Gerard had known when he first met Melody that she would say yes to a date with him and not to the douche she’d been talking to. Not because Gerard is extraordinarily attractive—you know he’s not—but because he could tell that she is that kind of girl. I’d asked Gerard what he meant by that kind of girl. He’d said “You know the kind—the kind that dates men who are as smart as her but not as attractive.” “You mean that Melody actively looks for less attractive men?” He’d said he didn’t that think she did it consciously. “But she doesn’t want to deal with the uncertainty. With me, she’d know that I couldn’t do better. That she would be the best I’d ever get.” “And that didn’t bother you?” “No, because she was right.” And he was happy and grateful to be with her. I’d told Billy about that conversation just that morning.

Then I’d told Billy about the personality tests Melody had leant me. Billy asked if Melody uses the tests in her practice, and I’d told Billy no, Melody takes them herself. “She says she would never classify her clients in such stringent terms, but that she doesn’t feel like she can pinpoint herself.” Billy asked what the tests said about me and I told him “That I’m an ESTP.” He asked what that meant, and I said “That I’m a prick.”

He said that the dating website he was using had personality quizzes with it. He had answered all of the questions.  But then, feeling unsatisfied, he created another profile and put his second-choice answers on that one.  I asked him which profile was more popular with the ladies. He said he’d only uploaded pictures of himself on one of the profiles, and so it had a lot more traffic. I asked, “Why don’t you have pictures on your other site?” “Because then people would know I have two profiles.”

After coffee with Billy I walk to the park and even though it is the middle of the day, there is a mist in this grove that I find. It hangs heavy and is tinged almost blue and I think that I would like to come back here in an altered state of mind. I wonder if Melody would give me a prescription for an altered state of mind and then I know that she wouldn’t and I would never ask her. And then I wonder if she never would because I wouldn’t ask her or I never would ask her and so she won’t.

My time in the park is short because Billy calls me to say he’s going to the races, and would I like to come? I have never been to the races and so of course I go. At the races we run into Gerard who at one time was up twenty dollars and is now down forty. “But the important thing is that I am drunk at 4pm on a Tuesday,” Gerard says.

I call you on my way home and you tell me hushed that Gerard and Melody broke up. “But he didn’t breathe a word,” I say. “She slept with someone else,” you say. Apparently Gerard had already forgiven her, but she broke up with him anyway because she didn’t think she’d be able to stand the guilt. “How did you hear?” “Melody told me.” “Why would Gerard forgive her so quick? They haven’t been together that long.” “Gerard told her she was still the best he could ever get.”

After you get home, we are so loud that the next morning the little girl from the apartment next door tells me she can’t wait to grow up so that she can jump on the bed without getting in trouble too.

Reviewed by Andrew J Jepsen

McCullers is one of those authors whose prose seems strangely genderless, neither quite masculine nor feminine, who is neither ostentatious or austere and many of these stories are actually vignettes and brief character sketches where nothing much happens. In fact, some of these ‘stories’ (McCullers may have been at the forefront of the Fast Fiction movement and never even known it) remind me of John Cheever – the same frankness, the same sorrow, the same pointlessness. An old Jew rides on a bus with a young hick who talks to him, before getting off the bus, no different than before. Some kids make a model airplane that doesn’t fly. A boy walks into a dinner and an old man tells him how love works. These are folk tales of the real sense – real people, real events that don’t signify if they don’t signify.

However, the gems of this book are the two longer pieces – The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and The Member of the Wedding. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe had strong characters and a folksy twang of a fabricator sitting by the fire and telling you the <i>real</i> story behind this town. It’s a fun story with all the exaggerations and hopelessness you would expect from a southern writer discussing how love works within a community regardless of its reciprocation, and the dreadful beauty and power of emotions. You expect every paragraph to begin with “Whell, it was the hottest summah we’d evah seen and the corn was popping itself in Old Smith’s farmyard when Josie first came to town with a suitcase made of purple leathah like sunset over the Louisiana itself ayup.” But in a good way.

Where McCullers truly shines, however, is “The Member of the Wedding.” An examination of expectations, loneliness and rage in a young girl’s mind in the south, the novella spins several threads around sexuality, race, love and most of all, a dreadful restlessness. McCullers deftly inhabits the twelve-year-old mind of Frankie Addams, straddling the age between childhood and adulthood. But what is perhaps the strength of the book is that McCullers’ resisted the standard navelgazing that often epitomizes this type of novel. Frankie is looking out as much as looking in, which lets this book be far more than a coming of age story about flowering pear trees, and allows the story to encompass politics, gender studies, identity and, since this is a McCullers story, the very nature of love and fetish.

Reviewed by Andrew J Jepsen

The phrase I was searching for throughout “Sailor Song” was “wish fulfillment.”  It’s difficult to read the protagonist, Ike Sallas, as anything but the same manhero that Kesey constructed in McMurphy of “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and, in that same vein, as really anything but a stand in for the agonized activist Kesey himself.  I’m loathe to draw comparisons between authors and their subjects, but Ike Sallas is simply not a believable character, and if he’s just a construct, well, then I guess that’s the only option we’ve got.

There’s going to be a lot of discussion about the ending of the book, which at first gives you the sensation that you’re at the wrong end of a prank.  But, in a strange way, the ending works in a novel about futility and failure.  Sure, the book is merry enough along the way, with a wildly constructed future of Alaska featuring eternally burning garbage heaps, overweight Irishmen dancing with their own bellies, seductive/innocent “primitive beauties,” pigs fighting bears and high flying adventures against gargantuan Mormons.  In fact, in many ways, the book works best simply as a comedy and nothing more – it’s funny in the same ways that Benny Profane of “V” or Orin Incandenza of “Infinite Jest” are.  But while both those characters meandered through absurdity, they were always reigned within the confines of a novelistic purpose, even if not a personal one.

Which brings me back to failure.  Ike Sallas, once a freedom fighter ala Cesar Chavez, has calmed down and given up before the book even starts.  We never really see any of this, except in peekaboo flashbacks and the odd grunt.  But Ike’s time is over.  He’s let his fire go out, and the eco-terrorists have lost.  Temperatures soar across the globe, the wilderness is dying.  Ike manages to rally once, firing off an impassioned speech against encroaching globalization on his Alaskan wilderness town, and fails completely, impressing no one and changing nothing.  The point is, Ike’s time is past in the same way Kesey’s time is past.

So when an event occurs in the last sixty pages of the book that renders all of Ike’s struggles moot (some could say the ending is alluded to, but the novel has so many sidetracks and deadend turns it resembles the Alaskan coastline, so if we were to catch on to the impending events, it was either sloppy writing or an afterthought), it’s almost understandable.  The previous 460 pages were futile in the face of this catastrophe and accomplished nothing, just as Ike’s efforts did nothing to stem the erosion of the environment, just as Kesey didn’t stop oppressive elements in society.

To call this book a swan song instead of Sailor Song would be going a bit far, I think.  But  Kesey was at least aware of the parallels he was creating between two tired warriors, embittered by their failures and doing their best to cling to their lovers and friends, their merry pranksters, waiting to overcome the ignorance of the masses in their wilderness shacks.

All in all, the book is a failure too.  It entertains without saying anything, dangles characters and plot points like a hyperactive puppeteer more interested in his mental whispering than his audience.  In a way you wonder if Kesey was trying to join his contemporary Pynchon in a postmodern examination of characters and themes, mixing pop songs and folk tales with emotional drama, ambassadors and bowling alleys, a sea of fishkids and a sea of lost refugees.  And maybe, maybe he just realized he couldn’t get there, and wanted us to remind us that this wasn’t his fight anymore, and bowed out, wishing us a cackling ‘good luck’ on the future we made by ignoring his advice. Somehow, I doubt it.

They’d been sitting for at least three hours. Everything was packed and Maria was on the phone with the moving company. Her monologue was absurd because the words were so simple and short. All sentences began with “you” and rarely got beyond that. “Fuck. You,” Wilt thought at his mom. “You, are an unfillable cunt.” “You. You need to. You said,” his mother babbled. She was idiotic. There was nothing pathological about his anger and shame. She deserved it. It was very clear. “You have.” “Fuck you, Maria,” his dad told her. He was drunk, Wilt didn’t know. Maria put her hand to the phone and mouthed fuck you at Clarence. Bo wasn’t her fault. Clarence had to forgive her anyway. He was a black fat fuck in sweatpants whose only work was drawing red circles around classifieds and sending tepid emails. “You!” she yelled at the mouthpiece. It didn’t work. “Mom,” said Wilt. “He can’t help you.” Clarence left the room. He was in the bathroom where he’d sequestered a small bottle of vodka in the toilet tank. It was slightly below room temperature and he had nothing to mix with it. It was illegally bought before noon for $4.75. He should’ve slept with the woman who sold it to him. She’d wanted to. She’d smiled and tapped her nails on his hand. Clarence, she’d said no purred when she looked at his ID. There was no need for her to look. He could’ve fucked her. That mouth open and low tongued. She was forty and he was thirty. The vodka didn’t stain his breath. “Fuck you, you ignorant pecker,” thought Wilt at his father, tripping into the room. He was remarkably acrobatic and sloppy and had called Wilt’s friends niggers last Tuesday. Well he was the nigger. He hadn’t wanted to show his dad the jewelry and letters he’d found while moving his mom’s dresser. They should just kill each other. But they were moving, from black to white, his father said. Wilt hated them. “You fuck you!” his mother shouted at her cell phone and threw it down the hall. The three stared, watching the dark phone slide across the empty floor.

The way the grandson stood on top of his Hyundai, practicing great booming slam dunks on the newly close basket caused more rage in the dogwalker than he could remember feeling. It was much worse than when the dogs unleashed torrents of yellow shit that puddled while the white dog whined, his fur matted and yellowing at his ass. The kid smiled at him, all gums and lips like his mouth was one big wound and the dogwalker threw the gnarled tennis ball at the grandson’s mouth as hard as he could and started jogging with the bounding mutt. The grandson fell in what would’ve been a beautiful arc, if the dogwalker had stayed to watch him, the green tennis ball bouncing direct up off his smile that issued a wail and some blood until he bounced off the driveway, where he didn’t get up.

These poems were all written in brief moments while sitting in my cubicle. The initial premise was that I would write a love poem for my fiance everyday.

#1, #2, #3, #5, #6, #7, #8, #10

 Reviewed by Christopher Patrick Steffen

Go Ask Alice is fake. I need to state that immediately on the offset chance some misguided, angry youth is handed this book by an under-funded, under-educated counselor and Googles the title. Those five words are the most important words one can take from this review. The caveat stated, indulge me.…

Flash back to being a fourteen year-old skater from the Bay Area living in Utah. Riding a ski lift with a few snowboard friends, Mike Brown tells me about this pretty cool book to check out called Go Ask Alice. Most of my friends are young potheads and chemical experimenters. I’m afraid of drugs at this age, but I store the name of the book to look up later (always a fan of counter-culture). Now, luckily, Mike Brown turned out alright (you can check SLUG Magazine or his zine Leviathan for proof), but what worries me is the more timid curious. Luckily, I did not read Go Ask Alice for fourteen years. But suppose I had.

I was not a particularly naïve teenager, but I was still young enough to take some things for granted. If a book pronounced to be written by an anonymous fifteen-year old, I took it to be true. I was too young to understand that no one would challenge this statement seriously, and even if they did, the publisher would never be required to insert a prologue. This isn’t Frey using lies to make millions. No author garners fame for this work.

This book claims to be written by a teenager, claims to speak to teenagers as a teenager. It’s directed to at-risk socially-confused teenagers. It portrays someone who is tricked into drug use, raped, forcibly coerced into more drug use, and then attacked by drug users. And then it ends with an alleged overdose. Teenagers beware: drugs are bad.

Note the facts. There are many bizarre errors throughout the text. For instance, the timeline compresses and expands without any regard for accuracy. The “author” neglects to mention one of her birthdays, and then when a year rolls around, she mentions this new birthday but her age is wrong. Throughout the book entries are created haphazardly without an awareness of how much time passes between them. If you are distracted by the content you may not pay attention to these details, but if you question the authenticity.…

No one pretends that drugs don’t kill. No one pretends that drugs aren’t addictive. But drugs don’t lie. They offer to fuck you up. That is all they have ever offered and that is all users should ask. Go Ask Alice lies. It was written by a fellow Utahan, a child psychologist. Realizing that this woman (Beatrice Sparks) lives within fifty miles of me makes me ill. How dare you try to lie to me when I was a child.

By Emily Vigor

Photography has always been something I’ve enjoyed more behind the lens. An awkward recluse of a kid, I felt most uncomfortable when I knew the slice of round glass was on me. Growing up with a snap-happy father, I quickly became adverse to having a picture taken, creating an unconscious tic, a tensing of the body whenever I heard the wind up of the film, the popping of the flash, the inevitable “click” which meant whatever I just did was captured permanently.

I was not a girl who grew into herself easily. Friends around me were able to automatically create a persona in front of the camera, resulting in pictures that captured their burgeoning beauty, and yet were contrived, posed. The ability to morph oneself, to pretend to be happy, or sexy, or innocent…these were not skills I possessed. Appearing awkward, with a look of surprise or fear in my eyes, was the only way I knew how to take a photo that wasn’t candid. Today, I’ve been able to alter my tactic to just looking angry or making some ridiculous face. And yet I’ve always been fascinated by photography. In high school, I got my first black and white 35mm and had a love affair with a darkroom. I worked after school at a commercial photography studio, assisting in portrait sessions of families, high school seniors, and newlyweds. Watching the way people changed themselves once a lens was on them was fascinating. The shift in body position, the sucking in of certain parts, the jutting out of others, the lowering of the chin, the carefully placed smile (can’t look maniacal), I took it all in as though I were an anthropologist. Why was it we had to pretend to be the things we want to be? Most of these photo shoots ended in frustrated parents, crying children, and arguing couples. It seemed as though the option to just take candid shots of people didn’t exist. But the camera can be an unforgiving tool, and often exposes us to the sides of ourselves we don’t want to see. No matter how much we try to compose ourselves, the camera is relentless in its blatant attempt to make you look as ridiculously human as possible.

There has to be a middle ground though, a way of capturing a true image of a person that isn’t completely contrived. On a Saturday in August, two friends and myself set out to create our own “fashion shoot”, to play with our cameras in the sun, and see what we could create. I was already dubious about the notion that I would have photos taken of me, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have two willing subjects. Having watched more than my fair share of America’s Next Top Model, I knew that the fashion industry had been selling the idea that the best pictures were the ugliest pictures. Awkward angles, limbs akimbo, snarled faces (but not too snarled….Tyra would have a fit!). Our attempt to do this, while fascinating, felt contrived. Some images came out looking interesting, most felt too plotted, awkward, as though we were too aware of the lens in our poses. Midway through the shoot, I accidentally discovered a ridiculously exciting feature on my camera: the ability to take a lightning fast sequence of pictures by holding down the shutter button for an extended period of time. While still trying to capture “high end” shots, I wanted to capture all these little moments in between. There were plenty of images that were throw-aways, but this new feature had offered up a series of shots that played like a flipbook. One such series of a friend captured a truly genuine moment. Tali had modeled before, and was far more comfortable falling into a persona in front of a lens than the rest of us, making it look easy and effortless. However, we were all a little jittery, apprehensive to expose such vulnerable parts of ourselves in front of each other. What if we looked silly, or worse, like egotistical narcissists who thought they were hot stuff?

And so, as her eyes met mine through the black box, she began to smile, and as she did, I held that button down. The result is a series of shots that are beautiful forme in their honesty. An incredibly beautiful woman in her own right whoknows how to take a striking picture, this series captures the subtleties in movement, the shift in her eyes from posed to honest. Playing though them

at a quick pace is watching the progression from a contrived to a real moment. Which begs the question, can candid photographs compete with “high art” photography (aka contrived)? So much of what is on gallery walls or art and fashion magazines these days are photographs that are attempting to appear candid. Fashion lines such as American Apparel and Marc Jacobs are playing up these caught in the moment images, and yet are obviously extremely thought out, despite the seemingly carelessly thrown pricey bag across the emaciated chest of a model who will never make enough money to buy that item in a year.

American Apparel "captures" an image for their ad campaign

An ad for Marc Jabob's clothes?

These images, while creating a certain cracked out aesthetic, are not saying much more than “buy me and be miserable.” .” I’m not trying to purport that photos cannot be worthwhile, or art, if they are too candid or contrived. Artist’s such as Gregory Crewdson and Cindy Sherman are able to find a fine balance between the contrived and the candid, what one might call “candidly contrived”. Both artists have a knack for formulating images that are captivating and yet supposed to look instantaneous. Their images often require more time setting up the shot than actually taking a picture.

Sherman dressed as a B-movie actress in her series "Complete Untitled Film Stills"

An image from Crewdson's project "Beneath the Roses"

And yet, their images cannot be completely scripted. There will always be an element of chance, an unexpected shift in the atmosphere around them that the camera and photographer will capture. In playing in the area between reality and imagination, the photography of Crewdson and Sherman offers a notion of how the world could be seen instead of how we should see it. Their images acknowledge the cameras presence and use it as a tool to create their art. It is an obvious and integral member in their images.

The sequence of accidental photos that the fast shutter tool captured opened my eyes to a new way of approaching photography. I wasn’t trying to fool the sitter into thinking the camera wasn’t there, that it was just the two of us. Instead, there was a certain dance between myself, the camera, and the sitter as we all acknowledged each other. While a mistake, this series of images forced me to look at photography differently. Images do not have to be forced, and the camera should not be ignored. Even when a moment is scripted, the image can still appear candid and intriguing. By accepting the presence of the little black box, we can begin to see a new version of our world.

This past summer, I got together with two friends for a photo shoot. It was something that we had talked about at bars and over drinks and I don’t think any of us thought it was something we would really do. I think everyone had a different idea about the purpose. We all thought that it would be fun and that it would be something that would bring us outside of our comfort zones, as having our picture taken isn’t something that any of us are really comfortable doing. While we were getting ready, one friend made the comment that if nothing else comes out of our photo shoot, at the very least we will create a memory. She talked about how her mother had done similar things at our age and she was glad to have the photos now.  So at least we would be able to create a collection of photos to look back on and reminisce.

But can we knowingly create a memory? In pointing a camera, depressing a button, opening a shutter to expose film to light, is a memory captured? Is the moment preserved? Photos seem to serve as reminders of an instant in time but without the accompanying knowledge that memory supplements, does a photo serve a purpose?

There are currently many theories regarding how memories are formed. Many more than can be discussed in an essay of this nature.  Memory refers to the mechanisms by which we store and are able to retrieve information. And like all of our bodily functions can generally be broken down to chemicals triggering reactions to produce an effect. In the case of memory, we see/hear/experience something and if it is important enough, it moves beyond our short-term memory into long-term storage.

In looking back at the shots we took, I alternate between laughing and cringing.  I also go back to that day. It’s impossible for me to look at the photos without effortlessly adding information in my head, pieces of the day not captured in pixels. Yes, I see the three of us in dresses and (gasp!) makeup. But I also see a day spent in the sun and wind. A day where it was just us girls and the boys went off to the beach.

In looking at this picture, I see myself. On a ladder, yes. I think it’s a good picture of me and I wonder if I shouldn’t wear red more often. However, what strikes me is that I remember that it was warm and how happy I was to be out in the sun. No jacket, not carrying a jacket. I was sitting on this ladder when I decided that I could move from the hustle and bustle of downtown San Francisco out to the quiet neighborhood of the Sunset and be happy. I began looking forward to moving to a quiet neighborhood, near dear friends. It was warm and slightly windy. If there could be days like this, I could handle the fog and the grey the rest of the time. As a stand alone picture, I’m not sure it’s much. I don’t think anyone who didn’t know me would look at this picture and see anything other than a girl on a ladder.

I love this picture of Tali. I think she looks beautiful and coy. But it also reminds of the conversations that we had before and after this shot. I learned that Tali had previously modeled. She tried to teach Emily and I but it didn’t come as naturally. I enjoyed hearing about a part of her life that I had never heard about before. She tried to teach Emily and I how to “vogue” and be “fierce.” I learned that I can do neither and that both efforts made me laugh hysterically. It’s a good picture but to me it’s a memory. A reference point that is more than an image.

I love the brick in this picture. The posture, the glasses, the black and white against the red come together to create a photograph that relays thoughts. I like this photo because it makes me think that she was in the middle of something. Her movements continued beyond this captured moment. Anyone can look at this image and see that. But more importantly, when I look at this picture I see Emily. This was probably the first real day that I spent with Emily. It was fun learning more about her as we both tried to learn to do the whole ‘model’ thing. I think the two of us were more uncomfortable with the whole process than Tali and I was glad that she was there. At some point during the day we realized that the best pictures came from the clumsiest poses and that the clumsiest poses made me laugh the hardest.

Probably the most important part of the memory process, is retrieval. It doesn’t matter how much you can store if you can’t access the information. Like storage, retrieval is a complex process that could be a chemical reaction that starts a process that makes a memory accessible.

But what if there’s nothing to retrieve? Ever seen pictures from a long time ago? Or maybe pictures that someone else took with your camera? The situations are nebulous. The photos all look the same, smiling people in a group or smiling people by themselves. Sometimes a goofy face. I can see a photo of the group but if I can’t remember the conversation that preceded the photo, the photo itself becomes less. It’s the same reason slide shows of other peoples vacations are boring.

For example, a quick glance at this photo shows elements similar to the ones previously discussed. Girl posed in a dress, slight attitude. It is probably a better-composed picture than some of ours. I like how her red hair is contrasted against her pale skin and the cream colored dress.  Similar to the photo of Emily, the girl with the red hair appears to be caught in a moment. Her motions may have carried her beyond this picture. I can make up a narrative and surely there is a real story behind this photo as there is behind ours. However, I don’t have a connection to it. I think this photo is very pretty but I don’t care about it. It’s nice, sure, but I’ll forget about it by tomorrow.

I think that photos, in general, are supposed to be triggers, supplements. They cannot replace memories themselves. A good photo should remind you of the details that cannot be captured on paper or in pixels. It should elicit an emotional, even visceral, response. But I guess spending a day “creating triggers” doesn’t sound as fun?