Week One

Well this is embarrassing.  I scheduled this post for tonight without actually writing the post and thus it went up without there being much any text.   Why is it a post for last Friday when it’s clearly Tuesday? Long story but in mostly unrelated news last night was the first night of class for English 14, the class that produces Forum. It was all very familiar and also different in some unexpected ways. As is typical for just about any class, we went over the syllabus, discussed what would we would be doing in class and we took part in an introductory exercise. That was all expected but on the other hand, there were a number of Fourmites who, like me, were back for another round. On some level I’d thought it would be nice to see some familiar faces but I had no  idea I would be as happy as I was to see my “old” classmates (it’s not like it has been that long since we’ve been classmates) and our faculty advisors Jen Sullivan Brych and John Isles.

There were also new people and it was nice meeting them. There are issues however — in such tight budgetary times, there’s little leeway for classes without sufficient enrollment and unfortunately that may be English 14. So if you’re a City College student and have any interest in publishing, in assembling a literary magazine or if you’re a former Forum staffer ready to come back into the fold, we could really use you.  Class meets Mondays at 5:30 in ARTX 265. As usual, you can contact Forum at citylitjournal@gmail.com — let us know if you’d like to join up.

And as the ‘Week One’ at the top of the page might indicate, this is the first in what I hope will be a regular feature here on Boeotia –  a weekly chronicle of the goings on in class, a look behind the scenes…that is assuming there’s a class to write about. Sorry, I’m ending on a bit of a downer.

HMS Surprise is the third in Patrick O’Brian’s popular and well regarded series of Aubrey/Maturin novels. The series is centered around the lives of  Royal Navy captain Jack Aubrey and his close friend naval surgeon and intelligence operative Dr. Stephen Maturin during the Napoleonic War era. HMS Surprise was the first book in the series I had read and I found the opening a little jarring. It wasn’t that it wasn’t well written it was more a matter of its style. O’Brian was well known for his attention to period detail and period language. This attention to language extends to the the way in which the books are written and in fact, the narrator’s voice is strongly reminiscent of that time; there is something decidedly old-fashioned about O’Brian’s prose. Also jarring was the rather domestic bent of the early chapters. The novel opens with a somewhat technical meeting of elements of the British Admiralty and goes on to relate Aubrey’s efforts to get out of debt and marry his sweetheart as well as Maturin’s thoughts about the woman he is in love with.

As I said, that early part of the book was well written but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting, far less action-oriented. Nonetheless I continued. The tone changes somewhat when Aubrey takes command of a sailing frigate — the eponymous HMS Surprise. At this point the narrative becomes immersed in the compressed world of a ship at sea. Aubrey has orders to transport a British envoy to Asia and the voyage that results that is at the heart of the book. It is a long and sometimes difficult trip, one that O’Brian uses to touch on any number of aspects of early 19th Century life — O’Brian’s extreme erudition concerning his subject matter  is clear and his portrayal of that time is completely convincing. HMS Surprise isn’t just a naval or adventure novel but something far more expansive…it is a book that takes in a whole world, a stunning array of places and topics — from rigging and naval gunnery to sloths to life in the streets of Bombay to overland trade between Europe and Asia.

The reader of course sees much of this through the eyes of Aubrey and Maturin and the characters are very well drawn. Characterization runs through the narrative, in subtle and more obvious ways. By the latter part of the book, I felt as if I knew them as I had begun to know the world they lived in. Something which is reflected in the novel when Aubrey talks to the hands just before they engage the French. He addresses them like old friends and by this time, they are, having been together for thousands of miles. In a similar way, I felt as if I’d come to know those characters having experienced that same journey through the page.

Above all, the book was beautifully written. The language is often poetic and beyond the fine details, it is O’Brian’s sublime prose that brings the world of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin alive. From a simple description of a street at night:

“nothing but a row of doorways stretching on for ever under the moon, quite unearthly, strange, inhuman, deserted, and inimical.”

To how routine on Surprise:

“obliterated both the beginning of the voyage and its end, it obliterated even time, so that it seemed normal to all hands that they should travel endlessly over this infinite and wholly empty sea, watching the sun diminish and the moon increase.”

Some critics have likened O’Brian to a Homer of the sea and while such a statement may seem outlandish, O’Brian’s descriptions of the battle between Surprise and French ship-of-the-line Marengo would be at right at  home in the Iliad. One scene describes in perfect clarity the moment before Marengo fires on Surprise, contrasting that last instant of normalcy with what happens after:

“The crash of the broadside, and of the bow-gun, and of the twenty shot hitting her, come in one breath — an extreme violence of noise. He saw the wheel disintegrate…and forward there was screaming.”

There is great energy to O’Brian’s prose and it conveys action especially well, putting across the hurry, the confusion, of the battle:

“The third broadside merged into the fourth: the firing was continuous now, and Stourton and the midshipmen ran up and down the line, pointing, heaving, translating their captain’s hoarse barks into directed fire — a tempest of chain.”

And when Surprise shows her teeth against the Marengo it’s hard not to get caught up in the elation of the men:

“…but at this range not a shot flew wide. The powder-boys ran, the cartridges came up in a racing stream, the gun-crews cheered like maniacs, stripped to the waist, pouring with sweat, taking their sweet revenge…”

Ultimately I found HMS Surprise an excellent introduction to the Aubrey/Maturin series. There ware references to the two previous novels but they were adequately explained and don’t get in the way of narrative. Then novel is a rich mix of historical color, nautical detail, and clear, interesting characterization. By the time I reached the final page, the unease I felt at the beginning of the book was long forgotten — a fantastic read.

And now somewhat of a departure for Forum and Boeotia. We have had live music at Forum events in the past but of course music isn’t our main focus. Still, music is a vital part of the arts and thus we present an interview with local musician Emily Whitehurst. Whitehurst was the lead singer of punk act Tsunami Bomb for many years. More recently she has been the lead vocalist of the band The Action Design and even more recently, she and Action Design guitarist Jaycen Mckissick started the two-piece known as Survival Guide. I interviewed her via email.

Ayo Khensu-Ra: I’m intrigued by the band bio on srvvlgd.com. It says in part that you started Survival Guide “with a plan to have no real plan” how does that tie into the whole ethos of the band?

Emily Whitehurst: Our “plan to have no real plan” refers to the music style. We feel like, in past bands and musical projects, we’ve had to stay within the confines of the genre. In Survival Guide, we want to be able to write music that we like, whether our songs have opposing musical styles or not.

AK: How different has it been being a two-piece compared to your previous projects, has that changed the process of writing songs?

EW: It’s extremely different! In other projects, we both tended to be less involved  in writing the bodies of songs. I usually would write vocals last, and Jaycen would sprinkle fancy guitars over whatever was already written. In this project, we are both involved from beginning to end, which makes each song so much more meaningful to both of us.

AK: Your songs are very dense sonically, is that something you and Jaycen consciously set out to do? How big a part does recording play in writing songs?

EW: We definitely do not set out to make sonically dense songs. We follow that ethos you asked about in the first question! However, for some songs, we do like to make them as full as they can be for a 2-piece band. Recording and writing are practically one and the same for us. We record everything as we go along, and for us it’s a great way to be able to listen back on what we’re doing to decide whether we like it or not.

AK: How easy or difficult has it been to translate songs to the stage?

EW: It’s been pretty easy, actually! When we’re writing, we keep the live show in the back of our minds. We don’t want to add too many layers of instruments that we won’t be able to play all at once live.

AK: You’ve already put out a 7 inch and have another coming out soon, why have you chosen that route as opposed to an EP or a full-length?

EW: Firstly, we both love vinyl! We’re so glad to already have 2 vinyl releases in the works — for us, the vinyl/download combo is ideal. We teamed up with Side With Us Records, and we had a few songs ready for Hot Lather Machine, so we decided to put songs out into the world as soon as we could instead of keeping them for a larger collection. We loved the way the first 7″ worked out, so we decided to do it again for Wildcat. Currently, we’re hoping to get enough material together for a full-length next… but we do love releasing new songs… so we’ll see!

AK: The download for Hot Lather Machine included a bonus track, and a digital booklet which included a couple of recipes. I thought that was a nice touch, how did that idea come about?

EW: We thought it would be nice to include lots of extra bonus stuff with the vinyl. We know not everyone uses a turntable, so we figured if we were going to force people to buy a medium they don’t use, we should at least compensate them for it in some way. You only get the bonus materials (song included) if you order a vinyl, so that makes the purchase extra special. The idea for the recipes in particular came about because our favorite thing besides music is food and cooking/baking! We decided to share recipes and thought some people might enjoy trying them out.

AK: Forum is a literary magazine so what do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, poets?

EW: I love reading different types of fiction — I usually try and switch it up between classic and contemporary. My favorite books are Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series, and I also love Kurt Vonnegut, Amy Tan, Mark Twain, Isabel Allende… any authors who write about adventure, foreign lands, and impossible situations. (I’m generally not into murder mysteries, war stories, or “chick-lit” type books, but I like pretty much everything else!)

AK: What is it in particular about His Dark Materials that draws you to that series?

EW: I love how the subject matter is so grandiose. People tend to categorize it as a Young Adult series, and it IS entertaining, but I love the way Pullman writes about such taboo subjects — science vs. religion, physical existence of the soul, what happens after death — all through the eyes and journey of a young girl. To me, he’s very brave. I think it will always be my favorite.

AK: How do you write lyrics? As there any particular method you use? Do you write with an eye to verses and choruses or is that something you work out later?

EW: My method starts with free writing. I take a feeling and write as much about it as I can in one giant paragraph. Then I go back through it and pick out what sounds either the most poetic or the most important to my theme. From there, I start building verses and choruses.

AK: When it comes to writing lyrics, do you think you are influenced particularly by other songwriters? Are you influenced by other types of writing?

EW: Usually, each song is influenced (at least a little) by whatever I’m listening to at the time. I can’t say I have a particular lyricist that I always look to for guidance. My writing style isn’t usually influenced by other types of writing, but sometimes my content is! I’ve written a few songs that draw imagery or subject matter from books I’m reading.

AK: Do you do any other kind of creative writing?

EW: No, not at the moment, but my husband and I are going to attempt to write a short screenplay soon. Wish me luck!

AK: Good luck! can you tell us anything about it?

EW: It’s a post-apocalyptic monologue. Pretty depressing!

AK: Anything else you’d like to share?

Christopher Hitchens (Apr 13, 1949-Dec 15, 2011)

In a short story I submitted to Forum, I jokingly paid tribute a writer and personal hero of mine, Christopher Hitchens, knowing that the dreadful day would eventually come when he would truly fall silent. Like a sick joke, cancer claimed his voice before it claimed his life. But in true heroic fashion, “Hitch” continued to work, critiquing and writing to the very end. All one has to do is pick up one of his books, or one of his countless essays or articles he has left behind and there it is, his sharp wit, infused into his command of language, framed in beautiful writing. Now that almost a week has passed, the sting yet to fade, what is there to say? Well for sure, regardless of what you thought of the man, one could say without fear of being branded a liar, that all of humanity has lost a voice of wisdom, beauty and reason. It took a day for the news to sink in, and when it did, I unexpectedly found myself choking back sobs for the loss of this man, a stranger to me, but someone I felt I somehow knew through his seismic works. It was something I had not done since the sobfest I had after my father passed. You are gone Hitch, and the world definitely feels a bit empty because of it. However, you live on in many minds, in the unapologetic way you championed truth and logic. Well done sir.

Michael Thomson is Forum’s Fiction Editor.

It’s a Tuesday.  I only know this because my cat knocked over a glass of water on my nightstand, waking me from a dream in which I ate six bacon cheeseburgers before walking a red carpet at some Jewish Film Festival.  I’m not Jewish.  I disregard the diverging rivers of stale tap to look at my phone.  It’s noon on a Tuesday.  I could have gotten a few more hours in if it weren’t for that damn cat.  I call her some name as if she understands me or even knows how to take offense, and she jumps on the bed to spoon.  I scoop her up like an infant and throw her across the room Shaken Baby-style, and she slides across the floor on her overgrown nails before darting into the closet.

I spend about twelve minutes looking at the ceiling and wondering when my motivation will come to shift my legs to the left and let them fall onto the hardwood floor.  I think about what I might do once my feet make contact. Go to the kitchen and fix a bowl of cereal perhaps?  How full is my bladder?  Should I go to the bathroom and then get cereal?  Or maybe condense my tasks and pee in the shower?  I’m suddenly overwhelmed with options and resort to staring at the ceiling some more.

It’s 12:45 and my bladder has decided my first plan of action.  I slide out of bed much like the spilled water’s journey from the nightstand to the floor and pick myself up to piss.  The cat follows me in and we pee in unison, which slightly grosses me out but I’m too lazy to really care.  I sing “Happy Birthday” while washing my hands; it’s not my birthday but somewhere I learned that the duration of the song is how long you’re supposed to wash your hands.  I don’t do this often; sometimes I hum “The Macarena” instead.

I spend another five minutes looking at myself in the mirror.  Do I look older than yesterday?  Am I aging faster just thinking about it?  I’m twenty-two years old but if I pretend I’m looking at another person rather than a mirror, I see my forty-six year old mother.  People say we look similar.  I think my mother is beautiful but I still tell those people to shove it.

“Laura, you can’t eat pickles for breakfast every day,” I hear her say somewhere in the crevices of my memory.

Suddenly, I crave pickles.  I sneak into the kitchen as if I don’t live alone, and mark another task done: pickles for breakfast.  I suck the juice out of a big fat one and sit on the windowsill.  Bikes wind by, picketers protest mattresses, and the same homeless man urinates in the alley below for the third day straight.

My phone rings some tone similar to that of a techno Christmas Carol and I regret answering immediately.

“Hi, is this Laura?” the mysterious voice interrogates.

“No, sorry, this is Ellie,” I try to save myself from affirmation of myself.

You see, if someone’s to ask me if I’m Laura, I’m not.  This is actually one of the reasons I started to go by “Ellie” three years ago.  People from my past might accidentally call me “Laura,” but if someone from my present does, it probably means I owe them money.   I think everyone should be whom they want to be and not whom their parents thought they might have looked like covered in placenta, three minutes after meeting them.

“Is Laura there?” the voice persists.

“No, she left awhile ago,” I existentially declare, before pressing the “End call” button as hard as I can—the cell phone equivalent of hanging up a receiver is not as powerful.  Stupid technology; it’s made it harder to express anger tele-communicatively.  Where’s that cat? I wonder.

It’s 3:30, and somehow I’ve wasted two hours on Facebook, looking at profile pictures of friends and relatives twice removed.  I’ve deleted these people twice, yet I still end up practicing the art of contemporary stalking.

“My, how the time goes,” I sigh, as seven o’clock sneaks up on me as if trying to cure my nonexistent hiccups.  I reacquaint myself with the ceiling and project the movie of my life onto it.

What a boring piece of crap!  The titles are in Helvetica and I’m in Hell.  I fast-forward to the credits and confirm that it was in fact Robert De Niro playing my father, and yes, I think he did a better job.

Something about Robert De Niro’s mole reminds me that I have somewhere to be and so I go to my closet and dig out my fishnets.  Every now and then, I dress up like a hooker and sell cigarettes and lollypops out of a tray to drunken club goers.  I almost get off on the fact that people think it’s a despicable job, and find amusement in the eclectic array of irrelevant business cards and catcalls I receive.  I just purr and tell them to tip me because it’s my birthday.

Unfortunately, people only like birthdays when they’re their own.

I get home around 3am, slightly tipsy, thanks to the bartender who I sold a $4 pack of Skittles to.  I take off most of my clothes and stumble into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water, not because I want to, but because my last piss could have lit a Vegas street sign.  I raise my blinds and hopefully a neighbor or two as well, due to my shrinking ensemble.

I attack my bed like a flying squirrel…or some similar animal as determined and unable to fly and fall into a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors I couldn’t name.  Before I’m asleep, I awake.

It’s a Tuesday.  I only know this because my cat knocked over a glass of water from my nightstand, waking me from a dream in which I dressed up as a sexy bellhop and sold random novelty items from a tray.

Ellie MacBride is Forum’s general editor.

by Ayo Khensu-Ra

For those of you who missed it, last night (October 23rd) was a great turn-out! Jazz guys ran late, Joseph Lease was falling asleep on a big purple chair, and I was freaking out…but that was just the beginning! By the time the reading started, it flowed like a soda fountain and ran smooth as a Mission low-rider. Kwame was the first featured reader, followed by Seth Harwood (who brought in an incredible CD collection (Seal, Old Dirty Bastard, all the classics…) and stack of notebooks to give away.) The night continued with a beat-influenced young poet named Paul Roccanova and ended with poet Joseph Lease, who had requested to go last and even got an encore!

Our open mic started with Loren Bell, a teacher at CCSF, who read three incredible poems (one of his own) while being accompanied by Steve and Craig on guitar and bass. The night continued with a few wonderful poems by Ayo, short story by Kyanne, even shorter story by me, a few vignettes by Dillon Petrillo, and a special guest appearance by Terry Richardson, who actually just ended up being my friend Alex Greenburg, the only one who wore a costume. There were complimentary chips (provided by Kwame) and refreshments available by donation all night.

The space was intimate, vibrantly decorated, kinda kitschy, and perfect for our reading and we were so lucky to be offered it at no charge. We auctioned off a couple Forums, and ended up making ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on the dot, which is great considering we pretty much spent NO money!

Ellie MacBride is Forum’s general editor.

Well there’s another Forum event coming this Sunday at Brainwash – a reading and open mic. Starts at 7 pm. Hope to see you there.

http://www.brainwash.com/index.html

The other day at the end of a class I started to talk to one of my classmates about Forum, specifically the concept of getting CCSF students from outside of Forum to share their literary experiences with Boeotia, to give voice as I discussed a bit in a post last week. The thing was I never actually got to my whole Forum/Boeotia pitch because said classmate seemed to be in a bit of a hurry and was out the door before I had barely mentioned Forum at all.

The whole incident is illustrative of something though — we often do have to go out and ask people to send us work. A lot of people don’t know about Forum and so every semester those of us on staff are dispatched to visit classrooms, post flyers, talk to literary or artistically-minded friends and do anything else we can to drum up submissions. And it works.  Honestly we get some fantastic stuff, but I’m convinced there’s still more out there.

Which leads me back to this idea of getting the perspectives of those of you who aren’t on the staff. It’s still a new idea that I’ve only begun to explore (though we did have a post from a non-staffer last spring), and there may be a lot of solicitation to come before it bears fruit but if you’re reading this and you’ve got thoughts to share on the literary world we’d like to hear from you. To be more precise, we would like your reviews, critiques, events you’ve been to or perhaps something more personal — what some piece of literature may have meant to you, the experience of hearing a favorite author read, unexpectedly meeting an author in Safeway or on Muni, that kind of thing. If interested, you can send prospective blog pieces to citylitblog@gmail.com.  Of course we can’t guarantee what is submitted will be posted. Blog submissions should  be somewhere in the 500-1000 word range. Regular submissions for the magazine itself can still go to citylitjournal@gmail.com.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to offer our own explorations of all things literary.

Photos courtesy Cafe La Boheme (like ‘em!) http://www.facebook.com/cafelabohemesanfrancisco

I cringe at the sight of myself, especially on video, so it was quite by accident that I recently
came across a video of a Forum reading in Rosenberg Library’s room 304 I attended some time
last year. The spring semester in 2010 was my first stint with Forum and this is probably my
last. Seeing that video made me think about time, about the things that have changed and the
things that haven’t. In the room, among others, was one of my teachers, Alexandra Teague, one
of my future teachers, and fellow Forum staffer Katie Dalla who I’ve worked a lot with during
my time at Forum. There was also what was to me the notable absence of one of my classmates.

At the time I was in the midst of an unexpected interest new in poetry. To be honest, I didn’t have
much use for poetry for a long time but gradually, over what was probably a few years, my
interest grew and in the fall of 2009 I signed up for CCSF’s poetry creative writing class, English
35C/D taught by Ms. Teague. While I thought the class might be interesting, I didn’t expect to
love reading or writing poetry as much as I came to on those Tuesdays and Thursdays that fall
and spring — fall and spring because I and seven others took the class back-to-back semesters
over 2009 and 2010. I can only speak for myself but I think our teacher’s clear passion and
enthusiasm for the subject played a big part in the return of the eight of us — while the class
definitely was a class, it was also a lot of fun. In addition it was, for me, an introduction to a new
way to write which was very exciting.

Around the same time I was also drawn into the orbit of Forum. If English 35C/D was
fascinating and exciting, English 14 — the class that produces Forum — was perhaps not as
fun, was perhaps more of a grind, being a three-hour night class but was and is interesting
and rewarding. Naturally I was part of the group within the staff that reviewed the poetry
submissions we received. In addition, I was the blog editor, a role I must say I groped through
a bit. While there’s a lot one can do with a blog, I wasn’t sure just what to do. Most of the posts
were fairly official, information posts, some poetry from staff members, reviews and the like.
After a fall without English 14, Forum returned in the spring and so did I. There was a new blog
team — Joseph Ramelo and Jessica Mejia. Under their watch, there were a lot of changes to
the blog, redesigns and a new name; what had been merely the Forum blog became Boeotia.
Joseph — or Joe as we came to know him — and Jessica were also members of what proved to
be a thoroughly engaging poetry group along with Katie, last semester’s poetry editor, Jenna
Mendola and Sarah Woods. It was a joy to work with them.

I was recently in Rosenberg 304 again. Xochiquetzal Candelaria, who is teaching English 35C/
D this semester, read that day. I wondered what it would be like to take a poetry class again, how
much it would be like the last one. Ms. Teague is no longer at City College; some of those I took
her class with have also moved on. My missing classmate is now thousands of miles away. I’m
the only one from last semester’s poetry group still at Forum. There are of course still a lot of
great people at the magazine both new and returning, but things have inevitably changed as they
always do semester to semester, month to month, year to year.

I’ve been thinking about time as I said. I would have liked to done more with Boeotia by this
point in the semester — there’s not that much time left — but hopefully that will change as of
now. I see Boeotia as a voice for the staff of Forum among other things, so hopefully you’ll be
hearing from the rest of the staff a bit and not just me. In addition, you should be hearing a bit more from this blog in general — things you’ve seen before — reviews, the lowdown on Forum

related events etc. but also the literary stories of those of us at Forum and perhaps those of you
outside of Forum because, as the name implies, Forum isn’t some august institution that gives
a platform to only the anointed few — it’s a place for the CCSF community to be heard. Soon
Boeotia will be under the stewardship of someone else, but there is much to be blogged before
then so stay tuned.

And really, where else would you go for your Halloween-themed literary events? Yes, music, refreshments as well as  Joseph Lease, Seth Harwood, Paul Roccanova, our own Kwame Opoku-Duku III live and in person. Plus a Halloween game or two with what will undoubtedly be fabulous prizes, perhaps a costume contest  and an open mic so check it out.

kaleidoscope

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=157448387680695

Thanks to Dillon Petrillo for the flyer.