Submit to Gravity! (ideally without falling over)
That was the sound of our motivation hitting rock bottom as we go into hibernation mode for the winter. We could blame the freakishly-un-Californian cold weather or the semester petering out, but Gravity, we're looking at you. We had such high hopes for you, and there you go again, bringing us down. Thanks Gravity, thanks a lot.
But let's not be too hard on the ole chap. Gravity will bring us back around, just like it does planets! Even if you haven't started on your project, or it doesn't have quite the... gravitas... you were hoping for, take heart. If you haven't sent us anything yet, you still have time to get your act together. And if you are submitting something and it's just, oh let me see, "taking a little longer than expected" — feel free to let us know what you'll be sending our way and when. We accept imaginary submissions and the idea of ideas. Oddly enough, telling us you're going to do it is the biggest step toward Actually Doing It. The rest is just execution. And yes, sometimes progress feels a bit like execution by slow, dull guillotine or an industrial revolution-era sweatshop, but more often than not we look back on the experience and think, "That was easy." Or maybe that was just the Staples commercial on in the background.
But I digress... In the spirit of those holiday spirits looming over your shoulder or in your flask, I'll get to the point. Here's what we want for Christmas [insert celebration of your choice]:
Something you've written, drawn, built, captured, or otherwise come to possess using those wily creative faculties of yours. And by creative faculty we don't mean creative writing faculty members (acquired willingly or otherwise). Those are about the only submission we won't accept. We just don't have the budget for that.
We still love photography, found art, cocktail napkins, still life, still like, and anything that can be pinned to paper or put online (or emailed to WeStillLike@gmail.com).
We still love January, which is when we'll be compiling everything you sent us by December 31. I mean, ahem, Decembruary Eleventeenth Grumble Hangover Grumble. It will probably take us a few days of recovery from the holidays to open our email and face the world again, so you can consider that your unofficial extension.
But time's awastin', kiddos, so help make gravity heavy by getting your submissions to us as soon as the laws of physics allow. Gravity will not be stopped!
And if you haven't gotten your hands on a copy of Issue 1, Manifesto Destiny is now featured in stores in the Bay Area (Needles and Pins and Dog-Eared Books in SF, and Issues in Oakland). Plus, you can still get a copy directly from us, but we're down to a mere handful, so hurry fast!
May your holidays be full of gravy, and gravity too,
Sarah & Chris
Call for Submissions! We Still Like GRAVITY
Let’s talk about gravity.
Don’t think about all that stuff weighing on you. Don’t think about work. Don’t think about school. Don’t think about love. Don’t think about why you’re here or how you feel about that. Don’t think about anything at all. There. Feel it? That’s the breeze. That’s the end of summer. That’s the earth turning the day into night. That’s the planet swinging like a tether ball around the sun. That’s the balance between stillness and motion. That’s gravity.
Gravity is also all of those other things — work, school, love, mountains, phases of the moon. Gravity is everything everywhere, all that we don’t or can’t think of. Don’t think of it! But don’t fight it. It’s what keeps you in your chair, what anchors you, what is constant. Whew, it’s heavy! It’s what attracts you to the people and other planetary masses that swirl around you. It’s what you orbit. It’s all those unseen natural forces that you’ve been taking for granted.
Let’s talk about dark matter and the way pencils roll off tables and onto floors; let’s talk of apples falling from trees, astronauts peeing into tubes, the myths of Newton and Sisyphus, the momentum of falling, levitation and suspension of disbelief — let’s talk of all that we revolve around, spinning orbits through Oakland, Allenstown, Silverlake, Park Slope, home.
You can write about any or all or none of these things for We Still Like Gravity. As always, the requirements are slight but important: We don’t care if it’s poetry or prose, rants or raves, photographs or ephemera, criticism or catharsis. Make something true. And don’t fuss over it too hard.
Now let’s talk deadlines. Get all that weight off your mind before 2010 — email your submissions to WeStillLike@gmail.com by December 31, 2009. Don’t be scared; you’ve got two whole months! And, so that we can figure out just how much this next issue will weigh, go ahead and write to let us know if you are planning to send work our way. We hope to hear from you!
Here’s to Gravity — all that is heavy and beautiful, all that is meaningful, all that pulls us together,
Sarah & Chris
Oh yeah! Feel free to forward this to any of your fellow creative-types who might be interested.
We Still Like Reading
Our launch was fantastic, thanks to our lovely audience and readers who rocked so hard.
Have a look at the photos from the big night!
Holy smokes, the new issue looks rad!
Sneak Preview of Issue 1, Now with More Local Color and Extra Pataphysics!
Appetites were whetted with talk of what was possible. What we couldn't soak up with a napkin we put into a magazine. Wring out and drink up! We'll see you at the party.
Manifesto Toward the Impossible
[Sarah Ciston]
Why make manifestos? Why is it so important to declare, to reinvent?
In this brave new era of breakdown, we see opportunity! We have a chance to shed the status quo for everything we’ve always wanted. Why not? Even our most tempered, realistic expectations didn’t work out quite the way we were told they should, so we refuse to temper our expectations any longer.
We want. We want everything — fully, openly, more.
Why want this?
Because there is nothing else.
Because everything will quickly fade.
Because both the pain and the bliss of life will pass from us too soon.
Because it is no longer worth being patient against what you deserve.
We will ask for and expect nothing less from the world. We will no longer listen to naysayers who speak of the impossible like it can’t be done, like it does not exist as much or even more than anything else.
San Francisco’s Been Chucking Rocks at Me from the Other Side of the Moon
[Zulema Summerfield]
San Francisco’s been chucking rocks at me from the other side of the moon. This is real conflict. It’s like having animals descend upon you, alighting on your outstretched arms, your face turned up to the sky… but then they turn on you and tear apart your face, shoot venom into your mouth and claw out your eyes.
San Francisco’s chucking rocks at me, also shooting guns into the air outside my window, stealing my mail, posting shit about me on MySpace. The internet breeds conflict between San Francisco and me. A trolley car rolls over the vulnerable side of my heart (the tender side, the side that lives in fear, the side that’s already swollen and bruised), and the city just stands there, points and laughs and stares. I think, Maybe it will be better if I move? But prices are too high, and really, there’s nowhere else to go.
So I escape into the forest for a few days, survive on foraged mushrooms and squirrels I hunt myself with a slingshot my brother gave me. A couple of hours later, a ranger shows up. He’s got a telephone whose cord stretches all the way across the forest, to the far horizon where his cabin is. I can see the lights blinking there.
The ranger shakes his head, clucks his tongue. “Them mushrooms’ll kill ya.” He hands me the phone. “Sfer you.” He’s the kind of man I’d have loved in another life — moustache, doesn’t talk much, hides things under the bed. But then he walks away.
“Hello?”
The city is buzzing on the other end of the line.
“You can run but you can’t hide…” I think I can hear the sound of knuckles grinding, or at the very least being popped.
Birds are out here somewhere. They’re just shadows in these shadowed trees. Those birds?
There’s no getting away from those birds. They’re all just waiting for their chance.
But god! My eyes are so tired. Vigilance is costly. Vigilance is a million dollars on which I haven’t got a hold.
Manifesto Toward the Impossible
[Sarah Ciston]
Why make manifestos? Why is it so important to declare, to reinvent?
In this brave new era of breakdown, we see opportunity! We have a chance to shed the status quo for everything we’ve always wanted. Why not? Even our most tempered, realistic expectations didn’t work out quite the way we were told they should, so we refuse to temper our expectations any longer.
We want. We want everything — fully, openly, more.
Why want this?
Because there is nothing else.
Because everything will quickly fade.
Because both the pain and the bliss of life will pass from us too soon.
Because it is no longer worth being patient against what you deserve.
We will ask for and expect nothing less from the world. We will no longer listen to naysayers who speak of the impossible like it can’t be done, like it does not exist as much or even more than anything else.
San Francisco’s Been Chucking Rocks at Me from the Other Side of the Moon
[Zulema Summerfield]
San Francisco’s been chucking rocks at me from the other side of the moon. This is real conflict. It’s like having animals descend upon you, alighting on your outstretched arms, your face turned up to the sky… but then they turn on you and tear apart your face, shoot venom into your mouth and claw out your eyes.
San Francisco’s chucking rocks at me, also shooting guns into the air outside my window, stealing my mail, posting shit about me on MySpace. The internet breeds conflict between San Francisco and me. A trolley car rolls over the vulnerable side of my heart (the tender side, the side that lives in fear, the side that’s already swollen and bruised), and the city just stands there, points and laughs and stares. I think, Maybe it will be better if I move? But prices are too high, and really, there’s nowhere else to go.
So I escape into the forest for a few days, survive on foraged mushrooms and squirrels I hunt myself with a slingshot my brother gave me. A couple of hours later, a ranger shows up. He’s got a telephone whose cord stretches all the way across the forest, to the far horizon where his cabin is. I can see the lights blinking there.
The ranger shakes his head, clucks his tongue. “Them mushrooms’ll kill ya.” He hands me the phone. “Sfer you.” He’s the kind of man I’d have loved in another life — moustache, doesn’t talk much, hides things under the bed. But then he walks away.
“Hello?”
The city is buzzing on the other end of the line.
“You can run but you can’t hide…” I think I can hear the sound of knuckles grinding, or at the very least being popped.
Birds are out here somewhere. They’re just shadows in these shadowed trees. Those birds?
There’s no getting away from those birds. They’re all just waiting for their chance.
But god! My eyes are so tired. Vigilance is costly. Vigilance is a million dollars on which I haven’t got a hold.
We Still Like Contributors!
Our brave artist-types don't get enough credit slaving away in their offices/closets/caves of creativity, sending out semaphore signals and waving down passing cars by the side of the freeway. We will wave for them, until our arms get tired and fall off, because we still like everyone on this list:
Gina Caciolo is 22 and in the process of finishing six dreaded MFA applications. Sometimes she's Cacia Y. Pepe, who wrote for Stranded In Stereo, mainly reviewing reality television shows. Otherwise, her work has been featured in Mirage#4/Period(ical), Fast Forward, Volume 2, and Ophelia Street; and she was the editor of Dinner is Foreplay for City Folk, a now defunct online review mag. In her spare time, she's a waitress at a crappy restaurant, stares at the sky for long periods of time and writes songs with her boyfriend for his band Pleasant Corners.
Sarah Ciston likes scuba diving, even though she gets seasick, and geography, even though the world is a really big place. Her forthcoming novel is called Fuck Everyone But Us, but don't worry, she doesn't mean you.
Poet Rick D'Elia should not be confused with the comedian of the same name, nor his father who had the name first. He is originally from Massachusetts, just like both his father and the comedian, but currently resides in San Francisco, far from those other Rick D'Elia's. Now, he is strangely being confused with his doppleganger and believes any confrontation may cause "a disaster of biblical proportions. Like Old Testament, real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" or maybe not.
Bradford Earle is a newly minted [adjective] person. He was previously an idea on the East Coast in the wasteland commonly known as [proper noun]. He spends most of his time composing mediocre [noun] and painting marginal works of [noun] in a valiant (albeit ineffective) attempt to impress the woman he [verb]s. His history is a [noun], as ideas are [adverb] difficult to examine. In his new [adjective] form he is likely to be found [verb]ing small bears or imitating [noun] in his free time.
Jacob I. Evans currently lives in Vietnam where he teaches English and eats street food, which is not the same thing as eating food off of the street. A recent email collaboration and exchange with Matt L. Rohrer, the middle initial is important, can be found at Digital Artifact.
Kathleen Nye Flynn works for the Huntington Post and lives in Los Angeles, California.
Kathleen Nye Flynn works for the Huntington Post and lives in Los Angeles, California.
Like a chess prodigy or a member of New Edition, Tupelo Hassman has never quite recovered from having a bridge graffiti'd in her honor at seventeen. Her attempts to supplant the memory of "I (heart) Tupelo" six-feet-tall in white housepaint over Highway 17 have been published in a few literary magazines and continue in her current project: Uh-uh-uh—uh-uh-uh-uh-uh: The Anatomy of Mickey Spillane. They just don't write 'em like that anymore. Her first novel, girlchild, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux before the end of the Mayan calendar. You've been warned.
When Dustin Heron grows up, he will be dangerously unqualified for his job. Scrubbing toilets. No disgrace in that, not for Dustin Heron. But he can't move his arm clockwise, and he doesn't like to go counter to anything. He likes to go with the herd. Staring down into the blue bubbly toilet bowls of his future, he will have no choice but to go down. His work has appeared in Ashcan, Watchword, The Sand Canyon Review and Transfer. His first book, Paradise Stories, is available from Small Desk Press.
Jedediah Johnson is a photographer/singer/songwriter/author who lives and works in basements in or around Altadena, California. Most of his free time these days is spent trying to figure out how to tell that one special lady that he has always loved her and doing a little amateur astronomy. He comes from Indianapolis, one of the top five most romantic cities in the great state of Indiana.
Chris Pedler likes to drink beer and make fun of the Oakland Raiders. He writes poetry about lingerie models, grizzly bears and California. He also helps edit the literary magazine We Still Like, which is better than all other literary magazines, though he realizes that's not saying much. He also finds it awkward to refer to himself in the third-person.
Tye Pemberton graduated from USC with a BA in English-Creative Writing. He is now a fiction candidate in the Master's Program for Writing at Columbia University. His short work has appeared in Versal, Watchword, and on TheRumpus.net. Please, West Coast, let him come home.
Tavia Stewart has volunteered at 826 Valencia's creative writing center, interned for McSweeney's Publishing and ZYZZYVA, and currently runs National Novel Writing Month's Young Writers Program. She's been published in Smokelong Quarterly and curates Whole Story, a new performance model that transforms a conjunctive gallery and theater space into a life-sized, multimedia diorama in reaction to one short story.
Vinh Truong was raised by wolves. He doesn't like talking about himself.
Zulema Summerfield is a writer living and working in San Francisco. She is originally from a little place called Redlands, California. She's been published here and there.
Zulema Summerfield is a writer living and working in San Francisco. She is originally from a little place called Redlands, California. She's been published here and there.
Join us!
Because we still like an excuse to celebrate!
Wednesday, October 14
7 p.m.
Space Gallery
1141 Polk St, SF
Attention Disaffected Hipsters, Art-School-Types and Everyone Else: Your new favorite publication has arrived! Obviously this calls for a party!
Decidedly not another snooty literary magazine, We Still Like is a collaboration-in-print operating on the simple-but-radical premise that we won't wait for permission from cultural gatekeepers to put what we create into the world, that writing should not be used as an empty signifier to establish elitist cred and that art can engage real people and real ideas about our real lives (Really!). Despite the cynicism born from headlines and hipsterdom, we still like sincerity. Despite the digital deluge, we still like books — so we've solicited the work of 15 talented writers and artists just like yourself to create the first issue of We Still Like, a manifesto-themed collection of prose, poetry, reviews, rants and raves.
We Still Like: Manifesto Destiny makes its debut with a party and reading at Space Gallery on Wednesday, October 14.
Literary superheros Vinh Truong, Zulema Summerfield, Chris Pedler, Tupelo Hassman, Rick D'elia and Sarah Ciston will read from their work featured in the issue, plus debut new writing for the auspicious occasion.
Join us for a raucous evening of soapbox-style pontificating, manifesto-ing, and poem-ing, then take a test drive in the patented Hyperbolic Chamber, outfitted to encourage all your grandiose statements and wildest dreams, courtesy of Bradford Earle.
A suggested donation gets you admission AND a numbered edition of the handmade issue (while supplies last). But, don't worry, we still like you and won't turn anyone away (for lack of funds, though we might turn away republicans).
Readings start promptly at 7:30, but the drinking starts promptly at 7. Help us to support Space Gallery by arriving early and thirsty!
Spontaneous rants encouraged.
