Interviews & Reviews
STUFF YOUR FACE WITH SCOTT LAUDATI by Scott Laudati
A special offshoot of our Recommends series, where Scott Laudati enjoys the planet’s best foodstuffs and eateries.
The Title Fight: Frank Pepe’s VS. Sally’s. New Haven, CT
Once upon a time, back in the closed society that was 1990’s Staten Island, there was a wholesome order. Our fathers grew up in our houses before us and so we ate the same pizza on Friday nights they’d always eaten, because we were still Catholics then, and we didn’t consume meat on Fridays to honor Jesus’ sacrifice of his own flesh. You knew your local pizza guys by name, and if you’d done good in school they’d send you home with a ball of dough to play with, and when it was time for a birthday party you’d order ten pies from them, not the new place down the street with coupons, and you’d sign your tab with a handshake, because trust maintains loyalty, and that kind of thing was really important in those days. But sometimes you had basketball practice across town. And if another father was driving you home you’d stop at his favorite joint, which he’d swear was the best on earth, and you’d be introduced to something totally new. If you went northeast (where the Brooklyn escapees landed), you might end up with a Sicilian pie. If you went closer to Bayonne (Denino’s), no matter who you were with you got the garbage pie (this was an Island favorite). Each neighborhood had something they specialized in, from stromboli to rice balls. There was one constant no matter where you went, though: it was always good. It had to be. The law of the land demanded it.Our fathers were all cops, firefighters, or sanitation workers. Each morning and night they would leave their Alamos and venture to the alien worlds of the other boroughs. I didn’t understand them as separate entities back then, and they were as relevant to me as Nicaragua and Ohio. My dad, like the other dads, had gone to battle in New York City in the ’70s and ’80s, so there was no way they were bringing their families there for a day trip. But, like archeologists going out into the jungle, sometimes they’d return with artifacts. My father was stationed in Little Italy, and every now and then he’d come home with a Lombardi’s pie. Or Tommy The Tank down the street, his dad was up on 125th in East Harlem, and he’d bring home Patsy’s three days a week. So I was always curious about the pizza world beyond my own, because those ovens they used out there in the foreign lands of the City, they were already ancient by 1990, and they did something to a sheet of mozzarella and a thin crust of dough no modern ovens could. I wanted to find the best. And in a world before the internet, word of mouth was the only way to map a trail.Pizza is one of those things that can immediately bond two people that otherwise have nothing in common. More so than even a sports team, because you both know you’re part of the smallest fraternity on earth. I got invited to the birthday party of a painter my age who lived in the backroom of a third story art gallery above a Crown Fried Chicken on the worst block in Newark, NJ. We’d never met before. His girlfriend’s dad was smoking crack out the window and his cat had just stolen one of my cousin’s chicken wings and was growling at anyone who got close. The painter put on a Spumoni Gardens hat, which is like throwing up a gang sign to the right person, and then we teleported to the roof and geeked out about all the legendary slices we’d had over a pack of cigarettes. I had a BA in pizza but this dude was a Doctor. He knew where the basil came from that Di Fara’s used. He had the secret Spumoni Gardens recipe many had died for. And he said something I’d never heard before. He said, “The best pizza comes from New Haven.”
FRANK PEPE PIZZERIA NAPOLETANA New Haven, CTThe lists get longer every year, but the top spots never change. Frank Pepe’s is always first or second. Frank and his wife, Filomena, came to New Haven from Italy in 1920. They spent a few years walking around the Little Italy of Wooster Street selling tomato pies until they could afford a store. In 1925, history was made as Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana opened its doors. It’s hopped back and forth a few times between its current 163 Wooster Street location and the place next door (157 Wooster Street), but the same oven’s been used since 1925. And it’s a beauty. It’s a white tiled coal oven that stretches almost wall to wall, making it more than double what a New York oven could ever be. The original pies didn’t have cheese because there was no refrigeration, so you either got a tomato pie or tomato pie with anchovies. In the 1960s Frank Pepe secured his name in the history books when he invented the clam pie. When I was a kid this specialty was only found in a few restaurants, but now the clam pie is available everywhere, and exists in the cannon up there with pepperoni as one of the few acceptable toppings. The same guy’s been shucking the clams for 40 years. The turnover rate is small. Most of the staff shares the family name. SALLY’S APIZZA New Haven, CTSally’s is the other top spot and they jockey back and forth with Pepe’s. They’re only a few feet away from each other and I guess Sally’s main advantage is that on the one-way street you pass it first. The sign that greets you hanging above the front door immediately pulls you into the family-style tavern. Where Frank Pepe’s clean white pizza oven and kitchen make you feel like you’re going to your Grandparents’ house for a Sunday dinner, Sally’s reminds you of the local bar you’d stop at when you go back to your hometown. The walls are the wood panel of your childhood basement. The floor is a dull brown tile like your friend’s house whose parents still smoked inside. It’s almost as old as Frank Pepe’s but it doesn’t look classic. And it’s still lit by the same stained glass lampshades that hang above pool tables in midwest bars. You can’t ask for a better setting to melt the roof of your mouth and extinguish it with a fountain soda. No one who’s ever sat there has asked for more. There is no more.The Verdict
It would be stupid to declare a winner here. The two best pies on earth exist within half-a-block of each other. They have the same oblong oval shape. They have the same thin crust—well charred but not burnt. The interior of each restaurant feels like two sides of the same home. And the same family is behind both of them (sisters, daughters, and sons bleed through both family trees)! It’s like deciding between your favorite dog or your favorite band. I like Sally’s better, but only by the smallest margin in voting history. And it could just be the novelty. The first few times I went to New Haven, Sally’s had weird hours and it was never open, so I ate a lot of Frank Pepe’s, which blew everything else I’d ever eaten out of the water. But when I finally got ahold of a Sally’s tomato and cheese pie, I felt like I’d bitten into the main conductor of the Universe. It was almost spiritual, a realization that as men we didn't deserve something this good, and yet, whatever’s in charge still decided to give it to us. It was The Holy Grail. Now that you know you’re in good hands at either Pepe’s or Sally’s, I’ll give you some advice. Back when I started going to New Haven you could get a table and eat inside. If you attempt to do this now you will ruin the experience, because you’ll be waiting and starving for hours. Call ahead and order your pie at least an hour early. You’ll see the word APIZZA everywhere, it’s pronounced “ah-beetz,” but if like me, you feel stupid saying that, you can tell the nice lady on the phone you want a “Large tomato and cheese pie.” When you arrive you’ll see a line in front (this goes for both Sally’s and Pepe’s). These are the people waiting to dine inside and they’ll be there forever. Walk right past them (they’ll be mad), and enter. A kid will be sitting at a table. Tell him you want to pay cash. He’ll send you inside the restaurant and you’ll have a minute or two to look around, take a quick picture, marvel at that ancient wonder of a pizza oven, and then you’ll get your pizza. On the way out that kid who sent you in will have a bucket of plates, cutlery, and napkins. Give him a small tip, take what you need, and then head back out. There’s a great little park in-between Sally’s and Pepe’s with a bench you can sit and eat. Or, you can go one block north to Wooster Square Park, a beautiful brownstone-lined patch of grass no one is ever at and eat your pizza in peace, looking up between bites at some of the only original architecture left in a city that used to be known for its elegance and gentry. The real winner of the pizza wars is New Haven. My head still shakes every time I say that. Follow Scott’s international adventures, food-based and otherwise, on his YouTube channel. December 9, 2025
Fiction
XMAS STORIES FOR X-R-A-Y by Kevin Sampsell
These stories are from Kevin Sampsell's new zine, The 24 Days of Xmas.
New Smooth Santa
Christmas was approaching, but Santa had no beard. He’d shaved it off that summer after his dog, Carol, gave him fleas. He thought he would be able to grow it back by the holiday season, but his face was still smooth as a baby. He couldn’t understand it. Long white beards ran in the family, from his father, Nick Sr., to his uncle, Walt, and brother, Richard. Even his sister, Nicolette, had a glorious white beard, which she often braided with garlic to keep vampires away (as a child, she was traumatized by the 1922 film, Nosferatu). Santa looked in the bathroom mirror hopelessly, rubbing his sleek features. He had to resort to fake beards when greeting children at the mall. Some of the kids even tugged at the false hair rubber banded around his ears and looked disappointed. He’s not the real Santa, they would tell their parents. Santa would try to dispel the rumors by casually showing everyone his driver’s license. Deep down in his gut, though, he was warming up to life without the beard. He felt more youthful, lighter, and aerodynamic. He wondered if he could somehow “rebrand” his Santa Claus image. It would likely require a strategic marketing campaign. But he knew it probably wouldn’t work. Maybe the fake beard was the way to go. His new smooth look would make the rest of the year easier for him; he could finally be incognito. He liked the idea of a new image for Santas of the future. One that looked like a chubby Ryan Gosling. Honestly, it would give his confidence a little boost when applying for jobs in the spring.The Christmas Banana
The Christmas banana went to the staff party. There were mocktails and gingerbread cookies on a long table. People danced to music that was popular on the radio twenty years ago. They jerked their limbs, seizure-like, and squirmed joyfully on the floor. The DJ wore an elf’s hat that made him look like a child. The staff party started at 3:00 in the afternoon so people could still leave the office at 5:00. After 5:00, people were allowed to drink alcohol and do drugs. Some people took off their clothes and abused the photocopy machines. Christmas tree ornaments dangled inappropriately on body parts. Candy canes were licked, then discarded into filing cabinets.The Christmas banana was only a banana on this one day every year. It was the highlight of the year for him. Something about the snazzy shade of yellow and the way his skin peeled away from his body. It felt like his truest essence. In his prayers, he wished he could die this way. In his dreams, he was a banana everyday and forever. December 8, 2025
Fiction
LOOKING AT YOU, LUCIEN by Isabelle Yang
It's not fair that I get to be sick while my boyfriend gets to be healthy. Gets to live life horizontally—flat, always lying, perpetually still—bent in an angle like that of a slant. Like the longest side of a pudgy triangle, the hypotenuse, sinking slowly. Centimeters of neck crouching inwards—up and down—as he swipes his fickle dickle sucky whucky thumb—up and down—as he fries his brain—up and down. Tweet and twit and twat. Stick and root and rat. The kinds of sounds he watches, the kinds of sounds he makes from the other room. Our only room in our only bed that only stores his body. A body that is writhing without putting up fights. My boyfriend will die soon. I know it.“Lucien,” I say. “Lucien.” Always in that tone that swings between concern and entire holes of it.Sometimes, when I stare into his eyes, the nothingness is so nothing it becomes something. Something like ignition or excitement or shock from an unwarranted stab. It’s usually just a reflection of me in those black nothing pupils, and suddenly I remember how thin and sick and close to dying I am—dying in a different way than his eventual death. My death will be quick and pleasant because I would have lived a life full of suffering while he would have lived one of instant pleasure.My boyfriend’s name is Lucien. Or Luth-ien, because he has a lisp. My boyfriend says dating me is like having a full-time job. If he had a full-time job, he would know how inaccurate that is. His days involve watching acres and acres of green turf across screens. He watches games all day. Games that require consistency and power and stamina. Also ambition because how can my boyfriend forget ambition. Wowee wow wow. Wishy wish woosh. Sounds his willy whoopy body makes while mimicking a golfer’s swing, panting, getting tired, lying down again. I have a full-time job, so I can’t lie down. I can’t stretch time or take multiple showers or learn how to whistle. My days are dictated for me, albeit short days, days closed multiple times because no gallery is open all week. “Why are the walls so white?” he asks when he visits, scratching his face. It’s not fair that Lucien’s skin mimics porcelain while mine mimics concrete. Cracking in the middle of day, in broad daylight, for everyone to see. When I rush to the bathroom, I don’t wonder if any art will get touched or stolen or lit on fire at the cost of my absence. Every day is a secret wish to get fired, to kick-start my life in a new way. When I’m at the gallery, I can’t wait to go home to Lucien. And when I get home, I can’t wait to die.At home, I look at his face—his porcelain face—and find new ways to improve it. Lucien’s nose bends like a Bastard sword recently retired from battle, swooshing away at anything nearby. Sometimes, I panic in the middle of the night, because I think he’s stopped breathing, stopped swooshing. When I look at his face in the darkness, I don’t think it can improve any more, because his is the kind that will leather beautifully as he grows older. The kind that will get glances from twenty-five-year-olds ten years from now, and ten years after that, and ten years after that. Now, if he could only grow up. When my boyfriend hears these complaints, he says I should write about things I love instead. But I love to complain—it might be the only thing I love—so I, technically, am doing what he says. I make him so happy.“How can I make you happy,” he asks me again and again. Something my last boyfriend would say. So would the one before. I don’t know how I keep finding the same person again and again. They are all chunks of flesh from one body, regurgitated at different points in my life. Each one hoping to endure a little longer than the last. It’s a race to nowhere, especially if none of them qualify.Qualifying only for dates to dinners where everyone stares. Probably because Lucien is over six feet tall, and I hide perfectly in his shadows. In the cusps of his shoulders where no one can touch me. I grab his deltoids as if they’re soft grenades and wait until he asks to be seated. I feel the closest to God, like God, against his cashmere back.Cherry cheesecake, napoleon shake, small sirloin steak. A floating coke, a perfect sundae, a sticky toffee pudding. Cutie patootie, loopy canoopy, woffee toffee coffee, cherry berry cheesecake. My boyfriend and I don’t have these kinds of nicknames. He has a name. I say it the way you’re supposed to. “Stop.”“Stop what?” “Stop fidgeting. You’re making the table shake,” I say and point to his leg. “I have ADHD, iths not my fault that—”“It’s.”“What?” “It’s pronounced it’s. Is being dyslexic also a symptom of ADHD?” Sometimes I wonder if I create these fights so we can drone on in silence. Cruise through whole dinners, whole days, whole lives together like this. I used to think eternity was short until I met Lucien who makes everything feel long and useless and almost even redundant. Whenever I get overwhelmed with the feeling of spending forever with him, I imagine what would happen if he got in a car crash. Immediate relief gets immediately replaced with fear and regret and eventually remorse. The amount of remorse depends on when the crash happens. Tomorrow, I will still be young and gorgeous and can start over. Twenty years from now, I can’t say the same. Maybe Lucien is my lesson, my meditation in life. His mouth is often half-open, equally ready and not ready to stutter something life-changing, something that will completely slice my heart in half. “I just…I…” “Your words, Lucien,” I say. “Use your words.” A waiter watches us complete each other’s sentences. Lucien likes to collect commas, showing them off whenever he talks. “I, I find you, like, impossible,” he manages. True! I think, but I am trying to focus on things that won’t shatter my heart. A futile attempt when I can still feel the waiter’s presence hovering nearby, secretly taking Lucien’s side of the matter. “You don’t even know him,” I want to spit out to her. You don’t even know how I color-coordinate his life, how I spend hours rearranging shades of taupe and gray to match his complexion. How he’s everything because of me and nothing without. Outside, autumn is crinkling into layers of ice. I think of how it will take Lucien every inch of his brain to not want to slip. There is never a moment I don’t think about him. Phee hooo weee. Whooo whooo. Phee hooo weee. Whooo whooo. Practice makes perfect, and my boyfriend loves practicing his whistle. All of Tribeca and all of Manhattan and all of New York can hear him. The children on Crosby poke their heads out, trying to smell out the tune. My boyfriend waves at them like Elvis or Kennedy, and the children cheer back. Their toothed smiles will be engrained inside our memories forever, remembered as the time we saved lives. We pretend to be united, hand in hand, and continue to walk in leisure until my boyfriend grabs at the chance to sit down. If there is something he’s good at, it’s whistling for a cab.One or two or three hours later, my boyfriend is ready to go into bed. He can synchronize with nature like this in ways he can’t with himself. But reaching unconsciousness can sometimes be an entirely separate effort, so yes, sometimes even he needs help falling asleep. Won’t do so unless I sing him a lullaby. One abundant with rhymes and sounds that can be diced into cubes. And because this is my boyfriend, because I love him, I wedge between him and his pillows and begin singing, watching him drift, as he digs deeper and deeper into a dreamscape, as he finally rests in peace.
Lucien, Lucien, a love I invent,
Lucien, Lucien, wrapped in linen and light, tucked deep in cement,
Lucien who loves little white cries and custard-filled pies and whom I despise,
Last quickly like lust,
Persevere alone if you must,
Lucien, Lucien, a boy I deny,
Lucien, my Lucien,
I lie lie lie.
December 5, 2025
Fiction
EARTHBOUND by Uma Payne
No one ever found him. Worms turned his whole body into the nutrient shit that plants need to grow. The plastic that had shared space with his flesh stayed. It sat still or traveled elsewhere. Where he had long since become indiscernible, it remained itself. It was outside of natural time, being that nature had exiled. Plastic was what had been severed from life, transmuted into another phase of existence beyond the metabolic processes that meant living. The accreting mass of plastic was nature’s obliterative tendency beginning to outweigh its reproductive one. Nature was poisoned by its own urges. Asphyxiated under the weight of desire. Life fumbled the bag hugely when it incidentally or maybe inevitably made those configurations of organs wants and needs that it was totally unprepared for.
December 4, 2025
Interviews & Reviews
AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR A COGNITIVE EMPATHY BROADCAST: AN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL RIEDL FROM BLOOD INCANTATION by Chris Kelso
Music is the shorthand of emotion. There is something intrinsic to the structure of it - with its overtures, rising crescendos, and authentic cadences - which seem to mirror our temporal patterns so effectively. Ethnomusicologists have divided the empathic processes of listening to (and creating) music into two categories - low-level emotional contagion (the unconscious mimicry of nonverbal cues that leads to synchronised emotional states) and high-level affective empathy (the ability to share in the emotions of other). Often the former ‘low-level’ state is achieved through listening to catchy pop music, or music which feeds the brain’s natural desire to locate patterns and familiarity (which is primarily why simple, repetitive, and predictable musical structures are so effective in provoking this reaction). This low-level emotional contagion is considered a primitive response to music. It takes more to elicit the latter ‘high-level’ response. With the recent Blood Incantation album, Absolute Elsewhere, something has certainly resonated with a much wider audience. This is a metal album which has a thesis statement: to actively communicate high-level affective empathy to the listener. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how it is achieved, but there does seem to be something indisputably vital in the energy of this record. It’s an objectively brilliant piece of work, seminal, but people who don’t even like death metal are engaging with it, which suggests it has a unique prosocial resonance. Absolute Elsewhere is a new type of cognitive transmission, and the world seems ready and receptive to its frequency. I spoke to frontman, Paul Reidl about the album’s thesis. Chris Kelso - Was it your intention to extend the frequency of your satellite to reach more people, or has that just been a nice bonus?Paul Reidl - Greetings, Chris, and thanks for your interest. I believe that Absolute Elsewhere is indeed full of vitality; borne from a genuine love for life and brimming with as much artistic power as we could personally muster. We put everything - and I do mean absolutely everything - we had into its creation and were completely immersed in its production process, spending years of our lives working towards creating the most potent and succinct artifact that we were physically capable of at that time. One of the greatest motivating factors during that whole process was hope; not just hope for a better result or hope for a better music (specifically in Metal), but also all music & art beyond our niche, as well as hope for a better world. A world where the externally-imposed boundaries and limitations thrust upon artists and human emotions are a bit more absolved, and the human mind, our hearts as well as the universal consciousness at large are more free to roam the infinite worlds of both micro- and macro-cosmos, enjoying their myriad intersections, whether they be creative or interpersonal. CK – And you see Absolute Elsewhere as a tool to achieve this…PR – Why not? In my opinion, it is precisely this openness and resolute hopefulness felt throughout the album which resonates with so many people outside of the Death Metal scene, since art, music & hope are ultimately universal. Our intention for the album was to make something which moved the needle. It was not our goal to make a “good album”, which is a fine enough goal, of course - Absolute Elsewhere was always required to document an attempt to genuinely impact the human soul. Which, naturally, is a much wider playing field than the various schisms of Death Metal’s myriad sub-genres, or the clique-based “insider only” mentality of much Underground music. Of course, one cannot create something with such ambitions without incurring the rote accusations of pretension or bombast. But, BLOOD INCANTATION is merely an ongoing collective expression of four individuals’ evolving creative dreams, which does happen to utilize Death Metal as one critical vehicle (or tool) among the many in order to reach our sonic aspirations - but it is not the destination in and of itself.CK – Do you think it’s this willingness to blur genre and form that gives it a unique resonance? You’re breaking out of the ‘externally-imposed boundaries and limitations’ you mentioned earlier, and as a result you bring your listener to a new state of freedom.PR - Even at a cursory glance, our music has always been a bit outside of “just” Death Metal - whether this means long-form songs with so many clean guitars and dynamic shifts, our ambient records Timewave Zero and All Gates Open, or even the instrumental songs “Inner Paths (to Outer Space), “Luminescent Bridge” & “Meticulous Soul Devourment.” Add to this our pronounced eschewing of machismo’s stereotypical tough-guy-isms - which perhaps too much of Metal is predicated on - the repeated demystification of our human (and thus, flawed) personalities in the greater social perception, and a genuine willingness to interact with new people/outlets beyond what is considered “cool” or acceptable to many of the Underground’s most insular tropes, I think the average person coming to our music can simply detect this openness towards themselves, feeling unfettered by a need to impress or vet anyone. This is something I think contributes to the general sense of excitement around our band; specifically, the fans’ eagerness to share their appreciation of the music. While our music is first and foremost made for ourselves - meaning we seek the sounds we most want to hear, for our own enjoyment - we are also mirrors of others, and all persons willing to enter the Stargate are likewise welcomed and encouraged to listen as much as we ourselves want to enjoy the music.CK - Victor Hugo described music as an expression of ‘that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.’ I get the sense that you sincerely believe music to be a vital transmission device. In this epoch of ultranationalism, authoritarianism, populism, and xenophobia, how might music be harnessed as armament against the rise of neo-fascism?PR - Music is art, and art is inherently transgressive to the concepts you mention. Hence the freedom of art is so heavily stifled under authoritarianism, and why corporate art is so dehumanizingly bland and faceless. Meaningful art represents meaningful ideas, which are intangible and cannot be killed by force, trends or even time. Great (or even just new) ideas are dangerous to those in power because their origin in the “nothingness” of thought becoming manifest through the imperfect human vehicle has a natural tendency for grassroots expansion in the collective hearts & minds of the people. This is exactly where a better world will grow from, which the rich and powerful have understood since time immemorial. But truly, it is their arts which moves civilizations throughout history, bringing ages of enlightenment and progress into our reach - it is not political power, religion or nations which accomplishes this. Human consciousness grows and expands in order to reflect/adapt to compelling art, which reaches back through time and stretches far into the future in ways that even the greatest dictators could only dream of. Art - meaningful art - is considered dangerous to the status quo specifically because of its ability to transcend societal limitations of class since there is, ultimately, no war but class war throughout all ages. It has always been a select few against the many, the greedy against the impoverished, the powerful against the defenceless, and so on. That is where the blood which greases the wheels of history is always culled from: the people. I might be misanthropic, but I nonetheless will forever believe in humanity’s innate capacity for spiritual change, and that a better world is indeed possible, if only the common person can awaken to the light of their true nature - which is Oneness. Art can help people open their minds to the universal consciousness, and aide them in recognizing themselves in others, dissolving the alienating tribalism of Otherness: The “us vs. them” mentality (AKA the illusion of separateness) which is the root of all prejudice, paranoia and the majority of various -isms which plague both human consciousness and civilization. I also want to clarify that by my repeated utilization of the word “art” I am not referring to solely its applications through Death Metal, music in general, or even just the Fine Arts at large - I am referring to humanity’s inherent belief in the power of symbolism; to the aesthetic beauty behind mathematic proportions; to the intersections of science and the occult wherein all forms of quantum mechanics, theoretical physics, and millennia of esoteric philosophy are converging over the nexus of Mind itself; and yes, to vibrations’ and frequencies’ musical abilities in regards to healing, warfare & the manipulation or expansion of human consciousness. This greater mysticism, which surrounds and permeates every aspect of earthly life (and beyond), is precisely what I am most interested in when contemplating the purpose and concept of most art. In my experience, that ineffable feeling of witnessing truly powerful, transcendent art is very much present in one’s emotional experience of a truly astounding riff or profoundly remarkable atmosphere. Just one riff, a simple melody (regardless of genre), can change a person’s entire life - even impacting whole generations. This is exactly why the abhorrent and regressive ideologies you mention are so fearful of great art.CK- Do you believe all art is political?PR – No. My art is simply the result of the will to create. I do believe human politics are morbidly superficial, and that no political party anywhere actually believes in genuine peace on earth - it’s always “peace for me, but not for thee” in some form or another. Materialism will override spirituality in every political or economic scenario until humanity understands we are all connected and acknowledges the many other worlds around (and within) us. While I regret temporarily bogging your interview down with eco-transcendentalism, it is apparent that so long as humans continue to brutally enslave animals & subjugate the natural world for profit, we will continue to do so to each other. This is because speciesism is one of the first prejudices all infants are taught, regardless of culture: “This animal is OK to kill, this one is not”; In the same way, each culture eventually develops their own versions of “this human is OK to hate, this one is not”, and it spirals from there. Just as individuals are taught to perceive ourselves as utterly separate from other humans, we are likewise taught to believe in humanity as being completely removed from nature itself. Unfortunately, until humanity recognizes the universal consciousness present in all beings to varying degrees, there will never be peace on earth, no matter what political party or religion is in charge, nor how much money is being spent on whatever cause. While this might appear nihilistic, it actually reveals one of the simplest (yet most malignant) axioms underpinning much of earth’s suffering. However, since this thought current initially begs more questions than it provides answers, and we’re short on time, I’ll just say: It is understood that one cannot create peaceful energy in this world until they are able to truly cultivate it within themselves. Thus, I wish it were more understood that mass-industrialized violence against defenseless souls is not exactly benevolent behavior. CK - You seem to live the ‘art monster’ lifestyle, by which I mean you are totally devoted to your craft. Have you made a lot of sacrifices along the way to preserve this lifestyle? I’m a writer, but also a toddler-dad with a full-time teaching gig in a public school – the art monster way of life is a frequent fantasy, but not one that’s ever likely to materialise for me at this stage. That said, it must be incredibly freeing to set your own parameters.PR - For better or worse, I’ve always been motivated most by art and had difficulty participating in regular society. Even as a kid, I was more concerned by mysterious artifacts and compelling sonic atmospheres than I was any schoolwork or social obligations. I casually performed music in school in both band & orchestra, but when I was 15 I was finally exposed to the DIY world in the flesh; realizing that contemporary bands were printing their own shirts, dubbing their own tapes, pressing their own records, and booking their own tours, all the stuff like that - from that moment on, it’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do with my life. I'm extremely motivated by the archival continuum of ephemera and how we can both chronicle/collect things but also actively contribute to the context which shaped everything around various music or art scenes. As far as your question, I’ve sacrificed countless things meaningful to me: relationships, friendships, and family life, as well as practical things like reliable income and social safety nets, in order to follow my dreams of living for my music and dedicating my life completely to my art. I can’t recommend it to everyone, but for me, there was never any other option. Some of the best jobs I’ve ever had, I had to quit simply because they couldn’t afford to let me tour; Stable relationships which unintentionally held me back from manifesting another reality had to be let go, despite no fatal issues. I uprooted my entire life 15 years ago to move across the country to join a band I’d only known for a few tours, just to quit after 4 years in order to focus on my own ideas like BLOOD INCANTATION, SPECTRAL VOICE and more. This perpetual building/collapsing of various creative ecosystems has been one of the great, consistent struggles of my life, and at least ten years of it were truly wasted just partying and being a chaotic dickhead. I didn’t start taking things, or even playing guitar, truly seriously until I was at least 25, and it took another decade for things to truly get rolling.CK – It’s quite a commitment to devote yourself to art and to communicating this message of prosociality. I suppose the ultimate gift you can offer people is a similar experience for the people who engage with your art – a freedom to commit to one’s own calling. PR - While it’s definitely “freeing” to set my own parameters, I’ve also lived paycheck to paycheck since I was a teenager. In fact, only since the release of Absolute Elsewhere (6 months ago…) has been the first time I’ve ever been able to have any savings set aside, for which I’m incredibly grateful. Considering that my first bands were from 2002, and I’ve been working since 2005, touring since 2007 etc, I’ve more or less always been extremely broke. Even when I was working regular jobs, I was still touring with multiple bands several times per year - I’d work the latenight before the first drive of tour, and slam right back into the schedule the day after we got back, for years and years. I was juggling 2-3 jobs 6 days per week from 2011-2016, still practicing 3-5 nights per week with 2-3 bands in 2-3 different cities. It was honestly just too much, and I eventually did get burnt out, despite my bands’ continued growth. When I finally quit my last regular job (in late 2019, right after Hidden History…), I just figured if I’m going to be living paycheck to paycheck regardless, at least I can be doing so on my own terms, for my own ends. I took a touch of bitter solace from the fact that 60% of the country, however professional they might appear, also lives so precariously. In the meantime, I’ve continued to release experimental solo music, which is something I used to invest nearly all of my spare time in during the late 2000s/early 2010s, but had to step away from roughly 2014-2020, when SV/BI were really building up steam and required a lot of extracurricular focus. Since the bands have become more sustainable, I’ve been able to finally get back into those modes and just enjoy my own private creative process again. I believe the ranges I was able to explore in my solo work 2020-2023 really helped my mind and heart get into the wavelengths necessary to help create Absolute Elsewhere, which is so different and more expansive than our past albums. Coming up next is a double album of what I believe is my best solo material I’ve ever made, along with a split release with one of my most influential inspirations for my solo work, and I really can’t wait to share them with the world. Of course, the Stargate is always open in the rehearsal studio, and BI have much on the horizon, so there’s always more music on the way.CK - You are connected to so many different genres of music – from Black Metal, Speed Metal, Krautrock/Psychedelic, Technical/Progressive/Death Metal, Funeral Doom, to Ambient, and Experimental/World Music. Does this mirror or reveal an empathetic side of your character? You’re non-judgmental and open to all forms of auditory experience.PR - I just believe music, like all art, is ultimately infinite in its variable iterations. Speaking as a former record store employee, music genres are most beneficial for marketing/consumerism, ie. I need to know where to stock it, and you need to know where to find it. But they’re not genuinely real, in my opinion. But at the end of the day, I’m simply a guitar player with an affinity for strong atmospheres, so I’ve always prioritized that in whatever band I’m in. As a rather limited player, most of my early bands were much easier to play, guitar-wise; Black Metal, Funeral Doom, Drone/Sludge, Noise etc are less demanding than Technical or Progressive forms of extreme music. However, once I started getting a little better at guitar, these elements were finally able to be incorporated into my music, which happened around 2009 - coincidentally, when my first Death Metal band (TOTAL DARKNESS) sprung forth. One of the most fascinating things about the ancient underground of Metal and Punk is its swirling endlessness - you truly have never heard it all, no matter how deep you go. To that end, your greatest inspiration may be waiting just underneath the next tape you don’t turn over at a Goodwill or random record store in a small town somewhere on tour. As for Krautrock/Prog, this well is exponentially deeper, not least of which is due to the financial state of even the tiniest labels from the 1970s-80s: Vinyl was so much cheaper to produce back then, even a guaranteed “chart failure” of an experimental album could be pressed in 10,000 copies for less than half as many dollars - a small loan in business terms. This actually goes for many early Death and Black Metal releases as well; labels like Earache, Roadrunner, Combat and Metal Blade were pressing literally tens of thousands of copies of classic bands’ debut albums for pennies on the dollar, so, for instance, a first pressing of Altars of Madness is significantly less rare than people might perceive.But to your question, I’ve never really believed in puritanical genre conformity. Even as a youth, I was always enjoying Metal riffing in my Punk, Psychedelic elements in my Crust, Folk melodies in my Black Metal, Ambient textures in my Doom, and so on. Some of my favorite and most inspirational bands 20 years ago were groups like DYSTOPIA, CORRUPTED, TARANTULA HAWK, ULVER, diSEMBOWELMENT, SUBHUMANS etc, all of whom experimented with textures or soundscapes beyond the realm of their initial subgenre. I always read liner notes on records, which is where I first saw names like BRIAN ENO (thanked by diSEMBOWELMENT), SWANS (thanked by NAPALM DEATH), or DEAD CAN DANCE (thanked by MORBID ANGEL). So, it just seemed very natural to me that Metal and Non-Metal were fine to listen to at the same time. Also, and not for nothing, the average “Metal Only”/“Punk Only”-type personalities I seemed to meet growing up were always some of the least interesting people I knew… so I was very turned off by such attitudes and consequently gravitated more towards individuals who would share a wide range of new sounds with me, rather than chastise me for liking one style or another. In regard to BLOOD INCANTATION, we are of the opinion that there are still worthwhile combinations of new sounds yet to be heard, and we are actively searching.
December 3, 2025
Fiction
LET’S TALK ABOUT DESIRE by Dana Jean Rider
The woman in the window doesn’t know I’m watching her. Or, if she does, she’s fine with it, having assessed me as nonthreatening. I’m just the skinny white girl raking leaves outside her first-floor apartment patio. Hired-by-the-landlord equals vetted-as-safe. And she’s right, I don’t mean any harm—but it’s probably still weird how many times I’ve raked these particular leaves, which are now effectively mulch. She’s doing yoga in the middle of her living room. Not especially good at it, but she’s giving it her all, and when I rake really softly, I can hear her faint, vocal sighs of satisfaction as she sinks into each pose. The skin on her thighs ripples like waves. I imagine running my tongue over it. She rises into warrior. Her stomach is a smooth, lovely hill flowing into the elastic of her tight pink shorts—the same pair she wore when I first saw her weeks ago. She tucks long, dark braids behind her ears and extends her arms upward. A car alarm sounds, and I duck outside her potential line of sight. I do other chores. Scoop abandoned dog shit. Tag vehicles parked in the lot without permits. Wipe down the sweaty equipment in the shared gym. This is how I’ve been making ends meet since P left: My regular job at the stationery store doesn’t pay much, but caretaking—for another apartment complex my landlord owns—knocks a couple hundred off rent in exchange for about an hour of grounds cleaning twice a week. The complex is called SCENE, always in all caps, no “the.” SCENE is outside the city, in a first-ring suburb, surrounded by grassy boulevards and well-maintained public parks. After I first saw the yoga woman, I looked up prices at SCENE and immediately set aside any dreams of lifestyle equivalence. My apartment is about fifty minutes away by bus, just outside downtown, above a laundromat. This new life of mine smells pleasantly of detergent and dryer sheets. I practice slow-motion falling into my sheets like I’m in a TV commercial about soft fabric and soothing scents. When I don’t get it quite right, I try another take.
***
The stationery store is an image of satisfied vacancy. Blank pages of specialty paper pads, notebooks, envelopes, and planners stare down from the shelves. Down the middle of the room, a long table of pens organized into little glass cups. Full ink chambers and empty pages are a promise—someday, they will carry meaning. Behind the counter, font displays for monogramming and a locked glass case of fountain pens, a couple of which cost more than my rent. I hunch over the cash register, waiting to be asked about prices or cardstock weight or ink flow or line width. The owner of the store is named Connie. She is a tiny woman with hair so long it brushes the backs of her knees. On my first day of work, she told me she had hired me because I looked scholarly. Like a poet, she said, but the kind who still wrote on paper instead of on a computer screen. Microsoft Word isn’t poetic, she said, and my glasses-plus-turtleneck-plus-haughtiness look would be good for business. I asked her if she really thought I looked haughty. She said it was a compliment. Connie is obsessed with love letters. She carefully copies loving lines of famous authors onto expensive floral paper. When she finishes, she frames the pages and pins them to the walls. Right now, she’s working on transcribing a collection of letters between two Victorian poets who have very complicated ways of saying they’d like to touch each other. Behind my head at the register: “What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.”I fill orders of monogrammed stationery for all kinds of people. Businessmen prefer plain colors and typesets and pay with company cards. English lit majors prefer gilded edges and offer torn coupons from advertisements Connie places in the college newspaper. Connie looks at the empty store and says, Get ready, a group of customers just got off the train. Connie is also a psychic. Once, she suggested that she could offer me a reading in exchange for two hours’ pay and looked genuinely sad when I declined. I nod and straighten piles of journals. The rest of the shift is quiet.***
After P left me, I found a therapist named Belle. She has uncomfortably large eyes. Uncomfortable for me, I mean, as the object of her gaze. In my first session, she asked me why I wanted to try therapy and I told her that my boyfriend of many years had broken up with me. She asked why we broke up. I told her that we didn’t have sex anymore. She asked, was that really the reason, and I said, yes, we hadn’t had sex for months before he left. Her: How many months? Me: At least twelve. So, a year. Yes. What changed? I don’t know. Except. When we had fucked, he would get all misty-eyed and wholly consumed, and I would be thinking hard about anything else. I wanted to be into it like he was, but mostly I was impatient, as if I were waiting for a bus. For him, it came easily—he came easily. But my orgasm still feels unsolved and private. Also. Sometimes I get stressed when I have to eat a large sandwich. That’s not a euphemism for anything, exactly. An enormous, unwieldy sandwich with no obvious entry point for biting. I’m relieved when it’s over, without once accomplishing enjoyment during the eating process. Chewing as a structured, mechanical action—just: I have to clean up this mess. The only satisfaction comes from the task being complete. So, that’s how sex was, and why I stopped having it. I thought we had reached the perfect equilibrium. P did not. Belle didn’t have much to say about the sandwich. She said instead, Let’s talk about desire. I said okay, so we did. My task, she said, was to recognize desire when I saw it in others.***
A text arrives from my friend Amanda, who lives far away and is very into fitness. If I let her talk about herself, she will tell me about things like personal records and her favorite athleisure brands. Once every few months Amanda texts me to check in about my life and hers. We were friends in college, and every interaction since then has been perfunctory. I can see my last response in our text thread from a few months ago when P and I were still together. There, I’ve gushed about a new sofa we had recently purchased. I told her I had found a nice seafood restaurant that I went to alone because P was allergic to fish. In response, she said that she had recently run a charity 10K for drug addicts. I hadn’t replied. I draft a reply to her most recent text. I say as little as I can while still being honest: I work two jobs and live alone. My apartment is covered entirely in linoleum and it usually smells like dryer sheets. Recently, I have developed a fondness for canned fish. It is most of what I eat.***
I’m picking up a particularly large dog shit at SCENE when I see the yoga woman walking toward me. She’s wearing a velvety beige tracksuit that looks a size too small and a golden necklace that says Bianca. I look at the place where the brown skin of her midriff sticks out, then at her eyes, which are crinkly with a smile. She says that she’s glad she doesn’t have a dog. I nod and say, Me too. She frowns for a moment then recovers and says, See ya. I wave to her with the hand holding the poop bag. Damn it.***
Connie likes to interpret dreams. Specifically, my dreams. Specifically, as soon as I arrive at the store in the morning. Instead of “Good morning” or “Hello, employee,” she says, What did you dream about last night? Admittedly, I am the sort of person to consider all of those things fake. But with Connie, that certainty lets me revel, safely, in the idea that they might be real. I tell her that I dreamed about a hotel. Hotels, she exclaims, clasping her hands together as though she has been gifted something marvelous. Hotels are spaces of transition. You don’t arrive in them to stay forever—you stay briefly, then leave. Probably you never return. You stay in other hotels, but you never come back to this one, or that one. You’re in a room mimicking a home, but you are not home. There’s no food in the fridge except leftovers that you will inevitably throw out. There’s cable TV, which you don’t have at home. You’re a different person in this different place. Impermanent. But if I say anymore, I’ll have to charge you for a reading, ha ha. Just promise you’ll still be available on Saturdays after your grand change!***
In the dream, I’m in a room with two crisp, white beds. P is in the bathtub. He asks me to get him a disposable razor from the front desk, even though in reality he’s a near-entirely hairless man—one of the reasons I was attracted to him. When I go into the hallway to look for the lobby, I can’t find anything. The carpet goes on endless, impossible. The doors I pass open at random and I see people inside. They’re watching TV with gaping mouths. They’re crying and pulling their hair. They’re fucking in weird positions I suspect P had wanted to try. I eventually reach the end of the hallway, where ornate, imposing doors open at my touch. Inside, Bianca is executing a perfect king pigeon pose. She is naked, breasts facing the ceiling. I try to go inside the room. Then I wake up feeling unoriginal.***
I tell Belle about the desire I’ve seen in others. I see the glimmering eyes of customers who wish they were a different kind of person—maybe someone who writes letters by hand to send to estranged friends, or maybe just someone who spends hundreds of dollars on stationery. I see Connie’s desire to tell the future and maybe her desire to find her own love hidden in the letters of others. I see the stern desire of tenants at SCENE to not be like me, the girl working off rent money by collecting others’ various wastes. It’s interesting to me, Belle says, that most of the desires you observe are nonsexual in nature. Sometimes, I say, I see men’s desire for me or for other women. They make it very obvious. Does that ever frighten you? Only the normal amount, I think. Do you want to talk about fear? No, not really. I think I’m really getting somewhere with desire. And where do you see desire in yourself?***
Bianca isn’t doing yoga when I arrive at the regular time. The drapes to her apartment are partially closed, but I can see her absence in the living room. No yoga video, no downward-facing dog, no pink shorts. For the first time, I examine the room itself, nose pressed to the glass: expensive-looking furniture, a large, wall-mounted television, a stack of books on the end table that all have to do with personal improvement: diet, exercise, self-esteem, finances. Beyond the living room, a well-stocked kitchen with open cabinets that reveal a series of identical, clear plastic containers with various granolas and crackers. Even the hand soap has been decanted into a clear plastic dispenser. The apartment is organized, intentional. I think of my own linoleum box. My fresh-linen air and cans of fish. No books to be seen, because P took them all, but slanting piles of celebrity magazines encircle my unmade bed. I sweep leaves from around the mailboxes. SCENE trusts enough in its own gates and safety that they are just boxes, no locks—so I look. Of course I look! Bianca Williams, apartment 124. She has a subscription to a magazine full of high-end business attire. The models look nothing like her—in that they are all white and draped in stringy muscle—but also nothing like me. They have bulges and caverns in all the right places. They shoot lusty looks at the camera that has plastered them onto glossy pages. I ask myself about my own desire.I waste time checking parking permits, and soon Bianca comes home—drives up in a small, blue BMW and emerges with a friend in tow. They have an aura about them like they’re drunk. They smell like brunch. I hover nearby with my clipboard of license plate numbers and she doesn’t see me or doesn’t care. When they are inside, I hear overlapping voices and rising laughter. I chance a look through the window and see them sipping wine at her kitchen table. I leave them like that, vague, giggling outlines in the background of the room where Bianca does her yoga.***
Canned fish can range in price from ninety-nine-cent tuna—the kind from companies that have been accused of using dolphin meat—to pricey tins of swordfish or anchovy that can only be purchased at specialty stores. These expensive versions usually have an old-world, art nouveau design to them, muted colors and complex line art that evokes church architecture. It’s like I’m meant to think I’m royalty from a country that doesn’t exist anymore—an Eastern European countess feasting on caviar at teatime, instead of a thirty-something sitting on a rug she bought to hide some of the linoleum, eating canned fish she can’t quite afford with the tiny fork that she used to use to crush up pâté for her cat. The cat is dead now. “Tin fish” is a luxury good. I sink the fork into the pale fish flesh and try to connect to decadence.***
I tell Belle that I think I have found my desire and she nods in encouragement. I tell her about Bianca and she asks how we met. I tell her, she talked to me about dog poop. And? No, that’s all, except I see her doing yoga through her window. Belle is quiet for a long time. Her face goes taut around the mouth. She explains to me why it is inappropriate to watch someone through their window. No, no, I know. I know that. So why did you do it? My turn for silence. If you are going to put desire into practice, it must be able to be reciprocated. You can’t just watch someone through a window.No, no, I know. Belle, frowning now: This is a good moment to practice empathy. How do you think she would feel if she knew you were watching her? I try to consider this, but as I’m forming an answer Belle continues speaking, so I guess the question is rhetorical. Is this the first time you’ve had feelings for a woman? Yes. Or, no. I had friendships when I was younger where I thought I felt differently than the friends. But it wasn’t a distinct, oh-please-let’s-touch thing. Just an ache in the back of my throat that only appeared on occasion. And anyway, how do you tell the difference between loving how someone exists and loving them? Are you trying to find the difference between love and envy? I would say, picture yourself with them, then picture yourself as them, and see which is better. We talk a little more about Bianca, but nothing very helpful. I stop seeing Belle after this session.***
When I finally let Connie do a reading in exchange for half of my Friday wages, she has this to say: I’m getting the sense that you place a great deal of value on being liked. Which is good, as a sales associate! But maybe bad for a regular person. You will have people who like you in the longer term, but you’ve entered a dry spell of camaraderie right now. You are on your way to other things—interesting how this lines up with your hotel dreams! Think of this time as your space of transition—not this job of course, which you’ve told me you’ll be at for a long time. While you wait for a change, find a practice ground for feeling the connection you seek. Yes, we all need practice, not in feeling our feelings, but in making them known and meaningful for others. It is good that your biggest hurdle is figuring out what you want—what an interesting phrase, to “figure out.” I’ve done other readings where the biggest hurdle is avoiding a looming and painful death. So, you probably won’t die! But if you start to feel sick, tell me and we can try again. Listen, have you ever tried yoga? It may help with any number of your problems and paths and potentials. You will soon come into a small amount of wealth—not money, necessarily. You will have a slight headache for the next three Thursdays. Oh, and you’ll make a big sale this afternoon! Custom “from the desk of” stationery order.***
For a while I stop showing up to my job at SCENE and no one notices. Eventually my landlord calls, I assume to fire me, but actually he just tells me there’s a dead raccoon near the SCENE dumpster that he’d like me to deal with. I mostly go because I’ve run out of things to do at home besides paging through the magazine I took from Bianca’s mailbox. I tried television and scrolling the internet and I even found a yoga video online. I made it about five minutes before the instructor said to lay down on the floor, then I watched the rest of the class from that position. I tried a yoga class once, years ago. I went with Amanda, my fitness friend, when she still lived in town. The class was more advanced than I was ready for. I tried for an hour to keep up with a room full of sweaty investment bankers and political advisors in colorful polyester. The instructor, in an apparent effort of pity, lurked near me to push in my spine or straighten my knees as necessary. When we left the class, Amanda said, Wasn’t that fun? My problem is that I’ve only ever known for certain what I don’t want. I don’t want to do yoga or have my fortune told. I don’t care about stationery or athletic clothing. I don’t need a therapist to tell me what I should be doing. I don’t want to have sex. But I do want.***
The next time I see Bianca, she is naked with the curtain pulled nearly shut. She pulls her heel up against her thigh into tree pose and sighs. Her breasts and stomach hang heavy toward the floor. No line on her body runs straight, all flowing, like waves or poetic shifts in a love letter. Oh, how I love thee, let me count the ways—let me count your limbs, each mark and crevice, every hair on your head and body. She radiates light. She outshines the blinding midday sun. I’m aware of the rake in my hand and the mulched leaves at my feet. Looking at her, I see myself.When she has finished being a tree, she hangs loose in a forward fold. When she rises, our eyes meet and hers go wide. December 1, 2025
by Mike Topp
$25 | Perfect bound | 72 pages
Paperback | Die-cut matte cover | 7×7″
Mike Topp’s poems defy categorization. That’s why they are beloved by seamstresses, pathologists, blackmailers and art collectors.
–Sparrow
