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Crisp Air and Turning Leaves Ah Fall, the crisp morning air, the sweet breeze whisking away our humid Summer travels, the anticipation of color, of transformation, of newness. Autumn brings learning and leaving and loving, and bright trees full of Fruity Pebble colored leaves. Even if you aren’t headed back to school, the feeling of anticipation as the air changes sways you to new discoveries. With that change comes possibility, reformation, education, death and glorious rebirth.
Fall is the most wonderful time of year! The relief as days head from hot-and-hotter to cool-and-cleaner is palpable. We open our windows, put away the AC units and feel freshness renew our insides and out. The world is full of magic this time of year! As we move toward the Equinox on September 22, we breathe in the magic of the coming season. We might want to borrow from the Hebrew and celebrate the Jewish New Year, September 26, and dip our apples into honey wishing for a sweeter future. We can atone, and fast if we feel the need, and as we move forward into the magical season we prepare our spells and cast them when we’re ready. Candles burn brighter, pumpkins and spice make the air sweet and savory and we become tighter and smoother as we shed our open toes and pull on our walking boots. To help with finding your magical reality in this changing season, I’ve compiled an eclectic list of books filled with wonder, poetry, spells, and haunted places. Enjoy! The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Sestras in Crime, Love, and Science Warning: Due to the nature of this series, it is impossible to discuss certain aspects of the show without revealing spoilers. As a result, this review will contain spoilers for the first two seasons of Orphan Black. You have been warned. When I first heard about Orphan Black, I didn't really know what to make of it. It was just a show I saw people on Tumblr raving about, with GIF sets of the various characters played by Tatiana Maslany and quotes appearing on my dashboard. When I finally looked up what the BBC Sci-fi series was about, I found it a little more interesting and complex than I imagined. Because of that, I decided to view the series, watching the two seasons of the show that have aired. What I found is one of the best genre shows on TV right now, with an incredible leading performance and a complex story.
The series begins with con artist Sarah Manning (Maslany) returning to Toronto to try and reclaim her daughter from her former foster mother. While at a train station, Sarah witnesses a woman committing suicide by throwing herself in front of a train. The woman, Beth Childs (also played by Maslany), looks exactly like Sarah. Sarah steals Beth's purse and decides to briefly assume her identity in order to take all her money and start a new life with her foster brother, Felix (Jordan Gavaris), and her daughter, Kira (Skyler Wexler). Unfortunately, this plan does not go easily. In the first two episodes, Sarah learns that Beth is a police detective under indictment for shooting a civilian, leading to complications to get the money and flee. At the same time, a German woman named Katja (also Maslany) appears in Sarah's car, only to get shot in the head. At the end of the second episode and explained in the beginning of the third episode, Sarah learns exactly what kind of conspiracy she's involved in. She meets two other women who look exactly like her: the neurotic soccer mom Alison Hendrix (again, Maslany) and the snarky PH.D student Cosima Niehaus (Maslany. Noticing a trend?). It's then that Sarah learns why there are so many women who look like her: they're clones. Sarah, Beth, Alison, Cosima, Katja, and many other women around the world were all part of a cloning experiment in the 1980s, only now they're all being killed off one by one. The series follows the main trio of Sarah, Alison, and Cosima as they meet other clones, including the Ukrainian assassin Helena and the cold businesswoman Rachel, and try to figure out who really can help them and who is out to end them. While this is going on, they have to deal with the troubles in their personal lives, especially when the conspiracies involve those they are close to. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Writing Teachers I Have Known The first one I found online. She taught Intro to Chic Lit, and I signed up in ignorance and desperation. I had been writing about a mom on the Upper East Side who was losing it after having her first child.
A thinly veiled diary, but that first year, writing seemed my only defense against a well of fears I had never before suffered. In motherhood, I lost my identity and simultaneously found a new life. Nursing, singing, naming every little thing we passed. Bird, boat, tree, light. The joy of hearing her voice, as it formed, from gurgles to sounds to sentences. My experience felt singular, though universal. Writing fueled my days and helped me process the difficult parts. I would watch my child in the late morning, after playtime, for the first signs of sleep. A lengthened blink, the drooping eyelid, a mere yawn. Sometimes, I had to walk her in the stroller around the block or out to the East River and back before she’d go under, but thoughts of writing filled my mind as I paced. I’d repeat phrases like a mantra so I’d remember later when she slept. And I’d rush to my computer and pour out the words like balm for my soul. After a few weeks of virtual class, the teacher responded by email. “Chic lit is usually funny and flirtatious.” I apologized to her. To myself, I criticized my writing. It was dark and depressing, maybe even murky. But the door had opened. I didn’t turn back. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
5 Artisanal Foods That Piss Me Off Call me a penny-pinchin' philistine but the artisanal-everything movement is making me crazy. (And other people poor.) Here are the top five everyday foods that have been elevated from the secular to sublime:
1. Pickles. Eight dollars for a jar of pickles? Cucumbers cost about 35 cents, people. And last time I checked, a pickle is by definition nothing more than said cucumber soaked in vinegar and sugar. Unless you squeezed that vinegar from the sweet swollen teat of the Virgin Mary you've got to be kidding me. (This goes the same for beets, okra or string beans.) Putting things in a mason jar does not perform alchemy. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
What My Calendar Looks Like By Ghia Vitale QuailBellMagazine.com I first realized that I have severe synesthesia when I found out that most people couldn’t taste words. As I researched my condition more, I discovered that I am far more synesthetic than I thought. You see, I’d heard about musicians with synesthesia being able to “see” sound as colors, but I thought that the colors had to observable with their physical eyes as opposed to their mind’s eye. I'd think that words and sounds evoked feelings and images as well as color or textural associations.
I’ve always been far more into music than most people. Now I realize that one of the reasons is that, for me, music is an immersive experience, in no small part owed to the patterns and color arrangements that come up in my mind when I hear songs. Words make the colors really fly and form a more complete image as opposed to just fleeting colored patterns. This sound-to-color condition is known as chromesthesia. The strongest of my synesthesia powers is called lexical-gustatory synesthesia, which basically means that I can taste words. The same goes for my taste in poetry, for my preferences are based on an aesthetic that I could never really describe to people. Many times, my synesthetic experience of literary art determines how much I like it, although it’s obviously not a decision that I make consciously. The tastes and colors remain constant, although I often notice different dimensions to them at different times. Some words and sounds are more intense than others. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Barreling from Chinatown to Chinatown A balmy, persistent breeze in Manhattan blurred the July evening into an autumnal memory. I could’ve very well been in that same spot on Grand Street just a couple of seasons earlier. By now, I was a Chinatown bus regular, familiar with the various lines, their pros and cons, even their drivers. Snippets from different (mis)adventures melted into a slightly off-putting fondue.
Lying crumpled on my suitcase—green-gray, floral print, older than the bus I was about to board—I sat up and pressed my back against a greasy window. The sidewalk, blackened by ancient gum and general grime, was my temporary abode while I read a former professor’s novel. All I wanted to do was get back to Washington, but I placated myself with a page-turner in the meantime. The night had only just begun. I had already been curled up an hour when, before I knew it, I was throwing down my book and catching a baby. The child’s mother shouted at me. “What?” I shrieked. The baby glared at me. “What time do they open?” the woman shouted in a thick African accent I could not place. She was young, perhaps a couple of years older than me, not quite 30. Her braided hair was swept up into a ponytail. Ironic poindexter glasses rimmed her bushbaby eyes. She wore dress pants and a neat purple sweater. In any other situation, she might’ve been a respectful, well-mannered woman. But hell hath no fury like a frazzled mother. Now I had the chance to explain my current predicament. Unfortunately it was to someone about to face the same fate. The woman gaped as I said that the bus office was closed for dinner. The employees were on break. She didn’t believe me until we both looked through the large, glass windows and saw the five or so employees shoving rice and noodles in their mouths. While they ate presumably hot, delicious food, we shivered in the strange summer chill. Rows and rows of empty seats taunted us. But the chain locking the front door was as thick as my wrist and wrapped around the door handles three times. So the sidewalk it was. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Art vs. Porn—the debate continues!
So some photographer, Wyatt Neumann, took his two-year-old daughter on a cross-country trip, took some photos of her in her birthday suit. And we might have never known about these photos except that he came under some fire. People thought he was a pervert and a child molester. An article in The Huffington Post claims just the opposite: He is an artist and purveyor of beautiful and chivalrous things other than pornography, if that's even possible.
So what did the photographer father do about the controversy? If you guessed open up a gallery show of his photographs and share the story with several media outlets, then you are correct! Many of Wyatt Neumann's defenders would like to turn the accusations on his critics, suggesting that they themselves are the ones validating the images as pornography. Some people have pulled the "whoever smelt it, dealt it" card on this debate, as if that carries some relevance in the adult world. In my opinion, this is a typical clash of the "Of course! But maybe…" scenarios worth dissecting. As in: "Of course his critics are themselves child perverts! Why else would they find these images of a two-year-old girl pornographic? But maybe…they are more interested in keeping the child safe from actual perverts." Conversely, there is also: "Of course the father is just interested in preserving memories of his daughter's youthful innocence, and he just so happened to be a professional photographer! But maybe…he could have kept these photos private and never posted them online…" Chances are that many of his critics are not child pornography enthusiasts themselves, and they may not even be concerned parents. Some may just believe that any nude image of a child is a good nude image for an adult who likes child pornography. So, even if the photos are not risque, and I certainly don't think they are, they're still accessible to those who would see them like that. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Thinking About Others, Zombies, and Painful Truths By Kate Hickey QuailBellMagazine.com In the media these days, bigger is generally better. We want explosions. We want big budgets. We want the CGI to look like real life. And sometimes, because of that, we let narrative quality slide in favor of those technological features. There’s nothing wrong with that from time to time—I love a good, loud, CGI explosion as much as the next girl—but I frequently find myself craving shows that are smaller scale, quieter, and choose the story over the graphics. One such television program has recently caught my attention, and it’s called In The Flesh. Created and written by Dominic Mitchell for England’s BBC3, In The Flesh has become pretty popular in recent months, but it still has a long way to go before anyone would consider it a big part of the mainstream media.
In The Flesh takes place in the fictional village of Roarton, a small, rural community in England, and the tensions in the town are running high as the show opens. This is because the rehabilitated, medicated, Partially Deceased Syndrome Sufferers are being reintroduced into society for the first time since the Rising ended. In a nutshell – zombies are back in town. Humanity faced the zombie apocalypse and it survived. In The Flesh begins post-post-apocalypse. In The Flesh tackles some tough topics both beautifully and subtly. The people of this world have accepted the fantastic into their mundane lives, and what’s amazing is that the fantastic does not eliminate the ordinariness of these people, for better and for worse. The Partially-Deceased Syndrome serves as a metaphor for any kind of Other, anything that makes someone “weird” or “abnormal” or “wrong” according to what the society at large has deemed the standard. The PDS Sufferers in Roarton deal with slurs, segregation, and violence from the rest of the community. They wear make-up and contacts in order to hide their true faces, not only to keep themselves safe from attacks, but also because of the self-loathing that comes from being the Other in a community. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Grief Turned Driving ForceEditor's Note: Fight Against Bullies, also known as F.A.B., was created originally as a capstone project for founder Gillan Ludlow's graduate program. The mission of the project was raise awareness about cyber bullying and self-harm such as physical mutilation and suicide among adolescents. Here is one post from the series: Sameer Hinduja, author and professor for the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University, was victim of traditional bullying while he was growing up.
“I grew up very introverted and shy and bashful,” Sameer said during a phone interview. “I had all of these very nerdy qualities I guess, so that gave ammunition to my peers to give me grief or make fun of me. I was just a late bloomer and that’s just how it worked out…When you’re in the middle of it [adolescence], you’re trying to figure out who you are, how you can get people to like you and be interested in you and want to date you; and when you feel rejected and isolated and you don’t really fit in, it’s really really rough. It takes over your life and it’s not something you can compartmentalize.” The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Questionable Club CultureEditor's Note: This open letter addresses an incident that took place at Fallout, a fetish club in Richmond, Virginia on August 30, 2014 but, due to its nature, is of national concern and inspires the sort of conversations The Quail Bell Crew believes should take place all over the world. Photo: Shockoe Design Group. I’d like to say, first and foremost, that I love Fallout. Richmond's only serious goth and fetish club is one of the first places I felt safe expressing my queerness, my kinkiness, my gender identity. They elected a transwoman as Miss Fallout in 2010. They had an explicit “no touching without consent” policy. They had a mixed drink named after the community’s favorite lesbian couple. I knew that these were the kind of people I could be safe around, people who got it. And so it pains me to say what I have to say next. What happened there on August 30th makes me question whether I ever want to go back again. For those of you who don’t know the story, here are the basics: 1. It was Doomsday, a local favorite event that brings in a lot of new people every year. It’s an End of the World party, with lots of dancing and craziness. A great time all around. 2. The theme this year was some kind of unspecified Intolerant Apocalypse. In past years, themes have included raptures and zombies. This year, the theme appeared to be something along the lines of Fourth Reich. It’s unclear whether or not the club’s owners and employees knew about this in advance, but volunteering regulars made the decorations, including several signs. 3. Normally when the club does events that might be...uh, scary for some people, they advertise heavily what the theme of that night is going to be. If it’s medical play night, they plaster up some warnings. It’s a fetish club, of course it’s going to have themes that not everyone is comfortable with. But… The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Lashing of Tongues Once upon a time, one human looked at another human and thought, “Wow. I’d love to shove my tongue in that person’s mouth.” Well, that’s how I’ve always imagined how the French kiss came to be. What that reason was, I’ll never know, although I have reason to believe there was sexual intent involved. Well, that’s what the world has me believe. The first time I ever witnessed a “real” kiss was at a carnival outside of what used to be Sports Plus in Lake Grove, New York. It was the typical bacchanalia with all kinds of food, lights, rides, and drunk people. We were waiting on line (that was much more like an elongated cluster) and surrounded by a group of loud teenagers. In front of us, I saw a blond girl lock eyes and a boy whose style could best be described as Juggalo ghetto. The boy and girl draped their arms over each other’s necks as they mashed their lips together, clumsily intertwined like mating slugs but with a much more fluid, synchronized anti-rhythm. It was the first time I had witnessed people give each other tongue beyond the borders of a television screen. It was a live public display of affection. I was transfixed. Real people lash tongues to express fondness? If not fondness, at the very least it’s a matter of chemistry, that profound, hypnotic lust that possesses us and devotes all of our faculties to pleasuring the erogenous zone of another person. How the act became known as French is unclear. Some say that the term is actually a francophobic term to insult their libertine sexuality, unbridled sensuality, and supposed “amorality” in the eyes of other European countries. Others think it’s on par with how the French got associated with our fries. (Deep-fried anything sound like French cuisine to me, but fries actually originated in Belgium.) And, actually, one of the terms the French have for the French kiss is the Florentine kiss. Kissing specialist Lauren Worthington says that the French kiss has been documented since the 1800’s and its popularity resurged in the 1920’s. Supposedly, when American and British soldiers returned to their homes after fighting in World War I, they brought with them a souvenir from France: a super-sensual kiss that stimulates the entire mouth. After all, the mouth is an erogenous zone. Even animals like to lick each other, too. Maybe it’s just our way of saying, “You’re so sweet. May I please have a sample?” #RetroSex #FrenchKiss #Sexuality #PDA #Tongues #Slugs #History #Francophobia #FlorentineKiss #Kissing Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Becoming a Ghost For most people who start getting into film and trying to study it extensively, one of the first directors they tend get attached to is Alfred Hitchcock. I really got into Hitchcock my junior year of high school, and even did my extended essay on Hitchcock for my school's International Baccalaureate program. Hitchcock is a fascinating director, and has created some of the most memorable films of all time, such as Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window, and more. His personal life left touches on his films, while his off-screen habits made him one of the first director-celebrities.
Despite his personality and impact on film history, Hitchcock never won a Best Director Oscar. In fact, only one film ever won Best Picture, and it's one of the few films that hardly fits into his autuer style. Rebecca is a 1940 David O. Selznick produced film based on the novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier (whose novel Jamaica Inn and whose short story The Birds would also be adapted by Hitchcock.) The film is mostly Selznick's, but it is interesting to find the Hitchcock touches within. Rebecca follows a young woman played by Joan Fontaine. She meets a wealthy widower named Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) and they soon get married. He takes her back to his ancestral home, Manderley, in Cornwall. There, she learns about Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, and how the staff, particularly the ghoulish Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), adored Rebecca and continually compare the new wife to the former. As the film progresses, Fontaine's character begins to learn more about Maxim and Rebecca, particularly how Rebecca's death is not all that it seems. One of Hitchcock's directorial trademarks is the idea of women being trapped. Hitchcock did have some odd relationships with the women in his film (particularly Tippi Hedren), and many of his films feature blonde, female characters being in predicaments they can't escape from, such as Tippi Hedren's character in The Birds being trapped in a phone booth during a bird attack or Janet Leigh's character being trapped in a shower as she's stabbed to death in Psycho. While Rebecca was made to be as faithful to the source material as possible, there are some divergences that do show Hitchcock's touch. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Hot Tea and Kullaj Lured by the glowing red store signs, I pulled into the dim parking lot. I sat for a minute after parking and scanned the scene. A couple of groups dined outside. Taxi drivers stood by their
cabs, talking, laughing, and smoking. Although I was far from alone, I expected to see more people milling around. The shopping center next door had been teeming with customers busy with their back to school rounds. While casually walking about, I had nearly bumped into overwhelmed mothers on two or three separate occasions. Here, there seemed to be more cars than human beings. The businesses must all have backrooms and basements, I told myself, or these are mostly employees' cars. At 9 p.m. on a Friday, the small suburban shopping center should've been pulsing with excitement. Known for its Middle Eastern businesses, the shopping center sat right next to a mosque and several apartment buildings full of Muslim families. That night the shopping center pulsed with a different kind of energy, one I could not yet articulate. I grabbed my purse and stepped out because my stomach had reached the end of its patience. The last days of summer were upon us. Clouded by lights, I couldn't see a single star in the sky, which made me think of how some of the patrons might've grown up in the desert, far from any city. The parking lot wasn't filled with sand, just grit from the road and people's shoes. Since there were a couple of restaurants open, I wanted to consider my options. I went into the lobby of Jerusalem Cafe and picked up the paper menu. It was full of enticing photos of dishes I could practically smell. I barely had a chance to read when a waiter opened the inner door and said, “Don't think twice about it.” He grinned. In any other situation, I might've thought he was flirting with me, but the restaurant was clearly desperate. I peered inside. Only two tables were occupied, each with three or four people. I was the only one in American clothing. That might not be unusual in other places, but I live in a very international region where it's common for people of different races and cultures to mix. Shaking my wave of self-consciousness, I placed a take-out order for beef shawarma with fries. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
It Ain't Easy Being LizzyEditor's Note: This is one of several stories being included in Quail Bell Magazine's next print 'zine, Issue 6, available soon for preorder. All stories receive an original illustration and type treatment, along with a special edit for print. There are even stories that haven't yet appeared on the website! Check out our other 'zines and books. Photo: Jay Westcott/TBD On Saturday nights, the expansive Mad Rose Tavern in Clarendon, Virginia buzzes with the clink and smoke of a busy pub. Boasting two levels, three bars, and a crowded patio lit with heat lamps, Mad Rose Tavern is the place to be if you're a twentysomething Redskins fan working for a large government contractor. Its laid-back atmosphere and $4 whiskey shot specials make it an ideal place to relax with friends on a weekend. But sometimes things get out of hand, which is where Mad Rose Tavern's three huge, muscular male bouncers come in- or Lizzy. At 31 years old and a fairly average 5'6", Lizzy is Mad Rose Tavern's only female bouncer. It's a profession dominated by recreational bodybuilding men in tight black V-neck shirts or large, bearded, tattooed motorcyclists. But Lizzy's height doesn't fool anyone. A former marathon runner, Lizzy's muscular frame can bench press her own weight at the gym. She is, as her coworker Grayson put it, "strong as hell. I wouldn't mess with her." Lizzy's main role is to restore order among the girls in tight black dresses and stilettos who bicker with each other on the dance floor or at the bar. It seems that women respond better to a female bouncer than a male; somehow it's "more sympathetic, less degrading," Lizzy says after a busy shift, drinking a vodka tonic. "The male bouncers, they come in, they're big, they're scary. Girls don't like that." This job came about purely by accident, she explains. She works a regular 9-5 job in human resources for a defense contractor after receiving her bachelor's degree from George Mason in 2008. A year ago, she began frequenting Mad Rose Tavern and befriended the owner, who offered her a part-time job. "I thought it would be interesting," she says with a shrug. "I mean, I'm already here on Saturday nights. I might as well get paid for it." Her craziest experience? "I caught two girls fighting in the bathroom. One of them was about to hit the other with her high heel." Not on Lizzy's watch. #Real #Bouncer #Feminism #CareerWomen #IncredibleWomen #RealWomen #CourageousWomen #WomenWithBalls Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Jazz Manouche at L’Atelier Charonne …But now, I am where I dreamed I would be: L’atelier Charonne. Tonight is Jazz Manouche Piano and I have a glass of red wine that I am too stupid to spell…The band reminds me that I know nothing—it sounds like they’re unraveling melodies like biologists unravel DNA.
Writing may not always be stable or always pay the bills, but if you’re doing it right, it can bring you to beautiful places for “research.” I realized early on that I ought to write about what I care about, and consequently my novel is about a half-Romani (Gypsy) dancer and fortune teller working at a Parisian circus and her strange journey to Nazi hunting. It’s mostly set in the 1940’s and 1920’s, and while I can’t go back in time, I can absolutely go to Paris. I had just finished a very gratifying Writing and Yoga Retreat, as both a participant and a visiting professor, with the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop at the Château de Verderonne in Picardy, France. My brain was ticking over with ideas for the novel, and Geoffrey, the cab driver with the long blond ponytail and a penchant for dance music, was bringing me to Paris for five days of research. I had only one plan: going to the same bar single every night, L’atelier Charonne, where there’s Jazz Manouche at 9 p.m. every evening. Manouche is the name of a Gypsy clan prominent in France, and the French Jazz movement was spearheaded by revolutionary Manouche musician Django Reinhardt, whose black and white portrait hangs on L’atelier Charonne’s wall. And this is where I would write, every night, lit by candles, music, and the ridiculously beautiful bar staff. Writing about my Romani heritage is both an act of pleasure and an act of necessity. Honoring and rediscovering my culture’s beliefs, history, music, food, dance, art, and fashion (and fashion politics) feels like self-love. But there is also the nervous need to explain—not just to explain myself or this part of my family’s culture, but to explain the current human rights crisis. Expressing this pain feels like life or death. The Romani people are an ethnic group originating in India around the 11th century C.E., and since the early Roma left home, they have endured persecution so severe that it gave rise to Roma’s traditional nomadism. All over the world (including the U.S.A.), Roma are illegally deported, forced into camps with poor sanitation and shoddy shelters, segregated in schools, forcibly sterilized, banned from shops and places of work, targeted by hate crimes, human trafficking, and slavery. And this violent prejudice and persecution has been raging for centuries, many people only know of Roma through stereotypes or misrepresentations (like reality TV). The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Typewriter Envy As a kid, perhaps inspired by Nancy Drew, I loved wiping away thick layers of dust from the obscure objects I found beneath the floorboards in our attic: grandpa’s baby shoes, a jewelry box filled with my mom’s lost infant teeth, an engraved hand mirror. I believed that there were stories hidden in these things from the past, stories that begged to be written.
One day, I went searching for a story in our front hall closet. The closet, more Alice in Wonderland than Nancy Drew, is like a rabbit hole because it is under the staircase. The deeper you go in, the farther you must scrunch down. The ceiling runs a sharp diagonal to the floorboard. It was there, in the back of that messy closet, that I found a very important thing of the past: A typewriter! (An electric typewriter, circa 1979, but a typewriter no less.) And I started hammering away. My thoughts appeared in black and white, immediately, as I thought them. I started stamping out my own memories and stories. Click click click click click. I liked to roll my stories back down and re-type over what I had already written. Each letter had its own stamp, its own fresh ink. Language became visible and tangible. Click click click. I was in love. Yet, just like every game one plays as a child, I eventually lost interest in the typewriter. It was my Velveteen Rabbit. I ignored it for American Girl dolls, a new bicycle, my Easy-Bake Oven. It might have run out of ink or just stopped working altogether. I can’t even remember now. |
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