Zac Walsh
However powerful our technologies and complex our corporations, the most remarkable feature of the modern working world may in the end be internal, consisting in an aspect of our mentalities: in the widely held belief that our work should make us happy.
Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Aged 40 and staring down the sick prospect of beginning my seventh job in seven months was not what I had in mind at 23, then just out […]
Angela Townsend
“Do you have someone special in your life?”
Do you have any idea how flamboyantly I could answer that question? Are you prepared for what you have initiated? Did you pack your crash helmet between your tapered paisley pants and travel-sized shampoo?
You think you are making conversation. You think you are pedaling your unicycle on a well-lit road. You think my left hand is waving in your direction.
You are kind to think in my general direction. Many would pass the peas. My […]
Audrey T. Carroll
A system of compulsory able-bodiedness repeatedly demands that people with disabilities embody for others an affirmative answer to the unspoken question, Yes, but in the end, wouldn’t you rather be more like me?¹
I have so many stories in my head of times when practitioners from community acupuncturists to rheumatologists reacted with shock and barely concealed disgust when they noticed my cane.²
My disability is no longer […]
The following pages contain three essay prompts. Please choose all.
Prompt 1: Please explain to us why you deserve to be here.
Definitions of “us” and “you” are not provided.
Us: a term used to describe the faceless entity that sends emails signed “Visual Arts”. Members may or may not include faculty, students, administrators, that one guy who wrote an art book once, every potential future employer, your favorite artist, and the world.
You: a term used to describe the girl with curly hair and bouncing knees […]
I pop the lid off a tin of sardines for lunch and spill fish-gray water all down the front of my dress. For the rest of the day, everyone pretends not to notice the reek. I suppose I should be grateful, but I can’t seem to come down from the irritation of it all—irritation at my own klutziness, at the too-tight cinch of my waistline, at the office thermostat that makes the whole place a tundra even in the dead of July. I am a […]
The world’s awe for Elise Cunningham shifted quickly to shock. Like no one understood how it all began. But her followers didn’t need to inquire. Neither did The Guggenheim. Meanwhile, Jamie, her only known friend, suffered silently with the question for years. A cache of childhood photos shows the two girls competing to squeeze each other harder, smile bigger with eyes more squinted. Two girls who loved braiding each other’s hair, drawing bright patterns on each other’s arms, whispering adoration or comic relief into each […]
Dedicated to Lola Kiepja, the last pureblood Selk’nam (b.?–1966)
People who met Dr Megrelian for the first time believed it was his real surname. They also assumed he was a college-educated physician well-versed in the complexity of human malformations and similar afflictions. His birth certificate, however, revealed his true identity. He was Benjamin Cecil Calhoun, also known as Benny, a half-literate resident from Harlan, Iowa, a remote village with only a church, a general store, and a scattering of 10-acre farmhouses in […]
Even though my memory fails me, I’d say being stuck on this mountain’s frosty tip is an issue from any angle. I don’t even remember how I got here.
I have a few theories if you’re willing to listen. I figured, considering the altitude, I might have been involved in a plane crash, but my lack of physical injuries and the absence of wreckage makes that improbable. I’ve already circled my section of the mountain several times and haven’t found any clue indicating how […]
[Fragment 0438]
I stand on the street, perfectly still. Berto doesn’t say anything, he knows what I’m doing—he would probably do it too. I try to sense the riot, feel it through my feet. The rhythmic vibration, the thump, the pump, the bump, the hump of the breeching soundwaves battering the steel and concrete, the city skeleton rattled by the riot so many levels, so many layers below.
For a moment I think maybe I can but I can’t. Berto and I aren’t […]
Fabio Sassi
Fabio Sassi is a photographer and acrylic artist. He enjoys imperfections, and reframing the ordinary in his artwork. Fabio lives in Bologna, Italy and his work can be viewed at https://fabiosassi.foliohd.com
