion. cook the vegetables separately of the stock and add with beef cubes.
1 acorn squash, cubed and roasted or steamed
a dozen shiitake mushrooms, cut into slivers and sauteed
1 bunch chard, chopped and steamed
1 red bell pepper, sliced and sauteed
finish the soup with salt and pepper, chopped fresh oregano, a dash of
white wine vinegar and a dash of worstchesire, a pinch of sugar and a drizzle
of extra virgin olive oil.
delicious.
joanna schneier
joanna's a san franciscan and lives with her dog lola. keep your eye out for joanna's
cookbook! coming soon.
what's cooking?
we are. here's the best in food according to us.
Tina and April
91
92
www.magazine.vividhues.com
February 2004 : Issue 1
When Dirt Is Paradise
Dog days drag on
in this damned heat, sweat
drips down in dreary-eyed
trance.
2-step, 4-step over
to that store:
3 necklaces for 3 friends
I really don't care for
Anchor foots trip and crawl
one over the next,
attempt to whirl away some small
muddy blues
and rock n' roll my soul
to make me unafraid,
I say.
(These revolutionaries never knew
what I do:
Insanity is the only stairway
to liberation without mitigation.
[[[[[[Uproot those seeds, please.]]]]]] )
So 1, 2, 3, 4
lose your mind in the downpour.
The only fashion is no fashion.
It's in the function and not the front.
So for all you feathery frogs,
hoppin' and proddin' those lilies,
be picky and be choosy,
but don't you slip and drown
chasin' them paddies around.
(“When Dirt Is Paradise” originally appeared in Poetry.com)
Christina Owens
Layout and design by VividHues : http://www.vividhues.com
ww.magazine.vividhues.com : www.magazine.vividhues.com : www.magazine.vividhues.com : www.magazine.vividhues.
The art of
Fariel Shafee
Fariel is a PhD candidate at the physics
department of Princeton University. She
has an upcoming exhibit in Greece and
most recently venued in Spain. Her art
and poetry can be found online at:
http://fariel1.tripod.com/charmquarksartworld/index.html
www.magazine.vividhues.com : subscribe today!

VHm - VividHues

Transcription

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