COVERS: Look back
Volume 7 Number 6, Nov-Dec 2011
Welcome
Mr. Hyde, Dale Grimshaw
Occupying Wall Street
(This is not a potlatch)
The periodic redistribution of wealth by some Northwest Coast native American tribes is a great example of what was done at one time to ensure that everyone got an equal chance at a better life. Those “who have” were called upon to give much of it away. The same was expected of others in following years, as they managed to amass material wealth. The honors went to those who gave away the most. What one accumulated was shared, a reminder we share the earth. It was called potlatch.
The 99% sitting in at Zuccotti Park are not asking that the 1% give everything away; they’re asking for long-overdue reform of what is euphemistically called a profession, but which in Christ’s time would have been called something worse than “money changer”. It’s one thing to invest one’s own drachma in a venture, on-going or new, and another to skim the cream then spill the milk. That mark of greed coating the lip of the fat cats is a slap in the face to anyone who’s lost a job in the last five years, or who just graduated from college and can’t find one, or who’s working two or three jobs to make ends meet, where one used to be more than enough.
It’s too late to say that if all the money spent in the past ten years on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and misspent by investment banks and brokerages on Wall Street and other financial centers around the world, were invested more wisely in education, health care, infrastructure and the humanities, we wouldn’t be living in this sad state of affairs. And it hasn’t stopped, as shown by recent charges against former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, who allegedly bled MF Global of hundreds of millions of investors’ dollars. Since we are against the wall, it’s up to us — and the 1% in power who have a conscience — to help clean up the mess. Not the petty mess some point to as the “fault” of a group of urban campers, but the mess the financial and political ruling classes made tripping over themselves to feed at the brimming Wall Street trough. Photos from Occupy Wall Street appear here: http://ragazine.cc/hot-shots/
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We’ve got another astounding issue covering subjects and events as diverse as the work of Dale Grimshaw, whose painting “Mr. Hyde” is the cover of this issue, to the overlooked beauty of the Pakistani countryside in a travel piece by Zaira R. Sheikh, to the photography and haiku of Sean Lotman. If you like poetry, you’ll love the work of the five other poets in this issue, Lyn Lifshin, Bianca Stone, Esta Fischer, Pamela Uschuk and Ann E. Michael. In the realm of creative nonfiction, Joe Weil writes of “Fishing in a Filthy River,” and its undertow of memories, while Kimberly Dark recounts her unique acquaintance with Greybeard, a down-to-earth neighbor in Hawaii.
Music editor Jeff Katz recounts the “Sad Journey of Gene Clark”; Beth Timmins, resident writer with Giffords Circus, gives a peek under skirt of the Big Top; Mark Levy, back after taking a break during which he moved to Boynton Beach, Florida, from Binghamton, New York, delivers his “Casual Observer” column, and his “Feeding the Starving Artist” pro bono legal series with a look at the new Patent and Trademark law.
Politics editor Jim Palombo gives an overview of his preparations for the annual Rhodes Conference in Rhodes, Greece. Jim, as an envoy from Ragazine, was one of only a few Americans at the event, which he plans to report on in our January issue.
Maile Colbert‘s “Letter to the Editor” ponders capital punishment with subtle eloquence; Sridala Swami’s short short stories will stay with you much longer than the time it takes to read them. And don’t miss Anthony Haden-Guest’s cartoon panel, hidden somewhere in the gray matter within these e-pages. If you’re looking for something to do, check out the Events page for ideas about places and events where you’re likely to find like-minded Ragazine readers.
Thanks for reading… And thanks especially for passing it on!
— Mike Foldes
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WELCOME: September-October 2011, Volume 7, Number 5
- Big Apple Bites Back _ Walter Gurbo
Back to Basics
This issue’s cover art comes compliments of Walter Gurbo. If you were in New York back in the day, and read The Village Voice, you’ll remember Gurbo’s “Drawing Room”, superb panels of surrealistic images surrounded by sexed-up ads on the tabloid’s back cover. Always new. Always sure to stretch the imagination beyond the bounds of decorum. See for yourself in our recap of July’s retrospective at the Brunelli Gallery in Binghamton, New York.
Politics editor Jim Palombo interviews singer-songwriter Eleanor Goldfield, founder and lead singer in the band Rooftop Revolutionaries. Palombo explores and Goldfield explains with refreshing intellect how she reconciles making money and making change in a convulsing world.
John Smelcer offers an intriguing memoir of his acquaintance with Britain’s then poet laureate, Ted Hughes, and a subsequent friendship with Hughes’ and Sylvia Plath’s son,Nick. Smelcer includes a poem co-written by him and Ted Hughes as a bar “game” more enduring than darts.
Don Ruben, lawyer and long-time friend of Ragazine, interviews Drug Policy Alliance’s Tamar Todd on obstacles to legalizing medical marijuana nationwide, including conflicts with federal law in states that have already legalized it, and President Obama’s failure to follow through on pre-election hints he would work to decriminalize the herb.
Adding food for thought to the article on DPA, we’re pleased to offer the first of four panels contributed to Ragazine by noted author and cartoonist Anthony Haden-Guest.Subsequent panels will appear in the next few issues, where you will find them strategically placed to challenge your senses of self and humor.
Music editor Jeff Katz hooks up, so to speak, with Eilen Jewell, at the Oneonta Theater in Oneonta, New York, where the “turbocharged kewpie doll” and her band played in August to a country-loving crowd.
Welcome – in some cases, welcome back – to poets Hal Sirowitz, John Richard Smith,Laura Close; to poet-photographer Jeanpaul Ferro, short fiction author Carlo Matos, and collage artist Joseph Bowman. And if you have a few minutes more, check out the books and reviews, and Zaira Rahman’s Islamabad tripper’s diary. Special thanks to Hala Salah Eldin Hussein who filed a story on the situation “on the ground” in Cairo, Egypt, that posted in mid-August.
Kudos to the editors and contributors who help bring Ragazine to the stage every couple of months, and to the thousands of readers who give us the motivation to labor on again and again, year after year… We trust you’ll find plenty to enjoy!
Thanks for passing it on.
– Mike Foldes
Welcome: July-August 2011, Vol. 7 No. 4
From the 9/11 obsessions of Ultra Violet
- The Good, the Bad …
and the Way It Is
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Welcome: May-June 2011, Vol. 7 No. 3
Sometimes, the less said, the better. Tempting it is to let the statement stand alone. But that would would be to overlook the hard work and contributions so many people have made along the way to get us to this May-June issue of Ragazine, and the start of the summer reading season. With that in mind, take us to the beach on your e-reader, tablet or laptop…
- An interview with NYC artist Karen Gunderson and a gallery of her black paintings;
the photography of Slovenian photographer Janez Vlachy, whose photo is on this issue’s cover;
an interview with veteran Hollywood Cartoonist Herb Moore, and an introduction to his new series, “Duffy MacTaggart, Scotland’s Greatest Golf Teacher”;
A report from Pakistan by Zaira Rahman on the unsettling deaths and lynching of two boys in the wrong place at the wrong time, and their family’s quest for Justice;
interviews with, and poetry from, acclaimed poets Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Lyn Lifshin, and additional poetry from Steve Oldford, Svea Barrett and Emily Kagan Trenchard;
Chris Mackowski’s account of a winter trip to the barrens of his native Maine;
fiction by John Palen and Eric Bennett;
a video trailer for a film by Eliane Lima, and a profile of the filmmaker;
and, all the regular sections: Music comment and reviews by Jeff Katz; free legal advice in “Feeding the Starving Artist” by Mark Levy, who also writes “Casual Observer”; the value of education in “Politics”, from editor Jim Palombo and contributor Frank Gaydos; and more…
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Welcome
Volume 7, No. 2.5
April 2011
© Guenter Knop
What in the World …
Earthquakes, tsunamis, meltdowns, no-fly zones … you’d think the world would be a better place, but hard as we try, there’s always something standing in the way.
Perhaps that’s why the articles in this interim issue of Ragazine, our first attempt after seven years of bi-monthly issues to produce a monthly, are as divergent as they are — our attempt to bring things together in the face of greater odds. And, as interesting (yeah, we know, that’s subjective. So here’s the Challenge: Read on, and decide for yourself).
Here’s what we’ve got: A street-level, local report from Egypt covering not menacing tanks or burning cars, but graffiti on the walls of Cairorecounting the effort and pronouncing the people’s victory over tyranny (Hala Salah Eldin Hussein); a Pakistani reviewer’s take on Dobi Ghat, a Bollywood indie film that took honors in film fests around the world for its look at the effects of caste on four main characters (Zaira Rahman); poetry by Martin Willitts, Jr.; a Land Art installation by an American artist (Jody Joyner) working on the grounds ofSoekershof, a botanical paradise in southwest South Africa; life studies of women by a German-born artist (Guenter Knop) who makes his home in New York City; the translation of an excerpt from aRomanian novel, along with the original language text (Daniel Dragomirescu); an interview with the Alaskan writer some have called “a modern-day Jack London” (John Smelcer); an interview with photographer Michael Eastman, whose unmatched images of Havana capture the color and life of the city and its history (as he does all of his subjects) with surreal accuracy; a look at Ghanathrough the eyes of two travelers (Roscoe Betsill & Steven Keith) who came back to the States with a far different understanding of the country than they went away with.
Speaking of understanding: An American ex-pat group is forming in San Miguel Allende, Mexico, to educate Americans in particular to what their real place is in this world…. Talk about an uphill climb.
As if that’s not enough, reach inside for Jeff Katz’s remembrance of singer/songwriter Marvin Gaye; book reviews; the foodie’s Kitchen Caravan; and thePHOTOGRAPHYspots (Albert Dorsa/translation page & Chuck Haupt/politics page).
Comments, by the way, are much appreciated. Don’t be shy. Let us have it, good, bad or indifferent. We thrive on feedback. And please, ”Pass it on ….”
Thanks for reading!
— MRF
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Welcome
Volume 7, No. 2
February-March, 2011
“The Millinery Studio”, Acrylic on canvas, 14″ x 20″, 2010
Amy Kollar Anderson
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So much to see, so little time …
Science Fiction turned to fact in February when an IBM supercomputer named “Watson”visited upon earth, defeating two heralded champions in a “Jeopardy” smack down decades in the making. We’re not running an article on this noteworthy event, but it says here Watson, named after the company’s founder Thomas J. Watson, will be among the finalists (if not the Chosen One) in Time‘s Person of the Year award selection come December. What makes this all the more special, in a way, is that Ragazine publishes from the Greater Binghamton area of Upstate New York — home of IBM (aka, International Business Machines), and once the stomping grounds of “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling. The area always has been culturally and socially influenced by a mixture of science fantasy and fiction. You might say, we’ll believe anything, even that a tsunami of peaceful revolution could irrigate the monarchies and dictatorships of the Arab world, re-making it as a cradle of shared prosperity and humanistic reason. So, let it be known, “Another King is dead. All hail the Thing.”
Of course, there comes a time in everyone’s life when a little fantasy will do you good. Sometimes even better. Fortunately for us, the talented Amy Kollar Anderson came to the rescue, as you’ll see from a thorough look at her work in the galleries embedded in these pages. And for those of you with short attention spans, check out Amy’s captivating time-lapse video that condenses 50 hours of painting into less than three minutes, backed by the music of Dayton, Ohio, super-group Ape the Ghost.
The horizon doesn’t end there. Check out Ellen Janten‘s photographic essay “Losing Reality; Reality of Loss — 2011″, an exploration of the diaphanous layers between the free-standing worlds that separate life and memory. Internationally recognized architect and artist, Michael Jantzen, Ellen’s husband and model for many of the images in her work, shares his visions for The Sounds of the Sun Pavilion, a curvilinear approach to sustainable living in which solar energy powers a community where there’s literally music in the air.
Other visual delights include the work of John Dobbs, whose recent show at ACA Galleries in New York City closed in February, but you can get a taste of it here. Elizabeth Cohen returned from a recent trip to Gallup, New Mexico, with a packet of cell-phone photos, and an accompanying essay about an Old West indulged by sentiment and confused by age. If you can accept there is sometimes poetry in the subtlety of photographs, see Ida Musemic‘s images that appear following John F. Buckley‘s poem. And don’t be surprised if you find a few more images bringing color to otherwise gray pages in thePHOTOGRAPHYspot, strategically placed by photo editor Chuck Haupt.
Literary complements include short fiction by Ian Williams; an excerpt from R. J. Dent‘s recently published translation (with the French original) of The Songs of Maldoror, fittingly accompanied by an other-worldly portrait of Salvador Dali by contributing photographer Valerie Brown; and poetry from some of the best emerging and established poets working today, including Buckley, Ann Clark, Micah Towery, Katie Hogan and Florence Weinberger.
Music editor Jeff Katz takes a look at the documentary “LennonNYC”, and sings praises for the library of great releases from Sundazed Music. And while you’re online, have a look at Jeff’s site, “Maybe Baby….”
Politics editor Jim Palombo and guest contributor Professor Randall Sheldenexamine the escalation of force used in the ongoing, increasingly costly (in both lives and money) drug war between the United States and Mexico, leaving even the most jaded among us to question, “Is it worth the price?”
In Feeding the Starving Artist, Mark Levy, an intellectual property lawyer, providespro bono advice for wedding and events photographers to protect themselves and their clients against one another, and sometimes even from the guests. Levy, also Ragazine’s Casual Observer, offers his take on moving up to modern appliances — he’d take a washing machine over a washboard anytime.
If you, or someone you know, has work that will fit Ragazine’s eclectic collection of creative content, see and share our submission guidelines. We’re always looking for new artists, illustrators, writers, musicians, poets, travelers, thinkers and others, to collaborate with. It’s a great way to know, and get to know… Likewise, if you have events you’d like to publicize, share the news by adding a comment on the Events page. Keep it short and sweet: Time, Date, Place, Description, Contact Info; nothing more than 45 days in advance, please. As always, Comments are welcome on any or all of our pages; shed a little light while we stumble around in editorial darkness.
For those of us up North, Spring is on the way. For you south of the Equator, well, good luck with that, too!
Thanks for reading.
– MRF
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Ragazine, updated approximately six times a year, is a collaboration of emerging and established artists, writers, poets, musicians, photographers, travelers and interested others, with a goal to promote an eclectic selection of subject matter to an international audience.
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Contact: info@ragazine.cc …
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Welcome
Volume 7, No. 1
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Dancing with Dragons
Putting out a magazine is like dancing with dragons and letting go genies…. You struggle to pull things together without knowing what kind of animal you’ll deliver until the things – the issues — are out of the bottle. We’re doing our best to see that what you take the time to look at and read in Ragazine will add something measurably more memorable to your day than the daily dose of dumbed down pablum delivered by mainstream media to a mind-numbed populous. Let us know if it’s not and we’ll kick ourselves in the shins, scream “Sakai,” and pay homage to the gods of wind feces (snow), until we get it right.
For those of you ready to dive in now, there’s plenty to break your fall:
The Ragazine cover this month is contributed by New York photographer Gabrielle Revere, whose work reveals the youth and beauty of a new generation. An interview with Revere shows she’s well aware not everyone in the world is so lucky. Our associated galleries include shots from her documentary series, “I only have eyes for you,” which captures the ice-cold irony of the beauty of children living in the midst of oft-neglected poverty.
Photographer Josephine Close explores the world of the psyche in the shadows, a journey into what lies within and beyond the visual field one sees through the camera’s eye, what evolves in the darkroom (or on the computer), and comes to life in the print. Close, in her own words, undertakes the pursuit in “… seeking to illuminate the magic in my life.”
On other fronts: A surreal love story from Stephen O’Connor/Fiction; Michael Parish’s Vignettes/Creative Nonfiction,, which CNF editor Leslie Heywood describes as a “series of vignettes on our strange contemporary relationship with the natural world. There’s the poetry of John F. Buckley, Anne Babson and John Richard Smith; Jeff Katz’s unusually broad Top Ten music picks of 2010; Mark Levy’s eye on life as theCasual Observer, and his pro bono legal advice column for creative types in Feeding the Starving Artist.
From deep in the heart of Mexico, San Miguel Allende to be exact, politics editor Jim Palombo and guest contributor Horace Whittlesey comment on the effects of modern day prohibition and the unfulfilled promise of California’s recently defeated Proposition 19.
There’s more, of course, including illustrations, book reviews, a couple of events that caught our eyes, and more. … Such As –
Water, from Cecelia Chapman’s Video series
This is the first video we’ve run in Ragazine, but we’ll have more, soon. We are looking for original short videos (approx. 2 minutes) that have not been posted elsewhere, but we’ll sometimes take them if they have. They’ll run in a window on Ragazine, without redirects to other sites, but we will include the videographer’s site references with the piece. E-mail to editor@ragazine.cc, as attachments, with a still from the video.
So, while we close out 2010 dancing with dragons, and let the genie out of the bottle with VOLUME 7 Number 1, we wish you a healthy and progressive new year.
As always, thanks for reading.
– Mike Foldes
Shop the Ragazine store: http://ragazine.cc/support-ragazine/
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Welcome
Volume 6, No. 6
November-December 2010
©Aline Smithson
Arrangement #3
Aline Smithson: The Photographer’s Mother
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The Art of Being Modern
- Hello, again. Thanks for coming back. We know it’s not easy to take a few minutes out of a busy day for an “arts’ breather,’ but we’re glad you did.
- The beauty of the web is also the spider at its center, that being people’s ability to spin whatever yarn they like and put it out in cyberspace. Everybody gets a shot. It used to be there were so few people with sites that it was a small community, many of whom knew one another, often righteously so. That community has grown so that now we’re not just a city, not just a nation, and each site has become one in a million. Or more likely, one in a few hundred million. The web, like the universe, is expanding exponentially, and it’s our challenge to keep up.
- The New York Times newspaper is a great example of meeting that challenge. The gray lady may not be at her best these days, circulation and advertising revenue-wise, but she hasn’t lost her touch with news, features, reviews, opinion and leading edge journalism. Say what you want, but take a Sunday morning and afternoon off to read the Times cover to cover (if you can) and you’ll see what I mean. Don’t just take it for granted, because of the paper’s reputation, or because it’s been quoted from or talked about in news and movies since you were two. Read it once cover to cover and deny you’re less of a person than you were hours before when you picked it up — all two or three kilograms! (Sorry, tree people.)
- I used to work for a newspaper conglomerate that published News Lite. The managers of the empire knew that busy people didn’t have time, and many didn’t have the interest — to read anything “in depth”. And in order to deliver bite-sized morsels of information people could digest, they peeled the onion until there was little left to eat. Reading theTimes on Sunday is like going to a farmer’s market in September. Two-page spreads on the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, who too few Americans really know about, and fewer understand. Interviews with Centenarians who too often are passed over in favor of attention to youth culture. Articles on youth and growing up in America, the cost of education, and the more exorbitant costs of not having it. Political coverage by international correspondents who live and work close to the ground they cover. And, of course, so much more.No paper, of course, is perfect, and I’m in no position to tear wings from the dragon. But so much of what we see and hear on the web these days is a mirror of what the least-common-denominator print publishing offerings give us, that it’s a blessing the Times is still with us — and a sad fact of life that so many other great papers have died, not all of them with their boots on.
- This issue of Ragazine has a lot to offer, too. We’re not just a Sunday read; we’re here two months at a time, and it’s OK to come back — again and again, we hope — until you’ve read us “cover to cover”. Poetry, art, interviews, photography, fiction, creative non-fiction, music, reviews, travel and more, from around the world.
November-December 2010 brings you the photographic series by Aline Smithson, taken of her mother in a variety of poses, including the one at the top of this page; poems by Hannah Greenberg; Farsi poetry by ex-pat Iranian poet Ali Abdolrezaei in the original and in translation by Abol Froushan; an interview with Belgian-American artist Amy Swartelé; fiction by Paul Lisicky and Sarah Sarai; music columns byJeff Katz; a take on illegal immigration by politics editor Jim Palombo and guest writer Robert Murray Davis; a story of reconciliation with the harsh reality of a child’s death in creative non-fiction by James Benton; the Casual Observer followed byScott Hardin’s pane;our legal advice column for creative types, Feeding the Starving Artist; and, from Colorado, Art & About, where Jonathan Evans explores a bit of the blues.
There’s more, of course, but you’ll have to find it. And again, thanks for reading!
– MRF
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Welcome
Volume 6, No. 5
September-October 2010
- ©Albert Watson
Taking the best shot yet
Welcome to another killer issue of ragazine.cc.
Photographer Albert Watson, in an interview at his NYC studio, discusses aspects of his craft, the evolution of his career, the equipment he uses to produce his prints, and more. Referred to byPhoto District News as “one of the most influential photographers of all time,” Watson generously allowed ragazine.cc to reprint an extensive portfolio of images, many of which you’ll no doubt recognize from the covers and pages of Vogue, Rolling Stone and Harper’s Bazaar. Showing no sign of slowing down, Watson has two book collections coming out this fall from PQ Blackwell publishing company, a solo show in Chelsea opening in October, and more than one project in the works.
Sara Ellison Lewis tells what it’s like for her to be a photo stylist in New York. Brookly-based sculptor Miya Ando explains what it means to her “to do good” in the world, a task that merely begins with making art. The cast and crew at Spool MFG, a gallery-performance space in Johnson City, New York, share part of their group’s latest production,Ampersand, a collage-like assemblage of history, poetry and art.
In Music, Jeff Katz reviews the latest musical offering from Eli “Paperboy” Reed, and looks back on 30 years of Paul Simon’s “One Trick Pony“. Jonathan Evansremembers Bob Marley a full 19 years after the reggae legend’s death. And, in Politics, San Miguel Allende, Mexico-based writer Lou Christine recounts his impressions of a 2007 trip to Havana that ring true even today.
On the literary front, there’s the Poetry of Emily Vogel, Tony Gruenewald, J.P. Smelcer and Rob Mustard; the Creative Non Fiction (CNF) of Marissa Fielstein, Fiction from Mira Martin Parker and Jessie Carty; a book review of Ted Greenwald’s 2008 volume “3″ by Kayleigh Wanzer, and the wry commentary of our Casual Observer Mark Levy. Levy also weighs in this month withShaun Vavra, offering legal advice in “Feeding the Starving Artist” — “Wait, Wasn’t That My Substantially Similar Idea?”
Rounding things out is the new strip from editorial cartoonist Jeff Hardin, whose first appearance in ragazine.cc anchors the Casual Observer.
If all that’s not funky enough for you, we’ll just have to keep trying.
— MRF
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