Week 52, Lake Michigan Images, Japanese Miyakobushi scale on synth 
Brian Deiger, Toledo, OH

Unititled, re-appropriated photos and haiku
Brandon Hemmings, Ann Arbor, MI 

three (and a half) minutes of air
Annie Palmer, Ann Arbor, MI

_ Take Comfort in Shallow Things


You can drown in three feet of water just as well as you can drown in the wide-open seas. Some men risk only what is vast, but I welcomed the challenge of confinement. There was something thrilling, I understood, about the potential of the shamefully small death.

Here is how the illusion would go, every single time: A squat, steel milk can was placed stage center. The house doors opened and the audience—men in their finest suits and women in their Sunday dress—pushed close to the stage so they could someday tell their grandchildren they saw the Great Houdini perform his famous Milk Can Escape.

While I readied myself backstage with rigorous calisthenics, the milk can sweated from the uncomfortable contrast of burning spotlight and icy water. At my behest, the pianist played a cheery tune that started gently, but imperceptibly increased in vigor until the audience loosened their grip on gentility. As the condensation bubbled and then dripped down the can like unrestrained tears, men began to shout and then howl my name, and the most beautiful women fanned themselves vigorously with their programs in anticipation of my presence (I like to believe they were also sweating in indelicate places). Upon my signal, the house lights dimmed, bringing all eyes to the twenty-gallon jug that could conceivably become my casket.

I closed my eyes and thought of my dearly departed mother, then opened my arms wide as the thick velvet curtain was drawn back, revealing me to the crowd at last. I held myself strong and steady against the powerful rush of sound—whistles and hollers, whoops and claps, feet stamping on the wooden floors until all involved feared the ground would open up beneath them, the whoosh of ladies’ fans aflutter, the awed murmurs of my audience confirming that I really, truly was before them, ready to perform.

“Ladies and gentleman,” I called out, and immediately the room silenced. “My lovely wife, Bess Houdini.” And Bess, rouged heavily in stage makeup and dressed in the becoming tights and ruffled leotard I insisted upon, solemnly wheeled out a large clock featuring a ticking second hand that could be heard all the way in the far back of the theater. Bess expertly performed her role of worried-but-dutiful wife, fluttering her hand about her face in distress, leading the women to clasp their own husbands in agonized empathy.

The pianist quietly resumed his playing, a low, ominous song. I motioned for my two assistants, both dressed in secondhand police uniforms, to set about an exaggerated inspection of the heavy padlocks that would latch down the lid. They pulled and pushed as if they hoped I would be locked inside forever. Then they gravely set about binding my wrists in handcuffs. For dramatic effect, they handed a near-teary Bess the key.

Without words, I stuck one leg, then the other, inside the icy water, which slowed my heart and preserved my focus. Carefully, I kneeled into the tight space, until all that was visible was my head. “Gentlemen—and ladies, if it does not cause you excessive distress—please hold your breath with me.”

As the audience gasped their collective inhale, I expelled all the stale breath from my lungs and filled my entire torso with air, all the way down to my hips. Then I disappeared into the water. My assistants sealed and bolted the lid above me, and all went darker than any darkness you are likely to experience before the grave. Alone in the cold invisible quiet, I waited. I took comfort in the deathly shallowness.

I counted sixty seconds, knowing that the audience was progressively running out of air and gasping for breath. When ninety seconds passed, even the most determined of men had finally given in to their need for air, and a silent awe had washed over the room. Thirty more seconds ticked off like an immortal heartbeat, and Bess, on cue, nervously whispered to my assistants and pointed to the ghost house—a cloth privacy tent that had been wheeled in front of the milk can—as if she did not know I could easily hold my breath for four minutes at a stretch. The faux officials sternly shook their heads, and the audience whispered their concerns. At the three-minute mark, some of the women began to tremble, their husbands comforting them with protective arms while hiding their own suspicions that death was finally triumphing over my renowned arrogance.

Finally, with my actions shielded, I stood and with the top of my head carefully pressed the lid until the unbolted collar of the can slid loose, thus circumventing the padlocks of the lid altogether. I quietly stepped out of the can and, with the lid and collar still balanced on my head, gave one strong clench of my abdomen, regurgitated the spare key to the handcuffs that still bound me, and with my expert teeth unlatched the lock and freed my hands. Quickly I shoved the collar back on the can and pushed aside the ghost house, panting but otherwise unscathed. The crowd erupted in relief and unbridled shouts of praise.

I had been a performer all my life, and so with arms held high in triumph, I received the wild applause of my fans. I took a bow. I hugged my wife and dripped water all over her, much to the audience’s amusement. And yet here’s the part I never told and never understood: Every time I completed this trick, every single time, I felt the same strange longing to be back inside that steel container, alone in the dark, still waiting to break free.


Angela Watrous, Ann Arbor, MI

_ The Anti-Season
            Sacramento, California

And yet,
            all morning, I drove. I followed
South River Road, thin
                        highway, levee’s

backbone. I obsessed: over the bridge, over again.
An unreliable friend, sleep grabbed
                        my wrist

and twisted. Two men fished below, thick ankles
stuck in the river’s
                        gullet, emptying

a styrofoam cooler, ploddingly,
beer by beer. Impossible
                        patience. Each

empty can: tossed to the bank. Each caught
fish: lobbed back into
                        the cooler,

softly, blood ribboning out of stilled gills.
I take comfort in
                        shallow things,

thin lines and surfaces: breath, glass, shallow hood
of tule fog, reckless
                        sleep, shore.

And also: the Sacramento River at rest, untroubled.
I have been careless
                        with time.

I have been dangerous behind the wheel, sideswiping
the bridge where it
                        aches, where
it scrambles to hook itself to the road’s
                        rough shoulder.

Mary Camille Beckman, Ann Arbor, MI

Model of a West African, vernacular dwelling (cardboard, junk mail, drawer pull)
Michael Borowski, Albuquerque, NM

Sofa is traditional West African rhythm from Guinea.  This rhythm used to be played for horseback warriors, and was originally played with a string instrument called a Bolon. Trained horses would perform a stepping dance on the rhythm, with songs extolling the warrior's bravery  and  before  battle, to  urge  warriors  on  to  great feats  of courage and endurance.  Here, Sofa is presented outside of its traditional context by dedicated students of West African percussion (there were no dancing horses present).  The arrangement was written by Jeremiah Davis and performed by Purple Green Flavor (Peter Esselman on the Dundumba and Sangban, Jason Elbracht on djembe, Jeffree Clark on djembe, Tom Short on djembe and kenkeni).

Purple Green Flavor, Ann Arbor, MI

Calligraphy is a rubber stamp visual poem, 11X17 inches in size & scale, composed using water-based inks on sketch paper, copied at Kinko's, scanned on an HP J6450 and attached to this email. It quotes and alters the opening and closing portions of Bill Knott's "Poem." Saint Geraud is an identity assumed by Knott, perhaps most notably for his collection The Naomi Poems. The original Knott poem can be found in The Laugh at the End of the World.

Calligraphy
Joel A. Lipman, Toledo, OH

Terrence Campagna, Detroit, MI

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