Issue 5 - Attention

Heads/Tails

At around midnight on a random weekday in 2007, I wandered downstairs from my bedroom to the kitchen. I found my father with a pencil, a quarter, and a piece of paper covered in hundreds of letters: “H T H T T” on one

Issue 5 - Attention

Photography by Nimue Hastings

Artist’s Note When I think of Attention, I am reminded of something Sam Harris once said — "How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives [...] Our minds—and lives—are

Issue 5 - Attention

Unframed Picture

“I want to reach that state of condensation of sensations which constitutes a picture.” — Henri Matisse Oil Painting by Victoria Juharyan. Photo by Elina Akselrud, NYC 2010“Close your eyes. Relax. Picture the moment you were being born,” the therapist posited. “Whom would you

Issue 5 - Attention

Cover Art

Issue 5 - Attention

Photography by Kyla Fleming

"comand light" a digitized watercolor painting of a hummingbird with digital overlays."channeling connection" A Poloraid photograph edited with digital overlays Artist’s Note There’s a uniquely delightful dance

Issue 5 - Attention

Art by Rebekah Danae

RelaxPublic UnveilingDiverse CoalitionsTornado cookies Artist’s Note As a whimsical femininist from the vermilion Texas desert, my worldview hasn't shattered, but surrealized. There are volumes to paint on the modern

Issue 5 - Attention

Poetry by James Berry

I can’t eat sweet potatoes anymore Without thinking about you. You and that garage apartment, Spartan with your art and mattress. It was a lie Trapped in the other’s eyes. Twirling through art museums. Reveling in the innocence of the strange new

Issue 5 - Attention

Poetry by Marilyn Kallet

Elegy for My Fuji X-20 You were with me in Auvillar, when Christophe showed me what my eyes are for, pointed them at a trio of elders, village “personnages,” white-haired dudes. Now I’m la viellle, l’ancienne, senior cit, as we say in

Issue 5 - Attention

The Sounds of Summer (Baseball Cards)

Somebody told somebody that everybody told Neil Armstrong to not even bother stepping foot on the Negro side of the moon. June, August and July, three segregated summertime sisters agreed, weather-wise. The year of our lord, 1969 was a color-line shaped like no shape

Issue 5 - Attention

An Invitation of Attention

I have a confession to make: I’ve become a grumpy, easily irritated person when I’m out in the street. If someone walks too slowly in front of me when I’m in a hurry (usually I am), I get impatient and mentally

Issue 5 - Attention

Art by Evgeny Solodky

"Falcon, piercing the head""receding into memories""Fragrance of Remote Happiness""Good morning" Artist’s Note Evgeny's paintings are based on the classical school of oil painting with the addition of author's know-how-glazing with transparent paints on metal, the use of special ink, and

Issue 5 - Attention

Art by Primrose Coke

'Cardinal Flower’, oil on canvas, 16”x20”, 2022‘Bare Lie’, oil on canvas,24”X 36”, 2022‘Shoelaces’, oil on canvas, 18”x24”, 2022 Artist’s Note First a shaky drawing is made and then lost in a thick daubing of oil paint in

Issue 5 - Attention

Currents Behind the Scenes

"Currents Behind the Scenes" acrylic on canvas Artist’s Note I was eight years deep into an art hiatus when I discovered the artist Katie Over (@katieesstudio) on Instagram. The moment something captures our attention, a process of a million steps begins, and ends,

Issue 5 - Attention

Excerpt from Skyside: Notes from a Studio by Stéphanie Ferrat

Painting constructs itself from the trickle of time, just as puddles dry, hay gilds, the day erodes, repeats, sinks into the earth and the air scraping ground.

Issue 5 - Attention

second empire

i am the breaking of small things — sheets try covering fractures along my skin. i lie too still on this bed. you stare, nervously, with a tainted expression walking circles, accusing me of having caused sickness & plagues to hatch, to grow — i knew

Issue 5 - Attention

On Paying Attention

Juhi September ‘21 Boston, MA Red and blue and green strobe lights swooped across the stadium. Old Rihanna played from the speakers amongst the squeals, interrupted conversations, and laughter. From Juhi’s seat, the stage looked compact, the size of four podiums squished together.

Issue 5 - Attention

Poetry by Jeff Hardin

STANDING FIRM How raucous the crows are, blaspheming the fields. Why be surprised, though, since the same can be heard on town square, in diners, around tables at family gatherings. Truth, if it survives, will need to stay wordless for at least a generation.

Issue 5 - Attention

A Poem by Sonya Marx

Poet’s Note No writer works in a vacuum. I wish to acknowledge the work of two poets for providing inspiration and creative fuel as I worried on this piece. The two stanzas ending in question marks are heavily influenced by the curious and

Issue 5 - Attention

Poetry by Andrew Najberg

The Ladybug It’s hard to drink the poisons despite how often they brim and bubble at our lips the world is designed to turn our heads sideways and our ankles around and make us the moths to every unimportant light which is why

Issue 5 - Attention

Of Grass & Roots

There are 11,400 known kinds of grass. That is more than a human would ever be able to encounter in a lifetime. I find this fact wondrous.

Issue 5 - Attention

Love

Ten days til Autumn. Three til Veda Lou. Today I’m making her a Barbie house and Zelma Vesce is making a story that involves the world from fifty thousand feet.

Issue 5 - Attention

GHOSTLY HILLS

When journalists came up to Nikolai Rinovsky for an interview, his hands would tremble. He looked at them, stroked his front teeth with his tongue and said nothing. Nobody had a clue why one of the most famous acrobats of the southern capital had

Issue 5 - Attention

Moral Certainty at 120 mph

“Yeah, I’m all right, don’t worry, I’m all right, fortunately the ground broke my fall.” - Night Shift (1982) Whether you’ll turn out to be the hero of this story, or whether the villain, in this case, gravity must show.

Issue 5 - Attention

describing blood

Thank you for making space for me. Getting in my car at the very last minute because life feels a bit too hectic is nothing new for me. Staying with strangers is scarcely strange. Entering into a town you do not know and somehow

Issue 5 - Attention

birdspeak

in the park, he tells me a few patient scientists are learning the language of birds. they’re writing out steps, they’re procedurizing, they’re making a formula of the air between our ears. they’re cracking it. you can do it too,