A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University JULIE MILTENBERGER UNTITLED MIDWESTERN REVIEW May 1990 Volume III, Issue 3 FEATURES CREATIVE WRITING WHAT MATTERS 10 Two POEMS 13 by Wayne Glausser by Brian Getz DON'T BLINK 18 POMEGRANATE 14 by Brad Hartman by Astrid Fingerhut BOOK REVIEW 22 Two (MORE) POEMS 21 by Thomas Emery by Ted O'Connell Two POEMS 24 by Mark Burdge DEPARTMENTS NIGHT 25 by Mike Tompkins INSIDE VIEW 4 PROBLEMS WITH TIME AND by T. S. Caw SPACE 26 WORLD VIEW 8 by Dave Martin by Philip Hellmich FOR MRS. TILL. 28 by Seana Murphy Two POEMS 29 by Polly Harrold YEARS OF GLEANING 30 by T. S. Caw ART UNTITLED(Marker) Cover FISH 20 by Elizabeth Simeri UNTITLED 2 UNTITLED 28 by Julie Miltenberger SELF PORTRAIT 3 by Sergi Bosch UNTITLED 4 UNTITLED 27 by Carrie Larson UNTITLED 11 SERGI BOSCH SELF PORTRAIT PENCIL by Stacy Remmy INDIVIDUALLY 15 MIDWESTERN REVIEW is published four times a by Eric Kindler year at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana UNTITLED 30 46135. The students on staff are solely responsible for by Jeff Kent the content of the magazine, although any individual opinions expressed are those of the individual writer. The magazine is printed at Greencastle Offset. INSIDE VIEW Nocturnal Me by T. S. Caw await the next time the laundry needs had better get my money's worth, and done. I have seen this. what better way than to constantly stay Sleep. Who needs it? I think Yes indeed, I glance back awake? I've reached the point in my life where through my journals to November 13, Granted, I do get some sleep, I'm having so much fun being awake 1989, and at 5:10 A.M. that day, in the and it's not always in the Media that the idea of climbing up into my loft midst of churning out a paper on James Classroom during films, but I seriously scares me into believing that I'm going Joyce's water imagery in A Portrait of enjoy staying up all night. There's a to miss something when I enter the Artist as a Young Man, I wrote these unique serenity in the hours between dreamland. How can I afford to be lines: The moon, a perfect white hole in 12:00 and 6:00 A.M. that allows me to unconscious when there are the blackness out my window. If the separate myself from all of the hassles experiences to be had? earth was tilted on its side we would all of my daily life and the incessant white I know the sane and rational spill through to pure whiteness and noise that clouds my thinking. By no person would tell me that everyone nothingness. It's what awaits us on the means am I alone in this belief either. needs to sleep, that our bodies require other side, I'm sure. Many Buddhist monks renounce sleep down time to refuel for all those sunlit One thing I know for sure is altogether and find themselves more waking hours so we can function to the that at the end of that week when I revitalized by deep meditation in best of our abilities both physically and arrived home for Thanksgiving Break I worshipful postures. My posture may mentally. This be lacking approach doesn't somewhat, but I work with me. can feel the Personally, I'm positive benefits more into the moon of hours of inward than the sun, and reflection in quiet not only because solitude. it's just floating out This is there in space not not to say that I causing any skin don't also get a cancer or ozone kick out of depletion, but mingling with the because its living dead, my patterns make fellow comrades people go crazy of the night who and it's much inhabit the few easier to stare at for CARRIE LARSON UNTITLED CHARCOAL Open 24 Hours a long periods of Day businesses time. collapsed fully clothed and face down here in Greencastle. There's the one As a matter of fact, after many on top of the covers on my bed and slept checkout cashier at Kroger who keeps successive sleepless nights of staring at 14 hours straight. Needless to say, this the lane by the school supplies open and the moon-especially when it's full-it is caused my parents some distress and no goes home to bed at 6:30 A.M. and the possible to feel as if our galaxy has been doubt fueled their imaginations as to Shell station people who once sold me a inverted, like the earth and the milky what it is exactly that I do here at black Harley-Davidson bandana for way are that one mateless sock in the college. They can rest assured that I'm under two dollars. The Clark station, universal dryer that God removes, not sleeping. I figure for all the money where I met my buddy Dean Simmons, reaches down into and turns inside out in tuition and room and board they're used to stay open all night doing most of before sticking it back in the drawer to spending to provide for my education I their business in cigarette sales, but 4 MAY 1990 after a carefully conducted survey of 12 thanks for all that I have been blessed MIDWESTERN to 6 business during this past Winter with. Term, while nearly the whole campus What I'm giving thanks for REVIEW was elsewhere, the ownership decided mostly right now though is that one to turn off the lights at midnight from more issue of Midwestern Review is now on. Possibly my favorite nocturnal done. This is my last issue, as is the case people are the Hardee's workers. In my for much of the current staff, and we've four years here they've kept the law thrown together a tight little package Editor-in-Chief enforcement community fed and awake for you that starts right here and Tom S. CAW and in the process sprouted high-tech culminates in the long overdue Poetry headsets that allow for optimum inter- Feast. There has been a dramatic restaurant communications. Another increase in the number of composition advance they've made is in their majors here lately, and while a certain Director of Operations heightened awareness of Hardee's' percentage of them are confused GAYLE GORVETT origins and national geographical individuals who somehow have fooled significance, thanks to the information themselves by thinking writing is easy, campaign that Chip Dalby and I have there are definitely those who possess a waged ever since his parents moved deep passion for words and the power Creative Writing Editor two years ago to Rocky Mount, North held within their combinations. In POLLY HARROLD Carolina, the site of Hardee's defense of my major, I quote Thomas Headquarters and the very first Mann: "A writer is somebody for Hardee's. whom writing is more difficult than it is Taking periodic breaks in the for other people." So in praise of those Features Editor hours before dawn to go visit these who have struggled with the muse and DAVE MARTIN people becomes essential to remind me continue to do so, we offer this creative of my humanness and to help me from writing-heavy issue. prematurely falling through that big It seems that I have managed Departments Editor hole in the sky. It also doesn't hurt to to stray from my original topic, as I so pick up some coffee on occasion, either. often do. I see this as definite LEAH KNIGHT Another great thing about not foreshadowing of my future return to sleeping is that I always get to greet the academia(and my subsequent day before anyone else. For example, success)in the form of a professor. I Art Department while I'm writing this the sun is just figure the only other thing I need to do KAREN BUTLER beginning to shade the night sky a deep to prepare myself for this life, besides blue and the birds in the tree outside spending a couple of more years CHIP DALBY have taken this as their cue to get in tune entrenched in outrageously expensive MAURA SHEA for the performance of the day. Some schooling of course, is to listen to wiseguy crow is out there mocking me, National Public Radio on a more Advertising Managers but that's all right because any minute regular basis and I'll be fine. I imagine NEDRA MCKINNEY now I'll go downstairs and out on the it will be difficult for me to conform to front porch to retrieve the Indianapolis the go-to-bed-and-get-up-early pattern JON BOSLER Star and be the first to peruse it in hopes of the working world, but a little of finding anything worthwhile to read, discipline will do me good. Besides, Business Manager and I'll take in that cool first breath that somewhere down the line I'm sure I'll llusry Mum will be all mine and so fresh that I'll find that Creative Writing position that forget about the fact that I haven't will once again facilitate my sleepless showered in days or that my teeth need ways. MwR Editoral Advisers brushing to remove the mysterious film TOM CHIARELLA and that I have more work to do and BARBARA BEAN dreams to fulfill than could possibly be SAM ABEL squeezed into the numbered squares on ROBERT KINGSLEY my calendar. To be there at that moment, with the sun in my face, fills me with hope and causes me to give

MAY 1990 5 CONTRIBUTORS

Mark Burdge '90 (Two Poems, p. 24) is an English Jeff Kent '93 (Untitled, p. 31) is a PreMed major composition major from Kirkwood, MO. from Shelbyville, IN.

Sergi Bosch '90 (Self Portrait, p. 3) is an English literature Eric Kindler '90 (Individually, p. 15) is an Art major from Oak Brook, IL. major from Zionsville, IN.

T. S. Caw '90 (Inside View, p. 4, Years of Gleaning, p. 30) is Carrie Larson '90 (Untitled, p. 4, Untitled, p. 27) is an English composition major from Pataskala, OH. an Art major from Wayzata, MN.

Thomas Emery (Book Review, p. 22) is a Professor of English David Martin '90 (Problems with Time and Space, at DePauw and was Mark Cox's instructor in the Senior p. 26) is an English composition major from Seminar in Composition. His chapbook of poetry, Baker's Wilton, CT. Dozen, was published in 1987 by Persistence Press of Indianapolis. Julie Miltenberger '92 (Untitled, p. 2, Untitled, p. 28) is a Psychology major from Libertyville, IL. Astrid Fingerhut '90 (Pomegranate, p. 14) is an English composition major from South Bend, IN. Seana Murphy '91 (For Mrs. Till in honor of her son, p. 28) is a Sociology major from Indianapolis, Brian Getz '90 (Two Poems, p. 13) is an English composition IN. major from Terrace Park, OH. Ted O'Connell '91 (Two Poems, p. 21) is an Dr. Wayne Glausser (What Matters, p. 10) is an English English composition major from Evanston, IL. professor at DePauw and was the 1989 Indiana Professor of the Year. Stacy Remmy '90 (Untitled, p. 11) is an Art major from St. Louis, MO. Polly Harrold '90 (Two Poems, p. 29) is an English composition major from Muncie, IN. Elizabeth Simeri '91 (Untitled, cover, Fish, p. 20) is an Art major from South Bend, IN. Brad Hartman '90 (Don't Blink, p. 18) is an English literature major from Libertyville, IL. Mike Tompkins '90 (Night, p. 25) is an English composition major from LaPorte, IN. Philip M. Hellmich '84 (World View, p. 8) recently spent four years 1985-89 in Sierra Leone, West Africa, as a Peace Corps Volunteer and a private consultant. He currently lives in Gainesville, FL.

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MAY 1990 7 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW o

WORLD VIEW Rethinking WTIM

by Philip M. Hellmich when those programs are executed in translates, conservatively speaking, cultures foreign to the DePauw into materials to build one and a half Eight years ago as a DePauw community. shallow water wells, salaries for skilled sophomore, I attended a DePauw Presently, the Winter Term in labor required to build approximately Winter Term in Mission Program in Mission Program aspires to provide seven agricultural storage facilities, or Flores, Honduras. While I worked on social services to people in third world teachers, health center staff members, the construction team in Flores, countries and in the United States masons, or carpenters. A DePauw medical and dental teams conducted through short-term projects construction team has anywhere from outreach clinics in surrounding coordinated with religious institutions. 10 to 20 members. villages. During one of their trips, they Most of the students and professionals The efforts of medical and met a Peace Corps Volunteer whom who participate in the programs are dental teams in Honduras and Sierra they described to the rest of us as a motivated largely by desires to assist Leone have also proved inappropriate. person who was "weird, and had really people less fortunate than themselves, The medical and dental teams in Flores gotten screwed over"—he was living in to travel abroad, to learn about people of '82 struggled with the futility of their a small village in the hills building other cultures, to enhance resumes, to band-aid type assistance: prescribing latrines. We all felt sorry for the poor get a winter tan, and to have a good aspirin and pulling teeth. Pre-med and guy. "DePauw group experience" outside of pre-dent students, meanwhile, gained Five years later I visited a DePauw. practical experience that is considered DePauw Winter Term team in Sierra Such Winter Term projects, illegal in the United States yet deemed Leone, West Africa. This time I was the although initiated with good intentions, appropriate when helping "primitive Peace Corps Volunteer whom some reflect signs of cultural arrogance based people". In Sierra Leone, the DePauw DePauw students described as "weird, on a paternalistic view of third world medical and dental teams contributed to but it's great that he likes what he's nations. These good intentions aside, a that country's dependency on Western doing". I was living in a small village in team of DePauw students, guided by a assistance, a crippling low self-image the hills, building water wells and few professionals, cannot appropriately for Sierra Leoneans, and a nation-wide latrines. They all may have felt sorry assist in three weeks' time people of abuse of Western medicines, all being for me. other cultures about which they have the more subtle and devastating I have experienced the little understanding. problems of health care facing Sierra DePauw Winter Term in Mission Examples of inappropriate Leone. Program in three capacities: 1) as a assistance are apparent in the efforts of The Sierra Leonean participant who received a valuable the construction teams in Flores '82 and government is trying to implement a introduction to the third world; 2) as a Sierra Leone '86 and '87. These teams Primary Health Care system PCV who encountered DePauw teams were composed largely of students with throughout the country. UNICEF, two consecutive years in Sierra Leone; no practical construction experience, Peace Corps, and other agencies are and 3) as a private consultant who myself included. In Sierra Leone, and working with the government to conducted feasibility studies for Peace probably in Honduras, trained masons enhance its ability to become self- Corps in villages where DePauw teams and carpenters were abundant in the reliant in meeting national health care happened to have worked. Thus, country during the time of the projects. needs. The Sierra Leonean Ministry of drawing upon these experiences, I In all three cases, the money spent on Health is responsible for the overseeing believe that the Winter Term in Mission flights for unskilled DePauw laborers of all health-related activities, Program is a valuable asset for DePauw could have supplied salaries for local including the hundreds of government University in preparing its students for craftsmen and purchased materials for health centers scattered throughout the their role in a global community. The other buildings. country. Ideally, all outside agencies program is not, however, a social The cost of a single round-trip should work in cooperation with the service program which conducts short- flight to Sierra Leone is approximately Ministry of Health. This is not always term development projects, especially $1200. This amount of money the case.

8 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

While conducting a feasibility dental teams entered Sierra Leonean of Western medicine into Sierra Leone. study for Peace Corps, I interviewed villages with inexpensive—if not The repercussions of Western medicine Ministry of Health officials in the Kono free—services and medicines, Sierra superimposed on Sierra Leonean District. They reported that their health Leoneans saw white people doing cultures have had several negative side centers were losing credibility in the good above and beyond their own effects. The most noticeable are Sierra presence of United Methodist Church black government employees. The Leoneans' addiction to Western clinics which offered "white" nurses and DePauw medical and dental teams medicine for treatment of any illness lowered costs for Western medicines. were flooded with patients who regardless of the type of illness or DePauw teams conducted outreach probably saw an opportunity for medicine; the prescribing of medicines clinics in villages in the Kono District in inexpensive medicines and quality by unqualified people, including street cooperation with the United Methodist "white man" care. Ironically, during vendors; the use of Western medicines Church. my interviews with the Ministry of according to tastes and colors that It can be argued that working Health officials in Kono District, correspond with traditional medical with the Sierra Leone government can Peace Corps Volunteers ("white" belief; and the alienation of traditional often create "catch-22" scenarios since people) were requested for the medical healers from general health the government is riddled with purpose of legitimizing the care programs. corruption. But much of the corruption is governments's health centers in Only in recent years have the now a matter of survivial for the villages that DePauw medical teams World Health Organization and Sierra thousands of workers whose monthly Leonean government begun to salaries cannot sustain the basic needs of incorporate traditional medical healers their families. into the scheme of Primary Health Care As a PCV, I was discouraged to The efforts of systems in Sierra Leone. It is doubtful hear my Sierra Leonean friends say, that the DePauw teams were aware of or "White man good, black man bad." This medical and sensitive to the delicate issues self-image is held by many Sierra surrounding traditional beliefs in Sierra Leoneans and is the result of decades of dental teams Leone's struggle to develop a national contact with British Colonials, health care program. expatriates, missionaries, and The attempts by DePauw volunteers—many who believed they in Honduras teams to assist Hondurans and Sierra knew what was best for Sierra Leoneans Leoneans through construction but did not give due respect to the local and Sierra projects and medical care were cultures. inappropriate, and actually served to Much of Sierra Leone's undermine self-reliance. DePauw infrastructure (government, roads, Leone have attempts to develop people of other schools, water supply systems...) was cultures through education were established in Sierra Leone by Colonial proved likewise inappropriate. The DePauw Britain and development agencies: Winter Term teams to Sierra Leone systems of infrastructure that evolved conducted health education in an from cultures outside of West Africa. inappropriate. attempt to go beyond band-aid type Most Sierra Leoneans see these systems assistance. After having spent four as wonderful improvements that fall apart and United Methodist Church clinics years in Sierra Leone trying to make my when left to their own people. They also visited. (Note: Peace Corps own small efforts at appropriate health see continued outside assistance being Volunteers who are racial minorities education, and having seen the best laid executed by a barrage of acronym- are still held in high esteem as plans backfire, I do not understand how bearing agencies with good intentioned compared to Sierra Leoneans and are the DePauw teams could be expected to "white people" whose efforts are referred to as Black Americans, do any type of worthwhile health sabotaged by illogical local resistance to Mexican Americans, or Chinese education in three weeks without even change and the selfish desires of "bad Americans.) the simplest understanding of the local black" people. Unfortunately, the The DePauw medical and culture—for example, the ability to conclusion for many Sierra Leoneans is dental teams provided services speak the local languages. This is "white man good, black man bad" instead without a basic understanding of blatant cultural arrogance. of "Western plans are not always Sierra Leonean traditional views of culturally appropriate." illness and healing. This has been the Continued on p. 23 When DePauw medical and history for much of the introduction

MAY 1990 9 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW o 1. What Matters 2. Why

by Wayne Glausser can be as orderly and logical as anyone Notice that thirty-three is almost in my scholarly writing. It's just that I exactly twice seventeen. For someone Once again we bring to you a seem to approach occasional talks in a sensitive to signs, this is surely faculty nugget, mined from the Campus different way. My topics are drawn something to pay attention to. A large Ministries Center' weekly discussion from fresh impressions, momentary part of my work involves being series. The following words were insights, chance combinations. I sensitive to signs. Signs are located originally uttered on February 8, probably don't know who will be in the midway between coincidences (which 1990—Ed. audience. My rhetorical purposes are products of too much skepticism) I should have warned you remain at least partly mysterious, even and miracles (products of too little about something, when I accepted your to me. My organization becomes skepticism). Thirty three is not quite invitation to speak in this series: I'm not subtle, devious. I improvise. I take my double seventeen, as I've admitted, but very good at this kind of thing. A few inspiration from Norman 0. Brown: it's close enough to count (in detecting years ago, in the week before "Instead of reification, perishable form. signs, as in making a double play, you graduation, the senior class chose me to Truth will not stand or stay or keep; it is can cheat a little bit); and besides, the speak at their official Senior Dinner. I nothing to be had or hoarded or passed age of thirty three has quite a lot of built accepted, wrote up a little speech from hand to hand; it is no commodity in significance. . . AI say more about shortly before the event, and delivered or store of past labor; it is either new or this, before I announce the next sign— it, in the echoing Lilly Center, to a large not at all. The form of the sentence is which I've forgotten—and then a more group of students. Because they transience; it must go under" (Love's important one, as follows.] There is a laughed in the right places, I considered Body, 1966). third sign that I want to connect with it a success. A little while later, the Now, this message from my these others: both of my daughters were editor of the Depauw Alumnus called muse should worry you, as it worries born on the first day of fall classes, just and asked me to send him my speech, me, when the occasion is "What hours before I began a new year of for publication in the next issue. When Matters To Me, And Why." The title is teaching, on Labor Day. I pulled out my notes to type them up, I serious, and calls out for stable, mature I see an interesting connection turned fragments into sentences, but I reflection. I don't take it lightly. And between my old speech and the one I've left the fragile chaos of my "theme" yet, something of my usual method has prepared for this occasion. Five years alone. (There wasn't really a "theme," taken hold. What I am going to say has ago, I worked up a reflection on Labor in the ordinary sense of the word; the a fair amount of spidery improvisation, Day. Now I'm going to talk about speech was coherent enough, but more and I do not offer it as something to be Leisure Village. like a spider web than a five paragraph hoarded. But all of it does matter to me. My parents live in a place essay.) Well, my speech never called Leisure Village, a retirement appeared in the Alumnus—and I can't Let me start by taking a little community near San Diego. I'm say I blame them. (DePauw also revenge against the Alumnus . Here's thinking about them now because I just stopped having official Senior Dinners the beginning of my Senior Dinner came back from a visit. Over after that. I have never figured out speech: The last time I gave a speech in Christmas, my father was attacked by a whether this had anything to do with my a gym, I was seventeen, at my high particularly nasty form of encephalitis speech.) school graduation. And here I am doing (a brain virus). For a long time, he was Don't misunderstand me: I it again, at the age of thirty-three. in a "deep stupor" (not quite a full

10 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0 coma), and the doctors weren't giving "library" in their clubhouse facilities, objects, places, and friends who offer him much of a chance. As of now, he's which has only a few books, but no one Romantic resistance to comfortable, still in bad shape—I won't go into all seems to mind: this is only a simulated common sense reality. My academic the medical details—but he's hanging library, and you know it's a library specialty became Romanticism, full of in there. because they brought in "aged oak" for revolution and sublimity. My most Leisure Village has always the floors. (I read this in a brochure. important college friend was Neil given me nightmares. It represents These are the only floors that creak at Kummer, a wonderful risk-taker who everything that's horrible about Leisure Village.) They have a large, eventually flunked out—but before he contemporary American culture. What exceptionally clean swimming pool, did, he inspired me well beyond the matters to me is to avoid Leisure and they don't want kids to mess it up. limits of my high school imagination. Village. It is sterile, uniform, My daughter Annie cried when a Neil once helped me get lost in a forest overpoliced, and a monument to what lifeguard turned her away from the at night, in a thunderstorm. He Nietzsche called "wretched (empty) pool. The whole complex is persuaded me to spend another night on contentment." All the houses look protected by elaborate security gates. the loose in the Fillmore district of San alike, with white stucco walls and red When my sister and I went out fora walk Francisco, instead of returning home in tile roofs. The only way I can tell where in the Village, a Leisure Security our friend's Chrysler. With his help I my parents live is to drive down Officer pulled next to us in his patrol car learned to hitchhike, and to ride freight Cordoba Lane and keep punching the and asked a few questions, to make sure trains, and to do various other things garage door opener. When I see a door we were not as dangerous as we looked. that my father does not approve of. start to go up, I know I'm home. They This was probably my fault: I was My father was never very won't even let you put your name on wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt. happy with my Neil-influenced your house, even if you carve a nice There's an anti-Leisure Village line in a Romanticism. During my college sign on a piece of wood (which one well-known Dead song: "When life years, he and I argued for a while about poor man did, and was chastised for). looks like easy street, there is danger at politics, property, hair, and so on, but You can't hang out laundry to dry. In a your door" ("Uncle John's Band," we learned soon enough that these desert climate, they use a huge amount 1969). arguments were useless. We got along of water to maintain their lawns, not to When I was in Leisure Village fairly well, although we didn't talk mention their golf course (which was this January I had time to think about about the most important things. He funded, by the way, with HUD money why this place distressed me so. I accepted the fact that I was not going to intended to develop low and middle realized that, at least since my first year be an engineer, like him. And he was income housing). They included a of college, I've appreciated writers, art pleased, if slightly disgusted, when he

STACY REMMY UNTITLED PORCELAIN MAY 1990 11 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0 learned that someone was actually and illness were subject to mental Literally, not much. But as he going to pay me to think about English control, and that he really didn't feel lay there sleeping, I was trying to literature. vulnerable to them in the way most express a thought, if only to myself. As I sat with my father, several people did. He always put reason and Here's the gist of it: something years later, in the intensive care room, I moderation at the top of his values. important is born when you cannot felt as though he and I were overdue for When we were unhappy he told us that a candid, intimate exchange of deep no embarrassment of grief lasts very feelings. This was the time for long. At dinner he liked to give us instruction, revelation, blessing. But he logical puzzles to solve, to condition us What couldn't really talk—only a few words, to the only kind of thinking he barely intelligible, every now and considered indispensable. During his then—and I'm not sure that he could working years, he read only things like matters to understand what I was saying to him. Chemical Engineering Progress and Still, I kept feeling that sense of Hydrocarbon Processing . In urgency: what could he tell me? retirement, he had been reading only me is to Literally, not much. He said detective novels. My father is Mr. two sentences when I was with him. Spock without the ears. The first was "Get me a kleenex" Here's my big confession: avoid (which I couldn't do—I just had to I'm an awful lot like my father. It's not explain again about all those irritating something I like to think about, with all tubes); the second, "Get me home." At my interest in Romantic transgressions. Leisure some point I realized that he was But I see signs of it even in the heart of actually telling me something my academic work. I get very important about himself. With his brain uncomfortable when I come across a Village. rendered nearly useless by a monstrous poem or scholarly essay that I can't virus, and his body trapped in a network understand: I strain to fit the new thing of tubes, plastic bags, monitors, and into my conceptual categories. In the doctors, he was desperately trying to classroom I tend to draw axes and make control your life. I was thinking of Neil, take control of his life. This is my three-part charts (which I always I guess; and also, of the searching, father: the ultimate Stoic. In forty five apologize for, as oversimplifications). soulful look in my father's eyes that all years as an engineer he missed only two I've developed a scholarly interest in of us noticed in the hospital. (It was a days of work. He once told me that pain detective fiction. I even fmd myself look we had not seen before.) I wanted comforting my to tell him that deep truth is imageless, daughters with that beauty comes from vulnerability, stoical formulas. that Leisure Village is an illusion. In the Offering the Friendliest, Most Helpful, This is hospital I began to understand how Most Professional Travel Service what my father told much I resemble my father. I like to Linda Mitrione - Manager me, in effect, as he think that, as he faced a virus even eAIR ALITITRAVEL lay near death. He specialists were calling mysterious, he and I share a became a little more like me. If he ever For ALL Your Travel Needs fundamental fear recovers his strength, I'd like to talk it • Air • Vacation of real mysteries, over with him. MwR • Cruises • Business and we engineer • Amtrak • Pass PortsNisas stable, orderly • Hotels • Tours structures against • Cars • Packages them. He works The books that you really love give the • Charters • And More w i t h sense, when you first open them, of With guarantee well shop for lowest hydrocarbons, I having been there. It is a creation, available prices work with Zoas. almost like a chamber in the memory. Tickets printed while you wait And I wondered, Places that one has never been to, things All this at no extra cost to you then, if this was to that one has never seen or heard, but be the only their fitness is so sound that you've been Home of the "AMTRAK CONNECTION" revelation—or was there somehow. there something 317 - 653 - 3174 ---John Cheever 109 South Vine • Greencastle that I could tell him?

12 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

Birds and Bones

Fruit doesn't grow on the old and enormous mango tree. Wide leaves spread thick shade over the cemetery, cooling the limestone tablets, blemished spotted white. The barber calls it "Gull Motel." Two It's only three blocks from Bousto's sardine cannery, where the winter migrants find work.

Hollis Johnson, 19064967, lies under the highest stone in the yard. Poems Its overhang keeps the pine-needle nests dry during the wind storms. Hollis lived in the antebellum style house on the street with the blooming magnolias. by Brian Getz His grand dad was a slaver from New Orleans.

The flowers don't come these days. The caretaker saw a ghost and went home to Mobile, whisky bottles in his wake. The dead are alone now, except for the noisy birds. But the squawking gulls respect the buried, for they are willing to share this small kingdom.

While Diving Under Water...

I dive under the wave, venturing into the slipstream of gravity But I kill animals—a rugged sportsman. and letting underwater currents slur against my ears. Nothing disappoints me more than feeling that line This darkness makes me wonder go limp after hooking a chinook in Lake Michigan. if the sea creatures ever sleep Yet every time I've netted and lifted that twenty pounder since there's nobody to tell them that it's night. into the boat, a triumphant fisherman, I fight the urge to I pretend to blend in with the unknown of the water. put him back until there's silence in the cooler. But the midnight ocean is a true mystery, And I've hunted grouse, wide-eyed and heart pounding, because everything is left to the imagination— anticipating that drum-like beating of wings, and cussing at feeding sharks, floating man-o-wars, a swollen corpse my bad shots as the bird flies from its protective ground brush, playfully bobbing in the tide. secretly urged on by that feeling in my stomach. Where's the bright, white moon when you need him most? I don't think I could shoot a deer. They're too quiet But in logical terms, the water's no different in and they look you right in the eye. blackness than in light. I've never turned down venison chili, though. This darkness is a refuge from dangers like me. I'll never kill a rabbit, after putting Snowball to sleep Surfacing whales, harpooned in search of plankton or a mate. because he had arthritis. He silently pleaded with me as the doctor took him through the door for the last time. Dolphins flirting with the light, suffocate in nets, Resurfacing, I open my eyes to the world that distinguished fate of the tuna. This bothers me so I give fifteen dollars to Greenpeace; day and night. relieve my conscience. 13 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW o

Pomegranate

by Astrid Fingerhut I laughed, then I cried. I whenever the phone rang he would told him about everything and he look at me with mock alarm. "Shall I spent six hours making just rubbed my back and said that he I answer, my Queen?" the bug cake the day before I left and understood and he wanted me to live She must have realized she told me she didn't like it. That with him. And he's never even read that she overstepped her bounds about sums up how things have been Kafka. because she left us alone for about a between me and Mom recently. Anyway, the day after I week. Actually six days to be exact. I thought it was genius. moved in to Pete's the phone rang It was kind of like a honeymoon. I Just the right mixture of humor and and it was Mom. mean, I missed her and all, but apology wrapped in creamy butter "Where are you?" she everyone reaches that break off icing. She took one look and said, which is about the stupidest point, right? She practically forced frowned, "A bug, Diana?" thing anyone can say over the me out of the nest and then got Of course, she didn' t know phone. pissed at where I flew. that I had sketched out eight "I'm at Pete's. I've So she called on day six, drawings to create just the right decided to live here for a while." and it just so happened that Pete roach-like insect to make the There was this long silence. wasn't there to save me from the literary analogy work. But she had "I see..." So she went phone so I sort of had to talk to her. to have noticed the detail, the colors, through the whole routine of "age "Well," I said after this the indentation I made by each leg to difference", and "ambitions" and long silence, "how are you, Mom?" make it look fully three how men "never, ever marry the She didn't answer for so dimensional. woman they live with." I told her long that I almost thought she'd Anyway, she put the cake that it's all right because the age hung up. on the counter, stared at the floor difference doesn't bother us and I "I'm all right, Diana." She and shook her head. don't want to get married anyway. kind of sniffled into the phone. I got "I guess this is supposed to "What about the future, this image of her sitting on the be some kind of joke. It's not Diana? What about everything you overstuffed sofa surrounded by terribly funny. Although," she want to be?" plates of old cheesecake and used looked me straight in the eye, "Pete "I don't want to be Kleenex. would probably appreciate it." anything, Mom." "I, uh, I've talked to Dr. So I left. I took the bug "Well, you've certainly Rubins." cake and moved in with Pete. started in the right direction, I was tempted to hang up He's really a great guy. moving in with that low-life drug right then. Dr. Rubins was the Mom, of course, could never see dealer." That really pissed me off, shrink she sent me to when I was past his haircut, his motorcycle and but I didn't say a word. She started eleven and I found the snake. I his occasional coke deals. But I crying softly over the phone. never understood why she made mean, I knocked on his door at "Come on, Mom. Don't such a big deal about it. I was eleven seven thirty on a Saturday morning do that. I'm fine, really..." years old, right? Probably still in with a bag full of dirty laundry, a "My daughter," she spat, pink dresses—at least that's the tear-streaked face and the bug cake. "Queen of the Underworld. How image I get of my childhood from He took one look at me and said, "I wonderful." her—the "perfect kid". I was knew about the mice, honey, but I'll I hung up. I told Pete about playing in the basement, call the exterminator first thing the "Queen of the Underworld" undoubtedly with Barbie dolls, Monday morning." thing and for the next few days when I saw this shadow weaving 14 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW o across the floor by the washing Rubins. I only remember that he dark office saying, "She seems to machine. I remember reaching came over to talk to me once and have an obsession with normally under, my face pressed against the then made me come "visit" him in unattractive things. Was she ever side, and just barely touching its his office for what seemed like molested as a child? Is there smooth, cold skin before it slithered forever. anything else you haven't told me?" away. The verdict was that there Then Mom would sniffle, have a Mom was upstairs had been no snake. He decided this bite of chocolate croissant, and say, cooking. She was teaching all kinds because I didn't see it clearly "She's become the Queen of the of healthy all-natural cooking enough to be able to tell him what Underworld." Maybe they would classes in those days, the kind of color it was. I didn't understand this get together and talk. Maybe they classes where you learn to make all then, but he talked a lot about would fall in love and get married— about thirty kinds of exotic whole "Freudian Imagery," "Snake/Penis for my sake, of course. grain bread. I guess before she had Representation," and "Desire for "To tell you the truth, me she had planned on going to chef Father Figure." All I knew then was Diana, I didn't know what else to do. school in Paris. "Mom," I that it made my mother upset. He I wanted to tell you so you wouldn't screamed, "Mom there's a snake also asked me all kinds of hear about it and be upset." under the washing machine!" She embarrassing questions about "Thanks." wiped her hands on her flowery whether I touched myself in private "Anyway, we talked about apron and followed me down to the areas. a lot of things and he thought it basement. "Don't worry, Diana. He made me might be good if you and I had It's probably just a garter snake uncomfortable, he made my mom dinner." looking for someplace moist." really upset, and he didn't believe "Just you and me? Not Dr. me when I told him that I wasn't Rubins, too?" The washer was too heavy to move. "I thought we "How about if you could spend some time play upstairs?" together alone...I have an She helped me idea that might be fun..." gather all of my stuff and I still don't know moved me into the living whose idea it actually was room where I was usually not but that was the start of the allowed to play. Alphabet Dinners. "Snakes can't Actually, they climb stairs. It'll just stay in were sort of funny at first. the basement for a few days Mom must have stocked up and then go back outside. on those pamphlets in Dr. Don't worry about it." She Rubins' office—the "20 locked the basement door Ways to Tell if Your Child is and stuffed a towel under the on Drugs," and "Teen-age crack. Depression, What You Can Well, I guess I did Do" kind—because she did worry about it, but not the everything but run a urine way she expected. I crept test on me over dinner. Over down into the basement that the antipasto she asked me if night with a flashlight trying Pete and I got high, during to find it. I told her that I the main course—some kind of creamed artichoke wanted to keep it as a pet when it came out, I think I ERIC KINDLER INDIVIDUALLY On. stew she called Artichoke a even picked the name I was going to making it up. l'Alsace—she talked about the call it. And although I never saw the "Why did you call Dr. normal course of teenage rebellion, snake again, I quizzed Mom about Rubins?" and she topped off a big slice of everything she knew about snakes She sniffled again into the homemade apple pie with a lecture and even got a few books about phone. I tried to imagine their on the psychological dangers of them at the library. conversation. All I could think of becoming sexually involved too I don't know how long this was Dr. Rubins leaning back into his young. all went on before she called Dr. big leather wingback chair in the I guess I didn't show any

MAY 1990 15 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0 of the warning signals of drug abuse then another ten minutes or so to my potentially harmful find: "She's got or depression, because her tactics old neighborhood. Pete took me the a copy of Anna Karenina, do you became more and more bizarre first few nights on his motorcycle think she's contemplating suicide?" every week. On "B" night she and it took about twenty minutes. I "Diana? Go sit down, I'll mentioned offhand that she had a would have him take me all the time, be right in." case of beer in the fridge and asked but it's been really cold recently and I think about asking her if me to check if it was the type I liked. his car is still not fixed. she threw away any of my things, On "C" night she baked Hot Cross So anyway, Pete is in this but I don't think I want to know. She Buns and read a passage in the vicious mood as I'm leaving and it comes into the dining room with Bible. She told me a few horror sort of rubs off on me. It's snowing two salad plates. stories about young women—the out, really big flakes that seem to "Mmmm, you've really daughters of her old college friends float down rather than fall, and outdone yourself this time, Mom. who were really good kids, just a hardly any people are on the bus. Parsley salad, who would have little confused—who got mixed up Down by "Puss in Boots" a girl gets thought it possible?" in the occult over Devil's Food cake on the bus wearing a fake fur coat She says nothing, as usual. on "D" night. And I know that the and high heels, probably one of the I don't think she's sure whether I'm garlic she used as a centerpiece on strippers. She looks really pretty out insulting or complimenting her "G" night was to make sure I wasn't in the snow, but when she gets on the these days. I guess it's a little of a vampire. bus she just sort of slumps into a seat both. I mean, here I am eating bits of All that eventually died and after a couple of minutes I parsley with chunks of pecans all down, of course. Maybe she realize she's crying. When she gets covered with some sort of oily stopped thinking something was off a few stops later, I feel sort of lemon dressing. The whole wrong with me or, more likely, she relieved. So for the rest of the trip I situation rides the fine line between stopped thinking that she could play this game where I time just how funny and really tragic. solve it. The dinners lately have long it takes to get to each stop, "God, I keep forgetting been pretty depressing events, she trying to see if the bus can make it to how big this place is." just sort of watches me and I try to Mom's house in less than an hour She stops picking at the make a few polite remarks about the and ten minutes. salad and looks around. She gives food, or the new table in the front It takes exactly an hour and me a little half-smirk. hall. thirteen minutes, twenty-seven "So," she says. "When did Plus Pete's getting on my seconds. you pierce your nose?" Something case about the dinners, too. I mean, Mom greets me at the front about the way she said it makes me it's understandable and all; for the door with a sort of half-smile. think she thought it would really last sixteen weeks I have spent "It's cold." throw me for a loop. every Sunday evening with her and "Yes. I don't think we've "Monday." I push the she hasn't invited him even once. had a winter this bad since before parsley gunk away and stretch. "Do "It isn't that I'm not there," he said, you were born." you like it?" "I just don't like you taking the bus "Well, I guess the global She doesn't answer, of home so late at night." I told him warming hasn't hit our area yet, course. She's not that stupid. She that was a pretty stupid excuse since huh?" gets up and takes our salad plates I took the bus other places and he She either doesn't hear me into the kitchen. I touch my nose, didn't seem to mind about that. "It's or else ignores the crack. She closes feeling for the diamond chip. different," he said. "Your mom's the door behind me and disappears "You should be happy," I house is a lot farther than anywhere into the kitchen. I take off my coat call. "I'm wearing a real diamond. else you go." and hang it in the front closet. It's It's pure carbon." I don't really mind taking sort of weird, you know? I get this She's really into purity and the bus. Pete knows that. It's kind strong urge to run upstairs and peek environmental stuff these days. I of exciting, really. The route that I into my room. I'll bet it's exactly guess she was before I left, but I take goes right through the strip- the way I left it. I can just imagine notice it a lot more now. Even these joint part of town. I like to watch the her looking through everything— weird dinners are ecologically (if kind of people who get on the bus searching for drugs and birth not nutritionally) sound. coming from the places called "Puss control—then making sure she "You know, Mom, I really in Boots" and "The Booby Trap." replaced it exactly where it had don't think that driving the car The only thing is, it does take been. She probably went through would contribute that much to the forever. It's almost an hour from the bookshelves calling Dr. Rubins hole in the ozone layer. I mean, look Pete's to the transfer station by bus, every few minutes to report on a outside—global warming?" 16 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW o

We had this argument a "Why?" It comes out kind She covers her face with few weeks ago, actually, when Pete of breathy. "I mean, I know we're her hands and sits there for a long first got upset about me taking the getting to some tough letters and time. The last few bubbles in my bus. I tried to get her to give the car all..." It's not that the dinners have Perrier are rising to the top so I shake to me. been so great, so much as I've been the glass to make more. "You can't have it Diana," waiting all this time to see if she can "I want you to come back, she yells. actually pull off "Q" night. Diana." I wonder if she'd give it to "Are you being whisked She says it so quietly that I me if I told her about the stripper. off to some environmental rally or almost don't hear it. Then she gets She's banging around in the something? Come on, Mom. I'll up and takes the plates into the kitchen. The familiarity of being in ever be able to eat watermelon kitchen. the house, at the table, with Mom in without regret." I stare at my hands for a the kitchen, the smell of good food She shakes her head and long time trying to imagine the three surrounding me, and our arguing takes a bite of fish. of us here. Me and Pete in my over some little thing makes me feel "We can do them if you bedroom and her just down the hall, homesick. I wonder what Pete's like. I just thought they weren't the three of us going to the movies, doing. This really strange image of much fun for you." or environmental rallies, or just me and Mom and Pete sitting here I scoot backwards in my sitting around the table talking. Pete around the table hits me and for a chair until it creases the rug and would go crazy with her "no red moment I wish really hard that catches. meat" food policy, and she would everything could just work out. I "You know Mother, from probably kick him out after the first even throw a pinchful of salt from this angle that lamp behind you cigarette burn in the carpet. Pete the little salt dish over my shoulder. makes you look like you have a and I wouldn't fight anymore about Of course, it could never halo." me taking the bus, of course. But I work. I mean, Pete drinks a lot. He She starts to get those don't know, I just can't see Pete in drinks beer all the time, with every angry creases in her forehead, then it my room. Even if I repainted and meal, in fact, he's probably out smooths out again. As if these took out all the books and my old drinking right now. And Mom, dinners were really designed to be stuffed animals. I mean, Mom just well, Mom occasionally has a glass fun for me. down the hall... of wine with dinner—if it's a good "I'm tired," she "But Mom, you don't like wine. Tonight the glasses are filled announces. motorcycles," I mutter. with sparkling Perrier. It tastes just I reach for the Perrier and She's in the kitchen as horrible as ever. fill our glasses. putting things away, getting things "You know, Perrier is "So what is it? You want out. She comes back in with a bowl really mineral water, Mom, " I yell. me to help with "`Q?"' All I can of whipped cream and a dark red She comes back in with two think of is Quaker Instant Oatmeal, fruit. steaming plates of white stuff. which is what Pete and I had for "Pomegranate," she says. "That means you've breakfast. She bends her head over the little already used this on "M" night and She sighs and eats cutting board with the fruit on it and that, technically, you could use it unhappily. I wait for a few seconds picks up the knife. again for 'W.' That's cheating." but she doesn't say anything, so I "Mom! You've been..." She hands me my plate and dig into the fish. So, now that she "...but I haven't done a sits down. can't think of anything else that terrible job, either. I guess I'm "Well, what is it?" I ask. could be wrong with me she wants asking for another chance to be all "Broiled perch." to just dump the whole project. And the things I haven't been." "Ah, double entendre. she wonders why I left. She cuts the fruit in half, Perch and poisson." "Are you eating well over letting the bright red juice spill She blushes a little. My there?" across the lace tablecloth, and holds mom's the kind of person that "Oh yeah," I say, taking the two halves out to me. would actually think of that. I can't another bite. "We ran out of "You've always been my help wondering how she missed the Cheetos, but I still feed upon mother. You'll always be..." bug cake thing. strawberries, sugar and cream." "Choose," she says softly. "I don't know if we'll get She glares at me. "No thanks." I look to 'W' anyway," she says. "No, really, I eat fine..." I outside at the snow. It's falling hard I take a long drink of the take another bite of fish. "I miss now, beginning to cover the ground. disgusting Perrier. your food, though." "I had one earlier." MwR MAY 1990 17 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW ° Don't Blink The Transience and Immanence of Cyberpunk

by Brad Hartman Postmodernism was born of communicatons and computerization war, World War II to be exact, and there boom, which almost invisibly, yet just For most of us the experience are three basic occurrences that mark its as surely, asserted itself as the dominant of cyberpunk will be like the first time baptism. One is the detonation of the way of life right along with the baby we played a video game. It's a first atomic device at the Trinity test site boomers. That post-war generation mysterious box that beckons to us, in New Mexico. The Trinity detonation was the first but certainly won't be the showing us on a hypnotic digital canvas is a suitably complex historical event, last to be raised on television. Like it or the adventure and excitement that our the product of one of the largest not, these events have set the stage for everyday lives are so lacking. It looks scientific projects ever undertaken by the world in which you and I currently so fun and so easy so you drop in your humanity. Applying some of Einstein's exist. quarter and the next thing you know basic theories, including the dubiously But cyberpunk, although it is "pow! pow! POW!" and it's over. Just simple E=mc2 equation, science an inherently postmodern movement, that fast, it's sort of like the eighties. managed, if only for a millisecond, to has some identifiable roots of its own. Cyberpunk is the work of a group of rival the power of our own sun here on There were some cyberpunks avant la artists, mostly American, who have earth. Robert Oppenheimer, the man lettre like David Bowie in his Ziggy tried to express the mixed feelings they responsible for heading up the Stardust phase, or the works of Phillip have about a period of huge economic Manhattan project research team, K. Dick, the author of Do Androids and technical growth in Western greeted this new sun with a line from the Dream of Electric Sheep?. In another history. Cyberpunk, as a movement, Indian religious text, the Bhagavad- way cyberpunk is the child of Steve got its start in the early eighties with Gita (as a side note, Oppenheimer Jobs, the man who invented the Apple works like Ridley Scott's film "Blade himself was later blacklisted in the computer in his garage, and Sid Runner" and William Gibson's novel scientific community for alleged Vicious, the man who was created in the Neuromancer. communist activities). Although it mind of punk-guru Malcolm It is impossible to separate might seem a remote observation, at the McClaren. In this sense cyberpunk is a cyberpunk from another controversial time of the Trinity blast there were bastard child to be sure, and like the movement, the elusive postmodernism. scientists who speculated that the Frankenstein's monster it so resembles, Cyberpunk can be seen as ultra- Volkswagen-sized bomb had a one-in- it too has grown free of the control of postmodernism, yet while all things thirty chance of devasting all of New any master. Cyberpunk works best with cyberpunk are postmodern, not all Mexico. So much for ambitious a mixture of mediums—music, video, postmodernism is cyberpunk. A scientists! A second event was the written text—all of it preferably discussion of cyberpunk is almost founding of the death camps by Nazi orchestrated by a computer. In other impossible without a discussion of Germany. Utilizing the most advanced words, the more "techy" the better. postmodernism. And what is thinking in industrial planning, the Currently cyberpunk exists in several postmodernism you ask?—good Nazi's put that knowledge to work as a media. In film, cyberpunk is question. Let me tell you what it is then means of slaughtering over six million "Terminator," "Robocop," and Laurie you can tell me I'm all wrong (the very Jews, Poles, homosexuals, gypsies and Anderson's "Home of the Brave." In nature of postmodern discourse). Let political prisoners. Hitler, the failed- music, it is anything digitized and/or me start with a summary of the crucial painter-turned-dictator, gloriously sampled. By digitizing and sampling I postmodern events so we have a described it as the "Final Solution." mean entering, through a microphone, a historical grounding. The third event was the start of the sound (voice, instrument, or anything 18 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

else) into a computer where it is are linked in an intricate network of as unsuitable subject material, digitized and can be played back over interfaces which are standardized to cyberpunk bathes capitalism in the and over at the will of the artist. To give such a degree that a user can "enter" a clean light of flourescents and the erotic you an example of what this does to workstation in Manhattan and in an glare of neon. music let me recount a story from my instant start hacking open computer But, as I stated above, own experience. When I was home systems in, say, Tokyo. The user wears cyberpunk has a strange affinity for over this past Christmas break I had the a set of electrodes that stimulate the oppositional consciousness. The one opportunity to sit in at a friend's studio/ brain into perceiving this infinite, group that I think best exemplifies this living room. If you can believe this, he multi-colored world of pure data. The is Neuromancer 's futuristic urban created a four minute recording using person in cyberspace has sensations of gang, the literary equivalent of David thirteen separate tracks of sound and sight and sound but it is a world without Bowie's diamond dogs, the Panther music and had it all stored on a 3 1/4 smell, taste or touch—although one can Moderns. The Panther Moderns are the inch floppy disc—and he did it all in just still experience pain. In this sense quintessential postmodern rebels. over twenty-five minutes. Others Istvan Csicsery-Ronay's statement When the book's main character, Case, involved in the cyberpunk movement seems appropiate: cracks an American corporation's are the Belgian group Front 242 and the computer system, he does so with the American group Sonic Youth. In video, "Cyber/Punk"— the help of these adolescents. Dazzling cyberpunk manifests itself in shows ideal postmodern couple: a machine monstrosities, they choose as their like MTV's "120 Minutes" and the philosophy that can create the world in hallmarks a cloak of chameleon-like infamous "Postmodern MTV" (which its own image and a self-mutilating camouflage, allowing them to blend in is a little redundant). TV has also given freedom, that is that image snarling not only with the colors but the textures us that sassy humanoid, "Max back. of their environment, and brutal Headroom" (you know, the C-C-C- cosmetic surgery giving them the Coca-Cola guy). Cyberspace is the infinite appearance of the carnivore of their In literature, cyberpunk is world of computer reality. A choice. But the Panther Moderns also Bruce Sterling's Mirrorshades representational reality designed to represent a dilemma in cyberpunk, for anthology and DC's newest Batman display silicon logic in graphic rather craze, the computer-generated Digital than numeric symbols. This theme of Justice. But the prime cyberpunk work an alternate reality—one created out of will remain William Gibson's novel, our physical reality but resembling it no Cyberpunk Neuromancer. Ironically it was more than a computer resembles a Gibson's book which really kicked off human being—happens again and bathes the cyberpunk wave in 1984. Ironic again in cyberpunk. because since then almost everything But at the same time capitalism in made-cyberpunk has abandoned print cyberpunk deals with the as the medium of choice. Neuromancer overwhelming aspects of technology it is part of a new generation of text that also uses characters who are in combat the clean light allows the theme of human/machine with the great powers of unleashed interaction to be played with, often to technology. And here is where of flourescents frightening conclusions. It is a book cyberpunk shows a real break with the simply filled with oppositional great modernist theme of individuals in consciousness. All the main characters conflict with the state (such as Kaflca's and the erotic are, in a way, fighting a battle for The Trial) or individuals confronting individual survival. There is Molly, a their hidden, true nature (such as glare of neon. cyborg assassin and bodyguard, hired Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises ). by the world's more desperate Cyberpunk shows us postmodernism's elements. There is the protagonist, fixation with mere survival in a world even when they give their society an Case, a computer cracking cowboy, and too complex to be even understood, let anarchic injection of mayhem and panic his endless efforts to keep in touch with alone overcome. In one sense they can not cause, nor do they even what he sees as the ultimate escape, cyberpunk is a Faustian dream. If, on wish to cause, any real subversion. cyberspace. Cyberspace, for those not the other hand, having a soul is They are subversion from within, acquainted, is not actually a "space" undesirable, then the world of without the ability to offer their society that one can enter, it is a computerized cyberpunk is a veritable blessing any novel or desirable alternative. They meta-program in which all other allowing an individual freedom to act simply adopt a voluntary role as the computer activity is conducted. All and conduct business never before keepers of chaos. In the end the Panther computers, and hence all big-business, possible. Rather than seeing economics Moderns commit a theft in the form of

MAY 1990 19 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0 one big sick joke (or is it the other way great image. It shows the tendency for physical world, if not actually having around?). emotion in a postmodern psych- invaded it. Thrilling though it is, The cyborg is a controversial environment to be experienced only as cyberpunk is, at heart, a rip-off of the theme in cyberpunk discourse. It is something like oppressive static, dark side of our emerging postmodern currently such a common phenomenon leaving the character with residual culture: a tarnished mosaic of silicon, that Gibson can throw a whole host of anger and ambivalence. Affect in glass, neon, blood and chrome. In cyborg characters into Neuromancer postmodernism is no longer conceived another sense cyberpunk is like a pair of without the reader blinking an eye. Eye as something felt by the heart, it is eyeglasses. When appreciated for what implants become like sunglasses and something thought by the brain. Anger they do best, that is put the world around adolescents with cranial jacks seem so and ambivalence, these make up the us in better focus, you don't even notice reminiscent of today's urbanites expressed emotions in Neuromancer them. But if you fixate on them too plugged into Walkmans or Discmans or and they form a great part of the total much you'll go cross-eyed and Watchmans. With the advance of the feel of postmodernism. probably end up with a bad headache. new biological and genetic sciences it Cyberpunk becomes most Thus is much of our culture. Remember has become possible to view the human realized when the technology which when the computer was named Time 's body itself as a text which can be produces it seems to disappear. It "man" of the year? deconstructed and manipulated, thus becomes most horrifying when one "Hey, look over there! It's breaking down once fundamental realizes, in a flash, just how cyberpunk!" barriers between human and machine. complicated is the whole structure "Where? Where?" At the same time the preeminence of the which produced it and which it in turn Well, as the zen saying goes—it's right purely human is abandoned, a new re-produces in an artistic form. Take as in front of your face. MwR being is created, the cyborg. To example Moreno's 1990 work Digital simplify discussion, a cyborg is any Justice, it is a graphic novel produced person on/into which a machine is entirely on a computer and it connected that takes over for or reproduces a world of computerization. augments a natural human function or All the drawings, the colors, the written creates a previously non-existent text, everything in the book at one point function. Prostheses and "implants" of or another had to be various types all signify a profound run through a change in what it means to be human, computer, and it but to say who is appropriating whom in looks the part. the human/machine merger is Moreno also takes becoming more and more difficult and the theme of pointless. cyberspace and It has been said by scholars turns it on its ear. that postmodernism ushers in the death Instead of of affect or emotions. I would argue, on cyberspace being the contrary, that this is not the case at an alternative to all. Something has happened to this world, he emotions in postmodernism and makes the "real" cyberpunk is the best place to see it. To world of his use psychoanalytic terms, the affect graphic novel (emotion) is not gone but hidden. When surpass even the human feelings get pushed farther and grandest visions of farther away from conscious human most cyberpunk experience, in effect shoved under the writers. Although bed where we keep other "impractical" cyberspace was or useless items, they get vented in new originally ways, forcing themselves out in conceived as a desperate acts and unpredictable product of "real- directions. For example, when Case is world" computers, presented with emotionally charged Digital Justice information, learning of the death of his portrays lover, he feels as if his brain were cyberspace as jammed, like from a radio station that having become the FISH MARKER can't get its signal through. This is a blueprint of the ELIZABETH SIMERI

20 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

Two (more) Poems

Tollbooth by Ted O'Connell In steel-mill fog near the "City by the Lake." a man waits in his little cell. "Hi there!" "forty thank you." Leaves Numb eyes miss patrons as the uniform, blue or grey, extends dirty fingernails and drops coins. All summer they have lasted "Change?" they wave like flags "sixty thank you." flaunting crimson, puce and plum hiding from winds Never look up the lanes, behind one another. they'll be there "Manic depressive on Board, Ex-Husband in Trunk." When sore fingers and burning joints "Which way is Gary?" lose grip "thank you." they ricochet branch to branch The hair falling over her face like wounded squirrels can't cover the eye dizzy and bruised but she's at work. touching down and cartwheeling against rocks. "Did Wayne hit you last night?" "thank you." When winds begin to breathe they are plucked one by Wrinkled fingers twirl and bend, one some the old man's feet ache fall like flat rocks under water, in shoes that aren't worn out. bruised apples, "Better than soup lines?" or exhausted woodcock. "thank you." When a wave pushes

they race like trout jutting left and right for scent or space— caught in the net of a shrub they are buried winters and sink deep in the damp spring.

21 MAY 1990 oMIDWESTERN REVIEW o

Book Review Playful American originality

Smoulder by Mark Cox, David R. Godine, Publisher, 300 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA, 02115, '79 pp., 1989, $8.95 paper.

by Thomas Emery

When Mark Cox attended award from the Mrs. Giles M. Whiting bring most any kind of reassurance to Depauw University in the middle to late Foundation. their lips, when lonely, when feeling 70s, he already had his union card as an Smoulder celebrates Cox's threatened.) industrial painter (painting pipes, delivery from a life at the very margin of Many of the titles alone storage tanks, high-rise buildings and creativity and construction and in suggest this variety and playfulness: bridges). He was also a jokester, a which the body organism itself is the "The Barbells of the Gods," "Nothing trickster, a wordplayer, a loner and a agent used up and damaged, to a life in Like Us Ever Was," "Listening to My dreamer, and a student poet of which the brooding, mulling and Stomach," "The Pale and Hairless considerable ability and promise. playfulness of the psyche is at the Ankles of the Sun," "The Good and The Eleven years later, after a long human center and creates its own world, Icky," "Linda's House of Beauty," "If journey through the high-pay, high-risk colors and all (though he notes even of the Prunes Don't Get You, Then the industrial trade, and a return to workaday painting, "There is great Apricots Must," "Rubbing Dirt from academia as graduate student and now pleasure to be had/from the small thing My Dog's Nose, I Realize," "How Can as college teacher at Goddard College, well done. . ."). I Be Out of Danger If I'm Not Dead." Cox has turned out a startlingly good These 43 poems are original, Cox's playfulness and book of poetry from a highly respected inventive and playful, and are spoken originality to some extent mask the fact publisher (three of the poems appeared with a contemporary idiom and candor that he is writing about the mainstream in the Midwestern Review and were so that could be no one else's. Their topics of poetry as it has been forever— credited in the book). subjects are many and varied, but these love, death, sex or sexual attraction, Along the way, and through are not subject poems and the subject is beauty, fathers and mothers, children, these poems, he earned a $20,000 always secondary to the voice that is loneliness, fear of the end of life, what speaking them and the mind that is to believe in, etc.—all that old stuff, processing them. These are interesting before technicolor or the tube. poems, reflecting an always alert, His images, though, are from always serious, but also always the world of Now—Big Bird, the blip whimsical mind that notes seemingly fading out on a television screen, "7; irrelevant details or incongruities but "dreams of ninjadom and pillage/at Your finds them altogether relevant—why Babe's Pre-Owned Cars..." and remind Napoleon ordered three buttons on the us that a good brain is not going to be Favorite sleeves of his soldiers, how long it takes made mush of by television, but will use Gift Boutique an aluminum can to dissolve in the sea, that electronic blender of contemporary the way a particular hunter field dresses images for its own purpose. a goose from around the rectum, how THE LOOKO/4%-11 The poems are not technically Just oft Vb. SL • chimpanzees touch each others' experimental but use a more formal Parking Lot Grosocastio mouths when threatened (a poem, than informal free verse, frequently 653-2226 "Donald," that is about animal and with long lines and complex sentences human touching and which suggests, rather than the curt, take-it-or-leave-it ° provocatively, how human beings both impulse of image poets and the touch each other in kindness and may limitations on ideas suggested by that 22 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

technique. His language, for all its wit, Continued from p. 9 The Winter Term in Mission humor and off-handedness, The Winter Term in Mission Program does provide a valuable complements what is essentially a Program does offer educational cross- educational experience for DePauw rationally controlling intelligence that cultural experiences for team members. students, faculty members, and outside yields to, rather than overpowers, the During my stay in Flores, I had three advisors. The education in itself is a developing poem. important cross-cultural experiences. viable and worthy goal for the program, Cox's poems read fresh, free One was a late night talk with Father especially in light of the growing from any kind of political Emilio, the U.S. missionary in charge of demand for the United States to become categorization, poetical in-jokes, or the school for which we were building a more aware of environmental, writers workshop self-consciousness. dormitory. I attentively listened to the economic, social, and political global It is speculation to attempt to see political difficulties he faced working issues. DePauw, as an institution of influences. His narrative structures in rural Honduras. Another experience high academic standards, has a might resemble Phillip Levine's but occurred when I went off alone to do my responsibility to prepare its students for they are less relentless and more laundry: a Honduran woman grabbed their roles in a global community. internalized. There is some of the the dirty clothes from my hands and I recommend that the Winter madcap of Vonnegut or Gunter Grass, proceeded to wash them for me, thus Term in Mission Program adopt fiction writers, but voice is more giving me an introduction to Honduran educational as opposed to philanthropic important than concept in Cox. There gender roles. The third experience was goals. DePauw faculty and qualified might even be some Wallace Stevens, having the Honduran army hold alumni must be utilized to discuss and with whom Cox had an early DePauw team members at gunpoint as organize a program that has specific infatuation, in some of the bizarre and armed enlisted men chased down local educational objectives as relevant to the purposely fractured color and image, male adolescents for recruitment into DePauw community and its but unlike Stevens, Cox's life is always the army. understanding of social and in the poems. Experiences such as these developmental issues inside the United Many of these poems have provided DePauw team members States and in the third world. Whatever celebrate a life redeemed from valuable insights into other cultures and program is to emerge, it must have a alienation and lack of meaning and a global education that cannot be more thorough preparation and suggest the possibility of grace in our understood, let alone felt, in the screening of participants than presently time through choice and action. They classroom. The philanthropic goals, exhibited and should have components are generous towards the complicated however, are inappropriate and limit for digestion of the experience and workings of the contradictory human the educational experience of project dissemination of learned insights to the impulses, including his own, so often team members. The time and energy DePauw and Greencastle communities. ingloriously pursuing love or DePauw team members spend at The potential of the Winter gratification, as in the line from construction sites, health clinics and Term in Mission Program has remained "River:" "Blame it on the Mississippi in education talks, as well as in DePauw unrealized because of its misdirected each of us." team activities, prevents them from good intentions. It is time for the "Tell Us Everything You focusing on cross-cultural interactions program to become more realistic and Know" speaks of an old life and of a that could raise their understanding of responsible with its goals and new life: "If I were an American Indian people in Honduras and Sierra Leone. objectives. MwR my name would be Registers Slowly) but I uncrossed my arms one morning and admitted/that people can't bury • FASHION NEWS themselves." The poem ends, "(I). . What's New .confessed. . .that the weight of the What's Hot world can't be carried by six people) Season Keynotes but has to be/and is." • FASHION MUST HAVES Anyone who has followed new American poetry through the 80s • LATEST Colors, Fabrics, Prints with any closeness knows that these And More, More. More poems, individually and as a collection, earn their way towards the top of a very • The Best of ACCESSORIES large pack. Mark Cox is and will be an important poet. MwR JOHNNY JOHN'S FASHION BOUTIQUE ▪More than a clothing store, shoes & accessories toot 15500 Indiana Si, Greencastle, IN

MAY 1990 23 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0 Poetry Feast

The Walls in This Room Are White

"The walls in this room are white!" she cried. She being herself, and nobody else, knew what she liked and she definitely did not like white walls. No one could understand what was going on inside her head—herself, least of all.

"My life is not a computer terminal for your information!" he answered. He was married to her, but was not infatuated with her. He liked the white walls. He was lost on how else he differed from her, other than his taste for white walls.

--Mark Burdge Copper Mine

Every penny I find and hold and wish upon, is made of copper. They come that way, you know. What else should a penny be made of? I swallow them. Each one is seasoned—randomly, mind you. This one here has caught the flavor of the afternoon mist. Above me is a thick carpet of pillows tinged in the hue of a sluggish tin. Fashions For Men and Women I offer Lincoln like a paten, and down goes number sixteen. Much smoother than goldfish—in case you were wondering. I breathe deeply and smell the moist freedom released from the city at the base of this hill. --Mark Burdge 4111

(Weathervane

'limiter 'Me Portico On Main St. Dirwntown Crawfordsville

24 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

Night

A raccoon digs into the seven Hefty trash bags taken to the end of the driveway Wednesday evening after dinner.

A mess blamed on the trashman's carelessness.

Bill leaves the town tavern well past two, driving his rusted '74 LTD Ford. The muffler drags and sparks against the ground.

He reaches for the pull-out lighter, takes his eyes off the road and slams into three mailboxes, but still makes it home with only a leak in the radiator.

The moles living in the backyard pile up mounds of moist, black earth. Their wormlike tunnels criss-cross the lawn.

Our neighbor, Shirley, would rent a bee smoker,clear the dirt away from one of the openings, attach a tube to the end of the smoker and smoke the moles out. Walt, her husband, would beat them dead with a flat, square, mud-clotted spade.

Three members of the "Sinners" rumble up to the all-night convenience store in their customized Harleys. One fills his tank, while the other two go in to take a peek at the girly magazines and buy a couple packs of smokes.

My cousin Kent rides a cycle. He is 34 and still lives with Aunt Velma. Her house is full of cats.

The frogs living in McCormick's Pond belch during the night. They feed on crickets living in the tall grass around the pond.

During the state's annual frog junping contest in Kentucky, a contestant tries to enter a Giant Chinese Bullfrog. He is disqualified when the judges find out the frog is carnivorous.

A policeman, who just switched to the night shift, falls asleep at the wheel of his cruiser and knocks down a telephone pole. The pole falls through Lou's Pizza Place. The officer calls it in under a 9-14.

Mom has had three speeding tickets in two months. She has to attend defensive driving classes.

I sleep dreamless in my bed.

--Mike Tompkins

MAY 1990 25 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW° Problems with Time and Space drain the rest.

Sleep is the diviner, And it's so quick, too. Nausea is the burglar. In two minutes I can run into: The Wonderful Order of the Cosmos Both gods, both bullfighting The dangers of the Human Cannonball in the arena of night. Prejudice in the South If Nausea kidnaps my stomach, What Lawyers Really Do it nabs my soul too, leaving me naked in bed There's a lot for someone like me to keep up with. flapping my eyelids What Was I Doing Two Minutes Ago? like a matador shaking his cape. I am a satellite. The bull is the Dream Girl Even as I sleep and I wish her to win. I am shooting around the globe, If Sleep grants me entrance entranced, drugged I am pinned to her beauty. with glimmers of memories of a world I've seen I watch her run careful steps or will see. in her heavy steel boots. The boots allow her to be choosy, Like Nolan. put her feet in only the right places. Nolan is a manogram who comes to see me at night and keep me company. After each stride, His hand is warm and strong in mine I kneel down in the swamp as he speaks. and read her prints like braille. He talks as if he's kissing. They fertilize my hands with perspective. He says to me, I'm not quite sure what they say, Chaos, Liane, chaos. she's her own language. No order, But she's as articulate No reason, as Nausea is criminal. No constellations more than in your living room.

Either way, But Nolan, I am not in control of my own breath. if I open the windows, I must keep praying. extend the house, the view... Maybe add a screened-in porch 2 for that summer evening breeze. Or no screen, just free I depend on my television to the night air, yes. to channel the world into half-hours But then, all those bugs. and let me pick the best ones. I need its persistence. Serving Greencastle for 43 Years It's paradise in a sieve— The Original Kersey Music save the important things, M fg Kersey Music Co. 111( ow low I= ■Im■ On the town square (317)653-6824 Greencastle, IN 46135 A Full Service Music Store 26 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

Come on, Liane, he says, Should I say more? a porch is as good as your ceiling. The world can be told in a shrug. Dream on that landscape. You could use the breathing room. People don't understand, they are noisy. Their hot words burn in the air 3 with unfocused energy. They make me cough. As soon as your eyes are latched to Sleep I exist. God, shut up, will you? This is my polluting message. There's no much more to tell about myself that you haven't already guessed. Sound redeems nothing. Words are the wall You know that I quiver as I run, that silence paints on. that I'm just dying to kick off these clumsy boots and stay awhile. But drop the wall and the graffiti strokes become wind, But I have a god too free to rattle your chimes. and I must follow its rules. I know it looks like I'm leading you, Don't you know that things but I'm no more controller only make sense if you move them? than slave. I am just the tour guide of your dreams. So run, you big talkers, run with me. Take from the wind what it offers. I run because I do not want to find An embrace the chance to explain, to clutter from the embassy the mind with reasons. of a warm, wall-less summer night.

—Dave Martin

CARRIE LARSON UNTITLED CHARCOAL

MAY 1990 27 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW 0

For Mrs. Till in honor of her son

Tallahatchie River, I asked Them a question. What has happened to my son? He didn't want that woman, the bitch. No, she wanted him. They wanted him. You gave me the answer. So, they took my Mr. Chicago. They were tried, not convicted, Beat him. Castrated him. Shot him. My shirt tear stained, Used your natural flowing streams My son—gone. To hide their hideous crime. Their crime against Life—against Love. The whistling wind blows and carries his scent. The boyhood laughter and northern teachings. Acquitted, Tallahatchie—acquitted for killing my son, Tallahatchie. It was o.k. there—to whistle, that is. They killed dream. Tallahatchie, they killed me. They killed me. They killed liberty. Tallahatchie River located in your stream 9 months + my hours of labor + Tallahatchie River, now again you run cool, all my child's young dreams. Only with a red hue, Tallahatchie, They killed you too.

—Seana Murphy

JULIE MILTENBERGER UNTITLED

28 MAY 1990

°MIDWESTERN REVIEW°

down around kathmandu

Leaning back is the hardest. With your hands on the rope you don't know what to trust but you hope that the fool at the rental place rigged it right or boom you'll be in the bay butt first. And so afterwards you're just a little wet but not so wet that you can't go into the bar and order a drink. You've had the tiny umbrella conversation before, so now you're looking for something deeper. But not this deep, because it's about life and light and fire and something else (her eyes are grey) that makes your mouth dry, and you wonder why your cigarets last so long 'cause no one else's seem to. Maybe you're special and maybe you're not so just in case you order another drink for yourself and one for the girl. Because really, you never know. You could fall at any time. —Polly M. Harrold

morning, sugar creek

We awoke before the deer. Separating, we watched them toe through the thin trees outside our window. Their breath came in small white puffs. The night before there had been a family of racoon, eyes flash-silver in our headlights. Then we too, step through the leaves, following the path down to the creek. We have missed the deer. Standing at the limestone edge I look skyward to see one dark form join another on an outstretched limb. The dead tree shakes under so much weight. Overhead a hawk flies, and suddenly the sky is filled with smaller bodies; wings beating, calling. L ea {ic^l Blackbirds Ladies' Fine Apparel against a dove sky. • Pendleton • J.H. Collectibles —Polly M. Harrold • Christian Dior • Shoes & Boots • Jones New York • Estee Lauder • Ruff Hewn • Cambridge Dry Goods and many more 101 N. Washington Open until 8 on Tuesdays 362-0888 Downtown Crawfordsville MAY 1990 29 Years of Gleaning

For whenever the hero stormed through the stations of love each heart that beat for his sake only lifted him higher and, already turning away he stood at the end of the smiles transformed. (Duino Elegies,Sixth Elegy, Rainer Maria Rilke)

Already now somewhere across this rolling meadow I find myself surrounded by exploding golden sun spots all lion's teeth in the fat faces resting on green swaying fleshpole figures. My vision's distance blurs recognition and remembrance of identities once promised reservations in my soul's eternal roadside motor lodge.

If it's true the dandelion is a weed then many have been common on my lawn with more than me in common. They've undermined the field to feed on the coronary force. But I'm the root-twisting gardener and I carry quite a glow in my low slung pouch from the spoils of my crossing. You might think the secret is in my tools: the plough, the spade, the hoe.

I hold sweet sudden fury in the muscles of my thumb. And all the heads pop off.

—T.S. Caw

30 MAY 1990 °MIDWESTERN REVIEW o Non-Profit Organization Midwestern Review U.S Postage DePauw University PAID Central Mailing Service Permit No 17 Greencastle, Indiana 46135 Greencastle, Indiana 46135

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