2012 — The Monarch Review — Page 11
Can You Say That About Your Team – Shaun Scott
Thursday, June 14, 2012 8:14 — 0 Comments
June is a special month for me, because that’s when I start production work on my feature films. This is my 4th year of writing, directing, and editing my own material, and the mental grind of living up to the expectations I set out for myself is a labor of love that demands an occasional respite. I think we’re all in need of parallel social realities with rules and archetypes and characters that comment on our own, that help us form and reinforce our beliefs. For some people, it’s “Twin Peaksâ€; for some people it’s garden-variety gossip; for me it’s […]
Star – Zac Hill
Tuesday, June 12, 2012 12:29 — 0 Comments
An Entirely Anti-Climactic, Ahem, Climax to a Decade-Plus-Spanning Narrative Involving Desire and the Creation/Fulfillment Thereof  or, if it floats your boat, Star  –  For as long as I can remember I have wanted to sleep with Evan Rachel Wood. Look. This is less creepy than it sounds, since Thirteen came out when I was like sixteen and the whole Avril Lavigne punk-chic thing was in full vogue. She’s got maybe a year on me tops. I can’t say it was my only real celebrity crush, since Natalie Portman has a beating heart and until very recently wasn’t […]
Bret Hanson
Wednesday, June 6, 2012 19:28 — 5 Comments
In Bret Hanson’s work we are invited into an abstract dream world. However, as the adventure begins we are haunted by a sense of familiarity and the reality that this is neither dream nor abstract. Stuttered in our travel we begin to wonder. We are lulled into the supposed safety and simplicity of these prints through the subtle colors employed by Bret. At first, lost in the cosmos, we float in the otherworldliness of the work. Mid-flight however, we are grounded by the shapes of human history, called back to earth by the repeated arches and aqueducts of roman architecture. […]
ILLUMINATING THE UNKNOWN – L.L. Pierce
Tuesday, June 5, 2012 12:58 — 0 Comments
“Mama,†cried the youngest boy, barely tall enough to see across the king-sized bed. “What?†Mama replied, indignantly, sitting idly on the edge of the bed, wearing nothing but a long blue t-shirt and cotton underpants. “Go eat your food, don’t be rambling on tonight, John. I’m not up for it.†The boy’s face, which naturally obtained a light angelic tone, drew a sudden disappointed blankness, as though all of the goodness he was made up of was sucked right out of him, quickly and roughly, leaving him hollow, dry and lost as a Northwest Valley. But he did as […]
Bread and Salt – R L Swihart
Monday, June 4, 2012 20:20 — 0 Comments
After (as though brushing past her in the dark) Ingeborg Bachmann Here heaven (not sky) has taken another bite from a crisp apple
The Breaking Towers: on Hart Crane’s Crumbling Muses – Mischa Willett
Friday, June 1, 2012 13:10 — 2 Comments
No longer do I believe that there is a mystic muse, sister of the Minotaur. This is another of the monsters I had for nurse, whom I have wasted. I am myself a part of what is real, and it is my own speech and the strength of it, this only, that I hear, or ever shall.
My Goodness
Thursday, May 31, 2012 13:09 — 1 Comment
Seeing My Goodness at KEXP’s Hood-to-Hood event in Ballard affirmed two simple things: that highly intense rock music is still my favorite, and that this duo reigns as the unparalleled Kings of Gritty in that genre here in Seattle. My relationship with the band started skeptically, when I thought they were just Black Keys wannabe’s, but that feeling was soon put to rest when the first My Goodness show I saw left me sweat-soaked and high out of my mind with adrenaline from jumping and thrashing around for 45 minutes (I also hit my head pretty solidly on a monitor). Since […]
Cafe Racer
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 19:20 — 1 Comment
As the Visual Arts Editor for The Monarch Review, it is my job to post new work on Wednesdays. However, on this day we have suffered a terribly tragic loss and I feel something different is in order. Café Racer has been, in many ways, an extension of the Monarch community. It has thrived as a home to musicians, artists and conscious thinkers who strive to contribute, collaborate, inspire and influence the rich artistic life we are fortunate to be a part of. To say that we are shocked and sad would be simplifying, it seems impossible to express the […]
Late and Lost – James Bergstad
Tuesday, May 29, 2012 12:45 — 1 Comment
Like everything in life, the hangover beat Ray Martelli into the fucking ground. Rain-bred traffic had him running behind. He missed a call as he arrived forty-five minutes late and knew what he faced; another Sal Bonafazio tirade. The VP of Operations loved to jerk Martelli’s chain. Opening the terminal office late gave Bonafazio one more link to jerk. At eight-fifty-eight the phone trilled again and Bonafazio’s face popped into his throbbing head. Martelli glanced at the vodka bottle, winking reflections of fluorescent lighting like some plastic bowling trophy. He grabbed it. Pushed it between his legs. “Merchants Intermodal. Ray […]
Go Away Closer – Elizabeth J. Colen
Monday, May 28, 2012 18:34 — 0 Comments
A cow reminds me of my dog and I’m home again, not still weightless in the train car, reading post-it notes you left in a folder. Yellow scatters on the dirty floor like some mad slow snow, it shifts around. I’m undone by the distance, by conversations with strangers, talk starts always with where are you headed or where have you been. No one really listens. Their story always better, judged by main characters who want nothing to do with what’s outside strict narrative of here to there, life to death, and don’t forget babies. I want to tell them […]
What am I?
Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies
Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;
Scientists can't find me.
Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—
Remind me:
The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…
Tick, Tock: Divine me.
-- Richard Kenney
