“…our city is like a large horse which because of its size is inclined to be lazy and needs the stimulation of a gadfly… before long you will awake from your drowsing, and in annoyance take Anytus’s advice and swat me; and then you will go on sleeping.”

Dear beloved,Greetings lovingly through Jesus Christ.Welcome for your sharing to Christions. It is good for you contribution of your assisting in real of allowing mailing list.Welcome for your visitation to Kenya.Happy for your strength of reaching us.Make to steps that will give hope.In kind of your regurd so that to hear from you soon,Japhter Onwonga

Well, Mr. Onwonga, have we got a deal for you! Act now and receive:- One hundred eighty DVDs of Star Trek: The Next Generation- Eight cases of Dr. Phizz- One pound, one meal, one happy Leningrad- A coupon good for one free anthrax infection- Six pounds of yak, goat, and Wehner hair- Intellectual stimulation- Every issue of the SLUH Review- Jim Linhares’s face- Cultural enlightenmentAll for the price of one read-through!

Hello reader,We’re always looking for essays, poems, short stories, reviews, recipes,

how-tos, jokes, microfiction, proofs, drawings, illustration, designs, photoshops, small children, donations, gyros, kidnapping plots, bananas, etc. If there’s something you want published, send it our way at gadfly@sluh.org or by slipping it under the door to M125.

Thanks for reading this little stack of paper. We hope you enjoy.—Giuseppe Vitellaro and David Burke

GADFLYO C T O B E R 2 0 1 4

EDITORSGiuseppe “Shrah” Vitellaro

David “Plav” Burke

CONTRIBUTORSSam “Bim” Fentress

Matt “Doat” BatesKevin “Poppy” Thomas

Hap “Öh” BurkeGarret “Vrim” FoxBrian “Instrumental” Luczak

SPECIAL THANKSPaul “Chickens” Fister

Mr. Paul “Power Bus Decoupling” BaudMr. Joe “Printman” KomosMr. Matt “Always” SciutoDr. David “The magazine sucks” CallonShooby “The Human Horn” Taylor

“I’m sorry, but you have no sense of rhythm.” I looked up. Alex Harris, sitting at the desk between us, kept her gaze on the plastic cubes she was sorting in preparation for our group’s presentation on the math of pyramids. “Just stop.” Fine, you jerk. I had been bouncing my pencil on the top of the desk, tapping it for the tactile sensation it gave, and also be-cause I had nothing better to do while I watched her slide the orange cubes around. A frown began to form across my face. I say it was a frown, but it was also a glare, a grimace brought on by the stark plainness of the re-mark. I looked to Jasen Jackson for support, but expected none once I noticed his knees brushing against hers, his fingers dancing and inter-twining with hers. Insulted, hurt, and upset, I wandered around the room, asking questions about Alex and my seventh-grade self. Who is she to transfer to my school and to decide to be so mean? Why doesn’t she un-derstand I was just tapping it, not trying to play something? How can I get back at her? How can I show her that I do have a sense of rhythm? My contemplative sojourn was drawn to an end as my classmates gathered to present, but seeds were planted. I desired to show off my skills, however fledgling they were.

By that point in grade school, I had mostly written off music. The music program at Cathedral Basilica was in a state of constant decline, and hit its lowest point when Sister Kathleen Donovan took it on. Due to a lack of funding and teachers, we had music

once a week, fifty minutes where we would practice singing the hymns to be sung at Mass that Wednesday or watch a musical or sit there and be yelled at. I hated that class and I’m fairly sure Sr. Kathleen hated it too. Worse than having to share that class with the sixth-graders (who, I might add, were all idiots) was the fact that I often felt that Sr. Kathleen had no idea as to what real music was. In my mind, she stood for music as a man-datory experience, something that unites you with your classmates out of your shared contempt for it. This ran counter to what I was beginning to experience.

Around that time, my classmates introduced me to rap, particularly as a hobby of their own. They repeated the verses they heard, matching its cadence and delivery, until they could start coming up with their own impro-vised phrases. No rap is complete without a beat, and so one would rap while another would keep a beat going with his mouth, or by knocking on the table. I soon began to see their beats as a way of getting back at Alex and in the process be able to enjoy making music with my friends. It wasn’t long before I mastered their technique of bouncing their hands off the table us-ing their pinkies. I even improved on it by slapping the table here or there, or going into a double-time Cuban rhum-ba, rapping my knuckles instead of my pinkies because of the increased volume. Since it wasn’t portable, beating the table soon fell way to beatboxing. Years of engaging in hu-man speech had trained my lips and

Beatsby Giuseppe Vitellaro

tongue to a remarkable dexterity and skill, and I found myself able to emu-late the sounds of Ludacris’s drum machine or Kanye West’s elaborate, orchestrated rhythm section. Curious and bored of imitating my friends, I began to look online for beatboxing, stumbling across a YouTube video called “Skiller vs Reeps One - Semi Final - Beatbox Battle World Champi-onship «««”. To reduce it to some sort of strange onomatopoeia would be to downplay the artistry of the two performers in it. Watching that video, I witnessed monstrously fast breakbeats, unbelievable bass, and all-around incredible sound. I spent hours looking at other videos from the championship, eventually pick-ing out my favorite beatboxer, Reeps One. I loved his style, his beats, his quick the way he growled deep in his throat to add a bassline. And so I be-gan to imitate him, whenever I could, be it walking down the sidewalk or around my friends when they began to rap. I went into particularly intense, extended solos whenever I was in the shower, free from the familial stigma of making noises with my mouth.

I continued regularly beatboxing into high school, at which point I be-gan to long to play a real, physical instrument like my friends did. Sure, beatboxing was still fun, but there was no one to do it with, no rap to ac-company. The drum sets in the band room called out to me, convincing me that, because of my skill at beatbox-ing, I would be able to sit down and play like I could beatbox. I couldn’t. But I was determined, and so I tapped on the ones at school as much as possible, ceasing whenever I had class or homework when Mr. Mueller

closed the band room at 2:45. All the while I continued to beatbox and wal-low in angst at what I felt was a waste of my percussive talent. This contin-ued until the July after sophomore year, when I had a conversation with Monsignor Jim Telthorst about music and his experiences with drumming. We were talking about all of the vari-ous gigs he played as a jazz drummer when he realized I didn’t have a drum set of my own.

“Oh, you need a set? Well, heck, I’ll give you one.” And he did, pulling a gold-speckled Slingerland jazz kit out of the parish basement. Nearly ecstatic and surprised at the sudden generosity, I took the drums home and played, initially frustrated at my ineptitude but slowly improving.

At the end of the summer, I joined a Zero Hour combo here at school. Al-though the swung, jaunty jazz we play is a far cry from the straight, bass-heavy rap that got me interested in making music, I still love playing, and I think it’s because we play jazz, a genre of music that is so inherently connected with playing in a group. I love comping (a jazz term that is short for accompanying) while my friends take glorious, musical solos, because it reminds me of the times I kept a beat going in grade school so my friends could make glorious, mu-sical raps. I use my sense of rhythm so that I can make music with others, so that I can have fun with them and watch as they express themselves through music, just as I have.

11/2 Dave Dickey Big Band – Jazz at the Bistro 11/2 Blameshift – Firebird 11/4 Tele Novella – Plush 11/5 An Evening with Primus & the Chocolate Factory – Peabody Opera House 11/7 Mike Epps & DeRay Davis – Chaifetz Arena 11/11 Timeflies – The Pageant 11/12 Rich O’Toole – Plush 11/14 Mr. Gnome - Firebird 11/19 Jeff Coffin & the Mu’tet – Jazz at the Bistro 11/20 Hunter Hayes – Chaifetz Arena 11/21 STL Symphony Performs Night on Bald Mountain – Powell Hall 11/22 4 & 20: A Tribute to Crosby Stills Nash & Young – The Family Arena 11/28-30 STL Symphony Performs Rhapsody in Blue 11/30 El Comander – The Family Arena

CONCERTS

I saw her then and there, working in a ghetto-rigged tent for my first job. Technically, I worked at Quizno’s Subs at the corner of South Jack-son and East Main, but since today was the annual Barbeque-fest for downtown Belleville, I was working in “Hoyay’s” a Mexican food restau-rant that only is open for Belleville’s downtown events; also, Hoyay’s lacks an actual restaurant building and relies completely on Quizno’s equip-ment or rentals. I was in jeans and a t-shirt from some SLUH club, I can’t remember which one. My boss from Quizno’s who was also the proprietor of Hoyay’s, had me working the deep fryer, cooking the fried tacos. She was in the funnel cake trailer across from us. I didn’t want to stare, but it was hard not to glance.

She almost looked like she was trapped inside that trailer, even though she came out for a break at one point, it just seemed so wrong. Sure, there were two girls working with her, who were about her age. But it all seemed wrong at the same time. I couldn’t help but feel that somehow I should be right next to her. At the same time, I knew it was absolutely crazy, but for some unknown reason, I just didn’t care.

“Johnny, see that girl in the white, green-striped shirt over in the candy wagon?”

“Yea, man. What about her?” Je-sus, he’s always so confused. His eyes almost popped out of his head, which kind of resembled a horse’s eyes.

“Dude, she’s so goddamn beauti-

ful.”“Go up and talk to her.”“You don’t just go up and talk to a

gal like that do you?”“What the hell type of question is

that?”“A legitimate one.” I stopped for

about a minute because he gave me a stare that might as well have said what the fuck dumbass? “Nev-ermind. How’s my hair look?” Of course, that’s the first thing I jump to. I almost hate myself.

“Fine, man. Any idea what you wan-na say?”

“Nope,” I began to laugh. I had no game plan, and I was about to go in head on, and with any chance, I’d get humiliated. I was tired of feeling hu-miliated though.

“Tell her, ‘Do you want the ‘d’?’ ” I wanted to slap him, yet he was laugh-ing, and so was I.

“No. I’m not doing that.”“Why not? Just be straight forward

with her. That’s what you want from her right?”

“No. Not even close, man.”“Damn. Don’t be so serious, Matt.

I’m just joking around.”“Don’t joke around about stuff like

that.” I remember that he looked re-ally confused when I told him that.

“I’m going.”“Good luck, man.”Oh shit, my heart raced faster than

I did to that funnel cake cart. That’s always been one of my biggest prob-lems, having my heart jump into a situation ahead of my head. It wasn’t ever a delay made up of mere sec-onds, rather it’d usually be minutes.

Gamblingby Matt Bates

I was right in front of her! She had brown hair, but it had a hint of red throughout, so I’d call it a dirty type of strawberry, which is kind of interest-ing considering her perfume smelled just like strawberries. I managed not to do much more than glance at her really retro look of a green-striped sat-in blouse and blue bell-bottom jeans. I don’t like feeling like a creeper.

I wanted so much to tell her that she was beautiful, that I felt pulled towards her.

“One funnel cake please.” Shit, that’s what came out? I swear I was gonna tell her that she’s so goddamn beautiful.

“Here you go.” She said, after I gingerly handed her my five dollars, which is an outrageous price for fun-nel cakes.

She started to turn around, and walk towards the other win- dow.

“Wait!” My heart dropped. Just…shit. What the hell did I say that for?

“Yes?”“Okay, now this is gonna sound

completely crazy!” Way to set yourself up, bud!

“Okay, go for it.”Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. That’s

about all I could say. My throat swelled up, tightened against itself. My heart might as well been thumping outside of my chest, like the Coyote from the Roadrunner cartoons.

“Okay, so if I don’t say this, I’m gon-na beat myself up over it, because I didn’t say what I really wanted to. So here goes nothing… I think you may very well be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met.” This wasn’t true. I have been chasing the same girl for the same 3 ½ years, and I just got tired

of waiting, people told me I needed to move on. I was hoping that this would help. “And maybe that is completely way too forward, but I don’t think I care at this point, because, wow, I to-tally just said that to you, a girl who I don’t know. So yes, I’m completely ready to get shot down. But if you’re going to do it, can I know your name at least?”

“It’s Gina.”“Does that mean I’m getting shot

down?” In fairness, I answered my own question, I mean I said one of the few things you shouldn’t say to people you just met.

“We’ll see. What’s your name?” she chuckled a bit.

“Matt. I go to SLUH, across the river.”

“Oh okay, I go to Highland High.”“So you’re kinda a far way from

home right now?”“Yup. A good 40 minutes.”“Jeez, I couldn’t imagine.”“So Hoyay’s, how come you guys

don’t have tshirts?”“We’re a fake business. All of us

work over at Quizno’s.”“So how does that work?”“Gosh, I would like to know.”The small talk continued to a point

where I can’t even remember what the hell we even talked about. I finally got the courage to ask for a number, facebook, anything.

Nothing, and as I said, I should’ve seen it coming.

I walked away, defeated, cold fun-nel cake in hand, and went back to close down Hoyay’s for the night. Three girls approached me as I was bringing supplies into Quizno’s. They were all reasonably attractive, but each were clearly very different in physicality. The redhead was taller than me and seemed to be slouching a bit. The blonde was rather short and stubby and looked like she couldn’t sit still for more than a few seconds, constantly moving her legs and feet side to side. The brunette was just a head shorter than me, which is pret-ty normal for most girls, and didn’t seem to be anything like the other two, rather calm, but not calm in such a way where she was borderline co-matose, like the redhead.

“Oh my god! I’m fangirling over you right now. Did she give you her num-ber?” the blonde said very eagerly. The other two girls became intent on hearing the answer, stepping in closer to hear me over the loud music coming from the DJ that had just set

up shop.“No.”“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. Be proud

of what you did though, I can guaran-tee that very few guys are willing to gamble their pride on a gal like that. You’ll find someone who appreci-ates it.” The brunette reassured me. Gambling, that word fit. If I had won the girl, my pride would swell. Since I didn’t, pride and ego depreciated a little bit, also because the funnel cake sucked, I ended up throwing it away.

“Hopefully.”“Hang in there.”They started to walk away. “Wait.

To be honest, that wasn’t me risking anything. That was me having no idea how to talk in a social setting with a girl.”

They laughed, almost in disbelief. “Call it what you want, but whatever it is, I like it.” the redhead said walking away, slowly with the blonde and the brunette.

I never saw those three gals again. Most likely because they were in their early 20s, and I’m in St. Louis almost all the time.

The thing about flirting is that no matter what happens, you’re always going to regret what you said or didn’t say. The important thing is to walk away with no less than you had when you had started.

Centerfold

Centerfold

“How bad could it be?” I thought to myself as I climbed the dark spiral staircase up to the room in the back of the theater, “I bet I’ll be done in half an hour.” But when I finally ar-rived, I began to realize that a mere wastebasket wouldn’t cut it.

The place was a dump: a small, black room overflowing with trash and discarded cables. The floor was bare wood and without any venti-lation, the temperature could vary from stifling to creepily cold. I began to ruthlessly tug at tangled lighting cables, attempting to sort them into corresponding piles which ended up turning into one large heap. I tried stuffing the fast food wrappers and dance tech notes into the wastebas-ket, but it was so puny that I would need over ten to get the job done.

Just as I was about to try stuffing another handful of trash, I noticed a strange piece of paper lodged be-tween two McDonalds wrappers. It was my old lighting plot from over the summer, a large white sheet scrawled with sporadic numbers, lines, and circles that mapped out the entire stage. Looking over at the light board with its large rectangular button that read “Go” across the front, I could tell that all the shows I had created were still there. With my lighting plot in hand, I sat down in the grey swivel chair and started scrolling through the cues I had recorded…

It had been a new song, not one of those toddler jingles, but a heart-felt, contemporary song. The dancers were all around my age, and when they began to rehearse, the lighting designer in me took over. I pulled from the best colors and lights in my disposal: pink front-light for their

Goby Brian Luczak

skin, purple side-light to match their costumes, a shower of blue light from above, and a backdrop of magenta like the sunset. Carefully adjusting each light’s intensity, I kept look-ing for that cool but warm color that would go perfectly with the mystical, yet passionate feeling of the music. The dancers glided to the floor like geese flying parallel to a lake before floating down into the water without a splash. They swayed and spun as the purple side light slowly began to pick out the sparkles in their cos-tumes. When the song was about to end, I finished it with a slow, dazed fade as the dancers left the stage and the music died. And then it was darkness.

Smiling to myself, I hit the “record” button and the painting of the dance was instantly absorbed into the board. Crumpling up a Taco Bell wrap-per, I swiveled around in my chair and

shot it towards the plastic Disney basketball hoop hanging against the back of the door. I leaned back in my chair as the wrapper twirled through the air… and then clattered against the outside of the hoop, bouncing straight down into a small pile of other garbage. I never really was that good a shot…

“Hey Brian, how’s it going up there? Are you almost done?” someone shouted from the stage as they fin-ished packing up mats for the dance company.

“Uh…it’s going…swell,” I said as I got up from the chair and shoved a bag of cookies into the wastebasket. The show was over, but I knew that it took only one word to call up what I had created. Only one command was needed to complete the bond be-tween technology, music, art, dancer, and techie.

Go.

I love winter. I love all four of the seasons of the year and while win-ter is not my favorite, I love it none-theless. It’s just a great season with so many wonderful parts to it. You have snow, the cold weather, and a bunch of wonderful winter activi-ties! Some people hate winter with a burning passion because it’s too cold for them (this only means that they’re weak and don’t know how to put on a jacket/coat, wherever your preference lies), they feel like they’re trapped indoors, and the fact that al-most everything is in hibernation or dead for the time being gives them the frownies. I guess I can understand their points, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t just being negative Noahs and not exploring the majesty of this Winter Wonderland we have been given. If you find yourself in that category of people who hate winter, read on. If you love winter, read on. If you don’t care about other people’s opinions and thoughts, put down this magazine and go eat a poperin pear.

Snow is one of the defining quali-ties of winter. When I think about win-ter, the first image that pops into mind is of a snow. I love it when snow falls, especially when it falls in those big, chunky snowflakes. I just think it’s so beautiful. I’ll bundle myself up and just stand in my front lawn and stare up at the sky and watch it descend slowly to earth from the great beyond. The feeling of watching snow fall is one of my favorite feelings; it always has been. I remember one day, when I was around the age of eight wak-ing up on my own. It was a Tuesday,

and when I glanced over at the clock, it read 8:30. That could only mean one thing.. School was cancelled! I ran to my window, pulled back the curtain, and was filled with wonder at the beauty of the snow falling to the earth. I had no idea how snow hap-pened or why, it just amazed me. I ran upstairs, woke my sister up, told her what was going down, and we ran to my parents room and yanked back the curtains which caused a 20 lbs dumbbell to fall from a few feet above us and land on my sister’s head. We wound up going to the hospital, which was a waste of a snow day, but the injury was not the point of the story. Every time I see snow fall, I become full of the same childish glee and wonder.

Snow serves many useful purposes as well. It can be a mildly tasteless snack to eat when you’re bored and it is amazingly fun to play with. You can use snow for sledding, a classic win-ter activity, building a snowman or an igloo, or for snowball fights. If you’re McGyver, you could probably use it for more purposes than just that, but I’m not McGyver so that’s all I got. How-ever, snow can really piss me off. If it gets in your shoes and soaks your socks, your feet will be soggy and uncomfortable and stinky and things that you do not want your feet to be. Snow also sucks when it causes driv-ing issues. Having a car get stuck in the snow and pushing it out is not that bad when you do it once, or even twice, but during the last snow storm I pushedten cars out from being stuck in the snow in one day. It was awful.

Winter Reviewby Kevin Thomas

POETRY

It was a short walkand I decided to use an outdoor shortcut. Cut short bya sans-Summer soup of air, I walked back. Into Backer Hall where I forgot itall except that it was scary and a thrill to be a brandnew freshman at SLUH.

Sam Fentress

The Abstruse Siren

The moon gets too much credit,stealing the light from the sun,consumed in the dark by her own façadewhile calling the abducted glow a purer form. The meddlesome creature slithers from the darkinto the afternoon skywhere she is whipped by the blazebut revels in its warmth and her observation. That sly moon, that malicious moonenchanting us, beckoning usas we marvel at her mirageand her boasts of humility.Her greed goes unnoticed by us,but the oceans cry as the moon hovers closer,as she pulls at their rootsbut cannot fill her desolate caverns.Oh you pitiless pebble,carnivorous crag,lifeless shade,abstruse siren!The earth attempts rebellion,sealing you with shadowand you begin to weep,to recede, to wane, to die.

Only to smile and brighten again, returning with a greater vivacityand we again are under your nightmare.And we again smile back as you gleambut now with a tentative smile,now afraid of the wolves.

Garret Fox, first line by Bob Hicok

It was a short walkand I decided to use an outdoor shortcut. Cut short bya sans-Summer soup of air, I walked back. Into Backer Hall where I forgot itall except that it was scary and a thrill to be a brandnew freshman at SLUH.

Sam Fentress

September Stillness

Orange and brown leaves crunch under the soft steps of my dusty maroon converse, making one of only two sounds in the forest falling around me. The other being the slow pant of my warm breath in the chilly September air. The birdsong doesn’t dwell here anymore; it’s flown south for the winter. The forest is desolate, and I, it’s sole inhabitant, fill the trees with old memories of young times. The gleeful shouts to mom and dad, saying “look at me! Look at me!” As I climbed tree after tree; the playful pushing between my brother and I, each trying to be the first to the indifferent creek; and the unstinted imaginary worlds, all the wars that raged on for hours in my childish mind, the days of peace that passed with each second, and the high castle walls I raised myself in mere minutes. But the forest feels nothing.

And I walk alone.Kevin Thomas