M AY 2 0 1 3 | M E M O R Y

It's Time to Get Nostalgic, RCAH 8 Unexpected Detours 10 Sometimes 19 Invention of Present 25

Our Mission: RCAHive strives to be an innovative student magazine that is entertaining, intellectually provocative, and visually engaging. We are conscious of the responsibility of writing and publishing, and we seek to create a dynamic magazine that is worthy of its readers. RCAHive seeks to bring RCAH to the world and bring the world into RCAH.

RCAHIVE May 2013

RCAHive Staff
Going Home 4
Editors in Chief Arielle LaBrecque, Cooper Franks Features Jenny Crakes, Danielle Dillon The Arts Libby Lussenhop, Sean Fitzpatrick RCAH Life Kelsey Block, Alexa McCarthy, Niki Rudolph Copy Editors Nicole DiMichele, Sophia Mathias-Porter Design Shira Kresch, Evan Mikalonis Staff Advisor Katie Wittenauer Other Contributions Ben Thorp, Anita Skeen, Julia Kramer, Grace Pappalardo, Nick Stauffer, Allison Lanese, Anna Breithaupt. Kat Stuehrk, Amanda Sherman, Annie Melcher, Kelsea Solo, Haley Carr, Lauren Hall, Chloe Manikas, Liz Magee, Annika Redstat, Maggie Martin, David Clauson, Erika Staiger, Andrew Milad, Taylor Davis Cover Art by: Evan Mikalonis, Shira Kresch Submissions: RCAHive wants to hear from you! We encourage submissions, writing and photo, from all members of the RCAH community. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length and clarity. The opinions expressed in the articles are those of the writers and not necessarily of RCAHive. For this reason, we do not accept anonymous submissions. Submissions should be approximatley 450 words with an image, 750 without. Please send submissions to thercahive@gmail.com

For Me, Buddy! 7

RCAH 492: The Art(s) of Public Memory 9

My RCAH Memories 13

A Photographers Mindset 16

Food, Shelter, Gas 18

In the Barn 25

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Going Home
Cooper Franks
Its winter in So Paulo, Brazil. Beautiful. 72F. Actually, 22C. Bonito. Im in the backseat of a taxi, with a man named Robson. We are discussing the basics: soccer. Nossa, voc uma Corinthiano? Me tambm. I dont know the word for homesick, so I cant tell him what is really racing through my mind. A boy from a favela juggles in front of our car, while a wrinkled man in a wheelchair knocks on our window with some snacks. I think they are paoquinhas, which makes me think of the grilled peanut butter sandwiches my mom makes. Homemade strawberry jam and Jif peanut butter. I open the window as we inch forward away from the man in the wheelchair, his weathered open hands already directed toward the next car; shaking. The smell of peanut butter in my head is replaced by that city aroma. Cigarettes, unrest, and fresh food seeping from a nearby padaria. My phone vibrates against my thigh; its a random long number. My mom. She asks if Im safe, and on my way to the airport. I tell her not to worry and that Ive done this before. I hang up. Of course I know how to get home. Saudade. Thats the word. Although its not exactly homesickness, I know its a deep emotional state of nostalgia. The longing for something. Or someone. We arrive at the airport, the meter is 55 reias, but I give him 59, so my wallet is empty, ready for the transfer to dollar bills. Boa viagem. Robson speeds away, and Im alone. The lady at the counter reminds me Im almost home by checking me in with English. I thrust headphones into my ears as soon as I get through security, and find Gate 29, from So Paulo to Houston. A guy my age wearing a Houston Rockets jersey is sprawled across three seats. I wonder how long he has been there, and secretly hope he is sitting next to me on the plane. Maybe hes in the same situation Im in. Maybe he understands saudade, even though there is no direct translation. I board the plane; it chills me. Luckily, I get the window seat, and am soon joined by an old lady, who after some small talk, immediately closes her eyes. I dont mind. I stare out the window of the plane as we take off, and once we are above the clouds I close my eyes and smile. Im going home. It has been an interesting journey, through interesting times. In our short tenure in this wonderful college, weve witnessed and participated in part of the vast global upheaval in culture and technology. In the last four years, we have seen history unfold around the world. We watched a historical campaign and election take place here in the United States, complete with the narrative of political stonewalling and infighting. Weve seen wars start and wars end. We witnessed change of dramatic proportions in the Arab worldthat chapter is still unfinished. Weve seen individual human tragedies, and large, more egregious group tragedies. But at the same time, weve seen the miracle of human existence: growth. The growth of the world, the growth of new societies, the growth of new generations. It is the evolutionary equivalent of hope, but with results. This growth is apparent everywhere we look: we can see the emergence of new consumers, new scholars, and new ideas, which now can interconnect at the speed of light. We see how a group of like-minded people can change their country, or, in another version, die for their freedom. We see how technology transcends boundaries, so we may connect instantly in all aspects. In turn we have utilized this technology to fight injustices and mobilize the social change as activists of todays society. Five hundred years ago, science and art divorced at the end of the Renaissance. Today, as we embark on the next part of our journey, consider the new realignment of art and science. It may be as obvious as Hadids genius in the architecture of the Broad Art Museum; or maybe as subtle as the fact that we can now proof the articles for RCAHive in a dorm, orif were luckymaybe on a beach with a nice cocktail. Recognize that our new technology empowers us as artists, and liberates us as denizens of this beautiful and wondrous planet. As for us, weve played our part in being citizens of the world. Weve traveled to all corners of the globe: Ghana, Italy, the UP, downtown Detroit, Costa Rica, Lansing, Senegal, New Mexico, France, and West Virginia. Weve walked many miles, read many pages, and spouted many opinionssome even correct. We have come to understand that a world without free thought is a world not worth living in. And we, the new generation of poets, writers, artists, and musicians, will understand the world through lyrics, prose, image, and rhyme, through the ebbs and flows of many different cultures. Armed with the advice of Mother Corn, we will go out to the world to redesign just and fair food systems, reform education, and write the new American Novel. We will paint the world with our voice and share our images of justice. It is our destiny, as the humanities scholars of this decade, to rebuild the new renaissance, to connect art and science, to connect people through ideas, through our creations, through our passions. We dont have to agree, but we have to evolve, as my dad and I have recognized many times over. As we are released to imprint our mark on the world, we know we have a home to

Four Years of Memory

Arielle LaBrecque
which we can return. One of my favorite writers, Ernest Hemingway, once said about his favorite city: If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go, for the rest of your life, it stays with you. Define your home as a place where your heart and passion lies, be it a place in geography or a place in time. And know that you must take it with you wherever you may end up. As for me, I know one of my homes: RCAH. The challenges, the passion, the beauty, the creativity, and even the craziness: it resides in my heart. I know that RCAH will stay with each and every one of us as we move forward. And that, I think, is a pretty good start to a new renaissance. My best wishes to all of you: to my fellow RCAHers, carry on. To our teachers, our mentors: we shall honor your intellect and passion. And to all of you reading this: thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts. Congratulations to the class of 2013.

Illustration by Evan Mikalonis

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Keepsake
Ben Thorp
At first it was subtle, a long forgotten smell or sound that began to permeate our everyday existence. To some, it was the hint of coriander in their nose when they entered the kitchen, the whisper of an old tune on the tip of the tongue, or even just the tug of something known, swelling in the back of your mind-- the corner of your heart. It was as though the shadows of things and places had begun to creep forward to repopulate the present. To some it was a comfort. There was a daughter who claimed she could hear the clatter of her fathers powertools in the garage, a wife who could smell her husbands oil-stained hands as though he had just returned from work, and a rail-line worker who awoke to the sound of a distant whistle.
Photo by Julia Kramer

To others, this return was immediately disturbing. There was the old veteran down the road who swore that he could smell the burning fuselage from some ancient, crippled jet. Its like the suckers right in front of me, he told us, a hint of fear arching across his forehead and draining down into his eyes. I can smell it as plain as day. Others too noted with unease the way the past began to creep back into their lives, even if that presence was as simple as the beep of a heart monitor or the static of a radio. By the sixth day we had all begun to experience these things, this touch of something old and familiar. There were those unfazed by this intrusion, but others became paralyzed. Reports came in: people were afraid to leave their homes, afraid that what remained of

It was Marthas fault Why couldnt she see? And Danny Why couldnt he listen? Some of them could be helped, only needing a push to leave their private cages and re-enter the present world. Others slipped deeper into their own thoughts and memories, pushed in by the smallest of smells the simplest of recollections. For those of us who refused to be swallowed by these memories, we were forced

Just as suddenly as these memories crept up on us, they began to disappear, fading back into the corners of our minds. We awoke as if from a stupor; ready at last, to begin something new. Within a few days the memories were gone completely, save for the old railworker who swore he could still hear the howl of some distant train as it passed us by.

Photo by Julia Kramer

distant memories would at last slip away and be lost. There were others too who seemed unable to shake the pull of forgotten anger, past conflicts that still held more weight than could be measured. In one house, we found a man confined to his living room, pacing back and forth and muttering to himself.

to make peace with them. For some it was as simple as remembering the joy of anothers company, leaving the house to shoot darts down at the local pub. For others, it was the work of at last accepting some ancient mistake, or finding the courage to forgive a crippling grudge.

For Me, Buddy!

Sean Fitzpatrick
It was the opposite of memory that is the conclusion. For if memory is the remembering of a thing that did happen, this was its opposite in every respect, the prediction of a thing that would not happen. Except thats not what a memory is, is it? You can remember falsely memory is just thinking coated with nostalgia. And the other half of the antonym was equally muckedthat wasnt what I felt, was it? What happened was this: I was leaving work, precisely at four. Its a shit job, but thats unimportant. I was leaving work, precisely at four, and I came to the stairwell. (I work on the third floor of a four-story building, and that is important.) I came to the stairwell and just before I took the first step, I noticed my left shoe was untied. So I knelt over to tie it. Knelt is a charitable way to describe what I did. No one has ever accused me of being especially coordinated, and shoe tying is a good example of how I have avoided that charge; never quite able to grasp the concept of the bunny chasing its other ear or whatever the hell, my process is instead an awkward contortion of back stooped over and leg propped on my knee and fingers fumbling with laces before, on the third or fourth try, I managed to get the dueling loops to stick in one place. An awkward contortion, but after twenty years, a natural one, tooI didnt think at all about stopping just before the first flight of stairs, I just stopped. But then I did think about it. I must have been on the second attempt of the bunny ears wrapping around the. . .and I was suddenly supremely aware of the spot I had put myself in. Here I was, this uncoordinated mess of one hundred and thirty pounds, and I am Weeble-will- wobble-butI-wont-fall-down-ing myself at the top of fifteen stairs. And as I notice where I am, I have the sensation that I might fall. I am perfectly steady, whatever; it is awkward but natural, whatever; but I can feel myself fall down the stairs. And this is when it happens. In an instant, my mind reaches the conclusion that such a fall would not seriously harm me. I am young and I would get up after it. But in that same instant my mind identifies that my youth will not always be there to protect me. In fifty years, I will be just as vulnerable to unthinkingly tying my shoe before a flight of stairs and then I will fall. I am there fifty years later, I feel myself fall, and I do not get up. I feel my hip shatter, and I feel my organs bruise as they absorb the force of the concrete, and I feel myself thinkhow strange it is to feel yourself think!but I feel myself think that I will survive this tumble but that it is the beginning of the end; that the hospital will be unpleasant and I will get infected and this is how it ends.

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It's Time to Get Nostalgic, RCAH

Dani Dillon
So, it's that time of year again. Where all of your professors decide to give you last minute assignments, or you decide to start them after watching the deadline loom for weeks. Where you're spending all of your valuable time hitting the books in the RCAH study rooms, or thinking about it from the comfort of your own bed at 3 p.m. Where you consistently make the decision to go to bed at 10 p.m. because you need sleep to function, or you consistently ignore your body's needs and try to replace them with the Gallery's cheese sticks. I hope you find yourself in the former option of my examples, because Lord knows I am not. As stressful as this time of year is, and as lost as we are in the haze of final projects and research papers, we shouldn't forget to be enjoying the remainder of our time on campus, with the people that have made this year incrediblewho heartbreakingly won't be around the corner for three months of summer. I have a few friends who won't be making the trip back to East Lansing in the fall, so lately I've been taking brief breaks from my stress/ pure dread to be extremely nostalgic with these gems of people who I probably won't see for a while. To those of you who are leaving me (shout out to my boy Ryon!) know that I love you dearly, and you're going to do great things. I have so many memories with you from this year, some that I will not be able to forget if I tried (some I will try very hard to forget). My mom has a quote from Benjamin Dover that she always loves to remind me of: It's okay to look back at the past. Just don't stare. I normally support this statement completely, but I think the end of a year of college calls for some serious nostalgia. As much as it's costing all of us, it should be a pretty big deal. For all of you seniors, congratulations on making it through college! You, more than anybody, deserve this time to be looking back. The memories that you've made here at MSU are things you are going to remember for the rest of your life. You'll have stories to tell your grandchildren, as well as plenty of stories that you should probably never let your grandkids know about (this includes every St. Patty's Day story. Off limits.) At the same time, it's kind of scary to think that the glory days are over. Just remember that some of the best days of our lives haven't even happened yet (yes, that is a thing from the internetit was too good not to reiterate). For all of the kids who aren't seniors, you still have time! Time to meet so many new people, join new clubs, create new stories that you won't be able to tell your grandkids. As bittersweet as it is to look back on all the memories we've created, it's kind of nice knowing how many more we'll have to come.

The Art(s) of Public Memory: Collective Geographies of History in Literature and Film

Illustration by Shira Kresch

In our senior seminar, RCAH 492 with Professor Terese Monberg, we have questioned the ways in which public, collective memory is cultivated and commemorated. We have discerned between dominant histories and minority narratives. We have discussed personal histories and analyzed immigrant experiences. Through film and literature, we have questioned the ways in which memory is created, relived, and dispersed. For my final project, I asked my peers to express, through photos and words, their favorite RCAH memory. The multitude of their stories represents the true beauty of this college: community, growth, and learning. Through their words, we relive adventures, mishaps, and triumphs. Every person, in one way or another, expresses how they have always felt home in the RCAH. It is a place to foster our creativity and discover our aspirations. As the graduates of 2013 embark on a new journey, we will relive our experience through the stories of one another. As is overwhelmingly evident, we will always remember the RCAH, and the people who make it so wonderful.

Arielle LaBrecque

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Photo by Julia Kramer

Unexpected Detours
Haley Carr
I entered MSU as a French major pursuing Secondary Education. I am departing MSU as a RCAH and Psychology major, pursuing Early Childhood Education. I took many detours in between these tracks and am sure my journey will continue to deviate further in my future. No matter how many times I changed my double major or questioned my career options, one aspect of my academics has stayed the same since my very first day of classes at MSU: my degree in the RCAH. On that warm Wednesday in September 2009, I left my dorm in Brody for my early morning Chemistry and Calculus classes about the only courses open by the time I registered for classes at orientation. I got lost twice, took the bus the wrong way, and finally found myself in the Gallery at Snyder-Phillips for lunch to meet up with my friends (shout out to Grace, Alli, Annika, and Emily). I already hated the distance from Brody to Sny-Phi, my huge Chemistry class, and the repetition of Calculus from high school (why would I want to take THAT again?). My RCAH friends LOVED their classes. They all lived on the same floor, had class in the building, and were excitedly talking about a cookie decorating party that evening and the possibility of an upper level RCAH class focusing on the Harry Potter series. WHAT!? I had heard a little bit about this mysterious small, arts college from my friends on my Freshman Seminar Abroad to South Africa, and after the day I had, I just knew I was on the wrong track. This sounded like the perfect place for me. Cookies and Harry Potter? Duh, of course I belonged here! My friends took me up to see Kate and Scot that same day. Kate changed my major, enrolled me in two amazing RCAH courses, and started processing my move. I went to the cookie party, met my new RCAH family, and went back to Brody to pack up. The next day, Scot loaned me his mini-van and sent me with my friends to move my stuff over. No questions asked, just handed me the keys. Terrified to drive his car and panicking about how to find my dorm, I made a wrong turn onto the pedestrian walkway crossing Harrison and drove on the sidewalks to get back to Bryan Hall. Needless to say, everyone including myself was in quite a state after that. Scot: Im sorry you had to find out this way! Ive kept the secret this long, but it was inevitable you would find out some day. Ill never forget that adventure, and Im so glad I found home in RCAH. Im glad to say, I avoided regrets.

Always United
Nick Stauffer
At first we were strangers Then made into friends Raised to be critical thinkers From students of all odds and ends But we are more than that More than what others assume We are helpers and supporters We are a loving community We are a home and family We will always be connected From freshman seminar To senior seminar From mother corn To fragments and memories We have grown together Lived together Learned together Joked together The four pillars is just our base For we are so much more Whether close by or far away We will always be united

A Summary of Four Years

Allison Lanese
It is hot in here Mind if I take my cob off? Oh my, Mother Corn! Youre an RCAH kid? That is not a real major Just lots of hipsters.

A Few RCAH Lessons in Other People's Words

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Grace Pappalardo
Gnatola ma no kpon sia, eyenabe adelan to kpo mi sena, or, until the lion has his or her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story. Ewe Proverb Idealism is what gets you out of bed. Once youre out of bed, you need to find something more than idealism. But you have to get out of bed. William Pope.L Change is inevitableexcept from a vending machine. Robert C. Gallagher Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. Albert Einstein

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Anna Breithaupt

Freshman

Growth Through Civic Engagement

Kat Stuehrk
This photo shows me, alongside one of my mentees, learning martial arts during one of the My Brother's Keeper sessions. I've been mentoring for three years now, and have RCAH to thank for introducing me to the program. It's shown me that I have a passion for social work, and that plenty of learning can go on outside of the classroom.

Dumpster noise outside Early fresh brew sensations Blurred vision through dark

Annie Melcher

My RCAH is...
Liz Magee
My RCAH is a family that surrounds me: At home, cuddling in the dorms, Stuffing our faces in the Gallery, Two a.m. study circles in the lobby, And parties between the Pillars. My RCAH is insanely great classes: In my pajamas, slippers, and blanket. With African tribal dances and Mother Corn, With professors bribing us with pizza and donuts, With Haiku hikes and classes in the woods. My RCAH is hours of extra-curriculars: Silly, late nights at ROIAL rehearsals Stumbling over lines and being a werewolf, And coughing and crying from laughter at improv As my humor and impulse are pushed to the limit. My RCAH is questioning everything: Transculturation, language, food, My identity, my community, my name, Memory, history, literature, and art, Education, belief systems, technology. My RCAH is finding family in my friends and professors. My RCAH is being at home when Im not. My RCAH is asking more questions than I answer. My RCAH is always redefining who I am.

My RCAH Memories
Amanda Sherman
My fondest memories in the RCAH were the moments I shared with the faculty in their offices. It was at those times that I was really able to express who I am and also learn more about them. Not many students have such privilege to get to know their professors on a personal level. This is one the greatest aspects of the RCAHindividuality and interpersonal relationships are encouraged. I have struggled, excelled, laughed, and cried with my near and dear professors. I cherish each of those moments and the guidance they have given me. To all of those professors who listened and advised me throughout my five years, I thank you!

"What Was I Thinking?"

Annika Redstadt
Coming in as a freshman in the RCAH, I was quite naive about how much of a course and extracurricular load I would be able to handle. I originally signed up for 19 credits (wow) and immediately came to discover that this would clearly not be possible for me (seeing that I was also going to participate as a member in the Spartan Marching Band). I vented to my advisers, who were very helpful in narrowing down my credits to merely 13. Ultimately, because of this decision I was able to audition for RCAHppella, which changed my entire college career socially and emotionally.

Ambassador
Julia Kramer
One of my favorite RCAH memories is being an RCAH Ambassador, because I have discovered and strengthened my RCAH identity through defending the program to prospective students and their parents. I feel like I have to constantly defend my choice of a liberal arts degree to my peers, my family, and anyone who asks me what job I expect to get after college. Learning to articulate the value of an arts and humanities program, especially with the purpose of convincing other kids to choose the same degree, has given me a language to talk about myself and my passions that I would have never developed in another situation. I am so grateful for the encouragement to explore, create, and solidify my identity within the supportive community of the RCAH, and I will never tire of describing these formative experiences to anyone who doubts the value of this type of program.

My Favorite RCAH Memory...

Was summer study abroad in Israel with Aronoff, which included navigating between sinkholes, overcoming (sort of) my deep fear of the ocean, and driving in the tour bus with our wonderful, finicky driver, Pinehas.

Lauren Hall

Safe Place = RCAH

Chloe Manikas
A place safe for all A community of peers A place full of growth RCAH nurtures students Feeding the creative soul Sound-minded people

The Mother Corn Rap

Maggie Martin
Yo Mama C in the house, I need an explanation I'm so so sick of all this exploitation I used to be your life, your seed, identity Now you don't even need all of me But yo I'm everywhere, you think I'm jokin'? Batteries, salad dressing, and ibuprofen! You produce so much of me It's led to a loss of biodiversity I don't belong to the people, I'm filled with GMOs And they just started growing that in Mexico! Come on world, protesters, save me! Send the world the message YOU DON'T F*** WITH TEOSINTE!!!

Kelsea Solo

The RCAH has allowed me to grow into the wonderful, aware woman that I am. By looking critically at the world, I am sure that all RCAH graduates will make a great difference from here on. All good things happen here.

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LINNEA Do our own research, present papers KELSEA Be activists GRACE Be artists ANNIKA Work hard for the benefit of others DAVID Live ethical liveswhatever that means EMILY And raise a family to boot. LINNEA Who knows? We might even end up being academics ourselves. (All shudder.) GRACE Hey guys! Cmon! Lets forget all about that stuff. This is about having fun, right? We can worry about all that stuff, or about being creepy, or whatever, later.

DAVID I guess youre right. Lets just go out there and do it! ALL Yeah! HALEY Hey, whered Fraiberg go? ALL Who? DAVID Tim. Tim Smela. Yeah, where did he disappear to? (Everyone shrugs at one another, then laughing merrily, all exeunt.) END OF PLAY

A Very Merry RCAH Halloween

David Clauson
(2009. Just before the RCAH Halloween party. A dorm room just like any other. All around the room, people are hard at work transforming themselvesGRACE, in a Loeb-eriffic broomstick and cardigan, in the midst of spray-painting her hair silver, ANNIKA, scooping candy out of bags into a porcelain bowl with a sweet, Pam-Newsted-like air. HALEY, dressed in a tasteful Monbergian suit complete with blazer, is spraying her hair black. KELSEA, looking Mineresque in a ponytail, black t-shirt, Converse, and jeans, looks around for the final piece of clothing to complete her wardrobe. EMILY is finishing up a nametag reading Gavin and pins it to a bundle of clothan ersatz baby. LINNEA, who has somehow acquired an exact duplicate of Dr. Rogerss hair, is now pulling on a pair of Birkenstocks. DAVID, in a suit, is tying his tie in front of a mirror.) DAVID (Practicing the low, subtle, dulcet tones of Dean Esquith.) In a worldwhere every person is exposed daily through the mass media to images of violence and suffering (He coughs uncontrollably. Annika offers him a Jolly Rancher from the bowl.) Man, is that voice ever hard to keep upI dont know how he does it. (Looking around.) Hey guys? HALEY What? DAVID Do you think this wholedressing up as professors we barely know thing is a littleuh LINNEA (Practicing the trademark backwards air quotes.) Amazing? DAVID I was going to say creepyGrace, would you mind passing the hairspray when youre done with it? GRACE Yeah, no prob! ANNIKA I dont think its that creepyright? EMILY I could see how some people could see this as pretty creepy. KELSEA David, where did you put your jacket? DAVID Oh, its over on the chair.

(Kelsea puts on a tan chino jacket, size Medium, from the Gap.) KELSEA How does it look? HALEY I actually think that Dylan has that same exact jacket. (He totally does.) LINNEA Im just counting on Rogers not being at the party. (She wont be.) EMILY But hey, you know, imitationsincerest form of flattery, kind of thing? ANNIKA And it is Halloween, so, its okay to be a little creepyI guess? DAVID Sure? LINNEA I wouldnt worry about it. Well probably spend our whole college careers making even bigger fools of ourselves. GRACE And I mean, look at us! I mean, these are pretty awesome costumes! DAVID I guess we are college freshmenif theres any time to do weird stuff like this, its now, right? (Over the following lines, they congregate around the mirror.) HALEY Yeahweve got to enjoy this while it lasts. Soon well actually be like the professors. Expected to think for ourselves

Photo courtesy of David Clauson

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rcah life

Alexa McCarthy

A Photographer's Mindset
were lined with yet another exceptional photographers pieces. Brett King, a RCAH Artist in Conversation, is an international commercial and fine art photographer with roots in all forms of creative media production. King held multiple workshops throughout the month of January ranging from the basics of photography to HDR photography. I had the pleasure of attending the Photographers Mindset workshop, in which we explored how the mindset one has while photographing can be translated to any part of your life. But before we even had a chance to settle in, we were instructed to go around the building and take pictures of anything that was or had yellow in it. We raced around SnyderPhillips, and for 15 minutes our minds were fixed on yellow, noticing the color in places we hadnt before. After 15 minutes I ended up with about 50 photos, and everyone talked about how fun but also how tiring the activity was. We were all questioning what exactly this had to do with the workshop and King began putting the pieces together. He explained to us how photography is the perfect metaphor to life and how it can help us flip the switch to positive. Photographers often shoot with a goal or theme in mind. They might try to find the perfect sunset. What often drives photographers to create goals is because a particular subject makes them happy in some way. Not all photos are necessarily meant to make the viewer feel happy, and many evoke sadness, but what often brings the artist joy is spreading awareness or expressing their emotions through art. For 15 minutes, our only goal was to find yellow and to not think about our composition or the quality of our photo, and whenever I found the color it gave me a jolt of excitement. I found myself looking at the individual colors of an object or poster rather than the whole, and I would find yellow in places that were less obvious to the passing eye. The activity ingrained what I have always loved about photography its ability to open you up to surroundings, creating a positive energy within as you aim to show the world through your eyes. We are all much more sensitive to negative stimuli than positive and King left us with a challenge to start taking pictures of all the things that make us happy. I tried this for a week, and I noticed that we are often more conscious of the bad things in our life than the good. I found myself taking pictures of my cereal late at night in the Gallery, my friends laughing, and the 100% charged battery on my phone. Not to sound cheesy, but I realized what people have been telling us our whole lives; its the simple things in life that add the most magic.

Everyone has that one thing they do that always makes life a little brighter. Mine happens to be photography and looking at the world through a lens always adds instant gratification to my day. One of the reasons I started taking pictures was because I couldnt draw or paint but felt like I had an artistic viewpoint to express. Ranging from a small point and shoot, a DSLR, film, and of course, an iPhone, the tools of photography have been with me for a couple of years now. However, since coming to MSU I have not used my camera as often as I would like, and it sits under my desk waiting to be employed. Coincidentally, the times I have used it have been for this magazine and in January I again found myself camera in hand for RCAHive. I have previously written about how one of my favorite aspects of living in SnyderPhillips, home to the RCAH, is the weight that art holds in the building. January was no disappointment, and the halls

Kelsey Block

The Power of Poetry

A week later, the class reconvened for the second session to share their work. Glazier and others in attendance praised the poems while also offering ways that the writing could be improved. I hope to help people understand how to take in information, how to read in a meaningful way, how to synthesize how that information is meaningful to them, and how to amplify their voice, Glazier said. I just want to present the tools, and lay out a plan for how to study. Glazier focused on Cliftons work for the workshop because she finds it to be very accessible. She also felt it was impressive on both a rhetorical and aesthetic level. Clifton gives us much of the pleasure of poetry in her work, Glazier said. Poetry is a way to belong to the world. People can come together around it in a way that is really beautiful. It has made me the person I am today, in some ways. It hasnt just been a jobits been my life, Glazier said, discernibly proud of the Center. Glazier also offers some advice for aspiring writers. Just keep going, she said. And dont worry about the business of any of it. Get quiet And read, write, and listen to what your own voice sounds like. Become yourself, and then start publishing.

Those engaged in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities Center for Poetry certainly know better than to underestimate the power of the written word. Poetry serves the unserviceable, said Stephanie Glazier, the acting director for the Center for Poetry. It can trouble the way a story gets told, the syntax and grammatical makeup of a sentencepoetry doesnt care about that. It subverts and thwarts the narrative. That is necessary in the world we live in. According to their website, the Center for Poetry, encourages the reading, writing, and discussion of poetry to create an awareness of the place and power of poetry in our everyday lives. In fact, the Center for Poetry, which was started in 2007, is the only one of its kind in the state of Michigan. In January, Glazier held a twopart workshop called, Read a Poet, Write a Poem. In the first session, MSU students, faculty, and community members studied Lucille Cliftons book of poems, Blessing the Boats. Glazier then instructed the class to write two poems of their own, using Cliftons work as inspiration.

Photo by Julia Kramer

Niki's Nook

Lasting Memories
It was after we had ditched the cap and gowns, after our parents had returned to hometowns with trunks full of half of our stuff, after we gave up on packing up any more stuff. We sat on the floor among boxes, eating whatever was left in the fridge, even if it was only cheese sticks and pickles. We had just graduated, and the fact that this was our last night in the same town together was settling in. I don't remember what we talked about. I remember we laughed. We laughed until we all fell asleep there on the living room floor of the apartment. I have memories of many random and hilarious nights with those friends, while in college and in the years since. These are the friends who knew me before I even knew myself. I could tell you about the weddings, the mortgages, and the kids since our college years together, but mostly, I just want you all to have a night like our last night of college, where you are surrounded by good friends and good laughs. There is plenty of time for everything else.

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A Memory for Lena

Jenny Crakes
Once we were birds who soared to every window. When dusk comes, she asks me for a memory I keep. I slip them into her hands, one by one. In the shadows of the moon A lady smiles and sings to us The night wind is fresh and the snow is crisp As our footsteps crunch and crackle towards the lake Summer days, a haze of harsh light Waves crash to shining crystals And we spin with arms outstretched On the moist, glassy shore where colors swirl Like paints on a palette The train shakes in rhythm Wheels rattle, sending echoes Through my body Carrying me away to a peaceful place For we are still swallows, our soft beating wings Poised for flight.

Sometimes
Ben Thorp

Food, Shelter, Gas

Taylor Davis
Cars pass, lighting up night with their unearthly gems of a string strung from the beginning of US-93 until the desert valley ends. This necklace lays heavy on strange empty spaces that call themselves towns, towns with luminescent signs that stretch towards travelers' solitude speaking FOOD SHELTER GAS. In the morning dust covers thick the lenses of an individuals binding land life perception. Barely discernible is the cerulean that drips from the sky, stronger out of reach like spaces, portals to a life lived in full color. Ive been wondering when the tint of the sky will darken, harden, break and fall. After I hide, as it comes, like sheets of glass, roaring down to the ground, I will collect the most sharp piece of sapphire and cut through this world of silicone packs of gum, magazines and beef jerky. Tumultuous truck stop bleach smell and exhaust will break way like heavy winds to what is the beauty of where you are going, sea air. I feel stale. I have been known only as a resource without a name. I spoke with a man who asked me with his eyes to draw the edges of my long red nails down the hardened dough of his back. He traded me change for cigarettes, and in the world of electricity that haunted our small talk, I said no, with the cloth of the corners of my outline clinging, folding and unfolding, dissolving into ubiquitous angry energy. The man left. Revived himself and left. I feel divined by sight, eaten up by eyes, mirrors, reflection and photographs. In these times, I would like to dissolve the silicone that illuminates not just this store, but me as well, expose the fleshen monster that is capable of being, getting, like him. I am a particle of sex and smoke and green fabric that covers my waist, ties behind my neck. Stacks of items, stacks of selling. I work here as the land dissolves beneath my feet. I am a molecule of molten blood. I am growing to hot for the earth to remain still. There are pulses now, growing louder. They are in time with my heart. When I climb through the moments I open up with sky and my fingers, I will emerge a machine without its parts. I will be a message, a mouth turned outwards.

Sometimes its an Odyssean return home; a sea-soaked epic spanning years filled with one-eyed monsters and evil seductresses. The kind of adventure that makes you want to take a long time coming home because you arent quite sure what youll find when you get back. So you stall, avoiding the calls from your mother, your sister, and your worried father. Youre afraid, afraid that home has changed, or that you have. All it would take is one call home, one call and youd know. Your dad would sigh and say Im worried, or your mom would start to cry, their voices faint and crackled, like hearing music come from someone elses headphones. And one day you do come home. You come home and yet not, because everything has changed. Your family is alien, some distinctly different species that has somehow slipped into recognizable skin. Youve forgotten how to talk to one another, and when you do its with words that are worlds apart. They look at you uncertainly; equally unsure of who has taken up residence inside someone who looks so

familiar. Only the dog is unfazed, his lolling tongue and waving tail saying simply Hello again." And maybe thats enough. Sometimes its like that. Sometimes its hard, and sometimes, home stops being home and just becomes that place where you grew up. But not always. No, sometimes its a simple car ride north; the windows rolled down, sun dancing off windows and filling the cracks in your face. The radio puts a folksy murmur in your ear and you catch yourself tapping along with the rhythm, a weight lifting in your chest. The air seems cleaner and you gulp it up with big, gasping breaths. Your head feels clearer, something to do

with the miles of wooded highway or knowing where youre going but having miles to get there. You let the journey pull you in and empty you out, shedding stress like a snake sheds its skin, pulling it up over your head and tossing it somewhere in the backseat. And when you do finally pull in, the gravel crunching cheerily beneath your car, while the dog is yelping wildly and running in circles around the yard, it will be with a sense of excitement, a sense of adventure. Your sister will put down her soccer ball and walk over grinning. Shell throw a punch at your arm. Youre home. Shell say. And its enough.

Photo by Shira Kresch

Photo by Julia Kramer

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School Closings
Anita Skeen

After Complaining About How My Poetry Students Don't Like the Topics I Suggest
Anita Skeen
Something green, you told me, on the phone, write about something green. As I drive south to see you the green signs of Interstate 75 say Botkins, say Beaver Dam, then Great Miami River. I sail by them in my new green truck. On the radio, a harpist plays an old Welsh tune, The Ash Grove, and I think of Girl Scouts, our green uniforms, the green, green woods of summer where we learned how maple is different from elm, hickory from oak. Time held me green and dying wrote a Welsh poet and I consider how Ive driven this highway for 30 years, home to lover, lover to job, job to friend, friend to home, each changing, none of them the same as in 1968. In some seasons, green so thick I feared Id suffocate, so easy to succumb to waves of green. Other times, nothing green but those endless signs naming all the places I know Ill never go: Troy, West Milan, Lebanon (though I can smell cedar in the name). Green roofs, green cars, and the huge green sign of the Holiday Inn, urging no more miles before I sleep. I ponder how far I am from you, how far Ive come from home, recalling the canning of summer beans and, months later, the last unopened jar glowing on the cellar shelf, green light at the end of a faraway dock.

Inaugural, Memorial
Andrew Milad
It was only days ago that I was contacted by a listener of Wayne Szalinski, who kindly complimented These are the Layers of Bandages, mentioning how he and his girlfriend enjoyed listened to it every time they hung out. Months earlier, upon the song's initial release, I entered into an extensive dialogue with a friend who, to my dismay, gathered that the lyrics promoted abusive and sexually hegemonic relationships. Upon first listen the songs upbeat nature can perhaps obscure the darker and more painful reality within. Without making light of the juxtaposition of these two analyses, I find it perhaps necessary to bridge that divide between artist and audience. I must apologize for the vagueness; I find comfort in translucence and cant quite convince myself to divulge each excruciating detail. Afternoon-gazing in the darkened window reflection pane; I wish I could explore such vanity. Instead I find myself ugly and opaque; veiled and obscured from even the most well intentioned efforts of exploration. I write, plundering the vulnerability one can perhaps only find between the damp hours of three and five a.m. Aiming to be transparent and true in chronology; I could only ever hope for translucency. I am always approaching some inaugural memorial occasion. Recurrent and infinite is the perceptual daydream of moments past. Most of my writing and lyricism derives its meaning in these periods of time. It is greatly regrettable, that in writing, I have only been able to capture one perspective of these moments. Despite my obsessive reductionism of ethical actions unpleasantly common, when I put pen to paper, I havent quite been able to capture the totality of any one experience. Upon recording these lyrical and musical workings, I discovered the torture of permanency. Whatever traumatism of the past is suddenly made constant. MP3 songs and lyrics lose all plasticity and set themselves concretely. As those three debut tracks of Wayne Szalinski came to completion, I found myself at the mercy of a number of necessary unpleasantries: the reliving of moments particular and painful, the doubt in choosing which perspective to display lyrically, and permanency of those decisions. I find myself most dismayed in These are the Layers of Bandages in particular. Though this may be a hopeless attempt in wetting cement already set, I feel a need to remold, that which is perhaps ill-formed. For not all words once written reflect my current state of opinion; yet they were true in the moment.

While my mother stood in her slip putting on powder and lipstick before the bathroom mirror, my grandmother bent over the kitchen stove stirring Cream of Wheat. I sat at the oval Formica table near the radio with a luminous dial listening for a newscaster to give the litany of school closings. I prayed for Kanawha County among those names, or for # 228 among the buses unable to run. I wanted a day in red rubber boots with my Flexible Flyer, snow ice cream and cocoa, Sgt, Preston of the Yukon in my own backyard. Mostly, I didnt want long division, book reports, the smell of Hot Dog Day, history tests and recess. Last night we came under a winter storm watch, 6-10 inches of snow in the forecast. Now I am a professor, but this morning Im going to a 3rd grade class to talk about haiku. As I eat my grapefruit and butter my toast, I listen for the voice on WKAR that will say East Lansing Public Schools are closed, aware the thrill of imminent freedom remains potent. I am ten years old again. I want to be the first out the front door, Tippy by my side, branding the white world with baffling tracks, coming home, hours later, frozen and full of story.

Photo by Shira Kresch

I wrote These are the Layers of Bandages during one of those inaugural experiences of reliving. In that moment of lyrical inception, I felt very much the victim of sexual manipulation. The song began as a reflection of unfaithfulness. Anyone who has ever felt that great stomachache, the unending queasiness, the sickeningly recurrent daydream of a loved one with someone else, will understand this song better than I can ever express in words. A year later, churning unsubsided, I decided to write These are the Layers of Bandages. Though originally intended to express the personalized pain of that experience, Im finding that in writing I perhaps exposed more pertinent flaws within myself. Despite "Bandages" initial intention, I realized I was writing some autobiographical tale of two people who found themselves in an abusive relationship mutually perpetuated.

Theres an inherent disconnect between artist and audience in any form of communication. Though I think upon examination the song doesnt retain any promotion of sexual abuse, as I distance myself from the time and context of writing those lyrics, I see the potential for another darker and unintended interpretation. The situation was multifaceted to begin with. I would rephrase if I could. It's not that I can't commit to lyric consistency, but that the words exist in so many combinations and interpretations that they can never suffice to contain the essence and entirety of such experience. Its impossible to forget such memory and too late to reconfigure its expression. While I don't regret the viewpoint I chose to explore, I question whether it was the one I should have chosen to communicate.

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Erika Staiger
I knew it was happening. Id seen it happen before, to my mother, but I was little then. I only understood that I was watching something horrible and then when it stopped, I wouldnt have a mother anymore. Now that it was me, there was a different kind of terror. Now, I didnt know what was worse; the inevitable death, or the thing that preceded it. I heard a scream. I wondered if it was mine. I didnt know anymore; I frankly didnt care. I just wanted it to be over, though from what I remembered, I knew it hadnt really even started yet. I was only just beginning to see things, memories. Or, at least, I thought they were memories. I thought my name was Irina, but I wasnt sure. I just knew that the Gift had finally gotten all of me. A voice thundered inside my skull. This time, it spoke to me. You are your Gift. You are dead. ---September, 2000 Irina! Irina! Where are you? It was the voice of my father calling. I was six, and I was Hiding in the grocery store, behind a large display of soup cans. He had been arguing with my mother again. She wanted to see me, but she couldnt, because the court didnt allow it. She was an unfit mother, they said. She was unstable. I didnt understand why, then. I just knew that she wasnt right. She scared me.So I Hid. Hiding was my Gift. No one could find me if I didnt want them to. Shes Gifted, Charles! wailed my mother, her voice high and shrill. Shes gifted! Like I am! You cant

HIDE
find her, but they can! They find all of us I heard a third voice, not with my ears, but with my mind. Come It was a womans voice. It had an icy, commanding tone that made my skin crawl. I dropped my teddy. He was visible to my parents, who were now approaching the display I Hid behind. I was scared, scared of the strange voice. I looked around and saw no one coming but my parents. I grabbed my teddy because I was scared, but I still didnt want to be found. I did it quickly, hoping they wouldnt see me. My mother stiffened, frozen, like a breathing ice sculpture. A moment later, she seemed to be able to move again and her body seemed to melt for a moment. She teetered, unsteady on her feet while her eyes started to role back in her head. My father lunged for her, grabbing her shoulders to stop her from hitting the floor, but the moment his fleshed made contact with her skin, she pushed him violently away. Her head fell back and her mouth opened on its own accord, letting loose a horrible scream that my father couldnt hear, but I could. I hid my eyes. I was terrified. I was ashamed because I was crying and only babies cried. I was not a baby. Just scared. I Hid so well that my body was invisible even to my own eyes. Shes here! she screamed, this time out loud. I knew she was not referring to me. Thats ridiculous. I dont see her anywhere. My father, thinking only of his missing child, checked behind the soup cans, and looked right at me, but saw nothing. Irina! Suddenly, I began to feel sick. I doubled over, feeling, for the first time in my short life, as though I were naked in front of a crowd. I felt the air around me push down on me as though the comfort and security of Hiding the power normally associated with my Giftwas being forced back inside my head. I was in pain. I couldnt breathe. Someone could see me. Someone could see me. Some could see me. I tried to thrash back and forth, but I couldnt move. Someone could see me. The womans voice boomed inside my skull. Lillian, it addressed my mother, not me. I pleaded, inside my head, for it to stop the strange force that held me captive. Leave me alone! My mother screamed. My father couldnt hear her again. Lillian, this is your final chance. Accept our help, accept your destiny, and you shall live. It will destroy you, it will consume you from within, if you do not accept my offer, if you do not learn to control it. You are an easy target. My mother screamed. The voice sighed. You are your gift. You are dead. There was a final, drawn out scream, and then I could breathe again. My fatherblissfully unaware turned around, to voice another complaint, but my mother was gone. So was the voice. Daddy? I whimpered. He smiled, looking confused, but relieved. Irina the voice whispered. I jumped up and hid with no magicin the comfort of my fathers arms. The voice was barely audible. Irina Its okay, he cooed, elated to have found me, but at the same time, distressed by my mothers disappearance. Everythings gonna be okay Irina I never saw my mother again. ---May, 2010 I grew up. My father and I moved a few times a year. Things would happen. My Gift began to grow stronger. Things happened that I couldnt control, whenever my emotions ran unchecked. I could usually rein it in, though. I tried never to use my Gift. It terrified my father. He looked at me and saw my mother, but the Gift didnt like being kept on a shelf. It got a mind of its own as it grew. It wanted out. When I wouldnt let it out, I got migraines. I found that Hiding was usually the safest compromise. If I could still use my Gift without my father knowing, I experienced no pain. But, nevertheless, some days, it became too much. I had to let it out. You should stop, Irina. I ignored the voice. My Gift was surging power in my veins. The experiment was simple enough, but effective. I was setting fire to a tree, but channeling it in a way that did not burn it. Irina, stop! The voice belonged to my father. I screamed. The flames turned bright blue and the tree was reduced to ashes in a matter of seconds. See what you made me do! I snapped angrily. I could already feel the pain in my head starting. My Gift wanted more. I didnt make you do anything, he said, warily. The second sentence came out as a desperate plea. Come inside. Easy for you to say, I spat. I regretted my words instantly. It was difficult to be mean to the one person in the world who thought of me as a person first and a freak second. There was a flicker of fear in his eyes. I realized he must be frightened of me. I was frightened of me. I took a deep breath and followed him inside, blinking a few times as the pain began to return. ---December, 2011 My father and I were Christmas shopping. My vision was blurred the pain was so bad. I tried to keep a conversational tone, but I knew I was fooling no one. We can stop, if you like, said my father, ruffling my hair the way he did when I was a child. I took his hand and squeezed it tight. Im fine, I replied. The lie was a well-practiced one. Effortless. It rolled right off my tongue. He saw right through me, of course. He always had. Why dont we just call it quits, drive home and have a quiet movie night in front of the fire, hmm? The strong rush of affection I felt for my father caused yet another unpleased jolt of pain from my restless Gift. It was all I could manage to nod. ---There was no stopping the Gift now. I felt burning. I felt my arms and legs move without my consent. My Gift was so much raw power, so much energy, imprisoned inside my mind for all my life. It wanted to destroy, create, kill, and preserve, all at once. And it did it. Everything. Without my consent. I couldnt control it. I was the prisoner now. At first, I was lost in my own memories. Then they became visions. Of everything Id wanted to happen, and everything Id feared would happen. I saw my mother, what she had become. What I had become. Then, there came the rare moments where I could see what was actually happening outside my mind. I had a front row seat to all the things my Gift was doing. I saw it torture and kill anyone who Id ever had a bad feeling for. I saw it create everything Id wanted to create. Snow storms, mountains, beautiful flowers. then I was drowning in all the money Id ever wanted for my father, who hated bills and numbers Then I saw it try to take back the thing I wanted most of all. I saw it raise my mother from the dead. ---December, 2011 but we did not make it home. The roads were icy and the snow just kept falling and no one could see. I couldnt see. Dad couldnt see. I was scared, so scared, but I couldnt Hide from this. I wasnt fast enough. Wrong. My fault. Should have stopped it, but the ice and that horrible noise spinning tires make There was a bridge. A man was driving home from the bar in the opposite lane. We could only see his lights, coming at us, slowly, then faster and faster until the tires made the noise and we went flying backwards. There was a crunch and a bang and screaming. Then there was a crack. Or maybe the crack happened at the same time. Maybe there wasnt a crack at all. But there was blood. Lots of it, the sticky red stuff of my fathers life spilling out onto the dash. I was powerful enough to stop this. I could stop it. But, I didnt. I wasnt fast enough. I did a lot of screaming. My father was dead. My father was dead and now I didnt care about my Gift. I let it free. I didnt care. I wanted to bring him back. I would bring him back. The Gift, free at last, raged through my veins like lava. At last, the pain was gone. But, then I heard the voice.My mother stood before me looking exactly like she did on the day she died, except, now she was sane and I was crazy. I didnt know if I had really brought her back. If I had failed to save my father, who had been dead only a few minutes, I doubted I would be able to resurrect my mother, who had been dead nearly thirteen years. But, then again, I didnt know what was real. I just knew it would be over soon and I was grateful for it. Mother, I whispered, reaching out to touch her. Your Gift is a part of you, she said. She backed away. But, you hid from it. Yes, I replied, quietly. It scared everyone. Even Dad. You imprisoned it, yet you set it free. You feared it, yet you also desired it. I thought of those moments when I experimented with the Gift. Those moments when I felt like a God. In a way, I was a God. I had seen some of the things I had done. I was like a God. Yes. I was like you, said my mother. I hid it, because I loved your father. Because I loved you. Then, one day, the pain became too much, and I let it go. I heard another scream. It was barely audible; background noise. Man was only meant to have so much power, my mother said, addressing the screaming. Yes, I agreed. But, think of what I could have done with it, if I could have controlled it! My mother looked into my eyes and said, You are your Gift. You are dead. Visons flashed before my eyes. Blood. Ice. Warm fire. My fathers eyes. Then, the things my Gift had done. Only so much power. . . I let go.

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In the Barn
Kelsey Block

Listen
Libby Lussenhop
If you listen, hell tell you how he clawed his way into this world, a pygmy sloth clinging to the slick riverbank, facing a mudslide of odds against him. Hell tell you how, opening his eyes to the white-washed world for the first time, he scoffed, The odds? and he rolled the dice for himselfHey Doc, you might want to throw these twice next time snake eyes. Hell tell you this too: as a child, he poked pin-pricks in black construction paper, held his creation to the lamplight and called God the copycat. When the other kids started dipping their toes in truancy and their fingers in tobacco tins, hell tell you how he made a hobby of synesthesia, how he spent hazy, dust-mote afternoons ears ringing with the bronze shadows that filtered through the dragonflies stained-glass wings. Hell tell his story, and youll see he has skin like tie-dye t-shirts. Someone once pinched a corner, twisted and coiled the fleshy fabric, splashed it with rouge and violet, but threw it in the wash too soon, leaving his face with fading pink blotches and a grungy, grayish hue. Hell tell you how, after a while, his gold-dust eyes became smothered by the panorama; the right eye was always turning to the left for reassurance. Hell exclaim, he was infuriated they called it a lazy eye, and there was nothing lazy about the way he could read the Vitamin B12 content in the beef jerky at the opposite end of the convenience store and still recognize the faint hint of bitter aftertaste in the coffee-strained eyes of the cashier. All at once they decided he required corrective lenses, as if there were such a thing as incorrect perspective. And if youve taken the time to listen to this much, hell admit this mid-life addiction to selective sharpness of sight. Hell admit to neglecting up, down, left, and right, but directly before him, through the glass lens, so extraordinarily cleartell me, hell challenge, tell me, why is it that we are blind to all but the extraordinary? There is beauty in blurriness, calligraphy concealed in sidewalk cracks.

Photo by Shira Kresch

In the barn it hits me. Like walking over the edge Of a cliff. I miss you. You didnt have to go. You could have stayed Here with me. Come back. I can still feel you. Youre inside the beams Youre part of the walls. But I cannot see you. It isnt the same. We still talk now And it is not enough. I need you Here. You sheltered me From the knife-edged cold. You made me feel Safe. Loved. You were the foundation I built a life on. That security is gone. Serenity crushed to dust. I knew it wouldnt last forever Nothing ever does. But I did not think it would end So soon.

Photo by Julia Kramer

Invention of Present
Sean Fitzpatrick
Nothing moves. It starts the moment before exhalation, with January air cold but warming in your lungs and you forget to breathe out. The Red Cedar is frozen and although you know the current keeps working underneath its ice, it is for that moment impossible to escape the conclusion that like your lungs the river, too, has simply stopped. It is at that moment that you can explain away wind's apparent status as a moving object because it is unchanging, its desiccant bluster far more a feature of your face than it could possibly be an environmental reaction to a gap in air pressures. Even the thrust of your thighs forward is not evidence of movement, for the slight whiplash of your slippery soles seems more than up to the task of undoing any forward momentum. You are stuck, you are where you are in mid-Michigan. But your thoughts are not depressed, for as surely as delight is absent so too is despair; instead you are accepting, that the world is not very concerned with you and that you are not very concerned with the world, either, and then you exhale and the world resumes turning and you take that acceptance with you, or you don't.

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The Great Canoe Race: An Underdog Tale

David Clauson
(A sunny day in September. At the Canoe Dock on the Red Cedar. DAVID and GRACE, dressed in matching white shirts, sweater vests, ties, khakis, and orange life vests are doing an approximation of the Sun Salutation, while some DUDES AND LADIES FROM LYMAN BRIGGS and BROS FROM JAMES MADISON, as well as the REFEREE of the canoe race look on. A projection in the background reads 33rd Annual Residential College Canoe Race PRIZE: Pride, Self-Esteem, and Shameless Bragging Rights.) DUDES AND LADIES FROM LYMAN BRIGGS Uhhhhhey guys. What residential college are you from? DAVID Were from the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. GRACE Its pretty hipster; youve probably never heard of it. BROS FROM JMC Actually, we havent. DUDES AND LADIES FROM LYMAN BRIGGS Well, good luck to youyoure going to need it! GRACE Aww yeah? Well show you! REFEREE All right, I want everybody to play fairno knockin anybody out of the boat, no nasty name-callin, no turnin the other persons boat around sos theyre facing the wrong way and especially ESPECIALLYdo not. I repeat, do NOT. Get river water on any of the other teams. I trust everybodys up to date on their vaccinations? (All nod.) REFEREE Splendid! Nowwait a second (To David and Grace) who the heck are you guys? DAVID Only the best canoers youve ever seen, gramps! GRACE Were from the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. REFEREE Thats a real college? Ive heard about you guys, but nobody from your college has ever showed up before. You know what a canoe is? GRACE The primary method of water transport in North America before the arrival of Europeans DAVID And before Westward expansion made environmentallydestructive steamboats and barges the hegemons of the American waterways. BOTH BOOM! (They high-five, chest-bump, then stand, arms folded, back-to-back. Real cool-like.) REFEREE Wellwhatever then. Everybody, get in your boats. First heat! (Projection changes to read First Heat! All get in their boats. David is in the back, while Grace is in the front. All of the racers share death glares la John Travolta in Grease, before that scene, you know which oneyou know what? Never mind.) REFEREE On your mark, get setGO! (They paddle furiously. David and Grace quickly fall behind. Suddenly, a WISE OLD HIPPIE WOMAN appears on the banks of the river.) WISE OLD HIPPIE WOMAN Brains in the back, brawn in the front! DAVID AND GRACE What? WISE OLD HIPPIE WOMAN You gotta put the man in the front, and the woman in back, cause shes got the brains! (David and Grace turn to each other.) DAVID AND GRACE Ohhhh

(But the realization is too late. The other teams have already turned back around and crossed the finish lineBros in first, Dudes and Ladies in second. The Wise Old Hippie Woman disappears and David and Grace sheepishly paddle back, then get out and switch places.) REFEREE The winner of the first heat is James Madison, followed by Lyman Briggs, and then the Residential College...and now, the SECOND HEAT! Everybody, on your mark, get setGO! (The projection changes to read Second Heat! Grace and David lurch ferociously towards the turnaround point like a starved goat might paddle a canoe towards a tin-can factory, somehow keeping pace with their cool competitors in sunglasses. At the turnaround point the Dudes and Ladies get caught in some brambles.) DUDES AND LADIES OF LYMAN BRIGGS Oh, no! Some brambles! (Grace, David, and the Bros turn around and make their way to the finish line. The Bros outstrip them handily. As Grace and David are halfway to the dock, who should appear from behind them butoh no! Horror of horrors! The Dudes and Ladies, trailing brambles behind them!) GRACE Oh, no! Theyre gaining on us! Paddle harder! (Suddenly, on the banks of the Red Cedar, a throng of RCAH GROUPIES appear, shouting and waving signs, copies of Moby-Dick, anti-Monsanto documentaries, big bolts of Bogolan and Appalachian dulcimers in the air in a near-orgiastic display of RCAH pride!) RCAH GROUPIES You can do it! We believe in you! Even if you lose, we wont hate you! (And so on and so forth.)

DAVID If they can believe in us GRACE Then we can believe in us, too! (They high-five, then turbo-charge to the finish line, barely nosing out the Dudes and Ladies, who reward our heroes with bitter glances and snarling lips.) REFEREE Well, defying all odds, the RCAH appears to have come in second place, just after James Madison College and narrowly defeating Lyman-Briggs! DAVID Grace! Grace!!! We did it Grace! GRACE Thanks to our friends, we got second place! DAVID AND GRACE THREE CHEERS FOR THE RCAH!!! (They celebrate. All onstage freeze. The projector changes to read: In the third heat, David and Grace, exhausted, would lose miserably to their formidable rivals. Then: Winning second place in the second heat of the Residential College canoe race remains their greatest achievement to this day, and probably will remain so until they die. THE END. Lights fade out on the triumphant tableau.) END OF PLAY

Photo courtesy of David Clauson

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