WINTER 2010

RECEPTACLE

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RECEPTACLE

WINTER 2010

FOUNDED IN 2010 BY RYO BAUM & ALEXANDRE RODALLEC

VOLUME TWO

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CONTENTS

NOVEMBER 2010

THE EDITOR’S LETTER 1

POEMS

RYO BAUM 6 Blessings

MATT CABE 8 Or Not at All

STEVEN CRISTOPHER CAREY 11 Stargazing in New York

12 Figuring

ROMAN CONRAD 15 What I’ve Been Doing in Your Absence or Why the Dead Are Better Off

CAITLIN CUTT 18 What Happens When I Listen to Chopin

MONICA HOLMES 20 seven eleven

LE DUNC 23 Elaborate

24 Nietzche

ALINA NGUYEN 25 correspondences/ a reply to/back-and-forth

J. WESLEY 26 Being

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TRANSLATION

ANDRÉ BRETON 29 Toujours pour la première fois Translated from French by

Alexandre Rodallec

SHORT STORIES

NATHANIEL CAYANAN 35 The Furthest Corner

JOHN DUFFUS 41 Suffused in Silence

OMAR ZAHZAH 50 The Demon

NONFICTION

STEPHEN ELLIOTT 52 How To Make Films Without Influencing People

JOHN MATSUYA 58 Four Questions To Ask Someone You Love On A Road Trip from La Mirada to Corvallis

ARTWORK

COVER ART BY AVERY OTA Slippers

ALEXIS KANESHIRO 14 Wake Up

DANIEL LAM 22 Cheesecake And Forklift

JASON POON 33 Snoop With Shante

A.R. SAPE 49 Snowflake

CONTRIBUTORS 61

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The Editor's Letter

I spent an out of the ordinary time at my family house in france this summer, pent up with a bunch of young american artists, and was asked by my co-editor-in-chief, Ryo Baum, to write something about the experience, to share some moments and thoughts with you, dear reader, and mayhap, if you are lucky, incite you to something similar. Obviously, two months of experiences would have to be condensed ad absurdum to fit the available space, but we're not gonna waste time doing that; first, because it wouldn't give me, the writer, nor you, my reader, an interesting time, and second, because I don't have the patience or time to do that in the moment of writing this. Instead, I'm going to tell you about the potential of participating in a retreat for artists, and how this played out for me this summer. Sadly, no matter how much time you spend on your art, you'll only create meaningful beauty either in the mystical state that is both the torment and the immeasurable treasure of a talented artist's mind, or after enormous amounts of time spent polishing your creation or a shitload of luck, or both. Needless to say, option two does not produce a great artist; option two is where most aspiring artists work. Coming to understand when and how your being reaches the state where a great artist works is an important step in your development if you have what is necessary, what can not be taught, the right selective senses, and the right ability to reproduce. Hats off to James Joyce. My summer was a creative disaster in terms of producing work on the projects that I had set for myself. I found myself playing guitar all

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day instead of writing. When I wasn't doing that I was drinking, or arguing. I wrote two songs, and not a page on my swedish book. My translations of Tristan Corbiere progressed, but that was not my work, that was my tribute to him. For a month and a half that was how things progressed. I read, translated, played the guitar, and drank the single malt whisky I had stolen. I collected impressions of human interaction and behavior at the house: relationships, communication, regard, disregard, fixations, etc. I told myself, that if I'm not writing I might as well be researching. I thought it wouldn't help my swedish book at all, since the book is so specifically rooted in a certain subculture and its special set of problems, I was wrong. My readings of Joyce, Proust, Shakespeare, et al. also helped. What helped the most, however, was being alone. For one entire week I was completely alone in the house of my dead grandmother, left in the mythical breton countryside, miles from the nearest city, fighting thoughts that crept up out of the shadows of the personal history that the house is a symbol of to me. I slept and wrote with an axe next to me, I talked to myself, argued with myself, sang my heart out, smoked like a nicotine fiend and wrote some more. The whole week I got more writing and planning done on my swedish book than I had gotten done in the past two years. I was in that strange state. What had happened? When Jordan and Allison, the only two that were left at this point, returned from their one week visit to one of Jordan's friends, I was bordering on mental collapse, or so it seemed. I

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shied away when Allison came to give me a hug, I was almost frightened of human contact, and yet the whole week my mind had been consumed by the human being. I don't know that I was in a dangerous place, I might have been, but I felt great during that whole week, alive, alone, but alive. Thinking back, I realize that I absorb enormous amounts of information while surrounded by people, even while talking to someone, I have an interior dialogue questioning my argument, ideas, choice of words, anything that might come out of my mouth or the other person/s. I have always found that most of my writing is done at night. What does the night share with isolation? Silence, few distracting impressions, a release from the roles I play in the presence of other people. At night or in solitude I spew out collected impressions that have been shaped by my mind into beauty. I know now that I need that time alone. That is what works for me, for you it might be something else. Jordan wrote while we were in the house, for me it was only possible when everyone was either gone or asleep (this second option I resorted to once they had returned).

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One month next summer, I will be completely alone, in a place that scares me a bit. The other month you should come join me, if you know me, if you don't, send me a sample of your artwork, if I like it, you're invited. Meanwhile, ask yourself what set of circumstances that release your productive state. You will find that if you have any talent, this needs to happen. May the muses harass you, Alexandre

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POEMS

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RYO BAUM

Blessings

Cars parked outside the fellowship hall remind me of headstones that I visited with flowers and incense. Hand written greeting cards and smooth stones were always placed on their ledge. Some read like advice column submissions some are crayon and pastel portraits hung on a refrigerator wall and others were doxologies to the caskets beneath our feet and the remaining a Finches flutter away from the rooftop when they hear the sounds of leaves crunch like brittle bones found at the crime scene scattered with pictures of girls bound and gagged with bruises about their eyes, some with tears that bloodied the black eye liners dripping like raindrops of a mid November shower. There are boxes filled with jars smelling of human excrement beneath the bed seeped with bodily fluids, colorful like fireworks and stained glass walls with freshly blooming roses and carnations connecting to vines of white plaster through the wallpapers that's been clawed at. crosses and religious phraseologies are written in cursive. When the door hinge turns I imagine the tile giving way. crackle of a whip with dangling legs and trickle of urine, a snapped neck and dark cloth hung over the perpetrator's face.

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I greet the families and friends huddled by the pew. their fingers bound together their mouths sealed their eyes weighed to the ground as they speak like heavy chains sagging on the floor They all mutter the same words to me. multitude of prayers like the recollection of exodus’ whirls of chariots’ wheels and whines of stallions before the black sea swallowed them all. And they wait.

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MATT CABE

Or Not at All In summer It’s best to sleep all day and conduct Regular discovering business At night, when the world Is no longer uncomfortable. Oppressive. But the Sun never let us work that way. It filled our sleeping bags with Heat and frustration, Forcing us to rise out of Such stifling confines.

So, we spent entire days, Weeks even, Running, Exploring, Traipsing. Cutting our skin on branches, Releasing blood into the world, All of it nothing more than Feeble attempts to escape – To forget the fiery blasts Keeping pace with us Every step of the way.

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We existed to outfox – To confuse the Sun into rising, On accident, In the west, Or not at all. So we just went, Kinetic and ceaseless. Coaxing the Sun into a chase We knew would weaken only us. A chase we knew was pointless. Impossible.

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But we took victories Wherever we found them, Even if they weren’t ours for the taking. So, by nightfall When the Moon was bright, cool, And had convinced the Sun to rest, We were always too exhausted To do anything but collapse to the ground Scorched and triumphant. Thankful for a moment To quit our running. To just lay there, feeling Our pulses soften As they pushed against open wounds Covered up by blood Dried by hours upon hours Upon days of Dirt, Fire, Sweat.

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STEVEN CRITOPHER CAREY

Stargazing In New York

Because there was no more space for stars in New York City, we turned our bag eyes to gaze on subway walls. After the bars shut their doors we, like deep-throated cries of laugher draining underground after storms, collect in the sweet tunnels to wait for trains pulling their long bodies like earthworms slow as slow dredges drag the river’s remains. Between this stop and home is all construction. Light, dull and rare, out the windows will swell. And if you’re lucky, while glancing, you’ll see a man all glowing orange vest and pressed against the wall like a flash of something remembered a long time ago or forgotten, like making wishes on black holes.

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Figuring

Tireless driver, driving the world like a hoop with your long regular stick, you meander the cosmos skipping stones on the shores of existence. Black water spreads like echoes bouncing in a vacuum where there is no sound. Sleepy, six-headed earth bender, I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve been eavesdropping on you all these years, watching patterns in your movement (you have become so predictably unpredictable). Lazy thief, you’ve left fingerprints everywhere and I have been rousing the red iron dust of your sneezes to see them. Metronome father, dulcimer mother; you are a thousand spoked wagon wheel giver with no hub and no circumference. In the delta at the meeting place of circumstance and consequence I found you huddled like a toad. You were crying like a quiet cooling coal whispering your convoluted mantras which I cataloged one by one in the river muck until you slid your slick time-machine hands over the words, made smooth the mud and produced from it trilobites

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that we halved and ate like peaches, the egg-white colored guts stuck to our chins. Ancient wind-talker, strange that you ate so much like a child then. I told you so and you thanked me. But your needle tongue pierced my earlobe. From then on I was marked by you and so picked up my stick and walked with you. I remember so little of then but what I do I remember so well; how navigable the woods were under the lamplight of your voice, the electricity of your stride; your spiral galaxy spine; your lightning touch; your constant autumnal breath, your scent potent as smoldering foliage. Smoke magi; the hollows of your footprints sprout loose-leaf tobacco and sweet white corn. When you ascended to the canopy to turn all the sparrow’s breasts to rubies and all their nests to amber and tiger’s eye I shrunk to the size of a tick and grew to the magnitude of joy. You could not have held me then because you had made me too fragile to touch and so did not return to me— a troubadour firefly stinging light ceaselessly with the impossible beat of your impossible heart.

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ROMAN CONRAD

What I’ve Been Doing in Your Absence or Why the Dead Are Better Off”

I took my motorcycle out of the garage For the first time since your death, Thinking about why you always hated it so much: It leaks oil and stains the floor. It’s loud and abrasive. It’s too masculine. It’s dangerous, Please get rid of it. You wanted me to sell it and buy a car like a normal person, remember? Didn’t I compromise by having the leak fixed, And making you a black bean casserole? Running my fingers across the chipped paint, I make a note of the considerable dust that has settled. Has it really been that long? Perhaps. Not one for neglect, I wheeled the monster outdoors, Deciding to take it for a ride up the coast, or around the block, or wherever. I turned the gas on, pushed the choke up, And gave the starter a solid kick. Nothing. Kicked again. Nothing again. After checking to see if the gas tank was empty or not (It wasn’t), I stared blankly at the bike And thought about when I first brought it home. When you told me I should probably take a motorcycle Repair class, or buy a book, or something Just in case anything went wrong And I was left stranded. I didn’t want to be home anymore;

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My mind was already set on going somewhere. So I put the bike back in the garage with intentions Of selling once I got back (Better late than never, I guess), walked the mile Or so down to the train station – You remember that walk, don’t you? – And bought a ticket into the city. One is seven dollars now, by the way. Crazy. Remember when we could both go there and back for five? I took my notebook with me so I could finish this poem, But the ride is less than ten minutes And you know I can never finish anything quickly. Always dwelling on perfection. I thought for a moment about staying on the train. I sort of wanted to just keep going, And I had never been past the city (On the train, I mean). Plus it would have given me time to finish writing. But the doors opened and some kid with a skateboard Pushed me as he got up to leave. And the moment felt lost. The poem felt needless and stupid, too. Who writes to a dead person, anyway? I mean, I know people do, But it’s not like the dead person is going to read it. Or wants to read it, for that matter. God, I can be so selfish that way. Not like she’s going to show up tomorrow Morning with coffee and a newspaper Asking to read what I wrote while she’s been away.

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I don’t think dead people are illiterate either – Really has nothing to do with that at all – So please don’t chastise me and tell me I’m insensitive again. Obviously, they can read. They’re just not around to read. You’re not around. I put my notebook in my back pocket – It’s small, you know – And walked off the train telling myself that the poem is ridiculous. Telling myself that I shouldn’t revisit it later. No need. Just toss it out. But as I walk up State Street I keep thinking about what I’ve written. It’s eating away at my brain and I want to finish. No, I’m not stopping at a bench, or a coffee shop, Or anything like that to work on it some more (I don’t do that anymore, for your information), But I’ll probably take a look at what is there once I get home. After I put an ad in the paper for the motorcycle, that is. If I have time.

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Caitlin Cutt

What Happens When I Listen to Chopin Grandpa and I floated along the Rivers of America before I was old enough to understand his long stories so he just gave me little bits. Little bits about my mom and how when I touch the rails of the riverboat I need to not put my hands near my mouth until after I wash them. He wore a red cashmere turtleneck even though it was July, and even though it was the M-I-S-S-I-P-P-I River that ran in a circle in Anaheim. His sneakers were brand new for years and were at least three times bigger than mine and they clomped while I pattered along the boards of the old-looking ship. Then we went to the front of the boat where we waved to my mother who was on the Louisiana shore waving at us, my mother who we would both out-live, and we waved that day free of all that. My mother is a star. My mother is also a scuff on a shoe in a pile of her shoes in her closet that I cleaned out that is in the house we sold that used to have an olive tree in it the front yard. A big one with strong branches that I could hang on and sleep in and climb before the bees came and hollowed it out and then we had to cut it down. So we cut it down. And now

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the people who live there listen to the swoosh of the sliding door that my grandpa put in. But they don’t understand the shade of the tree that I loved, that Grandpa bought from a little Italian man who said he’d got it from way up on a hill that overlooked a little village in Italy. The kind of village people paint when they want to keep something forever but they sell the painting anyway because it’s not enough.

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MONICA HOLMES

seven eleven

There is only one place to go for a hot dog at two in the morning on a Thursday – 7-11. It is not the best place to be, but it is the only place to get a hot dog. A man walks in, his clothes are paint splattered and I instantly pin him as a Hector. Hector asks if he can get a ride to Rite-Aid and back, to buy a hammer. There is no questioning if this guy is serious or not. He is clearly very serious. He needs a hammer, he needs it now, and he needs it from Rite-Aid, goddammit. Hector can tell from my hesitation that I might say no, Rite-Aid is closed, so he launches into the story. “I just need a hammer, I need to check something out, I gotta go get a hammer, because this guy was going to get sued and go to jail for a long long time, and if he killed the grandfather of my child, I gotta check it out, committed suicide because he couldn’t see me, you goddamn bet I gotta checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitout.” This man has clearly been awake for several days. I look at the man behind the counter, he looks at Hector. He senses our uneasiness, and tries to convince me again: “I know I sound crazy, I hope I’m not crazy.”

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The man behind the counter inches to his right, we look at each other. He is going to get a gun. I get caught up in the excitement, already imagining news vans in the parking lot. I want a scene, I want to be interviewed. Show me how crazy you really are, Hector. I tell him no, I will not be driving him to Rite-Aid tonight. Hector’s only answer is a wad of spit at my feet. He leaves. The 7-11 owner and I just look at each other, and then I buy my hot dog, which is cold.

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LE DUNC

Elaborate

last time you visited you left a few things behind I was going to elaborate but you might ask for them back they aren’t so great to be honest but they are all I have I was going to elaborate but you already know all about anxiety bitterness stress arrogance don’t you? you seldom ask how I am but fuck it in this case I care to elaborate still I am nothing I am getting what I wanted but slowly and painfully like in that Radiohead song you hate see when you left you took everything I was going to elaborate except I meant it

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Nietzsche Nietzsche said if you want to be remembered to write in aphorisms. if it can’t be said in a paragraph don’t say it, people will lose interest, then they will forget you. the man had a point: that aphorism is the only thing I remember about that particular book. then again Nietzsche got syphilis and forgot his own name

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ALINA NGUYEN

correspondences/a reply to--/back-and-forth

"dejaré crecer mis cabellos"/"I'll let my hair grow" -Lorca it is easy to recall your syllable now when I did not dare to before-- to linger where my angles almost seem to merge, sift themselves into corners, uncertain-- to pray to your shadow, the shadow whose silence wafts between age and its absence, whose silence belongs to no one in particular. the flesh is not unhappy here, though I've dreamt you into myself lately. let the limbs fold and sway with you in the ways that you move me, unmoving. I knew how to forget, before I dared not to. Yes.

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J. WESLEY

Being

Edvard Munch: The Scream, 1893 Dear Screamer, who has made you scream? Awakened by the smell of gesso and discovered one brushstroke at a time where Munch found you hiding in the stretched canvas. He loved you. Enough to uncover your body piece by piece with uncountable delicate brown bristle caresses until you were naked and ready. He loved you. Dear Screamer, who has made you scream? Was it my eyes, those cracked-open windows to my soul that let you in like a summer breeze? It was not they who undressed you – they hold you gently and want to know everything, but are afraid to ask. If I take you home tonight, will you whisper lullabies in existential moans or will you talk incessantly about your expressionist uncles and cousins and not let me get a word in edgewise? Has your oil and tempura window given you a clearer perspective on my world than it has given me of yours?

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Or is it a cryptic mirror through which I can only see if I sit and hold your gaze? Who is opaque? Who is flesh and blood? Is your melon colored sky collapsing around you? Or is it perpetually dusk and only night when I look away? Are you both ashamed that I have seen you naked and afraid to never be seen at all and never have been? Or are you afraid for me because you have known for decades what I have yet to learn about being human. Dear Screamer, who has made you scream?

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TRANSLATION

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ANDRÉ BRETON

Toujours pour la première fois

Toujours pour la première fois C’est à peine si je te connais de vue Tu rentres à telle heure de la nuit dans une maison oblique à ma fenêtre Maison tout imaginaire C’est là que d’une seconde à l’autre Dans le noir intact Je m’attends à ce que se produise une fois de plus la déchirure fascinante La déchirure unique De la façade et se mon cœur Plus je m’approche de toi En réalité Plus la clé chante à la porte de la chambre inconnue Où tu m’apparais seule Tu es d’abord tout entière fondue dans le brillant L’angle fugitif d’un rideau C’est un champ de jasmin que j’ai contemplé à l’aube sur une route des environs de Grasse Avec ses cueilleuses en diagonale Derrière elles l’aile sombre tombante des plants dégarnis Devant elles l’équerre de l’éblouissant Le rideau invisiblement soulevé Rentrent en tumulte toutes les fleurs C’est toi aux prises avec cette heure trop longue jamais assez trouble jusqu’au sommeil Toi comme si tu pouvais être La même à cela près que je ne te rencontrerai peut-être jamais Tu fais semblant de ne pas savoir que je t’observe Merveilleusement je ne suis plus sûr que tu le sais Ton désœuvrement m’emplit lex yeux de larmes Une nuée d’interprétations entoure chacun de tes gestes C’est une chasse à la miellée Il y a des rocking-chairs sur un pont il y a des branchages qui risquent de t’égratigner dans la forét Il y a dans une vitrine run Notre-Dame-de-Lorette

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ANDRÉ BRETON

Translated by Alexandre Rodallec

Always for the first time

Always for the first time It’s barely if I know you by sight You come home at a certain hour at night to a house oblique to my window House all imaginary It’s there that from one second to the other In the intact black I expect to appear once more the fascinating rupture the only rupture Of the facade and it my heart The more I get closer to you in reality The more the key sings to the door of the unknown room Where you appear to me lonely You are first entirely melted in the sparkling The fugitive angle of a curtain It’s a field of jasmine I contemplated at dawn on a road around Graz With its female pickers in diagonals Behind them the dark falling wing of the stripped plants Before them the bracket of the dazzling The curtain invisibly lifted The return in a flurry of the flowers It is you at grips with this too long hour never dim enough to sleep You as if you could be The same but for that I might never meet you You pretend not knowing that I’m watching you Miraculously I’m no longer sure that you know Your idleness fills my eyes with tears A cloud of interpretations surround all of your movements It’s a hunt for the honey-colored There are rocking-chairs on a bridge there are branches that might scratch you in the forest There’s in a window on rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette

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Deux belles jambes croisées prises dans de hauts bas Qui s’évasent au centre d’un grand trèfle blanc Il y a une échelle de soie déroulée sur le lierre Il y a Qu’à me pencher sur le précipice et de ton absence J’ai trouvé le secret De t’aimer Toujours pour le première fois

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Two beautiful crossed legs captured in low stockings That flare themselves in the center of a big clover There is a staircase of silk unfurled on the ivy There is But for me to lean on the precipice and out of your absence I’ve found the secret Of loving you Always for the first time.

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SHORT STORIES

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NATHANIEL CAYANAN

The Furthest Corner

On a flight to Tokyo, my first time coming to Asia, I sat next to a Vietnam veteran, who had married a Japanese woman after "'Nam." He told me he fell in love with the culture, the food, the atmosphere and eventually, a barmaid. Michiko I think her name was. I always find it funny when an American, and he was American as apple pie, falls in love with Asia. Usually it's the same thing. "Asia has this sort of culture, Zen-like, real peaceful. The people are so friendly, passive. Every'un in Asia's very practical. Hard workers," which he said, verbatim. I was surprised he didn't mention how we all have black belts and ride dragons to work everyday. He told me though something that I still hold onto to this day. "Wherever I go, whether it be the US or Japan, I go joggin' every mornin' and the jetlag just fades away." So, I go jogging, every morning. Rain comes intermittently in Autumn; and when it does, it pulverizes the floor. I love running in the rain. The rain is like a curtain secluding me and cleansing me at the same time. I run down Siping Rd, my wind breakers clinging to my legs, to a point where they are almost second skin, hair sponging all the water, forming a heavy helmet around my head. I watch steam rise from the crevices of the sidewalks, and the neon lights for the restaurants and shops yelling through the haze. The sidewalk is an endless puddle that shoots up like a geyser with every step. The air still smells of soot, mixed with gasoline. And even though it’s raining, I still feel like sweating. I think about little things like what I will eat or what a student said in class. And then I think about big things, like home, California, Leann, where I might be in the next few months. Sacramento. Once I turn on Dalian Road, I find an elderly man, dressed in a gray jacket, torn at the seams, dirtied from many years of begging, and a navy

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blue cap. He’s bearded, a long white thing, the type you see Kung Fu masters wear. And he has a cane made of dark brown bamboo. I'd seen him before, usually sitting on the stairs in the exits of the subways, jingling his green bowl of change. But, he kneels down on the ground this time, as if praying to the gods, chest against his legs, forehead to the cement floor of an empty sidewalk. Homelessness is common in Shanghai. In most cases, people pass them by, without reproach, since within a few steps there’s going to probably be another homeless man, holding out another tin can. And sometimes, there are the entrepreneurs, playing a broken violin, or selling necklaces. And, of course. there are the frauds, the ones who play on the sympathies of the kind. And because of this, China has become a very cynical place. But he seemed different this time. There was no bowl. And he was not on the steps of the exit of the subway. For most, it would be a small detail, easy to brush off. And for me, I almost do. But, a few steps after I run passed him, a certain premonition comes upon me. What was it? Guilt? This is a trait I sometimes despise myself for. I’m the sucker for a "sob story." The gullible. The pigeon. I am at first inclined to fight such an inclination. But, I can’t. So, I compromise. "I'll just walk back slowly," I think. With caution, I pace back, while he gets up, stumbling over himself, as if drunk. I decide to follow him, "for at least a few minutes," I say logically to myself. I want to throw an umbrella over him, but, I have none. He leans to his right, slouched over, hitting a poll, then a row of motorcycles, making a student yell out, "Hey old man! Watch where you're walking you drunk!" Then he falls to the ground. I begin to run to him, but then he picks himself up and leans against a payphone. I slow.

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Now to the street. Once a path clears for him, he starts to cross. I follow. He hobbles clumsily to and fro. To and fro. To and fro, until he collapses like a pile of rags, in the most dramatic display, onto the middle of the road. Again I run. And I run, as a row of taxis and cars slowly pull up, honking, drivers yelling out the window. "Get off the road!" they all yell in unison. I tap his shoulder, asking him in broken Mandarin, "Mister? Mister? Hao ba?" His hand rests on the concrete, reaching out to the other side of the road. It’s cracked. Dirt stains the crevices of those cracks, which end at peeled and bleeding canyons. When I turn him around, one of his eyes are open, white with cataracts, mouth gaping open, mumbling something I can’t make out, his breath coming up in a light mist, disappearing into the angry rain. A taxi driver bolts out of his cab, yelling, "Get up! You're not fooling anyone!" "Can you call someone," I yell back. "He's faking! He only wants your money!" Horns blast. People yell. A long line of cars line up before me. "Fine," I say before I pick up this homeless man. The cab driver follows, strangely enough. "Don't help him! You'll only encourage him!" The man is light. No heavier than a sack of dirt. His arm around my neck feels like a branch with worn leather wrapped around. "Don't do that! Watch you'll see!" the driver says before waving me off, shaking his head and getting back into his cab. I get to the other end and drop him against a light post. I turn him around, and he continues to mumble. He reaches out, as if something is in front of him, waiting, until, from what the doctor tells me, several

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hours later, a large truck drives by, hitting the side of my face with it's side view mirror. When I come to, I am lying in a bed in a bustling hospital, a doctor stitching a cut on the edge of my forehead. "Stay still," he says. I see red. I see blue and grey blending together. I see flashes of light. And I feel that needle n my head. I tell him I’m an American teaching at the University, when in which he nods and holds out a clipboard, asking for my name and five hundred yuan. Bureacracy in China go hand in hand. "There was a man. Where is he?" I ask. "Are you his son?" "No." "How do you know him?" "I found him on the street." "Well, he's downstairs. He passed away an hour after we found you." It’s odd. I don't know that man. But, I feel attached. His body lay in a bed, in the basement, lined with one of several other rows of beds. A white sheet covers his face. When I pull the sheet, I see him, peaceful, eyes closed, mouth open. Wrinkles run across his face, like a roadmap, a crumpled roadmap, outdated and stacked away. I sit there for a long time. I should ask those abstract questions people ask when someone dies, so broad that there could be no answers. What is the meaning of life? What's the afterlife like? etc etc. But, when I see this man, I asked myself more tangible questions. What was his name? Where did he come from? Where is his family? On the clipboard, hanging at the edge of his bed, there, in the top corner of the paper, are the loneliest characters I have ever seen.

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"Nameless." And like those abstract questions, my questions have no answers. And because there are no answers, there are more questions. Would anyone miss him? How did it feel to die like that? Did he know? What was he mumbling? Would anyone miss me? How would I feel to die alone like that? Would anyone try to save me? Or would they leave me on that road like that cab driver? And I start to think of Leann again, then my mother, then my father. And at night, I can't sleep, partly because of my throbbing forehead and the blood that dripped from time to time. The rain outside seems to pound louder than earlier. And the curtain is now several walls, that become thicker and thicker, until I close my eyes, and forget where I was, and where I'd been. When dawn breaks, and the skies clear for a moment. I find a payphone and call Leann. She answers the same way she always answers, with this bright friendliness that charm most who encountered her. "It's Anthony," I say. And that friendliness changes to worry. "Hello" she says, formally. "How are you?" I ask. "I'm okay. Where are you now?" "Still in China," And again the silence that says many words. I feel her again; the way she looked into my eyes, that one morning when we flew to Beijing, as we stood in the cold streets, waiting for the crosswalk to let us cross, as I cupped her hands in mine, and blew warmth into them; the way seemed to be a sort of child in my grasp; and how scared I felt to have such power over her at that moment, her eyes endless with optimism, eager for a new adventure. How guilty I felt, even now, on that payphone, when I say to her, "Listen, don't wait for me."

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I know her well. She’s good at keeping up appearances, posing for pictures no one was taking. But, I know when I say this to her, she’ll look down, and smile a sad smile, wanting to be angry, wanting to, maybe, cry. She pauses, and says, "Okay." "Take care." "You too." I make one more call. I memorized the numbers. And I hope she will answer. She does. And I linger for a moment. "Hello?" she says. I feel my thumb, underneath her ear and her hand on my chest. And I hate myself for holding onto those mementos. And I want to tell her, how sorry I was that I can’t let them go. But, instead, I listen to her silence, linger and grasp onto those moments until I put the handset back on the receiver. And again, as I stand on that corner, in Shanghai, I’m in that car, in that parking lot, in Sacramento, where I kiss a girl I once loved so passionately.

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JOHN DUFFUS

Suffused in Silence What was there to see but bare floorboards, two sunken, battered, wooden-framed easy chairs with a low table between. Two men sitting in silence, suffused by an impenetrable air of futility & hopelessness. Their minds, whirring with logic, considerations, observations, heuristic theory and insight yet not a word uttered. For some three and one half hours the two sat, neither outwardly acknowledging the presence of the other, yet aware of each other and in mute agreement that they should be so assembled. The first of our subjects to be glanced, was of stooped gait & reduced frame, a stern, academic writer of the highest order. The other, an author and playwright, tall framed. They were Joyce & Beckett and had agreed to meet at last, both aware, in some silent way, that they represented the apotheosis of the modern culture of the Gael, albeit transformed into an Anglo-French theatre of operations. They were at the forefront of a 'Celtic' renaissance of learning that flourished in the 20th century. The clock, an eighteenth century English fusee eight day Mahogany timepiece, signed Daniel Desbois London, was ticking sonorous ticks of steel and brass, its sound muted and lowered by the wood casing to produce a solid, rich, rhythmic punctuation of time that provided the background counterpoint to the shared space. For the first five minutes or so, after each had taken a chair and were sitting quite comfortably, neither looking at the other, the sound of the clock's ticking had gone unnoticed. Gradually, however, the noise, being the only noise in the room, began to dominate and seemed to increase slowly in volume as time progressed.

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Joyce had been thinking of Telemachus and was now considering Stephen Daedalus and how he could make his book simultaneously sacred and profane. Interspersed with this were occasional images of fried kidneys and his miserably ineffectual attempts at making love to his wife, 'perfunctory' was how he viewed it. Beckett's initial contemplations stemmed from his presumptions about Joyce. A Jesuit educated, antiseptic man with delusions of grandeur, even though he was as poor as a church mouse; his intellectual snobbery was transparent and paradoxically vulgar. He thought himself almost as if sprung from a direct line of the bards, in him was the repository of all Classical knowledge, moulded into a retelling of the ancestral myth of the Gael. In him was the vainglorious aesthete who wanted to forge the nation's conscience in the white hot fire of his intellect. Beckett had considered all this before sitting down, and had ejected these prejudices, replacing them now with a line of thought centered around the idea of translating a drama into mathematical equations, in French. The overriding theme that dictated the course of his stream of consciousness, was the hateful and sinister effect of time. He wanted to discuss the nature of time with Joyce, but realized that he could not initiate the conversation and would have to demonstrate his point by sharing a space in time with Joyce, during which he hoped nothing would happen. A cup of tea would be welcome thought he, after five minutes had passed. Something to break the monotony, a small punctuation mark with an attached ritual and subsequent pleasure - that would be nice, perhaps even a biscuit or two.

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Look at him, thought Joyce, with his huge peasant eyebrows, his spud shaped ears poking out from his close cropped hair, croppy-boy head, his high set cheekbones and piercing blue rustic eyes, the mark of the Gael. Was it true that this thick-browed Celt wrote in French and had been tutored in philosophy & letters? If he were but to admit it to himself, there was a fair amount of jealousy welling up inside his normally arid soul; resentment at the upstart plebeian that seeks to usurp him as the true representative of this new, glorious Irish artistic prominence. Still no tea or biscuits as the clock's ticking took on an ominous, heavier melancholic sound, or so it seemed. Beckett crossed his legs to make himself more comfortable, rubbed his hand along his jawline in a mock yawn and ruminated on the nature of Joyce. There he sits, he thought in French, this narrow, prim bookworm, a creature of social inclination, trying to dazzle with profundity while masking his true intent with layer upon layer of dense, incomprehensible language. What did he seek to gain by hoodwinking the public into believing that he was a literary genius. He masks his work in brazen intellectual posturing; always adding things and embroidering and working on many levels at once with a carefully guarded inner code that deceives & mystifies. 'Twas ever in my nature to get by with the barest minimum required, reduce & distill until the fecund essence is gleaned. It was true, if he were but to admit it to himself that there was a fair amount of derision in him for the tidy wee bureaucrat sitting opposite. Joyce reached forward to the coal scuttle and with a few short scoops had added a fresh pile to the low burning embers. He settled himself back into the worn easy chair, lower down and in a state of semi repose,

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his hands came up to his face as though in prayer but with them opened out to form a triangle over his mouth; 'twas if he intended to speak. My God! Thought Beckett, his head swiveling round and upwards, he may well begin a discourse imminently if I am not mistaken. But Joyce merely gave out a long, meditative sigh as though he had just completed a satisfactory conclusion to some deep cogitation. A smug sigh, thought Beckett. What had he been thinking of just before he came out with that self congratulatory sigh? He seeks to unsettle me, here in his house, he wants to belittle me. Look at him, the feckin eedjit with his stupid wee glasses and his little weasel eyes, bet he's a roit nasty little fecker when he's roused. He wouldn't speak like this, only blasphemes in Latin. Joyce could sense that Beckett was uneasy, and felt that he had won the first round in this silent debate. A warm feeling of immense satisfaction flowed through him as he squinted at the clock on the mantelpiece and made some barely audible plopping noises by puffing out his cheeks and sucking them back in again very quickly. He is clucking like a chanticleer, obviously thinks himself superior, the arrogance of the man, thought Beckett. I will set him a silent proposition, then let us see how he deals with it. At this, Beckett's prodigious intellect came to glide, spin and sift through Kafka's existential framework. Finally, he teased out a tasty morsel: 'Whoever has faith cannot define it, and whoever has none, can only give a definition which lies under the shadow of grace withheld.' He brought himself forward in his chair, leaning towards Joyce, staring directly at into his eyes whilst directing Kafka's observation at him with some

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force. Now it was Joyce's turn to become unsettled and he could feel the intensity of Beckett's piercing glare, as he began to catch a whiff of what was being thrown at him. Far from developing a rebuff or taking counter measures to stem the assault, Joyce shrank back into his domestic realm, his consciousness starting to develop a theme. "Here I am still bulking out the days that are left to me with the night-time. Even the light is dark. Writing by the light of a flickering lamp and searching for things which elude me in the house. Oh, nothing metaphysical here, just the prosaic irritations of everyday existence. One can spend an hour or more in the futile search for a shoelace which you were sure was in the drawer only a day before." His eyes flickered over to the sideboard where the offending drawer had but yesterday failed to provide the shoelace that he had thought was there. " "I am bulking out with contentment, but not in attendance at my grace, nor graced by my attendance - a deadening dull thud of inconsequence hits me. The realization has struck that all is futile and always has been and always will be. I strive, but for what? No middle class ennui for me, I know what I reject and why; maybe out of negation comes direction." Joyce was clearly not at ease and it was obvious to him that Beckett wasn't a man to be taken lightly, and how had grace come into the equation? Had Beckett put it there? Was he now throwing grace in my face as if only he had the right to bestow or withhold it? Round Two went to Beckett. He settled himself back in the chair, his

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gaze drifting towards the ceiling, his hands reaching into the deep pockets of his tweed jacket searching out tobacco pouch, pipe and matches. My God! thought Joyce, he intends to smoke his filthy pipe to announce his presence, to leave his mark, his stain on my domain. But there was nothing he could do about it, to forbid with a silent upraised flattened hand, palm outwards, would be too severe and also confirm him to be a mean spirited man in Beckett's eyes. Beckett had seized the initiative and now wanted to force the pace, but his obsession with time was getting the better of him and his mind reverted to its favorite subject. "I am aware, more than ever before, of the passage of time - how quickly it seems to go and me with it. The flashes of insight are now rare indeed and not so redolent of polished wit. There is, alas, none that would shine were it rubbed ever so vigorously with cloth and spirit. I can define no recognizable progress in my life or life generally. Materialism is the order of the day for we humans, the only thing we can measure, and so deem it significant. If only that ring of bright transcendence, that measureless pool of radiant peace could be within my reach. I talk not of death but of an ever present, tangible confidence to be free of the necessity of now and location within a prescribed time frame within the constraints of this house, Joyce's house, his space. I wish to pass beyond the measurable criteria of human concern to a realm of authentic significance, awe and wonder - an enchanted, timeless zone of never ending antiquity with stable laws of unalterable and profound beauty. I search for a natural symmetry of consciousness,

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a realization of purpose to define 'being.' For most of the time, I feel displaced, dislocated, alienated from the time and space I inhabit. 'Twould be a merrier jape to cast me once more to fate, chaos and the four winds than to plan a strategy for material gain in this most imperfect of all imperfect worlds." With his pipe in full flame, he directed the next silent sentence towards Joyce. "Like you, I search for a rationale, and can discern only the self-deluding patterns of paradox within my own strange imaginings." Joyce was noticeably shaken by whatever he thought Beckett was projecting at him. But I am an Artist, thought he, and can withstand the buffets of fortune. I am connected to elements, One isn't an artist out of choice. One catches it like a disease. It's like a love that devours you and which, one knows, will perhaps destroy you, but at the same time you will defend at all costs. Life is hard but there is only one way to respond to its blows - with even more life. My pastoral existence is much too comfortable, it makes me slow and complacent. Nothing so saps the profound resources of a life as finding life too easy. How appropriate that this existential reflection occurs during the time of the fallen icon, the period of great doubt. It is for me a hopeless time of great nothing and silence. Beckett had finished his pipe, holding the spent furnace by its stem, he knocked the bowl against the leather sole of his stout brown brogues, causing a flurry of ash and blackened tobacco to land on the floor. All the while he was studying what Joyce's reaction would be to such a deliberate act of insolence. What an outrage! He seeks to goad me into speech! The ill bred ruffian!

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I must not speak, only see the distance stretch between him and me. Joyce stood up and grasped a dustpan and hand-brush from the hearth, quickly brushing up the mess and throwing it into the fire, he replaced the articles back on the hearth and sat down. The whole exercise had taken less than ten seconds and had taken Beckett completely by surprise; so much so that he began to wonder whether the incident had happened at all. There was his cold pipe snug in tweed pocket, there was a clean and unsullied floorboard at his feet. While Joyce had been attending to the ashes, his thoughts ran thus: "Stoop to pick up fallen ash, an icon seems important somehow. Helps to make me feel important. I am by no one greeted; almost feel like I am treated by he who sits at my fireside as another willing actor in his play betraying secret confidences." Beckett sensed that much of what was happening was artificial - a set-up, a silent melodrama of hubris that revealed very little. Before long, his thoughts ran thus: "When does eternity end? The myth started when the sea met land…. trailing fronds of sea grass…. nascent essence of distilled intelligence carried in binary code…. Empowered to commit the folly of being, spawn a myth. The self glorification of the species through love, it’s a many splendoured thing, it has to be, we make it so in order to distinguish between ourselves and the primitive, because we are unique, bethink ourself special. Our monstrous conceit has grown; justifies its excesses like this…I … individual…. I … am…. In….paralysis, stasis, condemned like Sisyphus, expound a verb, recede then receded then re-receded past all consciousness."

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OMAR ZAHZAH

The Demon

A Man had a Demon, he kept it in a Bottle. He left the Bottle under his Pillow, the Demon sang him to Sleep (Every Night o Lovely Night). In the Mornings the Man would Work; at Work the Man thought only of the Demon. The Demon told the Man of its Life before him, before the Bottle; of a life in the Sky and down Below and of everything all Around and Before. Of Everything and what had seemed like Infinity. The Man never had any Lovers or Children. To most others he spoke Little and Rarely. And he grew and he hardened. Soon the Man was very Old. And one Night he told the Demon that he would die Soon, that it was time to open the Bottle. The Demon said When You Do I will Turn Your Head all the way Around. The Demon said This is my Way. The Man said You are All I have ever Had. The Man said I trust that what follows will be Right. The Man opened the Bottle. The Demon turned the Man's Head all the way Around; it was very Painful. The Man died Horribly. The Demon bit into the Man's Flesh and spit out the Man's Blood all Over. After, the Demon slipped back into the Bottle. The Demon closed its Eyes and Waited.

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NONFICTION

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Stephen Elliott

How To Make Films Without Influencing People Congratulations! If you are reading this, you have decided that finally, so many years after film school (art school?) it’s time to stop waiting tables and DO SOMETHING with your life! At long last, it is time. Time to either make a film or start selling insurance with your dad! Just so you know, though, this article isn’t about insurance. Just ask your dad about it, and he’ll fill you in when the time comes. Trust me, it’s coming soon. But for now… Let’s make a movie! For all you budding young Wes Andersons’ or Spike Jonez’ out there, you may have felt in the past that making a film involves so much work and organization that it hardly seems worth it. Hard work and organization are, after all not exactly the chief export of the art community. However, to the good people of this community, I say fear not! I, your humble servant, have sailed these treacherous seas before you, and have endeavored to steer you across safely onto the isle of success. I have written an in depth guide to the completion of your project, based loosely on my own recent experiences. Just come along with me, step by careful step, and before you know it, you’ll be an exciting and interesting person to be around!* Are you ready? Let’s get started!

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1. Get Your Script Together This is actually not as important of a step as you might think. Scripts are everywhere! Even if you want to pay for it, you will find that writers are really easy to deceive and manipulate! They’re not too difficult to spot, either. The next time you’re at a dinner party, just go up to the first person you see standing by himself over near the CD player wearing ripped jeans and some sort of cardigan. Tell him that he reminds you of Charlie Kaufmann. Don’t worry about who Charlie Kaufmann is. Just tell him. He’ll likely make a reference to a place in New York that doesn’t exist. Don’t worry. That means he likes you! Whatever you do though, don’t let on that you don’t know what he’s talking about. This is how you make friends with a writer. This person will likely have a lot of cool ideas for a movie but won’t have any of them finished. This is actually better, because you can steal most of his ideas without technically breaking US Copyright law! Talk around for a bit, make a reference to John Malkovitch and make an exit. You’re ready for the next step!

2. Start Making Things Up This is a very important part of the independent filmmaking process. If you are going to look like a professional, you’ll need to start lying to people. A good example of this would be if the city of Anaheim asks you if you have a business license. It’s really their word against yours, and nobody trusts the people in politics these days, right? Start slow. Begin by introducing yourself as a filmmaker at parties, as opposed to what you actually do (serving, tutoring, Taco Bell etc.). Better yet, have someone else introduce you. It makes people even more likely to buy into your new persona.

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Here is just a sample of the type of conversations you could be having: So, Elaine tells me that you’re a filmmaker? Yes, that’s true. Wow. How do you get a job like that? Oh, you know. Just kind of fell into it … That’s amazing! Yeah, it is. When you get really good at it, you can start making up entire corporations! No one is going to answer a phone call from some average shmuck like you, but can you imagine the stability of a brand name, your brand name, backing you up? Think of a creative name though. Remember, you have been telling everyone that you are a creative professional for weeks now. Something like Lonely Bear Media rolls right off the tongue. Also consider using regional markers to enhance the effect. “Hello, this is Paul with Pomona Casting, how are you today? Did you get the script we sent you? Can we count on seeing you at the audition Saturday morning?”

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Who wouldn’t answer that call? Care to shoot me an email at pomonacasting@gmail.com? I guarantee someone will get back to you within three days!

3. Pick Your Team It should be noted that your team will inevitably consist of a lot of people like yourself. People who hate their jobs and have a lot of time on their hands. Better yet, find some people who don’t have jobs. That way, they’ll have a even more time on their hands. So much the better for you. Choose someone who’s single and good-looking as well. That way you can use his relationship status to get you things you need for your budget, like free food. Also, if one of your team members happens to have a creative girlfriend who can provide aid to your project, bring him on as well. I know that most of you creative/film/writing types out there aren’t used to having girlfriends, so let me break it down for you: relationship=free help. Use it to your advantage.

4. Get Permission From Everyone

Just like the aforementioned girlfriends, a filmmaker’s relationship with the outside world requires asking permission for every little thing he does. In order to get permission to film at a park, for example, the park needs written permission from the Department of Parks and Recreation. The Department of Parks and Recreation requires an insurance policy. The insurance company needs a business license from the Chamber of Commerce. It is best to go through this process backwards, just in case someone down the long line of permissions forgets that they need permission from

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someone else. Plus, running back and forth between different city departments will have many government officials whispering your name. This will only make you more famous. Whatever you do though, especially if you want to film anywhere in the parks system of Anaheim, you must get permission from The Colonel. The Colonel is a celebrity of the Anaheim Park system, and deservedly so. He has fought (for the USA, I believe) in 5 wars. Doing the math, that would mean that he was in WWII at the tender age of 7. He’s led a tough life. His hobbies include Screaming “fakers” at the top of his lungs whenever there is a film crew at his park, and patrolling the city in a high tech government vehicle that only looks like a shopping cart. It’s best not to anger him, because he does have friends, and he will get them to steal an entire box of packaged chips from your craft services table. If you want to get on his good side, just tell him that “wannabe Elvis Presley motherf%&#er” sent you. He’ll know who that is.

5. Deny Everything

This is the last and most important part of the process. Zero body count. You’ve filmed your story. You’ve saved the files on your computer and put everything together in a way that looks cool. You’ve got a friend with a film festival, and he’s letting you show your film without ever seeing it. It’s time to make your grand exit from the whole ordeal. If the city department of commerce calls you, wanting to know about the businesses you’ve opened, demanding that you pay $62 as part of some sort of new business fee (which would put you about $62 over budget), just tell them that you made the whole thing up. That there has never been any such thing as Pomona Casting, Lonely Bear Media, or any of the

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other names that come up, and that you will gladly pay them $62 if any of these things suddenly come into existence. When your friends get excited and want to make another film, just run away. South Korea is a good place. No one will look for you there. Now that you’ve read my guide for independent filmmakers, you are ready for whatever the world can throw at you. Now get out there and pretend to be somebody! Author’s Note: All jokes aside, I feel it is in the interest of denial that I must expose myself. I have been a failure my entire life. It is only because I was comfortable with being a failure that I ever attempted what I have accomplished with no idea of how I would ever finish. The process was like a train wreck. It was when the rubble cleared that I saw what remained: A trail of fake businesses, 30 extra cans of Diet Coke that I will never drink, a few random bills that I am still working to pay off, relationships with some of the best people I could hope to know, and a single posting on my vimeo account. It’s a short film called An Unfortunate Situation. I am proud, not because it’s such a great accomplishment, but because I took action in a world that loves to talk. Expect my people to call your people. We’ll do lunch. * I cannot promise that you will be interesting. I can only promise that people will think that you are.

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JOHN MATSUYA

Four Questions To Ask Someone You Love On a Road Trip from La Mirada to Corvallis

1.) Imagine your favorite band - and by favorite band, I mean, your favorite band of all time. Screw it, it doesn’t have to be a band, it can be a singular artist. The only requisite is, you have to truly believe that he/she/they/it, is the coolest musical act that you can imagine. It might be Woody Guthrie, MGMT, The National, Amazing Baby, Grizzly Bear, Katy Perry, Fleetwood Mac, what have you... Now imagine that by an act of coincidence, you run into them at a Starbucks. Strangely, this musical act believes YOU are the coolest thing they’ve ever heard. They love everything about you, regardless of talent/skill/humor/personality income. They obsess over you the same way you obsessed about that very special band in your life: They put up posters of you, they record songs about you, they send you fan email and fan posts to the point of preoccupation. In fact, their new album is titled “Point of Preoccupation” and the eponymous title track is you. Concerts end with a tribute to you. It’s almost ironic in how this kind of fandom seems to extend from nothing in particular, it’s not about music, no... their infatuation surrounds your personality. The question is this: How does this change the view you have of this band? Do you see this incarnation of the band as cooler or significantly less so? 2.) You have a sixth toe on your left. It is not discreetly tucked between your Hallux (big toe) and Index toe (toe next to the big toe), or hanging out at the end of the row. No, unfortunately, it is planted firmly on the dorsal surface of your foot. Now, this tiny toe does not hurt, and no one will know about this toe if you wear shoes and a sock... so for the majority of your day - assuming you wear socks - you are no different than the other five toed humans of society. There is no significant

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change in your life, except for the extra phalange, smaller than the tip of your pinkie. In a seeming coincidence, doctors from Wake Forest University have developed a procedure that can remove the toe with very little impact on your income. However, this procedure proves to be extremely painful, and removing it would result in the frequent aches and pains of the phantom toe. In other words, the only difference is aesthetic. Do you go through with the procedure or keep the toe? 3.) For reasons unknown, everyone begins to call you Don/Dawn. At first, there is no real change. All attempts to correct everyone, even your parents, are met with laughs on how strange you are acting, and that you are in fact Don/Dawn. Your frustrations fall on deaf ears and you begin to internalize the stress from the name change. As weeks turn to months, you begin to notice a small, but significant change. People seem to like Don/Dawn better than they liked the original you. Even though YOU haven’t changed, they find you significantly wittier. Girls give you more second looks or guys approach you with less confidence. Your boss and co-workers treat you with a little more deference. This is not a significant change, your romantic prospects are not any different nor is your wallet heavier from extra cash. Given the chance, do you revert back to yourself, or do you remain Don/Dawn? 4.) Most people are not hardcore fans of baseball. I’m assuming you are one of many fans who attends games when invited, knows basic baseball terminology, but otherwise do not care who the best Closer in the National League is, and don’t know the difference between OBP and OPS. Odds are if you’re not a baseball fan, you have stopped reading this question. However, you have a radical gift

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concerning a sport you have little interest in. You have the innate ability to determine the night’s pitching performance for Kansas City Royals Reliever Blake Wood. If you think to yourself: “I hope Blake Wood has a good night”, he will be a lights out pitcher. If you think: “Fucking Blake Wood, I hate his guts.” ; he will blow a seven run lead. Your thoughts directly correlate to Blake Wood’s pitching performance for the night. Note that Blake Wood is a reliever, thus he will not be pitching more than two innings per game and not for more than four games per week. Furthermore, you have no ability to affect the rest of the Kansas City team. Your powers are limited to Blake Wood who may or may not have a significant impact on any one team. On days that Blake Wood does not cross your mind, his performance is completely average, and may go either way. With this in mind, how many hours per baseball season do you spend thinking about Blake Wood?

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CONTRIBUTORS

JOSHUA ADACHI is a vocalist and bass player for Los Angeles based band the Shade. http://joshadachi.com0or0http://myspace.com/theshademusic10 RYO BAUM is the cofounder of receptacle. He plays music and writes when he is not hustling the streets of Los Angeles. http://beardedpoetry.tumblr.com BLEEDINGBOY is any panoramic soundtrack for your everyday misadventures in life. He has been making music and collaborating with several artists. BORIS SMILE is an indie/pop collective from the greater Long Beach,CA area. They formed in 2004 and have a revolving door of members. They are most known for lush orchestration and clever lyrics. http://borissmile.com ANDRÉ BRETON (1896-1966) was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist. He is best known as the principal founder of Surrealism. His writings include the Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du surréalisme) of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as “pure psychic automatism”. (From Wikipedia) MATT CABE has a large forehead and a weak chin. In the last year or so, two bicycles have been stolen from his possession (please return if you are the thief of said bicycles), but he still has one other bike; the combination to the lock on the remaining bicycle is: 6-2-8-8. Until the age of 22, Matthew had noticeably thick calluses on both of his hands (not from writing); he has since remedied this situation. Mr. Cabe has not been published in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Vanity Fair, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Vogue, Highlights, Reader’s Digest, or Cat Fancy. He one day hopes to live and write somewhere. STEVEN CRISTOPHER CAREY is a graphic artist living and working in New York City. A California native, he attended California State University Long Beach where he received the William T. Shadden Memorial Award in poetry and degrees in creative writing and graphic design. His work can most recently be found in Transcurrent, RipRap, and Chiron Review. www.stevenchristophercarey.com

NATHANIEL CAYANAN is a CSULB alumni with a degree in Film and Electronic Media, he wanted to be a filmmaker since he was thirteen, when he disassembled his family's VCR to learn how to splice video tape. In the past few years, he has been traveling abroad, teaching and writing about his experiences, as well as scripts. Currently, he resides in the LA area and is applying to graduate school to earn a degree in Creative or Professional Writing CERUMENTRIC is a one-man synthrock band. http://myspace.com/cerumentric PAUL CHOI is a musician currently based in San Diego.

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ROMAN CONRAD lives in Carpinteria. He writes in his spare spare time, since his spare time is devoted entirely to gallivanting from city to city (along the beloved coastal highway) aboard his 1968 tan-colored Honda CB 350 Super Sport. CAITLIN CUTT DR. KA is an electro music producer based in Long Beach. http://doctorka.bandcamp.com JOHN DUFFUS STEPHEN ELLIOTT is a pathological liar. He is not very creative, and has no problem landing job interviews or talking to pretty girls. He is able to publish his work because he has friends who take pity on him, and also he sometimes calls them and cries. He lives in ! ", South Korea with his wife and 8 children. GOUDA WOODA writes songs. Then he sing them while playing his guitar. Sometimes they make people laugh, but they tend not to. http://goudawooda.bandcamp.com/ MONICA HOLMES is a Creative Writing and Literature student at CSULB. She hopes to pursue her MFA within the next few years. Her work has been published or is upcoming in The Union Weekly, Verdad, The Inkling, and Vision and Voice. She dedicates all her writing to her father, who first taught her that there is a "t" in "listen." ALEXIS KANESHIRO is a Fine Arts and Cinematic Arts student at USC. She finds delight in baking, drinking copious amounts of green tea, sharing awkward/embarrassing stories, and collecting succulents and cacti. I'm fond of matryoshka dolls, hyphenated surnames, and the colors purple and green (specifically deep plum and mint green). http://alexiskaneshiro.com DANIEL LAM is a fine artist who draws and paints food in unusual settings. As a desired subject of interest, food is reconceptualized to emphasize its importance in culture and environment. Viewing food in this larger-than-life scale intends to provide commentary on how society lives and functions, in the context of food. http://dimsumdan.com LE DUNC was raised by the Wu-Tang Clan in the Gambino desert. Since the murder of ODB he has become obsessed with using art to speak the truth. He lives and works alongside Nelson Mandela, who he has mentored for the past seven years. JOHN MATSUYA is a freelance writer and screenwriter working out of Los Angeles. While his first love is screenwriting, John has also been published as a book reviewer, a film critic, and in educational and instructional manuals. When he is not writing, he enjoys cooking foreign cuisine, snowboarding, and cheering on his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. MY PARASOL are Los Angeles based electro pop duo. http://myparasolmusic.com ALINA NGUYEN enjoys. Contact: elephantiny@gmail.com. Website: http://gingerpear.blogspot.com

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JASON POON is a photographer and filmmaker based in Long Beach. QUIET ARMY is composed of one person whose real name rhymes and would not make for a good band name. he lives in chicago, but is from los angeles, and misses home dearly. You can request his music by contacting him at thequietarmy@gmail.com

ALEXANDRE V. RODALLEC is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Receptacle Magazine. He currently lives in London, where he works as a bartender during the day and evening, and writes at night. His poetry, translations, prose, and articles, have appeared in The Union Weekly, Jaguarpress, and Pigeon Words, and is forthcoming in Genre. www.luxated.blogspot.com A.R. SAPE I'm a writer, musician, painter, photographer, and artist in all media available at any given time. Currently, weighing things against each other is a very dominant and self-satisfying component of my art. For instance, the visible imitation versus the invisible original. SHE’S ELECTRIC is Ryo Baum. http://www.sheselectricity.com SPAZZKID is Mark Redito. http://spazzkid.com TOWNE & COUNTRY are a folk pop duo based in Cerritos. http://towneandcountry.tumblr.com J. WESLEY born 1982 in atlanta, georgia. moved to california 1989. played little league and self-taught guitar. started writing poetry as a college student while attending csulb. my art is a slowly growing child. i am in love with the most abundantly beautiful woman i have ever known. i am restless to live a life i can smile at when i die. we are all of us here to make the world a better place and i want to do my part as best i can. OMAR ZAHZAH lives in Long Beach, California. His work has been featured in such publications as Vulcan: A Literary Dis-Allusion, The Chiron Review, and RipRap.