The KPax

[thekpax]

Flowers of Forsyth: Spring Blooms in Savannah

The script for a zine I made as a senior project at SCAD involving the flora of Forsyth Park. Enjoy!

Page 1

Panel 1: Full shot of Forsyth Park. Lots of animals, people, and plants. It’s springtime and lively!

Narration: Savannah is home to the widest flora and fauna in the lowcountry. / When walking Forsyth’s paths, keep your eyes peeled for notable spring blooms along the way!

Panel 2: The Azalea panel; this panel includes an illustration of the azalea and its leaves for identification.

Narration: A famous shade-tolerant shrub of the ericaceae family.

Panel 3: A picture of a black vase with azaleas, alongside a sprig of blackberry.

Narration: Azaleas are close cousins of the blackberry. / But beware! Unlike the blackberry, azaleas are extremely toxic for human consumption!

Panel 4: Bees swarm around a jar full of honey.

Narration: In Turkey, bees are fed the nectra to produce “mad honey,” a mind-altering substance that can be medicinal...as well as fatal. 

Panel 5: The Camellia panel; this panel includes an illustration of the camellia and its leaves for identification.

Narration: Like Azaleas, Camellias are evergreen shrubs. / They belong to the theaceae family.

Panel 6: A Chinese-style tea cup sits in this panel.

Narration: Camellias are edible and have long been cultivated in China. / The leaves can be made into tea...

Panel 7: Image of a camellia alongside a blade.

Narration: And the seeds can be used as cooking oil or to sharpen blades. / They can even live up to 200 years in the wild!

Page 2

Panel 8: The Dogwood panel; this panel includes an illustration of the dogwood bloom and its leaves for identification.

Narration: Southern dogwoods, or Cornus Florida, are easy to grow. / The “flower” is actually modified leaves, called “bracts”. 

Panel 9: Image of the GA state bird, the brown thrasher, near berries on a sprig of dogwood. 

Narration: The red berries taste bad and should not be consumed. / That is, unless you’re a bird. Not only is the fruit a staple of their diet, but birds help spread the seeds.

Panel 10: Spread of the different ways dogwood can be used. A spool of thread, the handle of a tool, an early tennis racket, roller blades, and a bow and arrow.

Narration: The wood of the Cornus family is known for its hardness and has been used for a variety of purposes.

Panel 11: The Southern Jasmine panel; this panel includes an illustration of Southern Jasmine and its leaves for identification.

Narration: Trachelospermum Jasminoides is a vine that is not true jasmine.

Panel 12: Image of a perfume bottle with smoky incense in the foreground.

Narration: It was named for its powerful aroma, which is extracted for use in high-end perfume and incense in Asia.

Panel 13: Tree in foreground with a spiral of Southern Jasmine growing around the trunk. A hiker is in the background with a walking stick. A compass sits on the forest floor.

Narration: An Uzbekistanian adage says the vine will guide you in the right direction if you’re of good character. / So when looking for Southern Jasmine, just follow your nose! 

Panel 14: A basic map of Forsyth Park indicating some general areas to find the flowers in question.

Narration: Now get out there and find your very own Flowers of Forsyth!

[thekpax]

The Brief Wondrous Review of Oscar Wao

Hands down, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is one of the best executions of story and style that I have read to date. The peculiar title easily drew me in. What I found inside its pages, however, has brought me back to this book time and time again. 

Oscar is dead. Before the story even begins, the hero at its center befalls a terrible fate–perhaps the result of a generational curse, the fuku. Yunior, Oscar’s roommate, and Lola, his sister, work in tandem as our narrators for reasons they themselves do not understand. Are they writing to make sense of it all? Or because they feel they owe him some debt? As we the audience piece together the fuller picture of Oscar–a young man obsessed with sci-fi and fantasy, with ambitions to become the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and find true love–Yunior and Lola gain deeper insight into their own identities and trauma through the grueling and emotional writing process.

The passages in Oscar Wao move with conversational ease, drawing the reader from one sentence to the next with Spanglish and nerdy references peppered into a fantastical modern take on magical realism. Diaz is prose-like at times, reminiscent of his previous work, Drown. And footnotes, humorous and raw as they are informative, provide a brief aside from the sometimes heavy material. 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an essential exploration of Dominican-American history through the lens of fiction that doesn’t pull any punches. It will challenge preconceived notions of plural narrators, of which I had a few, and delivers a unique literary experience that is well deserving of its Pulitzer prize.

[thekpax]

P is for Panic as Bees Swarm Local School Book Fair

Bees raided a book fair at a local school early Friday morning, spelling disaster for three hundred students and approximately two thousand invertebrates. The incident occurred during the much-anticipated event at Wells Spokendale Elementary, sending students and administrators scrambling for the exits. 

The antsy anthropoda appear to be escapees from a nearby beekeeper’s convention, where a queen likely hitched a ride on an enthusiast who stopped by the book fair for a copy of The Boy Who Lost His Bumble. Experts in netted hats have purported that her entire colony then followed her through an open window.

“I was trying to decide between one of those penguin bookmarks and this cool eraser when it happened,” recalls student Tanya Lewis. “They came out of nowhere. Suddenly, people in science and nature were throwing books and screaming, ‘BEES!’”

“I am forever changed,” says Melissa Hart, fellow fourth-grader and friend of Tanya.

In the days that have followed, parents—abuzz with concerns regarding school safety—have demanded action. “Something has to be done about these onslaughts of wild bees in our classrooms,” says Caroline Markle, whose son, Timmy, was injured when a teacher attempted to smack a bee that had landed on his head. “How are children supposed to learn when every waking hour of the school day, they fear bee attacks? It’s out of control.”

School administrators have since placed “No Fly Zone” signs across the grounds and opened dialogue for solutions to this problem. Some suggestions so far have included: fly swatters, decoy flowers, and honey detectors. 

However, not everyone agrees that it’s time to say bye to the bumbles; Janitor Mike Buchanan says that thanks to the deluge, he managed to secure all thirteen volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events. “Plus, they make honey. Good luck getting kids to figure out something like that. I like honey. I like free books. So, I like the bees.”

[thekpax]

Visual Innovations in Carolingian Manuscripts

Carolingian manuscripts are among the earliest surviving examples of Western sequential art. These illuminations from the eighth and ninth centuries demonstrate unique storytelling solutions that speak to the ingenuity of their artists. Indeed, the monks at Tours and Reims did not simply copy their early Christian prototypes, but devised original works that would resemble the five principles of modern visual storytelling: timing (or implied action/encapsulation), “the frame” (or the organization of visual elements), imagery (typology), expressive anatomy (acting), and image-text interdependence (captions). 

Take the Moutier-Grandval Bible, for example. Painted around the year 840, it contains four registers per page and depicts nine distinct scenes from the book of Genesis. The separated panels organize the visuals, drawing the eye from left to right and implying the passage of time. Likely inspired by Trajan’s Column, this technique was a novel application of the principles of timing and “the frame” to the page. While no text existed alongside the imagery, the artists of Tours provided summaries of the illustrations they preceded. 

Some scriptoriums, however, were more confident in their visual storytelling abilities than others. The Reims school of illumination relied on the principle of imagery to communicate stories with symbolism that would have been well-known to the people of the time. Utrecht Psalter, a work dated somewhere between 816 and 835, did away with frames in favor of energetic compositions directly above, below, or even in-between corresponding passages. This resulted in manuscripts imbued with energy and agitation, essential qualities associated with expressive anatomy that is a cornerstone of the Reims style.

When examining the differences between the schools of Tours and Reims, it is important to remember they enjoyed access to similar source material. They are united by a common thread: their innovations in communicating a visual narrative. How they differed in execution is where creative ingenuity lies.

[thekpax]

Last Sunday in Savannah: Defining the Line Between Preservation and Art

SAVANNAH, November 1--When I went to see her she was just where they said. Propped against a white colonnade, there sat Nina with a sobering expression, awash in sunlight filtering through the bandshell. To say this now infamous sign was unlike any other installation in Forsyth Park would be an understatement. Against the 19th-century aesthetic that borders on sanitary, Nina was a pop of green, yellow, red, and blue, accompanied by a quote from her famous song, “Sunday in Savannah.”

My first encounter with Nina was on a Tuesday. By week’s end, she was gone. Her home in the park was a temporary arrangement, the result of a debate over city codes and art that dragged on for months. Local artist Scott Stanton, known around town as Panhandle Slim, is the brush behind the Nina sign and the Walls of Hope initiative. The piece was privately commissioned by resident Paul Suszynski for the outside of his Habersham home. Painted on two panels of wood and hung on brick, the portrait of the Civil Rights icon was found in violation of city codes not long after it was erected. Suszynski filed a petition with the city to receive after-the-fact approval for the sign, which was classified as a mural, and put before the Historic District Board of Review and the Historic Site and Monument Commission. 

Since then, opinions between city officials and the public have been split. For some, Nina is a powerful, uplifting presence. To others, she’s a nuisance. Alicia Blakely, a sitting member of the HSMC, would consider herself the former. “I grew up on Duffy and Price streets. I walk Price Street, Habersham Street. I never saw anything like this, and to see this…I appreciate it,” said Ms. Blakely during the August 3rd review, which at times became more impassioned than meetings typical of the commission. “Right now, I think it’s nice, the owner thinks it’s nice, (some of) the community people think it’s nice. Like I said, my vote is going to be for it to stay.”

On the other hand, Susznyski’s neighbor, Tim McCoy, wanted Nina gone. Speaking on the floor, he described his own brush with Savannah’s aesthetically rigid style guides when renovating his carriage house ten years prior. “We got a stern letter from the Historic Preservation Board saying we were in violation of an important historic architectural ordinance. Our offense was we had not put those little ‘S’ shaped iron latches that hold shutters open.” McCoy complied and believes Suszynski should be held to the same standard. Also, he says, he just doesn’t like the painting. 

For the time being, it appears community members like McCoy have gotten their wish. Despite a recommendation from the Historic District Board of Reviews, the commission tied in a three-to-three vote and denied Suszynski’s petition to receive after-the-fact approval. The hotly contested painting will remain in storage during what is expected to be a lengthy appeal process.

“I understand that there’s an annoyance and that things should have been done by the proper channels,” Suszynski acknowledged during the review. “Unfortunately, at this point…you’d be punishing the people who’ve really come to enjoy it. Tour buses have stopped and now tell the history of Nina Simone singing the song the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. I’ve had people of different ages and colors tell me how much they are enjoying the artwork…I would hate for that to go away because we want to punish (Walls of Hope).”