Sound Issue 3 Dear Reader
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NORMALnoise volume 2, issue 2 // spring 2017 2 NORMALnoise the sound issue 3 Dear reader, You are, I hope, currently making yourself comfortable, getting ready to dive into the latest issue of Normal Noise, which you’ve been eagerly awaiting for months. You’ve told your roommate not to bother you for the next hour or two, you’ve put your phone on silent, you’ve lit some candles. Your tea is almost done. But what’s that? The neighbor’s car alarm is going off? I can practically hear it myself. Maybe you should put on your headphones, replace that meaningless noise with something more meaningful, less distracting. Or, if that’s too much, you could – ah, it’s stopped! Perfect timing. It sounds like you’re ready to go. You know what they say: silence is the key to a sound mind (I may have just made that up). While the playfulness of the paragraph above may have been a bit of an over-correction for the somber mood of the last issue’s letter from the editor, I hope that it conveys at least a few of the many connotations sound can invoke. If it didn’t resonate* with you, I assure you one of the many explorations of sound in the following pages will. In this issue, you will find a recipe for your very own DIY slime, a poem mimetic of silence, and a loom subversively unraveled, among other things. the sound issue We give our warmest thanks to Barrett, the Honors College at ASU for continually supporting our endeavours. We also thank our faculty advisor, Dr. Mina Suk, Vice Provost and Dean Dr. Mark Jacobs, Associate Dean Dr. A Sense of Well-Being 6 Dagan Sassirini Kristen Hermann, and Kira Gatewood for their guidance both intellectual and administrative. We thank, of A meditation in four parts course, our staff, writers, and artists for their willingness to dedicate such considerable time into issue after issue. Lastly, we thank you, reader. Without you, Normal Noise never would have grown to be as sound* as it Slime, Youth, and Online Media 8 Carolina Mesquita is today. If it’s not DIY, don’t bother Hands Bloody, Eyes Dry 10 Caroline Kireopoulos *sorry At the intersection of love and mind Sincerely, Eating at Carolina’s 16 Benjamin Shindel Sonoran means sound in Latin Evan Anderson, Editor-in-Chief Unsound 18 Joey Scaven A poem It’s Not You, It’s Your Voice 20 Aitana Yvette Mallari Pitch and women in the workplace Normal Noise is a semesterly magazine supported by Barrett, the Honors editor-in-chief Evan Anderson College at ASU. Each issue provokes conversation about the complexities features editor of everyday life through long-form journalism and art. Carolina Mesquita design editor Kaylie Volpe Normal Noise is student-run. Views expressed in the magazine do not reflect those of the administration. Contact the editors at designers Cecilia Nguyen [email protected]. Dempsey Wilken faculty advisor Mina Suk, Ph.D. Like Normal Noise on Facebook and check out our website at normalnoise.wordpress.com. On the cover: “Still There?” by Carolina Marques de Mesquita, 2017. Watercolor and ink on paper, 9” x 12”. 4 NORMALnoise the sound issue 5 Ligeti’s Violin Concerto preclud- they might think. ed Eroica, a chaos through which you painstakingly listened as I wondered if From the silence you would rather sit beside me in the IV For the friends that were present mountains, watching snow fall silent- even when I was not. of his desk, Lu ly, heating water for your earl grey on a I write you now in Spring, after what backpacking stove. The soloist contin- has felt like a decade-long drought; Xun described ued waving her bow and Ligeti earned at trusting that you will respond with com- the mortal least one patron that evening. passion and hardhandedness to what- ever insentient words or insights I have sounds of planes written. I find it necessary to recapitulate flying bombing A Sense of Well-Being III For those living as refugees and my state of mind: to claim that time has migrant workers. bludgeoned me with an understanding missions over In memories, the end of summer in of rebelliously deciding in favor of hap- the Sierra Blancas is marked by sunflow- piness and vitality amidst grey, darkened Beijing during the Dagan Sassirini er fields. As the days grow shorter, the days. air cools; Aspen leaves turn yellow, then From the silence of his desk, Lu Xun Warlord Era. The orange and red as they fall. These events described the mortal sounds of planes sound of death, were captivating at my childhood home flying bombing missions over Beijing in the shadow of a volcanic shell near the during the Warlord Era. The sound of he wrote, only Arizona-New Mexico border. In 2011, death, he wrote, only heightens one’s the Escudilla Wilderness was devastated consciousness of the existence of life. He heightens one’s by the largest wildfire in Arizona histo- was inspired by the young writers of his consciousness ry—caused by the negligence of some- era and the inherent human spirit that I failed again and again to understand ing to leave these types of things behind. one leaving a campfire ablaze. Escudilla shone through their words. “Though the of the existence I For those who have suffered from how humanity could not recognize its Pauses between each movement re- was once known for its iconic display of wild thistle is virtually crushed to death, mental illness. own suffering. minded me of my warm collared shirt fall leaves, a reputation that may one day it will still bear one tiny flower.” of life. You were living in Tucson, but it may Before saying goodnight, you asked and wool tie. Recall that the instants return. A year ago, while summiting Hum- as well have been Cananea. That night I about a stranger from Mogadishu who after snowfall are cold and still, creating Aldo Leopold illustrated it as a solitary phrey’s Peak, I looked to the east hoping first wrote for you was unusually cool: had sat next to me at an Indian restau- a hushed emptiness that makes the air blue mountain, visible anywhere at any to see the Painted Desert and imagined mid-July, eighty-eight degrees in Cen- rant near my house. His name was Ab- feel whole. Sitting there in a seat on the time during his appointment in Arizo- when the atmosphere in our world’s for- tral Phoenix. I had been standing out- shir. He will never know that afternoon balcony, I almost wished I were a child na with the Department of Agriculture. ests was not visibly polluted. It can be side my bedroom window watering the a dam was broken, returning purpose to again, standing outside in damp cotton Those years witnessed the disappearance seen everywhere now: imitating stillness rose bush that thoughts of you called the last six years in this desert. You said socks and a winter coat, two sizes too of grizzlies from the Southwest. Leopold and expanding under the street lamps of to mind. I was standing, having a ciga- you were thankful for each day tears are large. wrote solemnly that, since the begin- every roadway. rette—blowing smoke at the moon in plentiful enough to stream down your Before we left for the symphony, you ning, time had built three things on the I used to regard flowers as symbols of your name. And for the first time, lived face into the valleys of your sunken pulled the bacon from my biscuit sand- ancient volcanic rock of Escudilla: “a love and beauty. Now I consider them a moment of that Neruda poem you cheekbones. wich and set it between your bread and venerable aspect, a community of minor reminders of what we have and how it loved. I still wonder how it is that you fried green tomatoes. I finished your animals and plants, and a grizzly.” In this will inevitably pass on. Over the Paint- remain in my thoughts, even during the drink, an old-fashioned. I was remind- regard, I wonder if one day we will look ed Desert, flowers bloom above the moments I manage to have none. II For those whose hands have stitched ed that your mother told you to marry at mountains and no longer remember timberline where life is fragile, yet resil- I sat at my desk writing about the Col- my clothing. someone that loves you more than you trees, having forgotten the sunflowers ient. Even so, once their environment is orado and other rivers no longer flow- The interstices of silence between love in return. And that an ex-lover springing up from valleys of volcanic silt destroyed they will never bloom again. ing as they once did; rivers that ceased undulating bows stitched together each had explained how her mother would after monsoon rains. Maybe one day we will listen to what it is to coalesce and stream into the ocean, movement of Beethoven’s Sinfonia Ero- be offended if someone tried to serve The problem isn’t that most people they have been trying to teach us. impeded by borders and dams. The ica. As we walked to the car that night I her unpeeled carrots. I’m still trying to think too little. Most people think too moon hung behind the rooftops outside assured you the rhythmic shuffling and read between the lines; nonetheless, in much, but about the wrong things. War- the window.