Imagine the time
saved! Now you
can have lived
an entire lifetime
to gether with
someone between
breakfast and watering
your bonsai
Three centuries later, or so it seemed, I jump back three centuries into the next gallery. I look at samurai facial armor, demonesque guises snarling and staring back at me with hollow eyes somehow less dead than my own.
My essay wasn’t about the glories of colonizing planets or how we will conquer the universe. It was quite the opposite. I talked about how colonizing every known planet would still leave us in an unspeakably small part of the universe, that if we paid attention, we would be humbled. That the smallest things can take us down.
My fascination with food started early. My parents were excellent cooks; my father was a passionate lover of eating out and educated us on foods of different cultures. I remember the taste of things from a young age. The freshest of fried calamari in Lumut, where our family would rent a holiday house on the beach. The smell of fish drying on the wharves.
Nolan shook the box of kitchen matches in the dark until Johnny found it. He pulled one out and struck it. Nolan liked the way a single match lit up the closet more than a whole handful. The one match was just spooky enough. It was perfect.
100 WORD BOOK REVIEWS / The Meadow / Kristin Garth
Kristin Garth’s novel, The Meadow (Alien Buddha Press), builds upon her autobiographical poetry collection of the same name. Make no mistake: The Meadow’s not salacious BDSM Twilight fan fic marketed toward mass audiences. What’s key to understanding this work is the humanity with which Garth imbues her young protagonist, Scarlet. As Scarlet explores her sexuality through lurid encounters with various characters, the reader cannot help but simultaneously sympathize and empathize with her as she attempts to reach catharsis. Furthermore, Garth paints this niche community with respect, while also fairly criticizing certain aspects of it. Readers wanting sole titillation look elsewhere.
FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / October 2022 / Gabriel Ricard
Gabe gives his take on streaming platforms and more in this month’s Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR / October 2022 / Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner
Hello friends! I can't believe this year is winding down as quickly as it is. Here we are with our penultimate issue of 2022; we're back in November, then we're off for the holidays. I want to thank you for your patience if you are a contributor to our journal. I know many of you were waiting upwards of the year to show up on the site. I'm happy to announce that the year long wait is no longer a thing. We're caught up, and now we're only asking you for a more reasonable few months wait!
FILM / Inherent Vice: A Story of Experience / Austin Nichols
There are two ways that Anderson makes a better movie by telling it as a series of experiences. The first is how the mode of storytelling really allows for the theme of paranoia to be driven home.
Matt seemed relieved to have me to confide in, but he had a flight to catch, and I had anxious parents awaiting me in the classroom. “Get on that plane,” I typed discreetly into my purse, “and call when you want to talk. I’ll be here.”
As she waited sixty seconds for the microwave to reheat her coffee, she heard the low din of the TV coming from their bedroom. It was nearing noon and she did not see any progress on the outside projects.
was loneliness your childhood pet
what elementary school(s) did you attend
how quickly can you pack a bedroom
who was your childhood hero
who held you down
Chuck typically concluded his lecture about my father’s miserable dental habits by shaking his head dejectedly and admonishing me: “What a waste, David! Don’t let it happen to you. Be wiser and have those checkups.” Not that I had a choice. Dental misbehavior was not an option for a youngster with Uncle Chuck in the family. He saw to it that I was in his office every few months. I dreaded those visits and could understand why my father had forgone them, whatever the consequences.
“I never wanted that to be the first thing people thought of, when they thought of me,” says Peter. “But I came to realize that pretending that part of me didn’t exist was hurting me, creatively. And fans – they know when you’re not being truthful with them and they like when you are. So, I think in the end, we did the right thing.”
I can’t get to the second freezer. I can’t get to the clothes washer. I can’t get to my bicycle, so I bus it to Suds Your Duds. “PRUNE PILFERER” notices have been taped to the lamp posts and stapled to the telephone poles. I peer at the grainy image of the pajama-clad woman. This is Dubuque and Raj’s handiwork. Yesterday Sonny told me that Raj and Dubuque are circulating a petition to ban me from the neighborhood.
Albert took a deep breath and swiped his forehead. "Yes, you're right, my ass is fat. I feel bad about that, but hey, I'm well past 50 now, so what do you do?" He held up one hand gesturing a complete surrender to aging. "Kids? I wish. Doris and I tried for 10 years. Just didn't happen. Then she left. Didn't say why. I still got the auto repair shop though."
His were not like the hands of the boy who came around to distract Luba from her daily routine, a makeshift mechanic who spent his days frisking about in a body shop, his Civil Engineering degree from the University of Moscow hidden away in a suitcase, waiting for better days. He had the hands of someone who made an honest living, pipes and bolts, and those pungent fumes that permeated his hair...they made him all the more endearing.
I am made less whole, but what’s separate is dead,
the gnats and flies are thankful, the least still give their least,
the smallest parts of me, the black rot is a feast,
I should be thankful for that, pests shall birth their beasts,
All afternoon the drone of the Simon’s two-ton splitter. The hydraulic blade cracks chainsaw chunks. Bucket-loads of splits divided equally among four trailers, Eddie’s old Ford tractor moving back and forth from the waiting pile. Sawing, splitting, loading, unloading.