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NOISE

VOLUME 1

THE NOISE ISSUE how would your childhood self feel about the person in the mirror? who were you before you felt perceived?

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co-founders Lindsay Khalluf Creative Director • President @lxndsaykx

Kat Mintchev

Editor-in-Chief • Lead Writer

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production Thalia Añora

Creative Director • Producer • Director of Photography @thaliaanora

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the team

Board Lindsay Khalluf • Thalia Añora • Kat Mintchev • Leila Hamdan (Treasurer) • Josh Chang (Operations) • Evelyn Christina Wiredu (IDEA) • Sarah Tanabe (IDEA)

Photography Thalia Añora • Aiden Tucker • Liz Esteves • Madeline Burns • Zoe Frantz • Marina Gallozzi • Angela Seymour

Writing Kat Mintchev • Logan Castellanos • Priscilla Kim • Heidi Pan • Y

Hair, Makeup, Wardrobe Lindsay Khalluf • Thalia Añora • Nick Murphy • Sarah Tanabe • Isabel Liu • Isabella Sicillian • Sabine Kwon • Nia Vasquez • Angela Seymour • Isabella Pamias • Tina Solki

Wardrobe Creation Thalia Añora 58 71-73 83-85 • Sarah Tanabe 71

Social Media Leila Hamdan • Arielle Benjamin

Illustrations

Shyla Krishnappa 18 @shylas.designs

Fall 2023 Cohort

Amelia Melo • Angela Seymour • Anika Rahman • Annika Bjork • Arielle Benjamin • Ashley Jeong • Ava MacDonald • Blake Bertero • Diane Li • Eli Chung • Evelyn Christina Wiredu • Fiona Naughton • Francesca Hales • Hamilton Swartwood • Heidi Pan • Iman Fadlalla • Isabel Liu • Isabella Pamias • Isabella Sicillian • Jasmine Lamnii • Jazmin Clark • Jihoo Yang • Josh Chang • Julie Meneses • Karis Lu • Kat Mintchev • Lailah Mozaffar • Lea Yeo • Leila Hamdan • Lindsay Khalluf • Liz Esteves • Logan Castellanos • Lori Jang • Madeline Burns • Makenna Dovel • Marina Gallozzi • Nia Vasquez • Nick Murphy • Nina Skweres • Priscilla Kim • Renee DeMaio • Sabine Kwon • Samara Wellington • Sarah Tanabe • Serene Gonzalez • Tanvi Kamath • Thalia Añora • Tina Solki • Vir Vaidhyanathan • Y • Zoe Frantz

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models Aiden Tucker Arielle Benjamin Annika Bjork Bethany Burnett Chloe Connor Hamilton Swartwood Iman Fadlalla Jaelin Born Jayden “JD” Greene Julie Meneses Kailee Suess Kaya McIntyre

Lailah Mozaffar Madison Seldon Makenna Dovel Mekhi Hall Muhammad Abbasi Nia Vasquez Nicholas Martinez Renee DeMaio

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Sabine Kwon Sensei Silab Serene Gonzalez Vir Vaidhyanathan

Lindsay Khalluf For the purpose of this magazine, the color red represents expression, defined not merely by self-confidence but any form of assertion of the self onto the external world. The self-expression consistently referred to throughout the story includes the confidence to be assertive in your beliefs, the willingness to be angry for yourself, and the nerve to be vulnerable in your communication. The viewer will thus benefit the most by taking notice of the dynamic use of the color red in the story. Where does the color red appear in the photo? Where is it placed, or imposed upon, the body of the subject? Is it being restrained or let go? Is the surrounding text silencing or amplifying it? Finally, when does the color red both release and flourish? If the viewer cannot single out the color red, look to the merging of color in the photo. In other words, instead of focusing on the individual, focus on the role of community in collective expression. The third page of this magazine invites you to ask yourself two questions: How would your childhood self feel about the person in the mirror? Who were you before you felt perceived? In order to embark on a journey of self-reflection that results in change, you must embark on a journey of self-reflection that is uncomfortable. It is not enough to reflect on the current version of yourself. You will need to reflect on the last version of yourself that was not harmed by hyper awareness of perception: your childhood self. Only when confronted with the disconnect between your self-image and who you actually are will you be motivated to stop restraining your own expression, to be assertive, and to be vulnerable. This isn’t to say that this journey can be done all on its own—there is a necessity in finding a community that revitalizes you. Being in an environment with so few creative spaces has made me realize the importance not only of retaining your creativity, but sitting with artwork that requires your own interpretation. It is inherently productive to sit with art and writing and simply reflect on them, and in the process reflect on yourself. In publishing NOISE as our first issue, I hope to solidify our magazine not only as a creative space, but as an opportunity to truly work toward uninhibited expression. 10

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Thalia Añora On our heroes journey we follow through this progression of losing themselves to come back to where they were before, only elevated. When we were younger, we didn’t care how loud we dressed. At one point we were unapologetic in the way we express ourselves. As far as we can in our adulthood, we try to carry that purity and honesty in expression. To stand for what we mean. Then all at once we encountered the outside world that told us how we should be, who we should be; a restriction on what we should say. Symbols of fun and play become something of a delicate anxiety. At any point that balloon could pop. Irrational, that fear. Thus, our descent into shame. Remnants of the outerworld remained on our internal’s expression. Fingerprints from a crime scene, who is to blame? Swept under the rug; shame and regret on ourselves to whom our child’s voice entrusted safety. Bottled up inside, we attempt to pry ourselves from that slick and gripping skin we thought we needed to grow to protect ourselves. Silence, at last—an intermission. A break from the noise surrounding us, a new found sanctuary in which we can simply exist with one another. Small moments where we can just be silent suddenly become something so grand. A dance with a symphony, our community gives us pillar. Color and vibrancy is welcomed back into our lives, why did we ever lose it? Fuck it. Shattering the image of who we once thought we were. The projection of light and smoke bouncing off from the mirrors we thought shielded us is now fading. The bottle broke, and the balloon popped. Epiphany— an intrinsically reflective experience. A sudden decision to change who we are, or rather, an endurance of who we always were. Unrestrained self-expression, a new beginning. Coming back to where we were in the first place, we enter into our resolution. Now with a fortified foundation of clarity and intention, we are free to make as much noise as we want.

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at recess

by Kat Mintchev girls are dancing round the universe find raina in the dust bowl she’s walking boots on mercury she’s turning woodchips to dust find dana on the swings she’s swinging mars round to jupiter she’s catching stars in her hair find simone in the big nowhere she’s looking one big question she’s jumping the fence to pluto find anya on blacktop space station she’s hopscotching soft air she’s landing on god’s pillow find lorrie in grass and the sky she’s hula hooping saturn’s ring she’s going round the hot sun find me here a while i’ve got two feet on planet earth i’ve got two eyes round the universe find girls everywhere they’re dancing round the clouds they’re doing choreo find me on the moon after lunch i’ll be digging craters i’ll be singing to a star my age

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My Favorite Acorn By Logan Castellanos

I used to have a favorite acorn. I found it on the soggy ground in the backyard of my great-uncle’s house in North Carolina while trudging through the woods with some cousins I don’t speak to much anymore. Burrowed thick in the suffocating blanket of pine needles, my acorn’s spritely hat caught my wandering eye, calling me to something hidden underneath. Something of a pixie collector, the acorn called to me through the whistle of breeze darting through the trees—silent, yet palpable. I picked up the acorn, feeling its slight weight against the sturdy cable knit of my mittens, wondering how something so beige could protrude such an enigmatic aura. My eight-year-old hands pocketed the seed, vowing to keep its energy all to myself.

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For the months to come, my acorn was all my own. It rented a small plot in the bottom corner of my pocket, acquainting itself to my personal space. When I walked, my acorn’s knobby top would bounce upon my thigh, a living reminder. A reminder of the feeling I had, back in the woods, of looking around and for the first time knowing true natural silence. This silence wasn’t sterile. It was so pumped with life, teeming with microbes and flotsam and a sweet, candy aroma that nearly choked the breath from my lungs. I breathed out, and with it blew the song of a thousand cardinals, harmonized by the chitter of crickets coming from the hollow stump to my hindward. Nature’s auditory humidity of the sterile silence I had grown so accustomed to entranced me, binding me to my acorn’s home in the woods. My acorn flew home with me, over hundreds of miles of stony mountains and cookie-cutter housing developments from the forest of Ashville to a small, dark corner of a keepsake box in my room. There it sat in purgatory, accumulating layers of neglectful dust, only breathing in the fresh air of daylight when my mind took me back to the feeling of silence just enough to compel me to reach for it. My acorn sat until, one day, I never thought of the silence again.

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WAKE, SILENT IN THE NIGHT By Heidi Pan Now weave your night, from goose down, linen. Lie in sheets, all stillness and cold. Covet silence, seek silence like snakes and very still rabbits. Make your bed. Lie down in silence, turn your sheet. Lie down in silence when dark, all the body and the quake. All your mind, all its limb and sinew. Wring silence from your sheets, lay your body to rest. Silence like a balm, silence like a tomb. Shut your eyes and mouth. Breathe thinly and between clenched teeth. Seek stillness everywhere, find nothing. Carve a space beneath your eyes, clean-dark, the cloister. Let it be more than darkness, let it be nothing. Wish to make your mind a void. But lie in silence, with all your mind still a raw and furious wound, let fear steal your rest or don’t. Guard it selfishly and with great anxiety, or don’t. Know it’s the flood times, the times to wax and wax again. Time to flow and never ebb, to drink while it all runs lurid. To earn your keep. To make the mark. To run the mile, always. Time to run the clock before it runs. Start the fast. Purge sickness. Pull water from earth. Drain the mind to let it well and run over. Churn your mind, it's not yours. Churn blood, let it well red and froth white with the violence of thoughts. Bleed by the ankles and slashes overfull with blood. Die destroyed or not at all. Sleep with your eyes open. Awaken to danger, or don’t wake at all. But lie in pregnant silence. Your mother woke you in the womb. Repay your mother or don’t. Know the shape of skin from which you shed, the warm animal and your making. Find its shape to better form your flesh. Know the shape of your womb, that first cavity you return to. Know your mother, only in retaliation or recompense. Know how long the night to supplicants and how short the time. How fast the clock runs. How fast life bleeds, how blood runs. How brief the prayer, how nothing at all. But mostly know your mind and make it. Covet silence to make your bed anytime but now. Snakes writhe with unseen heat. Rabbits wind their tracks to a coil. Make your life, don’t lie in it. You’ve already lain forever.

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By Y if walls could talk they wouldn’t if walls could talk they wouldn’t know how if walls could talk they wouldn’t know how to stop

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[silence]

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A break, at last. Sink back into the ocean from once you came, and let its water surround you. Sink in its silence. You won’t drown, I promise.

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Isotherm By Kat Mintchev It was easy enough to go forth convinced that my soul was embattled in a perpetual winter somewhere, having long abandoned rule or reason the way it was hurtling itself aimlessly about snow and ice, and that being in your presence was much like the comfort of a mouse coiled around a space heater. There could be no other explanation for the immediate thawing that began with my boots thrown against the door, scarf pitched on the wall, and which was completed with the both of us settled in comfortable silence on the rug.

What I see now is that my mind had wrapped so tightly around itself that I could not look even two feet ahead. The pressure had swelled to the point that when I finally took to sorting myself out this tasked into a labor of unentangling, unwrapping lengths of cloth from all around.

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When my eyes adjusted and the shock receded, I found that we had existed together in the same warmth the entire time.

Against all mythology souls were revealed as slothful and opportunistic things (which seemed fitting for us), and it became clear that two such beings could not have found each other on opposite ends of an Earth cobbled together by rule of nature. I knew this to be the case when I extended my hand forward, into a heat which was neither too severe nor which burned readily in need of more, and I found you right where I had thought you might be.

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Nosebleed By Kat Mintchev

A red clot of lipstick is smeared into the corner of my vanity beside the perfumes. Each morning I hold a tissue and indite fantasies about wiping it clean. I look myself in the face, hand in open air, caught in some liminal pocket of time, and am like, this is it. New day new me. Then yesterday’s emotions start to name themselves and I remember how odd it is, the odd way that sentimentality starts today, and yesterday, and all the way around—all around in the sense that it’s like cells catching onto time and beneath skin and transmuting themselves, terminally transmuting themselves into the central nervous system, and after a while convincing the mind to transmute stains into lost things (since who is their owner really) and then beginning to dredge up, from the fringes of memory, horrific images of aforementioned lost things, all of this leading one to wonder: what is the difference between a lost thing and a sad, abused dog shivering in a dumpster somewhere, and in bitter conclusion making it so that one is terrorized into adopting, like a shit kind of Steve Irwin in a way, all the miserable, depraved, nameless, abused things of the world, including: pages out of strangers’ diaries found on the sidewalk; lipstick stains on mirrors; forgotten debts between childhood friends. And so forth. It’s odd and terrible to be sentimental like this, I know. The trouble is by the time I become aware of myself in a mode of circular thinking I’ve already been strapped into it. In this way I find myself seized at the vanity, half-asleep and stiffly bathrobed, tunneling down and around in some direction without any sense to pull the brake. Each morning arrives the on-duty operator, usually named Inhumanity or Hatred or something. And runs all possibility headfirst into the ground. This morning named itself Reckoning. I opened my eyes first thing, and clear light was coming through the window and reviving dead studio air with a defibrillator. How had I ever forgotten how God was good and true. Animals, upon having their organs gutted, bore and regenerated them to superior function; humans were formulating vaccines out of mushrooms; bacteria eating up microplastics in Greenland. Things, in short, had never looked better or higher up in the sky. At this I was reeling—I was stalking bare-legged around the apartment, turning up flower pots, humming fragmented choir songs, spreading my hands out across the kitchen table so that I could press myself into the world and absorb, gracefully, the whole of its goodness all at once. What killed the mood was reaching the tissue box and finding it empty. It was as if a switch had been flipped, all the air in the studio beginning to be scraped out with a spoon. Realizing this I too felt scraped out and hollow. I resigned myself on the stool to looking at old tissue scraps: hanging onto my Mom’s chain, the hand lotion pump, prone under the deodorant lid. I thought, in my hollowness, that these scraps looked undeniably crippled, painfully sullen. I thought them to be scraps of white meat fed to vultures around an inhospitable table; I saw myself in hindsight standing around the table paring down meat and flesh in rinds.

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fall 2023

I’d never before considered myself a hateful person, only one who looped around the perimeter of my life watching activity rise and fall in the concourse. I was a person who pitied underfed animals and wore two shoes of different heights in an effort to focus my gait, not drift into my head, off the sidewalk, and into oncoming traffic—I somehow managed to simultaneously take in too much of the world and not nearly enough of it. Or, perhaps to take it all in but fail to make anything of it. And I had manipulated and calculated and murdered all the same. With new eyes I came at myself in the mirror in a way I hadn’t since I was fourteen: tentatively, and leaning in slowly, the whole time praying I wouldn’t hate whatever I was about to meet. There was skin, skin that had always been slightly blue and withdrawn; chin jutting sharply off my face and veering to the right; nose plagiarized off Mom many years ago. And so forth. But I kept looking, and searching, and looking. There again was skin, which was truthfully not a clean blue, and I was remembering how I’d warred with it, seeing huge red subsistences left over; chin sliced open by the garage door in fifth-grade and sutured by a strand of hair; nose plagiarized, then thrown off a cliff when Mom started packing cigarettes beside the TV. What I was seeing was a compendium of hatred—things hated into submission and all of them wandering across flesh in odd places and proportions. Hatred I named myself for this new day, and I saw myself tunneling down into it, passing through the very cells of myself that were imbued with Hatred and living and dying in it. And I supposed that I couldn’t stand this, I couldn’t stand it at all, this feeling like my skin was being pulled taut and stretched across a rack— And I struggled to rationalize what happened next—at some point my nose had started dripping blood over the vanity. This was not the blood of childhood playground accidents or collisions into loose cupboards. This blood jetted right out of the nostril, shot over the chin; it was a blood that carried heat when it steamed out into a ruddy veneer. I saw blood smeared everywhere, across all the parts of myself, drawing out a second bloodbath from the redness already colored into my nose and skin and chin. And in the same manner I was momentarily drawn out from my body entirely—I became an observer in a hypoxic corner of the apartment watching, blocked into the side, blood force itself out. I watched myself choke on it. What was being forced out were the parts of myself; they were clawing a bloody path into the world and arresting me. What they did was sit me down in the interrogation room and force me to listen. I listened to them name themselves, tell me where they came from, define in broad terms the material of their dreams, aspirations, vices, and each of the things that make them shake and cry. What they did not account for was that I was nearly boiling over, and still bleeding profusely, and that my skin had always been unusually sheer and fickle. They were not prepared when I became an open vessel and, in a display of unimaginable greed, stuffed every last part of myself back in. But they grew quiet when I shut the lid and claimed them all for myself.

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By Y You know it’s bad when sidewalk cracks endure your odd step and, in spite of old superstitions, forgive.

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[BEHIND THE FILE]

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