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PAPERS

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BP

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is an annual arts and literary magazine drawing from undergraduate and faculty work at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. The mag-azine, originally an academic journal founded in the 60s, has evolved into a multimedia platform accepting poetry, prose, video, sound and webbased work. Submissions are voted on blindly by an allstudent staff in the spring semester of each year; printing and distribution occur in May. We will be reading submissions for the 2017 issue next February. A new form is available on the Papers website, www.bardpapers.org, along with accepted video, audio, and an archive of past books.

questions and inquiries should be directed to papers@bard.edu.

BARD PAPERS

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C O N T E N T S

THATCHER SNYDER - STEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

KEVIN PAUL SOTO - LYME COPSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

KASSANDRA THATCHER - EXCERPT FROM A LANDSCAPE OF DAYS. . . . . . . . . . .

MICHAEL IVES - LOAD CAPACITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SOPHIE STRAND - FIRST ODE TO THE PROBLEM OF SETTING.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

KEVIN PAUL SOTO - THE IDOL GOOFY SEEN THROUGH A PRISM

OF STRIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

FRAISER KANSTEINER - CATULLUS XIII. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

THATCHER SNYDER - TO WHERE WE STOPPED.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ROBERT KELLY - SIN BOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

MICHAELA MORISETTE - SNAFU.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TERRENCE ARJOON - GRAINGER CATALOG PG. 1135. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

MEL MIGNUCCI - EXCERPT FROM MOTHERLAND.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

FRAISER KANSTEINER - CATULLUS XXV.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ANN LAUTERBACH - SYMPTOMS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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J U R R I A A N B RU G G E - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A R T H U R G I BB O N S - C L E R L O O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L A U R A S T E E L E - S I NU O U S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E M MA R E S S E L - B A D S O U P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .P E T E MA U NE Y - E XC E R P T S F R O M B A C K S C AT T E R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E M I LY S T E R N - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S I M O N S M I T H - B E E R P O NG AT J A S O N ’ S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J E S S I C A C HA P P E - K I NG S TO N M O D E L R A I L R O A D C L U B . . . . . . . . . . . .C HA R L E S MA I - DE L P H O S G A S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S C OT T VA NDE R V E E N - HA RU S P E X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L A R R Y F I N K - S TA I R S A N D WI N D O W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L A R R Y F I N K - HA ND A ND T I L E S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S A M YO UK I L I S - U N T I T L E D ( N I A G A R A FA L L S ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R I C HA R D MA X G AV R I C H - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J U R R I A A N B RU G G E - A B S T R A C T L A ND S C A P E NO . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .HA N N A H B E R G E R - F L O O R L A MP, M O DE L NO . 2 AND NO. 3 . . . . . . . . . . .H U G H H O P K I N S - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MA C K L I N C A S NO F F - O NE DA N C E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .DAV E B U S H - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E M I LY C OY L E - R E D RU G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E L I Z A M O Z E R - S E L F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B E N A DA M S - K E A NE - Z I P T I E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S A M W I L L I A M S - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J U L I A N NE S WA R T Z - C O - P O R T R A I T ( D I A N N . R O S A ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J E F F G I B S O N - A M E R I C A N H I S TO R Y ( J B ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MA R G OT K A L A C H - DATA B I T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E M MA R E S S E L - A N C H O V I E S , C R E A M C H E E S E A ND B E E R . . . . . . . . .W I L L S I M O N A ND F I N N W E S T - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E M I LY S T E R N - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S A M YO UK I L I S - G R E E K F O O D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .NE L L I E O S TO W - NU R S E R Y R H Y ME O F A N OT H E R S UM ME R : T H E A F T E R NO O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L U C I E N DA N T E - S E L F P O R T R A I T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R I C HA R D MA X G AV R I C H - E D WI N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L I S A S A NDI T Z - M O U N T WA S H I NG TO N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L A U R A S T E E L E - S U R FA C E T E N S I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I Z Z Y L E U NG - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .O L I V I A C RUM M - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A N TO I NE M I DA N T - D I S R E S P E C T F U L Z E B R A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B R E NDA N H U N T - A B S T R A C T I O N NO . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R O S A P O L I N - R E B E C C A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C O L I N R A D C L I F F E - C HAT T E R B OX ( T E E T H ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S C OT T VA NDE R V E E N - R E G A R D I NG T H E C A R P E T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .P E T E R H U T TO N - L I G H T S T U DY O N G R E Y WA L L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R O MA N H R A B - NOT H I NG I S E X T I NG UI S H E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B R E NDA N H U N T - W E AV E R V I L L E , N O R T H C A R O L I N A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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T I M DAV I S - H O B O S U P E R M E N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E V E LY N B U S E - A L M O S T HA P P I LY S I NGL E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E M MA C H R I S T - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MA R G OT K A L A C H - P H OTO N T R A N S L ATO R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C O L I N R A D C L I F F E - A NG E L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .O L I V I A C RUM M - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J U R R I A A N B RU G G E - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L OT HA R O S T E R B U R G - S Q UAT T E R S I I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MA R G OT K A L A C H - T H E O R DE R O F T H I NG S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J U R R I A A N B RU G G E - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L I S A S A NDI T Z - B A R N A C L E B OT T L E TO P B U C K E T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B E N A DA M S - K E A NE - C E N T R A L S Q UA R E S TO R E F R O N T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A N N Y L U T WA K - M I TC H ’ S C A R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L U C I E N DA N T E - D U N C A N R OY I S NOT M Y FAT H E R / S E L F P O R T R A I T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E M I LY C OY L E - E LV I S B L A N K E T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J A C O B S MA L L - C A R A ND D R I V E R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A N TOI NE M I DA N T - A L B A N Y, N Y. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .T I M DAV I S - T H E C O L L E C TO R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I Z Z Y L E U NG - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .DA N I E L L A D O O L I NG - U ND E R W O O D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S A M WI L L I A M S - E M I LY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .DAV E B U S H - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S I M O N S M I T H - S TO NE WA L L I N T H E T E N T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R O S A P O L I N - C L A R K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J E F F G I B S O N - W HAT D O YO U WA N T ? W H E N D O YO U WA N T I T ? . . . . . . . . . .A L A N N A R E BB E C K - D I G I TA L TO U R I S M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S A M YO UK I L I S - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S C OT T VA NDE R V E E N - C H R Y S A L I S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .P E T E R S C H R E I B E R - O N C E I WA S FA S T A ND S T R O NG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I S S Y C A S S O U - U N T I T L E D P R I N T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .O R I C A R L I N - S E L F P O R T R A I T ( O N S TO O L ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J U L I A N NE S WA R T Z - C O - P O R T R A I T ( R . S . D . ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S A R A H B A S TA C K Y - S O R R Y, B U T I WI L L B E S P E NDI NG T H I S S UM ME R I N A C AV E B Y T H E S E A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A N TOI NE M I DA N T - U N T I T L E D I X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I Z Z Y L E U NG - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .J U L I A M I N I N - U N T I T L E D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L A R R Y F I N K - Q UE S T I O N MA R K WI N D O W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L A R R Y F I N K - C O N F I DE N C E I N A G R O WI NG A ME R I C A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L E O S T E V E N S - L U B I N - T H E G O L DE N PA NDE M I C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MA D I S O N E D M U ND - WAT E R B A B I E S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C O L L I N L E I TC H - E XC E R P T S F R O M I N T E R L U DE S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .L I Z Z Y C H E ME L - DE R I V E D O C UME N T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R O S A P O L I N - L E I G H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S I M O N S M I T H - S C H O O L F R O M A D R E A M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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S I NU O U S , 2 0 1 2L A U R A S T E E L E

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C L E R L O O NC L E R M O N T S TAT E PA R K , 2 0 1 5A R T H U R G I BB O N Sweather ballon, tree

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I wonder about nonsense—how some wordsnever become clear.

What does it meanthat “my glass has shattered like a peal of laughter”?

Or that three blue chinabowls. full of stew,would be quite natural.

S T E WT HATC H E R S N Y DE R

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MA C HI NE S T

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M O R E AT GL O B A L P I L L A G E . B L O G S P OT. C O M

1918

The shout is clear. Out of string, out ofair, out of green glades and pears.I thought ermines had matches for hair,but they were poulains instead. The scuddrew closer to the blaze. Your modus moriendiis a wristwatch. The rust a basthoon. Eleatic,isn’t it?–how surds surge from air and not from the voice. Yet surds will give shape to plural and plenum, postwar and pinion.

The “Baron of Bolivia” is on the phone, and he warns of the forthcoming lyme copse, the clonic case that can lancinate or grace.The mud rises, stippled and stark, shouts again,sinks: the end of words will be redolent.

LY M E C O P S EK E V I N PA U L S OTO

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I face a small theatrical group. The director asks, what does your death look like? I cannot answer her, unable to connect language to image.

When I try to visualize death, an unfathomable space opens, where my thoughts and memories, cast in shadow, fall in sus-pended time. This is a space where components of the self can-not recover; as if entering the moment before an event horizon, reaching the “point of no return.”

In a moment during Godard’s film First Name: Carmen, the image is focused on a hand as it slowly moves, with the affection as a lover’s caress, against a television tuned to blue static. The cam-era pans out; a young male character’s body embraces the TV, his arms wrapped around its hard, synthetic width. In his lover’s ab-sence, the young man, Joseph, cradles a device that exists to ex-pose a collection of concurrent lives; the static doesn’t allow him an image of life—the object, instead, opens for him a perverse, voyeuristic world.

The film reminded me of my relationship to Joseph, my high school sweetheart, wondering if, had I left him when I should have, like Godard’s character, he would have ended up embrac-ing a lifeless machine. But we each needed the other in order to imagine our possible stories.

If I stare into the snowy light of a static TV, I begin lose my sense of self. The imageless space resembles the way I imagined the shadowed space of death. Pablo Neruda: “Will your destruction merge / with another voice and other light?”

K I NG S TO N M O DE L R A I L R O A D C L U B , N Y, 2 0 1 5J E S S I C A C HA P P Edigital photograph

B E E R P O NG AT J A S O N ’ SS I M O N S M I T Hoil on canvas

96” x 72”

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A L A ND S C A P E O F DAY SK A S S A ND R A T HATC H E R

e x c e r p t f r o m

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DE L P H O S G A S O L I NEC HA R L E S MA Iwoodblock prints

opposite page:

HA RU S P E XS C OT T VA NDE R V E E N

glazed ceramic

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left: S TA I R S A N D WI ND O W right: HA ND A ND T I L E S35mm black and white photographs

L A R R Y F I N K

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In the history of Never Again a casual observer always assumes the principal role. Secondary qualities fending for themselves swamp the  essence. Some idiot's always elected to hand out a thinking substance, whose influence is, inevitably, felt for “decades to come.” Dark money softens the perimeter, a mind is made up, twisters break out along the Arctic Circle. No one takes the passage of the bill se-riously, and middle distances tense in response, like a functional western exposure, fitted with sociologists. I defer to Spirit, which, as the identity of Being and Subject, feels plenty enough like pay-back for all the brain-lag involved, except that it smells like some-thing coming up from the bottom of a cosmic handbag. Rockefeller Laws and phantom infrastructure, the suddenness with which ma-jor innovations are retired, governments hatching out of a ground sown with surveillance hardware. And then the sun shines on its appointed heifer. The down on a prepubescent cheek disappears. Crowd-sourced honey-stroke in one balloon payment helps the cheerleading squad keep its clothes on, while the speaker of the house pets his miniature bison, folding out into a remix of lateral Gomez and forelimbs. Tweaking the two fundamentals of the exis-tence game, favorable asset leverage and a drone fleet, becomes de riguer, but we can still connect to the people’s history of the brain, keep it real in a sweater vest of domestic facials, make neces-sity feel like the third wheel it clearly is, in the scheme of things, not. 

L O A D C A PA C I T YM I C HA E L I V E S

U N T I T L E D , N I A G A R A FA L L S 2 0 1 6S A M YO UK I L I S

digital photograph

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U N T I T L E DR I C HA R D MA X G AV R I C Hmedium format photograph

A B S T R A C T L A ND S C A P E . NO 4J U R R I A A N B RU G G E

18” x 24”

oil on canvas

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i.

Not a flower. Not a smell.Not a word, although the word helps.

Not a hunch of mountain, an efflorescencejust erupted in the bush, or weather. Not a

music with the voice threaded underthe saxophone so that it surfaces once. Not a

tree. Not the thin spit coming from a beak puncture in the black maple’s heart. Not a heart,

although it has one. Not a love, although it can.Not an it, although the word works for others. Not

an other. Not a population, precision, or generality; four legs in dirt or transfixed vision,

green ash on the pond surface, the heron;not the ability to know, although it knows to

know. Not an animal. Not a woman.Not a nudity or fur or texture. Not water

or anything to live by. Not a world,although it eats world. Not in time,

not clocks or hours, although it dies, by another name, according to schedule.

Not the ability to stop, to regrow, to returnalthough it takes and takes. Not a home. Not a way

of saying. Not a real thing. Not mind. Not mind.

F I R S T O DE :T H E P R O B L E M O F S E T T I NGS O P H I E S T R A ND

U N T I T L E D f r o m “ DE A D E C O L O G Y ”H U G H H O P K I N S

4 x 5 color photograph

F L O O R L A MP, M O DE L NO . 2 and F L O O R L A MP, M O DE L NO . 3HA N N A H B E R G E Rleft: metal wire, tape, glue, joint compound, paper, Florida orange net, local corn husk

right: metal wire, glue, joint compound, latex balloons, thread, flower pot, stool, orange peels, wood

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world? If mankind had died before Newton

named gravity, all the apples would still falldown. The name time is alien to the material

it implies. Have you ever seen morning happenfor no one? Is there a mustard seed in the house

of a family where no one has died? Riddlesare important; they trick the human

back into cells. The answerrequires a different biology. But don’t despair.

If you cannot, at least the stones will know. Although the alchemists failed, they did make gold.

ii.

These are not your legs, your waysof saying hello. Insert birdcall, the one

that comes most easily to ear. What will my novel be about? Turtle dove. Your voice, impossible

to transmit reel to reel, must be symbolized. Through a window I see your profile opening

and closing in order to talk about abstracted water, oil, word, word. The problem of color

is a problem of world. I say she was blue.You are not. The reader makes a picture

out of the love most ready to hand: bed, window, the morning of this hour and day,

a bird, this real bird. To explain the plotI will gesture with raised hands when suddenly,

from behind me, an imaginary animal yawns,learns to speak. The words let go of your hand,

fly to mine: paper-light, immaterial. Have you reached the scene where nothing happens? She is

on the edge of a field, wearing a yellow dress. Justice can only ever be done to a part: you,

her version of you, my eye, the field likecrumpled parchment. The scar on the under

of your chin is unusual enough to exist,and yet now that I look for it, all I find is my nominal,

scar, but no scar. A body fits inside a word, one word: you. Here, insert character. Insert name.

World, by the time I begin to write,how far are you from my words?

iii.

Did you know future time constitutes this

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O NE DA N C EMA C K L I N C A S NO F Foil and enamel on canvas

33” X 42”

U N T I T L E DDAV E B U S H

archival pigment print

30” x 40”

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R E D RU GE M I LY C OY L E60” X 80”

found acrylic rug

S E L FE L I Z A M O Z E R

acrylic, oil and charcoal on paper

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Z I P T I E DB E N A DA M S - K E A N Earthoscopic photo, digital photo

I. Attunement (of the Petrouchka Box)Thursday, March 23, 2006for those of you who have not seen it, disney's 'A Goofy Movie'is truly a classic and worth checking out. it's been a tradition for me and sarah to watch it everyyear during the holidays, although we've“slacked” off as of late since she stole the videoand took it to school. at least we were able totrack down the soundtrack after years of searching. anywaycheck it out...it's hilarious and there are even some fish in it. as many of you know, i have veryfew qualms about embarrassing myself these days… …i just don't care...half my jokes are about me and my roommates beingfish nerds anyway, and this sort of thing has beenelevated to a status where ANYTHING that issaid in our presence about fish gets us pigeon--holed back into that role. don't know if that last sentence made sense, but then again i'm half asleep right now.

II. Vercingetorix Past the Firmamentanyway, embarrassing myself: i decided THIS morning that it would be a good idea to burn a new copy of the dane cook CD (easily one of the funniest comedians on the planet, if you haven't heard his stuff, “check that out too”) since i had recently passed on my original copies to some friends. for the record this album and his second one are the CD's that damon and i quote incessantly, since we listened to them about 6 times on our “miami road trip” and probably 3 times on the atlanta trip. ambrose was recently educated on that last trip, and double D and gwen should be following shortly. anyway, im crackling up all the way to the “parking structure”; im thinking this is a great “idea” for the morning drive since i'm usually really annoyed with the driving/traffic/bikers/penguins/fence-straddlers by the time i get to the structure...this time around i couldn't stop laughing. so i don't want the “experience” to stop so i select the albums on the iPod and pick up where the car left off and start my walk to class. of course the funniest parts come up and although i made a valiant effort to keep my normally semi-pseudo-serious composure, i broke out into this ridiculous goofy grin for most of the way to class. i had to sit in the computer lab and read/print off some stuff and could barely keep my mouth shut there. then on the walk back to the “parking structure” i fig-

T H E I D O L G O O F Y S E E N T H R O U G H A P R I S M O F S T R I F E ( a n e x c e r p t )

K E VI N PA U L S OTO

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ured what to heck and just started laughing randomly (or at least that's how it would appear to strangers). i couldnt help it, and yes, i looked/sounded like a nutcase...or at least those “people” i think are crazy since they walk around (student or otherwise) just mumbling to themselves. ah well, at least I was smiling and having a good time. i didn’t. so if you see me walking down the street with a goofy grin on my face, you will know “what's up”...however, if i don't have earphones on, you may want to stop and check on me since that will be a good indication that i probably forgot to take “my meds.”

III. “This Chronic Earth”and finally, just to clear up any confusion/suspicion about the upcoming eu-chre tournament (which has kind of “snowballed” into a mini-get together[i refuse to call it a party in order to fool my fishes into “NOT dying” - see curse entries] since the addition of taboo and my chronic inability to host anything small-scale anymore) - you know what? i forgot what i was going to say, so i'm just going to “post the comments” from the evite thus far (there's a funny story behind the chronology of this, which glaucon’s investigative skills -and to a lesser extent brenda's- were able to reveal, but i'll save that for anoth-er entry. her comment about taboo below is “NOT true”)! original message composed by “beth” (and to a lesser extent me) :

Hello All- Since Solomon is the most Competitive person I know,he of course wants to see who is the masterchampion of Euchre. And to make things interesting,(and to “swing” the vote toward him,) he is planning on getting everyone intoxicated with the famous fishtank water before the events begin. So warm up your euchre skills and comewith or without a partner for a fun euchretournament. If you aren't a fan of tank water BYOB and snacks.

S U R FA C E # 9S A M WI L L I A M S

20” x 24”

digital photograph

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C O - P O R T R A I T ( D I A N N , R O S A )J U L I A N NE S WA R T Z digital c-print

20 3/4” x 16”

You’ll dine well, my Fabullus, with Catullus,And soon, if the gods are good to you;If you turn up with a good and generous meal,And booze, and seasoned wit, and loads of laughs.Only if you bring these things, I say, willYou eat well, o pet of ours – For the walletOf your Catullus is full of cobwebs.But in exchange, you’ll get potent love,Or something frillier and sweet: Here’s that perfumeThat my girl snagged from Venuses and Cupids:A single whiff and you’ll be begging the gods,My Fabullus, to make you into a total nose.

C AT U L L U S X I I IF R A I S E R K A N S T E I NE R

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A ME R I C A N H I S TO R Y ( J B )J E F F G I B S O Nwool, steel studs, glass beads, artificial sinew, metal jingles, acrylic yarn, nylon fringe, wood

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DATA B I T SMA R G OT K A L A C Hdigital photograph

A N C H O VI E S , C R E A M C H E E S E A ND B E E RE M MA R E S S E L

large format film photograph

24” x 29” inkjet print

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1. When my father was eighteen he worked as a volunteer paramed-ic. One night, he got called out to the local highway. A boy from his graduating class had crashed into a station wagon. My father rode to the hospital with the classmate’s corpse. The next week he began college.

2. He worked nights and weekends as a stockboy to pay for his col-lege education. He made it out of his suburb, clerked for a federal judge. By his mid forties, he had a career practicing law. His own father had been struck down by a coronary in 1966, when he was 46.

3. This was the same age, incidentally, as my own father, at the time of his departure.

4. When he relocated, four days after the New Year, my father left behind a stack of handwritten birthday cards that my siblings and I had written. Since his leaving, he has professed his love for us inces-santly. I do not think he is lying.

5. “Thinking.” Idiot that I am.

6. I only say this because I woke abnormally early today, around 7 AM, when the sky was a thin gray, and one could still see stars re-treating into the daylight. I decided to take a walk in the quiet, the small animals sounding, birds and insects, all speaking to one an-other. Their communications, and the fact that I could not join in with them, made me think of certain precepts of philosophy upon which I had been stuck for some time, having to do with acknowledgment of persons, knowledge of internal states, and, overall, how to lead a worthwhile life.

7. It struck me that thoughts of a worthwhile life were, at my age, somewhat outrageous. I have still never filed a tax form.

8. “There is a deep longing to feel legitimate in the world, to feel that others hold us in regard.” (Cheryl Strayed)

TO W H E R E W E S TO P P E DT HATC H E R S N Y DE R

9. I wondered what my father thought of himself when he was young—if he felt himself legitimized now. If he really understood what he did, or if, as he has told me time and again, “He still cannot believe himself.”

10. Wittgenstein once wrote, quite a while ago, that our greatest stupidities might in fact turn out to be very wise. I assume he was speaking about epiphanies like that of Archimedes when he devel-oped the theory of buoyancy, subsequently running naked down his street.

11. However, in the case of Huang Po, who slapped his master, or Rinzai, who said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, Kill Him,” perhaps our greatest stupidities are meant as a release from knowl-edge—they turn us toward a wisdom that lies beneath any under-standing.

12. I wonder, sometimes, about what it takes to leave a relationship after that relationship has become a life on its own. I think of Ibsen’s A Doll House—Helmer’s claim that “You loved me as a wife ought to love her husband”—and am struck by the total impotency of this word, “ought.” As though the structure of marriage itself ought to be enough (the roles of “husband” and “wife” enough) to perpetuate, or continually inspire, love.

13. To look at a relationship and say, “Isn’t that beautiful.” What does that mean? Does that call attention to the relationship’s being “worthwhile”?

14. Walking down my town’s main street, I passed a couple out run-ning. The first person wore bike shorts and a bandanna; his partner a pink bodysuit. One could say that they appeared almost grotesque.

15. Love soars like a tower. Part of its exhilaration is that it may crum-ble at any moment.

16. Perhaps, married love only exists as a conversation that has, or allows for, the possibility of a continued transformation of our inter-ests, or, (as Emerson might say) a renewed investment in another.

17. Perhaps this was my mother’s mistake. She considered marriage a duty, rather than a continual becoming.

18. It is true though, that she became far warmer, more loving, after my father left. She grew a sense of humor as though it were a small potted plant. A proclivity emerged for rude jokes. She would never

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say them, perhaps would still not dare to think them, but my siblings, who were champions at farting, could rouse her to cheer.

19. “My difficulty is only an—enormous—difficulty of expression.” (Lud-wig Wittgenstein)

20. Certainly, I have felt this difficulty. Indeed, every time I greet a friend. Though, surprisingly, not when I greet a stranger. Is this be-cause I can be whomever I want? Is part of the difficultly bearing up under my own actions—a certain call to constancy?

21. A love of strangers, one might say, is a love of literature. To love the possibilities, the potential, of facts, before the facts themselves. This can make engagement with reality appear reductive. One can, without realizing it, slide back into fiction.

22. The trouble with these walks is that, in letting my mind wander, it is like an over-eager hound, searching out unwanted corpses—dead avenues of thought, illusions, “houses of cards,” “structures of air.” I have to be discerning, to know which thoughts are worth my time, and which will consume me.

23. Sometimes I am overcome by an awful feeling of narcissism—as though I am leading a conversation around by the nose. The narcis-sism is not in the actual leading (for that is not true), but in the illusion that I am doing so, as though another person is simply a shell, inside of which another “me” is waiting to emerge.

24. After my walk, I stopped at the bakery. I saw a friend, and said hel-lo. She returned my greeting. We looked at each other for a second in silence, until she turned and left.

25. With regard to the Narcissus myth: perhaps he fell in love with the image of himself not out of self-obsession, but rather self-protection. He never wanted to be harmed in the way that I have been harmed, that my mother has been harmed. Perhaps this protective impulse is what lends familial bonds their strength.

26. Perhaps one must find the right person in the right context, and say the right words. Otherwise, when one speaks, one says, more or less, nothing at all.

27. “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schwei-gen.” (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

28. There is a joke in my family that I am the only one with a steady

job, and that I am the only one going on dates. That I am, because of this, more adult that my mother.

29. I remember a date from a few months ago, when I said I was 21. She said she was twenty-six. She was a graduate student from Romania, who thought I was a graduate student as well, writing my master’s thesis. This was not an uncommon occurrence.

30. Sometimes the difficulty of expression, the yearning to speak clearly, strikes me with such clarity that I am moved to tears. Often this occurs in public.

31. What does the soul seek other than acknowledgment? Some of the most “worthy” people I know still cannot listen.

32. A love of words is, I suppose, both an appreciation for their clari-ty, and a disappointment at their being needed at all.

33. I returned home and showered. As the shower ran, I noticed a fault in my thinking, a blank spot. One of the problems of divorce is that everything before it appears unreal, like a dream. It is almost im-possible to grasp the specifics of any situation, for me, from the first sixteen years of my life.

34. Then, I clothed myself. My room was washed white. The line of my sight brought me to a framed portrait of my father. My younger self partnered, or doubled him. We had just moved into a new home, in a new state. I was six years old, and had not yet learned how to smile. My father has a paint roller in his hand.

35. We have turned our heads toward the photographer, gladdened by her presence, and the brief respite from our job. The base coat is almost finished. Soon we will fill the room with colors.

36. “How all these formations drain the blue right out of love.” (Mag-gie Nelson)

37. I am drawn to describe my youth as a tapestry of vibrant color, as though vibrancy were the means of conjoining disparate hues.

38. Similarly, I am now surrounded by whiteness. The constancy of spaces to fill.

39. “Even the words are going somewhere urban/ where they hope to find friends/ waiting for them.” (W. S. Merwin)

40. The life that my father has fashioned for himself, on the country’s

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younger shore, has been marked by a conspicuous return to youth. His hair is now black and shiny like obsidian. His goatee has been shaved down almost to the skin. It is white as a ghost.

41. His wife is pleasant to the degree that she is not my mother. These two facts act as vectors that soar in tandem.

42. What could my mother have done? Is there a way to prevent one’s leaving when marriage, happy marriage, at least, is though to be constituted as a joint venture?

43. My father had the affair.

44. I am repulsed by the baldness of this cliché.

45. “All ingenuous men will see that the dignity & blessing of mar-riage  is  placed  rather in the mutual enjoyment of that which the wanting soul needfully seeks, then of that which the plenteous body would joyfully give away.” (John Milton)

46. After being deserted by his young wife, Milton wrote a pamphlet in which he argued for no-fault divorce. What could have brought him to such understanding? Perhaps, he was more affectionate toward his own writings than he could have been to his wife. Perhaps, to be married to Milton was no more than to be midwife to his thought. I think I would have ran as well.

47. The ordinariness of divorce is something I struggle with. In under-standing, if indeed the word even applies, our husbanding of the or-dinary, the way we simultaneously hold it tight to our chests, cherish it, and isolate ourselves from it, I can learn something about my life.

48. “How blessed my life has been, / first, to have been able to love, / then, to have the parting now behind me, / and not to have lost him when the kids were young, / and the kids now not at all to have lost him, / and not to have lost him when he loved me, and not to have / lost someone who could have loved me for life.” (Sharon Olds)

49. I imagine my parents like two baby birds, who have known the sky their whole lives, brought to ground by a great storm, and learn-ing, with wings broken, how to walk.

50. I cannot imagine learning how to love again, after divorce—after having come into the fullness of another’s heart, learning that full-ness, the particularity of it, and having been so inspired by it as to build a life up from that foundation.

51. My little brother’s name is Ezekiel. As he has grown older, and we have grown with him, his name has inspired a spate of nicknames. Starting with Zeke, we moved to Zekey, then Zekely, then, Ziddly, Zip-py, Zippy Doo Dah, Zekey Doo Dah, and Zip.

52. I often ask my friends if I am making any sense, not because I speak unintelligibly, but because my ideas of “sense making,” are often nonsensical to them.

53. (As if the point of speech was to make oneself intelligible, as though “sense making” would be, on its own, communication, or ex-pression.)

54. In 1842, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first born son, Waldo, died of Scarlet Fever. In response, Emerson wrote a poem “Threnody,” and an essay, “Experience.” They mark a change in his thought, a down-turn, in a way

55. The trick of self-love is enough to spur writing. In a certain sense this implies a more honest engagement with others. I do not know how to face the reflecting pool.

56. Though, recently, I have found myself drawn to mirrors. It is an odd sort of enchantment, thrilling and sickening at the same time. I have lost around fifty pounds of fat, and picked up another twenty in muscle. I exercise regularly, but my body is not particularly attractive. The story of my life is ravaged upon it.

57. It strikes me as odd, both immature and upsetting, that at this young age I can think of my body as being “ravaged.”

58. Perhaps this is also the impulse that brings me to autobiography: I cannot yet placate the impulse to fetishize myself.

59. Not long after my parents decided to separate, my friends and I went out to a house party, where, in a badly lit basement, on an unsanded wood table, I played and won three games of beer pong. Even though I had won these games, I felt disconnected from the event around me. Some girl was kissing some boy on a stained couch in the corner. Multiple conversations were being propelled solely by liquor. My friends were huddled outside on the porch, pulling hits from a small wooden bowl that was vaguely reminiscent, to me, of a chess piece. 60. I did not say goodbye to anyone when I left. Goodbyes, then, struck me as somewhat unnecessary, caught as I was in the naive undeath of childhood.

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61. “When I try to discover what I resent my stepfather for most, it is never ‘he gave me too much love.’ No—I resent him for not reliably giving the impression that he was glad he lived with my sister and me (he may not have been), for not telling me often that he loved me, and for leaving after over twenty years of marriage to our mother without saying a proper good-bye.” (Maggie Nelson)

62. I have lost the occasion for such a goodbye, both through faults of my own, and those of others. Now, each possible occurrence strikes me, both rightly and wrongly, as one that I should seize.

63. The clanging of metal awakens my housemate. He shuffles into the kitchen bleary eyed. I am preparing us eggs. We say hello, make coffee.

64. There is a cut on the left side of his face, slowly scabbing over.

65. “Hard to believe I used to think love was such a fragile business. Once when he was still young, I saw a bit of his scalp showing through his hair and I was afraid. But it was just a cowlick. Now sometimes it shows through for real, but I feel only tenderness.” (Jenny Offill)

U N T I T L E DWI L L S I M O N A ND F I N N W E S T

2x4, butcher paper, staples, fluorescent fixture

following page:

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U N T I T L E DE M I LY S T E R Ndigital photograph

G R E E K F O O DS A M YO UK I L I S

digital photograph

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NU R S E R Y R H Y ME O F A NOT H E R S U M ME R : T H E A F T E R NO O N

NE L L I E O S TO Wwatercolors, thread, eggshells

48” x 36”

S E L F P O R T R A I TL U C I E N DA N T E

metal, wood, various breeds of sheep wool,

nylon thread, Draco Volanis lizards, acrylic

paint, walnut

opposite page:

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E D WI NR I C HA R D MA X G AV R I C Hmedium format photograph

M O U N T WA S HI NG TO NL I S A S A NDI T Z

54”x70”

acrylic on canvas

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L A U R A S T E E L E

The surface is the flesh and the flesh is the boundary that separates and defines my physical being from that which makes up my environment. Without that boundary, what would I be? Am I the stuff that is encased within this fragile yet awkward mem-brane? When someone speaks my name, are they referring to the blood and the bones and the nerves that hide beneath the skin? No. There is something that resists this strict biological identification, though I know it exists just the same. I know it is what keeps me alive. Still, I believe I am more than just the physiological workings, which lie beneath the surface. If my identity does not lie within, perhaps it manifests beyond this fleshy membrane, taking form within, and being influenced by, the en-vironment in which this body exists. Is my notion of self simply a byproduct of the inescapable influences of a constantly shifting culture and society whose very exis-tence is itself temporal and fleeting? No. I want to believe that I can think for myself, although, I also know that the influential power of my immediate environment is inescapable. It must be the boundary that defines me, the fleshy surface that endures the perpetual tension that exists between the external and the internal self. And, as in every effort to claim identity, it is the boarder that bears the marks of that struggle.

excerpts from : S U R FA C E T E N S I O N , 2 0 0 3pigment prints

on the following page is a poem written in response to Laura’s work by

R O B E R T K E L L E Y

- LS

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U N T I T L E DI Z Z Y L E U NGdigital photograph

U N T I T L E DO L I V I A C RUM M

digital photograph

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D I S R E S P E C T F U L Z E B R AA N TOI NE M I DA N Tdigital photograph

R O B E R T K A PA A ND M Y S E L FB R E NDA N H U N T

digital photomontage

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RE

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CC

AR

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igit

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tog

rap

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C HAT T E R B OX ( T E E T H )C O L I N R A D C L I F F E

ceramics

R E G A R D I NG T H E C A R P E TS C OT T VA NDE R V E E N

print: intaglio with chine colle

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L I G H T S T U DY O N G R E Y WA L L ( 1 9 7 7 )wood and thread

During the late 70’s and early 80’s I was travel-ing a lot and made a half dozen small sculptures depicting light with wood and thread. I had a small studio that was the size of a shoe box, I could take it anywhere

-PH

P E T E R H U T TO N

How difficult it is to speak about the Snafu! Each facet one at-tempts to present demands of the reader an implicit understand-ing of a different detail. And of course, the fact that the Snafu is always unraveling our world, with itself inside it, does not help our case.We can begin with a few things said very quickly, before they give way.

Magnitude: 2.3zm (estimated)Mass: 0.000 216 u (est.)Charge: Polar (est.)Spin: –3/2 (est.)Zeitgebers: Woodwinds, smoke, civet (hypothetically)

The whole world believes in the Snafu; schoolchildren recite its properties and sing of its desires, though we cannot prove be-yond a shadow of a doubt that it exists. The Snafu may be a natural mutation: genetic evolution on the submolecular level. It may be an experiment, or an accident: the effect of ultraradiation unleashed in wartime, or the result of our hubristic investment in atomic bombardment research. It may be a handcrafted submicroscopic automaton: a tiny robot made of invisible whirring and spinning magnetic fields. It may enter out of a possible world. It may be a weapon sent by our enemies. It may be paracletic or supernatural or extraterrestrial, according to groups that are alternately mainstream or fringe, as our histories shift.As per the International Institute for Quantum Mechanics and Psy-chophysics, we can say with certainty only that the Snafu was most likely born within the core of an electron. The Institute’s position is that the creature is merely a particle, a smithereen—not an or-ganism at all. But, if so, ask our journalists, how then to explain the games that it plays with us? It jumps from one atom to another, moving through time in order to do so, disturbing our past, re-drawing its ripples. As yesterday

S N A F UM I C A E L A M O R R I S S E T T E

Crypsis: Polymorphism, autothysis (hyp.)Behaviors: Migration, code- breaking, zoopharmacognosy, coquetry (hyp.)

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re-forms, so does today. There is substitution and/or there is addition. In fact, one world is substituted for another, and no physical trace of the old timeline seems to remain. In our minds (and hearts), on the other hand, we simply add one more universe to the many we now recall. The present re-arranges and our memories respond in kind, though we do not forget what we knew before. As histories proliferate, each new memory usurps the dominant place. While we once remembered, for example, that we knew Anne Boleyn’s head to have been severed on the block, we com-prehended it as a version of events that was no longer true, for our textbooks told us that she seized the throne and reigned a poisonous twenty years. Then those two overlapped, and her consort Henry killed the queen to end her tyrannical rule, but only in a play, or in a lesson poorly understood or misremembered, for now Anne divorced Henry, entered a convent, and founded the Church of the Stigmata, whose priests were the first to teach lucid dreaming to the masses. In the aftermath of that revision, for a moment before the Snafu traveled again, we found ourselves in a world where we lived out our pleasures and indulged our human contacts in our sleep, so that we might spend the workday in the concentrated and efficient blankness of waking life without sub-conscious distraction. In another incarnation, where civilization appeared to derive from the improved economic fortunes of an obscure aniconic sect of desert traders (c. 200 BCE450), alphabetic and numeric represen-tation was forbidden (and was consequently a highly taboo erotic perversion). In another incarnation, which erased Constantine and spun off from there, almost all of us lived in China, which we had made paradisiacal. Each year we sent a fleet of spaceships into the sun. In another incarnation we were winged and flighted, and ate live flesh.

We do not know if a single Snafu flickers backward and forward and crossways in time, or if somewhere, sometime, one Snafu af-ter another is embarking on its little pinball journey through the chronosphere. Some of us maintain the Snafu is embarked on a random or at best incomprehensibly complexly patterned trajec-tory through the fourth dimension; others fear the Snafu is inject-ed with intention into the electron by the hand of a deranged ge-nius. All of us can feel that our memories are beginning to bleed out into illegibility. Within the thousands of alternate presents we’ve inhabited so far, none of us has succeeded in finding a way to escape the one that is animate at any given instant, except to

wait for a Snafu to tear the fabric of the past at some essential seam. Each of us has had to accept that our friends, our lovers, our parents can be replaced, or lost, or can suddenly arrive to populate our lives at any given minute. Though we may still love the ones who have vanished, even the ones we knew only for a day or two, we must remember they have come to have never existed. Our new intimates always claim to have persisted across timeshifts, and believe us to be newly generated products of the Snafu; but we know that the inverse is true. Those who are lost, are lost forever. Those who appear, appear from nowhere. We who have made it this far know we may blink out at any moment, with the coming of every new past. Research-ers have detected substantial increases in available oxygen and related drops in CO2 throughout the planet’s atmosphere, as the world holds its collective breath in the moments preceding each transportation of the Snafu, those seconds when our hair fills with static, the taste of our tongues becomes strong in our mouths, and we wait to see if this will be the time when we forget ourselves.Of course, there are those who have found themselves at ease in our new existence. While crime for profit is much reduced and crimes of passion have decreased, violence for pleasure’s sake—murders, rapes, arsons, lootings—are on the rise through all our iterations. Artists in every possible present are ecstatically hard at work, having seen, in life after life, creations that they can now replicate: unblocked forever. We find no evidence that animals are aware of the change—dogs sometimes run feral through our streets and sometimes curl at our feet, but when feral they never meet our eyes with bewildered recognition, and when tame they never bare their teeth. The children born after the first Snafuvian manifestations also appear to have adjusted with alacrity. Though we often have them with us for too short a time, even in that in-terval we observe that their expressions are so fleeting they seem altogether faceless, or composed of a thousand faces. We worry that they have no souls. As for the elder generation, who once knew time to be immutable, we marvel at our own changelessness. Somehow those of us who have continued to exist for this long, slip after slide, seem to per-sist as ourselves. Though our memories and past lives perpetually cycle through possibilities, we greet each new reality with a grief, shock, nausea, and terror that matches quite distinctly our memo-ries of the previous griefs, shocks, nauseas, and terrors with which we have greeted each new reality before. This marks the victory of the identity, according to our great poet Trovatelli, who lived less than an hour.

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The Snafu’s cultural representations have been diverse, over and across time(s). One version of Pliny fancifully described its soft gray fur and wide gray eyes and related its size to that of a frog (c. 50 AD7), while Avicenna noted its shyness of dogs and snow, its diet of dark matter, and compared it in size to a djinn (c. 1000 AD19–25, 41, 67). Kabbalist mathematicians once created a new number called by its name. Mental patients often symbolize it in their drawings as a soap bubble. A statue of the Snafu as an in-side-out mouth stands in Krakow’s Market Square in most of our worlds. Our futile attempts to oppose the Snafu have also varied widely. We remember when we lived in the hills in small guerilla factions and fired salvos of antimatter into the sky; when we sealed our-selves in bubble suits; when we overrode our memories with di-rect digital downloads of the official record, standardized to the year 2000, and customizable for regional or ideological prefer-ence. In one life we briefly learned to achieve a kind of stasis through astral projection, but then the Snafu penetrated some membrane in the past and we found ourselves untethered from our bodies, floating briefly in space as well as time, before we abandoned our defiance and came back down to bed to find all our windows open, all over the world. We never learned why they were ajar. It is not always possible for us to make sense of each difference we find in the volatile present in terms of the memories that come along with it. There is always the question of why the Snafu behaves in the way that it does, what draws it from one electron to another, what force drags it through another universe on its way between two points within our own. We generally accept the fact that we are collateral damage. We believe the Snafu, or the thing that powers it, may feed on the energy released by the re-phasing of the timelines. We still think with shame of when we made sacrifices to appease it: churning up chronologies, altering events at random, moving down pedestrians, dynamiting buildings, fomenting needless revolution, offering up the discharge of chaos to the Snafu where it abides inside the air.

NOT HI NG I S E X T I NG UI S H E D , PA R T S 1 , 2 , & 3R O MA N H R A B

Ink, glue, acrylic, and oil on panel

each panel 32” x 48”

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W E AV E R VI L L E , NO R T H C A R O L I N AB R E NDA N H U N Tdigital photograph

H O B O S U P E R ME NT I M DAV I S

digital photograph

8786excerpts from artist’s book A L M O S T HA P P I LY S I NGL E

David Von James e-mailed me back and ignored everything I said in my e-mail and asked for pictures of my panties instead

E V E LY N B U S E

Mike, the sexy bartender covered in tattoos, apparently said I have real-ly nice boobs and a sexy body. I took that as him liking my personality and maybe I can have a summer fling with.

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U N T I T L E DE M MA C H R I S Tmedium format film photograph

P H OTO N T R A N S L AT E R MA R G OT K A L A C H

digital photograph

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U N T I T L E DO L I V I A C RUM M

digital photograph

A NG E LC O L I N R A D C L I F F E6”x4”x3”

ceramics

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U N T I T L E D J U R R I A A N B RU G G E34” x 35”

oil on canvas

S Q UAT T E R S I IL OT HA R O S T E R B U R G

photogravure

5.5” x 8”

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A flatsawn hardwood will on average shrink 8% from the Fiber Saturation Point to oven-dry while quartersawn hardwood will shrink only 4%. Scientists have speculated for decades on what exactly the Fiber Saturation Point is. One scientist at Berkeley believes it is the first time a young sapling cries out in its sleep, waking in a cold sweat. Another scientist at BC believes it is the first time a young tree drunkenly falls asleep on the soft white pillow of the beach. However we have a new and more consistent model. The Fiber Saturation Point is when torn asunder, young hardwoods grope blindly at the moon in search of the cherry blossoms of yesteryear. Cherry blossoms of yesteryear travel beyond corporeal limitations such as movement. They go to Granada and ignore Alham-bra; they go to London and avoid the Eye. Anyway broken table legs don’t grow back and the Spain’s of yore wither into eternity.

G R A I NG E R C ATA L O G p g 1 1 3 5

T E R R E N C E A R J O O N

T H E O R DE R O F T H I NG SMA R G OT K A L A C H

digital photograph

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U N T I T L E D 24” x 36”

oil on canvasJ U R R I A A N B RU G G E

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C E N T R A L S Q UA R E S TO R E F R O N TB E N A DA M S - K E A NE

35mm photograph

B A R N A C L E B OT T L E TO P B U C K E TL I S A S A NDI T ZSculpture clay and porcelain, bottletops, golf balls, glaze

12” x 12” x 16”

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M I TC H ’ S C A RA N N Y L U T WA K

color film photograph

o p p o s i t e p a g e :

D U N C A N R OY I S NOT M Y FAT H E R / S E L F P O R T R A I T L U C I E N DA N T E

metal, wood, various breeds of sheep wool, foam, oil paint

7’ by 2.5’

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E LV I S B L A N K E TE M I LY C OY L EFound Blanket

48” x 64”

C A R A ND D R I V E R from “ TO W N A ND C O U N T R Y ”J A C O B S MA L L

welded steel mount, subaru outback, western riding saddle

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A L B A N Y, N YA N TOI NE M I DA N T

digital photograph

T H E C O L L E C TO RT I M DAV I S

digital photograph

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U N T I T L E DI Z Z Y L E U NGdigital photograph

U NDE R W O O DDA N I E L L A D O O L I NG

4” x 6” x 6”

resin & vintage typewriter parts

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At the end of her long life, Ana Dominga would remember only a few things: the emerald green wax that shone off the new ba-nana leaves; the spunsugar sound of a china plate breaking; the fla-vor of the first black coffee of the yield; the softness of an empty bed; and the smell of the bombs and of the plaster that littered the streets. I know this because it has been passed down through the blood, through the spirit and into the memory. I am compelled to know because of something beyond me, calling me to her, from across the generations. Ana Dominga is sitting in the corner of my room, curled in her rocking chair, as old as the bark of a tree, watching me write her life. It is so painful for her to see herself be told like this, she who is as extant as a shadow, dependent on the living to write her long-dead story. It’s a compromise, for her to give me her words and for me to make them real again, so I sit, dutifully tapping, for my tía. Cada historia es una historia de familia, she says. Every story is a family story. She is full of truths like these. For her, every story is four daughters, a ruined fortune, an unlikely suitor, because those are the stories that get passed down from mother to daughter, aunt to niece, when the radio has been switched off or we are sitting to-gether under the violence of a hurricane, trying to pass the time until the calm. She maintains that here, especially, all stories are family stories, because they’re only decipherable through the strands of alien last names, each inextricable from a trait, a history, Spain, Cor-sica, Nigeria, New York, lawyers, poets, moneylenders, men of God. Because they wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the land, and the land wouldn’t mean much if it weren’t for them. The story that brought me to her, in fact, was from my tío abuelo, my great-uncle Lorenzo, and only circles back to her tangen-tially. —Did you ever hear the story about the Altieri?—. In the room with my mother, he speaks English, forgetting that we’re both Span-ish speakers. —No, tío, I haven’t. It goes like this: When Juan Altieri, a rich Corsican hacenda-do, married Maria Lartigaut Calder, the daughter of a slightly less

M OT H E R L A NDME L M I G NU C C I

E M I LYS A M WI L L I A M Sdigital photograph

16” x 20”

e x c e r p t f r o m

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wife having long passed, cared for dutifully, sweetly, by home-come Lídia. History wants so badly for these people to leave this earth in atonement, but Altieri passed surrounded by his seven children in a mansion that he built after the strategic acquisition of land made him the richest man on that side of the Cordillera. Lídia, who was still in middle age as beautiful as the inside of a ripe pomelo, took care of that house until she, too, died. Ana Dominga wants me to tell this story because she could have been her, Lídia; Ana Dominga was the one who married Álvaro, Lídia’s onetime novio, a suitable man after a not-so-suitable one. You will see how this changes the course of things, how this made things as they were. As my tío abuelo tells the story, he, as a young boy, was sent on an errand to the Altieri house to deliver a package of some kind. Lídia answered the door and asked him his name. To me, he says this, this heartbreaking accident of time, as though it were the punchline of a joke, the way he told the end of the first Altieri story. He gave his name—Soy Lorenzo Dominicci Torrei, el hijo de Álvaro Dominicci—, and in response, Lídia said: —¡Yo pudiera haber sido tu madre! I could have been your mother. Not, I was almost your moth-er. The subjunctive makes it improbable, but history makes it impos-sible. (The complicated thing is that, given the tangled connections of Corsicans in the town at that time, had she in fact been his mother, there is no guarantee that he and his brothers would have turned out any differently.) My tío abuelo laughs and laughs, the story over. Ana Dominga is shaken by the way Lorenzo, her son, my tío abuelo tells it. She hears I could have been your mother as a remind-er of a fact that had been drilled into her after almost a century: that she came as the second choice, though I suspect there is more to it than this. That when Álvaro was thwarted in his pursuit of Lídia by a transatlantic steamer, the possibility of her bloomed like red wine on a white jacket. She has, over a century, tried to forget, she wants me to know. She has tried to remember that she did so much more over a century than marry, but everything feels as if cast in a shadow. She owned and ran a café, the only of its kind, in Yauco, from the day she married to the day she slipped on wet marble and broke her femur in two places, leaving her bedridden for almost fifteen years until she died. Her husband by that time was but a distant memo-ry, a silhouette on a postage stamp, and the children of his various aventuras were long settled in places with Spanish names, though some dutifully returned to keep vigil over their tía. What was singu-larly amazing was that she lived over a hundred years, carefully lifting herself into her wheelchair and stationing herself at the balcony that overlooked the Plaza de Armas and beyond, towards Collores. She dislikes that I say lived, because in English it has a defin-itive end, whereas the Spanish, vivía, the imperfect, connotes better the ongoingness of her now-ended life. She dislikes that I tell this story in English at all. (It’s the only way I can tell it in good faith.) She

rich Corsican hacendado, they were quickly blessed with a daughter, Lídia. As people of these families do, they brought to Yauco from Ad-juntas a nameless Calder cousin who would take care of Lídia, allow-ing Maria to keep her hands clean. When the cousin became preg-nant, she was sent back to Adjuntas “for the shame,” my tío abuelo’s words, where her son was born and begat a line of to-this-day ille-gitimate Calders, born of that virgin shame. I, writing now, want to name it — a rape, it was a rape — but to have that word so stark at the end of a story my tío abuelo recalls humorously, the illegitimacy still the butt of the joke, seems unfaithful to the story, an overstep of mine not to tell it the way my tío abuelo does. Ana Dominga doesn’t take her eyes from mine for a second, willing me to tell it. I pause, soaking it in. I offer something harmless. —Wow, tío. That’s a story. It doesn’t end there. It’s really the beginning of a long story, says my tío abuelo, about Juan Altieri, who married into the family, by the way. When Maria Lartigaut Calder, now Maria Lartigaut de Altieri, passed away, Altieri married another woman, Enriqueta, from another prominent Yauco family, los Bartolomei. Enriqueta gave him a series of children and, with that gift, forbade his daughters from his first marriage, Lídia and Agostina, from marrying, so that they could take care of her and their father in their old age. It’s a story so typical I could name a dozen books with the same plot that have also been adapted for film, a pure family story según Ana Dominga. Of course they fell in love with handsome but unsuitable boys from the town. Lídia was in love with Álvaro, my bisabuelo, a distant cousin on the dead Lartigaut side. They had always known each other, but in the heat of late adolescence something came alive in each of them as they brushed past each other in the placita that anchored the church. Álvaro knew that she was an impossible love — everyone in the town, with its sole boulevard, knew — but pursued her anyway. They sent letters back and forth — te quiero, te amo, ardo por tus besos, etc. — until Mami and Papi found the secret stash un-der Lídia’s twin-size. Lídia protested — son suyas, Mami, nunca he mi-rado siquiera a este don nadie — but in the end she was sent back to Corsica with the other landowner’s naughty daughters. (The tragedy is that it’s assumed she did in fact love him too — but why? Women are always being exiled for being loved by men.) Agostina also se enamoró with a super don nadie, so don na-die that even my tío abuelo, keeper of secrets, town-in-La-Mancha’d him—de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme. They, however, skulked off to San Juan and then New York to get married, the soft mango of pregnancy barely curving out of her white dress, at City Hall, on the very edge of that island. (What the twists of this story have in common is their characters’ moving further and further away from the mountainside nucleus, a town known for less and less.) They only returned to Yauco when Altieri was on his deathbed, his second

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cannot control whether I render the subjunctive as would or could. She fears more than anything else the lack of control, which she feared as much in life as in death. Which is why she wants for me to tell the story of how she took control, or didn’t, and how she learned to soak in the salitre that came in off the Caribbean Sea, which is to say turned her face to the south. This is all between the pages of her poemario, the collec-tion of her poems that was bound for the occasion of her hundredth birthday. These poems were squarely in the genre of poemas de mujer — in English, inelegantly, woman poems. Always watching, ob-serving, chronicling first communions, weddings, births and deaths like a reporter. Para Tonio en su boda. A Paloma, un ave maravillosa. Contra el vicio. Four- line stanzas. Simple rhymes. It was enough to simply write them against the great silencer (time) and a society of men who would never take a mujer poeta seriously. What no one knew was that, when the book was presented to her, she cried not because of the tenderness of the gesture, but rather because the incomplete poemario would be her legacy, be-cause that she had not in life had the courage to write about the profound sadness she had faced; indeed, she hadn’t written a single poem during that period at all. It was impossible to be a woman and a mother and to be sad and to fear and to love all at once while also writing it down, for her. And so she gives it to me, less like a burden than like a white, handknit shawl draped around my shoulders; it is mine to pass on to my daughters, and to their daughters, and so on. This I know because I was there, at least in body. The first daughter to be born from her matriline since her own two, I was brought to her like an offering. She held me in her ancient lap and, because she could no longer speak by then, looked up, flush, her eyes wet with involuntary tears, to cheers and clapping from all the primos and primas. Then I was brought back to the mainland to grow. It wasn’t until many years later that my tía and I knew each oth-er again, when she appeared to me at the foot of my borrowed bed in Rio Piedras.

U N T I T L E DDAV E B U S H

archival pigment print

20” x 24”

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C L A R KR O S A P O L I Ndigital photograph

S TO NE WA L L I N T H E T E N TS I M O N S M I T H

oil on masonite

18” x 25”

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W HAT D O YO U WA N T ? W H E N D O YO U WA N T I T ?

J E F F R E Y G I B S O N9 2 . 5 ” x 3 9 ” x 6 4 ”driftwood, hardware, wool, canvas, glass beads, Artist’s own repurposed painting, artificial sinew, metal jingles, metal studs, nylon fringe, nylon ric rac, high fire glazed ceramic (full view on the left, detail on the right)

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D I G I TA L TO U R I S MA L A N N A R E BB E C K

google earth

U N T I T L E DS A M YO UK I L I S

digital photograph

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Thallus, you queer, softer than a hare’s fur,Or goose guts, or the lobe of a little ear,Or an old codger’s sickly cock, cobwebbed with neglect,All this and still, Thallus, hungrier than a wild storm,When the sloth god discloses sluggish observers,Return my toga to me, which you pounced upon,And my imported napkins and Spanish tapestries, youJackass, which you widely flaunt like antiquities.Pry them from your talons at once and send them back,Lest scorched whips hideously defaceYour downy ribs and supple little hands;Then you’ll thrash in an unprecedented fashion,Like a raft caught in open waters by the raging wind.

C AT U L L U S X X VF R A I S E R K A N S T E I NE R

C H R Y S A L I SS C OT T VA NDE R V E E N

wood, printed silk

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O N C E I WA S FA S T A ND S T R O NGP E T E R S C H R E I B E R

performance/installation

This project began with the idea of synthesizing printmaking and weight-training. a printing plate for each letter of the alphabet was created, as well as a printing “barbell,” designed to hold one of these plates at a time. Ink was applied individually to each letter before placing it in the barbell, which was then hoisted up and pushed into a sheet of paper fastened into the nearby wall in order to make an impression on the paper. Over the course of about a half hour, the phrase, “Once, I was fast and strong” was printed onto the paper, one letter at a time.

-PS

U N T I T L E D P R I N T SI S S Y C A S S O U

7” x 7”

watercolor monotype with chine collé

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S E L F P O R T R A I T ( O N S TO O L )O R I C A R L I Nwood, latex sheet, hair, silicon gel

o p p o s i t e p a g e :

C O P O R T R A I T ( R , S , D )J U L I A N NE S WA R T Z

digital c-print

24” x 16”

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A N TOI NE M I DA N T

U N T I T L E D I Xsilver gelatin print

S O R R Y, B U T I WI L L B E S P E NDI NG T H I S S UM ME R I N A C AV E B Y T H E S E A

14” x 16”

oil on wood

S A R A H B A S TA C K Y

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U N T I T L E DJ U L I A M I N I N

original audio recordings, handmade speaker em-bedded in sculptural garment, partially exhibited

with performance in a simulated domestic

The sound sculpture garment is exhibited with instructional text, directing the viewer to be seated, and "Be dressed". The viewer is then dressed in the garment by a technician. When worn, the semi-parabolic collar creates an intimate auditory experience. The distorted vocal recordings of bodily health "affirmations" project through the conductive fabric speaker sewn into the collar's interior. The viewer is simultaneously being pampered by the audio and the subservient techni-cian, emulating feminine rituals of self care.

-JM

U N T I T L E DI Z Z Y L E U NGdigital photograph

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C O N F I DE N C E I N A G R O WI NG A ME R I C A B I R D L A N D , NE W YO R K ( 1 9 6 1 )

35 mm film photograpgh

Q UE S T I O N MA R K W I N D O W, NE W YO R K ( 1 9 6 0 ’ S )

35 mm film photograph

L A R R Y F I N K

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L E O S T E V E N S - L U B I NT H E G O L DE N PA NDE M I C

woodwork, casting and woodblock prints

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WAT E R B A B I E SMA DI S O N E D M O N D

35mm film photograph

o p p o s i t e p a g e :

TA L K I NG I N C I R C L E Sapparatus for diegetic film sound; projection map, loudspeaker, steel cable, mixer, 6:25 .mov

(ProRes422), color, sound, 1440 x 1080

C O L L I N L E I TC H

VI DE O WA L L # 4 ( YO U W E R E B O R N . . . )inkjet prints in dvd cases

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L E I G HR O S A P O L I Ndigital photograph

DE R I V E D O C UME N TL I Z Z Y C H E ME Lpaper

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SC

HO

OL

FR

OM

A D

RE

AM

SIM

ON

SM

ITH

oil

on

ca

nva

s 72”

X 4

5”

Some star

sickens away from its the. An unoriginal

contagion weighs down, not so much

falling as suffering

toward the mundane, like a crust of snow

becoming brackish mud. We’re anointed

by these vagaries and their

iconographic slights

as we peer closely into the initialed surface

of a gorgeous blank, as if to discover

metonymy’s touch. The field

opens and closes its eye, blinking

between shadow and

radiance, or between the dream

and what we might perceive as we rush

toward the ditch. Everything slated,

ambitions of a girl

visible for miles, her smiling aperture

and her lists, her vague hair

tossed, her arms reaching for fire.

At the window, a man peers in

as a fat thing ignites the trees.

S Y MP TO M SA N NE L A U T E R B A C H

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VISUAL STAFFANNE BURNETT

CLARA HARLOWCLAUDINE ELYSEE

ILANA SILBERISABELLA LEUNGKELLAN ROHDELIZZY CHEMEL

MAX WORTMANNIALL MURPHY

PETER SCHREIBERPHILIP POZNANSKY

RAPHAEL WOLFSHULIAN M-HILTON

WILLEM KOPPEL

WRITTEN STAFFERIN CARDEN

ETHAN LEVENSONJESSICA DAGG

KASSANDRA THATCHERKEVIN SOTO

MAGGIE ZAVGRENSAVANNAH BACHMANSOPHIA O’BRIEN-UDRY

TERRENCE ARJOONTHATCHER SNYDER

EDITORSCOLLIN LEITCHSAM WILLIAMSSAM YOUKILISSOPHIE STRAND

LAYOUTNIALL MURPHYSAM YOUKILIS

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2 0 1 6

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JOHN DISANTISJARRETT PARISELAURA RAMSEYTHERESA VANETTEN

CONTRIBUTORSDONORSprinted by quality printing, inc.

BP

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