ISSUE 120 | DECEMBER 2023 WOLVERINE CREEK: KRYSTI JOMÉI SAKIC CURVE: JONNY DESTEFANO GRASSHOPPER PIE: JULIANNA BECKERT ECHO BASE: KAYVAN S. T. KHALATBARI SALTY ROAD: CRISTIN COLVIN SNOWBALL: MARK MOTHERSBAUGH FROSTED FLAKES: MEGAN ARENSON SEAPLANE: HANNA HOLT FRONT COVER: GRAHAM FRANCIOSE, THE DEN BEST OF BIRDY ISSUE 108 BACK COVER: ERIC JOYNER, SECRET CHEWY GRAMPA ERICJOYNER.COM BELUGAS: GRAHAM FRANCIOSE, BRIAN SERWAY, ZAC DUNN, JASON WHITE, BRIAN POLK, JOEL TAGERT, HYEIN LEE, MOON_PATROL, MICHAEL DAVID KING, HANA ZITTEL, ROB GINSBERG, KATE RUSSELL, KENNEDY COTTRELL, NIKKI A. RAE, ALI HOFF, S. PUTNIK, TOM MURPHY, DAN MORAN, DAVE DANZARA, NATE BALDING, NOAH VAN SCIVER, ERIC JOYNER NARWHALS: NEXT MARS, ROMAN MAKARENKO, BRIAN SACCA, JENA BRAZIEL, SHAKTI HOWETH, SOFIA HOWARD, QUINN TINCHER, COLLIN STAPLETON, HEATHER CAMPBELL, KENDALL MCELHANEY, MAX NEUTRA, JAMES LONGMIRE, TRISTAN LOVE, SCOTT GEARY, ATLAS MEDIA, COLE BEE WILSON, KENT CALDWEL, DAVID MCPHERSON, DAVID CUDNEY, SCOTT GEARY, CHARLOTTE THURMAN, SCOTT HILDEBRANDT, SAM NGUYEN, JESS WEBB, DANNY SHARP, BENJAMIN ORTEGA, LANCE MCGOLDRICK, ERIKA GILL GREENLAND SHARKS: MARIANO OREAMUNO, HANA ZITTEL, DS THORNBURG, PHIL GARZA, ZAC DUNN, MAGGIE D. FEDOROV, CRISTIN COLVIN, CONRAD FRANZEN SUPPORT OUR FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS: MEOW WOLF, MUTINY INFORMATION CAFE, SEXY PIZZA, MONKEY BARREL, APOTROPAIC BEATNIK GRAFFITI: MARK MOTHERSBAUGH, ROOTS RX, OFF THE BOTTLE REFILL SHOP, ASTRO TOURS, BENNY BLANCO'S, FRONTIÈRE NATURAL MEATS, TOXOPLASMA ARTS FOLLOW US – IG: @BIRDY.MAGAZINE | FB: @BIRDYMAGAZINE BE IN BIRDY – ART + WORDS + COMEDY + ET CETERA: BIRDYMAGAZINE.COM/SUBMISSIONS MAILED SUBSCRIPTIONS + SINGLE & BACK ISSUES + MERCH: BIRDYMAGAZINE.COM/SHOP ADVERTISE IN BIRDY + SUPPORT US: BIRDYMAGAZINE.COM/CONTACT-US/#ADVERTISE BIRDY IS A CRYSTALLINE GEYSER, TAUNTAUNED MONTHLY ©2023 BIRDY MAGAZINE, DON'T FUCK WITH HOTH BRIAN SERWAY, BEAR 1
by Zac Dunn The hummingbirds and black flies were swarming in the back yard. It had been a typically fierce winter. But the ice had almost receded and the base would swing back to life. The little one who shall here forward be referred to as ROO, had just finished eating salmon with mac n’ cheese. Her mom removed her from her booster and placed her facing the back door. The spring breeze in the kitchen drew ROO to wander in the backyard. The family homes on the base were adjacent to a wide open sprawl. ROO loved to put her small feet in the soft green blanket just a few steps off the cold stone slab step from the porch. She looked up and saw a mighty hawk circling the field behind their yard. She pulled a deep breath of unctuousness thawing decay into her wee lungs. She made haste pushing herself forward toward the perimeter of the yard. She could hear and smell something curious. It smelled like an old shoe and a fish had a baby but made cheese instead. It intrigued her so much as she cautiously edged toward the rose bushes her mom had trimmed the day before. No. 120 A heavy sound moved slowly toward her. It felt so large and yet so calm. It bumped her ever so softly with the moist tip of its nose. She smiled and put her wide open paw squarely on its nose and took a long slow breath in unison with the great creature. This was the moment the MOM stepped out the back door to see ROO 30 paces ahead at the edge of the garden. Her right hand touching the nose of the female moose. The MOM froze in pure stasis for but an instant. She pressed with every ounce she possessed and rushed from the stoop directly charging at ROO and the moose. The creature could only faintly see the blue and white blur charging toward her and the strange wee creature. Being humongous, it felt no fear or hostility, but simply stepped back from the tiny warm hand, turning left then proceeding back to the creek for a drink. The MOM swooped up ROO tight in her arms and burst into tears. She promised to never, ever put her down again. Sadly she would betray these words unwittingly all too soon. It had been a bad run for her and JOHN. They'd met while he was NEXT MARS, LOST
passing through LA and she already had a little girl. She was a tiny, ferocious stone cold fox. They’d jumped straight into each other’s lives like lemmings. JOHN moved them all over the world as his ARMY deployments progressed. Soon they’d welcome a sister in GERMANY and ultimately return to the States. Long Island held the promise of steady work as a firefighter and he could get a decent first home to let his new family grow. But things didn’t go to plan. They’d only been back a couple months when JOHN’s trips to the bar would turn into days occasionally where’d he just be off. The MOM took it and bit her rage only to carry on as she was stranded deep in the NORTH FORK. Eventually his drinking led to brutal beat downs and she feared for her life. In a moment of pure fear she ran. The bus was full that morning as she hitchhiked to STONY BROOK. The station agent could tell she was in a bad way and gave her a METS hoodie, wishing her well. She boarded the bus with the feeling of regret she would live with for the next 19 years. ROO awoke that Sunday to find her GRANDMA making breakfast. When she asked where mama was she replied that she had to take a trip because of a family emergency and should be back in a couple days. Ten years later they dropped ROO off in Arkansas. He greeted the AUNT warmly and thanked her for her help. The whole trip had been an elaborate rouse to discard her to the care of her aunt. JOHN had remarried a few months after the MOM ran off. They had another little girl. The ROO thought the whole time that JOHN was her DAD and they were all her family. She would proudly Dawn the colors on COLUMBUS DAY and sing the song eating TIRAMISU on her DAD’s lap. But this solider and servant of man could no longer care for this petite pistol who hated his WIFE and would pull insane capers to express her vitriol toward the pale-faced bitch who smacked her around and called her a SPIC. The ROO had been left to a clan the MOM was certain would look after her as she made her way through the wilderness. She wouldn’t have been able to leave otherwise. But these people had reached their limit, so off to TITI in the OZARKS she went. They had loved and cared for her for as long as she’d made memories. But now they had chosen to discard this angry 13 year old. She never forgave her JOHN for driving her MOM to run away. At first things in Arkansas were okay. But the ROO was wild and could not be tamed. She shared the same wild beating heart her MOM had. She would dream about her MOM coming back to take her away from the OZARKS. From her bewildered TITI. She ran away three times and never got further than EUREKA SPRINGS. She was hitchhiking once and passed a sign heading south stating: THIS HIGHWAY IS MAINTAINED BY THE KU KLUX KLAN This scared her. She was fully grown at 13 but stood only 4-feet 8inches. She looked very indigenous with pronounced AZTALAN cheek bones that one would expect on a MAYAN queen. Her MOM had told her as a child that she was MEXICAN. Her MOM was born as she was in EAST LA. Raised on dried meat and fry bread as the nomadic YAQUI people had for millennia. They were a tribe with ancestral lands as the space they had existed stretched across the border. It was recognized that they were a people who had no land or reservation, utterly stripped of a physical identity by a border between two broken lands. Her aunt and uncle really tried. They felt horrible that the ROO had been cast off by these heartless ITALIANS from LONG ISLAND. It was all too easy for them to give up on her and return her to her blood like a shirt that doesn’t fit. After her third attempt to run, her aunt chose to bring her to stay with her GRANDMA in BRISBE. It was harsh and isolated on the ZUNI reservation where she’d settle with her second husband decades prior. When TITI drove her across the acrid plane leading to the REZ, the ROO dreamed of putting her toes in the cool blue ocean of the NORTH FORK. GRANDMA loved ROO so much. She was overjoyed when TITI appeared with the wild-eyed teen. TITI left telling her that she was staying here until she could track down her MOM somehow. The ROO stayed in the desert for two years before she checked out completely and entered the wild as a 15 year old. The roar of the train was a constant sound in their lives on the REZ. At dawn and dusk the line would sound its horn and pull up to the tiny RAIL SHED where the men refilled their water and checked the line. She didn’t know she was leaving. She rode her bike to the edge of town and got a flat tire. She threw her precious pink Huffy GRANDMA had traded some tourist for a fantastic beaded belt. GRANDMA taught her to bead as their people had always done. It was the one thing that removed the pain and hurt she felt towards her MOM for abandoning her. As the ROO walked the long, lonely and dusty path back to GRANDMA’s trailer she heard the whistle. A wanderlust she’d never knew consumed her like a giant whale engulfing thousands of KRILL. She stopped in her tracks and turned to the left and started sprinting towards the mighty steel monster. She’d seen people hop trains for a long time and felt she could too if she could just get fast and close enough. As the roar of the mighty line clacked past she gazed up into the bowl of stars above her head. Taking a deep breath and pulling up her bandana over her mouth. She blinked and sprinted with everything she had toward the line and grabbed a grain car ladder, throwing her leg up to pull her body to safety. She had $40 and a hoodie. The ROO would end up in Chicago first, but bounce from Denver, Michigan, California, Arizona and Wyoming. She and her mother stayed estranged of each other for almost two decades before social media reunited them. The ROO even spent decent chunks of time with MOM’s family in EAST LA over the years.. Whenever she’d return her MOM would tell the story. The story of ALASKA and how her little ROO put out her hand and touched a MOOSE. The ROO is still in the wild blazing her path and writing her story. FOLLOW FOR MORE WORK — IG: @UZIEGO | TUMBLR: @WTFCRAIGSLISTNYC 3
A WINDOW INTO A SEMI-EVENTFUL LIFE IN SEVEN EASY STEPS BY BRIAN POLK | ART BY JASON WHITE I LOST FIVE HOURS OF SLEEP THINKING ABOUT WHAT TO WRITE FOR AN OPENING IN MY COLUMN THIS MONTH, AND I STILL DIDN’T COME UP WITH SHIT As a reader of this here magazine, I hope you’re fucking happy! MY RECENT FLIGHT EXPERIENCE DIDN’T DO MUCH TO IMPROVE MY OPINION OF AIRLINES WITH “OPEN SEATING” POLICIES Ordinarly, I am a tad too anxious to be able to fly across the country without any foreknowledge of where my seat on the airplane is supposed to be. But once I realized that even my friends with severe anxiety can handle it, I decided to give it a shot. Well, on my trip back from New York, I found an aisle seat (huzzah!). Shortly after, another passenger claimed the window. And then for a few sweet, fleeting moments I thought no one would claim the middle. But then this guy No. 120 who barely made it on before they shut the cabin door, walked slowly towards our seat cluster, pointed at me and said, “I will sit here.” Thinking he meant, “I will take the middle,” I began to stand up so he could sit down. “Hurry up out of my seat,” he said as I stood, which confused the hell out of me. Then the flight attendant walked over to him and said, “You have to sit in the middle, sir. That’s his seat.” That’s when I realized when he said he will sit here, he meant the seat I was already fucking sitting in. He thought that “open seating” meant he could sit wherever the hell he damn well pleased. I may have smirked a bit as he grunted and exaggeratedly struggled to where he would sit for the flight. Once he got situated, he stared at me with the anger of a million Karens, which was super fun, because it wasn’t like his mean old face was that far away from me. All I thought was, Tough shit, buddy, and then I put my headphones on and didn’t give it another thought. But the whole ordeal made me realize I sure do miss assigned seating.
MY LAST BOUT WITH COVID MADE ME REALIZE HOW MUCH PROGRESS I’M MAKING IN MY JOURNEY AS A HUMAN ON THIS PLANET The reason I was in New York is because my band played a show that went really well. This is most likely where I got Covid. In the past, I would have let this diagnosis ruin the trip by uttering self-pitying phrases like, “This is what I get for having fun.” Or, “Why can’t I just do something enjoyable once in a while without having to pay such a steep price?” But I didn’t say those things. I just shrugged and didn’t let a shitty 10-day sickness get in the way of something cool that I got to do. I think this means I finally overcame the guilt-ridden shackles of my Catholic upbringing. (Well maybe not fully, but I am mature enough to appreciate any kind of progress on this front.) MY IPHONE IS KIND OF A JERK After getting Covid, the Health app on my phone sent the following notification: “There’s been a change in your average steps per day.” Well yeah, no shit, Health application. It’s kind of important to rest when you’re sick. You would think an app called “Health” would be a bit more understanding of my actual health. Who do I talk to about this? NOW THAT WE’VE ENTERED THE HOLIDAY SEASON, I JUST WANT TO SAY, I’LL SOBER UP WHEN IT ENDS And make no mistake, I’m not drinking because I’m having a good time. HERE ARE A FEW SITUATIONS WHERE IT DOES NOT PAY TO HAVE A GOOD IMAGINATION 1. If you’re particularly jealous in relationships and your new lover sends the following two texts at 3 a.m. while you were sleeping: (A) “I’m here with Pork Chop, the thing, and the booze. My arm is getting tired. Where are you?” And 20 seconds later: (B) “Sorry, sweetums. Wrong number.” 2. When you’re in the children’s section at a department store or library and you put your hand in something wet and/or sticky. (I suppose this situation would apply if you were at a porn shop as well.) 3. A gelatinous blob the color of a regurgitated brown leaf shows up on your Doc Martens while you are out walking and you have no clue how something like that could get there. (This one happened to me.) 4. You have a pain in your side and access to Google. After 20 minutes, you’ll begin to wonder how the hell you’re still alive. 5. You’re eating french fries and all of a sudden it tastes like melted plastic for a few bites. The best part is when you start to realize this, you dramatically slow down your chewing and your face registers a look of deep, disturbed concentration. 6. It’s been a busy six months and a recent test result has you wondering when, where, and with whom your STI first began to flourish in your loins. WHEN THE EQUATION OF DYING-TO-LIVING STARTS TO GET OUT OF WHACK, IT’S TIME TO START HAVING SOME FUN And the thing I consider fun is natural fun. So if you know me, get in touch and let’s have some. 5
BY JOEL TAGERT ART BY ROMAN MAKARENKO The fabricator would endure only a few blocks’ exposure in the short journey between Nishiki Tech’s Kotoku factory to the Shinsei Maru, currently docked at the Port of Tokyo directly adjacent to the industrial ward. Once at sea it would be infinitely harder for Nao or her AI to infiltrate, the container being completely sealed against intrusions physical or electromagnetic. Pandora’s box was a copper and aluminum Faraday chamber in a nest of steel armor. Flying with a six-rotor drone attachment on the robot’s back, Nao piloted the security android to the top of a building three blocks away from the container’s transport route. Ikaonryo, her AI, had created a cover story for her progress here; the android was ostensibly on the roof to maintain the building’s enormous HVAC units. Whether and how long this story would hold up under scrutiny was an open question, especially since any clear image of the bot would show that it bristled with weapons. They’d run the scenario in the sim again and again, but this was real (or so she kept telling herself), and there was no telling what would happen. Ika could predict and project until Nao died of old age, but there were other AI just as powerful assigned to protecting the fabricator, merciless corporate guardians that bore about as much resemblance to a personal assistant as a great white shark does to a pet goldfish. A garage door rolled open at the rear of Nishiki’s factory. First came a security vehicle, an armored Hummer-sized tank with a weapons rack on the roof. Next came the transport, a big blue electric semi, its sloped face smooth as a beetle’s carapace. On its back was the container, emblazoned with Nishiki’s orange dot-dash-dot logo. Another small tank followed. “Is everything ready?” “Affirmative. Operation Spawning Ground is ready to execute.” The launch word was on her (figurative) tongue, but she hesitated, knowing that this was it. Nothing she’d done so far was certain to result in irreversible consequences even if discovered, but this was the real deal. Succeed or fail, Nishiki and the police would stop at nothing to find the perpetrator. International agencies, the world’s canniest investigators and their superintelligent AI, would turn their gazes toward this spot and this moment like terrifying sphinxes. Let them! Nishiki and its government accomplices had assassinated her parents and robbed her of her body. Even if they traced her involvement, and sealed her again in the prison of her body, they’d know she hadn’t taken it lying down. So to speak. She lifted her hand. “Spawn,” she said, and five small missiles shot from her left wrist down toward the moving truck. They were intercepted in midair by even smaller concussive missiles launched instantly from the lead tank’s roof rack, but that was expected. They exploded into giant clouds of smoke, clouds that kept growing as their components spread through the air, hampering the convoy’s sensors. The tanks had traced the missile’s flight path, and a dozen sparrow-sized drones also shot up to disable her android. In response a swarm of glowing bees burst from her shoulders, their paths corkscrewing through the smoke, exploding into little fireworks when they struck a drone. In any case she was no longer on the roof, having leapt from it the second she’d fired. The android landed on its feet with the surety of a precision gyroscope, smoke swirling around her. Several small bots skittered rapidly toward her, spider drones released by the tanks. Nao used the cinder block wall behind her to press off in a high leap above the spiders, firing concussive rounds from her arms. Metal and plastic shot in all directions. She couldn’t hold them off for long, but she wouldn’t need to. Beneath the transport a bright silver light was growing, a robotic plasma cutter she’d planted earlier having attached itself to the bottom left of the container. She was reasonably sure it wasn’t directly below the fabricator; if she was wrong, all this would be pointless, the sensitive nanotech components sure to be damaged. Her leap had brought her within yards of the container. A timer dinged in her audio feed, as though she No. 120
were baking a cake: the plasma cutter had finished its work, and swinging beneath the undercarriage, her magnetic palm pulled free a thick steel circle the size of a serving platter, molten edges glowing yellowwhite. Meanwhile several of the spiders had attached to her legs, and rather than wait for them to explode, she simply detached her lower limbs as she hauled her upper body in through the portal she’d made, pulling the steel plate back in place behind her and immediately slapping another small robotic arc welder down onto the seam. The bots or their controllers would figure it out in a second, but they did not immediately open the door of the container to destroy her, probably wary of damaging its contents. And here it was: a gleaming silver box seamed with copper inlay. The device had an interface panel, and with arms only she secured her torso and head before it. Her body locked on, plugging into several key interfaces. “I’m in,” she announced. “Are we still online?” “Affirmative,” answered her assistant. “But Nishiki has traced the signal and is working to isolate it. We may have only— ” The AI’s voice cut off mid-sentence. “Ika?” Nao said. “Nao,” someone said, from inside the container. Had she been physically present, she would have jumped. A man in a loose black suit had appeared in the corner of the shipping container, near the still-locked entrance. He had thin gray hair swept back, a mustache and goatee, and a scattering of moles on his gentle face. It was her father — her father, who had died along with her mother in a sabotaged helicopter two years ago, nearly to the day. “Nao,” he said again, standing up from a seat built into the corner. “You’re not real,” she said immediately. “Is any of this real?” he replied. “All your sensory input is simulated.” “Some of it is more real than others.” He was almost certainly some kind of intrusion by the Nishiki AI guardians. In which case Ika was probably disabled or destroyed. But in that case, how did she still have a connection? “I suppose that’s true. But if so, this is the realest thing of all, what I’m about to say: People are going to get hurt, Nao. People like you, like me, like your mother. Even if you do believe this is all a kind of dream, then it’s a dream of pain, of pointless anger, of suffering. Why go down that road?” Because it’s the only way I can feel anything! “You could dwell in paradise,” he continued. “A kind of heaven, the true realm of the mind. Why not?” “If it’s all a dream,” she replied, “then when I tear it apart it will still be a dream. If it’s not a dream, then how else can I fight the monsters that did this to us?” He paused before answering. “Do you still like the ume rice cakes from Family Mart?” She was stung. The truth was that Ikaonryo, who simulated all her sensations as she lay immobile in long-term care, couldn’t well simulate taste. The flavor of the small, delicate pink cakes that used to be her favorite snack was lost to her. Tears came to her eyes. There was another explanation for her father’s presence here, of course: That this was a genuine hallucination, a figment of the truly deranged mind of a locked-in invalid who had never been very mentally stable. “I’m not crazy,” she said bitterly. “And you’re not real.” Nao turned the android’s head a hundred and eighty degrees, back to the fabricator. The program Ika had created had finished its work, and the feed stocks stored in the android’s body — cartridges of elements in powdered forms — had been delivered to the machine. A high humming rose within the shipping container. The doors behind her slammed open and spiders leapt inside, tearing apart her temporary body. But it was too late. A swarm of writhing tentacles, obsidian, irregular, saw-edged, exploded out of the fabricator’s shielding, tearing it apart. The tentacles stabbed toward the spiders, which fought, but hopelessly. Whatever they shattered reformed anew, the nanobots magnetically reforming before they each touched the ground to attack anew. It was like fighting a storm of black dust, if dust was stronger than spinning saw blades. There was a reason nanotech fabricators were kept under such close guard. The fabricator kept humming as the weapon tore apart the rest of the convoy and swarmed hissing up another building, where Nao stood in a new and undamaged android body, Ikaonryo having triumphed in whatever shadowy battle it had been fighting with its Nishiki counterparts. It had started to rain. In the near distance she could see the amber lights of the port, the mantis arms of the giant cranes hanging over the dark water. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, not to herself but to the ghost of her father, raindrops streaming down her gleaming plastic visage. No. 120
HYEIN LEE, MR. FURRY PANTS
MOON_PATROL, DANGERS OF ROLE PLAYING
WORDS BY MICHAEL DAVID KING | CONCEPT BY JONNY DESTEFANO - BEST OF BIRDY ISSUE 058
One of this era’s most unique and prolific conceptual artists and composers, Mark Mothersbaugh, just released his new book, APOTROPAIC BEATNIK GRAFFITI. A collection of neo-dada northcoast stream of conscious visual poetry, the book represents one human’s observations of life in a wiggly world. Mark reflects on his new work and how his inspiration from Beat-style stream-of-conscious expression evolved: “When I was a single digit-aged human back in the 1950s, I remember seeing human wreckage sprawled on the sidewalks of downtown Akron. My mom would hold my hand and try to hurry me past a mumbling, shouting man as I was entranced trying to decipher the meaning of what he was saying. I felt like he might know something the rest of us didn’t and he was trying to share it. “Because of my early-age eyesight impairments, I knew there were things happening all around us that vision kept us from seeing. Maybe there were things we weren’t hearing as well. Later on, I drew comparisons of these raw emotional forms of expression to the work of beats, free form jazz, and artists like Captain Beefheart, all of which heavily influenced DEVO’s curiosity in pushing the boundaries of what was considered normal.” Released by Blank Industries, APOTROPAIC BEATNIK GRAFFITI features a bespoke black die cut hardcover book with embossed, spot varnished 3D eye relief plaque, debossed gold foil stamped lettering and gold gilded edge 115gsm matte art paper. A beauty for anyone’s coffee table or collection. ORDER A COPY: APOTROPAICBEATNIKGRAFFITI.BIGCARTEL.COM SEE MORE OF MARK’S WORK ON HIS SITE: MARKMOTHERSBAUGH.COM AND ON INSTAGRAM: @MARKMOTHERSBAUGH 13 ABOUT MARK MOTHERSBAUGH: Deeply aware of the ability of precise, multi-faceted artistic expression to deliver vital social commentary, Mark Mothersbaugh has perpetually challenged and redefined musical and visual boundaries. He co-founded the influential rock group DEVO and parlayed his avant-garde musical background into a leading role in scoring for filmed and animated entertainment, interactive media and commercials. Mark has scored 150 films, television shows, video games, and hundreds of commercials through his multimedia company, Mutato Muzika. He has had 165 visual and audio art shows, including his retrospective traveling museum exhibition Myopia. He has received a doctorate in Humane Letters at Kent State University, his alma mater.
We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian (2023) In early 2018, a disturbing and confounding headline shocked people across the country. A horrifying road accident had claimed the lives of two adult women and their six children. Those six were revealed to be the adopted Black children of the couple in the accident, Jennifer and Sarah Hart, and it appeared through an evaluation of the scene that it was not an accident at all, but a purposeful murdersuicide, where the driver accelerated the family off a cliff on the California coastline. Despite speculation, doubt, and an abundance of unanswerable questions surrounding this now famous atrocity, journalist Roxanna Asgarian seeks to shed light on the dysfunctional systems and human lives behind this crime through her in-depth investigation. She delves into the history of child removal in the United States and its disproportionate impact on BIPOC communities, interspersed with the background details that led to this tragic event. The children placed into the Hart family were removed from their birth families despite willing relatives and community to care for them. The birthparents of these children reported being misled or tricked into relinquishing their rights to guardianship, with the undertone or outright claim from trusted sources that giving up parental rights would ensure the children could stay close and be cared for by a family member. In reality, the courts and Child Protective Services (CPS) proved to favor the speedy adoption to the white Hart family, despite continual, documented reports of abuse and child maltreatment in their household. This tragedy is marred with bad actors in a broken system that monetarily rewarded speedy child removal and placement in adoptive families — families who were also financially compensated monthly for each adopted child. Asgarian highlights the severity of this issue in Texas, the birthplace of the adoptees in the Hart family. When the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) began in 1997, states were given funding based on the number of adoptions they completed. It was found that Texas had “pulled in 15 percent of the national incentives pool” despite being “home to only about 9 percent of the nation’s population” and was found to be spending funds at CPS “for non-adoption-related expenses.” With this rise it was also discovered that Texas “terminated parents’ rights at a rate that far outstipped the rest of the nation.” Asgarian’s investigations lead her to lean deeply into the lives of the birthmothers and families of the children murdered by the Harts, exploring the profound pain and complexity of family policing, interracial adoption and the child welfare system. Analyzing these systems lead back to a root argument, one cited in the book from the director of the upEND Movement — a movement which seeks to end the child welfare system — Alan Dettlaff: “We remove kids for neglect and place them in strangers’ homes, and give the stranger a monthly stipend to take care of the child. What if we just gave that one thousand dollars a month to the mother who needed it?” Asgarian’s careful reporting in We Were Once a Family illuminates this destructive system providing an urgent call to make change. Pig by Sam Sax (2023) beheading tulips, snout routing out heaven. better to have only existed for a time in the imagination— to never have to die. Centered on the pig and its multifaceted meanings, Sam Sax’s latest collection is an experimental, queer, and sharp collection marked with moments of lightning wit and poignant criticism. Throughout the book, Sax plays with various structural forms crafting poems as spirals or accompanied by the blank spaces and illustration of a hangman game, each section beginning with a tiny butcher’s cut chart of the pig. In Poem Written Inside of a Leather Pig Mask, Sax explores a queer expression of the pig form writing, “right now this is the queerest thing / i can imagine: the animal yearning / within the animal within the animal / child who dreams of growing / into a swan only to wake in terror / at a mouth filled with feathers. / i’ve never been lonelier than i am / right now, inside this pig mask / made out of a cow, watching / these men break into each other / again & again, two men / who will never die.” Sax’s inventive nature on the centered theme creates a completely absorbing collection where each poem leads to unexpected takes on the word and varied uses of “pig.” Sax is the author of two previous poetry collections, Madness and the 2017 James Laughlin Award winning Bury It. The strength of storytelling and fierce imagery in this third collection are sure to garner additional praise making Pig a clear standout in the works released in 2023. No. 120 By Hana Zittel
ROB GINSBERG (D.A.S.A.), CAT IN THE DEVO HAT - ROBGINSBERG.COM
BY BRIAN SACCA ART BY JONNY DESTEFANO “Will you FIGHT?!” “Yes, Sensei!” “Will you DIE?!” “Yes, Sensei!” “Will you stop the invaders from spoiling our …” fluids on the ‘zas, or you’re shitcanned!” This conversation swirled through the dregs of Brayden’s mind as He kept speaking, but it was like he was orating on autopilot; his mind questioning everything around him. How did it come to this? How was he “Master Sensei Brayden?” When did he get loyal subjects or this life on a private island? Of course, he knew the answers, but it all felt so surreal because, only two years ago, Master Sensei Brayden was just … Brayden Jennings. That is until he stumbled upon his path to greatness. Barred from driving for any of the delivery apps due to a half-dozen poorly timed tearful outbursts (Brayden was a sensitive boy turned sensitive 27-year-old living in the basement of his local YMCA), Brayden resorted to taking the overnight shifts at the local Pizzapie Pizza franchise. “Pizzapie 24/7” was their current promotion – pizza, any day, any time. But nobody ordered pizza at 5:30 in the morning. This meant that Brayden spent his hours watching various social media videos. He’d even considered posting a video himself. But he had nothing to say. An unusually slow Tuesday night took an ominous turn when Mr. Rutherford (the overnight manager) sat Brayden down for a chat. “When I hired you, what was the one thing I said you can’t do?” Mr. Rutherford scowled from across his desk crammed with discarded pizza crusts oozing mozzarella (Mr. Rutherford wasn’t a stuffed crust kinda guy). “Uh, you told me I couldn’t steal,” Brayden responded. “But I also told you that you couldn’t spazz out, didn’t I?” “I’m not spazzing. I’m — it’s just, people are so mean, so I’m sorry if I cry a little when I get stiffed.” “You dripped snot bubbles onto that three large/extra pep/no sauce delivery. I had to comp the whole order. Stop leaking he sat in his ’98 Saturn outside of a four-large, double-cheese, meatlovers delivery. He took deep breaths, trying to calm himself before the drop. But he wouldn’t be dropping ‘zas tonight. It was a prank delivery. An empty house. He howled in emotional pain, loud enough for a neighbor to be woken and call a complaint into Pizzapie Pizza. Brayden plopped into his ’98 Saturn and decided right then and there that this world wasn’t meant for him. He started a live stream and shouted at the camera through tears, “I’m done with the shittery. I’m done with the lack of respect. I’ll see all of you on the other side.” Brayden then took the nearest tool and commenced his disposal. But nothing happened. Brayden screamed in frustration, “Why is it called a SLICE if it can’t cut?!!” Brayden kept rubbing the oily pizza against his wrist; each pass adding more loose sausage into his lap. Brayden didn’t know it, but at that moment, he was becoming the most famous man in the world. Within hours, the video “Man Tries to Kill Himself with Pizza Slice” went worldwide. His sensitive soul now a commodity for human entertainment. To any other man on the brink of despair, this might’ve propelled them into deeper darkness. But for Brayden, it actually showed him the No. 120
light. It gave him a purpose. A rageful quest. From that moment on, Brayden dedicated his life to proving the lethality of sharp bread. “Those who doubt me will feel the slice of my wrath.” Brayden traveled to various marital arts tournaments, determined to demonstrate what he knew to be true. And it was in the parking lot of the Des Moines Elks Lodge #48765 (after the midday Karate Tournament / Pancake Jamboree) that Brayden triumphed. In a minor scuffle with a condescending bystander, Brayden accidentally cut himself with a half-eaten piece of quattro formaggi. Blood was drawn. And in that blood, a movement was given life. It was only months later that Master Sensei Brayden and his subjects commandeered a small island off the coast of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and dubbed it “A Slice of Heaven.” Of course, the local and federal governments rejected any such land claims and ordered Master Sensei Brayden to leave. But that would never happen. This was now their land. A land with no laws. A land where life could be taken with just a small combination of flour and yeast. “Will you stop the invaders from spoiling our home?” “Yes, Sensei!” “The government infiltrators fear us! And they want to take me out. Well, if you come for the Sensei, you better slice to the bone! Because I will defend myself to my last breath!” The words exited Sensei Brayden’s mouth, but he was still lost in his thoughts. And in his diverted daydream, he noticed someone approaching him. A subject, yes, but in no way did this approach seem friendly. A usurper! Brayden yelped as the attacker hurled a slice of chorizo and pineapple (a spicy take on the Hawaiian) like a tri-pointed throwing star. He dodged the leavened weapon, but the attacker quickly rearmed himself and lunged forward, taking Brayden to the ground. They wrestled in a feat of strength, each struggling to survive. Brayden’s muscles resisted with all their strength, but his thoughts again retreated. How had he lost himself in this quest of death? He longed for home. Overcome with a deep yearning for his days of simply dropping ‘zas, Brayden began to sob. He convulsed as tears flowed from his pent-up ducts. Brayden expected his emotions to weaken him, allowing the stale provisions to enter his body. But the slow slice of death never came. “Aw, shit, dude! You ruined my pizza!” the usurper exclaimed while holding a limp slice. “You cried and snotted all over it. It’s totally soft.” Another voice bellowed from the crowd, “Super grody! Wait, so, any liquid will ruin a slice? What a big bummer!” And with that, the subjects dispersed, their dreams of a better world, a world with pizza weapons, crushed. But not for Brayden, no. Brayden was given life anew. A simple life. He spent the rest of his days in quiet solitude, living in the basement of the YMCA, subsisting off the pizza crust Mr. Rutherford discarded (he especially hated the stuffed crusted with the garlic butter drizzled on top). In the end, it was the pizza that got him. But Brayden did not meet his maker through a violent encounter with a slice, no. Brayden had a massive coronary brought on by a singular diet of leavened dough, processed cheese, and extra pep that he consumed by the fistful. His tombstone reads: “Here lies Master Sensei Brayden Jennings. A man who taught the world that the bubbling yeast of anger can be stymied by the sweet salt of tears.” 19
“CHARTER CASE 117: FALLEN OBJECT” BY SHAKTI HOWETH. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. “NIMSESKU” THE HAMSTER CAN BE FOUND IN SEVERAL PLACES THROUGHOUT THE EXHIBIT; BY COLLIN STAPLETON, HEATHER CAMPBELL, KENDALL MCELHANEY AND MAX NEUTRA. PHOTO BY BY KATE RUSSELL. “CONVERGENCE TREE” BY QUINN TINCHER. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. “CRYSTAL GROTTO” BY SOFIA HOWARD. PHOTO BY KENNEDY COTTRELL. “FLOATING LEX PROJECTION” BY JAMES LONGMIRE AND TRISTAN LOVE. PHOTO BY BY KATE RUSSELL. TAKE A TOUR OF TINY “ZALG HARVEST” BY SCOTT GEARY. PHOTO BY ATLAS MEDIA. EXPLORE SOME OF THE MANY MINIATURES AND DIORAMAS TO BE FOUND ACROSS OUR FOUR PERMANENT EXHIBITIONS. BY JENA BRAZIEL “THE ABANDONED DIMENSION” BY KENT CALDWELL. PHOTO BY ATLAS MEDIA. “ON THE EIGHTH DAY” BY COLE BEE WILSON. PHOTO BY ATLAS MEDIA. “SEVEN MONOLITH VILLAGE” BY DAVID MCPHERSON. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. No. 120 OMEGA MART | LAS VEGAS, NV HOUSE OF ETERNAL RETURN | SANTA FE, NM
“BOTTOM OF TANK” BY DAVID CUDNEY. PHOTO BY NIKKI A. RAE. “LEFT SIDE OF BOILER ROOM” BY DAVID CUDNEY. PHOTO BY NIKKI A. RAE. “NIGHT FISHING” BY CHARLOTTE THURMAN. PHOTO BY NIKKI A. RAE. “GEARY’S ALLEY” BY SCOTT GEARY. PHOTO BY KENNEDY COTTRELL. Meow Wolf’s love of miniatures is nothing new. We’ve been obsessed with itty bitty “WORM CAVERN CARD CAVE” BY JESS WEBB. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. objects for years. Who doesn’t let out an “awww” when their eyes are blessed with a scaled-down version of a hedgehog holding nearly microscopic marshmallows over a campfire to make the tiniest s’mores? We don’t want to know. We’ve rounded up some diminutive dioramas and super-small scenes (feat. extraordinary details) across our four exhibitions. Enjoy, and see how many minis you can find on your next visit! “YOU ARE HERE” BY SCOTT HILDEBRANDT. PHOTO BY SAM NGUYEN. “INEFFABLE ASSETS MINE” BY DAVID MCPHERSON AND LANCE MCGOLDRICK. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. “THUNDER SNOW COMMUNITIES” BY BENJAMIN ORTEGA. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. “THE CHEESE HOLE” BY DANNY SHARP. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. “BOLECTION HOT FOOD BODEGA” BY BENJAMIN ORTEGA. PHOTO BY KATE RUSSELL. PEEK THESE MINIATURES AND MORE AT A MEOW WOLF NEAR YOU. GET TICKETS: MEOWWOLF.COM/VISIT THE REAL UNREAL | GRAPEVINE, TX CONVERGENCE STATION | DENVER, CO
ALI HOFF, OH DEER
DAN MORAN, SCHOOL IN THE SNOW BEST OF BIRDY ISSUE 072
ART BY S. PUTNIK Stargazing At The Lake By Erika Gill Best of Birdy Issue 048 The lake at night is glossy and flat black an obsidian mirror reflecting watercolor fingers spears of light of the storefronts and homes and streetlights the water beneath impenetrable and hard empty without light my heart craves the sight of this expanse winter trees stretch skeleton fingers up upward yearning, as I begin, fearfully, to contemplate yearning tightly closed petals slowly unfurl mortally afraid of the frost, your indifference but I sink slowly and warm into the depths of lightshot amber chips your eyes absorb it all and I sink in with a sigh oh oh oh I sigh warmth, light, a new star to orbit I do my cosmic mating dance in an ellipse uncertain if I should be near or far wobbling unsteady, ever closer to your surface I heard between your words the fear of being a satellite I can’t alter your gravity but I can pull the shorelines into a script that begs “love me love me love me” and grip hard to draw the deep waters and gather them to me like skirts blanketed, robed in darkness to cover my violent glow crowned in a fading light I hope you see or put out, but soon. No. 120
MARK MOTHERSBAUGH, FROM THE POSTCARD DIARIES 25
DAVE DANZARA, SANTA PUZZLE - @LOSTINTIMEDESIGNS
The World’s a Mess, It’s In My Claus by Nate Balding Dear Santa, I know you have a lot going on and I don’t want to press your schedule at this time. Surely you must be inundated with demands from across the planet. Your various private mailboxes have been made public and must be overstuffed with wishes that will go ungranted. A lot of people don’t realize how much their relationship to your perceived generous annuity has influenced their lives. I’m sure you’ve witnessed the commercialization of the holiday you’ve unreasonably become involved with. It wasn’t supposed to be about you, but you embraced it when the mantle of savior fell toward you. It was honorable. Hospitable even. You made yourself the face of a thing that had otherwise carried every offer of community in the face of a recurring time of environmental resentment. And in lieu of closing doors, you opened them. Even if those doors were chimney flues. You walked into the woods and found magic. You spoke to headbutting reindeer and convinced them to join a stable. I hadn’t imagined that possible; to convince a wild creature to decide subjugation over living at their own behest. Even Rudolph — the most magical entity in your menagerie — had to be bullied into being part of your Christmas flight. I should have seen this as a red flag but I wanted to believe you were the Saint you’d been made out to be. 1939 was quite a year. Dasher turning out to be a Nazi sympathizer was a strange turn. You’d think the animals were either unaware or uncaring about human interactions, but then we get Dasher, asking to visit Vienna with “gifts” for the Party. You know those bombs didn’t go unused. I know we started developing elvish weapons to support our little economy but toys were working for centuries. The North Pole never needed to get involved in international politics. And then you did. Against everything you decided, Cuba was going to be the great entrance of Santa Claus the Saviour. I imagined it just like you did. The floating carousel of nuclear weapons behind a benevolent god. Meant to be destroyed. Meant to be part of a new past. An entrance into a society that had been absolved of its many crimes. That they managed it without you is a testament to their tenacity. Probably could have helped more if you weren’t invisible the whole time. But you did help avert a nuclear holocaust. Merry Christmas to the 1960s. I didn’t say anything when you voted for Ronald Reagan. I didn’t know you were still taking Kissinger’s wishes. I wish you could have stopped. Could have seen what you were doing. Could have witnessed yourself in the agony of time with anything close to self awareness. But you couldn’t see. You couldn’t know that every time you involved yourself it was for a Christmas wish that would end in horror. You couldn’t possibly have known that you’d be coerced to perform the wishes of people who would then storm the Capitol on January 6th. I know you have to give out anything that comes via Christmas wish even if it’s ammo. Not that there would be much coercion. You’ve always been more interested in fighting the “War on Christmas” than winning it. When you get home, I hope you’re okay. I don’t mean to hurt you. That’s what we always say, isn’t it? I don’t mean to hurt you. But you’ve hurt so many. And you’ve hurt me. I haven’t even seen you in years. You’ve been there, sure, but I haven’t seen you. And you’re avoiding it. You’ve been avoiding it for over a century. When you find this, I hope it leaves you hurting. Not because I want you to hurt but because it should. I can’t spend another winter in a rocker in a room where you come in and out complaining about it. Find help. Linda Claus (yes, I have a first name) 27 HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PARANORMAL? SEND THEM TO: WEREWOLFRADARPOD@GMAIL.COM OR TWITTER: @WEREWOLFRADAR. IT’S A BIG, WEIRD WORLD. DON’T BE SCARED. BE PREPARED.
JONNY DESTEFANO, POWER, BRAINS, LEADERSHIP, COURAGE, LUCK
BY TOM MURPHY ANDY LOEBS — HYPERLINK ANAMORPHOSIS Plunderphonics sample jazz reincarnation of DJUNAH — FEMINA FURENS Scorching heavy-noise-blues poems tracing a path of recovery from C-PTSD. Art of Noise. BARK — LOUD Gritty, poetic power indiepop of classic college rock vintage. BESTIAL MOUTHS — R.O.T.T. (INMYSKIN) Entrancing and unsettling portrait of our eviscerated world in industrial EBM colorings. BIG|BRAVE — NATURE MORTE Noise folk doom epics of the current state of civilizational and ecological disaster and turmoil. BLONDE REDHEAD — SIT DOWN FOR DINNER Winter haunted dream diary entries of clandestine heartbreak exposed. BODY / NEGATIVE — EVERETT Gently evocative ambient sonic Polaroids of love and loss. BUCK GOOTER — GHOST BRAIN Harrowing, seething and blunt industrial anthems of resistance to corporate domination of our lives. CINEMA CINEMA — MJÖLNIR Raging dark art jazz hardcore. DALE HOLLOW — HACK OF THE YEAR Self-aware, sublime honky-tonk pop. DEEPER — CAREFUL! Lively post-punk deconstruction of personal trauma and existential dread. HANNAH JADAGU — APERTURE Intimate dream pop and R&B infused reflections on family and the legacies of your upbringing. JOHN — A LIFE DIAGRAMMATIC A joyful and noisy post-punk menace to creeping authoritarianism. KORINE — TEAR Poignant emo-inflected post-punk shoegaze. LULA ASPLUND AND KYLE BATES — A MATINEE Electro-acoustic ambient analog of the brain frequencies of therapeutic daydreams. No. 120 FEVER RAY — RADICAL ROMANTICS Uniquely insightful left field synth pop exploration of the full dimensions of love. FIREFRIEND — DECREATION FACTS Anti-fascist, mind-bendingly psychedelic noise rock. FLOODING — SILHOUETTE MACHINE Caustic slowcore blasts to the legacy of abuse and oppression and their perpetrators. GENESIS OWUSU — STRUGGLER Bombastic synth punk funk and R&B. GUJI — SELF-TITLED Subversive New Wave garage punk pop. HACKEDEPICCIOTTO — KEEPSAKES Nine chamber symphony odes to friendship and enduring memories.
Welcome to the short list of non-local music I found compelling over the past year, much of it is informed by seeing the artist live. Hope this list is interesting and useful to you as well as the extended list to be published on queencitysoundsandart.wordpress.com in early 2024. MSPAINT — POST-AMERICAN Posi anti-capitalist synthcore post-punk. SWEEPING PROMISES — GOOD LIVING IS COMING FOR YOU Post-riot grrrl New Wave lo-fi indiepop. PROTOMARTYR — FORMAL GROWTH IN THE DESERT Despair and transcendence through intense songs of melancholic catharsis. SDH — FAKE IS REAL Beginning to end thoughtful industrial darkwave bangers. SEXTILE — PUSH The post-punk / big beat / IDM / gabber / trance fusion you need in your life. SHABAZZ PALACES — ROBED IN RARENESS Cosmic and mystical ambient hip-hop leaning into the poetry of socio-cultural time travel. SLEAFORD MODS — UK GRIM Stream-of-spicily-irreverent-antiauthoritarian-social-consciousness industrial post-punk hip-hop. SPEEDY ORTIZ — RABBIT RABBIT Witty and ambitious art pop exorcisms of trauma and destructive power dynamics. SPRAIN — THE LAMB AS EFFIGY A furious and inspired collision of performance art, progressive post-punk and psychedelic, angular hardcore. STRANGE RANGER — PURE MUSIC Seamless and immersive amalgamation of future garage, shoegaze and indie pop. STUCK — FREAK FREQUENCY Wiry noise punk manifestos against the empty promises of a decaying empire. Y LA BAMBA — LUCHA Explorative, Latin psych folk that reconciles the multiplicity of identity. YO LA TENGO — THIS STUPID WORLD Thrillingly avant-garde and thematically pointed later career offering that doesn’t skimp on the tender moments from the foundational indie rock legends. FOR MORE, VISIT: QUEENCITYSOUNDSANDART.WORDPRESS.COM 31 TALEEN KALI — FLOWER OF LIFE Spirited post-garage punk shoegaze psychedelia. THE KEENING — LITTLE BIRD Orchestral and cinematic Gothic folk murder ballads. THE SERFS — HALF EATEN BY DOGS Retrofuturist, dystopian death disco synth punk. TROLLER — DRAIN Strikingly melancholic, fractured industrial shoegaze dream pop. WATER FROM YOUR EYES – EVERYONE’S CRUSHED Sample-driven, mutant IDM pop with off center rhythm beatmaking. WEDNESDAY — RAT SAW GOD Inspired and brash yet vulnerable heavy shoegaze and indie country pop.
NOAH VAN SCIVER - BEST OFBIRDY ISSUE 036
1 Publizr