{"id":111429,"date":"2022-08-19T11:49:45","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T10:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.3ammagazine.com\/?page_id=111429"},"modified":"2026-06-21T10:55:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:55:44","slug":"3am-magazine-whatever-it-is-were-against-it","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/","title":{"rendered":"3:AM Magazine – Whatever It Is, We’re Against It"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Latest Features<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tQ&A: Jeremy Fernando, The Adventures of Brandy & Bach<\/i>\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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All I can really say is about my writing, my approach to writing, and the writing I try to make is: writing is my primary mode of not just expressing thought, but of thinking itself. And, whenever attempting to write, I try to maintain the possibility of conceiving writing as scribere<\/i>, scratching \u2014 onto, into, out of \u2014 tearing, opening; as an attempt at maintaining questions, perhaps even quests, in what is inscribed. And this relationship \u2014 between what is posited and the question that remains \u2014 is something that I attempt to explore intensely, to intensely explore. Or, perhaps, it explores me \u2014 and I writhe (\u201cas you deserve to, thief of my text!\u201d) \u2014 as being open to possibilities means I have concede I am never in control of my thoughts, my writing. Sometimes whatever is written is strange, unfamiliar, other, to me (\u201cof course it is, it\u2019s me!\u201d), and I can never quite control how it will be read: I can only write, read, and leave it to be read.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Fernando<\/b> interviewed by 3:AM<\/i>‘s Fiction Editor, Daniel Davis Wood<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBrandy & Bach meet a dog\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u2018So who is walking whom …\u2019, Brandy mutters with a huff, her whiskers tingling in the air as if having a life of their own, \u2018can you ever tell with people. And dogs.\u2019 It is often difficult to tell if she were asking a question or making a statement. Of fact.<\/p>\n

Even if only her own.<\/p>\n

She speaks in muted tones so as not to disturb any of the muscles in her face. Or neck. Brandy prefers her whiskers to lie just-so, just so the world knows its presence is merely decorative. She is in no way a part of the tomfoolery surrounding her.<\/p>\n

An excerpt from The Adventures of Brandy & Bach<\/i> by Jeremy Fernando<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tKubrick Red\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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When he was 10 years old, Simon Roy was home alone in Quebec skipping through the TV channels when he alighted on a scene from a film where a man is showing a woman and her young son around a huge food storeroom in a hotel and, as he\u2019s showing them around, he telepathically asks the young boy, \u2018How\u2019d you like some ice cream, Doc?\u2019<\/em> Freaked out, Roy ran to a house on the other side of the street where his mother was playing cards with neighbours. The movie was The Shining<\/em> and this first viewing started a lifelong obsession with the movie.<\/p>\n

Richard Skinner<\/strong> reviews Kubrick Red<\/em> by Simon Roy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tDrippings\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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There is still a bit, I tell him, just a little bit, left in me, trickling out, it\u2019s still trickling out of me, but soon there won\u2019t be any left. It\u2019s leaking, I tell him, the person sat opposite, trickling away, down my leg, pooling around my feet and across the pavement. It\u2019s all that\u2019s left of me, this trickling, and once it\u2019s all trickled away there won\u2019t be anything more. All that I\u2019ll leave of me will be the puddle I leave behind. I\u2019ll leave all that\u2019s left of me behind on the ground. The ground: a fitting place for something fallen. It\u2019s where I stand. It\u2019s where I leak. It is where I speak and walk. As I walk, I speak, and as I speak, I trickle away, bit by bit. They\u2019re the two things I\u2019m still capable of doing, walking and speaking, though with each step and each word I lose a part of myself, leaking out, drop by drop. There isn\u2019t much of me left. But while some remains, there remain some things for me to do. All I can do is speak and walk, all I am are steps and words.<\/p>\n

A short story by Sam Glover<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tYellow Bucket is for Kitchens\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Post-it Notes from Underground<\/em> is not without drudge, humiliation and desperation (\u201cI\u2019m 64 and I\u2019m doing this job\u201d, Simon frequently intones), but what could easily have been a dispatch from the cold terrain of capitalist realism quickly becomes, in Crump\u2019s telling, a good humoured, excellently unpretentious object lesson in communality and daily solidarity. Simon and his \u201clittle team\u201d (or rather the team that quickly welcomes him, with all good grace, as a member), form the core of the book. Their \u201cbunker\u201d, a windowless tea-point that\u2019s used for fugitive \u201chalf-time\u201d cuppas, is a place of refreshingly non-toxic banter and mutual support. It\u2019s also where the book\u2019s titular post-it notes appear.<\/p>\n

James Riley<\/strong> reviews Post-it Notes from Underground<\/em> by Simon Crump<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tPhotographing Phantasma\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Last week, I received in the post a slim anonymous biography of an unknown \u2013 at least to me and until now \u2013 Japanese photographer, Toru Nakagami. The stamps and postmark were obscured and smudged, and I found no documentation within. Apparently born into the outcast Burakumin social group, Nakagami took his first photograph on March 10, 1945, amid the firebombing of Tokyo, capturing a dark photographic residue of the devastation humanity \u2013 in possession of devastating military technology \u2013 inflicts upon itself. The early images show how the total erasure of home, family, and city can be preserved in both realistic and abstract images and can, with some manipulation of mimesis, act as a primal surrogate for other acts of death and destruction \u2013 Vietnam, Iraq, Iran.<\/p>\n

Steve Finbow<\/strong> reviews Sanbashi: Toru Nakagami 1930-49<\/em>. <\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tFive Pink Ducks\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Birthdays make room for hyperbole. Lee wants to use M\u2019s as an excuse to write something worthy of the feelings she\u2019s been harboring for her: Thank you for being the brightest star in my solar system<\/i>. But when she considered tracing those words on the blank inside of the card before her, they sounded too familiar. Lee googled to see if that particular phrasing had already been Hallmarked, and it turns out, no. It turns out, the brightest star in the solar system is the sun. She thinks she knew that, but the syntax swayed her toward star.<\/p>\n

A short story by Madeleine Parsons<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tMe & Tina\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Twenty-three days into the 1980s & Dad gripped Mum\u2019s hand as she screamed, the midwife continuing her calm advice on how to breathe, how to push, how Mum should try & do both while not ripping her perineum during my little sister\u2019s home birth, with me there too, I was, or nearly, in the next room, safe in the cuddle of Mum\u2019s friend Shirl, neither of us watching the turned-right-up TV from the room\u2019s two-seater sofa, the other armchair & the coffee table\u2019s mug-ringed frosted glass & Shirl breathlessly repeating It\u2019s okay Jackie, Mummy\u2019s not being hurt, a lie as obvious as those from the evening news, not that I knew what was true as Tina\u2019s first cry rang angry through our first-floor Warner flat on Newport Road in Leyton.<\/p>\n

A short story by Jack Houston<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tWho’s To Say?: Life and Form in Life of M\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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This latest work is in some sense \u201cabout\u201d a movie star; at any rate, it\u2019s the angle that Cusk\u2019s publishers (understandably) and critics (less understandably) have worked in their selling and reading of the book. It\u2019s an approach that misses rather more than it captures, however, especially when leading to interpretations of the book that posit Cusk\u2019s project as one uninterested in, say, character \u2014 or even in being a novel at all. One thing to say from the outset is that we\u2019re not going to talk about movie stars, either generically or specifically, in relation to Life of M<\/em>; or about which particular movie star might have waltzed through the cosmic background of Cusk\u2019s own writing process in crafting it. We\u2019re not interested in fame, here; we\u2019re interested in art \u2014 and it\u2019s been a very long time indeed since those difficult neighbours shared an address.<\/p>\n

D. W. White<\/strong> on Life of M<\/em> by Rachel Cusk<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tWhat Do We Really Know of Birds and Men?\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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The man is a rough bastard, a brute. And yet Stuart seems so preoccupied with the fact that \u201cI did nothing to make Dad proud of me in his lifetime.\u201d There is something devastating in this. The desire for a father\u2019s approval seems to survive even when the father himself offers so little to emulate. Perhaps this is where the birds become so important. They offer another kind of inheritance, another way of understanding survival, freedom, instinct and masculinity \u2014 one that exists beyond the limitations of the father.<\/p>\n

Elte Rauch<\/strong> reviews Fledgling<\/em> by Josh Holton<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tThe Surviving Cells (Extract)\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Even after her husband died, she did not get mad, did not sue the hospital for negligence, or write any of the doctors a spiteful email. She just took the bad news home with her and lived with it. Now she has even brought her son back to the same doctor, after everything that happened to his father. What is wrong with this family? You would think they would at least get a second opinion, or try their luck with someone else. Who knows why they are really here? Maybe Dr Jovanovic is the only doctor available on their insurance plan. Maybe they have been forced into dealing with the exact person now who could not save the father back then. But Ana did not pick up any hostile feelings in their previous meetings. They just seemed sad, resigned, and wisely guarding their strength, not wasting valuable energy on an argument they would never win.<\/p>\n

Read an extract from The Surviving Cells<\/em> by Brian Willems<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSouth Side Stories\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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The new kid Herman had this proud smile of rotting teeth. We were in the second grade and my teeth were crooked. I was embarrassed to smile. Herman\u2019s teeth were falling out of his head, but he didn\u2019t care what anyone thought. The teacher sat Herman next to me and he soon passed me a copy of Mad. I spent the next week reading it to pieces. We laughed at his collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards. We became friends with few questions asked. We traded numbers and started calling each other at home. He called Grandma\u2019s house and asked, \u201cWhat\u2019re you doing?\u201d I rarely had an answer that interested him. \u201cDo you have a TV?\u201d he asked. The basement had a TV, Uncle Val\u2019s old set. \u201cYeah,\u201d I told Herman, \u201cI got a TV.\u201d \u201cOkay,\u201d he said, \u201cnow go turn it on.\u201d I hopped up on the arm of the couch and hit the power button. \u201cOkay,\u201d I said, \u201cit\u2019s on.\u201d He told me to go to channel 99. \u201cChannel 99,\u201d I said, \u201cthat\u2019s gonna take forever.\u201d The TV in the basement didn\u2019t have a remote, so you had to smash buttons up or down. \u201cNot if you go backwards,\u201d Herman said. \u201cHuh,\u201d I said. \u201cYeah,\u201d Herman said. \u201cHit the down button like you\u2019re going to channel three, but keep going. My brother showed me this trick.\u201d I smashed the down button as quickly as I could. The channels flitted by. When I got to channel two and hit the button again, there it was: channel 99. Like magic. But the channel was dead. Grandma didn\u2019t pay for channel 99. It was all static, but there were figures moving in it like people dancing in a hard rain. \u201cYou get there yet?\u201d Herman asked. \u201cYeah,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m there, but I can\u2019t see anything.\u201d \u201cTurn up the volume, but not too loud,\u201d he said, \u201cand put your ear to the speaker.\u201d I pressed the volume button, notching it up one bar at a time. I pressed my ear to the speaker and listened. A saxophone, women moaning. \u201cYou hear it?\u201d Herman asked. \u201cI hear it,\u201d I said. He giggled. \u201cWhat is it?\u201d I asked. There was a pause and all was mysterious and forbidden. Herman said, \u201cIt\u2019s sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Short stories by Ed Komenda<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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