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Sweeping Away StereotypesBy Quail Bell Social Butterfly QuailBellMagazine.com Our new friends at A Clara Trupi de Ovos y Assovio, a Brazilian theatre company that's been around since 2005, wanted to give the Quail Bell(e)s a taste of Portugese-language performing arts. So they sent us some video clips and photos of their latest socially-minded show, Varre Dor de Vadiagem, which has toured theatre festivals across Latin America. This both lyrical and grotesque populist story focuses on a street sweeper full of big dreams just as human as any other person in the city. It's not too late to catch the production yourself—that is, if you can get to El Salvador or Chile later this year. If not, here's a digital taste: Upcoming performances: • Festi-Clown, El Savador • FINDAZ—Festival Internacional de Teatro y Dança, Chile #Imaginative #OtherWorlds #BrazilianTheatre #TheatreFest #LatinAmericanArt #BrazilArts #PerformingArts Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Words + Images = A Manic But Sensible InfatuationWhen scissors hit paper, there are several aural possibilities and each collision reverberates in the artist’s hand differently. The paper, if of a certain thickness and texture, may make a satisfying crunch. If thinner and slightly damp, the paper may tear stealthily in near silence. Cutting damp paper feels like petting a plush animal left out in the rain, while cutting cardboard may strain the palms and wrists. These are just a couple of examples from the whole spectrum ofzips and whispers and flops in the scissor-paper dance. As a child, I learned the many sounds and sensations that scissors and paper make. But it was in high school that I rejoiced in their strange rhythm. It was then that I went through a phase of collage-making obsession. It was also then that I started to understand my habit of combining words and images. I’m not sure what prompted the obsession, though I’d guess it was my middle school art teacher, Monica Stroik, introducing me to the works of collagist Romare Bearden that helped me unpack my interest. Something that drew me to Bearden’s work was his use of multiple layers. (This was before I’d ever explored Photoshop.) To quote the National Gallery of Art’s description of Bearden’s work: “…his practice involved altering the surfaces of these papers and other collage elements in a variety of ways: adding painted areas using both spray paint and the more traditional brushed application of color; using abrasion and sanding to roughen and interrupt the plane; and removing color from both painted areas and collage papers by means of a bleaching agent.” Around this time, I started listening to a lot of jazz. I read a lot of Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. I dreamt about the Harlem Renaissance. And I started making collages with words. To me, the words were just another layer in a collage’s composition, just like Bearden’s dabs of paint on paper. I would tear through magazines and newspapers on the hunt for pictures, swaths of solid color or texture, and, increasingly, words. Sometimes I chose a word for its meaning. Sometimes I chose it for its color, size, or typeface. Sometimes I had a vision. Other times I simply liked what I saw. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The story that will forever haunt Marty Cobb's sister“What did I think was wrong? That made it sound as if nothing was really wrong. I only thought it was wrong.” —From The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath I woke up with a start, detecting the scurrying of a rodent in my room. I wanted to believe that the mouse was responsible for my restless sleep. Instead, the culprit lied in what I had read earlier that day. Mid-May was supposed to be a time of celebration. After all, my little sister had just graduated from college and our parents were in town. But my joy for my sister's accomplishment was short-lived because of yet another child rape. I walked downstairs to the kitchen to fetch myself a glass of water. My parents, who were camped out on the sleeper sofa, both murmured. “It's just me,” I said. “Why are you up?” my mother mumbled. “I couldn't sleep,” I explained from my place inside the fridge. I grabbed a box of fried chicken and set it on the counter. “I read something horrible.” “What time is it?” “Four?” I slammed a plate full of chicken into the old microwave and then muttered, “That'll be too loud.” I removed the plate and went to the dining room to gnaw on cold, soggy skin. When I finished my strange supper, I threw the bones away, washed my hands, and headed back to my room. But I couldn't make it past my parents. I could tell that my mother was awake, so I told her the story responsible for my nightmares: Eight-year-old Marty Cobb and his 12-year-old sister were playing on the railroad tracks behind their Richmond, Virginia home when their new 16-year-old neighbor raped Marty's sister. Maurice Washington bludgeoned a 3-year-old with a hammer at age 12 in 2010. When Marty tried protecting his sister, Maurice threw a rock at the boy's head. The tiny boy—reportedly so small for his age that he was often confused for a 5-year-old—died almost instantly. Maurice then scooped up Marty's sister, ran over to her mother's home, and told the girl's mother that she had been raped by a white man. Maurice had bullied the girl into going along with the lie. The girl was taken to the hospital and was not allowed to see her family, even to attend her brother's funeral, because her mother had broken too many of social services' rules and orders. No media outlet released the girl's name because she was a minor, but for anyone in the neighborhood—and just about anyone curious enough period—her name is fairly easy to find out. After all, her brother's name, her mother's name, and her (now former) address have all been made public information. For the rest of this girl's life, she will run into people who will recall the news story. And, with that, she will encounter people judge her. There will be people who blame her, reasoning that she must have provoked the boy. She must have been oversexed and “unladylike.” It will always be “her fault.” We can only hope that more people treat her with empathy and compassion instead of misguided hatred. That is we must practice and demand for all rape victims, whether their stories made the news or not. #OtherWorldlyMadness #HorribleImagination #RVA #DisturbingNews #ChildRape #ChildrenRapingChildren #FamilyTime Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Got venison?By M. Alouette QuailBellMagazine.com You might visit Washington, D.C. for a glimpse of the White House, the monuments, bona fide politicos, or...white-tailed deer? Perhaps not for long. Bambis are so prevalent in Rock Creek Park* that the National Park Service has estimated that about 70 deer inhabit every square mile of the park, about four times what experts say the ecosystem can healthily support. The New York Times dubbed it “a surplus Washington could do without.” In 2012, Rock Creek came up with a plan to manage the deer population—or as the plan states it, reduce “the park's deer population through lethal and non-lethal means” over the course of the next 15 years. Despite protests from the Washington Humane Society and the national animal rights group, In Defense of Animals, the park acted on that plan with sharpshooters. Department of Agriculture shooters had killed 106 white-tailed deer in the 2,000-plus acre park by the end of the 2014 short killing season on March 31. Those 106 deer translated into 3,300 pounds of venison that then went to D.C. Central Kitchen in May. D.C. Central Kitchen prepares 5,000 meals a day for capital city community centers and shelters. Managers report that some clients felt uncomfortable eating the venison when they learned it came from Rock Creek. Last August, In Defense of Animals and the Washington Humane Society sent a petition containing more than 11,000 signatures to the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior. They demanded that the killing be stopped and that the deer be given birth control instead. U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins ruled out the lawsuit filed by five D.C. residents to halt the hunting. White-tailed deer are so common in the D.C. metro area that suburbs like Fairfax County in Virginia regularly schedule managed hunts. Hunt participants are selected via lottery and must qualify with the Fairfax County Police Department. Each hunter is allowed three shots per weapon: shotgun with buckshot, shotgun with slugs, or muzzleloaders. Fairfax County estimates that an average of 4,000 to 5,000 deer-vehicle collisions occur in the county each year—and that's just in Fairfax. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries issued its revised deer management plan as early as 2006; the plan is slated to run through 2015. The National Park Service hopes to achieve target density in Rock Creek by Spring 2015. Curious about what animal activists are saying about the future of deer in Rock Creek Park? Follow the Save the Rock Creek Park Deer page on Facebook. #NotImaginary #ThisWorld #SocialJustice #RockCreekParkDeer #WashingtonDC #FairfaxCounty #DeerHunting #Virginia Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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A Bay Area Poet SpeaksAlexandra Naughton and I first met about two years ago when I was writing a piece on foot fetish for The Bold Italic—it's not one of her "things" as they say, but she had seen my call-to-arms on Yelp for potential subjects and had a strange foot story to tell; we met at the Madrone Art Bar on Divisidero to talk toes, writing, and why the Bay is so wonderfully odd after a lifetime of being an East Coaster. (She's from Philly; I'm from New York.) I didn't know it then but it was the beginning of a beautiful—but digital friendship—where I could witness firsthand her sprawling indie-dark darling influence on the World Wide Web. Her steady stream of Facebook statuses casually garner 85 'likes' and inspire a throng of heady comments. Her comments are alternatively witty, honest, perceptive, self-deprecating, knowingly narcissist and sexy—in short, it's a persona that's an Internet wet dream. By day, Alexandra helps run what I can only understand as a kind of modern day Elks Club in San Francisco—by night however, she's a bona fide whirlwind of literary exploits. She's founded her own literary 'zine and publishing "house" Be About it! in addition to her own blog, Tsaritsa Explains It All—which delves into everything from social commentary to art, to hip-hop, sex and books. Oh, and she's also launched a reading series, and published her first collection of poetry, I'll Always Be Your Whore [Love Songs for Billy Corgan] with Punk Hostage Press in January.
On the cusp of her book tour where she'll traipse across ten cities in ten days, we sat down in her North Oakland apartment—finally face to face again after two years—and talked about the sheer joy of being published, why she hates poetry and obsessive love. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Cinematic BrainwashingPart of why people turn to movie reviews and essays on films is because the reader trusts that the critic is someone who can expose what lies beneath a movie. Film critics spend years reading film, reading books about film, and studying related texts to understand film. A film critic is someone who pays attention to subjects like philosophy, sociology, politics, and cultural relativism when viewing a movie, and uses what they know to inform audiences that there is more to what's on screen than what the viewer initially assumes.
The 2012 documentary The Pervert's Guide to Ideology is a film devoted entirely to how one man searches for ideology in cinema. This man, Slovene philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek, spends an entire documentary looking at clips from selected films, as well as commercials, pieces of propaganda, and news footage, to explain what ideology is to how societies use ideology to further goals. In the film, Žižek finds films from different cultures and eras that use similar forms of ideology, and how the presence of these ideologies can shape and influence society. This is not an easy movie to watch, but it's fascinating because of how important it is to find ideology in film. Žižek begins the film by looking at John Carpenter's They Live, a film in which the protagonist discovers a pair of glasses that let him see the subliminal messages in everything, including the aliens disguised as humans. As Žižek puts it, ideology is like glasses “which distort our view. The critique of ideology should be the opposite; you take off the glasses to see things as they really are.” Because of this, Žižek asks the viewer to be open to looking into what films are discussed and how the ideologies present may or may not apply to the viewer. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Proudly 'Women's Work'Whoa! It's summertime and that means a whole of slew of festivals will be bring smiles to faces from sea to shining sea. Among them are 'zine fests, such as the enticingly titled Philly Feminist Zinefest in—you guessed it—Philadelphia. Started in 2012, the festival celebrates 'zines by women artists and writers, all in a "safer space" environment. The grand event take places on June 28th this year at Christ Church Neighborhood House, an arts and culture venue. Exhibitors include, among others, the Trans Oral History Project, Stranger Danger Distro, Werdy Girl, and, of course, Quail Bell Magazine. Here's what Sarah Sawyers-Lovett, festival organizer, had to say about feminists, zines, and fairy tales: CS: Why do you think Philly needed a feminist 'zine fest? How did this become an annual event?
SLL: Philly Feminist Zine Fest isn't an annual event yet, though we're trying to be. We put the first year's fest together after attending NYC Feminist Zinefest—the energy was so positive and safe. So many rad people with similar goals and priorities in one place. How could we not want to bring something so overwhelmingly amazing back to Philly? What are some of the memories you had of the past two PFZFs? What made these memories stand out? One of my favorite moments at PFZF was at the reading the night before the fest. There were a ton of people already on the roster, but this sweet kid read from her 'zine unprompted. It was her sixteenth birthday, and I think it gave everyone in the room a serious case of the swoons. Her writing was so good, and it was especially special that she chose to celebrate her sweet sixteen by reading it to all of us. Other zine fests: My first year at Chicago Zine Fest, I traveled there on tour with some friends. We were coming back from post-fest karaoke and we wound up missing the last bus. We were all tired and kind of cranky, but JC (who writes Tributaries and compiles the zine Collide), sang John Cougar Melloncamp songs to me all the way back to the place we were staying. I was already deep in friend love with her by that point, but it cemented for me that we will be friends until we're cranky old punks. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Romantic rejection is real.By Ghia Vitale QuailBellMagazine.com In the eyes of Elliot Rodger, he died a “perfect gentleman” whose needs were callously disregarded not only by women but the world at large. Rodger resented his “selfish” mother for failing to marry a wealthy man and condemned his father for his failure to financially succeed in the film industry. His father was the assistant director of The Hunger Games, an acclaimed and commercially successful film. His mother paid for his college education and apartment by the skin of her teeth. However, Elliot clearly thought he deserved more. According to him, only affluence could cure his chronic case of involuntary celibacy and win him the conventionally attractive women whom, he felt, owed him sex for being such a "gentleman." None of blond, white, modelesque women he lusted after ever had the chance to experience his extraordinary chivalry because he hardly ever spoke. That silence was probably one of the better options available to him, for if he had actually spoken to the “pretty blond girls” he put on a pedestal, he would've immediately revealed his racism and condescension. Media outlets are shaming the MRA, anti-Pickup Artist, and Bodybuilding.com communities for fueling Elliot's fire. But it's essential to note that those groups also thought that he was a total creepshow and often told him so. Rodger was nowhere near as “nice” as he thought he was. Although his reaction was extreme, his complex was not atypical; that's why when his parents informed the police about the disturbing YouTube soapbox that he used to broadcast his egotistical angst, law enforcement thought nothing of it after briefly visiting him. However, Rodger's grandiose sense of entitlement reflects a larger epidemic, one that appears to be especially present in young men: he had a raging case of Nice Guy Syndrome, and not surprisingly, he was never nice in the first place. Public awareness of Nice Guy Syndrome has steadily risen over the past few years, but the ruthless slaughter committed by Elliot Rodgers has thrusted the complex into the spotlight. Don’t confuse genuinely nice people with Nice Guys; nice people do nice things out of the kindness of their own heart, regardless of whether or not they are sexually or romantically interested in an individual. If someone they want to date isn’t interested in having a romantic relationship with them, they will resume the friendship or move on with their lives. Sure, they might shed tears over it, but they don't fault the rejecter for not being attracted to them. Hopefully, they don't resent themselves for not winning that person's affection.
Nice Guy Syndrome includes a myriad of attitudes and behaviors that revolve around social ineptitude, emotional immaturity, and a lack of respect for themselves as well as others. Nice Guys get angry when their crushes want to remain friends. The afflicted complain about how women only like “jerks” who treat them like garbage. Nice Guys claim "being there” for women is the fatal move that gets them sentenced to an invisible prison known as “The Friend Zone.” They claim that their love lives wouldn't be desolate wastelands if they just weren't so goddamn nice. Some say it’s another sexist myth, but the Nice Guy phenomenon goes much further than that. It’s one about the unhealthy interrelational narratives, standards of attractiveness, and cultural perceptions of masculinity that American culture endorses. Much like how girls get the message that they have to be thin and attractive in order to be loved, guys are taught to measure their personal worth by the amount of ass they kick, the money they make, and most importantly, the sex that they (don’t) have. Kicking ass, making money, and having sex—this is the fool-proof formula that supposedly makes them catnip to the pussy they so fervently desire. Romantic rejection therefore becomes a form of invalidation. In turn, many boys get the message that platonic friendships with women only serve as evidence of their personal inadequacy, a cheap consolation prize for not making her panties melt off. There's some kind of societal conspiracy to exclude them from the secret orgy of life, the V. I. P. section for beautiful people. Well, the people that seem more beautiful than them, anyway. The entire thing is a massive cultural delusion because attraction cannot be reduced to an equation. In reality, Nice Guy Syndrome stems from social misunderstandings and emotional immaturity. Complaints about getting "Friend-Zoned" are an immature person's way of saying, "The person I like doesn't want to date/have sex with me." Young people are especially inclined to buy into the whole sham. As people mature, they realize that this social script is mostly a generalization that we’re conditioned to believe. Relationships aren’t that simplistic or formulaic. I know where these Nice Guys are coming from and my being female does not invalidate the fact that I am, in fact, a recovered Nice Guy. I am sharing my experience with the world because I want Quail Bell readers to have happy, fulfilled lives. I’ll gladly throw my ego under the bus if it means that people will finally understand the true nature of Nice Guy Syndrome and why it happens. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Martial Arts and a Moral CompassBy John Cappello QuailBellMagazine.com Okay, I read Fay Funk's Sailor Moon article, which gave me the idea to write about Dragonball Z here. Her article features several points about how Sailor Moon’s all girls team is a rarity and how progressive the show was, especially in representing ass-kicking yet feminine women to thousands of young girls. Boy, I wish I could make a point like that with Dragonball Z.
I’ll be super serious for a minute here. Krillin isn’t the biggest loser in DBZ. He may get his butt kicked by the most powerful beings in the universe from time to time, but at least he tries. No, Yamcha is actually the fattest turd in Dragonball Z. He was killed by a fucking Saibaman. I recently re-watched Seasons 1-3 on Blu-ray, which encompasses the Saiyan, Namek, and Frieza sagas. And they look amazing. Buy them. I can’t make money from this endorsement. Of course, if you think about it, they’re all the same saga with the same storyline, but of course Funimation wanted another reason to divide the series into more sets to sell. The fight-to-survive style of the series ensures its immediate appeal. Now, in the year 2014, the series is officially celebrating its 30-year anniversary. Since its inception, the series has had an unfortunate bad rep of being too long, featuring repetitive fight scenes, and having a simplistic storyline. Many fail to realize that the television series had to keep up with the pace of the manga series, and turn a weekly 12-page chapter into a 22-minute television episode. This meant they had to come up with filler content, as is the standard practice for most serialized anime. Still, its enduring popularity cannot be an accident. It is a damn good show. Perhaps it was never DBZ’s intention to represent something more than it was. I’ll try to explain what this show meant and continues to mean to little boys and childish men like myself. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Art in the Star City of the SouthBy M. Alouette QuailBellMagazine.com © Barbara Norman-Lashley Big Lick now has a much more romantic name attached to its rolling hills and small-town charm than it once did: the Star City of the South. Roanoke, Virginia's nickname comes from the large star illuminating Mill Mountain. Sitting 1,045 feet above the Appalachian city, it's the largest free-standing, human-made star on the globe. The star, which is visible for a whopping 60 miles, has crowned Mill Mountain since 1949. For the sight-hungry, Quail Bell Camera Eye snapped a picture of it in May. But this feature isn't about Roanoke's best-known star; it's about one of the groups responsible for making post-industrial Roanoke a rising arts star: The Market Gallery, an art space located in Downtown Roanoke. Kim Sutliff and Anna Wentworth, gallery co-presidents, teamed up to answer a few questions the Quail Bell Crew had for Market Gallery: QB: Give readers a brief sense of what The Market Gallery is. What experience can they expect to have visiting the gallery? MG: The Market Gallery is a regional cooperative art gallery located in Roanoke's historic downtown marketplace. We began the gallery in 2003 and after 11 years, we have grown to around 30 artists. Twelve of the original charter members are still members of our gallery. The gallery itself is a source of inspiration. When you walk in the light-filled gallery, you are warmly greeted by an artist (not an employee), with music playing and fantastic fine art to peruse. Depending on the day of your visit, the artist might be painting, drawing or cutting up papers as they continue to work on their art while also working the gallery. The gallery is surrounded by some of Roanoke’s finest restaurants, museums and shops including The Taubman Museum of Art just one block away. Weekends especially are a fun time to be in the downtown area as it is filled with people for music concerts, fairs, theatre, and festivals, many times right outside our gallery doors. © Anne Way Bernard You run the gallery as a cooperative of regional artists. Logistically, how does that work? What do you like about the set up? Back in the early 2000s, a group of Roanoke artists were not satisfied with the limited choices for displaying their artwork and decided to create their own gallery by coming together and combining their resources and talents. We wanted to be able to control everything about the gallery. This included who was invited to show in the gallery, how it was run, the hours it is open, how it is advertised, everything. With this set-up, we are invested in the gallery and its success. Each member pays a monthly fee and gives a percentage of their sales to the gallery. This money is used to pay the bills: rent, telephone, Internet, advertising, etc.
Additionally, and more importantly, all members take a vested interest in the gallery by working in the gallery two shifts per month, taking on committee responsibility, and sharing the responsibility of mundane tasks like cleaning the floors and windows to taking out the trash. As your mother probably told you, “Many hands make quick work." We also rotate responsibilities every few years to keep us more involved and knowledgeable about all the items needed to operate the gallery as a whole. We each have an allotted amount of space to show our work and rotate every other month so we can change the look of the gallery and show in different spaces. We like this set up as it gives us total creative control over our surroundings and how we present and sell our art. We generally feature two to four artists each month and those artists get extra space to show their work. Our gallery members become a small family and we really care and support each other through trials as well as celebrations. We also have supportive landlords that live above the gallery and want us to succeed. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
SummerBy Charles Bane, Jr. QuailBellMagazine.com Editor's Note: Read the second installment in this series of letters between poets Donald Hall and Charles Bane, Jr. here. June 21, 2012
Dear Don, A late June night in Florida is like every other month of the year, except that the Poinciana trees are in bloom for these weeks only and the ground below them is red and bright yellow. If our residents want season change, he or she must imagine them and imagine that the Royal Palm trees are oak or maple in the season they are remembering. The year here isn’t of seasons, but tide. At low tide on the Waterway, alligators sleep near fishermen who walk onto the mud to catch supper, or go shrimping with net and lantern. It’s fine to write poetry, but it’s fine also not to, to have a finished manuscript in the hands of a book designer and not be lost in the physics of verse. It is better than writing poems to leave the windows open at bedtime and hear mockingbirds throughout the night and to be piped by birds to a café to read and watch the sun like a starfish. Better still to be with my son without distractions and to have breakfast and talk. “The One Day” was more than a day’s work, so perhaps season is illusory. If you read Hemingway, it is always Fall or early Spring and Melville makes snow on waves. Tonight, poems have their oars raised to the sky and time is slowed and prized. Always, Charles |
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