NAR CHP Creative Works Journal Spring 2014

NAR Staff

Greg Dixon | Jessica Bogdanoff

Co-Editors-in-Chief

Christina Treble

Advisor

Website

http://blogs.uci.edu/narchp/

Email

NARCHP@gmail.com

Your Name Here

Contact Us To Be Part of the NAR Team!!!

Nicole Block

Staff

How to NAR

STEP 1: Start with a crazy idea. It can be anything – a song mash-up of

David Guetta and Weird Al Yankovich, a story about a killer raccoon, a

photograph of a person’s glabella, a well-colored drawing depicting finals

week. We accept everything!!!

STEP 2: Make it happen!!!

STEP 3: Email it to us at NARCHP@gmail.com.

STEP 4: Stare at your inbox for hours in breathless anticipation.

STEP 5: Rejoice when you receive the “Congratulations” email.

STEP 6: Party at the Unveiling as you share your creativity with CHP!

CHP.

And now you know how to NAR.

So go do it!!!

Table of Contents

Cover Phantom Ranch, Colorado David Cao

1 Re(ject)-cast Michael Shenk

2 The First Snow Marina Toft

4 Sunrise on the Trail David Cao

5 Midnight Sunrise Timothy Chung

6 The Crane Wife Judy Mak

7 Out in the Desert David Cao

8 A Vineyard in … Hubert Ta

10 At A Restaurant Judy Mak

13 Boom and Bust David Cao

14 Purpose in Person Michael Shenk

I don't fit in their schemas

I don't belong

Or maybe it's because

What I'm doing is wrong

Maybe it's not what they see

But what I hold

Not them, but me

Who feels I must be told

That I am being left behind

"You're just too slow"

But it's me who is unkind

For now I know

I couldashouldawoulda

But I didn't think straight

Now, I imagine, "I toldya"

And I'm locked out the gate

Re(ject)-cast

by Michael Shenk

Spring 2014 1

I didn't know you were walking behind me when I had my head tilted all the way

back to watch the snow falling from the stars. I didn't mind that you had been watching,

though. You were surprised, though, when we sat on the second level on the bus and I

told you that I had never seen snow fall. I've seen snow, once or twice, on trips to "the

snow," but by then it had done its duty and was taking a well-deserved rest on the ground.

It's normal to you, but it's magic to me. I think that's true of a lot of things.

It was cold when we walked to the pub, but warm inside, where voices chattered

in tones unlike mine and I tried not to be too loud when I got excited over the things we

talked about. You told me about your research and your writing and I sat there feeling

like the world's laziest underachiever until I said something that made you smile at me

like I was interesting. You quoted Wilfred Owen to the only person in a ten-mile radius

who had no clue you had a slight speech impediment because to me, you just sound

foreign (because I am). I grabbed a kid's menu to find nonsense words in the wordsearch

and you looked at me like I was kind of nuts and maybe a little immature, but then you

made up better definitions for "regqci" and the other strings of letters than I ever could

have. We found lots of new words, but I didn't find one to describe how exactly it can be

that the dimple on your right cheek is mischievous even when you're not up to anything

but listening to me talk about weird pop culture things that you don't get because you're

too busy reading Roland Barthes and having drinks with Holocaust survivors.

Before the movie started the trailer for Les Miserables I tried to control my

NAR 2

The First Snow

by Marina Toft

Spring 2014

excitement, but I still sang my way through the whole thing and you said that you wanted to go

when it opened just to watch me watch it. Which is fine by me as long as I get to watch it. Then

James Bond slept with willowy femmes fatales and things exploded and I thought it was weird

that you turned to face me when I tried to whisper comments in your ear - how were you going to

hear what I said?

We went back to the pub and talked about spoken word and Belle & Sebastian and our

parents until we realised that the pub had closed a half an hour before but everyone was too

polite and British to interrupt us. So we walked to the bus stop and my teeth were chattering

because my shoes were wrong and I was tired and cold and maybe just a little nervous and then I

saw just a little hint of falling snow and got all giddy again. I stopped in front of Tesco Express

to stare up at the little flakes floating down from out of nowhere. I knew when I looked down

that you were going to kiss me, so I kept looking up.

Then your face was close to mine and suddenly it wasn't so cold anymore, even for a

California girl in her first December outside of the sunshine.

You held my hand as we walked to the bus stop and I kept looking up at the pinpricks in

the sky as some of them fell. I told you to watch for cars because I'd be watching for snow and

you, poet that you are, told me I missed a chance for a rhyme - "watching for stars," you chided

me.

Somehow tonight they feel the same.

3

NAR 4

Sunrise on the Trail by David Cao

Today I saw your smile for the first time

It was at some joke I made as we talked

that night of the moon's own grin above

Both casting their own kind of light

One was bright, yours brighter still

Crookedly perfect as we paused in speaking

Minutes pass, and I answer and ask

In my mind the smile on your face yet

Stays through words and quiet laughter

In present and mere moments ago

Day breaks and we remain here

More stories told and heard even

Though the moon falls beneath earth

As we embrace before parting ways

I close my eyes, so I can once more

See your smile for the first time today.

5 Spring 2014

by Timothy Chung

Midnight Sunrise

I couldn’t quite make the world

golden, or shimmer-white

enough for her, my crane wife,

but I could click my little tongue

and make her maybe laugh

with my crocodile words.

We caught each other, once—

I as she fell from flight

and she from other sins

that hunt me in the night.

I couldn’t keep her long.

Just she stripped me with her eyes—

and then glued me back together

with her kisses

and her feathers.

*The Crane Wife is based off of two songs by the indie folk-rock band The Decemberists, which in turn took their

titles from a Japanese folk tale. The following summary is from Wikipedia: "...a poor man finds an injured crane on

his doorstep (or outside with an arrow in it), takes it in and nurses it back to health. After he releases the crane, a

woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries. Because they need money, his wife offers to

weave wondrous clothes out of silk that they can sell at the market, but only if he agrees never to watch her making

them. They begin to sell them and live a comfortable life, but he soon makes her weave them more and more.

Oblivious to his wife's declining health, his greed increases. He eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make

the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is a crane plucking feathers from her

own body and weaving them into the loom. The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns."

6

The Crane Wife by Judy Mak

NAR

Spring 2014 7

Out in the Desert By David Cao

I’m not the number one authority in the land,

So forgive me if I come off as rather bland,

I’d like to tell a tale of a vineyard in Cali,

Marred by the Sun, the owner, and a country known as Mali,

For it sells the finest grapes and wine,

Once again, not a connoisseur, I pine,

To the critics to give me a magical tale,

Of Men walking into a victorious bale,

With rain and fountains bouncing all around,

Party hard, up and down, nothing yet to be found,

This vineyard is and was rather quaint,

Filled with lead, bullets and paint.

First comes the California Sun,

Bearing down upon us in a gun,

Searing yet glaring, a heat so very daring,

Asking if we feel the need to escape,

Snow, ice, maybe even Watergate,

Liberty in heat, I think the Sun portrays,

Maybe I’ll even ask his masters, those pesky cosmic rays,

A solar flare was present that day,

Wiped nothing but a satellite array,

And of course, with our amazing luck,

The debris rained down, fast as a puck,

The trees and vines on fire, lacking bearing,

Set the first progress onto the maze,

Here comes the next, embroiled in a purple haze.

The owner, the villain, the recluse,

Man! What a piece of work I conclude,

To tell us to set a fire on top of a fire,

A suicide watch, we missed a wire,

The field burned ever so brightly,

As the fuse went, daily and nightly,

For the idea was sabotage I suppose,

NAR

by Hubert Ta

8

A Vineyard in

California

He told me last, a confidante in prose,

That was when I last saw him,

The day was a horrid, stuck in a rim,

So he went about his business, berating clever,

He asked for a telescope under such weather,

To see his bright red field,

Green it once was, stained by black revealed.

The last case of evidence was Mali,

The country in Africa, one in a tally,

Desperation was the call of the land,

For it was surrounded, a country alone,

Suffering the Sahara, with its sand to atone,

As for its relevance, give me a geometric shape,

Who drew the map and gave it no landscape,

For I’d like to inform you sire,

There is no misery or joy in the tire,

Resources my dear! Resources so clear,

You sir better give it here,

Get me out of here, this valley of sand,

So tell me who was the original proprietor,

Who built a vineyard in a desert so quieter?

So why am I talking of a vineyard,

When there are much grander things in card?

It begins with a diagnosis of sorts,

Where one stands and then enters the ports,

A shipment I suppose,

Medicine? Maybe a dose,

Cleared for a bounty, a ranch in the west,

Of course, correction, the vineyard at behest,

A bill of attainder, a bill of sale,

One refuses to admit it, one and frail,

Refusal isn’t compliance, that simply won’t do,

Set fire to the rain, let the fortune bid adieu,

Considering the circumstances, the nature

Reclaimed the arid land, not the Mojave Venture,

And the Vineyard remains an echo

Of its rather virulent former self,

Upstanding, Grandstanding, Magnanimous,

I shall exaggerate the hyperbole so furious,

To impart an olden western tale,

Of a year in which the grapes ran in scale,

The valley beckons for a harvest,

Thou best be wary and earnest.

Spring 2014 9

10

NAR

"Good salad," Patrice, brown hair, brown eyes, 37, right-handed, liked to fix things,

didn't know how to swim, was afraid of spiders, loved the color red, couldn't take

criticism, failed an English class in university by turning in a final assignment in

German and forgetting to respond to her professor's requests to rewrite it, could make a

taco tongue, disliked her job but could make a decent living out of it, had freckles,

sunburnt easily, was a statewide-ranked backgammon player a decade ago, believed in

Jung but not Freud, ate glue as a kid, had one piercing in each ear, voted for Nader in

the 2008 US election but abstained in 2012, used to think aliens were real but now

thought humans were the aliens, still used Hotmail, tried to invest in stocks one time

and lost half a thousand dollars, once dyed her hair red to disastrous results, followed

exclusively but religiously professional snooker and badminton, tried to invest in

Bitcoin another time and made back her half-thousand dollars, was on the debate team

for two years in high school, used less electricity than anyone on her block but was

unaware of it, hoarded tissue paper and dishwasher detergent, had seen every episode of

Seinfeld, and liked her coffee black, said. "I mean, these tomatoes--"

"Ugh, I know! I think they're heirloom tomatoes. And I absolutely have to ask the

waitress if she could give us the chef's recipe for this raspberry vinaigrette," interrupted

Patrice's friend, named Cynthia.

This is the point where I guess I have to introduce the setting.

They're at a restaurant.

Patrice picked at the remnants of the arugula on her plate, which had a radius of exactly

5.5 inches. "You know, it's nice to be able to catch up with you for lunch every once in

a while. I feel like I never see you!"

"Indeed," Cynthia replied, "Luckily, life's been slow lately. It's usually hard to break out

of my shell and go out and see people, but it's nice to see you too." She flipped through

the menus provided on the tabel. "Ooh, these sea salt french fries look amazing. To be

honest, I've, uh, actually never had french fries."

Patrice's jaw dropped to the floor. "You've never had french fries!?"

Cynthia sighed. "My mother was a freak about my diet growing up. She always fed me

like, super healthy foods, like fruits, and vegetables, and fertilizer."

At a Restaurant by Judy Mak

The waitress came by as they were finishing their salads. She had the dead eyes of a dead fish in

a fish market, and was chewing something. Probably bubblegum, but for all Cynthia and Patrice

could tell, it could've been a mouse or something. "What do you want?"

"I'll have the burger with the sea salt french fries, with extra sea salt and black pepper," Patrice.

"I'll have the same!" Cynthia excliamed.

"Okay. Your jaw's on the floor, by the way," the waitress who was chewing something that may

or may not have been a mouse or something said.

"Thanks," Patrice said. She picked up her jaw. She had dropped it on the floor earlier.

The waitress who was chewing something that may or may not have been a mouse or something

walked away. While they were waiting, Patrice moaned to Cynthia about her cat, Sprinklecat,

who had recently passed away, which is a euphemism to say that he shriveled up and died.

"I still can't believe he's gone," Patrice half-whispered, biting her lip as she looked out the

window. There was a scenic view of a parking lot.

"Okay," Cynthia replied.

"I still flinch every time I hear someone say his name or the sound of a can opener."

"Okay."

"I even see him in my dreams. 7 years old, butterscotch fur, loved to sit in buckets, never chased

mice, didn't respond to catnip (or turnip), loved to sit in tubs, ruined the Christmas tree three

years in a row until I set up a chicken-wire fence around the tree, loved to sit in doorways,

played well with other cats but not with dogs, loved to sit in sinks, loved to sit on important

papers, was always hungry and always meowing, preferred fish to chicken, loved to sit on

pillows, was intensely uncomfortable during vet checkups, loved to sit on chairs, never scratched

up furniture, had the softest fur, and loved to barf on people. He was the light of my life...my sin,

my soul. Sprin-kle-cat: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at

three, on the teeth. Sprin. Kle. Cat. He was Sprinkles, plain Sprinkles, in the morning, standing

one foot tall in one sock. He was Sprinkley in slacks. He was Sprinksprink at sunset. He was

Sprinkles on the straight line. But in my arms he was always Sprinklecat.1"

"Okay."

The waitress who was chewing something that may or may not have been a mouse or something

Spring 2014 11

came back with the food and they stared at it and ate it. They didn't eat the waitress, just the

food. Cynthia dug into the sea salt fries with extra sea salt and black pepper.

Then Cynthia shriveled up and died.

Patrice burst into tears, but not literally. Patrice did not explode.

"I never should’ve let you eat sea salt french fries with extra sea salt and black pepper," Patrice

sobbed into her hands through her heavy convulsions, forming a clear puddle on the table. "O

Cynthia, my Cynthia!" Through the absolute sheen of the tears on her face, which glistened like

a wet sea lion ready for his prom night, Patrice, who still had not exploded, on the floor bent her

knees laying on the ground down swearing that she would in history never let a friend eat sea salt

french fries with extra sea salt and black pepper.

The waitress who was chewing something that may or may not have been a mouse or something

came back, saw two nearly-identical plates of a burger and sea salt french fries with extra sea salt

and black pepper but one of them with most of the sea salt french fries with extra sea salt and

black pepper missing, and immediately deducted what have happened.

"Oh! Oh no! I am so, so sorry," she managed to gasp. "We've never had any incidents with our

food before, and certainly not with our esteemed sea salt french fries."

Patrice continued to hyperventilate.

"I just--I had no idea that your friend was a Giant East African Land Snail."

Patrice continued to hyperventilate.

1 Paraphrased, and utterly butchered, from the beginning of Nabokov's Lolita.

12 NAR

Boom and Bust

by David Cao

Spring 2014 13

Purpose in Person by Michael Shenk

The search for a soul mate

For the one who can contemplate

Life's ups, downs, and mysteries

Who'll be with you in health and disease

In the end, the hand that will hold yours as you die

But until then, the hand that will lift you up so high

And you will reciprocate...

A bond you will create

But first, you must find

A person who is your own kind

Yet different, another piece

With which you'll live in peace

And life will seem clear

Purpose found in that one most dear

The being who most accepts

The darkest secrets of your deepest depths

For now, that person, the one, is so far away

For now, my deaf heart is earth's clay

Always transforming, molded anew

And so I must bid love, adieu

NAR 14