
by joshua heineman
ahhhhhmega-zine
current issue - no. 5
no. 4, no. 3, no. 2, no. 1
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J[at]CURSIVEBUILDINGS.COM
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- summertime
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- so don't you worry
- out tonite
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panel by demian5
HIS CAMERA, HER CAMERA, MY CAMERA
it was after bagels at the bagelry & emptied coffeecups that we found the little bakery w/an antique store half-hidden in the back. there were coats & clocks, old mirrors & teapots, & a dozen old prints of new york city. i was in that giddy phase that follows breakfast on a sunny sunday morning… i couldn’t imagine a nicer place to be. we ate coffeecake from the bakery front while sifting through the shelves.
i found this lovely old camera & brought it home w/me. when it was young & modern, the first world war was ending & e.schiele was a young artist dying of spanish influenza. i’m not even sure my family was in america yet. anyway. i tried to imagine all the lives that have been reflected, passed through & not collected, in this camera over the last 92 years.
[ i’m learning that, in these lives, the end is not truly the end at all & beginnings are maybe not the new starts we thought they were. even so, i am happy to add my life to the ribbon stretching from then to here & on again. ]
tell me where you want to go
i don’t care i just want to go
eventually you stop wondering what you should be doing
& start asking about all the things you’re missing elsewhere.
[ sausalito, california ]
YOU ARE WHO THEY THINK YOU ARE
matea keeps a large phaidon fashion book sitting on the coffeetable. in some ways it’s completely rad… especially the entries on designers from the 30s, 40s & 50s. but hidden in the back (in the “glossary of movements, genres & technical terms”) i found this gem:
GRUNGE*
grunge was born in seattle’s music scene at the end of the 1980s. youth developed a slacker lifestyle with a dependence on television and computers for entertainment. their boredom was reflected in a dishevelled, lazily thrown together look of army trousers, unkempt hair and army boots or plimsoles. grunge empathized with the horizontally-relaxed hippie attitude and was used by designers such as marc jacobs and calvin klein to market anti-fashion nonchalance as a fashion in itself.
* emphasis mine
i was laughing so hard. but! this also reminded me of a bothersome truth tied to existing in this world: you are who they think you are.
you are, of course, who you think you are, too. & you are who your friends think you are, to your friends. but you lead a hundred lives in the heads of everyone whose path intersects your own. everyday. & these lives are mostly out of your control. your motivations, fears, desires, thoughts & hopes are decided by strangers based on whatever impressions they take from you. selah.
sean niesen & matea discuss the merits of portland vs. san francisco. i just listen, having decided the two dreams are different beasts (yes, beasts). meanwhile, i snapped this handheld in the darkdarkdark.
ps. sean’s music/video art will appear w/the next issue of ahhhhh mega-zine.
ONE MAN FEASTS AT A TABLE FOR THREE
two teenagers laugh at a third. a woman asks for water. a child sings to her mother in spanish. these sounds are just moons.
everyone in the taqueria orbits one man at a round table. he wears a blue jacket so dirty even the stains are stained by other impurities. he has a faded hat that no longer advertises anything. his beard is oldgrowth.
there are three plastic bags on the table.
he reaches into one & pulls out a piece of pepperoni pizza. it is stiff. he smiles, sets it on his lap. his hand disappears into another bag & returns w/a donut. sprinkles. he flips the donut upside down, places it onto the pizza… twisting it slightly like a screw.
& still, the moons spin. a cellphone rings. three men debate jukebox selections. a baby cries from a stroller.
as i stand to leave, the man in the dirty clothes reaches into the last bag. he retrieves a fork wrapped carefully in a napkin, which he untangles… digs in.
retrieve a car from the sixth floor of a hotel parking lot, leave the city as fast as you can, trace the highway as it threads south on a sunday, hug the sea as if it were the back wall of a bar room, fiddle with the radio dials in redwood forests, stop at the smallest towns & skip the turnouts. pretend you never have to go home again.
OVERHEARD: Bush & Battery.






