zeez

lockdown

juss

snug

BRAVE NEW WORD magazine: ISSUE 6

ISSUE #6

Editors note:

I'm gonna be a bit minimal this time. It was fun. Making this issue was really satisfying experience. I've met lots of interesting people, got so many ideas i'm almost overwhelmed. It is really good. I'm proud of this issue. It came together naturally as mesmerizing kaleidoscope with intense humming.

The submission flow was tight but relatively clean. 52 letters if being exact. Rather big number for a niche poorly named online magazine which is barely indexed in Google and barely exposed (hey, i'm in charge i can be honest). Even rejected submission weren't that bad. Just not something that can be used in BNW with maximum result. And I had a really funny discussion on politics of including bio and photo on one of the posts in the submission calls groups. Anyway...

Look at the line-up - all top-notch hardcore funkateers!

***

Table of Contents:

1. Siobhan Elvis Atkins - Five Asemic Pieces
2. Peter Carlaftes - Three Poems
3. Drew Pisarra - Goo-goo Story 
4. Carlo Parcelli - Wakey! Wakey!
5. Jenne Kaivo - Science don't lovers just grew on the eyes
6. Jim Andrews - from Aleph Null 2.0
7. Michael Stewart - QR poem
8. Don Kingfisher Campbell - Eight Poems 
9. Rafael Gonzalez - Makings Buttons
10. Rie Sheridan Rose - Spam Poem 
11. Larry D. Thacker - Two Poems
12. Dylan Kinnett - If You See Something, Say Something 
13. Edward Kulemin - Crumpled Poems

lurf

betty goes to the museum - appendix - overview

part thirteen of thirteen

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what did we learn from betty’s trip to the museum? the artworks and books betty encountered represented what might be characterized as different degrees of “seeing” and “reading” which can be listed as follows: a - that which can not not be seen - nester sakato’s pictures - although they might not be very interesting, the simple colors immediately impress on the spectator’s eyes, so long as they are not completely blind. a colorblind person might not see the same colors as others, but will still see a solid shade. b - that which can be seen - john 53’s pictures - the simple childlike drawings register , even if the intent of the artist - are the figures cats, dogs, children? - can not be divined. c - that which can be seen, but not in detail - c c cuthbert flashing video covering wall - the pictures move too quickly for the human eye to register in detail or sequence , although the eyes of other creatures might. d - that which can be seen, but is not - m d foster pictures of oysters and clams. they could be examined in detail, but the repetitious details would not be retained. now we come to that which can or can not be read. the key is language, and not language as a concept but particular language which the particular observer can or can not read. e- that which can not not be read - a a adams slogans on wall. as betty can read english and the slogans are short, it is almost impossible for her brain to not register the offensive (to her) slogans, much as she might like it not to. if the slogans were longer, something like “learn to respect men as god commanded, you stupid feminist slut whore” she might have been able to keep from fully registering them. nine words is considered to be the upper limit of words which can be grasped “at a glance” - the “seven plus or minus two” theory. if the slogans were as short, but in a language betty could not read, the offensiveness would not have registered. f - that which is assumed to be language, but can not be read - the slogans in various languages, in the exhibit by daphne edwards-soraya. these might (or might not) be offensive to persons understanding the language. betty can only take it on faith that they have meaning to anybody. g - that which is known to be language, but can not be read - the copy of death in venice/der tod in venedig. h - that which is recognized as probably being or “looking like” writing, but can not be read - b b bashevski’s stories. i - that which can be read - novel #1. the book was boring but betty might have been able to read it if were some sort of school assignment, or on a desert island. j - that which can be looked at, and its concept “grasped”, but not actually read - novel #2. novel #2 is a single word, repeated a million times. no one could actually “read” it - they might run their eyes over it with a gun at their head, but could not “read “ it in any real sense. k - that which can be read, but only with a supreme effort of will - novel # 3. at 1500 pages, it might be “read” under extreme duress, but it would probably be impossible for anyone to actually absorb or retain any meaning. l - that which is recognized as “writing” - as letters and numbers - but can not be read . novel #4 - typewriter monkey novel. can absolutely not be “read” in any sense, by any human. m - that in which there is nothing to read - blank book - novel #5 some other gradations besides these might be suggested. we hope you found this at least a little bit informative or interesting! the end

betty goes to the museum - 12. novel #4 and novel #5

part twelve of thirteen

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as betty sipped her tea and chewed on her sandwich, a man and then a woman came into the cafeteria holding dripping wet umbrellas., so she deduced it was still raining heavily outside. she eyed novel #4 and novel #5 and wondered if they were as stupid and boring as the first three. probably, she thought, there was a reason someone had left them behind. succumbing to her mild curiosity, she picked up novel # 4 and opened it. it began… iimtgeo0975 4fbp642kiol mre9765cv-432ql9glopt rew0987 nmvbed cloievtfewsaxrpl mut430nbe6loh gt0oppuyytwq34 0mnb6vcdd xiktredwg ,krvewdo iytr 9 kytr =kliyrqqas lotyr33329op okmuyrvdklpitecb lohytb bm06reqikg recuimplmj ytrdcvew qs762cbji 97j,lptr3… and seemed to go on like that for 675 pages. only novel #5 was left at the table. betty could not remember if the bookshelf in the break room had held more. a novel #6, #7, etc. she picked up novel #5. i bet i can guess, she thought, what it is. it will be either a single letter or number repeated endlessly, or it will be completely blank. it was completely blank. at least, thought betty, it really is blank, and does not have a note or preface explaining that it is forcing the reader to confront the emptiness of the universe, or of their brain, etc. i should be a conceptual artist myself, she thought. * betty decided she had had enough of the museum, and wanted to get back to her apartment in time to watch the third rock rerun which was always on at 6:30. it was still raining outside, but not so hard as before, and she went home. appendix - overview

museum camp

betty goes to the museum - 11. novel #3

part eleven of thirteen

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betty began to read novel #3. bob was just a guy, a lot like other guys. he had a friend named jeff, who was also just a guy, like a lot of other guys. jeff lived with his girl friend, named adelaide, who had a big ass and kind of a nasty disposition. jeff was out of work and adelaide was getting tired of supporting him, and let jeff know it. jeff had a little mustache, which he spent four minutes each morning trimming. jeff had met bob in high school, where they became friends because they both liked werewolf movies, the lower budget the better. as time went on, bob lost his interest in werewolf movies and became addicted to porn, but he and jeff remained friends. neither bob nor jeff had much success with girls, although jeff had a little more than bob, but they both liked beer. they bought cheap brands of beer, and agreed that people who drank imported or designer beer were stuckup assholes who didn’t know shit. about beer or anything else. when they got out of high school, bob got a job at eddie’s pizza and jeff got a job at subway’s. when jeff lost his job at subway’s he continued to be supported by adelaide, who had always made more money than jeff in her job as a life coach. adelaide had had weight and skin problems through junior high and high school and had never been very popular. adelaide had had a friend named bonnie in high school, who also had skin problems but was anorexic. bonnie moved to another state when the two girls were sixteen, and they never saw each other again, but kept in touch by texting. adelaide began studying very hard to get into college and she and bonnie lost contact after a while. bonnie fell in with a bad crowd, and dropped out of school. bonnie met a guy named doug, who was a total loser. doug liked violent porn and cheap gory horror movies and video footage of car crashes and other gruesome occurrences. but doug had a soft spot for animals, and would take in stray dogs and cats, although his stepmother gave him a lot of grief about it. doug’s stepmother was named jennie may and she was only two years older than doug. but when jennie may’s girl friends began ragging on her and suggesting that she was fucking doug, she did not see the humor and would get really mad. one of jenny may’s girl friends was named marcia. marcia weighed two hundred and fifty pounds and had studied to be a hairdresser but she was kind of clumsy and not very good at it. eventually she got a job in a barber shop - an old fashioned place in the crummiest part of the old downtown that actually called itself a “barber shop”. jenny may and the other members of the gang gave marcia a lot of shit about working in a “barber shop”. marcia had a younger brother named roger who never addressed her as anything but “fatso” and dreamed of being a rap star and/or a porn star. marcia’s and roger’s mother was named noreen and she was a devout christian who read the bible every day and went to bible study groups. noreen also liked to bake cookies, and everybody who tasted them agreed that her peanut butter chocolate chip cookies were the best they ever ate. noreen had a younger brother named oscar who had disappeared when he was sixteen. when marcia and roger weren’t fighting, they enjoyed speculating on oscar’s fate, with marcia opining that he had fallen into the clutches of a hannibal lecter/john wayne gacy type who had slowly tortured him to death, and roger leaning toward a scenario in which oscar joined a pack of wolves or feral dogs and ran with them and became only half human. it hurt noreen that marcia and roger would find humor in such imaginings, but she had learned from experience that she had little influence on her two monstrous offspring, and she would try to ignore them as she read her bible. noreen also had an older brother named tom, and tom had a friend named jack. * so much for this, thought betty. she flipped through the 1500 pages, and the whole book seemed to be in the same vein… the young woman behind the counter called to betty that her sandwich was ready. 12. novel #4 and novel #5

betty goes to the museum - 10. b b bashevski

part ten of thirteen

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after her disagreeable experience with the so-called artworks of a a adams - whoever or whatever a a adams might have been - betty decided to quit the museum, unless it was still raining heavily outside. she made her way back to the entrance by carefully following the exit signs, but when she did she was greeted by the sight of an ongoing monsoon. she decided to return to the cafeteria, and perhaps purchase something with some nutritional value, if anything answering that description was reasonably priced. the cafeteria was empty of other customers. betty ordered another cup of tea and a lettuce tomato and avocado sandwich on 12 grain bread. she took a seat while the sandwich was being prepared, and she noticed that someone had left a pile of books on one of the chairs at the table. betty picked a slender volume from the top of the pile. it was a copy of “der tod in venedig” by thomas mann, and there was a picture on the cover of a gondola in a canal sailing past an apartment building, so betty recognized the book as a german edition of “death in venice”. betty could not read german, although she thought she could recognize it as such, and she did not have a passionate desire to read “death in venice” in either german or english. the next book in the pile was also a thin one, with the title “stories” by b b bashevski, and it had a cover picture of a buddha-like red silhouette on a black background. betty opened the book. except for the title page, which simply read “stories by b b bashevski”, and the numbers on the bottom of the pages, betty could not read any of the book’s contents. the pages were filed with what looked like “writing”, though betty could not be sure. there seemed to be a variety of different scripts alternating through the book, with each particular script covering eight to twelve pages, and betty assumed that each group of similar looking pages was one of b b bashevski’s “stories”. some of them looked to betty like chinese writing, others like arabic writing, and others like egyptian hieroglyphics, but since betty could not read any of these scripts, as far as she knew they could have been arbitrary squiggles. the book of b b bashevski’s “stories” was handsomely printed on the finest paper, but betty was not intrigued by its arbitrary squiggles, so she put it aside with “der tod in venedig” . there were three other, thicker, books on the chair and betty picked them up and placed them on the table. we should mention that betty had no notion of taking the books with her after finishing her tea and sandwich, and would have happily surrendered them to anyone who might show up to claim them. when she looked at the three thick books, she recognized them as part of the series of books she had encountered back in the break room when she was part of the installation, eating white cake with chocolate frosting. the three books had the same plain white covers as the books in the break room, and they were labeled novel #3, novel #4, and novel #5. betty’s sandwich was not ready yet, and she picked up and opened novel #3. novel #3 was the fattest novel in the bunch, at about 1500 pages. 11. novel #3

betty goes to the museum - 9. a a adams

part nine of thirteen

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betty woke up. the video installation of c c cuthbert, cora the chimp, the contest… all were gone… rubbing her eyes, she seemed to still be in the room that had contained the clam and oyster photos of m d foster, but the art on the wall had changed… the wall was now covered with small white plaques, each containing a few words in clear bold letters. betty looked at the plaques. she could not read them all at once, but the message on each one as she scanned them was short and unmistakable. get down, bitch back in the kitchen on your knees learn some respect you naughty girl those lips for a reason betty had seen quite enough, and took her widened eyes away from the wall. she looked around the room. there were no other spectators, but a young woman, dressed in what might have been a guide’s, or guard’s uniform, was placing some brochures on a table betty had not noticed before. “excuse me,” betty addressed the young woman, “but do you work here?” “yes, i do,” the young woman replied. “i realize you just work here,” betty told her, “but i just want to say i find this exhibit terribly, terribly offensive - i can not believe i an actually seeing it.” the young woman seemed unperturbed by betty’s outburst and handed her one of the little brochures. betty looked at the brochure which was labeled “the ferocious feminist art of a a adams”. “i am sorry you feel that way, “ the young woman said to betty, “but if you look at the handout, you will see that a a adams is actually making a statement by portraying - “ but before she could go any further, another young woman, in a similar uniform, appeared and interrupted her. “laura! we are going to have to shut this one down!” “oh? and why is that?” “because the director just found out that a a adams is a hoax. it is a prank played by a couple of frat boys at the university of texas.” “hmm,” replied laura. “yes, something like this happened before.” she turned to betty. “well, we will be taking these down, i am sorry you had to see them.” “i am sorry, too,” betty responded. “and i am even sorrier that i will not be able to un-see them. “ and with that betty left the room. as she did, she could hear the two young women talking behind her , but the only words she thought she could make out were “lawsuit” and “just work here”. 10. b b bashevski

betty goes to the museum - 8. c c cuthbert and carla

part eight of thirteen

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betty felt faint… there was a little low couch against one of the walls and she went and sat down on it. i had too much white cake with chocolate frosting, she thought. betty was addicted to sugar, and despite the deep shame she felt about it, was often unable to resist temptation, especially when stressed. but i really had no excuse this time, she thought, i am only visiting a museum… betty closed her eyes…. when she opened them, she saw that m d foster’s photographs had disappeared and a new exhibit had taken its place. a video, with some kind of musical soundtrack of what betty thought was a hip hop beat, was being projected on one of the walls. a group of 9 or 10 schoolchildren - about 11 or 12 years old, accompanied by a tall young woman who betty assumed was a teacher, was standing in front of the wall. another young woman wearing a white blouse with a photo i d badge pinned to it was addressing the schoolchildren with an enthusiastic air and many gestures. betty picked up the word “prizes” in her speech. a table stood beside the speaking woman, and a chimpanzee was seated at the table. a place card on the table identified the chimp as “carla”, and carla had a pink bow on her head to emphasize that she was a girl chimp and not a boy chimp. the video and the music stopped. betty could now hear what the young woman giving the demonstration was saying. “who would like to challenge carla and win a prize?” “what’s the prize?” asked a solidly built young man. “the prize is a copy of one of the museum’s series of novels - novel #!, novel#2, and so forth.” the young man had his back to betty but his body language did not express enthusiasm. but before he could speak, a small girl raised her hand and said she would like to win a prize. “thank you, “ the young woman smiled. “what is your name?” “reba.” “reba - what a pretty name. now - here is what we are going to do. the video - which was created by c c cuthbert, by the way - has already played a couple of times as we stood here, so if you were paying attention - ha ha - you should remember some of it. now when i start it again, watch carefully - 26 images are going to flash on the screen in 13 seconds in a random order and when it is over i am going to ask you to play back the sequence. as you see on the table here we have a keypad with the 26 images on it and you can use it sequence the images in the order you remember. does that make sense?” “i guess,” reba answered. the children were now crowding a little more densely behind reba, looking at the keyboard on the table. “now, when you do this, carla will also watch the video, and she has her own keyboard in front of her to play the sequence back, and then we will see who did better and then if you do better than carla, you win the prize. one more thing - this is not about speed, just accuracy, so you can take as much time as you want. ready?” “this is bullshit,” a small boy behind reba announced. “i call bullshit on this whole thing. the monkey’s keyboard is fixed, can’t you sheeple see that -“ the young woman smiled sweetly and ignored him. “are you ready, reba?” “no, this is bullshit,” the boy repeated, “and what’s it supposed to prove? - that we are all really monkeys? -“ “dylan, shut up,” the teacher said, with more asperity than betty would have expected from a 21st-century custodian of children. “and she’s a chimp, not a monkey, you troll,” another girl spoke. the video started, with its music. betty tried to watch it, but it went by too fast. images flashed of a pyramid, a raccoon, a turtle, and an apple - followed by a dinosaur, a flamingo, a coca-cola sign, katy perry, donald trump, a white kitten, the american flag, a cheeseburger, abraham lincoln, albert einstein, a can of red bull, mount rushmore, a black kitten, miley cyrus, a black-and-white kitten, henry kissinger, judy garland as dorothy, a jar of peanut butter, a red-and-white campbell’s soup can, chairman mao, a blue and green beachball, and a german shepherd, all in thirteen seconds. betty thought she remembered the pyramid first, but after that… the children and the two young woman were crowding around reba, who was told again by the young woman giving the presentation to “take her time.” finally reba said, “all right, that’s the best i can do.” “let’s see - you got a score of seven! wow, that is great, reba, tremendous - one of the best scores ever! and your eighth was only two off!” “yeah, right,” the young man addressed as dylan muttered. “now, let’s see what carla can do. ready, carla?” betty vaguely remembered reading about something like this before, probably in the new york times, so she was not surprised when the chimp played the 26 images back almost as quickly as they had been played to begin with. the children gave the chimp a big round of applause, except for the unrepentant dylan - “this is bullshit. this is why civilization is fucked.” the children and the teacher left, and betty was left alone with the young woman giving the presentation, and the chimp. the young woman noticed betty. “hi,” she said, “i am c c cuthbert. would you like to challenge carla? win a prize?” “no, thank you,” betty answered. 9. a a adams

betty goes to the museum - 7. bivalves

part seven of thirteen

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the next room betty went into was labelled “m d foster - photographs”. it was a large room , larger than any she had entered previously, and there were quite a few people in it, looking at m d foster’s photographs. betty dd not see any brochures or information about either m d foster or the photographs. she passed a couple of women having a conversation. “ii just want to know if m d foster is a man or a woman,” said one of the women. “what difference does it make?” the other one replied. “it makes all the difference.” “maybe m d foster is a robot. or a group of both men and women.” the photographs were of various sizes. some were small polaroids. one covered an entire wall. but they all seemed to be of the same thing. black and white images of huge amounts of clams and oysters on a beach. no people or birds, just the masses of bivalves. betty looked at the picture covering the wall. she wondered if it were possible to count the clams in the pictures, and decided that it was not. suddenly betty felt faint…. 8. c c cuthbert and carla

betty goes to the museum - 6. novel #2

part six of thirteen

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novel #2 was 1,000 pages long. the first page consisted of the word “fuck” endlessly repeated with no punctuation or paragraphing. flipping through a few more pages, and then randomly checking others of the 1,000 pages, it seemed to betty that they too seemed to consist of the word “fuck” endlessly repeated with no punctuation or paragraphing. was the whole book like that? was the last page like that? with bated breath betty turned to the last page. she heard a bell ring. she looked around and realized the ringing was coming from an old-fashioned landline phone on the wall, which she had either not noticed or which had just popped out from the wall. putting down novel #2, betty went over to the phone and answered it. “your break is over,” a metallic voice announced. “thank you,” betty replied. a man appeared. he had a little mustache and looked like a maitre’d in a new yorker cartoon. “you can return to your post in flora’s installation,” he told betty with a smile. “or, since we have found another volunteer to take your place, you may quit the installation if you like, and proceed on your way, either to further investigate the exhibits currently on display, or to depart the museum altogether, if that is your preference.” “thank you,” betty replied. “i think i shall, as you so graciously suggest. look at some of the other exhibits, unless the rain has stopped, in which case i will be on my way.” “as you wish,” the maitre’d answered with another smile, “i believe the rain has not stopped, but you can, of course, investigate that matter yourself.” he then stood aside to let betty pass, and she found herself once more in the highly polished corridors of the museum. the maitre’d picked up the copy of novel #2 which betty had left on the arm of the comfortable chair she had been sitting in, and returned it to the bookcase. as he did so, a slip of paper, which betty had not noticed, fell out of the book and drifted to the floor. the slip stated that the word “you” appeared on one of the pages, randomly inserted into the 999,999 repetitions of the word “fuck” . 7. bivalves

betty goes to the museum - 5. novel #1

part five of thirteen

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betty began to read novel #1. bob was a human being. he got up in the morning and went to work five days a week. he occasionally got a holiday, such as the fourth of july or thanksgiving or christmas day. his hours were from eight a m to four p m every day, with a 45 minute break for lunch. when bob got up in the morning he usually had a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a toasted bran muffin for breakfast. then he dressed and went to work. there was no dress code at his job, so he wore the same thing almost every day - black pants, and a blue short sleeved shirt. he never wore a tie, although he did own a red one and a yellow one. occasionally he wore a white shirt instead of a blue one. it should be mentioned that bob lived and worked in a metropolitan area that did not have much divergence in the weather throughout the year. occasionally bob would have to wear a jacket or a sweater when he went out outdoors. he owned a blue jacket and a red sweater and a green sweater. he took a bus to work, the bus ride took approximately forty-five minutes - the same length of time , as it happened, that he had for lunch. bob worked for a company that produced advertising brochures for small and medium sized businesses. bob worked in the editorial content department (the department changed its name every six months or so). his title was editorial technician (this title also changed every six or eight months). bob’s job was to produce the words that went into the brochures. the brochures were not written from scratch - there were sets of templates that were used, and into which the particulate attributes of the customer’s business were inserted. a single template rarely sufficed, so they had to be combined in some way. the hardest part of the job was avoiding mistakes in describing the customer’s businesses. this involved researching the jobs on google or other information sites. the other hard part of the job, for bob, was prioritizing the different assignments he was given. different “producers” - the sales and marketing reps who obtained the jobs from the customers - would give him assignments and each wanted their own given priority, so keeping them all happy was a problem. in addition, bob had to deal with the “product department” - which oversaw the final determination of each brochure’s combined visual and verbal content. the verbal content was considered secondary to the visual, so the “editorial technicians” like bob felt they were treated like inconsequential drones who were always slowing things down. on bob’s forty-five minute lunch break, he almost always had two slices of plain pizza and a diet dr pepper at a hole in the wall place across the street from the office building. to venture any further away involved risking being late getting back. although no one ever made a big deal if he was a few minutes, or even five or ten minutes late… *** betty could not read any more . besides being totally boring, it sounded exactly like her own job. she put down “novel #1” and picked up “novel #2”. 6. novel #2