ISSUE 18 | JUL 2012

NO GODS NO MASTERS

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Piper Wheeler

If I Told You I Went to Church Because I Hated Capitalism, Would You Believe Me?

maybe you shouldn’t - I was lonesome - three moments - perception was individuated and unrepeatable - a falsely sanctified corner of the trash-factory that was the world - exquisite, squeamish horror - needlepoint plaques - we mourn because we have to forgive the dead

Élan Reisner

Untimely Translations

putting the dead to rest - Creon’s mistake - pious transgression - « Yet nothing/ more monstrous than man. » - the latest translation of Antigone - (the most terribly quiet of the terribly quiet customers) - amnesty - the god of slight but tragically decisive differences

Michael Kinnucan

The Empty Subject and the Art of Ethics

a body and a name - doubt taken as far as doubt will go - pressing entanglements - the religion in which he has happened to be raised - it can inhere in a soul - it cannot inhere in a subject - « I did not ask for this gift! » - we start smooth and grow wrinkled

Earl McCabe

“I call myself a revolutionary when I feel ...”

other countries or the glorious past - Blanqui, Lenin, Luxembourg - become attached to the struggle - affective moments in my quotidian rhythms - « serious » and « scared » - attachment to the hegemonic order - I do have things to lose - a very graspable fantasy - that I might not be a « big deal »

Hannah Coolidge

The Right to Speak and the Right Not to Listen

we are all feminists now - male interlocutors take a leap of faith - unchecked access to this rhetorical tool - nestled in those favorable mythologies - historically, but not anymore! - unspoken rules - a kind of swordplay - tough, imaginative, slippery ways - how we talk about what we do

Florence Vallières

Concordia Salus

the two biggest Anglophone universities in the province of Québec - political agency - a drop of French in a sea of English - turning into a limp, 5 foot 7 (lengthwise) picket line - new law demands broken skulls - soft-bellied and skinny both - Charest might not mind

Nicholas Hiromura

Championing Rusticus

Ezra Pound - « yeah, but he was a fascist. » - its extravagance, its too-large-to-be-containedness - primordial unity - « in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of the metronome » - Whitman, the odoriferous democrat - « worthy of record » - the opulence of their silence

Root Barrett

Would You Like Salvation With That?

I went to church most Sundays - an overfed suburbanite - did I have no need for God? - stripped-down, bare-bones gods - abortion, gayness, whether Hell exists - women, money and cars - just one day’s worth of food - a path with no need of a god - quite a few Bodhisattvas - a good flute for Lord Krishna - God is there, beyond.

Mason Seale

A Nail in My Heart

Let me get this straight - leaning into liquid crystal - you pimply little blue-faced shit - Jesus took the Land Cruiser to swim team - stepping up and down around me - inches of innocent blood - Saturdays would be Anything Goes Day - their pet lizard back to life