THe uSuaL SuSPeCTS STaFF eDiToR - R. V. Branham WeB DeSiGN - Daniel Watts, Tinker Media CoNTRiBuToRs Karel Capek is best known for his play R.U.R., which coined the term "robot." His prolific output included journalism, essays, plays, translations, travel essays, novels, & short stories, making him the premiere Czech writer in the 1920s & 1930s. Born in 1890, in Bohemia, he died on December 25, 1938, in Prague, of pneumonia and the Munich Agreement (which ceded much of Czechoslovakia to Hitler). Capek's fans include Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Miller, Milan Kundera, and GobQ. Catbird Press has published five other volumes of Capek's work, including: Tales from Two Pockets (Tales from One Pocket/Povidky z jedne kapsy and Tales from the Other Pocket/Povidky z druhe kapsy, published in Prague in 1929, & 1st translated by Paul Selver in abridged ed., 1932; translated by Norma Comrada, collecting all 48 of the stories from the 2 collections, Catbird Press, 1994); Three Novels: Hordubal, Meteor, An Ordinary Life (translated by M. & R. Weatherall, [London], 1948; Catbird Press, 1990). The story The Man Who Knew How To Fly has never been translated into English before & was added to the latest edition of Apocryphal Tales (translated by Norma Comrada, Catbird Press; Kniha Apokryfu). The story Time Stands Still is from Crossroads (translated by Norma Comrada, Catbird press, 2002). Both these stories are published here bilingually. Jon Carr is a Portland resident, who among other things, served in the Peace Corps. Floozy, his first published story, placed 3rd in a Willamette Week short story contest last Spring; this caused controversy when the fiction judges declared they much preferred this story to the 1st place winner. We are proud to give Floozy a second home and look forward to his next story; no contest. Norma Comrada has translated Capek's Tales From Two Pockets, Apocryphal Tales, Crossroads, the play Mother and selections from Toward The Radical Center: A Karel Capek Reader. She also translated Klíma's Karel Capek-Life & Work. Retired from a varied career, she is a leading U.S. authority on Capek, & resides in Oregon. Susan Daitch is author of the novels L.C. (Dalkey Archive) and The Colorist, (Vintage Contemporaries), as well as the collection Storytown. Her fiction has appeared Top Stories, The Pacific Review, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction (issue devoted to Daitch, David Foster Wallace, & William Vollmann). Originally a visual artist, she was drawn to texts. Her stories have also appeared in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Fiction, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology, 1998. She lives in NY, sometimes visits the West Coast, and someday-we hope-she will finish her book about the Dreyfus trial & Georges Melies. For this issue she has graced us with a story, Hypnosis. Andrea Dworkin is a radical feminist author of 14 books, including Intercourse (Free Press, 1987, 10th anniversary edition, Free Press, 1997),, Pornography: Men Possessing Women (Putnam, 1981, published with a new introduction by the author, 1989), and the novels Mercy (Secker & Warburg, 1990; Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991), and Ice and Fire (Secker & Warburg, 1986). Her most recent book is Heartbreak: The Political Memoir Of A Feminist Militant (Basic Books, 2002). She is working on a new book about gender and national identity. A Day At the Lake is quintessential Dworkin, as compelling and unforgettable a short story as we've read in years. Laura Esquivel started as a screenwriter & director for children's theatre. Her most well-known novel is Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies, translated by Carol & Thomas Christensen (Doubleday, 1991; Como agua para chocolate: novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores, y remedios caseros, Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 1989). She is married to Alfonso Arau (who directed her film adaptation of Like Water For Chocolate/Como agua para chocolate); she lives in Mexico D.F. with her husband & daughter. Her other screenplays include Chido One (1985, Ariel Award nominee for best screenplay, Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences), and Little Ocean Star (1994), a children's feature. Her other novels include: The Law of Love (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, Crown, 1996; Ley del amor, 3 Rivers Press, 1995); Between Two Fires: Intimate Writings on Life, Love, Food & Flavor (translated by Stephen Lytle, Crown, 2000; Intimas Suculencias: Tratado Filosofico de Cocina, Ollero & Ramos, Madrid, 1998); Estrellita marinera: una fabula de nuestro tiempo (Ollero y Ramos, Madrid, 1999); Swift as Desire, (Crown, 2001; Tan velos como el deseo, Anchor, 2001). Her essay, Maíz, published here bilingually, is a mythopoeic examination of Mexican agribusiness. Marilyn Hacker has written nine books, including Winter Numbers, which received a Lambda Literary Award & the Lenore Marshall Award of The Nation magazine & the Academy of American Poets in 1995, Selected Poems which was awarded the Poets' Prize in 1996, & the verse novel Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons. Her most recent book, Squares and Courtyards, was published by W.W. Norton in 2000. A Long-Gone Sun, her translation of Claire Malroux's poem-narrative of W.W. II, was published by The Sheep Meadow Press in 2000. Here There Was Once a Country, her translations of the poems of Vénus Khoury-Ghata, was published in 2001 by Oberlin College Press. She Says, another translated collection of Vénus Khoury-Ghata's poems, in a bilingual edition, will be published by Graywolf Press in the spring of 2003. Marilyn Hacker's own new collection, Desesperanto, will also be published in the spring of 2003 by W.W. Norton. Among her many other activities, she edited the Kenyon Review from 1990-1994; in 1971, she co-edited QUARK, a quarterly anthology of speculative fiction, with Samuel R. Delany. She lives in NY & Paris. Her translation of Vénus Khoury-Ghata's poem cycle, Les Mots, is presented here bilingually. Alice Hutchinson hails from the U.K. & lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she writes for The Oaxaca Times (an English-language paper) and has had pieces published in Latin America Press, & The News, Mexico. Her travel writing, often dealing with human rights violations, can also be found at Hackwriters.com, a webzine. She has assured as she'll send further dispatches. Vénus Khoury-Ghata is a Lebanese poet & novelist, resident in France since 1973, author of a dozen collections of poems & as many novels. She received the Prix Mallarmé in 1987 for Monologue du mort, the Prix Apollinaire in 1980 for Les Ombres et leurs cris, & the Grand Prix de la Société des gens de lettres for Fables pour un peuple d'argile in 1992. Her Anthologie personnelle, a selection of her previously published & new poems was published in Paris by Actes Sud in 1997. Her work has been translated into Italian, Russian, Dutch, German & Arabic, & she was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 2000. Her poems, in Marilyn Hacker's translations, have appeared in the English-speaking world in Ambit, Banipal: a Journal of Modern Arab Literature, Connect, Field, Global City Review, Jacket, The Manhattan Review, Metre, Poetry, Ratapallax, Shenandoah, & Verse. Her most recent collection Compassion des pierres, was published by La Différence in 2001; the poem cycle, Les Mots, translated by Ms. Hacker & published here bilingually, comes from this collection. Ivan Klíma was born in 1931, in Prague, Czechoslovakia. During the Prague Spring, he edited the Literarni noviny, the weekly journal of the Czech Writer's Union. In 1969 he was Visiting Professor at University of Michigan, but returned to Czechoslovakia in 1970. One of two hundred banned dissidents, rather than emigrate, he chose to stay & cope. During the ban, an illegal quasi-Samizdat network emerged to circulate typewritten or even hand-written works, including Klíma's. After the Velvet Revolution & fall of the Czech communist regime, Klíma became an officer & spokesman for the revived Czech PEN branch, & was made president in 1990. With restrictions loosened, Klíma was able to return to America as visiting professor at University of California at Berkley in 1997. He has written fiction, journalism, essays, & plays. His play Klara was first produced off-Broadway in 1969. His novels include A Ship Named Hope (translated by Edith Pargeter, Gollancz, 1970; Lod jmenem nadeje, Ceskoslovensky Spisovatel, 1969); A Summer Affair (translated by Osers, Chatto & Windus, 1987; Milostne leto, Sixty-Eight Publishers, 1973); Love and Garbage (Chatto & Windus, 1990; Knopf; 1991, Laska a smeti, Prague); Judge on Trial (translated by A. G. Brain, Chatto & Windus, 1991; Knopf, 1993; Soudce z milosti, Prague); Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light (translated by Wilson, Granta, 1994; St. Martin's Press, 1996; Cekani na tmu, cekani na svetlo, Prague); The Ultimate Intimacy (translated by A. G. Brain, Grove Press, 1997; Posledni stupen duvernosti, Hynek, Prague, 1996); No Saints or Angels (Grove Press, 2001; Ani svati ani andele, Hynek, Prague, 1999); and This Is Not a Fairy Tale-It's Real (for children), Jewish Museum, Prague, 2000; O chlapci, ktery se nestal cislem, Prague). His nonfiction includes The Spirit of Prague (essays, Granta, 1994); and Between Security and Insecurity (translated by Gerald Turner, Thames & Hudson, 1999). Ivan Klíma currently resides in Prague, on a hill, where he was safe from the recent flooding. The Failure of the Intellectuals Will Make Barbarians of Us All, reprinted here bilingually, is excerpted from Karel Capek-Life and Work (translated by Norma Comrada, Catbird Press, 2002; Velky vek chce mit tez velke mordy: zivot a dilo Carla Capka). Paul Krassner, six years old, was born in NY, NY. While his older brother, George, took violin lessons from Mischa Goodman, Paul's interest impressed Mr. Goodman, who then decided to start the youngster seriously. Paul was barely 3 years old. The compositions he now plays are far removed from the student's repertoire. (Paul is believed to be the youngest concert artist in any field to appear at Carnegie Hall, as of January 14th. He played the Concerto No. 22, 1st Movement, Allegro Moderato, by Viotti.) This six year old polymath has written such books as The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race (forward by Kurt Vonnegut, 7 Stories, 1996), Sex, Drugs, & the Twinkie Murders (Loompaniacs, Unlimited, 2000), & recorded CDs. Other books attributed to him include Pot Stories for The Soul, The Best of The Realist, and Confessions of A Raving, Unconfined Nut. But the boy is only six years old & these titles go back nearly a decade or more. We can accept his writing a book prenatally, but not preconceptually. We will not be taken for fools. Still, we proudly present two essays from Paul Krassner. Irony Lives! is from Murder At the Conspiracy Convention & Other American Absurdities (intro. by George Carlin, Barricade Books, 2002). Suppressing Homer Simpson is from the CD Irony Lives! (Artemis Records, 2002). M. F. McAuliffe hails from Adelaide, South Australia, & has traveled through India & Afghanistan & Russia & Turkey & Europe; McAuliffe's stories have appeared in Adelaide Review, Australian Short Stories, and Siglo. Various poems have appeared in various webzines, including one edited by Bill Shields; recent material will be in the February 2003 issue of Jacket. M. F. currently lives in Portland, Oregon. The poem Jan Garbarek In Rome is from the book Fighting Monsters, with Judith Steele.
K. Willis Morton lives in Portland, Oregon, & is a full-time parent, freelance writer, & photographer. She divides her time between changing diapers & coaxing giggles from a small boy, working toward a MFA in Creative Writing, trying to be a compassionate human being, keep her floors clear of dust-bunnies, & believing it all matters. Her Lullaby at the Fight Club: the Chuck Palahniuk GobQ & A is published in this issue. Les Murray lives in New South Wales, Australia. He has worked as an educator & editor, & given talks throughout Australia, U.K., Europe, & the U.S. His poetry collections include The Weatherboard Cathedral (Angus & Robertson, Sydney, Australia, 1969); Poems against Economics (Angus & Robertson, 1972); Lunch and Counter Lunch (Angus & Robertson, 1974); Selected Poems: The Vernacular Republic (Angus & Robertson, 1975, 4th expanded ed., 1990, published as The Vernacular Republic: Poems, 1961-1981, Persea, NY, 1982); Ethnic Radio (Angus & Robertson, 1978); The Boys Who Stole the Funeral: A Novel Sequence (sonnets, Angus & Robertson, 1980; Farrar, Straus, 1991); Equanimities (Razorback Press, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1982); The People's Otherworld (Angus & Robertson, 1984); Selected Poems (Carcanet, UK, 1986); The Daylight Moon (Angus & Robertson, 1987; Persea, 1988); The Idyll Wheel: Cycle of a Year at Bunyah, New South Wales, April 1986-April 1987, wood engravings by Rosalind Atkins (Officina Brindabella, Canberra, Australia, 1989); Dog Fox Field: Poems (Angus & Robertson, 1990; Farrar, Straus, 1993); The Rabbiter's Bounty: Collected Poems (Angus & Robertson, 1991; Farrar, Straus, 1992). Translations from the Natural World: Poems (Isabella Press, UK, 1992; Farrar, Straus, 1994); Subhuman Redneck Poems (Duffy & Snellgrove, NSW, Australia, 1996, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize; Farrar, Straus, 1997); New Selected Poems (Duffy & Snellgrove, 1998); Fredy Neptune: A Novel in Verse (Farrar, Straus, 1999); Conscious and Verbal (Carcanet, 1999; Farrar, Straus, 2001); Learning Human: Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus, 2000). His prose & essay collections include The Peasant Mandarin (UQP, Australia, 1978); Persistence in Folly (Angus & Robertson, 1985); The Australian Year (prose; photography by Peter Solness & others, Angus & Robertson, 1985); Blocks and Tackles: Articles and Essays 1982 to 1990 (Angus & Robertson, 1990); A Working Forest: Selected Prose (Duffy & Snellgrove, 1997); The Quality of Sprawl (Duffy & Snellgrove, 1999). The poems published here, At Uni, Fusee, and The Young Fox, are from Poems the Size of Photgraphs, published in Australia earlier this year and soon to be published in the U.K. Chuck Palahniuk's first novel Fight Club received the Oregon Book Award for best novel. A graduate of the University of Oregon, Palahniuk lives in Portland, Oregon. His other novels are Invisible Monsters, Survivor, Choke, and the just-released Lullaby. He's the perfect GobQ & A interviewee. Frederic Raphael was born in Chicago, to English & American parents; he attended St. John's College, Cambridge, & received an M.A. (with honors). Prolific without being prolix, he has written novels, plays, short stories, film scripts, television plays, literary criticism, essays, & translations. A prolific novelist & short story writer, he has written the novels Obbligato (Macmillan, UK, 1956), The Earlsdon Way (Cassell, 1958), The Limits of Love (Cassell, 1960, Lippincott, 1961), A Wild Surmise (Cassell, 1961; Lippincott, 1962), The Graduate Wife (Cassell, 1962), The Trouble with England (Cassell, 1962), Lindmann (Cassell, 1963; Holt, 1964), Darling (NAL, 1965), Orchestra and Beginners (J. Cape, 1967; Viking, 1968), Like Men Betrayed (J. Cape, 1970; Viking, 1971), Who Were You with Last Night? (Cape, 1971), April, June and November (J. Cape, 1972, Bobbs-Merrill, 1976), Richard's Things (J. Cape, 1973; Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), California Time, (J. Cape, 1975; Holt, 1976), The Glittering Prizes (Allen Lane, 1976; St. Martin's, 1978), Heaven and Earth (Beaufort, 1985), After the War (Collins, 1988; Viking, 1989), The Hidden I: A Myth Revised (Thames & Hudson, 1990), Old Scores (Orion, 1995), A Double Life, and Coast to Coast (Catbird Press, 2000). His short story collections are Sleeps Six (J. Cape, 1979; published with Sleeps Six as Oxbridge Blues, Penguin UK, 1984), Oxbridge Blues and Other Stories (J. Cape, 1980; University of Arkansas Press, 1984; published with Sleeps Six as Oxbridge Blues, Penguin UK, 1984), Think of England (J. Cape, 1986; Scribner, 1988), The Latin Lover (Orion, 1994). He won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for Darling, & was nominated for Two For The Road in 1966; his other screenplays include Far From The Madding Crowd, Daisy Miller, and (with Stanley Kubrick) Eyes Wide Shut. He wrote teleplay adaptations of The Glittering Prizes, & Oxbridge Blues; he has directed for television & film. With Kenneth McLeish, he has translated Catullus, Aeschylus, & Euripides; he is currently translating Petronius. His memoirs include Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick (Ballantine, 1999); and the forthcoming A Spoilt Boy (2003). Married, & with three children, he summers in France & returns to England in the fall. The Siren's Song, featured here, is from his short story collection, All His Sons (Catbird, 2001). James Sallis spent his childhood on the banks of the Mississippi River, in Helena, Arkansas. He has worked as a respiratory therapist, musician & music teacher, scriptwriter, magazine periodical editor (including New Worlds in the 1960s), book reviewer, & translator (perhaps best known for his 1993 translation of Raymond Queneau's Saint Glinglin). Currently living in Pheonix, Arizona, with his wife, he has resided variously in London, Paris, NY, Boston, & New Orleans (where he taught at Tulane University). James Sallis is a prolific novelist, short story writer, poet, & journalist. He has been shortlisted for the Anthony, Nebula, Edgar, Shamus, & Gold Dagger awards. His novels include the popular Lew Griffin mysteries: The Long-Legged Fly (Carroll & Graff, 1992; Harpenden:No Exit Press, 1996); Moth (Carroll & Graff, 1993; Harpenden:No Exit Press, 1996); Black Hornet (Carroll & Graff, 1994; Harpenden:No Exit Press, 1997); Eye of the Cricket (Walker & Co, 1997 & 2000; Harpenden:No Exit Press, 1998); Bluebottle (Walker & Co, 1999; Harpenden:No Exit Press, 1999); The Long-Legged Fly/Moth Omnibus Ed. (Harpenden:No Exit Press, 2000); and Ghost of a Flea (Walker & Co., 2001 & 2000; Harpenden:No Exit Press, 2001). Other works include the avant-garde novel, Renderings (Black Heron Press, 1995), & the spy novel, Death Will Have Your Eyes (St. Martins Press, 1997), as well as countless short stories, poems, & essays. His other works include The Guitar Players, Difficult Lives, a study of noir writers, &, most recently, Chester Himes: A Life, a biography of one of his literary heroes. His poem Letter from New World appears here. Bill Shields has his own website, Repoland. Go to Links to click & see. His books include Rosey the Baby Killer, Lifetaker, and Southeast Asian Book of the Dead, available from 21361.com (the website of Henry Rollins' publishing arm, 2.13.61), or from your local bookstore. The brilliant An American Mutt, published here in a revised version, is a singularly and all-too American story. Ian Shoales is un nom under which Merle Kessler sometimes emits satire. His wit has flown under the radar of NPR stations-not often enough. Mr. Kessler recently starred as the Unabomber in a new play premiered at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, TED KACZYNSKI KILLED PEOPLE WITH BOMBS, by Michelle Carter. He is presently working on a solo theatre piece, BROKE, a fond look back at the 21st Century, so far. His most recent book is an anthology of Ian Shoales' essays, Not Wet is available from 21361.com (the website of Henry Rollins' publishing arm, 2.13.61). Shoes: The Wonder, The Mystery will answer questions you did not know you had. Douglas Spangle was born in Roanoke, Virginia, & raised in a Park Service family, spending his childhood throughout the west. His family moved overseas, where he completed high school in Turkey. He studied in Munich, & then spent several years as a stagehand for the Münchener Kammerspiele Schauspielhaus. He moved to Portland, Oregon (via Wisconsin), where he emcees open-mike readings. He was a senior editor of Rain City Review; his poems, translations, & journalism have been in Anodyne, Small Press Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Talus and Scree, Freudian Shrimp, Georgetown Review, Portland Mercury, among other publications. He works as a Maritime Traffic Coordinator & lives on the sunny slopes of Mt. Tabor, perhaps the world's only urban volcano. His poem, Gasket, is published in this issue. Judith Steele lives in Darwin, NT, Australia, & has traveled, studied, & tutored in Indonesia. She was winner of the Red Earth Poetry Prize in the Northern Territory Literary Awards for 2002 & 2001, and joint winner of the 1998 Inaugural Michele Turner Writing Awards. She is co-author (with M.F. McAuliffe) of Fighting Monsters, & has also been published in the Australian journals Northern Perspective, Northerly, Yellow Moon, the Indonesian-Australian journal Coast Lines, and The Animist webzine: She is a member of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation, and has signed up for the Civil Disobedience register in (dis)respect of Australia's current refugee policy. (Visit our links to learn more about these topics.) We're proud to publish a Didge poem & an excerpt from her East Timor journal in this issue. Alexander Theroux is best known for his novels The Three Wogs (Godine, 1972) and Darconville's Cat (Doubleday, 1982, included in Anthony Burgess's 99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939; & a national book award nominee. His other books include the novel An Adultery (Simon & Schuster, 1987), The Lollypop Trollope & Other Poems (Dalkey Archive, 1992), two illustrated stories, The Great Wheadle Tragedy and The Schinocephalic Waif (Godine, illustrated by Stan Washburn, 1975), as well as the popular The Primary Colors: 3 Essays (Henry Holt & Co., 1994) and The Secondary Colors: 3 Essays (Henry Holt & Co., 1996). His most recent book is the wryly affectionate The Strange Case of Edward Gorey (Fantagraphic Books, 2000). Raised Catholic, he professes in one interview to a belief in grace & to sharing Dedalus's interest in taxonomies. His plays include The Viceroy and The Secretive World of Miss Ball. Theroux has taught at M.I.T., Harvard, Yale, & University of Virginia (where he was declared Piled high and Deeper). His fans have included John Updike, Saul Bellow, & the editors of GobQ. His poem Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo Spend a Night Together is published in this issue. Jonathan Tittler, Luisa Valenzuela's translator, teaches at Rutgers University. He also writes about Latin American political violence. Luisa Valenzuela, to quote Carlos Fuentes, "is the heiress of Latin American fiction. She wears an opulent, baroque crown, but her feet are naked." She has not only written novels & short stories, but has also been a magazine editor, journalist, & teacher, teaching at Columbia & NYU. She has also won Fullbright & Guggenheim fellowships. Based in Buenos Aires, she travels extensively, lecturing & teaching in the U.S., Mexico, France, & Spain. Her novels & short story collections include Symmetries (translated by Margaret Jull Costa, High Risk Books/Serpent's Tail, 1998; Simetrias, Editorial Sudamerica, Buenos Aires, 1993); Bedside Manners (translated by Margaret Jull Costa, High Risk Books/Serpent's Tail, 1995; Realidad nacional desde la cama, Grupo Editor Latinoamericano S.R.L., Buenos Aires, 1990); Black Novel, With Argentines (Simon & Schuster, 1992; Novela negra con argentinos, Ediciones del Norte, 1990); The Censors: A Bilingual Selection of Stories (Curbstone, 1992); Up among the Eagles (North Point Press, 1988; Donde viven las aguilas, Celtia, Buenos Aires, 1983); Open Door (short stories, translated by Carpentier & others, North Point Press, 1989); He Who Searches (translated by Helen Lane, Dalkey Archive Press, 1987); Other Weapons (translated by Deborah Bonner, Ediciones del Norte/Persea Books, 1985; Cambio de armas, Ediciones del Norte, NH, 1982); The Lizard's Tail (translated by Gregory Rabassa, Farrar, Straus, 1983; Cola de largartija, Bruguera, Buenos Aires, 1983); Como en la guerra (Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 1977); Strange Things Happen Here: Twenty-Six Short Stories and a Novel (translated by Helen Lane, contains He Who Searches & translation of Aqui pasan cosas raras, translated by Lane, Harcourt, 1979); Libro que no muerde (title means "Book That Doesn't Bite"; includes stories from Aqui pasan cosas raras and Los hereticos, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico D.F., 1980); Aqui pasan cosas raras (Ediciones de la Flor, Buenos Aires, 1976); Clara: Thirteen Short Stories and a Novel, translated by Hortense Carpentier & J. Jorge Castello-contains translations of Hay que sonreir, published as Clara, & stories from Los hereticos, Harcourt, 1976; translated by Andrea G. Labinger, Latin American Literary Review Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1999); Hay que sonreir (novel, Americalee, Buenos Aires, 1966). Her fans include Ishmael Reed, Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, & GobQ. From Here To There, Make Way Gents, and Now You Know What's Out There are self-contained sections from El gato eficaz, a 1972 novel recently translated by Jonathan Tittler as Deathcats, and bilingually included in this issue. A crematorium in Times Square, you say? T. Warburton y Bajo has worked as an art critic, journalist, social worker, interpreter, translator, & photo-researcher; originally from California, he has traveled throughout Latin America, thhe U.S., Canada, & Australia; his essays have appeared in artist books in NY & Australia, including Mother Sun (illustrated & designed by Graham Willoughby), published by Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY; he is an assistant editor of GobQ. He divides his time between L.A. & Portland, Oregon. He translated the Esquivel essay for this issue. Brian R. Wood has written travel articles for Hackwriterscom, a webzine. Having lived in Japan for two years, he is now doing post-graduate work in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. Brian has also lived in Central Africa (Congo, Cameroun, & Gabon) as a Peace Corps Volunteer, & also been to Qatar, Kenya, &-briefly-to Equador. Kitty-Chan Identities: Japan & the Culture of Kawaii, published in this issue, is his take on a contemporary aspect of Baudelaire's forest of signs. |
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