Fluent Spring 2016

ARTS | CULTURE | EVENTS

Spring 2016 | Vol 4 No 4

“Still Life With Pears and Vase” by Michael Timothy Davis

CONTENTS

Spring 2016

Michael Timothy Davis: Renaissance Man

May Adrales: Stranger in a Familiar Land

Lisa Sheirer: Inspired by Nature

Showing Up

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Letter From the Editor Behind the Scenes

Ears, Eyes & Soul Rick Hill / F.A.M.E.

Poetry Terence Winch

Fiction Frederik Soukup, “The Tourist”

Ed:Cetera U.S. EPA et al v Paul Bunyan

Coda The Eight-Pack

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C O N T R I B U T O R S Catherine Baldau is a writer and editor. As Publications Specialist for the Harpers Ferry Historical Association, she has edited and designed numerous books, including the award-winning harpers ferry under fire: a border town in the american civil war.

Todd Coyle is a journeyman musician who has performed in and around the Eastern Panhandle of wv and around the country for over 30 years. He has worked in folk, blues, pop, jazz and country bands as a guitarist, bassist, singer, producer and sound man.

Zach Davis is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in numerous print and online publications, such as carve, the first line, drunk monkeys and numerous volumes of the anthology of appalachian writers. He is the Fiction Editor of fluent.

Benita Keller is a fine art photographer and photojournalist. Living with the land on a 40acre farm shaped her ideology and photography, but a trip to Vietnam inspired her to photograph people. While she has photographed in Africa, Vietnam, Russia, Haiti and Cuba, Keller doesn’t need to leave home to find subject matter—life is her subject matter. www.benitakellerphotography.com.

Sean O’Leary is a playwright and management consultant who lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. His newest play, walt whitman’s secret, will premiere this October at the Frank Theatre in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Judy Olsen, a Washington, DC, native residing in Shepherdstown, WV, has had a

love affair with photography since her teens.

After 30+ years in the corporate world, she rediscovered her passion and enjoys capturing the world of light and shadow that will never come again in exactly the same way.

Paula Pennell, having developed technical proposals for over 20 years, enjoys the contrast of writing about creative people and their art. An artist herself, Paula works with hot glass and keeps bees at her home in Monrovia, MD. Keron Psillas is a photographer, writer, instructor and mentor, with an extensive background in the print and publishing industry.

She has three books published: meditation for two and the alchemy of lightness, both with longtime collaborator, Mestre Dominique Barbier, and loss and beauty.

Find her work and writing at www.keronpsillas. com and www.lossandbeauty.com.

Sheila Vertino is returning to her roots as a freelance writer and journalist, after a career as a magazine editor-in-chief and book and research publisher. Based in Shepherdstown, she describes herself as a culturally curious word nerd.

Ed Zahniser is a retired career bureaucrat and co-founder of the Shepherdstown (wv) good news paper. His poetry has appeared in over 150 literary venues in the U.S. and U.K.; seven anthologies; five books, five chapbooks, and three gallery shows of poetry as works on walls. He contributes to fluent, wv observer, adirondack almanack blog. His recent book of poems is at the end of the self-help rope, Slowread Books, 2016.

fluent Spring 2016 | Vol 4 No 4 Nancy McKeithen editor & publisher Sheila Kelly Vertino associate editor Kathryn Burns visual arts editor Zachary Davis fiction editor Todd Coyle music editor Sarah Soltow proofreader Contributing Writers Amy Mathews Amos, Catherine Baldau, Paula Pennell, Ed Zahniser Contributing Photographers Benita Keller, Curt Mason, Mark Muse, Judy Olsen, Keron Psillas, Carl Schultz, Sterling “Rip” Smith, Hali Taylor Submissions For information on submitting unsolicited fiction, nonfiction, plays and poetry, please see the website: www.fluent-magazine.com/submissions.

Please submit arts news to news@fluent-magazine.com.

Fluent Magazine is published quarterly and distributed via email. Available online at www.fluent-magazine.com.

To Subscribe www.fluent-magazine.com/subscribe All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be duplicated or reprinted without permission from the publisher. © 2016 Fluent Magazine, LLC

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Jefferson County, WV is a Certified Arts Community.

Behind the Scenes Each month, Kathryn Burns at The Bridge Gallery in Shepherdstown, WV has an opening, with new work throughout the gallery, fresh flowers, her signature bowls of York Peppermint Patties and apples, wine and hors d’oeuvres. What you don’t see are the deconstruction and decision-making behind the scenes the days before the event: artwork waiting to be hung; a stray hammer; a brush and can of paint for touch-ups; a broom.

For Artomatic@Frederick 2016 Directors Jennifer Finley and Steven Dobbin, their team of volunteers and hundreds of artists, “behind the scenes” was two unoccupied buildings on East Church Street in Historic Downtown Frederick, MD. The collective seven floors and 40,000 square feet of space has been transformed into an “art playground” and features the work of more than 350 local and regional artists through June 10th.

For artist Michael Davis, “behind the scenes” is behind a black curtain in the Badgerhound Gallery he and artist Emily Davis opened in downtown Shepherdstown just over a year ago. When he’s not teaching and the gallery is closed, the curtain is drawn and Davis paints there— disciplined, happy and away from distraction.

Director May Adrales’ work is behind a different curtain, as the director of “The Wedding Gift,” by playwright Chisa Hutchinson, at this year’s Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) in July.

All connecting art and audience.

Nancy McKeithen Editor & Publisher

Artomatic@Frederick May 7–June 10 115 and 117 East Church Street Frederick, Maryland www.artomaticfrederick.org fluent | 5

EARS, EYES & SOUL

Keeping the Acoustic Music Tradition Alive

By TODD Coyle In the age-old tradition of song circles and community acoustic music gatherings, this grassroots organization embodies the troubadour spirit. Todd Coyle interviews Rick Hill, one of the founders of F.A.M.E.

Fluent What is FAME and what is its purpose?

Rick Hill Frederick Acoustic Music Enterprise

(FAME) is a volunteer organization devoted to the nurture, preservation and promotion of acoustic music in and around Frederick County, MD. We are made up of folks who enjoy making and/or listening to acoustic music in its many forms­ — singer/songwriter, bluegrass, country, jazz, gospel, classical, choral, etc. We want to encourage people to play the music, help people understand the roots of the music and help people find places to listen to the music.

Fluent How did FAME get started?

RH FAME got started back in 2010 when a small

group of performing musicians got together and decided we needed an organization that would help us expand our audience base, help us become better performers and generally undergird a music scene that seemed to be leaning more and more toward electric music. Todd Walker, Tomy Wright, Rod Deacy, David Wilcox and I sat down together at the Frederick Coffee Company and began discussing ways we might make this happen.

Fluent Where does FAME have performances?

RH We have several events that are ongoing. One is

a Song Circle that happens at Dublin Roasters on East Market Street on the second Saturday of each month from 1–3 pm. In April we had a concert at Frederick Community College­ — the Celebration of Acoustic Music, which featured six of the County’s best performers. It’s the first step in a multi-year 6 | fluent

project to develop a listening venue for good quality, local performers that fits somewhere between the coffeehouses and the Weinberg Center. FAME also supports a variety of open mics around the county.

Fluent What is your roll in FAME?

RH I am the president of FAME.

Fluent What is Rick Hill’s musical history?

RH I am a life-long musician. I began playing the guitar

when I was 10, learning songs by the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary. I started performing when I was in fifth grade. Over the years I have dabbled in a variety of music, but have always loved folk music.

Though I never met him and never saw him in concert, I consider myself a disciple of Pete Seeger. Music can be a powerful force (for good or evil). Music was a huge force in the anti-war movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the women’s movement. As songwriters and singers, we have a responsibility to bring music that has some depth of meaning to our audiences. That meaning might come from the song itself, or from the context in which the song is performed.

Over the years I have developed IAS­ — instrument acquisition syndrome­ — finding myself attracted to almost anything with strings attached. I have several guitars, several hammered dulcimers (which I built), a harp, a bowed psaltry, a nyckleharpa, an upright bass, several fiddles and a no-strings-attached accordion. My musical tastes have expanded as well and now include folk, country, bluegrass, swing, Celtic and traditional, with occasional dips into pop from the 30s and 40s.

I have performed up and down the East Coast in churches, schools, camps, cafés and music circles.

With all of that, I find the most enjoyment comes from playing with other folks.

Fluent Any standouts from FAME history?

RH I think our biggest surprise has been the Song

Circle at Dublin Roasters. We are now in our third year and trying to sing all of the 1200+ songs in the Rise Up Singing songbook. I am always amazed at the collective knowledge of the group. We can usually find someone who has at least heard almost any song in the book. Most of the time there is at least one person who can sing the song to get us going.

Fluent What’s the difference between a song circle

and a tune circle?

RH Song and tune circles are as old as music. Any time folks get together to share music becomes a music

Photo provided by Rick Hill.

circle. It is an equal sharing. There may be a person or two or three who will actually do the leading simply because they have the stronger voice, the stronger playing ability, but in a music circle everyone gets a chance to choose a song. Many music circles have particular genres­ — I play in several bluegrass circles.

The FAME song circle encourages choices from Rise Up Singing. A song circle focuses on singing; a tune circle focuses on playing­ — usually fiddle tunes in the bluegrass, Celtic and/or Old Time genres.

Some music circles are more structured than others. When I go to a circle for the first time, I pay attention to the order, to who is doing the choosing and what the genre is. First-timers should always hang back and get a feel for the circle. I don’t lead until I am asked, but I will play quietly in the background. Generally, there are rules for the circle, even though they may be hard to figure out. Whoever is running the circle sets the rules. u

fluent | 7

I find I watch much less television with music circles available. I can be out every night playing with different folks and that is far more fun than sitting home watching TV. Fluent What’s in the future for FAME?

RH Our big project is developing the venue for good

performers. We are also very interested in helping kids learn about this music and appreciate the amazing history that goes with it. We have money for music class scholarships and hope that kids will take advantage of

that. We want to help out in schools. Some Frederick County schools are participating in STEAM, a program that involves using the arts to help kids learn Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. I am hoping we can get FAME involved with that.

Fluent Where can our readers get more info about

FAME? RH Our website is www.frederickacoustic.org. It has upcoming events, calendar, scholarship info and membership info. fluent

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By Catherine Baldau

Michael Timothy Davis:

Renaissance Man

T

he Badgerhound Studio and Gallery in Shepherdstown is more studio than gallery. Paint-speckled folding tables and chairs consume the space. Art supplies, casts and canvases, finished and unfinished, line the perimeter.

When there are no students, the lights are out, and the place seems deserted. But behind a black curtain, away from the distractions of German Street, the coffee shops and bars, the friends he’s known for years, Michael Davis sits at his easel with the discipline of the masters. Rembrandt. Caravaggio. Michelangelo. Working, working, working. Invoking their methods and their spirit to perpetuate classical art in these modern times.

Davis paints strictly in oil in the classical realism style. Whether still life, landscape or portrait, tight and controlled or loose alla prima, he employs very traditional techniques and materials. “All of my boards and canvases are primed in a very traditional way,” he says. “I used to grind my own pigments to make my own paint. It’s a very all-inclusive painting style. I make all the boards and make my own canvases and I enjoy that. It’s all part of the process for me.”

A process that has traversed centuries. “The only difference between myself and the masters,” Davis says, “is that I don’t have my students prepare my canvases for me.” He smiles. “But maybe someday.”

Drawing from the Masters Davis credits his natural progression from artist to teacher to his parents. A West Virginia native, his mother taught fourth grade, his father high school art. “My mother has a picture of me when I was two years old, sitting at my dad’s table drawing and playing with watercolors. It was always something I liked to do, but the idea of becoming an artist was something that came later. I didn’t know what an artist was. I just liked to draw.”

His parents encouraged art and introduced him to the masters. Davis’ voice heightens with a touch of awe as he speaks their names: “Caravaggio. Leonardo.

Raphael…. As a kid, the greats were like mythical figures to me. They were in my dad’s big books—they were the art gods.” u 10 | fluent

“Falstaff,” Oil on board, 48˝ x 24˝.

Very direct, intense lighting creates the drama in Davis’ paintings. The dramatic shadows strive for a Shakespearean effect. fluent | 11

12 | fluent

“After the Duel,” Oil on board, 24˝ x 36˝. u

“Kevin,” Oil on linen. “I tell my students: Think like a painter but paint like a sculptor. That’s the process. Think about it like you’re building it up. Trying to capture that depth, you have to think about the concepts of drawing and painting, but paint like a sculptor. When you’re painting the front, you’re also painting the back, you just don’t know it.”

The classic artwork fascinated Davis, as did the idea of the work itself. He longed to go to an artist’s studio and learn, but his father assumed his own teachings would suffice. “Going someplace like Williamsburg, as a kid, I was interested in where the blacksmiths were. I wanted to be in their work space. I liked the idea of being surrounded by your tools and the product of your work.”

His paintings reflect the classical realism of the artists he admired: Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Gérôme, Jacques Louis David. If he had to pick one?

He rubs his chin to consider this, but the answer comes quickly: Michelangelo.

The experience of walking down the hallway of the Galleria dell’Accademia in 14 | fluent

Florence and seeing the “David” for the first time still resonates. “I stayed for a few hours,” he says. “I just stood in there and walked around. It was crazy.”

Finding the Life of the Apprentice

“The Veteran” (above) and “Drummer” (below), both charcoal on paper. Davis visits past centuries through his reenactor series.

The area’s Civil War sites, as well as the costumed participants at renaissance festivals inspire his dramatic portraits.

“As a kid,” Davis recalls, “my idea of being an artist was being an art teacher. That was all I knew.”

After high school, Davis enrolled at then Shepherd College to be an art educator. Having very classical tendencies in a very modern school proved his patience as an artist and a person. He puts it politely: “I learned a lot at Shepherd, but not necessarily what I wanted to learn.”

After earning a BFA in painting, Davis investigated graduate schools. In Baltimore he discovered the game-changer: the Schuler School of Fine Arts.

The school opened in the 1950s, a rebuke to the post-World War II modern art movement. It was founded by Hans Schuler, Jr., director of the sculpture department at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and his wife Ann Didusch Schuler, a renowned portrait painter who had apprenticed under Jacques Maroger. Continuing the legacy of Maroger and his father, Hans Schuler, Sr. (Baltimore’s famed “Monument Maker”), Schuler located the school in his father’s atelier on Lafayette Avenue. Here, Michael Davis finally found the traditional training he had been seeking his entire life.

“When I walked in there for the first time I just knew. This was everything I ever wanted.” The 4-year program uses the methods and techniques of the old masters. “As a first year student you do nothing but draw. You do cast or Bargue drawings. Eye, nose, ear.

Very detailed drawing, measuring with calipers or the sight-size method. You’re training your eyes, brain and hand to communicate.” First-year students also take portrait, figure, and anatomy classes — all of the basics needed to become an expert draftsman. Students u fluent | 15

“The Red Couch,” Oil on linen, 20˝ x 24˝

don’t paint at all until the second year. “The essence of everything is drawing,” Davis says. “You must be able to draw before you can paint or sculpt.”

In addition to the studio training he had always craved, Davis received a new life directive at the school — and it came from Ann Schuler herself. “She told me, ‘You have to open a school like this in West Virginia.’ When Ann said that, I thought, yes.

I’m going to create that….I will have the first atelier in West Virginia.”

From Journeyman to Master Following Schuler’s edict, Davis returned to Shepherdstown, baking bread on German Street until he sold enough paintings to dedicate himself full-time to his craft. Without any solicitation, he picked up his first student. Then another and another, all by word of mouth. He worked first out of his attic, where the space only allowed one master and apprentice at a time, then moved to the vape lounge, another space 16 | fluent

not exactly conducive to painting. Teaching sustained him through the recession, but he still needed the right space. He finally found it on West German Street.

In April 2015, Davis and Emily Vaughn opened Badgerhound Studio and Gallery. Though not yet an accredited atelier, Badgerhound duplicates the atmosphere and methods of the master/apprentice studio.

“I am not a ‘Sunday painter’ type of artist or teacher,” Davis says. “When people come in and want to learn how to paint, I say ‘All right, we’re going to start by drawing.’ The type of student I want will say, ‘Okay that’s perfect, let’s start with drawing.’ And then they draw for a very long time.”

He teaches high school and college students, but the majority are retired adults, some who have been with him for over four years. All of them take the instruction very seriously. The common denominator among them: They don’t just want to draw, they want u

“Arrangement of Gourds and Deer Skull,” Oil on linen, 36˝ x 24˝. fluent | 17

“The Painter’s Tools,” Oil on panel, 11˝x 14˝.

to learn how to draw. And they are willing to put in the hours to do that.

“I tell my students that the painting is the easy part. The concepts of drawing and painting are very simple. There’s a lot to it, but it’s a very simple, zen type of philosophy: It’s complex in its simplicity.

Learning the technical aspects, how to draw, how to paint, color theory — those things are easy. The time involved is the difficult part.”

Davis’ most often repeated instruction to students: Slow down. “There’s a lot about art that is not fun,” he says. “Everybody wants it to be a very fun, creative process, but a lot of it is just sitting down and working when you don’t want to work. People that make it are the ones who do that. People that don’t are the ones that only work when they feel like working.”

For Michael Davis, art is more than the product.

It’s what goes into it. The reward is in the work. So when the lights are out and the curtain is drawn, be assured the master is at his easel. And he is happy to be there. fluent 18 | fluent

The Badgerhound Studio and Gallery 110 W German St, Shepherdstown, WV 25443 badgerhoundgallery.com Hours: Sat–Sun, 10 am–5 pm Current and Upcoming Shows: “Bone/Bloom: New Work by Emily Vaughn” emilyvaughnfineart.com Michael Timothy Davis, Opening July 9 The Badgerhound Gallery holds drawing and painting classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 9 am–12 pm and 1–4 pm. Friday is an open studio, non-instructional day. For class inquiries, call 304.261.6028, email michael@michaeltimothydavis.com, or visit www.michaeltimothydavis.com.

Children’s art classes are held on Wednesdays. For information, contact Emily Vaughn at 443.798.5151 or MissEmilyArt@gmail.com, or visit MissEmilyArt.com.

pen/man/ship

by Christina Anderson

NOT MEDEA

AN NNPN Rolling world premiere by Allison Gregory

THE WEDDING GIFT world premiere by Chisa Hutchinson

20TH CENTURY BLUES world premiere by Susan Miller

THE SECOND GIRL

by Ronan Noone

July 8 - 31

contemporaryamericantheaterfestival AT S H E P H E R D U N I V E R S I T Y

CATF.ORG • 800.999.CATF fluent | 19

Ma

By Sean O’Leary

ay Adrales:

Stranger in a Familiar Land

Y

ou could argue that it all started with Homer transporting the always-beset Odysseus from one strange and scary place to another. And Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels emphatically established it as a literary genre. Then, Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, gave the genre a name. So that by the time Charlton Heston donned a loincloth in “Planet of The Apes” and made “the stranger in a strange land” a pop-culture phenomenon, we were accustomed to bonding with unfortunate outsiders who struggle to adapt to alien cultures where convention as they or as we know it is turned on its head.

And why do authors and playwrights employ the now-familiar “stranger in a strange land” trope?

Sometimes to promote visions of a better life and a better society, sometimes to warn us against unforeseen dangers to ourselves or the environment, often to expose society’s absurdities and hypocrisies, and sometimes just to entertain (“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”) But, regardless of their literary goals, authors do it because they understand that our tendency to identify with helpless strangers is spontaneous and profound and that it causes us, along with our endangered heroes, to sharpen our senses, become more alert, and experience more intensely the worlds into which they plunge us.

It’s that last quality — intense sensation — upon which playwright Chisa Hutchinson seizes in her new play, “The Wedding Gift,” in which she uses a stranger in a strange land — a really strange land — to help us

empathically grasp the experience of being oppressed by a society that regards you as not just lesser, but as an object to be employed or dismissed on a whim; to be treated as sensate, but not altogether human; to occasionally be the object of sympathy, but of a mostly condescending kind…in short, to experience a new world as African-Americans often experience this world and our society today.

Any play dealing with issues of race in this time and place enters a fraught territory where what should be a vicarious theatrical experience can, if not handled deftly, deteriorate into polemic. The challenge facing the cast and crew of “The Wedding Gift” is to deliver Chisa Hutchinson’s play in a way that immerses us not in message, but in visceral sensation. And the responsibility for managing that high-wire act falls primarily on the play’s director, May Adrales.

May Adrales comes to us from the borderlands of our social and cultural divide. Her parents immigrated to this country from the Philippines and settled in southwest Virginia in the Appalachian foothills, where racial and cultural diversity begin to recede into a sea of whiteness. Her parents are professionals — her father a surgeon and her mother a nurse — so she enjoyed an economically comfortable childhood. At the same time, as a child of immigrants whose Asian heritage is evident in her features, Adrales was aware of and was occasionally reminded of her status as an outsider.

From that milieu emerged a young woman determined to “be the change you wish to see in the u fluent | 21

world.” After a flirtation with becoming a lawyer and an abortive stint as a staffer at The Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, Adrales succumbed to a passion at which she had been dabbling all along.

Introduced to theater while in high school, Adrales continued to exercise her nascent interest by spending evenings and weekends writing and directing what she now describes as “very political plays” and “feminist diatribes” — j ust the sort of thing that will earn you a nasty comeuppance once a reviewer deigns to pay attention to what you’re doing. And that’s just what Adrales got. Fortunately for her, the reviewer also recognized that, while her writing was a tad tendentious, her skill at directing was evident. And Adrales was humble enough to realize the reviewer might have a point.

So, the advocate for social justice who at that point had no formal theatrical training decided to dedicate herself to pursuing a career in directing.

And that change in direction enabled her to discover something about theater, about audiences and about herself — we’re all suckers for a great story.

Any actor or wannabe actor who has ever trod the boards discovered with her first step on stage that the imperative is to connect emotionally with the other characters and with the audience because, without their empathic support, you’re alone, naked, and in irredeemable misery. And when that fear burns in your gut, peripheral concerns about the play’s message, its insights into the human condition, in fact any abstract consideration whatever, completely evaporates. It’s all about human beings caring with and for each other in the moment…or it’s nothing.

For some activists who try to make the transition to artist, that leap is impossible. It takes them too far from their real passion, it may feel like an abandonment of the cause, or it’s simply too frightening a place to go. But, for those who do make the leap, a revelation awaits them. In telling stories, the kinds of stories over which human beings bond, insight and even ideology just emanate and, in a few triumphant instances, they are internalized by audiences who may not have the slightest idea they’ve been infused with a new or expanded outlook.

Generations of people have gone around humming “Wouldn’t it Be Loverly” and “On The Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady,” utterly unaware they’ve 22 | fluent

just seen and, more importantly, assimilated a commentary that savages class-dominated society and insists on the intrinsic nobility of us all. Even George Bernard Shaw, whose play “Pygmalion” was the basis for “My Fair Lady,” might have winced at what some people have derided as a cheesy bowdlerization of his work. But, my guess is that he would have recognized that while the sugar coating of “My Fair Lady” makes the pill go down more easily, it doesn’t diminish the way in which it’s digested. It just makes the play and its message accessible to a far wider audience.

And that change in direction enabled her to discover something about theater, about audiences and about herself — we’re all suckers for a great story.

But, while audiences may be oblivious to the trick being played upon them, the artists who create the trick cannot be oblivious. So, in a play like “The Wedding Gift” that endeavors to empathically bridge the gap between the lived experiences of two groups of people who share the same society while encountering it from radically different points on the spectrum, it’s appropriate and maybe even necessary that we have a director from the borderlands like May Adrales — one who is not an immigrant, but is the daughter of immigrants; one who is not AfricanAmerican, but neither is she Caucasian; one whose family was not impoverished, but neither were they rich; and most importantly one for whom both sides in America’s most searing and entrenched divide are emotionally and intellectually accessible.

Those experiences and the resulting sensibilities probably account for why May Adrales often finds herself directing “stranger in a strange land” types of plays in New York and in regional theaters nationwide.

They include Katori Hall’s “Whaddabloodclot!!!” at

the Williamstown Theater Festival, David Henry Hwang’s “Chinglish” at Portland Center Stage and Syracuse Stage, Kimber Lee’s “Tokyo Fish Story” at the Old Globe and at the Manhattan Theater Club, Lauren Yee’s “Ching Chong Chinaman” at Pan Asian Rep, and most recently Qui Nguyen’s “Vietgone” at South Coast Rep and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which won the 2015 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award.

It’s an astonishing body of work that has brought May Adrales innumerable awards, including the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s inaugural Denham Fellowship and the Paul Green Emerging Directing award.

In short, May Adrales is highly esteemed and in even higher demand, which is testimony not just to the popularity of her work, but also to its importance for us as individuals and as a society. So, in the end, by telling stories, May Adrales has become the social activist she always intended to be. fluent

PHOTOS BY CHRIS WEISLER

A Fun Place to Dine Before or After the Show In the Heart of Historic Shepherdstown

304-876-8477 • 112 West German Street • www.bistro112.com fluent | 23

lisa sheirer inspired by nature

By Paula Pennell

“If

my father’d had his way, I would have been a professional athlete or outdoorsman,” says artist Lisa Sheirer. Growing up

in far Western Maryland, Sheirer was encouraged by family to pursue an outdoor life…shooting guns, playing sports. “I did those things, but it was time spent with my grandmother that really made me want to make things. Back then there weren’t many art influences in remote Western Maryland,“ she says. How ironic that two of her greatest creative influences — nature and the music of Appalachia — stem from her Western Maryland roots. Sheirer still travels frequently past Cumberland to photograph Finzel Swamp and work in her Frostburg studio that was her mother’s house. u 24 | fluent

(Left) Inside NOMA Gallery in Frederick, Maryland, two sculptures from Lisa Sheirer’s “Instant Relic” series atop pedestals.

The matte, unpolished sculptures are pieced together like flower petals. (Above) Three bowls from Sheirer’s ceramic work.

Left: Photo by Paula Pennell. All photos not credited are provided by the artist.

fluent | 25

Photograph of Lisa Sheirer by MIchael Hunter Thompson.

Sheirer pursued painting and printmaking at West Virginia University, intent on becoming a portrait artist. But that direction changed when she took an anthropology class—and was seduced by the cultural, mythical and spiritual aspects of primitive art. “That class was like serendipity for me. It was liberating to focus on color and texture rather than literal subjects.”

Sheirer went on to get a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the University of Notre Dame. There, she drew inspiration from scavenged items. “We were

“Water Stories Lilipons III.”

26 | fluent

college students,” she laughs. “We worked with what we had, most often found objects.” She still does.

With a move in the mid ’80s to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a graphic designer—and had no access to the studio and tools that previously let her pursue large-scale sculptural 3D work—Sheirer began to look at the computer as a tool for art, “not only graphic design, [but] a building space with infinite possibilities.” She began to work seriously as a digital printmaker, creating large-scale art on her small computer screen, and since that time has done only a few sculptural pieces. Even her ceramics, she notes, “are informed by the computer.” And by photography.

“I take photos of water, plants and textures, and collage them all in Photoshop,” she explains. “Then I extract pieces of the images and begin layering them, much like a patchwork quilt.” Sometimes she adds outlines to give the finished work texture and a map-like appearance. Sheirer likes to work in series, connecting each work by extracting a swatch from the previous design and integrating it into the next.

Sheirer’s “Digital Print” series focuses on a number of themes, but nature takes precedence…grasses,

“Garden Texture Series Triptych Two,”: Giclee Print on paper, Edition of 5, 38˝ x 38˝.

botanicals, flowers, and most importantly, water. Her obsession with water and water conservation stems from a Native American prayer circle outside the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C., where she heard a woman say, “Pray for water. Pray for the Potomac River and for water conservation.”

“That’s when I started taking pictures of water,” she recalls. The Potomac is among her favorite places to photograph and serves as a frequent subject in one

of her recurring series, “Water Stories.” While she is passionate about water conservation, she admits her artwork is not as much about conservation as it is about the beauty of water—the lines, ripples and textures. “I also love to photograph swamps, marshes, and wetlands. The grasses create wonderful layers over the water.”

The lines, layers, patterns, textures and colors of nature inspire and drive her designs, both digital u fluent | 27

Images from Sheirer’s “Ice Stories.” To create the artwork, Sheirer photographs the landscape from inside a house through icecoated window panes, then manipulates the images. The resulting color comes from the scene outside the house, “except in a few cases where I upped the saturation,” she says.

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and ceramic. “Ice Quilt,” for example. Sheirer still lives in the old farm house that inspired it. “I woke up one morning and the window panes were frosted with ice,” she recalls. “I loved the patterns and lines that formed, so I began taking pictures of the panes. I’d go outside and spray the windows with water so they’d refreeze and I would take more pictures. Then I digitally manipulated the images and printed them on glass.”

Photography has been a core component in her recent work as an artist, and it remains a priority for her as Associate Professor and Program Manager of Computer Graphics & Photography at Frederick Community College (FCC). Sheirer also serves on the Board of Directors and as Education Director for AIGA (previously known as the American Institute of Graphic Arts), Blue Ridge Chapter. This year, she adds “Frederick Artomatic 2016 Featured Artist” to her lengthy résumé. Fans of Frederick Artomatic (see sidebar) will likely recognize the work of her FCC students, who’ve created promotional designs for the event since its first year.

Sheirer is presenting her “Entropic Mandala Series” at this year’s event. Evident by its name, the series is inspired by nature. For the artist, that says it all. fluent

the new f word arts | culture | events

Returning for its third year, Artomatic@Frederick 2016 is open for 5 weeks, May 7–June 10, and attracts artists and enthusiasts throughout the mid-Maryland region, D.C., Virginia and West Virginia. Two historic downtown Frederick buildings have been transformed into “an artistic playground” hosting 350+ artists, and showcasing visual art, literary arts, poetry readings and workshops, interactive demonstrations, film screenings, local bands, dance, fashion and more.

Artomatic@Frederick is free to attend. Over 40,000 square feet of art.

Event Location: 115 and 117 East Church St, Historic Downtown Frederick, MD Hours: Mon–Tue closed, Wed–Thu 3–5 pm, Fri 12–11 pm, Sat 9 am–11 pm, Sun 12–5 pm For additional details, visit Artomatic@Frederick website: artomaticfrederick.org.

Mark Muse – Photographs Fine Art Photography and Printmaking • Portfolio Printing Printing for Exhibition Color and Black&White High Quality Art Reproduction

[\ muse@markmusephotographs.com markmusephotographs.com

SHOWING UP

by nancy mckeithen

The dates and names change each year, but the Capstone Exhibit remains an annual right [sic] of passage for graduating seniors in the Department of Contemporary Art and Theater at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia— and their ticket to graduation. For each student, this one-day exhibit is their distillation of living art, learning art, making art and talking about art throughout their time as an art student at Shepherd. For some, it’s their au revoir to school; for others, their link to graduate study; for all, a step into their future. Thirtyone Shepherd students received a Bachelor of Fine Arts this May. Meet five of them: an illustrator, a graphic designer, two photographers and a sculptor. u

Photo by Jillian McMaster. fluent | 31

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Ian Joswick eventually

would like to illustrate comic books and graphic novels.

Joswick combines familiar elements of illustration in unique ways in his art: “Using heavy amounts of black is definitely not uncommon in comic artwork, but it is rarely paired with watercolors in the way that I do,” he says. “My forms and line work also tend to be very angular, which is certainly present in comics, but again, I’ve never seen it paired with the organic qualities of watercolors.”

While he carefully plans out his compositions, with thumbnails, “When I move into the watercolor stage of a piece things become much more spontaneous....Sometimes I need a lot of control and other times I’ll loosen up and see what happens.”

Realizing the importance of those who have influenced him, Joswick would like to inspire others, artist or not. And, “create work that can be enjoyed by people from all walks of life.” u

(Left) “Herne The Hunter,” 9˝ x 13˝, Ink and watercolor on paper, 2016. (Right) “The Terrible Wilas,” 11˝ x 17˝, Ink and watercolor on paper, 2016.

Contact: ianjoswick@gmail.com Website: behance.net/ianjoswick instagram.com/ianjoswick fluent | 33

Kathryn Lamana believes the power of a single

image can change the world. “That is what keeps me and my passion for photography going every day,” she says. Most often, she finds inspiration in other people.

“My photography focuses on the truth and the reality,” she says. “I almost always shoot candid, which holds integrity to a moment and has the power to connect with people.”

With her degree, Lamana plans to work “hands-on with Non-Governmental Organizations or possibly become a Media Communications Specialist in the Navy.” She is espcially interested in using photogrphy as a means of documentation. u

These images are from Lamana’s series of work “To Breathe Life Into,” based on her experiences in the Dominican Republic, where she volunteered at an orphanage, Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, taking children’s portraits for their Christmas cards.

Contact: kathrynlamana.photography@gmail.com Website: www.kathrynlamanaphotography.weebly.com

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Emily Whitacre anticipates moving to the Denver, CO, area as soon as this summer, and aspires to work in

editorial design, doing illustration or designing layouts for magazines. She describes her artwork as “combining fine art touches with a design basis: My niche when it comes to design is a unique combination of digital and traditional elements and a variety of different mediums.� Whitacre works both intuitively and through a careful

36 | fluent

process, depending on the project. “For illustration, I tend to work more intuitively, whereas for design elements — typically for large bodies of text — I have to work carefully...to make sure every last detail is just right,” she says.

“I don’t have time to wait for inspiration. It’s imperative for me to be able to work creatively at the drop of a hat in the design field.” Contact: emilyerinwhitacre@gmail.com, Website: behance.net/emilyewhitacre u fluent | 37

Susan Mensah is drawn to “the plain and over-

looked objects that surround me in my everyday life.”

The kind that inspired the images in her “Exterior” series.

“I take a non-traditional means in making portraits, whether they’re based on places, spaces or mundane objects,” says Mensah. “It’s always exciting to create more than just an image.” She is intent on involving her viewers, creating an experience for them.

Mensah would like to work for a studio where she can apply her skills in photography and installation work, and “after I’ve gained some field experience… return to school to get an MFA in Photography.”

Contact: smensah25@gmail.com Website: http://susan-mensah.squarespace.com

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Kyla Johnson intends for

viewers to really “connect” with her sculpture. “I feel as though the viewer has a different experience with art when they are able to be part of it both phycically and emotionally,” says Johnson. That interaction — and the often large scale of her pieces — gives her work a distinctive quality.

Now that she has graduated, Johnson plans to continue her work at Quail Run Signs, and to apply for shows and grants to permit her to continue creating artwork. fluent

Contact: johnson.kyla86@gmail.com Website: www.quantumkstudios.com

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POETRY

Terence Winch’s most recent books are This Way Out (Hanging Loose Press, 2014), Lit from Below (Salmon Poetry [Ireland], 2013) and Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor (Hanging Loose, 2011). His work has appeared in many journals and more than 40 anthologies. He has received various awards and honors, including an American Book Award, an NEA grant and a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing. Born in the Bronx to Irish immigrant parents, he has lived in the Washington, DC, area for many years.

He has also played traditional Irish music all his life.

Emotional Landscape with Kanye West in It With you, all happiness came to me, lifted me up onto the bed and smelled my breath, and dropped me like a rock in a sock. Without you, they rolled the x-ray machine into the kitchen and saw right through me.

With you, I wrapped all the gifts. Without you, I opened them all up to find they were nothing more than random greetings from people in Australia. With you, I get a twitch in my leg when relaxing. Without you, I join generations of family members in singing the old songs and saying the rosary.

With you, I switch jobs from one lousy restaurant with lousy management to another.

Without you, I tip 30% no matter what.

With you, I decided to ruminate more about my grandfather. Without you, I created wonderful little atom bombs of language, as though Kanye West himself had whispered one of his awesome history-changing lines into my ear, so that the universe seemed to be made up of molecular pronoun and verb particles swirling down into one of T.S. Eliot’s terrifying quatrains of dark matter, held perilously together by old ghost stories and luminous concealments.

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When the Clouds Are All Buried in a Hole I. All things await your return. All videos show you in the background. All audio files contain encrypted recordings of your voice. All computer code hides evidence of you. All photographs show embedded images of you, often in the background, barely recognizable.

In every kitchen it is possible to detect the odors of your favorite foods frying on the stove or melting in the toaster oven. You are the clue in today’s cross word puzzle. You are the default destination in every GPS. You are the “you” in every song about lost love and heartache.

II. You do not exist. You are a black hole full of dark matter. You are every word that has ever been erased on every page in human history. You are the unpublished masterpiece thrown into the fire. You are the sound of nothing that can be heard.

Your absence is a universe of its own.

When the clouds are all buried in a hole, then will you appear again. When emptiness marries the dream of memory, then will you dance in front of a mirror that shows no reflection. When spirits grow hair, when the silence roars your name, you will come back just as we are leaving.

Advertisements for My Appetite The people want to be known by their maiden names,

their aliases, their pseudonyms, their nicknames. Also, their porn star, romance

novelist, and elf names. Their anguish is playing on the public address system.

I am standing in the postmodern field of vision, where

you used to model nude, practicing your nakedness until you got it right.

I am just a syllable in your dictionary. I have only two metrical feet.

I know what your dreams mean, but I will never rat you out.

I will speak in volumes with the volume turned down.

There is a myth about method, a sentence of life whose

words keep you in captivity. You splash your thoughts in my face.

People of New Jersey, Rhode Island, Manhattan, Atlanta, where are

you tonight? Sunday morning will come again, with its mock-heroic rhymes

and reports of defeat, but nothing can kill the smell of you on me.

Touch Me If You Dare

The Information

I’m sorry rivers make you nauseous. I’m sorry there’s a bad taste in your mouth. I’m sorry your dreams are now history and you are unable to take pleasure in life and your presence is oppressive.

Any emotional or romantic advice contained in this poem is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, to avoid life’s complexities, or to promote, market or recommend any transaction or matter addressed herein.

This poem is intended only for the persons to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential, nauseating, ridiculous, confusing, stupid, idiotic, wise, pretentious, or otherwise protected from disclosure. Unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution or copying of this poem or the information herein or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this poem or the information herein, by anyone other than the intended recipients, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering the poem to the intended recipients, is strictly prohibited. In fact, it would be extremely dumb even for the intended recipients, or their employees or agents, to take any action in reliance on the contents of this poem or the information herein. In fact, the same could be said for any poem, not just this one.

If you have received this poem in error, please notify the poet immediately and destroy the original poem, any attachments thereto and all copies. Please refer to the poet’s piracy policy for important information on the wickedness of pirates.

I’m sorry the neighborhood boys tormented you.

I’m sorry you don’t like this restaurant.

I’m sorry I made fun of your dog. I’m sorry your father was an asshole and your mother doesn’t get you. I’m sorry you are drained of color and full of argument.

I’m sorry they cut your hair too short.

I’m sorry you have to carry around your life’s history like a sack of potatoes.

I’m sorry I was mean to you. I’m sorry that you’re horny but no one will go to bed with you because you’re scary.

I’m sorry you’re an orphan. I’m sorry that your character is your destiny.

I’m sorry no one, including me, came to your party. I’m sorry you have an itch you can’t scratch and can’t get rid of. I’m sorry the clouds and the rain came down out of the skies and right into your cab as you were racing across town to the invitation-only exhibition of your secret life.

fluent | 43

FICTION

The Tourist

By Fredrik Soukup

S

ix years of French classes haven’t prepared Melody to explain to anyone why she left America. Could she translate, she would say she needs a break from the sedated, glossy and superficial, and that defection seems the only failsafe way to escape these traps herself. Could they translate in return, the French would inform her that such societal sins aren’t exclusive to America, but to modernity.

Instead, she smiles and exchanges pleasantries with them, and construes them as bystanders to her journey toward greater inner strength and authenticity.

Teaching English ten hours per week in a small village school, Melody has plenty of time to journal, smoke cigarettes and drink espressos, the Socratic triumvirate. Too much time. Though, she enjoys her long walks from her lightly furnished, tiny village house on the slick cobblestone slope, down through fresh fish and flower markets, through streets too narrow for cars, to the little bus stop that takes her to school. On her fourth day, however, she arrives at work to find that the teachers are on strike.

“Will I still get paid?” she asks her supervisor.

“You will continue to get your stipend.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“About what?”

“Do you have any work for me?”

“You can’t work, you’re on strike.”

“I understand.”

Her supervisor smiles and speaks French too quickly for her to understand.

“You’re talking too fast.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Get another job, maybe, if you’re bored. Go to the movies. Find a French boy. Enjoy yourself.”

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She travels to Marseille, Cannes and Nice. Bastardizes French cuisine. Ambitiously purchases the untranslated works of Camus, Flaubert and Sartre. Finishes Madame Bovary and even the introduction to Being and Nothingness. Writes dozens of emails home, careful not to suggest in any way that she made a hasty or foolish decision. Her friends are earning good money, securing significant professional connections, readying applications for MBA programs and med school. She sends half the emails she drafts. Assimilates her wardrobe with new European-style jeans, scarfs, shoes; trying to look the part, turn heads. Improves her French by striking up conversations with Moroccan men at cafés, one of whom, a young and handsome gentlemen, she naïvely leads on. At dusk he walks her to her house and tries to kiss her. She pushes him away and reaches into her purse for mace, but he quickly throws his hands up like a pinched bank robber and backs away. He runs off, and before going back inside she notices the neighbor woman staring at her and muttering. Melody can’t tell whom the woman’s disgusted more with.

The more free time she has for mulling, the fewer good reasons she finds for having come abroad. By December it’s too cold to enjoy her walks down to the grocery store or laundromat. The end of the strike is nowhere in sight, and cabin fever sets in. She wants to get out and experience more, and she’s annoyed with herself for taking her trip passively. She has no stories, no adventures. She didn’t think she’d suck so much at being French. “It’d be better if I were a tourist,” she reasons. “Then, I’d have some stories to tell, I’m sure.

At this point, I’m just a weird immigrant.”

Her only contact in town is another teacher from New York named Julia, who constantly talks about her

boyfriend. If Melody knew the teachers would strike, she’d have spent more time getting to know Julia, because the obnoxious girl was at least connected in the community, having taught at the same school the year before. Melody spots her going into a house one day and contemplates dropping in to visit some time, in the least creepy way possible, of course. But this is a last resort.

In need of a new distraction, she enrolls in twicea-week painting classes at the school. Her instructor, Jacques, arrives late to every session. He also forgets his brushes. The only thing he puts any effort into is sounding interesting, which she quickly learns he’s not.

But he takes a liking to her and keeps her after class to provide private instructions and extra homework.

Having nothing better to do, she overachieves and earns high marks, pleasantly discovering in herself a smidgeon of artistic talent, and predictably he rewards her with a lunch date, during which he plans to disclose some of his “expert painting secrets,” a gift for his “favorite pupil.”

Photo by Keron Psillas.

She wears a lovely blue dress and new scarf, puts makeup on and curls her hair. What else is she supposed to do? He is tall and extremely thin. Slouching in his leather jacket, he behaves almost as if he’s irritated, doesn’t look at her when he talks and constantly glances at his watch. Wine is served and he wastes no time showing her a painting of two women kissing.

She says in French: “What do you like about painting?”

“I like to depict things in various colors. I think it’s very powerful. This is what the sun does, makes things colorful. I want to be like the sun.”

“Do you do any photography?”

“Photography is for conformists. There’s no imagination in taking a picture of something, only in painting. In photography, you show things as they are, again. In painting, you show things that are unseen.”

“That’s what photographs are for, no?”

“I don’t understand. Let’s speak English,” he replies, switching back.

“My sister-in-law loves taking photographs,” she says. u

fluent | 45

“Yes, for the internet, to show people her family.”

“Not all of them. Sometimes she takes pictures of nature and makes scrapbooks.”

“Scrapbooks are foolish.”

“She likes them.”

“Cameras are for fools.”

“So, what do you do when you’re not teaching?”

“I sell paintings and work another job.”

“Where?”

“Here at this restaurant.”

“This is a very nice place.”

“I’m a slave to my art. It binds me and keeps me from anything else. Whatever else I do, I do only because I have to, for cash. This is my curse.”

“Do you like teaching?”

“No. Teaching is for fools.”

“What about learning?”

“Only a fool needs to learn.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

“No, you are beautiful. Beautiful American woman, I hope you’re enjoying classes.”

“I don’t think learning is for fools. I don’t think teaching is for fools, either. I don’t find many things foolish, in fact.”

She doesn’t attend any more painting classes, and Jacques, who gets her number from the class sign-in sheet, implores her to at least go on a second date, which she declines. At very least, it feels good to be wanted. Before her painting hobby fizzles out, she finishes two small canvases—cigarette in one hand, brush in the other, perched upon a stool before her easel, palette on a newspaper atop her bed—both of the Mediterranean mountainside. One she sends home for Christmas; the other she hangs next to her bed.

The week of Christmas, there’s a knock on her door. Julia stands in the doorway, texting.

“I heard rumors you went back home.”

“Still here. I hope we get back to teaching soon,” Melody says.

“Not me. I saw you in the grocery store the other day. I was going to say hello, but you seemed totally bummed out. I thought I’d come to see if you had plans for Christmas.”

“That’s extremely nice of you. How did you know where I live?”

46 | fluent

“I have eyes everywhere. Well, I have Marina, which is the same thing. Sad about the school year. I’m itching to get back.”

“Who’s Marina?”

“I’ll introduce you to her. Do you have plans for the holidays?”

She smiles and blushes, overwhelmed. Staring down at her phone, Julia doesn’t notice her eyes welling with tears. “None.”

“We’re having dinner at the club. Everyone will be there. You should come. Also, we’re going to get a drink tonight. Maybe you’re busy.”

“Not at all.”

“Good, then. I’m glad I came. I’ll meet you at the bus stop,” Julia replies, texting as she walks down the slope.

“What time?”

“Midnight.”

Melody is ready to go by ten o’clock. At her tiny dining room table, wearing a short skirt, long wool jacket, scarf and heels, she drinks half a bottle of wine and nervously eats a baguette. Slightly buzzed, she calls her brother, Connor, six time zones behind.

“Sis?” “I’m worried they won’t like me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m going out. I don’t know anyone here. I made a stupid decision to come here. I’m a loser. I hope they don’t hate me.”

“Who?” “Julia and Marina.”

“Who the hell are they?”

“Nobody.”

“They better hope they like you. Why don’t you go get into trouble?”

“How are things back home?”

“Everything is as you left it. Nothing will change until you come back, because you are the center of our universe.”

“How are the boys?”

“Loved.”

“Okay.”

“You made the right decision, sis. You couldn’t make a wrong one if you tried.”

“Don’t tell them I feel that way.”

“I would never do that. It’s going to be fine. Call me anytime.”

“I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The club is within walking distance of the bus stop. It’s small, dark, crowded, smelly and very loud, but she doesn’t complain. In a long booth, Julia, Marina, Melody, and a half dozen friends and acquaintances shout at one other over the deafening techno. From body language, she gleans that Marina, a beautifully aloof woman who makes no effort to obscure her nascent wrinkles, runs the show. Not that the woman appears overly proud of this. She seems hardened, as though committed to being excited or entertained by nothing. Melody must control her natural aversion if her stay in town is to be successful.

They drink and talk about music and films, though Melody says nothing. Finally, Julia begins her psychoanalysis into the complexes of her boyfriend’s med school search, and the gathering scatters in pursuit of more alcohol. Only Melody remains to bear the onslaught, and after twenty-five minutes of conversation regarding his MCAT scores and chances of acceptance into various prestigious schools, Marina grabs Melody’s arm and pulls her toward an empty booth on the other side of the club.

“I have come to rescue you,” she says in English.

“But it’s also very important. Come with me. May I speak French?”

“Please.”

When Melody looks back at Julia, Marina says, “Don’t worry about her. She’ll keep talking to herself.

She won’t know you left. You are American?”

“Yes.” “You are pretty.”

“You are pretty, as well.”

“I’m not as young as you are.”

“I’m very young.”

“Don’t tell the men here. They will make you their prey.”

“I’m worried they can tell.”

“You met my cousin.”

“I did?”

“Amir.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

“You are naughty, maybe. He climbed all the way to the top of the hill with you.”

Embarrassment cringes Melody’s shoulder blades together. It’s impossible to tell whether Marina is upset or merely pranking her. Melody pulls her hands away from the drink in front of her, slides them onto her lap, and clears her throat. “That was your cousin? It was a misunderstanding.”

“He said you pulled a gun on him.”

“Where would I get a gun?”

“America, of course. Maybe you think you’re a cowboy or thug.”

“No. I don’t have a gun. I’ve never even seen one.”

“He is heartbroken that you turned him away. He is very embarrassed and wishes that you let him kiss you.”

Melody sips her drink and puts her hands back on the table, inexplicably relieved, even excited; Marina finds her cheerfulness at once sickening and endearing.

“It’s only that I’m very new to town. Anyway, if he feels so bad about it, he could’ve come talked to me. He knows where I live.”

“He’s very respectful. He doesn’t want to make you feel worried. Plus, he’s seen your weapons.”

“Then he’s a pansy.”

“What is a pansy?”

“It means he’s a little girl.”

“That may be true,” Marina giggles, her flirting eyes set on Melody. “But why would you shoot him, if he’s such a weak girl?”

“I didn’t know that until after he left.”

“Will you give him another chance?”

“We’ll see. Is he really your cousin? He said he was from Morocco.”

“And where am I from?”

“You don’t look Moroccan.”

“No, we’re not blood. I call everyone my cousin.

Even you, maybe, femme fatale.”

Marina buys them drinks and soon they’re dancing amid the spastic, colorful lightshow of an otherwise pitch black dancefloor. The smell of tobacco and sweat.

One song pouring into another. The intimate rush of cramped bodies nearing. One drink too many, Melody worries one moment. One too few, the next. Julia grinds against every man in the club. Melody is more discriminating, stays close to Marina, for no reason u fluent | 47

trusting her more than the others. Champagne circulates the dancefloor. Everyone takes a swig.

Her head starts spinning. The bubbly spills, and the women begin slipping in their heels. A twisted ankle, a bag of ice. The dancefloor clears just enough for a man to slink closer to her, wearing skinny jeans and goofy fall sweater over his thin chest. “Amir,” she hollers.

“Where have you been?” They dance. Her hand slips under his sweater; his hands run over her thighs. He sneaks his bony frame behind her, and she reaches up behind herself to caress his neck and face. Amir sweats and stinks. A lull in the din, he whispers in her ear. She back at him. As alluring as her perfume, that quality, unique to Americans in Europe, of unconscious cheerfulness.

“Another drink for you?” he asks.

“Go buy one,” she replies.

When Amir returns to the dancefloor, he can’t find her. She followed a group of strangers outside into the winter night. Crouching on the filthy curb beneath the bus stop streetlight, she holds her hand up in the shape of a gun, points her finger at him with a feigned scowl, and pulls the trigger. She giggles and says in French, “I don’t want to play this part. I’m not trying to take you home with me. Really, I’m not a tease, and I don’t want you to think that way about me.”

“American.”

“African.”

“How are you getting home?”

“A magic carpet.”

She steps off the curb, breaks her heel. She slips her heels off, and looking to put them in her purse, realizes she left it under the booth in the club. She walks barefoot back into the club and finds four large Algerian men sitting at the booth, snorting cocaine from the table. Approaching fearfully, she freezes.

They look at her. She points under the table, and one of them leans back to look underneath. He reaches and pulls out the purse. “Merci!” she says sweetly, taking the purse and scampering off. On her way out, one of the heels falls out of the purse, along with some cash and coins, but she doesn’t go back for them.

Out in the cold, she composes herself, takes a deep breath, feeling sick for a moment. Prepared to travel the sobering journey back up the hill, she takes 48 | fluent

a step and Amir appears before her. He hands her his scarf. “It’s cold. You’re sweating. You’ll get sick.”

“You’re handsome, but I’m not interested. I don’t want your scarf.”

“Just take it. I’m not asking anything of you.”

“So, then you can come back to my house and get your scarf, is that it?”

She starts walking and he follows her. “I’m going to help you home, because it’s dark and you’re alone.”

“I don’t want help. I’m not a dainty little Frenchwoman.”

“Your house is far from here.”

“What is it with men? If they’re unkind, they treat you like you’re not worth anything. If they’re kind, they treat you like you’re not worth anything. You’re Marina’s cousin, are you?”

“She’s cousins with everybody.”

“When did you come to Europe?”

“Only recently. You?” “I’ve been here a long time,” she says.

“I don’t believe it. I haven’t seen you until recently.”

“I don’t care what you believe. You can walk me to the bridge. Halfway, that’s it. Then you have to go back.”

“Why are you so suspicious?”

They walk side by side. At the bridge, she hands him his scarf, but doesn’t let go when he tries to take it from her. Instead, she pulls him in and kisses him deeply.

When they stop, he says, “You confuse me. I should leave now. You’ve had too much to drink.”

She won’t let go of the scarf.

“Fine. Keep the scarf. I don’t want it back. Goodnight.”

“I’m punishing you,” she says in English.

“My English is not good.”

“Lucky you.”

“I can’t understand you.”

“I’m going to guess that you’re just like everyone else who doesn’t listen and who doesn’t really give a damn about anyone else and who behaves poorly and who takes, takes, takes from others and who gives nothing back and who expects forgiveness after years of treating others like shit and then acts like everyone else is to blame for your unhappiness. Your problem is the same as everyone else’s, and it’s that you’re a fraud. That’s what’s so fucked up about everything: everyone’s a fraud. And anyone who doesn’t act like a fraud gets mocked by her circumstances.

Maybe I should just concede that fraudulence is my best shot at making something happen for myself.

What do you think of that?”

“Keep the scarf. It will keep your neck warm.”

Neither wanting him to stay nor to go, she kisses him again then walks across the bridge, up the hill.

Concerned, he follows her, and hand in hand they turn into dark alleyways and storefront slabs, kissing and talking, he in broken English, she in broken French, holding each other tightly. “Almost there,” she whispers, nearing the edge of the village.

At her front door, she fumbles for her keys. “Shit, I left them back at the club, I think. Or dropped them on the way up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have an idea.”

She goes to the other side of the house, climbs atop her garbage can, and slips through the cracked window, landing gently on her bed. Hearing him scrape against the side of the house as he balances on the garbage, she stands. “No, I’ll open the door,” she says, shutting and locking the window.

She lies down to think, and soon there’s a knock at the door. A short pause, then another knock. Then she hears footsteps heading back down the slope.

Dirty, frigid feet. Cold room. Exhaustion. Her cigarettes hide from her. Though dried sweat chills her neck, she wants nothing to do with the scarf on the floor. She retrieves a baguette from the table, lies down on her bed, and too nervous to handle a knife, decides rather to gnaw on the hunk of bread. From time to time, she smothers fig jam on the end before taking another bite.

As the sun begins to light up the house, she cries a little from shame, then falls asleep writing an email to her mother about what an incredible experience she’s having, all the amazing people she’s met. fluent Fredrik Soukup is a 28-year-old graduate of St. John’s University (MN) with a degree in Philosophy. While working a variety of jobs since graduating in 2010—at a deli, a jail, a group home, and an insurance company—he has labored at the craft of literary fiction, producing four manuscripts. This is his first published excerpt.

The Bridge Fine Art & Framing Gallery Group Watercolor Exhibit, May 13–June 12 Special All Mediums CATF Exhibit, June 25–July 31, Opening, June 25, 6–8 pm

8566 Shepherdstown Pike, Shepherdstown WV 25443 • 304.876.2300 Fine Art, Ceramics, Photography & Custom Framing

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ED:CETERA

U.S. EPA et al v Paul Bunyan

By Ed Zahniser Mr. Paul Bunyan General Delivery Bemidji, MN 56601 Dear Mr. Bunyan: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of State, Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and Department of Homeland Security find you in violation of federal statutes and permit protocols regarding the below actions documented in the literature. Several infractions also involved a domestic animal in your employ named Babe the #Blue Ox. Infractions cited include but may not be limited to: • Creating the Mississippi River with effluent spillage from a non-permitted storage tank hauled in interstate commerce on an unlicensed, overweight, oversized wagon pulled by Babe the #Blue Ox. • Creating five Great Lakes with no environmental impact study or required permits, also involving Babe the #Blue Ox. • Straightening the Mississippi River, using Babe the #Blue Ox, to deliver logs to market.

• Floating logs on a navigable waterway without permit.

• Digging the Grand Canyon without permit.

• International travel to China with no passport or visa to procure white snow to reassure U.S. citizens during a “winter of blue snow.” Good motives do not excuse violations.

• Transportation of livestock—Babe the #Blue Ox— across international borders (see China above) without immunization records.

50 | fluent

• Making gifts (white snowballs) of undeclared imported goods.

• Dragging a forest into a riparian (steam-side) zone to float logs on a navigable waterway with no permit or environmental impact statement.

• Endangering workers required to grease a big pancake griddle wearing slabs of bacon as skates.

Because your case involves multiple federal jurisdictions and geographic regions, it will be tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, DC. You have 180 days from the date of this letter to obtain legal counsel and prepare your defense.

If you have questions, call my office at (202) 354-3080.

Dudley Dew Wright, Clerk U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Washington, DC 20003 Dudley Dew Wright, Clerk U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Washington, DC 20003 Dear Mr. Wright: Please be advised that the Bemidji, Minnesota, Chamber of Commerce will file an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in defense of Mr. Paul Bunyan. In separate action we will file for damages to tourism. Mr. Bunyan and Babe the #Blue Ox loom large here: I enclose a selfie with their statue in Bemidji. That’s my girlfriend Yvonne by Paul’s left foot.

Respectfully yours, Rip Postit, President 3M Company and Bemidji Chamber of Commerce Bemidji, MN 56601

Dudley Dew Wright, Clerk U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Washington, DC 20003

Mr. Rip Postit, President 3M Company and Bemidji Chamber of Commerce Bemidji, MN 56601

Dear Mr. Wright: You and your ilk trample citizen rights. I’ve run my cattle on federal lands for decades and pay no grazing fees. My Constitutional rightness is proved by Bureau of Land Management refusal to deal with me or my supporters. We will show up to defend citizen rights at your damned court. Only cowards go after little guys like Paul Bunyan.

In the True Spirit of Liberty, Cliven Bundy Patriot Rancher, Home on the Range, USA Bunkerville, NV 89007

Dear Mr. Postit: Based on new information from U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, the Paul Bunyan and Babe the #Blue Ox case will not go forward.

Researching Common Core curriculum, Secretary Jewell’s administrative assistant discovered this:

P.S. We choose to wear guns in your courtroom.

P.P.S. Enclosed for free is my color poster “Divine Inspired Form of Government.”

Cliven Bundy Home on the Range USA Bunkerville, NV 89007 Dear Mr. Bundy: This Court is in receipt of your letter. I, too, cherish our liberties and their protection by law. Recently, a piece in the The New York Times noted that your refusal to pay fees on your 578,724-acre grazing allotment makes you America’s largest welfare recipient.

Congratulations.

The Queen of England is Britain’s largest welfare recipient. Her Majesty enjoys rent-free a 775-room house with servants and costumed guards.

Her “Sovereign Grant” stipend (tax-free) grew by 6.7-percent to $68 million this year.

Fairy Tales and Tall Tales: Supplemental Guide 5 | Paul Bunyan 105 ©2013 Core Knowledge Foundation “For Introducing Tall Tales, bring in several storybooks of tall tales, particularly the ones covered in this domain: Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry and Casey Jones. You may also wish to include tall tales about Calamity Jane, Molly Pitcher, Slue-Foot Sue and Johnny Appleseed.”

The Court regrets misunderstanding the nature of the literature.

Dudley Dew Wright, Clerk U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Washington, DC 20003

Yours truly, Dudley Dew Wright U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Washington, DC 20003 P.S. No guns allowed in the courtroom.

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CODA

The Eight-Pack

Friday, May 13, Shepherdstown, WV—The Budweiser Clydesdales march down West German Street in the bright late-afternoon sun. Thank-you, Jefferson Distributing Company. Photo: Benita Keller.

fluent