AUR LitPut III Spring 2023 - From Now To Then
"When I found out about my father’s diagnosis, my first impulse was to light up,” Nalu Gruschkus writes in the opening line of Abnormal Whites and Excessive Blues, her striking piece about her father’s cancer and her own addiction to smoking. In A Bit of Extra Fun, Delaida Rodriguez is having an unpleasant lunch at a restaurant with her boozy mother. Over a chicken sandwich she has barely touched, she peers into her mother’s jade eyes only to realize with dread that she is more like her than she would care to be. Sam Geida looks back in Friday Night Dinners to the glorious family get-togethers at his grandmother’s house – now it’s only a few of them around the same table, with paper plates and the flat blue and white cardboard boxes of Gino’s Pizzeria. The stories in last year’s issue of Lit/Pub were mostly about making sense of things as we emerged from our Covid isolation. The mood is more assertive this year. Isabela Alongi’s vibrant cover design brilliantly evokes a world in movement and young people going places. It is a thread we pick up again in Josephine Dlugosz’s delicate musings (Work of Art), and in the short fiction of Scott Cameron and Raegan Peluso (A Song for Mr Solomon and Two-Faced). The poetry section is especially strong with Gina Carlo’s compassionate trilogy about love and loss and Scott Cameron’s haunting poem about his return to the bleak post-Katrina wasteland. On the lighter side, Lit/Pub spoke to Professor Bruno Montefusco about campus fashion. In the new memoir section, D.P. gives us a tender account of a childhood road trip with her father to Arizona (Snow). And students are traveling again! Emily Chow takes us with her on her intrepid solo trip to Malta. Rome, May 2023
"When I found out about my father’s diagnosis, my first impulse was to light up,” Nalu Gruschkus writes in the opening line of Abnormal Whites and Excessive Blues, her striking piece about her father’s cancer and her own addiction to smoking. In A Bit of Extra Fun, Delaida Rodriguez is
having an unpleasant lunch at a restaurant with her boozy mother. Over a chicken sandwich she has barely touched, she peers into her mother’s jade eyes only to realize with dread that she is more like her than she would care to be. Sam Geida looks back in Friday Night Dinners to the glorious family get-togethers at his grandmother’s house – now it’s only a few of them around the same table, with paper plates and the flat blue and white cardboard boxes of Gino’s Pizzeria.
The stories in last year’s issue of Lit/Pub were mostly about making sense of things as we emerged from our Covid isolation. The mood is more assertive this year. Isabela Alongi’s vibrant cover design brilliantly evokes a world in movement and young people going places. It is a thread we pick up again in Josephine Dlugosz’s delicate musings (Work of Art), and in the short fiction of Scott Cameron and Raegan Peluso (A Song for Mr Solomon and Two-Faced).
The poetry section is especially strong with Gina Carlo’s compassionate trilogy about love and loss and Scott Cameron’s haunting poem about his return to the bleak post-Katrina wasteland. On the lighter side, Lit/Pub spoke to Professor Bruno Montefusco about campus fashion. In the new memoir section, D.P. gives us a tender account of a childhood road trip with her father to Arizona (Snow). And students are traveling again! Emily Chow takes us with her on her intrepid solo trip to Malta.
Rome, May 2023
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Prose<br />
Friday Night Dinners<br />
By Sam Geida<br />
My cousin Lissa was walking Grandma Jo Ann through the fairly simple procedure of taking<br />
a picture with an iPhone. Fifteen pairs of knees were crowded around the long, oval table in the beige<br />
dining room. “Well, how was I supposed to know that!” Grandma yelled, her short arms flying in the<br />
air. Roars of laughter filled the room. “Ok! Ok! Settle down, are we ready now?” she asked, looking<br />
through the iPhone camera from her vantage point at the head of the table. All around, red faces<br />
strained to contain the last giggles. Grandma focused up and took the shot. A look of self-approval<br />
shone on her face and spread from one end of the table to the other. <strong>Then</strong>, she grabbed the first dish,<br />
served herself, and passed it on.<br />
These Friday Night Dinners were a weekly family tradition. We would trek from varying corners<br />
of Long Island, New York to Farmingdale. 56 Dean Road was the center of our worlds. We called<br />
it my grandmother’s house, but it was a home for many more family members. Pulling up to the big,<br />
grey house, one saw lights on in every window. Warmth radiated from those little windows all the way<br />
to the long, curved driveway. Up close, the house seemed so big; it was hard to keep the whole structure<br />
in view. Swinging the front door open triggered a loud greeting by all the members of the family<br />
who lived in the house, each beckoning you to their own little corner, each with their own questions,<br />
each of them caring for you in a different way.<br />
Lissa and Aunt Janine lived on the top floor in a converted apartment-like room, coated in<br />
neutral colors and big windows. Aunt Phyllis lived in the basement, a space characterized by atypical<br />
elements – high ceilings and well-composed lighting. Sandwiched between them was the main floor,<br />
and the hidden living quarters of Great Grandma Milly, Great Grandma Rose, Grandpa John, and<br />
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