Stud. writing book 05.qxd - Santa Fe Community College

StudentWritingBookCover12.qxd:Stud. writing book cover 05.qxd 5/1/12 4:54 PM Page 2Santa Fe Community College6401 Richards Ave.Santa Fe, NM 87508(505) 428-1000www.sfcc.edu

Table of ContentsAccoladesThe 2012 Santa Fe Community College Student Writing AwardsPoetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3WinnerYour Garden by Theresa Ferraro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Runners-UpHome by Sherl Rehn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Your Advice by Julie Herndon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Honorable MentionsPlans by Libby Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7The Things That Make Up Laura by Laura Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9The Bosque in Winter by Theresa Ferraro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10The Unknown Void by Neda Vesselinova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11Personal Essay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12WinnerForgive Me by Alicia Blair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Runners-UpGrandma’s Tale of the White Fox by Karen Naranjo . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15A Tribute to My Beloved Father by Maricel Lewandowski . . . . . . . . . .17Honorable Mentions“Guilty Man” by Norman Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Square of Destruction by Israel Garcia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23Home Sweet Home by Reonna Joe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27WinnerKit’s Way by Anna Carvlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27Runner-UpFBUF “The Conquizical Life of Fisher Bland” by Rane Townsend . . .32Honorable MentionThe Raven Trickster by Sharon Guerrero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35Lottery by Doug Bootes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Forever Home by Libby Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Academic Essay ......................................49WinnerSilent Film by Lucy Gilster ............................................................49Runner-UpThe Loss of the American Dream by Aragon Smith ........................56Honorable MentionThe Modern Communications Revolution and Globalizationby Aragon Smith..............................................................................59The Cruise by Lucy Gilster ............................................................62The Santa Fe Community College Student Writing Awards aregiven out annually. All students enrolled in at least three credits in eitherthe Fall or Spring semesters are eligible. Interested students submittedtheir work, which was then judged by a group of judges selected from thestaff at SFCC. The places were determined on the basis of the judges’rankings. In addition to being published in Accolades, the authors wereinvited to give a public reading at the SFCC Student Writing AwardsCelebration. Winners and Runners-up also received monetary prizes.The Student Writing Awards exist to celebrate the diverse voicesof SFCC students and to recognize the already-present talent of these stilldevelopingwriters. This recognition also provides encouragement to thewriters to continue their pursuit of original written expression.The Winner and Runners-up in each category are also eligible forthe Richard Bradford Memorial Creative Writing Scholarship.The Student Writing Awards are directed by Daniel Kilpatric. Thefollowing people were essential to making The SFCC Student Writing Awardsand Celebration happen: Shuli Lamden, Colleen Lynch, Justine Carpenter,Jenny Miranda, Kathy Romero, Deborah Boldt, Kelly Smith, Lauren Camp,Casey Frank, Meghan McGarrity, Kate McCahill, Jeff Atwell, Barbara Woltag,Kay Bird, Kathy Eagan, Miriam Sagan, Julia Deisler, Bethany Kilpatric, andall the students who entered but did not receive an award.2

Poetry WinnerTheresa FerraroYour GardenIt is that time of daywhen hummingbirds feed franticsucking nectar irresistible from red flowersin a landscape that begs for rain.I watch acrobatic flights capture sunlight,flash rufus and shimmer ruby on miniature craftsso perfect in design.What would it be like to move like that?My movement so slow ploddingcannot compareto the thumping and pumping of a hummingbird heart.Hovering and swoopingfrom penstemon to gilia,beebalm to butterflyweed.I watch until the chill of nightslows the beating of tiny hearts cold,seducing little birds to nestle, stillin cups of lichen and spider silk,until the warmth of dawnstirs their wings once more.3

Poetry Runner-UpSherl RehnHomeHurtfulOnlyMeanEvilHardOver PoweredManiacEnoughI’ve never really had a home,Moved over thirty times alone,No friends or family welcomed in,For fear that I‘d be hurt again,Afraid to trust not just myself,But also others with power and wealth,Nowhere to run nowhere to hide,Surrounded by four walls inside,I’ve had my share where evil dwells,In most my homes I’ve lived in hell,A roamer I am a roamer I’ll be,While working my way across the country,To scared to stay and lay down roots,For fear the walls will go kaputz,I’m free outside to run and laugh,Unlike the inside memories of the past,I can’t allow the maniacs in,To betray my trust and ultimately win,I shield myself against my foes,Close out my friends both young and old,I stretch my arms out to the sun,I pray to God I’ll over come,The shame of home I hold inside,I hope I can replace with pride,4

So take this journey along with me,And maybe I will be set free,I’m humbly asking for your help,And for a chance to free myself,5

Poetry Runner-UpJulie HerndonI forget your adviceFor the morning and I leave,Milk on the counter,To go to work, though I amBaggy-eyed, sore-limbed,Hacking, crackling, and leakingGreen from nose and throat.“Don’t go,”You said, though notIn the romantic way men speakIn movies, but ratherA natural advisory,Fruit falling from the tree.You see, you haveSick days, vacation days,Salvation days to take,But no one givesThese branches a breakWhen I cannot workFor what I’m paid.Your AdviceSo I make the trade andI exchangeThe gallon left warming by the kitchen sink,Mugs of tea I neglect to drink,A wide-eyed dog I forgot to feed,Clothes and dishes clutteringThe house I do not cleanIn my necessity to fall asleepFor SaturdaysI cannot leaveThe couch, too tired to reachPills andTissuesThat I need.6

swinging baseball bats, they pound his face into the curbhe thinks he’s ok, he’s nothis buddy takes him back homeanother friend drops him at the ER and takes offhe thinks he’s ok, he’s nothe’s alone, he always seems to be aloneanother friend drops him at the ER and takes offhis face smashed , eyes swollen shut, ribs brokenhe’s alone, he always seems to be alonethe hospital calls his mother “ Come, it’s urgent”his face smashed, eyes swollen shut, ribs brokenhe’s unconscious now, IV’s, oxygen, monitors beepingthe hospital calls his mother,“come, it’s urgent”she doesn’t recognize him at first - that can’t be himhe unconscious now, IV’s, oxygen, monitors beeping“oh, my god, oh, my god”, she cries, afraid to touch himshe doesn’t recognize him at first - that can’t be himher beautiful boy so brutalized and fragile“oh, my god, oh, my god”, she cries, afraid to touch himthe neurologist says he was luckyher beautiful boy so brutalized and fragileit will take time, he will heal, sort ofthe neurologist says he was luckyhe now has a defeated quality, he will not recoverit will take time, he will heal, sort ofpain will become his constant companionhe now has a defeated quality, he will not recoverhis world gets smaller, closing inpain will become his constant companionhe won’t complain he will medicate his painhis world gets smaller, closing inhe walks downtown in his leather trenchcoathe won’t complain he will medicate his painhis mind a jumble of wit, irritation and revised plans8

Poetry HonorableMentionLaura GrahamThe Things that Make up LauraI am from gum,from Frigidaire and Kirby.I am from the dog hair that blankets the couch.(Multi-colored, coarse and softsmelling of the world beyond.)I am from the Weeping Willow,the strong and sturdy Cherry Tree,once extensions of my formbut sadly now are gone.I’m from Divinity and musical notes,from Grandma McCombe and Aunt Evonne.I’m from constant talkers and hide things under the rug,from “You Are My Sunshine” and “Whose on first.”I’m from “Narrow is the way” filled with “Lions, tigers, and bears, Oh my!”And a gun I can shoot all by myself.I am from Shores of Ire’ and a pony named Cody,coffee every morning and Blue Bell every night.From my uncle’s thumb that never grew,the knotted head my father got from running without looking.In my grandmother’s artful roomghosts of china plates remain,painted with birthday and wedding dates,the bone yard of a family.Vibrant colors of floral patterns danceimportant days across the years.These dishes are my legacy.Sacred symbols of family being created,with hopes of more to come.9

Poetry HonorableMentionTheresa FerraroI watch silentas birds mark timegobbling grain and spearing fish.THE BOSQUE IN WINTERSide by side Shovelers, Pintails, and Buffleheadsgo about the business of the their day;flapping wings, tipping tails,gulping pond scum,enough to grow fat in winter.I learn to identify life coming and going.The shape of a tail, the color of an eye,tell me who you are.Slivers of sunlightgreen and purpleflash like charms upon still water.In fading lighta frenzy of wingsblack and whiteswarm the pink and purple sky,snowgeese and cranesso bountifulon ponds at twilightI can leap secureupon the backs of birds.10

Poetry HonorableMentionNeda VesselinovaThe Unknown VoidTonight the stars are blooming very bright,Spread across the sky in the Milky Way.The moon reflects the sun’s rays of pale light,Her face is always there, like night, like day.There at the twilight horizon lies Mars,A name of war in the peace of the sky.All across the great dome of black are stars,Some of them are born, while some of them die.This big dark veil that lies above us all,A heaven shrouded burst eternal song.The vastly unknown void will never fall,The time of its existence is so long.All began with a great lumination,And the universe was its creation.11

Personal Essay WinnerAlicia BlairForgive MeI was a good boy, a straight A student, responsible and hard working.Soon I would see that all to change.World War Two. I remember it asif it were yesterday.The people, the rules, the smell, the hate, the body partseverywhere, bombs, screams, tears laughs, and most of all, the death.Thecountless pairs of eyes of people staring back at you while killing them off.Young boys, young men, it was all the same, each one screaming for help,having nowhere to go, and with no one there to help them. All of us alonein a world where war was the topic, and power was everyone’s goal.Thegoal for us both, to defeat the enemy, to make the other feel insignificant,small, worthless, and most importantly, powerless.The only problem is, isthat it worked, they succeeded, as did we.Many people died, all because of an opinion, a thought, a mind,one mind.This mind of which I speak belonged to man, a man who wasfilled with boiling hate. He took all of his hate and spread it all over theworld, acting like a disease and virus, a plague to all the people who heardhis words. His words reached people from all around the world, to peoplewho had never meet him, people who didn’t even know who he was.Thisman’s name is not worth repeating, for I prefer to forget, although I knowthat neither the world nor I could ever forget such a man.I am ashamed to say I was one of the men who was infected withthe hate that originated from the soul of only one human being. For me itall started on June 2, 1941.The first time out of many, in which I wouldsee and hear his voice. I was traumatized, filled with fear, I couldn’t think. Icould only listen to the radio.After entering the war with the help and pressure of my father, Iwas put into an air force squadron. I was to prepare the bombs and sendthem off on their long downward journey into the cities of civilians, of families,and of now broken homes. I promised myself at first that I would neverlook down.“Always look up,” I thought to myself,“never look down.” Neverlook down at the dying, innocent people whom I was murdering.We were trained to “not think” and to take orders; they demandednothing more, and nothing less. So being an obedient young boy as I was, Idid. Not a second thought as to what I was going to be doing, soon intomy future. On January 13, 1945 at 6:00AM, we were sent into DresdenGermany to do what we did best, follow orders. As my partner and I pre-12

pared the 279 tons of bomb explosives for our next drop, I did exactlywhat I promised myself I would not do. I looked down, for the first andlast time, and I saw what no human should ever see. I felt my soul freeze,and along with the bombs, leave my body and fall down into the city ofDresden.At that very moment nothing in my world would ever be thesame. I saw things that would bring horrors to the devil's heart.Thescreams of children,“Mama! Papa!”, the cries of women for their children,men fighting to save their families, houses exploding, miners falling, peoplerunning for shelter, for life, for hope that it would all soon end.Tress burning,houses blown into oblivion, animals whimpering, car horns honking,the list goes on and on and on and on ………. until, finally, there is nothingleft. Nothing but silence, the quite buzzing of our planes flying away inthe sunrise of that cold, quite, lonely, dead day.I couldn’t feel after that day, think, or even cry. I was in completeemotional, mental, and physical shock. I couldn’t feel anymore, everythingwas completely frozen and numb. I looked into the barrack’s mirror, I didn’tknow who I was looking at, I didn’t recognize him, I didn’t know hisname, age, past, present, or future. Finally, after so many months of fightingand struggling, the countless sleepless nights with the sounds of bombs inthe far distance, praying and dreaming of the life I once had in the palm ofmy hand, now gone and seeming more like a fairy tale and dream thenwhat it really was, once my reality.That day, in that moment, looking into the mirror, all I could dowas cry, and slowly, crying turned into screaming, and screaming turnedinto hate. Not at them, but towards myself. I wanted to run, I wanted towash off all the dirt and blood that was in my mind all of those countlessfaces of the innocents, faces who in a different world, under a different circumstance,resembled mine. Countless young innocents, each one helpless,obedient, boys and girls following orders. I began to shake and cry when Ifinally realized that I was what they made me, nothing but a machine, atool, in essence nothing. I was empty.To this very day I become numb atthe thought of Dresden, Germany.I was a good boy, a straight A student, responsible and hard working.Now I was all of those things plus some, but those new things that Ihad been forced to add to my person dominated, hid, and buried thestraight A student, who was responsible and hard working.This is whatnow defined me, the way people now saw me, and I could see the recognitionin the eyes. Some with compassion, and others with hate. And whathurt the most was accepting it myself out loud, the fact that I waschanged, and that I would never go back to the person I once was. All thatwas left was a body but not a soul, because I took yours, and now you havetaken mine.The people and person I hated the most, I myself became.I am sorry. I am sorry to all of you who I have killed, hurt, and13

destroyed, and if this leaves you with any comfort, you were not the onlyones I killed.There is one more person to that list of thousands that mustbe added, and that person is me. My soul, my core, remains next to you,next to all of you who’s lives I have taken. My soul lies at the bottom ofDresden, Germany accompanied by the thousands of people who’s fate Ichanged, and in many cases ended.I am sorry.In the end we were all the same, scared and tired young boys whowere then made into scared and tired young men.We were cheated out oflife. I wish that upon no one else, back then or now. A life is worth livingas long as you have one, and the truth is that some of us didn’t deserveone, not like this one.There is nothing I can do to gain your forgiveness ortake back my horrible mistake. For that I am sorry. I only wish that thosewhom I have hurt realize that it was not my intention to kill your lovedones, but like any other man, to protect mine. I am a man, a human, amammal, which gives me enough of reason for protecting myself and theones I love. For at the end of the day, we both know you would have donethe same, and, you did.I am sorry that it turned out this way. As I said, I wish I couldchange my past, but because of the past, our children have a future. Onewithout the pain and hate of not only one man, but of many.They are tosee the world differently then we do, and just like we once did, they havethat right, and I would prefer that then anything else.Once again I am sorry for the pain I have caused, and the sadnessthat you hold in your heart. Know that I share your pain, everyday andevery night for the rest of my life. I am only human; I can only ask for somuch and go so far. Forgive me.Henry Luis McCormick14

Personal Essay Runner-UpKaren NaranjoGrandma’s Tale of the White Tail FoxWhen I was about six years old, I found myself sitting on the backof my Grandpa’s spotted white horse, when a fox ran across our path.Being just six years old, I had a lot of questions. This fox was about onefoot high and about 3 feet long, but had the most beautiful rust coloredfur. I noticed the beautiful fluffy tail had white on the tip of it.I remember thinking to myself, "Wow! He is pretty and fluffy. Iwonder what happen to his tale.Who painted his tale?"The sun was going down and it was beginning to get dark outside.Therewas a chill in the air and we finally reached grandmas place.The room was filled with the smell of fresh baked bread. Grandma alwayswelcomed us with her sweet long warm hugs and kisses. She always madea point to make sure that our tummies were full and then she would havegrandpa build a fire and sit us down to visit.As I heard grandpa telling grandma about our trip, my thoughtswent back to the fluffy rust fox with the white tail. I couldn’t wait anylonger, with a look of concern, I asked,“Why do fox have white tales?”My grandmother, with her white hair pulled back, sat me downand began to tell me a story. She said,“My father told me this when I wasyour age.”"It was a beautiful spring day and full of color and a coyote wasout for a walk with a fox. They came to a big smooth rock and the coyotethrew his blanket over it and sat down to rest. It started to get very hot,and the coyote decided he didn’t need the blanket."‘Here rock,’ he said,‘you can have my blanket because you let usrest on you.’"The coyote and fox went on their way.They didn’t go far when ablack heavy cloud covered the sky. Lightning started to flash in the sky,thunder began to rumble and the rain began to pour.The only shelter theycould find was in a tree.""The coyote said to the fox,‘Run back to the rock, and ask for theblanket I gave him.We can cover ourselves with it and keep dry.’""So the fox ran back to the rock, and said,‘The coyote wants hisblanket back.’"‘No,’ yelled the rock,‘he gave it to me as a present. It is mine!’"The fox returned to the coyote and told him that the rock did15

not want to give him the blanket back.The coyote said,‘Well, the rock isvery ungrateful. I only wanted the use of the blanket for a little while untilthe rain stops.’ He became really angry and upset and ran back in the rainto the rock and took the blank."‘I need this to keep me dry,’ he said.‘You don’t need a blanket.Youhave been out in the rain all your life.’My grandmother then got up and added another log on the fireand gestured to grandpa to get the bed prepared.As I sat there waiting forgrandma to finish the story my mind kept thinking back to the fox.Grandma then said to us with a warm, sweet, smile, and tone,“Come getin bed and I will tell you the rest of the story.” She then tucked us in thepleasant, warm, secure, snug bed.Grandma continued with,“The coyote and the fox kept dry underthe blanket until the rain stopped and the sun came out. As they walkedtoward a flowing river, they heard a loud noise behind them coming fromthe other side of the hill.‘Fox,’ said the coyote,‘run to the other side of thehill and see what the loud noise is.’”“The fox ran to the top of the hill, and then came running back asfast as he could.‘Run! Run!’ he screamed,‘The rock is coming!’The coyotewatched and saw the rock roll over the top of the hill and rollingdown towards them.The fox soared into a hole, but the rock crushed thetip of his tail.”With my grandmother’s final tuck and kiss, she simply whisperedwith a warm smile,“That is why a fox’s tail is white to this day.”I remember and miss all those times spent with my grandparents.Just listening to the stories, the secure feelings of life, the happiness, thelaughter, and the warm, snug feeling I got from my grandmother’s long hugs.16

Personal Essay Runner-UpMaricel LewandowskiA TRIBUTE TO MY BELOVED FATHERGray, cloudy skies hovered above me. A heavy heart had set insideme. Rain came down like the tears on my face.The world passed me, but Ifelt like I was standing in place. I can’t believe you’re gone! I thought withdifficulty.I knew this day would come, but it came sooner than expected.The end was sudden. I wasn’t prepared.Are we ever prepared? I thought tomyself. I stood beside your coffin and stared down at you.You were still,quiet and peaceful. I was numb, stunned, and lost. I knelt down beside youand hung my head in prayer. I felt abandoned.I am tempted to kiss your forehead. I am nervous about what that will feellike but I feel compelled to kiss you. I want you to know how deeply I love you, Imuttered to myself quietly. So, ever so gently, so slowly, like slow motion, Ifound myself leaning over and I did it. I kissed you.Thoughts flooded my head and memories flowed quickly throughit. I thought about my childhood, how protected I felt and how loved Ihad been by you, how much I had taken for granted while you were stillhere, beside me, breathing, and life going well as usual.It took me eighteen years to realize what an extraordinary influencemy father has been on my life. His core accomplishment was family.He was a person of devotion and integrity, and a man who understood ahard day’s work. My father was an optimist. He loved to laugh. He loved toplease. He was rarely, if ever, critical of people. He didn’t have an unkindbone in his body. He filled his life with hope, even when there was littlereason to hope. He was the kind of person who had thoughtful discussionsabout which artist he would most want to have his portrait painted by,John Singer Sargent. He was also the kind of father who always had timefor his five children, and the kind of community leader who had a seat onthe board of every major project to assist Hawaii’s impoverished citizens.Growing up with such a strong role model, I developed many ofhis enthusiasms. I not only came to love the excitement of learning simplyfor the sake of knowing something new, but I also came to understand theidea of giving back to the community in exchange for a new sense of life,love, and spirit. It was here that I realized my father’s strength with vigorthat was contagious.My father’s enthusiasm for learning was most apparent in travel. I17

was nine years old when my family visited Greece. Every night for threeweeks before the trip, my older brother William and I sat with my fatheron his bed reading Greek myths and taking notes on the Greek Gods.Pretending to be Cleopatra, the Greek goddess ruler of Egypt, I scurried toa white loveseat, laid down immediately, then motioned to my father.“Fanme, my dear slave, for I am searing with perspiration, and nourish me withgrapes for my stomach craves hunger!” I ordered my father in sarcasm butsmirking foolishly.“Yes, oh dear one, your wish is my command!” he proclaimedwith dignity.Despite the fact that we were traveling with my sister’s fourteenmonth-oldchild, we managed to be at each ruin when the site opened atsunrise. I vividly remember standing in an empty Amphitheatre pretendingto be an ancient tragedian, picking out my favorite sculpturein the Acropolis museum, and inserting our family into modified tales ofthe battle at Troy. Eight years and a quarter of a dozen passport stampslater, I have come to value what I learned on these journeys about globalhistory, politics and culture, as well as my family and myself.While I treasure the various worlds my father opened to meabroad, my life was equally transformed by what he had shown me justtwo miles from my house. As a ten year old, I often accompanied my fatherto Saimin’s, a local soup kitchen and children’s center.While he attendedmeetings, I helped with the Summer Program by chasing children aroundthe building and performing magic tricks. Having finally perfected the“floating paintbrush” trick, I began work as a full time volunteer with thefive and six year old children. Although the position was often difficult, thepersonal rewards were beyond articulation.Everything that my father has ever done has been overshadowedby the thought behind it.While the raw experiences I have had at homeand abroad have been spectacular, I learned to truly value them by watchingmy father. He enriched my life with his passion for learning andchanged it with his devotion to humanity. His hands were significant in mylife because from my earliest age, he held my hand in his and we discoveredthe world together. In his endless love of everything and everyone hewas touched by, I saw a hope and life that was truly exceptional. Despitelosing him, my father will always be by my side.Two years ago, my father said,“I’m ready for the deep sleep.”He wasn’t. He hung on. He convinced himself that he had to liveto care for my mother. He found friends who gathered around him at hishome. He had two more dinners around a long table in his dining roomover Thanksgiving Days. He spent two more Christmas holidays with thefamily. He never lost his good humor.I was in denial when I visited my father a year ago. I had walked18

through a busy, unfamiliar hospital abroad in the Philippines, and I triednot to assume the implication of my visit.The dull smell of sanitary equipment,latex, and vomit was repulsive as I neared room 225, where myfather was. I remembered opening the door and the first thing I saw was asmile from my father.Without hesitation, I immediately rushed by his sideto put my hand in his as he neared death. I wanted him to know that I waswith him on his final journey on earth. My father was lying in a hospitalbed and moments after seeing my presence, he said,“I am ready to gohome.”And his last words to me were my last words to him:“I love you.”It was a beautiful and a complete ending, for me and for him.Tonight there is a moon eclipse.Tonight is as long and as full ofyearning like every other night since my father is gone. I am hearing thevoice of my father from a distance. It is getting harder as time passes by toremember the faces, names, memories and distances. I am really far away,but I am there with him. Life consists of millions of little pictures in myhead: sad, happy, eventful, and maybe empty.There is so much to live, taste,talk, and still share with my father.Yet he is gone.That night, I slowly driftedoff to sleep and my dreams were vivid. I was laughing and I was joyful.My father and I were walking on the beach, wind was blowing, water wasflowing, and his eyes were glowing.I realize now you are gone, onto a better place without suffering, withoutpain. I know I will not physically ever touch you or hear your voice over the phone.But, I will never be alone.Dad, today your body is going to a place I’m not ready for.You’ll have togo there alone. But I will join you some day, and I will look forward to that timewhen we can take those very long walks together, forever and ever.It has been said that the loss of a parent is one of life’s most traumaticevents. I now know the devastating truth of that statement. I’ve beentold that, in time, the hurt will fade, only to be replaced by positive memoriesthat soothe the soul.Already, I have felt that happening. My father hada profound impact on the life I live today and on the person I became.19

Personal EssayHonorable MentionNorman Camp“Guilty Man”“Every guilty person is his own hangman.”When I read this it jumped meback to a time of great sorrow in my life. A time where I had nowhere tolive or no food to eat. Kind of like a great depression in this new age ofopportunity. Let us back track to that day where my life ended a chapterand started a new one. As a young child you take things for granted.Younever think your prefect home will ever be taken away from you and thatis something I learned the hard way. I always thought my father would bethere for me and I thought my parents would always be together, but lifenever turns out how you expect it to be.When my mother and father separatedit crushed my world but little did I know it crushed my fathers aswell. My father became a raging alcoholic and started getting a lot of troublewith law enforcement.Which made things more horrible on my partbecause everything was happening so fast. I did not know what to think orwhat to feel, who do I believe or who do I trust.These were the things Iwould think when people would approach me about my father and thebad things he had done. But I believed in my heart that I had to staystrong for my mother and be strong for myself. I had to be the glue in mylittle family because it was ripping away slowly. But it seems like when itrains it storms because since my dad went to the penitentiary my motherand I had nowhere to stay or nowhere to go so we hit the streets.We askedeveryone if they could help but no one showed.We asked the people webelieved were our true friends but little did we know they were not true atall.They left us for dead without a care in the world. So my motherbegged my grandfather to lets us stay at his home until we made to ourfeet, He agreed and helped us move our belongings.We lived with him fora while but it got too hard, people coming in and out being loud andbreaking all our things. My mother got sick and decided to leave mygrandfather’s house and move us to her sisters. Little did my mother knowthat it was going to be the same over there. But my mother decided to geta second job and not be home as much. Leaving me by myself most of thetime. So I made sure my little cousin and I made it school on time and gothome the same. I made sure the house was clean that dinner was made,20

and that my little cousin had had finished his homework so he would notfall behind. It is like when you lose a parent in your life you become oneto make up for the missing piece. I had no time to be a child no time tohave fun because I was always sick from stress or busy doing what Ithought adults were supposed to do. But like I said I had to stay strong formy mother’s sake. Finally we had enough money to get our own placeand my mother was so excited as well as I. so we barrowed a moving truckand got our things and were off to live our new life in a new place. It wasnot much but it was better than sleeping on couch’s or floors. I rememberwhen my mother looked at me and said “We finally did it, we are finallyon our feet.” I remember tearing up a little because I have never seen mymother so grateful before. But still a cloud of sadness was still lingeringover us. A cloud that wound not go away for a long time because myfather is all we knew.We did not know how to live on our own we didnot know how to be independent. But in time we learned and it seemedto be second nature.Well my mother was working two jobs my gradeswere slipping in school and I was failing. I think I just wanted help fromsomeone, someone to listen to my troubles and tell me it would be ok.Someone to tell if I ever needed anything they would be there and actuallymeant it. But I had no one it felt like, none of my friends could relate tomy problems no one could give any good advice so it was up to me to figureout my own problems.The world is a dark place when you are alonein it. So every day all day I was alone doing things alone and living alone. Iremember if my mother could she would take off work early and take meout of school early so we could just go eat and spend time together. Peoplelaugh when I say fast food for us was a luxury so we never really had it.We would live off beans and rice or macaroni and cheese because it wassimple and cheap. In life you should never take these things for grantedbecause they can be taken away from you literally overnight. So as westruggled and struggled things seemed to get better as time went on.Westarted having more time together so my mother and I would just stayhome and relax or sometimes we would go play bingo at the local collegejust to get our minds off our lives for a while.Then one day my mothercalled me with good news, she said she had found a man who she thoughtwas amazing and I was so happy for her but at the same time sad because Icould not imagine my mother with another man other than my father. ButI could not be angry for my mother wanting to be happy so I supportedher with the decision. So we moved in with my mother’s new boyfriendand it was one of the best decisions we have made.We finally had someoneto help us a little with the bills which meant my mother could quit hersecond job.Which was great because that meant we had more time togetherto do the things we could never do, Like go to the movies or go out toeat and just be happy for a while. then one day out of the blue I get a21

phone call from my father, it blew my mind but I was having a war in mymind whether or not I should be happy or mad. But I forgave him becauseI knew it was the right thing to do. He’s my father and even though hehad done bad things I know deep down in my heart he is a good man. Iremember he had started sobbing because he was sorry that he could notbe out here to help me or be there for me. So the quote “Every GuiltyPerson Is His Own Hangman.” Reminded me that since my father did thecrime now he has to live everyday with that on his mind. Live everydaywith the guilt of his pat and how he could not be there for his only son. Inow know he is his own hangman and will be like that until he passes oninto the new. But unlike my father I will always be there for him no matterwhat happens because living on the streets teaches you to stay strongand never give up.22

Personal EssayHonorable MentionIsrael GarciaSquare Of Destruction“Why did you and my dad get divorced?” I anxiously asked mymom, and my mom responded,“I don’t want to talk about this right nowbecause I’m watching my favorite novela.” I went to my room and turnedon the T.V. and started watching a fake reality in the 16-inch square of falsehope. In the essay “The 19-inch Neighborhood” by Joshua Myerowitz, theauthor says,“Our widespread adoption of television and other electronicmedia has subtly by significantly reshaped our world.”The author’s point isthat television has become the biggest social adaptation in the universe. Ibelieve that T.V has become a machine of social destruction in our world.T.V has been a common enemy with different faces to me and the peoplearound me.The T.V. started to kill my connections when I was 12 years old. Ihad barely arrived to this country and I was scare to death, because I didn’tknow the language. The fear would go away every time that I would grabthe remote control to turn on the T.V. It was the only the commondimension that Mexico and the United States had, at least that I wasthought. I had to deal with a new language, culture, habits, and my parent’sdivorce.T.V was my escape from all the problems that I encounterthroughout my teenager years.My mom worked a lot and basically I was the man of the house. Ihad to take care of my little brother, while my mom came back fromwork.Those of hours of babysitter were horrible, because I just wanted toplay outside. I couldn’t go out because of my brother, so I would just turnon the T.V. My brother used to yell and say,“Israel let’s do something. I’mbored and when it’s my mom going to come back.” I responded aggressively,“Joelbe quiet and go to your room and play with your toys. Comewith me and let’s watch T.V. together.” I didn’t what to say or do, because Iwas so frustrated with our situation.T.V. always was there to help me. If theT.V. was on I didn’t have to explain anything to my brother, so it was theperfect solution to all our hidden problems.We didn’t have talk about howour hearts felt in the storm, because the T.V. was the sunshine in a screen.I remember coming back from school around 3pm. I would open23

the door from our apartment and all of the sudden this voice would whisper,“Youare finally here. Come to your room.” I tried to fight the voicemany times, but it was so hypnotizing.The voice would continue to whisper,“Iunderstand you Israel.You can let go of all your fear and feelingswith, because I’m your friend.” I would follow the understanding whisperinto the room of fake illusions, because I just wanted to escape all myproblems. I would enter my room and say,“I’m here and I’m ready to feelhappy and pretend that everything is ok.”The voice responded by saying,“Good. Now I want you to grab the control of life and push the button ofhope, so you can be in the world of unreality.”And I would always pushthe button of hope, because it was so easy.T.V not only affected me, or my family, but also my few friendsthat I had. I remember my friend Adrian. He was a wild kid and alwayswanted to be outside playing with bugs and other unknown things outsidein the real world. Adrian started coming to my house every day and hewould ask,“Israel let’s go outside and play with our bikes.” Sometimes Ilied to Adrian and would say,“I have to do homework. Maybe we can playlater in the afternoon.”T.V. was like a drug that I just wanted to take everyday. I was a drug addict of the T.V. and I didn’t care because the T.V. mademe feel good temporarily. I needed to take the drug of T.V. every day.I was fifteen years old and had been an addict to T.V. for 3 years. Igot convinced to go camping in Pecos with family and friends. I was nervous,because I was going to be without my drug for a couple of days.Wearrived to Pecos and started to set the camping tents. All of the sudden thisvoice whisper in my brain,“Israel, you are missing the soccer game.”Thevoice was like a withdrawal of the drug. I started to feel anxious and weird,because I thought the camping trip wasn’t my real world. In the climax ofmy insanity my brother said,“Hey Israel, let’s play some soccer.” I surprisinglyresponded,“Ok let’s play.”We started playing and it felt so good,because it was real and I was there.The trip made me realize that there wasthe drug of the real world.T.V. affected me and changed my world in a bad way.T.V. gave mea sense of temporary happiness, because I didn’t have to deal with the realworld. It took me a couple of years to rebuild the destruction that thesquare made in my life. People can argue that T.V. can be informative andgood, which is true in some ways. It doesn’t change the fact that T.V. isbecoming the everyday drug of everyone. I don’t really watch T.V. anymore,instead I watch the beautiful, real sunset in the mountains. I was ableto kill the enemy that kept me hostage from my family, friends, and thereal world. I say,“Let’s Kill Our T.V.”24

Personal EssayHonorable MentionReonna JoeHome Sweet HomeHome is where the heart is. In my culture when you are borninto the world your umbilical cord is cut. After it is cut, you bury itunderneath the ground. The reason for this is because “it ensures that thechild will be returned to a spiritual mother for the rest of his or her life..”In my case my grandmother buried mine in our backyard. I believe sheburied it there for a reason.I miss my family very much, I picture myself waking up to seeingthem. My littlest brother getting ready for school, my brother feeding thesheep, my other brother still snoozing away and my mother making breakfast.As for myself, I would sip on my coffee and watch the dull bland skyturn into a beautiful colorful sky. Sometimes if it’s worth being cold, Iwould stand outside and give my thinks to my mother earth. I would sendher prayers of love and joy asking her to protect and watch over my family.Being away from home is tough on me, even though I’m the firstchild in my family to be away from home for so long. Sometimes it hassome effects on me. Everyday I miss my family. In my mind I say tomyself,“Reonna! You are missing out on your niece’s and nephew’s lives!”But then again I think I need to be a better person, so that I can be a rolemodel for them.Every time I come home, I see every one of my family waitingpatiently to greet me. When I first see them I see like this atmosphere ofhappiness. My family hardly gets to be together all at once, so it’s importantfor me to be with my family. I try to capture every moment that Iwant to treasure forever.When I get sad or lonely I think about my family means theworld to me. I have no idea what I would do without their support. Ihave no idea what I would do without their support. One of my manyreasons why I come home on a short visit is because all of my brothersspoil me with =their love, my parents are as happy as they’ve ever been, myniece and nephews jump up and down with joy and excitement.There are so many emotions I have when I come home. First Ifeel really excited and happy but, when I get closer to home I start feeling25

nervous, my hands start to sweat, my stomach full as if there were butterfliesflying around in there and a part of me wants to cry because I’m sohappy to be home.I would come home just in a second to see their faces with warmloving smiles and hearts full of happiness.When I come to a family thatdearly misses me, in that moment, seeing their faces, to me, that’s my greatestmoment.26

Fiction WinnerAnna CarvlinKit’s Way“You’re not the person I’d want to call on if something happened.”Kit said to Jake, who sat on the bed, his back leaned on the wallhe’d painted a light green just a week earlier.“You couldn’t handle a biglife occurrence like I’d need you to.”“Kit, what are you talking about?” Jake said.“We’ve gone throughhard times.”“You know what I mean.What if I had ovarian cancer, or lostboth legs below the knees or there was an earthquake and the house collapsed…”Jake held up his hand.“Stop, Kit.An earthquake? Here? You knowwhat? I get it. I don’t get it at all, actually, but I do. I get that this is anexcuse for you to drop us.”“No. I’ve thought about it a lot, Jake. It’s not an excuse. I thinkwe’re done. I know we’re done. I’m done. I’m moving out tomorrow.”That was how Kit ended her thirteen year long relationship withJake, the evening before her mother died. In fact her mother was in theprocess of dying just as Kit broke up with Jake, though Kit found out at sixthe following morning when her father sent the notification via text message.Didn’t want to wake you. She did it. She killed herself.Kit closed her phone after reading the message and set it backonto the night table. Jake still slept and if history was a reliable indicator hewould be there for the next two hours.Today was meant to be the day Kitwould move out into a hotel while she searched for an apartment. Her dayof freedom.The day she would begin to breathe. She wanted a clean cutfrom Jake, on a Friday night with all day Saturday to move. Kit looked atJake’s sleeping face, his sharp features—that prominent nose she’d come toadore and then find detestable once again in the last year of their relationship.“See,like this.” She whispered to him.“You can’t help me through mymom committing suicide.That’s what I meant.” Jake’s breathing halted foran instant. He snored once then resumed a soundless sleep.Kit got out of bed—the last time she’d be leaving Jake alone tosleep. She gathered boxes from the attached garage and filled them withher items, all the while emanating an incongruous cheer into the apartment.Making coffee as she always had, the sun filled the house throughexpansive east-facing windows adorned with a miniature jungle of house-27

plants. She poured the cream from an orange ceramic pot Jake had madein a college class. As useful as it was, the orange hue with speckles of blackwas seasonal on only one October day out of the entire year.At eight in the morning, next to the kitchen table sat four mismatchedcardboard boxes full of miscellaneous items, most of which weredestined for the thrift store or a homeless shelter. Kit sat with a third cupof bitter coffee at the ready in one hand, and her phone in the other. Herfather talked a lot during crises—Kit planned to sip her brew while hechattered uninhibited.Kit’s shiny black phone, moist from sweat, vibrated—a text—justbefore she summoned the courage to dial her father. Did you get my message?!!,her father’s text read. She called him.“Dad. How are you doing?”“I don’t know. I don’t know yet.” Kit’s father sighed into thereceiver as loud as a storm.“Kit, I wish I’d had a chance to tell her everything,you know? I was, I am, so in love with your mother. She and I madelove still, now as old as we are.”Kit listened actively, diligently, with mm hmms, and uh huhs andsipped her coffee as he dominated the discourse. He hadn’t asked how shewas doing just yet.“Why now?” He continued.“Why now when I’m finally gettingmy shit together with the business. And your mom was doing it for a fewdays there too—she was doing life. She was on the upswing.”Her father paused to blow his nose. Kit waited then asked.“How?”“Pills.”“Where’s her body.”“Already at the morgue of course.”“Oh, okay.” Kit paused again.“I broke up with Jake.”“Hm. Fine time for that.”“Yeah. It doesn’t matter. It was a long time coming. Anyways, Iwanted kids and he can’t give ‘em to me.“You guys could adopt.”“Dad, forget I told you about me and Jake.” She said and paused,sensing the familiar twinge of tears and then blockage in the throat.“Whyis mom such an idiot!” Kit held the phone away to yell.Kit’s father had remained steadfast to his drunken wife, Kit’s mother,for the duration of their marriage. Kit’s aunt Sophie, her mother’s sister,even questioned aloud at times why Kit’s father stayed with her:“It’s notlike she’ll be around into old age,” Sophie said once to Kit loud enoughfor guests at a family barbeque to hear.“Why invest all this energy? Whyput all this time into someone who won’t give a return later?” Sophiederided the fealty of her brother-in-law in response to his having left the28

arbecue to retrieve his wife from the bar, where she’d gone to have onedrink, but stayed for more.“He’s killing her with kindness,” Sophie said.“Kit,” her dad said.“I need you to help me with calling the rest ofthe family.Then we need to do all the other stuff.”“Other stuff.”“She wanted to be cremated.”“Of course she did. She didn’t want a trace left behind. Not atrace.”“Kit, she’s gone. Let’s treat her with love and respect from thispoint forward.”“Okay. I want to be out of this apartment by today, so I’ll do a fewthings and be over when I can.”“Kit. I feel like we didn’t do enough. Like we didn’t help herenough.We didn’t catch her.We didn’t do it.”“Dad, don’t say we. And anyways, you did the best you could.Youdid everything.”He didn’t respond.“Dad, I’ll be over in a while.”“Kit, I have to tell you something about your mom.”“What?”“No, I’ll tell you when you come by.Talk to you then.”Jake and Kit hadn’t gotten married in the eyes of Uncle Sam, butaccording to Webster, marriage could be as vague as a close or intimate association.They’dmoved in together, they had sex for many years.They’d marriedstuff, a signification portion of finances, but not personal passwords totheir respective Internet worlds.Without question, Kit would have custody of “Molly the mutt”who sat at the base of the table while Kit polished the blue glass bottles ofaromatic oils—a present from Jake; another one that lacked forethought.Jake walked out of the bedroom directly to the coffee maker, poured a cupand sat down.“Jake, my mom died this morning.”Jake sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing them.“No. How?”“How do you think?”“Overdose?”“Yeah.”“Accidental?”“No, she took a bunch of pills.”“I am so sorry Kit. So, so sorry.” Jake rubbed his hands through hishair, which had this hideous shock of grey right through the center like askunk’s back.“I told my dad we broke up and he said ‘fine time’.”“Yeah, let’s not talk about it. Listen, Kit, I’m here for you okay? I29

don’t know why you’re leaving me. But I am here for whatever you need.”But Jake lied. He lied better than he made love, better than hemade money, better than he made babies. His response to most situationshaving to do with Kit’s mother was:“I get her. Life sucks sometimes.”Thenhe’d change the direction of conversation like mercury veers when it hits awall.When Kit needed Jake, he found reasons to be very far. If Kit calledon him for something, he’d “get there as soon as he could” which mighttake a day.He wasn’t there for Kit, and never had been, so she decided to notinvolve him in the details of death.When a woman completes her life, herheirs are required to attend to the mundane progression of chores. Like abirth in reverse, it’s woman’s work.The work no one wants to do.The leftovers.Jake never had been good at doing the details of life: grocery shopping,dishes, calling insurance companies. Finding a crematorium, choosingan urn: those were intimate family details, ones Kit would be left with. Herdad too distraught, Jake fleeing the scene—even before anyone invited himto participate—her grandmother dead, Sophie too far away, her mothernow in heaven, hell or neither, Kit was put to task.“Kit,” her dad said, and set a cup of coffee in front of her; her fifthof the day.“We’ve got to get her body to the crematorium today becauseSunday it’ll be harder; that’s what they say.”“Sure dad, I’ll figure it out.”“Kit, I’ve got to tell you about your mother.”“Dad, tell me tomorrow. I can’t handle much more in my braintoday. Let’s get this done today.”“Okay.”Kit and her father called family members then arranged for thecrematorium to retrieve the corpse from the morgue.There was somethingsecretive, shameful and edging on clandestine, for a daughter to arrange theburning of her mother’s body. Kit spoke softer than usual on the phone.She and her father parted ways with lowered heads, having completed thecovert planning.Lying down in the bed-sheets that smelled of fake lemon andfreeze-dried blueberries, Kit tried to read the novel that had sat on herbed-table for weeks unread. Each night for that time, she planned a portionof the getaway from Jake.The first night as a free woman, she would relishreading alone in bed for hours. Now her dream a reality, the words morphedon the page like a watery blur of incomprehensible and unimportantideas. Kit set the book down once again.Hours into the night, Molly paced the length of the hotel room,her fingernails tapping the linoleum floor where the small kitchen met thecarpet of the sleeping area. Kit turned on the lamp, and Molly’s eyesglowed a green iridescent, unnatural color. Kit turned off the light again,30

ignoring her pup’s need for a trip outside.The moment she closed hereyes, an image of her mother surfaced vivid in her mind. Specifically, it washer mother’s soft belly, her torso, a part away from the whole, that cameinto clear focus—vulnerable, soft, white.That was successively followed byher mother’s skeleton, her pelvis. Burning in a fire, it held steady whileflesh and cartilage around it wilted away in orange embers. Kit allowed themorbid slide show to scamper across her brain until the thought of hermother’s vulnerable body in the hands of caretakers was intolerable. What ifthey raped her dead body? She pushed the heavy synthetic fiber covers off,got out of bed, put molly’s leash on, and walked her around the dewy grassthat lined the empty parking lot.Kit sat in the stifling silence for the rest of the night in her room,anxious for the birds to sing.She handed her key to the front desk, and under fluorescent lights,ate processed eggs and white bagels with butter from miniature plastic tubs.“We’ve only got an hour dad.”“I know.”“Can you tell me what mom wanted me to know?”“Money. It’s money. A lot of it, Kit.”“For who.”“Who do you think, Kit? For you.”Kit hung her head for a moment,“Like, how much?”“Kit, let me be clear. Like you never have to work again a day inyour life for money if you don’t want to. Like that much.”“Hm. I can handle that.” Kit said. She and her dad looked to oneanother for a long moment. Neither spoke of the how. How did her motherget that money?“Dad, I’ll make it worth her while.” Kit said, putting her hand onhis shoulder.“Let’s go say bye to mom.”31

Fiction Runner-UpRane TownsendFBUF “The Conquizical Life of Fisher Bland”Hello. How are you?You know what– I really don’t give a shit how you are. Forgiveme, I may have been rude just then. Can you do that? Forgive me. I’mreally sorry.You just caught me at a bad moment. I don’t have time to dothis with you. Did that work? Did you buy my apology? Was it genuineenough for you? I hope so because if not, then all the money I have spenton therapy and drugs and retooling myself was a big pile of sinking darkbrown shit in the commode of my porcelain life. Fuck. Sorry. My life’s notreally porcelain. I was not being literal. But I thought I should point thatout, just in case your brain works like mine.You may have thought my lifewas really porcelain. I can never be sure what or who I’m dealing with, orif I should believe what you say.This makes me nervous. If you asked meto not literally describe parts of my life to you. I might say ok. I could saythat my life is made up of pieces of glass. Not the graceful hand-blow heirloomglass. Not even the utilitarian mass manufactured pieces of crap yousee at Target. My life is like flat sheets of glass, connecting at 90 degreesand entombing me, in a box; sometimes sealing off the flow of oxygen tomy brain. I don’t think you can see them, the sheets of glass, but I nowknow that they are real.The doctors have confirmed it. I am sure you cannot see them.I don’t want to tell you anything. Sharing never really works outfor me. So I will tell you again. Politely. I’ll say it slowly and clearly andpronunciate each word, just for you. “I am sorry that I don’t have timeto talk to you.” Fuck, I did it again. I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry for you,but maybe I’m sorry for me. I’m running out of time. I have things–important things. Stuff that I have to do. I have learned things in the lasttwo years that I did not know.Things about myself and I am running outof time.If I told you the truth you would not believe me. Or you mightbelieve me. I have told the truth before and I think lies work better in thisreality. Or maybe they don’t.I don’t say much. Sometimes I talk and can’t stop. I am workingon this– it’s called speech regulation. I don’t know very much, but prior tomy therapy two years ago, I thought I knew a lot. I exist on the outside ofsociety occasionally entering in to get something I believe I need and then32

I retreat back to my wall.The one that I can stare at for a time.When Ifirst met my beloved I was truthful. I told her of my past and she justthought it eccentric and cute and wonderful. I was accepted. I reveled inher acceptance and we did what most couples in love do. I was incrediblyhappy. I was accepted by her, and that made all the difference.We weremarried at twilight in a low key ceremony; with a string quartet, guests,and a female minister.That night we danced to Chet Baker and Nat KingCole. I avoided most people at my wedding. I never had a piece of weddingcake. I regret that now.I scored really, really low on a cognitive assessment test that aneuro-doctor gave me. My wife and her immediate family were worried. Iwas not. I am newly ordained into my forty first year on this plane of existence.I don’t have a career and I could not explain, in a linear order, whatI do for work. However, I could tell you some highlights from the past. Iam sort of trained in photography and I worked as an assistant for a successfulfashion photographer when I was younger. I traveled a lot. I neverfucked super models in 1,500 dollar a night rooms, but I did have sex withone. I worked in the film industry in LA. I have worked in many businesshelping people to figure out things that others could not. I have worked atthe largest privately held, private equity firm in North America and Iworked for the eighth wealthiest family on the planet.I don’t remember most of my childhood, only fragments. I wasnot good in school. I could not read until I was in fourth grade. I read myfirst cover to cover book shorty after my first daughter was born. She iseleven now. I never crawled as a baby. I did fifth grade twice before I wasforgotten about. Note to self: Remember your therapist has explained thatno one intentionally forgot about you, they just did not know what to dowith a child designed like you. Note to self:You never told your therapistyour mother was borderline and that she told you– she gave up on you.Sometimes it’s hard to talk. Sometimes have small seizures.I liked my life better before I went to therapy. Do you know whatit feels like to live in a glass box? You can’t really touch anything. Reachout your arm.You can get close, but you can’t feel. I did not know that Iwasn’t feeling.Therapy and analysis sort of constructed the glass box. Itpointed out that the world I lived in was not the same as lets say, a neurotypical.That’swhat I am not. I am not a neuro-typical. I don’t belong tothat tribe.I have been to college many times and I do not have a degree. Ihave a hard time retaining things and I always thought I was not matureenough to learn in school. Now, maybe I am. Of course, I don’t really livein a glass box.The glass box is more of a metaphor for how I feel.Trappedin a glass box, I can see things but can’t quite get them. I can do thingswith other people but don’t really see myself in the creation. My therapist33

helped me craft this idea– the glass box– to explain how things felt. I’mworking on making the glass box disappear.I have never had more then one friend at a time, until now, I havetwo. I never noticed that I was not excepted. I never knew I was made funof, or insulted, or that I had a strange diet. Others did that noticing. I didknow that I was slow, mentally challenged and uncoordinated. I never newmy brain worked different. I just lived in another reality.Therapy helpedme to understand how fucked up the world around me was. Not exactlywhat I thought I would find in the therapeutic process.As a kid I was accused of many things and was in trouble most ofthe time. Grounding was the method.Through that I excelled at waiting.Waiting for what I am not sure of, but I can wait. Just sit and wait. I consideredwaiting a skill until a year ago. Now I realize it’s not and I am runningout of time. I’ve waited too long. I need to make a changes. Learnsomething new.Again, I enrolled myself in school. I would like a degree and someskills that look like everybody else’s.A few years ago my eccentricities andso called strange behavior became my wife’s research project. Shrouded inthe idea that she was trying to help me I realize now, through therapy, shewas trying to cure her future of what would eventually be labeled asautism. It’s a long story. Last year in January, for discernible reasons, I askedmy beloved of 15 years for a divorce.That did not go well. I have twobeautiful daughters, one of which is sorta wired like me. Although herreality is very different then the one I knew as a young person. Hopefullythis will make her happier as an older person. I can’t promise you anything.I tried this class, English 113, at this school last semester. Prof. SusanNathanson. I liked her very much, but I had to drop it because of mydivorce.Which is not over yet.34

Fiction HonorableMentionSharon GuerreroThe Raven TricksterAttention to detail, these were the words that I heard when I opened myeyes.The world seemed to be looking at me. Bright colors but no shapeswere slithering in and out of my vision, like the rattler we call side-winder.I heard nothing.With my tired eyes, I tried to pay attention to the detail ofa world that was slowly revealing itself to me.There wasn’t anything that Icould grab onto because everything seemed flat, without dimension.Thisstrange world was making me very tired trying to make sense of it. Mymind had no words to describe what I was seeing with my eyes.My bones were heavy. It felt like I had run a marathon of manymiles only to find myself in a hospital in Gallup, New Mexico. Suddenly Iwas jolted into remembering.The memory gave me a sharp pain in mystomach, just below the navel.This is the place where masters of martialarts say your place of knowing lies. From that place I remembered that Ihad tried to jump off the earth. I had made the decision that I no longerwanted to be here.Remembering only abuse and pain as a child, I grew into womanhoodand lost my soul to pills and alcohol. At eighteen years old, I knew itwas time to check out when I did not feel like a human being anymore.My life no longer belonged to me. I was a slave to substances that mademe numb so that I could forget. But I forgot how to love, to hate, to cry.Trying to find a place of peace, I had swallowed pills whose names I didnot know.The names were a blur but I will never forget the colors andshapes.As I swallowed the pills the world became alive with sights,sounds, smells. It was like the volume that controlled my senses was turnedup and it made me want to scream. Instead of screaming I noticed thestrangest thing; it was a raven pecking at the window.The clicking soundmade everything in the room disappear. A memory of the past jumped infront of me like a rabbit that jumps in front of a speeding truck. Driftinginto the past I heard my Grandmother speaking to me in Diné. I was a littlegirl still living in a place of magic where I could be the creator of myown life.That was when Grandma spoke to me of the raven.35

“The Diné,The People, know the raven as the Trickster.“Sometimes we smile at him but most times we throw rocks,” my grandmothertold me.“How can that be?” I asked, very confused at the seemingduality.“Raven reminds us he’s light and he’s dark just like us,” Grandmawarned.“Remember that raven tells us that in order to learn from life, wemust pay attention to detail,” she said.“We are the observers of life, watchingall of the special things of the world give us, power and knowing,” shewent on to say,“This is known as the Beauty Way of our people.”“What does the dark part of the raven mean?” I asked after a longwhile.“Raven can show his dark side to us when we least expect it,”Grandma said as she picked up her ball of weaving yarn. She led me to theplace outside her hogan where she sat and attended to her weaving. Herloom hung from a cottonwood tree in the tradition of our people.She began the slow process of threading the hand-dyed wool thatshe had cleaned and combed and sheared from her own sheep. A beautifulhalf woven blanket hung there. I knew that it was the physical representationof my Grandma’s personal prayer.The blanket had colors and designsthat were her trademark. Grandma’s blankets were famous on the rez.Theywere as unique as her prayers and as colorful as her soul.“I will tell you how I learned from the trickster raven’s dark side,”Grandma said as she rhythmically moved her hands bringing life to thecolored wool. I watched until I became dizzy thinking to myself that Iwould never be able to create beautiful rugs like Grandma. She never triedto teach me the art of weaving, she just told stories and jokes and welaughed a lot.As a child I never understood her sing-song stories thatseemed to have many meanings. She always said that there was dualitywithin us and in everything around us just like raven.Grandma’s favorite stories were about the raven.The raven was thestoryteller. He was the trickster. He was the savior. He was the wind. Hewas the messenger.“How many faces did this guy have?” I asked myself. Iwas always the willing listener because raven stories were so entertaining.Grandma said that the raven would appear when you least expected.Whenhe showed up it usually meant that you needed to “pay attention to detail.”“In the Diné way of life, we are supposed to stay in the present, noneed to think about the past or future,” said Grandma,“And the way thatwe know we are in the present is by paying attention to details of life.”“The raven tricks us when we are not being in the present,” she warned asshe saw my mind wondering.As a child of seven I was always daydreaming.I wanted to be a famous actress in those days or a famous singer,dancer, or model. Grandma knew when I was daydreaming. She warnedthat the raven would show up at any moment to bring me back to thepresent. As she spoke I noticed the intricate detail in her blankets. Likemagic, the colors would jump out at me as she plucked and pulled at the36

yarn. Each blanket revealed the beauty of her spirit. I never wanted to leaveher side.As I grew older I found that the journey to womanhood was hardand painful.The only time I felt really alive and happy was when I spenttime by Grandma’s side while she wove her blankets and told her stories.There were times the raven would visit when I was with Grandma. Iremember in the spring of my tenth year when the sun was just gainingstrength. Feeling it’s warmth on my back sitting next to Grandma I lookedup and saw raven. Grandma was teaching me to dye the wool,“Watch thewool, we can’t leave it too long in the dye bath,” she would say for theone-hundredth time. Silently, the raven flew to the loom and perched ontop. Grandma took a broom to swat at the daring visitor. Raven was makingfun of Grandma; he didn’t even flinch when she whacked at him thebroom flying out of her hands. I laughed and laughed until my stomachached.That raven sure made me forget my pain as he flew aroundGrandma’s head daring her to bring him to the ground.After Grandma settled down and got her breath back, I asked herwhat the raven was trying to tell us that day.“Can’t you tell?” she huffedand puffed,“You weren’t paying attention to the dye bath, that’s why I hadto tell you so many times!”That made me laugh some more, I knewGrandmas memory was fading and she was using the raven as an excuse.“Girl, you have to settle down and get to work,” was Grandma’s reply tomy laughter. She was getting old and at that moment I realized that shewas not going to be with me forever. Sadness overcame me and I workedextra hard from then on to help Grandma with her weaving.In the summer of my twelfth year Grandma suddenly became sickand the raven came to my school to tell me the news. I was swinging onthe old swing set in the sandy lot we called a playground. Raven flew upand almost knocked me off the swing. I was blind-sided; he descended onme so fast. I got up and started running home. I didn’t even hear thescreams of my teachers and schoolmates. I just kept running until I got tothe hogan. Running past relatives and family friends, I pushed my way intothe small bedroom where Grandma slept. She was lying on the bed withpeople all around her. She was breathing very hard.What could I do? Myonly reason for living was my Grandma who was lying on that narrow bedunable to breathe.Grandma sensed my presence and she signaled to me. I drifted inslow motion across the tiny room. It seemed bigger because so many peoplewere packed into it like the crowds at our pow-wows.The peoplestood aside making room for me to pass. It took forever to get toGrandma. I finally found myself standing next to her bed, panting and crying.She said,“Did the raven come to find you?” I was shocked. How didshe know? She whispered again,“Well did he?” I nodded yes and she37

looked smug, her thin skin stretched tight over her high cheek bones asshe made a face.The present time became sharp and magnified. Colorswere brilliant, voices were like music, and smells were sharp. It was thenthat I knew I had to follow in my Grandma’s footsteps and be a weaver, aweaver of magical blankets like her. My purpose became clear at thatmoment. If I could weave blankets as beautiful as Grandma’s then shewould never die. Her spirit would live on forever. But Grandma would notrise from the little bed. She would not have the strength to tell me hersecrets of weaving.The wisdom she left me with was,“Make blankets thatcarry your spirit.”In the fall, when all of the living things in nature were dying, theraven came to announce my Grandma’s death. It was then that I realizedthat my life was over at age twelve. I became numb. Life was dull and draband full of fear. My resolve about weaving left me when she died. My soulwas shut down and I could not connect with the spirit of Grandmabecause I forgot how to “pay attention to detail.” I began to live in the pastor the future, the present was too painful.At sixteen raven visited me at a bar I was working at in Gallup. Hewas waiting outside the door at twelve o’clock midnight on a cold winter’snight. I was half drunk on cheap beers bought with the meager tips Iearned.The cold wind hit me hard.As I stumbled onto the sidewalk I sawhim in the street, under a street light. I knew why he had come, to remindof my promise to be a weaver.The reminder was not welcome and I unwillinglysobered up.The street was dark but the raven’s wings were glisteningfrom the moonlight shining on them. How could I ignore this message?The raven didn’t move and I didn’t move. It was a standoff.Thiswas clearly a show of Grandma’s bull-headed spirit. I realized that I couldnot deny the message of the raven. I had to honor my Grandma’s wish. Imade an oath that I would try and weave blankets.From that time on, blankets of every design and color came out ofmy loom. I was a weaving fool. For two years I produced blankets thatwere sold to every pawnbroker from Albuquerque to Phoenix. Peopleadmired them, they commented on them, but I knew in my heart that theblankets were not as good as Grandmas. I knew that the blankets lacked“soul.”They were sold at discount prices to decorate cracker-box suburbanhomes. I cursed Grandma for dying before she could give me the “magic”ingredient.I started to forget Grandma’s stories and jokes.The act of weavingwas joyless and unfulfilling. My depression was eating me up and I turnedto the “spirit” of alcohol to replace the “Spirit” of my true nature.TheBeauty Way was a path that I could no longer walk. Escaping from thepresent was my only desire. I needed to stop the pain in any way that Icould, but nothing worked. Everything seemed useless. My delusions38

pushed me deeper into the need for drugs and alcohol to ease the pain andthey became my truth. Finally, I overdosed.Then I found myself in the hospital coming out of a drug-inducedcoma. Raven was there.As he tapped with his beak at the window I heardthe message.The message was from Grandma. I heard her say,“Girl, youhave got some guts trying to get out of your promise to be a weaver.” All Icould do was smile. She reminded me that her secret for weaving beautifulblankets with spirit was that each blanket was a personal prayer.The prayerwas to be my own truth and each blanket that I wove would carry theintention of my prayer.The simplicity of it was astounding.I returned to weaving and slowly returned to my truth. My lifebecame a prayer of my own truth that I wove into my blankets. My prayerbecame a meditation that carried me from day to day, one step at a time.The practice of paying attention to detail kept me from returning to thedestructive spirit of alcohol and drugs. It brought me to the Spirit of myauthentic self.This is my truth and my name is Raven and I am a weaver.39

Fiction HonorableMentionDoug BootesLotteryPING.The button marked 9 illuminates with a soft pink glow andthe elevator doors open, the soothing sounds of smooth jazz oozing intothe long, empty hallway. A slight young woman walks in, and upon lookingin the mirror at the back of the compartment, mumbles to herself,“God, I look awful.”Its 7:04 A.M. and she has just left room 9023 of the BuffaloNugget Casino Hotel in Pojoaque, New Mexico. She is darkly attired inskintight black jeans and a black New Mexico Lottery T-shirt (the roadrunnerone), her shoulder length black hair streaked with burgundy highlights,her mournful appearance sharply contrasted by the cheery pink andwhite of her bulging Hello Kitty backpack. She just stands there not pushingany buttons, staring blankly into the mirror, her mind still a jumblefrom the mornings events. Copper skin accentuates the brilliant green ofher eyes, and as she gives her hair a flip she wipes some runny mascaraaway from beneath them. For 22, she looks hardened beyond her years,though her smooth complexion is marred only by a 1 inch scar just belowthe hairline of her forehead. Her somber demeanor renders her almostinvisible in the corner of the elevator’s ambient light.The mountain spring fresh scent of the freshly cleaned elevatornauseates her as it starts to move, trundling to the next floor where thebutton marked 8 lights up.Just be cool, she tells herself, its just another day like any other.The glow of the buttons reminds her of the light in her dream that gracefullywoke her from a restless slumber at 5:00 a.m.. Just thinking of thedream gives her a feeling of power. In it she had been a butterfly, wrappedin a shroud of golden light, black remnants of her cocoon falling to theground as she spread her luminescent wings.PING.The elevator stops with a lurch and the doors open. Asharply dressed couple steps into the car; he is in a tailored dark businesssuit accented by a bolo tie housing a nugget of Kingman turquoise the sizeof a baby’s head. She is sporting the layered frill and fringe fest that canonly be described as “Santa Fe Woman,” a perky teacup Chihuahua peek-40

ing out of her tooled leather purse, his wet black eyes bulging as he sniffsthe air and shivers.The young girl recognizes the man from the news, he is a politicianfrom Las Cruces who fiercely calls for “transparency and honesty” ingovernment affairs.The news feature had been about his push for legislationto “toughen up” border security, his ultra-white teeth flashing as hepassionately warned of the tsunami of drugs and illegals flowing over theborder, taking jobs and benefits away from hard working Americans.Ironically, she also recognized him from the night before when she haddelivered a $400 bindle of high quality cocaine to him in the hotel lobby’sStarlight Lounge, when he was in the company of a different and muchyounger woman with a suspicious looking stubble beneath her cake ofmakeup.He doesn’t notice her, or if he does he pretends not to, and shedoes the same.As he turns to his lavishly dressed wife he demands in an irritatedtone,“Did you have Consuela confirm our flight, is it on time?” as herepeatedly punches the button marked “L,” adding,“She forgets everything.”“Of course, Honey Bear, she always takes care of it. She’s the besthousekeeper we’ve had, so don’t be so hard on her,” his wife respondsabsentmindedly.The elevator starts to move as the man glances at the young girland gives a little wink her way.The atmosphere of the elevator car isdrowning in the overdose of Axe cologne he bathed in after his morningshower.The girls stomach lurches in sync with the movement of the elevator,and she silently wonders if “Honey Bear” is honest and transparentwith his loving wife.As if reading her mind, the wife shoots a darting glance her way.She’s painfully aware of her husbands kinks and just hopes he doesn’t gethis face all over the news in an overzealous expose before she can divorcehim and clean out his bank accounts.The young girl blankly looks back at her and smiles.The brokenshards of the chaotic morning crystallize inside of her to form an impenetrableshield she can erect at will for protection. It was a defense mechanismshe had learned long ago on Saturdays and her dad was deliveringhorse feed in his white Ford pickup. He would carry a bottle of Jim Beamwhiskey along in his jacket to share with his customers in their barns whileshe sat in the truck. By the time the bed of the truck was empty, the bottlewas gone and she would feel his clammy hand on the back of her neck,the scent of sweat and hay mingling with oxidizing alcohol.The shieldprotected her from feeling anything as her eyes would close.41

Her mind flashes back to last night in room 9023 where her boyfriend Elvis had been partying with his homies. She had finished all of herdeliveries for him and just wanted to relax. But he was in one of his funks,high and drunk, as usual, brown heroin and cocaine on the table in frontof him and his dope soaked buddies, soft porn rented on the flat screenT.V. She hated drugs, even though she sometimes used them to numb herselfto the hell she lived in. She hated what they did to people, especiallyhim, he who had promised in his letters from prison that he was clean andwas going to stay that way, and that he would get a job and they could getan apartment and a good car and credit card.Then they could buy a bunchof Martha Stewart crap at Big K and live happily ever after. But now all hedid was drink and drug and smack her around, forcing her to deliver hisdrugs.The scar on her forehead was from where he had pushed her headinto the bathroom mirror one night in one of his rages, sparked by hisinability to get it up; somehow it was her fault, not the massive quantitiesof intoxicants that he consumed daily. She had stayed with him because hetold her he needed her and loved her and since nobody else ever had, shebelieved him. Besides, what else would she do, where would she go? Shedid try to leave one time, after he had blackened both of her eyes with astinging punch to the nose. She had gone to the Esparanza Shelter for batteredwoman where she was counseled by Betty Simpson, the shelterdirector, who had tried to talk her into staying. But he kept calling andtexting her until he convinced her to come back. He was nice for a coupleof days, he even bought her a dozen red roses at Albertson’s, but then itreturned to the same cycle of abuse, except now he ridiculed her for tryingto leave.PING.The car stops at the 5th floor and a young man in amaroon hotel uniform gets in.The girl thinks she remembers him fromOrtiz Middle school in Santa Fe.Allen, Alec,Alex, which was it? He wasalways so quiet, now he just looked overworked and a little overweight.They had an English class together where they had read poems they hadwritten to the rest of the class. Hers had been about capturing a sunbeam,his, something about a mountain stream full of trout.She tries not to look at him again, hoping he doesn’t remember her.The walls of the mirrored compartment are closing in as the acidictension sharpens the cloud of cologne and perfume, leaving little room forany one to breathe.The occupants nervously observe each other withglances up from their phones or into the mirror as Nora Jones sweetlycroons from the speaker above their heads.The diminutive dog, sniffing inthe direction of the girls backpack, starts to bark, its yapping intensifying asit strains to escape the cozy confines of the woman’s purse.The girls stomach drops to her knees, which now are trembling.Everything is going to be O.K., she assures herself.After all, the newspaper42

horoscope predicted a 5 star day for her this morning.The dogs insistentyapping is breaking down her shield, and she wonders if the dog couldpossibly smell the 18,341 dollars in her “Hello Kitty” backpack. Maybe itrecognized the stench of Honey Bears cologne still clinging to the fourBen Franklins he had contributed.Thankfully, the Santa Fe woman clamps her silver and gold ringedfingers around the agitated canines snout, giving him a little kiss on thenose. Comforted, the tiny terror is again silent, watery dark eyes suspiciouslyfixed on Hello Kitty.The elevator is almost to the lobby now. Her stomach flutters andjumps, her mind cluttered with bright images from the mornings luciddream in dubious battle with shadows of her lifeless boyfriend slumpedover the table. She had awoken from the butterfly dream to find him stilland cold, his friends all gone, the party over. She had panicked, she hadcried and then she had just sat on the bed and felt strangely calm. He’sdead, she had thought.There’s nothing that can change that.The policewould find him headfirst in his own cache of drugs, just another gangbanger OD.The light of the dream had beamed behind her eyes, giving herstrength as she methodically picked up all of her things and stuffed theminto her back pack. In the room safe were wads of cash brought in by thecocaine over the last few days. Stuffing them into her back pack, she suddenlythought,“I finally won the lottery.”She had kissed him lightly on the back of his cold, lifeless head.When she had slipped into the hallway, there was no one there, only a fewtrays of empty dishes on the new carpet and the lonely sounds of the icemachine tinkling to the tune of a vacuum cleaner on another floor.She’s saddened by his death, more so by the waste he made of hislife, but right now she pushes it away so she can feel something she hasnever felt before.Freedom.PING.The elevator stops and as the doors open, the older couplebursts into the lobby, and as they do, Honey Bear looks back at the darkgirl who is also exiting and thinks wow, she’s kind of cute.His wife sees him leering and thinks,“Keep smiling and winking,you cheating bastard.”Alex despondently watches the young girl in black walk throughthe lobby as the elevator doors close. He remembers her name now, SoniaDunn, while noticing her butt is still as heart shaped perfect as it was inschool.The battered teal Chevy Lumina is parked at the back of the lot, aplume of dust momentarily dims the Pojaque sun as she reaches for thedoor handle.The valet had refused to park it when Elvis and her had43

arrived two days ago. Elvis had been on a roll and was splurging for theweekend at the brightest gem of New Mexico’s casinos, the BuffaloNugget.They paid cash for the Honey Moon Suite, the “Sweet Suite,”Elvis called it over and over as he phoned all of his friends to come up tosee his new crib. After 58 hours of non stop partying, Elvis’ over stimulatedheart had arrested, causing him to do a final face plant in a line of cocainelaid out on the glass table in the sweet suite.She closes the dented car door and looks in the smudged rearview mirror. She whispers to the reflected image,“Good bye, dark Sonia.”The drive through Santa Fe’s morning traffic takes long enoughfor Target to be open when she pulls into the parking lot.With 400cologne soaked dollars in her pocket, she locks the back pack in the trunkand goes shopping.Twenty minutes later she comes out with four bags ofnew clothes, shoes and accessories in her cart along with a 11” x 14” cardboardmailing box and a roll of packing tape. Retrieving the back packfrom the trunk, she sits in the car and counts out $4,000 dollars of thecash, enough to make a new start, she thinks to herself.Taping the boxtogether, she puts the rest of the cash in it and seals it shut, pulls a Sharpiefrom the front pocket of the backpack and writes a name on it.By eight thirty six she is exiting I -25 at Santo Domingo Pueblo.In the gas station and visitors center she enters the women’s restroom andcloses a stall door behind her. Stripping completely, she puts on newpanties, a new bra, Capri pants and a low necked blouse, all of which arewhites and pastels. She puts the old clothes and the backpack in the trashexcept for the lottery t-shirt which she places on top of the can with atwenty dollar bill lying across the roadrunner logo.Walking to the sink, shethoroughly scrubs her hands and face clean in the cool pueblo waters.After paying for $10 worth of gas, (just enough to get her to the airport inAlbuquerque) a Diet Coke and five scratch off lottery tickets, she hands theyoung girl at the cash register the lottery tickets and says,“Here, these are for you. Good Luck! I already won!”On the way out, as she slips on a new pair of sunglasses, she hearsthe cashier ask,“What’s your name? I want to know in case I win.”“Mariposa,” she cheerfully replies.As she steps into the parking lot the searing horizontal sun beamsflood her soul in golden light, just like in her dream.With each step shefeels her power intensifying, the light radiating from her now like the outspreadwings of a luminescent butterfly.The morning breeze is clean andfresh, blowing the dark remnants of the past away as the lavender mountainson the horizon reflect golden promise in the lens of her stylish shades.Betty Simpson arrives at work a little late, 8:43, which is highlyunusual for her.The work she does at the shelter is a labor of love, an44

absolute necessity and right to the spouses and children of abusers shecounsels.The receptionist hands her a box with “Attention: Betty Simpson”written in Sharpie on top.“This was by the door when I came in. I hope its not a bomb!”Betty laughs and says,“Maybe I won the lottery!” as she carries it into her office.45

Fiction HonorableMentionLibby HallForever HomeClutching my baby doll and the plastic bag containing all myclothes, I sat motionless, staring silently out of the car window, as the carturned down a dirt road passing farm after farm drawing me closer to mynew family. I was so scared and excited, I thought I might throw up theway I did sometimes when I was too nervous. Mrs. Richards, the socialworker delivering me, tried to reassure me.““The Ryans are very nice people, Sarah. They’ve raised lots offoster kids and there are other kids living here now so you won’t be theonly one. I think you’ll be very happy here. Living on a farm can be lotsof fun. Maybe this could become a forever home. We’ll see how thingsgo at the end of the summer.”Would I like this family? Would they like me? Would I like theother kids? I hoped so. At seven I was tired of moving and new families.Mrs. Richards turned into a long driveway leading to a ramblingthree story yellow farmhouse. As we parked a large woman wearing aflowery apron that covered her dress came down the porch steps. She waswiping her hands on the apron and smiling as she hurried over to greet us.“Well, well, who have we here? You must be Sarah. Well, Sarahwe have been waiting for you. We are so pleased that you’ll be stayingwith us this summer. Here let take your bag and we’ll go inside andget you settled. You can call me Auntie Fran.”Some new families want you to call them mom and dad, butAuntie Fran explained that since I already had a real mom, she like to becalled Auntie and her husband, Joe, liked to be called Uncle Joe.“C’mon, honey, let’s go see your room.”My own room? I’d never had my very own room. I grinned andtook her hand.“O.k., let’s go.”My room was on the sun porch. Filled with plants and a smallfoldaway cot and an overstuffed chair. It was cozy. Auntie Fran put featherpillows and a quilt her grandma made on the bed. I loved it.I didn’t meet any of the other kids until dinner. Most of them46

lived in the other farmhouse on the hill with Auntie Fran’s sister, Jenny.They were all big kids. There were seven boys and girls between the agesof 12 and 16.Two of the older boys lived with Auntie Fran and Uncle Joe.After dinner Auntie Fran asked the older boys to show me around thefarm. All the kids got together in the orchard and took me down to thebarn to see all the animals. The other new kids eagerly filled my headwith stories about how hard they had to work on the farm and how meanJenny was. She expected them to do anything she said and no back talk.They said they were her slaves.Two of them had lived here for a few yearsand it was their forever home. They just smiled and didn’t say much.“You’re so lucky you get to stay at Auntie Fran’s because she’s niceto the kids. Watch out for Jenny. She’s a real witch. Wait until you seeher. She’s real mean and if you don’t jump when she tells you to dosomething or sass her, she will send you straight back to the orphanage.It’s happened before. Honest.”Determined to stay close to Auntie Fran, I didn’t care if I eversaw Jenny. I did see her once and she was scary looking. She was tall andskinny with a hook nose and a fierce look in her eye. I ran away as fast asI could the first time she spoke to me. I knew she was a witch just likethey said. I told Auntie Fran but she just laughed and said it was nonsense.Sometimes if I got up a 4 am, I could go down to the barn withUncle Joe and his sons and help with the milking.The older kids liked tosleep in but I loved going out with Uncle Joe and his sons in the mistypredawn morning. Milking looked so easy but I really had to yank onthose teats to get the milk to squirt.When the men milked the cows itsounded like music as the milk rhythmically hit the side of the milk pails.Uncle Joe would carry the 5 gallon buckets over to the calves pen so Icould feed them.The calves would nuzzle my arm with their velvet nosesand press their warm bodies against me as they buried their faces in thefrothy milk.After feeding them, I was allowed to churn the cream until itbecame butter. Then I would take the bowl up to the house and AuntieFran would let me add one orange tablet to the white butter and stir it inso it looked like store butter. She always cooked an enormous breakfast,saying farmers worked hard and needed a hearty meal to start the day.Every day all of us kids,Auntie Fran, Uncle Joe and their fourgrown sons would sit down to a breakfast of fresh eggs, bacon, home friedpotatoes, homemade bread, fresh butter, oatmeal, fruit, hotcakes, syrup andfresh milk. None of us kids were used to meals like that.Barefoot and wearing big straw hats to shield us from the sun, weset off for the fields. We dug up potatoes all day filling gunny sacks in thewarm sun. The rich warm soil felt good on my feet. While we worked theolder kids would talk about how if you worked hard and got along witheveryone and didn’t swear you might be chosen to stay on for the school47

year. They made it sound like a contest. I knew I wanted to stay. Some ofthe older kids said the work was too hard and they would be glad to leaveat the end of summer, but I loved it and worried about whether or not I’dbe chosen. In the afternoon when the sun was too hot to pick potatoes weplayed in the pasture or the orchards. Playing hide and seek among thehaystacks and blind man’s bluff in the cow pastures.The idea was to get the“blind man” to step in a cow pie. Pretending to be bullfighters we wouldwave red scarves at the bulls and sometimes one of the bulls would comeafter us and we’d run shrieking towards the nearest fence, often getting ourshirts torn on the barbed wire as we made our narrow escape. We’d bescolded for teasing the bulls and tearing our clothes.“You kids need to be more careful. Getting kicked or butted by abull is dangerous. Have Uncle Joe show you were he was bitten by a bull.”Then she would give each of us a slice of homemade pie and abowl of fresh strawberry or peach ice cream, so I didn’t mind a bit.In the evening after supper, Auntie Fran would darn socks andUncle Joe would listen to the radio while we were outside catching firefliesand playing flashlight tag. As we lay on the grass watching for shootingstars, we’d whisper among ourselves about our futures.We never spokeof the past.We didn’t want to remember why we were there. I desperatelyhoped the Ryans would like me enough to keep me all year. I asked overand over again,“When will they let me know?”“They won’t say until the summer is over because they’re afraidyou won’t work as hard.”It wasn’t hard work, it was the most fun I’d ever had. One day Isummoned the courage to tell Auntie Fran I wanted to stay. I didn’t everwant to leave. She stroked my hair softly and said she’d like that too butwe’d have to wait and see. It wasn’t her decision.In July there was a County Fair with rides, cotton candy and fireworks.Therewere hayrides and campfires where we roasted marshmallows.Uncle Joe taught me how to ride a horse. Usually I would sit in the saddlein front of him like a real cowgirl. It was better than a dream.Summer drew to a close and some kids went back to the orphanage.I didn’t get to stay. Mrs. Richards came to get me right beforeschool started. She said I wouldn’t be going back to the orphanagebecause the Courts had decided I should go back and live with my realmom again. Auntie Fran cried when I left, but I didn’t. Everyone said itwas for the best. No one asked me.48

Academic Essay WinnerLucy GilsterSilent FilmThe Silent Film era was, by virtue of its absolute connection withthe birth of film, a time of great aesthetic freedom and visual experimentation.Many aspects of filmmaking were then incubating in the minds of aselect few innovators of film. The 1920s, in particular, was a time of socialchange and intellectual development that fed into the visual and ideologicaldevelopment of film. The time itself was helpful in the freedom offilmmakers to picture and realize their visual and aesthetic ideals, thoughperhaps more important than the era itself were the auteurs and theirvisions. Two films and their auteurs will be discussed here as examples ofthis theory; Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera and Tod Browning’sThe Unknown are very different films thematically and cinematographicallybut the overarching freshness of their visual and thematic styles is a sharedaspect of the films.The birth of film was in the late 1800s. Over the next thirtysomeyears, film evolved at an explosive rate. The films of Edison andDixon and the Lumière brothers were, on average, no longer than oneminute, and were largely no more than filmed representations of everydaylife in the period. From there, technological innovations allowed for bettervisual depictions. Intellectual development in the area of cinema alsoencouraged the growth of the new medium; narrative films began toappear and editing, became more common as a narrative device. By the1920s, film had been enveloped in the social world—a new form ofexpression recognized by the people and vital to the entertainment worldin the United States. The evolution of film was seemingly unstoppable, soit seems only reasonable to assume that the work of the early filmmakerswould be considered an outgrowth of the development of film. It is to beexpected that a new medium would grow and expand from its infancyinto its more mature films, and it is not particularly audacious to assert thatany development in cinema during this period would be considered aresult of the experimentation of directors, editors and actors alike.Man with a Movie Camera was made in 1929 in the USSR. Thetwenties were an important decade in the USSR and, more specifically, forSoviet filmmaking. Cinema, following the revolution, was regarded as themost important art form, and as the best way to disperse information to theproletariat. People in the early USSR were taught some of the basic49

Marxian ideals in their everyday lives, but literacy rates were still low, and thevast majority of people would never actually read Marx’s Capital. Cinema,however, as it was stated in the 12th Party Congress’ 1923 ‘Resolution onthe Questions of Propaganda,’ was to be viewed as a path for “communistenlightenment...to eradicate political illiteracy, particularly among the peasantryand non-Russian nationalities.” 1 Viewed as such, cinema was in a veryspecial position in the USSR during the years of Lenin’s leadership; due toits political significance, cinema was funded by the state, and as such, theresulting films were all but guaranteed an audience.The governmental and cultural support of the growing film industryencouraged the visual depiction of Marxian ideals in film, compellingthe filmmaker to include pro-soviet themes in his films.The governmenthad thereby, at least implicitly, created guidelines for filmmakers. Sovietfilms had to include pro-soviet images and rhetoric and, though, for mostsoviet filmmakers, this wasn’t an issue impinging on their artistic ideals, itdid put limitations on their freedom. Vertov, however, ran with the idea; hewaged war on fiction, preferring the art of ‘life caught unawares’ and newsreels.However, because cinema was viewed as the best teaching tool availableto spread Marxian ideals to the peasantry, the films had to be intellectuallyaccessible to someone who was cine-illiterate. Vertov faced criticism forthe rapid pace of his editing, and his lack of narrative thread. A cinephile, intheir best moment, could hardly decode any of Man with a Movie Camera inone sitting—and a member of the rural proletariat would be hard pressed toglean the socialist importance of the film by watching it once, in the theater.Vertov, over time, began to fall out of favor with the governmentbecause of the visual complexity of his films. In 1927, Stalin seized controlof the Central Soviet Communist Party, and replaced Lenin’s encouragementat the development of cinema with a strong preference for SocialRealism in film, demanding “that art serve the interests of the state—not bystimulating and challenging people but by entertaining them with obvious,inspiring tales that would be clear to anyone.” 2 As Gerald Mast wrote,“Bythe mid-1930s, this was the only permissible way to make a film.” 3In these ways, time, and the developing culture of Soviet Russiaboth helped and hinder the development of cinema. Expansion of ideasand techniques was encouraged in the early years after the BolshevikRevolution; for about a decade film was of great importance to the Sovietstate. After Lenin’s death, however, and Stalin’s rise to power, cinema--which had been supported by the state--was confined to a single use, andingenuity of thought was no longer encouraged. Experimentation was nolonger acceptable, and freedom was vastly decreased.Vertov was in an interesting position during this great shift of politicsand ideals; he refused to give up his vision and fell out of favorinstead of molding himself to new governmental expectations. One critic50

once wrote,“[Man with a Movie Camera] was the last avant-garde manifestobefore..neoclassicism was ushered in.” 4 As such,Vertov is a representationof the freedom of the era immediately following the revolution, of theevolution of the Soviet state into dictatorship, and the loss of liberty inartistic pursuits.Visually, Soviet filmmaking was influenced by two things: thegrowth of industry (and the popularization of machines), and the constrictionsplaced upon the new economy. After the revolution, Productionismwas a burgeoning theory and led to the shift of importance from ‘works ofart’ to the ‘art of work.’ 5 It was believed that in the future, the work beingdone itself would be more important than the end product, and this, fairlyexplicitly, contributed to the overall importance of the machine. Withoutmachines, the art of work would be less effective, if not actually impossible.Camera, as a machine, was viewed as just as important as the factorymachines that spurred on the economy. As Vertov himself said,“Our starting point is:The use of the camera as a cine-eye, moreperfect than the human eye for examining the chaos of visualphenomena that resemble space...MAKE WAY FOR THEMACHINE!...We cannot make our eyes any better than they havebeen made, but we can go on perfecting the camera for ever.” 6This love of machines is shown in Man with a Movie Camera. Inthe opening scenes,Vertov’s claim of the importance of constant mechanicaldevelopment over the fully developed human body is depicted through hisshots of mannequins. In the first ten minutes of the film, there are severalscenes of mannequins. One is shown sitting atop a bike in a store window,another behind a sewing machine. The last, and perhaps most meaningful,however, is the female mannequin depicted in historical bourgeois dress.Perhaps the effect is not intentional, but it does show that humans haveoutgrown the need to sell things and have, indeed, grown out of their history;that Soviet Power is based on human production and that all else can beleft to the machine. Machines are a recurrent visual theme in Man with aMovie Camera, illustrating the value of industry in communist Russia. Theimage of machine is used almost poetically in the film—the beauty ofmachinery is emphasized as a social statement, and is key to the film.Aesthetically, Soviet film was influenced by economic struggle inthe postwar years. Fresh film stock was low in supply and high in demand;when it was even possible to find new film stock, it was exorbitantlyexpensive. This fact led to the development of the Kuleshov workshopand the belief that editing is the most important and artful aspect of filmmaking.The development of montage grew out of this idea, and this basicnecessity. Films were being cut-up and re-spliced together to create newend products and research was being done in the effect of the juxtapositionof shots during post-production. This was a clear influence on all Soviet51

filmmakers, and Vertov, along with the likes of Eisenstein, took the editorialaspects of film to an extreme, which is quite evident in watching even oneminute of Man with a Movie Camera. As a whole, Man with a Movie Camerais an amazing feat of editing, creating intellectual jumps in the film thatthrill the eye and, by the end, leave the audiences’ hearts racing, almost toostimulated by its frenetic pace.The 1920s in America were also a time of great social change.Theperiod between the end of World War I and the beginning of the GreatDepression was relatively calm in America, and there was a sense of reliefringing throughout the country, though Americans were still reeling fromthe war effort. Film had developed into its narrative form, and movies onall kinds of different subjects were being made at an astonishing pace.Filmmakers had moved to Hollywood, and by 1927, there were 20 moviestudios in the area, including the Big 5 that would become the dominantstudios after the establishment of the studio system. Film was evolving.Unlike Soviet Russia, films in the US were not financially supportedby the state. This allowed for freedom; it wasn’t required that allfilms have a blatant, pro-America thread running through them. This independenceallowed for a wider spectrum of subjects to be covered, andmany techniques in cinema to be developed by trial and error due to thevast amount of films being made. However, because cinema was not supportedby the state, and therefore not guaranteed production or exhibition,filmmakers had to cater to the control of the studio for which they wereworking. An idea had to be approved by the studio, and then was allowedto be filmed and produced. However, in order to be approved, the studiohad to believe in its possible box-office value. Hollywood was, and still is,entrenched in capitalist desire—and it was not, by any means, in the businessof producing films that would lose money. This created an interestingdynamic for the American silent film industry in two ways: First of all, itnarrowed the spectrum of films that would be made by the studios—obscure films, non-narrative films and the like were unlikely to be produceddue to their lack of audience draw—and secondly, the capitalistdrive of Hollywood pushed filmmakers to keep coming up with new waysto attract an audience, which in turn led to a good amount of experimentationin the medium.By the end of 1927, however, this era of relative cinematic freedomwas dying out. Studios had elaborated on their capitalist desires, andbegan vertically integrating all aspects of filmmaking, giving ultimate controlto the studio, not the filmmaker. Films were soon limited by thisnotion; film had become a commodity more than an art form. Movieswere being cranked out at an astonishing rate, and were constructed in anassembly-line process. Quantity was valued over quality, and the breakneckpace of filmmaking in the studio system era diluted the artistic aspects of52

filmmaking because there was no longer time for visual experimentation.In addition, the era of the studio system limited the ideologicalscope of films. As the system evolved, it became less and less accepting ofscandal; a film was not allowed to end without the portrayal of justicebeing served, or the “American” perspective emphasized. Bad guys weren’tallowed to get away in the end, and, generally speaking, it was difficult tomake a film with an unhappy, or even ambiguous ending.Tod Browning’s The Unknown was made in 1927, the year that theHollywood studio system was officially established, and both conformedand differed from the expectations placed on filmmakers during this era,both culturally and cinematically, in its visual and thematic elements. TheUnknown was a relatively bizarre film of the era; the subject matter itselfwas found repulsive by many. In this way it seems strange that this film, ofall the possible films to be made, would be put into production. However,it was the star of the film, Lon Chaney, with whom Tod Browning oftenworked, who was largely responsible for the audience attraction. By 1927,Chaney had made multitudes of films, and was a well known and respectedactor. He was known for his acting, but beyond that, for his skills withmake-up and transforming himself into an entirely different being.Audiences were baffled by his ability to transform, and many wanted to seewhat he would do next. By portraying Alonzo the Armless in TheUnknown, he had contorted himself once again; wearing a tight corset topull his arms into his side, and portraying a man who uses his feet to doalmost everything. The Unknown wasn’t the most astonishing transformationhe had made, but it was impressive none the less, and the studiobelieved that his performance alone would be enough to attract audiencesto come see the movie.The production of The Unknown allowed Tod Browning to elaborateon his obsession with the grotesque—his ultimate signature. Browning,who lacked the typical mass appeal of many directors of the era, wouldn’thave put aside his vision, either; Stuart Rosenthal, a film critic, noted“Although the work of any auteur will repeatedly emphasize specificthoughts and ideas, Browning is so aggressive and unrelenting in his pursuitof certain themes that he appears to be neurotically fixated on them.” 7 Thetopic of the film was uncomfortable for some, and the film overall was abox office failure. However, despite the fact that the over-all nature of thefilm led to its monetary failure, it was still produced and released; this isproof that the climate for films in American culture in the 1920s was complicated;sometimes just the promise of success was enough to justify productionon even the strangest of films (at least within a given budget.)Visually, it was Chaney’s role in the making of the film that wasmost experimental and aesthetically freeing. His use of make up was the firstof its kind; he was constantly reinventing himself in his movies. Chaney, like53

Browning, was also obsessed with the plight of the outsider, and he portrayedmostly outsiders in his films. He wanted to understand these characters, andby portraying them physically with the mastery of makeup that he possessed,he was a pioneer in a sort of method acting. He said,“It is vivid characterizations for which I strive...As a man’s facereveals much that is in his mind and heart, I attempt to show thisby the makeup I use, and the make up is merely prologue...If Iplayed the role of and old man, I tried to crawl into the old man’smind, rather than merely build up a putty nose and don whitewhiskers...” 8He tried intensely to understand the characters he portrayed, and this is partof the reason that he was such a spectacular actor. In his portrayal ofAlonzo in The Unknown, he is extremely convincing—though not only forhis mastery of disguise. In the scene where he comes back from his doubleamputation only to find Nanon, his love, is engaged to another man,Chaney’s portrayal of Alonzo is positively gut wrenching. He has gotten sofar into character that he really sells the scene; one can trace his emotions—from utter excitement to great pain to hatred—and truly feels them alongwith him. He took character acting to a new level; his experiments hadtaken him to a place in the acting world that no one else had ever been.Vertov and Browning succeeded in creating new levels of artistryin their films, within the restraints of the time, and would not back awayfrom their artistic visions, bringing aesthetic pleasure and visual experimentationinto fruition on the big screen. This is what leads me to believethat these auteurs, these artists, would have made amazing films, no matterthe political or artistic trends of their time. Vertov and Browning had distinctideas for the visual and thematic aspects of their films.They pouredtheir hearts and souls into their art, and exploited the ways in which theirrespective cinemas accepted them.This allowed them to push the boundariesof any restrictions placed upon them. It was their self-determinationthat led them to be able to experiment, and their directorial determinationproved more important than the freedom allowed or taken from them.While Chaney the actor was free of the fiscal demands and other limitsplaced on the auteurs, his consummate acting helped to crystalizeBrowning’s exploration of the grotesque.These men and their achievements were positioned on the brinkof great change in their societies, and in their respective cinemas. They aretrue auteurs in the level of contribution of visual and aesthetic ingenuity.Their aesthetic, thematic and visual stamp transcended the limits of the era.Their directorial and artistic power drove the actual progression of themedium and allowed it to set a precedent for generations to come.54

1Roberts, Graham. (1999). Forward, Soviet! History and Non-fiction Filmin the USSR. New York: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. pp.30.2Mast, Gerald. (2000). Soviet Montage. In A Short History of the Movies(pp.164-188). Boston:Allyn and Bacon.3Ibid.4Tsivian,Yuri. (2006). Man with a Movie Camera—Lines of Resistance: DzigaVertov and the Twenties. In Ted Perry (Ed.), Masterpieces of Modernist Cinema.(pp. 85-110) Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.5Ibid.6Vertov, D., & Michelson,A., Ed. (1984) Kino-Eye: The Writings of DzigaVertov. Berkeley: University of California Press7Skal, D., and Savada, E. (1995). DARK CARNIVAL:The Secret World ofTod Browning, Hollywood’s Master of the Macabre. Retrieved July 9,2008, from Monstershow official website:Http://www.monstershow.net/work7.htm.8Blake, Michael. (1990). Lon Chaney:The Man Behind The Thousand Faces.Maryland:The Vestal Press. pp. 182-183.BibliographyAnderson, Robert G. (1971). Faces, Forms, Films: The Artistry of LonChaney. New York: Castle Books.Blake, Michael. (1990). Lon Chaney:The Man Behind The Thousand Faces.Maryland:The Vestal Press.Blake, Michael. (2001). The Films of Lon Chaney. NewYork: Madison Books.Mast, Gerald. (2000). Soviet Montage. In A Short History of the Movies(pp.164-188). Boston:Allyn and Bacon.Randall, Karen. (2003). “Masking the horror of trauma: the hystericalbody of Lon Chaney. In Screen 44, no.2.Skal, D., and Savada, E. (1995). DARK CARNIVAL:The Secret World ofTod Browning, Hollywood’s Master of the Macabre. Retrieved July 9, 2008,from Monstershow official website:http://www.monstershow.net/work7.htm.Tsivian,Yuri. (2006). Man with a Movie Camera—Lines of Resistance: DzigaVertov and the Twenties. In Ted Perry (Ed.), Masterpieces of ModernistCinema. (pp. 85-110) Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Vertov, D., & Michelson,A., Ed. (1984) Kino-Eye: The Writings of DzigaVertov. Berkeley: University of California Press.55

Academic EssayRunner-UpAragon SmithThe Loss of the American DreamThe American Dream has long been represented as the idea ofunlimited opportunity; the idea that here in America, if you work hard,and chase your dreams, you can achieve anything. Princeton Universitydefines the American Dream as “The widespread aspiration of Americansto live better than their parents did” (“Dream”). The belief in theAmerican Dream has brought many immigrants to America from acrossthe world, with the hope of prosperity in their eyes, and the desire forfreedom in their hearts. Americans who already live here have seen in thelast three decades that the American Dream has slowly died. TheAmerican Dream is no longer a reality for Americans. Rather, theAmerican Dream is a promise only for others, for foreigners from a thirdworldcountry, or refugees from regions wracked by the spasms of war.The loss of the American Dream affects all of us Americans deeply,and personally, whether we are recent immigrants, or from families that havelived here for many generations. Within her essay “Waking up from theAmerican Dream”, Sasha Abramsky proposes “In many ways, the AmericanDream of the last 100-some years has been more something dreamed by foreignersfrom afar, especially those who experienced fascism or Stalinism, thanlived as a universal reality on the ground in the United States”(107).Essentially Sasha Abramsky is stating that the American Dream is an idealheld by foreigners who do not necessarily understand the reality of livingwithin America. This is an excellent point, one that has a validity that is hardto deny. Compared to the despair of fascism or communism,America musttruly seem to be a promised land where nothing is denied if someone hasenough ambition, ruthlessness, or the sheer tenacity necessary to grasp it.Thecold reality of life in America can be very different however. Often immigrantsare greeted with scorn, whether they have trouble speaking English ornot, and can only find menial jobs. Despite the description of America as a“melting pot”, anti-immigrant sentiments often run high. Currently, someAmericans such as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity choose to pick onimmigrants from Mexico or South America, but historically speaking, theScots, Irish, Italians, Germans, etc. have all been accused of being America’s56

“problem immigrant community” at one time or another.While recent immigrants to America are faced with some dilemmas;however, coming to America sometimes represents a better lifestyle in comparisonanyway. This is not to say that the life of a recent immigrant toAmerica is necessarily easy, but rather the simple idea that a better life cansometimes be a shorter goal post. Immigrants coming from third-worldcountries and/or areas of constant warfare, often have more opportunitieshere in America then they would ever have found in their home country.Charles Bowden, in his article “Our Wall” observes:“Jesus Gastelum Ramirezlives next door to the wall, makes neon signs, and looks like Willie Nelson.He watches people climb the wall and he understands a reality forgotten bymost U.S. lawmakers - that simply to go through the wire instantly raises aperson’s income tenfold” (66). The Mexico-U.S. relationship is truly strainedby this hard reality. The idea presented by Charles Bowden that an increasedincome of tenfold is an irresistible draw to many Mexicans is easy to prove,as the United States recently estimated that there are approximately 12 millionillegal immigrants living in the United States currently.The loss of the American Dream and the opportunity it representshas been a life changing issue for me personally. With the recent economicdepression, my own job has disappeared, leaving me unemployed for thelast year and a half. The future sometimes feels bleaker than ever, buthopefully returning to school will create a light at the end of the tunnel.However, the economy only seems to be positive for those who are alreadywealthy. I will consider myself lucky to be able to obtain the lifestyle myown parents enjoyed. What I desire might be called a simple life, I justdesire to work, preferably at something I enjoy doing, and make enough ofa living to house, clothe and feed my family. As I asked my friends, family,and fellow students what the “American Dream” means to them, the overwhelmingresponse came in one of two responses. The first would be,almost word for word “The American Dream is dead”, and the second,“Why would you have an interest in something that no longer exists”? Itwould seem that I am not the only one who feels that the opportunity ofa better life is unavailable.Opportunity has become very limited in America; life is more difficultfor all but the wealthiest of Americans. Just staying afloat financially inthis down turned economy can be a challenge. As the middle class is beingslowly squeezed into poverty, particularly for the last thirty years, newopportunities die along with them. The opportunity for decent wages,much less high paying jobs is disappearing rapidly. Those Americans whoare born into wealth are the only ones with the resources available to get atop quality education, and have the social connections necessary to get intothe highest paying jobs. Many times in America, job applicants are notchosen by their qualifications, but rather who the person knows. Bharati57

Mukherjee states in “American Dreamer” that “The United States exists as asovereign nation,“America”, in contrast, exists as a myth of democracy andequal opportunity” (50). Bharati Mukherjee’s statement that “America” is amyth, and that the truth is much harsher, shines especially true with therecent depression. As the economic depression has further suppressedopportunity; it would seem that in modern America, the average Americanshould consider themselves grateful to work for shamefully low wages atWal-Mart, barely scraping out living at the minimum wage. What has happenedto the American way life? The answer is simple, greed.Jobs are shipped overseas for tech support and call centers, manufacturingplants in the United States are shut down to instead, pay theChinese slave wages of 25 cents per day. As a people, we Americans haveput ourselves in this place by removing our own safeguards and oversightshoping beyond hope, that this would somehow allow us to also take aplace among the wealthiest. Legislators that dare to suggest that the taxesand revenues gathered by our great nation should be used to support, educate,or assist the general populace are often accused of either being a “fascist”or a “socialist”. No longer does the American Citizen have the sameopportunities that their parents once enjoyed.As it currently stands, the American Dream is gone for the foreseeablefuture, perhaps not dead, but definitely not available. UntilAmericans manage to figure out a way out from under the current economicdepression, and return to work, the quality of life for most livinghere will remain on the decline. Americans may have some hard choicesto make in the future, but the American Dream seems to have been completelysuffocated by bickering and politics. While some immigrants frompoor and war torn countries may initially find a better life here inAmerica, will their children and grandchildren find a better life than theirparents? Unless we all choose to change as a nation, the answer will be no.Works CitedAbramsky, Sasha.“Waking up from the American Dream.” New World Reader.Ed. Gilbert H. Muller.3rd ed. NewYork Houghton Mifflin, 2011.102-108. Print.Bowden, Charles “Our Wall.” New World Reader. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller.3rded. New York Houghton Mifflin, 2011. 60-66. Print.Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus – The Free Dictionary. PrincetonUniversity, Farlex Inc.Web. 10 Oct. 2011.Mukherjee, Bharati.“American Dreamer.” New World Reader. Ed. Gilbert H.Muller.3rd ed. New York Houghton Mifflin, 2011. 49-55. Print.58

Academic EssayHonorable MentionAragon SmithThe Modern Communications Revolutionand GlobalizationThe concept of globalization is a serious issue with many wideranging consequences in the modern world. Many of the new developmentsin communications over the last 20 years have rapidly, deeply, andpermanently altered the world and how people live in it. The rapidgrowth of social media and the major changes within communicationtechnologies have made our world seem smaller. Small, lightweight,portable devices such as the I-pad or cell phones, allow people remainconnected to each other while on the move, as long as there is networkcoverage available. The communications technologies of globalization suchas social media, cell phones, the internet, e-mail, etc. have enabled individualswith access to them to have a larger impact on the world.As the developed world marches ever onwards to the tunes ofinnovation, discovery and profits, individuals and nations must decidewhether to participate, or be left behind. The interdependence and hyperconnectednessof the modern world gives individuals greater freedom tochange the lives of others, sometimes beneficially, sometimes not. A perfectexample of how an individual can make a major, beneficial impact on theworld is outlined in Thomas Friedman’s essay entitled “Prologue:The SuperStory”. Within “Prologue:...” Friedman outlines the story of Jody Williams,and how she managed to create an international movement to ban landmines. Jody Williams used e-mail to gain the support of thousands of citizensgroups, and 120 nations to create an international treaty, and push itthrough, despite resistance from Russia, China and the United States. In1997, Jody Williams received a Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of herefforts (Friedman 191). What Thomas Friedman is describing, is how onedetermined person with a clear goal can use technology to influence others.Through the use of e-mail, governments gave way to the pressure of populardemand. Resisting nations still were forced to give way at the U.N.,again by overwhelming odds, this time at an international level. One personwith an e-mail account affected every country that was part of theU.N., despite resistance from the three largest, most influential nations.59

Another result of hyper-connected communication is that an individualwith access to modern technology has an easier time of communicatingwith and influencing others through social media. The democraticrevolution that swept through Egypt, and moved on to Libya within thelast year, was sparked by a single anonymous person bearing a powerfulmessage on Facebook. Just one person started a chain reaction that hasimpacted many nations. Even the United States has felt the impact fromthe Egyptian’s cry for democracy and freedom. Within the article “Egypt:The First Internet Revolt?” The authors state “The internet, personal networks,and organizational networks account for mobilizing many participants.Writing before the Egyptian revolt, Phillip Howard’s research inIslamic countries found that the internet helped to maintain strong andweak network ties for political mobilization, and was more resistant to statecontrol than the traditional media of TV, radio, and newspapers. Moreover,social media’s swiftness and international reach can help amplify local conflictsto a global level” (Egypt 6). The basis of this statement underlines anindividual’s ability to get a message out to many people at once. This freedomallowed through the use of the internet can change the nature of aconflict. No longer is it as easy for governments to force issues throughbrutality unnoticed. What was simply a local conflict between protestersand police can now be international news mere moments after an incidenthappens. The result is many governments face sanctions or political pressureon an international scale if they attempt to censor the internet, orseverely limit the use of it to their citizens.The Egyptian revolution was not something that just happenedover night however. Snider and Faris emphasize that in Egypt “The maincause is the nearly simultaneous emergence, starting in 2004, of digitalactivists using what Diamond calls “liberation technologies,” independentjournalists wielding press freedoms, organized laborers staging nationwideuprisings, and opposition groups normalizing protest politics — separatemovements that have nevertheless managed to mount a frontal challenge tothe Egyptian regime” (Arab 49). While the Egyptian Revolution may haveappeared as sudden from an outsider’s perspective, it was something thatgrew from the communication allowed by modern technologies. Whilethe fuel for the Egyptian revolution was already present, a single individualmanaged to unite separate groups into a force that could not be ignored.As connected individuals with access to modern technologies, wehave the capability to create coalitions of thousands, or even millions ofpeople, which has the potential to change the entire world, be it one person,one village or one nation at a time. Not every message that someoneputs on the internet will be an earth-shattering revelation, or even necessarilybeneficial. However, the power to change the world lies at the fingertipsof anyone with access to it. The spread and development of mod-60

ern communications technology and social media worldwide are perhapsamong the most empowering developments for individuals. Modern communicationsrevolutionizes and enables globalization. It is not technologyitself that changes the world, technology is merely the enabler. The resultof technology is that, political lines on a map no longer divide us, and arenow merely only lines on a map.Works CitedFriedman,Thomas L.“Prologue:The Super Story.” New World Reader. Ed.Gilbert H. Muller. 3rd ed. New York Houghton Mifflin, 2011.187-191. Print.Snider, Erin A., and David M. Faris.“The Arab Spring: U.S. DemocracyPromotion In Egypt.” Middle East Policy 18.3 (2011): 49-62.Academic Search Premier.Web. 4 Nov. 2011.Zhou Xiaolin, Barry Wellman, and Justine Yu,.“Egypt:The First InternetRevolt?.” Peace Magazine 27.3 (2011): 6. Points of View ReferenceCenter.Web. 4 Nov. 2011.61

Academic EssayHonorable MentionLucy GilsterThe CruiseIn the beginning of film, the audience turned out for the spectacle.In 1895, the sight of a train pulling up to a station was enough to terrifyand enthrall an audience. In time, narrative films took over, and audiencesstayed for the catharsis of being whisked away to a different reality.And, before long, the studio system was born. Films, in the time of the studiosystem, spread widely across genre boundaries, and explored theboundaries of the medium to a point that had not been previously done.However, by the time of the second World War, films had long since beenrecognized for their possible uses as propaganda, and the Hayes code wasestablished, effectively limiting the subjects and scope of film producedwithin the studio system. In addition,American film, as a high-grossingentertainment medium, had long since been indoctrinated into the capitalistsystem, and it was understood that movies had to be thematically andcinematographically accessible to a wide audience in order to ensure thelargest profit possible.And then, modern independent film was born, flaunting thenorms of society, recognizing the grey areas and giving voice to the potentialof individuality—and, in time, embracing the better over the bigger–American filmmaking.Avant Garde films, admittedly, had been produced intermittentlyon a small-scale by artists like Maya Deren. Films like her Meshes of theAfternoon, are historically and artistically important for the study of themedium of film, but, avant garde films, by the very nature of being avantgarde, are not accessible to the masses, nor are they as prone to entertainmentvalue. Inspiring and truly independent as these early efforts are, it canbe argued that true independent film, as its own medium or genre, did notcome about until some time later—that avant garde film is a subsection ofindependent film, but that it would be a drastic over simplification to statethat independent film is a subsection of the avant garde.Early independent film, independent, in its own right, from theavant garde, began to delve into narrative storytelling, which would, inturn, shape the way that independent film would be viewed for decades tocome. In 1959, with the release of Shadows, John Cassavetes brought independentfilm to a new height, and began the career that would eventually62

give him the title of “father of modern independent cinema.” Shadows tookon themes that would have otherwise been left untouched by Hollywood,and was made without the support of studio backing, thus claiming foritself relative creative independence.By comparison to avant garde films, Shadows had a relatively mainstreamappeal, due to the fact that it had, on some levels, embraced thenormative functions of narrative Hollywood storytelling. It was not tooabstract to be understood by the masses, and the fact of its independentproduction stood out to the audiences who saw it at the time of its release.As such, it tapped into some of the traditional values of mainstream film—the spectacle, and the catharsis. On the level of spectacle, if the narrativethemes weren’t impressive enough, those who would see this film in NewYork cinema/art houses would applaud Cassavetes for making so much outof so little—for turning a $40,000 investment into such a relatively professionallooking film; for turning New York City into his set; for making afilm that so celebrates the actors and for being such a visionary to pull itoff. In terms of catharsis, the visible narrative structure allowed for manywho might have been put off by true experiments in depictions of realism,to be allowed in to the gritty, complex, bustling appeal of New York Cityin 1959.All of these things are true—Cassavetes did bring neo-realism toAmerica, did make a stunning film with not many resources, and created afilm that would be relevant for decades to come, both for the social issuesand for the groundbreaking approach to filmmaking. However, as the“father of modern independent cinema,” he also set the ground for theway independent film would be viewed and approached for a long time tocome. Cassavetes, by virtue of composing such a convincing film with solittle, threw open the door that allowed independent film to be theorizedabout and criticized by the same units of measure as studio films, that differentiatedindependent film from the avant garde, thereby creating adichotomy that came to both reinforce and tarnish independent film as anartistic medium.For instance, Shadows was critically acclaimed and truly groundbreaking,but it was not technically impeccable.The film gives us a narrativestructure, though loose, and encourages us, as in any narrative film, tofeel compelled by the drama and action of the situation.The problem isthat for an audience so used to the technical perfections of mainstreamfilm, we are constantly pulled back, pulled out of the story, by the cinematographicimperfections—the shaky camera, the blurry film— remindingthe audience that we are, in fact, observing a film, not participating init, and never quite allowing us to suspend our disbelief. For some, this isobtrusive. For others, like many who eventually comprised the audience ofShadows, it is so almost perfect that it is inspiring—and inevitably it was63

films like Shadows, independently made and so almost perfect, that wouldinspire generations of filmmakers to come to try to do better.And in fact, a full nine years later, Martin Scorsese released theindependently made film Who’s That Knocking At My Door?, a film that isreminiscent of Shadows, but cinematographically smoother. Who’s ThatKnocking mirrored some of the same themes as Shadows, dealing with masculinityand desire in a morally ambiguous (or perhaps morally populist)world. Scorsese, however, more carefully composes his shots, and pulls themoff, for the most part, with comparatively more grace than Cassavetes didin Shadows.With the exception of a couple of rough frames and jerky dollyshots, Scorsese’s first film betrays little of the relative grittiness expected ofindependent films of the time, but embraces independence truly throughthe thematic elements and the sense of simultaneous poetry and play of hiscamera movements.To compare the two films side-by-side is perhaps a bit shortsighted,but its a pretty safe assumption that mainstream audiences, inevitablydrawn closer to the narrative due to Scorsese’s smooth camera operationand the naturalistic acting styles, would say that Who’s That Knocking at MyDoor? Is the “better” film of the two.The judgment,“better,” is, of course a value judgment—but that’sthe point.Whereas Shadows and other early narrative independents set theprecedent that independent films could (and thereby should) be judged bythe same criteria as mainstream films, it aligned independent film with themainstream in a way that, though inevitable (no one wants their films togo unseen) caused independent film to run parallel to Hollywood film(though often a step ahead) instead of truly independently (a realm left tothe avant garde), furthering the theme of independent cinema as “minicinema”by following established norms of story structure and beingexquisitely executed in an independent arena.Films such as these are incredibly important to the study of independentfilm.The early greats set the precedent for the industry;Hollywood or not. In the case of independent cinema, filmmakers likeCassavetes and Scorsese lay the framework for what the industry wouldbecome, and the power it would come to have. As of now, literally hundredsof filmmakers and film industry professionals have graduated out ofindependent film into the mainstream—and the best of them, likeCassavetes and Scorsese, have continued to represent their particular aesthetics,and continue to be auteurs in a world of mass production. Andthat’s great—these films are great, and these filmmakers are great—but is itenough to break the world of film into mini-cinema, where the stakesaren’t so high and experimentation is thereby accepted, and the avantgarde, cinema’s slightly disturbed little brother?After viewing The Cruise, I can unequivocally say,“No.”That is not64

enough. The Cruise is one of those rare films that is almost impossible totalk about (which is why I’ve been talking about not The Cruise for fourpages now). It achieves the almost impossible: rather than conjuring up andaccepting generic conventions, or overlooking imperfections, or readingtoo much into shots or music or dialogue, the audience is completely freeto be suspended in that particular moment in time, along side TimothySpeed Levitch.The film, with no real narrative structure or plot drive, nor technicalshowiness, manages to defy all the regulations and expectations of massculture acceptance, which, by the previous definition, should push it intothe avant garde. However, somewhere in this film there’s a brilliant balancebetween the daring and raw depiction of this human being and the subtle,understated filmmaking. By not attempting more than he can providetechnologically, the filmmaker refrains from offending the cinematographicsensibilities of a perceptive audience, which allows it to remain appealingto anyone who ever had an interior monologue.The film, unlike mostintellectually accessible independent film, doesn’t call for suspension of disbelief;quite the opposite, it cries out for the awakening of all the senses.Shot digitally in Black and White, digitally edited, then transferredto film, The Cruise often feels just as gritty as Shadows and Who’s ThatKnocking At My Door? However, in contrast, Bennett Miller, the filmmaker,never seems limited by his limited resources; the film, instead, feels like acelebration of its own simplicity, escorted to its higher meanings by theever-present, sometimes bizarre and often poignant ramblings of its maincharacter,Timothy “Speed” Levitch.In one scene, he shouts,“My greatest victory is the ability to feel....How much rebelliondid I have to experience? How much fighting did I have to do?...Howmuch air conditioning did I have to transcend and the comfort that comesalong with it....the magnitude of static that surrounds us—I mean, howmuch daily fighting, in-fighting, strategizing, evading, running did I have todo for the ability to feel? For the ability to emote, for the simple momentswhere I feel actual passion?” and watching Timothy deliver this monologue,the camera-work is both unflinching and understated, and at thatmoment the filmmaking achieves a level of cohesion unusual for any film:Shrouded in dirty early digital noise, the audience is given a pure portraitof Timothy—he is cast in eerie streetlights, cloaked in New York City, hisdialogue runs over the simple camera work, and parallel to the technological(the magnitude of static) and sociological ethos of the film, and parallelto the audience’s experience of the film.In that moment, the film claims its own victory for itself.Thatmoment, defying the conventions of filmmaking established by the natureof Hollywood, and the establishment of respectable “mini-cinema” versus65

the specific appeal of the avant garde, The Cruise becomes one of thosesimple moments, evoking and made for the pure and simple enjoyment ofthose moments of passion. Unlike many avant garde films, The Cruiseremains accessible to a wide audience, but it throws off the shackles of thelegacy of independent filmmaking as well—unlike so many independentfilms, it is not trying to imitate or impress the mainstream film world.Instead, the filmmaker, not trying to be showy or re-tell the oft-told metanarrativeof our existence, allows a nearly unadulterated slice of existenceto show through—and further yet, in the vulnerability and victory of thecharacter and style of filmmaking, Miller, quite unobtrusively, allows theindividual to encapsulate the infinite.Miller has created a truly astounding piece of cinema. A widelyaccessible character piece, with nods to spectacle and narrative but withoutadhering to the conventions of traditional filmmaking, it is the antithesis ofthe traditional narrative film often compiled by independent filmmakersstriving to demonstrate their ability and desire for upward mobility in thefilm world.Throwing down these traditions, Miller verges on the avantgarde without ever veering off the road of universal understanding—andby doing so, defying the constraints of all filmmaking, Miller was able tomake something truthful, fully-encapsulated and perfect for exactly what itis, a truly independent film; not trying to be bigger or better, to go furtheror take us on an epic journey, it is exactly what it is: a purist celebration ofthe brilliance and horror of being alive in an examined existence.66