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A short story by Francesca Ricci
Contents Welcome to Wernicke’s Area
4
35
Gary Lehmann
Damn. I Hate Consequences
Lutz Becker 5
36
Peter Brownell
Thin White Man
6
38
7
42
15
42
16
43
Fingerprint Duplication Archive John Wild
18
44
Davide Trame
Frame
Midwinter Alessio Zanelli
Lloyd S. Rubin
Accents
Hand of Sand Alessio Zanelli
Robin Priestley
The Church of Art and Apathy
A Sketchbook Xavier Pick
Geofrey (with one f) Geoffrey
Centre Point Lifts
Lectures Holly De Las Casas
Martin Kay
A Story in Underwear
Image within Image
Illustrations For Untold Stories Helen Nodding
18
50
Davide Trame
Cut Up Experiment No. 8 “Timers Run On” Malgorzata Kitowski
Designs on LondON
20
51
Jan Kattein
Underground Aesthetics, Paris Metro
Yew David Knopfler
24
52
Road Movie Tom Leins
Immo Klink
From “Blues Phone Boot” (2001)
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54
Igor Isakovski
Ephemera
Francesca Ricci 30
56
Kiril Bozhinov
The Dictionary
21
57
Paola Cacciari
Also Sprach Fred Gary Lehmann
32
58
Annie Nichols
From Havana with Love
Alterations Anon
Paulina Eglé Pukyté
Two thousand and five
Spreading Nonsense
Cycle / Projector Jethro Brice
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59
Submissions
Welcome to Wernicke’s Area by Gary Lehmann
Back in an attic corner of the left temporal lobe of the brain, above Broca’s Area, behind Herschl’s gyre, below the sulcus of Ronaldo sits Wernicke’s Area, a spongy glob of lumpy flesh responsible for making sense out of words. A German neurologist named Carl Wernicke discovered it in 1874 while packing away the giant shrank he inherited from his ancient grandmother. When he reached out to move a stack of magazines, he spotted it in the corner. Wernicke’s area is tiny, but without it we couldn’t understand visual or symbolic ideas. Abstract art or lyrical poetry would dissolve into a puddle of random words. The whole attic would suddenly be populated with things we’d never seen before. If this area is weak you can read the words but not pile up the pieces into a towering edifice of complex correlations.
The words stand around like strangers at a bus stop.
If you didn’t have a vigorous Wernicke’s area, you wouldn’t be reading this.
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00.51 “I swear, that’s what you told me!” “You’ve always imagined things”. Tossing two yellowish coins on the tray, he stood up, his palms naturally landing on her shoulders, an invitation to leave.
A Story in Underwear
A Story in Underwear
By Geofrey (with one f) Geoffrey
By Geofrey (with one f) Geoffrey
At the annual Sier Gudrunson lecture Professor J. F. Moses correlated the 'dinner party' phenomenon to an undeniable indication regarding the dominance of a healthy middle class under any world order. I wouldn't take to task Emeritus' sharp and cunning observation of our society and would like to plagiarise the occasion by describing if I may, my recent experience at one such culinary gathering of academia, literatia and biographia. My liberal equation for the evening reckoned the presence of over thirteen-thousand titles per private library, the digestion of four books per head since the beginning of the week (today is Friday, seven p.m.), a staggering eight magazine subscriptions per individual, averaging two and a half public lecture attendances this week only, yes, this week only. Me? Well…. kept quiet for most of the evening, witnessing the genesis of 'brilliant brains' and apocalypse of 'hacks' and 'cranks', lagging their prerogatives and oeuvres. Sometime after one a.m. on the following Saturday I copied in shorthand the 'rules and regulations' of dinner parties, while the guests were arriving, strictly one after another (introductory rituals annotated by 'Oh, I saw you queerly scanning the house numbers and thought she must….' or 'Ah, I realised you were lost too so we decided to follow your shadow stopping, stooping, unfolding the severed A-Z page, with a bottle clanging in the carrier bag), the buzzing in two regular short snippets abruptly severing 'how are you doings?', 'nice to see yous' and 'how is….?' your interlocutor trotting off to let in the newly-arrived, swiping away the name of your absent fiancé, fluish
At the annual Sier Gudrunson lecture Professor J . F . Moses correlated the 'dinner party' phenomenon to an undeniable indication regarding the dominance of a healthy middle class under any world order. I wouldn't take to task Emeritus' sharp and cunning observation of our society and would like to plagiarise the occasion by describing if I may, my recent experience at one such culinary gathering of academia, literatia and biographia. My liberal equation for the evening reckoned the presence of over thirteen-thousand titles per private library, the digestion of four books per head since the beginning of the week (today is F r i d a y , seven p.m .), a staggering eight magazine subscriptions per individual, averaging two and a half public lecture attendances this week only, yes, this week only. Me? Well…. kept quiet for most of the evening, witnessing the genesis of 'brilliant brains' and apocalypse of 'hacks' and 'cranks', lagging their prerogatives and oeuvres. Sometime after one a.m . on the following Saturday I copied in shorthand the 'rules and regulations' of dinner parties, while the guests were arriving, strictly one after another (introductory rituals annotated by 'Oh, I saw you queerly scanning the house numbers and thought she must….' or 'Ah, I realised you were lost too so we decided to follow your shadow stopping, stooping, unfolding the severed A-Z page, with a bottle clanging in the carrier bag), the buzzing in two regular short snippets abruptly severing 'how are you doings?', 'nice to see yous' and 'how is….?' your interlocutor trotting off to let in the newly-arrived, swiping away the name of your absent fiancé, fluish
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23.10 “What are you talking about?” Again she showed him the pearly string of her teeth (a cheeky adolescent hunting for embarrassing details). “You once said how you regretted all of them”. Only one smile in this frame, I’m afraid. As it dissolves from her lips, it fades in onto his, travelling along some obscure channel (the night as an accomplice, I could swear).
……………………………………………………………………………………
E p h e m e r a Fleeting Quotations ……………………………………………………………………………………
‘Our constitution makes no sense.’ - The hoopoe from The Conference of the Birds by Farid Ud-Din Attar ‘Ah, what a fine, wonderful and elevated thing is life!’ - Tomcat Murr from The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‘Drives around in a free car!’ - Behemoth (the cat) from The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov ‘They are not going to answer.’ - Gregor Samsa (the beetle) from The Metamorphosis by Franza Kafka. ‘Can I sing, then?’ - Sten (the horse) from The Blue Flower by Raymond Queneau ‘At the gallop! at the gallop!’ - The Unicorn from The Temptations of St Anthony by Gustave Flaubert ‘Yes,yes: if you reckon, we reckon.’ –-The fishes from One Thousand and One Nights ‘Talk, talk, that’s all you can do.’ - Laverdure (the parrot) from Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau
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“It was New Year’s Eve, we spent it locked in your room next to an improvised Christmas Tree. Don’t you remember?” She could give more details if needs be, indeed she could. No, he didn’t remember, no, didn’t want more details. Savour more wine and change subject; a pleasant summer night in the company of your darling should be sailing across the waves of harmless thoughts.
22.28 “Why are you smiling?” she asked, unable to refrain from imitating him. “Why not?” he served her a portion of seafood “I am madly in love with you” Now, isn’t he utterly fantastic! No other man would speak up his mind to the point of embarrassment. The towering fortresses (or bottomless trenches) inhabited by pride, self-esteem, trivial jealousy, aimed love-games, blackmails and false promises, nothing of the sort was between them; none of the ludicrous cheap tactics thought out by weary lovers on the battlefield.
IMAGE WITHIN IMAGE
In 1965 Samuel Beckett wrote a film script for a short film titled Film in which the central figure was to be played by the legendary silent film comedian Buster Keaton. Keaton agreed and the film was realized in 1967 by the director Alan Schneider. Film is a description of a mental implosion. The psychological condition of its silent protagonist is charged with a dark intensity similar to that, which may have preceded the outburst depicted in Edward Munch's The Scream. Buster Keaton sits in a rocking chair in a dismally bleak room. He leafs slowly through a bundle of old photographs. The window of the room is blacked out and even the mirror is covered like in mourning. In this hermetic situation the photographs are the only reflection of the outside world, if only a reflection of a past reality. Keaton examines the images one by one with calm emotion and finally tears them up. As the fragments scatter on the floor, like splinters of a broken mirror, he knows that the images will continue to haunt his memory. In the late 1950s, ten years before this scene was filmed, Buster Keaton had come to Berlin to present his film The General to the audiences of the Film Festival. He was then a sad old man who had spent the previous decade in an alcoholic depression. A dinner was arranged for him with English speaking guests invited so that the veteran film star would not feel too alienated. He arrived and sat down without speaking a word. People looked into his face trying to discover under his wrinkled skin the once familiar physiognomy. No smile. Throughout the evening he clutched a leather-bound photo album under his arm. - Its content was later revealed, but only to the hostess of the evening. It did not contain stills of Keaton's famous film roles, as one might have expected, but images of his distant childhood and his beautiful mother. The old comedian wept.
Lutz Becker 19 July 1997
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As the night drew on my temper began to boil until, at a point, my hand lunged towards two stones just within my reach. Fortunately I only managed to grasp thin air and, as my vision began to shift in and out of focus, I realised that I could no longer discern objects from their suroundings. In short, I was drunk and it was time to go home.
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20.21 They walked around town, alternating between busier and emptier streets. The evening, although meteorologically cooling, was heating up the locals for the night. Flashbacks of her teenage summers in the countryside: the half-lit grandmother’s bedroom, a commode with a marble top, its drawers constantly smelling of camphor and sleeping insects; and an unevenly dotted mirror in front of which she would try out one or two pairs of earrings; the soundtrack of scooters driving past under the open window, heading towards the village square. Ah, Love! Blessed love of lovingly blessed beloved lovers!