just to start again
with the cup I hold
a symbol
more impressive and eternal
than my ever more
malnourished
pedestal of a body
First. A dream. It worked in the 80s. Dallas is one of the most iconic series of all time. No one questioned The Dream. Pam Ewing, known for hitting the sauce, passed out, nightmared that she flattened Bobby with his Mercedes, woke up, found him singing in the shower.
FILM / The Stain / Steve Mitchell
When I was growing up, White Jesus was everywhere, but I never thought of him as a real person. He was like Zeus or John Henry or Captain Kirk—iconic figures operating outside my daily life, moving in worlds so far away they were impossible.
It’s been a difficult few years since the arrival of the dishes. Her longtime boyfriend left her, followed by a smattering of men she met online who wouldn’t even stick around to help her start the soaking process. She missed out on a round of promotions at her law firm, then missed out on another round of promotions.
the crown, cartoon gold, came unclasped, crooked & sweat-wrinkled. when we polished off the bottle of stolen champagne, bubbles frothed our grease-gilded lips. this is how you left me, royal with delirium, the crown discarded under a pile of damp laundry.
Dissolved endeavors,
corroding thus resurgence,
tremble and embark.
FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / May 2023 / Gabriel Ricard
Gabe loves going to the movies and we do, too, in this month’s Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo.
Electrocution
isn’t never a laughing matter,
especially for distant writers.
When are you going to
shift from survival mode
to living mode?
POETRY / Frozen/ David Hanlon
I remember it so vividly
From the opening
The camera skimming across
The cold
Cracked
Desert floor
I’m
10 years old
Standing there
Watching
Madonna standing there
Head down
Arms at her sides
Long
Jet-black hair
Ice-white skin
Synthesizers
Merging with strings
Silk black shawl
Snaking
Across the barren ground
To find her
Cloak her
She fell back
Hit the ground
Burst
Into a flock of dark birds
Flying
In all directions
If I could melt your heart
I’m
10 years old
Still
This poem was written as a response to the music video to Madonna's single, ‘Frozen’, released in 1998. It also includes lyrics from the song.
FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / April 2023 / Gabriel Ricard
Gabe returns this month with Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo.
ONE PERFECT EPISODE / So Many Stars: Better Call Saul—"Winner" / Diddle Knabb
The season four finale plays out over two devastating storylines. In one thread, Jimmy (refuses to) grapple with the death of his brother Chuck. This exploration of grief leads Jimmy to officially adopt the moniker Saul Goodman. Until this point, we have only known the main protagonist as the charming fuckup Jimmy McGill.
ONE PERFECT EPISODE / Succession: "Connor's Wedding" / Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner
“Connor's Wedding” (S4 E3) starts off exactly as it sounds: the gang gears up for their elder half-brother's wedding to the (incredible!) Willa, who none of them respect. Connor has essentially purchased his bride to be; she was a call girl when they started “dating”, and the previous episode centered around his being in his feels, as Willa had run away from their rehearsal dinner.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR / April 2023 / Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner
Hello, friends!
Welcome to the April Pop Culture issue, our grandest issue of the year, jammed packed with nougatty pop culture goodness! In this issue you'll find everything from praise for Saul Goodman to condemnation of Hugh Hefner. From poetry to fiction to film crit, this annual extravaganza of sights and sounds is sure to amaze at best, and at worst kill an hour or two of your time.
Recently I've found myself really indulging in cinema more than I have in the past; I'll admit around 2017 I fell away from movies in favor of more feel-good programming like Great British Baking Show or The Good Place. The world fucking sucks a lot of the time, and I didn't want to indulge in any more suffering than I had to. God forbid I relive the physical pain I felt watching Christine in 2016. But at the beginning of this year my husband and I started doing themed movie months: giallo, horny, action, cinematographic masterpieces, and it's been so amazing to revisit old favorites and discover new ones (I'm probably the last on earth to see Paris,Texas). Additionally, I've started going to the movies a lot more on my own, which I had never done prior to this year. Consuming this much film media has profoundly increased my appreciation of it, as well as informed my own writing. Can't beat that, especially as someone who is working on a few scripts of my own.
I feel like every year I try to write some schmaltzy nonsense akin to what they blather on about at the beginning of the Oscars, and I'm not going to do that here. Instead I'm going to say this: pop culture is important to me, and sure it's important to you too, in its own way. Whether you're losing a full day of work because of the Scandoval or weeping over a double feature of Too Wong Fu and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, whether you're rocking out to the Inferno score or yelling at Ticketmaster over the price of Taylor Swift tickets, pop culture is there to entertain you, nourish you, or fill some time until your next great adventure.
Now for some news: we reopen for all categories on May 1 and will remain open through June. Our chapbook press is busy getting Candice Kelsey's Choose Your Own Poem ready (you can preorder it OR purchase a subscription to our 2022/23 catalog here) and then we'll be at work on Trapper Markelz's Childproof Sky and Cathleen Conway's Nocturnes. Watch for those preorders, coming soon.
I hope you have a lovely spring.
Always,
KCH
Nervous laughter got passed around with the Parker House rolls. Most of us at the table wouldn’t have known the movie sources, but we knew that Uncle Alfred’s patter, like his clothes and hair style, were borrowed affectations. Nothing was genuinely his. He was a pastiche, an imitation of a man being a man.
the bartender is wearing one of those high school
graduating class hoodies, the year 2018 & the name
of every student, they seem overwhelmed & when we ask
about appetizers, they snap, “No more ordering food, I’m done!”
looks like we’re getting overpriced arena chicken fingers then
Do you hear how loudly the hooves of the beasts’ rumble, daddy,
Your walls are too thin, you’re already breathing so heavily –
my bone of time is still open, my nerve of fear is still alive.
TELEVISION / An Ode to Anna Gunn, or "The One Thing Skyler White Was Wrong About" / Brian Sheridan
While I watched the show, I made sure to keep track of everything Skyler did. I was curious, what could she have done that made her so hated?
I always feared that one day
the laughs would simply end -
each of my lines
falling to earth,