Story: Small Towns, Modern Loneliness
A new short story, written by Michael Kurt with an illustration by Laura Helsby! As summer starts, Hailey Serton reflects on the end of high school and who she’ll be in college.
Written by Michael Kurt | Cover Illustration: Laura Helsby
Description: As summer starts, Hailey Serton reflects on the end of high school and who she’ll be in college.
An Excerpt
Hailey Serton’s mother annoyed the shit out of her. Despite the many years they’d spent living in a small apartment, they had not become bonded by their shared experience of her teenage life. So when she got home late from the Melville Shakespeare Festival, Hailey gave the living room a wide berth in hopes that the undoubtedly strong smell of cigarettes could not be detected on her summer dress.
“Did you have a good time?” her mother called, turning away from what she was watching on the living room TV.
She had not had a good time, actually, but was too tired and too dirty to be trapped in a conversation about it. “Sure,” she called back.
There was a pretentiousness to anything Shakespearean around which Hailey could never fully relax, despite many years of community and high school theater. Fern Michaels, who had asked her to take the bus with him to Melville, thought she might like it, which, given the kind of person she was, was not entirely surprising, but deeply disheartening.
Hailey’s mother followed her almost all the way into the bathroom. “How was the bus?”
“It was a long trip. Especially back,” she replied, closing the door.
When Hailey met Fern last year, she was quickly able to convince him to wait with her in the parking lot after rehearsals. Her mother was chronically late and Fern was chronically lonely, so she was doing him a favor. What she did not expect, however, was that Fern’s mother would circle the school for a half hour before finally offering to drive her home. So, by the time Fern asked her to go to the festival with him, she felt that she’d owed him many times over.
Through the bathroom door, Hailey’s mother asked: “Did he try anything?”
“Who?”
“That boy.” Her mother didn’t like his name, and avoided saying it. “Fern, or whatever.”
“Did Fern try anything at the Shakespeare Festival in the middle of a crowd of theater dorks?” Hailey traced what looked like Central America in dirt on her leg and noticed a burn mark on one of her socks, which was regrettable, but fine. “No. He didn’t try anything,” she said, and wondered for the first time why he didn’t go by his middle name, which was Thomas.
Story: June 2022
June 2022 is a piece of short fiction from Michael Kurt. On a night jog, after finally deciding to forget her past and improve her outlook on life, a woman encounters the very thing that she’s feared most, and the pain is transcendent.
JUNE 2022
Written by Michael Kurt | Illustration by Laura Helsby
Excerpt:
It was a June night. Almost hot, almost raining, and full of pollen. I thought about turning back for allergy medicine, or a long-sleeved shirt, but knew that if I allowed myself to turn around, I’d allow myself to walk, and then stop, and then go to bed early without stretching or running or manifesting anything. So I plodded along. Doing what I called running. Block to block, I told myself I could make it until the next stop sign without slowing down. There were no cars on our street, or the next street after that. Just even, clean sidewalks. Empty roads.
I could hear myself breathing. It didn’t take long to get winded. After a short stint of confident running, where I felt like things weren’t too bad, I began to feel my true age. Deeply. In my knees and chest. But I tried to keep on anyway, for a few more blocks. Just to the next stop sign.
A cyclist passed opposite me, quickly, barely a blur, and I felt embarrassed to be seen out of breath. It pushed me on, farther, one more block. Then again, another block, for fear of being looked back on from a distance. And it felt good. It felt like progress. Like after however long it had been, I could still make room for health and my own wellbeing; for my aging body and my positive—in the middle of this thought, I was hungry. Not terribly, but suddenly hungry. There wasn’t a breeze, it was calm, and I desperately looked for the cyclist who, just a moment ago, I willed to never be seen by again. Maybe he too was weak and would turn back soon, defeated by the night. The hairs on my neck, then head, then all of my body, rose. I could feel them against my clothes, on end, pushing against the fabric.
I had made it to the stop sign at the end of another block. I tried to read the name of the street, but it melted, green and white, reflective letters, and became unrecognizable streaks on the pavement, pooling, then growing thin, before seeping into the gutter. I grabbed for the pole, but it was below me, and my arms cycled through the empty air before the tree limbs and leaves tore the skin of my hands away. I plowed through the trees wildly; flailing, the hunger growing. Will I be alive?, I thought, passing through bits of trees, after this, crashing along the rooftops and against chimney stacks
June 2022 is a piece of fiction, written by Michael Kurt, whose work includes the short comics Halloween and Sinkhole.
The Illustration for June 2022 was done by Laura Helsby, who is an illustrator and comic book artist from Manchester UK, specializing in black and white inked work. They love anything horror, as well as vintage cassette tapes and vinyl records, especially punk.
Comic: Halloween
Three friends discover that tonight is their last Halloween together.
Written by Michael Kurt | Art by Lane Lloyd | Letters by Nikki Powers | Alt. Cover by Adam Markiewicz
The full script for this comic is available to read in the Script Archive.
Michael Kurt is a writer from Portland, Oregon. Halloween is his second self-published comic.
Lane Lloyd is an artist, writer, and the creator of SABLE and GOD-PUNCHER.
Nikki Powers (she/her) has lettered numerous independent comics and written some. You can find her lettering in a variety of independent publishers, including Scout Comics, and in anthologies such as Colossal Chaos, Speculative Relationships, and Cthulhu is Hard to Spell. You can find her on Twitter at @fivexxfive and lettering samples at nikkipowers.tumblr.com/lettering.
Adam Markiewicz is the illustrator behind such books as THE GREAT DIVIDE, BROKEN BEAR and EAT MY FLESH, DRINK MY BLOOD. He’s currently working on WHO KILLED SARAH SHAW?, a weekly webcomic with his frequent collaborator Frankee White. When not comic booking, Adam records music as Man-Machine Interface and watches too many movies. (Link to Patreon)
Comic: Sinkhole
Sinkhole is the story of two friends who started a big forest fire when they were teenagers and how they have, somehow, ended up walking back into trouble! Written by Michael Kurt with art by Dee Noonan. You can read this entire comic for free now.
Illustrations & Lettering by Dee Noonan | Written by Michael Kurt
Sinkhole is the story of two friends who started a big forest fire when they were teenagers and how they have, somehow, ended up walking back into trouble!
This script is available to read in the Script Archive!
Please click on the image to open the comic.
Dee Noonan is a sequential artist and illustrator from San Antonio, Texas. She lives with her partner and their two dogs. In addition to her commercial work, Dee plays bass in a punk band: “The Axe Wounds”. She also spends her days enjoying running, cycling, and copious amounts of video games.
Michael Kurt is a writer and magazine editor living in Portland, Oregon. Berm, a contemporary arts magazine Michael co-founded, released its first issue in April of 2022!
Interview: Sara A. Mueller ("THE BONE ORCHARD" out now)
An interview with the Portland-based fantasy author Sara A. Mueller about her 2022 book “The Bone Orchard" (out now from Tor).
I recently had the pleasure of emailing with Sara A. Mueller, whose debut novel The Bone Orchard will be out this coming Tuesday (3/22/22) from Tor! Sara also has a reading coming up (virtually) with Powells Books here in Portland.
After a long break from Interviews, I found I was most curious about what kinds of advice debut authors receive and how they were able to use it (or not) in their practice. To no one’s surprise, I was also curious to talk to Sara about her many hobbies and how it was time to decide to focus on the novel.
Book Summary
The Bone Orchard was inspired by the seeds of a former idea from Mueller’s roleplaying game (a brothel being used as an information gathering organization to topple an evil reign); the resilience and courage of women who have had to survive and endure abuse; and the social structures of the late 19th century, Mueller has cultivated a beautiful novel echoing the struggles of reconciliation within oneself. It is a deep dive examination of trauma, identity and sacrifice amidst a backdrop of cut-throat politics and sex. The story follows Charm, a witch, a prisoner, a whore, a madam. She is the last of a line of conquered necromantic workers and the emperor’s favorite concubine, confined within the yard of regrown bone trees at Orchard House, and the secrets of their marrow. When she is charged by the dying emperor in solving which of his sons committed his murder, the future of the empire lays in her hands. If she succeeds, she will finally have her freedom. However, the whispers of her own past won’t leave her alone, and she is faced with the ultimate dilemma: justice for the empire or pursue her own revenge.
You can pre-order The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller now from Powells.
Interview:
M: As a debut author releasing during the (unfortunately) ongoing pandemic, how has the process been different than you were prepared for, or maybe thought it was going to be?
I didn't ever imagine that I'd be doing book events online and in cool clothes and my slippers! I'd imagined a lot more travel than I'm going to do, certainly, which is sad because I love to travel and I love to meet people in real life. The good news is I have so many terrific friends who're excited for me, and I've had wonderful support from my publisher on every level.
M: What did you learn about your writing process that you would change for your next novel?
The Bone Orchard taught me to give myself space to reconsider and rewrite as I go. Like most people, I grew up with writing classes that emphasized outlining and numbered drafts and after X number of drafts the piece is done. Bone Orchard was having none of that. It taught me that I, personally, do much better when I go back and layer in and tweak as I go along. Whether that works for others, I have no idea. I only know that it's a technique I'll be applying until I find something that works better!
M: Was there a piece of advice that you heard but didn’t understand until you got more experience writing? For me, as an example: I never really understood the value of writing everyday, even if it was a small amount, until I started to do it in practice and worked that creative mental muscle.
"When you think you have writer's block, back up two chapters and have your characters do something else." It turns out to be really good advice! Even though I'm still heading for the same goal, I had to learn to be willing to tear out big chunks and reroute in ways that served the story better.
M: As someone who creates in a few different mediums, I always feel a kinship for folks who do a lot of different jobs. What was the point where you were like, “alright, time to get to this novel I’ve been thinking about?”
In my student-teaching days, I had some kids who were very excited that a teacher was reading SFF. They gave me stacks of book recommendations, and I got increasingly frustrated with how women were being presented in the SFF novels that were popular at the time. Someone who was probably tired of me complaining said 'if you're that mad, write a better one'. So that's what I set out to do. That one wasn't The Bone Orchard, but it was my first finished novel manuscript. Someday I'll dust it off and fix it.
You can preorder The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller now from Powells.
Thank you to Tor for sending me an advanced copy of The Bone Orchard and for coordinating this interview!
Review: Birds of Paradise (Prime, 2021)
Review of the film: Birds of Paradise. “Birds of Paradise is toned-down Suspiria and more-often-weird Black Swan. It is a fine film to add to the sexy, strange ballet canon.”
Written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith, Birds of Paradise is a seductive YA drama about entering into a strange new world to become the best ballet dancer. Set both on the stage of the Paris Opera Ballet School and in a surreal nightclub/dance space called Jungle, the film has beautiful colors and stark, moody atmospheres that set it inside the canon of movies like Black Swan or Suspiria.
Kate (Diana Silvers), an American ballet student who has been given a brand new scholarship to the Paris Opera Ballet, is tasked with beating out all the other female students to be part of the cast. Surrounded by the French youth elite and unable to speak any French, she quickly learns that not only did she accidentally receive the dead-brother-of-the-meanest-girl-in-school scholarship to attend, but also it does not cover expenses. Just the school and a shared room (which just so happens to be with said mean girl queen, Marine).
After a difficult first day, Kate finds herself not only rooming with Marine (Kristine Froseth), but having to share the same bed due to the size of the house where all the ballerinas live. As a challenge, Marine takes Kate to the hidden, exotically neon dance club, Jungle. But, in order to win the respect of Marine and her onlooking peers, she must swallow a (drugged) worm and compete in a dance-off. Whoever stops first, drops out of the school. As they collapse into a glittery, luminescent, Suspiria-esque frenzy, both Marine and Kate quickly realize they can’t maintain more than a few minutes of sustained, extremely zonked dancing and agree to stop together.
Back home, thanks to drugs and the power of dancing, they become fast friends and agree to make a pact. They will be the first female/female winners of the competition, which is meant to produce a male/female pair.
Birds of Paradise is a young adult drama in the style of many popular series at the moment. It has a highly charged, sexually active school, where all genders are living down the hall from each other. It has competition and an underdog protagonist, it has mean girls who become friends, and it has an evil (mother-type) headmaster. But where the film succeeds most is in its look. Playing with very stark contrasts - the performance room, where they all audition and practice, is blindingly bright, while the waiting area, where they all watch and prepare for their names to be called, is dark and moody - the cinematography does a lot of work to separate the modes of reality. Where it is dark, things are real and catty. Where it is light, performance is expected at a high standard. Clean movement, watchful eyes. Many moments in the film are surreal - in the first shot, before the movie really starts, there is a glittery, ethereal dancer in a dark forest, wearing a silver bird mask, which will come back many times as an echo of the drugged out jungle club night.
This choice, to play with what is and is not real, elevated the film from a pretty typical mean girl plot, to something with a bit more feeling and interest. There are class disparities between Kate and the rest of the students, which is used to strengthen the relationship between Kate and Marine (who is the daughter of the French Ambassador to the United States), but it feels thought through. Though, it is still part of what makes Kate the underdog (along with her American-style of ballet, which is described as rigid and lacking grace).
By the end, the film rushes to tie up the disparities between its choices, perhaps spending too little time on its final sequence and allowing it to devolve into a spoken mythology or folk story instead of letting the story naturally progress into abstraction as a metaphor.
Birds of Paradise is toned-down Suspiria and more-often-weird Black Swan. It is a fine film to add to the sexy, strange ballet canon.
Review: The Voyeurs (Prime, 2021)
Review of the film: The Voyeurs. “In the end, the movie pays off all its promises. Voyeurism is at the heart of the film and it is sexy, but also it comes with a mile of guilt and judgement.”
The Voyeurs is a sexy thriller that hits a few bumps along the way. Starring Sydney Sweeney and Justice Smith, the film has all the potential to be a campy, moody drama about what we see in the lives of other people’s windows. Lust, infidelity, and struggling relationships are all on the table from the beginning of The Voyeurs. But, despite plenty of twists in the plot, what happens is tonally lackluster and comes close to what a CW show would look like if it were made by HBO.
Pippa (Sydney Sweeney) and Thomas (Justice Smith), move into a Montreal highrise apartment, which happens to have wall-to-ceiling, gorgeous windows. Having dinner on their freshly unpacked living room floor, they notice their neighbors having a photoshoot in the building directly across from them. Devolving quickly into sex, Pippa and Thomas debate the ethics of watching another couple, who happen to leave their curtains wide open all of the time. This, of course, escalates throughout the film into an increasingly obsessive exchange between the “unwitting” neighbors, who have a very active sexual life (involving infidelity), and our protagonist couple. Thomas thinks they should mind their own business and Pippa needs the fire of voyeurism to keep her, perhaps slightly dulled, relationship alive.
Despite many fairly graphic and showy sex scenes, the drama of Pippa and Thomas’ relationship doesn not escalate believably, until he catches her interfering with the neighbor’s relationship by sending printed notes to the wife, Julia (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), via her wifi printer. He freaks out and breaks the binoculars she bought to spy on them before going back to bed, alone. In the morning, over coffee, they make up and Pippa promises to never spy on them again. As they embrace, Now that all this weirdness is behind them, but Pippa sees that Julia has committed suicide. Convinced she had something to do with it, and justifiably pretty freaked, Thomas leaves to stay with his sister. They break up.
If this were the last turn in the plot, if it devolved into obsessive what if’s, and if Pippa were to seek help for her broken, stalker brain, the film would have been only okay. What happens though, is many thriller-style twists and turns - sometimes for better, but often for worse. When Thomas leaves to stay with his sister, it seems the story is at its lowest point. The neighbor’s wife has committed suicide after finding out about his infidelity, thanks to Pippa. Thomas, the loving partner who is concerned about his obsessive girlfriend, leaves, maybe forever. Pippa learns a hard lesson about spying on your neighbors through their open, giant, well-lit windows. The end.
But the film is only half over.
[Note: Spoilers after this point, also content warning: Suicide]
The Voyeurs use of suicide as a plot device is not out of the ordinary for this kind of thriller, but unfortunate. While it does do some work to embody depression and the trauma of losing a partner, it does not quite make up for the fact that in the end it was all a game. The photographer neighbor had been filming Pippa and Thomas the whole time, for art purposes. At the debut of his new exhibit, it turns out that everything is on display for the audience: Pippa, who in a moment of weakness and lingering obsession after Thomas left went to the neighbor’s place and had sex with him, is pictured naked, posing for a portrait awkwardly. Photos of Pippa and Thomas moving in together, photos of them spying, photos of them fighting, and even a shocking photo of Thomas’s body hanging from the living room rafter. It was a setup.
A lot of work is made to set up the different elements that will come to play in the final third of the movie. Pippa is an optometrist, which she has spent the last decade going to school for, an element that has perhaps made her relationship lose some steam and delay a happy romance, and will ultimately use her training to blind her artist nemesis as a final act of revenge. Her optometrist mentor gives her a Japanese bird feeder, which is meant to hold water, but later reveals that the special water Thomas often drinks had been poisoned, rendering his suicide a murder by the photographer neighbors. And the extravagantly sexualized life of the neighbors was all a ruse, put on to be enticing to watch from across the way, which they describe in an interview as being “no different” than what we do on social media to each other: stalk, watch, put on a show. A window is just a screen, after all. And, of course, they did sign a waiver, which had been conveniently placed on the final page of their long lease agreement (which the artists describe as, again, “no different” than failing to read the Terms of Service for any website or device).
Overall the film was just fine. It could have been much shorter, and spent more time developing the drama and obsessions of its characters. Many scenes were filled with completely unnecessary dialogue: “look over there, through the window”, “I don’t think we should be doing this”, “don’t you feel guilty”, etc., which could have been much more effective in silent character or camera work. The soundtrack, which is generally good, interrupts many moments of emotional drama to bring a sad tune or a tense lofi beat, which is well within the modern style of films in 2021, but annoying and needless.
In the end, the movie pays off all its promises. Voyeurism is at the heart of the film and it is sexy, but also it comes with a mile of guilt and judgement. The acting is good, but the writing is only serviceable for them to work with. Everything wraps up in the end. Bad guys get what they deserve. The protagonist walks away with a little bit of vengeance.
Review: Wolves In The Throne Room "Primordial Arcana"
Album review for the Washington based Black Metal band Wolves In The Throne Room.
Primordial Arcana is an album that flows so effortlessly between tracks that it is nearly half over by the time you realize it. The transitions, where the discordant and the serene meet, are so important to how immersive the album becomes - not only in scope, or size, or brightness, but in theme. In the second track, for example, there is a persistent plucking sound (banjo, or nylon-stringed guitar, or something I can’t place immediately) that weaves the sections together if only because it is present, and when it goes, discordance seeps in and the journey darkens. But then it returns, and the rhythm settles into a catchy groove, and the song stabilizes. But it’s not just this simple pluck, the transitions throughout the album are designed in such a way that make the path unknowingly easy for the listener.
Returning to Thrice Woven, Wolves In The Throne Room’s last full length album, the transitions were not as smooth. They weren’t bad or wrong or incredibly jarring, but it definitely felt like the precise cohesion of Primordial Arcana (especially when you compare a track like “Spirit of Lightning” to “Born From The Serpents Eye,” which I feel are similar in structure and epic scope). They feel blunt and shocking, as if the discordance between the brutal and trashing blast beat segments were at war with the quiet, slower sections. This is not a problem, but a key difference that struck me as I travelled between the albums.
The mixing (including sound and tone design), which the band took on entirely in their own studio for the first time, is so much clearer than previous releases. There is a classic feel to some of the instrument intonations, especially in tracks like “Masters of Rain and Storm,” where the synthesizers remind of early For All Tid by Dimmu Borgir (still one of my favorite and most frequently returned to albums), or on “Primal Chasm (Gift of Fire),” where a catchy, thrashy guitar riff is purpose-built for headbanging for hours. Throughout many segments of the album, which I grew to see as many movements in the same palette, I was amazed by how much space and diversity there was in the mix. It’s huge, but also clear. Each track feels like it grew from the bones of what came before it, but is still entirely in it’s own carve out on the album.
Kody Keyworth, who has been in the band for a while but is not often involved in the writing process from the start of an album, brings a large amount of influence to the overall cosmic feel to the album. The energy is different - not only in the transitions and the mixing, which play a big role I’m sure, but in the way the synthesizers and other elements are fronted in the composition. Celestite, from 2014, was primarily a dungeon synth album from Wolves In The Throne Room, but for me Primordial Arcana is the full picture for how those interests and ideas can be integrated into something that feels classically beautiful in the way For All Tid does, or Il Etait Une Forêt… by Gris.
So often new Black Metal falls into a compositional rut, especially in the DSBM space that I often find myself drawn to, where the riffs go on forever. There’s a special kind of conceptual and physical suffering that is meant to be implied - the riff is so brutal that it must go on until the point you just can’t fucking stand it anymore, and then the track breaks into the halftime beat and it’s epic. This often works, but when you listen to as much black metal as I do, it gets very exhausting. Primordial Arcana does a lot of work to make sure this never happens. By varying the compositions and by keeping each section only as long as it is needed, the songs move with emotion and character - they rise further than you think they can, but they also fall quickly into silence. A guitar heavy, blasting section will often transition into something bigger and more melodic without losing its fierceness.
In “Masters of Rain and Storm,” which is immediately furious, there is a change about every 30 seconds (even if it is small), until the first real breakdown happens at two minutes. Everything falls away and is built back again slowly. Big crashes. Guitar riff. Nice Bass line. Then, when the double bass comes back things fall away again and the synth takes over. There is almost no guitar at all. It’s very quiet. But no energy is lost! It’s wild. Yet, it feels cohesive, even when the neofolk-esque acoustic guitar takes the forefront at the sixth minute, and again things fall away into a cavernous stillness. It feels like one emotional stake in the earth built up around this album.
This emotionality is key to what makes the album feel like it fits within the Cascadian Black Metal sub genre, where the post-metal and shoegaze influences bring space and diversity, and allow the album to expand further. Ritualistic Black Metal, Dungeon Synth, Cascadian Black Metal, whatever it is, I love it. It will always core me out and bring me back to life. The album ends with an instrumental track, “Eostre,” where the running water leads us out of the forest, into the mountains, and further on our journey, away.
In the “Wolves In The Throne Room recommends” section of the Bandcamp page, is Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper. A perfect pairing for anyone new to either band.
Primordial Arcana is out now on Relapse Records.
"Homebodies" Performance Reading Video
A video performance and reading from the short story “Homebodies.”
Excerpt: "Heaviness Comes With The Night"
An excerpt from the short story “Heaviness Comes With the Night,” which is available now for purchase in the chapbook “Heaviness Leaves The Body.”
1
Casper ducks through the window.
We met in the woods between our houses, late at night. I’m not sure whose idea it was, but we wore an orange bandana around our necks. It was our signal. The path was bare for most of the year, but when the leaves fell you could hide the signal for half a mile if you chose the right place. It started as a game between neighbors.
I’m sick.
“You look terrible,” she says, pushing through the things on my desk, trying not to make noise.
“What are you doing here?” I could be on a different continent, far away; I could leave without a note; I could bury myself deep in the earth, pave it over and build a house and Casper would still find me.
“I brought you supplies, dummy. God knows you don’t have any- thing you need up here in this” – she crouches over a stack of crumpled homework – “hole.”
My room is a sink full of matted hair.
“I’ve managed just fine, thank you,” I say, coughing.
“Right. . .” she says, plowing a collection of used tissues into the trash. “You don’t have to; I can get it tomorrow.”
“What can I say? I like to help,” Casper says. “. . . and right now, you need the most help.”
She looks at the bed but decides to sit at the desk instead. The night air is light in the room, pushing the old sick air out. My head is heavy with fluids and I fall back into the bed. “What we have here is everything you’ll need to recover. This is the good stuff.” She comes from a long line of naturalists. “Ginger, turmeric, black pepper. It burns going down, but it’s worth it.”
“I probably won’t even taste it,” I say, trying to lift my body without coughing.
“Oh, you’ll taste it.” Casper’s always right, which is how we got to where we are now. Distant from each other, existing in silence. I did taste it that night, and for many nights after. Casper laughs; the room brightens. I close my eyes and the fogginess of my entire body lifts. She laughs, I cough, and the world became clear.
2
We’re trespassing in the Harris House Garden, after hours. No one’s watching, so we creep through the front gate; the hinges creak. We laugh in small whispers to each other. We lie in the grass. The chrysanthemums are Casper’s favorite. There are so many of them here.
“Whenever I was sick,” Casper says, cradling the bright flowers, “my grandma used to bring them over in a small jar of water. She said: keep them by your bed and when you start to feel better, burn them in the yard.” She presses the petals into her notebook and writes something I can’t see in a small, tight cursive. “Then the sickness would be gone too.”
Ahead of me, touching the budding ends, soon to bloom, she whispers to herself – or maybe to me, but I can’t hear her. A light comes on in Harris House. People appear at the windows. We didn’t hear them come in (maybe they were always there). Jumping in the hedges, we land clumsily on top of each other, our legs entwine, our arms hold tightly. I can feel the edge of her ribs through her shirt; I try not to touch too much. We lie there for a minute, calming ourselves, trying to breathe softly.
“I think we’re supposed to kiss,” she says, moving slightly so our eyes meet.
I try not to breathe. I try not to move.
“In the movies,” she says, matter-of-factly, “this is where we’d kiss.”
3
“I think this is a mistake,” she says, deep in the forest between our houses. Soon, it will be winter break. Casper was graduating early.
“What do you mean?” I say, almost imperceptibly. “Don’t do this,” she says.
My body feels the end. If I could move, I would take the snow and the rocks and the roots with me. Don’t do this, I tell myself. She moves from one section of the forest to the next, towards her house, away. I try not to follow her. Soon, guests will arrive for a Christmas party I didn’t want to have. Everyone will ask about Casper.
The signal is lost between us. I think this is a mistake, she said, don’t do this. I use the last of my strength to collapse into the house. Later, when guests arrive, I’ll be mistaken for a pile of coats, having never made it past the entryway.
4
There’s a pattern in the cement around the pool. Something that might have been flowers once but wore down into hazy circles. The fence is dark, it blends into the hillside. She’s waiting at the gate. We’ve been fighting for days. About nothing.
Bethany spies on houses in the summer. As the homes empty, and the people escape to the even smaller towns along the coast, she tests the gates and looks through windows. It’s a game I don’t like to play. Or at least, it’s a game I don’t like to play anymore.
“Why don’t you just go out with her again,” she says, tired.
A dark wall of trees surrounds us. For a moment, I consider playing dumb. Who? I’d say. I don’t know what you’re talking about. When Bethany and I met, we talked about Casper leaving (she knows everything), and when we started to date, I felt like I finally had someone I could talk to about all the things I was feeling. For Casper, for love, for loss. At some point I allowed resentment to grow between Bethany and me. It would’ve been easy to avoid, but I didn’t.
I try my best not to sigh and say, “It’s not that easy.”
“Have you tried?”
After Casper left for college, she’d send letters packed with trail maps and brochures from strange museums. She made friends fast and talked about late nights by the campfire over summer break. I put the maps and pictures into a drawer; they became an accordion of colors and time. In my last letter, I remember asking about love and relationships now that she was away from our small town. I tried to make it funny, so it wouldn’t be weird. But it wasn’t that easy.
“I think you’re a good person,” Bethany says, as we turn into her driveway. There are lights on in the house, and windows open, but I know it’s empty.
“We should stop seeing each other,” I say.
“Obviously,” she says, smiling in a sad way I haven’t seen before. “I’m just saying: I think you’re a good person, but you need to figure this Casper thing out. You need to talk to her, or do something, because it’s going to keep getting in the way. Trust me, it’s ruined most of my mom’s relationships. And it’s just...” She ducks to meet my eyes and says, “. . . really painful to watch.”
Bethany pats me on the shoulder and walks to an empty house.
I’m going to tell everyone you’re an asshole, her message says.
I laugh to myself and the forest laughs back. The road is long, and the cars pass in quiet domes of yellow light. I can feel the shirt on the skin of my back, wet and uncomfortable.
5
I wake up alone, in the room where I’ve spent my entire life.
When I was born, my parents bought a small house on a large piece of land by the lake and started building. The original house lives deep in the heart of what stands now. In the living room you can see the boards change color with age.
The lake became our evenings. My father, who worked many jobs, took dinner on the porch, no matter the weather, so he could smoke cigarettes and watch the sun set on the water. In the warmer months we’d join him, if we felt like it. He didn’t mind either way.
When school ended, and Stephen was getting married, my father accepted a job in Albany. At the time, I was looking for a place of my own, so when they offered to leave the house to me, at least for now, I had to say yes. My job at the bookstore wasn’t enough to pay the bills, but they said they’d help. I could get roommates, they said, if I wanted. To not be so alone.
When Casper left, I tried my hand at old cigarettes. Of all the people in town, my father spent the most time on the lake – standing ankle deep looking around, fascinated. In winter, wearing a long coat, he’d return to the warmth of the house, making it smell stale like wet, burning wood. Christmas, for my father, was watching the storms bring the water into the house and batter the windows until it got through, leaking down the sill. And when it would flood, you could hear him laughing from a mile away.
Alone in the house now, loneliness is here with me and the storms. I build a fire and open all the windows just to watch the water pool along the floorboards and seep through, into the space between the house and earth. Wind-torn leaves and the ends of trees come in with the birds to scar the windowsills. When it floods, which is more than before, I comb through the sounds of the night, and the next morning, listening for my father, laughing.
Heaviness Leave The Body Chapbook is available on Gumroad in both physical and digital editions!
Chapbook Digital version is out now!
Heaviness Leaves the Body chapbook is out both in both digital and physical editions.
After messing up the Gumroad page for the digital page, I just decided to release it early!
You can now buy a PDF or ePub version of the full chapbook here:
(if you would like a physical print zine, which are limited to 50 copies, please click here)
My First Chapbook (Print Zine out now!)
In 2019, I decided to collect a few of my favorite short stories into a self-published chapbook zine. The format just felt right. After hemming and hawing for an entire year, the physical editions have arrived and are busy taking up shelf space in my apartment. I decided to self-publish this chapbook of short fiction after many rejection letters from magazines and even more self-doubt. Thanks to the help of my partner and my best friend, it looks great! I could not have designed or presented this book without their help and I am infinitely grateful!
Below is the pre-order information for the physical edition:
On Ephemera (and the A24 Zine)
Reflections on the A24 zine and ephemera.
Claire Denis’ SEEDS zine, red picture of red food on a red table cloth. Red text from the zine’s second page. A24, claire denis, issue 09
Somehow I’ve resisted becoming a collector of ridiculous things, until fairly recently. I’ve bought limited edition box sets from bands, and plenty of books, but never something sequential. Never something that l, when a new edition is released, just buy without checking what it’s about or how it looks. It’s not a subscription. I don’t blindly receive a year's worth of ephemera slowly - I have to go to the webstore and look. Actively.
A24’s zine, which comes out at an undetermined cadence, is one of the best pieces of movie memorabilia for me. It combines a number of very special elements into one $5 package. A24, if you are not familiar, is the fantastic production studio behind things like: The Lighthouse, Euphoria, and the highly anticipated The Green Knight. Their mech game is extremely strong. They have great pins, they have great shirts, they have great mugs and coffee and puzzles. They have a great zine.
One particularly good example is issue 09, “SEEDS,” which was edited by Claire Denis and not only has writing from Nick Cave and a beautiful cover, but also came with a small paper card that was meant to be buried in the ground so it could grow flowers. Where else could you read comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham interviewing young internet celebrities about how weird being famous on the internet is? Or a Toni Collette fanzine made by actor and comedian John Early, wherein he confesses not only his fascination (expelled from him through a fan website he ran for many years) but also the moment he realized he had outed himself online for everyone to see? Jonah Hill has a zine promoting his film Mid90s called “Inner Child;” The cast of Moonbase 8 interview real astronauts about how to poop in space (obviously); Greta Gerwig displays religious lady saints in stained glass; Rose Glass lays out how to be “saved” at various points in history; and Rami Yossef talks to friends and fellow actors about Ramadan.
A24 zine edited by Bo Burnham. Colorful images on both sides from different internet creators. On the left, Lights Camera Jackson lists Best Movies about the internet. On the right, Jeondays shows her zine work
So many of the zines are wealths of insight and special moments because A24 put a team of graphic designers behind creators and allowed them to do whatever they wanted. Some are short, others are longer; some are wild with color, others are blocks of text. They’ve changed to a more traditional A4 print size in the last year, which I thought might be to the zine’s detriment. But, of course, it didn’t matter. I bought them just the same. I read them. They live on the same display shelf over all my other books - closer to the artwork than the computer or the TV - so I can always see them. I bought bags and boards; I had the shelf custom made by a friend. I became that guy, gladly.
Toni Collette fan website picture on the front of the zine, which is Toni from a very early movie and a heart drawn around it. Peach color cover. Red writing
Ephemera can be exhausting. Collecting things can be traps for consumerist propagation and a waste of resources and time and money and just waste in general in a world where things should really not be wasted. But it can also be rewarding and insightful. These zines are not just movie promotional materials. People worked on them in a way that feels authentic. The guest editors are not just promoting something - they’re free to do whatever they want! And they do. Because they’re nerds too.
As much as I produce products to be read or bought or sold, I struggle with the act of putting waste out into the world. I think much harder now about what should be printed. Not just important things, but fun things and serious things and scary things. Things people will enjoy, that look nice. Things that someone has worked on; that I’ve worked on; that my friends have worked on with me; and things I couldn’t have done without their help and their kindness and their critique.
Not everything is ephemera, but the ephemera you have should be something. A24 nails it for me with these zines. I hope you check them out.
Jumbo, Or: How to Waste An Absurd Plot
Review of the film Jumbo, which I thought wasted its potential.
Jumbo is a film I first heard about in the early months of 2020. As it made its rounds at Sundance and other film festivals pre-pandemic, the noise was: it’s a strange film where a young woman has a relationship with an inanimate object and has one of the actresses from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, who is phenomenal. This was enough for me to insist that my partner not look up anything about this film and that we should both avoid trailers, spoilers, reviews, etc. until it came out (which happened finally in May).
Here is my spoiler free plot summary and review before we get to the issues I have with the film and how I’d fix it:
Jeanne lives at home with her single mother and is suffering from some pretty acute anxiety. Having finally reached the age where she is allowed to work, she’s decided she has always loved the amusement park in town and that it would mean a lot to her if she worked there. As a night-shift custodian, she is left alone in the park with all the rides. Fascinated by the big new tilt-a-whirl the amusement park recently acquired, she decides to climb its arm to clean the light bulbs and marvel at its mechanisms. She’s enamored by the machine and the machine, it seems, is enamored by her. It starts to respond and “speak” to her through a series of flashing lights and movements. She names it Jumbo.
Her mother, who has her own troubles and also works odd hours, is determined to get her a date with the park manager, who is young and handsome. The park manager is invited over to their house, he drives her home in the morning, and goes out of his way to talk to her. Her mother, who has also taken a new partner, thinks things are moving in the right direction for them both. But Jeanne’s love and further exploration of her own sexuality and romantic interests with Jumbo get in the way.
Unfortunately, despite it’s rather interesting premise, Jumbo fails to create believable character actions and wastes a lot of the thrust of the film’s absurdity on a rote and uninteresting story about a troubled daughter and her mother. Released in a time when films like Swallow and Under The Skin are taking body/object/horror to new levels, Jumbo falls more in the tone of an afterschool special than a film with anything meaningful to say about love and the ways in which emotion can sometimes be shelved into objects we find thrilling or attractive. Noémie Merlant, who plays Jeanne in the film, does a serviceable job embodying a poorly written and depthless character - but, and this will be a big part of what I would change about the film in a rewrite - barely speaks to anyone about anything. Because the character is alone for large parts of the film, falling in love with a silent object that communicates through flashing lights and big mechanical movements, Jeanne becomes shallow. Her actions don’t mean anything, especially towards the climax, and when the film ended I was left with the feeling that nothing mattered. The conclusion was predictable instead of inevitable.
Here is where the spoilers and re-write start:
The problems I had with Jumbo can largely be summed up as: The plot choices made by the writer/director were not explored deeply and, as the audience, we were not given someone to discover Jeanne through. It is obvious that the anxious main character, who has spent a lot of her life in her room building models of the theme park rides, is lonely. It is obvious she lives with her mother, who is a broken person after a recent (?) divorce, and that they don’t really know each other.
The predictable nature of the plot rolls out like this: While her mother is proud that she is now working and out of the house, she wishes her daughter were normal. Jeanne, who has happily found love with Jumbo and is fulfilled for the first time in her life, exposes this relationship to her mother (who she thought she could trust for some reason). Her mother rejects it, destroys her room and causes her to run away (kind of). She returns and her mother accepts her thanks to the new happiness/relationship she also has recently found. Jeanne and Jumbo get “married” while the mom’s boyfriend beats up some kids who were teasing her. The end. The moral being: people find happiness differently than you and you can’t help who or what you love.
Sounds interesting enough. Typical story. We all want acceptance. But where this movie fails is in creating an environment or any character where the change from not-accepted to accepted is felt to be a monumental shift between the two parties. The absurdity of falling in love with a big tilt-a-whirl (and having sex with it) is wasted by an after-school level of character depth and action. There was never a point where I felt it was necessary that the mother accept Jeanne’s odd behavior or love, so when it finally happened the impact was very low on the emotional relevance scale.
How do you fix this?
There are two big problems with the writing of this film: 1) The main character is almost always alone (especially at the park at night), and 2) the absurd elements happen in act one, which deflates the actual crisis/climax of the film when it happens. If your pitch is: troubled young woman falls in love for the first time, but it’s with a machine! I expect that to be the emotional crisis of the film. What the hell is going to happen? How will she live her life in love with a ride at a seasonal theme park? What if the town finds out? What if her MOM finds out? To be fair, some of the climax revolves around “what if the town finds out,” but because the plot is very rote it also becomes “will my mom be convinced that I am in love?” and “will Jeanne be sent to a mental institution?”
Problem #1: the main character is almost always alone
One of the elements of this film that I think would be fairly easy to fix, if you were doing a page 1 rewrite, would be to add a character who also works at the park to help explain some of the things that are poorly shown, or briefly mentioned, about Jeanne. By adding a friend you create a vehicle for late night conversations and a springboard for tension. A character can still be anxious and troubled and lonely while not always being alone. So you have a few options of course, but in order to accelerate this film into the artsy emotional film it wants so badly to be, I believe this friend character needs to be: a) a best friend from school who Jeanne is secretly romantic for but has never pursued and b) someone who leaves suddenly. By making this new character someone who is already a friend you create the opportunity for deeper conversations (or any conversation at all) that don’t need to fully explain why Jeanne is the way she is. It creates space to talk about the troubles she is having without having to explain their origin. As someone who she feels great affection for, this character could become the romantic interest of Jeanne that is unrequited - forbidden, uninterested, lusted after. So when the new character leaves, all of that pent up pubescent energy can be suddenly transferred to the object - the exciting new, flashing, and powerful Jumbo. By removing the object of her affection and replacing it with a literal object, the absurdity has purpose. The lonely, troubled young person, who is perhaps waking for the first time to her own intimacy, misdirects her love/sex/lust onto something wild. Something weird and exciting.
Problem #2: The absurd elements happen in act one, which deflates the actual crisis/climax of the film when it happens.
The crisis/climax of the first act (which becomes the thrust for the inciting incident of the second act) is: Will Jeanne actually have sex with this machine, which has somehow come alive? Yes. She strips. She licks the machine oil from the hydraulic joints. She enters a white portal where she is slowly covered with black goo (very similar to Under The Skin). She masterbates while being held up by the machine, high into the sky with the city lights in the background. Yes, she has sex with the machine.
After this happens in the first ~20 min or so you think: holy shit. This movie is going to be wiiiiiilllldddd if they’re doing this early in the plot. But it’s not. Afterwards we return to the human world filled with very common human problems. After the park manager finds out that she is literally making out with this machine, he announces in front of the entire town that the machine is being sold away. Jeanne shows her mom her “boyfriend” and her mom is confused and pissed - threatens to send her to an institution. Jeanne has sex with the park manager to try to experience what real love/sex is, but it’s terrible. But none of that really matters because in the end all Jeanne needs is the acceptance of her mother and to be literally married to this machine (before it is sold off...).
Okay. So how do you fix this?
By solving Problem #1, you create a solution for Problem #2. The crisis / climax of the first act becomes the crisis / climax for the entire film instead (or even the ending - she finally goes off the deep end, she finally has sex with the hot twirly machine). The absurdity is pushed to the climax because it is where all the tension lies in the pitch. The entire time you’re thinking: when is this lady going to make love to that machine? It’s in the description. It’s the one thing this movie is about. But what if it wasn’t? What if the movie was actually about how we harbor feelings and when those feelings are unrequited we push ourselves further into our existing insecurities and pains? What if instead of a missing father we had a missing early crush? What if instead of a troubled mother leading us into a troubled daughter we had the secret actions of a troubled young person who was just trying to find love, goddamnit!? Remove the mom’s performative sexuality and crude jabs; remove the stand-in father figure (mom’s boyfriend); and develop the main character so that when she is naked in the very first scene, and then later has sex with a machine, we know why. We are there, as awkward as it is, in repulsion or rejoicing, with her. By seeding in the absurd implications of the pitch throughout the film, instead of all at once, we create tension and mystery. Is she imagining it? Is the machine really responding to her?
Horse Girl, written by Jeff Baena and Allison Brie, creates a similar plot and executes it really well. At many points in the film the main character is wondering: Is this real? Am I losing it? Does anybody hear me? As the audience, we’re there the whole time. We see what Allison Brie’s character sees. We are given small glimpses into the absurd in each act, escalating in length and excessiveness, until: boom, the story climax - full tilt insanity (maybe?). The tensions are reserved, built up, then released slightly, then doubled back on even harder.
In the end, Jumbo is a fine movie that I had high hopes for. It uses an absurd premise to bring in an audience but fails to deliver on an impactful plot. It definitely delivers on the absurd premise, but for what reason? If the first act were a short film, it would be slightly better.
Jumbo is a french drama film from 2020, which was written and directed by Zoé Wittock, stars Noémie Merlant, Emmanuelle Bercot, and Bastien Bouillon, and can be found on VOD.
Progressive Complications: "Sweet Blue Flowers" by Takako Shimura (Part 2)
The second part of my dive into Progressive Complications and the manga “Sweet Blue Flowers".”
Part Two: Chapter 2 - “Stand By Me”
Today I will continue the story breakdown (with a focus on progressive complications) of Sweet Blue Flowers by Takako Shimura. If you have not read the first part, you can find it here.
From last time:
At the end of Chapter 1 we are left with the following complications unresolved:
Complication #1: Why is Fumi prone to crying?
Complication #2: Will they join the same club? Will Fumi manage to avoid being in a club forever?
Complication #3: What’s up with this weird intimacy with Fumi and her cousin?
And, of course, the series Crisis question: Will Fumi and Akira end up together!?
In Chapter Two, we return again to Fumi and Akira - two childhood friends who were separated and went to different schools until! they both ended up at Matsuoka Girl's High School in year 1. Reunited, we join Akira and Fumi at a cafe after school. Akira insists, now that they have a connection again, they meet before and after school to travel together. Fumi’s mom invites Akira over for dinner and asks Fumi what her friend likes, which serves as a small aside for a childhood memory: Akira eats the food Fumi doesn’t want to. At school, it’s time for the Club push again and Fumi somehow manages to sidestep the drama club for the second time. Realizing she will eventually have to submit to joining, she notices a sign for Literature Club and realizes that might be the best escape. But as she opens the door, a tall and handsome Third Year student is on the other side! She compliments Fumi on her height and asks, “Do you want to join my club?” Swooned by this mysterious older student, and in a haze of attraction, Fumi immediately agrees (which both closes the loop on Complication #2, and begins Complication #4 and #5 in a brilliant meet-cute shift).
Later, at Fumi’s house for dinner, Fumi’s cousin and new fiance suddenly arrive. Fumi’s mom is surprised they made it, but happy to see them. But Fumi’s tone shifts from casually chatting about her chance encounter and joining Literature Club, to all the attention being showered on her cousin. This pushes Fumi to tears again saying: “Chizu (Fumi’s cousin)’s so mean!”
After dinner, Akira and Fumi are getting ready for bed. Fumi asks if Akira can sleep in the bigger bed with her and continue to comfort her after the emotional dinner (which we didn’t see). This is not played romantically, but as a friend needing someone close. But as Akira climbs into bed with Fumi, Fumi has a memory of a shadowed figure (implied to be Chizu, her cousin) asking “Is this alright?” and “Are you scared?” as she puts naked Fumi’s fingers in her mouth. “Fumi, you’re so cute,” the shadowed figure says. In current time again, Fumi begins to cry. This feeds into Complication #1 (why does Fumi cry?), but that may not be the whole answer yet. It also answers part of Complication #3 (What’s up with the intimacy between Fumi and her cousin?). Akira teases Fumi for crying in a way that makes her laugh and the scene ends with a voiceover from Fumi that says: “Night is for sleeping. But I won’t sleep tonight because I have so much to talk about,” which implies she will tell Akira about her cousin’s advances (but this is not clear by the end of Volume 1, from what I could tell).
Back at school the next day, Fumi goes to the Literature Club for the first time, but discovers the girl she is looking for isn’t there! What gives? Well, as it turns out, the girl is the leader of the Basketball Club, which Fumi is now a member of! (ending Complication #4 - she joined the wrong club! - and seeding Complication #5 - will she follow through to meet the girl?).
This ends Chapter 2, “Stand By Me.”
Let’s run through the story elements:
Chapter 1:
Inciting incident: Fumi and Akira reunite, but Akira doesn’t remember their childhood connection.
Complication #1: Fumi is prone to crying
Complication #2: Fumi is avoiding joining a club, but has to at some point
Complication #3: There’s something weird happening with Fumi and her Cousin
Turning Point Complication / Crisis: Will Akira remember Fumi, and when she does, will their connection be reignited?
Climax: Yes, she does remember her (with some help from her mom)
Resolution: The connection is back! Instant friends. Akira shows consideration for Fumi.
Chapter 2:
Inciting incident: Fumi gives in and joins the literature club! Akira visits Fumi at home.
Complication #4: Fumi joins the basketball club by mistake
Complication #5: Fumi meets a dashing Third Year lady while joining the club, who she is swooned by immediately, which she admits to Akira at dinner and askes “is it okay to admire a girl like that?” and Akira responds: “Why not! Girls are the only ones here.”
Complication #6: Is Akira open to a lesbian relationship at all?
Turning Point Complication / Crisis: While Akira is over for a dinner/sleep-over at Fumi’s house, Chizu (Fumi’s cousin) shows up with her new fiance and Fumi breaks down. Why is Fumi crying (Complication #1) and why now?
Climax: Fumi tells the audience (and maybe Akira) that she was taken advantage of by her cousin Chizu (implied not explicit) when she was younger - which was also possibly her first lesbian experience and has a lot of baggage.
Resolution: Akira and Fumi become closer.
The complications in this story feel earned and progressive. At every turn there is an escalation of emotional and character development that feels exactly right for the characters you are slowly getting inside the heads of. Takako manages to slowly seed these moments in chapters throughout Volume 1 by pushing characters together in natural, realistic encounters that feel pulled from the everyday experience of young friendships and romances. Hidden feelings and histories drive the characters towards each other and away again in the waves of casual life. Reading through Chapter One and Two a second time brought out more subtle shifts in character depiction. During my third reading, I found myself focused on the scenic panels without dialogue or characters and how they set the mood and break up actions.
Volume 1 of Sweet Blue Flowers is the first seven chapters (165 pages), and a really solid read. This set of articles was specifically about the story beats and the progressive complications and not a review of the wonderful style and emotional depiction of the characters. It was a real pleasure to read Takako’s work this week and I am eager to start volume 2 next week. Even Though We’re Adults Volume 2 will be out in June.
For more information about Story Grid, check out their official website.