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The American Sandals

5/29/2016

 
BY KIM KOLARICH

​In 1970, we moved from the town of Moate in County Westmeath, Ireland to Oxnard, California. I was ten. After a few months in our new home, I realized that everything about us was different from our Southern California surroundings. Our speech, our hair, our clothes, and most noticeably, our mouths. My family looked like we had spent time with our heads lodged in a hornet’s nest, trying to kiss one of the devils. We each had tiny, pink lips that looked as if they could pop right off of our faces at any moment, and when we smiled, our small mouths housed rather large but strong choppers. My baby sister proved to have the strongest teeth, as we had to replace her mangled pacifier every couple of months. I spent a lot of time standing in front of a mirror, turned slightly, my hands shoved into the pockets of my jeans, and casually speaking to myself over my shoulder. I overpronounced each word that I spoke, and stretched my mouth to look big and American.


“Wanna play some ball?” I would say, pulling my lips tightly across my fencelike teeth. When I tried this approach at school, the other boys turned away in disgust. I decided to try finding another way to make myself look more American, and I thought that I would start at the bottom.

“My shoes…” I mumbled to my dad one day.

“Your what?” he said. The ever-present cigarette that dangled from his mouth looked like a piece of rubber when he spoke. “Your what?” he responded again and turned his ear towards me for emphasis. 

“I’ve got to get the right shoes, Dad,” I said, earnestly.
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Neck-a-Breaker

5/22/2016

 
BY BRYAN GRAFTON

Mac was Albanian. His long Albanian name was unpronounceable. He americanized himself with Mac. His greasy spoon was Big Macs Burgers Home of the Little Mac Burger. Mac had a problem and I was to solve it. 

“Someone stealing my money. You private eye. You find. Tell me. I fix a them good.” 
​

“Why do you think you’re getting ripped off?” 

“Because at end of day there is not enough money for me to, how you say, skim off top.” 

“Let me get this straight.” I said. “Someone’s been ripping off your cash that you should be ripping off and you want me to finger the employee by working as an undercover waitress and catch them in the act and you’ll take it from there. Is that correct?” 

“Ya I break a their neck.”
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Cape Town, South Africa: A Travel Guide

5/15/2016

 
by LAURA EPPINGER

As a Young Woman Should I Travel Alone to Cape Town, South Africa?
Parents warn you, Don’t do it, it’s not safe. Friends who you don’t want to be friends with anymore insist, Don’t do it, you’ll get AIDS. No one ever tells you, Don’t do it, you’ll fall in love. But that’s what this guide is here to do.

​
Cape Town: Geography
Yes, the ocean and the mountain and the nature preserves. The pictures on the guided tours look beautiful. These diversions are always around you, but it costs money to a) get on safe transportation (usually private transport can get you somewhere quicker, but there isn’t one option that would be considered “safe”) b) get an entrance ticket c) get safely back.

Wealthier Americans can afford all this—and every European you’ll meet certainly can. You can’t. So banish them from your mind. Your mind should focus on city life in Cape Town Proper.

Apartheid divided up Cape Town and its suburbs, physically, by racial classification. And of course, access to resources and income were divided along these lines as well.

It is true, and significant, that these boundaries are not legal anymore. Yet they are still very much in place. They are socially and economically enforced. Very rarely do people from different groups—even different economic classes from within the same “racial” group—get to interact. You will see these dividers every day, without truly fitting into the system. It will be uncanny to you at best. It will be dangerous for you more often.
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Broadcloth

5/8/2016

 
BY CHARLES HANSMANN

​Clara dumped the crumpled pages out of her wastepaper basket and rolled a fresh sheet into her typewriter: “False Starts”—this was the title of her story, and she seemed to be living it rather than writing it.


She typed at an old wooden ironing board cut down to the height of a desk. “Woman’s work,” she told Jeremy, “repurposed from the iron to the ironic.” 

Jeremy’s reply was predictable. “There’s more than one way to smooth out the wrinkles.” Innuendo ad infinitum. 

The wastepaper basket was narrow and shallow, always needed emptying. One day Jeremy’s picture would find itself there. For now it faced out from her window sill, the frame turned away so that his squinted eyes stared at the street.

Across the street her new neighbor came home and pulled out the flyer wedged between his doorframe and his door. It was a promo for the colorful restaurant that had opened down the block—Clara had gotten one too. Her neighbor unfolded it one-handed, awkwardly, and it fell to the ground. 

As he bent to pick it up the parcel in his other arm tipped toward her. It was loosely wrapped and open at the top, and Clara could see a cluster of leaves, shiny and red, that looked like the spathes of anthurium.

She typed without looking at the keyboard. Her neighbor glanced in her direction and gave a short wave. Her story was beginning to show promise. As he turned toward his door she got up from her chair and crept deeper into the room. If he looked her way again she would seem apparitional.
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One, Two, Three...Four Hundred Words Exactly

5/1/2016

 
Picture
OCD by Brian Indrelunas​
BY ZAN BOCKES
​

I wake up at 6:17 this morning.  At 6:29 yesterday and 7:02 the day before, according to my calendar.  I write 6:17 at the top of my “To Do” list.  If I don’t keep track of the times I wake up, I might not wake up at all.  Which makes me nervous.

Okay.  The List:

1)  Stretch. 

​2)  Get dressed.

3) Eat breakfast.  Apple.  

4)  Write.  Work on that 400-word essay on obsession-compulsive disorder for my psychology class.  Am I one of those?  I like to make lists, count things, time things, rearrange words, check stuff off my list...From the word “compulsion” I can make (I’ll set my stopwatch)--on, sin, son, up, sum, coin, clump, lump, slump, slip, spin, plus, pus...there must be more...anyway, 13 words in 21 seconds.  Wait--cus...is that a word?  
​

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