2011 — The Monarch Review
The Picker – John Himmelheber
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:37 — 1 Comment
After both are done with work and school, the father meets his son at the club’s driving range, and says to his son: The man in the picker is your target, my boy. Hit him as hard as you can. We haven’t much daylight left. But Father, he moves in slow flowing motions over the berms and around the sand bunkers. I like the way the picker dances, and its disks pluck the balls and comb the grass smooth. I don’t want to hurt the man inside or interrupt the dance. That is nonsense, my boy. He no more dances […]
Happy Holidays, Seattle Art Museum
Saturday, December 24, 2011 16:58 — 0 Comments
Early this morning, the Seattle Art Museum received a gift on its doorstep, wrapped in a big red bow. Artist (and former Monarch visual arts editor) Todd Jannausch installed Gallery (206) at the foot of the Hammering Man, one of the city’s most recognizable icons, and left the following letter: Dear Seattle Art Museum, Artists are fortunate to have an institution like the Seattle Art Museum, which brings so much wonderful art to our city, expands our creative horizons, and encourages our artistic endeavors. To say thank you I would like to give you my installation piece, Gallery (206), as a gift. […]
Want, Have, Need – Eileen Bordy
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 14:21 — 0 Comments
Sarah’s old Toyota labored up the steep highway. Every ten miles or so, she had to pull onto a dusty shoulder to let faster cars pass. Her father had offered to buy her a new car, but this fifteen-year-old, 4-cylinder Corolla was fitting for a grad student, although she was cursing it now as she slid around on the moist vinyl seat waiting for the pickup pulling a horse trailer to go around her. Two meaty horse’s hindquarters were visible above the Dutch door of the trailer, and their feathery tails waved at her mockingly. The air was a bit […]
White Cap – Ric Hoeben
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 13:55 — 2 Comments
Grandma Dorris sat there human with some amount of stillness and the frail. Her summer hat was a delicate lavender, her bathing suit navy. She stared out, deep—past her little grandson on the beach—looking over all the merging foam of the restless ocean, and from time to time, she’d pull her neck back in pain toward the beach house behind and hope to come upon her daughter, bouncing down the sandbank with maybe one more cold mimosa for her. “I want my ‘puter, Mima.†Dorris looked at the screaming child down there in the sand. His blonde hair had become […]
47th Parallel Films: A Recession-Era Interview
Sunday, December 11, 2011 16:00 — 1 Comment
47th Parallel Films seems to be all over town, from Q & A’s at Gage Academy of Art and articles on City Arts Blog, to screenings at the Grand Illusion. It’s no wonder when considering director Shaun Scott’s prolific pace. He has created two provocative, full-length documentaries in as many years: the ambitious “Seat of Empire,†a critical view of Seattle’s political and economic development over the past century, and “Waste of Time,†a lyrically narrated, exquisitely edited, anti-consumerist montage. A third film, “100% OFF: A Recession-Era Romance†will be out in 2012, and represents a shift to fictional narrative and a larger crew, […]
The Alabama Shakes
Friday, December 9, 2011 12:36 — 2 Comments
By now, even subgenres of music have subgenres. The disappearance of a mainstream relevant to many listeners’ tastes necessitates this, I suppose, but who can keep track? So it comes as a relief when someone can say something simple about the music they make: “People misunderstand the word ‘Soul’ and think it’s just a genre of music, but it’s a feeling. When you pour every ounce of feeling into your music, that’s soul music.” That’s drummer Steve Johnson of the Alabama Shakes getting to the point. One could attempt to categorize this band in wordier, pseudo-ethnomusicological terms, but it would […]
My Aunt Yola – Brandon A.M.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 13:17 — 0 Comments
Aunt Yola let her white neglige slip to the floor. Steve and I had never seen a woman nude before. She was a big lady, a huge, fat cow of a woman, and Uncle Bob had been asleep for hours at that point. And she motioned for us to follow her, but I didn’t know what to do. Steve moved forward. Aunt Yola placed a stale donut in a napkin and left it on the TV tray. She said that it was for me, and it was okay to be scared because the brave were ignorant. She took Steve into […]
And Still I Did Have No Umbrella – Rebecca Bridge
Monday, December 5, 2011 13:12 — 1 Comment
I showed Billy this little thing and I did know
What am I?
Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies
Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;
Scientists can't find me.
Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—
Remind me:
The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…
Tick, Tock: Divine me.
-- Richard Kenney
