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THE CREW
Editor in Chief ................................................................................................ Ian Adams Editor/Design .................................................................................... Aaron Rosenberg Editor ..................................................................................................... Katie Lee McNeil Editor...................................................................................................... Amanda Galindo Press Relations .........................................................................................Jazmin Lucero Head Photographer ........................................................................... Frankie Concha Master Illustrator ................................................................... Mauricio Bustamante Commander Illustrator ................................................................. Lawrence Alfred Philosopher .................................................................................................... Oscar Valle

SCHEDULE OF LIVE SHOWS

Three live shows in these upcoming months! First up: January 31st at The Stay Gallery Second: Febuary 15th at Half-Off Books Third: Febuary 28th at The Stay Gallery

11140 Downey Ave, Downey, California 90241

6708 Greenleaf Avenue Whittier, California 90601

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Malleus Maleficarum Moderne - Joshua Craft Markers: Montaigne and Derrida - Oscar Valle A Cuckoos Calling Review - Addrie Moncayo How Thug Notes is Helping Literature - Aaron Rosenberg A Night in Night Vale - Ian Adams Three Poems - Jason Guardado Three Poems - Katie Lee McNeil 5 11 14 16 18 21 24

MALLEUS MALEFICARUM MODERNE OR A CONGEALED HISTORY OF ROD AND STAFF

For Maria, Nadezhda,& Hypatia, but also for most of us

Joshua Craft
A silhouette was seen in the tenth-floor window of the third apartment. In a commercial which featured more or less this same swatch of skyline as a soft-focused context to the sacramental epiphany of the commodity, someone said something which sounded like arguably the grayest city on earth. On nights such as the one resident to the appearance of the figure, itthe cityarguably was. The humanish incarnation was a spindly totem encased in a simmering blur of slewed pewter starred with far lights of farrer panes. After the authorities were called, it was known that the silhouette was, in fact, the reflected image of the silhouette of one Bryman Landau, a paralytic stockbroker who lived in the tenth floor penthouse of the sixth apartment, which stood prostrate directly across from the third apartmentdepending on which satellite image of the earth from above one looked at, yet within the canon of the terrestrial interpretation of spatiality, this was undoubtedly the precise positioning of said apartments. Mr. Landau did not remember until the following night that it was, intriguingly, he who placed the initial bewildered phonecall to the authorities. The next next night it was known that the tenth-floor window of the third apartment belonged to an unoccupied room. The superintendent did not enter the premises to confirm this, because not only was it listed in his records, but also, the timelapse nightvision footage that he commissioned his burgeoning videographer niece to capture from the roof of the fifth apartment showed that the curtains of the window did not move for the entirety of the ensuing night. The next next next night the curtains moved, they saw it with just their eyes, but it happened. You could see it from the street, it was obvious. It was not the stock-swaying engaged by wind or interior jostling, those things we think of when we think of curtains and movement thereof, but a strange, flagrant phenomenon, perhaps too unusual to be compared to anything else. You could see it from the street with a telephoto lens. *** There is a woman somewhere. She is either entirely white or the light upon her is. Someone will see her, but she will be elsewhere. The seer is not somewhere, let alone
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elsewherethe seer is here, yet as they see her, they will feel that she is somewhere, or perhaps even elsewhere, or at the very least that she is most certainly not, by any furious certainty; here. This is classical beauty and it is also classical love. *** The next night the following week after leaving a movie, The Blue Zooms of Stew Vegas, they realizedafter the second feature; Lars on Marshas Left, which was bothersomely tainted by the bled-through sonics from the adjacent auditoriums presentation of A Popcorn Box for Bryman of Baghdadthat the recent quietude of the matter of the tenth-floor window of the third apartment was obviously a signification of a simultaneously dense but ethereal codex of primordial intimation and dimly livid assurances of eventual, though wholly unnamable dangers. They slept, but not without some second thoughts. They easily could have refused to sleep, is how fed up with obscurity and airy controversy they were. They wanted to make this clear, the matter crossing the mind upon waking from blankness to cross the tight cosmos of the bedroom to procure a frozen-tile, witching-hour, abstrusely musical piss. The night they learned about the knife the calm dissolved. Cara Telissse fixed coffee and crossed herself a fifth time before fixing her morning coffee and taking a cab onto the mosque for evening prayer. She did not even live in the city any longer, and was a lapsed agnostic, ever since the calisthenics accident, so this progression of events was particularly surprising, and probably very befitting of a completely tasteful talkshow appearance to her. There had been fragmentary mentions of the knife in the day, discussion among the courtyards and balconies while auburn daylight enfolded the stupid, hypnagogic tableaus of the children, as a subterranean drumming of garish inference drooled all around the reliable cubic ambles of our bomb-bright internet. (Cara Telisse looked away, the ennui, and took the second-soonest cruiseship back to Panama for answers, and for cheaper hallucinogens. A track from her third solo effort plays beneath the end credits). It was learned, confirmed by experts through the use of cutting-edge thermal imaging technologies, by the time night arrived, that a knife was in the room of the tenth-floor window of the third apartment. *** A woman, late. Moon. Ankles, a skirt resembling wallpaper of an old hotel. The cup is near her but not enough to seem hers. A hat valiantly collates the natural shadows of the space with those incurred by the structure of her face, to ultimately obscure her eyes and the majority of her nose. She seems obscurely assembled, a person that fell together, out of a number of paintings with disengaged outlooks. She is somewhere. The cup is white and the cup and the woman parallel the choreographic dynamic of
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swirled motes in a warm ray. *** After the gazebo gunman was exonerated after foiling the subway gunman who had went up against police after commandeering the failed hijackers armor from the bloody parachute, the city began to remember the third apartment, after a bird unfortunately died on a nearby block. There were speculations overseas, and so a federally-funded nonprofit agreed to sponsor a local civic experiment to see if the strange results of the strange phenomena could be repeated. A renowned infant was hired to spend a night in the room of the sixth apartment correspondent to the room of the third apartment in question (it was, for the sake of biographers and veterinarians scouring this text in the future for doctorate research; the seventh floor, as the floors of the sixth apartment were much taller than those of the third apartment). The child was given a knife and advised to sit motionless at the curtains of the window for the whole duration of night. During the live broadcast of Erman Levithan (the infant)s memorial services, it was proclaimed by a number of aggrieved persons that these tragedies (those of the child and the aforementioned bird), were throbbingly the results of the unright goings-on behind the window on the tenth floor of the third apartment. The gazebo gunman fainted at the memorials afterparty, presumably from what the press release later described as ulcers, but could easily also have been hysterical grief and terror regarding the malignant nature of the apartment and its victims thus far. The word demon does not recoil and quake in seizing discord from being placed in this sentence. A half of a week passed, and it was noted that a young woman was once seen walking in the hall past the dreaded tenement room (square footage unresearched). It was not known what her name was or what she was doing in the apartment. This absence of fact was avidly suspect. The question was raised by local religious leaders that if she belonged in the apartment, someone must have known whom she was. People do not belong places without someone else knowing, because anything upright would at some point involve someone elses knowledge of its existence. We are born to be among each other. The life entirely refined to anonymity is one of a nefarious radius. It was thus deduced that she was either a prostitute or that she was murdered. With regards to what many hope to be the reality of modern morality, and with respects to (what are in the fields of academia) refined constructs of gender roles, it was confirmed on a national news-special that she was likely only murdered, us not making those other presumptions based merely upon the fact that she is, or was, a womanit being the twenty-first century and everything.
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She in vicarious memory is white, aloft in the opposite of placentaa stolid caul of afterness, the curled doll in recurring demolition. The four second-long, computer-generated estimation of her probable likeness and body language was aired, just amid the cable news outlets alone, within the first two hours of the assumption of her presumed existence, a total of nine hundred and ninety-seven times. Despite the award-winning efforts of various corners of the multiconglomerate corporate media tree of life, her father could not be reached for comment. A mediocre television actor was hired to weep on his behalf, and this man was later assassinated by militants in Africa (drowned in the back of an airplane) for reasons unrelated to the production, but it is nonetheless speculated that his dying words involved the third apartment and details that only investigators would have known. Months onward, they did not know what word to use to describe the shade of the shadow in the room containing the tenth floor window of the third apartment (it took years before people questioned why the floor only had one window), which had finally been entered, once the superintendent felt like leaning over and retrieving the key. The priest said I dont know the word. I dont know the word, he said. --I dont know the word, proclaimed the priest. Since a satiating noun could not be found, the city had the room burnt down. The other residents of the third apartment were assured that this operation could be done in a precise and respectful manner, and that their homes would not be affected. They would not even have to worry about their visits to the Memorial Reflecting Garden outside of the room being unduly disturbed by the official commotion, because the fire they would be using to destroy the premises had been sufficiently tested for soundproofing. It is not known completely what proceeded to occur. But it is known that the temperature of the room, before the building burst into flames and collapsed, was markedly lower than it was before the fire, thus seeming to infer that some form of a supernatural entity had made itself known to the officials who were not long for this earth. Given that ghosts tend to the drop the temperature of the room they are in, empirically speaking. The radiant white young murdered face of the woman, which graven smoke bulbs of the smoldering apartment seemingly momentarily mimicked, was represented not only in the form of a statue in the citys third largest park, but also as a gargantuan inflated puppet at that years Thanksgiving Day parade. A riot broke out that night near the wreckage of the apartment and three fish died. A rabbi was trampled, a mullah lost a limb, and on an intriguing, human-interest note, a limb was forcibly sewed onto a priest, whom after the initial shock of being knocked onto his bottom [British accent],
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did not finally mind this corporeal innovation. It was clear that the unsuccessfulness of the sance could be accredited to the decision to hold the ceremony across webcameras, because if one is being rational with oneself and others, how could a spirit be in two, let alone seven places at once? A year passed and the next autumn came. Nothing had happened. The site of the wreckage had stopped smoking, and so studios stopped filming things in front of it. Experts expected enhanced activity now that everyone was not expecting anything to happen, and especially now that there was less reasonable, codfiable cause than ever to believe that anything scientifically unnatural was occurring in the location. The specter-stomachs and heretical hearts of the famous malicious Legions bank upon these and other fallacies. As if on cue, the spectral disorder was afoot the next nightthe full year anniversary since the entire predicament had begunwhen a young woman (who [from behind and across the street through a dimmed car window and bad glasses] looked like the entity of the murdered resident of the third apartment) was crossing the street a few blocks away. It is known that she was not the entity, because the priest who impaled her with a javelin of candlewax was keen to note that she had taken the manifestation of an earthly, or physical formwhich did match the description of the entity per se. This detail was of much concern, because it did not mean, as the layman may infer, that she had possessed the body of a pre-existing personfor the woman here was very much the woman in question, just twice removed, in a sensebut rather that the forces of contemporary darkness had conspired so rigorously, and likely fed off of the rising presence of ignorance and disbelief regarding the haunting, that the spirit had enough compiled the mysterious energies required to physically manifest as an apparently human vessel. This would not have been of that much concern, given that the murdered woman had been the innocent player in the case, but it was bettable, upon the subsequent hardships she presumably experienced in the face of the public forgetting her plight, abandoning their preliminary vow to avenge her savage obliteration, and you know, with women and how they are with grudges; that she was no longer an essence of traditional Light. Obviously this is why the priest leapt upon her and drove the nocturnally-forged item (which was admittedly[not by him] thirty-percent his own fluids crystalized, into her back. The authorities felt the body should be immediately removed from the public street before a crowd commenced, and so they carried the corpse up through the heart of a nearby loft. It was not until they reached the tenth floor that they found decent lighting. Five policemen and a hired jaguar stripped the womans body of its clothes. They were not sure why they did this but the demeanor which they maintained amidst the act felt warmly professional. The wildcat stood on
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its hindlegs, silhouetted in the window, behind curtains, as they offered it a low-caloric treat, before just simply biting the body of the woman. A prayer was said, in two languages and in sign language, and in a percussive tone the jaguar would appear to understand, and then the men went home, where they awoke their wives because the world was true. They all conceived children that night and all of the children went on to become congressional leaders. The children were so similarly powerful that sometimes, even decades later, the parents could not tell them apart. The jaguar was hit by a train that night after leaving a nightclub. The body of the dead female demon was put into salt, then mailed to a volcano. The city never mentioned the third apartment again, since news of the pedophilia on the set of the adaptation had taken the coyness out of it as a subject. The country, and the cities of the world however, were chilled and giddy at the tale of the ripe typist Maybeline, gutted at the zenith of her libidinal splendor, butcher never brought to blood-justice, out there still today in stitches at detectives efforts, her vengeful neural remnants nestled amongst the walls of old hotels and apartments, anywhere a room resident to murder has eventually caught fire. *** By the next millennium, all the walls of all the rooms in all the buildings in the city were required to have doorways, and all the schools taught that sentences ended in ellipsesperiods were frowned upon (as a first-strike penalty). All songs in recorded form and in concert settings, public and private, were expected to fade out, rather than resolve. It was realized that most portions of the air did not have names, nor did a variety of smells in the sprawled quotidian thrall, and so this too was quickly healed. It was realized that Christs eyes were the colors of dusk and dawn, respectively (either evenly distributed, one to each eye, or fused into a single hue common among both irisesdocumentation being spottya few thousand died in a very serious war almost entirely related to this). Anyway, one day, no one decided to do anything anymore. We would wait for after.

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Markers: Montaigne and Derrida

Oscar Valle
And my writing, died a posteriori. To those who have ever marked such a premise, must have known that in order to do so, the act must have begun with a lie. If it is an Other that is presupposed in the deliverance of a letter, then has not one lied already? Must it not pass through its developer? (And by pass through, I mean to have an economy with oneself, to then dispel ones self and to retain). As Montaigne in his essay or attempt named Of Giving the Lie, wrote that what he has written has been more than what he was, to then becoming what he would write. His text was reduced to a sentence, but below an attempt at an investigation of the lie as secret and vice versa will develop or at least try to, through Montaignes text onto an excerpt from one of the texts of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. (Derridas text and commentary will come from Kirby Dicks documentary called Derrida.) Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book as made me a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books. It is no secret of Montaigne to say what writing is to him, and from what side of this occurrence he has expelled. He serves as the axiom of his autobiography, what he is becoming, and at what point in history he himself is well aware of his awareness, of his life as an author. His words and sentences were at any rate a priori trusted. Given that Montaigne writes of the lie as presupposing that a truth lies within oneself, but has been corrupted and either never spoken,
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never written or told as its opposite - which would correspond, and function with the latter and the former. But the lie can also maintain a perspective which has not been seen by the Other and is being held within for the delay of an event or for the possibility of an experience. As Jacques Derrida wrote in The Gift of Death: How can another see into me, into my most secret self, without my being able to see in there myself? And without my being able to see him in me. And if my secret self, that which can be revealed only to the other, to the wholly other, to God if you wish, is a secret that I will never reflect on, that I will never know or experience or possess as my own, then what sense is there in saying that it is my secret, or in saying more generally that a secret belongs, that it is proper to or belongs to someone, or to some other who remains someone. Its perhaps there that we find the secret of secrecy. Namely, that it is not a matter of knowing and that it is there for no one. A secret doesnt belong, it can never be said to be at home or in its place. The question of the self: who am I not in the sense of who am I but rather who is this I that can say who? What is the- I and what becomes of responsibility once the identity of the I trembles in secret? There is so much that can be said about this excerpt from Derrida. But since we are revolving around the lie and the secret, then let us not lose sight of them. On sight they remain, what of them: at this moment, Montaigne poses a problem of the truthful liar. Derrida treats the secret as a gift, even though it may not be apparent here with one small reference. I find you elusive, extracted and (therefore) beautiful. Your nights are open to the void with winds, and in your sleep, in your dreams, you live as a promise for any awakening. Your hair was made black by the skin that touches stinging roses and those nights where no singing took place, but was desired. Down to the bones that have been so harshly ignored, not to mention the very flesh that built your heart, I now wait for you; you, the one I left behind, the one I made clear to, that my departure would be necessary, that in my return we would mend so that our love would one day dance on its own, giving birth to many, dropping them next to springs and wells we build this day. I betrayed you and never told you. I took a risk of losing you by reaching where no one has ever at least not now - reached. O prophecy! Why have you been held so holy throughout the ages! Do those who painted this holy image know that one still continues to live on after? That one could so easily take this event/non-event, as happened? Haunted now by
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that production of a thousand murmuring secrets, that out of respect for them and their clock, must be kept a secret. You haunted me even on my sublime night, my night of triumph and song. You came as a fluid dream, a plastic one, those with a timeline, those ever-produced sure assumptions of an extreme hope with a healthy and vivid wonder. Had I have never held a lie, we would have never seen each other naked. : Excuse me for my discordance, although I believe such ruptures are necessary. (Have I now confessed?). Without reserve this rupture above is meant to advance those questions that came before the rupture; not so much to answer but continue with the question.

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THE CUCKOOS

CALLING
A Review Addrie Moncayo

The Cuckoos Calling, it would seem to the untrained eye, to be a debut novel of stunning quality written by an Iraq war veteran about the cult of celebrity that we in the West have erected and chin rubbing mystery of murder. It in fact however is just another stunning work of fiction written under JK Rowlings assumed pen name Robert Galbraith. Though anyone accustomed to Rowlings work (whether they were razed on her heartfelt Harry Potter series as I was or they know of her masterful novel of political schism and class disparity The Casual Vacancy) will recognize the themes of death,

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loss, love and the power of lifes relationships. In this novel detective Cormoran Strike is on the hunt for a murderer in the midst of London interweaved with a model, a rapper from America, and a fashion designer who know the beautiful model Lula Landry who fell from her luxury apartment. The story touches on issues of celebrity life, race relations (black and white and biracial Lula) in this supposedly post-racial world we live in. J. K. Rowling has admitted to relishing using the anonymity of Mr. Robert Galbraith. With this false identity she worked with her agent to create a work of fiction that would not come with the burden of having the Wizarding World legacy behind her, as some said that the shadow of Harry Potter was rather cast over her first adult novel published two years ago. The anonymity broke last summer on July the 14th that Robert Galbraith, the veteran, did not exist and in that realization some kicked themselves for not picking up on Rollings identity sooner.

Case and point.

The Cuckoos Calling is a wonderful complex novel about modern life and a damn good mystery fraught with betrayal and red herrings galore. This novel reinforces Rowlings position as a master story teller and observer of the strengths and failings in individuals and cultures at large. Atop that you will be puzzling through each chapter to work out just what happened to Luna, be it suicide, murder and if so by who and the why of it all. I read through the novel in just two days, and I believe anyone else who picks it up will have a hard time putting it down till they hit the adrenalin drenched conclusion. With the publishers announcement that an sequel will be coming out later this year you can expect to find me reading it on night one, and I should hope you read along to see what the noise is about.

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HOW THUG NOTES

LITERATURE
Aaron Rosenberg
In this age of breakneck media consumption, what was short six years ago looks lengthy with the modern eye. Attention spans dwindled as the novel fell out of style with the masses and shorter mediums took over. Cliffnotes helped by condensing the novel down to allows for more understand during the reading, and Sparknotes embraced the internet for an even shorter summary. It would only make sense that the book summaries would get shorter, and the Youtube channel Thug Notes proves that. Thug Notes turns a novel into a five minute video, complete with a summary, and a full analysis of themes, symbols, and motifs. While its easy to paint the broad strokes of a summary, Thug Notes manages to be both funny and brilliant while providing a summary. When providing a literary analysis, the channel proves to be exceptionally insightful. Thug Notes is hosted by Sparky Sweets, PhD, who is played by comedian Greg Edwards. Sparky Sweets provides a spot on summary and analysis every episode, all while talking like a true gangster. He applies language usually only heard on the streets perfectly to these novels and that allows for those familiar with the slang

IS HELPING

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to understand the books better (while laughing hysterically) and those more familiar with the books to get a better feel for the slang (also while laughing hysterically). Greg Edwards provides a streetwise eloquence to the character that keeps the viewer engaged, amused, and helps with the understanding of the novel. Thug Notes has tackled such books as Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, 1984, The Hobbit, and releases a new video weekly. Thug Notes makes for an easy access point for literature with its language. Take this excerpt from Thug Notes summary of Lord of the Flies: First Jack be too much of a bitch to kill for food, but soon enough dis gangster busts his cherry and gets some of dat good pork. All the while the youngests be acting scuured cause some little fool be saying he saw a monster, but Ralph be like Chill Shawt, its all in your head son. Any listener, even one unfamiliar with the slang can pick up on each phrases meaning intuitively. Greg Edwards preforms with such enthusiasm that its hard not to be engaged

in his explanations. Greg Edwards has expressed that the idea behind Thug Notes is that literature is treated as an exclusive club when it shouldnt be treated as such. Edwards has stated: For many, its not about making the ideas of literature universalinstead its about building themselves up to a virtually inaccessible plane and saying: if you want to truly understand literature, you have to get on this high-brow level with me. Thug Notes strives to change the entire playing field of understanding classic literature. Theres a common misconception that to get that classics, one needs a degree in English literature and years of dedication in that field to understand it, but thats not true. One simply needs to pick up a book and begin reading. Classic literature may seem like a daunting challenge to many, but Thug Notes proves that its simpler than most make it out to be.

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A NIGHT IN NIGHT VALE

Ian Adams
On a night like any other, it happened. The only way it was not like any other was that something happened worth repeating so I suppose it was unlike any other actually. In the Largo Theater in Los Angeles the cast of Welcome to Night Vale appeared on their fourth stop on a seven city west coast tour. The venue is an old theater that has been repurposed by hip younger people with mannequins surging with electricity. In the court yard an intermingling of youngish persons from all over the state (as far as San Francisco and Hemit) brushed elbows and drank from the bar in their cosplay costumes. Several couples arrived, half dressed as a charming scientist and half dressed as a sweater vested reporter. One man handed out flyers for the upcoming Mayoral election to promote Hiram McDaniels, Literally a Five Headed Dragon- Who cares? The crowd permuted and accepted those individuals who might be considered different. Some wore leather coats and stalking, in dimensions of spindly tall and corpulently round. Gay and lesbian couples expressed open affection by the bar and the merchandise counter. The atmosphere was warm and inviting to every guest. In the theater red curtains framed a piano and nine bear hanging light bulbs, casting an ominous light as The Mountain Goats played on the speaker system. Opening the nights events was Sara Watkins (accompanied by The Song Birds) played a set and the Weather segment later in the show. The crowd erupts in applause when Cecil Baldwin (Cecil Gershwin Palmer) enters center stage to welcome his listeners to Night Vale. Over the shows progression a number of performers come on stage to join Cecil in moving the performance along. Jasika Nicole (from televisions Fringe plays Intern Dana) and Dylan Marron (from the web series Whatever This Is, plays the Scientist Carlos) perform recurring roles that tickle the listeners and move along the harrowing tale of the horrifying, qusi-reptilian librarian on the loose. Surprise guest James Urbaniak (from Adult Swims The Venture Brothers) plays Intern James Urbaniak who has a tragic past with the Night Valian librarians. After the show I met with the writers/ creators of the show and the star of Welcome to Night Vale Cecil Baldwin. In the Lagos open court yard, with a flurry of fans bustling for an autograph I spoke to them about the show. Q: What goals do you have for Welcome to Night Vale in its progression? It seems to be escalating in a drama that is headed for something. Joseph Fink: No, I dont see an end goal for the show. We focus more on week to week stories. Though we do currently have stories, plot lines, that weve worked out resolutions to but, ideally we have more stories as long as we want to make this. Q: I certainly hope for years of Night Vale. JF: I hope to make it for you all. Q: Welcome to Night Vale is viewed mostly through the perspective of the character Cecil as a

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narrator. This episode had a number of characters. sense of this world. Especially in the back and What character that is not Cecil is the most fun to forth. Would you say Cecil is an unreliable narwrite? rator?

Dana the Intern is my favorite, Her character is so honest and adds so much gravity.

JF: Id say Cecil is about as reliable as any other person in real life. That is to say, not very. Q: Cecil, how did you become involved with this project to now be the recognizable voice of Night Vale?

JF: The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. She has this great way of speaking Cecil Baldwin: Well, I am a part of a theater group and its nothing like Cecil. Mara [Wilson] is won- back in New York [The Neo-Futurists] where I derful. She can be a different kind of creepy. worked with Jeffry and some other performers involved with the show. And Joseph came to one Jeffry Cranor: Dana the Intern is my favorite char- performance where, I think, I was doing a play acter to write. I think that her character is so hon- where I talk about having a voice that naturally est and adds so much gravity. I I cant tell what sounds like an announcer voice. is says about me, but the story revolving around So Joseph said Yeah- he sounds like a radio guy. being misplaced in time, being so So, I read the script and thats how I got it. lonely it is a lot there. Q: With the other voices on the show, from Dana Q: Can I also say it is wonderful having a gay proto Hiram McDaniels, the listener gets a larger tagonist in a series so positively represented? CB: You may and high-five to that. (And then we high-fived. It was rad.)

Joseph Fink

Dylan Marron & Cecil Baldwin play the cherished love of the broadcaster Cecil and the scientist Carlos. 19

JC: In so far as his use of horror elements and unCB: Its the most fun; the fullness of the character. known. But not really in other regards. Where I can be really creepy, and bouncy funnylook at this cat video- and so serious in the span JF: I personally hate Lovecraft. He had respectable of a few moments. That is great. And so much of influence on modern horror but he was a horrible Cecil is me so there is little preparation. The easiperson who was xenophobic and racist. est thing to be is yourself. Q: Tonights show is quite different to what lisQ: The writing in Welcome to Night Vale is fan- teners might hear on their computers bi-monthtastic, and so specific. What writers do you read ly. Can you talk about that? The difference of the that you find inspirational or you might recomwriting or anything? mend? JC: This specific episode [The Librarian] began JF: Not a lot in the themes of Night Vale are my with the bit Joseph wrote where we have Cecil tell interest. Yes I loved Twin Peaks and stories with them the left side of the audience screamed! and a lot of conspiracy but one writer I am a fan of so on. And we brought it to Cecil and we said If is Deb Olin Unferth (short story writer and contributor to Noon). I do love language, and Night Vales language draws on her work like the great

Q: What is it like playing character Cecil?

Jeffrey Cranor
novel Vacation. Thomas Pynchons novels with this complex paranoia and conspiracy that ultimately leads nowhere are big for us. Q: Not HP Lovecraft then? As Commonplace this audience participation doesnt work we can Books website (who Welcome to Night Vale is in write alternate scripts. And he told us Oh- theyll association with) sells a book on the unused story participate. So that lead to fleshing out the story. ideas of HP Lovecraft. 20

For You and Me

Jason Guardado
How can this be, Why must this be, I know its cause of me Cause of me Falling down is all I seem to do around you, Mopping up the salty waters between us. Meandering rivers between us, Cant i please just fix this problem for, You and me Foryou and me

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Was it Worth it?

Jason Guardado

Every now, every now and then I wake, To more empty pages and unattained goals, Maybe its cause Im obsessed with the nonexistent idea of truth

And as I, and as I look at everyones unhappiness, It doesnt bring a sense of belongingness and thats just sad.

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My Oh my
Jason Guardado

My oh my How things have changed, I look at you, so unaware.. I did what I do in dreams, Made up, made up, made up a person, Now to be with, Now I woke up.. Now Im a awake and your still asleep Nothing will fix this feeling, Not even money no money, Feed me, feed me, feed me, feed me, Feed my mind and my soul, My oh my things have changed, My oh my things have changed, My oh my things have changed, My oh my things have changed.

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February 4, 2012
Katie Lee McNeil

I fell asleep near the infidel of my backyard, my brain felt tattered, drowsy, a dybunk. It spoke with a curt, claiming to see my better prophecya seed already sown. I had to speculate, see if it was grown. Only dirt, soil below, a madrigal sang hydrophobia notes of sprouts. I cried in manufacture holding a mental handgun inside. Impersonal was not this voice, nor cautious or restricted. My internal carousel spunSLOWER, Slower, and slower...

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Velvet greens were standing. Heroic. Invisible fingertips pulled down the robe. My eyes were lifted on high, infidel out of sight. The prophecy was here. It was here, in my backyard.

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March 5, 2012
Katie Lee McNeil

Ive got fear written inside, down to the brutalized guts of worth and pride a child, you remind me, so careless for free. I can hardly taste your spirit below, above you cast me a physical glow, Shake me clear Under your sheets, beneath your private veneerspeak kindly, Im scared. Your brain sets forth a logic despair, I came to your repair and drag your worms behind. I own a lust, I cannot seem to find.

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March 5, 2012
Katie Lee McNeil

Ah winter. The cold depths of hours, seeping so slowly-creeping. Under doors, not missing the locked, chained. Windows ice up-competition to the toes, curled so near to the face, any cool sheeted bed fits. Still. Unmoving. The most warm of fires comes so little, it is a being-another life.

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CREDITS
The Modern Corsair for January 2014 Issue Number 4 Happy New Year! This issue was: mystery. Now if youll excuse me, Ive got three dead bodies, a killer, and a ballroom of people just waiting to find out who did it. The next issue will be LGBQT. Also included: every sexuality conceivable. Also the ones you cant conceive. Check out our subreddit at www.reddit.com/r/themoderncorsair Send all entries, comments, or suggestions to themoderncorsair@gmail.com. Wed be happy to hear from our readers. Special thanks to: Gabriel Enamorado The Stay Gallery Joseph Fink Jeffrey Cranor Cecil Baldwin And the biggest thanks of all to: You. Not you as the reader of this magazine, specifically you as the human being reading this text in this moment. Keep on reading, beautiful person.

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