Witch of the East & West

NYC

[sunsetgun]

Love and Anarchy (1973) directed by Lina Wertmüller

[witchoftheeastandwest]

The Helper Man’s hair was tied in a low ponytail. I had never seen a boy with hair that long at school and was pretty sure it wasn’t allowed. Dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, he was tall and lanky, with a complexion that reminded me of the moon on a cold, winter night. His eyes looked as if someone had swept them on with a calligraphy brush. As Haruna walked over to him, he cocked his head a little to the side, the way boys do when they like what they see.

[witchoftheeastandwest]

Aki’s bedroom looked out into the main hall of the shrine, built of rich, ancient wood. It was getting dark out, and the stone lanterns around the hall had been lit already, giving the place an eerie purple glow. And on either side of the hall’s entrance stood a pair of stone foxes, both of them sitting neatly with their tails raised.

http://yareview.net/2015/08/the-foxes/

[engineeringhistory]

The Brooklyn Bridge, 1888. Opening on May 24th, 1883, the bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its construction.

[witchoftheeastandwest]

[yareviewnetwork]

The Foxes - Marie Iida

Haruna and I were walking home from school, just the two of us like usual on the riverbank road, when the attack began.

“Itai!” cried Haruna, her hand flying to the back of her head where the stinging pebbles had hit her. When we turned around, we saw Yoko and her usual group of girl friends dusting off their hands and laughing at us. I immediately knew what this was about. Nearly a week ago, Yoko’s boyfriend Shoji had broken up with her because he had decided to become the newest member of Boys Hopelessly in Love with Haruna Kitano. Now, Yoko and Haruna glared at each other across the distance like two cowboys in a showdown, but of course we were all just Japanese high school girls standing around in our uniforms. Our matching pleated skirts flapped dramatically in the wind as Yoko walked up to Haruna.

Click here to read more of Marie’s story on YARN!

[paranoia-girls]

Paranoia Girls: Page Thirteen

Art: Yunico Uchiyama

Text: Patrick Macias

Paranoia Girls on facebook

[celluloidthreads]

“Bunzo”

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner, USA, 2014)

[paranoia-girls]

Paranoia Girls: Page Ten

Art: Yunico Uchiyama

Text: Patrick Macias

Paranoia Girls on facebook

[mortisia]

[greenlightbklyn]

Mishima with sword and cat.

[paranoia-girls]

Paranoia Girls: Page Six

Art: Yunico Uchiyama

Text: Patrick Macias

Paranoia Girls on facebook

[witchoftheeastandwest]

He keeps his hair five inches too long than what's allowed at your school. His  legs draw broad, languid arcs as he ambles along the riverbank, as if there's no destination that could possibly excite him enough to walk properly. You've lost all hope of making it to school today.

Now, as he smokes his cigarette and looks out to where the power lines meet the faint outline of Mt. Fuji, you wish that the view would evoke in you the same gloomy mood as it seems to do in him.  You've never been enough to lift the veil of perpetual boredom from his eyes, but he leans in to kiss you anyway. And when you close your eyes tight, you swear the world he so despises has never felt more hospitable.

[theparisreview]

Winter Wrath

My anger is such that the very ice-fields would melt, if I had the power. If I had the power.

—Joyce Carol Oates. Art: James McNeill Whistler

[nowness]

THE SHOE: HIS GORGEOUSNESS 

Read More

[theparisreview]

“It is a funny thing—or maybe it’s not—but every time someone close to me has died, I have had an overpowering desire to watch ghost movies and immerse myself in the uncanny.”

Sadie Stein on the comforts of suspending disbelief.

[witchoftheeastandwest]

[witchoftheeastandwest]

One of the habits I've been trying to kick lately is watching films I've already seen. I've noticed that I do this not to study their structure or notice something new about them; the act stems from a need for control and familiarity. With a click of a button, after a particularly unsatisfying day or week, I ease time and again into an unchanging universe peopled by characters who never grow old and are dictated by a series of events that never waver in their outcome. This is a lazy coping method against the unpredictability of real life, and I find it difficult to quit. A service like Netflix is at its best a tool for discovery but for me it rarely functions as anything other than a bottomless well of nostalgia in which I sink (and fall asleep).