Poem by Gus Laessig – Original Artwork by Karin Söderquist for Paradigm Magazine      
Praying for Laughter    
My mom has this infectious laughter, that brings me to my knees.
   
While I was safe in the next room eating peanut butter from the jar, kneeling in front of the T. V. I overheard her promising men felatio for a line or a couple of pills
   
Mom and him went up the stairs bubbling with laughter he came down and went straight out; then she’d come stumbling after
   
Sometimes she didn’t come right down though. So I’d drag my footed ...

read post »

 
“I’m certainly in no position to say why these cycles in history happen, let alone the reason that they happen when they do; all I know is that, I have the ability to decide for myself whether I act with honesty, integrity and compassion. I’ll commit myself to doing so if for no other reason than to treat others the way I’d like to be treated.”  
-David Lamb
      Introduction & Interview Theo Constantinou – Photographs by Mikael ...

read post »

 
“I think freedom is fearlessness. It’s kind of like being able to step off a cliff in a way and trust the fact that you’ll guide yourself to whatever the hell it was you were looking for.”  
-Steve Linden
        Interview by Theo Constantinou & Introduction by Sarah Stuve from Wonderpuss Octopus     Steve Linden was working with strips of linoleum from old tenement buildings in the Bronx during the late 1970s, creating geometric 2D shapes that gave the allusion ...

read post »

 
“This is the cycle of life farmers have created since they first started breeding the wildness out of chickens centuries ago. We’re just following it, trying to do right by a creature who may no longer have the pedigree to protect herself from an uncivilized alley cat. But there was a reason she kept going in that tree. It’s something that we may never understand, something that may have been bred out ...

read post »

“The story ends in death like it does for anyone else, but on the way it will be quite interesting.”  
-Henry Rollins
Introduction & Interview Theo Constantinou – Photographs by Heidi May
This is our second interview with Henry in the last couple of months. A lot of questions weren’t asked the first time, but more specifically, we were asked to talk to Henry about his tour, ‘The Long March.’ This Thursday, he will be stopping in our ...

read post »

 
“As time fades away and you depart from the normal, habit formed routine … as you encounter new things, sights, sounds, languages, cultures, people, new food, new temperatures, new insects, all of it pulls you through shades of perspective. The more we embody new aspects of perspective, the less that the worn and tired perspective of habit commands perception. It is through this process that one might learn to transcend the limitations, the ignorance, intolerance ...

read post »

 
“Seems like the memory forms a shell around the event, or the person … then the process of remembering becomes just the memory. The next time, it’s the memory of the memory and so on; in order to know, to live, you have to forget, you can’t remember everything all the time.”  
-Eyvind Kang
      Introduction & Interview Theo Constantinou     Instead of introducing this interview, I will attempt to answer the questions Eyvind asked of me during our interview.   Who ...

read post »

 
“I didn’t know I was looking at history. When you witness the birth of a legend, of course you don’t know.”  
-William Wilde
      Editorial by William Wilde & Photograph by Michal Martychowiec         ‘There Are Places I Remember…’     When I was old enough to drink legally – I’d been drinking illegally for three years, since I was 15 – I was in Liverpool. It was my first job. The only places in that great northern seaport where one could get ...

read post »

 
“Struggle always leads to innovation. Whenever there is a rough period in anyone’s life, they have to overcome some sort of obstacle in order to get to the next level.”  
-Cameron Vance
      Below is a detailed account of life on tour with Banned Books through personal journal entries, photographs, drawings and conversations: sporadic and lengthy just like life. By Theo Constantinou.         2/1/12   316 Bellmawr, NJ. Another conversation turned into reality. The night before heading on tour with ...

read post »