Poetry #1 : Naomi Buck Palagi

Naomi Buck Palagi is a graduate of Oberlin College, currently working on a Masters of Liberal Studies at Indiana University Northwest, a full-time secretary, a wife, and a mother of two.  She has been published in journals such as Spoon River Review, Blue Fifth Review, Moria, and Wicked Alice.  She has two chapbooks, Silver Roof Tantrum, from Dancing Girl Press, and Darkness in the Tent, forthcoming through the Dusie Kollective #5

VI. the red blanket at one a.m.

I am an ant.  our

house is one of a thousand houses rats’ warren

of twisted gut-paved streets and stop signs, yield signs, I can’t

                                                 as an ant

even fathom how to get the hell out of here

to breathe

Lady Life/ Death/ Life I am Persephone down in the earth it is a time

to eat, to prepare, to fumble in the dark

                                                                   but.

             I am not an ant.                       

           

                   everything  

is not on the table and spiral focus on the red blanket to dizziness is actually

one

of many options

like the one in which

I am not an ant but

a wolf

I am not an ant.

I am lying on my bed like I did as a teenager and time

has slowed, to the motion of each

task completed, each rising of the sun,

rising of the moon, each gust of wind touching my never-hit face, my

walk-tall torso, my have-danced legs, it has slowed

to the satisfaction of a day and a foot

upon the path and the layers

upon layers of dirt, good dirt, earth dirt

which I have tasted

to my satisfaction and upon my back,

a pack, with a child, and at my side my hearts,

carried in these live bodies,

and time has slowed

to the amounting of a life.

Palindrome

paddledy-wack!  mo disna palindrome!

             an….                                                            MORPH!

                        ollywalladoollyalladay

                        alliday

                        alliday

ten thousand soldiers strong – alliday

                                                alliday

                                                piranha no ni nay

                                                                         there is oil!

                                                                         there is oil!

                               no more are the rich to toil, there is oil!

(auld lang wage)

bandana ban-dan-na ban-dan-na ban-dan-a dan-a

defeat the weak and eat the meek we never give a

damn!

            do re mi do fascist di do re no more can we stand

            still

            fa la la la la,   la la la la

            deck the hills the cotton mills the hardened wills

they get their thrills untils we

MORPH!

            disna palindrome for soldier/ stranger/ danger/

manger/

                                                evil/ live

                                               

                                                   and I

                                      no more to lie here dead

                                                   and gone

                                                    to go

                                                    go to

                                    cut down/  

rewop.

On the Quick #1: Lotte, Taborn, & Cleaver at the Hungry Brain

Lotte Anker sax, Gerald Cleaver drums, Craig Taborn piano.  Eerie, percussive, highly hypnotic.  Cleaver, a native of Detroit, laid down various textures, ranging from tribal thumps to thunderclaps to a kitten’s claws inspecting a cymbal’s ridges—plus one nasty solo.  Craig Taborn, the most critically acclaimed member of the trio, danced in the penumbra, displayed his admirable talent with dissonant chords and frenetic bursts without giving in to indulgent cacophony.  His performance was alive but always deferent of the others' toes.  While the Danish Ms. Anker, switching from tenor to alto to soprano sax, occasionally chirped and clipped and clacked, as is the wont of horn players of that discipline, but only to accent rich lines that floated through and above the products of the flanking sticks and hammers.  All of which coalesced into a rich ether that dissolved two hours (two sets) into a late-night, outer-rather-than-other-worldly blur. 

Beer Ain't Drinkin' 3: The Search for Bock

by Jeff Allison

Heidely hey everyone!

So, just got back from a beer vacation in Michigan. Spent a day in Kalamazoo visiting the currently being remodeled Bell's Brewery and then another revisiting New Holland Brewery.

The Bell's tour was one of the best brewery tours I've been on (in spite of the fact they didn't give you samples, but whatever—I still scored free matches and balloons!).  During the renovation they're not offering tours at the main brewery (though they still have them at their original one by the brewpub), but I used my "industry" connections to open doors, roll carpets (more or less).  I guess once the remodeling is competed they'll have public tours, and by that point the brewery will be roughly the size of the Leiny brewery in Chippewa Falls—that is say, it's so massive that when driving up to it I didn't think it was a brewery!

My tour guide knew so much about the specifics of brewing beer that I felt like a friggin' idiot (he's ex-Goose Island, like the head of sales at Founders Brewery, Michael Bell). As for the brewery, well... first off, I've never seen a robot moving kegs before. The brewery, including the bottling line, runs 24/7 and is pretty much totally automated. This is obviously a big bone of contention in Michigan, but our guide stressed Bell's never lays people off and the bigger their volume the more people they hire.

For me, Bell's over the years is one of those breweries I've always taken for granted. They make solid and usually great beer (I mean, really, when was the last time you had a bad beer from them), it's easy to find in a pinch, and they don't really do the super-limited batches that drive beer geeks crazy (Hop Slam and Black Note being the exceptions).  Also, to the best of my knowledge they are the first microbrewery east of the Mississippi, yet they've all the while stuck to their guns, their standards. Who else would pull out of the Chicago just so they wouldn't be stuck with a shady distributor (cough, cough... Miller) and then two years later come back into the market stronger than ever?

After the tour, I stopped off at the Eccentric Cafe in downtown Kalamazoo, and it's a pretty solid brewpub. Of the handful of great exclusives available there, the Wild One impressed me most. Brewed with wild yeast and stored in oak barrels, it alone was worth the trek north.  Also tried the Oracle, their version of a California double IPA (think Green Flash, which is pretty good if you really like hops) and Quinannan Falls Lager, a great hoppy lager (you read that right).  I was also pleased to find they had the Rye Stout available at the bar (now if they'd only start re-doing their weisse line...).  The food was also quite good, and the flights of beer came on wood plates shaped like Michigan, so I got the lower part and my friend got the U.P.

Next we hit up the New Holland Brewery, and the folks there were nice enough to comp the tour with only a day's notice and gave us beers during it, to boot (including Dragon's Milk!).  Like pretty much all micro's right now, they too are expanding.  Also, there was a homebrewer's expo going on outside, so it was pretty loud.  The two tour guides weren't as knowledgeable as the guy from Bell's, but were certainly friendly.  And standing in a massive room filled with stacks of bourbon barrels aging Dragon's Milk is pretty friggin' cool!  And though Bell's and Three Floyds also make bourbon barrel-aged beers, neither does it on the scale of New Holland with the DM. As for the brewpub in downtown Holland, the food's great and has some great exclusives, such as their own brewer for brewpub beers.  The Swimming Lizard, a Belgian-style brewed with cherries, and the Wonky Eye, Belgian-style quad ale, really stood out. As did the Charkoota Rye Double Bock (the bock I was searching for years now, it seems), which is also available in bottles!

And as if all this wasn't cool enough, I found a great place in Holland to buy beer—Butch's, a strange half hoity-toity restaurant, half specialty liquor store. The food smelled decent enough, but one look at their beer cooler—Dark Horse Sapient Trip, Founders Breakfast Stout, Bell's Batch 10,000, the complete Short's Line (their rye is really good, but avoid the pie beers at all costs), the full line of Brewery Vivant, as well as a bunch of non-Michigan beers that can't be found for love or money in Illinois, such as Great Divide Espresso Stout and Stone Double Bastard—and I knew I was in a good place.  Needless to say, I dumped a bunch of money and left happy (despite paying Michigan prices <grumble>).

Well, that's it for this installment, as I've come to the end of my bottle of Sapient Trip and now it's time to order a pizza, say good night, and return to the question I've wrestled with most of the day (without submitting to the all-knowing wisdom of Mr. Internet): What the heck was the name of the Russian thug in Rocky 4?

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)

 

           Who fired?  Who didn’t?  Whose gun misfired?  Does that make them innocent, or still damned by their intent?  Are the rules truly different in war, the punishments?  During the conflict, when all of hell rages around you, inside you, is survival all that matters? Kenzo Okuzaki wants the answers to these and many, many more questions—and nothing is going to stop him, except maybe his own madness. 

            The film is the documentary The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On/Yuki Yukite Shingun.  The director: Kazuo Hara, a man whose previous work (Extreme Private Eros, Goodbye CP) shows no restraint, no boundaries, and many have claimed, no ethics.  Not only does Mr. Hara allow those on the utmost fringes of society to tell their tales, he watches them as they writhe and bleed and destroy themselves without hindrance.  Films not for the faint of heart. 

            Naked Army, which many consider to be Hara’s magnum opus, however, though as gritty and verité as his previous works, does not force us to ask ourselves if what we are viewing is in fact pornography, in the truest sense of the word, if we are participating in a crime.  Yes, ghastly and tragic things lie beneath the film’s many veneers, but watching them become exposed, or wishing them so by the earnest, brazen, crass, violent, sociopathic Mr. Okuzaki, does not make us bad people—voyeurs, yes, but not fiends.  The world was made to be watched, to be recorded.  This is all the solace we’ll ever get from our travails: That others also move beside us just as gracelessly as we often do—even those with notions far nobler than the rest of ours tend to be.  But in addition to being sad and shocking, the film is at times genuinely hilarious.  Granted, in an uncomfortable mode that Larry David only wishes he could duplicate.  Or perhaps not.

            The film, released in 1987, follows the exploits of Mr. Okuzaki, who was a soldier during the Pacific War, stationed in New Guinea towards its end.  Things, to say the least, were not going well for the Japanese by that time. But more on that in a moment. 

            After the war, Okuzaki, an anti-emperor zealot, served a total of thirteen years in prison for, amongst many other forms of disobedience and crime, firing shots at the emperor himself; distributing salacious material depicting the emperor—whom Okuzaki blames for numerous horrors, including all of those in the Pacific—in compromised situations; and murdering a real estate agent.  He believes by serving his time for the murder, he has paid his debt to the divine for the lives he’d also taken during the war—and it’s now time for others to do the same.

            The thrust of the film is Okuzaki’s search for the truth regarding the fates of two others in his regiment, both sentenced to death by their commanders and executed by firing squad—several days after the war had ended.  In a harrowing game of round-robin, Okuzaki—sometimes accompanied by the two men’s siblings, later by those pretending to be them when his tactics become too much for the surviving kin—visits members of the deceased men’s platoon, now bent and exhausted from a lifetime of trying to forget.

            What follows is a lot of politeness, Old-World Japan in its most explicit and, to Westerners at least, contradictory form, as many deep bows, apologies, and gifts precede Okuzaki’s dryly mentioning that his interlocutor is a murdering sonofabitch and deserves God’s full wrath; or if the person is currently in a hospital, convalescing after an operation, Mr. Okuzaki will simply say, “This is what you deserve.” 

            More bowing.  Okuzaki, once again, will speak about himself in the third-person, list his crimes, the time he’s served, that he dared take a shot at the Emperor of Japan, even if it’s totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand.  Then the interviewee will mention something about how hard life in war is/was, that’s it’s best forgotten.  Okuzaki again calls the guy a demon, a scourge upon the earth, and then thanks his host’s wife for some tea she’s just handed him. 

            Sometimes the interviewees don’t want to talk about the past, at least not with this nut, or say they’re too ill and tired to recall the particulars.  Their dotage, despite what the film has thus far made us believe them accomplices to, can’t help but soften the viewer’s heart some.  While Okuzaki, in turn, attacks… physically.  Punches start flying, knees bleed, stitches pop.  It’s sad, surreal, pathetic, and often… well, funny (at least I’ve heard people giggle while watching these scenes: sometimes the body just needs to react).  All the while, standing docilely to the side, Japanese women and younger men suggest, “No violence.” 

            Afterward Okuzaki often calmly calls the police himself, who don’t arrest him but instead allow him to accompany his victim to the hospital, so as to continue the interrogation.  (One wonders how much the camera’s presence further queered these bizarre circumstances and interactions.  Though for those of you with already an overwhelming urge to smack the tyrannical Mr. Okuzaki in the face, there is a scene where he becomes outnumbered and then chastises the cameraman, presumably Hara, for not coming to his defense.)  

            Now, here’s the catch: as unacceptable (and hypocritical) as Okuzaki’s violence and other dishonest methods are, they, God help us, get results.  As on the next round of visits, the platoon members’ stories change.  What was an execution for desertion carried out a few days after the war’s end because communication was down is now something far more sinister.  Terms like “destitute,” “starvation,” and “pork (black and white, that is, native and non-native)” begin to become universally used by each separately interviewed man, as each continues to change his tale and shift the blame onto others.

            But these shocking revelations seem to almost go through Okuzaki, as he continues to demand more from the men—recollections of incidental conversations, religious stances, useless gory details, redundant confessions and tears—and when they fail to satisfy him, again he attacks.  He’s like an archeologist who, upon finding his long sought talisman, chucks it to the side and continues to dig deeper—disgusted with the ancient trinket for letting itself be found and sure that something juicier lies beneath.

            It’s at this point that we realize the truth about Okuzaki: Nothing will ever satisfy the man.  All he has is his need to pursue, to search out the most gruesome artifacts of a fading war.  It’s as if he’s still upset for having been an outsider all those years ago, jealous that the murderous captains and sergeants didn’t include him in their unholy machinations; and now he has taken up the most sacred of banner-dressed spears and plans to run it through the whole lot and parade their sins and offal to the world.

            A man wrapped in explosives.  A kid in a trench coat with a double-pump.  Here stands yet another causality and symptom of a society that fetishizes hierarchy and war.  As the film’s epilogue clearly illustrates.

           And we, the audience, shown all this evidence, though with little proved “definitively,” stretch while the credits role and, like Okuzaki, say, “It’s all very interesting, but I’m not sure I buy it.  What else have you got?” 

Chelsea Wolfe: Black Metal Lullaby

Atmospheric, haunting, gloomy.  Think Portishead’s Dummy minus the hollow midi tones while still replete with sweeping effects, and fronted by a young and strong PJ Harvey taking over for the ever so fragile Beth Gibbons (though Wolfe’s end phrasing is reminiscent of a less affected Bjork).  In interviews Wolfe has stated that she’s heavily inspired by heavy metal and has recently toured with Liturgy, a New York band categorized as “transcendental black metal” (these guys apparently build their own churches before burning them).  

Some have described her songs as folk-metal—okay.  But unlike the occasional acoustic outliers many heavier acts recorded to get in rotation on MTV circa 1994, nothing about Wolfe’s songs sounds geared toward commercial dividends.  That said, her music, though brushed with a ghostly opacity and often progressing like a leg-shackled dirge, still catches your ear.  It makes you sing the vocal melody but not the words, seeing that by comparison—with all the overdrive and Wolfe’s voice having been lowered into the mire (gambits that make the album perfectly engaging)—Kurt Cobain’s infamously garbled lyrics present themselves with the saliency and articulation put forth by an English barrister.  All of which befits the dour genre, the vocals adding to the album’s lush and otherworldly aesthetic without committing to exacts, the vague suspicion of a ghoul out of frame enchanting and unnerving a spectator’s mind, roiling up her longings and personal turmoil.  After all, the moment you march a specimen, no matter how horridly deformed, before a committee, they've no choice but to acknowledge the subject as real, earthly. Listen

Good Chow #2

Japanese comfort food. What is it? Well, as exemplified at the Sunshine Café, a small but not tiny one-room eatery in Andersonville, it is large bowls of delicious donburi, soba, udon, and much more served in hearty portions. What is it not? It is not sushi (not usually, at least), and it is far from expensive.

I've been coming to this place for years. Usually stuff myself with a friend on several appetizers (shumai, potato croquette, tsukemono) and then a main course and end up being presented a bill of around thirty dollars. Just a great value.

And to top it all off, Sunshine is BYOB. I recommend pilsners, pale ales, most white wines (but find Sancerres, pinot gris, and Southern Rhone blends to pair best). Or if you’d prefer red, as I often do, stick with something light and simple: pinot noir or cabernet franc, especially the latter from either the Loire Valley or the Finger Lakes; or maybe a syrah if you plan on getting a pork dish, such as the always flavorful katsu don (pictured above).

And make sure to try the specials, such as the rainbow trout. They never disappoint.

Is it fine dining? A far cry (though the service is quite good). But that’s the point: to eat, drink, and relax, to make the taste buds smile while using whichever damn utensil you prefer.

Fiction #3 Ant Farm by Douglas Schubert

Douglas Schubert has created over 400 minutes of broadcasted material for feature films, TV series, commercials, music videos, and PSAs. Two of his videos reside in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) and two at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum. He currently works as a script doctor and writer for several companies and has polished features like The Man from Elysian Fields, Casino Jack, Boogie Nights, Swingers and Barcelona among others. His work has garnered 2 Clio Awards, 9 MTV Video Music Awards, and resulted in the most requested TRL video of all time. His short fiction has been featured in New York Press.
He also worked as a speechwriter for then incumbent Rhode Island governor, Bruce Sundlun.


Suicide’s not even an option. Too lazy to write the note. The unemployed lowlife on the first floor wakes me when cigarette smoke twists into the no-shade window. Don’t remember why I’m here.
A cat’s been nosing around. But now it waits next to the bed like a brass panther, giving me the false significance of waking from a royal nap.
I throw my arms, with as little stomach effort as possible, to move out of bed. I land on balled up trousers. My being here justifies one more stab at love with a new soul, I guess.
I wander out naked into the littered apartment. The cat does an enticing flirt around my skinny ankles and I feel important. I fart so loudly the cat darts under the sofa. An impressive enough accomplishment to enjoy for a moment but pathetic enough to make me question my potential when I catch my reflection in the mirror. This is going to be a good day.
Coffee’s not even an option. Too hard to figure out where everything goes. Maybe she has leftover something or other. She doesn’t. Only a weak refrigerated collection of items remaining from an effort to get it together long ago. I see the note on the door: “You snore.”
The cat pokes out from under the couch and watches my every move. I’m self-conscious. I start playing with cupboards to pretend like I have something to do. I don’t. The cat crouch-walks toward me and gestures to a lazy susan with her butt. I enjoy her efforts to communicate her needs and let her go overboard doing it.
Feeding an animal. I feel powerful. After it puts in enough work I prepare her meal. I start to crave tuna.
Outside. I slink along the rusty fence that cages in a swimming pool. Kids bump into me anyway. One with puffed plastic inflated around tiny arms looks at me with crazy eyes and launches his bony carriage into the pool like he’s on fire. I wouldn’t mind returning to the womb.
Adults eye me with caution. What do they know? In the funhouse reflection of vending machine glass, kids run in sped up motion, bump into things and ricochet in warped directions. ‘No running by the pool,’ says a sign ensued from memory.
I pat myself for coins. A little brat shoves past me and pounds quarters into the slot with a practiced perfection that nauseates me. He selects the last sack of some synthetic salted food, one I was actually considering. It makes no sound as it dislodges from its turning coil. He snatches it and runs off.
I wind up a side stairwell and count the floors as if it matters. I reach the top and decide my lungs feel like plastic wrap laminates them. The door at the top says ‘roof access’. I shove into a sea of fans and antennas.
The roof has a rust finish that shines too brightly so I look away. I move over to a place shaded by something and impress myself with the decision. I decide what to do next. I peer out at the towering buildings all around with people inside them doing what apparently needs doing
It occurs to me that the tin door could have slammed hard enough to trap me. I overcome this neurotic weakness and move into the light. I pull off my shirt to take on the world. A bird, probably a seagull, flies over me and I’m scared of it. It knows how to get food.
A commercial airline, loaded with people apparently going someplace or returning from something to do, roars by. I decide to return to my shaded zone.
A kid in a speedo scoots out the door and scurries to the ledge of the roof and peers down. Where’s the parenting? He listens to his spit smack the pavement then runs to the door and it slams shut.
Thank god the door opens and I go down the stairs. I drag myself back along the original 3rd floor hallway and it feels like I never went anywhere. I didn’t. I throw a fake smile at an aging neighbor who fills her door-space with who the fuck are you concern. I twist the knob on apartment 304 and slip back inside.
Back where I started. I look for something to look at and find the vertical blinds trembling after a truck speeds by. I stretch a bit in the middle of the room and hear my joints pop. I imagine the extra sac of fatty flesh hiding my musculature actually muffles the sound of popping joints.
But then I catch that damn cat watching me. It’s still sitting upright, knowingly, licking its teeth with a condescending stare. I’m useless to her now. She throws a yawn at me. I hiss at the thing. Not a flinch. Just that condescending stare. I lurch and it darts behind the vertical blinds, throwing them into a rattling dance that lets in piercing shafts of daytime. I wish the sun would hurry up and go away.