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Et Cetera 1
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Volume 1, Issue 1
et Cetera: the zine of everything and nothing
October 1994
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WHAT THERE IS IN THIS ISSUE
---------------------------
THE DIRTY FOGGY WINDOW
Saddam Hussein
The Nobel Prize
etc.
INTROSPECTIVE-EXTROSPECTIVE?
Math Anxiety...................................Brett Allen Holloway-Reeves
whose bruised metropolis.......................................Jason Fried
PHENYLKRTONURICS.......................................Christopher Hepburn
Another night................................................William Shard
The Party.....................................................David Bolduc
Pilgrim........................................................Thomas Bell
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et Cetera is exactly what it says.. "and other things" if i'm not mistaken.
it will conduct interviews on random topics (we'll try to cover EVERYTHING at
least once!) have alot of feedback and have some creative writing in the
second section of the zine with little nibblets about the artists... it's fun
and serious, mundane and inspired, pointless and focused.. all in one. we'll
do everything about nothing and nothing about everything. it is published and
distributed electronically as often as i can (which may not be very often).
Copyright 1994 by Steve Lee. All works are Copyright 1994 of their respective
authors. et Cetera may be downloaded and distributed free of charge for non-
profit use as long as it is cited. All authors hold presumptive copyrights to
their works and should be contacted before their works are reproduced
separately. The views presented here are (probably) not the views of the
editor. It is available via ftp at etext.archive.umich.edu and gopher at
ftp.etext.org.
It is the responsibility of the contributors to make sure they are not
infringing on some other copyright. In other words, if there is some illegal
reproduction here - it's not my fault!
Submissions should be sent to lees@andrews.edu.
send everything.... poems on post-modernity
essays on the soul of social consciousness
stories about your pet piglet..
NOW BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING...
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EDITOR'S NOTES
(mindless ramblings to follow)
this is, of course, the debut issue of et Cetera - something i've been
meaning to do for a long time but have never gotten around to it because of
phenomenal sloth and the simple lack of work to publish. it's truly amazing to
me how unbelievably hard it is to coax people into submitting their work.
perhaps it is the format - so you won't really see yourself in print (although,
i'm planning on a print version soon) - this is by far, the most accessible
form for the work to take on. so get it out. it's doing no good sitting in
your scrapbook.
i did get a few brave souls to submit and i thank them wholeheartedly.
the best works are what you see in this first issue. also, i asked alot of
people to answer some very bizzare, disjointed questions and i'd like to thank
the ones who answered them first and THEN laughed at me.
a bit about myself. i just graduated with a BS in zoology (i should've
majored in english, too, but a double major was looking more and more
unattractive the longer i stayed in college) and i'm working in a thrombolysis
lab trying to find a better treatment for broken hearts before i go to a MSTP
next year. i'm wondering what i'm doing in the real world and i've decided i'm
going to stay in school for the rest of my life after this year.
why am i doing this? (caring thoughtful responses below)
"Why the hell are you doing this? Are you that bored?" - Julian Nam
"He has nothing else to do, he is Oklahoma for God's sake." - Brett Reece
"Steve is lonely, eccentric, and losing his mind." - Lori Georgeson
"Steve is up to something. Steve is curious. Steve is too weird so why
try to even think about getting inside his head." - Youlee Kim
"He's extremely board" - Marvin Puymon
they're all right (especially Brett) except for Marvin - i have no idea what he
was thinking about when he wrote his response. the fact of the matter is that
i'm living in oklahoma for one year and i have no reason not to do it. not to
say that oklahoma is the armpit state of the union (new jersey deserves that
honor), it's more like the sole-of-your-feet state of the union. everyone
steps on it for no better reason than that it's there. in support of oklahoma,
there are few other places where you can hear an "alternative" country station
interfering with a classic country station and enjoy that raw, unadulterated
angst.
well, enjoy this first issue. if you're reading this, i'd like to know
just how many people are seeing this (so i know what degree of embarassment i
should be experiencing) so drop me a line at the above address just to let me
know that you've looked at it. any comments, submissions, and volunteers for
interviews are welcome. enjoy!
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
THE DIRTY FOGGY WINDOW
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
I know that this is the babble that I'm supposed to put in the editorial,
but since this is the first issue and the stuff above is windy anyway, I
thought I would split it up into two sections and give the illusion of brevity
and substance. Also, hopefully, I will con someone into doing some of this for
me (someone else with alot of time and little direction in life can help me
with a postscript version of this, too).
Just last friday, the Nobel Prize Committee announced the winners of the
1994 Noble Prize. Ironically, the Noble Peace Prize goes to Arafat. After
hearing this, my mind has only one response, "huh?" I would've given it to
Mandela but, he's already got one. Give it to the American hick before Arafat
though. What I don't understand is how does a man who was a self-proclaimed
terrorist, mass murderer, amoral, subhuman butcher for the vast majority of his
public life come away with the Nobel Peace Prize for acting like a normal human
being? Sure Carter broke some policy during negotiations but... anyway, to
cut to the chase, I have the official defense of the committee right here for
your inspection:
"Oh, I thought he was getting a prize for best dressed in the middle east."
-BR (lame excuse for a bad choice)
"I used to think it was hard to get the Nobel Peace Prize, but it looks like
any fool can get it now. Hell, even you may get it Steve!"
-DK (his dissent of the decision)
"It just seemed like the natural sort of thing for the estate of a major
dynamite manufacturer to do. After all, he's been one of our best customers
over the years." -JM (truth)
"Apparently the Nobel Prize committee (we) has recently begun "a most peaceful
terrorist" prize. The committee's PR people have been pretty slow getting
this information out to the rest of the world."
-AE (I knew there was an explanation for this)
I just happened to notice that our friend Saddam Hussein was camping on the
fence again. Why? The opinion of our Middle East expert, LG.
"Saddam Hussein is an attention-starved idiot who can't believe that some other
person could be in the news more than he is."
Obviously, Hussein believes HE should've won the Noble Peace Prize. But what
does he hope to accomplish?
"He's stupid" -EA
Now that we got that cleared up, let's go on to the Noble Prize for Medicine.
This went to Gilman and for their work on G proteins. So I went back to
the committee and asked them what G proteins were.
"G protein is the new potion that you can take to attract "G"irls."
-JN (obviously been sitting on the committee too long)
"I think it's involved with GTP or something like that."
-PR (hmm.. this is what you get when you ask a senior premed
to sit on the committee)
"what the heck is a G protein? Do I need to know this for interviews?"
-BR (same comment as above)
"I think it has something to do w/ signal transduction."
-MN (ahhh, yes... and this from a mathematician!)
Which brings us to my mutual fund which has for some odd reason been quickly
disintegrating into a black hole of financial oblivion. This is the
conversation I had with my financial consultant a few days ago.
"Hello, this is Harry Pitts." <--name changed for privacy
"Hello, Mr. Pitts, this is Steve Lee." <--this is me talking
"Oh, hi Steve, how are you?"
"Fine, but why isn't my mutual fund?"
"Well, uh, hmmm.. Well, Steve, the reason is that.. blah blah blah... and
that the global market..etc etc etc... and trade agreements...blah blah...and
Japan...a downward trend...fourth quarter returns...predict...rise...global
economy... Now do you understand?"
"Uh, yes, of course! Thank you." <--this is me lying my head off because
I didn't understand a word he said.
So I've decided to ask some of my friends why this is happening to me?
"Because you have the wrong mutual fund."
-Marvin Puymon
Obviously this is what happens when you ask a physicist about money. So I
asked Brett Reece for a translation of the above translation.
"Well, the market has had a tough time of things lately. Your mutual fund is
not diverse enough to fight off the general trends of the market as a whole.
There are several mathematical models to prove this...."
Ok, that's where he lost me. If anyone has a real reaon, email me at the
address given above. Ok, now to the Heart of the matter.
*******************************************************************************
INTROSPECTIVE-EXTROSPECTIVE?
*******************************************************************************
Brett Allen Holloway-Reeves
MATH ANXIETY
------------
We fit the world in equation.
Shoring it up with subscript and superscript,
We bounce down the narrow channel of the equal sign.
Who will admit they're turned around, twisted knee to nose;
flipped out by a 3;
cut short with 5;
laid back on a 6?
This ain't the move we thought it was.
Someone somewhere made us learn the number sentence.
The empty parts we marked with letters,
And there were numbers for the letters.
But now the numbers trip us too.
The slippery space between the variable *a* and its power of 4
Scares us so much more than the vampire/gargoyle/werewolf,
All-too-human demon of the horror matinee.
Could *a* = *a*, or *A* , or maybe 0?
The sun burns 93 million miles away, but it's drowning today in
the clouds.
The dark not-known holds us off.
Knocks back our giddy desires.
But could it be
These figures point to a magic in matter itself?
A drive that won't allow a simple device, but demands participation;
that gives the static its will to stay;
that launches abstraction's loop into the void;
which is tingling with delight.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jason Fried
Whose bruised metropolis
------------------------
paralyzed buildings perforate the smog
their peaks bleed from our waste
their bodies asphyxiate in the breeze
their limbs drip with venomous dust
- the green daydreams inside are critical
to keep them alive
potholed city streets imagine maps
and their symbolic immunity
wishing, for once, they could be
an imitation, an apparition, a generic replica
of themselves
stagnant air floats among the stories
- an attitude without sanity
high enough for the buildings
low enough for the natives
obviously shared by everyone who exists -
all too indisputable to offset
when wealth is the fulcrum
sufferers are apparent amid the chaos
the coughing
the wheezing
the gasping
the death
of the children give it away
there appears to not be enough intelligence
to go around
instead, it is goes down
deep into the earth
to exhume what is deliberately too deep to abuse
just a few miles removed
beyond the diseased structures
the decaying avenues
the dying air
lies the countryside
- the fairy tale environment
with a fatal ending all too common
in our uranium century
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Christopher Hepburn
PHENYLKRTONURICS
----------------
throwing acorns at the stars of bad mini
series who couldn't make it in the movies bring
on the dancing gorillas in their tutu's too short
in bad need of a wax or a shave and or any process
of hair depilatory nature didn't evolve them into
wearing calvin klein bikini brief style underwear
just a hairy butt is all you need in the wild but
tarzan needed jane like gretzky needs the ice or
the stanley cup of coffe misspelled because I don't
like the way it was spelled in the first place and I've got
my whistler 17 x,y and k band cop detector strapped to my
dash board just in case someone tries to pull me over
and revoke my poetic license yes I did get it off a
cereal box when I was 7 and a half Cap'n Crunch
said to me you should write poetry or bad song
lyrics whichever you prefer I chose poetry.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was my first sort of foray into prose poetry. I wrote it while in Joyce
Peserofs poetry workshop at Emerson College in Boston almost a year ago.
This is also the first poem I have turned into a video poem.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
William Shard
Another Night
-------------
another night when children die
the death of men, living as beasts
carved upon hidden walls
with painted faces and lost
hopes of immortal bliss
innocent joy is no longer
the cup placed between their
cracked lips thirsting
in vain for love that never
comes to here or there.
and everywhere the fading cries
of perpetual pain of loss
of things that never were
or can be. alone. a life
stagnant attrition from truth
purity lost, reality
oppressive and sure
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is something I wrote after driving through Chicago's south side.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David Bolduc
The Party
---------
Angela's discretion failed,
not when she made out in the living room closet
with the married Italian Brooklyn fireman,
but when she opened the door
and smiled demurely at 27 people
-- her dress on backwards.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"The Party." -- Memories of a roommate in New York now already a decade ago.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thomas Bell
Pilgrim
-------
(
( ~)
~)
) / PP
(~ I D LLL
( )
~ ,;~`";;, ~~~| V
? ? ;; l L
O ;;
C %% p /b w
Birds wheel slowly up #%% \ / yy
\ \ %#%%##%#%%%%%' | ?
and over.\ \Branches reach %%` W{ -=O
\ #% #%%% && yy
endlessly toward... %%" nn ))
#%# ###' //
Wild ivy will not forget%%%` mmmmk
%##%##%@#@%%@@%%%%^ nnnnq
in-grown pains laid at the roots.
### ``'`"""'\ {}{}{}{} {}
nn \
n $ I$$ \ #&\ #& &&&
n $ l$$ \
n $ I$$ \ after Hakuin,
n %%%$$$%% Bada Shanren 9/94
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pilgrim was an experiment in fusing graphics and poetry and was inspired by
Hakuin.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
The People
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
THE POETS
Brett Holloway-Reeves a Ph.D. (in English) student at the University of Texas
at Austin, where he host a poetry show on student radio 91.7 KVRX. He grew up
on a farm in Louisiana (South La, thank you) and is just finishing a collection
of poems and short stories about that area, called %Topsy%.
Jason Fried is a junior at the University of Arizona and is majoring in finance
and/or economics and/or marketing. He is originally from Chicago and resides
there when he is not in school. After school, Jason hopes to move back to
Chicago and delve into the stock market full time. Email address:
fried@GAS.UUG.Arizona.Edu - email openly welcome.
Christopher Hepburn lives in Albany, California is currently on an extended
leave of absence from the Creative Writing MFA program at Emerson College in
Boston. He is in the process of applying to the Inter-Arts Program at San
Francisco State where he plans to get a Masters degree and work on
video.poetry. In the mean time he is a house husband and takes great care of
his 2 year old son Justus Reilly. His wife Hilary make all the money. He
plans to win awards for his ground breaking video.poetry and then get a grant
from Silicon Graphics, in the form of an Iris (but would settle for an
Indigo) and then really do some amazing stuff.
William Shard doesn't what he's doing or what he's going to do but hopes to
start very soon. His works have been published in Groovy Toothpicks, Fresh
Oil-Loose Gravel, The Black Dog Review, and a few others that he can't remember
at the moment.
David Bolduc's a new writer living in Mountain View, CA, whose work within the
last year's been published in Amethyst, Bay Windows, Iris, Exquisite Corpse,
/Gae-Raj/, and Wilde Oaks, etc.
Thomas Bell was a librarian and an editor before his current post as a
psychologist in private practice in Nashville. Lately, he's gone back to
writing poetry as recreation and escape.
THE EXPERTS
Brett Reece has an academic problem.. He planned to study but these dumbass
questions ended up taking all of his time up. Bye. Write something cool to
me, not this survey crap... (genius is never appreciated in it's own time...)
Laura is a premed student who is thinking of just giving it all up and living
a bohemian lifestyle in the rain forests of south america where she hopes to
assimilate with the kawanagie tribe.
Marvin Puymon is trying to go to grad school in physics. He wants everyone to
know that he had a great time in Jordan and Europe this past summer and his
goal in life is to learn French and Russian.
Youlee is waiting to be the best that she can be at anything and everything
because she does not feel good otherwise and because her fortune cookie says,
"Self-betterment" and nothing more.
Lori Georgeson is a person still trying to decide (she's a second year med
student at UAB)
Julian Nam is still trying to prove something to himself that he can do
whatever the hell he wants to do.
Aileen just wants to graduate and find a low-paying broadcast job so I can
waste my time preaching to people, who don't really care.
Joey is a Zoology major who is shopping for marine biology graduate
programs.
Edsel Adap is now working at Andersen Consulting (Arthur Andersen & Co.) and
plans to be a millionaire by the time he's 30.
(The following people did not write me blurbs so i'm taking the liberty of
writing one for them)
Matt Neimark is a senior mathematics major (last i heard) at MIT and is also
hunting graduate schools.
Paul Row and Dan Kim are roomates and future HMO slaves.
Harry Pitts is not the real name of my broker and his words have been heavily
paraphrased by me.
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Thanks to everyone who helped out!
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