Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


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Reviews, Analyses, and Criticism

Previous

The Khojalu "Genocide" Fabrication
by the Keghart Editorial Board, June 2013
'Azeri photographer Chingiz Mustafaev photographed the Azeri corpses immediately after the fight and two days later. His latter photos show that the position of the casualties had been changed and their injuries had strikingly become more brutal. During both his assignments the territory was still controlled by the Azeris. Shortly after, President Ayaz Mutalibov said to the photographer, "Chengiz, do not tell anybody about what you have noticed. Or, you'll be killed."'

An Interview with Steve Gibson
by Jeremy Hight, June 2013
"For me one important factor when considering the mixing of mediums is how the different aspects will formally interact with each other. I suppose that might be a hold-over from my modernist training in music composition, but I feel internal coherence is especially needed in mixed-media work."

An Interview with Christine Wilks
by Jeremy Hight, June 2013
"I'm not overly concerned with how my work is defined, I'm happy to use different terms for different audiences, whatever helps them understand how to approach the work best. Interactive storytelling (as used, for example, by Michael Mateas) probably best describes most of my narrative-based works because, where there is gameplay or game mechanics, it's usually in the service of storytelling rather than the other way round."

An Interview with John Craig Freeman and Will Pappenheimer
by Jeremy Hight, June 2013
"We see many parallels to this moment of the computer-Internet expansion, sometimes called the "Internet of things," and how it begins to infuse into the physical or the site, particularly in augmented reality. In fact the very notions of what constitutes the real in this relationship are shifting, not that reality hasn't been in question long before the moment."

"Channeling Spirits with V.D. Cards, or, Why We Didn't Make It to the [Medicinal] Cannibus Cup in L.A."
by Frankie Metro and Lindsey Thomas, April 2013
""I'm not sure if the guy was wearing Afro Sheen or not. As far as I could tell he wasn't wearing shit because in the middle of the card was an ungodly erect cock, one that could make the securest-member-swinging-motherfucker look at his junk and shake his head in shame. Thank God the card wasn't fit to scale or else I'd been arrested for carrying it in my pocket on the bus. A lethal weapon in the wrong hands to be sure."

"Obama's Turkish Delight"
by Yacov Ben Efrat, April 2013
"Erdogan called Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza and asked permission to renew relations with Israel. Haniyeh acquiesced, even though Netanyahu made no formal commitment to lift the naval blockade of Gaza. This did not stop Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashal from sounding a note of victory and presenting Jerusalem's apology as proof that only with force can the Zionists be brought to their knees."

An Interview with Moki
by Jeremy Hight, March 2013
"Right now I'm working on a new art book. it will be published by Gingko press who also published How to Disappear, my last art book. Shelter is the name of a series of paintings that I have been working on for the last 4 years. I'm copying wood structures to imitate marquetry. The paintings remind me a bit of Asian woodcuts with their rolling lines."

An Interview with David Leonard
by Alex Takacs, February 2013
"FataLAtour is data driven tour. An event happened in a location, at a particularly point on the z axis of time. In the case of FataLAtour, data points can be either fictional or real, but both can share locations around Los Angeles County."

"Waylaid Waylate, or, How I Learned More about Gun Control: A Review of Waylaid's Aug. 23 2012 performance at Desert Fish in Albuquerque, New Mexico"
by Frankie Metro with Lindsey Thomas, February 2013
"The man had on... a white button-up beneath his tattered Veterans jacket, tucked into a pair of stone-washed Arizona's, a tight auburn belt with longhorn buckle in front, and a Ruger Super Blackhawk Single Action Revolver in a matching holster on his waist. Needless to say, the other patrons of the restaurant were somewhat on edge of the man as well. But New Mexico is an Open Carry State..."

"Late-Stage Capitalism and the Shame-Haunted Life: You Can't Kill Trauma With a Gun"
by Phil Rockstroh, February 2013
"We are convinced we know our own mind. That the decisions we make are based on logic and the wisdom gathered from experience. We believe our night-borne dreams and seemingly random, daylight imaginings are furtive shadows, inconsequential to the choices we make moment by moment as we navigate the linear timescape of our days."

"Gun Violence, Massacres, and 'Other Developed Countries'"
by David Rovics, January 2013
"A madman with a gun killed Eric. He didn't use an assault rifle, just a shotgun, and it didn't even make the news. The police investigation seemed to last a few hours at most, with no one identified, arrested, tried, or any of that. And although it was a somewhat unusual case in that Eric was white, he was otherwise just another one of many thousands of mostly young men killed that year, and every year since..."

"Choice and Its Opposite: On Listening to Other People's Music"
by David Brennan, December 2012
"In this country we are told, we have been convinced, that choice is what we desire, that choice is freedom. What if that isn't true? What if choice has become a prison of enthrallment? What if true freedom, the kind we equate with 'happiness,' rests not in choice but in its relinquishing?"

"Stick Figure Symbiosis"
Frankie Metro reviews Re-positioning: serial soft-core satire by Stephen Bett, December 2012
"By the time I had reached Position 6: Dr. Scholl's Day Off, the inclination for heavy-duty repair/installation work had long passed. I was now faced with the positions of the short and tall: the meek depictions (which expend less energy and require more force) grew into an illicit, supin scenario- involving the world's shortest known woman, Jyoti Amge, and the world's tallest man, Sultan Kosen."

Blood Orchid: An Unusual History of America by Charles Bowden
AE Reiff reviews the book, December 2012
'Even if he is one of those post-human voices you hear for the last time: "I step over a dead secretary—her head apparently severed by a now serene one-breasted woman who is resting in an ergonomically designed chair—and walk down the corridor with the file" (229). No wonder there is gunfire and murder, prostitution and drug dealing throughout, it is all that is left.'

"Hurricane Sandy's Austerity Lessons"
by Lucine Kasbarian, December 2012

"Netanyahu and Haniyeh: The Common Denominator"
by Yacov Ben Efrat, reprinted December 2012
"What do the top leaders of Israel and Hamas have in common? They share the same enemy: Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Abbas embodies all that Ismail Haniyeh despises: secularism and compromise with Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, hates Abbas because his moderation threatens Israel's control of the West Bank."

"Arab Rites of Spring"
by Arturo Desimone, the Interdependency Issue
"Why would Arab revolutions be celebrated as posh causes in Western Europe and the United States by those who before would not hesitate to stereotype the former peoples as submissive fanatics? The West now celebrated the new accountability of the people who blamed Israel and the West for their problems..."

"Alarming Changes to Macedonian Mentality"
by Sam Vaknin, the Interdependency Issue
"The Republic of Macedonia is 20 years old: an adult with the problems and promises that characterize early puberty. There are troubling currents afoot. Macedonia is undergoing a worrisome change of character. If not reversed, these malignant processes will backfire and Macedonia's hopes will be cruelly dashed."

"Treatment of Japan's Internatioanl Residents: Problems and Solutions for a 21st Century Japan"
by Arudou Debito, the Interdependency Issue
" From 1993, bathhouses in Otaru, Hokkaido, claiming that ill-mannered Russian sailors were driving away regular Japanese customers, put up "JAPANESE ONLY" signs—excluding not all Russians, but all foreigners! "Banning all Russians only would be discriminatory," they claimed, so treating all foreigners equally differently than Japanese was their solution."

An Interview with Jude Cowan Montague
by Frankie Metro, the Interdependency Issue
"Yes, the cranky, odd, percussive and disjointed performance does reflect the subject matter. I felt this at the point of delivery. The story is about the odd juxtaposition and squashing together of different worlds. Race, culture smash together in the cottage industry of making Barbie a traditional Bolivian costume."

"We have breached the first tipping point."
by John James, October 2012
"This is the critical moment in an evolving system when feedback becomes strong enough to continue on its own without any further input. The tipping point is that moment when a gradual increase becomes unstoppable because the feedback maintains its own momentum. There is nowhere to go under these circumstances, and nothing can be done to prevent it continuing. It is the point when an everyday infection turns epidemic."

"An Open Letter to Bill Donohue, Catholic League"
by Jonathan Penton, October 2012
A video response to Bill Donohue responds to "Piss Christ", Bill Donohue's 2012 condemnation of "Piss Christ" by Andres Serrano

"Pacifist Road Rage in Nazi America: a comparatively divided review of Roberto Bolaño's Nazi Literature in the Americas vs. John Bennett's The Birth of Road Rage"
by Frankie Metro, September 2012
'After reading the forward, I felt morally reinforced in the lengths I go to procure books. Being a person who believes that anything worth knowing is worth giving away or stealing (a philosophy that I first embraced after reading Bolaño's The Savage Detectives behind a 7-11 in the farthest reaches of Phoenix) seeing the words: "ISBN tattoo" made me pity the vanguards who hold to such labels with utter devotion.'

"The Disabled Temporarily Enabled Enough to Kill: High-stakes, Low-brow, Lite-beer Shakespeare"
by bart plantenga, September 2012
"Another interesting detail is James' mother, married six times and danced in strip clubs her entire adult life, who once sold her daughter's body for a microwave oven. No fiction writer including Elmore Leonard or Stephen King or even Céline could ever top such a desperate, cynical, hopeless, crass detail as the exchange of your own daughter's body for a consumer good of such mundane value."

"A Journey To The End Of Empire: It is always darkest right before it goes completely black"
by Phil Rockstroh, September 2012
"...a poetic view of existence insists that one embrace the sorrow that comes at the end of things. The times have bestowed on us a shuffle to the graveside of our culture, and, we, like members of a New Orleans-style, second-line funeral procession, must allow our hearts to be saturated by sorrowful songs. Yet when the service is complete, the march away from the boneyard should shake the air with the ebullient noise borne of insistent brass."

"The Parable of the Pump Tinkerers"
by Chris Clugston, August 2012
'The fundamental cause underlying our "predicament" is not economic or political; it is ecological—ever-increasing nonrenewable natural resource (NNR) scarcity. Our enormous and continuously increasing NNR requirements are manifesting themselves within the context of increasingly constrained—i.e., increasingly expensive, lower quality—NNR supplies.'

An Interview with John Bryan
by Jonathan Penton, July 2012
"The soil I held in my hand at Chelmno was very sandy and filled with minute bone fragments. The guide at Treblinka, her grandmother and mother had been prisoners there, their job being to get wood for the fires. Belzec's camp dimensions: three sides measuring 275m, while the fourth is 265m; sickeningly small. In Sobibor I encountered a four foot long black snake, coiled and ready to strike at me."

"Are Our Troops in the Middle East Victims or Accomplices?"
by Marti Hiken and Luke Hiken, July 2012
'By describing the mental deterioration of active duty soldiers as "adjustment disorders," or as "Other Designated Physical and Mental Conditions" [ODPMC], the military can throw the soldier out of the service with no protections or rights. By misdiagnosing PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] or pretending that a soldier's breakdown is the result of poor performance or conduct, the Pentagon can discard the serviceman or servicewoman like a piece of garbage.'

The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu by Debra Devi
Louise Landes Levi Reviews the E-Book, Reprinted and Revised June 2012
"Occasionally one picks up a book that vibrates in one's hands. One reads its contents and notes the extent to which this vibration increases. The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu by Debra Devi is literally ALIVE with the personalities, histories and music it describes."

"The Unholy Trinity: Barak, Bibi, Mofaz"
by Yacov Ben Efrat, Reprinted June 2012
"On the other hand, the government is feeling pressure from the High Court, which it despises and holds in contempt. The Court demands the evacuation of settlements that were built on private Palestinian land, and the government—cajoled by rightist elements in the Likud—is coming up with various maneuvers to prevent the demolition of the homes."

"We Shall Not Be Moved: Police repression, official mendacity and why OWS has already overcome"
by Phil Rockstroh, April 2012
"One's anger is vital to one's existence; it is a valuable gift; therefore, it should not be squandered...no need to waste it on fools and idiots. When rage arrives, invite him in; his presence will fill the room with alacrity, and his surging vitality will allow you to push farther and deeper into the unexplored regions of your soul."

"Carla Lobmier"
by Janina Darling, March 2012
"The Quickening Maze is a hymn to spring and the bursting forth of plant life from the ground. From the roots with their stored energy represented by bravura brushwork and control of color intensity, new shoots struggle upward. The imbricated green stalk references plants that have completed this journey and have emerged from the earth to meet the sun."

"It's the Same Banking Crisis, Stupid!"
by Sam Vaknin, March 2012
"Banks are the most unsafe institutions in the world. Worldwide, hundreds of them crash every few years. Two decades ago, the US Government was forced to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the Savings and Loans industry. Multi-billion dollar embezzlement schemes were unearthed in the much feted BCCI—wiping both equity capital and deposits."


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