Photo by Tom Smith.
Although I went to school for writing, ran a literary magazine at my college, and graduated with a BFA and a collection of short stories under my belt, I have always been hesitant to call myself a “writer.” If I ever did mention that I write, it was along with many qualifications… “I’m an executive assistant, but also I like to write, in my spare time,” or, “I have a writing degree, I don’t know if I’d call myself a writer…” et cetera.
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My recent obsession with comic books may inconvenience my wallet, but has visually opened colorful, grandiloquent worlds for me. Already one of my favorite comic book publishers—Image Comics—recently released their collection of “Image Firsts” comics, reprints of popular and iconic comics for only $1 each. Among these is the first issue of my latest obsession: The Wicked + The Divine.
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Courtney Brooke
Editor’s Note: This column was cobbled together by several Luna Luna staffers. It is dedicated to pairing the zodiac with the arts, but don’t worry; this isn’t a final list. Watch out for this column again and again, as there are far too many other poets we love!
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Jesse Kalozsa
I want movies that will give me the same feeling of dread that I experience when faced with making basic life choices. The same dread I experience when the manicurist uses what looks like a filthy towel to wipe the exfoliating slop off my feet. The flushing of my face, dropping of my heart, and drying of my tongue when I get ready to teach a new class. Give me the creature from the swamp, but don’t force me to confront the hairstylist who has stridently shamed me for chopping my own bangs.
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via All These Years
My problem? I couldn’t find any female writers who wrote in this way. Even Cixous’s ultimate examples of écriture féminine writers were men: James Joyce and John Genet. I hadn’t discovered the postmodernist novelist Kathy Acker yet. I adored female poets like Plath and Sexton and Millay, but they seemed to assimilate into the male canon rather than defy it. But listening to Tori Amos’s 'Boys for Pele'—twenty years old as of January 22nd—felt like the purest expression of this mode I’ve been able to find. And it was a revelation.
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When I received "Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology" (Minor Arcana Press, 2015) in the mail, I was pretty excited. Anyone who knows me even a little knows I love anything Tarot-related, so Tarot poetry is basically my favorite thing in this world. I'm happy to say this anthology did not disappoint.
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If the Oscars looked in the mirror--and the Oscars really, really need to--the Oscars would see white men. Haven't they learned anything from last year's diversity gap (and that's putting it nicely)?
This year, the committee pulled the same nonsense.
While the racial breakdowns are SCARY problematic, here's a tiny, tiny glimpse into just how bad it is: Creed (written AND directed by a black man) and Straight Outta Compton (starring black actors) were recognized. But it was the white men in the mix that were nominated. The white men.
This is not a test.
It's hard to understand the bias against people of color and women that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has--considering all of the amazing art being made--but one thing is certain: they're not too concerned with changing it.
In 2015, the Academy welcomed 322 new members to counter its diversity problem (overwhelmingly made up white males over the age of 50; in 2013, it was 93% male.)
Are these new members making a dent?
The problem is with all of Hollywood and all of America; it's sexist. When it comes to women, the numbers are awful: 22% of the Academy are made up of women--women who are underpaid and undervalued (props to J-Law for speaking up). The Academy is blind to the fact that people of color need to be represented more (watch this excellent Hollywood Reporter roundtable with Amy Schumer, Gina Roridguez, Tracee Ellis-Ross, and more) and too propped up by its own systemic privilege to make change. So when you're looking at what happens on the outside (like the Oscars whitewash) it's a good indicator that the problem is from the inside.
When are we going to stop letting people in positions of power make the wrong decisions? We've got another #OscarsSoWhite situation. Keep speaking up.
Helmut Newton
When we discuss the War on Women, we’re generally talking about reproductive rights, victim blaming, slut shaming, and strange Swamp Creatures named Donald Trump who dismiss a woman’s personhood by asserting that she’s on her period.
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Sue Ford
Devin Kelly earned his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. His collaborative chapbook with Melissa Smyth, This Cup of Absence, is forthcoming from Anchor & Plume Press. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming inGigantic Sequins, Armchair/Shotgun, Post Road, RATTLE, The Millions, Appalachian Heritage, Midwestern Gothic, The Adirondack Review, and more, and his essay “Love Innings" was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He co-hosts the Dead Rabbits Reading Series in Manhattan, teaches Creative Writing and English classes to high schoolers in Queens, and lives in Harlem. You can find him on twitter @themoneyiowe.
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Rebecca Nison
Rebecca Nison is one of those people you want to hate a little bit, because she's just good at everything. Being a poet and a painter, while not completely unheard of, is pretty unusual if you're actually talented at both. And she is--she's proved it in her new book, If We'd Never Seen the Sea, which was published by Deadly Chaps Press at the end of 2015.
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I was fourteen and sheltered and different and stoned all the time. My parents had divorced a few years earlier and I lived on the edge of the naked cliff of Hippie Days and Punk Rock nights. I had a boombox. I took it with me when I went to hang with my friends at the Tomlinson Rec Center. Ziggy Stardust in spandex pants and blue eye shadow sang of Starmen and Moonchildren. I drank cans of Miller lights and smoked Marlboro 100’s with my eyes closed in bliss (also painted blue).
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cushmok Flickr
I'm interested in what works and what's engaging; I'm thinking about other media and drawing from them. I think this mindset influences my perception of ontology and aesthetics, they way I move through the world, what to pay attention to, what to absorb. I forget who said this, but they said that poets orbit all of the arts, and this was illuminating and affirming for me to hear. Maybe, though, I'm not exactly sure what this distinction means; I don't know what a poet or writer's "mentality" is or if it's any different. But being an artist is a lifelong pursuit, again, a way to make sense of the world, a lens. David Bohm talks about how art, science, and religion all evolved from the same impulse in humanity (and were once a unified entity), and I think there's something of this in the way that I approach my work and myself.
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via Simeon Mihov
As a kid, I was always conscious of David Bowie. Just like you're conscious of Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Back to the Future, or the Mona Lisa. He was something that always existed. He was the world, the moon, the glittering stars, and even the black holes.
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via Roger Ebert
David Bowie was born two days after me and thirty-nine years earlier.
When "The Next Day" was announced on David’s birthday back in 2013, I remember crying for an hour while listening to “Where Are We Now?” on loop, half under the covers in my bed in Brooklyn, memorizing the lyrics. I was in awe that he had returned to music, that he had kept it so secret.
I did the same when Blackstar was announced.
I’ve been waiting for the vinyl to arrive in the mail. It was supposed to arrive before the release date, before David Bowie’s 69th birthday. I was supposed to put it on the turntable and turn up the dial, lose myself in the joy of another unexpected album.
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Man Ray
The latest chapbook from Future Tense Books is Szilvia Molnar's Soft Split. I read "Soft Split" sitting in a wooden chair in the corner of my living room with my leg muscles tensed, my mouth watering. Written in first person, the book follows a nameless female protagonist as she escapes from her unfulfilling day-to-day into psychosexual dream states. This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most provocative stories I've read in a long time, so I was really excited to talk to Szilvia. We chatted over e-mail about desire, dreams, dirty books, and the truth.
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