EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Emily Rippe Desmond
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Laura Upton ART TEAM
Erin Kanary
Morgan Gale
Ashley Duke
PRINTER Metzgers
ON THE COVER:
Melanie Blanc (model) Mike Balonek (photographer) House of Dow (style + set)
©2024, Swell Magazine A Social B. Creative publication
Original work and words by independent creators submitted or reprinted for this publication. All Rights Reserved.
Our journey connecting creative types of all backgrounds—and creating space for them has been a lifelong endeavor. One wave that brought us here, the publication of this magazine, goes back to my (now) husband and I loading up a car of artwork by Toledo artists and driving them 500+ miles to be displayed at a DIY. gallery in the Capital Region of New York in August of 2012. Since then our network has only grown.
2020 marked a devastating time for everyone. While some folks, myself included, were privileged enough to get to work from the comfort and safety of our homes and living rooms, others had no choice but to go out into the world. It was during this strange and difficult time that my freelance collective began heavy collaboration on marketing and passion projects to quiet the otherwise chaotic and noisy world. We were each looking for ways to grow, and build, partnerships and teams when connecting with others was extremely difficult, if not impossible.
But despite all the setbacks, incredible multimedia projects, including websites and logos for small businesses and nonprofits, commercials for political candidates, and social media strategies and profiles for celebrities were created with a palpable passion and understanding for each client and project that came our way at Social B. Creative (SBC).
Dreamed up in May 2021, Swell is an agglomeration of our SBC creative efforts. It highlights the words and designs of our freelancers. It features artwork and poetry by creative folks who have never wavered in their support and appreciation of our collective, as well as new voices and talents that we discovered. It leaves space for voices who have often felt silenced or unheard in our global communities.The project started with the small idea of creating a printed piece of marketing collateral that would demonstrate our creative skills, but in true SBC fashion, it swelled up into cosmic undertaking with a digital and physical presence.
For now, Swell is an annual publication, but we hope it publishes more frequently. The amount of time and resources that go into a project like this is tremendous, and I want the time and freedom to produce a magazine that resonates with its creators and audience. This first edition will make you swarm with excitement, inspiration, vulnerability, and uneasiness. Every piece selected or assigned was asked to consider the topic: Contagious. We asked our contributors to interpret the theme in their unique and personal ways. Some view it as positive, and others negatively, but the end result makes for a cohesive and compelling anthology of creative works. We look forward to the spread.
Swell Publisher, Emily Rippe Desmond
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
8 Preserved Flower Earrings | Jami Tammerine
9 Wildflower Collection | Auri Oricchio
10 Pandemic: A haiku series | Nikki Montgomery, M.A., M.Ed., GPAC
11 Balance/Do No Harm Take No Shit | Layne Painter
12 + 13 Toledo Loves Love Wall | Doug Hinebaugh
14 Dissonant City | Rachel Richardson
15 Untitled | Swasti Mittal
16 Make Waves | By Jennifer Zee
17 Untitled | Cyd Cotton
18 – 21 Surprise! | Posters by Leon Mateaus, Script by Lucé Tomlin-Brenner
22 Reticulation | Ashley Pryor Geiger
23 Apricots | Nina Pace
24 “Submerse”: from The Small Gods of Animals series | Nettie Zan Powers
25 Honey Bear Hunt: Masked Honey Bears | Fnnch / Photographs | Julie Gebhardt + Andrew Rettmann
26 Comic | Allison Bannister
27 Untitled | Joni Johnson
28 + 29 Heading West on Bancroft Street, circa 2002 | Leah McNaughton Lederman
30 Kinship Baron | Alex Waters
31 A Contagion Called Love | Tanasio Loudermill
32 + 33 + 34 That Pandemic State of Mind | Kayla Marie Williams
35 Floral Arrangement | Queenz Cut Flowers + Shanice Keanna
36 Cicada | Brooke Alexander
37 + 38 Dr. Nowak’s 7,816,230-Digit Prime Number | Jaclyn Youhana Garver
39 Contagious | Valerie Thompson
40 + 41 Swell Summer Recipes | Jillian Naveh
42 – 46 A Protester’s Life for Me | Emily Rippe Desmond
47 Valentine’s Day | Ambershaun Miller Byrd
48 Oranges | Gideon Naveh
49 Discordia | Caroline Corrigan
50 Collection of 3 Tattoos | Inkumoo / Dani Meg
51 Untitled | Brian Finn
52 1600s Ashkenazi Recipe for Fumigation | Erin Garber Pearson
53 Honey Lavender | Just Toledo
54 Reflections | Kristy Belle Headley
55 On Hard Days, I sing with Billie | Gina Sares
56 + 57 + 58 Making Art Accessible | Yvette Michelle Reyes
59 Happiness | Timothy Gaewsky
60 Honeypot | Ashley Pryor Geiger
61 – 65 Highway | Summer Keown
66 – 69 Swell + House of Dow Photoshoot | Mike Bakonek
70 + 71 Book Review, Kings of Quarantine | Lit Off The Pages
72 + 73 An Architect’s Thoughts on Ruin Porn | Amanda Kight-Durkin
74 Riot Grrrl at 9:52 a.m. | John Dorsey
75 Patient Zero | Kaitlyn Bee
76 Pottery | Nic Frazee
77 Again We Rise | Jonie McIntire
78 Steve Buscemi | Lyndsay Grimes
Tremendous thanks and gratitude to the following people and businesses who have supported us since Day #1. Thank you 100 times for your love and support.
GREGORY HELDT
Thanks for being a swell dude who provided emotional and financial support through our journey.
HOUSE OF DOW + ALAN DOW
Thanks for letting us raid your home and store shelves to produce an epic photo shoot.
JUST TOLEDO + COURTNEY FILLION
Thanks for making us smell like the bee’s knees.
MIKE BALONEK + THREE PINES PRODUCTIONS
Thanks for making us feel like rock stars and supermodels.
MIKE BRICE
Thanks for pushing this inaugural issue of Swell to the finish line with your generous monetary and journalistic contributions.
Thanks for… everything Seriously You are the best and we love you and your love for art and activism. Keep making Toledo a more vibrant place.
Thank you for all your encouragement of getting this to the finish line and helping us plan the launch.
AMELIA JARRETT
Thank you for supporting every wacky and wonderful creation, matching our passion with unbridled enthusiasm and support with release party planning.
The following individuals helped make this issue of Swell a reality through their generous donations to our GoFundMe. For this, we are eternally grateful.
Anonymous 6x
Allison Kuhr
Allma Miller
Amy Hall
Andrew Lindemann
Betsy Ujvagi
Bobbi Elle
Calen Bruce
Carmen Vega-Pérez
Cherie Jacobs
Chuck Miller
Doug Strausbaugh
Doug Hinebaugh
Eugenio Mollo, Jr.
Gregory Heldt
Gretchen DeBacker
Gwendolyn Betts
Isaac Klunk
Jerry Gray
Jonathan Zenz
Joshua Keidan
Kate H.
Katie Warchol
Krista Lough
Kristin Hady
Kristy Belle Headley
Laura Shaffer
Lauren Pfund
Laurence Levy
Lauri Cooper
Lucinda Weller
Marcia Klunk
Margaret Ostrowski
Mechelle Zarou
Megan Schmidt
Mercedes Thompson
Meshawn Lloyd
Michelle Keller o z i diptongo
Pamela Weirauch
Patricia Robb
Rebecca Steinhauser
Rebekah Burchfield
Rena Leizerman
Ryan Rosensweig
Sean Nestor
Steph Daley
Tom Clawson
Travis Cready
Trudy Desmond
Whitney Vargo
Yvette Michelle Reyes
By Nikki Montgomery, M.A., M.Ed., GPAC
Our repeated fear Hid in familiar bodies, Forcing us apart.
The food chain reversed, Evolution rearranged; meanwhile, the globe spun.
Truths, scarce and varied Shuttered the world. Some bloomed in the new-found silence.
Others raged against wisdom or rested; many Eyes opened anew.
Hope also can spread In tight spaces and across Our endangered world.
By Rachel Richardson
Soul nourished to overflowing
Toledo with its mystical provisions
Spirit crushed
When obvious dues are not reimbursed
Romance around histories
Betrayals that define eras
Undying love or a name
Cursed until the end of time
Fucks with your head
Devotion grows a heart the size of a City
Measures directly proportional to how badly it will happen to you
Hard and often
Dedication to forward motion
A personal mission
A purpose
All while
Searching for how to fit in
to your own hometown
Toledo’d
By the gatekeepers
The Circle Jerks
With their stranglehold on who is allowed to do what and the money to do it
Their addiction to their own mediocrity
And undermining excellence.
They dominate and obstruct
Colonize and claim
Guaranteed a job
Holding up stale reality
A prestigious career with stability
And health insurance
He never has to leave
You cannot wait him out
Anyone else
Should check the nest for thorns
And when there is a light shining
Somewhere
And it is yours
Stand in it
By Lucé Tomlin-Brenner
JULIA:
I feel like a surprise and a prank are the same thing
ROSE:
(interups suddenly, angry) They’re not.
CELINE: They’re completely different.
LULU:
A prank is mean, crass, selfish. Whereas a surprise is sweet, thoughtful, generous!
JULIA:
I was just –
ROSE:
We’re delighted you’re here Julia, but may I give you some advice?
JULIA:
Sure!
ROSE:
You’re in a new place, with new people. Have an open mind and don’t push back.
JULIA:
I wasn’t
ROSE:
And don’t interrupt. We’ve all been best friends for almost 20 years now.
JULIA:
Wow that’s a long time!
ROSE:
Exactly. Do you know what’s kept us close for so long? 3 words. Good vibes only. We put out good vibes and the universe gives us good vibes back. So if you come in with your weird pushy bad vibes, it’s gonna mess with us and it’s gonna mess with the universe and we just don’t have the bandwidth for that today, ok?
JULIA:
Okay, sorry!
ROSE:
Don’t apologize either.
CELINE:
Women apologize 27% more than men do. Apologizing holds us back by creating toxic guilt and shame.
ROSE:
Celine with that teacher wisdom!
CELINE:
I’m a vice principal and you know that.
ROSE:
Fuck yeah you are girl!
LULU:
The hottest vice principal in the world has ever known!
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CELINE:
You’re damn right I’m hot!
THE GIRLS CHEER AND GAS EACH OTHER UP.
CELINE (cont’d):
You know what’s not hot? That pizza box, cuz it’s fuckin emtpy. Lydia’s gonna know something’s up as soon as she sees it.
LULU:
(suddenly panicked)
Yeah especially when she didn’t even order a pizza!
ROSE:
Chill out clit crushers. Do you think I’m a fucking idiot? I worked it all out with Pam.
LULU:
Oh the worst roommate of all time? I bet she’s stoked to be involved.
ROSE:
My god, you know she isn’t. (to Julia)
Pam is literally the most negative person on the planet. I wish I didn’t have to involve her, but alas! Lydia has shitty taste in housemates!
CELINE: (laughs)
You two lived together in college!
ROSE:
Yeah, and that was the highlight of Lydia’s life! I tried to impart my healthy habits and good taste, but sadly the girl loves chaos.
CELINE:
You can’t blame her, she never had a solid adult role model. (to Julia)
Her dad split before she was born and her mom was always galavanting off to Palm Springs leaving Lydia alone to basically raise herself.
ROSE:
I just wish Lydia respected herself enough to live with someone as badass as she is!
JULIA:
Wow it sounds like she’s been through a lot.
ROSE:
I mean who hasn’t?
ROSE TAKES A BEAT WHILE JULIA AND CELINE CHIME IN WITH AGREEMENTS.
ROSE: (cont’d):
Okay bimbos focus up! Pam already “ordered” the pizza and unlocked the backdoor for us. Plus, she’ll make sure Lydia answers the door. So Julia, just chat her up for a minute so we have time to sneak up. We’ll surprise her tits off before she even has a chance to notice there’s no actual pizza.
CELINE:
Relying on Pam to be helpful when she has absolutely no history of doing so makes me nervous but okay.
ROSE:
Do you even want to do this Celine? It feels like you’re not really present.
CELINE:
I AM present, I just want to consider every angle.
ROSE: (laughs sarcastically)
Okay.
(to Julia)
Celine is our very own Patron Saint of Know-It-Alls. But we love her anyways!
JULIA LAUGHS HARD TO BE IN ON THE JOKE, BUT DOESN’T REALIZE NO ONE ELSE IS REALLY LAUGHING.
ROSE: (cont’d) (claps)
Okay let’s walk up and get a better view.
THE GROUP GATHERS THEIR STUFF AND STARTS WALKING. THERE’S A TENSE SILENCE.
JULIA:
(cheerfully trying to fill the silence) Well, Pam sounds like a bitch!
JULIA’S USE OF THE WORD ‘BITCH’ CREATES A TONE SHIFT AND EVERYONE LOOKS AGHAST AT HER.
ROSE:
Cool. Can we not use the bitch word?
JULIA:
Oh sure! Sorry! I didn’t mean to offend you.
ROSE:
You didn’t offend me as much as you offended basically every woman alive.
LULU: The future is female, Julia!
JULIA:
Okay...sorry...I didn’t
CELINE:
You should confront your internalized misogyny, Julia.
ROSE:
Okay, I’m texting Pam now to let her know we’re ready.
LULU: Tell Pam we love her!
CELINE: Tell her we couldn’t live without her!
EVERYONE LAUGHS.
JULIA:
LAUGHS EXTRA HARD TO SHOW SHE GETS THE JOKE NOW!
SECRET LOOKS PASS BETWEEN THE 3 FRIENDS, WHO IS THIS JULIA CHICK? ROSE STOPS EVERYONE AT THE TOP OF THE HILL.
“Submerse”:
By Leah McNaughton Lederman
The journey begins at a crime triangle: Bancroft, Monroe, Detroit.
Pass the acid-rain-stained statues of St. Martin de Porres and the ambiguous residents of the crackhouse next door.
Here, anyone age five and up can tell you
About the nearest twenty-piece and they don’t mean chicken nuggets. We laughed and thought we were clever when we said this.
The light at Sylvan stops you long enough to make you nervous.
Then there’s Po Mo’s Ribs with that iron-lung-turned stove.
An unremodeled Home Remodeler’s store
Right across from Thro’ Down Sounds— a record store whose sign says “Crystal’s Ice cream” and the picture shows juicy porkchops and steak.
The fluorescent purple house has a matching boulder parked out front, marking the beginning of the chicken lane a forty-five-minute wait for the best goddam chicken in the state.
The sun brightens as you approach Westmoreland; the rent is higher there.
(If you want to hear birds chirping, it’s an extra $25/month).
St. Francis’s school for boys honors its patron saint with a decapitated statue,
And then Alvin street, where a coupla beers washed down what mighta been love.
A drop of Toledo if you drop by Maxwell’s Brew or a shot or a joint or a line
Right next door looms the clocktower, the university campus. It whirs by as quick as the years I spent there, as transient as the dreams I chased and the ones I left behind.
Hug the curves in Ottawa Hills, they’re the only hugs you’ll get. Here, tripping friends on the Honor roll turn LSD-induced somersaults on the floor at Evergreen apartments.
Until their mom comes home in her Mercedes Benz— Quick! Shove the coke under the couch!
(Teenage kids can’t afford their parent’s habits.)
The railroad tracks make me think about being on the motorcycle, how rough it bumps and makes me cringe. But cringing makes me squeeze him closer and I can feel his heartbeat mix with mine.
I kinda like those tracks.
Turn left at Timbercreek—that’s where my brother lives. He’ll be glad to tell you about the history of war or waiting tables. Take notes, either way.
Keep heading west, you’re almost there.
Look for a tree-cloaked house and watch that left turn. Down the gravel drive then Follow the painted handprints up the staircase to the room where soft blankets and a loyal dog cover the man I’ve come to curl up with.
By Tanasio Loudermill
Enroute to self-love I will pick you up And help carry you Over the threshold Of knowing that you Are quite enough Alone and being Not just because You deserve it too But so you can Pass it on To future friends And lovers alike And then they too will know A contagion called love And they too will pass it on And perhaps one day The whole world will Have it And know it Without consequence
By Kayla Marie Williams
When I’m working from home and feeling overwhelmed by the distorted out of body experience that can occur from being tied to the digital world for my livelihood, I take a break and go outside, standing barefoot in the yard.
I try to ground myself in the solidity of the Earth, finding comfort in what feels most real. I marvel at the mass of birds flying spectacularly low, weaving in and out like pilots, the squirrels speedily burying their new food finds, the white butterflies flitting by that sometimes stop and rest on the leaves of the perennials, planted by the porch. The daily beauty of nature makes me want to feel more in tune with it, more a part of it, but the work demands of the day and the bills I must pay push me back inside to the bright, brutal reality of the computer screen.
I’m not complaining, I’m just observing these shifts and the deeper emotions they bring. I’m grateful that during this time of inflation and high gas prices I can work from home and only drive my used hybrid car when I absolutely have to. But something outside pulls me in another direction, and I find myself longing for a life where I feel closer to the cycles of nature around me, one that I was briefly introduced to at peak pandemic, when I quit my then agency job and freelanced for a few months, barely getting by, but feeling a sense of freedom for the first time in my life—taking long daily walks in the neighborhood, in the woods, in whatever natural space I could put myself in.
That ended once I took another full-time job, working from home, with the pressure of daily deadlines, business benchmarks, and multiple meetings (but at least I could do these things without the traffic and stress of a long commute). I was still getting back minutes and hours of my life by subtracting that step, at least, this is what I told myself, though many who work from home also begin to see how the lines can quickly become blurred, how your work and home life can start to merge a little too much, how you can find yourself even more overworked than before, hunched over your desk for most of your waking hours. This cycle sped up even more when I took a better paying job at a younger company (have to pay off that hybrid somehow). I started to feel as if my world were shrinking, and seeing the trees, and birds, and bees outside on my lunch break reminded me that there are much bigger things out there, things that humble me and at the same time, make me feel so much more alive.
If you’re from the working class, you learn early that you must trade your time to pay for your survival. Even with a fancy education, if you don’t come from money, it’s hard. At 46, I’m
If you’re from the working class, you learn early that you must trade your time to pay for your survival.
finally a homeowner, I finally have a nice car that works, and I have health insurance for me and my partner. But the price of these things is high. In many ways, I have to go against my nature to survive. My nature is to have space to dream, to be freely creative, to be sensitive to my surroundings. There was a point in the pandemic where I started to connect back to these parts of myself, but I knew I couldn’t indulge those feelings for too long because I have real responsibilities, and at the end of the day, I’d be the one who’d have to keep the wheels turning for things to function. No matter what, I didn’t want to go back to the places I’d been before, working three jobs and still having to be on assistance—I know what it’s like to not have a home of your own, to have to hustle to stay afloat, to be at the mercy of people with more money and more power than you, who often possess way less compassion. The point of my life became quickly centered on never going back.
But the truth is, though I’ve leveled up a little, I’m still overwhelmed, just in a slightly less (but still stressful) way. I think most people in America are, because so many systems have failed us. The pandemic pulled the veil off deep
problems and wounds, and it’s become harder and harder to pretend otherwise. I think the reason I’ve always felt like an outsider in this society is because I’m bad at pretending, and to survive, you’re almost always forced to pretend, just to get by.
Words have always fascinated me, but I’m tired of how so many of them get used in ways that strip them of their meaning. What does “community” mean in a country where healthcare is a business and “care” is a marketing buzzword? What does “authenticity” mean in a country where showing up as yourself could actually cost you everything? I think more and more people have increasingly started asking these questions, finding they are frustrated by the lack of answers.
While I often escape into the beauty of nature to cope, I’m also not naive to its unpredictability. It’s not lost on me that a virus was able to cause so much havoc in this country. You’d think that after losing over a million people to Covid, we’d be a better society—more giving, more caring, more connected. But hustle culture continues, mixed with uninformed arrogance, guns, and increasingly more dangerous drugs to take the
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pain away. Overwhelmed? Well, buckle up, because that’s the American way.
Is it wrong of me to dream of a slower life, filled with deep refection, real rest, and dare I say it, more pleasure? What if there was a contagious calling now rumbling within all of us to push for the space to live lives that honor nature, that honor each other, that celebrate our truest selves. After surviving a pandemic, shouldn’t we all want more of that? To be alive is a gift, and yet, the broken economic ecosystem we live in too often makes it feel like a continual challenge of sink or swim.
So to feel more alive as I stay afloat, I steal away time to walk barefoot on the grass, allowing myself to dream. For what’s hope but a force inside, that grows and spreads, but only if you cultivate it, feed it. As that iconic Blondie lyric says, “Dreaming is free.”
It’s one of the few things that still is.
Well, buckle up, because that’s the American way.
By Jaclyn Youhana Garver
What do you remember about us?
My future boss asked about an afternoon of interviews, hours of white men in suit pants and crinkled shirts, ties, unhooked top buttons, white man after white man after white man after white.
He had a laughter to his voice, so I told him what I remembered: You’re both white guys.
He hired me but later said, That’s not OK to say. I didn’t understand why that was so, and 17 years later, I still don’t.
You’ll be the cicada expert!
Brood X comes to play every 17 years, after life underground, mole people with exoskeletons and wings useless in the dirt, and when they break free, it’s nothing but an orgy, nothing but freedom and fucking in the sunshine for eggs to play in 17 more years, after Mom and Dad have long ago crisped in August swelter. Some trees collect a snowfall of shed cicada skins like sloughed off bad kisses and lonely Fridays of empty pizza boxes, flat Coca-Cola, Thelma and Louise on VHS. I fast-forwarded through that part.
I called the Orkin man weekly. What’s the point of them?
The point? Sure. Even the spiders we squish eat the pests that harm the crops. What good does a cicada do?
I made the Orkin man speechless, like a mouth so full of soil, the tongue can’t touch the soft palate to say a velar sound: no knowing of wedding rings; no crying in a parking lot later next spring the moment his ticking heart learned I wanted mine back; no chorus of boy cicadas jamming on their tymbals, peacocking to the ladies; no flexed and buckling ribs like a washboard, so unlike winking tongues that can kiss and scream with equal ease.
I visited the high school class that baked diced cicadas into pastries, and when I took a bite, I ignored the extra chocolate chip cookie crunch. Not to be outdone, my friend Marshall,
a grandfather, put aside his camera and sunk his teeth into a fudgy brownie, and the crackled bits weren’t nuts. He gagged. I can’t believe you made me do that!
Seventeen years ago, I loved a boy I shouldn’t have. He was big-hearted and nice in the way of church groups with tucked-in shirts, which bores me today, but then, I frightened easily, and he frightened like a blade of sweetened grass, a glass of lemonade. He held me in my nest of blankets, cozier than the pull-out loveseat in the furnished studio apartment I called home for three months. He found me beautiful, gorgeous, sexy, all the words a 21-year-old girl yearns for, all the words that can never describe a 21-year-old girl—at least, not the 21-year-old girl I used to be. He’d gaggle his eyes and waggle his tongue, the human impersonation of Elmer Fudd when Bugs dressed in drag. It made me laugh, flooded me with power one summer when I possessed none.
Seventeen years ago, that man hit something in the road, bent a wheel on my car on a wet and black night, the night before I moved away and never deigned a second look. At home, I shoved that man, that boy, and he fell into the large picture window in my family room, and I ran and hid in the bathroom, locked the door, sobbed until oxygen was iffy, like living underground for 17 years, like pulling breath through mounds of soil.
Brood X is back today, and the I like to imagine the cicadas who burst through the ground in search of a Bugs to their Elmer are the babies of the Brood that were my specialty when I was 21. When I was 21, I did not know there were an infinite collection of prime numbers, or maybe I did, and I’ve just forgotten in the last 17 years. I know I didn’t know a thing about Euclid, about Riemann’s conundrum. All my conundrums involved more mundane universal mysteries, like sex and God and how much He cared and if He cared and if He was He or more likely It and Its don’t care so why should I? Why should the cicadas have the most fun, with their Dionysian singing, holding hands around the sycamore tree and using their bodies for song and coitus because all that matters is that we mustn’t die out or be forgotten. We must leave behind mysteries, broken tubes of lipstick and an exoskeleton scarred and cackling from too much use.
Seventeen years ago, that boy was too good for me, and I knew I deserved more. Truth can be two things. Truth can be both.
Three days after I left him on another dark and stormy night, he said he’d bought a ring. Relief, like Angel Falls, flooded my limbs so fully, I out of necessity grew antennae, veined wings and a thorax just for more parts to flood. I thanked God I left in time, even if It didn’t care.
By Emily Rippe Desmond
Author’s note: This piece was originally published in the February 2016 issue of Khroma Magazine under my pen name. This version includes updates and feels more than relevant and relatable today. My resharing of this essay comes at a time when I want to reintroduce myself and my unwavering support of immigrants, people of color, women, and misunderstood people in our communities. It’s my dream that my empathy and compassion for others will spread. Like Ben Lee sings on his 2004 album, Awake Is the New Sleep, “Please baby, please. Open your heart and catch my disease.”
I should be dead, several times over — probably. While I wasn’t a revolting youth, I did have my fair share of careless moments. Like that one time when I ended up stranded in a van with four strangers on I-70 on a blizzard-y, January night driving back from our nation’s capital, having just protested the impending Iraq War in 2003.
This was the second time in my life that I had visited Washington, D.C.
From a young age, I was encouraged to think for myself. One of my earliest political memories is when I traveled to DC with my family for a National Organization for Women’s (NOW) rally in 1992, along with a trunk full of bumper stickers that read, “Save America, Nuke Gingrich.”
My dad thought it would be hilarious to plaster me, his 7-year-old daughter, in these stickers, which I also passed out to a variety of fascinating folks. I recall striking up a casual conversation with a topless woman who had painted her breasts blue. There were hippie types of all ages, and almost everyone had hairy armpits. There were women and men sporting mohawks, also dyed blue. People brought their pro-choice pets with them to the rally. It was quite the scene.
The hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa performed at the rally. I didn’t get to meet them personally, but it would have been a riot to have given the band members their own Nuke Gingrich bumper stickers. Seriously, fuck that guy.
Disclaimer: While most of us our influenced by our parents or guardians, I want to clarify that my folks always gave me a choice when it came to religious, philosophical, and political ideologies. I asked a lot of questions as a kid, and was permitted to seek out my own path. By the time I was 17, and on my way to Washington, D.C., for my second protest (unbeknownst to my parents), I had been to temple and learned Hebrew, taken meditation and karate courses, and went on an Evangelical mission trip to a Mexican orphanage. I had asked to go to that NOW rally when I was 7. I welcomed new experiences, and I strongly believe that if it weren’t for my unique upbringing, I wouldn’t be as empathetic to other cultures as I am today.
The political climate in the early ‘00s was heated. Most of my fellow classmates were in support of the Iraq War as it related to the United States’ fight against terrorism. I have never pretended to be a Middle Eastern scholar, but I knew, even back then, that overthrowing Saddam Hussein and capturing Osama bin Laden were not means to an end. It’s rather simplistic to blame all your problems on one or two bogeymen.
It’s also misguided to place everyone of a specific culture or religion into one basket. But hold that thought for a few minutes.
If the horror and terror of 9/11 taught me anything, it was giving the U.S. just a tiny glimpse of what the people in the Middle East experience every single day. I kept imagining, What if this war was being fought on American soil? What if every day was like September 11th, would we be so hawkish then? I chose to protest the war in an effort to save lives —
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on both the American and Iraqi sides. And to demonstrate that not all Americans supported President Bush and his third-grade mentality. It’s not his fault he choked on a pretzel, though he probably should have chewed on things a little longer before making any decisions.
I did convince one person to travel to Washington, D.C. with me in January 2003. His name was Seth, and he was insane; that was the rumor anyway. I can’t remember exactly what people said about him. He acted out sometimes, and didn’t seem to have any close friends. This was our first adventure together, and it was going to be a life-altering one.
The plan was to leave for Clifton just after school let out. Numerous buses were hauling protesters, mostly University of Cincinnati (UC) students, to the capital. Unfortunately, I am plagued by a horrible sense of direction, which still haunts me today. I somehow managed to get us onto the highway heading toward Indianapolis. This was before GPS, by the way, and what should have been a 25-minute ride took us an hour and a half. Most of the buses had already departed by the time we arrived, and the ones that were still there had already filled up their seats. We debated whether we should take my car (a not-super-reliable 1994 Plymouth Neon) and follow the buses to Washington. That’s when a college student, just a few years older than us, approached.
“Hey, we have a van with two extra seats if you’re going to the protest. Just chip in for some gas money.” It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time.
Seth and I crawled into the back row of the van. Our new friends and saviors were Brandon, Megan, Brian, and Sarah. They were seniors and juniors at UC, and members of the UC Anti-War Coalition. It was Brandon, the guy who overheard our dilemma about not catching the bus in time, who owned the van, and drove most of the eight-hour drive.
We made a few pit stops for gas, snacks, actual meals, and bathroom breaks. At one point, Brandon and Brian insisted we stop at an adult video store. I was one week shy of turning 18, and opted to stay in the van. The boys ended up purchasing six penis-shaped water guns, which were very useful during the protesting of a bunch of Republican dicks.
Cutesy catchphrases aside, being a part of the Iraq War protest felt important. And indeed, it was a major life event, one I still remember in vivid detail.
As a whole, our group was pretty fun and chill. We had a lot more in common than our antiwar/pro-peace stances. Everyone was really into music, especially Brian. When Megan and Sarah were sharing some college advice with me (at the time, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of high school), Brian started playing Judas Priests’ British Steel and told us to shut up.
“No talking while Judas Fucking Priest is playing!” he yelled. He was serious, but after a few seconds, everyone in the van burst into laughter.
It was 3 a.m. when we finally arrived in D.C. Nobody had planned ahead and reserved a hotel room or anything. For all I knew, we were going to sleep in Brandon’s van all night. Seth and I checked us into a motel with two beds. We snuck the rest of the crew into the room. The boys slept on the floor, and the girls took the beds.
I was too wired up to really sleep that night, but I must have eventually drifted off.
Later that morning we were dressed by 9 a.m., and ready to get our protest on, along with 200,000 other individuals. Two hundred thousand people. A number that large is hard to fathom, even today. And especially hailing from a conservative suburb of Cincinnati, where everyone else seemed to be in support of this pointless war, 200,000 people felt like the rest of the entire world.
Some of the slogans and themes for the protest on the National Mall included favorites, like:
No blood for oil!
Asses of Evil.
And: Hey, hey, ho, ho, this son of a Bush has got to go!
Cutesy catchphrases aside, being a part of the Iraq War protest felt important. And indeed, it was a major life event, one I still remember in vivid detail. It was freezing-ass cold, for one thing. About 10 degrees or so. I recall marching with my newly-made friends, huddling with them for warmth. The one person I kind of knew amongst the other 200,000 protesters had magically disappeared, and I wasn’t completely sure we would ever find Seth again. He was the type of kid who would get arrested for doing something absurd. Or possibly get lost in an unfamiliar city and decide to start a new life. Both he and I were outsiders in our hometown. Maybe I shouldn’t go back either. The thought crossed my mind a few times.
But after several hours of making our voices heard, and bonding with thousands of strangers who felt the same way I did, it was time to face reality, and bloody high school. Besides, I had to get back before my mother realized I wasn’t sleeping over at my best friend’s house for the entire weekend. I didn’t lie to be deceitful; I told a fib to ensure that nobody would stop me from exercising my right to peacefully protest. It felt right, even if it was an extremely dangerous and naive move on my part.
Seth found us at the end of the march route. He managed to get his face painted, it was completely covered in an upside down American flag. What a ridiculous son of a bitch.
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I fell asleep in the back of the van, and I probably would have slept the entire way back, had a strange sound from the engine not disrupted my slumbers. It was around 6 p.m. when the van broke down on the side of the highway, a good mile or so from the next exit.
The six of us pushed that damn van down the road as far as we could. It began to snow, and I was pretty sure I was being punished by the forces that be. This is it, I thought. This is where I die. I should have told someone where I was going. If I make it through this, I’ll never lie again.
There was a lot of swearing from the others. This was not the same carefree attitude everyone had at the beginning of our trip, even when Brian yelled at us for talking over the Priest.
Then, a passerby took pity on us and called AAA. We proceeded to spend the next several hours inside a store and restaurant that seemed to specialize in beef jerky. Nobody was amused, and we mostly sat in silence while a mechanic worked on the vehicle. It wouldn’t be ready until the next day, he finally informed us. We would have to find another motel.
We made it back to the UC campus around 10 a.m. the following day, Sunday. I greeted what I once perceived to be my P.O.S. Plymouth Neon, which never looked so good, so welcoming.
Seth and I said goodbye to our travel mates and heading back to the ‘burbs. I never would see Brandon, Brian, Megan or Sarah in person again, though we’d always share a special bond and unforgettable road trip. It’s now 21
If you’re going to hold a protest, you might as well do it in honor of a man who epitomizes demonstrations.
years later, and I still have the pictures of this adventure from my disposable camera.
The good news was that I didn’t have to resume school the next day. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which the protest organizers had intentionally planned. I guess if you’re going to hold a protest, you might as well do it in honor of a man who epitomizes demonstrations.
If I could experience it all again, I would. Even that scary, frigid, broken-down van part. Something about that excursion changed my worldview, and became my rite of passage. I now understood that even if I was in the minority in high school, there were at least 200,000 (and it turns out, way, way more) people in the real world who agreed with me on the important issues. I wasn’t crazy for believing that American Muslims weren’t responsible for the heinous crimes of terrorists. I wasn’t alone in wanting our country to be a safe haven for refugees fleeing their war-torn countries. I wasn’t the only person fearful of guns.
And as I reflect on the concerns that kept me awake at night; the causes that influenced me to drive a full 16 hours round-trip with four complete strangers and an acquaintance to make my plight known over two decades ago, I feel more compelled than ever today to start the revolution.
By Just Toledo
(Scent coming soon!)
Reflections is a photography project exploring the longing for heartened feelings and a sense of nostalgia — and the unrest we can feel when these sensations seem just out of reach.
The images in this project are cyanotypes rinsed in a bath with a mild bleaching agent in it. The rinse bath has been run in reverse, causing the prints to suction toward the drain holes. This creates the weathered patina on these prints.
By Gina Sares
My body is wailing. Fibromyalgia grips my limbs and weighs my body with ache. I sink into a tub and listen to Billie Eilish.
She has Tourette’s, you know. I saw her tic in an interview with David Letterman. I saw how my own neck spasms, the familiar startle on David’s face, and Billie, unashamed.
Now, her voice lifts loneliness from my shoulders.
That’s how it is with self-love; it’s contagious.
On hard days, I sing with Billie. I dance with Gaga. I paint with Frida. I bask in a love that knows disability is not for darkness. It’s a field of many flowers deserving of sun.
It’ll take more than water to wash me of pain, but a bath with Billie softens the sting. In the breeze between songs I hear my own voice. It sings, This body is loved.
How does a natural born artist born in poverty make it in the arts which are inherently classist and elitist?
By Yvette Michelle Reyes
In Tangles
Yvette Michelle Reyes
This is the question I have been asking myself since I decided to pursue arts on a more professional level as opposed to a passionate necessity of the soul. Since finding myself in a position where I can both pay my bills, and still have hours in the day, I’ve been working on my professional development and seeking opportunities for artists. As I’ve begun to focus on art as a living, it is becoming more and more apparent that there are still many classist factors at play. Despite its efforts, the art world is still largely inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t come from means or is limited on resources.
It should be so simple that if you are a talented and capable artist, you will be given artistic opportunities by the establishments that are supposed to be there to help support local artists. As a youth, I was given some opportunity and hope for a future in the arts, but as an adult, it
became clear that talent has no bearing in the art world. It is more so dependent on your artist bio, statement, CV, and degree, or who you know. To have these things, though, one must have access to a computer; one must have the mental and emotional energy/capacity; one must have some insight on where to even begin. Some might say, “Well that’s what art school is for.” But not everyone can afford art school. I am, in fact, two semesters shy of a BFA. As a single mother of three, when the financial aid ran out, it was just not doable.
That’s the thing about being a successful artist: You must have the resources to invest in yourself and your work to make it happen. When looking into setting up for art festivals, one must have the financial resources for the application fee, the booth fee, the cost of the tent and fixtures for hanging, insurance, and other miscellaneous costs. When applying to call for artists, there are generally application fees, as well as the cost of shipping your work if selected for a non-local event. The bottom line being, there are more opportunities for those who can afford to continuously apply for calls and afford the costs of shipping or traveling.
Another major frustration I ran into when applying to call for artists was the application process itself. While I understand there are certain criteria required that make it easier to select artists, it is very clear that making applying easily accessible is not at the forefront. As someone who deals with mental health issues, these application processes can be quite overwhelming. I had to be selective in which calls I would apply for based on the
financial cost of submitting, as well as the emotional and mental labor required. It can be hard to find the resources one needs as an artist when you are constantly having to find resources just for survival. Who has time to focus on new artist statements, and creating CVs when you’re trying to make sure you can afford a safe place for your family to temporarily live? Often it feels like the cards are stacked against me. I just want the opportunity to create beautiful things to share with my community, but I can’t afford to play.
I’ve never been one for complaining without making moves to make change. I’m tired of talking about how inaccessible the arts world is for poor people and BIPOC. I understand the art world is trying to change and make up for its lack of diversity and inclusion, but there’s still much work to be done. However, I am not a patient person and have begun making moves to at least make the arts truly more inclusive in my city. There was a great city event that used to take place every two years that showcased the wide variety of all skill levels in all art media. I loved it because it felt accessible and inclusive. It was replaced with smaller, more frequent events that are less so. As I am not one to complain without action, I have started planning the Glass Rootz: Elevating Artists of Toledo (GREAT) event.
GREAT will be an easily accessible art event that gives priority to BIPOC artists, as well as other overlooked, marginalized, and underappreciated talent in the community. Its main focus will be a youth exhibit made up of work created by young artists from
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disadvantaged communities throughout the city. Art has the power to heal and save, and it really should be accessible to everyone—no matter their financial status. What the art world doesn’t seem to realize is that to make art accessible, you must make it affordable to the artist by affording space, time, and mental energy. There are so many voices not being heard, and visions not being seen because priority is being given to prestige.
I am still unsure if I’ll ever “make it” in a classist art world, but I no longer care. My greater hope is to help elevate those overlooked voices and visions, especially in the youth. I wholeheartedly believe that by creating these spaces and opportunities Toledo can truly be the GREATest, and we will be able to finally say with honesty, “You will do better in Toledo!”
If you’re interested in supporting or being a part of Glass Rootz: Elevating Artists of Toledo, visit yvettemichellereyes.com or send an email to Yvette at lilmissyvette@gmail.com.
It was an odd place for a park, overlooking the interstate. Repurposed baseball stadium seats in neat rows faced the many lanes of traffic as trucks sped deliveries to their destinations and workers went back and forth to work, all at a calculated ten miles or so above the speed limit if they could manage it. A mesh vinyl triangle blocked the brightest of the sun’s rays from the seats underneath, secured by salvaged steel beams and ropes attached to heavy squares of rocks contained by thick wire. Artistic but utilitarian. It didn’t make sense, a park like this. And yet, it was oddly calming.
Rosie couldn’t stand being at home, not at the home that wasn’t hers, the place that when push came to shove she wasn’t on the mortgage for and so she was the one who had to leave even if she hadn’t done the leaving. The place where her things resided, partially boxed up, ready for the move across town to the tiny so-called-efficiency apartment whose key she would slide into its lock in a couple weeks. Even though her future-ex wife wasn’t at their—at her—house, hadn’t actually said where she was staying but Rosie knew it was with the woman she’d left her for, knew that they were somewhere honeymooning while Rosie refused to cry about it all because that would meant that the new, happy couple had won. Oh, she hated being there in that house now, hated the memories that coiled in every shadow ready to pounce and make her remember smiles and fights and regrets.
By Summer Keown
She’d been sleeping on the couch because the bed was empty and cold and it wasn’t hers anyway. Few of the things were hers. After all, she’d got rid of her cheap post-college stuff when she’d moved in. Because they were partners. Because her future ex-wife’s things were higher quality and they didn’t need two sets of measuring cups, right? And now she had to start over from scratch, would have to buy forks and napkins and coffee filters, cleaning supplies and a hair dryer and at least one pot and pan to get by with until she could afford more. At the house she found herself pacing, restless, watching the clock and begging it to move forward an hour, a day, a week.
But at The Idle, she could sit. There were seldom other people there, but even when there were, they tended to keep to themselves. Almost as if there were rules that they all understood. As though this strange, hidden place in the middle of the city was sacred. Here, she could watch the traffic patterns, lose herself in its white noise, and just be for a while. Be. Bees.
Here, she could watch the traffic patterns, lose herself in its white noise, and just be for a while. Be. Bees.
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There was a beehive, at the edge of the trees that filled the space between the street and the overlook, protected it from view of the dog walkers and the runners in their spandex. She wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be there, some kind of public project, or if someone had just shown up with a beehive one day and filled it full of bees. Rogue beekeeping, and everyone just assumed that if there was a beehive that of course there was meant to be one. Blonde wood, unpainted, with drawers that surely housed the honeycomb inside them.
Rosie was a bit surprised that no one had messed with it. There was always graffiti in The Idle, occasionally a broken seat or two where someone had taken out an uncontainable amount of emotion on plastic and metal. But no one bothered the bees. Apparently it helped to carry a sharp weapon on one’s behind, and to have many friends equally equipped.
She had wondered, once or twice, who took care of the bees. Or was there no one? Had they been placed there and then forgotten? Or freed to live their best bee lives?
Mostly Rosie didn’t think much about the bees, until one strayed away, its little bee senses seeking out the lid of her iced vanilla oat milk latte. When she was just about finished, she set the cup aside and watched as the bee gathered the little drops of liquid. Would the artificial flavor hurt the bees? Had their little
bee stomachs adapted to high fructose corn syrup or preservatives that could hardly be pronounced? Would it be a treat, brought back to the queen and presented with proper royal etiquette?
Though she usually tried to stay off her phone while in The Idle, sometimes her twitchy fingers sought out the familiar smoothness of its glass pane and open line to the world’s great store of information. Going down the electronic rabbit hole one day, she learned that Norway was building a bee highway, a network to provide the little creatures safe passage from one place to another. That was what she needed, Rosie thought, her own bee highway to move safely from the house that was not a home to a new place now that she needed to migrate.
One afternoon, she visited The Idle, desperate to smooth out her thoughts under the ambient sounds of rush hour. She’d had to text her future ex-wife to get the code for the storage shed’s lock. She’d tried every number she could think of first but nothing was working and she certainly wasn’t going to leave her camping gear behind when she loaded up the truck the next weekend. Her future ex-wife had given her the code but also had told her that she needed to come by to pick up some clothes and would she mind stepping out for an hour or so around lunch so they wouldn’t have to cross paths? Rosie had gone for a long walk to Loco for a burrito and heck, why not, a midday margarita,
Going down the electronic rabbit hole one day, she learned that Norway was building a bee highway, a network to provide the little creatures safe passage from one place to another.
and had been sure not to head back until a full hour had passed. When she was a few houses away from the house, she saw her ex-wife’s car idling in front of the house, two silhouettes in its front seats. Her heart stopped for one beat, then two, before resuming its rhythms. The two figures leaned together. As they kissed, Rosie lost her burrito into the neighbor’s bushes. The car drove away, unaware.
She’d gone inside, brushed her teeth, hard, then decided she couldn’t stand to be in the house for a single moment more and nearly ran to The Idle. She rushed along the pathway from sidewalk through trees and into her clearing. Thank goodness, she was alone.
Throughout all this she’d rarely cried. She tried not to cry now. She wouldn’t. She put her fingers to her closed eyes and tried to force the hot, salty liquid to stay inside her lids. It seeped out anyway. It didn’t care what she wanted. She sobbed, crouched over, as drivers honked at each other in annoyance and cut each other off when someone signaled to merge. The world was furious today and so was she.
When the storm inside her quieted, she walked in shapeless loops around The Idle. She made her way over to the beehive. Usually the bees were coming and going in good numbers but today they seemed oddly quiet. Were they napping? Did bees nap? She itched to pull out her phone to check but she wanted to be here, not in the world of pixels and data.
“They’re getting ready to swarm,” a woman’s voice said, from just behind her. Rosie felt like her veins might pop out of her skin with the fright of being surprised like that. She was
usually so cautious, in the way that women are always listening for concerning sounds when they’re alone.
“What?” she asked, too loudly, her tone sharper than she meant it to be.
“The bees,” the woman replied, unruffled.
“They’ll be swarming soon, making their way to a new bee home.”
“Oh. Where will they go?” Rosie couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss. Even the bees were leaving, and she barely knew them. “I don’t know. Probably not too far away. But that’s really up to them.”
“Maybe they’ll travel the bee highway.” She laughed at her own little joke. Rosie imagined the bees packing little satchels, a bundle on the end of a stick. She realized that she probably sounded a little cuckoo and turned to explain herself, but there weren’t words to, not really. The woman who’d spoken to her had a kind face, little crinkly lines at the edges of her eyes, brown hair laced with gray. She wore baggy overalls that suggested utility over fashion.
“Are these your bees?” she asked the woman. The woman smiled, nodded her head to one side, then the other.
“Beekeeper is a funny word, I think. They’re their own bees. I don’t keep them, I just check on them from time to time. Give them a place to stay if they want it. Say thanks for making flowers bloom and doing their little part in nature. Perhaps I’m a beekeeper in that I keep them company.”
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“When do you think they’ll swarm?” Rosie found it hard to look right at the woman. She knew her eyes must be red, her face a puffy mess. Anyone could tell she’d been crying. “I’m no expert, but I’d guess in the next couple of days. If you’re around here, I’d be careful. They’re less likely to sting when they’re swarming, but they’ll still do what they have to do if they feel threatened.”
“Me? Threaten a bee? I wouldn’t win that fight.” Rosie knew that in a way, she actually would. That a bee that stings a person dies afterward. But she wouldn’t wish that on a bee. It was strange to have another person there in The Idle, talking with her. She wasn’t sure if she liked it. She told the woman thank you for the information and excused herself. It wasn’t until she was a few blocks away that she realized she hadn’t asked the woman her name. Not that it mattered; she probably wouldn’t see her again.
Rosie had meant to visit The Idle again before she moved, but she ran out of time. After what seemed like years but had been only days, she’d loaded the U-Haul full of all of her things and taken them to their new place, unpacked, mostly. Arranged her books and records on their new IKEA bookshelf after figuring out how to put the dastardly thing together. But she did from time to time wonder what was happening with the bees. Had they moved on? Found a new place to build again?
The Idle was further away from her new place, no longer in walking distance. One night she dreamed of a horde of bees zipping along a highway made of light, zooming through the
starry sky. She felt sure that they would be all right. And once in a while, she felt like maybe she would be too.
A chance of scenery can do that, sometimes. Give some hope that the hard things might be temporary and that little seeds of happiness might just grow into something good.
After work the next day Rosie went to the grocery store. Filling her cart full of all the pantry staples, she grimaced when she calculated in her head what the cost would be. The real price of love lost was, she thought wryly, groceries and furniture and first and last month rent.
She paused in front of the jams, picked up some hot pepper jelly. It was right next to the honey. As she picked up a plastic bear full of tinted bee goo, she heard a familiar voice. “Oh no. That stuff shouldn’t even be able to call itself honey.”
Rosie twirled around and there she was, the beekeeper. “We have to stop meeting like this,” she said, though she found herself feeling glad that they had met again when her eyes were dry.
“I do try to make it a general rule not to sneak up on women and make comments about their honey, but I also tend to break my own rules. And I can’t let someone who seems to appreciate bees buy subpar faux-honey.”
“I’m Rosie,” she offered abruptly. She didn’t want to forget to introduce herself a second time.
“Stace.”
“The beekeeper who doesn’t keep the bees.”
“That’s me.” The woman—Stace—laughed. It was a good laugh.
“So what will you do now that your bees have flown away?” Rosie asked. “Will you get more? Or maybe switch to ducks, or even creatures without wings?”
“Oh no, they’re not gone,” Stace said. “At least, not all of them. A hive swarms when there are too many of them. Some go, some stay. The hive that stays makes a new queen. You’ll have to come back and make your introduction to her highness.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
She really was quite pretty, Rosie realized. But surely she wasn’t…well. It didn’t matter anyway. It was too soon for something like that. But maybe, she thought, she could use a friend. Especially a friend who could teach her about bees. She could learn how to keep them, and how to let them go. Create her own bee highway.
“You know, Stace,” she said, returning the smile.
“There’s a coffee shop in this here grocery store, and I would love to learn more about hives. If you’re up for it.”
“Put down the bear,” Stace replied, “get me a nice, hot Americano, and I’ll tell you everything I know, and then some.”
Lit Off the Pages (LOTP) is a bookish podcast featuring two best friends who happen to be sisters in law - Whitney & Cara Longoria. Every episode they discuss and review a book or series from a variety of genres while trying out new wines every week. On Season 2, Episode 5, the hosts chat with special guest, Swell Editor-In-Chief Emily Rippe Desmond about a Young Adult book, Kings of Quarantine.
Book Summary: Kings of Quarantine is a reverse-harem, high school, dark bully romance written by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti. This is the first book in the Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep series and contains dark love-hate themes, intense bullying, violence, and sexual scenes. This book can be triggering for some, so please check trigger warnings before you dive in.
LOTP Review: Kings of Quarantine follows Tatum Rivers through her senior year at Everlake Prepa boarding school for the elite. What starts as a promising school year full of fun with new friends, quickly turns into the worst with news headlines claiming that her father is responsible for the spread of the contagious Hades Virus. The Night Keepers—Saint, Blake, and Kyan—want to make Tatum suffer for her father’s crimes, but she is determined to survive their cruelty and tear them apart from the inside.
This story is based around the start of a pandemic caused by the Hades Virus - a contagious virus that has a high fatality rate. The Hades Virus had a lot of similarities to the Coronavirus and the mass hysteria we dealt with
during the uptick of that pandemic. For example, having to quarantine and people hoarding toilet paper. We learn early on that Blake’s mom has recently died from the Hades Virus. This is also the reason for the Night Keepers being so cruel to Tatum; they believe her father is responsible for the spread of the virus and that she deserves to pay for her father’s crimes.
Saint, Blake, and Kyan are downright cruel to Tatum throughout this story. It makes it challenging to like their characters. Yet, as the story progresses and you learn more about them, they become characters that you just love to hate. Coach Monroe’s character was like Tatum’s guardian angel with his own sinister motivations.
Our favorite thing about this book was Tatum Rivers. She is such a strong female lead character and her determination to survive throughout the story is inspiring. She is in touch with her sexuality and has a willingness to explore. She knows self defense so you don’t get any of the damsel in distress vibes because she is able and willing to defend herself. She is also empathetic of her peers. Tatum has this
sarcastic, take-no-shit attitude that we just love. The Night Keepers continuously try to break Tatum with their antics, yet Tatum perseveres and doesn’t let them keep her down for long.
The banter in this book really brought us back to our high school days. The characters all seem to be very intelligent, but also downright childish at times. Some of the jokes had us laughing out loud.
As far as the writing style goes, the multiple points of view made it really easy to get into the headspace of each character and get a good sense of their personalities. We get points of view from Tatum, as well as the Night Keepers and Coach Monroe. We also get to see how each of their feelings changed throughout the story in regards to one another, specifically the feelings of the Night Keepers and Coach Monroe toward Tatum. The authors really fleshed out each character and went into depth with them fighting their own demons. Peckham and Valenti did an excellent job describing each of the characters emotions in great detail so that the readers could get a really good sense of what they were thinking and feeling through the progression of the story.
The one thing we’d say was that the bullying in this book was to the extreme so it definitely made some parts hard to read. The level of cruelty coming from the Night Keepers takes the enemies-to-lovers trope a step further. The Night Keepers not only treat Tatum cruelly, but literally everyone else in the school, including the teachers. This book was heavy and all consuming in all the right ways.
Overall, we enjoyed this book and do plan to finish the series. We really enjoyed the writing style and feel like the author’s did a fantastic job hitting the mark with a storyline surrounding a pandemic with a contagious virus, as well as creating interesting and unique characters. We highly recommend this book to anyone that loves Dark Romance and is not triggered by the bullying trope. If you enjoyed our review of Kings of Quarantine by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti, check out our website for links to our podcast, Lit Off the Pages at www.litoffthepages.com.
By Amanda Kight-Durkin
I have mixed emotions about “ruin porn” photography, an artistic expression that’s been growing more and more popular in Rustbelt cities like Toledo and Detroit. I hope this piece gives fans of photography of abandoned and neglected buildings something to consider when a building is under redevelopment.
As someone who loves buildings and has a foot in the design industry, I have profound respect for photography as an artform, and can appreciate the beauty and drama this type of photography can capture. Our firm’s most successful social media posts have repeatedly been “before” photos of projects when they are in their worst condition. People love it. The reason I take issue with it sometimes is that when a formally vacant historic building gets rehabilitated on the interior, there is usually a decent amount of criticism that they “took away its character” or “I can’t believe they covered up all that cool exposed brick”. It often makes me second guess using before and after images of my own projects because the moodiness of the before image is usually more interesting
than the fresh and clean after photo. Vacant buildings offer up some artistic and sexy photo opportunities, but don’t you also want to see the buildings redeveloped and used rather than empty and deteriorating? The transformation is typically greater in a building that was formerly a commercial office, civic, or entertainment use because they likely had walls and ceilings of painted plaster historically. Folks usually get less upset with the completed project if the building was a warehouse or industrial use because it originally may have had exposed walls, ceilings and/or structural elements. People love exposed brick and structure, and I completely get it because I do too. Maybe there is an inherent something about feeling more in-tune with your shelter when you can appreciate its bones.
Here’s a little insight into why the interior of these buildings sometimes end up more “boring” than the general public wants them to be. Most large projects are complicated and expensive, and only possible with specific types of financing. A common type of financing involves the use of historic tax credits. This tax credit program is often the reason it is financially feasible to redevelop an existing building, rather than tear it down and build new. I feel like we can all get behind saving and reusing an existing building if someone can make it work. Using the historic tax credit program means that the rehab work has to follow the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, enforced by the State Historic Preservation Office and National Park Service, and conform to a whole array of practices and treatment guidelines. It is worth noting that not all historic rehabilitation projects use the historic tax credit program, in which case the developer can do whatever they want, and does not have to follow these rules (they do still have to follow building code requirements). Using the program is often a catch-22 because the developer will have to pay more for things like window repair and/or replacement, the type of exterior paint, and drywalling more walls and ceilings. Anything that gets touched has to conform to the Standards and be deemed appropriate for the historic character of the building during its period of significance. If the walls were plastered historically, you can’t keep the cool, exposed brick. If the columns and beams were concealed by plaster or wood paneling, they will need to be concealed again. If the underside of floor joists or structural decking wasn’t visible historically, they will have to be covered by a ceiling. And so on. Perhaps this offers some
relief; that the boring “after” photo may actually be more accurate to what the historic character of a building’s interior was. If confirmed that it was a historic tax credit project, the National Park Service signed-off on the work being historically appropriate, and drywalling over all the “cool stuff” wasn’t just for fun.
The boring “after” photo may actually be more accurate to what the historic character of a building’s interior was.
So while the before “ruin” photo is undoubtedly more interesting most of the time, the character of that image is not the character of the building. I love the lighting and drama of the photos, and am thankful for documentation of the building in that moment of its life. But bringing another chapter of purpose, life, and activity to the building’s story is fulfilling and beneficial for the community.
Side note for urban explorers that photograph the ruin porn: Keep up the good work, but please be careful. I understand the danger is part of the art, but people die or get seriously injured by falling through roofs, surprise skylights, open shafts, or decayed floors too often.
at 9:52 a.m.
By John Dorsey
sitting on the toilet
i watch through the window as a hummingbird floats above my propane tank interrupted by bikini kill blasting from my phone as if to motivate me to push me forward in protest against every toxic thing i’ve ever done before mid afternoon
against every toxic thing every man has ever done in the name of peace
reminding me i was pure once like the pale lines along kathleen hanna’s lips in 1994
this hummingbird is the ghost of a girl we both knew for about the length of a song
her palms covered with sweaty lyrics written in smeared black ink the ancient tattoos of a suburban adolescence that we no longer have time to contemplate.
By Jonie McIntire
Sometimes alive is a thing that happens after the blue — the pale face baby light skin, the deep trench of sadness, the drowned boy in public pool dripping cheese fries and slurpee and no swimming lessons.
Sometimes alive is what follows abortion, what follows funeral, after loss has lapped at you like a river until you walked out of its pull. A hunger, a compulsion, like the tide, the sun — insistent, incessant.
