Icarus Vol. 68 No. 2 (2018)

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ICARUS MAGAZINE

VOLUME LXVIII, ISSUE II

Trinity College Dublin © Trinity Publications 2018

E D I T O R I A L ‘Put your woolly earplugs in’ much of this comes down to our dreamt font baby and I suppose ‘I know only one person / equal to me in strength’.

The time it takes to respond politically is the time it takes to sweat this out every sound I make a prayer in this, our bear pit fruitborne, this ‘anything / but itself ’. It seems we haven’t left the horizon to hell, as of our circular tunnel vision ‘like all them kings you read about.’ Thomas Merton says ‘I hope we will be together in Paradise’ and where else could we be together? - Embodied zero, where I, I, I speaking words written illegible sounds small alarm a question of our collective emergency exit. -- ‘These are suspect places’ -- I hope that we can be sweet. It takes a keen eye to speak without a string that is thick: -- one prayer at a time. -- This is exposure. A pleasure to give a space for pre-attention, I love you. endurance for our pink flamingos and rioting lawn

- Sophie Fitzpatrick and Sean Pierson 2

seventy-four pages & cover

CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONCover: seaside home 15/3 by DAVID BOYD

Archive Material A Note

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FEATURED: MAIRÉAD BYRNE

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The Boar Hunt In The Arena Poem In Which I Play A Bit Part

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I Am Looking At A Horse

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2, 4, 5-T/2,4-D by AISLINN SHANAHAN DALY

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ways to introduce yourself to your crush by AISLINN SHANAHAN DALY

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La Meré/La Mer by MAYA BUSHELL

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Phoenix! Dodo! FEATURED: SHEILA MANNIX

MARCH 2018 3

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CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CON-

Ah-shoot! Gesundheit FEATURED: SHEILA MANNIX

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parkland by CHARLOTTE FOREMAN

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fragment 3 by CHARLOTTE FOREMAN

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No one can make you feel inferior without your consent by CHARLOTTE FOREMAN

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I <3 Animals by FLORENCE HEAP 8:1 LOUIS ROBERTS

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Bigger Fish To CRY by FLORENCE HEAP

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Foraging for Water Chestnuts by GILAD JAFFE

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If you were to steal this painting by GILAD JAFFE

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CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CON-

Steely Sonnet by FLORENCE HEAP & SEAN PIERSON

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Networking Breakfast by ADAM BOATE

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Art Not Sorry by MICHELLE NICOLAOU

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we broke bread together on this street by IMAAN BARI

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Some Balloons a sumbolon FEATURED: AENGUS WOODS

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Birch Bark Diary, August 2017 FEATURED: SHEILA MANNIX

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Contributors

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Editors

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Back Matter

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MARCH 2018 5

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Cover, vol. 9 No. 29 ed. by Brian Osman

A Note FEATURED: MAIRÉAD BYRNE

“The Boar Hunt” was written just after the August 24th, 2016 earthquake in Central Italy. I was in Santa Maria degli Angeli about 100 kilometres away. It happened just before 4am. I knew immediately what it was. We came out into the piazza. It was still dark. Cars were driving down from Assisi, circling the fountain in the piazza, and leaving town. A few days later I went up to Mount Subasio, part of the Apennines, the spine of Italy so susceptible to earthquakes. The tremors continued for several months. It was the boar-hunting season, and the sounds of the hunt rose from below, ringing the horizon, all day and all night it seemed. “In the Arena” addresses Catullus, having in mind the conventionally untranslatable (unprintable) “Carmen 16.” “Poem In Which I Play A Bit Part” is just about watching the sun rise, morning after morning, from a terrace on the Janiculum Hill above Rome. “I Am Looking at a Horse” was written in Alaska. Before I left Ireland in 1994, a poet said to me “You’re not a lyric poet, are you?” I suppose I nodded dumbly, took a drag of my Sweet Afton, and agreed. But it struck me like a thunderbolt: I’m not a lyric poet. I better emigrate. You can be more than one thing. I have always tried to make form do the job of content. When I got really desperate in life, I would grab any form I found. At the time I wrote these poems, I wanted to do penance but a hint of the lyric came towards me and I embraced it.

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The Boar Hunt FEATURED: MAIRÉAD BYRNE

What is moving is movement itself, so far from language to be readable only through rupture. One part, miles down, wanting to move and moving; another part, not compelled in that way, breaking. Doors open, stay open. Sable night In the valley, we edge a bit closer, is airbrushed away, imperceptibly, holding our phones. Pack up our cars, like the strain on people’s faces or how if we have cars, watch other cars, headlights fuzzy voices are restored, like children plucked from the rocks lurch soundlessly through, and out. are returned to usual shores. We barely have shoes, the soles of our feet in equivocal embassy with the ground. In the hills, the incessant sound of the hunt. The dogs, at ten or eleven o’clock, lay on the hump of the horizon their fine prosciutto.

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Arpeggios of yelps inside of which a more visceral music extends like a tongue into silence. The worst sound of all. Like the bells of the basilica announce themselves suddenly modern one Sunday, unclothing a music that stuns, breathtakingly secular inside its light jacket of ave and vale, unbuttoning with clear fingers unbuttoning a last note, no, yes, there it is. Or how perspective may help us re-frame seven thousand aftershocks. Ouroboros of hounds, cartwheeling down, becoming undone like rags, nose and paw tumbling into that green that is all in a rush, becoming bells, turning to flush—like barrels float the raft— the boar into the clearing. Like a scene you might find on a vase or a stele, in a tacuinum, 9

actually better described by a tension, an absence of motion, and a motion, a discharge of tension, and a motion, and a motion behind grasses in motion, and a stillness and a motion, and a parting of grass. But if you could see you could smell. Feel the particulate, be inside the bells of the dogs as opposed to this apprehension of grit— giving my day a rocky sediment, under cold water, restless in its own way as the uneasy nights. It does that, knowing things are being lovingly slaughtered in the sun. Establish a narrative arc: On the first night. On the second. On the third. Chawing tunnel of bark. Boxed tocsin. Rubber corridor

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with one squeal inside. Or now that I think of it like saws to saw the whole forest down. Or not like, as you will. Or you could say: Everything is crying It doesn’t have to add up, Tridentine corona caterwaul. It doesn’t mean or does it that I’m on the wrong path or the right or that I am or am not relevant, insouciant, walking the hills puzzling What is the geometric shape of howls? Some questions have only one answer: Plunge where? Down. While I am free to climb, to mount the track, grass bristling down its neck and back, something to cling to as I move between the gully and the toppling slope— imagining what it’s like— afraid of what might burst out from the brush. Black butterflies batter accidentally across my path—embers of course, and I ascend, balancing my coronet

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of gnats, my pompadour of flies, my arm a scimitar— I am important to them. But still I cut them down. Hounds chase, tumbling in their parasail. Boars die. Men wait, stock to cheek, each with his portion of innocence— how the hunter can come to believe the hunted enjoys the sport— replete with the satisfaction of hunting a thing that just wants to run. Tremors go on. The hunt goes on. And I descend the mountain slung beneath my captors, in a net. They swing me homeward and I go, half stumbling and half swung and half in the way of things afloat— to meet my boar or eat.

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In The Arena FEATURED: MAIRÉAD BYRNE

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, Catullus, really? You jackknife into view. To say your ave atque vale poem gave me the wrong impression is just to say I like saying ave atque vale as we do like to try out languages, except in Rome. So I thought Lesbia died, after her sparrow, and now I find that no, turns out that she’s Clodia, who broke the groins of her trecentos moechis, and that this passer may have the pet name tender button, and wear a hood, like a much fiercer bird, which makes you a bird-lover, something of an ornithologist of your time—I like you better as a sister than a brother and so did Lesbia, I’m sure, while she was your tutor, and her sparrow, pushing its slick head against your hand. And the poem a hall of mirrors, zig-zag box, or camera across the mobile lens of which you steal surefooted, in your soft tunic, on your toes, one hundred thousand kisses swarming round you, net-fighter, with your stones and trident snarling Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo. 13

Poem In Which I Play A Bit Part FEATURED: MAIRÉAD BYRNE

Into this empyrean thinned to the lightest blue nicked here and there by orisons of jets wiggling like silverfish to the molten other side or showstopping stage right to left like a veteran dressmaker who locks your eyes while cutting, pins in mouth, straight across the sky, rolls the sun, secreted from the jaded cleavage of the hills, loosed like a yolk that breaks its borders on the pan— a disappointing egg crack—struggling to detach, climb, to become a real thing, intact, which it can and does, in three difficult minutes ungluing from the old dame’s clavicle, glowering between the elegant umbrella pineshaped clouds and the adamant dark green of the actual pines, rude with birds, a real thing parachuted from a derived thing like the birds, whether ball of sparrow lobbing through the air, gull static on the vane or arrogant in its wingsweep below the beetling plane or crow clad head to toe in vetoed black or like the sun, cohered, snaps into its opposite, leaning so hard against its own circumference it flames 14

but holds its outline, like a saint, withal, its rise total, sphere distinct, its dominance unmatchable (we know nothing is like the sun), stacked though it is within the banded spectacle, the jumbled hierarchies— empyrean, the planes, the clouds, the trees as aerial as rooted things can be, the birds plaiting their waxen plainsong like a lot of fingers slipping on rubber a lot of times like always or someone cranking a huge handle, churning music into cubes, or dice, our solus dominus, and the storied city like a braid across the horizon, a start or finish line ignored, begins to break like surf delivering its jetsam ever larger, closer to the gravel at our feet. The night’s junk scattered on the terraces, nothing much —a clutch of wineglasses, red metal chair askew, mostly just a deal of emptiness people left, along with some shade. A face lifted for a splash of rosy sun. The African brother on his hunkers heaving over and over water from his guts onto the bridge.

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Americans making sure that they get theirs. And I, in Monteverde, after five weeks keeping the city at arm’s length like a woman who can’t even satisfy herself but still getting off on the aroma, find my sprezzatura, topple from the kerb and cross, while the traffic’s still coming, like a Roman.

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I Am Looking At A Horse FEATURED: MAIRÉAD BYRNE I am looking at a horse and going Awwww when I begin to think That horse is very big. And lumpy. That horse is a moose, two calves in tow and she is walking toward you. I’m walking at a clip. The hill-crest spills out SUVs and pick ups. Above an eagle hunts the Golden Snitch. A stand of trees obscures what happens. Next thing: two raptors hover flat-winged overhead. My heart in hiding prays for planes. I watch a float plane coming in to land and landing on Beluga Lake. It’s plain where the ideas come from though the names— Goose Beaver Cessna Piper Super Cub concede the mix that makes cacophony an agonistic synonym for these big stiff birds. 17

A sandhill crane steps right around the outside of the house. It’s stop and start, the stops so still my videos are like still photographs— my photos don’t disclose the bird at all, folded between grass and reeds. But still my eye— and heart—can catch the moment when the fluent wings unfold and beat the fewest times for lift and she’s away, a scythe across my cheek.

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2, 4, 5-T/2,4-D by AISLINN SHANAHAN DALY

a democracy of goods a torn hole, in hanging skin a fishing line capillary, the postcard dream of anti-personnel features scabies and peeling skin over blonde rolodex curls a green tarp wall to taste blood in and outside to shower in peeling extremities revealing impotence mankind is surrounded by many useless people abundance no many crisp bodies how many exclamations soothed with atomic emollient He says the rock of personhood is perennial freedom of choice tensile, peeling and marred groat a bond for the autoimmune carapace us novelty

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ways to introduce yourself to your crush by AISLINN SHANAHAN DALY

We’re in a boots advert and I spill my coffee into you no you bike into me and your like ahh I’m so sorry and I’m like it’s ok You are my friends fuck buddy and you annoyed me gradually more and more His mouth annoys me but he seems like he has a Life Direction I’m gonna fuck my friend’s crush but disappointingly so It’s tracey emin’s tent so I left a space 4 u I finally made a meal that didn’t taste mediocre is it because I love myself or I learned something from being shit I’ve travelled before and met a dog Self picture with the dog If you have cuffed trousers I can deal but don’t let me win arguments Stop doing what I have done or want to do Cheers You are a teacher I’m bad at maths A different man is always challenging and I paint myself ashamed I can’t understand and that makes him sit on dirt piles proud I saw her and I turned into the boy Str8 gurl At least it’s like a tumbling white sheet and the men leave searing wounds for years And even if I don’t want to fuck you all you do it in your own way And I fuck myself into mockery

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La mère/La mer by MAYA BUSHELL

Her back is arched in two directions With stable hips that part Towards memory created and yet not.

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Phoenix! Dodo! A Trauerspiel-Performance Poem for (4) Voices FEATURED: SHEILA MANNIX

1. NARRATOR: Cast. Tedaldo/Ted, first gentleman. Aldobrandino/Dan, second gentleman. Ermellina/Mella, a smart woman. Stage. On right, a fireplace, an armchair, a rocking cradle, a front door. Left centre, a table and two chairs. Backstage centre, a bed. Spotlight where scene is taking place. Rest in darkness. Scene one. Ted and Dan stand at either side of table. Both wear suit and tie. They trade insults. TED: Bull! DAN: Bear! TED: Hawk! DAN: Dove! TED: Shark! DAN: Fox! NARRATOR: Enter Mella, wears skirt suit. Ted nods at her. TED: Chick. 22

NARRATOR: Mella kicks Ted in shin. MELLA: Ass! NARRATOR: Exit Ted, clutching injured leg. Mella and Dan flirt, moving toward bed. DAN:Vixen! NARRATOR: Mella eyes Dan up and down. MELLA: Leadbeaters Cockatoo? DAN: Panther. MELLA: Lion Cock. DAN: Mockingbird. NARRATOR: Mella pushes Dan onto bed. MELLA: Piranha. NARRATOR: They hump energetically. DAN: Cougar! Tigress! Wildcat! MELLA: Stag! Stallion! Ram! NARRATOR: Silence. DAN: Kittin. MELLA: Honeybear. DAN: Lovebird. MELLA: Lark. 2. NARRATOR: Scene two. Ted at table, wears black polo neck, drinks whiskey, writes morosely in a notebook. TED: Swan. Salmon. Raven. Bull. Wren. Crane. Hound.

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3. NARRATOR: Scene three. Dan in armchair, wears tweeds, reads a thick letter of gargantuan proportions. Enter Mella, pregnant, wears red dress and pearls. MELLA: Boar! NARRATOR: Dan peers over top of letter. DAN: Ladybug Badger? MELLA: Pig! DAN: Elephant. Harpy Bat. NARRATOR: Babydoll, a baby doll, drops from under Mella’s dress, wears a nappy. Dan jumps up. DAN: Hippopotamus! MELLA: Cicada! NARRATOR: Dan picks up Babydoll and hands it tenderly to Mella. DAN: Minnow Kid. NARRATOR: Mella baby-talks to Babydoll as she places it in cradle. MELLA: Puddle-duck Parrot! Dinosaur! Unicorn! DAN: Starling! NARRATOR: Mella sits in armchair, rocks cradle and sings lullaby to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. MELLA: Harpy, Satyr, Minotaur, Ape Coyote, Roadrunner... NARRATOR: Dan kneels before her, kisses her feet. DAN: Mare! Fawn! NARRATOR: Mella leans her face lovingly toward Dan. They rub noses. MELLA: Deer.

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4. NARRATOR: Scene four. Ted sits in lotus meditation posture, wears long black robe. TED: Monkey. Dragon. Rooster. Crow. Wolf. Bear. Horse. 5. NARRATOR: Scene five. Dan and Mella in bed. They fight over duvet. DAN: Hog! MELLA: Bedbug! DAN: Ringneck Dove! MELLA: Skunk! DAN: Cow! MELLA: Shrimp! DAN: Bitch! 6. NARRATOR: Scene six. Ted leans over cradle, wears long black robe, punches Babydoll with each word. TED: Louse. Maggot. Weasel. Worm. Mouse. Chicken. Slug. 7. NARRATOR: Scene seven. Dan stands at open front door, wears suit and tie, carries briefcase. Mella can be heard, but not seen. MELLA: Wasp! NARRATOR: Dan sighs. 25

DAN: Hen? MELLA: Bee Beaver. NARRATOR: Dan, angry, slams front door. DAN: Toucan Bee Beaver, Duck! NARRATOR: Dan passes Ted meditating at front of stage. DAN: Praying Mantis! Marabout! Yellow-bellied Marmot! Hermit Crab! TED: Ant! Sheep! Donkey! Lemming! Dik-dik! NARRATOR: Exit Dan. Enter Mella. She kneels before Ted. MELLA: Eagle. Owl. Lion! NARRATOR: Ted embraces her. TED: Lamb. Doe. Shag! 8. NARRATOR: Scene eight. Dan leans over cradle, wears military uniform, punches Babydoll with each word. DAN: Raptor.Viper. Cobra. Falcon. Weevil. Jackal.Vermin. 9. NARRATOR: Scene nine. Mella lounges on bed, wears pink cocktail dress, flicks through fashion magazine. MELLA: Leopard, Pony, Calf. Alligator, Crocodile, Ermine, Sable - Swan! 10. NARRATOR: Scene ten. Dan and Mella seated at table, he wears black tie, she wears pink cocktail dress. They toast champagne.

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MELLA: Penguin! DAN: Flamingo! MELLA: Locust! DAN: Hyena! NARRATOR: Enter Ted, wears white medical coat. He carries bloodied Babydoll in his arms. MELLA: Phoenix! DAN: Dodo! NARRATOR: Ted slings bloodied Babydoll onto table. TED: Roadkill. NARRATOR: Mella, horrified, picks up Babydoll. MELLA: Goose! NARRATOR: Dan stands up, draws a gun and points it at Ted. DAN: Rat. NARRATOR: Ted draws a gun and points it at Dan. TED: Swine. 11. NARRATOR: Final scene. Mella sits in armchair, wears bloodied pink cocktail dress, rocks empty cradle and sings lullaby to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. MELLA: Harpy, Satyr, Minotaur, Ape Coyote, Roadrunner. Tortoise Hare, Lion Mouse, Wolf Kid, Ant, Grasshopper... NARRATOR: She pauses, unable to recall rest of verse. Quickly invents something. MELLA: Firefly Squid.

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Ah-shoot! Gesundheit. FEATURED: SHEILA MANNIX

Ah-shoot! Heroes/identity after one smoke of white widow. Pondering the significance of the name of the drug. Le mot. D’escalier: word on the stairs. Words arrive as you depart. A conversation. Thinking of what you... Ah-shoot! Gesundheit. Should have said. Should-cut-wood thinking is verboten. We’re all. Punsters and Zen phenomenologists now. In the charity bookshop. Earlier. I left behind S. by Slavenka Draculic. I didn’t want details. Of a woman in a rape camp in Bosnia. I remember Bosnia. I didn’t get on a truck leaving London with supplies. Or. Direct Godot in Sarajevo. Che said you wouldn’t act. “Until the suffering of others makes you bleed.” I picked up S. I flicked through it. I recall. Muslim women tortured in Bosnian rape camps. I swore to stop. 28

Reading about ISIS. I went to bed with the flu and watched War. And Peace. I read Marxism and Modernism: An Historical Study. Of Lukács, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno. I couldn’t afford a PhD thesis. I wanted 10 years ago. The Exile of James Joyce bye Hellene-sick zoo. Hélène Cixous invented écriture féminine: feminine writing. She applied it. To writers like Joyce and Genet. Bowie sang All I have to offer. You is my word on a wing. Rhizomes are also called rootstocks. A rootstock sends out roots and shoots from its nodes.. Ah-shoot! Gesundheit. David Bowie is dead and we are grieving. There’s a track on YouTube that didn’t make Young Americans. The track is called I Am Divine. Divine is a heroine in Genet’s book. Our Lady of the Flowers. Divine starred in Waters’ Female Trouble. Bowie didn’t want a funeral ergo he is divine. He is the king. Who requested a paupers’ cremation. This is not a medieval fable. David Bowie was real. “Shoot, coward.” Ah-shoot! Gesundheit.

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parkland by CHARLOTTE FOREMAN

at the dinner with a linguist who/whom is not the relevant question to the killed deer in the bush listening listing into pure phenomena be men now, hold your body to the wind’s opened door before birth she was a fish she was a jpeg of a monk in milk brazen on the monitor pushing through her body fact refracts in a fishbowl as on the closed laptop lines yield themselves threnody becomes alligator alley beach towels of blood was and will be it’s sunday i was supposed to start my birth control today instead i heard mortality as strength the invertebrate aleph a furnace where our parents met

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precedes the motion in the mother a bowl of dormant intersection louis contends the ease of the lamb behind an adjudicated window I believe I too am alienated in the year of the dog eyelashes deadbeat presidents fentanyl iguanas freeze and fall there are consonants that are voiced and those other ones

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fragment 3 by CHARLOTTE FOREMAN

the limits of morning and evening to give red emmer yet of the glorious wedding a bath in the ritual milk of the beautiful and good, you, playing with reeds on the bed among fishes, a black bull returned home: the moving keel of pain. a bowl of briars a place to put the grief into consider me a transfer of bird from blame everything coming by rhythmic weight to rest in the earth through circle and gyre a bull bellows all day I (you) express intent make a swollen-bellied brine-child of a soldier. you take your fill. For [my thinking an interplay of doors not thus turning fevered horses] this gentle coast is arranged towards water deathless return not the shame of swimmers nor their dishonorable raiment

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all night long I (you) am aware of the blood-price of a body of evildoing in the fish-filled waters I (you) hold onus to the bridal bed or other moons of lineage and legacy our minds one urn by nature of the red birth blessed ones in the earth’s turned waves

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No one can make you feel inferior without your consent - Eleanor Roosevelt by CHARLOTTE FOREMAN

i am now at a six wisdom tooth disadvantage in writing my debut novel though my mother told me when i was on the painkillers they gave me the sixth doesn’t count because it looks like a dog tooth i thank the surgeon on the way out for finally curing my bitch face

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I <3 Animals by FLORENCE HEAP 8:1 LOUIS ROBERTS If you want to stop your child from becoming mean and selfish then you ought to buy them an animal. If you buy a child an animal, it will learn what it is like to look after something that is not quite itself. This information is taken from a manual on parenting children. Animals almost always feel themselves, however. When I was younger I watched a documentary on famous murderers. I got really scared that I might become a serial killer and my father told me that even if I had killed hundreds of people he would still love me and would still come and visit me if I went to prison. He also said that if someone else killed me he would go and kill them because he loved me that much. He does not understand the difference between revenge and love even though these are two very different things to do to someone. Let’s talk about the naked mole-rat now. The naked mole-rat has been voted one of the ugliest creatures in the world. It is nearly blind and has no hair and has really frightening front teeth.

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Its skin doesn’t feel any pain. Naked mole-rats live in colonies under the ground. They are very sophisticated socially. They have a caste system, which is apparently a sign of social sophistication. I hate them. They make me feel like I want to throw up. It is difficult to tell how you ought to feel about someone who gets killed by an animal. It’s not exactly tragic because an animal won’t kill a person in a vindictive way. An animal will only kill a person if the person really annoys it or if they need to eat the person for food. Both these reasons are justifiable, in a way that murdering someone rarely is . Ironically, the people who are most likely to be killed by animals are the people who love animals up close. Do you remember the film about the Grizzly Man, who loved bears so much that he went to live among them and then got eaten by one of them? His disfigured head was found later. Before he got his eyes scratched out he was probably watching the bear open up his stomach with its claws. The bears were not fooled about the Grizzly Man. The rangers found the bear that had eaten him later and killed it. Should he have lived he could’ve felt Sad about this, because he really Loved that bear. 36

I wish that my parents had bought me a naked mole-rat for Christmas so that I could look after it. I swear I would feed it snacks straight from my hand and wrap it up tight in hand-knitted blankets and sing it lullabies and stroke its lack of fur. It is not exactly that the Grizzly Man wanted to be eaten by bears but that he didn’t really mind. If you are going to die being eaten, isn’t it better to be eaten by something you love? This is why I would be a better person than the Grizzly Man if I let a naked mole-rat eat me. I don’t think that my father would come and visit me in prison if I did murder hundreds of people. It will not be very easy for him to love me when my head is shaved and another hardened inmate has knocked out all of my front teeth. He will look at all the crimes on my record and think ‘oh shit’ and go home and think about how if he’d bought me an animal all those years ago I would understand what it means to love things that are not myself. I would understand that this is very important. I would not be mean and selfish. Like a clothed mole rat.

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Bigger Fish to CRY by FLORENCE HEAP

The man of the house is the carver of the meat. After we burned my grandfather my grandmother got on her knees and handed the knife to the only surviving male heir. He sticks it in the chicken carcass and slices. Would that I had been born a boy and might be carver of the chicken. I used to hunt the animals for us to eat. Now there more than five supermarkets in the town so I don’t have to. When I’m feeling spiteful I still put mice corpses in the beds of my rivals. There are lots of cars in the driveway. None of the cars are for me. The only heirlooms I have are skin rashes and a penicillin allergy. It’s how I know I’m not illegitimate. I started out so promising. I used to fit into all the hand-me-down clothes. Now all the skirts are too short and I can’t wear them because I’m really insecure about the shape of my knees.

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You spent four hours cooking me dinner and I ate it and spat it out semi-chewed across the table as a statement. You cried in the kitchen when you thought that I couldn’t see you but I could because I was standing on the stairs. Did you think that you had disappointed me? Did you think that I’d make you fall on your very own carving knife? My grandmother has a pond. She bought a plastic heron to ward off the real herons who want to eat the fish. The fish are called koi. They cost twenty pounds each in the pet shop. I speared her koi with the carving knife and cooked them up in lemon and butter because that is the easiest way to cook a fish. I told her they were trout from the fish-monger and then snickered so much I had to throw up in the bathroom. Crying is so girly. Last night I thought that you stole into my room picked me up carried me outside dropped me in the koi pond. I turned into a fish bigger than the pond. The sides of the pond broke and the flood reached the kitchen.

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Foraging for Water Chestnuts by GILAD JAFFE

At 6 I am at the river. Like little black cats with opposable thumbs, they hide in shoots at the river’s edge. October petrifies the best of us. Everybody seems to want a pet disaster: memories dried & refashioned into fur & flesh to nuzzle at night while the stars all around hold a happy green tea over respective revisionist histories of light & of sound & of family & language, chronology & texture, invasion, machinery, garbage, kids & other things that float. I am calling for the children of cats & stars with outstretched hands: A total domination of the zodiac. This, is in part, why I’ve never owned a cat: I do not know if my mother ever truly was a child. I am told I am my mother’s childhood critter reincarnated: Goodie. I am told he was a good cat. I am told he’d disappear but return, always, bearing gifts. The visible noise of time.

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If you were to steal this painting by GILAD JAFFE

By the name of I-Am-that-I-Am: if you were to steal this painting you would be cast into a burning portrait of a wet fox. Why would anybody paint a wet fox? A word is worth a thousand pictures but nobody talks in this gallery. Like paint the quiet makes for nausea, not conversation. Nobody shivers like a wet fox would at the sight of itself in paint. The piece on the wall is untitled like the wall. The artist would never have it any other way, as the artist would never even have it at all. Maybe that’s why the thing is here in the first place. Maybe it’s the namelessness of the thing that gives the gallery an air of security—insurance that nobody actually wants to be the thief who stole a nameless portrait

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scrambling headfirst into the alarms like a wet fox, grumbling: “I’m the one! I’m the one with the audacity to kidnap god!”

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Steely Sonnet by FLORENCE HEAP & SEAN PIERSON

sing my ear off across the knifeglint of the eyes on yr left boot here southward sloping stunned light faded it is very cold here there are only thrifty thieves and all with a tooth of mine around their chicken-necks on this battlefield at the dinner party for my delicate father figure sing in the form of blue i’m sorry if i were blue-blooded i wd make u cut every tree down at the stump what of blue-ness the metaphysics and what makes it in “the poems”

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Networking Breakfast by ADAM BOATE High powered high Intensity individuals— I don’t know what any of this means, I don’t think I have met any of these people. Rat-race spectateur— Beta negating Networking breakfast; Lots of enthusiasm, Trappings of sophistry. Razor hairlines, On rails suitors, Power stance. Many Caesars: entrepreneurs. Awkward But professional mumbling. Maintain eye-contact, smile ICE-breath, Close the deal, and then go home to your four walls. At the end of it all Do your stretches, Walk the dog, Talk to your wallet, and Tend to your blender.

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Art Not Sorry by MICHELLE NICOLAOU

James Seaton said in 2004: penitent art is art that deliberately refuses to make use of the full range of devices made available to and by earlier literature, as it is not as confident or unapologetic about the enterprise of representing reality as artists once were. Between the length of the light and the depth of the ground, lies the quantum pit.

Please step into the full range of your devices and be mindful of the precariousness of the refusal of your history. Concentrate your efforts ff to giving an END TO PENITENT ART.

45

What are you doing? I’m regarding you. Re-garde Re-see I am re-seeing you. Becoming is the true apocalypse.

We have to dance for this. Dance for me, For you Through me To all of me. Reality is re-empathising with itself, Almost and Always. Almost because this process must go on and on and on and on in order for love to be abundant.

Our eyes are freshly opened, it may sting a little but we will get used to it. Trust this is real because we made it.

I’ve never done anything like that! But all the more reason, to all the more sensibility. We are emotional imprints and if they were staring, it is because I am bodacious. I am embodied as fully as yet.

46

we broke bread together on this street by IMAAN BARI

I i see the light through you looking for exit points the lighter is better outside cold night sky smoke me your silence is floating down my skull down my back let us sit here and speak words through each other your thoughts comforted my tired eyes with warm cups and purple clouds drown out the painful sighs we can help each other with our love projects II nap time is always nice you vacuumed and video gamed while i slept sounds that soothed me to sleep where is the vacuum option on my sleeping sounds app i dreamt of words of writing me too which methodology is going to help me breathe comfort and grace III when you are sad and tired does everything remind you of wombs deteriorate into baby state consciously whine and strew about

47

IV i look to you and nothing here is my paper for you eat it and be grateful i grew it myself i did not your mother: i wish i could give you more V reading my poem you read me don’t worry i won’t open my eyes you can read the words on my eyelids if i ran out of lids i would bring you my kitchen VI buy herbs and make bread for your friends break bread with friends good for your heart good for your soul well intentioned yeast growing while we talk about hot water and bureaucracy one is good for your metabolism the other sells the kettles VII you are a fragile boy i believe you

48

VIII stomping up so many stairs stomp stomp stomp shhh this is how i express myself i push you you hug me will you still love me when i try push you down the stairs staring at you you smile at me i chuckle so sweet little hen boy IX i can stare for so long at you i know you love it because you stare back X you can’t wink at me anymore i didn’t consent to this why do i smile around you if i hate you if i close my eyes then you can’t see me XI your cold hands on the back of my neck in front of everyone sending chills down my spine my cheeks were still warm and then burning this public gesture exposes my shyness as if everyone can see how worried i am this intensifies the burning look at me i can’t be cool right now

49

XII why do i dance with you if i hate you we share whispered confessions of what we missed it feels easy and effortless flutter in chest settle into my stomach and my lungs swell and heart sinks fiction dance high we’re bad for each other we’re bad for each other why won’t you listen to me i can’t help but touch your face when i am with you XIII the silent exchange with this stranger is more energetic than my entire tutorial group we exchange our eyes for each other transaction of eyes TRANSACT MY EYES let me seduce you with my bargaining skills sway my eyelashes on your nose little wind sprites dance to the pulse of my temple XIV i’m not your adopted mother don’t flirt with that foetus ~i want you mom need to stop carrying that book around i’m feeding you the wrong idea XV why do you think you can touch my hair

50

i don’t know you tell me i am beautiful and insult me too it is a bad taste in my mouth you found cigarettes in the bathroom and they tasted better XVI you make me whatever you want me to be take your pick i guess which ethnic origin is my best me no really it’s fine deny me ambiguity suits me better too i could be italian for you i hope i offend you when i tell you my lover is the girl next to me i caress her she kisses my forehead my gaze may be innocent but do not be fooled i am trying to burn a hole through your face with my wide eyed stare big brown eyes of fury and disgrace you smile disappointed and victory is mine XVII my eyes are closing i am so sleepy you lead me through the 4am streets we sleep for an eternity you insist it should be top to toe our sleepy treaty of faith XVIII redeem me by me helping you i caught you reading my words back to you exposing you was painful for me too

51

you don’t want me to beat myself up over you it is better that you know i will abandon you i don’t want to i will stay with you when you show me your scariest self XIX i don’t deserve the tenderness of you you let me cry when i hurt you holding up your bones i wish i could give you more

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Some Balloons a sumbolon FEATURED: AENGUS WOODS CRITIQUE OF UNFETTERED REASON

A piece of string

PREFACE

Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is WEIGHED DOWN by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as FLOATING ABOVE all its powers, it is also not able to answer. The perplexity into which it thus SINKS is not due to any fault of its own. It begins with principles which it has no option save to employ in the course of experience, and which this experience at the same WLPH DEXQGDQWO\ MXVWLºHV LW LQ using. RISING with their aid (since it is determined to this also by its own nature) to ever HIGHER, ever more remote, conditions, it soon becomes aware that in this way -- the questions never ceasing -- its work must always remain incomplete; DQG LW WKHUHIRUH ºQGV LWVHOI

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The Kritik der reinen Vernunft, von Immanuel Kant, professor in Königsberg, was published in 1781 by Johann Friedrich Hartknoch of Riga. Kant’s fundamental insight was that objects conform to our knowledge rather than vice versa. This makes the world a product of man rather than man a product of the world. In the second preface, from 1787, he describes his discoveries as analogous to those of the mathematician and astronomer Nicholas Copernicus. “We should then be preceding precisely on the lines of Copernicus’ primary hypothesis.

compelled to resort to principles which SAIL PAST all possible empirical employment, and which yet seem so unobjectionable that even ordinary consciousness readily accepts them. But by this procedure human reason precipitates itself into THE NIGHT SKY and BUFFETTING WINDS; and while it may indeed conjecture that these must be in some way due to concealed errors, it is not in a position to be able to detect them. For since the principles of which it is making use FLOAT BEYOND the limits of experience, they are no longer subject to any empirical test. The FIRMAMENT of these endless controversies is called metaphysics. Time was when metaphysics was entitled the QUEEN of all the GROUND; and if the will be taken for the deed, the preeminent importance of her accepted tasks gives her every right to this title of honor. Now, however, the changed fashion of the time brings her only scorn; a matron outcast and forsaken, she mourns like Hecuba: Modo maxima rerum, tot generis natisque potens -- nunc trahor exul, inops. Her Government, under

Failing of satisfactory progress in explaining the movements of the heavenly bodies on the supposition that they all revolved round the spectator, he tried whether he might not have better success if he made the spectator to revolve and the stars to remain at rest.” CPR, §.Bvi. In his book De Revolutionibus Orbium, Coelestium Copernicus formulated a heliocentric model of the universe, which placed the sun, rather than the earth, at the center of the Universe. It is notable that despite the Critique of Pure Reason’s placement of subjectivity at the center of worldhood and Kant’s invocation of Copernicus, the notion that the Earth (and therefore Man) are precisely not at the center of the universe has come to be called the Copernican Principle. While

54

the

Copernican

the administration of the dogmatists ZDV DW ÂşUVW despotic. But inasmuch as the legislation still bore traces of the ancient barbarism, her Empire gradually through intestine wars gave way to complete anarchy; and the skeptics, a species of NOMADS, despising all SETTLED modes of life, broke up from time to time all civil society. Happily they were few in number, and were unable to prevent its being established ever anew, although on no uniform and self-consistent plan. In more recent times, it has seemed as if an end might be put to all these controversies and the claims of metaphysics UHFHLYH ÂşQDO MXGJPHQW WKURXJK a certain BODY of the human understanding -- that of the celebrated Locke. But it has turned out quite otherwise. For however the attempt be made to cast doubt upon the pretensions of the supposed QUEEN by tracing her lineage to vulgar origins in common experience, this genealogy has, as a matter of IDFW EHHQ ÂşFWLWLRXVO\ LQYHQWed, and she has still continued to uphold her claims. Metaphysics has accordingly lapsed back into the ancient time-worn GRJPDWLVP DQG VR DJDLQ VXŇŹHUV

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Principle remained operative ever since, the notion that the sun was the center of the universe was itself eventually thrown into question. In 1750 Thomas Wright, in his work An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe, correctly speculated that the Milky way might be a rotating body of a huge number of stars held together by gravitational forces, akin to the solar system on a much larger scale. In a treatise in 1755 Kant elaborated on Wright’s idea about the structure of the Milky Way. Both saw it as coterminous with the universe, swirling out from its center. This hypothesis was eventually supplanted by the claim that there is in fact no center of the universe. This is basis on the Cosmological Principle, an axiom that embodies the working assumption that the distribution

that depreciation from which it was to have been rescued. And now, after all methods, so it is believed, have been tried and found wanting, the prevailing mood is that of weariness and complete LQGLŇŹHUHQWLVP -the MOTHER, in all sciences, of chaos and NIGHT, but happily in this case the source, or at least the prelude, of their approaching reform and restoration. For it at least puts an end to that ill-applied industry which has rendered them thus DARK, UNMOORED, and unserviceable. But it is idle to feign LQGLŇŹHUHQFH WR VXFK HQTXLUies, the object of which can QHYHU EH LQGLŇŹHUHQW WR RXU KXman nature. Indeed these pretended LQGLŇŹHUHQWLVWV, however they may try to disguise themselves by substituting a popular tone for the language of the Schools, inevitably fall back, in so far as they think at all, into those very metaphysical assertions which they profess so greatly to despise. 1RQH WKH OHVV WKLV LQGLŇŹHUHQFH showing itself in the midst of ÂťRXULVKLQJ VFLHQFHV DQG DIfecting precisely those sciences, the knowledge of which, if attainable, we should least of

of matter in the universe is homogenous and isotropic. In other words, the universe is the same no matter who is looking at it and no matter where they are. For this reason the Cosmological Principle is based on the Copernican Principle. The Cosmological Principle was first asserted by Isaac Newton. He held that both time and space were absolute. This means that space is distinct from body and that time passes uniformly without regard to whether anything happens in the world. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s rejects this idea. With his re-orientation of the position of the subject vis-Ă -vis the world, space and time cannot be held as ‘real’ – objective and independent of the subject. Instead, for Kant, space and time are in fact forms of intuition. In 56

all care to dispense with, is a phenomenon that calls for attention and REFLECTION. It LV REYLRXVO\ WKH HŇŹHFW QRW RI WEIGHTLESSNESS but of the matured judgment of the age, which refuses to be any longer SXW RŇŹ ZLWK $ ),1( 75$163$5(17 CLOTH. It is a call to reason to undertake anew the most difÂşFXOW RI DOO LWV WDVNV QDPHO\ that of self-knowledge, and to institute a tribunal which will assure to reason its lawful claims, and dismiss all GROUNDLESS pretensions, not by despotic decrees, but in accordance with its own eternal and unalterable laws. This tribunal is no other than the critique of UNFETTERED reason. I do not mean by this a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general, in respect of all knowledge after which it may strive independently of all experience. It will therefore decide as to the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics in general, and determine its STRING, its GIRTH, and its CIRCUMFERENCE -- all in accordance with principles. I have entered upon this PATH -- the only one that has

57

other words, wholly subjective conditions for experience. “Space is a necessary a priori representation. We can never represent to ourselves the absence of space, though we can quite well think it as empty of objects. It must therefore be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances, and not as a determination dependent upon them. It is an a priori representation, which necessarily underlies outer appearances.� CPR, A24. Today, the Cosmological Principle is one of two major assumptions underlying the prevailing cosmological model for the development of the universe. This is the Big Bang Theory. Big Bang theory suggests that the universe is expanding. Explaining how celestial objects relate to each other in an such a universe David A. Sargaent, in

remained UNNAVIGATED -- and ÂťDWWHU P\VHOI WKDW LQ IROORZLQJ it I have found a way of guarding against all those errors which have hitherto set reason, in its non-empirical employment, at CROSSWINDS with itself. We often hear complaints of SHALLOWNESS of thought in our age and of the consequent DEFLATION of sound science. But I do not see that the sciences which rest upon EARTH, such as mathematics, physics, etc., in the least deserve this reproach. On the contrary, they merit their old reputation for SOLIDITY, and, in the case of physics, even surpass it. The same spirit would have become active in other kinds of knowledge, if only attention had ÂşUVW EHHQ GLUHFWHG WR WKH GHtermination of their principles. Till this is done, inGLŇŹHUHQFH GRXEW DQG LQ WKH ÂşQDO LVVXH VHYHUH FULWLFLVP are themselves proofs of a profound habit of thought. Our age is, in especial degree, the age of criticism, and to criticism everything must submit. Religion through its sanctity, and law-giving through its majesty, may seek to exempt themselves from it. But they then AWAKEN just suspicion, and cannot

his book Copernicus, God and Goldilocks, explains it in the following manner: “Perhaps the best way to imagine it is to think of dots on the surface of a balloon. As the balloon is inflated, the dots do not actually recede from each other across its surface, even though their mutual distance increases. Rather, the surface of the balloon itself expands, and it is this that carries the dots along with it.� P.26 This is known as the Hubble Law. The rubber balloon was invented in 1824 by Michael Faraday, during the course of experiments with various gases. It is said, however, that Galileo inflated a pig’s bladder in an experiment to measure the weight of air. Galileo was later tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition for confirming the ideas of Copernicus with the use of a telescope.

58

claim the sincere respect which reason accords only to that which has been able to sustain the test of free and OPEN examination. I have not evaded its questions by pleading the DEFLATEDNESS of human reason. On the contrary, I have speciÂşHG WKHVH TXHVWLRQV (;+$86TIVELY, according to principles; and after locating the point at which, through misunderstanding, reason comes into CROSSWINDS with itself, I have solved them to its complete satisfaction. The answer to these questions has not, indeed, been such as a dogmatic and VISIONARY insistence upon knowledge might lead us to expect -- that can be catered for only through magical devices, in which I am no adept. Such ways of RELEASING them are, indeed, not within the intention of the natural constitution of our reason; and inasmuch as they have their source in misunderstanding, it is the duty of philosophy to counteract their deceptive inÂťXHQFH QR PDWWHU ZKDW SUL]HG and cherished DREAMS may have to be disowned. In this enquiry I have made THE BALLOON my chief aim, and I venture to assert that there is not a single metaphysical problem

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The universe’s cosmic expansion was confirmed by Edwin Hubble using a 100-inch Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson near Pasadena, CA in 1929. Balloon Emporium, the largest of its kind in the world, is located at 2525 E Foothill Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91107. The website promises their customers, “The balloon. Reimagined.� “As early as 1889, balloons could be bought by people in the United States. Montgomery Ward had them in their catalog that year. The catalog listed them as ‘. . . red rubber balloons with trumpet ends.� The price was four cents each or forty cents a dozen. The balloons were not made in the United States, but were probably imported from Belgium.’� Arnold E. Grummer, The Great Balloon Game Book and More Balloon Activities.

which has not been solved, or for the solution of which the KEY at least has not been supplied. Pure reason is, indeed, so perfect a GLOBE that if its SULQFLSOH ZHUH LQVXҬLFLHQW IRU the solution of even a single one of all the questions to ZKLFK LW LWVHOI (;3(/ ZH VKRXOG have no alternative but to UNHAND the principle, since we should then no longer be able to place implicit reliance upon it in dealing with any one of the other questions. While I am saying this I can fancy that I detect in the face of the reader an expression of indignation, mingled with contempt, at pretensions seemingly so arrogant and vain-glorious. Yet they are incomparably more moderate than the claims of all those writers who on the lines of the usual program profess to prove the simple nature of the soul RU WKH QHFHVVLW\ RI D ºUVW EHginning of the world. For while such writers pledge themselves to extend human knowledge beyond all WALLS of possible experience, I humbly confess that this is entirely beyond my power. I have to deal with nothing save reason itself and its pure thinking; and to obtain

The first manufacture of balloons in the United States came in 1907. The manufacturer was the Anderson Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio. On February 9, 1937, Ludwig Wittgenstein dreamt of balloons. He noted it in his diary. It reads: “A dream: I am riding a train & through the window see a landscape: a village & pretty much in the background I see something that looks like two big hot air balloons. I delight in the view. They now ascend but it turns out there is only one balloon with a parachute-like construction above it. Both maroon. Where it rises from the ground the ground looks black as from the fire. But now I am also flying in a balloon. The gondola is like a compartment & I see through the window that the other ballon is approaching us as if driven by the wind. It is dangerous, for our balloon can catch fire. Now the other balloon is very close. I assume that the crew, which I 60

BALLOONING knowledge of these, there is no need to go far DÂşHOG VLQFH , FRPH XSRQ WKHP in my own self. Common logic itself supplies an example, how all the simple acts of reason can be enumerated completely and systematically. The subject of the present enquiry is the [kindred] question, how much we can hope to achieve by reason, when all the material and assistance of experience are BLOWN away. So much as regards THE BALLOON in our determination of each question, and EXHAUSTIVENESS in our determination of all the questions with which we have to deal. These questions are not arbitrarily selected; they are prescribed to us, by the very nature of knowledge itself, as being the subjectmatter of our critical enquiry. As regards the ROUNDNESS of our enquiry, PRESSURE and TAUTNESS are two essential requirements, rightly to be exacted from anyone who ventures upon so DELICATE an undertaking. As to PRESSURE, I have prescribed to myself the maxim, that in this kind of investigation it is in no wise

61

imagine to be above my compartment, tries to push the balloon away from us. But I think it may have touched us already. I am now lying on my back in the compartment; & think: at any moment a horrible explosion can happen and everything is over. I am often thinking about death now & about how I will prevail in the anguish of death, & the dream relates to that.� On September 10, 2013, the Los Angeles Times reported that Oprah Winfrey has a phobia of balloons. “I don’t like them because they remind me of gunfire,� she said. The headline read, “Oprah Winfrey says she faced fear of balloons, made it a metaphor.� When is a balloon balloon?

not

a

Wittgenstein suspected that his dream balloon functioned as a

permissible to hold BREATH. Everything, therefore, which bears any manner of resemblance to a hypothesis is to be treated as contraband; it is not to be put up for SALE even at the lowest PRICE, but forthwith FRQÂşVFDWHG LPPHGLDWHO\ XSRQ detection. Any knowledge that professes to hold a priori lays claim to be regarded as absolutely necessary. This applies still more to any determination of all pure a priori knowledge, since such determination has PUMP,

to and

serve

as

the

therefore

the [supreme] example,

of

metaphorical vehicle to explore his fear of death. Oprah, it seems, believed she could overcome her fear of balloons by interpreting her fear of balloons as a metaphor for her fear of balloons. In his Poetics, Aristotle defines metaphor as the transference of a name from one thing to another.

as all

apodeictic (philosophical) PRESSURE. Whether I have succeeded in what I have undertaken must be left altogether to the reader’s judgment; the author’s task is solely to adduce GROUNDS, not to speak as WR WKH HҏHFW ZKLFK WKH\ VKRXOG have upon those who are SITTING in judgment. But the author, in order that he may not himself, innocently, be the cause of any DEFLATION of his arguments, may be permitted to draw attention to certain passages, which, although merely incidental, may yet occasion some mistrust. Such timely intervention may

Le Ballon Rouge is a 1956 fantasy featurette directed by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse. The thirty-four minute film follows the adventure of a young boy who one day finds a red balloon with a mind of its own. In their wanderings around Paris, the young boy and the balloon encounter a gang of bullies who are envious of his balloon, and they soon destroy his new friend through the use of slingshots. The film ends as the 62

VHUYH WR FRXQWHUDFW WKH LQ»XHQFH ZKLFK HYHQ TXLWH XQGHºQHG doubts as to these minor matters might otherwise exercise upon the reader’s attitude in regard to the main issue. I know no enquiries which are more important for exploring the faculty which we entitle understanding, and for determining the rules and SKIN of its employment, than those which I have instituted in the second chapter of the Transcendental Analytic under the title

Deduction

UNFETTERED

of

Concepts

the of

Understanding. They are also those which have cost me the greatest labor -- labor, as I hope, not unrewarded. This enquiry, which is somewhat deeply GROUNDED, has two sides. The one refers to the objects of pure understanding, and is intended to expound and render intelligible the objective validity of its a priori concepts. It is therefore essential to my purposes. The other seeks to investigate the pure understanding itself, its possibility and the cognitive faculties upon which it rests; and so deals with it in its subjective aspect. Although this latter

63

other balloons in Paris come to the boy’s aid and take him on a cluster balloon ride over the city. Donald Barthelme’s story ‘The Balloon’ appeared in the New Yorker magazine on April 16, 1966. On www.youtube.com, there is a 9 second clip of an enormous Superman balloon from the 1966 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It was shot on 8mm film and uploaded by one Steve Younis. As of 1:57pm on 4 January, 2018, the clip has been viewed 2311 times. In 1966 Peter Schmidt produced sound with a balloon during a performance with the Boyle family at the Cochrane Theatre. Schmidt is perhaps best known as the co-creator, along with Brian Eno, of the oracular Oblique Strategies card set. In an essay from 1971 entitled

exposition is of great importance for my chief purpose, it does not form an essential part of it. For the chief question is always simply this: -- what and how much can the understanding and reason know apart from all experience? not: -- how is the faculty of thought itself possible? The latter is, as it were, the search for the cause RI D JLYHQ HҏHFW DQG WR WKDW extent is somewhat hypothetical in character (though, as I shall show elsewhere, it is not really so); and I would appear to be taking the liberty simply of expressing an opinion, in which case the reader would EH IUHH WR H[SUHVV D GLҏHUHQW opinion. For this reason I must forestall the reader’s criticism by pointing out that the objective deduction with which , DP KHUH FKLH\ FRQFHUQHG UHtains its full WEIGHT even if my subjective deduction should fail to produce that complete conviction for which I hope. On this matter, what has been said on pp. 92-93 should in any case VXҏLFH E\ LWVHOI As regards TAUTNESS, the reader has a right to demand, LQ WKH ºUVW SODFH D discursive (logical) TAUTNESS, through concepts, and secondly, a HAND

‘White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy,’ Jacques Derrida wrote of the need “to acknowledge the importation into the so-called philosophical discourse of exogenous metaphors, or rather significations that become metaphorical in being transported out of their own habitat.� Margins of Philosophy, p.220. In 1978, Gordon Matta-Clark made a series of sketches entitled Sky Hook (studies for a balloon building). That same year, Jeff Koons began to place inflatable plastic flowers against mirrors. Balloon Dog (Orange) by Jeff Koons was first exhibited in 1994. On November 12, 2013, it sold at Christie’s Post War and Comtemporary Art Even Sale in New York for $58.4 million, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction.

64

(aesthetic) PRESSURE, through FINGERS, that is, through examples and other CONCRETE illusWUDWLRQV )RU WKH ÂşUVW , KDYH VXŇŹLFLHQWO\ SURYLGHG 7KDW ZDV essential to my purpose; but it has also been the incidental cause of my not being in a position to do justice to the second demand, which, if not so PRESSING, is yet still quite reasonable. I have been almost continuously at a loss, during the progress of my work, how I should proceed in this matter. Examples and illustrations seemed always to be necessary, and so took their place, as reTXLUHG LQ P\ ÂşUVW GUDIW %XW , very soon became aware of the magnitude of my task and of the multiplicity of matters with which I should have to deal; and as I GRASPED that even if treated in dry, purely scholastic fashion, the outcome would by itself be already quite sufÂşFLHQWO\ ODUJH LQ %8/. , IRXQG it inadvisable to INFLATE it yet further through examples and illustrations. These are necessary only from a popular point of view; and this work can never be made suitable for popular EATING. Such assistance is not required by genuine of the science, and, though always

65

The ‘balloon boy hoax’ occurred on October 15, 2009 in Fort Collins, Colorado, when Richard and Mayumi Heene allowed a gas balloon filled with helium to float away into the atmosphere, and then claimed that their six year old son Falcon was inside it. At the time, it was reported by the mass media that the boy was apparently travelling at altitudes reaching 7,000 feet (2,100) in a homemade balloon colored and shaped to resemble a silver flying saucer-type of UFO. The event attracted worldwide attention. Falcon was nicknamed ‘Balloon Boy’ by some in the media. After more than an hour-long flight that covered more than 50 miles across three countries, the balloon landed about 12 miles northeast of Denver International Airport. Authorities closed down the Denver airport and sent several National Guard helicopters and local police in pursuit. After the balloon landed and the boy was found not to be inside, authorities began a manhunt of the entire area, raising fears he had fallen from the

pleasing, might very well in this case have been self-deIHDWLQJ LQ LWV HŇŹHFWV $EERW Terrasson has remarked that if the ROUNDNESS of a BALLOON be measured not by SURFACE but by the time required for REVOLVING, it can be said of many a BALLOON, that it would be much ROUNDER if it were not so ROUND. On the other HAND, if we have in view the CIRCUMFERENCE of a GLOBE of speculative knowledge, which, though WIDERANGING, has the ONENESS that follows from unity of principle, we can say with equal justice that many a BALLOON would have been much MORE BUOYANT if it had not made VXFK DQ HŇŹRUW to be BUOYANT. For the aids to BUOYANCY, though they may be of assistance in regard to details, often interfere with our GRASP of the whole. The HUMAN is not allowed to arrive sufÂşFLHQWO\ TXLFNO\ DW D *5$63 RI the whole; the bright coloring of the RUBBER intervenes to cover over and conceal the articulation and AERATION of the system, which, if we are to be able to judge of its unity and 62/,',7< DUH ZKDW FKLHÂť\ FRQcern us. will

The HUMAN, I should judge, FEEL it to be no small

balloon; it was reported that an object had detached from the balloon and fallen to the ground. Later that afternoon the boy was reported to have been hiding in his home’s attic the entire time. The balloon measured 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet in height and was constructed from plastic traps taped together, covered with an aluminum foil and held together with string and duct tape.The base of the balloon, which Falcon allegedly crawled into, was a utility box made from a very thin piece of plywood and cardboard on the side. It was held together with string and duct tape. How do we get from the left column to the right? Derrida, writing of Kant’s search for ‘grounds of unite’ in Critique of Judgment noted, “we find related metaphors or analogies, it is again a question of the immense ‘abyss’ which separates 66

inducement to YIELD his willing co-operation, when the author is thus endeavoring, according to the plan here proposed, to carry through a large and important BALLOON in a complete and lasting manner. Metaphysics, on the view which we are adopting, is the only one of all the sciences which dare promise that through a small but concentrated BLOW it will attain, and this in a short time, such INFLATION as will leave no task to our successors save that of HOLDING it in a didactic manner according to their own preferences, without their being able to add anything whatsoever to its content. For it is nothing but the inventory of all our AIR through pure BREATHING, systematically arranged. In this FIELD nothing can escape us. What reason produces entirely out of itself cannot be concealed, but is brought to DAYLIGHT by reason itself immediately the common principle has been discovered. The complete unity of this kind of knowledge, and the fact that it is derived solely from THE LUNGS, entirely UNINFLATED by any experience or by special BREATHING, such as might lead to any determinate experience

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the two worlds and of the apparent impossibility of throwing a bridge (Brücke) from one shore to the other. To call this an analogy does not yet say anything.The bridge is not an analogy.The recourse to analogy, the concept and the effect of analogy are or make the bridge itself – both in the Critique and in the whole powerful tradition to which it still belongs. The analogy which says that there must surely be an analogy between two heterogeneous worlds, a third term to cross the abyss, to heal over the gaping wound and think the gap. In a word, a symbol. The bridge is a symbol, it passes from one bank to the other, and the symbol is a bridge.” The Truth in Painting, p.36. Perhaps what Kant needed was not a bridge but a balloon. On March 14, 2013, a hot air balloon crashed into the Australian Treasury building in Canberra. No one was hurt.

WKDW ZRXOG (1/$5*( DQG (;3$1' it, make this unconditioned SPHERE not only practicable but also necessary. Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex. Such a system of UNFETTERED (speculative) reason I hope myself to produce under the title Metaphysics of Nature. It will be not half as ENORMOUS, yet incomparably FULLER in AIR than this present Critique ZKLFK KDV DV LWV ยบUVW task to discover the RUBBER and STRING of the possibility of such criticism, CLEARING, as it were, and LEVELLING what has hitherto been WASTE-GROUND. In this present enterprise I GLANCE to my reader for the patience and impartiality of a judge; whereas in the other I shall look for the benevolent assistance of a fellow-worker. For however completely all the principles of the system are presented in this Critique, the TOTAL INFLATION of the system itself likewise requires that no BREATHING HUMANS be lacking. These cannot be enumerated by any a priori computation, but must be discovered gradually. Whereas, therefore, in this Critique the entire CAPACITY has been exhausted, there will

The inflation rate in Australia was recorded at 2.70% in the first quarter of 2013. Abstract notions always hide a sensory figure. A company called World View Enterprises were scheduled to begin carrying tourists on near-space balloon flights in 2017. The experience will cost $75,000 per person.

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still remain the further work of making their FLOTATION similarly complete, a task which is rather an amusement than WORK.

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Birch Bark Diary, August 2017 FEATURED: SHEILA MANNIX

Secondaries everyone

knows stare at

birch

bark snap

it phone

on 70

The craftiest way to serve a dram of birchsap spirit (the sun downer of choice this summer)

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CONTRIBUTORS IMAAN BARI Imaan thinks you can refer to her previous bios to understand what’s what. She doesn’t have time for you right now. You can also read her poem. ADAM BOATE Adam Boate is a final year PPES student. He has previously been published in the Spring 2016 issue of Icarus. DAVID BOYD David likes all the colours to the left of red. MAYA BUSHELL Maya is a Senior Fresh student of English Literature and History of Art and Architecture. She believes in bread and roses. FEATURED: MAIRÉAD BYRNE MAIRÉAD BYRNE emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1994, immediately upon completing a H.Dip.Ed. at Trinity. She earned a PhD in Theory & Cultural Studies at Purdue University and taught at the University of Mississippi before coming to Rhode Island School of Design, where is Professor of Poetry + Poetics, teaching courses in Sound Poetry,Visual Poetry, Digital Poetics, Material Poetics, and Contemporary Poetry. Her six poetry collections include Famosa na sua cabeça (Famous in Your Head), selected and translated by Dirceu Villa (Dobra Editorial 2015), You Have to Laugh: New and Selected Poems (Barrow Street 2013), and SOS Poetry (/ubu Editions 2007). Collaborations with visual artists include Jennifer’s Family (Schilt 2012), with photographer Louisa Marie Summer. She runs couscous, a once monthly now occasional performance series in Providence (and sometimes in Cork), which mixes up everything that can be mixed up in poetry.

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CONTRIBUTORS CHARLOTTE FOREMAN On what it turns, these big seas, some bathos database. She says hello, say hi from me. The space here — a field — has just been opened. GILAD JAFFE Gilad Jaffe is an undergraduate Written Arts student at Bard College in upstate New York. He has been both an Editorial Assistant at Conjunctions and the Manager of New York-based record label, 100% Electronica. His writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in Fugue, Post-Trash, Bard Papers, YST and others. FEATURED: SHEILA MANNIX Sheila Mannix lives in Cork and works part-time as a research administrator in the French department at UCC. She had two poetry chapbooks published in 2017 – female corpse (Smithereens Press) and Dual Poet Reader: One with Nathan Spoon (hardPressed poetry). Her second chapbook with Smithereens Press, Lashed across the Skies will be available free from March 27th at: www.smithereenspress.com Acknowledgement: Phoenix! Dodo! appeared in Tears in the Fence (UK) No. 61 Winter/Spring 2015. MICHELLE NICOLAOU Michelle Nicolaou is a Senior Freshman in English. She just wants everybody to sit with themselves sometimes. LOUIS ROBERTS <Louis is a collection of voices that sometimes are put on paper or in the air or along fibre optics. He likes sunlight, which is good for Vitamin D, though artificial light is always a nice reminder of busy human life. He has a perfect BMI. He writes in his phone notes and sometimes that’s poetry but mostly it’s rigorous self-justification. He wishes judge mentality would be taken out of jurisprudence, to be fair. Mostly, he wants something of a 68.> EDITED BY ADMIN

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CONTRIBUTORS / EDITORS AISLINN SHANAHAN DALY Now is the time of monsters according to Ais. FEATURED: AENGUS WOODS Aengus Woods is the author of DIWIF: Demonic Interventions With IKEA Furniture (New York: Printed Matter Inc., 2014) and a co-editor of Other Edens: the life and work of Brian Coffey (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010). His writings have appeared in About Trees by Katie Holten (Berlin: Broken Dimanche Press, 2015), Critical Insights: David Foster Wallace, edited by Philip Coleman (New York: Salem Press, 2015), Winter Pages, the Irish Times and the Dublin Review of Books. Editor: SOPHIE FITZPATRICK Sophie wants to sail several seas. She is saving up for a ship: HP ENVY. Throw a girl a bone! Editor: SEAN PIERSON Sean just wants a name to take. Take his time PLEASE for me. He thinks everyone is so nice. Editorial Assistant: PHELIM Ó LAOGHAIRE Phelim was looking to find time and will not get there yet. I will apologise for the delay and hope to have met you and be sooner or later. Where have you been and when you leaving? Archivist: SORCHA NÍ CHEALLAIGH Sorcha’s practices put forth a generosity of sound. She is personal assistant to Sophie Fitzpatrick. Public Relations Officer: FLORENCE HEAP really good at assisting and also studious The Icarus staff acknowledges Trinity Publications and the School of English, as well as Digital Print Dynamics, for making this issue possible. Icarus is a fully participating member of the Press Council of Ireland. Serious complaints should be made to: The Editors, Icarus, Trinity Publications, Mandela House, Dublin 2. Appeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland. Information concerning copyright and permissions can be found at www [dot] icarusmagazine [dot] com.

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