VOL 9 - Aqueous Magazine

AQUEOUS
A Free Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
Magazine for the Lake Superior Region
Summer Solstice 2015
Volume Nine
Contributors
Julie Buckles is the author of Paddling to Winter: A Couple’s
Wilderness Journey from Lake Superior to the Canadian
North. You can find her at juliebuckles.com.
Instead of going to graduate school, Miss Bailey Louise Davis bought a sailboat.
Jill Dermody lives in the forests on northern Minnesota, in a
cabin with no electricity or running water. She spends most of
her days gathering firewood, sweeping the floor, and writing.
Aria Durward is an English major at Northland College with
minors in Art and Philosophy. She enjoys punk rock, abandoned buildings, shooting film, and raspberries.
Moria Erickson lives in Duluth, MN. She holds a MFA from
Fairfield University. She has published two chapbooks and
is currently awaiting the Sept. release of her first full-length
poetry book entitled In the Mouth of the Wolf. She currently
works as a sleep tech at Essentia Health.
Robert Ganson I live on a farm and sometimes I whistle.
Saleema Hamid Mustache Aficianado, dabbles in doodles
and driftwood. Her wanderlust inspires her photography with
published work and exhibitions in Pakistan and the U.S. She
believes in magic, kindness and sharpies.
Johanna is a mother who is being taught art composition by
her 4 year old daughter. She is quickly learning that there are
only a few rules to painting, but even those are questionable.
Allen Killian-Moore’s work seeks a poetic, regenerative vision
to embolden consciousness and free us from apathy’s taciturn
hold. His approach to creative expression is interdisciplinary;
utilizing a multitude of practices. He is a progressive community organizer in Duluth, performs music with the Agassiz
Oscillation Ensemble, and is a worker-owner of Jefferson
People’s House cooperative.
Eli Klinger is a semi-functional artistic humanoid currently
residing in his Lake Superior homeworld.
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over seven hundred
of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the
U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for the Pushcart
Prize for work published in 2012, 2013, and 2014. His novel,
Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist
in a state hospital, is available as an e-book or in print edition.
He splits his time between Denver and a hundred-twentyyear-old schoolhouse in NW Michigan.
Jason Lupas A Chicago-based Illustrator who aims to channel
a sense of childlike wonder into his work as a way to never
forget his first 18 years.
Anthony Martin (@open tight) can be found in Squak Back,
Flyleaf Journal, Quiddity, The Austin Review, Watershed Review
and the Nung River in search of Colonel Kurtz. Always getting off the boat.
2
Amber Mullen “A Virgin I am.” No really, that’s my name.
See: A. Virginia M. (My first initial, middle name and last
initial). But guess what? I’m lots of other things too. Writer,
dreamer, doer, a fledgling photographer, Pisces, animal impersonator, hooper, self-proclaimed water-warrior, superhero and
shape-shifter.
Hilary OQ Nelson has dabbled in many mediums. Her passion is creating lovely objects to adorn the body out of sterling
silver and other metals. You can find her hammering away at
her home shop, Flame and Stone Studio in Washburn, WI.
Jorge Pablo Lima is a writer and artist from Matanzas, Cuba
with a degree from the Superior Institute of Art in Havana.
He’s been instrumental in many collaborative efforts, including performance installations with Ballada Tropical and
Avalancha as well as a film production titled Ghost Cinema,
all while running a collective gallery from his fifth story apartment.
I am Pimm. I have as many interests and there are neurons
to fire them, but I tend to explore the futility in the battle
against entropy in my photography. Enjoy!
Amy Sprague’s essays and poetry have appeared in Mad Hatter’s Review, Frigg Magazine, Aqueous, Rose and Thorn Poetry
Journal, Psychic Meatloaf, Third Wednesday, The Writing Disorder, DMU’s The Abaton, Blood and Thunder Medical Musings,
and Haggard and Halloo. Bridget Stafford is a former public school teacher now doing
quality audits for a book publisher. Born and raised in Marquette, MI, she’s lived in WI. river towns since the early 90’s,
trying to explain that 55 degree water is really quite refreshing. She’s had two cheeky ballads published in The Bitchen’
Kitsch. This is her first flash-fiction submission.
Daniel Werachowski is a 24 year old poet and artist currently
living in Stevens Point, WI. A recent graduate of UW-Stevens
Point, he’s had poems published in UWSP’s Barney Street
Literary Magazine and the art zine, The Bitchin’ Kitsch. He enjoys being in the garden or the city, making meals for friends,
exploring trails, and long conversations.
Dr. Ernest Williamson III is an Assistant Professor of English
at Allen University. He has published creative work in over
550 journals.
Liz Woodworth is a teacher, performer, writer and director
from the Chequamegon Bay area. She enjoys compelling
theater, British literature, live music, traditional cocktails and
long winters; she really enjoys hanging with her awesome
husband and kid.
Tim Zeigenhagen is from up on the prairie, a few miles from
Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and, as a farm kid, he killed a lot
of weeds. He has worked as a bartender in a country club
and a casino. Currently, Tim teaches and writes fiction, living
peaceably with the plant kingdom.
Front Cover
Follow the Black Rabbit
50” x 50” Oil on canvas
by Eli Klinger
Back Cover
You’ll Never Paint Like Frida, Self Portrait
30” x 30” Oil on canvas
by Hilary OQ Nelson
Table of Contents
Earth Return by Daniel Werachowski 4
Sanguine Mantel by Saleema Hamid 4
Pathogen of Social Misery by Dr. Ernest Williamson III
5
The Ascending Lord Robotics Team by Timothy Ziegenhagen 6-7
Paradise by Johanna
8
A Conversation with Nickolas Butler by Julie Buckles 9-11
Milton Mine by Moriah Erickson 12
A Child as Totem by Allen Killian-Moore
13
Panoptico Del Olvido by Jorge Pablo Lima
14
The Forgotten Panoptic by Jorge Pablo Lima (translation)
15
250 Words or Less: The Champions of the First-Ever Aqueous Flash Fiction Contest 16-17
Ode to Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica
Rothschild deKoenigswarter by
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois
18-19
Burning Loss by Amber Mullen
20
Unanswered by Catherine Patricia Sanford Meier 21
Thought by Catherine Patricia Sanford Meier 21
A person’s name is nothing but black ink on wallet-sized
plastic by Sean Devlin 22
Ghostly Sound by Aria Durward
22
JR’s Shirt by Liz Woodworth 23-26
Because It’s Nintendo by Jason Lupas
25
Giving In by Amy Sprague 27
The Reckless and the Wandering by Bailey Louise Davis 28
Aqueous Economy by Nicholas Nelson 29
Corpse Hoist by Pimm
29
It Took Us Two Years to Put Breasts on the Cover…
And Other Aqueous Thoughts, News and Up-Dates
by Sara A Owen 30
Aqueous Staff
Staff photos and full bios are
available at aqueousmagazine.org
Sara Owen - Ungluey-glue
Some would think not being sticky is a good
thing. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. Also,
hey Summer Santa! Who knew you had a
yellow motorcycle?
Nick Nelson - Foreign Relations
Currently living and working on his yet unnamed sailboat somewhere between Chebomnicon bay and La Pointe. In his free time he is putting the finishing touches on a work of poetry
he hopes to publish by summer’s end.
Marissa Fish - Petrologophile
Apparently, there is no word to describe
someone who likes both rocks and words, so I
made one up.
Halee Kirkwood - Free Sample Salvager
The BART is my limo. Nothing shall I want.
Sean Devlin - Ireland Outreach Coordinator
The loose papers of my notebook blew away
to Downton Abbey.
Shall I write a poem to ler ladyship?
A q u e o u s
spawned conspicuously out-of-sight in an underwater elevator shaft beneath the
Devil’s Island Light when a large
mustache wearing a light keeper’s pajamas went looking for jam on a cold
May morning dense with forty shades of
fog. Stopping at the wrong floor he stumbled into a primordial dark and with his
coarsely virile awe fertilized the fecundate
air’s innocence where three sisters sang an
ancient song of sandstone secrets. Instantaneous manifestation leapt into being
from a dream, a hiccup from a sleeping fern. Moments later an Aqueous Hog spilled voluptuously
into the sweet water sea.
Aqueous Claimer
In the age of liability and lawsuits, of hyper-political correctness and zealous character sensitivity, it seems any endeavor is scrupulously
analyzed for flaw or discreditable insinuation. We have no doubt that with the right lens you will find fault within these pages; if you
apply some sanctimonious black and white paradigm upon these talented creations or their common sense creators and collaborators
you won’t fail to have babble for your trial of personal slight. To that we say, “Please, tell your friends”. You see, unlike most modern enterprises, our morale enlightens our moral compass and our common sensibility holds our passions on their course, their shared course.
We are artisan warriors, not hack disclaimers. We are infidel servants of inspiration; the censorship has sailed from our pirate port. With
that said, all copyright is returned to the authors upon publication.
3
Earth Return
by Daniel Werachowski
they crawl upon their hands and knees
picking through the bricks about their ankles
vincas blooming between their hearts
until they break out
pedaling into the sky
over the earth
tear droplets down their neck
and shoulders
through the clouds
onto our straight backs upon
a blanket at end of the season
upwards
she said
there are so many people
to love
4
Sanguine Mantel Photograph by Saleema Hamid
5
Pathogen of Social Misery 20” x 40” Lead and charcoal on paper by Dr. Ernest Williamson III
The Ascending Lord Robotics Team
by Timothy Ziegenhagen
I
ntroducing our robot the Snirkle, who can cyclone
up all the dust that we naturally flake off as we go
about our busy lives raising families and going to
church. This machine will flat-out save you time: it
can flip pancakes, dust your Bibles, and scare away
salesmen selling knives, aluminum siding, and miracle solvents. If you are a senior, the Snirkle can turn
on your TV and watch your favorite shows with you,
occasionally making a randomly-generated comment
meant to approximate banal human conversation but
only during commercial breaks when you’re halffalling-asleep. This miracle of a rare device is green
as a tree, too, made from 100% recycled grocery carts,
portable refrigerator units sold second-hand at the
UMWE Campus Surplus store, and Shop-Vacs donated
from Shiloh Prison Corporation.
The Snirkle was lovingly designed and built by The
Ascending Lord Robotics Team over summer vacation. While other boys were wasting the Devil’s time
playing games on their iPhones, we were reading up
on tensile strengths, pneumatics, and the sanctity of
the Free Market. Because inventors never know what
raw materials might be needed in creating a profitable machine, we collected sandpaper scraps, plastic
tubing, dead batteries, and a complete rainbow of
colors of fake grass from Easter baskets. We twisted
out one hundred Etch-a-Sketch faces, trying to find
the kindliest, most god-beatified expression to grace
the countenance-panel of the robot we’d hoped soon
to build. I pulled apart and rebuilt harmonicas as part
of a vocal apparatus. Because Matthew Mark Luke
III wanted to study theoretical physics at MIT, he
researched up-quarks, down-quarks, charm-quarks,
and bottom-quarks, none of which we could use in the
construction of our actual robot but which, we suspect,
might carry huge profit upsides in a decade or two.
6
As Einstein says, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” If you want to know the truth, it takes a team
of creative believers like the Ascending Lord Robotics
Team to come up with something as good as we did.
We’ve read our Malachi, and none of us believe in
heat death, which was cooked up by some big-brain
professor stuck in a wheelchair. We believe in resurrection, nature’s bonfire burning on, our heads crowning one by one with holy fire. Yes, our progress over
the summer was slow. The machine will resist you,
like metal and plastic always do. For instance, let’s say
you need to get to Chick-fil-A to hang out with your
FCA buddies, but the Impala is riding on fumes and
then you’re sitting on the side of the road out of gas.
The car isn’t going to do you a solid and get you to the
meeting anyway—it needs its tribute of carbon. You
have to pay the piston. Machines are like the mafia
that way, no humanity.
Anyway, we worked on, despite the resistance of the
circuit board and the vacuum pump. Jay Foster gets
credit for the prototype “suck machine,” which could
vacuum up not only nuts and bolts but bananas,
baseballs, and dog bones. Lots of things needed to be
sucked up, and suction, we realized, had great potential in a fallen world. Everybody knows that God
chastises Job from a Whirlwind, and we believed that
sucking up flotsam was His work and that dust was
inherently Satanic. The dust bowl in the nineteenth
thirties was God’s actual wrath on an unrepentant
world. Modern day Californians are all descendants of
Okies running from those towering cliffs of dust, and
my Uncle Bill says that Cali is one godforsaken land.
Soon they’ll be running from Cali, too. Our geography
teacher tells me that the world is still turning into one
big desert—drying out like a sponge left on the sidewalk—but the Snirkle is God’s proxy, the order-keeper.
No one can say our little group didn’t have its troubles
in the beginning. We got sidetracked, as all teams of
genius will. For instance, we discovered that what can
be sucked can also be blown. This became a distraction of the Bathsheba order. We created an air cannon
and lofted cats into trees and shot oranges into bras
hanging on clotheslines. We also got bogged down
metaphysically: simply put, when you have cleaned a
room or hoovered a driveway free of grass clippings,
then there’s nothing left but to unclean and unhoover.
After that little existential crisis, we spent a lot of time
going on group dates, eating pizza, and quoting Milton Friedman, and we even forgot that we had a deadline and that the science fair would be upon us before
the leaves zig-zagged from the trees that fall. Satan
is like that: He’ll make you forget about the passing
of time, of the imminence of the reckoning, to forget
that in the Lord’s mind tomorrow is already yesterday.
One day we were in the shop and I lost a finger to
the drill press. Jay Foster was running the wheel and
he brought it down too quickly on my trigger digit. He was talking on and on about Ayn Rand, and
he shrugged to demonstrate what happens when a
world falls off a giant’s shoulders. The metal bit tore
into my pointer and blood flew everywhere, painted
the wall. Shortly after that, Matthew Mark Luke III
bought some iffy copper tubing and was investigated
for receiving stolen merchandise but the charges were
dropped because he was only a couple of towel snaps
from breaking the conference record for senior high
yards rushed in a season of football. Then we were
in love with each other’s sisters, and we fought over
whether we truly deserved their carefully hoarded
purity.
There were other problems: the Snirkle wouldn’t talk,
and then it wouldn’t stop talking. Then it talked in
nothing but heavily German-accented Arabic. After
getting caught doctor shopping, my mom went into
rehab and Jay Foster’s dad lost his liquidity and the
bank repossessed his truck and his gun safe. To top
it off, a rival team developed a robot with a flamethrower and it burned down our treehouse (along with
my shrine to Selena Gomez). We had to create a new
prototype out of scrap parts, but we finally put together the product you see for sale now after the midnight
infomercials on RTTV.
Yes, the regional science fair was a complete bust in
terms of competition. We didn’t even ribbon. The fair
was held in a gymnasium, and we set up our booth
next to a pommel horse dusted heavily with chalk. I
wondered if we could quickly program the Snirkle to
do a kehrswing and a dismount, but there just wasn’t
enough time to try and figure out that programming.
Principal Dewlaw had driven up to Willmar just to see
our demonstration, and as we waited for the judges—a
Laurel and Hardy pair with bad 1970s mustaches—
Principal Dewlaw seemed a little quiet. The judges
drifted from one table to the next, taking few if any
notes, till they wandered over to where we stood. We
flanked the booth—Jay Foster, Matthew Mark Luke III,
and I—nervous as wiener dogs. They took one look at
our project and said that even if the Snirkle worked it
was ugly. The skinny judge, dressed all in plaid, said
“Did I request thee, maker, from scrap, to mould me
machine?”
Matthew Mark Luke III flipped the switch but the
Snirkle’s expression panel remained blank. Usually,
you’d hear the hum of gears by now, but there was
nothing. Somebody had forgotten to plug in our project.
“Definitely sustainable,” said the second, heavy-set
judge. “Doesn’t use any energy at all.”
“Doesn’t work,” said the skinny judge, and they moved
on before we could even explain.
Principal Dewlaw was standing there eating a giant
pretzel, mustard dripping onto his JC Penny wingtips.
He looked mad—choking mad—and then his face got
all red. He grabbed at his chest, ripped open his snap
shirt, then toppled over like a drunk bear. A tree had
just fallen in the forest, and we didn’t know if we’d
heard it or not.
By now Jay Foster had pronged the juice plug, but
nothing happened. I could sense that people were
crowding around our booth like zombies that have
caught a whiff of live brains. My mouth tasted like
old pennies stuck for too long in a miser’s pocket, and
for some reason I thought of Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego.
“We forgot to stick in the Pop Tarts,” said Matthew
Mark Luke III, who sprang into action, pulling metallic pouches from his backpack and inserting them into
their proper hatches. Meanwhile, I shoved the suction
wand down our principal’s throat and, with deft and
practiced hand motions, flipped on the Snirkle’s respirator function. This was complete teamwork, muscular
Christianity at its best.
A radio antenna glided out of the Snirkle towards
Principal Dewlaw’s pecs and then wove through his
thick chest hair. There was a flash of blue light, and
I felt an electrical current jolt through my hands.
“Come forth,” somebody said. Maybe the Snirkle said
it, because the words did sound heavily umlauted.
Principal Dewlaw chugged a little, so I pulled the attachment from his mouth, and he started breathing as
steady as Darth Vader. I kneeled, holding his hand, the
bank of gym lights high above glittering through my
tears like happy stars.
There were three screens on us recording the whole
thing. By that night, we were on Youtube and by the
next morning we had more than 3 million hits. Two
days after that, we had raised $400,000 on Indiegogo.
Everybody knows what happened next, and you’ve
probably seen us featured in that USA Today article,
which isn’t too sympathetic to our message about
God and Prosperity, and the photograph makes us
look like something straight out of Revenge of the
Nerds, which movie The Ascending Lord Robotics
Team stands against, on principle (the nerds never
win, not even in Silicon Valley). If you’re wondering,
I’m the dorky-looking guy with the bandaged hand,
and MML3 (as he insists on calling himself now) is the
guy with the flattop and the Virginity Headband. Jay
Foster has the black eye and looks really cheesed off.
We were all happy in that picture, though, because we
knew that we had been favored and that our windows
would be opened and our talents multiplied. There
can be no doubt that our hands were guided by the
greatness of God, so if you buy the Snirkle you are
glorying not in the team that made him but the One
who made them, flawed as they are, as we all are.
7
Paradise 5’ x 4’ Acrylic on canvas by Johanna
8
A Conversation
With
Nickolas Butler
by Julie Buckles
I
Photograph courtesy of Olive Juice Studio
first met Nickolas Butler at The Spot, a bar and
yoga studio—only in Wisconsin, right?—located
on the east side of Ashland.
Butler’s best buds, Josh and Charmaine Swan, own
the joint. Josh is a wooden boat builder; Charmaine
manages the yoga studio and bar. Plus they have two
young boys, the youngest one rides on Charmaine’s
back in a sling, like a baby baboon.
Nick and Regina live on sixteen acres of land near
Eau Claire, next to a buffalo farm, with their two
children. Nick is an author, Regina an attorney.
The story goes that when Butler was still humping it
between Arden Hills, Minnesota, and the University
of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and before Josh and
Charmaine had opened the doors to the bar—the
four friends all talked about how Butler would
someday read his debut novel at their new bar.
They all loved Nick but they had no idea how much
critics would agree. Released in 2014, the New
York Times called Shotgun Lovesongs “impressively
original.” And the awards starting stacking up—even
the French got in on the act, inviting him to Paris
and handing him the Prix Page/America. The book
has been translated into nine languages and has
become an international best seller.
The August 2014 reading at The Spot was a
celebratory family affair. Butler sat with Regina—
their two young children were hanging with a
babysitter and the Swan boys in the adjoining
apartment—his mom, and other family and friends.
The Spot bar was the most appropriate setting I could
imagine for a reading of Shotgun Lovesongs, a story
about friends and family and small town Wisconsin
life with a few colorful scenes set at the local bar.
Sipping on a pint of Central Waters Glacial Trail IPA,
Butler stood before an enthusiastic northwoods crowd
reading and answering questions. He was funny, frank,
thoughtful, and open to all inquiries. I’ve seen Butler
speak a few times since. And this is who he is: a regular
guy, a family guy, who lives in Eau Claire and has a
passion and talent for telling stories.
Now not even a year later, Butler will be back, Sunday,
June 29 at 7pm at the Bayfield Carnegie Library, with
his new collection of short stories, Beneath the Bonfire,
released in May. He’ll be bringing along his friend,
Benjamin Percy, a charismatic and eclectic author whose
most recent thriller, The Deadlands, was released in
April.
I tried to meet with Butler when I was in Eau Claire
to do a live interview but he had sick kids that night—
and was coming off a reading bender at Prairie Lights
Bookstore in Iowa—so we did the most expedient
thing, we passed emails back and forth. Enjoy.
9
Julie: Benjamin Percy! How did the two of you team up
for a road tour?
Nick: I’ve known Ben since about 2010, before I began
grad school. All along he’s been a real champion of my
work and utterly helpful throughout. So I was thrilled
when he invited me to read with him down in Iowa City
at Prairie Lights. We’ve sort of teamed up to arrange
another three or four readings around Minnesota and
Wisconsin.
Julie: I just got done reading some high praise for
Beneath the Bonfire—“the literary champion of the
Wisconsin story,” “the Midwestern bard I’ve been
waiting for all my life,” “conjures the craft of Denis
Johnson’s Jesus’ Son” and on it goes. You must feel great.
Congratulations.
Nick: Thanks. Yes, I’m very proud of Beneath the Bonfire
and proud that the collection seems to be resonating
with readers who don’t normally like short stories. But
I also feel a pretty heavy pressure to produce the next
book, too. And I just finished reading Rebecca Lee’s
collection, Bobcat and Other Stories, which I found to be
one of the best collections I’ve read in years. It made me
feel quite inept, as all good writing does.
Julie: I just read your poetic response to the Wisconsin
State Assembly’s decision to drug test Welfare recipients
and Walker’s comment that, “We need people who are
drug free. To quote you: “Give me your drug test and I
will fail it, every fucking time because my life is sad, so I
get high./I will fail your drug test.” Nothing meek there.
Where does your newfound political voice come from?
Do you feel an obligation to speak up for the Wisconsin
Idea?
Julie: Isn’t that the way it goes. Just as you start feeling
fine about yourself, you read something that just knocks
you on your ass—and suddenly you just want to crawl
under the covers.
Nick: I don’t know whether or not I feel obligated to
speak up for the Wisconsin Idea; maybe. But I certainly
feel obligated to speak up for my children, who are
just now entering Wisconsin public schools. I also
graduated from UW-Madison, and I think if you’re a
graduate of the UW system you should be irate. This
is our commonwealth. This is a something generations
of Wisconsinites across the political spectrum have
worked together to build. You don’t just disassemble
something this grand and beautiful because of one man’s
presidential aspirations. That’s villainous.
Nick: Rebecca Lee’s stories are so smart, so
cosmopolitan, so graceful. When I think about a reader
comparing her stuff to mine, well, I’m afraid that my
stories seem utterly knuckle-dragging.
Julie: You’ve demonstrated enviable range—novel, short
stories, poetry, and screen plays. When you sit down
to write, do you know whether you are writing a short
story, poem, novel, or screenplay.
Julie: Let’s talk about Cormac McCarthy because your
most recent book starts with him. You read All the Pretty
Horses in high school—mostly to spite your English
teacher, right? So when I opened Beneath the Bonfire
and on the first page saw you quoted McCarthy, I had
to smile. Talk more about the influence of McCarthy on
a 17-year-old, what you learned from reading him, and
your reason for quoting him.
Nick: For the most part, yes. I’m just trying to find the
best medium to tell a story, that’s all. Locking into one
single discipline or genre doesn’t seem (for me at least) to
be always the most effective tact at telling a compelling
story or digging into the truth.
Nick: I remember reading that exact quote as a 17or 18-year-old kid, and simply feeling a resonance.
Right now, for example, I am furious with our state
government, and I reflect on times in my own life
when I’ve been politically meek or apologetic, and now
10
I see that meekness in some situations is actually just
polite weakness, and I don’t like feeling weak. I think
McCarthy is interested in good and evil, strength and
weakness, and ultimately what is to become of humanity,
our species. I’ve always envied how he can write such
dark, dark, stories but always preserve some ember of
light, of hope. As a stylist, he is almost without peer, but
he’s also one of our best storytellers and thinkers. He
changed the way I encountered literature.
Julie: Male friendships and male betrayal are at the
center of Shotgun Lovesongs and Beneath the Bonfire.
What about this idea or subject appeals to you?
Nick: I think I’m interested in friendship in general, not
just male friendship. I am very blessed to have led a life
full of strong friendships and I don’t think it’s a surprise
that my fiction should sort of mirror that.
Julie: And of course, Wisconsin is always there.
Julie: What are you reading right now?
Nick: Yes, well, I live here. I never put much thought
into my settings—it just sort of came out naturally. I
imagine Thomas McGuane doesn’t spend much time
thinking about situating his work in Montana, for
example. That’s just where he is, where his stories come
from.
Nick: I just finished Bobcat and Other Stories last night,
so I’m not sure. This morning I was reading the Eau
Claire Leader-Telegram.
Julie: What advice do you give to young writers on
getting started?
Nick: Read. Read everything. Read outside of your socalled comfort zone. Read foreign authors, older books,
poetry, non-fiction—everything. Read mysteries to
understand how plot is constructed. Read poetry for
word-by-word attention to language. Read challenging
books. Don’t quit on books. Read, read, read. Don’t
worry about being a twenty-something wunderkind.
Julie: Do you get a print edition in the mail?
Nick: Yes, it’s a really great local paper. We’re fortunate
to have it.
Julie: What are you working on next?
Nick: A new novel. I think it’s set in northern Wisconsin
at a Boy Scout Camp. We’ll see...
Julie: How did you know that you could make a living
writing?
Nick: The honest answer of course, is that I didn’t know.
I’m very fortunate that my book sold in the manner that
it did. I’m very fortunate to have an amazing agent.
Julie: What about writers wanting to get published who
live in places far, far away from New York City, like Eau
Claire?
Nick: There are probably thousands, maybe tens of
thousands of wannabe writers in New York City who
don’t have agents, so I wouldn’t worry too much about
where you live. You should live where you want to live.
The thing I tell writers who are worried about getting
agents is this: The only thing you can control is your
own writing. The quality of your own writing. If your
writing is bad, I don’t think an agent will find you. If
your writing is very, very, good, I think there is a very
good chance you’ll be discovered. But you have to be
very, very good. And if your writing isn’t that good right
now, you need to figure out how to improve it. Always
be trying to get better. And worry about yourself, not
some stranger in New York City.
Julie: Name the last three great books you read.
Nick: Bobcat and Other Stories by Rebecca Lee; The
Enchanted by Rene Denfeld; and Billy Lynn’s Long
Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. All of them, amazing.
Julie Buckles is the author of Paddling to Winter. Visit
her website at juliebuckles.com.
11
Milton Mine
by Moriah Erickson
Milton Mine Collapse Survivors
February 5, 1924
Forty one souls, left in the mine.
Forty one men, all dead, some never found.
Cuyuna range, Crow Wing County
Minnesota-cold in 1924, men went deep;
manganese on their minds, or maybe worries
of bills, of family, of keeping warm another 6 weeks,
damn groundhog in Pennsylvania, miles and miles
from there, with no idea about Minnesota winter.
How could he tell anything?
Blasting the earth away as they did
day-in, day-out, dynamite
tore through rock below Foley’s Pond,
too close. Not by a long shot,
water and muck rushed, bashing bodies against walls,
rocks. Few who escaped that fate
drowned in that frigid murk.
One man went deeper, he would perish for this valor.
He rang the alarm, a shrill pierce cut
air as no underground sound could.
Four hours later, horn still sounded,
though danger was done.
Forty one souls, left in the mine.
Forty one men, all dead.
Seven got out, but after the Milton Mine
filled up, absorbing men who could
have been them, those seven couldn’t breathe
a single breath that didn’t stink of death
and guilt.
12
A Child As Totem
by Allen Killian-Moore
tiny voices
belabor
fetal positions
drawn meticulously
within the frame
of experience
as absence
while
allusions
to violence
following rage
crescendo
in letters
tempered
only by limitations
placed on buttons
or fingers
caught
red handed
in their own
easy denial
feeding
caustic self-pity
which erodes an
alarmingly thin
veneer covering
holes behind
an inability
to foster
critical
self-analyses
in the face
of defeat
grabbing
for a child
as totem
to supplement
carefully crafted
narrative arcs
burying personal
responsibility
beneath
the house
of corpses
saved for
necrophiliac
dream
deceptions
making
out with death
while carving
your likeness
into a child
forced
beyond herself
to pose in bronze
among relics
on toppling shelves
mislabeled
affection
enticed
by rhamnousia
toward shimmering depths
as every faculty
is transfixed
and reflected
back in an
endless
gaze
13
Panóptico Del Olvido
by Jorge Pablo Lima
Primero fue la rueda,
después la ley de fuga, la doncella de hierro,
el garrote vil, la gota china y el toro
de Falaris; es decir, luego de siglos de ejecución
persiste una potencia,
una magnitud como un vacío desbordante
que bebe todo el rigor de las emanaciones
y ancla sus intersticios en el aire, bajo
la coima insipiente del soldado,
en el diario barbitúrico de las camareras --la hipocresía hecha
metástasis--, en los titulares de la prensa,
en la doctrina incontestable, en las orbitas desprendidas
de la gula y el juicio:
en la cabeza clásica, en la cabeza enema,
en la cabeza óntica, en la cabeza metonímica,
en el peñasco habitual de todas las cosas.
Después de la prudencia reducida a escaras,
a humo, a cartuchos de uranio empobrecido,
sobre la arqueología del tedio asimilado, vuelto sobre sí
como un valor inobjetable
--afirmando su preeminencia--,
desaloja el contenido de la palabra,
donde lo que se ha dicho retrocede más allá
de lo que la palabra podría añadir
cuando aparece entre los restos del vientre celeste
para acabar con el juicio de la memoria.
Después del amor escatológico,
de la mitología indolente,
de las representaciones y de las correspondencias,
una antigua resolución preside nuestros actos,
se trata de la fuerza y el agenciamiento del olvido,
la intensidad ligada al olvido, la intensidad
de la cabeza-olvido;
como si se hubiera convenido de hecho y
en principio que el olvido es innato:
el umbral intensivo de la existencia,
el contenido prenatal, ungido,
siempre al tanto del hombre como lo está Él
de sus acólitos, improvisándole a su medida
14
The Forgotten Panoptic
by Jorge Pablo Lima
Translation by Nick Nelson and Madeline Brown
First came the Wheel,
then the Breach, the Iron Maiden,
the Garrote Vil, Chinese Water Torture and the Phalaris
Bull; which is to say, after centuries of execution
a potency persists,
the magnitude of a boundless void
drinking every emanation’s rigor
and anchoring interstices in mid-air, beneath
the soldier’s incipient concubine,
in the daily sedative of chambermaids – hypocrisy causing
metastasis– in the press headlines,
in the incontestable doctrine, in the failing orbits
of greed and judgment:
the classic talking head, his head in his asshole,
an antic mindset, a metonymic mindset,
in the habitual crag of everything.
After prudence is reduced to bedsores,
to smoke, to cartridges of depleted uranium,
over the archeology of assimilated boredom, turned back on itself
like an unobjectionable self-worth
–affirming its pre-eminence–
dislodging the content of the word,
what has been said going back further
than the word might add
appearing amongst leftovers of celestial intuition
ending with memory’s judgment.
After scatological love,
an indolent mythology,
representations and correspondences,
ancient resolution presiding over our acts,
our efforts and forgotten negotiations,
intensity tied to the forgotten, intensity
of a forgotten mindset;
as if it had been in fact useful and
at the beginning the forgotten were innate:
the intense threshold of existence,
prenatal content, applied,
Man and He continually reminded
of their acolytes, improvising their step
15
250 Words or Less: The Champions of the
First-Ever Aqueous Flash-Fiction Contest
C
ome savor the results of our Flash-Fiction contest, the theme of which was “First Times.” Like an appetizer,
these little morsels intend to delight your literary palate with a flash of flavor. Our winner, Rob Ganson,
offers on his slice of the platter a sprig of curiosity in the hue of hunter’s orange, while others tantalize with a
block of cheese, drowned keys, and a vinyl cherry.
A sincere thank you to all who submitted to the contest. Your submissions were invaluable contributions to the
abundance of dishes we taste-tested.
Open Mic
The Ridge
First Place
Runner Up
by Robert Ganson
by Bridget Stafford
This was the rowdy open mic, the one in the middle
of deer season. The larger than usual crowd was
ablaze with orange. Spirits were high, and truth be
told, so were most of the folks in the merry throng,
particularly the blond with a bit of orange thong
showing, (not, methinks, by accident.)
The heady scents of beer and mayhem filled the air.
Clearly, this was a crew that only wanted another
drinkin’ song. The smoky air was filled with the
creative lies and alibis that Wisconsin hunters are
famous for, variations on a theme of “Big Louie” and
“I only missed because.” It seems that every stump,
tree stand, every hill in the state has a nickname and a
story.
As the chaos reached a peak, two men ambled up to
the stage, and along with the largest, a blond with
graceful curves, a beauty. They hadn’t shared a stage
before, and the sounds that ensued were not the usual
fare; New Orleans blues, a taste of the lower East side
circa 1956, an entirely different sort of thing.
As if by magic, the merry revelers fell quiet, if only
to take in the unusual vibe that spewed from the
unlikely trio. For a bit of time seemingly removed
from the previous reality, the stories stopped and they
listened, really listened.
As they walked off the stage, they were overheard.
“Dude; you got poetry on my saxophone!” “No man;
you got New Orleans all over my poems.”
16
The Ridge. From here it’s easy to spot spring ice floes,
exiled and adrift, destined for a slushy, lonely demise
surrounded by glacial eternity. Multi-story houses rise
from the Ridge in jumbles of peaks and slopes. My
house hosts a blues-rock fueled bacchanalia which
ebbs and flows according to its own social weather.
This place is too much of something continuously colliding with too much of everything. It groans, grinds
and rumbles around the clock. The people are pack
ice and this house is the shore.
Inside, the air is corduroy with velour overtones.
Blues and reds pop and acid drops. Sunrise brings
sandy-eyed squinting, lung chunks, and cigarette
salvation. Coin collections to finance the next booze
run begin before noon. We indulge in whatever gets
passed around. Hungry? There’s toast to be made and
coffee to perk. Predictable excess quickly kills whatever thrills appear. Last night, though, was one for the
books. Two firsts worthy of reverent but temporary
pauses in the bong-passing came ashore: The latest
LP from Zeppelin had its vinyl cherry popped to an
appreciative audience and I woke up next to an icy
blue girl, exiled and adrift beside me on the mattress.
September One
The Attic Floor
Runner Up
Honorable Mention
by Anthony Martin
by Jill Dermody
You swam with your car keys today.
I swam with my son-of-a-bitch car keys today.
This is how I remember it. I was still dripping wet. She
was the passerby. I told her my name and suggested
calling the police because they have that tool and she
said Gets you in but still no keys. I shrugged in agreement. A propeller plane made a slow pass along the
crowded waterfront, trailing a banner for cannabis
pills and an improved quality of life.
“That would be good for my auntie.”
“Your auntie?”
“The sign up there.”
“Oh. Right. Ha. Mine too.”
“Everybody’s.”
“Where does the apostrophe go on that?”
“Everybody? I think before the last letter.”
Paul was seventeen and worked a very dull job at his
father’s battery store. As he walked across his attic bedroom to get dressed for work, a familiar pain throbbed
in his legs. This was because the attic floor was slanted.
After breakfast, Paul hopped onto his bicycle and
rode to work, trying to ignore the pain in his legs. He
was sitting at a desk, writing something on a scrap of
paper, when his father arrived.
“I don’t pay you to sit around,” his father barked. “Get
to work.”
Paul put the paper into his back pocket then began
sweeping the floor. A woman entered the store. While
his father helped her, Paul sat down in the office to
rest his aching legs. The pain was so intense that he
failed to notice his father coming in.
“What are you doing?” his father cried.
“Sounds right. So if no police and no keys, what will
you do?”
“Sorry!” Paul jumped up, wincing as hot bolts of pain
shot through his legs.
“I don’t know but you don’t have to stay.”
His father’s face grew red with anger. “You seem to
think you can coast through life.”
“Who has your apartment spares, if you don’t mind
me asking?”
“Cousin does, and I don’t.”
The airplane gave a strained low drone as the pilot
made a turn to double back. She offered to drive me
to my cousin’s place to knock on the door, take my
chances. Sure, I said. I think that’s what I said.
Sure.
She shielded her eyes from the bright glare of the sun
and said Don’t worry, I’m sure the dealer will make a
key.
She asked me to call her Remy.
Her name is Ramona.
Paul did not reply, thinking only of the pain.
“You better start thinking about your future,” his father said. “What do you want to be?”
Paul was fed up with his father. “A block of cheese,” he
replied.
“Is that a joke?”
“Yes,” Paul said slowly. “This is all one, big, fucking
joke.”
Paul’s father slapped him hard across the face. For a
moment, Paul stood there in a daze. Then he burst out
laughing.
17
Ode to Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica
Rothschild deKoenigswarter
by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois
Thelonius Monk
said that she was named Pannonica
after a rare species of butterfly
her father had discovered deep in Africa
but that was just because he was in love with her
How could he not be?
One of the richest broads on the spinning globe
and she’s hanging out with musicians
a true bebop baroness
even blowing weed with them backstage
and when the cops come to bust them
sports a big smile and says:
Officers, these weeds are mine
A great-niece says:
No, not a butterfly
a moth
but what does it matter
who we are as we fly
above the mundane world
Thelonius with dissonant harmonies
melodies twisting angular as a Harlem knife
percussive attacks
like a gang of hoods burst out of an alley
then dramatic hesitations
These were also the qualities of my first wife
the schizophrenic
She, like jazz
could not be silenced
18
The Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild
deKoenigswarter
made it the business of every one of her fancy names:
her friends would not be silenced
even after Charlie Parker died
in her Stanhope rooms
and the management
said they didn’t care who she was
how much money she had
they were kicking her out
The fools!
Did they think they were the only grand
hotel in town?
She relocated to the Bolivar
230 Central Park West
the Blue Bolivar
Monk called it in the title of a song
which got a good laugh from
the Baroness
She had a memorial jam session in her suite
in Bird’s honor
Parker was like her
she said
a creature of the air
birds and butterflies need to stay together
even though life for them is seldom long
She sent her chauffer and Rolls
to pick up the crew
Patron and friend she was faithful
nursed Thelonius through his final illness
stroked his
forehead broad as a piano keyboard
after his mind broke
and said, in French,
My dear, for each of us
the time does come
19
20
A Burning Loss Photograph by Amber Mullen
Unanswered
by Catherine Patricia Sanford Meier
And if I had you here, to see and touch
instead of just the clouded moon, and rock, and the wind’s empty breath
would the weight be lifted?
Would your knowing lips on my face
in their savouring, deliberate prelude
make the moon and its cloud-rag
easier to bear?
Thought
by Catherine Patricia Sanford Meier
Would our breath-forgetting kiss
and your grateful eyes
ease the pain of the empty wind?
We saw a sliver moon like that, one night,
tipping above a willow; and I sighed
because I could not speak, I think. You said
“It sure is pretty,” and I grasped your hand
so glad you were no poet in your speech.
A moment quiet – then we wandered home.
I wonder – is it cloudy where you are?
~October 5, 1941
~February 1942
Would the warmth of your shoulder,
and the sudden length of your body,
the subtle certainty of mine
make the rock more vulnerable?
Catherine Patricia Sanford Meier, 1921-2005
Catherine Patricia Sanford Meier grew up in the Twin Cities, but also
spent her summers just south of Bayfield and on Madeline Island. She
was my grandmother - born in 1921. As a child I, too, spent every summer
on Madeline, and I remember being read to - classic children’s stories by
Hans Christian Anderson (none of that Disney stuff!). I was mesmerized
by the power of these words as a young girl. She introduced me to other
writers such as John Knowles, JD Salinger, and eventually Shakespeare.
My grandmother’s passion for these stories inspired me to want to write
and tell my own. Little did I know, my grandmother also wrote her own
stories and poetry most of her life. I recently came upon a notebook full
of her writing. These are two poems she wrote while in college at Mount
Holyoke College in Massachussetts, and her then boyfriend (soon to be
husband, James Gault Meier) was attending the University of Minnesota.
I do not know if my grandmother (aka Potsy) ever wanted to - or
attempted to - publish any of her words. I have often wondered if she
would have submitted to a magazine like Aqueous had she the chance. She
taught me to love words, and to always pursue my passion for writing. She
was always honest with me and would tell me when something wasn’t up to par. Potsy battled Alzheimer’s
and left us in 2005. I could not be prouder to be sharing her artful and thoughtful words.
~ Kristen Sandstrom, Bayfield, WI
21
A person’s name is nothing but
black ink on wallet-­sized plastic
by Sean Devlin
A man stood with a hole in his chest
not knowing who had done this to him
Who had run down the subway stairs
and I watched him and sipped my coffee
No sounds seemed unfamiliar to anyone
Just another tick to direct eyes at the ground
He looked at me and I looked back
My feet were divided on the stairs
I had an urge to push my finger inside the wound
to feel where his breath and memories escaped
But, also longed to walk forward with the rest
that pretended to see nothing
and feel my emotions callus over
The subway would arrive at any minute
Ghostly Sound Silver gelatin print by Aria Durward
22
JR’s Shirt
by Liz Woodworth
H
ow JR got his money, I don’t know. I’ve heard
rumors that he owned a big Earth Shoes store in
Madison in the late 70s. Remember Earth Shoes? They
were big, right about time when straight people used
to place rainbow stickers on their Honda Civics. Earth
Shoes were ridiculously ugly, heavy and bulky shoes
and like most trends I came across during puberty, I
jumped on that bandwagon and rode it for all she was
worth. I thought they were fabulous. Even at the age of
12, I owned a pair. “Did you check out my rad new
Earth Shoes?” (Clunk, clunk, clunk.) “I got them in
Madtown, and they’re (clunk) super cool, right?”
(Clunk.) Aside from being heavy and big, they also
were oddly shaped, so anytime I walked, I managed to
move like a Teamster, and running was out of the
question.
Thanks to Earth Shoes (rumor has it) JR has money
and doesn’t have to work. His job is “moving” his
money. I once caught him actually moving a stock or
a bond or something. It didn’t look that hard, frankly,
the actual moving of it: that was just a phone call.
What must be hard is knowing what’s up and what’s
down. I look at a stock report in the paper and my eyes
glaze over and I daydream about vodka. Anyway, JR
has this invisible money that floats around, kind of
like what I imagine Liberace‘s ghost would do: be
invisible, float around, and make people happy. Aside
from money, JR also has a lot of suaveness and sophistication for a Wisconsin guy, but then again, he is from
Madison.
My husband Kriner and I met him through mutual
friends and we got along immediately. One year, he
came up for our big, local festival, Applefest, which is
always the first weekend of October, and he ended up
staying on our couch until early November; we were
sad to see him go. Most people are not like that. They
spend the night, and you want to kill them by breakfast; but not JR. Kriner and I would go to work, and JR
would go for little walks, or day-trip on his Moto Guzzi
motorcycle and then show up for dinner. We would
swap humorous anecdotes about our day, and then he
would spend the rest of the evening talking about
foreign films, and I would nod as if I knew what the
hell he was talking about. He’s dashing, smart and
magnetic. He is one of those rare people that you just
like. No one hates JR. We all kind of love him.
Aside from being über cool, JR is also a snappy dress-
er, in a bohemian, hip kind of way. He once had a pair
of jeans made for him. He actually found this trendy
place that makes custom jeans. Having jeans made for
you might be interesting enough, but he didn’t wash
them for six weeks because the gal who made them
told him not to. That’s odd, but I think even more
interesting is the fact that I saw him around week five
and they looked great. They didn’t even smell bad,
they just were great fitting, cool-looking, punk jeans.
Who knew?
One weekend JR came up for a little thing called the
Blue Moon Ball, which is like a boozy, grown-up prom
that we locals put on in January. Most people take it
pretty seriously, but the crowd I run with usually dress
up like drag queens and whores, regardless of gender.
The winters here in Northern Wisconsin are six
months long. This is not hyperbole. We have snow on
the ground in November and it stays well into April. I
am being 100 percent serious. When you live in that
type of climate, you tend to do everything you can to
avoid getting cabin fever. Our crazy, odd little community will do everything in its power to make sure there
are events and gatherings all winter long. They’re
always a tad askew, much like the town itself, but I
digress.
So JR came up for the ball, because I talked him into
it. (I’m good at talking people into things. It’s a gift.
It’s how I got married). Anyway, he came up and
brought with him a really nice suit, and a really, really
beautiful white shirt. This was no ordinary shirt; this
was like the superman of shirts, the Taj Mahal of
shirts. The thread count was in the six-digit range. It
was an amazing shirt. He had it made for him by “his
guy” in Chicago. Now, clearly this man doesn’t buy
much, if anything, off the rack (please see previous
jeans fun-fact). I imagine he has some elderly woman
from the old country sewing boxers in his backroom,
but then again, I also imagine JR is too cool to wear
underwear; he would be the type of guy to go free
balling. So, it was a given he would have a tailored
shirt, but even with it being tailored, this shirt was
perfect. It fit him amazingly well and was flawless.
Soft, light, perfection.
It was the day of the ball, and JR was over at Ted and
Marcie’s. They were, in fact, the folks who introduced
us to JR. While I cast my eye across the room, I noticed JR’s beautiful shirt hanging on the hanger and
23
realized it had a few wrinkles. It needed to be ironed. I
thought, “What a thoughtful woman I am. Why, I’m
gonna help this poor guy out. I’m going to iron his
shirt for him.” And then I had a nice little giggle to
myself. “Aren’t I great?” At this point I should mention
that I don’t iron very often, and by that, I mean never.
In fact, I don’t own an ironing board, which, as it turns
out, is a major turning point in this story.
After some digging in the basement, I found my old
iron. This was somewhere between the take-it-out-ofthe-box phase and the let’s-use-this-to-wax-our-skis
phase. There was never really any iron-the-clothes
phase. JR’s shirt was as close as I got.
Realizing I had no ironing board, I remained undaunted. I looked around and, using my wits, got a towel
from the bathroom. I started to iron the shirt on the
towel, but the towel was too plush, too soft. It was, in a
word, ineffective. So, I removed the towel and just
ironed the shirt. It was working! The wrinkles were
disappearing! I was amazing! “I am a domestic goddess
and a terrific friend. Aren’t I amazing?” I thought. That
is, until I tried to move the shirt from the floor. You
see, I was ironing the shirt on top of a rug in our
dining room, and what I didn’t realize was that the rug
was polyester, not wool (not that that would have
stopped me at the time) so I was, in fact, melting the
rug to the shirt.
I stopped in disbelief. “Shit” came out of my mouth
Kriner looked over his newspaper and asked, “What?”
“I ironed the shirt to the rug.”
“Huh.” He went back to his paper.
Trying not to freak out, I attempted to peel the shirt
off the rug. It took some doing, but I finally freed it.
“Hurrah! I am so lucky! That is so great! But wait,
what’s that?” Unfortunately for me (and the shirt) the
evergreen and burgundy rose pattern from our cheapass area rug was now melted onto the shirt. Little
colored balls of melted rug were all over the shirt,
somewhere on the right shoulder area. “Shit.”
I ran to the kitchen for ice cubes, because somewhere
in my brain I knew that if I got burned, an ice cube
would make it better. It could work for a shirt, right? I
also grabbed a butter knife. I then applied the ice to
the melted polyester and attempted to freeze it and
then scrape off a small section of melted plastic with
the butter knife. And you know what? It kind of
24
worked. (I too was surprised.) I had to watch how hard
I scraped, because, as I mentioned, the thread count on
this thing was staggering, so it wouldn’t have taken
much to scratch a hole into this, the Mona Lisa of
shirts, particularly after the ice melted. On my knees, I
froze and scraped, froze and scraped, for over an
hour—but the hard work was paying off. It was starting to look more like a shirt and less like a rug from
Howard Johnsons, however, the soft, fine texture of
the shirt was irrevocably damaged. The area that had
been ironed now had a rough, ruined, polyester feel to
it.
“Well, it will have to do,” I thought. I took the shirt
over to the coffee table in front of the bay window,
because over the hours it had taken to scrape the
plastic rug off the shirt, the sun had changed positions
in the sky. I was going to give it a thorough once-over
to make sure I got all of the melted rug off it. I shook
out the shirt with a graceful flick of my wrist and laid
it down on the table. But an odd thing happened. It
didn’t lay flat on my coffee table. There was a peak in
the middle of the shirt in the shape of a tiny Mt. Fuji. I
was about to push it down, thinking it was some odd
air bubble when I saw it. A flame popped through the
back of the shirt. I had forgotten about the candle.
Earlier in the day, I had lit a scented candle, cranberry
I think, to impress JR with how homey and cool I am.
“We light scented candles—doesn’t that scream of
sophistication?” I thought. However, in the wake of
shirt-rug drama, I had completely forgotten about it
and not seen it because of the glaring sunshine of the
western bay window. Now the shirt was on fire. In a
panic, I pushed the shirt with the palm of my hand.
Now, when humans react impulsively, very rarely do
good things happen. This was one of those times. The
candle tipped over on its side, which was very effective
in putting out the flame, but, unfortunately, it sent hot
red melted wax all over the shirt. “SHIT!” I exclaimed.
Once again, Kriner looked over his paper. “What the
hell are you doing?”
Now the shirt-that-had-been-ironed-to-a-rug had a burn
hole the size of a quarter and was covered in red wax. I
panicked. What does a woman in her 30s do when she
panics? She calls her mother.
“Mom, I need your help. I screwed up really bad.”
“You didn‘t have an affair, did you?”
Because It’s Nintendo 12” x 18” Mixed media by Jason Lupas
“NO! God! Mom, listen, how do I get wax out of a shirt?”
“Is that it? Honey, calm down. That’s easy. You iron it.” Apparently the universe does have a sense of humor.
“What? You’ve got to be kidding me…”
“No dear, it works. Take a white dish towel, or paper towel, put it over the wax and iron it. The wax will melt to
the towel. Trust me.”
“OK.”
Once again, I plugged in that devil machine. I put the heat setting on hot, as my mother had instructed. Careful
to avoid the rug, I got a dish towel and ironed the once-beautiful, now badly damaged, shirt again. My mother
left out two very important things in her phone call. Number one: this doesn’t get all the wax out, only about
60 percent, and don’t even think about getting the rest out, because the heat basically melts it in further. Any
fabric that has had this procedure will have an odd sheen and stiffness forever. Number two: It doesn’t take the
color out. It takes the wax, but leaves the color. I called my mother again.
25
“Mom, what about the stains?!”
“Lizzy, what’s going on?”
“Dear, you didn’t tell me it was colored wax. Hmm,
well, you could always try to bleach it out…”
I started to share my pitiful story. My friend Marcie
has what I like to call an investment laugh. You have
to work pretty hard to get her to laugh, because she’s
a comedy snob. She isn’t like the other friends I have,
whore laughers who just laugh at everything, even
setups. You have to earn her laughs, but once you
invest the time and energy in making Marcie laugh,
the return is totally worth it. Once she gets going, she
goes. She starts with the giggles and then moves on
to the big, high pitched guffaws and she sometimes
finishes off with some stout, jubilant snorts. It gets
impossible for her to stop laughing. That pretty much
sums up where she was in my retelling of this story,
and I had only made it to the candle. She hadn’t even
heard about the bleach yet. It was at this point that
I hear JR in the background asking, “Hey, what’s so
funny?” and he and Ted, even though ignorant of the
“funny,” started to laugh because Marcie was about to
wet her pants.
At this point it would be good to mention that as ignorant as I am of ironing, I am equally ignorant of laundry. We use one setting (regular), one load size (extra
large), and one temperature (cold), and I never, ever,
pre-treat stains or use bleach. Never. I dump detergent
in and wash my clothes, period. If I stain an article of
clothing (which I often do), I usually just learn to live
with it, and on those rare occasions where the stain is
too big or the location of said stain is too embarrassing and obvious, I donate it to Goodwill.
I’m not sure why I had bleach, but I think it had to do
with a slime mold outbreak in my shower. I had never,
ever, done a load with only one item. I usually cram
as many dirty clothes into the machine as I can. On
good days, I may actually fold the clothes, but let’s not
get carried away. For the first time ever, I changed the
settings on my washing machine. “Extra Large” became “Small.” I started to pour the bleach in—but how
much? Better safe than sorry, right? A cup for sure…
Maybe two cups would be better… Darn, I should have
asked Mom. Two cups it was, with a few more generous splashes for good measure. Do you add detergent
with the bleach? Does the bleach get things clean or
just white? This was harder than it looked.
So I did a quick load, and paced the whole time.
Finally the cycle was over. I slowly descended the
basement steps. Holding my breath, in part for nerves,
but also in part because the chlorine fumes were
overwhelming. I hoped that the all-powerful bleach
would restore the shirt to its original perfection, sans
stains, sans burn-hole, sans rug. However, my hopes
were dashed. Although the red stains were no longer
there, they were replaced by a lovely baby pink; the
area that had been “pretreated” by a butter knife was
threadbare, the hole made by the candle was larger
and the shirt had an overwhelming stench of city pool.
Logically, I washed it again.
At this point I had to let JR know what was going on. I
called Marcie and Ted’s house, and Marcie picked up.
“Is JR there?”
“Yeah, wanna talk to him?”
“Not yet, is he… happy?
26
Up to this point, I had spent hours in panic. None of
this was funny to me, at all. But that’s when I thought,
“Well, I guess it is kind of funny. JR is already laughing and he hasn’t even heard it yet.” I started to laugh
with Marcie, because as anyone knows, the investment
laughers always get others to laugh with them—think
of it as a dividend check. At this moment, Marcie had
to hand the phone off because her sides were starting to hurt. JR got on the phone. “Hey kid, what’s so
funny?”
“Well, an odd thing happened to your shirt.”
Silence.
I told the story, holding back giggles and snorts,
which I blame on Marcie because, after all, she got me
started. However, there was silence on the other end.
Silence.
In the end, JR wore the shirt to the ball, under his
jacket that almost hid the pink stains, and after an hour
he was taking off his jacket to tell people the story and
show off the hole, the rug remnants and the scorch
marks. In true JR fashion, he was a gentleman about it
and was cool in the end. Of course I offered to pay for
another shirt, to replace it and he gently said, “Honey,
you couldn’t.” I bought him some candles instead.
Giving In
by Amy Sprague
The space between
faith and failing—as fragile
as my grandmother’s slip-I see
those two don’t exist
as I had thought they did.
After waking-as if from a cave and floating out
into an inlet in an ocean,
left for dead-your eyes need months to adjust, your breathing
needs to steady, you can’t speak
or understand the horizon
and then,
there,
blinding linens, her knotted hands
on the clothespins, pulling down
the white cord beneath white clouds
by the Birch tree;
whites
color around my thoughts
as if surviving meant
that the only truth
was there.
27
The Reckless and the Wandering 4’ x 3’ Ceramic mural by Bailey Louise Davis
28
Aqueous Economy
by Nicholas Nelson
W
ith world health projected to continue to decline the medical industry is showing robust
opportunity for diverse investments. “People just keep
dying,” says Dr. Nohitall, “and we’re not expecting that
to change any time soon. It’s a real Seller’s Market; if
you’ve got some snake oil it’ll fetch top dollar.” And
nowhere is showing as much promise for big gains
and small risk quite like the organ market. Worldwide
the waiting list for a human organ is estimated at
90,000 and growing every day, with an average wait
of three years; average life-expectancy of those on
the list is often short of that. Add to this the nearly
global ban on the Organ Trade and you’ve got a real
Free-Market, capitalist-morality conundrum.
Fortunately, a few bold Free-Market entrepreneurs
(Iran) continue to keep hope alive, sort of. Despite
these efforts, demand is on the rise rise RISE! and
we’re seeing strong Red-Markets developing in undeveloped and developed nations alike. More than twenty countries have a highly functioning underground
organ trade, including the good ‘ol U. S. of A. A single
kidney, worth a measly $40,000 legally harvested from
a cadaver, can fetch upwards of $150,000 from a living
specimen. Likewise, costs
associated with legal channels
are their own deterrent. By
the time they’re done covering expenses (doctor’s fees,
administrative costs, equipment, facility upkeep, and
sanitation!) private hospitals
pay out pennies on the dollar
to eager investors. However, a
savvy investor with a keen eye
for innovation can assemble
a crack team of veterinarians,
kidnappers and 7-11 supplies
and purchase real estate in a
shanty town for less than the
cost of one week’s stay in the
Bahamas. Forget about years
of bureaucratic red-tape waiting for restrictions to
ease to see returns, in under two weeks you can have
a fully-functioning organ factory bringing life to the
Red-Market, figuratively speaking.
While I can’t legally recommend any particular outfit,
word is “big things” can be expected from The Party
of Liberating People in the Philippines, who was just
acquired by the People’s Republic of China and shows
real signs of growth as they tap into a new field of
resources.
For those with a more long term approach Transplant
Tourism offers a soft, legal option to get in the game.
Happy Endings out of India currently offers a six week
all-inclusive Li-vercation in rural Mumbai for $75,000;
a quarter of the cost of a transplant in the United
States (and you get to ride an elephant!) Investors are
being sought for a new Kidney Wing at their resort.
This has been an Aqueous Eye on the economy.
Stay wealthy and healthy,
N
Corpse Hoist Photograph by Pimm
29
It Took Us Two Years to Put Breasts on the Cover…
And Other Aqueous Thoughts, News and Up-Dates
by Sara A. Owen
Why exactly? Phrases were used like: “We’re just not ready… If we published out of Duluth or the Twin Cities,
it would be different… We’ll feel more comfortable when we’re more established.” Embarrassing, really. We’re
a small pack of “brave” artists promoting an uncensored experience. We’re also tender, human, and all too
aware of our Chequamegon Bay origins. Lest we forget the Ashland Daily Press’s XXXX Monologues incident of
June 2013 – their refusal/discomfort printing the word vagina went a bit viral, then, silence. (For further satirical
reference, please see Kristen Sandstrom’s letter on p. 30 of Aqueous Volume two). But, the word vagina is not
the same as an image of breasts. Is it worse? Does it matter when we’re so far from comfortable with either in
our neck of the woods? Was our plan to wait and woo the Northland for two years, earning their trust with our
quirky, artsy ways, all unclothed images and naughty words safe within the pages of the magazine, volume
after volume and then… breasts. Breasts, visible in homes on end tables, at our distribution locations like coffee
shops, (who cares) or libraries (yikes, libraries!), thereby single-handedly, instantly changing the Chequamegon
Bay into a what… a culturally enlightened mecca? No, not really. (Maybe?) It’s just time. We will continue to
proudly share artist’s work of all kinds and subject matter. Every source of art in our region and beyond educates, enlightens, and even disappoints. It helps us to question, think deeper, have more conversations, and grow
-- perhaps, into more forgiving, caring and fascinated humans.
Other areas of running a nonprofit, literary, visual, and performing arts magazine are going well. We’ve now
received a total of 800 submissions and published a total of 275 works in the magazine. Our biggest challenge
continues to be maintaining and growing our subscription numbers as well as funding the project. It is truly
lovely to receive your own personal copy in the mail and feel good about supporting the cause for more connected and culturally informed communities. Thanks to the Chequamegon Bay Arts Council for the grant that
helped fund this Volume of Aqueous. Also, we’re pleased to announce the first Aqueous artist gallery show. The
three week exhibition showcased over 15 artists’ previously published and new works. The opening of the show
at our Summer Solstice release event constituted our first immersive, “live magazine” experience. Live readings,
music, and physical artwork from our first nine volumes surrounded our guests with artistic energy for a truly
memorable release party experience.
There’s lots to report in Staff news. Three of our members graduated from Northland College this May. Our
second (and former) intern, now full staff member, Halee Kirkwood, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Writing.
Marissa Fish, with Environmental Geoscience with Geology emphasis and Writing and a Bachelor of Science Degree. Sean Devlin, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Writing and English. We reported in the last issue that Sean
was accepted to Arcadia University’s MFA program for Creative Fiction Writing. Soon after, he was also accepted
into Ireland’s University of Limerick to attend their M.A. Creative Writing Program. No contest there. (Have
fun in Ireland, Sean!) We’ve said good-bye to Sean, although he will stay on in the capacity of our Aqueous
Ireland Outreach Coordinator. We’ve also started saying good-bye to founding staff member Kristen Sandstrom
as she transitions to put her energy into a personal writing project. We gain our first international intern this
June. Jorge Pablo Lima (aka Pablo) from Matanzas, Cuba is a talented writer and visual artist. His contribution,
collaboratively and creatively will further the development of our contributors, public events, staff and readership. We look forward to his assistance and influence in our next Volume. We are also in a position to expand
our volunteer staff and outreach team. If you are interested or know someone who would love to be a part of
our team for no money but lots of fun and painstaking rewards of artistic justice, please see our notice on the
opposite page.
In closing, we encourage you to be brave. Publish creative images of breasts. Don’t wait two years like we did.
Submit your work, share your art, conversation, and the magazine with others and have a great summer.
30
Join Aqueous at the Madeline Island Summer
Film Series - July 9th-11th
Three nights of outdoor film & music on the beach
at The Inn on Madeline Island.
Aqueous is partnering with the MI Film Series to co-host Saturday night.
Come enjoy a live show of “ever-extemporaneous Total Freedom Rock” by
the 6-piece band Red Mountain, followed by the film How to Change the
World, the story of the founders of Greenpeace. This feature documentary
chronicles the adventures of an eclectic group of young pioneers – Canadian hippie journalists, photographers, musicians, scientists, and American
draft dodgers – who set out to stop the atomic bomb tests in Amchitka, Alaska, and end up creating the worldwide green movement. This
award-winning film premiered at Sundance in January and continues to
make the rounds of the world’s premiere festivals.
Each summer, the series presents a thoughtfully-curated program of new
and noteworthy independent films from around the world -- a collection of films with “island spirit” that reflect
the community’s love of nature, whimsy, individuality, music, and the arts. Exhibited in the great outdoors,
on the shores of Lake Superior, the film series offers residents and visitors a unique lineup of screenings in
an extraordinary setting. Founded in 2012, the Madeline Island Summer Film Series is a proud affiliate of the
La Pointe Center for the Arts. For more details, check out the websites: www.chaperonerecords.com/artists/
red-mountain, www.madfilmseries.com, or www.facebook.com/MadFilm.
Special Thanks... To our friends, family, co-workers, and all those who have helped support us as
staff members of Aqueous. We appreciate you helping us to make this happen. To StageNorth for the terrific
space for our Volume Nine release party. To Marky Baby and DJ Db for helping us to rock it. To the Chequamegon Bay Arts Council for all the work they do in our area and for the grant that helped fund this volume of
the magazine. And most especially a tsunami of hugs and thanks and future Jameson Gingers for Kristen
Sandstrom for all her tireless hard work with layout over the past two years.
Contribute
to Aqueous...
AQUEOUS NEEDS YOU!
We are currently and perennially seeking more creative
support to expand our staff. Two years in we are ready to
Our submission process has changed in order grow and really launch this magazine to the next level.
Aqueous needs you to join our team in making this ragto better manage a higher quantity of submis- tag rag continue to thrive with its own brand of creative
sions. From now on, simply visit our website Midwest-Coast perspective. Graphic design and plastic art
and click on the “SUBMIT” button. Here are backgrounds are definitely needed to diversify our core
editorial staff talents. More than anything we need your
the deadlines for the next few volumes, but we passion. That said, a wide range of opportunities to contribare happy to take your submissions anytime. ute exist: proofreaders, staff writers and artists for assignments, a Duluth distribution coordinator, and website/
Autumnal Equinox 2015 - July 31st, 2015
online design/outreach. If you are interested in coming to
Winter Solstice 2015 - October 31, 2015
work with a wild bunch of dedicated artists please email
aqueousmagazine@gmail.com.
Vernal Equinox 2016 - January 31, 2016
www.aqueousmagazine.org
facebook.com/aqueousmagazine
Twitter: @aqueousmagazine
aqueousmagazine@gmail.com
In 300 words or less tell us a little about yourself and your
talents and we’ll get back to you.
Aqueous Magazine
PO Box 261
La Pointe, WI 54850
31
Summer Solstice Volume Nine
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This magazine is supported in part by a grant from the Chequamegon Bay Arts Council
and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin.