OUR MAGAZINES
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APPETITE Volume XXII
We are the dreamers. Our dreams are the fleeting whimsies of what we can become: a version of ourselves chasing knowledge & progress & life. Yes, this generation dreams. We’ve all felt it— the slow discontent gnawing, hungering, growing within us: a voracious desire to learn & grow. We are the insatiable generation; we desire it all. Through our literary magazine, we invite you to experience those wants with us as a three-course meal. Starting with the appetizer, an initial curiosity emerges featuring light colors like the moment of discovery & sparks of desires. When our hunger deepens, the entree is served. It is dark, mired in all that we may become. But as dessert finally arrives, we start to question. Are we truly fulfilled? Can we grasp the version of ourselves that we dream of? Regardless of the answer, we hope that you find your own hunger. We hope that your own appetite grows, insatiable, red, and waiting.
VESTIGIAL - VOLUME XXI (2023)
Look at the coffee grounds at the bottom of your cup; dig out the pencil stub shortened past sharpening; brush away the eraser shavings. Press your pinky to your thumb, flex; does a tendon emerge? Cobbled from remnants of the past, we are proof of the four-billion-years-long rat race. We as life cling to the story of our past, from carbon compounds bubbling in primordial soup to now. Supernova blooms tear themselves apart, casting carbons and hydrogens — we are the vestiges of stars processed by time, clutching to any proof of our nebulous greater meaning. But, do we remain stationary in our memories? Can we turn back in time to the past? Locked in the present, we carry our memories, building the dimension that fits our identity: clumsy and self-fulfilling; wishing, dreaming, hoping.
CONCRETE- VOLUME XX (2022)
“Follow your dreams” is a phrase we’re all familiar with, one that we are always told yet never seem to follow. It is a saying that nurtures the spout growing between the gaps of cracked concrete, only for it to wither away after growing beyond the sidewalk, dried up by the sun and trampled over by remorseless feet. Stuck in an endless cycle of not being able to do the things we dream of doing, being confined to the things only bringing status or wealth to our lives, our aspirations often stay abstract, existing in thought only, and wanted, but not able to be conceived. However, opportunities to break free exist, chances to embed yourself into the cracks of the cement. And it is only when creative feelings have been bottled up for so long that they can produce the most heartfelt pieces, ones that are the most concrete of all.
EPHEMERAL- VOLUME XVIII (2020)
Oh to be a star, a twinkling transient drifting endlessly through space, galavanting through the galaxies and navigating nebulae! To be sauntering along stardust, climbing through the cosmos, parading amongst the planets. Little do we know, we are supernovas, bursting with potential and exploding with energy! We are celestial bodies of immeasurable power, orienteering orbits and adapting to absolute zero. Every breath signifies the birth and the death of a star somewhere in this infinite world. We yearn for the heavens, unaware of the stardust within our veins. We are cut from the same cloth as the fabric of our universe, and our very atoms used to be adrift in space, searching for purpose. Now that purpose has been realized: to give life to the ephemeral beings dreaming of stars as they hurtle through space on a tiny rock they call home.
— Ma fleur est éphémère, se dit le petit prince.
“My flower is ephemeral,” said the little prince.
GLITCH- VOLUME XVIII (2019)
Like a program, we are born knowing only a single set or morals, transfixed within a binary system of government that defines its people as numbers and success as leaves of people. Black or white, girl or boy, right or wrong - we have inadvertently follower set restrictions and have chosen to trek far from the boundaries of life. We believe, but have forgotten to explore.
Today, we find this glass to be shattering: we are choosing to explore the grey, break beliefs, and grow between the in-between. As one, we are the grey who not only think, but exist outside the box; we are those who have turned to face the light instead of solely perceiving the shadows. More and more, our world is breaking the mold of society's perceptions and are becoming liberated from the numbers that chain us within expectation's grasp; as puppets who have chosen to rip at our strings, we're learning to discover and adapt to the world that we conceive, no longer interpreting life at face value or bound to the mindset and reasoning of the established.
Finally, the system is crashing. Finally we are free.
Through our literary magazine, we invite you on a journey to experience seeing our world in its true colors. As you flip through the pages, and as the art becomes more convoluted and abstract, we hope that you too join us in becoming a part of a better world: one that's defined by its own creation, own adventures, and own people.
FLESH- VOLUME XVI (2018)
As children, we may try to chase the wind across fruitful fields, only to fall down, out of breath. As children, we may try to climb that old pine tree in our backyards, only to stop, hovering three feet up, too frightened to venture further.
These moments mark the beginning reel of the human experience - simple to some, convoluted to others. When we first crawl from the womb towards cityscapes and skylines, towards forest fires and moonlit beaches, we are barren canvases for the universe to paint on. We see the world as a sparse, black-and-white charcoal sketch, but as we grow into our own flesh, color floods in. We learn that perhaps there are no absolute truths, that even without ourselves there exist enigmatic paradox and complexities. Though we hail from various corners of the world, though we speak in different tongues and write in different styles, our journey from the human experience is collective-taking form, like the human body, through our cuts and bleeds and obstacles.
And finally, with our hard-won introspection, we can run across unbounded terrains on strong legs, and catch the wind that once left us on our scabby knees. And finally, with our newfound insight, we can climb higher, past the branches that once punctured our faces, reaching the canopy of leaves at a once intimidating height.
Through our literary magazine, we invite you on a celebration of this process we call life. As you flip through the pages, as the art becomes more colorful and detailed throughout, as the titles vary in handwriting styles, we hope that you find your own journey, own individuality, mirrored throughout.
CEREBRAL- VOLUME XV (2017)
We welcome you to come on a journey with us as you travel through our magazine: from the left brain, over the cerebral cortex, and to the right brain. During this journey you will experience both the logical and the creative aspects of art, as well as the connections between them. Often times, the left and right brains are considered to be opposites, however in art, aspects of each come together to form a masterpiece. As you explore the chapters of Cerebral, we hope you see aspects of each side within yourself, and take away the idea that life does not exist in a division of left and right, but rather as a combination of the two. Be it in writing, art, or everyday life, we hope you embrace all aspects of yourself, and rather than focus on the differences, focus on the connections that form with the fusion of both sides. As you continue through the rest of the literary magazine, we hope that in losing yourself among the writing in art, you find your own cerebral cortex connecting left and right.
PRISM- VOLUME XIII (2015)
We are each built upon our shapes, our simple circles and triangles and lines and curves that are our roots. In the same way, the world which we inhabit is built upon its shapes. Every building in a city is a mere rectangle at its base, just as the cylindrical trunk of each tree in the forest provides the tree's foundation. However, the misconception held too strong in society is that these shapes are, in fact, our definitions. The world has believed the the gender, race, social class, characteristics that we are born into, limit us to a certain mold of who we are to become in our futures. The shapes that supposedly define us are, in actuality, the shapes that merge to create an individual prism of each living, breathing human. These shapes take in the light of the world and all it has to offer, and they reflect back a different spectrum of light for each and every personality. Our roots cease to define us; our roots enable us, shape us, to define ourselves.