In 1982, when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, I became what most movie-goers would call an extra, or what the movie business objectifies as “background.” I was in at least four movies, three of them big releases. A friend of mine, John-Michael, told me he was an extra on the The Right Stuff and said if I wanted to be one, too, I should go to Northern California Casting in San Francisco. There I was told to get a haircut, put on a conservative suit, and show up at the Cow Palace … Continue reading Background! by Miles Fowler→
AND YOU, DO YOU LOVE TOO? I said I think I said I must have said don’t cross did I know should I have known did I email, call, text stay on the sidewalk he was far away was he ever far from me did I do nothing when I knew I must have known the driver sunblind was it today or Tuesday or last week I called out did I I must have after all he is my son NOT REALLY A GAME, NOT REALLY DUCK DUCK DUCK DUCK chants Kathy running around … Continue reading And You, Do You Love Too? and Not Really a Game, Not Really, 2 poems by Claire Scott→
I never thought that by agreeing to teach a class in anthropological fieldwork I would soon be expected to be a spiritual healer. I should never have agreed to teach the class. I had never done fieldwork, so I had no experiences to draw on in teaching the class. Luckily an anthropologist colleague, Mike Kearney, invited me to join him in doing fieldwork in Baja California, Mexico. Our university was a four-hour drive from the community in Mexico where he was studying spiritual healers (espiritistas), so we could go there on weekends and between school … Continue reading Whatever is Important Will be Engraved in Your Brain by Paul Rosenblatt→
Brass soldiers line up and pitch to his tune. Piano man rules the room. Hot, not sweet, the band chases the beat. Strings of guitars slice the air into bars and a velvety sax swings for a splash while drums punch a groove, cymbals ride crash. Bones blare the blues as these Vikings of swing, in tux suits of noir, embellish and round the sound that winds down, then swells, slams to the ground. Julie is from St. Louis and moved to Titusville, Florida in 1964 because her father worked on the space program. She … Continue reading Big Jazz by Julie Wenglinski→
Artist Jane Skafte has designs on our natural environment. She illustrates her deep concerns for climate change with research, conscience and talent that subtly reveals devastation from the ground up. “I am interested in what happens when naturalism and the awesome terror of nature (e.g., tsunamis, erosion, earthquakes) is fused with abstract geometric elements, as a stand-in for human imposed structures and practices (e.g., clear cutting forests, fracking, CO2 emissions),” states Skafte on her website. “…In an attempt to deal with these overwhelming global events, I work to illustrate the changes that concern … Continue reading Jane Skafte: Cautions of Climate Change→
New England is fertile ground for any photographer, and I enjoy drawing from this environment. I’ve long had a love of taking pictures. There’s the heft of a camera, the frustrating magic of lens, light, and alchemy of movement—the frozen awkward smile, or the contemplative stare unknowingly observed and crystalized in time. I took a photography course in high school and I’ll never forget the awe of first seeing Ansel Adams’s landscape photography. The expansive views, the richness. Until then, I didn’t know black and white photography could actually be that expressive. Unlike Adams, I don’t do … Continue reading Jenny Rossi: Many Shades of New England→
As I pass the willow-lined pond, the wheels on my bike click over new cement cracks from the toll of winter’s thaw. How is it that not much has changed? The arms of the same cedars droop over the same sidewalks. Patches of drenched lawn sprout through snow, and the two-story houses still sit clotted in time. The early spring sun braids through the pine-dotted park. I turn the familiar corner toward my elementary school; the now-faint rain paints a black scrawl across the playground. The old oak we climbed, stark gray trunk blotched and … Continue reading Return To My Old Neighborhood by Yvonne Leach→
All my life I’ve gotten into random conversations with people where the subject of our life trajectories comes up, and I always end up feeling kind of weird. This past weekend I hung out with a friend who told me he decided on his career path in high school, diligently researched colleges, applied himself strenuously to his field of study, threw himself at the best internships available, and then went on multiple rounds of job interviews with companies he had also heavily researched, and that’s how he ended up in his current job. He made … Continue reading Writers and Artists—It’s Time for You to Stop Trying to Fit into Society’s Conventional Box by Lauren Sapala→
When that technician pointed out two heartbeats and two precious teensy penises on the screen, I was over the moon. Buddy leaned over and kissed me and cried real quiet-like, like he wasn’t actually crying, but I knew he was. Right away the names Elvis and Jesse popped into my head—Mama raised me on Elvis—but I didn’t say that out loud. Buddy would’ve immediately made frying egg sounds and said in a high sissy voice, “This is your brain on baby.” I’d been a total ditz when I was pregnant with Kayla, but so far … Continue reading Gemini by Charlotte Morgan→
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