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by Dahlia Kapelke On November 4th I did an interview with Klaudia Reynicke, the Swiss-Peruvian writer and director of the film Reinas, or Queens (2024). Reinas premiered at Sundance Film Festival and is the Swiss entry for the International Feature Film category at this year's Academy Awards. The film tells the story of two young girls aged 14 and 11 living in Peru amidst the economic crisis and ongoing terrorism happening in the country in the 1980-90s. Their mother Elena gets a job in Minnesota and is planning to leave with her daughters, while their less-responsible, comedic, taxi-driver father Carlos re-enters their life and procrastinates signing the papers necessary for them to leave. I saw Reinas at the Mill Valley Film Festival BAMPFA screening, which was followed by a Q&A with Klaudia. I introduced myself to Klaudia as a Media Studies second year student at UC Berkeley, and told her about the clubs and activities I participate in. Klaudia told me at the start of the interview how, “it's always amazing to actually be able to talk with students that still, with everything, have the hope and dreams in this crazy career.” Dahlia: I loved seeing Reinas. It was an amazing film.
Klaudia: Thank you. I saw it at the Mill Valley Film Festival at BAMPFA, where you did a Q & A after. So I was wondering, what is it like to be able to show Reinas at all of these different film festivals? How has that experience been? It's always an amazing thing to have the opportunity to show a film in festivals or with an audience where I can do a Q & A. Most films, especially studio films and things like that, do not have that part. When you create a film, you write it, and then you shoot it, and then it goes into post production, and then it goes out. Normally, that's it. It's like giving birth, and then the kid goes to do whatever. But having the opportunity to actually connect with an audience, for me, it's amazing because it's the only time that I get to actually have this kind of connection, and get what people are feeling about the film that I would never know. It's not the same thing as reading reviews or whatever - it’s real people. So it’s always been very warm. And I feel that the more the people connect, the more I did a good job talking about something where everyone can identify. It's a very important moment for the film, but also for me. I think, because I do these kinds of films – independent author films – I get the chance to also do that, and it's just an amazing moment. Yeah, that sounds so nice. I feel like once you put it out there, you want to hear what people are thinking, and see people watching it. Exactly, and no matter what they think. I mean, I've done other films that were more controversial, and it's always very interesting to actually suddenly get someone who's outraged, right? As long as the film gets to move some things inside, that's the interesting part for me. It's like going to watch art in a gallery or a museum. If you forget about what you saw, that's horrible, but if you either love it or hate it, that's when it gets interesting. It means there is something that is actually getting to you, to the audience, to people, and that's the interesting part. That's awesome, thank you. I was wondering, because you're a writer and a director for Reinas, what was your writing process like? I mean, it was long, but at the same time, it was on and off because it was such a personal film that I felt I needed to take some time off sometimes to rethink about it. I started by myself for about a year, and then I wanted to actually have someone else on board, because there were some political, social contexts that I couldn't handle by myself. I was very young when I left Peru, so I called Diego Vega and he co-wrote it with me. It was actually a very nice part of the process, because I had someone to talk with. We had these long talks – he lives in Barcelona, I live in Switzerland, but we had these endless talks, not even particularly about what we were writing, but sometimes about a character and relating to both of our lives. So obviously for Reinas the basics are from my life, but also there’s a lot of Diego in there. Somehow, maybe he would tell me the tale of his dad that did this and did that. And then after a few months we were like, ‘oh, that was funny, let's put it in there.’ It was a very long process. This kind of process is amazing, and you suffer, and you're very happy and excited, and then you suffer again, because when you write, you have to be able to create an entire world. And in order to do that, it's very complicated to actually be able to equilibrate, to balance everything. So sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn't. I had another project with him that now is frozen because we didn't find a way to actually continue that one. With Reinas, I guess there was a special passion or feeling that made it possible. But the process is always complicated. For this one, it was like four years on and off, and we both had other other projects in between. I did a series in between, and he did all the writings. And sometimes we wouldn't work on it for six months or whatever. That kind of brings me into my next question too. Did you find it especially emotionally challenging to make this film because it was so autobiographical to your own life story or your personal life? I think yes and no. Somehow, once I had the script, I was able to actually detach from the personal because we created characters, and they started having their own lives. And once I went through casting the actors, they started giving life to those characters that already had their own lives. You really start making the film be the film, and disconnecting from whatever I wanted to say. But obviously, I think the base of having true feelings and knowing about this reality that I went through, which was in there, and maybe because I come from the documentary world, it was always very important for me to have an aspect that felt very real. And that was kind of away from anything that felt fake or that felt theoretical. So I was always pushing to be the most real possible, but it wasn't hard for me as Klaudia anymore. It was more like, okay, how can I work with this story that used to be mine, it's not mine anymore, and now it's gonna be other people’s. I feel like that realness really came through. The whole time I was very much like – how is this not a true story? In a way, that's kind of what I was balancing in my head when watching, and especially hearing you talk after, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, that's why that felt so personal.’ And then also the undertones of terrorism and the dynamics at the time were so subtle – or some things were very subtle – and you could feel it there. I was thinking about the family’s housekeeper and the class differences between the different families. And who could leave [Peru] and who couldn't leave, those things were a little bit more subtle. But they were there, and they were powerful, so I really appreciated that. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's important for a story to actually have different shades and to be able to have characters that are neither black or white, because I get pretty bored with films where you know everything; it's like the mean one and the good ones – life is not like this. So you know, to make life in each one of these characters, no matter what their weaknesses are or their bravery. I think it's actually good to compensate, because we are all like this. We all have good and bad parts. So I think we're able to relate more with characters that are imperfect like us. Do you have a favorite scene from the movie, or a scene that was the most fun to shoot on set? I mean, I don't know if I have a favorite scene. Obviously, when I get to the end of the film, I still feel emotional I would say but that's because of the entire film. So, you know, if I wouldn't have, like, the rest of the film, you know. So that's something funny, because I've seen the film like 10,000 times probably, and I still get emotional at the end, and I still feel for that father, and I still feel for the girls and for that mother. I think a few scenes were, I wouldn't say fun to shoot, but they were emotional. I remember when [Carlos, the father] has to sign [the papers for the family to leave], on the script, that used to be the last scene actually. We actually flipped the script. When he's driving the taxi with the girls, which is the last scene, that used to be before that. They were actually going to [sign the papers]. But on the script, it worked really well, and somehow, on film, it didn't. It just didn't. It made the film totally dark, because we're ending with this guy signing and being with the girls, and then you're like, ‘Oh my god!’ So it just didn't work. And I remember shooting that scene, I was obviously very concentrated, because the actor had to be super concentrated, and he was crying, and he was super emotional, and I was so concentrated on having it done that I was there, and I got a bit emotional, but my concentration was stronger. But when I said cut and I detached from the screen, and I looked at everyone, everyone in the crew had cried. And the actor couldn't stop crying. And I was like, ‘I guess this works.’ And it was too powerful, which is why once we were on the editing, we couldn't leave the family like this. Me and my editor were like, we need to bring light. We have to flip. We have to flip beyond the scene. We have to make him give them hope, because right now, everyone's like “Ah, this is horrible!” And you're the only one who knows it – I've never told this, I think, before. Wow! Oh my goodness, exclusive information! I think you made a good call there, but that's so interesting. I'm glad that you were able to figure that out, because I can imagine you could have a situation where you’re like, ‘Oh, I'm screwed.’ You know, you're watching, and you're like, oh no. I think the film works. But at some point, the end was - you felt it was heavy. I showed it to my husband. My husband is not in cinema, and he has some distance, right? And I was all excited about showing him that edit. And he's like, ‘I feel very heavy.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but, I mean, it's a drama.’ And he's like, ‘Yeah, but…’ and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, oh, what do I do.’ With my editor, I started telling her, and she's like, ‘Yeah, but it's a drama!’ And I'm like, ‘Yeah, but you know, it's still weird. We didn't feel like this in the script.’ And after a few days, I'm like, ‘what if we do this?’ At the beginning, she's like, ‘No, there’s no way, we need to finish with that theme.’ But suddenly, when I said ‘we need the light,’ she's like, ‘you're right, we need to go for the light.’ I mean, this can’t end in darkness. Do you have any of your own favorite movies or film inspirations? I do actually. Obviously, I've watched many films – it's funny, because I always tell people I'm not a cinephile. My husband is a cinephile, and he watches everything. He knows all the names. I'm dyslexic, so I don't remember names. But I do watch films, I don't consider myself like a cinephile, because I don't think I watch enough films, but there's a lot of things there that got me inspired. But I think there are three films, really, that I can say, felt very close when I was writing [Reinas]. And the first one is Roma from Curaon. The second is Y Tu Mama Tambien, which is a coming-of-age of these two kids. And the third is from Heddy Honigmann, who is a documentary filmmaker. She was actually born in Peru, but she ended her life in Amsterdam, and she did this documentary film that's called Metal Y Melancholia. It's a film that she shot only in taxis in Peru in ‘91. She actually went to Peru with her camera, and she got into all the taxis, and she's just like asking them about their lives, to these taxi drivers, and most of them, they have nothing to do with taxi. They're like lawyers, doctors, because the situation was the one that was in the film. The situation was so bad that everyone became a taxi to survive, right? That film, I watched it so many times, because in order to recreate the world that we see in Reinas, it was an amazing object – the documentary. So that helped a lot. Also with Carlos, Carlos became a taxi because of that film. That totally correlates. Wow, yeah, thank you. So, as you know I'm currently studying Film and Media Studies. I guess in general, how did you know that film was what you were interested in and what you wanted to pursue? And then, how do you feel that your time as a film student contributed to your experience or your filmmaking now? Let me answer this second question first, because I think it's easier. Being a student, I didn't go straight to film. I actually was an anthropology student, I had a bachelor’s degree, and then I came back to Switzerland, and I got a bachelor’s degree and a master's degree in sociology. So it has nothing to do with film. When I was actually studying anthropology and sociology, I worked in TV to make money as an assistant producer for this documentary filmmaker. Then I came back to Switzerland, and I worked for another filmmaker, and then for a producing company. I used to paint a lot. I used to be a painter, and that and the studies of anthropology and sociology, cinema kind of took from both. So when I decided to go to film school, I was older. I was actually almost in my 30s, and I didn't want to do a bachelor’s or whatever anymore, because I didn't have time. I'm like, if I want to do this, you know, I have, like, 10,000 diplomas now! I didn't know what to do. So I did a master's degree in filmmaking in Lausanne, which is a city in Switzerland. And I did it for one purpose: to get a network. I had no idea how to be on a set, how to film. When I was still studying sociology in Lausanne, I went one summer semester to NYU to the School of Arts because one class was documentary filmmaking where they taught you to do everything - to be on the set. So I'm like, ‘Okay, I'm gonna do that class. I'm gonna see if I like it.’ I did it and I liked it. I finished my master's degree in sociology, and then I'm like, ‘Alright, so I'm gonna apply to do these two years of Master’s in filmmaking so that I connect with people and understand about the network.’ And that's pretty much why I did it. And it helped a lot - it was much easier for me to understand the basic rules on how to get money, how to talk to producers, how to pitch a project, I had no idea. Also having a diploma in the field does help; to go to producers and pitch your project and be like, ‘blah, blah, blah.’ So, it does help, but you don't have to do it. I think I truly understood how to make films by being on set. Helping out other people, and then on my own sets that had no freaking idea at the beginning what to do, but you have to survive it. You learn by working. But with the connections, with the network, it's like, really good to be in a film school. You have time. I was older. You're still young. You can still do like four professions. You don't have to choose right now. I love that. What advice would you give to emerging filmmakers and those in film school today? To follow their passion. I think in filmmaking, there are no rules. The only rule is that that fire that is new, it is either there or is not there. I don't think you can actually help anyone become a filmmaker or a writer or a musician or a painter. I think it has to be the drive that comes from the inside. And so if it comes from inside, you have to follow that. So that's the only thing. I think any advice would be wrong. I think the advice comes really from the drive, from the passion. And when you have that, you're gonna find ways to actually get what you need in order to make your film. If you want to have an interview with this person, and you get it, that's one thing. So that's perfect. You know, you’re just following whatever you need to make whatever you need. You know, follow your passion. And say no to any barriers that are there. Just do it.
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by Jasmine SovNo matter what kind of autumn you’re feeling, come to BAMPFA to view these exhibitions on themes and aesthetics that go hand-in-hand with the fall spirit. Decay, change and impermanenceTo Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)permanent Collection  Installation view of To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)Permanent Collection, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2024 The ripening and subsequent decay of nature is just one of the things that autumn is all about. Running from August 14, 2024 to July 6, 2025, To Exalt the Ephemeral is a meta look at how museums uplift the work of artists who explore ideas of impermanence, decomposition, and regeneration. Preservation of traditionAbounaddara: The Ruins We Carry  Abounaddara: The Imagemaker, 2024 (installation view) Also showing from October 9, 2024 to February 23, 2025 is The Ruins We Carry, a 3-channel film installation by Syrian art collective Abounaddara. This installation depicts the creative process of Abou Diab, the last known practitioner of the Damascus art of stamped cloth, and how his work breathes life into ruin. Connection to othersMATRIX 285 / Young Joon Kwak: Resistance Pleasure  Installation view, MATRIX 285 / Young Joon Kwak: Resistance Pleasure, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California, 2024 In this multimedia sculpture exhibition (on view August 7, 2024 to December 15, 2024), Los Angeles-based artist Young Joon Kwak portrays the human form of themselves and their loved ones through resin, metal, neon signs and other materials. Autumn is a time when people come together, and Kwak’s pieces display both the intimacy and diversity of the many ways this can happen.
By Ian KammererQuasi is a Portland-based rock duo with Sam Coomes and former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. I first came across their music in 2019, deep into my Elliott Smith emo phase in high school. In interviews, Elliott would often say Quasi was his favorite band. He would cover their 1997 song “Clouds” at some shows and Janet and Sam served as his backing band during the Figure 8 tour around 2000. Quasi has 9 albums and one compilation of early recordings. Their most recent album from 2023, released a decade after their prior album, Mole City, and is titled Breaking the Balls of History. The album is an ironic, raw, and blunt reflection on modern life, politics, and middle-aged angst. Boasting self-reflexive lyrics to catchy guitar riffs and bouncy drums, the album is easily one of my favorites from last year. Sam, the primary lyricist, sings with a tinges of both honesty and humor. Janet keeps the songs energetic and grounded with her masterful drum lines. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Quasi twice in the last few years, once at the Rickshaw Stop in SF and once at Third Man Records Cass Corridor in Detroit. Both intimate venues, it’s a joy to watch these two play together. They sit slightly facing each other, Janet on the kit and Sam on the Rocksichord. They play off each other’s energy and Sam often makes witty quips in between songs to give the shows a welcome air of comfort, feeling like you’re watching the band at a house party or garage show. Their sound is hard to describe. Some of their albums sound like Modest Mouse, Pavement, or Built to Spill, but not quite. Their newest album is fun and youthful, but some of their older works speak to a more serious and self-deprecating tone. Such is the indie rock scene of Portland in the 90s. “Gravity”, from their new album, is a ballad-like song communicating feelings of being lost or insignificant in the larger scheme of things: “You can walk on water if you so choose / And you’re made in USA, concrete shoes / Gravity don’t care at all.” Other songs like “Doomscrollers” have a more critical, Covid-situated stir-crazy energy that speaks to how we were all feeling in the uncertain and bleak times of 2020-2021 when the album was written: “All the kids in their virtual classes / Stuck at home sitting on their asses / And all the houses lost to fires / The anti-vaxxers and the climate deniers.” One of my favorite songs from the album, “Rotten Wrock” is jumpy, anxious, and full of brilliant metaphors: “So what exactly is a human being? / A little button on a touch screen?” It’s a wonderful album, and Quasi is going on tour this year to commemorate and play their 1998 album Featuring Birds. I highly recommend checking out their show across the Bay in SF at The Chapel on July 27. I had the pleasure of interviewing Janet and Sam last year about Breaking the Balls of History, their onstage dynamic, Portland, and their thoughts on vinyl. Enjoy! First off, congratulations on Breaking the Balls of History! It’s an amazing collection of music and is as cool sounding and fresh to me as your other albums. (Janet) Thank you! This is your 10th Quasi album, first on Sub Pop, and comes after a lot of major events for you and the world beyond: the Portland BLM movement, the Trump and post-Trump political climate, Covid, and Janet’s accident. My question comes in three parts. What felt different about making this record (if anything)? (Janet) For me, this record follows a period of great personal upheaval. The accident was a real shock and it put my ability to drum in serious jeopardy - I wasn't sure I would be physically able to play in the manner to which I am accustomed. And although the ordeal was really scary, the love and support that came pouring in was so profound. Really for me, everything felt different this time around. I felt a new, immense sense of gratitude as well as a desire to play and sing at my highest level. Did you feel there was something beyond just music at stake? (Janet) A lot of people helped me get through a pretty long recovery. I wanted them to know I took their aid seriously, I felt that debt that could be repaid by making a really great album. In your lyrics you tend to blend political commentary with comedy. Is this something you consciously think about as you’re writing a new song or is it just your nature as a person+songwriter? In a broader sense, Do you think comedy is an effective tool to work through the unsavory parts of life or to deal with volatile political climates? (I’m thinking about “Shitty is Pretty” / “Doomscrollers” / “Breaking the Balls of History” with this question). (Sam) Really I just write how I feel, try to make it rhyme, & it winds up being humorous to the listener. I do like to play with absurdity sometimes, & that can also seem humorous. So, I guess you’re right about it simply being my nature, rather than a conscious thing. I do think that juxtaposing opposing elements in music & in creativity in general is a central idea in what we do, so uniting seriousness & humor, or other dichotomies like light/dark, hard/soft, etc is certainly part of our process. The lyrics on this album are overtly political in a lot of songs. Do you think these events changed what the instrumentation sounded like? (Janet) We were going for a live, raw, stripped down and punchy sound from the get go. Sam usually has the lyrics pretty much completed when we start working on the songs, so yes they definitely affect the sound. This record is rebellious and fiery in both lyrical and musical content. In your live shows, because it is just a two person set-up, you both appear to be super locked into each other and to be playing off of each other’s tempo/improvisation. How do you two feed off of each other during live shows? (Janet) The live show is where we really excel. Sam and I have an unspoken musical language that has been developing for 30 years. The way we set up on stage, almost facing each other, allows us to incorporate lots of visual cues. We watch each other, especially during improvisations, so that we can make something unique in the moment. The moments when we lose the script are the most exciting. Both of you have had various projects and bands within the Portland and Pacific Northwest. How do you think Portland has changed since you’ve lived there? How do you think the Portland music scene has changed? How do you think this may have affected your musical projects? (Sam) I’ve lived in Portland forever, & I’ve actually lived in the same neighborhood for over 25 years - so of course it’s changed a lot. When I leave my house & walk around it feels to me like I’ve somehow moved to a totally different city, without even leaving home. But now there’s a new level of change- first gentrification, but now there’s the widespread homelessness & bad street drugs…of course they’re related, as gentrification pushed housing costs beyond the means of so many people. The music scene…I have to admit losing touch with it over the years, but recently, as I started going to shows again after Covid I’m seeing a bunch of great, young bands e.g. Yuvees who we’re on tour with at the moment, Sea Moss, Spoonbenders, Shaylee…. But at this point I don’t think any of this affects our work at all. We’re pretty much on our own path. I’m glad to have live local music that I can get into just as a fan, though. What do you think has changed (if anything) from how you played together live in the 90s to now? (Janet) We are better communicators than we were back then. And I think we both appreciate Quasi and each other more as we get older, knowing that we are lucky to still have the band, and to be still creating music together that feels vital. Domino reissued three of your 90s albums last year and this year for Breaking the Balls of History Sub Pop had a pink vinyl for pre-order and to buy now. Do you prefer vinyl to other mediums of listening to music? If so, why? Do you think fans should invest in listening to Quasi albums on vinyl instead of solely streaming? (Sam) Vinyl is what I grew up with, & so for me the album experience isn’t just the music- it’s the artwork, the liner notes, all the info…it’s a musical experience & also you get cultural history & technical knowledge, etc. Streaming is just one dimensional. Also, streaming as an economic model completely shafts the artist financially. Strictly speaking economics, the CD format was most favorable to artists…but aesthetically it’s a step down from The LP. So yeah I would absolutely encourage fans to listen to vinyl rather than stream…everyone gets more out of it.  Quasi at Third Man Records Cass Corridor. Photo by author. by Sophia Limoncelli-Herwick In Artifact and Art, Arthur Danto writes that “What makes … artwork is the fact that, just as a human action gives embodiment to a thought, the artwork embodies something we could not conceptualize without the material object which conveys its soul” (Danto 31). I agree that artistic intention and conscious symbolism play an integral role in the creation of “artwork,” but I take issue with the implied notion that artifact, and therefore craftwork, is not artistic. Why should we strip handiwork of its cultural and historical significance because it doesn’t possess deliberate spiritual meaning? Symbolic import may be what makes something a work of art, but symbolism is so intrinsically open to interpretation that anything handmade with the purpose of being at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing can be art. What’s more, as a unique, handmade product of a specific period, every individual piece of craftwork inherently possesses Walter Benjamin’s concept of the “aura” (Benjamin 23). Tenderly brought into existence under particular cultural and historical circumstances, craftwork denies the mechanical reproduction of objects that kills traditional and ritualistic value. Mexican weaving, for instance, produces elaborate textiles that can be worn and used, but the designs of the items also exemplify the specific cultural heritage of each community that the works were made in. Danto’s philosophical experiment in which baskets and pots from different cultures can look precisely the same yet retain different values as art versus artifact further fortifies my point that craftwork can be art. Though distinguished as art objects versus artisanal objects contingent upon their spiritual significance in each respective culture, the fact that they have the same visual, aesthetic properties means that utilitarian objects can be called art. John Dewey and Albert C. Barnes assert that the distinction between craft and art is sufficiently weak and elastic (Danto 27). If we treat art as formal design, as an appreciation of not just intention but simultaneously physical appearance, there is absolutely no reason to exclude craftwork from the realm of art. Denis Dutton asks, “If we treat utilitarian objects as works of art, is it not a mistake because they are mere tools” (Dutton 2)? Though practical use is their primary value, I question the need to make such a harsh division between craftsmanship and art. Does Chinese pottery not serve a similar visual purpose as a Piet Mondrian painting in terms of geometry? Simply because something has a functional purpose does not mean that it cannot be art; many modern art pieces incorporate items that have practical purposes into their work. Consider Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Man with Yellow Pants; he uses a mirror, a utilitarian object, as the canvas for his piece. The practical use is an element of the work, but not the defining aspect. The painting of the man is. This same argument can be used for studio crafts; yes, they have practical use, but they also possess an element of beauty and handiwork that can classify them under the term “art.” Art and craftwork are not mutually exclusive. Why must we perpetuate such a strong boundary between a Pablo Picasso and an intricately woven Yup’ik basket? As Michel Foucault writes in Death of an Author, an artist’s name often applies significance to a piece, but if we forgo the fame of the creator and compare a post-it note sketch to a knit scarf, why is the drawing “art” yet the scarf is a simple utilitarian object? A sketch that took perhaps thirty minutes to complete may be stuck above a friend’s bed, proudly displayed, but the scarf is neatly folded in a wardrobe, hidden away from view until it’s necessary to be worn and used. We fail to consider that baskets, glassware, ceramics, clothing, and countless other studio crafts all incorporate similar amounts of time, dedication, effort, and even aesthetic consideration to construct as any given painting, drawing or sculpture. Let’s say that the scarf took longer to produce than the sketch; just because it’s not a figural or symbolic image, it’s not art even though far more physical effort went into creating something beautiful? Hands created the scarf just as they created the sketch, and to distinguish the scarf as less valuable is to disregard the human nature inherent within anything handmade. Employing the most fundamental level of formal analysis, it’s indisputable that the design and physical production of craftwork makes it art. Sources: Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, 1935.
Dutton, Denis. “Tribal Art and Artifact.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51, no. 1 (December 1, 1993): 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540_6245.jaac51.1.0013. Stevens, Phillips, Arthur Danto, R. Michael Gramly, Jeanne Zeidler, Mary Lou Hultgren, and Enid Schildkrout. “Art/Artifact: African Art in Anthropology Collections.” African Arts 22, no. 1 (November 1988): 18–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/3336683. by Ash Margolis “Anne Carson is a Gemini. Because, of f****** course she’s a Gemini.”
The above text is one of many I sent to my Gemini coworker over the course of the summer of 2022; it also encapsulates the two major occurrences of that summer, which were that:
Example 1: The book title. What do glass, irony, and God have in common? Why has Anne strung them together with flimsy commas and a brazen “and,” and slapped them on the front cover as if those subjects relate to each other at all? It’s not entirely about the contents of the book, either. It’s true that there’s a section called “The Glass Essay” and another called “The Truth About God,” but none of the section titles breathe a word about irony. And, to that end, there are a bunch of sections that are not referenced in the title. Why isn’t the book called “Glass, TV Men, and God” or “Isiah, Glass, and Sound?” Not that those titles make any more sense to the blind viewer who is too afraid to crack the book open in the middle of the store to skim the section titles than Glass, Irony, and God does, but you get my point. Why does it feel like Anne is teasing us before we’ve even committed to buying the damn book. What do glass, irony, and God have to do with each other? Why has Anne forced them into close proximity, and why is she daring us to join them? What the fuck has Anne’s confusing title got to do with me? Why am I handing the cashier $17 and walking out of the bookstore with a lightness behind my eyes? Here’s a fun fact for you: Anne Carson is a classicist. She studies ancient Greek and Latin, and it is damn near impossible to forget that when you’re reading her books. Alternative fact: I was deeply and stupidly in love with a 20 year old philosopher who taught me how to play clawhammer banjo when I was 18. She would not let me forget she was a philosopher when we were together. Mostly it was in her eyes. That and she was always talking about Descartes’ epistemology. It probably would have been more productive to hang a “do not disturb” sign up in those eyes than to even attempt to decipher what she was thinking about at any given moment. She also absolutely detested poetry. She said that she hated things that she didn’t understand. I found that especially rich coming from someone who studied philosophy and played clawhammer banjo, but, you know. We kissed once and then never again. I didn't quite understand that. She told me I kissed very fast. Frantically, like I was waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under me. Obviously she didn’t actually say that last part, she hated similes. I stopped writing poems for a while after we stopped being in each other’s lives; I didn’t have anyone to try and prove wrong anymore. Example 2: Anne is talking to you and you should probably listen. Reading an Anne Carson book is like holding something up to the light and trying to figure out what’s shining through the other side. She as the author makes you as the reader do half of the work at any given moment, she’s clever like that. Anne writes in an inherently confusing manner. It is easy enough to follow when the poem’s subject is alone, but the whole thing gets tangled up when other characters are introduced. Her dialogue generally abandons quotation marks or any other reliable notation of separation between subjects. The proximity goes all out of whack. It seems a little itchy and unpleasant at first; we don’t like the things we don’t understand. Personally, though, I adore it. I feel that reading Anne isn’t about comprehension, the work she asks of you is almost entirely emotional. She throws you directly into the weeds in her depiction of relationships, forcing you to start untangling fast or admit you don’t like poetry and put the book down. She’s teasing you again. You really thought you could make it through the book passively? Not a chance, Anne won’t stop talking to you in the second person. Right when you start to feel like you’ve got her, right when you’ve become the bouncer outside the club who just held up your friend’s very fake Connecticut driver’s license to reveal that it has no microperforation on the back, you realize that Anne got your ass. She was the one holding you up to the light the entire time and you didn’t even notice. Anne Carson writes narratively, not autobiographical. It was around the third readthrough of Glass, Irony, and God that I realized I was just as much a narrative device as the TV men were. When I annotate her books, I write to her in the second person. She’s talking to me, it only seems fair that I talk back. I told the Gemini coworker about Glass, Irony, and God sometime before we kissed for the first time on a night before I was scheduled for a 5am shift at the coffee place we both worked at. I made sure I kissed slowly this time. I don’t think I ever saw her show up to another shift on time after that night. I don’t quite get that part, either. I helped her move into a room of an ancient house near a loud intersection and a bar that definitely wouldn’t clock a fake Connecticut driver’s license if it slapped them in the face, microperforation be damned. She gave me a bookshelf that she didn’t have the space for anymore. I keep my Anne Carson books in there now when I’m not loaning them out to my friends. I never knew who to be when the two of us hung out. I felt like the wrong answer, not that she ever gave any indication that she comprehended either one of us as conscious and tangible human beings, but I thought maybe that’s just what it was like to be 24 so I tried to be 24. She bought me vegan thai food the day she gave me the bookshelf, I would say that was the most romantic thing that ever went down between us. I presume that was probably by design. I spent a few months in the summer listening to obscure indie music she sent me and reading Anne Carson’s poems and trying not to look at my phone and then it just stopped one day and we never spoke about it again. I was better at making coffee when I wasn’t trying to be 24, I think. Example 3: Why do you keep putting yourself in the path of things you know are going to absolutely body you? This is the thought that runs through my head every time I’m buying a new Anne Carson book. I want to say that I own seven of them these days, although two are currently lost to the ether of friends’ apartments. The biggest danger of Anne’s books is that you will probably finish them in one sitting when you really shouldn’t. You also probably shouldn’t go over to a philosopher’s house for a clawhammer banjo lesson two days after she said you kiss too fast and one day after she said she would really rather not kiss you ever again, actually. You also shouldn’t go to a brewery in Alameda when you’re underage without a fake Connecticut driver’s license that says otherwise just to try and impress your Gemini coworker who kisses you when she’s bored, mostly. I like to think that I don’t jump the gun quite as severely as I used to. Getting older is such a funny thing, I fear. I don’t get paid to make coffee anymore, I play Scruggs style banjo instead of clawhammer now, and I tattooed a star on my ankle like I said I would forever ago. There’s a beautiful satisfaction that comes with keeping a promise to yourself. You have to go slow with Anne, but I swear that it’s worth it. She's taking a lot of time out of her busy schedule of being my favorite contemporary poet to sit and talk with you between the pages of “The Glass Essay,” after all. We owe her the respect of a few pencil annotations in the margins to let her know that we hear her and we can feel her holding us up to the light. by Ian Kammerer Quasi at Third Man Records Detroit. Photo taken by author. Quasi is a Portland-based rock duo with Sam Coomes and former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. I first came across their music in 2019, deep into my Elliott Smith emo phase in high school. In interviews, Elliott would often say Quasi was his favorite band. He would cover their 1997 song “Clouds” at some shows and Janet and Sam served as his backing band during the Figure 8 tour around 2000.
Quasi has 9 albums and one compilation of early recordings. Their most recent album from 2023, released a decade after their prior album, Mole City, and is titled Breaking the Balls of History. The album is an ironic, raw, and blunt reflection on modern life, politics, and middle-aged angst. Boasting self-reflexive lyrics to catchy guitar riffs and bouncy drums, the album is easily one of my favorites from last year. Sam, the primary lyricist, sings with a tinges of both honesty and humor. Janet keeps the songs energetic and grounded with her masterful drum lines. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Quasi twice in the last few years, once at the Rickshaw Stop in SF and once at Third Man Records Cass Corridor in Detroit. Both intimate venues, it’s a joy to watch these two play together. They sit slightly facing each other, Janet on the kit and Sam on the Rocksichord. They play off each other’s energy and Sam often makes witty quips in between songs to give the shows a welcome air of comfort, feeling like you’re watching the band at a house party or garage show. Their sound is hard to describe. Some of their albums sound like Modest Mouse, Pavement, or Built to Spill, but not quite. Their newest album is fun and youthful, but some of their older works speak to a more serious and self-deprecating tone. Such is the indie rock scene of Portland in the 90s. “Gravity”, from their new album, is a ballad-like song communicating feelings of being lost or insignificant in the larger scheme of things: “You can walk on water if you so choose / And you’re made in USA, concrete shoes / Gravity don’t care at all.” Other songs like “Doomscrollers” have a more critical, Covid-situated stir-crazy energy that speaks to how we were all feeling in the uncertain and bleak times of 2020-2021 when the album was written: “All the kids in their virtual classes / Stuck at home sitting on their asses / And all the houses lost to fires / The anti-vaxxers and the climate deniers.” One of my favorite songs from the album, “Rotten Wrock” is jumpy, anxious, and full of brilliant metaphors: “So what exactly is a human being? / A little button on a touch screen?” It’s a wonderful album, and Quasi is going on tour this year to commemorate and play their 1998 album Featuring Birds. I highly recommend checking out their show across the Bay in SF at The Chapel on July 27. I had the pleasure of interviewing Janet and Sam last year about Breaking the Balls of History, their onstage dynamic, Portland, and their thoughts on vinyl. Enjoy! First off, congratulations on Breaking the Balls of History! It’s an amazing collection of music and is as cool sounding and fresh to me as your other albums. (Janet) Thank you! This is your 10th Quasi album, first on Sub Pop, and comes after a lot of major events for you and the world beyond: the Portland BLM movement, the Trump and post-Trump political climate, Covid, and Janet’s accident. My question comes in three parts. What felt different about making this record (if anything)? (Janet) For me, this record follows a period of great personal upheaval. The accident was a real shock and it put my ability to drum in serious jeopardy - I wasn't sure I would be physically able to play in the manner to which I am accustomed. And although the ordeal was really scary, the love and support that came pouring in was so profound. Really for me, everything felt different this time around. I felt a new, immense sense of gratitude as well as a desire to play and sing at my highest level. Did you feel there was something beyond just music at stake? (Janet) A lot of people helped me get through a pretty long recovery. I wanted them to know I took their aid seriously, I felt that debt that could be repaid by making a really great album. In your lyrics you tend to blend political commentary with comedy. Is this something you consciously think about as you’re writing a new song or is it just your nature as a person+songwriter? In a broader sense, Do you think comedy is an effective tool to work through the unsavory parts of life or to deal with volatile political climates? (I’m thinking about “Shitty is Pretty” / “Doomscrollers” / “Breaking the Balls of History” with this question). (Sam) Really I just write how I feel, try to make it rhyme, & it winds up being humorous to the listener. I do like to play with absurdity sometimes, & that can also seem humorous. So, I guess you’re right about it simply being my nature, rather than a conscious thing. I do think that juxtaposing opposing elements in music & in creativity in general is a central idea in what we do, so uniting seriousness & humor, or other dichotomies like light/dark, hard/soft, etc is certainly part of our process. The lyrics on this album are overtly political in a lot of songs. Do you think these events changed what the instrumentation sounded like? (Janet) We were going for a live, raw, stripped down and punchy sound from the get go. Sam usually has the lyrics pretty much completed when we start working on the songs, so yes they definitely affect the sound. This record is rebellious and fiery in both lyrical and musical content. In your live shows, because it is just a two person set-up, you both appear to be super locked into each other and to be playing off of each other’s tempo/improvisation. How do you two feed off of each other during live shows? (Janet) The live show is where we really excel. Sam and I have an unspoken musical language that has been developing for 30 years. The way we set up on stage, almost facing each other, allows us to incorporate lots of visual cues. We watch each other, especially during improvisations, so that we can make something unique in the moment. The moments when we lose the script are the most exciting. Both of you have had various projects and bands within the Portland and Pacific Northwest. How do you think Portland has changed since you’ve lived there? How do you think the Portland music scene has changed? How do you think this may have affected your musical projects? (Sam) I’ve lived in Portland forever, & I’ve actually lived in the same neighborhood for over 25 years - so of course it’s changed a lot. When I leave my house & walk around it feels to me like I’ve somehow moved to a totally different city, without even leaving home. But now there’s a new level of change- first gentrification, but now there’s the widespread homelessness & bad street drugs…of course they’re related, as gentrification pushed housing costs beyond the means of so many people. The music scene…I have to admit losing touch with it over the years, but recently, as I started going to shows again after Covid I’m seeing a bunch of great, young bands e.g. Yuvees who we’re on tour with at the moment, Sea Moss, Spoonbenders, Shaylee…. But at this point I don’t think any of this affects our work at all. We’re pretty much on our own path. I’m glad to have live local music that I can get into just as a fan, though. What do you think has changed (if anything) from how you played together live in the 90s to now? (Janet) We are better communicators than we were back then. And I think we both appreciate Quasi and each other more as we get older, knowing that we are lucky to still have the band, and to be still creating music together that feels vital. Domino reissued three of your 90s albums last year and this year for Breaking the Balls of History Sub Pop had a pink vinyl for pre-order and to buy now. Do you prefer vinyl to other mediums of listening to music? If so, why? Do you think fans should invest in listening to Quasi albums on vinyl instead of solely streaming? (Sam) Vinyl is what I grew up with, & so for me the album experience isn’t just the music- it’s the artwork, the liner notes, all the info…it’s a musical experience & also you get cultural history & technical knowledge, etc. Streaming is just one dimensional. Also, streaming as an economic model completely shafts the artist financially. Strictly speaking economics, the CD format was most favorable to artists…but aesthetically it’s a step down from The LP. So yeah I would absolutely encourage fans to listen to vinyl rather than stream…everyone gets more out of it. Quasi at Third Man Records Detroit. Photo taken by author. by Colbie Mahaffey  She woke up, and groggily walked to the bathroom, splashing water on her face before looking up in the mirror. She drew back, then leaned in closer, squinting slightly at the sight of the dark circles under her eyes. They looked unnaturally dark, like she had a bruise, or dirt under her eyes. She rubbed them, and it didn’t hurt like a bruise, or rub away like dirt. Confused, she decided she must just be really tired- after all, she had been working late recently. She would go to bed early tonight and look better in the morning. When her husband woke up, she mentioned the dark circles to him, but he stared through her eyes and shook his head, “You look the same to me!”
The next morning, she was horrified to see her eyes looked even worse. The bags under her eyes were so dark that her once bright green eyes now looked sunken and her skin seemed droopy. But still, no one else seemed to notice. Over the next few weeks, she began buying eye creams and following home remedies, but no matter what she did, the circles under her eyes only got longer and darker. Until one morning, she was pulling at the circles in the mirror, and her fingers sunk straight through her skin, as if ripping through wet paper. And she kept pulling down, until her entire face was falling off, and under it, her skin hung raw and bloody. Moaning through her lack of a mouth, she walked to her husband, who glanced up without batting an eye, and said “Morning sweetie”. She looked the same to him. by Bibi Koenig  I'm talking about that one building on campus that constantly spews out opaque white gas. Old, dilapidated, missing windows, strangely art deco-y with pilasters at the corners. Looks like a child or two may have died in it when labor regulations weren't as strict. You know the one.
Due to a lack of a better term, my friend Elisa calls this structure the "Toxicology Building." I too will refer to it as such. I cannot remember my first encounter with the Toxicology Building. But, I can say that every time I see it, I have the same distant yet completely apparent thought that something seems very off and potentially dangerous. There was once an entire week in which I passed by the Toxicology Building and smelled the stench of gas, persistently. And while this did concern me, I didn't do anything about it. I'm not a chemtrail conspiracist, but I feel like I should care more about mysterious gasses. Maybe I, like many other college students, secretly hope for a disaster so I can sue the school and get free tuition. But I already get free tuition because my dad busted his knee while playing soccer for the U.S. Navy. So I really don't know why I think this. Maybe it would be kind of cool to be part of a generation of slightly genetically-damaged UCB students. Like an X-Men situation, but instead of doing cool things I just hope that somebody gives me a job for my art history degree. Anyways, it actually wasn't very hard to discover the true purpose of the Toxicology Building at all. While there was a part of me that expected a long, sordid past of dark deals and chemical warfare stuff, maybe some MK-Ultra shadiness, it turned out all I needed to do to find out more was go on Google Maps, identify the name of the building, and then look it up. So, the Toxicology Building isn't the Toxicology Building it all. It's known as both the "Central Heating Plant" and the "Cogeneration Plant." Right beside it is the "Hazardous Materials Facility," but ironically I have no interest in investigating this adjacent building further, so I simply will not. The Central Heating Plant/Cogeneration Plant, or "Toxentral CoHeauilding Blant" as I would now like to christen it (there's no official pronunciation; choose one) has been spoken of a few times by various sources. Berkeley Facilities Services claims that the Toxentral CoHeauilding Blant provides 100% of UC Berkeley's steam needs and 90% of the campus's electricity needs. Where it loses me is that it doesn't state where the other 10% is from. Very suspicious. I assume there are goblins in a basement somewhere on stationary bikes coughing up the rest of the energy. Also, a website straight from the institution would never tell us if a child died in the building, so I don't really trust it as a source. BFS also claims the Blant operates 24/7/365, which makes me curious as to what would happen if it stopped. The obvious answer is Lucas would die, but what one may not realize is the campus very well might lose power! Tobin Fricke provides the earliest account of the Toxentral CoHeauilding Blant that I could find. Published in 2001, his blog post offers detailed insight into the workings of the Blant, including several images of '90s computers. While Tobin claims "any of the information here could very well be wrong" because he had "written it all from my memory," I'd like to counter this by saying a man so honest could never be incorrect. Tobin says the interior of the building is hard to take pictures of because it is tightly packed with ducts, pipes, and equipment. He also did not have access to an overall plan of the Blant. So it seems like you could maybe hide a small body in there somewhere. Jeana Lee of the Daily Californian immediately loses me because she claims the building goes unnoticed and unquestioned by most students. However, I begrudgingly reference her because she does seem to know what she's talking about. She says the Toxentral CoHeauilding Blant was built in the '30s (child labor?), but did not become a cogeneration plant until 1987. The Blant burns 150 pounds of coal a minute and is responsible for 71% of Cal's CO2 emissions, so it will have to be replaced or shut down in order to reach UC Berkeley's carbon neutral goal by 2025. Despite all the information I uncovered about the Blant, I am more concerned with what I could not find: an explicit statement that no child has died in the building. Anybody else with the misfortune of being from San Diego is likely familiar with the Nuclear Boobs, (officially the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant) a power plant between San Diego and L.A. that looks like, you guessed it, some boobs. And I still remember the deep, shared sorrow I and my brave contemporaries (the other people at my high school) felt when we found out that the Nuclear Boobs were being shut down permanently. This sorrow is similar to what I feel for the Toxentral CoHeauilding Blant–uncertainty, nostalgia, and the sentiment that I am face-to-face with a relic of the past that can no longer do what needs to be done for the people. Fly high, Toxentral CoHeauilding Blant. Although I'm not really sure if it's actually going to stop spitting out gas all the time, or if they’re ever going to admit that a child died in the building, this surely is the end of an era. Just remember, if that beloved dame of a building decides to go Chernobyl on us, you know where to find me: at Strawberry Creek. Drinking the water. a piece of narration from the upcoming film noir by famed filmmaker and professional alcoholic Hugh Wonderbang  a spoof by Magellan Reyes “I slammed my fist on the table, mad that she wouldn’t share with me all her dirty little secrets. I knew she was there when Bobby met his untimely demise, but the dame just wouldn’t crack. The putrid musk generated by all these dirty little lies gets caught in your nostrils and layered on your skin like grease, and no amount of baths’ll clean ‘em out. I was sick of what she had to say, sick of dames giving me the run around, sick of the whole damn thing. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her good, tell me what you know I said. I didn’t mean to be so rough, but it didn’t seem to work anyhow. The dame just sat there, laughing like a wicked witch damning me to hell. Well she can damn me to hell as much as she wants, I thought, what do I care—I’m already there. She cursed at me as I made my way over to the bar. She told me I was just a lousy drunk, that I didn’t know nothing and never would. But I didn’t care. I was tired. This life has a way of wearing a man down, of turning all he loves against him. She cursed at me again as I downed my glass of whiskey. But I ignored her, and just poured another drink…” by Natalia Macias  shades of melancholia
i let my clock fall three minutes behind then four and with the changing of the season it becomes 56 minutes ahead i let it because it doesn’t mean much to me my body never really observed it’s rigid lines likes more of the mental gymnastics it takes for me to calculate the difference between the bedside clock and the number on my phone, the one in my mom’s car and the one above the stove, … i calculate my age for the day even by the hour it changes traveling from 17 to 21 to 54 my body would expand to create years in the span of a couple of hours when i close my eyes time looks like my stretch marks expands, retracts breathes in and out since the last time i’ve seen it my body says see how i’ve grown look at the new space i’ve created our connection to time isn’t new love but ancient recognition it isn’t shivers and goosebumps, it’s reverence and sustained power just below the surface of your skin sometimes i feel like a stone in a zen garden the sand moves like water around me making serene landscapes … i calculate the amount of grief i’ll carry with me today i often underestimate, but it’s okay the weight of the many versions of myself that i’ve lost tug at the hem of my jeans who i could’ve been, the lives i promised myself forced to slow down i realize i live in shades of melancholia and not wanting it any other way i do wish i could separate the two realities jump from one to the next all at my convenience but for now i live in them both simultaneously mourning quietly and with any empathy i can spare feeding a new found fascination with dichotomies and the painfully bright way they merge … my body often forgets it’s own language the different regions have new slang and their accents make it hard to understand and when my body forgets it’s own language it only knows how to scream my body has made the space in between my home standing on the cusp of overwhelming sound and complete silence familiarizing myself with uncertainty and many people only pass through but i’ve been trying to make it my home building upon shifting land i wonder what my body would say if you asked it what it feels like to live in the space in between n.m. ~ a reflection on crip time by ellen samuels |