Oh!

06 2023

SUMR / FALL

ISSUE

SUMMER/FALL 23

Oh! Did you notice our name change?

Oh good! You did.

Ohhhh you miss the old one? Uh oh!

You don’t get this one? Oh no.

Oh, well, let us explain it.

Oh! Is an expression of joy.

And surprise! And curiosity.

And clarity. And excitement.

Just depends how the design and storytelling moves you.

Oh! Says a lot. Means a lot.

With not a lot.

Oh. Ohhhh… Oh! So, welcome to Oh!

The inaugural issue of Oh! confronts the inescapable.

Reality. Objective. Subjective.

Intersubjective. Created. Perceived.

Augmented. Virtual. Altered.

Enhanced. Singular. Dual. Real.

Material. Ideal. Relative. Skeptic.

Pragmatic. Social. Existential.

Theoretical. Political. Elemental.

This edition bends the blinds to offer a glimpse into how the people around you view the world.

And maybe question yours.

@Ohhhhzine

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The Three of Cups was an art show hosted at Chinatown Soup in the Lower East Side Feb 2-22, 2023. For my contribution, I studied Dutch still life paintings as a way of exploring the theme from the tarot. The Three of Cups represents abundance in the upright, as well as disorder when reversed.

This entry for Oh! features excerpts from The Creative Act: A Way of Being

by Rick Rubin. I pulled chapters that resonated with the process and realities of creating the pieces for this art show.

EXCERPTS FROM:

PA I N T I N G S B Y :

T H E C R E AT I V E A C T : A W A Y O F B E I N G

BY RICK RUBIN

MEGAN LEE (@MEGANJLEE.ART) (UNLESS LABELED OTHERWISE)

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SUBMERGE ( T H E G R E AT W O R K S )

sensitivity for recognizing greatness from the books than from the media.

Broadening our practice of awareness is a choice we can make at any moment.

This applies to every choice we make.

Not just with art, but with the friends we choose, the conversations we have, even the thoughts we reflect on. All of these aspects affect our ability to distinguish good from very good, very good from great. They help us determine what’s worthy of our time and attention.

It is not a search, though it is stoked by a curiosity or hunger. A hunger to see beautiful things, hear beautiful sounds, feel deeper sensations. To learn, and to be fascinated and surprised on a continual basis.

In service of this robust instinct, consider submerging yourself in the canon of great works. Read the finest literature, watch the masterpieces of cinema, get up close to the most influential paintings, visit architectural landmarks. There’s no standard list; no one has the same measures of greatness. The “canon” is continually changing, across time and space.

Nonetheless, exposure to great art provides an invitation. It draws us forward, and opens doors of possibility.

If you make the choice of reading classic literature every day for a year, rather than reading the news, by the end of that time period you’ll have a more honed

Because there’s an endless amount of data available to us and we have a limited bandwidth to conserve, we might consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in.

This doesn’t just apply if your goal is to make art of lasting significance.

Even if your goal is to make fast food, it will likely taste better if you experience the best fresh food available to you during the process. Level up your taste.

The objective is not to learn to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness. So we can better make the thousands of choices that might ultimately lead to our own great work.

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THE ABUNDANT MINDSET A river of material flows through us.

When we share our works and our ideas, they are replenished. If we block the flow by holding them all inside, the river cannot run and new ideas are slow to appear.

In the abundant mindset, the river never runs dry. Ideas are always coming through. And an artist is free to release them with the faith that more will arrive.

If we live in a mindset of scarcity, we hoard great ideas. A comedian may be presented with a perfect opportunity to tell a favorite new joke they’ve written, but instead will hold it back waiting for a more high-profile occasion. When we use our material, new content comes through. And the more we share, the more our skills improve.

Choosing to live in scarcity leads to stagnation. If we work on one project forever, we never get to make another.

The fear of drought and the impulse for perfectionism prevent us from moving on and block the river’s flow.

Each mindset evokes a universal rule: whatever we concentrate on, we get.

If the mind creates a world that is limited, where we think we don’t have enough worthwhile ideas or material, we will not see the inspiration the universe is providing.

And the river slows.

In the abundant world, we have a greater capacity to complete and release our work. When there are so many ideas available and so much great art to make, we are compelled to engage, let go, and move forward.

If there is only one work to do, and we intend to retire when it’s done, there is no impetus to finish. If each piece is approached as our life’s defining work, we revise and overwrite endlessly, aiming for the unrealistic ideal of perfection.

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A musician may delay releasing an album for fear they haven’t taken the songs as far as they can go. Yet an album is only a diary entry of a moment of time, a snapshot reflection of who the artist is for that period. And no one diary entry is our life story.

Our life’s work is far greater than any individual container. The works we do are at most chapters. There will always be a new chapter, and another after that. Though some might be better than others, that is not our concern.

Our objective is to be free to close one chapter and move on to the next, and to continue that process for as long as it pleases us.

Your old work isn’t better than your new work. And your new work isn’t better than the old. There will be highs and lows throughout an artist’s life.

To assume there was a golden period and you’re past it is only true if you accept that premise. Putting your best effort in at each moment, in each chapter, is all we can ever hope to accomplish.

There is always more we can improve or another version to be made. We could work on something for another two years, and it will be different. But there’s no way to know if it will be better or worse—only different. Just as you will be. And you may have evolved past the work you spent years laboring on.

The direct reflection of you has faded.

The work begins to look like an old photo instead of a mirror image.

It’s dispiriting to complete and share a work you’ve lost connection with.

The recognition of abundance fills us with hope that our brightest ideas still await us and our greatest work is yet to come. We are able to live in an energized state of creative momentum, free to make things, let them go, make the next thing, and let it go. With each chapter we make, we gain experience, improve at our craft, and inch closer to who we are.

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M A R I A VA N O O S T E R W YC K F LOW E R S T I L L L I F E (1669) SPRING/SUMMER SUMMER/FALL 23 23

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EXPECT A SURPRISE If we’re paying attention, we may notice that some of our most interesting artistic choices come about by accident.

Springing from moments of communion with the work, when the self disappears.

Sometimes they feel like mistakes.

Release all expectations about what the work will be. Approach the process with humility and the unexpected will visit more often. Many of us are taught to create through sheer will. If we choose surrender, the ideas that want to come through us will not be blocked.

These mistakes are the subconscious engaged in problem-solving. They’re a kind of creative Freudian slip, where a deeper part of you overrides your conscious intention and offers an elegant solution. When asked how it happened, you may say that you don’t know. It just came through you in the moment.

It’s similar to writing a book by following a detailed outline. Set aside the outline, write with no map, and see what happens. The premise you start with could develop into something more.

Something you couldn’t have planned and would never have arisen if you were locked into following a particular script.

In time, we grow accustomed to experiencing moments that are difficult to explain. Moments where you give the art exactly what it needs, without intending to, where a solution seems as if it appeared without your intervention at all.

In time, we learn to count on the hand of the unknown.

For some artists, being surprised is a rare experience. But it’s possible to cultivate this gift through invitation.

One way is through letting go of control.

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With your intention set, and the destination unknown, you are free to surrender your conscious mind, dive into the raging stream of creative energy, and watch the unexpected appear, again and again.

As each small surprise leads to another, you’ll soon find the biggest surprise: You learn to trust yourself—in the universe, with the universe, as a unique channel to a higher wisdom.

This intelligence is beyond our understanding. Through grace, it is accessible to all.

JEAN-MICHEL PICART S T I L L L I F E O F F LOW E R S I N A VA S E

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ONE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT THE OTHER B Y H E I D I LO P E Z

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There is a show on Apple Tv called Severance. The main idea is employees of a big corporation will have a micro-chip inserted in their brain that separates your personal memories and your work memories.

You will not remember your family at work, and you won’t remember what you do for a living. I hadn’t realized I did this myself growing up.

Separating my reality. My identity into two split parts of my life.

I wake up with my mom speaking to me in Spanish, getting ready for school, listening to the news in Spanish. Dad already gone for work. My older sisters also getting ready for school. This is Latin Heidi.

Spanish speaking Heidi. Then as I step out of my mom’s car and into the school bus, I become American Heidi. Surrounded by those who only speak and understand English.

I block my roots and seamlessly assimilate into a new reality.

I didn’t fully understand what I was doing until I reached high school and the damage it had done.

I started to understand that my secret split identity was very hard to keep. I noticed my hushed toned phone calls with my mom so no one would hear me speak Spanish.

The dinner meals I would compare with what my friends would eat at their home. I wanted to be so Americanized it became the only reality I longed for. But. I started to lose half of who I was.

Day in. Day out. One Heidi enters.

Another Heidi leaves. Who would I be today. How would I adjust my behavior and tone for tomorrow.

I don’t even know who I was performing for yesterday. This had to stop or else I would lose grasp of who the real me could be.

Many people I’ve talked to told me that college was a great opportunity to re-invent myself. Adjust my routine and do something new.

To make friends and jump into every activity I could find.

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I decided this would be my doorway into figuring out who I really was.

No more comparisons. No more adjustments. No more comfort.

It was a horrible, emotional, scary, guilty, and amazing journey that I’m continuing to navigate today.

I started to discover who I was as an artist, designer, sister, daughter, friend, Colombian, Peruvian and American all rolled into one person.

There is no high authority over who decides whether you’re being a real person. Every day is different or the same but what matters is your own decisions, actions, and re-actions.

That is the reality of life.

You cannot be just one thing.

It’s all these separate parts that make you whole. One cannot live without the other. It’s all meshed into one organic form to supply the main foundation with personality.

I believe that a person will continue to change till the very end. Progress doesn’t stop. Curiosity grows.

There is no one line of existence but a jumble of everything.

That is the reality of life.

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DO YOU SEE ME?

BY HEIDI LO P E Z

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Lasting Legacies

BY EDITH FREEMAN The Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington, also known as The Jake, is named after one of the UW School of Art’s most renowned faculty members, Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000). In recent years, the UW School of Art + Art History + Design has made significant steps towards not only honoring the gallery’s namesake but also bolstering current and future students in the arts.

During the summer and fall of 2022 I had the opportunity to contribute to a large-scale project on the UW campus in Lawrence’s honor. Here’s the story behind it!

LAWRENCE’S LEGACY It would be impossible to overstate Jacob Lawrence’s profound impact as both an artist and educator. Lawrence first earned national recognition at age 24 when he created The Migration Series, a collection of 60 paintings depicting the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the South to North at the beginning of World War I. He went on to create other historical series and received numerous honors, including the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 1990 (Joseph).

“Lawrence used art to tell complex stories about Black life… I think [his] approach to storytelling crosses time and space and has allowed generations of people to connect to and through his work” says Kemi Adeyemi, UW Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and Director of The Black Embodiments Studio (Joseph). The Jake gallery is the living legacy of Lawrence’s exemplary practice; it is a community cultural laboratory and a platform for presenting a vast array of artistic viewpoints and experimentations.

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LEFT Jacob Lawrence in his studio in 1983.

Photo by Mary Randlett, courtesy of UW Special Collections RIGHT TOP “Tools” by Jacob Lawrence, 1977.

RIGHT BOTTOM “Migration Series” Panel 12: “The railroad stations were at times so crowded with people leaving that special guards had to be called to keep order.” by Jacob Lawrence, 1940–41 CITED ARTICLE “A Gallery Renovation, Inspired by Jacob Lawrence” by Nancy Joseph, UW College of Arts & Sciences, Feb. 08 2023.

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Lightbox photographs of tools in the UW art building, courtesy of Katie Heckart

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AN EXCITING ASSIGNMENT Throughout my final year as a Visual Communication Design student at UW, I worked at The Jake as the gallery’s graphic designer. My primary role at the gallery was developing distinct visual identities for each exhibition, working closely with the presenting artists to decide how best to publicize their shows. During that time, I became increasingly aware that The Jake lacked a definite presence on campus; students outside of the UW arts community rarely seemed to have heard of The Jake, let alone planned to attend one of the incredible shows.

Over the summer and fall of 2022, the ground floor of the School of Art + Art History + Design building—and home to The Jake—was renovated. This remodel was a significant—and long-awaited—step in uplifting the arts community on campus. An entirely new and expanded Jacob Lawrence Gallery space opened in April 2023. The new space has permanent display walls, proper lighting systems, acoustics, and climate control. The fixed display walls inside the gallery block most of the building’s exterior, rendering any windows facing the outside blank.

This created an opportunity to incorporate graphics to wrap the exterior façade, increasing the visibility of the gallery to the wider campus. To my delight, I was tasked with designing the window graphics while working as a designer at Studio Matthews this last summer, the Seattle-based design studio founded by my beloved former professor Kristine Matthews.

The process for designing the window graphics was immensely iterative. Considering the permanence of the project—the artwork is baked into the glass itself—a lot of eyes had to see and approve the designs before anything could be made. Many questions arose throughout the process, such as:

How can the graphics honor Lawrence’s ever-present legacy while also conveying a sense of present and future?

How can the graphics suggest human activity in the art building without overt human imagery?

How can the graphics represent the act of making?

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Final window graphics (North), images courtesy of Katie Heckart

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I M M O R TA L I Z I N G C R E AT I V I T Y After several rounds of ideation, we finally landed on a direction rooted in the past, present and future of the School of Art + Art History + Design building. I was initially inspired by Lawrence’s 1977 painting “Tools” which had recently been obtained by The Jake along with several of the artist’s personal tools. The design includes a mixture of Lawrence’s tools as well as a collection of tools all found within the building’s workshops and classrooms: from film reels to clay cutters to everyday push pins. These were photographed on light boxes and then assembled into black and white compositions. The visual treatment of the tool images was informed by my love for the ephemeral visual quality of photogram/ contact printing. These otherwise everyday objects appear at larger-than life scale, demanding the attention of passerby and immortalizing the ever-present spirit of creation inside the building. The tool visuals act as a sort of equalizer; former, current, and future students and faculty are brought together by the universal tools through which they create.

I chose to share this project for this issue of Oh! because it serves as a personal relic of my college experience, and rather, the reality of my growth as a designer over the last four years. I was finally able to see the windows in person for the first time on a trip home to Seattle in April and was struck by how full circle it all feels. I still can hardly fathom the reality that my work is forever embedded into a building that housed the bulk of my college experience; the creative triumphs, hours of critiques, tears in bathroom stalls, all of it. I am immensely honored and grateful to have had the opportunity to pay tribute to Jacob Lawrence and to leave a mark on a place that unequivocally changed my life.

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Final window graphics (East), image courtesy of Katie Heckart

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NORTH WINDOWS

EAST WINDOWS

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IN FULL FORM Visible here are the full window elevations—rendered digitally—for both the North and East sides of the building.

Due to foliage lining the actual art building, it is relatively impossible to see the full, unobstructed compositions in person. In my mind, this disjointed viewing experience has a silver lining. Passerby will see something new every time they pass the windows; they’ll find both delight in familiar objects (pencils, notepaper) and curiousity in tools they’ve never seen.

TOP NORTH WINDOWS / TOOLS, LEFT TO RIGHT Thumb tacks, wire clay cutters, palette knives, film reels, drawing pencils, class notes, Lawrence’s drill bits.

BOTTOM EAST WINDOWS / TOOLS, LEFT TO RIGHT Lawrence’s tape measure, paint brushes, thumb tacks.

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On Journaling and Reality B Y K AT I E C H O R A O DESIGNED BY MINJI KOO

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The words “Future Log” are written in neat, lilac calligraphy across the first page in my journal. Stacked below this heading are twelve perfect rectangles, each one devoted to a month of the coming year and filled with miniature calendars, task lists, manifestations. Under September’s list I’ve scrawled “plan San Diego trip”.

Under October’s, “drink less coffee”; November’s, “value your own opinion more.” In the pages that follow, I’ve systematized each day in a neat format: date plus day of the week plus various bullets, each of which denote tasks to be completed, tasks to be moved, notes from the day, and so on.

This was a bullet journal, its method simple: track your life in order to improve it. You started with a broad overview of your life, called the “future log”, which you allocated large goals to. Following the future log were smaller monthly and daily logs; you would break the larger goals into more manageable ones, and then sprinkle them throughout the smaller logs. From the front end, you could see how goals might become attainable over time. In hindsight, you could reflect on which tasks you habitually put off, and thus pivot your larger goals.

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F I G 1 : A N AT O M Y O F A B U L L E T J O U R N A L

TA S K C O

MPLETE

D

N

L

S E

N C

E

D A I LY L O G

G E

A E R

E Q U

M O N T H LY L O G

Ap tas

An overview of yo and plans for the

FUTURE LOG

A

TYPES OF MODULES

INDEX

Your big-picture goals and plans for the next year

An old-school table of contents, listing the page number of every log

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COLLECTIONS

NOTES

Bullet journaling was created by Ryder Carroll, a digital product designer diagnosed with learning disabilities early in life, who developed bullet journaling to achieve greater focus and productivity.

In 2018, he published The Bullet Journal Method, his codified how-to system for bullet journaling, which shot to the New York Times best-selling list, and largely popularized the method. Between its subheading (“Track the Past, Organize the Present, Design the Future”) and its inner sleeve promise (to “help you go from passenger to pilot of your own life”), it’s clear why I gravitated to bullet journaling. The year was 2020, my future felt unpromised in ways it never had before, and I craved control.

Misc lists, resources, trackers that do not fall neatly within future, monthly, and daily logs.

place to record day-to-day sks, events, and notes

our goals e month

TA S K M

I G R AT E

D

TA S K

I leaned into the idea that detailing my life, putting every piece of day-to-day data on paper, could help me know myself better, and thus live better. For months, I tracked my workout habits, my internship search, my schoolwork, my breakup. Sifting through the pages of type-A extremity now, I can tell you that on Wednesday, October 28th, 2020, I did pilates and had an informational interview; on November 17th, I wrote the outline of an art history paper and talked with my ex.

TA S

HE K SC

DUL

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FIG 2: VENTING CYCLE

DESCRIBING GOOD HAPPENINGS WAS AN IMPULSE I CAN O N LY L I K E N T O PHOTOGRAPHING BEAUTIFUL SUNSETS O R P L AT E S O F F O O D – THINGS BECAME BETTER, MORE REAL THROUGH THEIR RECORD OF EXISTENCE. AN EVEN STRONGER DESIRE, HOWEVER, WAS TO RECORD THE BAD THINGS.

WORRY

The mapping of these part until my fists grew tired over my journal, and my centric minutia to open-e with myself, pouring out m areas of gratitude and affi mind. Describing good h I can only liken to photog or plates of food–things through their record of e desire, however, was to r was a purge of sorts, a c my woes validated those it made them real and ok tune of “Worry Dump” an this period. The purging h picked up my head one da the worst, most anxiou journal. I feared that it s life for the worse. So, alo my long-form updates ev myself turning to my jour praying–most ofte

THINGS TO

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Y DUMP

ticulars lasted a few months d of the firm grip they held y entries evolved from taskended rambles. I’d check in my excitements, frustrations, firmation, whatever came to happenings was an impulse graphing beautiful sunsets s became better, more real existence. An even stronger record the bad things. This cathartic practice. Venting e feelings and experiences; kay to feel. Headings to the nd “Things to Release” litter had its consequences, and I ay to find that I was reflecting us version of reality in my skewed how I perceived my ong with the bullet practice, ventually fizzled, and I found rnal as the religious turn to en when life felt bad.

THE PURGING HAD ITS CONSEQUENCES, AND I PICKED UP MY HEAD O N E D A Y T O F I N D T H AT I WAS REFLECTING THE WORST, MOST ANXIOUS VERSION OF REALITY IN MY JOURNAL. I FEARED T H AT I T S K E W E D H O W I PERCEIVED MY LIFE FOR THE WORSE.

O RELEASE

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FIG 3: JOURNAL FRAGMENTS 2 Since graduating college, I’ve begun dipping my toes back into the journaling pool. It’s taken a much less structured, but motivationally similar form. Reading through the past month’s entries, I see collections of fragments with no throughlines: “I need to resupply my collection of limes”; “Source: I made it up”; “Button-faced and blue-eyed”.

Limes? Which source? Button-what? Who knows, or cares? It takes a few seconds, but the contexts fill in.

1 “ I N E E D T O R E S U P P LY M Y COLLECTION OF LIMES” The first fragment is a memory of my mom shuffling about the kitchen, a quasihoarder, announcing her every culinary inventory. It’s spring and I’ve come home for the week, partially because my brother is on break from school and wants the company, partially because I miss my parents, partially because I’m exhausted and I want to be babied. My mom’s love language is cooking, and she will always ask for my preferred menu upon coming home (this time it is coconut lime chicken with garlic rice). To me, I need to resupply my collection of limes is the milling around of my mom, the fire my dad creates while my mom cooks, the lovingly snarky comments my brother cracks throughout dinner.

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“SOURCE: I MADE

Similarly, the second my favorite, comically journalist, Rian Phin. sensibilities vs. aesth leans on philosophies trends), and, since Oc her nearly every time

E IT UP”

fragment is a relic of y-self-citing fashion . She taught me about hetics in clothing (one s, the other leans on ctober, I have thought of e I have gotten dressed.

These strings of words could never mean much to you, but they conjure rich memories for me.

3 “ B U T T O N - FA C E D A N D B L U E - E Y E D ” The third is a baby I saw in the park with my friend; it’s the conversation this baby sparked around our childhoods, our maternal instincts or lack thereof, the little 4-month-old ballet flats she wore, how much cuter small things are than their normal-sized counterparts.

These strings of words could never mean much to you, but they conjure rich memories for me.

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Writer Joan Didion once said, “we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.” And perhaps this is what I get from journaling. I know what reality felt like– what it felt like to be me–in each moment.

There is a six-year-old who, in my earliest journals, has listed her friends (tiered as first graders do: friend, best friend, best best friend), her aspirations (Disney Channel actor, singer, spy), her frustrations (Jameson, aforementioned brother, will not stop stealing her Webkinz).

There is a twenty-year-old with a penchant for anxious self-optimization, who was determined to the point of exhaustion to craft her dream reality.

There’s the twenty-one-year-old who loosened her grip on life, who ranted, who learned to feel her feelings instead of merely talking about them, who could sometimes play unreliable narrator of her own life, favoring descriptions of the negative to the full picture.

There’s the twenty-two-year-old who is nearly unrecognizable from previous selves in her present-focused, fragment-over-narrative ways.

And there’s the twenty-three-year-old writing this now. She still journals in fragments, sometimes poetry. She knows enough to assume that her perception of reality will continue to change, and her journaling habits will mirror the shifts, and that it’ll always be hard to summarize reality as it’s being lived. She can guess how future selves may read her (maybe they will tease her sardonic sense of humor, or cringe at her poetry), but, as this reality is being lived, that’s a story for another day.

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HOW WE SEE THE WORLD A L E J A N D R O B E TA N C O U R T M E D I U M . C O M IMAGES BY: ADOBE + AMANDA JORDAN

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W H AT I S R E A L I T Y ?

Is it a simulation created by our brain? Is it just a dream? Or is it something else entirely?

Maybe we live in an infinite number of simulations, meaning there is no single reality. We could be living in an endless number of simulations or just one, and there would be no way for us to know which one we are actually in.

We’ll have to rely on philosophy and neuroscience to really explore these questions.

Neuroscience tells us that our brain creates our reality. It takes in input from our senses and creates a model of the world we experience.

This model is what we call reality.

Philosophy tells us that reality is something that exists independent of our minds. It exists outside our brains and can be known through reason and observation.

Is reality something that is created by our brain, or is it something that exists independent of our mind?

Philosophy has a long history of asking big questions about reality.

It is no surprise that we are still looking for answers. Reality is not static but is constantly changing and adapting.

Our consciousness may be a simulation created by our brain and embodied in our physical body.

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

— John Lennon

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EACH PERSON CONSTRUCTS SUCH A MAP OF R E A L I T Y. W H AT W E TA K E T O B E OBJECTIVE REALITY IS R E A L LY J U S T A CONSENSUS H A L L U C I N AT I O N .

THE REALITY OUTSIDE OUR SKULLS IS AN ILLUSION C R E AT E D B Y OUR BRAINS.

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DUALISM VS. M AT E R I A L I S M The mind-body problem is a philosophical question about the relationship between the human body and the human mind. It’s also called the “mind-body dichotomy.”

The first theory is dualism, which says that there are two separate entities — one being the physical body and another being the mental or spiritual mind.

The second theory is materialism, which states that everything in existence can be explained by physical means. David Chalmers is a philosopher who specializes in the study of consciousness.

He argues that the mind-body problem is the most critical in philosophy.

He argues that consciousness is something that exists outside the physical world.

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REALITY IS A COMPLEX AND EVER-CHANGING CONCEPT

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THE NAUSEATING REALITY OF

A Dream Come True

BY ALEX OSHIMA

ART DIRECTION BY ROXIE REEVES

In the heart of COVID lockdown, I acted on a fantasy that I’d been successfully resisting for a while—I wanted to own a Porsche 911. Among 911 enthusiasts there is one generation widely considered the worst, mainly due to the shape of its headlights—and a minor engineering flaw that can cause catastrophic engine failure. In other words, the only 911 I could afford. But I had watched all the YouTubes. Read all the forums. I had done my research. This was the 911 for me.

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T H I S I S M Y FA VORITE PICTU RE O F M Y PA R T N ER, JEN.

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So, to Craigslist I went. Waiting there for me was a ‘2000 in Ocean Metallic Blue with tan leather interior. It was a beautiful machine. On our first drive, we cruised up Highway 1 at sunset to Bolinas. There was no traffic in sight. Electric Kool-Aid sky melting into the ocean to our left. Flat-six howling behind us. It was so fun. Too fun—Jen asked me to pull over.

To throw up. Three separate times.

I dove in headfirst. I joined the Porsche Club of America and proudly displayed my member sticker in the rear quarter window. I waved back enthusiastically at all the middleaged men who gave me thumbs ups on the highway. I found myself correcting people’s pronunciation, Porcsh-uh. Thank you very much.

A heavy responsibility took over me to keep it perfect. I owed it to the car. To the random dudes chatting me up at the gas station. To long-dead Ferdinand Porsche himself.

The gear shift didn’t feel as crisp as I thought it should.

So, we replaced the transmission mount. Then the engine mounts. Sweating on our backs under the car, knuckles bleeding, Jen happily volunteered to turn wrenches.

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We replaced the shocks and suspension components. Jen quietly stepping over my mess on the living room floor with minimal complaint, as I cut rubber bushings out of control arms with a hacksaw and replaced them with high performance polyurethane.

Oyster runs to Tomales Bay. Backpacking in the Sierra. We hit California’s finest, windiest roads and mountain passes.

The car drove like a dream.

My dream, anyway. Jen usually lost her lunch.

Meanwhile, the burden of owning my thoroughbred grew heavier. The smallest rattle or clunk sent me spiraling down a rabbit hole searching for a fix. We replaced window seals. Air filters. Oil pressure sensors. Window regulators.

Intake ducts. We polished the headlights. Cleaned the radiators. Changed engine, gear, and differential oils.

We cursed and sweat and bled. We motored, too. But the fun was overshadowed by fear—of unlikely mechanical failures, financial ruin, and scratches. Oh, the scratches.

Nine months later I accepted that the car was too precious for me.I sold it. Yet somehow, I totally regret letting it go.

Peppermint Patty once asked Charlie Brown what love is.

He responded, “Well, years ago my dad owned a black, Porsche 911.” It’s true. I loved that car. Then I’m reminded that over the course of my tryst with my 911, Jen was always there. Never hesitating to crawl under it, torque a bolt or—perilously—sit in the passenger seat, sacrificing her intestinal wellbeing— for me. The love that mattered most was there the whole time, growing stronger with every project. The reality is, you don’t need a fancy car to have a copilot to help navigate your dreams.

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SUMMER/FALL 23

CONTRIBUTORS Katie Chorao Kirsten Finkas Edith Freeman Amanda Jordan Minji Koo Megan Lee Heidi Lopez Alex Oshima Roxie Reeves

PRINTER All digital for this issue!

TYPOGRAPHY Noe Text DINPro OpenSans Briar Neue Roc Grotesk Thirsty Rough Arial Rounded

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