16. Bohemia - September 2013

september 2013• bohemia • 1

2 • bohemia • september 2013

Bohe-Rifts in Time Poetry

Vintage Glam 70s Bonnie Neagle

Multiple Choice Suzanne Ondrus

For Life Ilya Prints

A Sled in Time Gary Lee Webb

A Time for Love C.G. Fewston

A Horse-Thief in DetroitTy Hall

Little Snowy Mountains Arthur Doweyko

The Day-To-Day RealityKay Wilson

61627282931333537


MIA

Bohe-394042485457

StreamsJamie Mason

Vintage Watch The Word Rummager

Sundae, Sundae Pat Jones &Genna Ware

Detroit Artist Nick Hottmann

RAW: Natural Born Artists

Femme Fatale Roller DollsPeter Able


Sept 2013 Volume 3, Number 8 ISSN No. 2162-8653

Editor: Amanda HixsonAssist. Editor: Stephanie Rystrom

Fiction acquisition: Gary Lee Webb

Writers: Pete Able, Susan Duty, Caleb Farmer, Meg Miller

Photographers: Cecy Ayala, CJ Hudgins, Pat Jones,

Bonnie Neagle, Michelle Vaughn, Genna Ware, Cynthia Wheeler

Thank you to the Boho Model Crew

Also, Bohemia wouldn’t exist without the regular contributors and friends

who lend their talents frequently. Submissions to submissions@

bohemia-journal.com

Cover credits:Cover design: CJ HudginsModel: Stephanie Rystrom

Photographer: Bonnie Neagle

Bohemia is produced in Waco, TX. We take submissions from around

the world. Bohemia is a thematic submissions-based journal and

staff-produced magazine. Contribu-tors, please follow our submission

guidelines.

More information is available at www.bohemia-journal.com

Bohemia


62 The National: Do You Know Me Better Than That? by Caleb Farmer

Today’s Tom Sawyer by Cynthia Wheeler

Valley Mills Winery by David Irvin

A Bowl of Red by Meg Miller

The Waco Art Initiative: Improving Our City One Child at a Time by Gary Lee Webb

Mount Olympus by Cecy Ayala

Clothes Mark the Manby Gary Lee Webb

The Great Gatsbyby Erin Shephard

Contributors

6573767882869096

65626573767882869096


Nostalgiaby James B. Nicola

When in the aftermath of bursted years,like in an afterglow of low-burnt love,a journey homeward all but done, the noseanticipates familiar goods unbaked;the heart, friends too-long unseen. Ponds we splashedaway in, cooled skin tingles to again.

Just as when you are waking up, the stillemerging ghosts of shapes obscure the linesidentifying friendly form. You seeand would step through the glass to puff and stokethe winking embers, but the old flame’s gone,restoked but briefly to reflect upon:

And all you were and knew, and thought had died, is underlit, now, on the other side.


Nostalgiaby James B. Nicola

When in the aftermath of bursted years,like in an afterglow of low-burnt love,a journey homeward all but done, the noseanticipates familiar goods unbaked;the heart, friends too-long unseen. Ponds we splashedaway in, cooled skin tingles to again.

Just as when you are waking up, the stillemerging ghosts of shapes obscure the linesidentifying friendly form. You seeand would step through the glass to puff and stokethe winking embers, but the old flame’s gone,restoked but briefly to reflect upon:

And all you were and knew, and thought had died, is underlit, now, on the other side.

The Drowning of the Clock by Trier Ward

Turquoise blazes above the sunburst gasp- tortured tock. Murky rope mold forgot- faded blue seconds tick, minutes tock. Then thick, then thlock. Muddy shuffle, fish scales glitter. Clock stops in sediment, lost lures, crab funk. Time matters not.

Photography by Bonnie Neagle featuring (this page) Stephanie Rystrom & (next page) Amara Love



When You Get Old By Michael Lee Johnson

When you get oldyou leave everything behind−present tense past tense,hangers on refusing to turn loose,high school letter sweaters, varsitywoolen jackets, yearbooks 1965,covers that quickly open, slam shut−high school romances only faceswhere they were then−ice cubes frozen in time.No more teary eyes,striking flames,moist match headsigniting bedroom sheetsand teenage bedside rumors.

You leave wife, or wivesbehind toss out your youthful affairs.All single events were just encounters,cardiac dry ice, ladies with crimson clover eyes.No more strings tightened, broken bows,heart dreams slit vows, melancholy violin romances.

You continue leaving reading glasses, key chain, ATM card,senior discount cards, footnotes are your history,artificial sweeteners, doctor appointments daily,keep touching those piano notes, phone numbers in sequencein tattered address books, names attached to memorieshidden behind.

Everything rhymes with plural thoughts and foggy memories.

Youth was a bullyboy club-the older I get the less I’m battered−trust me I got witnesses in between−

saviors of wings, fantasies,tense has no grammatical corrector,

it always dances around the rim of red wine.Life now fills with silver teaspoonsof empty senior moments−blank shells of present, past tense,and yank me back recalls.

Do you remember those 1st 25 years?Shrinking brain space remembersdances of sporadic nighttime boogies,sports, senior prom, Thomas’s Drive-In,Spin-It-Record Shop, Dick Biondi,WLS Chicago top 100.

Remember the next 25 years?high school reunions grow dimmer−priest of the voodoo dolls punch in numbersof once living and now dead−undresses all.

Rise forward from your medieval pews.Wherever you now live,do you remember these things−prayer, ghosts deep in thepockets of our former youth.

Old age waits patiently in the faceof a full moon−a new generation.

When you get oldyou leave everything behind.


Under Pressure?by Joel Cifer

Pressure builds so it can burst.Tensions mount to be released.The earth is expanding or shrinking, but definitely moving.A volcano of geysers spewing gases like a valve has been tapped.Volatility surrounds us.Under our feet, above our heads, in our hearts.We mostly live in blind acceptance or ignorance.Our bodies boil.The acidity level toxic, the body swells in allergy,While our bones moan in agony.We recognize the defeated stares of passersbyFrom the memories of our reflection.The sky has splintered color, dancing like waves through the clouds.The swell has crashed. Now, a warm ripple.The cycle repeats, like the beating of a drum.In this moment, as in allThe line between peace and chaos has blurredLeaving only beauty.

I’m Getting Olderby Jesse Jefferis

I’m getting older,The balls sag moreHair colonies are sproutingAbilities are taking theDay off.

One such abilityIs the gift ofAuditory stimulation.

I have to useScientific jargonBecause i can’tExpress the magic.

Of living within the Walls of music.The swooping towersAs metronomic birds flutterCompelling us into aWorld of beauty.Even the walls of this trash strewnFloor and grease smeared wallsVanish in the wake.

The head bobs The mellow swellsThe stains,And troubles FadeAway.


I’m Getting Olderby Jesse Jefferis

I’m getting older,The balls sag moreHair colonies are sproutingAbilities are taking theDay off.

One such abilityIs the gift ofAuditory stimulation.

I have to useScientific jargonBecause i can’tExpress the magic.

Of living within the Walls of music.The swooping towersAs metronomic birds flutterCompelling us into aWorld of beauty.Even the walls of this trash strewnFloor and grease smeared wallsVanish in the wake.

The head bobs The mellow swellsThe stains,And troubles FadeAway.

Tik Tok Traveler by Genny Page

Tik tokTik tokTik tok tikTik tok tik

The old clock stammers when he comesAnd stutters when he leaves

It tiks each time he turns his headand toks each time he breathes

So funny when we’re laughing and he’s asking me the time

So silly to have ever thought that life was like a line

To not have known it braidedLike the ribbons in my hair

To not have known that times can crossThough I might not know where

So sweet to learn he seeks me outWhen circumstance allows

So sweet the way he slurs his wordsAnd stumbles when he bows

It’s difficult to fathom:He my future - I his past

That viewing my entire worldHe knows what bits will last

But I catch myself waiting For the stutter in the time

For just an hour between usWe’ll pretend life is a line

Each tik I hope he’ll be here soonEach tok I am alone

Tik tok the time goes sliding by While I sit here at home

But just as I might give up hopeAnd leave this clock behind

I hear a sound... an almost soundThat might be just my mind

Tik tokTik tokTik tok tikTik tok tik

Uncle Carroll Waits for His Brother by Chip Dameron You might think, all these years gone, that my grudge against you would have worn itself out, victim of time’s infinite erosions. I know you were blameless, barely surviving the viral assault that seized that small frame house by the throat and took just me as its fatal prize. But you, stubborn headed even then, held on while I drifted, drowned. Now, 91 years later, the days endless, befogged, as you hold hands with the woman who has shared most of your life, I wait impatiently for you to float into the ether and, if I can find you, tell me all that I missed, not being you.


When Time Turns Digitalby Jackie Craven

The universe offers infinite geometries— curves and arcs, loops and parabolas— so why, oh, why did they put my clock inside a metal box? Seconds smolder in dusty corners— muffled minutes strain and flutter— time ticks but cannot tock— What good’s a clock without a dial? Two becomes three, three becomes four— I count to pi and press the buzzer— without a compass, I lose the hours— decades molder inside a vault. Somewhere down the lighted hall, a lazy nurse rests on folded arms— She dreams of curves, arcs, and wedding rings while I whither in a gated bed without a proper clock.


When Time Turns Digitalby Jackie Craven

The universe offers infinite geometries— curves and arcs, loops and parabolas— so why, oh, why did they put my clock inside a metal box? Seconds smolder in dusty corners— muffled minutes strain and flutter— time ticks but cannot tock— What good’s a clock without a dial? Two becomes three, three becomes four— I count to pi and press the buzzer— without a compass, I lose the hours— decades molder inside a vault. Somewhere down the lighted hall, a lazy nurse rests on folded arms— She dreams of curves, arcs, and wedding rings while I whither in a gated bed without a proper clock.

14 • bohemia • september 2013*20% off discount will appear upon checkout. Minimum purchase of $29.00. Does not apply to gift cards or certifi cates, same-day or interna-tional delivery, shipping and handling, taxes, or third-party hosted products (e.g. wine) and cannot be combined with other offers or discounts. Discounts not valid on bulk or corporate purchases of 10 units or more. Offer expires: 11/15/13.

Join Over 12 Million People Who Have Found a Better Way to Send Flowers

SEND BOUQUETS FOR ANY OCCASION anniversary | birthday | just because

Hurry! Order now for unbelievable low prices, with fl owers from $19.99+s/h

Visit www.ProFlowers.com/classic or call 877.458.6341

SAVE

20%*

september 2013• bohemia • 15*20% off discount will appear upon checkout. Minimum purchase of $29.00. Does not apply to gift cards or certifi cates, same-day or interna-tional delivery, shipping and handling, taxes, or third-party hosted products (e.g. wine) and cannot be combined with other offers or discounts. Discounts not valid on bulk or corporate purchases of 10 units or more. Offer expires: 11/15/13.

Join Over 12 Million People Who Have Found a Better Way to Send Flowers

SEND BOUQUETS FOR ANY OCCASION anniversary | birthday | just because

Hurry! Order now for unbelievable low prices, with fl owers from $19.99+s/h

Visit www.ProFlowers.com/classic or call 877.458.6341

SAVE

20%*

Time by Ilya Prints Years change us and our space, We’re in a hurry always, healthy or sore, But now I ask time, slow down your pace, I have nowhere to rush any more. Youth dreams of changing the world for the better, as once we did. But now I pray - Grant me more time to tell you my love, loved ones. Oh, how slowly pull the minutes, but the years fly silently away! I pray for friends that are scattered around, I pray for strangers that I have not yet met, Let the clouds pass by them, not casting down, Send them the strength to meet their sunset. We are going away, we are going… And my day tends to its evening. But time hasn’t stopped its running, Every night waits for dawn’s coming.


Vintage GlamPhotography by Bonnie NeagleHMU Miriam Hitsel


Vintage Glam

Bulky jewelry, Jackie O sunglasses, poofy

sleaves, boots, clogs, and suede: this is the

70s! Steppin’ out in the street in a 70s inspired

motif, from left to right are: Amara Love, Steph-

anie Rystrom, Abby Eades, & Aoife Gorey...



Stephanie made a statement in this rich, red tunic dress with rosette details and a bow collar (l). Brittany’s vintage dress isruffled and off the shoulder (r). Her bag is leather and buckled.


Aoife at left in a vintage baby doll. Atright in high-waisted brown shorts anda sheer paisley-ish print blouse. Ankle boots complete her look.




Abby (l) and Stephanie (r) were adamantabout rockin’ jean shorts at the shoot. Abby piled on the bangles, and Stephanie’s beautiful gold lion piece pops. Don’t be afraidto mix and match glamour jewelry with casualslike middriff-baring graphic tees.


Vintage Glam on Austin Ave


Vintage Glam on Austin Ave


Order Mouthwatering Gifts for Any Occasion1 0 0 % S A T I S F A C T I O N G U A R A N T E E D

giant strawberries | #1 seller | over 35 million berries dipped

To redeem this offer visit www.Berries.com/bet or call 1-877-459-6942

*20% off discount will appear upon checkout. Minimum product purchase of $29.00. Discounts do not apply to gift cards or certifi cates, same-day delivery, shipping and handling, taxes or third-party hosted products (e.g. wine) and cannot be combined with other offers or discounts. Discounts not valid on bulk or corporate purchases of 10 units or more. Offer expires: 11/15/13.

Save 20%* Treat anyone in your life for less!

HAND-DIPPEDBERRIES$1999from

+s/h


A. “Yeah, Haw!’ exclaimed the housewife shifting her taupe loveseat. Every six weeks she shifted her fur-niture around, taking the past into the present and welcoming new garage sale acquisitions. There were three things that consistently stayed in the same place: the rug, the china cabinet and the tele-vision; they had permanent homes. Stability.

B. The Greek teacher smiled and strode into his class with his wedding ring off. The females outnum-bered the men. They turned in copious assignments that he was forced to return with red ink and an-ger at directions not followed, but they smiled and swooned, tracing his belt with their eyes, fingering his white scar sparkling under his eye. Three times the Greek teacher had put his ring on and those three semesters enrollment plummeted. He was a Greek rock star. With his wedding ring off his paycheck was assured.

C. Jennifer revolted at the black water filter. Three months and black? Not red or brown? She re-membered the plumber, his slick eyes and his hand on her shoulder. “I can come over any time you might…” Maybe she shouldn’t have shrugged her shoulder, stepped away. His eyes shifted and his lips curled down. She’d left him alone to finish up. His goodbye had closure, too still of a peace. There was movement in the filter; the black flecks were shifting from the bottom to the top. The plumb-er’s hands were long and thin, like a pianist, stark against his protruding gut, draping black mous-tache and greasy comb over. Jennifer shuddered remembering him in her dream. Can one knock in dream and arrive in present? He’d been standing at her door smiling, knowing he’d come, be called. The black flecks expanded from sand-size to rice size. A whirling sound started. His card was in her hand, her scarf tightening on her throat.

Multiple Choices by Suzanne Ondrus

B.

A.

C.


Just yesterday, I met with friends and family, joked and had fun, while now I

lie without moving, in pain and fear, and it started in a matter of minutes and seconds: doctors, ambulance, tests, surgery, semi-consciousness… These minutes change your attitude about many things. On the border of life and death, you have a keen sense of the pettiness and futility of some of your past actions and desires. As a wise person once said, “Time is running faster and faster as you become older, but even in old age, you would not like to die, though it is not ter-rible.” In the hospital, you can see what great progress medicine has made. And yet, how much effort is required from the dozens of people to revive the lifeless body! And not only the efforts, but heart warmth and at-tention. Even with all the power of medi-cine, if you want to stand up, you must rely on yourself – on your own mind and will. Go through pain, discomfort, and common

laziness, overstep them, and what a bless-ing it is to return to your home on your own two feet! What happiness you feel to get to the table or reach the bathroom by yourself! I remember the first time I went out. It was the weekend. The sun was bright and warm. In our park there were many young people. Lively, businesslike, noisy, dressed brightly and even provocatively. With a light sadness and a bit of admira-tion, I looked at them passing by …“Their world ,” I thought, “is familiar and, at the same time, so unfamiliar to me.” I remem-bered my own younger days - perhaps, at that time, I also felt an ability to overturn the world. Gradually, my own uneasi-ness and pain subsided. Lingering anxiety about my children, their failures and dis-appointments, worrying about relatives, and, after all, about my beloved country that is changing beyond recognition - all these receded somewhere. And I saw ev-erything around me in a new way - these

flowering shrubs and the unique beauty of the clouds, and people’s smiles and, sur-faced in the memory, anxious attentive eyes of nurses from the hospital. “Every-thing will be OK. Yes, everything will be fine - sounded in the soul. Life is often un-fair, but it is so wonderful!” And I thought, “I am an elderly man, and I am doubly happy because I’ve left behind me many stupidities, but no mean-ness.” And I said to myself, “Life goes on, and in this life, you have to appreciate ev-ery morning and every moment.” And then I turned to people, “Thank you, America. Thank you, my family. Thanks to friends and strangers who became my loved ones.”

For Life by Ilya Prints


thick, leather-bound book of heavy pages rested in the passenger’s seat on the left. She had not even realized that old Her-bert George was a relative, let alone her great-great-great-great grandfather. How many relatives had this legacy passed through to get to her? How had she ended up being the current recipient ? Yet there it was, this thing she had always thought was fantasy, pure science fiction. Written in the sure strokes with a nib pen, full of diagrams and history, the leather-bound manual detailed how Nicola Tesla had helped her ancestor. The de-vice looked intact, well preserved, could it work? Had it worked? The physics seemed insane, yet it was consistent. Was this the device that took her ancestor on the adventures he chronicled, and would it take her? If it did, what would she do? … Per-haps to save someone … Hypatía. Hypatía of Alexandria was reputed to be one of the greatest mathema-

Returning from the 2015 Women’s Herstory Month celebrations, Athene

Wells found a large crate across her drive-way and into the street. The USPS had left it there, next to the mailbox, with an attached note: “Too big for post box, $5 fine!” She took a crowbar from her trunk, and pried open the crate, and stared in shock at the contents. The spindly metal frame reminded her of the sleds from her childhood in snowy Ohio, but this was 24’ long. An ornate running board helped her ascend the right side to the driver seat, not wood to lie on, but a double, plush leath-er seat, behind an enormous glass wind-screen. The controls looked like some-thing from a steamship control room, and there were wheels to select day, month, year, century, and location. The wiring was complex, ending in massive Möbius coils, somehow twisting out of sight. In-congruously, in front and back, were two pairs of what appeared to be oil lamps, in amber glass fore and reddish glass aft. A

ticians of history, an astronomer, physicist, and philosopher. Her father, Theon, had been the head of the University of Alex-andria and a believer in the Platonic idea that humans were perfectible; so he taught his daughter mathematics at a time in which women were expected to be wives and mothers, naught more. She went to school in Roman Egypt, Italy, and Greece, returning to Alexandria to teach, gaining renown across the Roman Empire for the clarity of her arguments and the way she could make even mathematics intelligible. She wrote 13 books on Algebra and 8 on Geometry and various others, and made improvements on the hydrometer and the astrolabe. As an astronomer, she took such meticulous observations, that her astrolabe tables were used for 12 centuries after her death, helping sailors navigate by the stars. By the time she was murdered, she had rejected the Ptolemaic theory of an earth-centric universe with epicycles added to perfect circles in favor of a helio-centric

A Sled in Time by Gary Lee Webb


universe. She was even working out the theory of elliptical orbits, 1200 years be-fore Kepler ! But she was a good friend of Or-estes, the Roman Governor, a pagan. She was probably pagan herself, but known to teach anyone regardless of their beliefs. She told her students: “Reserve your right to think. For even to think wrongly is bet-ter than not to think at all.” When the lo-cal Christian leader, later St. Cyril of Alex-andria, drove the Jews out of Alexandria and told his followers to pillage what the Jews had left, Orestes was not happy with Cyril, and Hypatía sided with her friend the governor. Then a large mob of Chris-tian monks “just happened” to torture and murder her, dismembering the corpse, and burning the pieces. Cyril then ordered the burning of the University of Alexandria, destroying the world’s largest collection of scientific and mathematical writings. Athene was a Catholic herself, but that is not the act of a saint. Chasing the Jews out of their homes because he did not like their music and dance. Stealing their pos-sessions. Sending a mob to maim, torture, and horrifically kill a professor. Burning “pagan” writings. And then getting canon-ized for having made Alexandria a Chris-tian city ??? That was just not right. Perhaps she could get Hypatía out of town, stop the murder. Or if not … she believed in the right to bear arms. She

packed her AK-47 and a lot of ammo, for “mob control”. She took her 9 mm for personal combat, and her rifle in case she got the chance to hunt. She printed off a copy of Principia Mathematica in the orig-inal Latin: the Greeks had nearly come up with Calculus on their own. She found a book on the principles of steam engines in Greek on the web and printed it too; Her-on of Alexandria had used steam for toys four centuries earlier. She loaded her Kin-dle with every useful book she could think of, and bought a solar powered recharger. One change of clothes, vitamins and medi-cal supplies, and … oh yes … a prop from the local costume shoppe – a mask and a wing-like cloak. And a sketch pad. It was a heavy pack, but she was a big woman.

The machine materialized in the des-ert well outside Alexandria – and she

headed in. It was the Calends of March, 415 – she did not know the exact day of the mob attack, but hopefully that would be good enough. It wasn’t. The histories had talked about how the mob had overwhelmed Hypatía in an ag-ora (forum) and hauled her off. They did not mention pelting her with sling stones first, but there she was lying unconscious. There was little time. She opened up with her AK-47, and mowed down the mob. The noise would attract attention, and

she did not want to kill the innocent, so she put on the ibis head mask. Athene did not like the idea of pretending to be a pa-gan god, but nobody would mess with the God Thoth. The “God Thoth” picked up the unconscious mathematician. One ben-efit: after today, no-one would mess with Thoth’s chosen teacher. She looked for a good shelter, so that she could tend the wound in private. Hopefully the concus-sion was not too bad. After bandaging Hypatía, Athene took out a sheet of white paper and wrote out instructions for the two books. Neither papyrus nor vellum, words on bleached white paper were clearly from the Gods. She waited for the mathematician to wake and groggily see her in her mask, said “αναγνώσε !” (“read !” in Greek), put the page and two books in Hypatía’s hands, and left. The God Thoth had other busi-ness. Roman historians would chronicle how Thoth, God of Knowledge, walked into a Christian church, killing all in his way with a loud staff, until he found and destroyed Cyril, the head priest. You do *not* attack a university professor when Thoth is around. As for Athene Wells, perhaps Hypatía could use a new student. Being a univer-sity professor in 415 was suddenly a status job – probably better than in 2015.


She crawled in bed. She crawled into my bed. How the dainty brunette ever

managed to unlock the door, posted with room number 265, and slip inside my bed wearing nothing but her fragile skin I will never know. Nor do I know how the chain became unfastened. Perhaps I was the one to let her in. Perhaps she came in through the closet door to find me alone in bed. Either way she crawled up through the covers without once tickling my feet and whispered to me, “Call me Diana. I am yours.” As she lay near me, her body as cold as the falling snow outside Mountain View Grand Resort’s yellow walls, I imagined she let slip her white wool gown before entering my bed, and that she needed my warmth, my skin, my tongue against hers in hopes of reigniting the fires that had died within her frail chest long ago. Diana curled around me, not like a snake, but like warm quilts in a New Hampshire blizzard. But she remained closer to me than quilts. She was like the sweat beneath the quilts. And I accepted her into the folds of my arms as I remained on my back, thinking of how good it felt to have her next to me. This strange woman from another place and time that surely could not exist. Could not, I told myself then and there. “Where did you come from?” I remem-ber asking. “I’ve always been here,” Diana replied.

And I could feel her presence grow around me even at times when I could not see her fully formed. I knew, however, that she was there; she had always been there, wait-ing for me to come into her hotel room, to remove my boots, my sweater, my pants, and climb into the queen sized bed alone. “I’ve always been waiting for you.” And it was then I believed her. It was then I be-lieved we belonged together. When I arrived the night before Diana’s appearance in my hotel room, I had driv-en through a slight snow storm up from Manchester to Whitefield, New Hamp-shire. The roads were salted and the flur-ries flew into my windshield like romantic sprites flinging themselves into headlights. Empty roads curved up and around dark corners as the radio played a French song out of Quebec. I made it safely to the hotel around two in the morning. A fire burned low in the lobby. A bell-boy carried my luggage in from the cold, which seemed odd but not out of place. Rosemarie had been the one to greet me at the counter of the hotel in those predawn hours on the second day of the year. I have always found people who work night shifts to be more receptive, more apprecia-tive of conversations. No words, however, warned me of night visitors or anxious brunettes who enjoyed roaming the halls or hopping into bed with married men in their thirties. But I dare say, would I have

heeded the warning? I scratched my shaggy brown head, rubbed the irritating hairs on my bearded chin, and tried to shrug off the jet lag of having traveled across three continents to get to the hotel for my book signing event. In a day or so, I was to speak to a group of students and professors who were enrolled in an MFA program. The worn faces often attempted to make meaning of my arrival, just as I had tried to do with Diana’s ar-rival in my bed the next night. It is some-what of a shock at first, but gradually the tension from the unexpected arrival fades and a common bond is established, a rec-ognition gratifying the senses that you are awake and I am awake at these lone ours of a cold winter’s night. But she did not feel like any woman of this time. Marc showed me to my room on the second floor and dropped off my suit-case. After washing my face, shedding my clothes, I tumbled into bed, exhausted, lights off, and immediately felt the pres-ence of a woman in the corner by the two doors, one to the closet and the other to the hallway. My mind faded, broken by the thirty plus hours of travel required of me. If I were to make money from writing, if I were to sell my books, I needed to be in three places at once. Or that was the way it was beginning to feel after two months on the road, having hit up four continents and twenty-seven cities. My agent, Helen, a

A Time for Love by C.G. Fewston


sweetheart with too much energy at times, had scheduled this tour and it would be an-other eighteen months before another one. I was glad it was almost over. But it would all end sooner than either myself or Helen had expected. But later I came to realize I was glad it ended when it did and how it did. After my little speech and the book signing, I was in the Tavern, a bar located beside the lobby of the resort. Troy, the bartender and former gymnast with sandy blonde hair, poured me a large glass of Tuckerman Pale Ale. I expected at any moment that I would see some strange woman appear around the corner and plop her thin frame beside me on a vacant stool and the grand joke would be over. By then

I was familiar with these little greetings, often taking place in airport bars and res-taurants in Narita or the like. After a few more large glasses, I resigned myself to the fact that she would not be joining me in the bar. There Diana waited for me. Her elbow propped on the lush pillows. She beneath the covers. “I’ve been waiting,” she said. “Are you ready?” “As ready as I’ll ever be.” And when I finally slid into bed with her, I felt the hotel shake and the night turn into day and day into night again. We made love and ignored the events that changed my life forever. Or rather, she straightened out my life for all the better. The next morning Diana was still there

and she hopped onto her feet and starting bouncing. “What shall we do today?” she said. “Shall we try the lake?” And outside the window it was indeed summer. I’m still not sure how but there it was sure enough. I turned to her and wanted to know how. And where or when? “You have much to learn,” she said to me. “Love can do amazing things if you only believe.” And ever since, we have been traveling through time without a care, making love in all the right places. And I have never stopped wanting to follow her. She saved me.


Rick felt out-of-place, like a horse-thief in Detroit. Like he was born a cen-

tury too late. Acrobatically anachronistic, he swung and looped into whatever time frame suited his mind, fluctuating from ar-chitect to astronaut on a whim. So he went to the saloon. He liked this bar. It was one of the oldest in the area and still had its original wood panels, hung upon which were tin signs and confessions of love (or obscenities) scrawled out in permanent marker. The bartender was new and didn’t recognize him. The bar is called The Rai-lyard. It was built on top of grown-over train tracks. “May I see your ID?” the bartender asked. “Sure,” he replied, a little surprised as he fumbled in his back pocket for his wal-

let. He handed her the card. “Ah!” she exclaimed after looking it over. “You have the same birthday as me, only mine is eight years earlier.” She pout-ed in jest. “Neat.” He ordered a drink. As he was pulling out a couple dollar bills, the bartender said “No. Put that away. First drink’s on me, in case I don’t see you again on our birthday.” He put the money in the tip jar and toted his drink away from the pool tables, dart boards, and arcade games to the dark nook of the bar where nobody ever sits. Someone was sitting in there. Rick nodded politely, though mildly perturbed, at the figure. “Howdy,” waived the stranger. “I’m Bruce.” Bruce stood up and hovered across from Rick with his hands supporting him

on the table. Rick introduced himself and allowed Bruce--as if he had a choice--to slide into the booth next to him. His over-all appearance and devil-may-care de-meanor allowed for instant camaraderie. But Rick was suspicious. “So Rick, what do you do?” “Oh, a little of this and that.” Rick was a well-read, blue-collar tinkerer, finding work where he could. “Me too,” said Bruce. “I’m a time trav-eler.” Rick laughed politely. Bruce appeared neither drunk nor crazy, and not very much like a compulsive liar—though perhaps a confident man—so Rick thought he must be joking. “No really, what do you do?” “I told you.” “C’mon now. You’re messing with me.”

A Horse-Thief in Detroitby Ty Hall


Rick sipped his drink. “No I’m not.” “But that’s impossible.” “No it isn’t. In a sense, we’re doing it right now,” Bruce said, playfully earnest. “How so? Wait, don’t say because we’re both moving forward in time.” Rick was on guard, almost certain now that Bruce might be a con-man. “No. For example, look right here.” Bruce pointed strait up to the wall with-out turning his head to look where he was pointing. Directly above his finger, in blue crayon, was written “Rob & Karene” en-circled in a heart, dated 12/11/05. “I don’t see anything,” Rick said. “That’s because you’re not looking. Look. Look where my finger is pointing!” Rick squinted his eyes to look harder. “Rob and Karene? Is that what you’re talk-ing about? I don’t understand.” “Rob, probably Rob, wrote that sev-eral years ago. Isn’t that cool? We’re sit-ting where Rob and Karene, probably Karene, sat seven years ago. Maybe even right on their laps. Haha!” Bruce paused to reset. “Do you read? You look like you read. What do you read? You look like a Hemingway man. Have you read ‘The Sun Also Rises?’ I bet you have! Hemingway wrote that in 1925. You read it in, I’m guessing, the 21st century. Hemingway communicated with you across almost one-hundred years!” Rick played with the rings left on the ta-ble from his condensating glass. He picked it up and put it back down five times to make a watery Olympics logo. “Who wins this match today?” Rick asked, pointing to the soccer game transmitted by waves to the television screen perched precari-ously on flimsy girders in the corner like a hornets’ nest. “If you travel back and forth through time, you know who won.” “No I don’t,” Bruce replied. “How come?” “I don’t really follow sports.” “That’s an easy out.” “Perhaps. Who directly preceded Gro-ver Cleveland as United States President?”

Rick was embarrassed to admit he didn’t know. “Is this some sort of parlor trick?” “Not at all.” “So, you just go around sitting in places where people used to sit and you call your-self a time traveler?” “No. Sometimes I sit by myself.” Bruce laughed again. “I get tired all by myself sometimes.” “Because you go back and forth through time.” “Yes.” “So if you can go back in time, why don’t you go back to 1939 and kill Hitler?” “Why does everyone ask that?” Bruce rubbed the crown of his nose. “Always with Hitler. Do you remember learning about the assassination of Hitler?” “No, of course not.” “Exactly. That’s why. It was Chester A. Arthur, by the way. But cheer up, I’ll buy you a drink.” Bruce flagged down a waitress and ordered. “How did you know what I was drinking?” Rick asked, trying to catch Bruce off-guard if this was another trick. “You can tell by the color,” Bruce said, tapping the glass with a pen. Rick had no idea where the pen came from. “And I heard you order when you walked in.” Bruce winked. Rick grimaced. “Thanks,” Rick said when Bruce bought his fourth. “Don’t thank me, I merely bought you for another half-hour or so. It’s hard to find good conversation.” “Happy to oblige,” Rick said as he raised his glass. “So tell me, really, how do you travel through time?” He was actually starting to believe him now, and couldn’t believe it himself. “It’s easy. Time travel happens all the time. It’s happening now.” “Okay, but really.” “It’s easiest to think of it like a parade.” “How’s that?” “Think of it like a train. If you’re stand-ing right by the tracks you can see each box-car immediately in front of you, and if you’re lucky, the one to your left and right. But it’s moving so it’s hard to dis-

tinguish any detail. Now step back a-hun-dred meters. You can see more of the big picture, and fairly predict what will come next based on what you’ve observed. You can read all the cool graffiti and company logos, but you won’t get anywhere stand-ing so far away. But now imagine you’re standing on a scaffold directly above the train. You can see all the way from the en-gine to the caboose. And if you time it just right, you can jump. Or fall, into the exact box-car—or for the purposes of this meta-phor, ‘moment’—in time. Then just keep riding it ‘til you jump off whenever you choose. See?” Bruce had worked himself into an excited frenzy. “What, you just fall?” “Or jump.” “Just like that?” “Just like that.” “Wait, couldn’t you die?” “Maybe. I haven’t yet. And it’s not a perfect metaphor. My point is vantage” “Huh. Wouldn’t you just go faster for-ward in time?” “Not necessarily. Some trains go north, others go south.” Neither spoke again until Rick realized his bladder was full and subsequently ex-cused himself politely. ‘Talk about falling,’ Rick said to himself, lowering his zipper, sauntering up to the urinal. ‘Fell off his rocker more like it. I’m funny!’ As Rick recreated a porcelain Mollisfossen, ceiling particles began to shake loose and cascad-ed like snow onto Norwegian slopes. The illusion was derailed when Rick turned abruptly to address the issue of the shrill C-sharp rattling his brain, like a poltergeist wailing for something lost. The thunder rolled, Doppler-effecting away. Rick, dizzy from the ordeal, tripped and fell on the rails that bifurcated the bathroom from the main bar. Everyone was going about their business as if the earthquake had never happened. As if they hadn’t noticed. Rick returned to his corner booth in the dark. Bruce was gone; jumped the train.


Little Snowy Mountains, MontanaSummer 2013

Dr. Armstrong Pearl reached beneath the fossilized remains of the sau-

ropod’s tenth cervical vertebra, and ran his fingers over the smooth surface of what felt like a cranium. Beads of sweat coalesced into streams that ran along his temples, seeped into the gullies and rills of his weathered neck, and emptied into the growing lake of a stain on his tan khaki shirt front. Each summer, he joined a group of in-trepid souls interested in paleontology and willing to donate time and energy to one of the Little Snowy Mountain Institute’s digs. The sixty-five million year old sauropod fossil was this year’s focus—which put it about fifty-five million years ahead of the first hominids. What exactly were his fin-gers caressing? “Whatcha got there, Armstrong?” He brushed a handful of dirt back onto the skull. “Aw, nothing. Just trying to get under this vertebra, Johansen.” “Careful you don’t get stuck and make us dig you out.” Johansen chuckled at his remark. “We’re closin’ shop in a few minutes, so wrap things up.” Armstrong watched the man wander off. Long shadows caressed the exposed vertebrae. He reached down and slipped his finger below the nasal bone. With one eye he saw other team members rising to join Johansen. The skull could be the find of the century. He clawed away some more loose dirt, wincing as his hand caught be-tween rock and bone. His forefinger ran along the smooth edges of an alveolar mar-gin and descended to the upper teeth. The group following Johansen was near-ly out of sight. His fingertip curled around a tooth, and tugged it loose. As he rose, he tossed a scoop of dirt over the skull. When he held up the specimen for a closer look, he squeezed his eyes shut, took in a deep breath, and looked again. It was a human canine, and it sported a ceramic crown.

“Dr. Pearl, aren’t you off this week?”

“Hi, Sasha. Just a few things to straight-en out before I head back out to the dig. How’s business?” “The crew has things under control. By the way, happy birthday.” Sixty years was nothing to be happy about. “Right. See you in a few days.” Armstrong founded the Pearl’s dental clinic in Billings. In just a few years, it grew to a staff of a half-dozen associates. In the outside hallway, he held up an x-ray slide to a ceiling fixture. The blood drained from his face. “Everything okay?” Armstrong threw a curt nod to one of his dental associates, Nolan, who had just walked into the building. It wasn’t until he angled into his Hummer that he was able to draw enough courage to inspect the slide again. The ceramic canine cap wasn’t unique, but the same could not be said of the root canal, which contained two lengths of fine wire. Armstrong’s tongue wandered over the inner surface of his up-pers. He knew of only one case where a fine wire probe was broken twice—and that was his own right canine. A shrill beep jolted the slide out of his hand. “Hey, Armie. We’ve got some good news.” Professor Theodore Helmsley leaned out of the open window of his van. Armstrong rolled down his window. “Theo, you surprised me. What brings you out here?” He hated Helmsley. The man was carrying on an affair with his slut of a wife, Dorothy—something he knew about for years. “You okay, Armie? You look a little pale.” Armstrong took in a deep inhale and wiped his hands on his thighs. “I’m fine.” He glanced past Theo’s shoulder and saw someone exit the van. “Hey, you remember what we talked about a few years back?” Armstrong’s mind raced. Theo was into physics. They had met socially several times. The bore loved talking about him-self and his research—something about time.

The passenger side door opened and a man wearing a ski mask entered the Hum-mer. “What’s this? What’s going on, Theo-dore?” “Well, Armstrong. I finished the tempo-ral conduit. It’s done. Ready to go. Trouble is, no one wants to try it. So, I thought of you.” The new passenger brought a gun to Armstrong’s head. “Armie. Relax. Just follow me. We’re going to my lab at the university, where you can see the machine for yourself.” A time machine. The tooth—my tooth? From my skull? Armstrong’s thoughts splintered into snatches. Images jostled for attention, casting his focus into a kaleido-scopic chaos. “Hey chief, snap out of it.” The words forced their way through, shouldering past a gleaming, twirling capped canine— distant and incomprehen-sible. Nothing was making sense.

He must have passed out, for when he opened his eyes, he was seated in an

armchair. His eyes followed a vivid array of rainbow lights chasing each other over a gleaming metallic panel. “Hey, Armie. Are you with us?” He was inside a capsule of some kind. Theodore cast a sardonic grin at him through one of two glass panels. “Ready to go? Seriously, we’re pretty sure it should work fine. We know how much you like dinosaurs, so I’ve set it to go back about sixty-five million years—you know, just around the extinction event.” “We?” Dorothy stepped out from behind Theo-dore. She raised a champagne glass and said, “You’ll have a front row seat, dar-ling.” Armstrong jumped, or tried to. He was strapped in the chair. “Relax, old man. See you in a few mil-lion.” Theodore and Dorothy toasted each other and laughed. Armstrong strained at the woven harness. “Please, you can’t do this.”

Little Snowy Mountains by Arthur Doweyko


Panel lights glowed brighter, and a pul-sating hum filled the capsule. He strained even harder, when a belt snapped and the capsule fell to the side, flinging open the entry door. He threw off the belts and climbed out into the darkened laboratory. Theodore and Dorothy stepped back, still holding their drinks, and laughed even harder. Armstrong directed his hand along the top of a nearby counter. His fin-gers curled around a pipe wrench. With-out warning, he swung it in a massive arc, which ended with a dull, but satisfying thud. Theodore flew backward through a cloud of blood.

Dorothy’s open mouth twisted as she screamed. “You fool! It was a freaking joke. A joke, you freaking fool!” “I may be a lot of things, my darling, but I’m no fool.” He swung again. And again. Dorothy lay unmoving next to Theo-dore, whose extremities yet twitched in autonomic agony. The time machine was reduced to splin-tered wooden slats and torn paper mache. A plaster cast of a set of teeth smiled up at him from a counter—they were missing a right canine. Nice joke, but who’s laughing now? He nodded to himself and grinned.

Singing—he heard singing. The laboratory doors burst open and the lights came on. Nolan and Johansen led a group of people in song—a birthday song. Armstrong turned in time to see the cake they were carrying fall to the floor. His grin was gone. He dropped the wrench, and fell to his knees and sobbed—a very convincing sob, he thought.


And so it begins. I thought we had ten more years. I never dreamed this

thing would come to us so soon. Maybe we caught it early and the thing will disap-pear as rapidly as it appeared. The thing is this thing: this thing that will hang over our heads now, that will make us be pitied and pity ourselves, like being suddenly rich, we won’t know if they love us for ourselves or this sickness that came to us. But mostly I think people will disap-pear like it is contagious, spread by being in the same room with the carrier: first his patients, then our friends – who can stand up to the all-consuming, harsh, day-to-day reality of disease unless they’re forced; by marriage, by familial ties, by love. And I will doubt myself and give him reason to doubt me, good reason, because I don’t know what to do with sick people. I was unbelievably cruel and refused to under-stand and sympathize when we were first married and he had migraines that debili-tated him for days. I will blame him for his sickness, curse his father who died from this before him and rail against the injus-tice of it. Right now we’re in a honeymoon of making reasons to laugh and to remember good stuff, the drives we used to take, the spontaneous trips to nowhere in particular, exchanging sweet glances and reaching

out one more time before we fall asleep and run our hands over hips and arms and patting each other on the butt; reassuring each other that things are normal. And I’m being sweet in the face of our fear and it can’t last; I’ll become impatient and pissed off, both at him and this thing. This thing that will live with us now – we’ll make a special bed for it in the living room. And we’ll both go to sleep wondering, wondering is it here to stay or can we make it go away; are there incantations, rituals. Do we tell our friends, our families? When do we let ourselves become the pub-lic face of this sadness and despair spar-ring behind masks of okay and fine, we’re doing well, yes, amazingly well, thank you. No, don’t bother, we can manage just fine, thanks. I’m premature, I’m manufacturing trag-edy where none yet exists – no tests back yet, no official confirmation that we’ve got a new life but we know, I think we both know; we were expecting it to show up on our doorstep at some point but later, so much, much later. So we pretend for a week, two weeks until we get a phone call from the doctor saying you should come in, Mr. Jones, and your wife should probably come too. I go to breakfast with the girls and he to supper after disc golf with the guys on Wednes-

days and maybe tries to play a few rounds on Sundays and we both go to work – and pretend. But it’s a burden that we have to share or isolate ourselves so no one can see; see the transformation from life to daily drama, so we don’t have to keep hiding it. At home, we can let it out of the cage and look at it and quietly refer to it as if it could hear us talking about it. We can begin to speak this new language, practice it, tentatively at first. Does it hurt where the doctor cut it out? Well she had to cut deep to make sure. Yes it didn’t look that bad,. Chemo? We’ll take it a step at a time. I would have seen it sooner if it was bad, wouldn’t I? I keep a watch on your body, you know; subtly, at night, maybe you’re sleeping, maybe on the crest of a snore I have run my hands over all the open spaces to feel for things that weren’t there last week, last month. Sweetly loving to you but reassur-ing me that nothing is there that doesn’t belong, that will catapult us into a new realm of living. As we fall asleep on day one he says softly to me “Don’t look at me anymore, don’t search my body. Just don’t.”

The Day-To-Day Realityby Kay Wilson


Streamsby Jamie Mason

... another thing that makes me differ-ent from you. I can run but I can’t hide. I thought jumping into the future would put me beyond your reach. It hasn’t. So I’ve fled into the past. But time is on your side. And it’s not like you to give up. Not when you’re this close.

I stand on a dirt road designed for horse-and-buggy traffic. I stick out my thumb

and wonder if the gesture will be recog-nized, whether humans pick up hitch-hikers in this When. Probably. The human tendency to help each other is an enduring trait – one you always considered weak. You say it places them at our “mercy” - a concept foreign to us for although we ap-pear human, we are not. A horse-drawn cart rumbles to a stop. At the driver’s gesture I climb up and sit beside him. He wears the black hat and beard I associate with married land-holders in this When. I am surprised when he speaks casually, for his appearance sug-gests otherwise. “Yer pa know where ye are?” Of course not. But I am too moved by the man’s simple kindness to lie outright. I say: “My father and I broke.” He nods but says nothing. We ride, both understanding the hardships between fa-thers and sons. I disembark at a cross-roads and walk until finding train tracks. At some

indistinct moment, I transitioned into the steam age. I am familiar with the technol-ogy; your early investment in railroads as-sured your place at apex of human wealth. A train approaches and slows to round a bend. I reach. A hand stretches from the darkness of an open boxcar, pulls me on-board. “Been home long?” A man wear-ing a cloth cap peers with hungry eyes. “You did serve? You look old enough.” Something in this suggests I better have a damn good excuse if not. “Nineteen.” I convert my age to a figure comprehensible to him. “And no, I was too sickly. Was it bad?” “It was.” Humans live short lives and die – sometimes in wars a fraction as devastat-ing as the one that drove our species here eight thousand years ago. You learned nothing from that war. Or perhaps every-thing. “Best jump soon or the rail-yard bulls’ll getchya.” He drags a duffle to his shoulder. I am struck once again by the human tendency toward mutual concern. “Since I got back seems there’s always someone tellin’ me what I can and cannot do.” We jump. I land in the gravel beside a high-way. The automobiles thundering past are rounded, broad-ribbed. The one that stops

for me is a cloth-topped convertible. “Goin’ far?” The driver - a boy - mutes the radio and squints from beneath a mop of slicked-back hair. “Up the road. Drop me wherever’s easi-est.” “Easy’s good. We’re heading to the rock’n roll show. You like Elvis?” The boy guides us back into the traffic flow, glanc-ing at the girl in sunglasses beside him who smokes distractedly. “Her mom’d be upset if she knew.” “My dad would be upset if he knew where I was, too. He’s looking for me.” “Not police or anything, is he?” “He has a long reach,” I admit. How to explain what you have become? Our kind move through time as easily as dolphins through water. You simply mastered the currents.

The highways expand, sprouting arter-ies and throughways.

“That overpass? Drop me there.” I step out. A film of rust has eaten into the convertible’s trim and the boy is now a middle-aged man blinking beneath grey bangs. “Take care son,” he croaks. His wife still smokes behind sunglasses. They pull away. I hike to an off-ramp, refusing to be-lieve that simple but heartfelt gestures of concern such as theirs are an evolutionary hiccup.


I recognize this When. Computers are everywhere. A person’s image captured on a surveillance camera is instantly available to government, military and law enforce-ment worldwide, all of it controlled by you. A vehicle approaches – a squat lum-bering Gila monster of a machine. The men atop it cradle assault rifles and peer out from beneath an admixture of helmets. One clanks the carrier’s roof with his rifle butt. The vehicle slows. “If you’re not militia, son, you’d best get with one.” The sergeant sounds con-cerned. “Word is the Law Man is search-ing for his son and there’s hell to pay.” “I know it.” The men make room for me. They are silent as the APC rumbles the broken highway past still cars and fire-blackened buildings. “And they shall scatter from him as from the Plague.” The boy next to me shakes his head. “You know the Book of Ashes?” “No.” “The writings of the Law Man. We read them in my Church. Back Manitoba way. They –” We pass a trio of crucified priests. Around one’s neck, a sign: HERETIC. I am silent for a time. “The Law Man’s a bastard.” “Y’kin say that again,” grumbles a sol-dier beside me. He spits.

Gunfire. With a rattle, the men ready their weapons. The sergeant speaks.

“Checkpoint ahead son. Grab a rifle or jump off.” I jump. Silver hover-cars sleek the air above the ruined city. I flag one down. The driver who unbuttons the hatch wears the same pajama-like garment as all citizens in this When and s/he has a bar-code tattooed on the left side of the scalp. I notice a flicker when s/he glances at me – facial recogni-tion triggered by the corneal implant that enables law enforcement to see everything citizens do. At last the human impulse to curiosity, to mutual concern, has been subverted to your advantage. I know I am taken. They conduct me to the great stone chamber where, after 500 years as Law Giver, you now rule as God-King. You have banished the memory of even their most powerful god – the one who appeared as a burning bush. You dismiss the soldiers who drag me before your platinum throne, eyes averted as though fearing immola-tion. Why (you ask) do I run from my des-tiny? “I’m not running from my destiny. Only your controlling it.” Is it not a parent’s job to guide? “Is that what you call crushing an entire planet? Guidance?”

These beings are nothing. Time-bound insects. “The wisest among them have made peace with time. You’d wreck the frame-work of their existence and leave them with nothing.” The strong survive. “But the strong must be good.” Human ethics. Is it not the place of the strong to ..? “Guide? Is that what you were going to say?” (For a moment you are flummoxed.) “Parents strong, children weak? Enslave the lesser and call it salvation?” You’re naïve. “Enslave a life? A world?” I smile. “Or am I an insect too?” No son of mine ... “You’re right! I am no son of yours! I’d rather be a vagabond! I’ll run again, first chance I get. Run through all eternity and never stop! Better to run than await my turn on your bloody throne! Any kingdom built on brutality is ash! Call me naïve but I believe the future belongs to all people, not just one. That belief is ...

THE END (?)


Vintage Watch by The Word Rummager

He was feeling on top of the world. That always sounded like such a stu-

pid phrase before today. Especially since he usually felt he looked at the world through a skewed scope from the ground up. But now he found himself looking at the tops of skyscrapers and ruminating about the shapes of clouds. Things are def-initely looking up, he thought to himself. As he walked, he found he needed some air and some elbow room so he turned off the crowded sidewalk and onto a quieter alley with faded signs and some old cars parked on one side. He looked at the dingy shop windows as he walked. Old books. A record store. A coffee shop. Old suit-cases and things. A tailor. Wait. Back up. What was that next to the old suitcase? He stopped and looked in the window. A watch. Why did it look so familiar? He found himself walking into the shop as if his feet were moving of their own volition. The cozy smell of musty old attic per-meated his nostrils. Specks of dust floated in the air like snowflakes. He gave a cur-sory look to the baubles and umbrellas and books and hats and shoes and pipes and photographs and pennants and scarves and glasses and watches and… there it was. The watch in the window. He looked around for someone to wait on him. He heard some rustling near the rear of the store so he just waited and looked at the watch. It wasn’t moving but somehow he knew how the ticking would sound. He didn’t touch it but somehow he knew the

weight of it on his wrist. He could almost recall how the small scratch on the left side of the face had gotten there. Suddenly the shopkeeper spoke to him, asking if he’d like to try it on. He nodded. The clerk took the watch from the display, held it for a moment, and then handed it over. The man put it on his wrist, fastening the band. The clerk said something about how it looked good on him or he wore it well or something like that. He wasn’t re-ally listening. He was hearing… music? Had Big Band been playing on the radio when he walked in? He thanked the old shopkeeper and walked out of the shop. It took maybe 35 seconds (the watch had just needed a good winding) for the man to realize something had shifted. Something was different. When he stopped admiring his wrist ac-coutrement, he looked up. Holy shit! Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? It was as if he was looking at an old issue of LIFE magazine. Everything looked clean, new. The buildings looked washed. Men wore hats and ties. Women had tailored dress-es and heels. The cars looked vintage…1940-something. Was he on a movie set? He looked around for a camera crew, ready to apologize for walking in a shot, possibly ruining a take, but he saw no cameras. Instead he saw people walking brisk-ly by him, some tipping their hats, some smiling a quick smile. He walked a few paces then turned around. The shop was still there. The shopkeeper was looking at him through the window. Then he was gone. Wait. There he was at the door. The

man went to him and raised his eyebrows as if to say, what the hell? Do you see this too? The man spoke. “Try it on for three days. That’s our policy. You’ve got three days to find if it’s a good fit or all can be returned.” The man looked again at his wrist. He knew the clerk wasn’t just talking about the watch. He also knew somehow that he was home. Modern living had never ap-pealed to him. He didn’t like the dishev-eled state of the world he had left behind. He knew there was still hope in this de-cade. People hadn’t lost hope yet. He at least could hope here. He nodded again, not finding a voice to ask the myriad questions cropping up in his head. He continued walking, mar-veling at how familiar the scene looked to him. He knew the shops and could recall most of the owners’ names. He neared the crossroads, not sure what the busy city street he had originally turned off would look like now. It was still busy. But slower. People didn’t seem to be in such a hurry. And it was quieter. The whole atmosphere was more polite. He went directly to the coffee shop he knew from the next block and sat at the counter. Ordered coffee. When the wait-ress asked if he wanted pie, he declined. But she added that it was his favorite, ap-ple pie. When he looked into her eyes, he saw a familiar gleam and said yes to the pie.



Photography by Pat Jones and Genna WareHair & Makeup by Missy Von Parlo

Sundae, Sundae

Featuring (from left) Susan Duty, Jasmine Ware, and Savannah Loftin


Photography by Pat Jones and Genna WareHair & Makeup by Missy Von Parlo

Sundae, Sundae

44 • bohemia • september 2013Sundae drive

september 2013• bohemia • 45Sundae drive




“Something extraordinary is happening at The White Buffalo. Six-teen paintings by Nick Hottmann have sold in a week’s time. This is phenomenal in any art community!” - Bird Thomas, Education Director at The Center for Contemporary Arts, Abilene TX

Nick Hottmann wanted to be an artist. That was not anything new to anyone who knew him from the time he was 5 until

now at age 31. So after high school, Nick earned a scholarship to attend The College for Creative Studies, but he dropped out shortly after enrolling. “I wanted something different. I wanted to create without restrictions. So I left CCS, went to Oakland University to earn a degree in Fine Arts.” The failing economy and the growing desperation in his beloved hometown of Detroit brought him to the stark reality that he would have to move in order to provide for his family. In 2011 his search secured him an engineering position at a local company in Abilene, Tx, only to have his department downsized 3 months later. Looking for new work in a new city, Nick and his pregnant wife found themselves in a precarious situation. Desper-ate to provide for his wife, son, and newborn baby boy, Nick took a management position at a local Burger King. In March of 2013, at 31 years old, Nick suffered a rare stroke that left him paralyzed on his right side. Unable to fulfill his duties, he was unable to work and had to find a new way to create income.

Nick Hottmann

Young Detroit Artist Survives Health Scare and Finds Success

“Joust”


Nick Hottmann has since recovered from the paralysis and is creating new work. He is also now the Artist In Resi-dence and Curator at The White Buffalo Art Gallery and has moved his studio to The White Buffalo Gallery and is now teaching art classes. While his artwork is going well, he is “still a working man,” he says, smiling with wink. “But I have a great job, and some amazing bosses who really support me and my passions. I make enough to take care of my family and sup-plies, which is pretty much all I need.”

Like many in Nick’s situation he had to begin selling off his assets, with a depleted savings, his only assets left were his paintings. He loaded his paint-ings into his truck and brought them to The White Buffalo Art Gallery. “I im-mediately fell in love with how charm-ing his illustrations are,” said Brock Cravy, owner of The White Buffalo Art Gallery. Nick’s paintings are described as illustrative pop art that features a re-curring character, a young boy named Edwin. The character is named after his late grandfather. Nick’s art is smart, quirky, funny, and whimsical -- such as his constant use of skulls, stars, and rainbows. His art reflects his vibrant personality. Pop art and old-school cartoons (Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts are his favor-ite) inform his bright, bold aesthetic. He works mainly with acrylic paint on sanded wood and canvases. Stickers, magnets, and a new line of T-shirts — his dream project — are coming.

“One of my main goals has always been to make my art available in sev-eral different mediums.” Nick’s reputation is beginning to rip-ple beyond Michigan and Texas: as his work has been sold nationwide includ-ing orders from New York, Florida and Oregon. Nick’s no stranger to gallery shows, but he thinks he’s under the ra-dar here — at least that’s what he says. But with a new show in October at The White Buffalo Gallery in Abilene, TX, and a name swirling around in the un-derground, it’s hard to believe he’s that out of the loop — even if he does live in a small town. “Everyone has fallen in love with his work! We sold 29 of his paintings in his first six weeks here at the gallery, nine of them sold in one evening. We can’t keep them on the wall.”, said Mr. Cravy. “I’ve pretty much been holed-up in the studio working on 20 new paintings over the past few months in order to get some new work out and fill my commission requests,” says Nick

Nick Hottmann & fans


Nick has been shown at:

Oakland University Gallery (Flair Gallery Show) - Rochester Hills, MI

Bohemian House (Solo Show) - Detroit, MI

Oakland County Galleria (Eclectic Collection) - Pontiac, MI

Art and Culinary Soiree – Shelby Township, MI

Little Monsters (Solo Show) – Lake Orion, MI

The White Buffalo Gallery (Featured Artist, Resident Artist) – Abiline, TX Museum of Modern Art (Facebook Show) – Detroit, MI

Nick has been shown at:

Oakland University Gallery (Flair Gallery Show) - Rochester Hills, MI

Bohemian House (Solo Show) - Detroit, MI

Oakland County Galleria (Eclectic Collection) - Pontiac, MI

Art and Culinary Soiree – Shelby Township, MI

Little Monsters (Solo Show) – Lake Orion, MI

The White Buffalo Gallery (Featured Artist, Resident Artist) – Abilene, TX Museum of Modern Art (Facebook Show) – Detroit, MI

“3D”


My work is based on events or moments that stand out in my life. I’m married, liv-ing in Texas with two boys (4 and 2), and have a small dog named Brody Scott, so I clearly have a lot of material to base my work on. I have always tried to design work that people at any age can appreci-ate and enjoy (something my Grandma or 2 year old would enjoy). Simple messag-es, with subtle undertones help create the foundation for most of my work (maybe because my mind thinks simply with sub-

Art Work DescriptionA doodler, reader of comics, watcher of cartoons, and graphic designer, I’ve come to understand that my work is charming and whimsical. Even my darker, serious work depicts this adorable loving side of death and scary cuteness. In high school, I realized I saw the world a little differ-ently than most people, while some people were focused on being a doctor, lawyer, or teacher-- I was drawing comics and paint-ing murals in the high school.

Contact Info: Nick Hottmann Abilene, TX 248-408-8215 [email protected] Facebook: Nick Hottmann Art

tle undertones). But I try not to limit my work to an exact interpretation because I like to hear what people think my art means. At the end of the day, that’s what art is all about-- what people think, how they feel, how they react to the painting.

“Cyclops”

“Jess”


“Scarf”

“Trekkie”


“Suit”

“Thief”

“Tree of Life”


“I love the big hits I can make to get my jammer through the pack,” says Celestina Perez, aka EduHater, president of the Femme Fatale Roller Dolls – the first and for now, only team in the newly formed United Rollers Femme Fatale roller derby league.

Not exactly the kind of statement you might expect in a predomi-nantly female sport. But then these aren’t exactly the kind of wom-en who go out of their way to try and meet your expectations. More likely, they will take those Neanderthal thoughts and hip-check them into a padded wall.

New to the game? No worries. So are many of the girls who tried out and made the team. Here’s the newbie explanation: Two teams with five players skate around a circuit track. One player is a jam-mer, with four blockers whose only mission in life is to see that their jammer passes more of the other team’s members than the other team’s jammer, because that’s how you score points. There are all kinds of strategies to help your jammer or hinder your opponent – the wall, the whip, passing the star – but ultimately what you need most is nerves of steel, some decent body armor, and preferably a week’s worth of pent up aggression.

Daughter screamed at you on the way to school? Bottle it up. Boss dismissed your idea, again? Bottle it up. Stranger cut you off in traffic? Bottle it up. Then unleash it on the unsuspecting jammer trying to sneak up on the weak side of your diamond wall.

Unofficially, roller derby got its start in the 1930’s thanks to Leo Seltzer, who came up with the bright idea to have roller skating mar-athons, endurance races with two person teams. The sport caught on, and sportswriter Damon Runyon thought up a new angle and suggested it to Seltzer.

Increase skater contact. By 1939, the basic rules as we know them today came into being, and in 1948, Roller Derby debuted for the first time on New York television. This increased turnout for live matches, and soon the National Roller Derby League formed with six teams. The playoffs sold out Madison Square Garden for a week.

Eventually the sport’s popularity waned until it essentially disap-peared. The modern revival of roller derby began in Central Texas in the early 2000’s. By 2006 there were over 135 leagues, almost all female. Today, at least 1,200 leagues exist, and the competition is world-wide.

They say in ancient times, man, that women ruled the world. But the goddess was the one who laid it down. Well, I gots a woman as alive as the day Gonna breathe a whisper, knock you right down to the ground. Lyrics from “Sofia” – Live, Songs from Black Mountain

Femme Fatale Roller Dollsby Peter Able

Photography by Pat Jones



You can find her in the gym most every single night Working on her glutes, looking for a fight. When she is finished you’ll find her at the bar Smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey from a jar And she sits all by herself, wishing she was somebody else In her Harley jacket and her dirty jeans, she’s my roller derby queen! Lyrics from “Roller Derby Queen” – Ronnie Fauss

Mention roller derby to any passing stranger and the mental image that forms might closely resemble the lyrics above. Closer to the mark, perhaps, is a woman who might be like any number of other women on the street – a mother, co-work-er, intellectual and confident, with inse-curities not vastly different from anyone else’s. They just found kindred spirits within a sport they love. “The ladies that comprise our team are very close-knit, we are like sisters. We look out for each other, help each other, and we understand each other.”

Celestina and the Femme Fatale Roller Dolls are always looking for new players and especially new fans. In a full contact sport where injuries can and do occur, it takes a special person to subject their body to harm, and special fans to cheer them on. Still, every fall, millions of Americans clamor around their TV screens and pile into high school, college, and NFL stadi-ums to watch a violent sport of a different nature and gender. Roller Derby can of-

fer the same kind of thrills, and you don’t have to pay 50, 100, or 500 dollars per ticket to see it up close and personal.

Games are held in the Assembly Hall of the Bell County Expo Center in Belton. Next season should have at least seven home bouts, or about 1 or 2 per month. For those thinking of trying out, the team practices every week. There are monthly dues, and as with any sport or hobby there are other costs involved – women would not want to skate without protective gear just as men would not play football with-out helmets and pads. But to those who love the sport, the cost is secondary to the exhilaration and camaraderie.

“I went out to practice and was hooked,” says Missy Von Parlo, aka Mae Needa-beer. “I had actually never skated before and it was scary, but with proper training I am out on the track with some amazing athletes.”

Many of the team members are moth-ers of young daughters, and they see their involvement in Derby teaching their chil-

dren to be strong, supportive, vibrant lead-ers in the community. The Femme Fatale Roller Dolls help raise money for a local charity, Killeen ISD HARP (Homeless Awareness Response Program), that helps identify and help homeless children in the school district. They plan to highlight other charities at each home bout as well. If you do plan to try out, come ready with a pseudonym. Most players have a “derby name”, most of which are creative, satiri-cal word-plays with mock-violent or sexu-al puns or allusions to pop culture.

“Punky Bruiser.” “Princess La-Ya Flat.” “Mazel Tov Cocktail.” There’s even a na-tional registry to make sure your choice isn’t already taken by one of the thousands of other players.

A “femme fatale” is a mysterious, se-ductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers and lead them into dangerous situ-ations. Let that be a warning. If you plan to show your support next season, come ready for smash-mouth action, and don’t be surprised if their charms take a perma-nent hold on your heart.

For more information by the United Rollers Femme Fatale League, email them at [email protected], or like their Facebook page – Femme Fatale Rollers – to see their schedule and other news.


WHAT IS RAW?

RAW:natural born artists is an independent arts organization, for artists, by artists. We’re an international community made up of creative individuals across the globe.

Our mission is to provide independent art-ists within the first 10 years of their career with the tools, resources and exposure needed to inspire and cultivate creativity. We welcome all genres of art including in-dependent film, fashion, music, visual art, performing art, hairstylists, makeup artists and more. We encourage the creative success of the many visionaries and storytellers of our generation.

Bohemia attended an art and fashion show in Austin, TX last month hosted by RAW. Check out pictures from the event and read more about the organization.

HOW DOES RAW WORK?

Our RAW Directors hand-pick and spot-light local artistic talent in film, fashion, music, visual art, hair & makeup artistry, and performance art. With artists from all genres in each showcase, RAW events come together to form an amazing one-night circus of creativity. These showcases occur once a month in each city location. Our RAW season runs from February-October and comes to an extravagant end with our indie arts awards show RAWards in Hollywood

What can you expect when attending a RAW Showcase? You’ll experience an in-dependent film (usually a short, webisode or music video), a fashion show from an up-and-coming local designer, a musical performance, an art gallery featuring sev-eral independent visual artists and pho-tographers, and performance art (comedy/dance/fire dancers, you name it...). You’ll get a little taste of everything. Combine all this creativity with drinks, fun, and good company! To partake in the experience, RSVP and purchase a ticket to any of our 60 monthly, city showcases by clicking on the city tab at the top of the homepage!


Editor in Chief Assistant Editor Fashion Editor

Writer

ONLINE COMMUNITY

www.RAWartists.org is designed to show-case our RAW artists online. RAWartists.org hosts a plethora of online profiles -- exclusive to our hand-picked RAW artists. RAWartists.org is open to the public to view, however, the site profiles and perks are reserved for only selected RAW artists. RAW artists can connect with other RAW artists, post videos and music, promote up-coming projects, and track their success. We also host what we call our RAWk Wall, where art gets down to business. This por-tion of the site consists of exclusive art-to-business opportunities for our RAW artists to partake in.

RAWardsRAW’s Annual Indie Awards Show At the end of season (October), we host our annual RAWards Show. During a two month-process, we ask the community, a panel of judges and the nation-at-large to vote for their top five favorite artists of the year in film, fashion, music, art, photogra-phy, performing art, accessories, hair and makeup. RAW takes that popular vote and narrows down nominees in each city loca-tion. We then ask the community to place a live vote (complete with a ballot) at a spe-cial City Semi-Final nominee showcase in November. One winner from every city, in every category is chosen by the communi-

RAW currently operates in nearly 60 cities across the United States, Australia, Canada and, now London!

ty (e.g. RAW:Denver, Fashion Designer of the Year). One winner from every city in every category goes on to be judged by the RAW panel of industry professionals in each field. The scores are based on criteria in skill, creativty, wow factor and profes-sionalism. The winners are announced on-line in December, and honored with their awards at our annual RAWards Show in Hollywood, CA (mid-January). The win-ners receive big career-boosting prizes like distribution, store placement, studio time, gallery placement and consultations with industry executives and professionals. It’s truly an awesome event with performanc-es and highlights from the RAW season.


THE HISTORY

In 2003, a small-town girl graduated high school and moved to the big city of Los Angeles, CA. Her only wish was to pursue her life-long dream of becoming a fash-ion designer. Not wasting any time, she started her own clothing line. She soon realized that she was just one small fish in a very big pond. She sold her pieces at swapmeets on the weekends while going to school full-time, working part-time and interning in the fashion district.

After a while she thought ... “there’s got to be a better way to get my work out there.”

Surrounded by new friends and talented people in art, music, performance and film that were facing the same plight -- she de-cided to take matters into her own hands.

In 2005, Heidi Luerra threw her first multi-faceted showcase in Los Angeles. After much interest from the over 750 attendees that came to the event, she found her call-ing -- to create a platform for the many people who are talented, yet go unnoticed.

In 2009, equipped with a mission of bring-ing tools and resources to artists who were fighting the good fight on their own, RAW was born. After the first RAW event, a lo-cal web developer, Matthew Klahorst ap-proached Heidi about combining these art events with an online showcase for artists. From this collaboration came the next evo-lution of RAW -- promoting artists both online and offline.

In 2011, they decided to take the concept beyond Southern California. RAW now hosts monthly showcases that spotlight indie talent in film, fashion, music, art, hair & makeup artistry, performing art and photography in 54 cities across the U.S and counting. In July 2012, RAW made its first international debut in Australia! RAW launches in Canada (Montréal and Van-couver) in Summer of 2013 and London in the Fall!




The opening song on The National’s album, Trouble Will Find Me, has

a reoccurring line “You should know me better than that”, which sets the tone for an album about strife in rela-tionships.

An album about Death or perhaps a passing...Death of? Death of relation-ship? The loss of control or the desire to keep it any longer? Death of liv-ing well? Living at all? Every season passes in this life-- youth, prosperity, health. This is an album that pushes

the listener to mull over these passings even if it forces lament.

Lead singer Matt Berninger’s lyrics on the opening track were written for his brother but can easily be reinter-preted to relate to a relationship that is falling apart. Two people talking past each other with a corroding common ground between them.

The whole album feels like a man who is stumbling. Nearly every song sounds like the singer has lost his locus of control, lost a desire to try quite as

hard, and the resulting loss that comes with or has caused this in the relation-ships that are no longer the stronghold that have always been so dependable.

This theme continues with allu-sions to Tennessee Williams and alco-hol in Don’t Swallow the Cap. Lines like “Everything I love is on the table, everything I love is out to sea” comes across as the writer’s alcoholic tenden-cies putting everything he cares about in jeopardy. “When it gets so late I for-get everyone” reinforces this interpre-tation.

Do You Know Me Better Than That?by Caleb Farmer

The National


Sea of love feels like a description of a lopsided relationship. With the re-occurring line “If I stay here trouble will find me,” it seems like the narrator is talking about a relationship that was used purely for escapism with no real intentions of sustainability.

After some tracks that revolve around the narrator engaging in self-reflection and guilt or possibly frustra-tion, our narrator seems to finally take responsibility for the place he is in. This culminates with the song “I Need My Girl” with the reoccurring line, “I

was a forty-five percenter then”.

This is The National’s most lyrically consistent album, following a theme throughout, and not spending as much time in the incredibly abstract as some past efforts have extensively dabbled. The drum work and Berninger’s vo-cals take the forefront on this album. I also believe any person who struggles with life, a relationship, or another pursuit they wished they had put more effort into will find many moments of solidarity with the narrator throughout this excellent album.

Do You Know Me Better Than That?by Caleb Farmer


Photography by Cynthia Wheeler

Today’s Tom Sawyer







september 2013• bohemia • 71(From left) Models Jocelyn Fulbright, Ethan Smith, and Brenda Flores


For 23 years , c lub owners Bruce and Pam Boring have exploredless - t rave led roads seeking the hidden gems of the Cal i fornia winecountry to introduce you to the v intners , the f ine wines they craf tand the r ich hi s tor ies that only few ever know.

Be among the pr iv i leged and exper ience the f lavor, the s tory andthe people behind f ine ar t i san wines . Rece ive Bruce and Pam’spersonal ly se lected wines a long with a members-only publ icat iondel ivered to your doorstep.

Also Makes a Fun& Unique Gift

Just $26 per month for twoaward-winning, handcrafted wines.

1-800-960-0585Call Us Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm PST.


Valley MillsPhotography by David Irvin

Featuring (this page) Aoife Gorey

(Next page): Stephanie Rystrom

www.valleymillsvineyards.comWinery

In the spring of 2007, Valley Mills Winery planted its first two grapevine varietals on a rocky hillside

in Valley Mills, Texas. The land, which is embedded with fossils, is harsh but their grapes have flourished there. In late 2010, they opened the Winery and Tast-ing room (halfway between Valley Mills and Waco). Valley Mills Winery takes great pride in assisting their grapes’ journey from vineyard to winery and into your bottle of wine. They are growing world class grapes and producing great Texas wines.


Bohemian Style at Valley Mills Winery


Bohemian Style at Valley Mills Winery


A Bowl of Red By Megan Miller

It’s cheap and easy. It may help, if not cure, a hangover. It’s South-

western comfort food, equivalent to meatloaf in other less enlightened parts of the country. But how much, really, do we know about chili? We must firmly establish at the out-set that chili is not Mexican. It may not even be Tex-Mex. New Mexico lays claim to it as well (which would make it, what, “New Mex-Mex”?), but for our purposes here we will claim it as a Texas native. We have legal standing, in that the Texas leg-islature in 1977 designated chili con carne as the official food of Texas. Official Texas State Chili, it should be noted, does not contain beans. More on this later. Chili seems to have been a staple of trail drives. There’s a tale of a trail cook who planted pepper seeds along the way, to ensure fresh supplies when the drive returned north. In the plaza of San Antonio, “Chili Queens” would make fragrant batches over wood fires and serve them through-out the night to soldiers and travelers. Apocryphal stories allege that the James gang spared McAllen because it had a damn good chili parlor. There was chili, and then there was CHILI. It was inevitable that dis-putes over who made the best “bowl

Your Basic Chili Recipe 2 lbs. ground beef 2 cloves garlic 1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce + 1 can water 2 Tbsp. chili powder (I use Gebhardt’s) 1 tsp. ground cumin 1 tsp. ground oregano ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper 1 tsp. salt ¼ cup masa harina (corn flour, found usually on the Mexican foods aisle) Accompaniments, such as chopped tomatos, chopped onions, grated cheddar cheese, tor-tilla chips.

May also add beans (1 can red kidney and 1 can pinto) if you’re into that sort of thing. Can also be served over Frito corn chips ™ for Frito Pie. 1. Mince garlic cloves. Place in large sauce-pan with ground beef and sauté until brown. 2. Drain fat and add tomato sauce, water and next five ingredients. Mix well, bring to boil, then reduce heat and cover. 3. Simmer at least one hour. Stir occasion-ally and add more water if sauce starts to become dry. 4. In a small bowl, mix masa and a small amount of wa-ter to make a watery paste. Add sparingly to chili until the consistency is right. Tweak seasonings to taste. Bon appétit, or as we say in Texas, “Come ‘n git it!”.

o’ red” would arise. Cooks had long made and guarded the ingredients to their special spice blends, but the first major competition is regarded to be at the 1952 State Fair in Dallas. A woman won the chili cookoff that year, something that must have burned in the craw of many men like a chili pepper seed caught behind a molar. It wasn’t until 1967 until chili com-petitions came into their own, how-ever. At a celebrated cook-off in Ter-lingua, Texan journalist Wick Fowler went mano a mano against New York (!) humorist H. Allen Smith, resulting improbably in a tie. Smith had the au-dacity to include beans in his recipe, and possibly helped cement the tradi-tion that true Texas chili is frijole-free. Today, competitions sanctioned by the International Chili Society (ICS) and the Chili Appreciation Society (CASI) mandate that no beans may be used, but it’s not a matter of Texas-pride, or even one of taste. Most cook-offs are judged in blind tastings, and the type of bean used is a tell-tale marker that can identify the cook. It’s impossible to say how many cook-offs are now held in the U.S. Most are charity affairs held to raise money for local organizations, with prizes of ribbons, bragging rights, and perhaps a trophy or two. The ICS, which sponsors the annu-al international event in Palm Springs this year, has raised over $91 million dollars for charity since 1967. The Palm Springs event offers a purse of $25,000.

By now you may be hankering for your own bowl o’ red, and I’m here to oblige. Here is a basic chili recipe. It’s up to you to add the beer, rattlesnake or beans that will make it all your own. And remember, as Pat Garrett allegedly said of Billy the Kid, “anybody that eats chili can’t be all bad”.


future can be better, will not strive and achieve that better future. It is the creative children who will become the innovative adults this country needs. But there is hope! For the last six years, the Waco Arts Initiative (WAI) has been working to counter that trend. As schools cut back on their art programs, the WAI has been offering art lessons to students in neighborhoods where the funding for art has dried up. They have also worked with a majority of Waco’s public housing facili-ties. Moreover, they have been working to initiate an art movement within the Waco community itself, organizing events and partnering with other like-minded groups. The goal is to return Waco to its former status as a cultural hub, known for its cre-ativity. The staff of the Waco Arts Initia-

tive is a score of volunteers drawn from many walks of life with a shared interest in teaching art. With Baylor being such a large part of the Waco experience, many of the volunteers are from that university. McLennan Community College (MCC) students are also well represented among the staff, part of the MCC Outreach proj-ect. The staff have not focused just on drawing and painting. They have taught the basics of color and shapes, but they have also taught the history of art, intro-duced their students to theater and music, and encouraged creativity in diverse artis-tic media. There is always room for new volunteers, of course. In particular, they are looking for mem-bers of the Waco community who share their dream and are willing to lend their artistic skills. This fall, they need both art-

We need creativity, not conformity. In our increasingly uniform and

standardized world, we need to remember that progress towards a better future is not made by complacent masses, but by the mavericks, by the ones who stand out, and by those who do not fit in. In short, inno-vation comes from the eccentrics, the bo-hemians, and by the artists. Genius is not normal, and neither are creative people. The last decade has been marked by shrinking budgets and the erosion of those programs that encourage creativity. At the same time, schools are pressured to pro-duce students that can pass tests, not stu-dents who can think. Students are told to behave and to conform. We are in danger of losing one of America’s most valuable resources: the next generation of creative children. Children, who never see that the

The Waco Arts Initiative: Improving Our City One Child at a Time by Gary Lee Webb


ists who can donate their time for a week to run a workshop, and for other interest-ed volunteers to commit for a single day (Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday). This is their sixth year of programming, and they are looking forward to some interest-ing workshops. And to more successes, for over the years they have had many, teaching art to over 150 students with the help of 80 volunteers. Every good staff needs a leader, of course, and Maggie Emerson Griffin has been with the program since AD 2008. She is now their Program Coordinator: readers interested in volunteering should contact her at [email protected]. She graduated Baylor in 2012 with a degree in Medical Humanities. One of her goals this year is to provide more ways to serve more community members, expanding into new venues and hosting more community events. A second goal is to provide a diversity of artistic expe-riences for the students, by featuring a different artist each week throughout the school year, leading a workshop sharing their skills. She hopes to make Waco a “better, healthier, more caring, more in-teractive community.” Maggie says “My family has a history in the art world, and I realize the importance of exposure to and participation in art for young, developing minds. Art allows us to think creatively, which enhances our critical thinking and problem solving skills. Art also serves as an outlet for emotions, both positive and negative. The benefits of art on individu-al and community life are numerous. We hope that through our work, we are able to make Waco a better, healthier city. ” Maggie shared the following story with Bohemia. During Summer 2013, the Waco Arts Initiative had partnered with the Fam-ily Health Center and a free lunch program group to launch an art competition for Na-tional Community Health Center week. One of the students she worked with had the most creative idea of the students there, but (seeing the others) he crumpled it up. He then began a second project that looked just like everyone else’s. With urging and encouragement, he uncrumbled his origi-nal work and finished it, producing a win-ning piece. The child walked away, saying “I’m the best artist. I did the best piece.” Having someone mentoring the child, talking with them, and discussing their work can completely change everything. What a child needs most is encourage-


ment, to be told that he is unique and valu-able. He needs to learn that it is good to be creative, that trying new things leads to innovation and success. His success will be his mentor’s joy. Maggie also told me that last year they taught art history: from cave paintings to modern design. The question in every-one’s mind was: “what will the children remember?” Maggie says that they re-membered how cave men began to draw their paintings on cavern walls to share their stories. They could remember the Italian Renaissance, thanks to reinforce-ment from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur-tles. They could remember that Pointilism and Impressionism were different styles and could tell her what the differences were. Two hours of instruction each week had taught them a lot, and she was blown away … it had been a great success. They are one up on this author. After she told me that, I quickly checked Wikipedia and learned that the pointilistic technique is to use thousands of small independent dots to create the painting, whereas the im-pressionistic technique was to use myriads of small, thin, nearly-parallel lines, focus-ing on getting the lighting correct. I had heard of Impressionism, even knew it was an art movement birthed by Claude Monet, but I had never learned what characterized an impressionistic painting. The children had taught me something. Thus so had the Waco Arts Initiative. I am in favor of education, are you? This is a great organization in need of our sup-port. Contact Maggie if you can volun-teer. Or if you cannot volunteer, there may be other ways you can help.


MOUNTOlympus MOUNTOlympus

september 2013• bohemia • 81Featuring (from left) Savannah Loftin, Allie Bridges, Kenyai O’Neal, and Audrey Leigh

MOUNTOlympus MOUNTOlympusPhotography by Cecy Ayala


The Poseidon PoseidonThe


by Karen Robiscoe

As it happens, some Greek Gods, though big in mythic lore, have feet of clay— and quite delayed their way to Zombie War. Perseus was shoo’d in sure—with quills on sandaled foot, but lost his drive– when he passed by, The Hermes store en route. The wings of Ick’rus –melted off— when he mistook Corona, Sun for Beer, and flew too near, plucking his persona. The snake-haired Gorgon made it safe, but soon encountered trouble. Since solar flares, while fairly rare, immediately doubled. The Ocean’s Twelfth— Greek God of Myth (& some will claim the greatest) I told to see his family— and help me with this latest—

—this Melting Ball of Fairy Wax, and since endless flares killed Zombies, I feared reprise– from neighbor guys, who co-owned Abercrombies. My hope was that, Poseidon could– tell his bro’ Apollo, to stop this lot of hot sun spots, or else provide marshmallow. Medusa and her hissing hair– were stroking from the heat. (or so she claimed) I quite refrained– From looking at the beast. In the end the Ocean God– Couldn’t stop Apollo, but deigned to spew, a ton or two, Pacific he had swallowed. This cured the snake-haired bitch at once– by turning her to Stone, But flooded out, the roundabout, The House of Wax called Home.

Poseidon Adventure Poseidon Adventure


Where will you be singing Home Sweet Home

Find a forever home with Natalie MorphewWaco, Texas is a beautiful place to live, founded in 1849 by the Huaco Indians that lived on the land in the present-day downtown area. Waco offers some ma-jor attractions, five historic homes, seven recreational venues, and nine arts organizations staging theatrical and musical productions, as well as art exhibitions. Waco is also brimming with Texas history, economic opportunity, and a rich variety of cultural experiences. With three college facilities including: Baylor Universi-ty, McLennan Community College, and Texas State Technical Institute. The city boasts one of the of the biggest and best municipal parks in Texas, Cameron Park. The 416-acre park is located in the heart of Waco, next to downtown, situated on the Brazos and Bosque Rivers. It hosts numerous races, triathlons, boat races and more.

Find a forever home with Natalie MorphewFind a forever home with Natalie Morphew

Natalie MorphewNatalie Morphew, [email protected] c | 254.399.7024 wwww.nataliemorphew.com


Find a forever home with Natalie MorphewFind a forever home with Natalie MorphewPhotography by Cecy Ayala

What The Hero Knows by Warner Robinson how does it feel to know the end? to read the last word only to turn back and invoke, with an unwavering voice, the muse so full of hope? would you still sail to troy and become the words the prophet uttered? stumble down to gethsemane, raise your eyes to the mount of olives and await judgment? or would you lay here with me under a sheltering sun furiously writing, changing the course of scamander so his waters run to some faraway kingdom where no one has heard of Helen, and fate is nothing more than spindles of thread and a tree in the ground?

Photography by Cecy Ayala


around the head to form a kind of turban that somewhat resembles the West Afri-can gélé. The laws required that women in Louisiana with African ancestry must wear a knotted headdress. There had been restrictions on people of African descent since the 1724 Code Noir of the original French colony of New Orleans (founded 1718), but the French were relatively lax about enforcing the code, and by the time the Spanish took over in 1763, there was a large middle tier of free creole, mulatto, and other people of Af-rican descent. Spanish law included the practice of coartación, the right of slaves to purchase their freedom. As a result, the population of free African-descended people continued to grow, reaching 20% by the time the new United States pur-chased Louisiana in 1803. The new laws in 1785 were thus a failed attempt to re-press the growing black presence. This account would not be complete without listing the Nazis of World War II. They were the champions of requiring people to wear identifying marks: not only the 6-pointed stars for the Jews (of-ten at least partially yellow), but also pink for homosexuals, green for convicts, red for Freemasons and other liberals, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, and black for Gypsies and prostitutes. Laws of this type are called sumptuary laws, from the Latin sumptuariæ leges. They go back at least 2700 years (the Locrian code of Zaleucus limited cloth-ing, the wearing of gold, and the number of maids a woman could have follow her unless she were drunk). They were used in Rome to restrict the wearing of Tyrian purple, and later to prohibit the wearing of trousers. And they are still used today for many things ranging from preventing gang symbols in our schools to requiring women to wear headdresses, scarves, and even veils (or more) in many countries around the world.

Over the centuries, clothes have been used to mark the man (or woman).

They have been used positively by peo-ple to show off their wealth or demon-strate their status. For example, only a rich person can wear expensive furs, only a prince or noble will have a crown or wear royal purple, and even today uni-forms and a doctor’s lab coat say a lot about the wearer. But clothing has also been used negatively to denigrate the per-son required to wear it. Recent instances include the use of yellow Stars of David to mark the Jews under the Nazi Regime, and the use of striped or orange outfits for convicts. However, the practice is much older – we shall examine the use of yellow and red, unusual clothing, and badges. Until the 13th Century, yellow was not a color indicating an undesirable re-ligion within Europe. Instead, it marked prostitutes. Back in classical Greece, prostitutes wore saffron-dyed gauzy cloth. Roman prostitutes wore yellow wigs or dyed their hair blonde, as well as being the only women allowed to wear a toga. The toga muliebris was dyed the deep yellow color of flame. Perhaps this is why even today we hear that blondes have more fun. Later, in Vienna, prosti-tutes only had to wear a yellow scarf, and in Leipzig, a full yellow cloak trimmed in blue. In Florence, it was a veil with a yel-low stripe. But the practice of requiring the prostitutes to be blondes, lasted into the 16th century in parts of Europe. It was in the Middle East, where the color yellow was first used to mark an un-desirable religion. In Muslim countries, the color green was reserved for believ-ers. As early as the Pact of Omar (640), Jews were ordered to wear a yellow seam on their upper garments. In 850, a decree by the Abbassid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, required Christian and Jewish subjects to

wear honey-colored hoods and belts of a particular type. Distinguishing marks were also prescribed for their slaves. It took four more centuries for Christians to adopt the practice. The usage of yellow clothing began to change within Europe in the 13th Century: the Fourth Council of the Lateran (AD 1215) required Jews and Muslims to dress distinctively. King Louis XI of France decreed that Jews must wear a round yellow badge, and many places across Europe required the yellow Star of David, later used by the Nazis. After the Albigensians were defeated in 1229, Pope Gregory IX required the Cathars to wear a yel-low Cross. Other colors were also used: the Poor Law Act of 1697 required paupers in receipt of parish relief required to wear a badge of blue or red cloth on the shoulder of the right sleeve in an open and visible manner, embroidered with the letter P. In the American colonies, those guilty of adultery and incest were required to wear an “A” or “I” respec-tively; although, outside fiction (e.g., the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Haw-thorne), there seems to be no indication the A was a scarlet letter. Since yellow was now a color to mark heterodoxy, the color for prosti-tutes shifted from yellow to red. The high heeled shoe was another marker of a prostitute, varying in style and height across Italy and in some cases they were required to be red (e.g., in Venice). And in Piedmont, prostitutes were required to wear horns. But pe-jorative dress was not limited to pros-titution. During the brief period that Louisiana was a Spanish (not French) colony, Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró. passed the tignon laws in 1785. A “tignon” is is a type of headscarf, a large piece of material tied or wrapped

Clothes Mark the Man by Gary Lee Webb

Clothes Mark the Man by Gary Lee Webb


(Left) A blonde Roman prostitute being

wheeled in a cart as part of the 6-day Flo-

ralia celebrations, which started late April.

The painting is “The Triumph of Flora” by

Giovammi Battista Tiepolo, 1743.

(Left) Teracotta statue of three Greek he-taerae at a banquet. The big wigs (presum-ably blonde) give away their professions. The statue is at the Louvre and dates from 25 BC.

(Right) Nazi concentration camp symbols (1936)

from the Federal Archives of the Republic of

Germany: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1993-051-07 /

CC-BY-SA


breakfast lunch dinner dessert

OUR BEST PROGRAM EVER!

NEW & IMPROVED

Get up to 50% OFF Nutrisystem Success! Get up to 50% OFF Nutrisystem Success! Get up to 50% OFF Nutrisystem Success! Get up to 50% OFF Nutrisystem Success! Get up to 50% OFF Nutrisystem Success!

“ I wanted to fit into an amazing costume that I wore when I was 18…

Nutrisystem Success is guaranteed to work when other diets have failed you! We’re so sure you’ll love it, you get a 14-day risk-free guarantee—so you’ve got nothing to lose but the weight!††

IT WORKS—4 out of 5 Nutrisystem customers surveyed say that Nutrisystem Success is the best program they’ve ever tried!**

IT’S EASY—90% of customers surveyed say it’s easierto follow than other weight loss programs or dieting on your own!**

IT’S A GREAT VALUE—For LESS THAN $11 A DAY†, you get a whole day’s worth of food. That’s aboutthe cost of going out to lunch!

Nutrisystem Success is diets have failed you!a 14-day risk-free guarantee—so you’ve got nothing to lose but the weight!

before

MarieOsmond lost 50 POUNDS* on Nutrisystem

Call 800-908-6582Mention Promo Code: cd1113

SaveSaveSaveup toup toup to

Saveup to

SaveSaveSaveup to

Saveup to

Saveup to

SaveSaveSaveup to

Save 505050505050%%%!!!†††

(with 28-Day Auto-Delivery orders)

TAKE THE NUTRISYSTEM 14-DAY CHALLENGE—You’ll LOVE it or it’s FREE!††

breakfast lunch dinner dessert

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave 505050505050 !!!!!!†††

THE MORE YOU LOSE, THE MORE YOU SAVE!

TAKE THE NUTRISYSTEM 14-DAY CHALLENGE—

weight loss success

weight loss success

GUARANTEED!

GUARANTEED!

* Results not typical. On Nutrisystem, you can expect to lose at least 1-2 lbs. per week. Weight lost on a prior Nutrisystem® program. Continuing with Success.† Offer good on new 28-Day Auto-Delivery programs only. Savings vary based on plan purchased. Free shipping Continental US only. With this offer you receive an additional discount off the Full Retail Value with each consecutive 28-Day Auto-Delivery order. Additional 5% discount applied to each of the � rst � ve consecutive 28-Day plan deliveries up to 50% total savings. With Auto-Delivery, you are automatically charged and shipped your 28-Day program once every 4 weeks unless you cancel. You can cancel Auto-Delivery at any time by calling 1-800-727-8046. Other restrictions apply. Call or see website for details. The Nutrisystem Select program is available to Continental U.S. residents only and cannot be shipped to PO Boxes, APO Boxes or military addresses. Cannot be combined with any prior or current discount or offer. Limit one offer per customer. ©2013 Nutrisystem, Inc. All rights reserved.

**Based on a Nutrisystem survey of customers who have been on program two or more months, October 2012.†† If you’re not 100% satis� ed, call within 14 days of receiving your � rst 28-Day order and return the remaining non-frozen food to us for a full refund. We’ll even cover return shipping. Limit one guarantee per customer.

On Nutrisystem you add in fresh grocery items.


The Great GatsbyPhotography by Lone Star Pin-Up




The Great Gatsby



Peter Able’s screenplays have beeen finalists with Scriptapalooza, PAGE In-ternational, and the New York Television Festival. He lives in Woodway with his family. He is currently the director of Fi-nancial and HR systems for Baylor Uni-versity.

Andira the Word Rummager recently rediscovered a love of writing in her mid-dle age. She is happy to have this outlet for her weird ideas so she can try to maintain some outward semblance of normalcy. She s thankful for the opportunity to share her work and hopes you enjoy it.

Joel Cifer - author, comic, bartender, phi-losopher, father and husband. He eventu-ally and accidentally graduated from the University of North Texas. This qualified him for…nothing, but prepared him for everything. He enjoys questioning real-ity and physical altercations. He lives in Mclennan County.

Jackie Craven has published in The Berkeley Fiction Review, Existere, The Fourth River, and Pearl. She authored two books on interior design and writes the ar-chitecture pages for About.com. She holds a Doctorate of Arts in Writing. Visit her at www.JackieCraven.com.

Chip Dameron has published five col-lections of poems and placed individual poems in numerous literary magazines, in-cluding Borderlands, Mississippi Review, and Puerto del Sol. Chip lives in Browns-ville, Texas.

As a scientist, Arthur Doweyko has au-thored 100+ publications, invented novel 3D drug design software, and shares the 2008 Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award for the discovery of Sprycel, a new anti-cancer drug. He writes hard science fic-tion, fantasy and horror.

C.G. Fewston is a working writer/uni-versity professor, and is a contributor to the Ho Chi Minh City’s premier English newspaper, Tuoi Tre.

Ty Hall lives in Texas, makes up stories, and tries to be good.

David Irvin is a Waco-based freelance journalist, photographer and (nearly) Mas-ter Librarian. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines and blogs, including Flakmag, the Montgom-ery Advertiser, Arkansas Democrat- Ga-zette, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photogra-pher, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 750 small press magazines in twenty-five countries, he edits seven poetry sites. Michael has released several chapbooks of his poetry. He also has over 63 poetry videos on YouTube.

Pat Jones became interested in photogra-phy six years ago. Finding very little help when starting out led him to seek out pho-tographers to work with and later to start a forum for local photographers. Pat lives in Robinson, TX. He does wedding, pin-up, boudoir, fine art, and glamour.

Jamie Mason is a Canadian sci-fi/fanta-sy short-story author and novelist whose works are characterized by absurdist themes and an exaggeratedly fatalistic world view. His stories have been featured in On Spec, Abyss & Apex and the Cana-dian Science Fiction Review. His young adult sci-fi novel ECHO was published by Drollerie Press. Learn more at jamiescrib-bles.com


Central Texan Megan Miller gets older every day, but apparently no wiser. Hav-ing embraced the path of the Cosmic Fool and finishing up a tour of the country, she is intent to settle down and live a life of quiet obscurity in a small town with her husband.

Bonnie Neagle is a native Texan who is married with 3 children; Alley, Isaac and Parker. Her love for photography started during middle school and has grown ever since. She was recently featured on Senior Style Guide’s blog. She also co-owns First Sight Photography with Marcel Van Es.

James B. Nicola, winner of three poetry awards and a Pushcart and Rhysling nomi-nee, has published 350+ poems in Atlanta Review, Tar River, Texas Review, &c. A Yale grad and stage director by profes-sion, his book Playing the Audience won a Choice Award. First full-length collection: “Manhattan Plaza” scheduled for 2014.

Suzanne Ondrus’s poems have appeared in Slab, Long River Review, Frigg, Colere, JENDA, and the Romanian journal Nazar Look. Her recent work is in Route7, CV2 and Long River Review.

Ilya Prints lives in Lynn, MA. Some his other works, poems and flash fictions, have been published in the several literary magazines, “Calliope”, “Exercise Bowl-er”, “Dance Macabre”, “Fine Line”, and others.

Warner Robinson lives in Dallas, Tex-as and is a graduate student pursuing a Master’s degree in Education from Texas Woman’s University.

Ms. Robiscoe’s work has appeared in Handful of Dust E-Zine, Whistling Fire E-Zine, Yahoo News Network, and journals: Spectrum at UCSB, Postscripts to Dark-ness, KY Journal, & Dark Light 3. Keep up with the impending debut of urban fan-tasy: Spirited Remix: An Insider’s Look at Posthumous Redemption--at Charron’s Chatter.

Stephanie Rystrom is a photographer, model, fashionista, and momma in Central Texas. She’s a bohemian at heart, currently working on her BA in horticulture, and en-joying life day by day.

Erin Shephard is the owner and photog-rapher for Central Texas’ only vintage pin-up photography studio, Lone Star Pin-Up. She loves classic cheesecake and old Hol-lywood glamour imagery and strives to bring that to her clients.

Trier Ward is a mother, scientist, and poet. She lives in Dallas, TX. Her poetry has appeared in Rolling Thunder Quar-terly.

In Texas since 1993, Genna Ware, 43, has been shooting alongside Pat Jones for one year. She’s a 911 Operator of 8 yrs. Photography is an incredible passion of Genna’s and she enjoys all types.

Gary Lee Webb is a 16-year resident of Waco. He has lived on three continents, visited four, and speaks many languages … badly. His credits include over 210 public speeches, four decades of confer-ences and contests, and both non-fiction and fictional publications. He is 57, mar-ried 36 years, and has 4 daughters.

Cynthia Wheeler is a Waco native and mother of three. She writes, paints, and does graphic design. Her true love is photography. She has been a volunteer at Waco Center For Youth for four years.

Kay H. Wilson, 62. Born in Oklahoma, avoided Texas most of her life and moved to Waco in 1993 for her husband to prac-tice Chiropractic Medicine. Currently works at the Waco Tribune-Herald as col-umnist The Compassionate Curmudgeon. Started writing at 58 and is working, most-ly on her own, to understand and improve the mechanics, rules and pace of a story.

contributorscontributors


FEATURES:POETRY SLAM, AUTHORS, POETS,BLOGGERS, SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASYOPEN MICS, AUTHORS’ PANELS

10TH ANNUAL

S E P T 2 8 & 2 9 , 2 0 1 3I N D I A N S P R I N G P A R KW A C O , T X

wacoculturalartsfest.org/wordfest Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce

Documents

16. Bohemia - September 2013