Tag: art

bonsais and bad manners

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My ticket is one-way, CHICAGO-SEOUL. I’d always wanted to go to Chicago- Bill Murray is from Chicago, and Harrison Ford, too- Han fucking Solo and Indiana Jones. My layover is four hours- not long enough to leave the airport. I’m hungry. Can’t find a place that sells deep dish pizza. Can’t find a deep dish pizza in O’Hare. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough. Maybe it’s just 9:30 A.M. I try to meditate.

I must look ridiculous, sitting cross-legged in my Chucks and leather jacket, trying to ignore the hustle of the masses, molasses. Worrying about looking ridiculous defeats the purpose of meditation, I think. Can’t focus. Take out my laptop. Twenty minutes of free Wi-Fi: That’s all you’re given these days: Twenty minutes. A taste. Bastards might as well be pushing drugs. Take out a book. Kerouac’s Dharma Bums. I read it writing my thesis, not the same as reading it now. Get on the plane. Take off is bumpy in the tail. Cruising altitude.

The sun is so much brighter above the clouds. This is the closest I might ever be to it, I think. I watch the wing tilt up, towards an ethereal blue. People sneer at me and the angry sun streaming in my window. I feel like I’m watching myself from the cloud, or from the ground, like a bird. They’re trying to sleep. I don’t care: Nobody should sleep this close to the stars. Jimmy Page massages my eardrums with the Ramble On as I stare over the pillow-soft clouds. Zeppelin II- so underrated. I remove my headphones when I notice my neighbour talking to someone in front.

Now you see here, Chuck, alls I’m trying to say is equilibrium is possible, even if you have to fly 32,000 feet to find it.

This cowboy, looking like Woody Harrelson, steals me from the clouds. Maybe it is Woody- sounds like him. I’ve been awake too long, I think.

It’s about balance, he says. He is talking to the chair.

Are you talking to me?

Who else?

My name isn’t Chuck.

Look, there: Perfect sorta balance. He points out the window. Man wound tight as you oughta realize there’s a simplicity to this: Equilibrium. You’ve gotta learn to balance your fuck yous with your Feng Shuis, your Bonsais with your bad manners.

We’re flying to Korea, not Japan- wrong Asian country.

I’m saying that in a backwater Buddhist temple or here, up here, at 32,000 feet, you’ve gotta realize you won’t have peace until you reconcile your recklessness, you hear?

I wanted to reach out and touch his hand to make sure that he was real.

You’re pretty smart for a cowboy.

I’m not smart, don’t know a damn thing. He lowered his Stetson over his eyes. Just a man who has to fly 32,000 feet to find his equilibrium, ‘course.

Bonsais and bad manners… I looked back over the clouds. Made sense up here, down there?

word by Josh Elyea

colour by Jade Rivera

aliens in the delicatessen

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I’ve known for over a week now that Han is an alien, and it’s actually been a pretty normal week. Han and I work at Coles – me in Liquorland and her in the deli in one of those meat-stained aprons, her brown hair tucked inside an oily hair net.

It happened in the cool room. I was hiding from Drunk Dave who regularly sang in the middle of the wine racks and had to be escorted out, shaking and telling us he couldn’t leave without his wine. Han had been told to take a breather after she’d got shirty with a fat-necked middle-aged man asking for 17 slices of tasty cheese, cut ‘as thin as tracing paper.’ We sat down on the beer battered chip boxes to be sarcastic and chew on twiggy sticks for a while.

My mouth was hot and lined with salt and fat when Han told me that she was pissed off at everyone that day. I asked why. She said she hadn’t been sleeping well. ‘My brother, who’s also an alien, is being teased at school, big time. I’m so angry for him. At night I just lie there and think about punching their fucking faces in.’ She was looking straight at me, watching for my reaction. ‘I’m an alien, you know? And it seems like we still need protection. After all this time. My dad’s right.’ It didn’t really shock me – Han being an alien. I’d grown up being told about aliens by my parents, and had watched the landing on telly when I was five. I didn’t care, and I sure as hell didn’t want Han to think I didn’t like her anymore.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I think you’re right. There are some dickheads out there who are scared of anyone different from them. Your brother’s lucky he’s got such a cool big sister.’

It’s Tuesday and I’m cleaning out behind the dumpsters, where our most regular customers head to zonk as soon as they’ve paid. It’s a shit of a job – we Rock Paper Scissors each week to work out who does it, and I did Scissors one too many times. Han’s called in sick and I’ve texted her but she hasn’t replied. As I’m coming in from the back I pass through the lunch room. The TV’s blaring. Steve from Shelving turns around, his eyes wide like paper plates. ‘Didya see the news? They’re taking the aliens back into detention. Say it’s for their own safety.’ He has a floppy sandwich in his hand and sauce on his upper lip. ‘Hey maybe that’s why Hannah’s away today! I always thought she was weird.’ He laughs and chokes and coughs up a bit of mushy bread.

‘Shut up Steve,’ I say. ‘You don’t know anything about it.’

I don’t know anything about it either. I scroll my phone for Han’s number and press down hard on the picture of a green telephone. She doesn’t answer but I’ll keep calling.

word by Laura Helen Mcphee-Browne

colour by Patswerk

police

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The police officer is circulating the metro station. Escalator teeth sink into tiles, reminding you of waves, disappearing in the floor. Your feeling is that, as the metal step dissolves, it is gone, like the wave. The police officer is sitting beside you. Plastic boxes for the fluorescent lights, above, hold dirt, and bugs, and you only notice it for the first time, now, bored enough to examine the details of the station. The police officer is sharing your view. For better or worse the dirt of these lights and the teeth of this escalator are part of the cities’ landscape, and we notice them as much as the country kid notices squirrels in branches. One step is one step – one wave is one wave… It’s more beneficial to have a thousand individuals walking around a metro station than a thousand people who know each other, who can empathize and learn from each other – individuals need to Find Their Selves in products or political movements, vote for us, we aren’t those old bastards, you’re a rebel if you buy this thing – you will end up with this white woman, and look at these jets bro! The police officer is asking you a question. You answer: Waiting. Another stair sinks into the tile. The impression is that the wave is separate from the ocean: It is never that the ocean is touching the beach- slapping it, really. Life is always one piece splitting away, independent. The police officer is asking you another question. When you entered the metro you paid for your individual ticket and placed it in the turnstile. The machine clicked after you pushed the metal bar so that the person behind you knew this stranger had passed through and it was their turn to enter. It’s easier to control a shape if you tell each electron they are the most important, you can be a nucleus someday if you work hard enough, don’t mind all those others – you have nothing in common. The police officer is circulating the metro station. The same piece of gum keeps on coming up on this same stair.      

 

word by Liam Lachance

colour by Agilmore

kids are out of touch

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Vinegar hints sweeten when wine ages: The value grows like investments in Congo’s coltan when the American iPhone hit e-shelves… That last sentence shouldn’t infer that the 2013 wishes it was the ’05, any more than the ’05 wants to be the ’13. No. It isn’t that the ’05 thinks the ’13 is necessarily dumber, or more ignorant, saying smug things like I was doing this when you were in diapers, kid. No. It isn’t that the ’13 doesn’t understand the world like the ’05 does, that it isn’t aware of why it likes what it likes because it doesn’t get the same (dated) pop-culture-references as the ’05, that it doesn’t think as critically as the ’05 because of a lack of years of winning or failing or just getting by, figuring out how to survive like an ’05. No, the ’13 does just fine, learns how to shake off pop-culture, soaked with information, wet and hungry for things that it hasn’t seen, new ways of breaking down things felt in high school or ideas cemented at parties, and, with all respect to the ’05- what a year– it might be drying up these revelations faster than the ’05 had, back in ’02. All these numbers… Please consider the following example: The ’13 just had one of those mind-blowingly-unreal revelations about ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ that the ’05, well, is going to have next year, a couple years late, but, uh, pull back the vines on this whole speech a bit, it’s really coming off thirteen-ish, isn’t it, let’s balance the thing with the fact that in no-way-not-a-fucking-chance-imaginable does the ’05 envy the ’13 and wish that it could switch bottles to be that age again, and work those part-time jobs again, and pass the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth sessions of exams again, to push out the intangible borders of Independent Life from high-school dependencies to capital-A-Adult controls, look at me, I am somebody, recognize me, to build new friendships and relationships and to figure how to tie that intangible border into a rope, something dependable to scale a cliff, tying knots for a net- not a noose, as those providing dependency might fear- pulling up, toward something new. The point is that time has made the ’05 sweeter but it has not made it better. Time has made it not only too expensive but also too bitter for people who like a wine that slaps you in the face at dessert and stains your teeth. Colours on your teeth help you feel that bit more responsible while brushing before bed.

colour by Telmomiel
words by Liam

dogs belong tied to posts

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Meeting in a group on four different occasions means judging strangers to build profiles that, sure, might blind you from getting to really know someone, but the survival reflex- To Judge- also means knowing what not to talk about, something crucial in CABBICY (Controlling Anger Before It Controls You), such as nothing-that-resembles-anything political to Mary, the anti-everything online news commenter who threw a chair at you the time you suggested something about capitalism being bad for the rich, and you didn’t duck; nothing-anything-remotely-close-to-anything-about meat to Sean, the Enlightened Vegetarian, who, after seeing you eat gummy worms, for some reason, called your dad a hypocrite, before apologizing with a medium Double-Double the next class, I’m sorry, but think of the bone marrow; or anything-whatsoever-that-resembles- any-words-in-the-same-dictionary as the word ‘dog’ to Jasmine, who just threatened to light your arm-hair on fire. 

All I’m saying is that not necessarily your dog, just dogs, in the general sense, in my opinion, are happier in the country.
Sure let’s tie the dog to a post so it can roam fifteen feet of land for the rest of its life in the rain!
All I’M SAYING is that some people have dogs on farms, where they’re supposed to be, in my opinion
What do you think: People who lives in mansions are jacked, and people who live in apartments are fat?
Don’t really follow you there… all I’m saying is that, in my opinion, dogs deserve to be in the wild, where all animals are from
Do you know the slightest thing about the past couple thousand years of domestication?
All I’m just saying is that, in my opinion, it’s unfair to have a dog in an apartment, because they should be tied to a post
You aren’t entitled to an opinion in something you have no idea about- this isn’t the fucking weather!

And so went the pre-armhair-burn-threat conversation, finally interrupted by the moderator. Eliza, the anti-dogs-in-the-apartment student, takes offense to the fuck your opinion comment, says I’m entitled to my opinion, whether or not it’s completely unsourced and just for me to feel like I am part of something, and Jasmine’s reply of Nobody is entitled to ignorant ideas gets a laugh from the circle- a rare thing. 

By the sixth class, you were able to guess accents, favourite styles of music.

By the eighth, you knew ticks: Sean’s giveaway ‘I think you’re an idiot’ eyebrow raises, the moderator’s tendency to repeat lines from the therapist on The Sopranos when he felt cornered, And how does it make you feel, Anthony, or Jasmine’s nails scratching her scalp when Eliza spoke, to grind away tension in her skull.

The tenth class means catching things that people try to conceal: Nose-picking, the half-second stares at you, between looking at things behind you (window to your right and the clock to your left), catching this secret examination, some glances building an image to remember you by, puzzle pieces to shape you together, Eliza. You forgot that it also meant your concealed glance had been caught by her- the necessary fact of meeting eyes- your attempt to go planter-Jasmine-moderator, light-moderator-Jasmine-plant.

colour by Aryz
words by Liam 

I’m the center of the galaxy

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I am the center of the galaxy:People and buses and buildings and cafés curl around me, the main character of the city, planets orbiting the sun. (The fan slices air toward the radiator, fighting a -37C draft from this old window.) Being the center of the galaxy requires that you are in the right universe, the right city- otherwise, you might agree with that saying about how it doesn’t matter where you are, but who you’re with… The universe is more important than the stars. (You can’t help but blame your ancestors for having moved to such a frozen place: Who stumbles upon this death cold climate, where birds are flying away from, and says Hey, honey: I think we really found the place!) Control from the center means that everything happens to you, or that you are making things happen to others: All phenomena is because of you and your actions, at the center of the story: You receive the most praise or have the worst luck, stand in the longest lines, behind the worst drivers, in the hardest jobs: You confess in an intergalactic reality show booth, sharing your life with a camera for planets who want more of you, you, the star. (You can’t imagine how it could be colder, how things could be worse, with cold toes, your blanket only going so far, even if, sure, Mars whispered that, hey, -37C is warm to me, no offense, you know that they’re just trying to sound tough like Canadians who laugh at emergency closures when snow stays on the ground in the states, or Toronto.) What does it matter if the planets have problems- You’re a galaxy: Things happen to you for a reason, and, whether or not Mars is colder than your room, people rely on you- your life is unimaginably complex, different, and more challenging than these planets. (Planets couldn’t understand the troubles of a galaxy if they sent trillion dollar space equipment, whether manned by Einsteins or monkeys.) Spring is just around the corner.

colour by Nina Geometrieva 
words by Liam Lachance 

This is for the person who has to smile

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trigger warning: sexual harassment

This is for the person who has to smile

or shake their head, or walk faster 
because of a follower who wants

to be that person 

who meets people

who people love

who women love

who doesn’t answer texts right away
who repeats lines from someone smooth in the movie
who succeeds in front of friends

and is recognized

and is validated

I’m a good person, I’m
doing the right thing,

people like me.

colour by Elian
words by Liam

Find me

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Find me. Find her finding people to sift through. Find them in class, hearing words about a genocide over bananas, googling new grocery stores. Find the person in the lab, contrasting numbers. Find her on the keys at night, touching, never pressing, etching circles on a ledger line. Find them on the computer, scrolling through photographs, selecting, saving, liking, loving. Find her rejecting the cover band, preferring anything unique, ting of spoon on pint glass. Find him hunting down ideas to disagree with, the comments footer a better place to hide than bottles. Find her buying wood, screws, straight angles. Find him touching sleeves, shaping hierarchies of style for the week. Find them preferring women when they are quiet, telling sisters not to wear makeup. Find me.

colour by Elian & Seth

words by L. L. 

Trending now: The conclusion

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Yellow. She had recognized him from the news, and so she went on, despite his boring answers about colour, this brother of the accused murderer, wondering if he had thrown out his forks.   

Do you come here often?

Here?

To galleries, do you go often, I mean?

No.

Where are you from?

Why?

I’m sorry if I’m-

Vegas.

She considered taking the next step, asking the question she wanted to ask, about the cutlery, if his sister had ever made any sudden movements during their dinners together, of which there must have been hundreds, thousands of meals that you share with a sibling during the course of your life.

Thousands, probably.

What?

What?

You just said, “thousands,”

Oh, no, you misheard me.

She had again messed up her words, she thought, wanting to ask if she’d ever stabbed him with a fork, or at least used the prongs to fling a pea, but she was insecure about her ability to convince people of things, or draw people closer to her, through the things that she said. She wasn’t as bad as she thought she was, as is always the case with too many mirrors in a house, but she considered that, well, maybe nobody is perfect, aside from Obama, and Sir. John A, but, the point was that everyone made mistakes, it made you human, right, but why did I think I needed to be perfect to start out with?

The news.

What?

What?

“The news.” You just said the news.

No, I said, blue. I like how she used blue, for the necklace.

You aren’t too good at this whole keeping discrete thing, you know.

What?

You heard about my sister.

Did she ever fling a pea at you?

You know, taking news about someone as representative of who they are is the same as believing a stranger who writes the story of your family from your front lawn.*

colour by Indie184

words by L. L. 

see the first scene here

Fuck the Millenials

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Kids. Millenials. Fuck the Millenials and their electronic orgasms. Things were better before, when you were judged by how well you could act on the phone, instead of on Facebook: It was more natural. Fuck the Millenials and their tattoos and selfies and their waiting on Instagrammed asses for Baby Boomers to retire, itching to snap out to work, like snakes in jars. I remember a time when people really interacted in public, and sat alone on trains reading newpapers, instead of reading on their phones. Fuck the Millenials and their mortgage free apartments, filled with cats instead of kids, producing kittens. I remember a time when a good wife raised children and cooked and cleaned and a man, if a good man, worked, didn’t gamble too much, and didn’t cheat too much. Fuck the Millenials and their questioning capitalism. I remember a time when we knew that the world was about to end, because of communism, because of evil Russians- just look at the villains in film. Fuck the Millenials and their questioning colonialism. I remember a time when the world was perfect, when countries were white or black, rich or poor, and you could draw a line in the fucking sand: Civilized on the Northside, Barbaric on the bottom. Fuck the Millenials who question us.  

 

This piece of satire shared the art of Frau Isa and the fiction of L. L. As a piece of satire, it was intended to criticize the desire to romanticize the past, and to demonstrate how human beings become frustrated when they feel that they do not understand something. We believe that the generational divide is the classic example of this frustration and romanticization, where the old criticize the young for acting differently: Frustration is taken out against new trends that they do not understand, as they romanticize how things used to be, believing that the way they acted at that younger age had different motives. These older individuals, or, ‘haters,’ as say the Millenials, deserve credit because they are acting out of a place of frustration, as human beings do, and are not inventing the tendency to romanticize the past. We used satire as a tool to bring light to these extreme criticisms of the Millenial generation- typically those born after 1980. We believe that, by examining the roots of why we hate, it will help us to provide help and move forward, together, instead of picking fights against individuals. We need to give people more credit, regardless of age- Baby Boomers and Millenials included.