Michelle Bentsman
Articles by Michelle Bentsman:
Impossible Reality, Infinite Doubling
in Issue 62 | Doubles (Mar 2016)doubles poke little to large - habit of seeing, wrongly, - fighting for a phantom Helen - The fake that has power - for whom she pines - not yet present, already gone
What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals: A dialogue between Friedrich Nietzsche and X
in Issue 57 | Crying Wolf (Oct 2015)You named me thrice - closed my lips with longing - fertile ground is a fetter - the painless condition that Epicurus praised - who poison the already ill. - Each day is a chalk line - they speak so sweetly of truth
Avarice Over the Ghost
in Issue 44 | Free Money (Sep 2014)« Poverty Addicts overwork, underbill, and even lose paychecks » - I stopped wanting anything on birthdays - my friend was telling me something about chaos, and I watched the concept merge with the evening bread basket - the « Bank of Hell » is pictured on the back - I was observing the Sabbath, inhabiting a world in which money ceases to exist
The Last Look
in Issue 36 | Modesty (Jan 2014)but a napkin is so rarely peeled - la petite mort now grand - covertly stealing glances at each other's wrists - without the skin, Kristeva's concept of abject did not apply - the fornicating corpses - hints of dull cranberry where blood has pooled beneath the surface - we were checking to make sure it was the right body - if the funeral selfie is too little
Father Revision
in Issue 30 | The Daddy Issue (Jul 2013)quarter the beast, insert your entire face into it, and suction loudly - other people’s fucked up fathers - he pick-axed ice and shoveled shit all day every day - that’s how I did it with your husband - a rumor going round in Minsk - you’ve been eating too much meat - then I read about autism - told me it was a daddy longlegs, that they are totally harmless
Earth of my Earth, Flesh of my Flesh
in Issue 22 | Paradise (Nov 2012)I sang to geese and petted tree trunks - bringing the special ones together and making them specialer - God plants a garden - the body is a lifelong charge - spongy lining of a soil belly - fruit teeth, fruit tongue - it was like He said - « Between my body and the day »
Articles illustrated by Michelle Bentsman:
in Issue 51 | Wellness and Illness (Apr 2015)
"A Grain of Wheat and the Righteous Spine" by Michelle Bentsman, painting detail.
in Issue 50 | Furniture (Mar 2015)
Ani Hashem Rofecha by Michelle Bentsman, installation detail. Photograph by Ben Bentsman.
Plots, Puppets, and Petersburg
in Issue 35 | Dynamite (Dec 2013)« their secret and demeaning stature in society » - Bread and Puppet - Andrei Bely’s Petersburg (1913, revised 1922 [!]) - masked balls, go-betweens, and drawing room scenes - the beautiful might no longer signify the good - unmotivated terror - coulrophobia - it isn’t the gods - they bungle nearly everything
Beastly Flesh
in Issue 21 | Raw Materials (Oct 2012)« tying up and slaughter » - the most modern age - « just so I could smell their brisket » - « disengagement yields great fruit » - slaking a lust for beastly flesh - « He spilt blood! » - an interstitial mythic space - the secularization of meat - triumphant overcoming - « grow by the flesh of others »