3:AM Magazine

» Random Things About Maxi Kim

In Japan today there are more than a million young adults who literally shut themselves away from society, refusing to leave their bedrooms for months at a time. The so-called hikikomori phenomenon coupled with the growing number of group suicides have alarmed even the most cynical observers. Obviously there is a dimension to the problem that requires socio-economic attention, but I believe subcultures such as otaku, new zoku, and postpunk punks can play a particularly positive role in the current crises. Here I’m not just talking about manga and anime, but also the fact that there is simply a lot of nihilism in East Asia, it’s in the air one breathes and the dream one dreams – imagine a ubiquitous fog without borders or limits.

Richard Marshall interviews Semina author Maxi Kim for 3:AM.

» Dennis Says Relax

“Critics declaring God Jr. a more mature work because it excluded explicit sex and violence and the world perspective of the young annoyed me, but it didn’t surprise me. I’ve long realized that a general puritanism in the US and a fear of difficult subject matter and a deep disrespect for the minds and ideas and emotions of teenagers and so on were going to be a problem my work would always face. The generally held idea that the kinds of things I write about aren’t ’serious’ or aren’t what a truly serious literary work would concentrate on is just an insurmountable and boring enemy that I accepted would be there for all eternity a long time ago. It interests me to try to sneak through and around that prejudice. That’s the only way I can think about it.”

Alan Kelly interviews Dennis Cooper.

» Middle Beginning End

The original draft was even more fragmentary. It was just presented as short disconnected scenes, the only real structure or plan being that certain scenes seemed to ‘work’ better next to each other. The idea was that in presenting disconnected scenes it would seem like memories, that when you think about events, you hardly ever do so in a chronological or ‘novelistic’ way. Or at least I don’t. But that was also pretty impossible to read — I got good early reactions to the writing itself, but no one had a clue what the story was. I settled on a good ‘halfway house’ — the middle/beginning/end structure — by the third big draft.

Andrew Gallix interviews Chris Killen.

» Walking the city’s contradictions

Ostensibly an account of Sorkin’s daily journey from his apartment in Greenwich Village to his studio in TriBeCa, each chapter focuses on a section of his walk to work, beginning with the stairs, the stoop of his rent-controlled apartment building, and the block he lives on. His personal experience of each space is described, before he widens his focus to take in wider issues of ownership, public space and gentrification of run-down, usually working-class areas of the city – the ‘slum-clearance’ so beloved of urban visionaries such as Le Corbusier and Robert Moses. He moves from microcosmic detail to macrocosmic overview with ease, and the book is a pleasure to read.

Karl Whitney on Michael Sorkin’s Twenty Minutes in Manhattan

» A Season in Limbo

Said’s father was never home. Too busy passing out copies of The Militant, the newspaper of the fringe Communist party in the U.S. Said’s mother spent her days working as a secretary, her nights attending meetings and rallies of the Socialist Workers Party. In between there was little time for Said, who was left to entertain himself and puzzle through life’s lessons on his own. Besides his disappearing acts from Said’s life, often for years at a stretch, Sayrafiezadeh senior was a hedonist of the revolution. As a fanatical member of the Communist Party, first in the U.S. and later in Iran after the fall of the Shah, Said’s father tilted at windmills, but always it seemed with his arm around some attractive woman of the barricades.

Jonathan Woods on When Skateboards Will Be Free.

» The Sybaritic British Empire: Jake Arnott, Aleister Crowley & the weight of Magickal History

Unlike The Long Firm, which reveled in the dark glamour of its gangsters, starlets and rent boys, there’s a flatness to The Devil’s Paintbrush which doesn’t suit Crowley: he should leap off the page at you, as he did in life, but here the dual narrative seems to sap him a little, leaving him a deflated figure when, in 1903, a year before his fateful encounter with Aiwass in Cairo, he was approaching the peak of his powers.

James Bridle on reading Aleister Crowley.

» Fig Meant #1

The form enveloping an insinuant story was the basis of my lust for Sherin Guirguis’ work as well. Egyptian-born, her work involves cutting the traditional Middle Eastern patterns of mesh and scroll and tradition into wood and/or paper to create beautiful veils within an overall work that is connotative of various bomb clouds: the H, the atom, etc. The cut out sections are reminiscent of the veil the women in these areas wear covering their personalities; too scary in their potential domination towards love and good will and education. The work portrays a subconscious fear that is born of knowing and consistency; one that numbs to the background yet forever looms clear in the outpourings of the artist’s psyche.

Kimberly Nichols‘ column about current life and art.

» 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day

Now. In the history of music, there has rarely been an album as over-hyped or credited with being much more political than it really is than ‘American Idiot.’ Basically what it encompasses is some disaffected cokehead (the ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ – if you ever want to see hilarious po-face humorless clichéd-rebel emo garbage, I suggest watching the nonsensical video to this song) who leaves home, kicks around in the world a bit, then goes home again after his headspinfluential tormentor-mentor punk hero ‘St. Jimmy’ kills himself. All set to music. Quite stunning. It really only got as much approbation as it did because it came out during the Bush years…

A review by Graham Rae.

» The Trope of ‘Revenge’ in J-cinema

Female Prisoner # 701: Scorpion boasts the production values of a Japanese studio film, but like the work of Seijun Suzuki (Tokyo Drifter, Branded To Kill etc.) it manages to transcend the formulaic limitations of production-line cinema. Nonetheless, the essential characteristics of Matsu the Scorpion will be familiar to anyone who has seen more than one ‘revenge’ film. There is no need for Matsu to exist as a fully formed ‘character’ because her motivation and superhuman strength are a product of her burning desire for revenge.

Stewart Home on Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion and the trope of ‘revenge’.

» The Long Drop

It is late, as it always seems to be these days. Murray rarely sees the sunlight - it left alongside obligations and responsibilities. He hasn’t shaved and now that he passes under the full beam of a street lamp, he notices his trousers are crusted with dirt and half-eaten food. He has the address written in scratchy biro on his hand and as he turns a corner he realises he must be getting near. Now he wanders down a back street and emerges somewhere in the middle of a row of terraced houses, pauses a moment to drain the last of a bottle and then tosses it into a hedge.

By Nick Garrard.

» Ben D’Augusta

Maura orders another Guinness and tells me that she hasn’t been alone inside of a bar for seven years. “So what’s the occasion?” “My friend came to visit,” she says. “From New York. She’s from New York City.” “Yeah?” I’m not impressed. “Where is she now?” Maura shrugs. “She took off with some guy.” “Some friend.” She squints at me and starts laughing. Just like that. One minute she’s drowning and then the next minute she’s laughing at me. “What? Do I got shit hanging out of my nose or something?” She shakes her head and puts a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. Then she leans in real close to me. “Why the hell are there sparkles all over your face?” she says.

An excerpt from Olivia Kate Cerrone’s unfinished novel, Debased.

» Flushed

I peer into the toilet. There is no water. The smooth off-white bowl drops away to a star-speckled galaxy, and in the centre of the unimaginable millions of miles of emptiness is a small pink duck. Not a real one, obviously. A cartoon character representation of one. ‘You’re a duck,’ I say. ‘No, I’m a being of vast power.’ ‘You look a lot like a duck.’ ‘I’m being kind on your eyes. If I showed you the real me, it would blind you instantly.’ ‘Yeah, well, I can manage that too if I forget to put my make-up on.’ I eyeball him. ‘So what’s up, duck?’ ‘Tanya,’ it booms, ‘your life is shit.’

By Aliya Whiteley.

» Something, Anything

Nearly parallel to the theater’s entrance, anything here would be a long shot but the ultimate payoff, just a jump to the ticket window. My car would sit amongst the other Haves, reflecting the dancing and dazzling lights for a splendid hour and 48 minutes. But without the spot, I’d keep driving, the theater shrinking in my side-view. The farther I drive, the longer the walk, my lateness becoming fully-formed. And from nothing, something. An opening. A break in the bumpers. I check for the obvious handicapped signs and the subtle shadow of a car farther up than the rest. My eyes are intent and my blood pumps faster; I swing the car out to make a wide right into the promised land, giddy with relief. Then, like taking a bar stool between the shoulder blades, I see it.

By David Holub.

» Percussion

“Look just sign them,” I said again and I knew that saying it again was not the thing to say, but I said it again, “sign them sign them sign them,” and then I walked outside, and I starting picking the dandelions on his patch of lawn. They had all gone to fluff. The dirt outside his stoop would turn to mud if it rained but I wished for thunderstorms. I wanted to scrub the grit from the air. It was that kind of day. Up above, the sky was the inside of an old fingernail. It’s all the same to him, I thought.

By Claudia Smith.

» Better Things

My husband’s best friend is named Dave. Dave lives in a van. My husband thinks that this is evidence of Dave’s exceptional intelligence. Dave has a common-sense sort of intelligence, the type of intelligence that people who are good at finance have. Dave determined that living in a van is cheaper than paying rent on an apartment. Living in a van doesn’t cost him anything, and since he showers at the Y, he doesn’t have to pay a water bill either.

By Andrea Kneeland.

» The Roaring Twenties

I would plot up in my apartment, drink beer, and stare at the walls
It was my roaring twenties, but often I felt dead and listless.
Everything seemed to oppress me…

It was my twenties, my roaring twenties
and the world ran away
and the days ran away
and the moon was false and the sun sick
and all that was left was to teeter on the cusp
of the abyss
and smile.

By Joseph Ridgwell.

» Four Poems

No one pulls the drowning from the water
to bury them, they remain
floating on their backs, just beneath the surface.
They drown out of love,
distraction, anguish,
out of fascination with the abyss,
out of weariness. In their own way, they continue to breathe;
they pursue, in their own way, the light.
Each night, they repeat, in their pure
language, without subjunctives,
the silent and pure tongue of the drowned…

By Carlos Barbarito.

» Four Poems

With my ego that moved like a house
and my id like a snail inside,
I knew how to get my own way.
No wonder my mum was afraid.

She gave me the best of her youth
but the best is never enough.
She cried in the sink half the night,
so I was sent to a school in the south.

Where the terrible sea roars in,
my knee-caps were chafed and red.
Where the cabbage fields sigh in the wind,
a cap was shoved down on my head…

By Donald Gardner.