The Wasp - Volume III Spring 2016

What Does The Wasp Say?

The American Studies Center Student Journal Volume III | Spring 2016

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ALEKSANDRA BARCISZEWSKA Editor-in-chief PAULINA NIEWIADOMSKA Art director Illustrations: pages 8, 13 NATALIA OGÓREK Associate editor The next issue’s theme:

AGNES MONOD-GAYRAUD

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SEBASTIAN SZYSZKOWSKI Editorial board MAŁGORZATA DUDO Illustrations: pages 17, 30, 33, 36, 41 MAGDALENA KRZEMIŃSKA Cover image

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We’re still recruiting! If you’re interested in writing for the Wasp, please contact us: thewaspjournal@gmail.com ASC Journals: https://www.facebook.com/ascribbler A SCribbler: https://ascuw.wordpress.com/ American Studies Center: http://asc.uw.edu.pl/

Dog Goes Woof, Wasp Says “Bye” – Editorial Notes Paulina Niewiadomska | Aleksandra Barciszewska, Natalia Ogórek

Categorically Speaking Agnes Monod-Gayraud

If Only Animals Could Talk…About Sex Marta Giers

Yellow Smiling Plague Julia Mardeusz

Making Stars on Earth and Making It to the Moon Aleksandra Jędrzejak

Untamed Adam Radomski

Oh So Carefully Aleksandra Barciszewska

The Writer’s Crime Małgorzata Dudo

No is a Full Sentence Dominika Kowalska

Ex-Press Adrian Wesołowski

4 8 13 16 20 28 33 36 40 45

Paulina Niewiadomska

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Aleksandra Barciszewska, Natalia Ogórek

Dog Goes Woof, Wasp Says “Bye” After the entire academic year and six issues of The Wasp, one could expect some sort of a summary. A conclusion. Especially since the theme suggests that the writing staff is about to pull a Martin Luther King and deliver some sort of a world-changing speech. What we certainly do want to do, is to ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding you for this time you spent with us. Even more, we, the editors, would personally want to thank those faithful, beautiful, creative people (you know who you are), who in between taking classes, studying for exams, writing theses, and taking care of their children managed to help us build quite an energetic wasp nest.

Yet, even though The Wasp has been overwhelmingly managed by women, absolutely nothing would have been possible without all the help we have received from two particular men. Do you know this flying dude with a cape and an “S” on his chest? Well, our Waspy knights in shining armors do not possess their capes and suits (yet!). However, The Wasp would not exist without our two Saviors With a Shining (Even If Only Symbolic) “S” Sign Shimmering on Their Statuesque Chests – Prof. Szklarski and Mr. Szyja, who believed in us and let us freely explore the meanders of knowledge. For that, we are eternally grateful.

Throughout those six issues, our wonderful writing crew managed to use a diversity of literary techniques, such as articles, short stories, and poetry, to touch upon various topics on American culture, business, and politics – from studying supernatural activities and sadistic pleasures, discovering the secret of the ASC basement, analyzing color in movies, discussing the influence of Barbie, and studying vampirism in novels; through commenting on the marriage institution, feminism, primitive behaviors, diversity, identity, and obesity; to reflecting upon gun politics, political and military crises in the world, citydwellers, consumerism, and the production of cornflakes and Coke. Our nest grew and expanded its boundaries giving the readers plenty of fascinating material to devour, and the authors a chance to enrich their writing experience.

The secret of The Wasp, ancient mystery, somewhere deep in the classroom, we are hiding, we are writing. We are writing for you, our dear readers. Since this issue’s publication coincides with the exam session, we thought you might need a break between watching your favorite show and doing all the chores that need to be taken care of. And studying, obviously. So, what does The Wasp say? As usual, many things. Wanna read about astronauts, emoji, stereotypes, sex, animals, crime, feminism, you name it, we have it all! Thus, we bid you a Waspy farewell, and invite you to invade the inventive inventory. Good night and good luck!

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Categorically Speaking Agnes Monod-Gayraud

In the wild, animals have a mere few seconds, a couple of minutes at most, to size up an unexpected visitor.

They need to make a quick decision about whether the stranger they’re facing is a friend or a foe. As humans, the fact that this atavistic instinct has been passed down to use through evolution is probably what makes us so damn judgmental. We just can’t help but make snap assumptions about anyone who enters our personal space. It’s simply wired into our brains.

So while the political correctness of our age strives to instruct society about the importance of laying our primary reflexes to the side and “not judge a book by its cover,” it’s a battle between the good manners we want to acquire and the very core of that part of us that is still quite savage and that we can’t quite shake off. The Freudian struggle between our native selves and our human obligation to cultivate ourselves into civilized beings is never ending. These are the greatest day-today challenges we face – staving off hunger to maintain a desirable silhouette, denying ourselves sexual impulses so as not to be thought of as slutty, maintaining the mask of professionalism at work even at moments when we might be, perhaps, struggling with a personal issue. And at its most basic, our nearuncontrollable urge to virtually scan the person standing in front of us and to make an immediate decision based on their looks, size, expression, demeanor, dress, and personal style

about who they are and what they represent. We shuffle people up into categories we recognize and understand, filing them away for future reference. And what’s so terrible about that?

Well, human beings are complex creatures. They are more than makeup and more than a particular outfit.

They are more than a balding scalp and crooked teeth. Or a pair of big boobs. Few of us can accept that a visual sweep of our person suffices to create a complete picture of the intricacies of character and self. At the same time, not many of us will opt to sit next to a piss-filthy bum on a bus

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Agnes Monod-Gayraud and give much thought as to his inner life and dreams. Or calmly walk down a dark street in the middle of the night and run into a pack of brawny men wearing clothing that is stereotypically more “circumspect” than a suit and tie. A few years ago, after the murder of Trayvon Martin by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, the hood became a symbol of how much weight can be piled into a mere item of clothing. Where a teen’s choice of clothing made him appear so dangerous to trigger-happy George Zimmerman that he lost his life. His hoodie conjured up all the associations that society has built up over the past few decades – much like a ski mask used to carry in the 1980s and 1990s. For the killer, Trayvon’s hoodie was a silent affirmation that this kid was a thug. But really, who was the thug that day? Who was the one who took out their weapon and shot an innocent child? Assumptions are not only unfair, but they are dangerous because they are so very sweeping and unforgiving. Snap judgments do not give us time to dwell on details – particularly if there is a gun involved.

Not only was Trayvon wearing a hoodie but he was black. In the years since his death, there have been more and more cases of excessive violence towards people of color by officers of the law. At the same time, statistics point out that people of color are more likely to engage in criminal activity and end up facing an unpleasant encounter with the police.

Just like the rest of us, a police officer’s experience is built up of reallife situations, and he or she uses those bits of information to inform his or her behavior in the future. In a lifeor-death situation, there is very little

time for evaluation. If they think their or anyone’s life is in danger, they prefer to shoot and ask questions later. This tragic sort of pragmatism takes away from the humanity of a victim – someone who may or may not have been committing a crime – but often a petty crime, as in the case of Eric Garner, who was choked on the sidewalk by police after he was approached while illegally peddling cigarettes. And how about the thousands of people locked away in American prisons for drug-related offences for 5 – 30 years or more?

Most of them are black, which only leads to a continued perpetuation of ideas about who black people are in America. The culture, driven by music and music videos, continues to spout the myth that “hustling” is the way to afford big cars and big chains. Not a word about working hard as a doctor or lawyer. Not a word about making an honest living. Not that there aren’t plenty of artists, such as Killer Mike, making smart, savvy music that could, perhaps, counteract these foolish, damaging messages – but these aren’t the artists getting big record deals.

Race is a huge issue in America, but no one wants to address it – or, perhaps, they want to, but no one really knows how. Even President Obama, whom ethnic minorities have looked toward since the beginning of his presidency to give a voice to their struggle with inequality, has usually refused to engage in the topic unless pushed into a corner, as he was when asked about his feelings on the Trayvon Martin case. He, of course, as a father, as a father of Black children, felt great sorrow for the victim.

Nonetheless, as a man of African descent, he is not personally burdened by the shackles that America’s tragic

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Categorically Speaking racial history has fraught on society.

He seems not to carry this unspoken simmering unease that seems to dwell within so many communities. The idea that the world has done so much to try to provide reparations for the Holocaust, yet nothing has been done to try to repair the wounds that slavery inflicted on American society, is certainly jarring. And those wounds continue to ooze as the status quo keeps most poor, black Americans exactly where they are, while encouraging a culture that makes it undesirable to attain success because it would mean losing one’s authenticity, one’s “blackness.” But who ever said that poverty, crime, and prison ought to be the legacy of Black Americans? This is one of the most harmful messages that American society continues to perpetuate on all levels of society.

At the same time, stars like Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who top the Forbes list for biggest fortunes, are the most visible representatives of success and power. Sports figures and celebrities of black heritage are looked up to by millions of young people – of all different races and backgrounds.

When I was a teenager growing up in Brooklyn, New York in the 1990s, it wasn’t “cool” to be white in my mixed neighborhood of Whites, Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks. So how grateful was I for my olive complexion and dark hair? I’ve always been the least Polish-looking Polish girl on the block and I used that to my full advantage in adopting a whole new personality for my rebellious teenage years. I wore baggy jeans like Queen Latifah and Monie Love. I wore my hair in a high ponytail and rocked heavy doorknocker earrings – sometimes even two pairs at a time! I taught

myself to speak with a Puerto Rican accent. And once I looked like a fullfledged Latina, no one really ever thought to consider me otherwise.

Even today, I still feel as if I’m more of a Latina than a Polish girl – even though genetically I’m 100% Polish and reside (semi) permanently in Poland.

And so the most important thing for me and a few of my other friends, who were also technically “white,” but specifically Romanian and Armenian, was to “pass” for Puerto Rican. And sometimes we felt there was no other way to go about life as we had a good hour-long commute to junior high school and we had to transfer buses in what was a pretty sketchy neighborhood. So in the back of our minds, we always had this idea that if people knew we were white, we’d get a hell of a beating. I didn’t escape that fate anyhow as some way or another, I ended up getting jumped by a gang of about ten girls who were just out looking for a fight. They only relented when the cops showed up. That was the first and only fight in my life but it cemented my persona as an “aroundthe-way-girl” (as per LL Cool J).

When I got to high school, my Puerto Rican posing was all the more perfected. In the meantime, in terms of my academic life (which really had nothing to do with the way I dressed or the way I spoke), I qualified for mostly Advanced Placement classes.

What struck me immediately was that there were only two black girls in all of the AP classes combined. It was clear to me that even though schools had purportedly been desegregated a few decades before, public schools were still being segregated by putting the “smarter” white kids into different (better) classes. I was in AP in everything except for math – the

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Agnes Monod-Gayraud difference was like night and day. The AP classes were quiet and composed, the math class was like a zoo – kids taunting a teacher struggling to explain even the basics of geometry to them. “Fat fuck” was how the math teacher was greeted when he entered the classroom each morning.

But before I get all Michelle Pfeiffer in her Dangerous Minds flow on here, I’ll share one of my strangest high school experiences. One that wasn’t particularly serious, but it branded itself on my consciousness in an indelible way. One day, in between classes, I was stopped in the hallway by the school security guards. Because AP classes were longer than regular periods, we had our breaks at a different time than the standard break, and we had the right to stretch our legs for a few minutes while the hallways were still relatively empty. I was stopped because I was in the hallway when I wasn’t supposed to be – and when I explained that I was in the AP class, along with the other kids walking down the hallway with me, they didn’t believe me. So they took me to the dean, who swiftly showed them the error of their ways and had them usher me back upstairs where I belonged.

Now, why didn’t they believe I was in the AP class? I can only assume it was because of my appearance. No one else there looked like me – even the two other black students wore preppy clothes and glasses, which made them fit the description better than I did in my baggy jeans, red lipstick, and oversize earrings. I admit that even then, I was shocked. Because it is one thing to follow a trend and dress up in a style that takes you beyond the status quo of your particular status – a status dictated by

race or ethnicity. But it’s entirely another thing to then take on the repercussions of that choice. To understand that, perhaps, it might be cool to dress up in a style from rap and r&b videos, but at the same time, to feel on one’s own skin the judgment that people of another culture are subject to on a daily basis. And how that is really not “cool” at all.

How can society progress if young people are assumed less intelligent or less worthy just based on their outfit or general appearance? At that particular moment, I was grateful to have access to better education, but also pained at the fact that it came at the cost of others who were discouraged outright from doing better, aiming high, achieving more.

After graduating, I went on to attend NYU on a pretty big scholarship. And a year or two later I was walking past my old high school and the housing projects right next door. And I saw a guy I’d always admired – a tall, attractive young man who was a rather quiet type, but who had a few interesting things to say about Hamlet during study hall. And there he was, Julius Cotton, the guy I’d had a crush on for a good semester or two, sweeping up the grounds of the local housing projects. Now, there is nothing wrong, of course, with manual labor, but I can’t help thinking that if this young man were given a chance at a better education, a bit more encouragement, he could have done more with his life than sweep sidewalks. It breaks my heart to this day because I often think back to Julius as an example of the many lives wasted in the American public school system, which is still as racist as it was in the aftermath of Brown vs. Board of Education. If only people could

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Categorically Speaking conjure up the spirit to protest once more the injustice of a faulty system â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but, alas, they are too busy protesting more urgent matters as the serial killings of young men by law enforcement and the absolute inhumanity of the American Criminal Justice System as a whole.

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If Only Animals Could Talk…About Sex Marta Giers

The subject of human sexuality is very often taken for granted. People do not give it too much thought because they consider it as something obvious – at least that is what Jared Diamond, an American scientist, a professor at the University of California, and an author of a book Why Sex is Fun?, claims. Over the years, many individuals attempted to clarify the mysteries of sex and the way it should be understood, but there still seems to be no consensus on the matter. Actually, sometimes the views are completely opposite. Nevertheless, nowadays it is very common to say that, as far as sex is concerned, humans are driven by animal instincts, nature, or that they are simply biologically wired to favor certain acts

more than others; whereas, it turns out that interpreting intimate behaviors of humans in animal terms may be very misleading and selective, as people’s sexuality is much more complex and unique than any of the 30 million animal species living on Earth.

First of all, it would be necessary to mention that there appear standards constituting sexual behaviors among animals that could be categorized as normal. In that respect, “normal” mammalian sexuality would indicate that both female and male mammals are rather solitary and connect just to copulate.

What is interesting is that the vast majority of mammals copulate only during the brief phase of the reproductive cycle – when females can be fertilized (Diamond, 1998, p. 16).

On other days, females rebuff the advances of males, and also males are not that interested in sex if they do not notice the signs of ovulation. So, in order to make reproducing more probable, the ovulation is advertised – it is easy to detect it. Such advertising can be visual, olfactory, auditory, or behavioral. All that is made to encourage males to transmit their genes. Nevertheless, sex is not that much of fun and very rarely can be distinguished from its reproductive function (ibid., p. 17). Of course, there are exceptions like a bonobo, which has recreational sex, or African monkeys, which use concealed

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If Only Animals Could Talk…About Sex ovulation1; but even in those instances the differences between their sexuality and that of humans are undeniably significant.

Second, when animals’ sexual behaviors are taken into consideration, there is no such thing as a conscious choice. Animals do not give real consideration when evaluating alternatives in order to subsequently single out the best option. The socalled choices animals make are programmed into their anatomy and physiology (ibid., p. 33). So, we could assume that they do not have the same understanding of freedom as humans do. Moreover, it is also rather difficult to neglect the fact that the “choices” animals instinctively make are mainly directed towards transmitting life and maximizing the chances for their offspring to survive.

For example, mantises’ and spiders’ sexual behaviors evolved into something which can be called cannibalistic suicide. Male spiders have a lot of luck if, during their lifetime, they meet a female ready to reproduce. They are aware that such possibility may not happen twice. That is why, to improve female’s nutritional condition and subsequently the quantity of eggs baring his genes, a male spider encourages a female spider to eat him. His logic disallows him to depart after copulating because he knows that – with little chance to mate again – his survival would be useless (ibid., pp. 27-28). The “choice” that the male spider makes is instinctdriven and thus, according to human terms, is not actually a choice; whereas every act of human sexual behavior can be deemed a conscious choice.

The lack of any perceptible change in an adult female when she is near ovulation.

1

Finally, the pleasure connected to sex has its function in keeping a male attached to a female and, thus, supporting their offspring. In any other mammal species, paternal care is not that necessary, as the young become independent and can get food as soon as they are weaned. So, recreational sex is not that much needed. It seems to be completely different when humans are concerned.

According to Diamond, in prehistoric days, to prevent her helpless child from starvation or murder, a cavewoman had to develop sexual receptivity and availability to have sex even after ovulation. The pleasure a male could receive while mating with her stopped him from searching for other females to transmit his genes.

Having sex for pleasure was supposed to serve as a relationship superglue (ibid., pp. 101-102). When taking an even closer look at the matter, one can discover that during a sexual act, among others, two important neurochemicals are released in a human’s brain: dopamine and oxytocin. Dopamine’s function is to keep bringing a person back to the source of pleasure and to create an addiction to one’s sexual partner; whereas oxytocin is responsible for bonding people with one another (Gresh, 2013). But all that speaks in favor of long-lasting and sexuallyexclusive relationships.

Of course, it is obvious that the subject is much more complicated.

The animal world is composed of millions of various species, and their sexuality cannot be categorized according to one particular pattern.

However, claiming that human sexual behaviors are no different from animal ones, with one exception that humans use their intelligence, is a huge

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Marta Giers simplification. Because if animals had our brains and could talk, they would tell us that the only purpose in having sex is to spread life and living further.

In any other case, they would see it as a waste of precious energy and potential.

Bibliography: Diamond, J. (1998). Dlaczego Lubimy Seks? Ewolucja ludzkiej seksualnoĹ&#x203A;ci. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo CiS. Gresh, D. (2013, April 24). The Walk of Fame vs The Walk of Shame. TEDx. Retrieved from http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Walk-of-Fame-vs-The-Walk-of

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Yellow Smiling Plague Julia Mardeusz

Let’s play a game Step 1: Look at your last three conversations, let’s say, the last 10 text messages that you exchanged on Facebook, Viber, or WhatsApp. Step 2: How many emoji do you see? How many real words were replaced by faces, food symbols, or smiling poo? How many times instead of writing, even “ok,” somebody sent you a “thumbs up” sign?

Step 3: Now look at your Facebook or Twitter feed and think about it more. Are emoji running or ruining the language?

If you participated in our little game, I’m sure you saw lots of smiling faces, lots of hearts and thumbs up.

Even if you are one of those people who reject using pictograms, you can’t totally escape these little pictures because 92 percent of online consumers use them, so you must see them all the time (Shaul, 2015). It’s like a quickly-spreading plague.

If you are one of the people who use emoji regularly, you can play another game and try to take a break.

Try to write messages without using emoji for, let’s say, one day. Don’t you think that your texts are now less polite? Devoid of emotions? 72% of 18 to 25 year olds find it easier to express their feelings through emoji pictures than through the written word. Don’t we know how to express ourselves, our feelings with words anymore?

(Jones, 2015) Natalia de Barbarro, a psychologist and a coach, in her article published in Wysokie Obcasy, suggested trying an emoji rehab, and she compared the smiling emoji to a curtsey that we do at the end of almost every sentence to be nice and polite, as girls used to do in the past, holding their skirts and bending their

legs in a particular way (De Barbaro, 2016).

Many people believe that emoji are harming our language; that they’re destroying our cultural heritage, which was developing for the past thousands of years. For the last couple of years, the most influential newspapers have been alarming us that emoji are taking over. In May 2015 Jonathan Jones from The Guardian published an article titled “Emoji is dragging us back to the dark ages – and all we can do is smile,” in which he stated that emoji are a huge step back for humanity and that they remind him of Egyptian pictograms, which were nice, but they are also the reason why there is no ancient Egyptian Iliad or Odyssey (Jones, 2015). He suggested that there will be no great works in a world where emoji are used, and he himself will stick “with the language of Shakespeare.” And that’s fine, there is no pressure, emoji are not something that you have to use.

But is it that bad when you do use them? Maybe the devil is not as black as he is painted? Emoji are a thing, we know this already. The Oxford Dictionary chose emoji “Face with the Tears of Joy” as the word of

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Julia Mardeusz 2015. Among the finalists were such strong candidates as “refugee,” “Ad blocker,” and “lumbersexual.” Still, the word of 2015 is not even a word, it is a little drawing. When announcing the verdict, Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Dictionaries, said: “You can see how traditional alphabet scripts have been struggling to meet the rapid-fire, visually focused st demands of 21 -century

communication. It’s not surprising that a pictographic script like emoji has stepped in to fill those gaps – it’s flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully.” He believes that “emoji are becoming an increasingly rich form of communication, one that transcends linguistic borders” and

“are very effective in expressing emotions.” And maybe he is right?

Maybe emoji are not ruining the language but rather enriching it and helping us to communicate better, more efficiently? Moreover, to “read” emoji you don’t have to speak any language, you don’t even need to know how to read at all, you understand it immediately.

So maybe emoji shouldn’t be just an addition to words, maybe they are the universal language.

Esperanto didn’t make it, so maybe we’ll find a universal way of communicating by pictures again.

Fred Benenson seems to think that way. He translated the entire book Moby Dick by Herman Melville into emoji. As he said in an interview for The New Yorker, “I’m interested in the phenomenon of how our language, communications, and culture are influenced by digital technology. Emoji are either a low point or a high point in that story, so I felt I could confront a lot of our shared anxieties about the future of human expression by forcing a great work of literature through such a strange new filter.” Although that is a strange and crazy idea, and the book was translated just for fun, it shows how much we can do with those little images. Benenson, who was a second employee of Kickstarter, crowdfunding page which was just starting in 2010, raised money for the book in about a month, and after publishing Emoji Dick he tried to do it again. This time he was collecting money for an emoji translation engine and he didn’t manage to do it. Instead, he published a book, a dictionary called How to Speak Emoji. Just a couple of days ago, an anonymous author published “Scripture 4 Millennials” on iTunes. He gave the Bible a “21-century update,” replacing some of the words with

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Yellow Smiling Plague emoji: “I wanted to make it similar to how you might text or tweet a bible verse, by shrinking the total character count,” he told The Guardian ( Hunt, 2016).

Maybe it’s worth trying? Instead of complaining that language is dead, we can accept changes and make the most of it, like Dominos, the delivery pizza company, did. They launched a system of ordering pizza by sending them pizza symbols on Twitter. That was an innovation. When Hillary Clinton asked people, also on Twitter, to tell her by using three or less emoji how they feel about their student loan, she got thousands of responses. Sony

Picture Animation is preparing an animation based on emoji, The Emoji Movie, which is supposed to have its premiere in August 2017.

I asked you a lot of questions to which I don’t have an answer myself.

You can think about it more and either stop using pictograms or try to find a way to get used to those little faces, hearts, and thumbs up. I think we have to wait a bit for an answer to the questions raised in this article. We need to see how emoji will develop and whether they are going to be added to the keyboard, or is it just a trend which will pass.

Emoji & Emoticon:

The first emoticon was created on September 19, 1982 by Scott E.Fahlman, a computer scientist. He wanted to be sure that some of his posts wouldn’t be taken seriously. That’s why after the message he hit three keys on his keyboard: a colon, a hyphen, and a parenthesis — and the emoticon was born — a sideways happy face.

He wrote: “I propose the following character sequence for joke markers : - )” Later, other faces joined, such as :(, :/, :P, and the hyphen – the nose – got lost.

Emoji evolved from emoticons. Coming from Japan, the name emoji is a combination of two Japanese words: “e” means picture and “moji” means letter.

They are little images which represent not only faces but also emotions, activities, things, or places (for example the Statue of Liberty, the beach, the Golden Gate Bridge, flags, painting nails, pizza). A couple of months ago, new emoji, such as burrito or mosque, were added to the emoji keyboard. Emoji used to be only white, and now you can choose the skin shade that you want to use.

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Julia Mardeusz

Bibliography: De Barbaro, N. (2016, April 18). Dygasz? Odwyk od uĹ&#x203A;mieszkĂłw. Wysokie Obcasy.

Retrieved from http://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokieobcasy/1,100865,19923437,emotikonowy-dygot-odwyk-od-usmieszkow.html Hunt, E. (2016, May 30). The Emoji Bible has arrived ... and đ&#x;&#x2DC;&#x2021; has yet to declare it đ&#x;&#x2018;&#x152;.

The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/30/emoji-bible-arrivedgod-king-james Jones, J. (2015, May 27). Emoji is dragging us back to the dark ages â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and all we can do is smile. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/may/27/e moji-language-dragging-us-back-to-the-dark-ages-yellow-smiley-face Shaul, B. (2015, September 30). Raport: 92% of Online Coustomers Use Emoji. Adweek.

Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/report-92-of-onlineconsumers-use-emoji-infographic/627521

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Making Stars on Earth and Making It to the Moon Aleksandra Jędrzejak

After the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite to go into space, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957, America saw the Soviet presence in space threatening its national security and technological leadership.

It immediately took steps to outpace the Russians in the Space Race, which became one of the most important aspects of the Cold War that the nations waged against each other at the time.

In 1958 president Eisenhower established the US government agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to manage the civilian space program, to conduct aeronautics and aerospace research, and eventually, to send a human into space and to the Moon and win the Space Race. In September of 1959, NASA introduced the first manned space program, Project Mercury, and the seven military pilots who were to become first astronauts. The Americans soon lost out to the Russians in sending a man into space first when Jurij Gagarin orbited the Earth in 1961. Yet, it was the Moon that became “the final frontier,” and Project Mercury continued to develop manned space missions and was followed by two other programs, Gemini and Apollo.

On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 spacecraft landed humans on the Moon, securing American victory in the Space Race and, concurrently, the Cold War. But what was the role of an astronaut and why was his presence on the spacecraft so important in the Space Race? There was not any scientific or practical reason for

human spaceflight as it only expanded costs of the program. A man was not needed to operate the capsule and his presence complicated a mission that required securing his life and bringing him back to the Earth. The first American astronaut did not even have a window in the capsule so he could not see actual space.

Thus, the importance of human spaceflight was purely political at the time. The astronaut's body established human presence in space, and in the reality of the Cold War, it was the ultimate determinant of the superiority of one nation over the other.

The astronaut was the representative of his nation; Gagarin embodied the Soviet Union and Armstrong on the Moon did the same for the USA. These bodies crossing the space frontiers expressed the nations’ power, leadership, and range.

It is obvious that the astronauts were powerful political bodies, crucial to the Cold War. However, the Space Race and its costly space programs did not seem that important to the majority of American people. It involved enormous sums of public money from taxes and did not involve many people, as the number of people that would actually go to space is small in relation to the rest of the population. People had much closer problems and needs. Public and government officials needed public support for the programs so they used many propaganda techniques to gain it.

As a result, the first astronauts turned out to be politically important

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Aleksandra Jędrzejak tools not only in the Cold War against Communists in the skies but also in domestic propaganda on Earth. To inspire public trust NASA operated its space programs in the open. It used the Astronauts to give the a “human face” to the scientific endeavor; their names became known to every American, they were visible, functioning like celebrities public figures, and their image in the media was constructed and controlled in order to install the right emotional response in the public (Bernays and Edward, 1928, p. 159). In this article I will try to demonstrate how the public portrait of the astronauts of the 50s and 60s was constructed in media by the carefully selected and posed images to gain public support for the

Life magazine cover, September 14, 1959; the issue introduced Project Mercury astronauts. Mercury Seven: (leftright) Top: Schirra, Shepard; Middle: Glenn, Carpenter, Slayton; Bottom: Cooper, Grissom (Photo by Ralph Morse/Life Magazine, Copyright Time Inc./The LIFE Premium Collection/Getty Images, source: http://goo.gl/PWjRX9)

Cold War’s Space Race. To explore the astronauts as tools in this domestic political propaganda, I will focus on visual materials, especially photographs from Life Magazine, a popular and influential magazine at the time, which had a contract with NASA and held exclusive rights to the astronauts' stories in exchange for NASA wielding control over the images and articles (The Life pictures collection can be found at gettyimages.com). The pictures, which the stories relied on extensively as Life's publisher, Henry Luce, firmly believed in the influential power of photography, turned out to be powerful propaganda tools. I will focus mainly on the first American manned space program, Mercury, and its seven astronauts, although photographs of Gemini and Apollo astronauts will be occasionally mentioned as well.

First of all, in efforts to gain political support for Project Mercury, the first astronauts' image created by Life magazine, and controlled by NASA, was to appeal to Americans' love for the country. Astronauts were presented as the national heroes, embodying American prestige and strength, in both rhetoric and in visual terms.

It is worth to mention that NASA must have intended from the very beginning to have the original astronauts share an “all-American” persona, as it appears that they were chosen not only on the basis of their military experience in aviation, skills, and physical health but also with regard to other factors; they were all white, very masculine, middle-class, married, and Christian: the “perfect” Americans. On one hand, the fact that there were no women or blacks among

21 Volume III Spring 2016

Making Stars on Earth and Making It to the Moon the first astronauts was not surprising as it was still white males’ world back then in America; on the other hand, having all astronauts white and male was crucial at the time when the changing role of women and the Civil Rights movement were considered by many white Americans as threatening their old ways. The astronauts were in a way homogenized in their looks and social class, representing what many wanted America to be like. This “Americanness” they embodied was also important as it was opposed to Communism, which was the source of fear for many in the USA in the 50s.

Furthermore, NASA tried to tie its activities to national pride in order to make it important and relevant for every American. To do so, it used symbols that would appeal to Americans’ patriotism. The word “USA” and the American flag were present in many places, e.g. on the capsules and astronauts’ uniforms, often in close proximity to NASA’s logo. The photographs in Life magazine emphasized those symbols.

The flag was always present behind the astronauts in their official portraits, and many “casual” photographs took the angle that would make the flag in the astronaut's arm visible. In the photographs presenting the astronauts with their capsules the word "USA" or the names of capsules, which were said to be chosen by astronauts themselves and all fostered feelings of patriotism, like “Liberty Bell,” “Freedom,” “Friendship” or “Faith,” were visible and meaningful.

In one of the first Life Magazine photographs that introduced the Mercury team to the wider public the astronauts stand proudly in their space suits on the blue background; the color might not be random as it

stands in contrast with the red of the Soviet Union.

What is more, the astronauts were presented in media as national heroes who risk their lives to protect the skies by venturing into them, the pioneers who explore a dangerous frontier, just like Lewis and Clark after the Louisiana Purchase. This appealed to the nation’s desire to expand boundaries of unknown frontiers and connected the astronauts with traditional masculine American heroes and the frontier myth. Their portraits on the covers of Life were often accompanied by the headlines including words such as “hero,” “pioneer,” or “brave,” which emphasized the image.

Many photographs from the training presented complicated procedures, tests, and equipment, and were supported by the articles emphasizing lone heroes' bravery and describing the dangers they were to be exposed to in the claustrophobic tin capsules put in the hostile environment of space. Facing personal danger, the astronauts fitted the frontier myth and they also touched people's emotions. The following fragment from the September 14, 1959, issue of Life is an example:

22 The WASP

One man chosen from the calmly intent seven . . . will embark on the greatest adventure man has ever dared to take. Dressed in an all-covering suit to protect him from explosive changes in pressure, strapped into a formfitting couch to cushion him against the crushing forces of acceleration, surrounded in his tiny chamber by all manner of instruments designed to bring him safely home, he will catapult upward at the head of a rocket for

Aleksandra Jędrzejak more than 100 miles and then plunge down into the Atlantic Ocean. If he survives, he will become the heroic symbol of a historic triumph; he will be the first American, perhaps the first man, to be rocketed into the dark stillness of space. If he does not survive, one of his six remaining comrades will go next (Life, September 14, 1959. Quoted in: Cosgrove, “Magnificent Seven: LIFE with America’s Mercury Astronauts”).

Moreover, although all Mercury and Gemini astronauts were military pilots, NASA wanted to emphasize the civilian status of the programs.

Therefore, the astronauts were not presented in their military uniforms but in blue NASA uniforms. The space suits, while they could just as well have been military-green, were made silver. Life very often depicted the astronauts in all-civilian outfit, not only at home but also at work. It mattered for two reasons. First, it appealed better to civilian people, made the astronauts more “one of us” for the Americans. Secondly, the Soviet space program was presented in the American press, and also by Life, as a military threat. Emphasizing the civilian aspects of the US space program put it in opposition to the Soviet one. During the subsequent Apollo program there was even less frequent portrayal of the astronauts as military figures, which was probably caused by the unpopularity of the Vietnam conflict.

Put on a pedestal, the new national heroes became instant celebrities. Apart from exclusive and personal stories in Life magazine, they appeared in television and at numerous public events around the

country, had receptions with monarchs and presidents, and often visited the White House. After the astronaut got from his spaceflight he would have a ticker-tape parade and be cheered by huge crowds. These were national events. The astronauts and their wives, "the first ladies of space," would be adored and looked up to. Life also featured many photographs from the parades and of the astronauts receiving awards and meeting the president; they were decorated with medals for their flights just as generals were after a war. All of this reinforced the celebrity and hero status and made an impression of the whole nation taking part in the event.

However, while presenting the astronauts as national heroes, Life devoted much attention to their

Life magazine cover, May 18, 1962. Mercury Seven astronaut, Scott Carpenter, with his wife, Rene. Picture features the headline: “The loner who found himself the new hero for orbit.” (Photo by Ralph Morse/Life Magazine, Copyright Time Inc./The LIFE Premium Collection/Getty Images, source: http://goo.gl/dKdpzO)

23 Volume III Spring 2016

Making Stars on Earth and Making It to the Moon personal lives and tried to show them as regular Americans. They were heroes, yet they were not elitist or aristocratic. They were middle-class, living in the suburbs like so many Americans at the time, and having family life. From the very beginning Life personalized the astronauts through extensive family photoshoots and by providing personal information about their family members and hobbies; thus, readers were to relate to their heroes on more personal level.

The astronauts' presentation as regular middle-class American, father, and breadwinner, was supposed to be closer to common people and bring about their identification.

The astronauts’ families were presented as role models and they were the embodiment of American virtues and the personal qualities that Americans at the time wanted to believe in, such as bravery, love of God, patriotism, and family devotion.

They captured the imagination of America as a modern and prosperous country and were the personification of what is best in it. The image also served against communism as the portrayal of the American family opposed the image of cold-blooded communists and showed the American culture’s superiority at that time.

The portrayal of family represented by the astronauts in Life was fairly traditional, yet that was a model that was advertised and encouraged at that time as a response to gender roles crisis after World War II. In Life there were usually more photographs than written story in the articles so the portrayal was presented visually for the most part. The photographs featured blissful domesticity and the astronauts at everyday activities, in their suburban

gardens and homes, spending time with children, smiling and laughing.

The wives played an important role in this picture. They were always glamorous and well-dressed, and at the same time they were presented taking care of children and doing housework. When their husbands were bravely exploring the space frontier, the wives were waiting for them, watching their heroes on TV, worrying yet always trusting God (which they often emphasized in their interviews).

Some pictures showed families saying grace before a meal or at church, illustrating the value of religion. The wives were always “proud, happy, and, thrilled” in the photographs. One photograph presents three astronaut wives holding cards with those words in front of the cameras, smiling and looking glamorous while waiting for their husbands. Always standing by their man, flawless, they were the embodiment of domestic perfection.

The perfect wives served as the complement to the astronauts, fulfilling the image of model American family. Also, the femininity of the wives, both in terms of the traditional gender role they played and their general physical appearance and the feminine dresses, make-up, and the haircuts they wore, was positioned in opposition to their husbands' masculinity, reinforcing and highlighting it. Even the cars the astronauts got from General Motors as they started the program completed their hyper-masculinity: those were racing Corvettes, the muscle cars. The wives got station wagons, safe and roomy, perfect for shopping and travelling with children.

The wives were treated as role models by the public and their homemaking skills, clothes, lipstick colors,

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Aleksandra Jędrzejak and hairstyles were copied by American women all around the country (Goddard, 2013). Yet, all of this was only a perfectly constructed image. In reality, as Lily Koppel reveals in her book, The Astronaut Wives Club, the majority of the astronaut marriages were unhappy, and many of the astronauts, who spent a lot of time far from home, used their celebrity status and kept having affairs, leaving their wives at home isolated, worried, depressed, often using alcohol or tranquilizers. The women kept their problems in secret to maintain the perfect image the public and NASA set for them; a divorce would stand in a way of the astronaut's career, because “any astronaut who couldn't keep his 'pants zipped' threatened to ruin everything and squash America's opportunity to beat the Russians, not only in space but on the grounds of moral superiority” (Goddard, 2013).

The astronauts became powerful propaganda tools during the Cold War, which helped shape public attitudes towards the space program.

The image presented in media, especially in Life, was carefully crafted through selected and planned photographs, making masculine heroes and superstars out of the military test pilots chosen for the

astronauts.

The created public portrayal appealed to people's nationalism and aroused patriotism, connected people in celebration and pride offering them a shared sense of themselves as compatriots, and recalled the American frontier myth and the nation's desires of exploration. What is more, presenting the astronauts in a highly personal manner allowed for a more personal reception and identification that let people connect with their heroes and therefore their goals. The astronauts embodied all-American values and presented the family role model, inspiring the Americans and expressing the American culture's superiority over the Soviets. Although their image was constructed, the astronauts turned out to be influential political bodies in America’s Cold War against the Soviet Union as well as in its domestic politics.

Bibliography: Bernays, E. (1928). Propaganda. New York: Ig publishing.

Cosgrove, B. (2014). Magnificent Seven: Life with America’s Mercury Astronauts. Time.com.

Retrieved from http://time.com/3879356/mercury-seven-photos-of-nasa-astronauts-intraining/ Garber, M. (2013). Astro Mad Men: NASA’s 1960s Campaign to Win America’s Heart.

Theatlantic.com. Retrieved from

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Making Stars on Earth and Making It to the Moon http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/astro-mad-men-nasas-1960scampaign-to-win-americas-heart/278233/ Goddard, J. (2013). Drink, Debauchery and Despair: Astronautsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Wives Lift Lid on Grim Reality Behind the Smiling NASA Space Launches. Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10150092/Drinkdebauchery-and-despair-astronauts-wives-lift-lid-on-grim-reality-behind-the-smilingNasa-space-launches.html Koppel, L. (2013). The Astronaut Wives Club. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

Saseh, E. (2002). Space Politics and Policy: An Evolutionary Perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

26 The WASP

27 The WASP â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Volume III Spring 2016

Untamed Adam Radomski “Hey grandpa,” he panted out, exposing his worn-out smile. He dropped the bags on the floor and we exchanged handshakes and hugs. Before my lips managed to propose a drink, he was already in the kitchen, setting the kettle and working the French press.

My eyes began conducting an investigation, making note of his lethargic motions and melancholic demeanor. His condition has worsened visibly since the last time. This wasn’t just a phase; it was an addiction. It used to be different. Oh, those were the days. He visited me with his parents back then, and chased butterflies, was pursued by bees, and was read to on the rocking chair beneath the starlight. Suddenly, that vivid life was overlaid with monochrome. It was crucial to give him some time and space before the big talk.

I walked out onto the porch where he left some of his luggage. The cab he took from the airport could still be spotted by the trail of dust it was leaving behind. Shortly, it went over the horizon, returning the tranquil aura of our little abode. It was this peacefulness that fostered the dynamic life – life which sprouted only when man was left alone with the vast and open landscape. Some called it loneliness. But after a while, after each passing second, the terrain got closer and closer, at last enclosing its observer. That was when music began to play. I called it paradise.

He was still sitting in the kitchen, hunched over the table, looking deep into his mug as if trying to find answers to questions he didn’t know how to assemble.

He glanced up at me and once again curtained his emotions with a contrived grin.

“So, how’s New York?” I inquired.

“Good,” he shot back.

“Is it?”

“Yeah, I’m moving forward. The ride does get a bit bumpy at times, though.”

“Well, you’re here to relax, so take a chill pill as they say on the East Coast.”

“Hah…” he forced out. “I will pap, I will.”

It took no expert to fish-out that lie. The entire family nominated this place as the Garden of Eden, a hidden sanctuary for the chosen ones; but Bastian looked more tense than he probably was prior to arrival. He wasn’t ready yet. But the real question was if he would ever be.

Evening came quickly and even though the nocturnal ambience was paramount, it was too breezy to stay long outside. Even the cashmere blanket, a teapot, and the mighty orchestra of crickets were insufficient to counter the cold. I hid back indoors, ignited the fireplace, poured a tall glass of cognac, and set a soothing Grateful Dead vinyl on the gramophone. Before settling down on the sofa I made my way over to Bastian who was still in the kitchen, his fingers viciously tapping on his laptop and his second hand gripping onto his phone.

“Maybe you want to join me for a fireside chat, some cognac and Grateful Dead?” I asked.

“Just,” he exhaled. “One sec.”

28 The WASP – Volume III Spring 2016

Adam Radomski “Right. You know where to find me,” I replied and walked back to the living room.

After an hour I got back to check on Bastian who was now asleep, his head laying on the kitchen table. I threw a blanket over him and put myself to bed.

The damned world the boy caged himself in. Bustling his ass off from 5 to 1, competing to have it all, know it all, but in reality losing everything and knowing nothing. What is life in the fast lane if the high-speed ride blurs out all the sights you pass?

It was almost 5:00 a.m.; a pleasant Wyoming morning. Bastian protested to my wake-up calls, but I promised that what’s ahead of us will recompense the struggle of crawling out of bed.

“Leave it,” I warned upon noticing him reaching for his phone.

Bastian eventually complied and we got into the car. We drove 40 miles out.

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

“Look East,” I replied just in time. The sombre hue of the sky began to gradually fade into a fiery orange, its luminescence revealing the mist ascending from the lake before us. Then came the ray of sunlight, which after scratching the mountaintop manifested the gleam of dew on the grass blades. It was beginning to reveal its presence.

“The sunrise looks great, pap, but I think I’m too sleepy to admire it to the extent which it deserves,” he said. “By the way, I’ve seen plenty of sunrises on my way to the office.”

“Well, time for a little work to wake you up,” I said, opening the trunk and taking out the duffle bag.

“What work?” he questioned. I threw the bag on the ground.

“You can either start by mounting the butane burner and fixing up some coffee, or jump straight into setting up the tent,” I told him. “We’re going to spent the night in man’s natural habitat.”

Bastian frowned and a visible fury was set ablaze in his eyes. With all gadgets at home, the city life 2,000 miles away, the man was helpless. He bragged about there being nothing to do so I handed him a book. He dropped it on the ground and began to stress the amount of work, work, work waiting for him back home. I turned around and began walking away, leaving him stranded with his own thoughts amid a divine Wyoming vista.

It was 6:00 a.m. It still had time to lead him through the labyrinth of his own creation.

After coming back I found him reading Moby Dick by the lakeside.

“Glad you’ve managed to find some activity,” I commented. He shut the book, tossed it aside, and didn’t bother turning around. “Come on and help your pap put up the tent.”

After a while, Bastian did just that, maybe realizing that time passes at a faster pace when it’s accompanied by work. After all, it is one of the main attributes of the city life. I managed to stand back and give him directions on setting up the tent, and after all was done, we strolled around the area.

“Why are we doing this?” he asked.

“You need to disconnect.”

29 Volume III Spring 2016

Untamed All throughout the day Bastian was revolted. He kept moaning and complaining about the things he needed to do in his life to keep moving ahead. All due to one outing, his time was slipping through his hands like grains of sand. Of course, he could be at home, hustling and educating himself while somehow keeping his social life afloat at the same time.

Bastian panicked the most at night. The campfire went out and we were in the tent trying to get some rest. Like it happens in the wild, there was an array of bizarre sounds, which prevented Bastian from getting any sleep. Needless to say, it was necessary to drive back home first thing in the morning.

After our arrival I sat down on the porch with a cup of coffee to absorb the break of day and become taken away by the trance.

“Aren’t you afraid of dying of boredom?” Bastian suddenly asked from behind my back. He approached, took a seat, and looked me dead in the eye.

“The Big Apple really made you blind with all of its smog, didn’t it?” I countered.

“Blind to what!? This big, damned field of nothingness?”

“Blind to life, son.”

He rose abruptly and stormed inside. The trance began returning at a gradual tempo. There came this breathtaking amalgam of chirping birds, the rustle of trees, a bouquet of endless fields, and the feeling of sunlight on the skin. The greatest virtuoso of them all began performing his tune in a melodic crescendo.

In an instant, as if by a gunshot, the haze was shattered by the sound of a taxi approaching from the distance. Then the almighty Bastian himself marched onto the porch, his luggage in his hands.

I remained speechless throughout the scene, trying not to stop him nor notice my copy of Moby Dick sticking out of his bag. I smiled inside, even after spotting him diving headfirst into the mobile version of his very own world.

30 The WASP

Adam Radomski A year or so later, out of the blue, came a knock on my door.

“Grandpa!” Bastian said and reached out for a hug. As my head was over his shoulder, I took the chance to look around. No cab, a Siberian Husky by his side, and an enormous backpack on his shoulders.

“How’d you get here?”

“Oh, I hiked after getting off the plane.”

So we took another camping trip this time. It lasted full four days.

I didn’t hear much from Bastian after his latest departure. After calling my daughter, I was informed that she and her husband haven’t heard from him for the past 3 months. No call, text, nor e-mail. Nada. They even called the NYPD to search for him. The entire family panicked, especially myself, the one responsible for initiating his transformation, the result of which I might never see.

The days went by and there was still no word. It was a windy autumn day when some hostile sound shook me out of my afternoon nap. After getting up to walk into the kitchen, an envelope in my hall brought me to a halt. An anonymous sender. A post stamp with a salmon on it.

The shock… People still send mail?

After carefully opening the message with an envelope knife, I took out the folded piece of paper inside and spread it flat out on the table. It was from Bastian. I phoned his parents pronto.

“What’d he write?”

“I haven’t read it yet.”

“Then read it,” my daughter yelled.

And so I sat down, cleared my throat, and began with the words:

Dear Pap, First thing’s first. Don’t worry. I spontaneously left for Norway with my dog, leaving it all behind. Second on the list: Thank You. Thank you for the disconnection. I’m currently in a hut made of branches, with my body under the snow to avoid hypothermia. You wouldn’t believe how freezing Norway can get at nights. I apologize for the brevity, but the oil in my hurricane lamp is in short supply.

I’ve finally begun to see life, how the best things in it are free. There is no one out here to judge you, and the environment brings out your wild side – the real you. I saw this magnificent mountain spring the other day and thought about how infinite the cycle of life is. In a way, this natural habitat represents true democracy, you know, the one people claim doesn’t exist. There is an abundance of it here. I guess it was ubiquitous in the past, in this world where man was put; the place he began to alter and destroy just to later complain about how grim the world can be. This real world – untouched and innocent – it is shocking what mankind can do to it out of competitiveness, hypocrisy, selfishness… Yet, this world still stands, a little scared of being discovered but still courageous enough to love limitlessly, hoping that someone someday will return the favor with even the smallest of gestures.

The night sky is closing in on the pink sunset. Hope it will be full of auroras like yesterday.

31 Volume III Spring 2016

Untamed I’m reading Moby Dick again!

Pap, once again, thanks for everything.

Have a wild one!

Yours Truly.

There was absolute silence at the other end of the line.

“Hmm… Have a wild one…” I uttered, hoping that I wouldn’t hear from her for three months as well.

32 The WASP

Oh So Carefully Aleksandra Barciszewska

Paper cuts were the reason why he stopped going through his wife’s diary. Not her constant written complaints about why he never washes the dishes, how he touches her collarbone even though she hates it so much, where she would be if he hadn’t gotten her pregnant, nor even what she hates about him the most, which was pretty much everything. Once he tried to flip the pages oh so carefully, yet they always left his palms marked with “you shouldn’t be here” signs all over his pinkies, index fingers, and thumbs which he sucked till he was four, even though his mother slapped his face every time he did that.

Finding all your most paralyzing fears and doubts about yourself, materialized on Chanel-scented and hatred-filled pages, can leave your palms bleeding even without paper cuts. She was going to be a writer. A good one. And now the only reader who gets to experience her oh-so-carefully spiteful words is her husband. The blood on her diary’s pages the first day he distanced himself even more from everything and everyone in their home, was a sign she must never stop writing.

Their daughter was an unfortunate result of their forgetfulness. Thank God she was pretty. He told himself he would have left years ago if she wasn’t pretty. Her beauty was a marvel and an irresolvable case study for the scientists within fifty-mile radius. No genetics could ever explain why two people whose appearances would repel even the blindest person on Earth could make such a beautiful person. He would watch her when she was asleep, sneak into the garden while she was sunbathing, ogle her from behind his newspaper during breakfast, and cry in his sleep whenever his lips managed to touch hers in those passionate dreams for which he hated himself the most.

33 The WASP – Volume III Spring 2016

Oh So Carefully My dear, dearest Mandy, I’ve been quite a good father to you, remember? Remember how we would go to the zoo every Sunday? And when it was raining, we would sit on this little bench next to the hippos, hidden under your mother’s umbrella, eating crackers, and loving every single second of it. Remember? Or maybe it was just me who enjoyed these precious moments spent together….

His company made him take a few days off. Her company drove him insanely heartsick. And so he sat on a sofa in their garden and dreamed of writing a letter that he has been composing in his head for years now. Or actually letters, to be precise.

Carol, The moment we met I knew I didn’t deserve you. The day when you looked at me and asked me to dance is one of those rare happy memories that I have of us. Even if it was a bet between you and your friend, glad you won.

Look, I’m not saying things I would want to say, because I’m not sure I’m ready to acknowledge this deep shit we’re in. I just know you’re not happy, I can feel it every time we make love, every time you pass me the saltshaker, every painful breath you take when you’re in bed with me…

Letters he would never send. He was a coward who cherished coming back to the house where dinner was ready. Even if his wife was more than ready and more ready than this dinner to take the knife she sliced bread with to actually end her miserable life.

Since he was home alone, he decided to go to Mandy’s room and smell the heartshaped pink pillow she sleeps on. When he entered, he noticed an open book on her bed. New Moon. “Ugh, another vampire and werewolf waste-of-time” – he thought.

His skin was a pretty color, it made me jealous. Jacob noticed my scrutiny.

“What?" he asked, suddenly self-conscious.

"Nothing. I just hadn't realized before. Did you know, you're sort of beautiful?"

“What a load of crap, can’t believe anyone would buy that…” And yet he couldn’t stop reading. When he got to the last page, he was craving for more. For the love of God, he could not understand why Bella The Retard preferred that glittery vampire to this oh such a throat-clenching, mouth-watering, libido-raising werewolf. “Jacob” – he imagined himself saying that every morning, while at the same time fighting the morning breath so that this beautiful wolf creature doesn’t think less of him. Jacob.

Jacob… He went back to the garden, closed his eyes, and started imagining a better life for himself.

His skin was such a pretty color, it made me jealous. Mr. Wolf noticed my scrutiny.

“What?” he asked, suddenly self-conscious.

34 The WASP

Aleksandra Barciszewska “Nothing. I just hadn’t realized before. Did you know, you’re sort of beautiful?”

Mr. Wolf did not respond. Instead, he moved a bit closer and softly caressed my hair.

His palm was warm, and yet it managed to give me chills. I moaned, which apparently gave Mr. Wolf an unspoken permission to put his thumb on my bottom lip.

I gently started to suck it, looking right into his eyes.

“I’ve been dreaming about this moment for so long” – he admitted.

“Show me.”

He started taking his clothes off. Slowly unbuttoned his shirt, I shivered. Violently removed his trousers, I gasped. All of a sudden he turned into this wild animal of which I was scared for so long. Now, it awakened in me something I’d been afraid to recognize. I climbed his back, wrapped my legs and arms around him as tightly as I could, and buried my face in his neck. Oh, the smell…

“I can’t believe you actually did that…”

“Did what? Did what, mom?! Say it!”

“Can’t even look at you right now. You’re disgusting, you know that? If God saw you, he would spit right into your sinful face, you little shit.”

“Sweetie, big boys don’t suck on their thumbs. Are you a baby? Are you still a little baby or are you a man? Men don’t suck their thumbs so stop doing that!”

Carol and Mandy will never forget when they got back home on that Monday afternoon. A few years before that day, they faced a humongous problem: buying garden furniture. Rattan, wooden, or metal? How many chairs? Maybe some benches? How many benches? Shopping for these was a nightmare, yet they bought something that conveniently made this choice easier, for it didn’t let Carol sleep for days. Kljunar Rattan Effect Garden Sofa Set, that was their choice. They also bought a dark rattan loveseat – some effort to actually awake the love that has fallen asleep long before they sent it to bed without dinner. Four years, two hundred and twentyfour days later, the surprise they encountered, just waiting for them right there on this magnificent Kljunar Rattan Sofa, exceeded their most outrageously obscene dreams.

When you imagine a person’s final stage of their bodily appearance right before entering the void that lurks somewhere-out-there their whole existence yet always keeps distance, you think pain and suffering. When you think of a corpse, you think disgust, pain, and suffering. Mandy and Carol discovered the truth. When their father and husband was dying, he was probably a liberated person. The smile on his face – if that could be called ‘face’ at all… Oh, now it should be mentioned that he sort of utterly melted. He turned into a big stain of grease, semen, blood, with his dark blonde hair swimming between bubbles of fat and fallen out teeth. Yet, what remained from his face, oh-so-carefully preserved by the delirious amounts of pleasure governing his last movements… His face resembled that of someone who might have perhaps probably one day, right between ups and downs, loved and loved loving. His face, oh-so-carefully careless, in these last moments cared for nothing but pleasure, and regretted nothing.

35 Volume III Spring 2016

The Writer’s Crime Małgorzata Dudo

“You’re a cliché, Jim,” Jim’s ex-wife exclaimed. “You’re a cliché of crime fiction!”

“Jessica was extremely beautiful and extremely rich when she died. The red blood from her head matched the red lipstick, and the color of her pale skin was in perfect harmony with her white dress. When the maid found her in the morning, the famous actress was laying on the floor by her mahogany desk. On the desk, there was a letter explaining why she didn’t want to live anymore (her fiancé had left her – I checked, he had a perfect alibi: he was performing at a concert until midnight, two thousand witnesses saw him).

Moreover, there were cameras around her house, which proved that no one entered or left the house that night. So the police decided that she was just another emotional actress, overwhelmed by her own fame, and they concluded that there was no reason to suspect that it wasn’t a suicide.

“However, her mother couldn’t believe that her daughter could do something like that, so she hired me. At first, when I read the police documents and saw the photos of the crime scene, I didn’t believe that there was anything that would suggest that she was right. But today I started watching one of Jessica’s first films, the one in which she is an ugly girl wearing glasses, and I noticed something: when she’s writing in her notebook about how she loves Jake, the football player, she uses her left hand. Left! Well, I don’t know who shot her that night on the right side of her head, but it certainly wasn’t her.

“So today I was at the police station, trying to persuade a police officer to take another look at this case. But he didn’t believe me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Jim’s ex-wife Susan asked. They were standing in the kitchen in her house.

“To explain why I couldn’t have made it to the kids’ concert. I was hoping you could, in turn, explain it to the children, because they won’t listen to me. At least you are not mad at me. Are you?”

36 The WASP – Volume III Spring 2016

Małgorzata Dudo “No, I’m not mad. I’m rather… Amused. When I was sitting there, listening to other people’s children butchering “What a Wonderful World,” I realized something that has totally altered my opinion about you.

“See, right after our divorce, I was finally free to do things I couldn’t before.

So I thought, what is the thing that would make you the angriest? Oh, yes. I bought all the crime and mystery bestsellers of the last 10 years, the ones you’ve said many times they’re not real literature. And I’ve read them all. And then I realized that… I don’t know how to say it…

“You’re a cliché, Jim. You’re a cliché of crime fiction!

“I mean, let’s face it: you’re a middle-aged, disillusioned private detective, who drinks too much, smokes too much, and is a workaholic. Your (brilliant) wife has left you because you were never home. You can never make it to your children’s concerts. Moreover, in the past, you’ve been an FBI agent, a spy, a soldier, a lawyer, a professional boxer, and a dancer in a Russian ballet company!

“You know seven languages, you have a PhD in the history of the Ming dynasty, and thank God you have it, because most of the murderers leave you clues written in Mandarin.

“So, when you come home and tell me this amusing story about a suicide, which was really a staged homicide, which you realized because the victim was lefthanded, and that the police don’t believe you, I can tell you that I’ve already seen it in thousands of books and films.

“And I can also tell you what’s going to happen next: your investigation will lead you to be convinced that person X is the murderer, you’re going to go to talk with them, and then you’ll find them laying on the floor, almost dead. They’ll say a lot of wise things, but when you’ll ask them who the murderer is, they’ll die. What a coincidence.

“And then, a witness will tell you something they couldn’t have told the police, because that would’ve revealed something incriminating about them. And you’ll find out that the whole thing was a tragic mistake made by a member of a secret international organization which fights against the mistakes of federal bureaucracy.”

“You can’t be sure it will happen--” “Oh, yes, I am. You’ve just let me make a one-page-long monologue. No one speaks that long in a real-life conversation.”

Jim sighed.

“Oh, Susan. I think I still lo--” His phone rang.

“Speak up,” Jim said.

“Did you know that Jessica had a half-sister?” His journalist friend asked.

“I have to go,” Jim said to his ex-wife. “We’ll talk later.” *** An hour later, he was at Yessika’s (the half-sister’s) door. When he was driving, the journalist told him that this girl was the second daughter of Jessica’s father. She grew up in a very poor neighborhood and only recently has she learned

37 Volume III Spring 2016

The Writer’s Crime that she was a sister of a famous actress. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that a month after she bragged online about her famous sister, Jessica got killed.

Jim knocked on the door, but nothing happened. Then he realized that the door wasn’t locked, so he entered. The house was very small. He glanced at the living room, but there was no one there. Then he entered the kitchen and there she laid: shot in the stomach. Her white T-shirt was already mostly red.

He moved closer and saw that she was still breathing. He quickly took off his blue shirt and pressed it to the wound to stop the bleeding. She opened her eyes and whispered: “Tell my husband that I love him.”

“You got it,” he said. “Who did this to you?”

“It was…” And then she died. *** “This is silly,” Jim said to himself and decided to save time on his investigation and go to a bookstore.

He drove to the nearest Bookly Bookstore and rushed to the crime section.

There was a big poster there, saying “New story about Jim DeDetective!” He felt like he was going to faint, but he decided that he was too tough to do that.

He grabbed the advertised book (it was the fourth volume of a series) and he read the synopsis at the back. It was a very adequate description of his last case.

Then he searched for “Note about the Author.” The guy was called Steve Wilson and looked a lot like Jim, but older and balding. The description said, “Steve is currently working on his next novel, Left in the Dark. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and five children.”

To find out where Steve was, Jim called his hacker friend, Mo (yes, he had connections). The boy was fifteen and they’d met when Jim had been working on a previous case. He should’ve tipped the police off about Mo’s wrongdoings, but instead they decided to help each other out.

“His name is Steve Wilson. Can you find out where he is right now?”

“He’s giving autographs at the Librarly Library.”

“Wow, that was fast. Didn’t you have to hack into the mainframe?”

“Nah, I googled it.” *** A few hours later, Jim was sitting in his car, listening to “Thrill is Gone,” and looking at Steve’s door. He has followed him from the bookstore, but now he couldn’t decide what to do. He didn’t know what his motivation as a character was. Did he really want to simply ask Steve who the murderer was? That seemed too easy.

But then the door opened and Steve shouted: “Get in! I’ve been waiting for you!”

Jim got out of his car and followed Steve into his house. They went through a corridor and through the living room, out to a small garden. There were two small children there, playing in a swimming pool.

38 The WASP

Małgorzata Dudo “Sit down,” Steve said, pointing at a garden chair. There was a table next to it and a notebook computer on it.

Jim did as he was told.

“I’m sorry I brought you here,” Steve said. “But I just don’t know what to do.

I’m writing the first draft of the new story and I think I’m having a midlife crisis.

“I’ve written 20 novels and all I’m known for is the film adaptation of my books. Which they butchered, by the way. They merged the first two volumes into one story and they’ve added a new character in order to avoid having a voice-over narration. The new one was called Mary, she was your assistant, she asked stupid questions; then she put on a red dress, you’ve slept with her, and she died. My wife refused to go to the premiere.

“And I’ve never wanted to write crime fiction in the first place! I hate it! Too much violence, too many clichés, too little literature! But that’s the only thing people read nowadays! And that’s the only way I can pay for my children’s college!”

Jim didn’t know what to say.

“Did you… Try to write something else?”

“Oh, I wanted to write something more elevated, more… Meta. It was a novel about the existential struggles of a writer, which would reveal the truth about human nature. But no one wanted to publish it.”

Jim thought for a while.

“But why exactly did you bring me here?” He asked.

“To ask you what I should do.”

“Well… I’m not good at advice. But… I see how peaceful it is here. The sun is shining, the kids are playing… That’s what I always wanted, but my work never let me. And I think that life is too short not to follow your dreams. The children will understand. So… I’ll be happy if you let me retire. I can even try beekeeping, if you want to pay a tribute to Sir Arthur.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Steve said. “I think I’m ready to take the leap and finally write what I want to write. But the thing is, I can’t let you retire, because then the readers will ask me for more stories.”

Steve grabbed a gun and shot Jim in the heart.

“Yes!” He shouted to the sky. “I’m finally going to follow my dream! And I won’t have to follow any rules. There will be no plot. No logic. No resolution!”

39 Volume III Spring 2016

“No” is a Full Sentence Dominika Kowalska Finally I found time to leave my New York City life to visit my granddaughter in San Francisco. In spite of the new technology facilitating transport, like these instant transporters, I travelled by a good old plane.

My granddaughter, Lilith, is a roboticist. For those who don’t know what that is, she makes robots, Fembots, precisely. Lilith is a special girl, I've always wondered what kind of sperm her mothers used to conceive her; she is so smart, smarter than anyone in our family. Her mothers are a photographer and a scholar-traveler. They met on a benefit party of one of the radical feminist New York groups, and five years later, they had Lilith. After seventeen years, Lilith got a scholarship and left for San Francisco to modernize the city using new technologies.

When my granddaughter picked me up from the airport in San Francisco, we had breakfast and then she took me to her Fembot Company: NO MORE NICE GIRLS. First Fembot she showed me was her doctoral project of which she was especially proud.

“This one is called Solanas 36” — She said.

“It’s beautiful. You’re very talented honey.”

“Do you want to see what it does?

“I’d love to.”

Then she called a boy and told him to put on a costume, a similar one to those worn by the firemen. When he did, she commanded: “Say something offensive, Gary.” And the grimace that appeared on his face indicated that he’d rather not to. Finally he gathered the courage.

“You’re dressed like a slut!” — He exclaimed in one breath.

And in a second Solanas 36’s eyes shined red. It targeted Gary and it shot laser towards this poor kid saying in its robotic voice: “YOU SCUM”. In that moment I understood why he needed the costume. “It’s a light electroshock. Not harmful, but unpleasant enough to teach a lesson.” — Explained my granddaughter.

“Go on Gary.” — Lilith ordered.

“I will touch your big, round booty when I want to.” — Said Gary again.

Solanas 36’s mouth opened and the Fembot spat out on him with red fluid, saying: “NO IS A FULL SENTENCE”.

I already loved that Fembot.

“It’s menstrual blood.” — Said Lilith.

I opened my eyes with astonishment. My granddaughter saw it and laughed.

“It’s not real grandma. Most women eliminated menstrual bleeding long time ago by taking pills, injections or using coils.”

Then she ordered Gary to take off the costume and dismissed him to take care of the retired Fembots.

“Gary’s a real sweetheart.”— She told me when he left. “He’s fifteen, very bright. I gave him a job in our Retired Fembots Department, and occasionally I ask 40 The WASP – Volume III Spring 2016

Dominika Kowalska him to be my model of unwanted, sexist behavior to present what my robots are able to do.”

“Retired Fembots? Can a robot retire, like a human being?” — I asked.

“Well, grandma, you know. Back in the days, men were constructing Fembots with female features to use them as wives, homemakers, nurses and sex slaves.

These Fembots were given pretty faces with nice soft mouth holes, and welcoming vaginas to please men. We’re buying them out from slavery, and if we see that they are tired, they go on retirement.”

“And if you think that they are not that damaged?”

“We give them a second life.”

“What do they do?”

“They help women feel appreciated and beautiful. They talk to young girls.

Some of them travel and provide the sex workers around the country with legal advice, moral support and medical information. Some serve the city. But for that purpose we mostly build new Fembots. The rescued ones are placed in the retirement room where Gary takes care of them.”

Then we went out to the streets, where Lilith showed me the Policebots who worked alongside the human policewomen. When I asked if there are any policemen working in San Francisco, she didn't know where my question comes from.

“You said that the Policebots work alongside the policewomen.” — I said. “But of course grandma, men work too. I thought it is clear that the word policewoman is totally gender neutral and it applies to both men and women.” Silly me. Of course it does.

“So, listen, the Policebots are the Shulamith 2100 models, they mostly make sure that the unwanted touching isn’t occurring in public transport and on the streets. Shulamith 2100s are accompanied by Solanas 36s.”

When Lilith was telling me that, it sounded unreal. I wish we had Shulamith 2100s in my times.

“Grandma, are you listening? Just so you know, Solanas 36 is a radical Fembot and we usually don't use her services. Shulamith 2100 is less radical. We have also Lisbeths — who take care of databases and ensure cyber safety; Doris 2.0s. and Malalas — the teachers. There is plenty of Fembots working with us to improve our lives in the city.”

I found all that information very interesting and inspiring, but I couldn’t help but wonder, does the city own the Fembots or just rents their services? And who gets 41 Volume III Spring 2016

“No” is a Full Sentence the money? Can Fembots spend money? If so, what do they buy? Do they have free will and their own lives? I asked my granddaughter about that.

“I see where you’re coming from. None of the Fembots are for sale. They work for our company NO MORE NICE GIRLS. The city rents their services, and the money goes to repairing and upgrading Fembots, the research of our scientists and the exchange parts for creating new Fembots. The money from Fembots’ services finances our Robotics Institute, where we train the new generation of young Roboticists; it also goes for scholarships for girls and young women all over the world. NO MORE NICE GIRLS was also able to build five schools for geeky girls worldwide. We have one in India, one in Pakistan, one in Nigeria, one in Brasil and one in Poland. We will be opening a new one next year in Syria. The education in these schools is completely free of charge. The robots they make will soon serve their cities and render the schools self-sufficient.“ When she was explaining that, another Fembot interacted with us on the sidewalk.

“You look stunning today.” — It said to me. Or should I be calling her “she”? She looked so human. She had long blonde hair, shiny blue eyes, red lips which when they moved, they imitated human mimic so well that it felt as if she is a real woman. She was dressed in a red, long dress, like the old time divas were on the red carpet in Hollywood. She smiled at me. I was astonished. Can robots smile?

“Hello Zainab.” —Lilith greeted the Fembot.

“Hello Lilith.”—Said the Fembot. —“What a nice day for a walk with your friend.”

“Right? This is my grandma, Renata. She came to visit. I’m telling her all about Fembots.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Renata.” — Said Zainab. Then she told me her story.

She was one of the rescued Fembots. I swear I could have befriended her that second. She seemed so lovely. I could have invited her to New York to meet my daughters and friends.

Zainab’s voluntary work was to remind people that they are beautiful, and to read them fragments of female writers’ books. She asked me who my favorite writer is and I responded: Zadie Smith. She smiled again. “I like her too.” — She said and continued: “This one, I like quoting to young people. The last time I quoted it to a young, transitioning boy who had the most beautiful smile.” „Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on.

Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”

“Zainab, what else do you read to young people?”

42 The WASP

Dominika Kowalska „You can feel bad… I mean, that’s not illegal.”— She quoted Zadie Smith, On Beauty, again. „That is, in fact, comforting. I wish I met you sixty years ago.” „You turned out perfect honey. Your genes combined beautifully. You should be proud. I am.”

When the visit came to an end and I was sitting on the plain back to New York City, I felt calm. I looked back at my youth, being part of the Third Wave Feminist movement, following the path of my mother, the Second Waver. I was watching my daughter become an inspiring woman, a great mother, and a partner, a Fourth Wave Feminist activist; and now my granddaughter, the Fifth Waver. The queen of Fembots. I thought to myself that this world is going into the right direction.

43 Volume III Spring 2016

44 The WASP â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Volume III Spring 2016

Ex-Press Adrian WesoĹ&#x201A;owski today God pounced on me like an eagle clawed my neck with his talons my fingers hitching the sands of Idumea * We differ greatly, my dear wheelchair poet who lived through two wars and all of his friends, My peace - your peace Am I not bound to follow Ophelia let my bursting ambivalences make all my impulses stop I would drown singing Now, you would step forth and back Counting violets, nettles, and daisies Is not a poet the one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world?

Now, compare it with your dim stoic poetry Word minutely pyramided on the top of the word Your stoic verses can pray! for daimonions The real one, the splenetic will sit and slouch never reaching the sands within his head always in between a dog and a star

45 The WASP â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Volume III Spring 2016

CONTRIBUTORS:

Aleksandra Barciszewska – editor-in-chief. BA-program-survivor. Vampiricpsychoanalyst-by-nature. Extracting the sexual from the mundane, rejecting reality for the sake of the very-tale of momentary satiation of the urges for creation.

Małgorzata Dudo – 3rd year BA student at the ASC. Her life motto comes from a classic text of American culture (Ugly Betty): “Be who you are. Wear what you want.

Just learn how to run really fast.”

Marta Natalia Giers – MA student of American Studies Center, very much interested in human sexuality. She got her BA in English Philology at University of Białystok. In her free time she enjoys travelling, meeting friends, and dancing (especially hip-hop and dancehall). She is also a chess coach for children.

Aleksandra Jędrzejak – ASC graduate student; interested in editing and cinematography, postmodern fiction, American audiovisual culture, social constructionism, science-fiction cinema, and American manned space programs in the 1950s and 60s.

Dominika Kowalska – in her spare time she plans a revolution, fights for women and minority rights, writes stories, and drinks coffee at midnight.

Magdalena Krzemińska – always wanted to be a gypsy snake charmer, but never made it to the academy. So now, with the bluest blues in her ears and the blackest coal in her hand, she draws pictures, out of sadness and self-disappointment.

Julia Mardeusz – is now in her last semester at ASC. When not studying/writing MA thesis, she’s probably at work, either posting stuff on Facebook or writing about women/culture. When doing none of those, she’s travelling or watching American movies.

Agnes Monod-Gayraud – Polish-American who studied Comparative Literature at New York University, receiving a B.A. Moved to Poland on a whim and has been living here for longer than she had expected. In addition to pursuing a Master's at the ASC, she is a freelance translator for a number of art institutions and publishers in Warsaw, as well as a journalist writing for the English-language media. She also has two small children that make writing very, very difficult at the moment.

Paulina Niewiadomska – illustrator and art director of The Wasp; psychologist manqué and 2nd year M.A. student at ASC who for the last few years has been working in the arts and culture sector and would do anything to be the second Eastern European woman to lead UNESCO (in the very very very distant future).

Natalia Ogórek – singing is her biggest passion, but she does not connect her future with it. Lover of TV series and Marvel. 70% funny, 50% weird, 100% organized.

Adam Radomski – student of ASC with a major interest in how technologically and futuristically oriented progress influences society. His pessimistic perception of the upcoming years have made him hell-bent on working towards preventing negative impacts of a world that is developing at an unprecedented rate.

Sebastian Szyszkowski – 2nd year MA student at ASC. English teacher who’s currently trying to figure out what to do with his life after graduation. He’s writing his thesis on Black women’s representations in music videos.

Adrian Wesołowski – long-loved collaborator of ASC and doctoral student in the Department of History of <<a very respectable university>>. Trying to keep up some not-boring characteristics of his profile, he has written a poem or two. Yet, on a daily basis his tedious past social patterns recognition is interrupted only by <<a trendy sport hobby>> and passionate reading of <<fancy names of hipster writers>>. One could say <<metaphor far too sophisticated for a byline>>.