Written By: Jordannah Elizabeth
I arrived at a small venue in Greenpoint – Brookyln, NY at about 5 pm to meet up with French music blogger, Juliette Billy and Louise Hayat-Camard (the grand daughter of Marianne Faithful) to see a show. This was the caliber of attendees who made a successful effort to support the then, 18 year old post psych band, The Blue Angel Lounge. The international psych scene traveled far and wide to support the young band’s first American tour in 2010. Continue reading
Written By: Mark Fritz
Editor’s Note: Mark Fritz is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, awarded for his coverage of the Rwandan genocide. He has contributed this op-ed piece to Publik / Private and examines the story of a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, who became famous for her affair with former president, Bill Clinton. Fritz references himself as he was a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, and covered the story when it broke in 1998. Now, he takes a look at the scandal over a 6 year span of time.
May 6, 2014
Remember when you were in your late teens or early twenties, full of ambition and invincibility? Sex was one of the spices in the hot stew of a future furiously unfolding. You could strive for your goals, work 12-hour days, and skip sleep while still reveling in the pure physical pleasures that seemed part of the wild ride to some distant destination of self-satisfied stability. It was a place you were in no particular rush to reach, because the route there was filled with endless, exquisite levels of sublime experiences. Continue reading
Written By: Lindsey Lee
WHERE: Sarasota, Florida
WHEN: Thursday, October 17, 2013
WHO: Me, My Dad, Uncle Todd, & Luis
At 5am on Thursday morning, I was sitting on the ground of the shower, listening to Waxahatchee, trying to decide if it was too early to go into the room my dad and uncle were sleeping in to tell them that I was pretty sure I needed to go to the emergency room. I had been really sick for about five days now (first diagnosed with viral Pharyngitis, then self-diagnosed with possible tonsillitis) and it had been slowly getting worse and worse. I’m not a doctor but, I’m pretty sure when you can no longer speak and are close to not being able to breathe, it’s not a sign that you’re on the road to recovery.
Written by Emily Ballaine
There are certain questions that haunt those who choose to make art for a living. Is this good? Is this worth it? Some buckle under the debilitating self-doubt these voices in the back of one’s head inevitably induce, while others learn to quiet the voices, to embrace the voices, to channel the voices, to say fuck off to the voices. Amina Cain belongs in the latter category. In her latest collection, Creature, Cain channels the anxieties and fears so many writers face—let’s be honest all writers—into stories that bristle on the page, desperate to burst out of such archaic containments as ink and paper. Continue reading
Written By: Eric Street
Sacrifice.
A boy in pain prayed to all who listened.
“How may I be of service?” Said the Devil.
“Make the pain stop.” The boy cried.
“I can, for a price.” Said the Devil.
“Anything!” Screamed the boy.
“I will make you the master of pain, but you must love everyone and everyone shall love you in return.”
“Love?” The boy wondered. Continue reading
This essay is dedicated to our brother and friend, Christo Buffam who passed away recently. -je
How do you fall in love with yourself? The thick purple haze of narcissism is beginning to eat at me. It’s beginning to choke my throat, and I dream of ashrams, passionate lovemaking, and the absence of words. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk about it, I just want you to shut up and tell the truth. My senses are so torn and bashed, and raped by living in a society that is truly enamored with nothing. I watch America coast along and protest for $15 an hour while Syrians are being bombed with poison gas, and one hundred Korean children drowned after the captain of their ferry abandoned their malfunctioning ship, Continue reading
Written By: Skyler Warren
Remember the multiple phases of excitement you went through during a long and highly anticipated road trip?
First, there is the initial excitement that kicks in when the car door closes, the engine gets started and the radio is turned up as you creep onto the open road. Then, after some time, there is that frustration felt when heavy traffic is hit on the freeway, and that moment of complete relaxation when you hit the long stretch of an open two lane road as you glide between the coast on one side and flat fields on the other.
And you experience a sigh of relief when the destination is finally reached. Continue reading
Written By: Giovan Alonzi
I am sitting behind a drum set in a large, black room with royal blue curtains cutting the corners of a window separating me from my band and Jack Shirley. He is operating dials, knobs and screens. He is focused, moving, true and attentive.
My band and I are all very impressed. “Ready when you are,” he says into my headphones. He is operating our spaceship; he is Captain Kirk and Spock, Geordi and Chekhov and sure, even Crusher. “Fuck. Let’s do it again,” I say, staring out of the fish bowl style glass window into the flight deck where (I wonder if) my voice sounds super tiny. I look at the microphone at the other end of this private pantheon, and it’s huge. It’s the most phallic mic I’ve ever seen. It looks alien. It looks like the offspring of the Obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. From what I’ve gathered, it’s recording the meaty “thud” of the room. Again, I am very impressed. ‘Later,’ I think to myself, ‘I must ask this man questions.’ Continue reading
Written By: Emily Ballaine
If the pistol wasn’t pointing at my head I’d kill her. But I can’t let them know. If I let them know there will no longer be a pistol pointing at my head but instead a pistol handle in the back of my head, a glob of blood on those perfectly shined shoes, and my face in the dirt, breathing deep that wet earth smell, so deep it is all I can smell, all that I know, not the rust of blood or the fume of polish or the burn of gunpowder. Wet earth. So I can’t let them know. Continue reading
Publik / Private 