It’s hard to believe that the passage of time has delivered us so quickly from March to August. Spring has morphed into summer, and Poisonous has morphed into Pleasure/Play. Volume II was outrageously fun to create—in many ways, it was a rebellion against the seasons and a chance to explore those last pockets of darkness before the sun came to stay.
Now the light is everywhere. Originally, Volume III: Pleasure/ Play was a fun, airy notion that fit the summer spirit; think pool parties, warm nights, and hedonism. But it wouldn’t be Pornstar Martini if we didn’t fuck it just up a little. Quickly, Volume III became a question of “what happens when there’s too much light?” That was the thought I had coming into the summer having lost my childhood dog, Goldie, in May. With the world so alive while I felt anything but, I quickly realized that many of our talented Writers were exploring similar notions of distance from pleasure or play.
Many of the pieces in this Volume find themselves on all points on the Pleasure/Play spectrum. Some explore nostalgia and whimsy while others explore performance and perception. Some question while others evaluate. What all of these works have in
common is a desire to find balance in environments of scrutiny and suffering with a need to work things out in the direction of joy. So, our wonderful Editorial Team devised the concept of a Playhouse: a venue somewhere between a cabaret club and an interactive exhibit, fitted with an abundance of spotlights, glitterballs, and mirrors. Here in all this light, Readers can work their own ways towards pleasure and play.
It goes without saying that I’d like to thank all of our marvelous Contributors and Editors. Watching the Pornstar Martini community grow and support itself is an immense honor. Ultimately, Volume III is an outlet for finding happiness within the complexities of our world. For your huge part in helping me find mine, I dedicate this Volume to you, Goldie.
These pieces promise thrills, surprises, laughs, and in true Pornstar Martini style, a lot of yearning. You’ll find Supervillains and Barbies, Printers and Pearls, dancing and delinquency. There’s even a fabulous interview with our favorite hyperpop punk band, B1G CH0MP3RS. Whichever room takes your fancy, the only thing left to say is: Welcome to the Playhouse! And watch out for rats.
With Literary Love,
Harriet Taylor Editor In Chief
Pornstar Martini Playhouse
girl you’re getting tai pho with gives you an existential crisis about love (and whether you’re doing it right)
The Dollhouse Room 1:
Enjoy our extensive collection of dolls both vintage and new!
Remember: they have feelings.
Y or N?
Words by Claudia Wysocky
Roses are red, Violets are blue. I have lived my life, And so have you.
But I need,
Something more. (I need)
Something to love —With all of my heart. I’ve had loves before, But they either forgot me, or I left them. But all are gone, And I need another, —With every bit of my being. So I’ll give myself over,
To the first girl I see.
Wanting only
To please her.
All that she— Requires of me, Is everything. I guess I love you.
Y or N?
I think, —that yes, I’ll go for yes.
(Sure… why not.)
I mean,
Good things come in pairs, don’t they? And I love you:
—and I still enjoy the sound of “You”—; I’ll think it over.
(In a second.)
So… Y or N?
Please choose. One or the other,
Doesn’t matter to me— —At least, not right now.
But later, when we’re together, —Under the sky, lost in each other’s arms, I’ll think it over. (Again...)
But…what if you say no? (Oh no!)
But—What if I say yes? (Why do you do this to me?)
Why can’t you choose? (Surely it couldn’t be hard!)
So… Y or N?
Choose one—
—And pick one now! You’re driving me nuts!
And if it’s N, I’ll go for Y.
So… Y or N? —I guess you’ll never know.
Stevie Barbie wants a friendship bracelet
On the ritual of eight Stevie
Nicks shows and
counting
I’m at a concert surrounded by a thousand lesbian witches.
In Hyde Park, London, it’s almost 8pm. My companion today is the twelve inch tall official Mattel Stevie Nicks Barbie, adorned in her Rumours-inspired black flowy two-piece and her trusty ribboned tambourine. Together we’ve been warming the barricade since the doors opened at 1. A group of Irish millennials who haven’t seen each other in seven years has just returned Stevie Barbie after borrowing her for a photo op. They’re grinning like little kids.
I’m wearing a friendship bracelet given to me by the Welsh girl to my right, who approached me in the entry queue and asked if Stevie Barbie wanted to swap. We’re both wearing long skirts. We both carry our myriad bracelets on carabiners. We pick our exchanges—mine is five shades of pink and reads “SARA.” Hers is four shades of blue and reads “DREAMS.” We chat about American Horror Story and Chappell Roan and maybe Stevie’s an accidental gay icon? We agree to save each other’s spots at the front.
She tells me it’s her first time seeing Stevie live. I tell her it’s my seventh and that I’m so excited for what’s about to come over her.
So far, I’ve seen a child in full Stevie regalia: a blond wig and boots about four sizes too big for her soon to be weary feet. I’ve seen ninety-nine percent of the world’s shawl population and every single vintage turquoise ring on the market. The audience is awash with six inch platforms and shaggy hair and enough moon paraphernalia fit for The Drawing Down of the Moon. Everything about the setup of this concert feels aligned with this ancient ritual; the pieces are almost in place for our “priestess” to call upon the stars and reignite the divine within ourselves.
There’s a collective gasp as Stevie’s mic arrives center-stage, decked out with even more multicolored ribbons and beads. With just a few minutes to go, I wave to my friend from Los Angeles farther back in the crowd, which is becoming more excited by the second. I wave to a group of feverish Twitter mutuals from all over Europe—The Netherlands, Portugal, Estonia—on the other side of the barricade’s central division. The occasional American accent pierces the British buzz in the staggered breeze, and I fix Stevie Barbie’s hair for the seventeenth time. Finally, the drums kick in and the show begins. Five foot one Stevie Nicks incarnate floats out into the open.
Unleashed from her box, Stevie Barbie joins in the fun. She dances and spots another of her kind in the audience. She screams “players only love you when they’re playing.” She’s made the Instagram story of a man further down the barricade who runs one of the biggest Stevie Nicks fan accounts. He films the show in its entirety, seemingly lip syncing to avoid ruining his content. I spot several spectators making TikToks and other digital memories. Enraptured by what’s unfolding on stage, the audience has evolved into a unified being that sways gently with the music as the tide does with the moon.
Seeing Stevie perform is an utter delight. She purrs, she belts, she serenades, she twirls, she tells jokes I’ve heard and jokes that surprise everyone in the crowd. We all giggle and tell each other she should start a podcast. Stevie shows off her original capes and her vocal versatility from “Bella Donna” to “Gold Dust Woman,” during which she dances as a woman possessed. She shakes her tambourine fervently as the night descends and—oh look who it is—she’s even brought Harry Styles out of hiding for duets of “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and “Landslide.”
This, here, is the ritual I love.
The show is a perfect potion of comfort, familiarity, excitement, and friendship. Stevie Nicks certainly isn’t the only one to have fans who dress up like her and swap bracelets in her name, but she’s a genius at combining the old with the modern both in culture and in musicality. She ensures her openers are always young developing artists. Her voice has aged wonderfully into its own—low and smoky and still powerful. She sings with a playful spirit and a nostalgic twang, often reworking songs from her archive to include new contexts. She enchants us with her stories, unafraid of vulnerability. Stevie makes us feel like old friends catching up, which after seven shows, I’m starting to believe she and I really are.
“Landslide,” the last song of the show, is particularly poignant. Since early 2023, Stevie has performed this ballad as a tribute dedicated to Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie, who passed away the November before. Having been present at the very first tribute over a year ago, I find it remarkable to witness the journey Stevie has taken up to now. Today, she tells us, is Christine’s birthday, and it’s taken her all this time to be able to process her grief. In sharing a part of her hurt and healing with us, Stevie merges the divine qualities of her performance with
distinctly human emotions. This completes the final act of the ritual that allows us to return to the deepest parts of ourselves.
Like clockwork, “Landslide” always makes me cry. Each show I receive a hug from a different stranger with their own story to tell and their own emotion to process—yearning, regret, an impalpable desire to stay in the present moment forever. For me, it’s become a milestone marker with which I honor what’s changed, what’s been lost, and the progress I’ve made. I scroll back to photos with friends I made from my last Stevie show at Bottlerock, Napa. I want to tell them I miss them even though I only met them for eleven hours. I want to hug the loved ones I haven’t seen for a while, my childhood dog I lost two months ago, my mother.
My therapist once asked what I find so special about Stevie Nicks concerts. Beyond the familiarity, whimsy, and the luxury of (mostly) seated shows, I told her that among an industry defined by manufactured, polished image, Stevie gives us a rare reprise of genuine emotional character. She teaches us to embrace the complexities of our lives and what relief can come from sharing them. Stevie shows publicly that healing is authentic, nonlinear, and takes a long, long time. The next time I mentioned a safe space, my therapist asked, “when’s your next Stevie?”
We’ve reached the final notes now, and as the White Witch graces the stage once again I realize it’s as enjoyable to watch the crowd as it is to watch her. The Welsh girl to my right gazes upward with glossy eyes. The Twitter mutuals have their arms around each other. With glittery tears streaming down my face, I feel that we are a galaxy of joy, reflection, and release.
The concert ends. Stevie tells us to be well, that she runs to the stage whenever she is upset. And I think to myself: in a world where rituals are so hard to hold on to, it can’t hurt to add another beaded bracelet to Stevie Barbie’s collection.
SUPERViLLAiNS AND WHAT TO DO WHEN NOBODY GIVES A SHIT
Words by Amanda Postman
I’m not surprised if you have no idea what Archvillain is. You’re in the majority. In total, there are about four people who care about the series, one of which is the author. I am one of the lucky four. Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.
Archvillain is a middle grade book series by Barry Lyga. The first book was published by Scholastic in 2010 and the last in 2013. It was originally accepted for a three-book contract, with the expectation that it would receive more books if it sold well. It did not, in fact, sell well, and so the series ended after book number three.
I discovered the series in 2015 at the age of fourteen, which was already a bit too old to be reading middle grade books. I have always been a lover of cheesy movies and books, and one
look at the cover—which featured the costumed main character posing in front of a meteor shower and the text “It’s good to be bad”—told me that it would be good for a laugh. I checked it out, slightly embarrassed by what I imagined to be the judging stare of the librarian, and brought it home.
I was not prepared for how much it would fuck me up.
The story is about twelve-year-old Kyle Camden, resident of the town of “Bouring.” Kyle is famous around town for being a prankster and making adults take themselves less seriously. (He even has a manifesto about it!) One night, while setting up a prank on the high school’s football field, the stars begin falling and the sky ripples with blue plasma. Kyle walks into the nearby cornfield to investigate and sees a kid his age emerge from the sky. Overloaded from exposure to the mystical plasma, Kyle passes out. When he wakes up, he’s home in bed, having presumably been sick for a week. He returns to school and finds out that the kid from the sky, Mike Matthews, is now his new
classmate—having been found wandering around the cornfield and taken in by foster parents. Mike is sweet, confident, attractive, and the new most popular kid in school thanks to his array of superpowers. Kyle’s best friend, Mairi Mactaggert, begins hanging out with him and neglecting Kyle. The entire world believes that “Mighty Mike” is a benevolent superpowered do-gooder with brain damage and amnesia, but Kyle knows better— he’s an alien from outer space! Armed with his own set of superpowers, including a super-brain, Kyle sets out to prove that Mike is evil and accidentally becomes a supervillain himself. Over the course of the series, Kyle faces dirt monsters, ten-story robots, and time-traveling zombies. He learns about friendship, sacrifice, and how to take himself a little less seriously.
It is a pretty cheesy series, not going to lie, but it has its moments. Kyle’s storyline with fellow supervillain Mad Mask, for example, resembles the thrill of a first crush, the blindness of love, and the heartache of a breakup. (But with more giant robots.) When Mairi is kidnapped by the Mad Mask, she realizes Kyle’s secret identity, and
he is forced to brainwash her to protect himself. And when Kyle confronts another villain during a time-travel trip, he detects a secret room, where an older version of the Mad Mask is chained up and tortured by the mad scientist. The touches of darkness added some moral complexity to what was a pretty light premise.
I became obsessed. I sped through the series, then sped through it a second and third time. I created a Tumblr blog for the series, where I made amateur art and wrote fanfics for the entire internet to see. (They are all still up. Search for them if you dare, but don’t be surprised if you cringe—I was fourteen when I wrote them.)
Nobody noticed my creations, which surprised me. The internet is so big—surely someone had read the series. I scoured fanfiction.net, Wattpad, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter—pretty much everywhere I could think of. No dice. I even resorted to reading school presentations on the book—I was that desperate for content. The only one who was still thinking about the series was the author,
who I communicated with via his Tumblr blog. He was thrilled to find a fan of his flopped series and happily answered my questions. He made me feel validated in my love for the books, but he was a Real Adult Writer who had moved on to other, more successful projects. He wasn’t consumed by it like I was— at least not anymore.
Maybe I liked it so much because I saw so much of myself in Kyle. He was weird, creative, and maligned by the entire world. His overconfidence in his own intelligence and total lack of social decorum could be interpreted as symptoms of autism, although I was still a few years away from being diagnosed at that point. And one could read the character as queer—he does spend the entire series obsessing over Mike (including a scene where he begrudgingly admires the superhero’s muscles), and has a short-lived “relationship” with the Mad Mask. But if I was so much like Kyle, and nobody really cared about Kyle, then what did that mean for me?
Ah, well. If nobody was reading Archvillain, then
that was just because they’d never heard of the series. I needed to spread awareness. So I went to the people I knew in real life. Parents, sister, friends, the odd teacher—nobody was safe. Everyone got their ear talked off. Most of the people in my life politely listened to me talk, and then changed the subject. Others were willing to listen to me talk for hours, but wouldn’t actually read the book. Only a few of my friends actually read the book for me, and even that came with mixed results. A dear friend (who is now my roommate) confessed to me that he hated Kyle, and was only reading the book to see him fail. (To be fair, Kyle is a bit of a shithead in the first book.) Only one of my real-life friends read it and liked it, but he wasn’t obsessed with it like I was. I needed an outlet.
So I started infodumping to nobody on this Tumblr blog that I started. I’d write analyses of dynamics, post increasing-in-quality art and fanfiction, ship the characters, and brainstorm on how the series would have ended if it hadn’t been canceled. I even dressed up as Kyle for one Halloween. Occasionally, the author would drop a like on an art piece or a shitpost—regardless of quality. That was about the only validation I received. I was frustrated with this for a while. It’s no fun to put your whole soul into art or writing, and then have nobody care about it. My faith in the series faltered. Maybe it wasn’t worth spending my time on. I focused more on my animation and my personal writing. Archvillain went on the back burner.
But the people in my life surprised me. Even if they didn’t fully understand why I loved Archvillain, they loved that I loved it. My mom helped me make my cape for my cosplay. My friend handpainted a sketchbook to resemble Kyle’s supervillain emblem for my birthday. Barry Lyga posted his notes and behind-the-scenes info for the books, as well as his plans for the future of the series.
(In that article, he did confirm that Kyle was supposed to be gay. Still not sure whether that was his plan all along, or whether he did that just for me. Nevertheless, my fourteen-year-old self was very validated.)
And the series helped me a lot. Whenever I felt judged, or like I was a bad person, it was there to remind me that those feelings were survivable. I taught myself how to draw because of the series, and writing those cringey fanfictions put me on the path to writing original, only slightly cringey fiction. It didn’t matter if nobody else cared about it because I cared enough to make the series mine.
I still have that Tumblr blog. I rarely post on it anymore, but sometimes I check in on it and scroll through the archive. I smile at my old art, laugh at my old shitposts. It’s like a snapshot of my teenage years. When I do post on it, I still get no feedback. That’s okay. Maybe in twenty years, some other teenager will discover the series and look it up on the internet, searching for someone else to talk to. If they find my blog, I hope it will make them feel a little less alone.
One year later...
Hi! Number one Archvillain fan (uncontested for ten years) checking in!
I wrote this piece in 2023, just before graduating from my master’s program. Since then, I’ve assumed my place as a cog in the machine— which is to say, I’ve gotten an office job with the government. We all make sacrifices to our soul, I suppose, but at least mine came with the benefit of retirement at fifty-five and $10,000 worth of life insurance.
This addendum is to inform you that more has happened with the Archvillain situation since I wrote the original piece. To my surprise, Kyle Camden appeared in another book of Barry Lyga’s. He shows up, says that God doesn’t exist, says that love is pointless, and then is proven horribly wrong. He is paralleled with George Singleton, a gay older teenager. (I know this parallel was intentional, because of communica-
tion with the author). It’s everything my fourteen year old self wanted.
I whipped up a response, where I spoke directly with Kyle Camden in the style of the book. I mentioned what I liked about it, but diverged to talk about my childhood and my adult life. In a way, it was a love letter to myself as much as it was to Archvillain.
Barry Lyga loved my response. He said that I was a great writer and that it meant a lot to him. It’s funny—I feel like I’ve come full circle. Here I am, giving what he gave to me back to him, even if it’s on a much smaller scale.
I’m not going to quit my job or anything, but it’s definitely forced me to put my writing on the back burner. When I do put out writing, my audience is always small. But that’s okay. My audience being small doesn’t decrease the amount of emotion I elicit in those who choose to read my work. And isn’t that why we continue to write; to create? What matters is that we keep going, regardless of how many people are there to applaud us. It sounds cheesy, but it’s the only way forward.
Thank you for reading my piece from a year ago. Now I order you to go out and make something that only appeals to you! And then you’ll take over the world! Muahahahaha!
It Takes A Village
A review of Adventure of the Treasure Boys:
An incredible Tubi movie
Words by Julian Avrith
One lightly drizzling night last fall break, my friend and I were looking for movies to watch for our awesome sleepover. We were craning our necks up to look at my family’s office monitor from an inflatable mattress. I explained to her that I returned from the University of Southern California bearing the fruit of knowledge—not anything I’d learned in class but in the hallowed Fish Tank, a basement workspace for game design majors. While “tanking,” we devised an ingenious method for finding movies: go on to the free streaming service Tubi and look up random keywords like “explosion,” “big,” or “dog.” This time, we looked up “boy”...and the rest was history.
At first, the cover photo for Adventure of the Treasure Boys (2019) was unassuming, but the longer I looked at it the more intriguing it became. It seemed like a typical knockoff of The Goonies (which are more common on Tubi than you might expect), but the poorly edited stock photos of a dirt bike and a treasure chest pasted atop the main characters was the crack through which I saw a geode of potential, not to mention that the two main characters and the director all had the same last name. I had found a movie for the ages. I didn’t know it then, but I would go on to watch it six times, memorize some scenes line for line, and even write an article about it.
The plot is this: two small-town Idaho kids, Tony and Vinny, have been trying to crack a series of clues their Uncle Dave left for them before he died. The clues are meant to assist them in finding Uncle Dave’s buried treasure (and yes, Uncle Dave does provide disembodied expositional narration). The buried treasure consists of money converted to gold bars that Uncle Dave won from sports betting against the mob twenty years ago. When Tony finally solves the clues, the brothers organize a big search party with all their friends to go dig up the treasure. However, as they discuss their plans in the local fast food restaurant, two strangely Italian mobsters,who have also been continuously looking for Uncle Dave’s treasure for twenty years, overhear their conversation and make their own plans to sabotage the kids.
My initial deduction that the director and lead cast were related was correct. Tony and Vinny Von Wolfe aren’t just characters in the movie but real people, as is their grandpa and film director Tory Von Wolfe. What’s more, however, is that all of the actors, save for the mobsters, appear to be the children (and parents) of the local area. The treasure-digging friend group grows to fit an age range of five to about fifteen.
Needless to say, the setup for the movie was perfectly aligned. With the identities of the directors and actors cemented, all that was left to do was to sit back and enjoy some of the most incredible lines and line deliveries this side of the Rockies.
There are plenty of details from the movie that we could examine, like the dubiously real Nikon Coolpix “sponsorship,” the original commissioned song, the mobster’s completely improvised lines, and the brief unresolved subplot about it being necessary for the boys to find the treasure because of the 2008 housing crisis. You might’ve foolishly thought this was a 2019 title because it was released on Tubi in 2019, but it was actually first slated to be released in 2009 under the title Kids’ Spooky Movie: The Quest for Grandpa’s Gold (notably Grandpa instead of Uncle Dave), as is revealed by a visit to the movie’s old website through Internet Archive. But if I wrote about all that, I’d hit the word limit. Instead, I’ll examine ONE of my favorite details from the movie…and then talk about why I think this movie is so special.
After tarring and feathering the mobsters, the kids steal one of their wallets. The boys initially want to spend the money inside on dirt bikes, but instead one of the kids suggests they could place a bet. He reveals that in Las Vegas, people are betting on whether or not the kids will find Uncle Dave’s treasure, and apparently the odds are 50:1 against them. However, he reluctantly reveals that to place the bet, they need to go to evil Mr. Sippriano’s tomato farm, to which all the boys gasp in horror. Even the incapacitated mobsters start to laugh at them, claiming, “you’ll be looking at radishes from the roots!” Fearless Vinny decides to do it anyway and takes Will, a child whose defining trait is that he drove an excavator to a party.
Vinny and Will arrive at Sippriano’s place. They try to decide who will go inside when, out of the dark, a tall man holding a shotgun comes outside. He escorts both of them inside, beginning the strangest scenes on Tubi. The room is small, and shotgun-wielding farmers cover every wall. When the boys enter, the farmers all stand and point their guns at them; again, these particular kids are like nine at the oldest. Mr. Sippriano sits behind a table, bathed in a strangely ethereal golden light. In front of him is a plate of what appears to be just tomato sauce with no spaghetti. He greets Will as “William,” takes off his plaid bib, and places it on the table next to an old laptop. Will asks how Mr. Sippriano knows him, and Mr. Sippriano turns to the camera and says… “I’m your Godfather.”
On first watch, my thoughts about this scene were a mix of the following: Who is betting on this? Why are all the betters so confident these children can’t dig up a treasure? Are the kids betting on their own treasure digging abilities effectively cheating? And finally, why was this in the movie? Was it just a regular The Godfather reference? Or something more?
Adventure of the Treasure Boys was different from my other Tubi keyword discoveries. Similarly low-budget movies, although frequently made by smaller production teams, don’t have the same homemade charm as AOTTB (my awesome acronym). They don’t usually raise this many questions, especially about their production, because those questions can often be answered by the fact the movie was funded by five dollars and a dream. Uniquely, AOTTB constantly takes asides to spotlight seemingly random moments. A sizable chunk of the first ten minutes is dedicated to watching a girl take her horse through a drive-thru. The kids’ baseball coach tells Vinny he can’t play baseball if he doesn’t improve his grades, but no baseball is played for the rest of the movie. Even the actual opening credits are overlaid on footage of the kids doing dirt bike stunts, even though the dirt bikes never return. Over and over, I found myself asking, “Why is this here? Why was this included?”.
Tory von Wolf, the director and Vinny and Tony’s grandpa, is the only one on the team with a preexisting IMDb page. So what about everyone else? According to the film’s Indiegogo page, the movie was a “community effort.” On that same page, made to raise funds for editing the movie, Tory says, “The kids worked hard on their acting and filmmaking skills, and we rehearsed for three months, but due to their ages we could only shoot during summer vacation. On several occasions our locations were hit with unusual storms and had to completely shut down and we literally ran out of time & money.” Each real child put aside what must have been a large chunk of their summer break to work on this movie
together. Furthermore, according to the campaign website, “This film was made for kids, by kids…” And by kids isn’t an overstatement. Each kid’s credits on the IMdb feature more than just “Actor.” For example, Tony Von Wolfe is also credited as a second camera operator.
There are no Oscar winners in the cast, but everyone clearly wants to be there and is having fun doing it. Each child is given a cameo or special moment, including two kids who are present in the beginning, disappear, and only reappear at the film’s conclusion—they apologize for being late in a closeup shot, in the same way a celebrity guest star might be framed on a Disney channel sitcom. My favorite character is Beau, who, at the time of filming, must have been about six years old. Besides giving my favorite line deliveries ever (no spoilers, but if you’re watching the movie on Tubi, I’m talking about 32:49), he’s always laughing and smiling. And the kids are given opportunities to play around and have fun; they show off their dirt bike skills and tricks, drive and use construction equipment, fight the mobsters with handmade implements, and, perhaps most importantly, dig a big hole together. With this new information, I feel I can finally answer my question about Mr. Sippriano’s inclusion. Mr. Sippriano was included because he must be the real life Will Wagner’s godfather, and the cast and crew thought it would be funny. Five minutes of the movie, which required a new set, new actors, and even a new plotline, all for what is probably an in-joke for the kids and their families of Middleton, Idaho. It may take a village to make a movie, but no one took it as seriously as the Treasure Boys.
Adventure of the Treasure Boys isn’t just a great movie. It’s a community-wide love letter to their own town and the kids who live there. As Tory Von Wolfe wrote on the film’s IndieGogo campaign, “This film was made for kids, by kids, [sic] it’s family entertainment for normal folks that want to watch a film TOGETHER and laugh.” And watch together and laugh, we did. As I mentioned, I have watched this film about six times, and each time I showed it to a different audience. It has kind of a different energy to it than the other good/bad movies I subject my friends to. It makes you think about and appreciate your own community. What would be my town’s equivalent to a horse at the drive thru? Maybe they can’t hit a sick scooter 360, but what cool talents do my friends have I’d like to brag about? I think it’s this quality that makes it infinitely rewatchable to me—not as a movie, but as an experience. Not for the big screens, but for the little screens: apartment TVs, computers, and even tablets. And hopefully it’ll be coming to a little screen near you.
The Reading Room Room 2:
Pull a card and discover your fortune!
Participants may find more questions than answers.
the girl you’re getting tai pho with gives you an existential crisis about love (and whether there’s a right way to do it)
WORDS BY ANGELA LIU
and she says, people who want to be loved usually let other people love them. It is spring. You are seated across from her in a small pho shop, watching her finish off the last of her tai pho. In an hour, the store will be closed, the chairs stacked on the table, and the lights off. She asks for the last of your soup, and you slide it over to her. You think you want to be loved, but there seems to be too many hoops to jump through these days. You’re not a show pony. Better to just live your life doing what you want. Better to watch the years slip away.
It’s not like you want to return to an empty house when you’re older, really, but you’ve never been good at compromise. You have a twenty-step morning routine that starts with lighting a candle all the way to preparing breakfast (coffee first, remove the egg from the pan last) and you have a twin size bed, which you’re sentimentally attached to. Maybe you’re doing this whole love thing wrong.
and she says well, there’s no right way to do love. It is summer. She asks if you want to play tennis together and you say sure, yes, whatever. Your parents gave away your tennis rackets years ago— sometimes that happens when you give up on a ten-year long competitive career. The metro takes an hour and a half, but that’s alright. What’s an hour or so in the grand scheme of things?
She’s borrowed rackets and balls from her co-workers, and she’s leaving Los Angeles in a week. How could you say no? There is no right way to put joy into the world. You’re learning. Twenty-three and you are the oldest you have ever been and the youngest you will be from this point forward. You can still grow. You can still learn. You serve. It’s zero-zero and you say love-love.
and she says, I think that getting to know you is something cultivated over time. It is winter. This is the beginning of it all, and your heart is a fragile scared thing. In a small Thai restaurant off of Sawtelle, you are decanting yourself into someone more charismatic. Tonight’s house special is a carefully curated persona, perfect for pleasant conversation. Here comes the bill. You offer to pay, and she slaps her card alongside yours onto the table. Do you call or do you fold?
Alright, you say with a startled laugh, facade flickering like candlelight. Alright. This is a form of warmth too; jutting, jagged, incompatible in all the ways that it works. This is a form of compromise, though you do not label it as such. Maybe it’s because it comes too easy to you. What an awful thing to not have to calculate everything you want. How silly to desire to be seen in your entirety.
and she says, this was fun. I’m glad we did this every time she drives you home in her white Subaru. It is spring, it is summer, it is winter. She waits for you to get inside safely first before leaving, and there is fondness buried here somewhere—in this speck of a second that only two people will ever experience. Not everything has to be about romance. There is no shame in affection. Who made this up anyway? A single word for so nebulous a concept?
You are tired of trying to break things down to their bare essentials. To strip the flesh and muscle off a living pulsing thing is murder. To dissect every interaction is an assassination. You know this. And still, under the heartless microscope of your mind, you butcher love on the daily. You bury its corpse in a neat coffin, marked platonic or romantic, correct or inappropriate. Maybe it’s alright to have something for once. The door snicks shut behind you. Her engine revs down the lamp-lit streets into the night. Maybe having is an act of mercy.
and then it is autumn and she is attending law school hundreds of miles away. Today has become tomorrow has become the day after. In Los Angeles, between a grueling work schedule and the numerous steps of your morning routine, the world continues to spin.
You’re brushing your teeth when a text appears, a comment about a book you recommended. Fondness washes over you as you tap out your response with still-wet fingers. She says something that makes you laugh, and you let this moment live, untarnished in its entirety.
You let it live.
Porch
WORDS BY EDDIE SUN
I’m at a party with the guys. They’re hosting it: some friend of a friend’s birthday, I think. People scamper in and out of the house, and a crowd forms by the doorway. A few friends—distant friends, it seems—stop to chat there, exchanging pleasantries like How have you been? I haven’t seen you in forever. They don’t notice the traffic jam they’ve caused, blocking the others from getting their cups and drinks.
Outside here, an assortment of cans and coolers adorn a foldable table. The coolers have some mystery orange punch in them. A girl pushes the dispenser and only gets a drizzle. Noticing this, a guy walks over to loosen the top of the cooler, and punch flows into her cup. He probably feels so smart.
It’s cold outside, and the air shimmers after a day of rain. A friend comes over and offers a cigarette. It’s a new pack of blue Camels. He flips one over, then pulls one out to share.
By the foldable table, the guy leans his elbow against the top of the cooler. He’s saying something to the girl, probably flirting; his breath fogs in front of her face. He’s overstaying his welcome, maybe, though I can’t tell how she feels about it.
A boy walks through the gate. He’s alone, with a confused look on his face, as if he stumbled into the wrong party. He scans the crowd: on the lawn, people huddle in circles to play drinking games and make indistinct conversation or chant along to the Kanye song playing from the speaker. He looks out of place, his expression a calm feigned out of nervousness.
Maybe the party isn’t his crowd. Maybe these aren’t his people. It’s a familiar feeling: the fun and free air of the party, the way people seem to bounce and glide off each other, the way they spark something with just a glance—it’s all a foreign language. Did the boy feel the same way? Was he also watching everyone else in their element, observing it from a distance, like a visitor in a zoo?
The boy walks toward the porch and across the grass, wet from the rain and the beers, stepping over the cans strewn across the place. He introduces himself and reluctantly asks for a smoke.
The cigarette seems to calm him, or maybe it’s the gesture of friendliness that gets him to open up.
He says he lives in the duplex in the back and doesn’t know anyone here. He wants to know my name and who I know here and whether I’m a regular smoker and if I have a preference for blue Camels.
Guys wear t-shirts everywhere in Los Angeles. Even when it’s cold, even after it rains. They wear plain tees, or the nice graphic tees, or the shitty thrifted tees that were white but faded to a beer-stained yellow. But not the boy. He’s wearing a navy button-down and khakis. He just got back from a comedy show, which is interesting, because most guys don’t go to comedy shows on Saturday nights. The friend finishes his cigarette and stomps it out on the grass.
The outfit looks good on the boy. He’s handsome and put together, with broad shoulders that stretch his shirt sleeves a little bit. He has a nice and symmetrical face. His eyes are deep and beckoning. Maybe he doesn’t realize how magnetizing they are—how much his vision darts from place to place.
A Mac DeMarco song starts playing, switching the mood. Two guys are embracing by the pong table. One has his arm around the other’s shoulder, holding him close. He just sank the last cup; he did it left-handed. The guy is so happy, he’s so elated. His face brushes against the other guy’s cheek, but they don’t touch or kiss because no, that’s gay.
The boy exhales from his cigarette and ashes the rest out. He’s studying to be a software engineer. So like all the other sellouts. Was that too harsh? He laughs, thankfully. He has a nice smile that’s full across his symmetrical face. It’s a smile that pushes up against his rosy cheeks. His smile is a reward.
He wants to know why I think he’s a sellout. I don’t think he’s a sellout. He’s smart and ambitious and has good ideas. Not ideas about how to capitalize on a market inefficiency to slash a tenth of the labor force, but ideas about how to use our machines to create a world that’s good for all of us. He says that world is out there if we allow the machines to work for us, even if we can’t imagine it.
If only he knew I can imagine that world. I want to live in the world he lives in.
A gaggle of guys and girls run inside, looking for something. Maybe they also want to change the world. Maybe they want to make flying cars or implantable chips in our brains or work in environmentally-conscious venture capital.
The boy wonders where the friend went. He went off to grab a drink or use the bathroom or something. I must’ve missed it. In the distance, the guy and girl by the cooler are making out. The boy says he’s a little chilly. He asks if I’m cold. It’s just the two of us, and we could be anywhere.
We could be away from this party. We could be at the bar, sitting across from each other, our faces dimly lit by a table candlelight. We could be at the club. We could be on the dancefloor. We could be standing next to the speaker blasting into our ears. We could be at the park. We could be having a picnic and gazing at the skyline in the distance. We could be on a plane, on our way to Europe to watch people saunter by. It could be just us, me and the boy and his beautiful, symmetrical face and his incorruptible mind. We could insulate ourselves from all the shitty things in the outside world. We could be anywhere. Does the boy want this too?
He laughs sheepishly and looks down to the ground. A policeman shows up and tells everyone to scatter—apparently the neighbors complained about the noise. There’s no more music or commotion and suddenly it feels so cold.
The boy says it’s getting late and brings a hand to his mouth, motioning a yawn. His eyes are wet and empty, they glimmer with regret, or maybe disappointment. He says it’s been a long day and he could use some sleep. We’re at his front door. He says thanks for the chat and closes the door behind him.
It’s raining now, raining so delicately that the raindrops float in the air like little bugs. Some guys wearing faded white tees stumble by on the street, laughing uncontrollably about something. One of them stops at a bush to throw up. A long, deep breath forms a cloud in the air and dissipates into the sky.
In Defense of Sirens
WORDS BY HARRIET TAYLOR
Childhood. Dubai, 2007.
“Do you want to play mermaids with me?”
It is scorching hot in the desert and you have found a girl in a mirage.
She is poised on the edge of the pool, hugging her left knee in a corner sheltered from the mid-afternoon sun. Someone hustles past with a tray of multicolored drinks. You’re annoyed at the clinking ice for not minding its own business, but the palm trees remain unswayed, still waiting for the answer. You can’t see the girl’s eyes, but you know they are curious. You’ve shared coy glimpses from across the pool. At seven years old you still don’t know how to make friends, but for the fascination of her, you’ll try.
You’re not sure how it always ends like this—your cosmic loneliness getting you into situations you’re never quite prepared for. You didn’t mean to stalk Isabella Heathcote by following her around preschool for three days straight and insisting you touch her luminous golden hair. Can’t you see she’s a real princess? You wonder why you take things too far, try to break the fourth wall of your own life. Somehow, your Barbies’ lips always happen to touch and you’re lucky to pull them away before your mother comes in and calls you for dinner.
The girl turns her head, looks at you now with lapiz eyes and a slow blink. Perhaps you should have brought a gift, should have ripped your heart out and let her pick at it like a canapé from a silver platter.
Very simply, she asks for your name.
And with that, a dormant feeling awakens inside of you, singing with a voice so sweet you forget how to breathe, reaching a crescendo like the phantom sound of the ocean within a conch shell. This feeling is much older and larger than you; it harbors a desire to be swept away and consumed whole for the hope of connection. It makes an unfamiliar sea feel a little less vast. You decide that you wouldn’t mind getting lost.
Over the next fifteen years, you will steer your ship toward this feeling, embarking on a quest that starts with building shell houses and letting the girl have the pink mermaid tail. You’ll find fantasy lands of singers who could adopt you and hold you tight; get sucked down whirlpools while gazing at pretty women on television. You’ll brazenly search “girls kissing” on Youtube only to speed-delete your history because you already get the sense that you’re a coward.
At thirteen you will become tangled in the knotted kelp of the internet, reading sapphic fanfiction under the watchful gaze of the poster boys you’ve forced on your wall so nobody bats an eye. Vauseman, Foxxay—you’ll tear through Ao3 with an insatiable appetite. Here comes a friend (don’t you ever get off your screen?), so you slam your laptop shut to hide the smut and the gay quiz you had open because you’re running on borrowed time and the waves are growing.
At fifteen you will kiss a girl you met on Tumblr and decide to sign a waiver for emotional damage, no liability policy. She smells like marshmallows and her lips are gentle but her words are harsh and soon you’re caught up in a riptide of codependency. You’ll be smothered underwater, lungs burning for air and for your long-gone voice. Your friends will say you’re a shell of yourself once you’re spat out the other side.
You’ll turn twenty-one. Time to grow up, look for land. You’ll swim through dating apps, become a situationship connoisseur, kiss gross French men in gross French clubs six feet underground and rinse your mouth out for an hour after trying to get rid of the brine. As penance, you’ll make up for it by worshiping at the altar of another woman’s body, learning what sin tastes like, always longing for that utopia that smells of chlorine and factor fifty.
This will not be enough to satisfy the feeling. You’ll lower the price of your affections and still have no takers. You’ll be so tired. When you break down, pounded against the rocks of emotional bankruptcy at other people’s birthday parties, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been granted the mercy of drowning.
Then, at twenty-three, you’ll finally wash up on a beach made of teletherapy pixels. Where do you feel that in your body? You won’t know because you’ve forgotten you had one altogether, but your spine will start to tingle from bottom to top over time. It will take a long while to cry. To stand up for yourself. To heal the pain. To rebuild the boat and learn to take the helm. To believe that having tried, wanted, felt it all—is a gift. To accept the beauty of having a path that veers from tradition and fits all the great things you hope to be.
You’ll understand that this irrational thing inside you—this pearl that glows iridescent red, orange, white, pink, and sacred; this siren’s call towards love that you now call queerness—was the course you were always meant to take.
Then one day, out of the blue, a beautiful woman with bright eyes will even tell you that the blue hair you dyed in the bathroom of a semi-illegal rental makes you look like a mermaid.
You know what you are. You remember a time of simple games: Dubai, 2007.
The girl leaves today. She finds you waiting by the pool with a glum look and a swollen heart. You embrace briefly; in another life it lasts longer. You watch her walk away for the final time, and even though your parents never exchanged emails, you get the sense of how lucky you are; how painful, how beautiful, to have answered the call. You’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The Shrine Room 3:
Write away your woes to our in house deities and devils! Sins may or may not be forgiven.
While I sit cross-legged waiting for her photograph to smear. What do I look like? Haven’t had a haircut since the wedding and I feel hot. A real bad boy. Just need to work on my arms. I do think healing is best approached slant— like a plastic lawn. For example, I eat a burrito and feel the warm body across my lower face. These are the embraces I choose nowadays— the kiss of something packed the humiliating desire for nourishment.
Words by Hannah Rubin
Pearl Adornment
Words by Abigale Tabor
-The father
What should you do when a woman calls a back shot a pearl adornment on social media? You listen to a band called Wet Leg sing a song called “Wet Dream” and contemplate sticky things, think of lyrics from a different song that flirts with the line "and I will fuck you like nothing matters." Do you like her comment hidden under a picture of a painting for sale that on first look appears intentionally blurry and vague but upon second look does appear to be a back seemingly split in half with a white line? You do, and you question how you got here to begin with, and that alone splits you open and reaches deep into you, like shucking a clam holding the most perfect little pearl. “O Earth! a brave gem thou dost stain, My own pearl, precious, without spot!”
Wods by N i kita Ladd
IMAGINE AN APPLE
I have aphantasia, I learned from Noah. Can’t picture a thing, mind’s eye of nothingness. Black hole except for words. When I masturbate, I must think about people. Concepts of people, narratives of what happens rather than the sticky image. I want a sticky image. I want tits, and not the phonetical outline of them. How do genitals sound? Slapping, maybe, trill of a wood thrush, quiet of skin. I can’t imagine an apple, nor can I imagine good sex. Can you have a thing you can’t imagine? No really, I’m asking.
The Shrine Release
Words by Jacob Staudenmaier
They made dancing illegal.
“How to Be a Good Dancer” by Isabel Kettler
It happened on a Thursday. By Friday, the world had gone still. The bars turned boring, and the clubs became lifeless. The music continued to blare, and the crowds continued to flock in droves. But not a soul moved. For fear of punishment.
Dance music quickly died out and was replaced by the aptly titled Standing Music, a close relative to Elevator Music and the kind of jazz they play in coffee shops. Not a bassline in sight. And certainly no drums. As you can probably guess, Standing Music was soulless junk, music that numbed you into a false belief that it was more fun not to move your body.
Only the subtlest hint of swaying hips could be seen as people shifted their weight from one foot to the other. I watched them from the bar with disdain. Seas of people standing around awkwardly, holding their drinks and chatting aimlessly with their fake friends about their fake lives. They accepted the rule without protest. Some, I’m sure, were even relieved.
After the first month of this torture, I decided I would stay home. My weekends were spent alone in my apartment with my two cats, Flip and Wilmer. Of course, in my solitude, I was free to dance whenever and however long I pleased. After work each day, I browsed the extensive record collection I’d exhaustingly accumulated and maintained over the course of a decade, selected something with a nice groove, put the needle to plastic, and danced. It was therapeutic, expelling all the negative energies from the outside world. In some small way, it felt like I was fighting the Powers that Be. In my own home, I was a revolutionary. And briefly, I remembered the joy of the Old World.
That was until the cops showed up at my door.
A downstairs neighbor must have heard the loud music and stomping of my feet through the ceilings and assumed the worst. The cops had no proof of my delinquency—I made sure to shutter my windows—but that didn’t stop them from destroying my record collection. I watched in horror as they smashed my vinyls. One by one. Until the floor was a graveyard of black shards. The message was clear: If they were called back, my head would be the next thing they smashed in.
The weeks that followed were the worst yet. I fell into a dark depression. I cried myself to sleep at night and woke up screaming each morning. During the day, my body was plagued by spasms as I repressed the urge burning inside me. I could feel my bones turning stiff. My blood slowing. My heart growing cold.
I called in sick for work day after day. Eventually they fired me, but that was the least of my concerns. A horrible fever ravaged my body and rendered me weak and thin. I kneeled over the toilet for hours, vomiting. Flip and Wilmer watched helplessly from the doorway, meowing sympathies I couldn’t hope to understand. There was no end in sight to my torment. I prayed that God would kill me in my sleep.
One fateful night, I had a dream. In my dream, I saw myself dancing in a black void. My skin glistened with a million tiny sweat droplets, dazzling in the neon light which illuminated my body. I was shining, like a diamond. As I moved, I could feel my body surge with energy, like an engine roaring to life. I executed dance moves I didn’t know myself capable of. I was inhibited by nothing. Inspired by everything. The entire universe, contained within my soul.
I shot awake in my bed huffing and puffing, sweating profusely. My fever had broken. The room was cast in the pale, nauseating light from the street lamps below my windows. I could
hear distant sirens. My cats slept quietly at the foot of my bed, snuggled against one another. I became strangely calm.
On Saturday, I went to the club.
I took my time choosing an outfit. I carefully combed through the options until I found the one: A vintage, blood-red, flared button-down, bedazzled with diamond studs. Along with tight, black, leather pants and brown, leather dress shoes. I slicked back my hair and trimmed my mustache. Just to be safe, I brought an overcoat to conceal my eccentric button-down. I didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. I kissed Flip and Wilmer goodbye and went into the night.
I played it cool at the door. No smiling. No small talk. They let me in without issue.
I could hear the muffled pounding of music as I walked through the dimly lit entrance tunnel lined with mirrors. My heart matched the rhythm with a similar pounding intensity. A doorman opened a second door leading into the club and I was hit with the intoxicating power of music.
I quickly scanned the dance floor. Everyone looked miserable. You could see it behind their eyes. The desire to move. My former disdain was replaced by pity. They needed someone to show them the way. I slipped the DJ a twenty, shouted my request in his ear, and waited at the edge of the dance floor.
It was only a matter of time before “Dancing Queen” came on. The iconic opening piano slide sent a visceral shockwave through the crowd. You could see its infectious power hit them like a ton of bricks. They were dogs, waiting anxiously for their owner to throw a stick. Unease permeated the floor.
I walked nervously towards the center of the room as the lyrics kicked in. At first, my mind fought my body for control. But the vibe was unstoppable. I began to move my hips to the rhythm. And soon, the rest of my body followed. No choreography. No plan. I allowed the music to guide me.
The clubgoers around me backed away once they realized what I was doing. I was a crazy guy with a knife. A large circle formed around me. The center of the floor was mine for the taking. I threw off my overcoat, revealing my lavish, red button-down beneath.
As I gave myself over to ABBA, I noticed hurried movement in the wings – security would put a swift end to this. But the promise of approaching trouble was overshadowed by the arrival of a newcomer to the dance floor. A woman. She was the most beautiful person I had ever laid eyes on. She wore a magnificent, flowing, red dress. There was a glimmer in her eyes. I’m still not sure she was real.
She stepped towards me, took my hand and we engaged in a fiery tango. Our movement was coordinated and effortless, as though we’d prepared our entire lives for this moment.
Security pushed through the crowd to put an end to our disruption. A freakishly large guard with tattoos was the first to reach us. But the instant he laid his hand on her, he was thrown backwards through the air. It was like an invisible foot had kicked him in the chest. He flew across the room and hit the back wall with a painful thud, knocking him out cold. Other guards rushed forward, but they met the same fate. It became clear our dancing could not be stopped.
Feet began to tap. Hips began to sway.
It wasn’t long before cops poured into the venue by the dozens. They aimed their guns at us and shouted angry threats. But their words fell flat against the volume of the music.
We began to levitate. Our feet lifted from the floor and we found ourselves floating above the crowd. Our dance continued in the air. The clubgoers watched, mesmerized and inspired. Even the cops stared in awe, until a commanding voice ordered them to fire.
A million bullets flew our way. They struck our bodies from all angles. Blood splattered the dance floor and the clubgoers below us. We were dead in an instant, but the movement did not stop. Two bodies hit the floor, while our spirits remained dancing high above.
The vibe spread like wildfire. One clubgoer after another broke into an uncontrollable fit of movement, seemingly possessed by the music. The room filled with thrashing bodies and a sweaty moshpit formed. The cops called for backup, but it was too late.
By Sunday morning the streets were filled with dancing.
On Monday, they banned music.
The Trophy Room Room 4:
Marvel at our collection of delights!
Not suitable for those uncomfortable with self-perception.
The Trophy Room
so, comma, so
after Kay Gabriel
a poem lacks courage of course. seeks only legacy. longstanding legend. length over girth. can you imagine? give me width, split me open. but a poem? stretch it out. make it hurt. give proof of life. or consequence. make an offering. or sacrifice. aren’t those synonyms? the poem asks. hush. it’s my turn to speak now. my lips aren’t touching the microphone; the poem’s are. the poem hasn’t learned about germs yet. i am huddling the poem in front of the sink, smearing blue over its non-hands, showing it how long it takes to scrub the germs clean. memory is so fickle. the poem tastes like vinegar. salt. cling. the poem is translucent, it doesn’t want to be seen. i’m projecting. what is a poem for if not projection? the poem is a container but not a box or a jar or a case. the poem is a silver clasp, a bent ring, the creak of a door that needs its joints oiled. the poem is oil. paint. fumes. fan. the poem is its own only fan. i am only the poem’s audience. i am the poem’s ringbearer, pallbearer, cupbearer. i bear the poem’s weight. i carry the poem. i, chariot. i, loudspeaker. i, smoke signal. the poem wants to speak in morse code but i don’t know how, so it doesn’t. the poem is knocking and tapping at random, hoping to decode nonsense. to decode nonsense you need a decoder ring, a mood ring, a green band of skin. to defile the poem you need only want. memory. mnemonics. shame. tell the poem where to go. first, read the stars. map the sky. follow the sun. then the moon. then forget about gravity. is jupiter north of here? venus? do they change direction based on their position in the sky? the poem doesn’t know and neither do i. we’re getting by fine.
Shot by Holly B. McCauley
Last Night at The Roxbury
WORDS BY MIGUEL GUZMÁN
“Get the fuck up! They’re going to kick you out!” I pleaded. Bernard looked up at me from the pillar he’d plopped against and laughed. I then saw the beam of the flashlights from the club’s security guards shine over him. I looked at the first guard, a giant fellow with a shaved head in a black suit with an earpiece. He looked over at his colleague of equal proportions and hair and nodded. The two massive men picked Bernard up as if he were an inflatable sex doll and threw him out onto Hollywood Boulevard. I looked back at the friends we came with, Kelly and Tara, who seemed to have not noticed a thing and were laughing it up with their new friends, who had invited them to a table. I too was sloshed from the copious amounts of booze but maintained my nerve enough to witness the events unfolding and understand that this blackout drunk version of Bernard was about to be arrested. So, on New Year’s Eve, 2011, I ran out of the Roxbury nightclub into the streets of Hollywood to save my friend.
Bernard wasn’t too hard to find as he was planted face down on the tarmac, surrounded by the circus of partygoers in their slick club suits and scantily clad evening get-ups, pointing and laughing as they found their joy in seeing someone more fucked up than they were. I muscled through the group to reach Bernard and heard the whispers and gasps from the surprised reaction that someone knew this drunken man. I helped him to his feet and then had him lean on my shoulder as I guided him down the block toward the street where our motel was. The mass of friendly and spirited people on Hollywood Boulevard that we had passed on the way to the Roxbury was now laughing and mocking us. They pointed, shouted, and took pictures and videos of us with their camera phones as they followed us down the street. Their comments ranged from observations: “Yo, man, this fool is fucking faded,” to threats of violence: “I’m gonna fuck both y’all up.” A cop mounted on a horse noticed us and clopped his way over. “You better get him off the fucking street, or I’m going to fucking arrest him,” he threatened.
A mob of people pursued our struggle as we traveled a few blocks. Dragging Bernard was exhausting, and I realized we would not make it to the motel on Highland Avenue. As Uber was still a year away from launching in Los Angeles, I resorted to calling a cab. I stabilized my friend to make the call by having him stand and lean back against the wall while I leaned my back into him to keep my hands free. Our unwanted followers became more riled up from this arrangement as it looked like my friend was grinding on me. After ordering the cab, we were at the mercy of the mob and its vulgar commentary as we waited on the corner of Hollywood and Wilcox.
“Ay yo, look at these two gay dudes right here. This guy is taking it in the ass,” declared a man wearing sunglasses and a white sport coat narrating his insults about us to a live stream. More of the crowd followed his lead and took pictures.
It felt like we were being rescued when the cab finally arrived, but the contempt from the crowd manifested into the surly cab driver who took one look at us and sneered: “Ey, my friend, he better not throw up back there. He throw up, you got to pay me one-fifty to clean, I’m telling you man.”
“He won’t throw up.”
“I’m serious, man. One-fifty if he throw up.”
I nodded to placate the driver and then shoved Bernard’s dead weight into a sideways position with his head and upper body below the seat behind the driver and his legs on top of the seat, and then got in myself. For the three minutes that it took to get us to our destination, the driver continued to threaten me about how he was going to charge me extra if my friend vomited.
We arrived at the motel off Sunset that we had booked to avoid the hassle of DUI checkpoints. I then dragged my friend by his legs out of the cab and onto the floor and paid the driver. Propping Bernard back up again, we continued to the room. As the clock struck twelve, I heard the collective boom of people shouting, “Happy New Year!” from around the block and the random bursts of rogue fireworks.
In the room, I threw my friend onto the bed and grabbed a pillow to sleep on the floor. I was done. Fuck New Year’s and whatever I had wanted from the club that night. All I cared about now was going to sleep.
“Yo, who is that?” a voice said. The light splashed on my eyelids. I opened them up to see Kelly and Tara and their two new friends from the Roxbury. “Ay, the fuck is wrong with this fool?” another voice said, most likely in response to seeing Bernard passed out on the bed. Part of me wanted to rise and kick them out, but the other part was dead exhausted and drunk enough for the floor to feel like it was moving. I knew I needed to hydrate to avoid getting a hangover, but the energy to do it just wasn’t there.
I heard more words exchanged between the two guys and two friends, but I couldn’t make them
out. I was usually a very light sleeper, but once intoxicated, I could pass out in front of a collapsing building. I hoped they wouldn’t stay long and closed my eyes.
In between drunken slumber and tortuous cognizance, my mind coalesced upon the realization that the planned evening with the rented motel room, bottom-shelf booze, and swanky club was all for naught. What did I want from this night? It’s the same thing we all want on the last night of the year—to feel like we are special once the ball drops at the count of ‘zero,’ whether it be a salacious kiss with an illicit lover or a cheerful toast with friends. The night’s disarray was trying to teach me never to have my hopes up again for the final night of the year. But deep within me, I knew once the daylight hit and the jackhammer of a hangover finally settled, the clock would reset again for another year. The whole year would be ahead of me, and in three hundred and sixty-four days, I’d do what all the dreamers do on the urine-soaked streets of Hollywood: fall for the alluring trap of planning for a wild and extravagant New Year’s Eve.
Accumulated Things
Words by Soph Robson
It started with a checkerboard rug.
Red, blue, purple, pink; random colors making an avant-guard game board underfoot. She found it sticking halfway out a dumpster—if you asked, she’d tell you the one—still wrapped up in its cellophane womb. It wasn’t his first choice of patterns, but he knew how much she loved the way it warped like a wave in the Pacific.
So it stayed.
Then a set of six mix-matched dining room chairs made their way up the three flights of stairs one afternoon, an estate sale on the corner of Brooklyn and 16th, the helping hands of new neighbors lifting and passing and saying not a problem and can’t wait to see it all done.
Then at that thrift store on 5th, an unsealed Redwood-topped coffee table, perfect shin-bruising height, rings from old coffee mugs embedded deep in the surface. He found a photography book in the store, landscapes of national parks, and saw himself sitting on the couch—a deep jade green velvet piece, worn and comfy—socked-feet on the wood, Earl Grey tea in hand, flipping through the collection.
A bedspread of embroidered flowers—roses, lilies, peonies, baby’s breath—and pillowcases to match. The bed was never made, and the comforter consistently pulled to her side of the bed—his exposed to the early morning sunbeams peering in the foggy window. She ran her fingers down the length of his spine in those sunbeams as he slept, thinking about the way they fell into each other’s lives almost like an accident. Or, maybe, a miracle. That’s what it felt like to her, anyways.
The idea was there: of the apartment on 12th, three bedrooms just in case, two bathrooms, and a shared garden in the courtyard—thyme, thistle, and tomatoes. These accumulated things over time made it busy, made it full, made it whole.
“Jaunty” by Michael Moreth
“Luxurious” by Michael Moreth
“Kingship” by Michael Moreth
The Zoo Room 5:
Ashes to ashes, rats to rats.
The Zoo The Zoo
An Unexpected Observation of Gorillas at Play
Words by Fred Beshid
My favorite animals at the zoo are the gorillas. My fascination with them began in high school after being taught that gorillas and humans are members of the hominid family. The idea that we are similar enough to be classified in the same family intrigues me. When I visit the gorilla exhibit at the zoo, I’m struck by their human-like expressions as they play and rest. I study their faces and try to read their emotions. Are they happy? Sad? Do they like their surroundings?
Educational signs explain the exhibit is designed to simulate the gorillas’ native African habitat. Artificial rocky cliffs surround the exhibit on three sides in the rear and a river-like moat safely keeps gorillas separate in the front. There are tree-shaped structures to climb on and several grottos where they can hide from view. They play together and sometimes play alone. At times the playing looks like innocent teasing and other times it looks like roughhousing. They communicate through yelling and grunting in a language I wish I could understand. Two gorillas in the corner look like they are whispering to each other. I can’t help but compare their behavior to mine and wonder if we have the same desires and fears.
As I watch them roaming around and interacting with each other so many questions pop into my head: What are they talking about? What are they thinking? Do they like being in a zoo? Do they even know they’re in a zoo? Are they having fun? What’s it like to have your whole world confined to a zoo exhibit? Is it even appropriate to keep these wonderful creatures for our entertainment?
Plagued by my questions, I sign up for a behind-the-scenes tour at the zoo, hoping to get some answers. Maybe a zookeeper has some insight into the gorilla’s mind. The tour begins in the zoo’s animal hospital. The zoo’s veterinarian walks us past the different types of cages designed to house ailing zoo creatures. When I see the large gorilla cages I stop in my tracks. The cages are sterile, white-tiled rooms with a grid of thick steel bars in the front. It’s more like a prison than a hospital, not anything like the simulated African environment they are used to. As I study the room I’m surprised to see a television mounted near the ceiling.
“Do the gorillas watch television?” I ask the vet, with my hand raised.
“Yes, they like to watch movies,” she replies with a smile.
“Huh? Why is a movie amusing to a gorilla?” I ask.
“We have no idea why they like movies,” the vet said with a shrug.
“What kind of movies are we talking about here?” I ask, scratching my head.
“Actually, they prefer comedies.”
“What? Comedies? But that makes no sense. What could a gorilla get out of a human comedy?” I blurt out.
“It’s a mystery. I have no explanation,” the doctor says, with a smile.
“Do they have a favorite comedy?” I ask.
“Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is their favorite,” the vet says with a laugh.
“That makes no sense! Why Pee-wee? I need someone to study this and explain it to me,” I cry.
“I, too, would like to know what’s going on because it causes problems for us.”
“Problems? What kind of problems?” I ask.
“Well, they love Pee-wee Herman so much that we suspect they fake ailments so they can come into the hospital just to watch him.”
“Wow! I’m speechless,” I say, shaking my head.
“Well, as primates, gorillas are not that different
from us. They like to have a good time just like us,” the vet said with a shrug.
When the tour ends, I go back to visit the gorillas. As I watch them at play, I have more questions than before. Why do they like Pee-wee? Maybe they need comedy to make living in a zoo more bearable. I love comedies, so why shouldn’t they? Pee-wee Herman likes to play. Gorillas like to play. I like to play.
As I watch a couple of infants chase each other around, I see a large male sitting off to the side of the exhibit. He’s just staring off into space, seemingly disinterested in his fellow gorillas. I wonder if he’s thinking about watching Pee-wee on the hospital TV. I lose track of time as I watch him, until an employee tells me the zoo is closing. As I head out to my car, I feel a sudden desire to go home and watch Pee-wee.
Shot by Fred Beshid
The Joyous Parts
WORDS BY CASSIDY KUHLE
Campus was buzzing. It was the first day back after winter break, and everyone was excited and ready for the new year. So was Laine—in her own way. She felt this year was full of possibilities, and as she walked to class in her muddled green hoodie that reminded her of the forest and a pair of jeans made from recycled material, she promised herself to make them count.
An overeager screech startled her out of her thoughts. “OHMYGOOOOD!! How was your break?!!” Two freshmen eeped at each other, hugging in the middle of the sidewalk. Laine stepped around them, careful not to squish any of the flowers creeping up between the cracks in the concrete. They paid her no attention, and she was glad for it. She was happy to just be a passerby in their overly enthusiastic reunion and found their freshmen energy amusing. For the resident babies on campus, college and its accompanying independence was still a novel experience. They were filled with so much hope and optimism and uncertainty. Laine couldn’t help but admire it, even reminisce about her own experiences when she began taking steps towards finding herself. It had been a rush, and she wouldn’t trade that experience for anything in the world. Even so, their loud noises were grating and annoying. She made a mental note to take another route next time.
She found her classroom easily after having classes in the same dingy two-story science building five semesters in a row, and tacked onto the back of a line of students starting to file into the room. It fit about thirty students comfortably, Laine noted as she settled in a random seat in the middle row. She had just gotten her computer and black notebook out of her backpack when her professor started introducing himself.
A few students politely pretended to care as he recounted what sounded like every bullet point on his CV, while most blatantly tuned him out. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m excited to teach this class with all of you,” he finished, finally winding down.
“Let’s get started with student introductions before going over the syllabus.” Laine’s spot right in the middle meant she was the metaphorical middle child of the class. Between the polite curiosity people gave to the first introducers and the mild impatience everyone always felt towards the last people to go, no one would remember her.
“I’m Laine, majoring in Biology with an emphasis on Zoology and Entomology,” she said softly with a little wave of her hand when it was her turn. Her professor nodded in response to the unmemorable introduction, a signal for the next person to introduce themselves. The class moved quickly, and while she was decidedly a middle-of-theroad student, she made sure to take notes as the professor went over the syllabus.
She headed outside after class to visit her favorite spot at school. Fittingly, it was in the heart of campus where a cluster of benches were planted among huge trees. Her heart always raced a little faster here, and she decided to sit at the base of one of the largest trees in the area, letting go of a breathy sigh as she traced its roots. She was silently wishing she could give it more of herself when something silver glittered in the corner of her eye. It was a gum wrapper—someone walking nearby had dropped it. She quickly picked it up and tapped the owner on the shoulder once she noticed him stopped along the grass, texting.
He was plain-looking with a bit of a beer belly, and he smiled at her, a bit startled, like he didn’t realize anyone was there. She smiled back, tentatively, and held out the gum wrapper he dropped on the ground. “Ah,” he said, reaching out for it before shoving
it absentmindedly in his pocket. “Thanks.” She nodded in response. As he walked away, she couldn’t help but be attracted to his mediocrity, to the way that he, like all mediocre men, was so self-assured as a result of never having been given a reason to question his value.
For the next several days, she observed him from a distance. He had classes on the same days as her, albeit in different buildings. She thought it was a sign. They began running into each other more often, always in less crowded areas on campus between classes, and he started to take notice of her too. One day, she accidentally bumped into him on the sidewalk, apologizing profusely when he dropped his bag. He found her sheepish apology cute. “No biggie,” he said, tossing it back over his shoulder. When she asked if she could make up for it by buying him a tea, he smirked confidently. “Yeah, of course.”
They started spending more time together after that. He liked that she always approached him first with plans; all he had to do was say yes. One day, she asked him if he would do her the biggest favor—she had an assignment for class that required her to collect some plant leaves and twigs, and didn’t want to go alone. He agreed to go, mentally applauding himself for being such a good guy.
She met him at the base of the forest the next day with a small basket in her hand and a tote bag with some extra supplies on her shoulder. They headed into the forest and he walked behind her as she carefully picked up fallen leaves and twigs from the forest floor. He was zoning out when she pointed to a spot behind him. “Wait, what’s that?” she asked. They were already so deep in the forest and everything looked the same to him, but he turned slowly, lazily, anyway. “What?”
She acted fast, pulling out a long knife from her tote bag and using it to slit his throat within the span of a couple breaths. She waited, holding eye contact with him as he gurgled on his own blood. It was quick—painless, almost. She’d gotten better since her first all those years ago. A wave of nostalgia passed over her, and she wished her past self could see her now.
His body gave a final twitch, and she looked on with heated anticipation as his blood soaked into the base of the tree he had fallen against. She pulled her tools out of the bag she’d brought, each one serving a different purpose: some blades were small for the more precise incisions, and others were perfect for cutting through bone. As she laid her tools out in a neat order on
the forest floor, she felt the beginnings of contentment from slipping into the rhythm of her routine. The sky was bright and clear, and the forest was alive with birds chirping and wind rustling through tree branches. It was a perfect day.
The grass was sticky with blood as she sawed through bone. It was always the trickiest part, but she loved the satisfying “pop” sound the bones made when she would break through them at the joints. When she finally cut through his arm, she felt a wave of euphoria. Collecting his freshly removed limb in her arms, she stood and began to dance with it. “Onetwothree, onetwothree, onetwothree,” she counted aloud in between giggles, dance-stepping forward towards a tree where she did one last twirl with her arms raised high, holding up her disembodied dancing partner and using her momentum to drive his arm into the hollow trunk with the gusto of a seasoned performer.
She laughed breathily as she felt her heart rate return to normal before walking back to what was left of the body. Whatever she didn’t give to the trees, she used for herself, and over the years, she’d come up with some of her best recipes with the leftover bits. She absentmindedly picked up one of her smallest scalpels, as she considered what to make for dinner. Sweet breads, maybe? Hmm maybe with a sauce, nothing too heavy… She steadied his face with one hand so she wouldn’t make any shaky mistakes while cutting out the eyes.
Eyes really do have the best properties, she thought as she made the first careful incision. So versatile. The first time she did this, she was so eager that she accidentally popped them like egg yolks. It was such a waste. She had since learned that the process is a part of the fun; she enjoyed the therapeutic qualities of the manual labor and getting creative with the pieces she took apart. Sometimes she used the gelatinous substance of the eyes to thicken up the blood she collected, turning it into ink for her pens; but her favorite way was to use it as a binding agent in sauces—the umami added depth and complexity to even the simplest dishes.
She smiled to herself and started humming happily, the wind tickling her neck as she muddled the eyeballs into a paste. Life really doesn’t get better than this, she thought, sighing contentedly as she licked a bit of the freshly-made jelly off her pinky.
The Zoo INTRODUCING
A candid interview with a bunch of musical vermin
Words by Jazmin Polido
On Friday, July 14, 2024, I turned on my computer to find that the screen was broken. But suddenly, the single line on my screen turned into a video call with four rats (or more accurately, three mice and one brown rat). After a bit of incredulousness, I came to learn that these rats were the founders of B1G CH0MP3RS, a punk band that pulls from many different genres including electronic, funk, and hardcore. Their debut EP D3V0UR has six genre bending songs that will thrill any listeners, especially those who love a good narrative. I was very grateful for the opportunity to virtually sit down with the rats that have such wonderful taste and talk to them about their life in Vermin City and what projects they have in the works.
After recovering from my shock, I told Stinky, Spicy, Emole, and Speedy about the heat in Los Angeles and asked them where they lived.
Stinky: We live in Vermin City.
Spicy: We don’t know what LA is, actually.
Stinky: The summer in Vermin City can get very hot, though.
Emole: It’s a good thing we live in a hole.
Jazmin Polido: Oh, you live in a hole?
Spicy: Yeah, we live in a hole in the wall in an alleyway.
Emole: So it’s pretty cool in there; we don’t really get overheated.
Spicy: The sewer air provides a cool breeze, sort of like a seaward draft.
Stinky: It’s pretty nice!
Spicy: It’s a cool, stinky breeze.
Stinky described that their home has a bag full of stolen ingredi ents, and Spicy talked about the way they used their strong teeth to chip away at the wall and carve out various bedrooms and furnishings. They have really made the best of it! Emole wanted to make sure that I put away prejudices when hearing the word hole, “‘cause it’s a pretty nice place.” From the way that they explained it, a hole was the same as a door, an entryway to the pinnacle of rodential interior design.
JP: …
Stinky: We want to foster a community in the hole for sure. We also don’t have a ton of money to record, so we’ve made our own studio called Dinktown Studios.
Spicy: Yeah! We take the Vermin City worm line to this studio that we built. It’s a little decked out space where we record our music. Actually, we recently discovered that it is right above another rodent named Shitty the Shrew.
Super annoying! He’s always trying to make us be quiet when we literally just want to have We’ve invited him up sometimes but nothing really seems to work out…
Emole: We even sent him a note before we played our show. We were like, “Hey, just so you know we are gonna play a show,” and Shitty was like, “Fuck you guys! Never play any shows. I hope you guys go back to where you came from.”
Spicy: It’s always, “Quit your racket! Quit your racket!”
Stinky: We’ve really had a threshold of niceties, but Shitty has sent us over the edge in that respect.
Spicy: Yeah, the hole’s always open!
Spicy: Actually, we have a song about when we met Shitty the Shrew on our Debut EP D3V0UR. There’s a song called “Chili Cookoff.” We ran into Shitty there. It’s also where we mice met Emole the Rat. I was facing off and my friends were helping me out, and I was cooking chili in this chili cook off. Emole gave us the secret pepper ingredient to beat Shitty the Shrew. So we have a whole song chronicling the start to our relationship.
Stinky: I thought Shitty the Shrew was okay at first. They had a pretty weak chili at the contest that was made out of mushrooms, peas, and water broth. It was very mild and I think that really says a lot about Shitty’s personality. He just repels fun.
JP: I feel like that is the opposite of what a chili should be.
Stinky: You would think that he would be no competition, but the judges were really considering. I’m surprised. I don’t know who selected them.
Spicy: But we won!
Emole: Shitty never really had a chance.
Spicy: Maybe it was nepo connections? Definitely in the end, the bland water broth chili was not enough for him to win the competition.
Spicy: That’s way in the past. I look back on that night with such fond memories because that is where we met Emole, and Emole’s one of our best friends. The band came together after that, and the rest is history. That night’s a really special night.
It seems they wrote “Chili Cookoff” after that night, banding together to use music to process the hardship and detail the story of their triumph. Speedy talked about how they’ve been through a lot together.
Speedy: We have another song on our EP called “Mouse Trap” and it’s about the time us mice fell into mouse traps and were blinded. But it’s okay because we got implants in our brains through Megabrain!
Spicy: Yeah! Megabrain eye implants so we can see. We’re totally fine now, but we were three blind mice for a minute. I think a lot of our music came from our anger. We were like, “Let’s make a punk band,” you know? Let’s get some of this out and chronicle our story.
Speedy: Recording the EP and releasing it was a really healing process for us.
Emole: It came together really fast!
Stinky even talked about the larger systemic issues they are facing in their community.
Stinky: You would think that Vermin City would be a good place to live as a rodent. You would think that it would be a very safe place because, you know, you are amongst your peers, but there’s so many different rodents in Vermin City, all with their different motivations. Some aren’t good characters… It is quite a dangerous place to live. I mean, we all got caught in separate mouse traps and that says a lot about the state of Vermin City. A lot of the music comes from our lived experiences.
JP: Have you guys encountered mouse traps since?
Speedy: We are tempted by good eats like cheese… We want to eat it! We still are tempted by the mouse trap’s tantalizing offerings, but now we know how to evade them and not get trapped anymore. We’re too smart for them.
Stinky: I think it took us being caught in the mouse traps to really get so good at evading them. It was a learning experience.
JP: I feel like there is a lesson in there for all of us. On a lighter note, what are some of your favorite eats?
Emole: I pride myself on eating anything I can stomach. I would just say that anyone can eat anything.
Stinky: We run this pizza joint called Trash Pie Pizzeria in order to help fund the band and stuff. We will steal ingredients from around town. We sell pizzas, burgers and all sorts of really greased up food. Right now I’m really craving one of our creations. You take a double cheeseburger, wrap it with three slices of pizza into a burrito shape and then you deep fry that. Then you cover it in cheese sauce.
Spicy: “The big ball,” we call it.
Emole: I used to work at a fancy restaurant and those places are often exploitative. They don’t give back a lot. I had to leave that place and I’m really glad to have left that place and found these guys to make Trash Pie Pizzeria with. Now we have a thriving business.
Stinky: This is like food for the people. I think those fancy joints tend to attract a certain crowd and leave out others. We don’t believe in food waste but we believe in community.
Emole: To quote Mackelmore, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
Spicy: I would recommend people try a grease milkshake! We also have trash pies, which are compressed blocks of mystery ingredients that we find.
Speedy: Recently I’ve really been liking the banana peel salad.
Spicy: Oh yeah! If you are looking for a lighter fare.
Speedy: And you can pour some grease dressing on
it. You can rub the banana peels all over. It makes your fur shinier.
Stinky: If you don’t have anyone to groom you at the moment then you can use the peels!
Spicy: Then you can slip into even tinier holes!
JP: I’m going to be thinking about banana peels differently now… A total pivot, but what other sounds inspire your music?
Stinky: Firstly, our environment. I think we really capture it well in the music. We are really inspired by the hustle and bustle of Vermin City.
Spicy: For D3V0UR, we did try to pull from a lot. We tried to make it sound contemporary like hyper pop and experimental electronic music sounds. The songwriting is influenced by 70-80s funk, R&B, and hard-core punk. However, the whole thing has the sound palette and sound design of contemporary music. Something in the vein of Charli XCX.
Stinky: As far as production goes, we really like Frost Children and 100 gecs—bands that have put sounds of guitar music back into a digital production. We talked a lot about taking the sounds of older punk music, rock, funk, and guitar music and treating them in a very digital way like samples. Also, doing the opposite—taking electronic sounds like clubby stuff and using it in a live band context like you see at our shows.
Emole: I really like the song “Squeeze Me Macaroni” by Mr. Bungle. They put so many foods in there and I really want to try out the foods.
Spicy: A lot of our songs are more pop, catchy, and condensed (The EP is pretty short!), but there are a few progressive elements. There is a lot of zaniness throughout the EP! That is sort of like Mr. Bungle.
Speedy: We switch from genre to genre within the same song quite a bit. It can go from surf rock to new jazz swing.
Spicy: The genre of the song that you are hearing might switch but the song stays consistent. It makes for a cohesive listen despite the genre change.
Stinky: That came naturally to us because of everything that we have to say in the stories that these songs came from. Switching genres is a good way to immerse the listeners in the story.
JP: I feel like we have seen a trend of genre-melding recently. Currently I’m thinking of the very specific switch of pop to jazz on RAYE’s newest single “Genesis.” Do you guys see yourself continuing this in the future? Drawing from so many genres?
Spicy: We have a joyful single we are working on about driving around the Ch0mp3rmobile that should be out within the next few months! We have some other secrets on the way as well.
Stinky: D3V0UR is just the start!
Spicy: There should be a few more singles this year… Just to keep people satisfied!
JP: I’m certainly part of the growing fanbase that needs to be satisfied.
Stinky: We’ve done around eight shows so far! With each one we’re trying to have higher and higher energy. The songs take on a new form when they are played live with a crowd!
Spicy: We love doing covers live, taking pop songs or old classics and putting our spin on them, like “Roman Holiday” by Nicki Minaj and “California Gurls” by Katy Perry. We’ve punkified pop songs
and made old punk songs contemporary. We do some bad beats!
Speedy: I was thinking of covering “Backstabber” by Kesha! That’s one of my favorite songs of hers.
I went to one of B1G CH0MP3RS’ concerts on January 27th, 2024, and I wanted to highlight how fantastic the production was! They had a screen with various animations including the head of a mouse opening and closing its mouth along with flashing outlines of cats spinning and running around. Three stick lights came from each side of the screen mimicking the whiskers found on a mouse. They credited Squimpy the Worm for the lights and VJ (video jockey) work.
Stinky: Squimpy the Worm is literally always playing games on his tablet, but he’s a really good VJ.
Spicy: Squimpy the Worm is mentioned briefly on D3V0UR, but they will have their time to shine on future releases for sure!
Overall, it feels like B1G CH0MP3RS is about community. From an origin story of a chili cookoff won through the power of friendship, songs that draw from many genres, and live shows that bring together the community while providing scintillating visual and audio, B1G CH0MP3RS is certainly a band to watch. I can’t wait to be satisfied once again by another release only to be left craving a banana peel salad.
Contributors
Volume #003
Summer 2024 Name
Abigale Tabor
Amanda Postman
Angela Liu
B1G CH0MP3RS
BEE LB
Cassidy Kuhle
Claudia Wysocky
Eddie Sun
Fred Beshid
Hannah Rubin
Harriet Taylor
Jacob Staudenmaier
Jazmin Polido
Julian Avrith
Miguel Guzmán
Nikita Ladd
Soph Robson
Harriet Taylor
Holly B. McCauley
Isabel Kettler
Michael Moreth -------------------------Design--------------------------
Harriet Taylor
With inspiration from Enrique Martinez III Logo by Katie Liu
Harriet Taylor
Cassidy Kuhle Managing
Isabel Kettler
Cal Geib Features
Rachel Roberson
Jazmin Polido
Holly B. McCauley
Fiction & Poetry Editor
Reviews & Criticism Editor
Copyeditor
B1G CH0MP3RS
Pexels
Rawpixel
SHACJUICE
Stevie Nicks
The Literary Editing and Publishing Master’s Program at the University of Southern California
TOTAL: 22 CARD:
You’ve been
Ratted!
We’ve been hiding rat stamps throughout the pages of this volume.
