“Airports see more sincere kisses than wedding halls. The walls of hospitals have heard more prayers than the walls of churches.”
-Unknown
Fuck Art, Let's Dance
ISSUE #001 / MARCH 2014
Issue #001 of Fuck Art, Let's Dance is an experiment. Nostrovia! underwent surgery, & we needed a new way to home your talent. We don't have a concrete plan for this magazine, & are letting it organically grow. We may do print issues down the road, maybe an anthology, but for now, we're focusing on a web-embedded zine that can easily be collaboratively shared to better promote you, your passions, & artists + projects we thoroughly support.
Here's how we're doing it.
IN THIS ISSUE:
POETRY
- Jason Baldinger
- Dreamer
- Ben John Smith
- Jeremiah Walton
- Zarina Zabrisky
ART
- Jimmy Delivern
PHOTOGRAPHY
- Eleanor Bennett
- Captain Thornton
INTERVIEWS
FEATURES
- "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold" by Atmosphere
- "The #Geppetto Project" by Aaron Schraeter
Fuck Art, Let's Dance
ONE POEM - JASON BALDINGER
Jason Baldinger has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about. Somewhere in time he traveled the country, and wrote a few books, the latest of which are “The Lower 48” on Six Gallery Press and “The Studs Terkel Blues” on Night Ballet Press, both of which will be available in the spring. A short litany of publishing credits include The New Yinzer, Shatter Wig Press, Blast Furnace, B.E. Quarterly and you can also hear audio of some poems at bandcamp by just typing in his name.
"I am passionate because i breath. Once you do enough of it you get pretty passionate about it, and then of course there that whole goddamn fear of stopping breathing. All this boils down to life is a beautiful magical miasma of all sorts of shit, I write it because i love it, same reason i pull myself out of bed it the morning. How can you not be passionate about what your doing, not doing. All the same i'm fucking rambling, please publish some poems a'nat."
Fuck You Jay Gatsby
A squall to stop midnight strong hearts,
although the fury is barely an inch.
Out of the bar, snow globe street lights,
I offer her a ride halfway, she says she has to go to her car.
Her car, where she lives now, although she sleeps
with a man she thought had “something” with,
now it’s just a bed she goes back to when there’s nowhere.
Tonight there is nowhere.
Tonight there is snow.
We glide down the hill, laughing our asses off
times is hard.
Hell, we’ve been laughing for years
ever since Regent Square Apartments.
Up till four, drinking and giggling
shit, the times never get any better,
anywhere or Sciota street.
She grabs two sweaters against the cold,
boots and then abandons boots.
Alcohol braces wind chill.
Hard to believe its December.
Hard to believe one’s life fits in a trunk,
Hard to believe a college degree ain’t getting anyone anywhere.
It’s paper, there’s no money in it, there’s no money in anything.
We scrape our change to laugh, Gatsby’s abandoned children.
Lost in America, the beautiful nowhere.
Earlier she said if it was summer
when she took her last final she would have driven
until the car died, called wherever home.
I think about North Carolina afternoons
we waited out storms, pizza shops talking
about the dead that never come back,
how it never gets any easier to whistle with cotton mouth.
We slide uphill, the last buses whine
through wires; electronic voices canned stops.
U turns, wipers push off snow,
the road a tenuous ice world.
South Pacific, she gets out
the snow to swallow her.
With door creaks, or in the wind through vents
I’m sure I hear something swear in whispers,
“Fuck you, Jay Gatsby!”
although the fury is barely an inch.
Out of the bar, snow globe street lights,
I offer her a ride halfway, she says she has to go to her car.
Her car, where she lives now, although she sleeps
with a man she thought had “something” with,
now it’s just a bed she goes back to when there’s nowhere.
Tonight there is nowhere.
Tonight there is snow.
We glide down the hill, laughing our asses off
times is hard.
Hell, we’ve been laughing for years
ever since Regent Square Apartments.
Up till four, drinking and giggling
shit, the times never get any better,
anywhere or Sciota street.
She grabs two sweaters against the cold,
boots and then abandons boots.
Alcohol braces wind chill.
Hard to believe its December.
Hard to believe one’s life fits in a trunk,
Hard to believe a college degree ain’t getting anyone anywhere.
It’s paper, there’s no money in it, there’s no money in anything.
We scrape our change to laugh, Gatsby’s abandoned children.
Lost in America, the beautiful nowhere.
Earlier she said if it was summer
when she took her last final she would have driven
until the car died, called wherever home.
I think about North Carolina afternoons
we waited out storms, pizza shops talking
about the dead that never come back,
how it never gets any easier to whistle with cotton mouth.
We slide uphill, the last buses whine
through wires; electronic voices canned stops.
U turns, wipers push off snow,
the road a tenuous ice world.
South Pacific, she gets out
the snow to swallow her.
With door creaks, or in the wind through vents
I’m sure I hear something swear in whispers,
“Fuck you, Jay Gatsby!”
The #Geppetto Project
PHOTOGRAPHY/SCULPTURE - AARON SCHRAETER
Aaron Schraeter is an artist born & raised in Queens, NY. Aaron uses photography, sculpture, and painting to create interactive visual experiences.
His work has been displayed in in the MoMA, the Queens Museum, New York Studio Gallery, & pop-up shows all over New York City.
His #geppetto project is a street pop-up sculpture exhibition meshing childish innocence w/ visual medians, & the virility of 21st century communications.
***see Aaron's full #geppetto photo compilation
TWO POEMS - DREAMER
Dreamer remains anonymous.
Bleeding for the Moon on its fractured Edges
Let me cut myself
on your fractured edges.
I am okay with bleeding for my moon.
(Ahhh, such a metaphor. Fuck. I'm just saying I'd do anything to keep you safe (and quite a lot to keep you happy). If we were in prison, maybe an abandoned one that we snuck into to take pictures and monkey in, and we become stuck in a jail cell, I'd let you eat me. That's how I know I love you. I'd let you eat me.)
on your fractured edges.
I am okay with bleeding for my moon.
(Ahhh, such a metaphor. Fuck. I'm just saying I'd do anything to keep you safe (and quite a lot to keep you happy). If we were in prison, maybe an abandoned one that we snuck into to take pictures and monkey in, and we become stuck in a jail cell, I'd let you eat me. That's how I know I love you. I'd let you eat me.)
Sleeping with the Moon in my arms
I want to fall asleep holding you
I want to adventure with you in my dreams
I want to wake up next to you
I want to adventure with you awake.
Fold me safe inside of you
Fold you safe inside me
Feel each soft
before the funeral in my brain
does role call.
I want to adventure with you in my dreams
I want to wake up next to you
I want to adventure with you awake.
Fold me safe inside of you
Fold you safe inside me
Feel each soft
before the funeral in my brain
does role call.
ONE POEM - JEREMIAH WALTON
"I'm Jeremiah Walton. I'm 20, from N.H., and run traveling pop-up bookstore Books & Shovels. I founded Nostrovia! in 2011, & co-manage it while on the road, performing at open mics / slams / festivals / & street corners across the country."
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
-Ernest Hemingway
Melted Typewriters
Captain Thornton is a 22 y/o traveling photographer & dancer.
The photos below were snagged in Cleveland, O.H., at the 2014 Snoetry Festival.
The photos below were snagged in Cleveland, O.H., at the 2014 Snoetry Festival.
ONE POEM - BEN JOHN SMITH
Ben John Smith is the Editor-in-Chief of Horror Sleaze & Trash. He is getting married in Bali next year, and with a little bit of luck he will be allowed more cats once the deal is done. Part time Poet, Full time creep.
She Says
She says
“You always want every one to die at the end of the movie,
it’s like you only want bad things to happen.
People don’t always get what they deserve
and not every one has to pay for their mistakes
with their lives!”
She says this as she frees herself from the blanket
and holds the red wine tumbler above her head.
With no bra on,
one of her nipples is exposed from the under hang of her arm pit.
She pulls the single strap of her g-string from her ass crack
and runs her hands through her hair,
each finger separated by a smooth clump of dark brown.
I had put my knee through the plaster on the roof
a few weeks earlier installing some down lights
and as the wind rattled the house frame,
a shimmering mist of white plaster dust fell from the crack
and settled on top of her head.
She was drunk enough not to notice and to be fair,
it didn’t matter any way.
But sweet lord she looked beautiful.
All a man needs is a good woman,
that’s it.
That’s the only thing that matters.
All a good woman needs
is
everything.
She comes home
and I’m watching two men suck each
other off on tv
it’s a movie called
“Strangers By The Lake”
and it has subtitles so
it must be art.
“You always want every one to die at the end of the movie,
it’s like you only want bad things to happen.
People don’t always get what they deserve
and not every one has to pay for their mistakes
with their lives!”
She says this as she frees herself from the blanket
and holds the red wine tumbler above her head.
With no bra on,
one of her nipples is exposed from the under hang of her arm pit.
She pulls the single strap of her g-string from her ass crack
and runs her hands through her hair,
each finger separated by a smooth clump of dark brown.
I had put my knee through the plaster on the roof
a few weeks earlier installing some down lights
and as the wind rattled the house frame,
a shimmering mist of white plaster dust fell from the crack
and settled on top of her head.
She was drunk enough not to notice and to be fair,
it didn’t matter any way.
But sweet lord she looked beautiful.
All a man needs is a good woman,
that’s it.
That’s the only thing that matters.
All a good woman needs
is
everything.
She comes home
and I’m watching two men suck each
other off on tv
it’s a movie called
“Strangers By The Lake”
and it has subtitles so
it must be art.
Eleanor Leonne Bennett is an internationally award winning photographer and visual artist. She is the CIWEM Young Environmental Photographer of The Year 2013 and won first places with National Geographic, The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography, among other awards.
Eleanor's photography has been published in the Telegraph, The Guardian, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Life Force Magazine, British Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and as the cover of books and magazines extensively throughout the world. Her art is globally exhibited, having shown work in New York, Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, among other locations (too many awards, exhibits, and publications to list. 'among others' is a frequent habit of her bio).
Eleanor's photography has been published in the Telegraph, The Guardian, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Life Force Magazine, British Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and as the cover of books and magazines extensively throughout the world. Her art is globally exhibited, having shown work in New York, Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, among other locations (too many awards, exhibits, and publications to list. 'among others' is a frequent habit of her bio).
We interviewed this camera wielding mad woman specifically for this issue.
ONE POEM - ZARINA ZABRISKY
Zarina Zabrisky is the author of two short story collections "IRON", "A CUTE TOMBSTONE" (Epic Rites Press) and a novel "We, Monsters" (Numina Press). Zabrisky moved to San Francisco from Moscow to escape the aftermath of a collapsing communist empire. She wrote traveling around the world as a street artist, oilfield translator, and a kickboxing instructor. Her work appeared in over thirty literary magazines and anthologies in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong and Nepal. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a recipient of 2013 Acker Award for Achievement in The Avant Garde.
Swamp Lake
"For the last decade, Russia has been brainwashed and ruled by former KGB and military. Currently, Russia faces mass arrests, imprisonment of opposition, and no freedom of speech. A few brave people that dare to fight the regime deserve to know that the world supports them, that the other reality is possible. Books vs. Bullshit. Art vs. Tyrants."
Mother lobotomized
Mother blindfolded
Gagged
Mother sick
Mother
Name stained
Soiled
Shamed
Mother
Russia
Hey!!!
Wake up!!!
How long will you stay on all fours
the centuries passing you by,
Mausoleum mummies
and Ghosts of Communism having their way with you?
"civilization," "reflection," "humanity"
nothing but soap bubbles
in your medieval bear thick slumber
is all you can hear
are the whistles of Cossacks whips
and ululations of clowny priests?
Who is to blame?
Genghis Khan?
Ivan the Terrible?
Inquisition?
Lenin?
Putin?
God?
Poor diet--
lard and young pioneer songs for breakfast?
What to do?
It is not a rhetorical question!
Wake up
Pork jello land,
Shake off the manure and flies
Off your worn blistered skin!
Wake up,
Siberia of the spirit,
The collective farm of the mind,
The labor camp of the soul!
Wake up,
Before it is too late—again!—oops!--
For a millionth time--
oops! epic oops!
Your Swan lake
is a swamp
Look, Kiev is in black flames
burning away from you
like Moscow from Napoleon
History is the nightmare
orbiting with maniacal passion
eternal return
after the eternal return--
eternal—oops!
It raps in my ears
with Youtube attention deficit disorder
and pre-teen angst
yet
like thousand Bach cellos
fugue furious
It screams barricades, bodies dead,
black blood and BTR blowing up
Wake up,
murderous mother!
Wake up,
motherfuckers,
hammer and sickles' armed Oedipuses!
But no!--
This sleeping beauty of my country
is snoring in its crystal coffin
in its drunken stupor,
a rotten herring in its clawed furry paw,
Swarovski-bejeweled crucifix for a pacifier
It is spread out in its own body fluids
ever so comfortably--
So over the cold puddle of the ocean
Let me rap to you--
Listen you,
rapists and slaves,
stuffed dumb with kielbasa, vodka,
and protein rich garbage
from the geyser of the TV sewage,
Here is a blood soaked Kremlin brick
of my heart
back
into your sordid window
from your forever prodigal literary hooligan:
I divorce you,
Mother Monster,
with all the pain and love
of my Hungry Duck youth--
You must become who you are.
Mother blindfolded
Gagged
Mother sick
Mother
Name stained
Soiled
Shamed
Mother
Russia
Hey!!!
Wake up!!!
How long will you stay on all fours
the centuries passing you by,
Mausoleum mummies
and Ghosts of Communism having their way with you?
"civilization," "reflection," "humanity"
nothing but soap bubbles
in your medieval bear thick slumber
is all you can hear
are the whistles of Cossacks whips
and ululations of clowny priests?
Who is to blame?
Genghis Khan?
Ivan the Terrible?
Inquisition?
Lenin?
Putin?
God?
Poor diet--
lard and young pioneer songs for breakfast?
What to do?
It is not a rhetorical question!
Wake up
Pork jello land,
Shake off the manure and flies
Off your worn blistered skin!
Wake up,
Siberia of the spirit,
The collective farm of the mind,
The labor camp of the soul!
Wake up,
Before it is too late—again!—oops!--
For a millionth time--
oops! epic oops!
Your Swan lake
is a swamp
Look, Kiev is in black flames
burning away from you
like Moscow from Napoleon
History is the nightmare
orbiting with maniacal passion
eternal return
after the eternal return--
eternal—oops!
It raps in my ears
with Youtube attention deficit disorder
and pre-teen angst
yet
like thousand Bach cellos
fugue furious
It screams barricades, bodies dead,
black blood and BTR blowing up
Wake up,
murderous mother!
Wake up,
motherfuckers,
hammer and sickles' armed Oedipuses!
But no!--
This sleeping beauty of my country
is snoring in its crystal coffin
in its drunken stupor,
a rotten herring in its clawed furry paw,
Swarovski-bejeweled crucifix for a pacifier
It is spread out in its own body fluids
ever so comfortably--
So over the cold puddle of the ocean
Let me rap to you--
Listen you,
rapists and slaves,
stuffed dumb with kielbasa, vodka,
and protein rich garbage
from the geyser of the TV sewage,
Here is a blood soaked Kremlin brick
of my heart
back
into your sordid window
from your forever prodigal literary hooligan:
I divorce you,
Mother Monster,
with all the pain and love
of my Hungry Duck youth--
You must become who you are.
previously published in Luciferous
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"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye hard"
-A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
w/ love