the
b’k
bitchin’ kitsch
Volume 6, Issue 7 July 2015
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about b’k:
The Bitchin’ Kitsch is a zine for artists, poets, prose writers, or anyone else who has something to say. It exists for the purpose of open creativity. All submissions are due on the 26th for the following month’s issue. Please review the submission guidelines on our Submissions page (www.talbot-heindl.com/bitchin_kitsch/submissions) before submitting your work.
community copies:
Stevens Point readers, sit down and read The Bitchin’ Kitsch at our community locations: zest, the coffee studio, tech lounge, and noel fine arts center.
advertising:
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donation and acquisition:
Printing costs can be a bitch, which is why we continuously look for donations. Any amount helps and is appreciated. We also sell back copies of The B’K. To do either, visit our Shop The B’K page (www.talbotheindl.com/support_us/shop_thebk).
resources
On top of being the best publication ever created by human hands, The B’K would also like to present other opportunities that may be helpful to you as creators. If you have suggestions that could improve our list, please let us know. Resources we are privy to can be found at our Resources page (www.talbot-heindl.com/bitchin_kitsch/resources).
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table of contents.
12-13 – The Neighbors, Elizabeth Desio
24 – Opus of the Opening Wound, Heath Brougher
14 – Flight of the Untethered Balloon, Christie-Luke Jones
25 – An Artist’s Brain, Stephanie Jones
15 – Dr. Scare, Jihane Mossalim
26-27 – The Montivagant, Dr. Mel Waldman
16-17 – The Iguana Green City, Mike Andrelczyk 18 – Untitled, Hridi 20 – every run is a bad, Jonathan Dick
28 – I Fracture, Josh Medsker 29 – Elephant Lines, Adam Andreasen 30-32 – Switch, Doug Hawley 34-36 – What a Lovely Evening in August, Ryan Morris
Adam Andreasen - pg. 5
37 – Between the churches, David Groulx 38 – Donors and Index
On the Cover
40-41 – July 2015 Calendar
Turtle Brooke Newman Oil on canvas
On the Back Cover Skittish Little Bugger Jake Zurawski Ink and marker on paper
Allen Forrest - pg. 11
In This Issue 4 – Surprise Endings, Chris Rozik 5 – A Calm Day, Adam Andreasen
21 – Guardians, Kena Sucksdorff
10 – No biggie, Sissy Buckles
22 – An Ode to the Coffee Studio, an urban watering hole, Travis Nordrum
11 – Man Lighting Cigarette, Allen Forrest
23 – Catachreses, M. Protacio-De Guzman
6-8 – Waiting for Reagan, Sy Roth
Kena Sucksdorff - pg. 21
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chris rozik. Surprise Endings By: Chris Rozik
Sickle cell slideshows of your bloodline splash the screen. Cardiac cone echoes map out your sputters and stops slowly. If you’re dying no one knows, We just keep seeing X-rays and replays of how we went wrong on loving each other. Rewind the tape and go back to scene one. A naive smile lathered in love. A waking dream covered in mud. A dirty diving child’s hand waiting for slap backs and sorry’s. I’m sorry I lost that love. But you’ve made it very hard to find. It’s now some hidden Easter egg that no one finds without clues. There’s always conflict in these films but I’m having a hard time telling who the bad guy is. No one is dressed in black. No one is shooting through this place and taking all the money. All of us are hostages in the robbery, Hoping to get out alive. Anyone can be a hero here but no one wants to get hurt. By the time the credits are about to roll, I think I may have missed the point. I can’t finish this movie next week. It’s on times ticking television. By the time the next commercial is over, all we’ll have left is a review. 3 stars. A good try, but nothing short of uninspired.
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adam andreasen.
A Calm Day Adam Andreasen Ink and colored pencil on paper
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sy roth. Waiting for Reagan By: Sy Roth
Warren of worn boxes — Sweaty hovels that preyed on its denizens Stenographic occupants of Babel One stacked above the other. A multistoried, brown-brick building Dressed in Ormolu shadows in hiding around corners. Queen Bees guard the darkened edges of long, mosaic-tiled halls. In a cubbyhole on the first floor, We existed. Marco Polo desires carried me to the corners, Camel rides into its bowels. There a door marked –Superintendent-A Berlin Wall covered in graffiti in the dimness Lost among the pipes and flushing toilets. Ear pressed to the door, Some-ones shuffled Behind the multi-layered, paint-hardened wall Waiting for Reagan. Lives crawled along with odoriferous blending of food And piss In the misty dark corners Of the naked lightbulb dit-tatting in the recesses Where dusty bicycles and three-wheeled carriages Lay helter-skelter in the building’s boneyard. They whispered from beyond the door Psst, Susurrations lost in time Secrets fallen into the creaks of the old building And the babbling gobbledygook fashioned above.
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sy roth (con’t). The building shook with their palaver, Shook the dust from its creaky exterior. Clouds of sooty retorts in the retelling of stories Of older times Of fewer leaky faucets and unbroken windows; And of the milky neighborhood where old-world shtetls stood, And milky children played stickball in the streets Wrapped in all their languages — Tower of Babel voices echoed now in the canyons of the old building, Stoopball paradise nestled in a black forest of watchful eyes. The thwack of the Spaulding against the stoop Pink rubber ball suspended in air Drop it, they yell And the Chinese players bounce their balls Against the side of the building. In the bowels, the turmoil of an ebon chamber Where ghosts live; Above, shrill voices Freedom seekers Warm in the tranquility of their sameness. Twisted little beehive — Drones silent in the night. When it stretches awake Ass-scratching to the toilets A rising chorus of vices and Weisses and Graziano KOs Raise a cacophony of “Lunch, you vanz”! “Dinner, you skootch”! It all reverberates in the hollows. Phones brrrring messages to the invisible superintendent — Fix my cracks and mend my broken pipes. He shuffles from behind his door, Tool box cradled in his hand Up to the world above
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sy roth (con’t). Where the harridans watch him make his way Through their catacombs To their wet apartments Their cracked windows And their silent stares. They stand guard, arms crossed over ample bosoms And watch him closely as he wrenched their pipes, and Soldered their broken joints and caulked their panes. They sighed when he left. From the door, a curly head peeps. I waved a hand attached to my hip at the curly head Hello, He responded in kind. We played that afternoon in the basement; Later led him up the stairs to my hallway, Our voices echoed narrowly in the stairwell. A voice scrooped, Filling the corridor with a basso caterwauling. With it our sameness disappeared. He fled to the bowels Behind his paint-encrusted door, The one marked—Superintendent-And I to our apartment where mother asked, “Lunch tatella?” Message peeled off for another time; A secret imprinted In unfolded ciphers.
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sissy buckles. No biggie
By: Sissy Buckles Flashback to an eleven years old girl cornered scared and alone in my garage by one of the workers hired to build a backyard pool stalking towards me with a tall savage lust glinting dark eyes that I’d never even seen in a man before, I’ve fought off two almost date-rapes, groped on the bus, slapped pushed and man-handled, pinned down on my bed imprisoned by impossibly long hair, my small frame flung across the room no more than a child’s rejected rag doll crumpling next to the antique wood vanity which incidentally fractured a rib. Also shamed in the name of feminism because Oh, the horror! I like to wear stockings white petticoats, read James Risen and play the ukulele, hell can’t help I came up with my dad’s Sun Records he used to drive hard eight hundred miles balling the jack with his buddies from our hometown Polk County Iowa to Shreveport Louisiana Hayride just to see Carl Perkin’s blue suede shoes that’s what we all were doing back then, first hanging at the Skeleton Club downtown Market Street tried to fit in with the punks next Pink Panther bar and Bodies figuring out we really were SoCal Rockabillies who I could always count on and Runaround Jen wisecracking we wouldn’t live past forty, mid-century come and gone and Jimi Hendrix had already taught my babysitter about Experience. SoCal, you kidding me? I grew up with the Mongols marching in one ear PTA hollering out the other and surfers riding the crest somewhere in between man those were the days we salvaged everything, cars/ records/furniture/ books and shoot you could score crinolines, purses, and 1930s dresses in perfect condition like music store manager Iona wore in ‘Pretty in Pink’ at the Goodwill shop for five bucks we knew when they put out the fresh stuff, and Doone said I needed to grow a pair be tougher stop wearing my heart on my sleeve quit acting all sugar spice everything nice or people take advantage, one of those larger than life kind of people and when she was around mean girls never dared mess with me, and yeah still looking for a good man to love I’ll even make him a sandwich. So is it any wonder that now I only fly my colors deep down a back-country lair whose dirt I dug and scraped out clod by messy handful salvaged with Ophelia’s flowers organic compost and extoling the virtue of earth worms, put out a green bin for plastic recyclables hang a Surf’s Up sign and call it home, my own gatekeeper, recklessly fearless, and always enduringly inviolable.
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allen forrest.
Man Lighting Cigarette from the series City Life Allen Forrest Ink on paper
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elizabeth desio. The Neighbors
By: Elizabeth Desio
Here they come again with their pack of Newports, uniform of black hoodies and beer guts. They’ve got dye jobs that probably glow in the dark, they’re always carrying trash, dominos boxes. They cheer for me when I light up a blunt in the morning, ask me to come visit them at the bars on Bourbon street where they work. But it’s Monday and the parades are starting to slow down, I’m so hungover with beads that I see stars when I turn my head. The neighbors are still smoking their Newports, as if to say that’s life, put on a pair of sunglasses and some hard leather shoes.
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elizabeth desio (con’t).
New Orleans is an open container, a giant porch surrounded by palms, even the fences wear beads, and you could bury someone in the potholes on this street. I’ve been beer battered for three days now, and the country’s arteries are closing along with mine. An ice storm has sealed me out of Virginia, frozen it for me to have later. I am already starting to look like the neighbors. Belly distended, hair dreading itself.
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christie-luke jones. Flight of the Untethered Balloon By: Christie-Luke Jones
Awake from slumber, son of Terra. Pull back the shades and gaze upon the vast, artless oceans, Where form and faith and fear and folly, Lay slain by inky nothingness. Phosphorescent bastards of a benign Aztec god, Weigh heavy on idle pupils. Lifeless imitations of a distant Heimat. Intrepid explorer, cartographer of the stars, Basking in the glory of silent applause. How insignificant you seem, On that sprawling midnight canvas, How muted your refrain in the sweeping symphony of the void. Go back to sleep, last-born of Gaia. For the dawn chorus will never come.
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jihane mossalim.
Dr. Scare Jihane Mossalim Acrylic on canvas
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mike andrelcyzk. The Iguana Green City By: Mike Andrelczyk
Every day there is a fire in the Iguana Green City A small portion of the city burns away every day Like the drugstore, Rico’s Garage, the tireyard, the pink and yellow retirement home And the vacant lot with the trees that caught fire last week and it spread To the corner store before they could put it out There are lots of stray Chihuahuas in the Iguana Green City, They like to pee on the husky trunks of the palm trees that are nodding off And even at 7 am the traffic is bad on Hawthorne Street and Reality Avenue Nobody really goes to that grocery store anymore since the murders And the black cats of the I.G.C., They especially like the dumpster by the Korean restaurant And also the one in the alley that runs between the liquor store and The vacant lot with the trees that Caught Fire last week & it Spread to the Corner store before They could put it out Not much really makes any sense anymore, since the grocery store And 7 a.m. if you are going to work then nothing makes sense at all At 7 am if you are just walking around the block just because you feel like it That’s a little better
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mike andrelcyzk (con’t).
Sometimes everyone seems to take the freeway Out of the Iguana Green City All the way to Freighter Bay Where it is good to sit by the water Behind them looms the phosphorescent pale green glow of the IGuana Green CIty The copy store, the dollar store and the garage by the donut shop all Burned down last year Finito’s on Lima went up in flames back in ‘09 It seems like everyday There is a fire In the Iguana Green City Last week there was a bad one In the vacant lot With the trees & it Spread to the Corner store before They could put it out
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hridi. Untitled
By: Hridi
A ray of new light in the new world Not for photosynthesis Not for inspiration But because a new born desires it As its victory declaration — Victory in its struggle To come out To be the one to survive In a war which was to determine who’s to live With the one beside In the bloody womb... In which it won And understood for the first time It could live Because it could kill It could live Because it knew how And that remains the first lesson the new world taught it.
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jonathan dick. every run is a bad By: Jonathan Dick
every walk is a good, awe was a flower with his own boy, in his brain facing his parents as they paced, away like stucco in the rain, they crossed themselves hoping for the blankness, expecting the soothe, he faced them cowardly like a sign being born, but his parents looked past his ouches because they thought they could fix his dreams; happiness is a trauma found in the thumbnail, of awe there was none.
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jihane mossalim.
Guardians Kena Sucksdorff Painting
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travis nordrum. An Ode to the Coffee Studio, an urban watering hole
By: Travis Nordrum
I’ve come to believe that nothing really ever changes. I don’t mean that things don’t actually change; we see change in our lives every day: hairs gray, skin wrinkles, and things begin to droop. No I mean ideas, mental architectures don’t change, even across species I imagine. This coffee shop I sit in is in many ways, an urban watering hole. The traffic is unending for 12 hours a day, and if you didn’t need to have helping hands at the ready to serve the steady flow of thirsty or tired (or thirsty AND tired) people pouring through the doors like the aromatic coffees they pour into cups, then I believe we would see creatures in here during all hours of the day. Different groups or lone individuals wander in from their busy day of foraging for daily consumption, before, after, during; A coffee break is as much a part of some people’s day as visiting the watering hole is to a gazelle or lion wondering the landscape. You see different strategies for visitation. Some sneak in, almost unnoticed, quickly and quietly get what they need and retreat to the safety of their personal bubble. Others scout the area, perusing the aisles looking for conversations to invite themselves to. There are those who feel at home there. Well known by the local fauna, these creatures sit comfortably out in the open, basking in the sun without fear. And still some sit calmly in the back and watch the action from a distance, enjoying the company of their own thoughts and the caffeine stimulation. It seems that we humans haven’t escaped too far from our fauna friends. We trickle in and out of coffee shops nationwide. In groups or alone, we find ourselves drawn to the watering hole just as any so-called beast. Yes, a truly magnificent place to witness a melting pot of human behaviors, the coffee shop is indeed the modern day urban watering hole.
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m. protacio-de guzman. Catachreses
By: M. Protacio-De Guzman The dissonance Of watching my feelings Pull me apart at the seams Delivers me to a new reality: Eyes deaf, mouth blind, Ears numb, skin mute, Stumbling across the minefield Of emotions I used to tread With ease: love is a place I don’t have a map for.
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heath brougher. Opus of the Opening Wound
By: Heath Brougher
A million bones crushed. This body removed, attenuated. The minus-body, scars for tattoos, miles down the alleyway and still the glass shards pierce. Smashedbottle streets and no glistening jaggedness to be caught by the eyes, glimpsed by the pupils, readjusting to the regular light. Stale as city winds across the hair ripple like claws dragged over the skin, over the Winter. A slight ebbing of the malady, yet still brittleboned and nearly pulseless. “Keep them alive but sick,” said the doctor. “Alive but sick is where the money is.”
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mike jewett.
An Artist’s Brain Stephanie Jones Installation
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dr. mel waldman. The Montivagant
By: Dr. Mel Waldman
Quiet, in the still life of the oval night,
returning with the bittersweet taste of nostalgia
& motionless,
to listen to the music
the man sits at the window &
melancholy oozing sadness & enigma
looks out at the vastness of the swirling darkness
in the rhapsody of the sea
& drifts into memory
to listen to the music of yesterday
inside the void the vanishing
beneath the sultry sun of August
& in his mind,
while the waves come forth the rolling waves come forth
he wanders over rolling hills & majestic mountains
& there is light
meanders around coruscating visions of ancient landscapes across the panorama of the omnipresent past & into Old Brooklyn in the very hot summer of longing on the burning sand of Coney Island
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gloriously flowing there is still light but now, with the burgeoning dawn, after an unending voyage & the lingering smell of the seething salty Atlantic Ocean wafting through the air over wet sand & hot flesh
dr. mel waldman (con’t).
the montivagant sits at the window motionless & blind & listens to the snow fall, & terribly aware in the winter of despair, he listens to the heavy snow rush to earth & even now, there is still light, a coruscating light that opens up the perennial darkness while the snow falls the snow falls the snow falls & covers him, covers his suddenly cold inner landscape, covers him in the deep snow the deep snow the deep snow
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josh medsker. I Fracture
By: Josh Medsker I fracture. Each sound a shard and light seeps in from every where. I start to th rob and slo w down becaus e each st ep hurts. Even thin king hurt s. Hand over eye s and POW! like a string shot out from the crown of my head, like it was going to and coming from the sun. I curl under my blanket and try to get as sm all as I ca n .
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adam andreasen.
Elephant Lines Adam Andreasen Ink on paper
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doug hawley. Switch
By: Doug Hawley “Duke, this is Janine. This call must be coming out of the blue. I know that we have not been in touch for twenty years since I left town. You must have been shocked, considering what we meant to each other, but I had to leave town because I was being stalked and was very afraid. I hope that you can forgive me for the sudden departure.” “Janine, of course I forgive you. That must have been horrible for you. I hope that you are OK now.” “I thought it was the end of my problems when I put the stalker behind me, but my marriage is not going too well. I’ll probably end up divorced – there are trust and fidelity problems. Enough of my situation, how are you doing?” “Pretty good. Married a long time, doing OK financially. No kids. Fairly healthy. We hike a lot, do yoga and so on. If you ignore my face, I probably look about the same as the last time you saw me.” “We should see each other again. Right now would be a bad time while the divorce thing hangs over me. I’m living right down the road from you in Salem now.” After Duke hung up, Sally asked, “Who called?” “That was Janine, that unstable girl that I knew way back when.” “What did she want?” “She called to explain why she disappeared years ago. Apparently she was being stalked.” A few months went past and Sally took off for her business trip to Northern California. Duke called Janine. “Hi, you mentioned us getting together again. Would now be a good time?” “I think so. I’m officially separated now, so I can’t see any harm. Could you come down this evening?” Duke wondered if he could get in any trouble. He had nothing scheduled in the afternoon, and he could always tell Sally he went out to eat or work in the yard if he missed a phone call. Later in Salem, Duke and Janine went out to dinner. She explained her emotional upheaval with the upcoming divorce. They talked about the
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doug hawley (con’t). good times, when they went on picnics with carnal delights for dessert. Duke tried to rub up against her, but she said even though she was separated, she was not divorced. After Duke returned to Portland, he could not get the memories of Janine out of his mind. By comparison, his life with Sally was stale. The same TV shows, the same food, the same vacation every year. Even though he was content, he could no longer imagine another twenty years like the last twenty years. After Sally returned, he could no longer visit Janine without raising her suspicions. He had to be content with sneaking phone calls. Janine was always friendly, but steered conversation away from any kind of commitment, and claimed that her situation was still unresolved. Duke insisted on knowing when she would be officially free. A couple of months later, Janine called to tell Duke that she was unhitched. He immediately told Sally that it was over. “Sally, you don’t want me while I love another. I’m sure that someone as attractive and clever as you will have no problem finding someone to give you the love that I can’t give you any longer. I know that I’m in the wrong and I’ll make any financial settlement you need within reason.” Sally frowned. “It sounds like nothing I can say could get you to stay, so clear out, take everything and leave. My lawyer will be in touch with your lawyer.” Good to his word, Duke was quite generous to Sally. Down in Salem Duke told Janine, “I’m free, you’re free, we can get married and make up for all of those years we could have been together.” “Duke I’m afraid you misunderstood. First, when I talked about infidelity and trust, I’ve got to tell you, I was the one that couldn’t be trusted and was fooling around. In fact, my boyfriend Evan and I already have plans to be married. As for what we talked about, I was just trying to be kind because I felt a little guilty about how I treated you all these years ago. Even then you were just one of the guys I was seeing. I’m so sorry, but you are a small part of my past. Evan is my future.” A broken hearted, depressed Duke returned to Portland where he rented a small apartment with the little money he had left after his
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doug hawley (con’t). settlement with Sally. He soon learned that a financially impaired, unimposing forty-five year old had very little luck on the dating market. In desperation, he tried to make up with Sally, promising to rub her back, rub her front, crawl, whatever it took to get her back. She said: “Not after the way that you humiliated me. Anyway, I’ve found someone who really appreciates me, and there may be a wedding pretty soon.” Unknown to Duke, Janine had called their house a week before she talked to him. That time Sally answered. “Is Duke there?” Janine asked. “No, this is his wife Sally, what is this about?” “This is Janine. He may have mentioned me. I’m just trying to reach some people I knew when I left Portland to explain why I left.” “He’s mentioned you. Sometimes I get the feeling that you were the big deal in his life rather than me.” “That may be what he thought, but it wasn’t that big a deal for me. When I was seeing him, I was already married to my first husband Jack. Jack was the typical bad boy, very exciting, but bad husband material as I found out after I made the mistake of marrying him. No money, no future, bad temper. I thought that I’d try Duke out for a better future, but after awhile, I got tired of the two of them and cleared out. Duke fell for me completely, but he was plain boring. By that time Jack had gotten suspicious and I was scared.” After a long pause, Sally said, “Based on what you tell me, you could do me a big favor. You’re right about how boring he is. I’ve been seeing a guy while Duke is at work. Duke is too thick to suspect anything. I could ask for a divorce, but if I looked like the bad guy, I might lose my friends and be hurt financially. If he asks for a divorce, I’m golden. Would you consider leading him on a little, if possible without outright lies, to see if he would ask me for a divorce? Maybe I could do something for you in return.” After another long pause, Janine responded, “Do you think that you will get enough in your divorce to pay for a decent honeymoon for my boyfriend Evan and I.” “Most definitely.” “Ok, then, I’ll call back later and talk to Duke to get the ball rolling.” Poor dense, dumb, deprived, defeated Duke.
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r.t ve se um lb
ta es at re
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www.ta lb o t - h ei n d l . c o m r.c bl um om “Dancing Girls in Colourful Rays” Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
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ryan morris. What a Lovely Evening in August By: Ryan Morris
Peter checked his watch as he walked down the fifteen unleveled steps of his Shaw row house. He was on time. Perfectly on time. The air hung in his lungs. “It was thick, thick, thick,” he thought. As he breathed, he tried to match his steps with inhalation. It was a compulsion with seemingly no origin. Just something he did. It caused him to hold his breath for just long enough to feel lightheaded. What a delight to lose sensation! If only for a moment. Friday night. Summer. Blood in his teeth from flossing. A few drinks later he sat alone in the faux art deco bar he’d found her at last time. He watched her sitting with another man. Not necessarily a new man. It was all at once strange to Peter. He’d never seen her with him before and he got another drink to celebrate the pain of his observation. Tonight it would be Gin for Peter. Gin. Water. Ice. Light and refreshing. A great tonic for the shakes. The fumbling ingénue of a waitress continually bothered Peter as he entered notes, updates and revisions into his journal. “It’s very important,” he reminded himself, “to be exact. To develop perfect focus. To be certain. Unflinching in your observations. Certainty begets accuracy. Accuracy begets success.” At a table immediately adjacent to Peter, another couple sat in silence. They longed for conversation, for life, for anything that would justify the decisions they’d made bringing them to this city, this restaurant, this plate of risotto and scallops. Divorce is not an option, Peter wanted to remind them. Death, for most people, is the only solution to this dilemma. “What a very sad and broken world we have,” Peter whispered to them. Peter wasn’t sure if they’d heard him. But they hadn’t. In an hour and twenty-two minutes, Peter had counted with certain accuracy, the new man dropped her off at the front door of her apartment complex. The Majestic. It sat blazoned with spotlights at the top of a hill. At the bottom of that hill was the White House. There was no view from her apartment as her salary couldn’t merit such a luxury. Peter would know, he’d done his homework. Peter was a safe distance away as the other man kissed her goodnight. It was as saccharine a moment as is being described, as one imagines when reading those words. Peter turned from her and looked instead into a parked car. The same parked car he would use for camouflage
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ryan morris (con’t). should she glance his way. Peter saw a man look back at him from inside of the car. He moved his head as to change his perspective. To get a better view of the man. The man inside of the car mirrored his movements, ape-like and full of wonderment. “Who are you?” Peter smiled at the man who did not smile back. The man’s greasy yellowed hair looked as if it might not have been washed that day. Or perhaps it was meant to look that way, slicked back with scrambling intensity and very little grace. While smiling Peter had once again aggravated his sensitive gums. Blood crept back onto his taste buds. “What an unfortunate affliction,” Peter thought. An unfortunate affliction indeed. She did not go into the apartment building after the man kissed her without passion. Without remorse for his lifeless lips. Without realizing that she too, was human. That she too, had thoughts that existed beyond him. That she too, cared about little more in this world than her own desires, her own sensational fulfilment, her own survival. By Peter’s arithmetic, and Peter’s arithmetic was rarely wrong, he would be inside of her within the hour. Bumping and sliding with the passion eschewed by the other man. He hadn’t a grasp on where she was going but that was okay. Would she have gone inside, Peter would have followed her to her door. He would have introduced himself and she would have recognized him. She would have known him but not remembered from where. Then she would know. She would know what Peter knew, that they had met! They were, in fact, more acquainted with one another than either could have realized. He had seen her on the metro. She had seen him! He would tell her. “And not just the once,” he would say. On commutes. On her way to meet friends. Before dates. After dates. In restaurants. “From life,” he would reassure her, “you know me from your life. From those inbetween moments in your days. It’s okay now, everything’s okay now.” He would then learn her name and her desires and everything she’d been hiding from him for so long. Alas, she hadn’t gone inside. But that was okay! Things would work out perfectly, Peter knew. He’d planned and calculated for every eventuality.
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ryan morris (con’t). He’d thought about little else at work, at home, with his family, amongst all of those friends who knew him so well. “Where was she going?” he thought grinning. “What a little sneak!” The air hung much heavier as Peter followed her down the hill. He could smell her trepidation in the air. It was the fuel of his perseverance. Things happen so quickly though. And not all can be planned for. And Peter couldn’t have seen that silly little divot in the sidewalk and he couldn’t have planned for the rubber sole of his boot to get caught in that divot and he couldn’t have known to calculate the time it would take to catch himself as he fell. What a silly way to go, Peter didn’t have the chance to think. Peter couldn’t have known his head would hit the sidewalk with such force. That his skull would shatter in such a way as to pierce that little part of his brain that allowed for conscious thought and that other that allowed for motor function. Peter could no longer taste the blood from his inflamed gums. How thankful he would be for this should he have woken up. What could have caused that anyway? He flossed every day and really made dental hygiene a priority in his daily routine. “It’s polite to others,” he used to think. “No one likes to be around someone with such bad breath. It’s just offensive.”
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david groulx. Between the churches
By: David Groulx
Jamaican immigrants come into my neighbourhood every Sunday Neatly dressed to go to church Two blocks away bikers roll up to their Church, the biker’s church I live in between them and go to neither I am neither Jamaican nor a biker There is a bar around the corner I will be there sipping beer and ringing the bells of purgatory
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donors, index. artists Andreasen, Adam
5, 29
Andrelczyk, Mike
16-17
Brougher, Heath
24
Groulx, David
37
Buckles, Sissy
10
Hawley, Doug
30-32
Desio, Elizabeth
12-13
Hridi
18
Newman, Brooke
22 23
Dick, Jonathan
20
Jones, Christie-Luke
14
Nordrum, Travis
Forrest, Allen
11
Jones, Stephanie
25
Protacio-De Guzman, M.
Medsker, Josh
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Roth, Sy
Morris, Ryan Mossalim, Jihane
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Rozik, Chris Sucksdorff, Kena Waldman, Dr. Mel Zurawski, Jacob
we love our donors!
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We love our donors, and to prove it, we’re going to let you know who they are. Without their generosity, the Bitchin’ Kitsch would probably not make it through the year. If you would like to become a donor and see your name here, email chris@talbot-heindl.com and make your pledge. acquaintences of the bitchin’ kitsch ($1-10) - Colin Bares, Casey Bernardo, Teri Edlebeck, Stephanie Jones, Eric Krszjzaniek, Dana Lawson, Jason Loeffler, Justin Olszewski friends of the bitchin’ kitsch ($11-50) - Charles Richard, Kenneth Spalding, Tallulah West lovers of the bitchin’ kitsch ($51-100) - Scott Cook, Keith Talbot partners of the bitchin’ kitsch ($101-1,000) - Felix Gardner, Jan Haskell parents of the bitchin’ kitsch ($1,001-10,000) - none yet, become a parent! demi-gods of the bitchin’ kitsch ($10,001 & up) - The Talbot-Heindl’s
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Skittish Little Bugger Jake Zurawski Ink and marker on paper