Crow Jonah Norlander, Author at X-R-A-Y

EULOGY by Dan Melling

November 22, 2021 · Creative Nonfiction

Derek came in sad-faced because Alastair’d died, said, Alastair’s dead, but I’ve not worked in seven months because the pub’s been closed, so I said, Who’s Alastair? Derek’s face got sadder, said Big Alastair, with the jewelry and I remembered him. He was a dickhead. I said, Oh yeah, and got Shelly over to talk to Derek, but Shelly wouldn’t care either. Alastair was a dickhead who always wore two watches and two thick gold chains and a ring on each finger and whistled when he wanted a pint and one time slapped a girl’s arse as she walked past. The girl was young. First-job-out-of-school young and she was shaking after he did it. Only a joke, hen, he’d said, a wee skelp. Alastair was the colour of kidney failure. He went from yellow to green to purple to a reddish-brown in the space of one face. I used to think he looked like a bloated corpse from the Battle of the Somme. I used to picture him, urea-pigmented, bulging out of the mud and sludge and shell craters. I’d close my eyes and see him leering at me from the middle panel of an Otto Dix triptych. But Derek was sad and because we couldn’t serve beer indoors he went out into the beer garden and because it was May and snowing he was one of only three people out there and he drank and shivered and mourned. Derek was working hard on the pints, going two at a time, and I brought him two out and said, Some fucking day, ay? and Derek said I ken he was a dickhead but I’ve kenned him since school. I said, He wasn’t that bad, and Derek said, Nah, he was, and I could see in the way he wrinkled his brow, he was wondering where the sadness was coming from. I thought I could see him trying not to recognise the answer. How desperately he didn’t want to know that death is everywhere and that it’s always chomping its way towards us. It was like he didn’t want to know that even if death worked fairly, even if it moved sequentially, working through linear generations, he’d be getting right towards the top of its list and because he’s poor and because of where he was born and who he’s worked for there’s no way to postpone it. So Derek stayed confused and he drank his pints two at a time and then added a whiskey to each order. He shivered and watched his breath dissipate and pulled his sleeves up over his hands so that only enough finger was showing to bet on the horses on his phone and he probably remembered what Alastair was like in school and how different the uniforms were then and how different the area was and he probably remembered them being teenagers and fucking lasses and fighting lads and when they worked on the trains and when the trains got privatised and then he probably remembered retirement and all of the time they’d spent in this pub and all of its landlords and all the hundreds of people who’d had my job and the pints and pints and pints and he watched the snow falling and instantly melting while he mourned a dickhead.

Crow Jonah Norlander

CLUTCHING by Melanie Maggard

November 21, 2021 · Fiction

Maybe you’re off the highway, cleaning out the deep fryer at a bowling alley in a college town in Virginia, the alleged state for lovers. You’re a boy in jeans and a Fresh Prince t-shirt, a short apron splattered with an eagle rising from a pool of blood. Townies and good ol’ boys order deep-fried chicken wings, burgers, nachos with canned cheese sauce the color of cantaloupes. They heehaw, drunk on Buds and Jim Beam, high on the split they just picked up in the last frame. You cringe with each dropped “g,” but we’re all dying, anyway. You’ve dropped into the gutter of loneliness, after dipping your toe in and realizing it feels just right. Here, now, things make sense, you’ve got orders and tasks. Your manager wants to crawl up your towering body and perch her fat ass on your shoulder like a crow, squawk in your ear while nibbling on crinkle fries. Sometimes while closing, you get lost in the cleaning and think: this could be it, all there is to life, every day an echo reeking of cooked meat and freezer burn. You’re in college, and they tell you the whole world is in front of you, places you will go, things you will see and do. But at 20, with maxed-out credit cards and a grand in engineering textbooks to buy, you keep hunting for the tracks of that dream. Your hands are burlap and chaps from bleach and scalding water. Your head explodes with formulas for lift and drag when all you want to see is space. Some days you sit on the tacky floor of the storage room, cry for the girlfriend studying literature six states away. You wonder if she’ll stay true, if you will. You finger the keys in your pocket and chew on how long it would take you to drive to her. She’s everything you need right now because she sees you as more than who you are today. She’s your best friend and you think of her alone in her apartment, crying while she spoons the pillow you slept on last summer. You breathe deeply and for a moment you smell White Rain strawberry shampoo. The bottom of this hole you’re in is round and smooth, but you devour it, you endure.

Crow Jonah Norlander

JONAHS AND THE WHALES by Avra Margariti

November 20, 2021 · Fiction

You tell me your father Jonah was eaten by a whale when you were a boy. Right before your eyes, you say. One moment you were fishing together in your old boat; the next, the beast breached, snatching your father between shadow-thin teeth as if he were bait. You had to row yourself back to shore. Your spindly arms took weeks to regain sensation. Your heart never did. Is there a Jonah here? the delivery person asks as they hand me a loaded speargun wrapped in brown paper. Your name is also Jonah. The junior who will soon outlive the senior. Or so I thought before your online order arrived, the anniversary approached. When you lie next to me in bed, you paddle like a dog in its sleep. You recite lines from Moby Dick, the Hebrew Bible. I’m grateful I hid the speargun and its harpoon in the garden among my sweet peas. When you hold my hand at night, you clutch it tight like a weapon. I won’t let the whale take you, you vow in the morning, but you won’t look me in the eye. It’s not me you see. Over breakfast you play whale song recordings, try to decipher your father’s secret Morse Code, tap-tap-tapping against wet stomach lining. Revenge, you say. You need to get revenge on the whale, rescue your father from its giant gut. It’s been twenty years, you tell me, the milky white of your eyes bloodshot fever-red. His matches must have long since burned to nothing, the minnow-diet shrinking his proud skeleton. His fishing vest a chilled rag, waterlogged. You need to kill the whale, slice its belly open; you need to get him out. While we stroll through the park, a volunteer asks if we’ll sign a petition to end whaling. You knock the clipboard out of their hands. When I watch the Star Trek movie about humpback whales brought back from extinction, you kick the TV in: tinfoil screen, fishing line wires. Women want me, cetaceans fear me, the hat you never part with boasts above the brim. We haven’t touched each other in months. I wake up in the middle of the night to find our bed empty but your side still warm. The speargun gone from my patch of sweet peas, trampled into muddy confetti. Cheery music emanates from the open laptop, a sea-blue aquarium ad playing on repeat. I drive through town, retracing your steps. The aquarium’s chain link fence has been cut open. Security guards sleep slumped one against the other, tranquilizer darts flashing like lures from the side of their necks. In the whale exhibit, the light is blue and oscillating. The ground rumbles with distant bellows. I spot you on the feeding platform, precariously balanced while the stunted orca below breaks the water’s surface. The beast regards you, sluggish, old. Your speargun falls limp in the water. It sinks fast. Impassive, the whale returns to the bottom of its clear-glass prison. You prostrate yourself across the platform. My arms, you cry, I can’t feel my arms. You dissolve into lament: My father, I can’t find my father. I know, I tell you, and think of the broken TV, and the trampled sweet peas, and the nine-year-old boy who had to row his guilt home.

Crow Jonah Norlander

THREE FLASH STORIES by Michael Haller

November 19, 2021 · Fiction

WORK

I answer a phone for the company. I sit behind a desk in a room and answer the telephone when it rings. When the telephone is not ringing I sit in my chair and wait for the phone to ring. When the phone rings I pick up the handset and listen to the voice on the other end, and when the voice is finished saying what it has to say I hang up and try not to think. Then the phone rings and I answer it.

My boss tells me I am doing a splendid job, but I think he is saying this to keep me from thinking that maybe I am not doing a splendid job and that I am, in fact, wasting the company’s money. But because the company has never shown signs of a money shortage, I do not believe it is possible to waste something that cannot be depleted. Therefore my boss is telling the truth. He is an honest man.

At 5:00 the phone stops ringing and it is time to go home. I do not know whether the company turns off the phone so no more calls can get through, or if the callers automatically stop calling every day at 5:00 and then resume calling at 8:00 the next morning.

At 5:00 I leave and go home to my house where there is a phone in the bedroom. This phone rings occasionally, no, seldom, when I am with it. When I do get a call, the voice on the other end often sounds familiar, but I cannot match the voice to a face or a person. I listen, though, and sometimes speak to the voice.

One day I made a tape recording of my voice and brought it to a nearby phone booth. I dialed my home, set the mouthpiece next to the tape recorder, rushed home, and answered my phone in time to hear my voice on the other end speaking to me. It was a limited conversation but one that I have cherished because I knew who was talking to me. I would like to meet this person from the phone booth, but because of time constraints we will be unable to get together.

THE TOURNAMENT

It was after the billiards tournament I had won. We were standing around the table talking; I was talking about the last shot I made. Hands recently removed from nearby pockets were grabbing my right one and shaking it in congratulations. One of the hands felt like a tongue. There were camera flashes and questions from a reporter. I had won. Then the men took me by the arms and laid me on the pool table, splayed like an X. Two pock-faced men unbuttoned my shirt. A heavyset man wearing tinted glasses took a penknife out of his pocket and stuck it into my chest just above the left nipple. While holding the knife in place with his right index finger, he removed a handkerchief from his pants with his left hand and blew his nose. He then made an incision in my chest that cut in a rising half arc to my right nipple, around and down to a spot midway between sternum and navel, then straight down to my beltline. He rolled back the flap of skin, in the same way one might open a tin of sardines. He sloshed his hands in the opening, then tugged on something that gave with a snap. It slipped out of his hands and made the sound a cow liver would make if it were dropped on the ground. Then they put the skin back in place, stitched me, picked up my fallen organ, and left. A minute later one of the men returned and read me a note: “In order to facilitate recuperation the patient must remain supine for seven days. If the patient attempts to ambulate before the seventh day, it is possible he or she will agitate the part of the body that is healing and tear loose the stitching.”

DOMESTIC

I live in the fear that someone will assassinate me. I will walk out of my house one morning to get my newspaper, and when I turn to wave to my next-door neighbor (who is also getting his paper) a gunman in a passing car will open fire with a machine gun. I will do a writhing death dance in my front yard, similar to the one Warren Beatty performed at the end of Bonnie & Clyde, blood spewing from my wounds like geysers.

I do not understand why anyone would want to assassinate me.

I am not a politician, and to remove any suspicion about my involvement in politics I have stopped voting. Nor am I a religious figure. I have closed the church’s doors to myself and have stopped thinking about God. Politicians and preachers are the usual targets of the assassin’s bullet, and by removing myself from the sphere of the hunted I think I will be safe.

Yet I wake at night and see shadows moving in the dark, hear feet shifting in the carpet...windows conspiring against me.

I will hire bodyguards to protect me at all times and I will wear a bulletproof suit. The protection will cost money but if it saves my life it will be worth it.

Crow Jonah Norlander

GOTTERDAMMERUNG by Howie Good

November 18, 2021 · Fiction

Welcome to the Age of Autonomous Machines, where the brown bears of Kamchatka are cold, ragged, and hungry, and under perpetual ban, and rivers brim with jizz and blood, and fish have the twisted mouths of stroke victims, where saints travel incognito on New York City subways and God speaks to them in a gravelly two-packs-a-day voice, where a peeling billboard declares it’s time to look ahead to the past, when the public gallows stood silhouetted at dusk against a sky of faded red plush.

Blinking like a sick mole against the harsh white light of the desert, the last of the angels steps out of his winged chariot onto the hot tarmac. Little girls in braids present him with bouquets. Jeers erupt somewhere among the hundreds of people solemnly watching the ceremonies from behind a security fence. The plainclothesmen mixing with the crowd pepper-spray everyone within range. On the tarmac, meanwhile, a military band strikes up a brassy tune that has long been a favorite of dictators around the world. Birds hum along.

I fall asleep to music, wake up to the barking of Soviet space dogs. We are apparently closer than I realized to the border of a bygone era. “Better call a repairman,” I whisper to my wife, who is standing on tiptoes, peering over my shoulder. By the time the repairman arrives, it is four in the afternoon and the sky has a long, black crack running down the middle. As he unpacks his tools, he volunteers that he has a titanium plate in his head. I nod numbly. Death, when it finally comes, will have his phlegmy eyes.

Crow Jonah Norlander

THE FLIGHT PATH by Megan Peck Shub

November 17, 2021 · Creative Nonfiction

The morning my friend passed away—not a euphemism here, for passing is just what she did, through her protracted process, a slow shifting from life to whatever it is that is not life—some engineers launched a rocket at the Cape.

I’d flown down from New York at 4 AM, but I arrived too close to the end for me to cut in, so I stayed at my parents’ house, waiting for the call.

That night, in someone’s backyard, my other friends and I, we stood there, conscious of our collective remaining behind. It was one of those suburban Florida backyards, one in a long, identical row, the ground half dirt/half Saint Augustine grass, primly fenced off from the neighbors. Some of us were drinking vodka, yes. I didn’t partake in the cigarettes because I’d quit, and I figured my friend—since she died of cancer, and here it feels better to say died—wouldn’t want me to smoke. It is not logical to do things for the dead, but we do them anyway, because what we’re doing is actually for ourselves, obviously.

That part of town sits in an airport flight path; when I think of it, I think of watching the bellies of low-flying aircraft, their landing gear reaching out like talons.

One of my friends looked up at the sky.

“She had the best seat in the house for the rocket launch,” this living friend said, her finger stuck toward the sky; some wet-eyed laughter all around the group. A nice thought, but I could not agree. The truth is that I didn’t think it was the truth.

Years ago, when I was 24, I worked at Newark airport with a middle-aged colleague who—unbeknownst to him, absorbed as he was in our rigmarole, in our planes, in the pallid mounting of his days—taught me a lot about pain. The context is gone, but one day he asked me, “Have you lost a friend yet?”

Yet. Yet. What a tag it was—yet. There are words that sound like their meaning. Crash. Bang. This felt like that. Yet: something brutal, inevitable.

I remembered his words, standing in that backyard, looking up at the roving dots, what I imagined were satellites, slung around and around and around our orbit by gravity. The memory played as if released by a needle sliding into a record’s wax groove. “Hit it,” I could hear my friend say, snapping her fingers. This part was imaginary, of course.

The next day I flew back to New York. Every time I leave Florida, I feel like it’s spitting me out, like I’m some kind of flayed pit, hurtling.

This was three years ago. I still hear her ringing laughter, clear as ever, perhaps even clearer than before she left—and here it feels most apt to say she left. I feel her shrugging, somewhere, maybe in my own shoulders, when, from time to time, I smoke a cigarette.

For Jessey

Crow Jonah Norlander

MICHAEL SEYMOUR BLAKE on film with Rebecca Gransden

November 16, 2021 · Interviews & Reviews

What film, or films, made the first deep impression on you?

Hi. I’m overwhelmed with the amount of responses I have to almost all of these questions. I’m terrible with stuff like dates and technical details etc. and I forget important chunks of information all the time, only to blurt things out weeks later during a conversation with an unrelated person who is probably in the middle of talking about their day. In other words, I will forget to mention movies that live in my heart. I will forget super critical moments. I’m gonna answer this stuff with whatever randomly popped in my head at the time, mostly sticking to my younger years. In no particular order. Random. Incomplete.

Here we go...

An early favorite was 1967’s The Jungle Book (Wolfgang Reitherman). Thing is, I was super young so all I have is the vague impression of how important it was to me. I loved Baloo and wanted to be his best friend.

Next is something I respected and deeply feared, and that is 1987’s The Gate (Tibor Takács). I almost didn’t include it here because it was only years later when I realized how much of an impact it had on me. I remember seeing it at my braver-than-I-was friend's house for the first time and thinking it was “sickkk!” but also having to close my eyes a lot. I lost a lot of sleep because of this thing. As a kid I often felt isolated and terrified, and The Gate played on my fears of being left alone without knowing who to trust. It was my first major exposure to horror movies, which still fascinate me to this day. Much love for The Gate. “YOU’VE BEEN BAAAAAAAAAAD!”

The NeverEnding Story (1984, Wolfgang Petersen) — This movie disturbed and fascinated me in a different way than The Gate. Where The Gate felt more domestic in its horror, The NeverEnding Story haunted me in a more cosmic, existential way. It wasn’t until I was a little older that I could watch and appreciate it without my heart racing and my stomach going sour. Gmork is still one of the most frightening creatures ever. I associate this movie with being at my grandma’s house because I think I was there the first time I saw it.

The Last Dragon (1985, Michael Schultz). This may have been the first martial arts movie I ever saw. They used to play it all the time on tv and I was enthralled. I probably watched this whole thing conservatively forty times as a kid. This is also one of the movies I just assume everyone has seen and I’m usually surprised to meet someone who hasn’t even at least heard of it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (1990, Steve Barron). At the time it felt super edgy and dangerous. Gritty. But somehow it didn’t feel like an “adult” movie. I viewed it as a “cool older kid” movie. I was 7 or 8.

Turtles leveled up my appreciation for cinema. To this day it fills me with joy when I watch it. My favorite turtle was Mikey, but my favorite scene — the scene that blew my mind — was when April O'Neil was writing and sketching in her diary. It lent a gravitas to the whole experience. I remember listening to her voice, her tone solemn and serious, and just being enraptured. I thought “This is the real stuff!” I wished so much I was one of those turtles. I wanted someone like April to care about me enough to put it in her diary.

But as much as I loved it, I didn’t quite think about it in an adult way. I took its existence for granted.

Then a few years later I saw Mel Gibson’s 1995 epic, Braveheart.

Braveheart is the first movie I had what I’d call an “adult love” for. I wore those VHS tapes (yes, it was long enough for two tapes) out. Couldn’t get enough of it — the gruff aesthetic, the epic battles, the just-over-my-head political intrigue. Stephen (David O'Hara) was my favorite character. I was so stressed that he was gonna die during my first watch. I remember thinking “He’s like me!” (meaning a real weirdo). I loved his introductory line delivery of “Stephen is my name!” I believe this is also the first time I saw the main character in a movie die. Not positive on that. The ending always made me intensely depressed. Sometimes I’d just stop it while he was in the cell so I could pretend he got away.

Unlike the movies I loved before it, I thought of Braveheart as an impressive film rather than just some awesome thing that existed. I didn’t have the vocabulary to express it (hell, I still kinda don’t), but I was very aware of the cinematography, the acting, the dialogue, the music, the choreography of the fights. It was a revelation. Still, I never lost that magic of living within the world on the screen. Corny as it sounds, I still watch movies with that wide-eyed sense of wonder.

I could keep going… but let’s pull back for now. A ton of other movies are popping in my head. Dances With Wolves was another huge one. Also a bunch of other Disney films.

Very often film is one of the ways we first come into contact with a world outside that of our direct experience. Which films introduced you to areas of life away from the familiar circumstances you grew up in?

How apropos! Dances With Wolves (1990, Kevin Costner). I did not plan this.

Dances With Wolves was the first movie that directly exposed me to a different way of life. I have no idea if it’s seen as problematic now or whatever, but back then it helped reinforce my interest in different cultures and peoples. It also filled me with deep sadness and anger. I wanted to be a part of that Sioux tribe. I wanted that strong community.

Few years ago in Arizona I met a young Navajo man, had to be in his late teens. I struck up a convo with him and he starts telling me about his favorite movie and then he goes, “The movie’s called Dances WIth Wolves, have you ever heard of it?”

What films first felt transgressive to you? Do you remember being secretive about any films you watched growing up?

Transgressive shit: Akira (1988, Katsuhiro Ôtomo). Saw this on a bootleg VHS (I think. Could have been legit) at a friend’s place when I was too young. I’m terrible with age shit, but I was between 11 and 13. I had no idea cartoons could do what Akira did. I didn’t understand much of what was going on, but the movie felt important. And it was.

Secretive shit: I thought hard about this one. I mean, Akira maybe had elements of “I shouldn’t be watching this,” but describing it as something I was “secretive” about feels inaccurate. I can’t think of any movie I felt secretive about. It ain’t really in my personality. I like to show people who I am and what I like and just really hope they don’t think I suck. I never got into overly sexual movies or anything like that to be embarrassed of. I dunno… can’t come up with much for you here.

Sort of related, I remember showing my mom and her then boyfriend a scene from Romero’s Day of the Dead because they were watching this show with mild violence and commenting how fucked up it was. I said, “You wanna see fucked up?”

After the scene was over (it involved zombies pulling someone apart in gory detail) they just stood there grimacing. Then my mom whispered, “You’re fucked up.”

I did feel slightly embarrassed once when I told someone how I wept during The Notebook.

Are there any films that define your formative years?

I googled “formative years” and it defined them as ages “0-8.” I will keep it strictly within those parameters. I also already mentioned a few formative years shit in the “deep impressions” section. There’s a ton of crossover in this entire interview. I could write in exhausting (and frankly, boring) detail about another bazillion movies here.

Moonwalker (1988, Jerry Kramer & Colin Chilvers) — Michael Jackson was a hero to me. In Moonwalker he turns into a rabbit, a car, a laser-blastin’ robot and a spaceship. I watched this so much. I’d bring it with me to people's houses and stuff. I remember wishing I could put a mask on and transform into an animal. I felt I was in danger all the time, and fantasizing about transforming into cool shit to either evade or fight would-be attackers made me feel temporarily powerful. I wanted to know the Michael Jackson in this film. I also wanted to be him. He was so caring, brave, strong… and THOSE MOVES!

The Land Before Time (1988, Don Bluth) — I’m drawn to ensemble casts. I’m drawn to epic journeys that build or reinforce relationships. Dinosaurs are cool. This movie had me exploring the woods in search of the Great Valley with a few real or imaginary pals. I felt like part of the tribe whenever I watched it.

Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) — I had a stuffed Gizmo that I took everywhere with me until I lost it (devastating). My friend and I would pretend we were gremlins, or we were taking care of gremlins. There’s a gremlin named Stripe in the first one and there’s one named Mohawk in the second, but we referred to both of them as one character we called “Spike.” I don’t know why. I’d always pretend “Spike” was actually a good guy through some strange plot twists when we played. I soooooo wished Gizmo was real. I wanted to be Billy because he had a cool secret pet, and that made him special.

My Girl (1991, Howard Zieff) — Being exceptionally afraid of death and having a hyper-aware sense of the fragility of human health at a young age made this movie hit me like a Louisville Slugger to the guts. It ain’t like I never saw death on screen before, it just never felt so close to home. It gave me a sickly feeling about being human/mortal. Most of my friends viewed Thomas’ demise as something sucky but ultimately distant from them. Not me. I’d look at people and think, “Any of us could die at any time.” It didn’t make me appreciate life more, I just felt unsafe and a little desperate. Also I had a mini-crush on Vada. Also I identified with Vada… so I kind of had a crush on myself.

The 1990 It miniseries felt like a movie so I’m including it here. Another ensemble cast with a focus on relationships. Saw both episodes at a friend’s house. And when I say “saw” I mean I watched maybe 45% of each episode. I tried to force myself to watch because I was really invested in the story. I just wasn’t brave enough. I kept hiding in other rooms or collecting myself outside. (Yeah, it was so terrifying to me that I chose to be alone outside rather than even hear a sound from that series.) It was around this time I became more consciously aware of how much horror impacted me in comparison to others. Like, no one else was running out of the house every ten minutes. The way It made each character see things others didn’t cut right to my damn soul.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is worth repeating. It was possibly the biggest movie of my “formative years.”

Some quick ones:

Disney movies (anything I could get my hands on). The Little Mermaid (1989), Bambi (1941), Dumbo (1941), etc. etc. Those films were there for me when my mother was deeply depressed and I was afraid and confused. Forever grateful for that.

Star Wars original trilogy (1977-1983, George Lucas). I was born into a Star Wars family (well, a few people on my mom’s side). Always took these films for granted, like they were a relative or something. Just part of my life from the start. It’s difficult to coherently explain what they meant to me because of this, but these were a major part of my formative years.

The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley) — although my appreciation definitely grew as I got older, it was still a big one.

The Secret of NIMH (1982, Don Bluth).

Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis).

Batman (1989, Tim Burton).

Home Alone (1990, Chris Columbus).

An American Tail (1986, Don Bluth).

Can you talk about the influence film has had on your writing or art?

I can't because nothing specifically comes to mind. I’m terrible at talking about art shit.

What directors, film movements, or particular actors have been an influence?

John Carpenter.

Akira Kurosawa.

Anthony Hopkins.

Toshiro Mifune.

Hayao Miyazaki.

Steven Spielberg.

Johnny Depp.

Jackie Chan.

Winona Ryder.

Ruth Gordon.

John Woo.

I could go on and on. Some of those don’t have as much influence now, but others still do. These are all fairly older picks.

Have you ever made a film? If so, has the process of doing that had an influence on your writing?

I made two very short, very ridiculous movies. It’s hard work, even if the project is just for fun. You need everyone on board and committed… and it’s hard getting people to stay committed when things get uncomfortable.

It’s had no discernible influence on my writing, but it reinforced something I already knew: judge people by their actions, not their words. You can tell me “I’m in!” but when things get uncomfortable, I’ll see where you’re truly at.

(I’m only using the actions/words thing in the context of creating art together. I’m sure there are exceptions).

Are there films you associate with a particular time in your life, or a specific writing or art project?

A ton of the movies I already mentioned fall into this category. I'll toss a few more in. Let’s get in and get out quickly and incompletely like a bad police investigation.

Jurassic Park (1993, Steven Spielberg). 10 years old. Coolest visuals I’d ever seen. I gave the dinosaurs dialogue (after the tenth time of watching with pure reverence). Pretending to be velociraptors with my friend Jer.

The Matrix (1999, Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski — at the time known as “The Wachowski brothers”). 16 years old? In a toxic, destructive relationship. Me at my most misfit. Knew zero about the movie and saw it on opening night. Partner had a panic attack during it. I adored it. Reminds me of a period where I was called a freak and regularly had shit thrown at me in school etc.

Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa). 12th grade. More purposely (as opposed to just random suggestions) exploring movies outside of my comfort zone. Being nervous about the future. Realizing just how many incredible films there were out in the world. Secretly feeling cool that I “discovered” Kurosawa’s movies even though 99.9% of my friends didn’t give a shit.

Dollars/Man With No Name trilogy (1964-1966, Sergio Leone). Just out of high school. Starting to delve into westerns (in part thanks to Mr. Kurosawa). Bought the box set based on a hunch that I'd enjoy it. Went to a houseparty right after purchasing and took the set inside with me. Frequently visited the set (left on a table in the living room) throughout the night with a sense of excitement. Watched with a like-minded weirdo pal, then pretended to be gunslingers at a few parties — hats, fake guns, cigars and all. People weren’t that amused. Went grocery shopping as gunslingers and staged western standoffs in the aisles. Really indulged in acting like a (harmless) moron during this time. To this day when I’m around other weirdos I get carried away.

Thinking about the places you’ve lived, are there any environments that are cinematic? Have you lived anywhere that has been regularly depicted onscreen? If so, has this had an influence on your perception of the place, or how you’ve depicted it in any of your writings or artworks?

Grew up on Long Island and frequently visited NYC before moving to it. So for sure. But oddly enough I don’t often think about film history when walking around and stuff. I might be too close to it or something. As far as cinematic environments go, I lived in a shitty tiny trailer for a while after my family was scammed and the house we were about to inherit from my grandma got ruined. So it was just some piece of shit trailer next to a destroyed house. Kind of cinematic.

Are there films you regularly return to, and do you know why?

I don’t often rewatch movies because there’s always something else I want to see. That said, Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is one I’ll revisit often. It’s my all-time favorite movie. I love the ensemble cast and siege narrative. I love how it feels loose and lived in. It’s an old friend of mine.

There’s a handful of others. Burton’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure rewards repeat viewings. It makes me think about watching it at my friend’s house and feeling warm and cozy and laughing our asses off (except for the Large Marge scene).

Do you have any lines of film dialogue you regularly use in your daily life?

Tons, but I don’t necessarily use them in witty ways. Like… I’ll just randomly say them. Here’s a handful:

“Good morning Mr. Breakfast!” — Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985, Tim Burton).

“I need your clothes, your boots and your [insert thing I am asking for].” — Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, James Cameron).

“My cat can eat a whole watermelon!” — Rubin & Ed (1991, Trent Harris).

“HEY! Fuck youuuuu.” — Session 9 (2001, Brad Anderson). I don’t particularly love this movie, but that line delivery is too great

“EVERYONNEEEE!” — Léon: The Professional (1994, Luc Besson).

“Who’s the baddest?” — The Last Dragon (1985, Michael Schultz).

“I just felt like running!” — Forrest Gump (1994, Robert Zemeckis).

“Heellooooooo!” — Mrs. Doubtfire (1993, Chris Columbus).

“FOR.EV.ER.” — The Sandlot (1993, David M. Evans).

Here’s a recent one (often yelled to someone from another room): “Mind the doors!” — Death Line (1972, Gary Sherman).

Are there individual scenes that stay with you?

There are a great number of scenes forever living in my mind. I’ll stick to older stuff:

The Brave Little Toaster (1987, Jerry Rees) — The junkyard scene. Cars are being killed while reminiscing about their lives. Fuckin’ brutal even now.

The Bodyguard (1992, Mick Jackson) — Seeing Costner jump out the window into the snow has always stuck with me. I remember it looking really gorgeous and badass. No clue if that scene plays out the way I have it in my mind. Also… hearing Whitney Houston curse! OMG!

Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman) — Library ghost. When I first saw that I think I inadvertently yelped. (This was also a formative years movie.)

Clash of the Titans (1981, Desmond Davis) — the battle with Medusa, Bubo the owl, the witches, the monsters, the stop-motion animation… everything. This whole movie is one giant scene in my head. (Another formative years movie.)

Bride of Boogedy (1987, Oz Scott) — Dad from the series (Richard Masur) floating around while possessed by Mr. Boogedy. This really frightened me. Any guardian figure who becomes possessed gets right to the core of me. Possibly some psychological shit going on here.

The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick) — bathroom scene. You know the one. Don’t make me describe it.

Pet Sematary (1989, Mary Lambert) — Zelda scene… you know the one. Don’t make me describe it.

A Better Tomorrow (1986, John Woo) — Mark pouring a drink over his ruined leg.

Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986, Brian Gibson) — Walked in my friend’s living room and I see this terrifying reverend asking to be let inside a house. I run away. Come back just in time to see the tequila worm scene which, combined with the out of context scene before it, was one of the most disturbing things I’d ever seen.

Troll 2 (1990, Claudio Fragasso) — I wake up in the middle of the night and turn on the tv. I see a kid transforming into a gooey plant thing and then being eaten. For a long time it was just some random clip that frightened me so badly I wouldn't eat for part of the following day. Back then it wasn’t easy to just look up movies. I think I even had to post on some forum a few years later to figure out what it was. One of my favorite movies. I introduced no less than 20 people to this.

Ugh… there’s so many. I have to make myself stop…

… The Omen “It’s all for you, Damien!” Suspiria mirror flash. The whole hospital segment of Hard Boiled.

Here’s one fairly recent watch for you: To Sleep with Anger (1990, Charles Burnett) — Hattie’s (Ethel Ayler) first appearance. That big explosion of bright white hair.

What films have roused a visceral reaction in you?

Shitloads. I’m a visceralass person.

The Blob (1988, Chuck Russell) — There’s something super vicious about the kills in this movie that make my palms sweat. The movie theater sequence still gets my fight/flight response going.

Home Alone (1990, Chris Columbus) — Still makes me grit my teeth. Specifically the nail in foot scene. NOOOOOOPPPEEEE.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper) — Especially the famous hammer bash and the meat hook hanging.

In the Mouth of Madness (1994, John Carpenter) — “Today’s mommy’s day!” First saw that scene in my friend’s dimly-lit bedroom and felt my soul trying to escape my body.

Saving Private Ryan (1998, Steven Spielberg) — The slow knifing scene turned my mouth and throat into an alien desert landscape.

Don’t Look Now (1973, Nicolas Roeg) — The ending sequence has to be one of the most memorable endings of all time. It’s shocking, weird, brutal, creepy, and beautiful.

Threads (1984, Mick Jackson) — Absolutely devastating.

Which of your writings or artworks would adapt most successfully to film?

No idea. How bout you tell me and we work on something together.

Can you give some film recommendations for those who have liked your writing and art?

I didn’t even mention Die Hard, Labyrinth, Beverly Hills Cop, Indiana Jones, Beetlejuice, RoboCop, The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc. etc. … so many huge gaps.

Here’s my recommendation for people who like my art:

Ratatoing (2007, Michelle Gabriel). Not to be confused with Ratatouille (2007, Brad Bird & Jan Pinkava).

Crow Jonah Norlander

THREE MICRO FICTION PIECES by Cressida Blake Roe

November 15, 2021 · Fiction

Apocalypse Needs a More Exciting Plural Form

Proposition One:

The plural form of apocalypse isn’t nuclear fallout, environmental degradation, contagions, Horseman, acts of God, or St John’s Revelations. Instead, it sounds more like a woman fleeing in broken counterpoint to the screech of subway brakes and takes the shape of a fist slamming through a wall two inches from a child’s head: finales too small for the tabloid headlines, too colossal for folding away between pages, out of sight.

***

The train didn’t stop in time. They said she didn’t mean to die. Her husband thought, in front-page letters three inches high, that she always seemed perfectly happy. He didn’t know her nightmares, when she drowned in sealed vessels feeling less afraid of the water’s weight than the sharps of the sky. The sky strikes down, opened hand/closed hand. Nobody asked how many times the hand struck before. The child dreams of his father’s eyes staring out from the hollows of gun barrels, and the bullets whiz toward him, too slow for mercy.

Proposition Two:

The plural form of apocalypse is a paradox, implying a multiplicity of ends to worlds that can only end once. Only so many parallel universes can exist. Discarded cataclysms shake hands, murmuring with low voices in the slush pile of the gods. They were not violent, heartrending, pyrotechnic, pretty enough to make the cut. Better luck next time. But only so many worlds demand obliteration.

***

The moon crawled out of the mountain just after midnight, and the first people who had awoken pointed up at the slanted horizon.

“What dread god had arisen?” we asked ourselves. “What power comes to glare down with its cold eye?”

No one has answers. We drown our faces in the pond to drink its milky excrescence and punish the river that shatters its shadow. We open our wrists and drain the blood so that the land runs red and silver, loving this newly minted god the way the rain loves the soil.

Proposition Three:

The plural form of apocalypse invites destruction déjà vu, wearing the mask of innovation: a banality of hatred opening the same chambers and igniting the old fires. Leviathans press at the surface and leer, flooding the womb and crunching the sun in their teeth. In these days that are ending, each forged beginning chokes its hold and calls this gasping silence gratitude.

***

We unhinged our jaws to their fullest extent so that we could devour those who had and those who fed themselves on those who had not. We filled up the gaps in what had burned. If the world insists on forgetting our bodies, shoring up structures of good that would not otherwise remain, then perhaps it will overlook the traces of blood left behind, the bone shards, the tears of children in empty schools and parking lots, the mothers who lost their mothers, those who were no longer able to breathe.

Spooky Action at a Distance

And for now we are, indeed, here: six hours from sunrise.

The wheels rattle on towards tomorrow, and arrival. Until then, we sit in the lamplight glare and reflect on the meaning of terror, white-masked and waiting just behind us, a little out of sight. Perhaps the railroad ties will contradict the past, rushing away in the dark. Once, I asked you for a cigarette, but the smoke, wreathing in new patterns, intercepted the message. Six hours from sunrise, but nothing ever changes. Once, you asked to feel my edges, torn and fibrous from too much handling by those less considerate, used into an illusion of comfort. Have I said how I hate the presumption of nostalgia, wielded by old women? You cannot respond, weeping iron tears that do not fall. Six hours from sunrise, and nothing will ever change. No, you say at last, understanding the futility of this rattling, toward a destination that neither hell nor heaven can declare. Curling memories lie damp all around, rotting with the slow ceremony of forgiveness. I wished I could touch you in return—you, who I address as though such a distinction could alter this journey. But my absent face cannot communicate these desires, and they slip between the lines of light, lost. Terror watches through broken eyes and considers. Outside, in the rattling dark, we are six hours from sunrise.

And for now, we are, indeed here.

A Brief Treatise on the Unreliability of Memory

You taught me to speak of myself in the third-person, as though life were a story that could be rewritten.¹ Anonymity lifts the weight of four letters branded across her breasts: SLUT, bullet syllable shot back and forth across her battlefield body and never reaching anywhere,² when the dismembered diagnosis of language bears no resemblance to the possibility of a cure.³ In the third-person, she wrote a poem.⁴ In the second-person, you write a letter.⁵ In the first-person, I am still trying to understand why hope feels like such an indefinable burden to carry.⁶

¹He seduces her, in one version. In another, tree roots no longer scar the ground & she suffocates on dreams

²deep in sleep’s ivory box, where her mother tongue suggests how lucky it was that he was such a good guy.

³Symptoms remain untreatable except by passing apologies in counterfeit coin, love honed on an edge pure enough to cut men away.

⁴The poem is a life that never ends. What sounds true only becomes a lie about somebody else

⁵addressed to a ghost that refuses to exist in a post-trauma reality. She never learned how not to ask for justification,

⁶sexless & obscure, taken from strangers with the same imperfect excuses.

Crow Jonah Norlander

YOU’RE INVITED TO MY MENOPAUSE BALL by Susan Hatters Friedman

November 14, 2021 · Fiction

The Debut Ball for Invisibility

The family of _____________ (enter name of menopausal woman here) __

request the honour of your company at the Menopause Ball, in honour of her 51st birthday, to celebrate the “next phase” of her life.

You attended her Debutante Ball when she was “coming out” to be pursued. Now, in Grandest Blue-Blood Tradition of the Magnificent Menopause Balls of yore—for the next rite of passage, she is “going back in.”

Help ___________ celebrate this glorious time in her life, when she no longer needs birth control, Tampax, or responses to cat-calls. Join us as we fondly bid farewell to her: endogenous estrogen production, waistline, vaginal moisture, memory, stable mood, body temperature control, restful nights, and hair (except for witchy black chin hairs).

Let’s bid adieu to her marriageable years and debut her ceremonial cloak to symbolise her invisibility! The invisibility cloak will render her invisible to men on the street, men at the grocery store when she needs something from a high shelf—and let’s face it—men in the bedroom. However, she will be valued for her wisdom… if anyone can figure out where exactly she is.

The Soirée will take place on: Friday the 13th at Five Thirty P.M. (Biological clocks are ticking!)

Location: Shangri-La Hotel Grand Ballroom

Attire: Formal. The guest of honour will wear a white gown (with no worries, the one positive!)

____________ will be presented by two gentlemen, as is traditional for debut. Her escorts will be her husband _______ and Fireman Nathan (a.k.a. Mr. July in the Firefighter calendar—in case she experiences any hot flashes during the event).

N.B. In order to best represent the climacteric, the ballroom’s thermostat will be going all over the place. If the guest-of-honour asks, “Is it hot in here,” please reply that it “must just be you” in the grandest party game tradition.

The choreographed Climacteric Dance Finale will go all night—to symbolize difficulty sleeping.

With Music Including: “Hot Hot Hot” by the Cure

“The Heat is On” by Glenn Frey

“Ice-Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice

“The Heat of the Moment” by Asia

“Hot Blooded” by Foreigner

and “Some Like it Hot” followed by “I’ve Seen Better Days (and the Bottom Drops Out)…” by Citizen King

All the crème de la crème will be there. The glamourous few presiding over the event, chosen by Le Distinguished Committee, will include those actresses in their 50s who can somehow still play women in their 30s: Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman, and Robin Wright.

With man-splaining speeches expected from ________________(the guy from work who shares tips for menopause from when his mom went through it).

Valet parking tickets will be validated by ______at the entrance. (Sometimes the guest of honour wishes she herself were a parking ticket.)

Gift bags upon departure will include fancy-fans, tweezers, vaginal jelly, hair dye, and eggshell calcium tablets (for the rest of your life).

R.S.V.P.:

M___________________________

___ happily accepts

___ will be there in spirit

___ will be there in spirit, and realises that they will probably never again notice the newly-invisible guest of honour

Crow Jonah Norlander

MICHAEL SEYMOUR INSOMNIAC by Michael Seymour Blake

November 13, 2021 · Comics

…

Crow Jonah Norlander

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