the marque | vol. 51 | 2013

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S t . M a r k ’ s S c h o o l o f T e x a s1 0 6 0 0 P r e s t o n R o a dD a l l a s , T e x a s 7 5 2 3 0

w w w . s m t e x a s . o r g( 2 1 4 ) 3 4 6 - 8 0 0 0

M a r q u eVolume 51 2013

M a g a z i n e o f A r t s a n d L e t t e r s

Flip B

ook

DearAs designers and authors, we, Robbey Orth and Nic-

colo Lazzara, developed during the creation of the 2011 and 2012 Marque Magazines. Reviewing those editions this year, we felt that a magazine’s group-

ing pieces into unrelated thematic categories was unjust to those pieces’ authors. Such arbitrary categorization added unintented overtones to each piece. Our goal this year was to prevent the magazine from influencing its readers’ percep-tion of its content. To avoid doing so, we defined the role of a magazine as a provider of a medium of expression for au-thors and artists; a magazine’s secondary role is to organize and provide context(s) for each piece. Discarding thematic constraints lets the magazine more clearly showcase each of its pieces. The design of a magazine should not subtract nor add to the perception of its contents; a magazine should be a faithful and uncorrupting means of exhibition.

Reading magazines from decades past, we discovered the true title of our magazine, somehow forgotten in years past: Marque: Magazine of Arts & Letters. This discovery reminded us that the Arts have

changed drastically over the past decade. The development and spread of digital media has affected every artistic pro-cess and redefined art and artistry. Many more processes and media are included in twenty-first century art. Therefore, the responsibilities of an arts magazine have increased. A maga-zine must now present more content in an ever-more-artistic and visually appealing way. This realization led us to a cen-tral question that, through this edition, we hope to answer: In what new ways can a literary magazine both showcase talent

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Reader,

Nic Lazzara Robbey Orth

and provide a stimulating experience? Our answer was to in-clude things that are normally unusual in a literary magazine. Each section break presents a quote from an artist explaining the importance of and reason for his choice of medium. Our cover is textured. Throughout our careers, we have observed many artists using texture to make their art tactilely, as well as visually, stimulating and wanted to incorporate such a stimulus in this year’s edition.

After perusing recent editions, of Marque, we decid-ed that our magazine and its purpose were in need of updating. Just as the computer displays infor-mation without any artifacts or aberrations, so too

should our magazine unobtrusively and faithfully present its contents. However, design itself has become an art form, and so our mission became one of tactfully balancing the ele-ments on each page to ensure that the reader experiences the design as an enhancement of the content rather than as a dis-traction from it. Creating this year’s magazine has been both challenging and entertaining, and there truly is no greater satisfaction than seeing, feeling, and using one’s artistic cre-ation. We sincerely hope that you enjoy reading this edition as much as we enjoyed creating it.

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POETRY

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Marque Magazine

POETRY

I’ve always thought that we inhabit our mother tongues.

We think, dream, speak, write, curse, chant, and pray in

them. And I think that the things that baffle us in life

can be often un-baffled by just finding the right word. That’s

where poets come in. Poets know their mother tongues well

enough be able to navigate the vast, churning sea of words

and convert language into artful expression. When you think

of it that way, poetry is so basic. I mean, it’s the only art form

that you can scrawl on a bar napkin or gouge into the dirt.

Words are the tune and the poet’s mind is the composer. No

orchestra, canvas, or clay is necessary. I think that’s why I

love writing. It forces me to clear the foggy haze of thought

in my mind. I think Japanese haikus may be one of the sim-

plest examples of why I love poetry and writing. Though

small enough to fit on half a post-it note, they are someone’s

ancient declaration of being alive. When I read a haiku writ-

ten by a Japanese noble in the 11th century and feel transport-

ed to the stream or the castle or the mountainside where the

poem came to be, its mission is accomplished. Reader and

writer, mind and mind, heart and heart are united in that tiny

collection of words.

Half a Post-It

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—Henry Woram

7

Sunk into the side of your car, I nestlemy hands around your curved waist, and you fall --

tilting from the curb where my toes rustleblades of grass, hushed by the breeze that calms all.

The soil, still sun-warmed, brings warmth fromtoes to spine as your forehead fits beneath

my nose. We blend our forms, not just the sumof our bodies, but all around -- these leaves,

the paved road, even the stark colors of your car yield to the tableau, which blankets

us with warm blue as dusk slowly soughs to night. Even crickets and dogs are silenced.

We kiss, and the warmth without and within peaks in hushed adagio -- the scene hangs

from our joined lips. Past your shoulder, a grinshapes from the yellow light of my house.

And we, since we are in love, make our banns‘till the night beckons you home with indigo hands.

Love SonnetHenry Woram ’13

Quinn by the LakeNick Brodsky ’14

Skies Above Half Dome Reid Stein ’14

“My mom and I stumbled upon this giant rock that looked out across to Half Dome, miles from where we were. Climbing over that rock, I felt truly con-nected with nature.”

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To DreamJonathan Ng ‘14

hite clouds, lucid and clear,Rise from the steaming cityLike cotton balls attached to string.I look up from my ledgeOn the knoll,My knees dangling toward the sky,And I watch them parade about my vision.Sometimes, they look like gumdrops.Sometimes, I can smell their wetness.That reminds me of those daysWhen I could float on grass.Sometimes, I can hear the rushOf the world against my skin,And I listen as if I had invented it:The amethyst sky, stars shiningLike gold on the horizon.Sometimes, I reach outTo pluck one from the skyAnd come tumbling backTo the world.

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Sacred TrailHalbert Bai ‘14

“Looking across the sacred lands of the Navajo people, I wanted to capture a sense of the sub-lime by depicting the sacred nature of Monument Valley. ”

Noah Yonack ‘13

the SaLvation of two

hey had raised him like a dy-ing snake: some water, food scraps, what archaic medicine they could conjure from the roots of trees that looked like explosions. And even though he was innocent and vul-nerable—mentally askew with such intensity that he could embody two people at once—he was still a snake in the tribesmen’s eyes. Everyone pitched in their time and ef-

fort to make sure he had not wan-dered off to mutilate Tamarins or consume leaves from the poisonous Strychnos stalks, but it was simply a way of being for the hunter-gath-erers of the underdeveloped Tipu tribe. Everyone helped, yet no one cared. It was an indifferent duty. Eventually, he had to be ex-pelled from the tribe that was sim-ply too isolated a com-

munity—too buried in the verdure of the Amazon—to care for him. The schizophrenic native was sim-ply too much of a physical and psy-chological burden weighing on an already burdensome tribal life. The tribesman voted him out at dusk. And so he was gone, galloping like a disconcerted horse through the unmarked trails of the Amazonian rainforest, purposely running no-where, emotional, yet stoic, crying, yet laughing, one personality, yet another. A spectacled owl drooled confi-dently from the can-opy of trees above as if it were waiting for the man to drop dead; there was sim-ply no way he could survive, and even the animals could tell. His body defied his mind, groveling over fecund soil next to trees he couldn’t name, absorbing the calls of mating birds he couldn’t recognize. His snake-like upbring-ing had not prepared him for the world outside of the watchful eye of his tribe. He was alone, tangled in the roots of both the Strangler fig tree and his mental incapacity. His emotions raged, con-

trolling his body from the core of a being he didn’t know. But this wasn’t new. At this point in his life, schizophrenia controlled his body robotically, deliberately failing to filter right from wrong in a seem-ingly mutinous attempt to destroy his very self. It was as if natural se-lection were tearing him apart from the inside. He was broken, in need of salvation.

***

His body twitched, weaving itself

through the ornate and prickly plant stalks of the forest. When his mental con-dition inflamed, the man was no longer himself; he was only

a body and a mystical, omnipresent force that disfigured his conscience and warped his emotions. The florid toucans and howler monkeys curi-ously observed him like an enigma: interested, concerned, and most of all, perplexed.

Like a jaguar he barreled wildly through uncharted territo-ries of the rainforest. But he wasn’t lost. Not yet. There was smoke ahead, coming from a meager, di-lapidated village planted within the

Like a jaguar he barreled wildly

through uncharted territories of the

rainforest.

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grasp of monstrous trees that re-sembled towering and intimidating silos. He approached. A fire crunched through mountain soursop leaves and spat thick, choking smoke into the air. The surrounding trees caught the smolder in their awnings. If it weren’t for the sick fire, the man would have thought the village empty. The village’s idiosyncratic nature both repelled him and drew him closer.

He tiptoed precariously over splintered branches of wood on a path to the center of the village. Mindlessly approaching the fire that groaned at the focal point of the circle of huts, his foot punched through the top of a rotten log. Scorpions sprinted up his leg, so he yawped and hurried to the nearest hut, as if shelter could have repelled the creatures.

Inside, the entire commu-nity had gathered to sit in a circle and communicate with each other, for this group of mentally deranged villagers—each one similar to the man who had just hurtled through their entrance—simply had nothing better to do. Each one was an out-cast from his or her respective tribe. Each one was lost in the dense in-

tertwining of his or her respective mind. They merely sat, seemingly unconsciously, and disinterestedly blabbering gibberish to their neigh-bors. A lethargic air suffocated them.

They did not move when the man broke into their meeting; they only watched as he swatted the min-iature beasts off his leg and through the cracks of wooden floor. The vil-lagers knew why he was here. They could always tell. It was like a sixth sense.

“Sit down,” an elder mum-bled, motioning to his left shoulder. “Right next to Caio. He is two-na-tured. Just like you. Stop squirming and sit down. Right there.”

“How do you know I—,” the man stumbled over his words, con-fused.

“Sit down,” the elder groaned. “It’s why you came here, isn’t it? You knew you would find solace here, in this village. That’s why you came. Yes?”

“No. I had to leave my tribe. They couldn’t take care of me any more. Bad crop yield, I think. I just happened to run here. I found you by chance.”

The circle of villagers chuck-led. Their faces brightened.

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“It was certainly not by chance,” the elder replied. “Your body forced you here, even if you didn’t know it.”

“You’re wrong,” the man stat-ed flatly. Though nothing had pro-voked him, he could feel his cheeks starting to warm, his fists tighten-ing, and his heart jogging. His emo-tions had flared at less. They had minds of their own.

“My name is Diego,” the el-der calmly stated, demonstrating monk-like patience. “You came here because we try to help people like you, patch you up like a splintered Samuama and send you back on your way. You do want help, right? We can make you one again. Well, maybe.”

He finally took his seat. “Yes,” he responded. “Fix me.”

“It’s a battle,” the elder be-gan, “that few can win. You must tri-umph over yourself. It’s an art not even we know much about. That is why we still sit in these circles; for some, there’s no escape. For you, maybe. You must be tough. Certain-ty. Destroy your dual-nature. When would you like to start? How about now? Yes? Good.”

The elder rummaged through a sack to his left, extracting

a psilocybin mushroom—one that could distort reality so immense-ly that anyone who consumed it would have no logical place to turn but inward.

“Oh. Yes. I almost forgot,” Diego pressed his palm to his fore-head in surprise. “You need to drink from the sap of the trees across the river—the towering trees in your subconscious. There, everything is one with itself. Just cross the river. Make a boat. Just cross it. Ok?”

“Wait. What riv—,” before the man could even complete his sentence, the elderly leader of the tribe had shoved six grams of the drug down the man’s gullet. Time stopped.

***

The man returned to what he assumed was consciousness to

find his legs dangling in a bottom-less river that flowed upwards. It wasn’t hard to miss each peculiar as-pect of his surroundings—the grav-ity-defying river, the pink, stagnant mist hovering in the dome-like sky, and the mutated, slimy monsters that sifted throughout the viscous liquid beneath him. This was cer-tainly not the Amazon. That, he knew.

“Just cross the river.” The

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elderly man’s voice echoed like a catch-phrase throughout the sky. Just build a canoe and cross it. What’s so hard about that? He turned his back to the river, jauntily venturing into the cluster of trees behind him to gather fallen maple logs. After fashioning a basket out of strands of bark, only one thing was evident: his sheltered upbring-ing had again failed him, for his hole-ridden canoe had begun to sink into the goop that was the river of his own being. “Swim for the shore”, he thought. Diego’s words slashed through the mystical reality like knives; it was as if the elderly man was right there with him, omnipresent yet hidden. There are the tower-ing trees that can cure my mental disease, he thought. And then he thought no more, for the river had swallowed him whole and released an enormous air bubble to signify its triumph. The man disappeared into the bottomless river. He was gone.

***

With one heave of his rippling back muscles, Diego dragged

the unconscious man out of the riv-er, his hand confidently clenched around the circumference of the man’s ankle. He was not surprised at the turn of events; Diego had seen worse situations. So he placed the not-yet-conscious man on a ca-noe of his own, pushed him in the direction of the shore, and returned

to his hiding place. Everybody gets one. He chuckled to him-self. Just one.

The man’s body lay splayed at the recognizable be-ginning of a narrow dirt road that led straight to the tow-

ering trees of the subconscious. The man awoke this time to find his skin inflamed and tender, burnt by the caustic river that had just en-veloped him. Struggling, he turned around to view his surroundings, only to realize that the precarious and contradictory river that he had tried so hard to conquer was in fact behind him. He did not know how he had managed to cross the river, but he had. He had, and that was all that mattered.

He began to feel immense pressure

in his head as sound waves reverberated

off the dome-like atmosphere like

pinballs.

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But the mentally impaired villagers who had given him that magical mushroom knew what had happened. For it was the same force that had guided the man’s body to the village that had lifted him out of the river and carried him across. With this force, Diego had entered the man’s consciousness observed his being, and helped him from afar. But it was his battle and his battle alone. Diego could only help the man so much in his quest for oneness. So he had to walk alone. But he wasn’t without im-pediments. Deep in his subcon-scious, his schizophrenia raged like never before. He began to feel immense pressure in his head as sound waves reverberated off the dome-like atmosphere like pinballs. These sounds became visible, and jolts of fiery red and electric yellow shot past him, blinding his view and buckling his knees to the ground. The sound was deafening, and he writhed in pain. In a small puddle of sap runoff to his left, the man could see his reflection literally sep-arate into two separate images. The cosmic weight of duality crushed his bones and pressed him to the sharp grass beneath him. But he had to push on. His disease was splitting

him at the core. Yet an omnipresent force continued to prod him toward the schizophrenia-curing sap of the trees in his subconscious—the same force that had led him to the village and the same force that had pulled him out of the acidic, deathly lake. So he walked, blinded by sound and fury, yet motivated by something intangible. Diego watched him with admiration. He approached a crack in the ground and stared into the abyss of his being. It was just out of jumping distance. There was no way to cross it. He could hear the obscure echoes of pure duality reverberate off the walls. He chose to stay away.

But he couldn’t turn around. The trees were too close. Oh, to have come so far and to have failed was the greatest catastrophe. His volatile emotions raged. He could feel the fibers of his bones literally splitting as his body tried to regress into duality. He convulsed on the dirt path leading up to the abyss, his mind aflame with emotion and rage and confusion and sadness.

Diego frowned, so the om-nipresent force picked him up. It led him backwards a few steps and then hurtled him forward. His legs

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spread. His eyes clamped. His body sprang forward and cleared the abyss. He was free.

He approached the trees, tears welling in his eyes. Acknowl-edging his approach, sap began to flow from the trees themselves. And so he drank, absorbing unity in such great quantities that he could feel his mental disease drain from his body. Unchained from the depths of duality, his emotions normalized and the deafening sound dissipated. After a precarious journey through-out himself, the man had cured him-self of schizophrenia.

***

He had not known how he had managed to get there, but he

had. He had, and that was all that mattered. Maybe it was Diego. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. He was cured now. Free.

He entered his old village a new, unified, and independent man, no longer the dependent idiot who had received special care his entire life. Now, he was no longer schizo-phrenic; he was no longer chained to two selves; he was no longer the man who couldn’t cross the thresh-old of his being.

No, now he was much differ-ent. He was free.

BrothersKevin Bass ’13

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There are an infinite number of possibilities when

it comes to crafting with clay. Clay is mud extract-

ed from the earth and can be molded and formed

into almost any shape. Clay is a ceramicist’s imaginative

playground. Whether it is wheel work or hand-built work,

the art of ceramics is inspiring and has been practiced for

thousands of years. While being exposed to the world of

ceramics my freshman year, I would lie in bed at night and

dream about potential artwork I could make. Ceramics to

me is not a mere elective but a core discipline. I have spent

more time in the ceramics room than in any other room

on campus. Throwing clay on the wheel, I have learned pa-

tience, craftsmanship, and a love of excellence.

Top of the World

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—Kevin Bass

CeramiCs

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CeramiCs

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he glint that flashes off the kingly crownEnthralls my eyes and dyes my restless bones

A shade of green more vibrant than the downBeneath the crimson blood we shed for thrones.I quivered with prodigious joy and fearWhen witches dealt my card: a downturned knight.I thought transparent hands would swing the strokeAnd spare me guilt’s acidic, vengeful bite.But now the sickle twitches in my hands,As understanding nibbles at my mind.For I must reap the harvest of my plansAnd pray the Furies leave their wrath behind.

I must become a mantis in a roseAnd strike from petals feigning sweet repose.

I, macbeThby Mitch Lee ‘13

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Scotland CliffsOtto Clark-Martinek ’13

“But enough is enough. One turns at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief.”

—Annie Dillard

haKoTel: The WallKobi Naseck ’14

2013 Literary Festival Winner for Nonfiction

quickly approached the wall and mercilessly crammed in my lit-tle note. Wedged in between the corner of a rock and a hundred other scraps of paper, it fit right in, but I immediately questioned

its significance. After all, I had scribbled it on a ripped piece of wide-ruled paper while lounging on the bus two minutes before, and amid thousands of other prayers drenched by sporadic rain and frozen stiff by the sun, how could my two-sentence message be notable? Some of my friends had even hoarded fifteen notes and stuck them all in the same spot as if they could stake out a section of a two thousand-year-old bastion of holiness for each of their families. Though I did not want to, I had returned to the Old City of Jerusalem on the last day of my teen group’s summer trip, spanning the

CathedralHalbert Bai ‘13

I

Czech Republic, Poland, and all of Israel.

The first time we had seen the Western Wall, on our first day in

Jerusalem, at least I had an excuse. In such an unfamiliar environment, I wasn’t the only one confused. I gingerly approached the wall, tried to pray, thought about how hot it was, and then complied with tra-dition by pacing backwards a few steps so as not to turn my back to the Western Wall immediately. I was not deeply affected and neither were many of my friends. We left to explore side chambers of ancient synagogues.

Who could fault me for not feel-ing satisfied next to a divine

stack of rocks? I initially thought that I was oversaturated from every historical sight built from the same camel-colored stones but quickly dismissed the idea as an excuse. Although my experience was not spiritual, and I did not make peace with the wall, one boy in our group took to wearing a yarmulke daily af-ter his visit. “You don’t have to just pray at the wall, ya know?” he an-nounced. “It can be like anywhere and anytime.” Clearly he found a spiritual connection. I didn’t exact-ly wish I had a similar awakening,

though I was jealous. It seemed as if the wall had no intimate or reli-gious moments to spare for me.

On this last day as I plodded to-ward the shabby monolith, my

friends passed me their iPhones ask-ing for pictures of them wearing dis-counted tefillin they borrowed from young orthodox entrepreneurs, pic-tures next to a bearded man, and pictures of them with their eyes shut. They relished every second spent at the wall and felt sorrow for our evening departure the follow-ing day. Then, I could procrastinate no more; it was my turn. The belief that I had been cheated and handed an empty experience made me stay at the wall longer the second time. A quiet wave of resident black hats whispered and bowed and sighed and kissed the wall and looked up and cried, and I found myself de-void of all emotion. Even close to these men, these perennial icons of faith, I stood half-paralyzed—as sto-ic as the old stone I was facing.

It was just half past four, and I stood sweating from both frustration

and heat. I had even said the Sh’ma in an attempt to lure some amazing enlightenment from an unforgiving exterior or to discover something

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I could at least tell my grandpar-ents about. Then I heard a startling sound. A lilting chant echoed, and I almost started laughing. The Islam-ic Call to Prayer sprung from the Dome of the Rock and filled both the crevices of the ancient stones and my vacant bones. Standing be-fore the Wailing Wall, the last re-maining piece of the Second Tem-ple, a principal symbol of Judaism, I was able to relate to a completely foreign song from the other side of the wall. It flowed through the par-tition separating the men and wom-en’s sections and all the quarters of the Old City. Minarets all across the land of milk and honey joined in chorus, and Israel lay exposed in its splendor and ignominy. Though it was easier to hear the call than see it, the wall could not restrict its message. Such a tenuous scale rested on that wall with weights in favor of neither side. It was a gold-en amalgam of Zionist hope. It was part of the al-Aqsa Mosque com-

plex. It expressed and unified all the aspirations and dreams of a divided country and simultaneously con-demned them. It became a tangible no-man’s-land long before any in-ternational demilitarized zones had materialized. It reflected a thousand pilgrims’ prayers for peace, but it was in no way pragmatic.

I raised my arm to touch the wall one last time, and then took a

few steps back. While it was still in reach, I swiftly plucked my note from its niche and stashed it in my pocket. The wall already had one of my wishes, and now I could show it another one. I continued my slow, linear dance backwards, but it did not take long to stop backpedaling and relinquish both my disdain and reverence for the Western Wall. A wall is a wall, and after two thou-sand years and thirty-six amazing days of summer, it was time to move on.

Minarets all across the land of milk and hon-ey joined in chorus, and Israel lay exposed in its

splendor and ignominy.

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by Jonathan Ng ’14

hoW To See

blind man struts in the cor-ner of your vision. His walking stick clacks against the brick, like shoes on linoleum. You can’t look away. But you can’t get up, as if your legs have sprouted from the ground. You take a minute to pause at the peo-ple around you: the single mother, the worried busi-nessman, the smiling children. Your eyes come back to his wandering frame, a tempting hypnotic pendu-lum. You can’t help but notice his dark shades on the cloudy day. You avert your eyes because your parents have told you long ago that it is rude to stare. But it’s annoying; a welling content crackles. You feel the leaves falling. The night caresses the sun. You see the blind man’s face, weathered and beaten. You see his hands, spotted and speckled. But all you do is stare at his blindness. You want to ask him if he’s seen the colors of the rainbow, the cover of a magazine, a Ferris wheel twirling with bright lights. You want to ask him as if he has seen them through a different lens, a more refined iris, or some wiser viewpoint. But your legs are rooted in position. The night creeps forth. And now, you must close your eyes to see beyond the darkness.

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OblivionHalbert Bai ’13

“To suggest the dichoto-my of the ego and id, I stood on the edge of a metaphori-cal moral cliff looking into the depths of darkness.”

Showcase:CeramicsShowcase of works by Oliver de la Croix-Vaubois ’13 (Pieces 01 - 05) and Kevin Bass ’13 (Pieces 06 - 09)

01

02

03 04

05

01 Criss-Cross

02 Cerise Jars

03 Onyx

04 Iridescence

05 Alien Death Mask

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Sepulchre 06

Makoto 07

Immolation 08

Triton 09

09

07

06

08

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Prose

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Marque Magazine

Prose

Writing defines an author’s life. Writing a novel

unfetters creativity, leading to an exploration

of areas of an otherwise silent, dormant, un-

used mind. Through countless hours of daydreaming during

meals, during Chapel, during class, I craft people from the ac-

tions and interactions of my friends, building a universe re-

flective of my life. That is the glory of writing—to synthesize

personal experiences into a compelling, original narrative.

Each novel contains a particular perspective. A wonderful

vehicle for building a universe, prose converts images in the

mind into words on the page. I have written in other forms,

but in my opinion, they cannot express the multitude of emo-

tions, feelings, and thoughts that a novel can communicate.

Every page of a book tells a story, a history of developing

thoughts, unfolding with each individual word.

—Sam Libby

SomethingNovel

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ne hundred thirty-nine plastic, glow-in-the-dark stars condensed to a rectangle on the wall across my bed, each held by a square inch of sticky-note-like adhesive. In an attempt to re-kindle my child-like illusions of space, mys-tery, and wonder, I plastered star-shaped pieces of phosphorescent plastic to the

baby blue of my wall. In lieu of common artwork, I filled the space above my shelves with child-like decorations, creating a piece of art so fundamental to my understanding of the universe with the use of just one element: light. That night, in an attempt to escape their un-stable energy levels, electrons tore out of these stars and into the surrounding darkness like bullets, only faster. They teemed out of each star like madmen, as if in a hurry—a controlled haste at the speed of light. I watched the stars’ collective tendency to radiate light and then dim, leaving only faint hints of their presence. For it was much more than a modest glowing that amused me; it wasn’t the nostalgia of my childhood spent stargazing that

drew me to the rectangle above my shelf. This network of glow-in-the-dark stars, a form of art so mediocre and ostensi-

bly insignificant, gave me ground in a groundless universe. The way in which I understood my place in the universe

relative to the massive bodies of gas and rock floating throughout space itself was inexplicable. All I knew was

that I was here, and they were there, hurling through space yet remaining still.

O

GloW-In-The-DarK STarSNoah Yonack ’13

TattooAlden James ’16

“I saw this as an interesting, gritty night shot. The seated group of people gives it a strange mood since they don’t

look like people who would be at a tattoo parlor.”

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S h a m b l eby Henry Woram ‘13

hat year the oxen idled in fallowed fields. Plows jutted out from the ground like the crooked arms of dead husbandmen reaching out from their graves. The village’s Bible, bound in red-stained leather and inscribed with gold leaf, was left sprawled on the preacher’s pulpit in the chapel — a page describing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah faced upward, gathering dust.

Downstream, toward the homes and inn, wolves scoured the dirt paths and pawed at the ground unbothered. Fences were left

un-mended, and all the livestock not slaughtered by their owners or wolves twisted cuds in their mouths. Nature ran her course through the village as the affairs of men waned, subsided and finally halted over the years; hay bales scattered in diffuse patterns, wagon wheels morphed and splintered, and scarecrows slumped, bowing to the pagan gods of death.

But Godfrey survived. He had tried not to on a few occasions; first he dove into the river and floated downstream in search of either

death by drowning or hope in the form of another village, but instead fell un-conscious and awoke caught in a bundle of logs at a ford. The rushing of wa-ter over his mouth and face woke him up, and he stared at the stars, waiting

T

Divine Janus, as this day follows the night, help me start life anew.

As the shore is scoured by the tide, let me be cleansed.

And as the sea becomes the flower, let me be reborn. — Pagan Chant

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for a sign. He found none, or maybe nothingness was the intended sign. He heard the howls, and over the course of three days and nights ran back to his village, foraging to keep his pangs of hunger subdued. The second and more painful time, he tried to kill a bull for its meat and was gored, left bleeding in a mead-ow, eyes wide open and blinking through hot tears. It was only when the birds started circling above him that he decided life was preferable to death, and he dragged him-self to the river where he splashed his wound and covered it with mud, then swooned on the riverbank. The wound festered and brought fever, but Godfrey survived.

The last to die was Anne. She was younger than he — the illness

took the oldest and youngest first, leaving the healthiest to die last. For a month, the two of them lived as the last of the village. Anne talked of God’s wrath and the need to re-pent for sins, but at nights she drew close to Godfrey and they knew each other in this way. But one day, the sores came, and Godfrey knew. He burned her corpse.

That winter he moved into the church and burned fires in the

nave for warmth. In the beginning, he would talk to himself in hushed tones and have tantrums and throw

objects just to see if they would re-lease some secret he was missing. He gradually became accustomed to the silence; noises coming from his mouth that were not in the key of the wild startled him.

On a particularly cold day, he sat staring at the rafters as

the smoke built up and eventual-ly seeped out through the holes in the roof. He counted and re-counted the number of days the stores in the

village granary would keep him alive. Four.

Godfrey had prom-ised himself he

would never lay a finger on the village Bible. He had once as a young boy, and learned never to touch

it again. Staring at it from the pews — back when they still creaked un-der the weight of the village’s in-habitants — he was transfixed. The volume held so many stories and so much knowledge, but only one man could convey them. Young Godfrey envied the priest’s ability to run his finger along the pigments on the page and channel God’s words, as the bowstring of a violin caresses notes from strings. He would stare and stare, swinging his feet from the pews, until one day he snapped from the tension and fired from his seat like an arrow. His mother reached out to grab him and shrieked as he scampered down the pew and into

Scarecrows slumped, bow-ing to the pa-gan gods of death. 37

the aisle, sprinting to the pulpit. The priest halted his reading and lifted his hand from the tome, staring be-wildered at the young Godfrey. As Godfrey paused and stared up at the pulpit, the priest looked down. “Go back to your seat, child,” the priest whispered. But Godfrey refused to obey. Not yet tall enough to reach the book on the pulpit, he grabbed hold of the wood itself and shook the book from its towering height like a coconut from a palm tree.

At this, the whole congregation gasped, and Godfrey’s father

vaulted from his seat, hand raised to strike. The priest, at first startled and now insulted, yelled, “Control yourself! Return to your seat, boy!” and laid a closed fist on Godfrey’s stubborn, blond-streaked pate — but Godfrey’s fixation with the book would not be sated yet. Godfrey fi-nally shook it loose, let the book fall, and opened it upside down. He pressed his sweaty, tiny hand to the lines, waiting for the words to come to him. The swirling patterns of the character on the page and the controlled flourishes of each word were more bewitching to him than anything he had seen before; how could anyone want to taint them by

speaking them? All sight and sound halted — the only two things in the world were Godfrey and the Bible, as the rest of the congregation writhed in useless agony.

But his father’s grip pierced the moment. He slung the boy over

his shoul-ders and m a r c h e d down the aisle, exiting the chapel so that he could dis-cipline his boy in a more tem-poral setting. Godfrey, slung over his father’s shoulders, bobbed up and down with each of his father’s steps. He dangled his head back-ward, and blood flooded his brain as he focused on rays of twisted light filtering all the way up from the stained glass windows to the floor.

Godfrey again stared at the Bi-ble, except this time, the chap-

el wasn’t teeming with the living. Eyes fixed on the Bible and hands clenched, he marched down the aisle. He snatched the book vio-lently from the pulpit and faced the pews. In his outstretched arm, he held the book by its pages like a conqueror clenching the hair of a severed head. He ripped page after page from the spine in a slow, con-trolled fury. Soon, the floor was lit-

Spirit’s ReprieveAlden James ‘15“Shooting this picture, I liked the juxtaposition of the simple Marksman and the ornate window.”

He counted and re-counted the number of days the stores in the village granary would keep him alive.

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tered with dismembered pages, and Godfrey rolled in them like a hog in a sty, his eyes frozen black.

He did not realize initially that a fire in the nave had spread to the

pews. But the dried oak caught flame quickly, and soon a whole row was ablaze, then a whole section. Rising from his cathartic ravings, Godfrey watched as the flames hemmed him in. The high stained glass windows fogged with steam, and the chap-el lurched with black smoke while wood snapped, popped and hissed as the fire lashed at it. The scene be-fore him distorted and congealed like hot wax.

Godfrey trem-bled. His knees

quaked, his nos-trils constricted, his palms moistened. His eyes remained black. In the burning belly of the chapel, he cried out, “Come, Devil, for to thee this world is given!”

He fell forward but caught himself by shooting out a leg. Then an-

other. And in tumbling succession, he ran forward into the tempestu-ous flames, shutting his black eyes. The flames scorched and scourged his skin and hair, and he screamed in agony. His heart raced, and his feet propelled him out of the chapel. Now he was no longer flesh, he was no longer man, he was no longer alive or dead; he was all spirit.

He emerged from the chapel door, his clothing still ablaze, and

waded through waist-high snow, marring the snowy landscape that now blanketed the village green. And then he fell, extinguished by overwhelming white. Heat evapo-rated from his skin as the elements mixed, spinning and spinning to-ward the center.

Splintered and snow-strewn fenc-es in the village stretched to re-

couple; the scaled lines of sediment accumulated on the tavern walls smiled; the fire in the chapel waned.

The blackened Godfrey — smol-

dering in a puddle of melted snow and flesh — opened his eyes and, staring with sparkling eyes

at the blue sky and steaming like a newborn lamb freshly slipped from its mother’s womb, resolved to live.

Come, Devil, for to thee this world is given!

Fahrenheit 451Reid Stein ‘14

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ope takes the form of wings.It attaches itself to your back and tells you to fly. It tells you and you believe and because there’s no alternativeyou trust your wings. Anything has to be better than this cage in which you find yourself.And with you, your heart soars. You leap out, flying into the sky so bright.Even if there is no door or key to your cage, you break out to see the sky.

The sky is hope.It poses a challenge and a promise that there’s something else.But hope is infinite,just as there is no end to the sky.You fly upward, up and up and up, and suddenly find that you can’t do it.There is nothing beyond the sky.Your wings are broken by the strain of hope. There’s nothing left.You fall back to the cage, which suddenly seems so dark.

The cage lacks hope.The cage is safety.There is no safety in hope.But after flying, the cage is not a home, but a prison.The hole is still in the ceiling where you first flew.It is there to remind you of what you once hadand of how foolish you were to believe.

The alleGory of hopeRachit Mohan ’13

H

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But hope is worth it.Is it not better to fly so high, even if you know the fall comes after?The ground is hard; it hurts when you crash.The dark room you are in hurts.The bright sky you fell from burns.The hole is still there, an invitation.

The hole is hope.It is there because no matter how much it hurts,you still wish to fly. The hole proves you can fly.So like a fool, you pick yourself up and leap to the sky again.But this time, don’t try for beyond;you fly because it feels good. Because when you fly, everything goes away.Floating with the wind,the world is that much brighter.The dark cage is no longer a factor.It never existed in the first place;you’ve been flying all along.

Your wings are hope;The sky you fly in is hope;The hole in the cage is hope;Just flying is worth everything.

The sky always beckons.You can always answer the call.

Misty MorningHalbert Bai ‘14

“On a promontory over-looking a dramatic scene of mist and light, I cap-tured the subdued atmo-

sphere of the scene.”

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—Michael Gilliland

PHOTOGRAPHY

S eeing a masterpiece in 1/60th of a second, one shut-

ter release, is always a thrill, and I don’t know if I

could find that anywhere else. Although photog-

raphy allows for both completely accurate visual reproduc-

tions and synthetic fabrications of the world, I am drawn to

the former. There is also a certain element of luck in pho-

tography not found in any other art discipline. The more I

practice photography, the better I become at channeling this

luck, capturing life’s evanescent details. My love for photog-

raphy began with a love of technology. With the proliferation

of digital cameras and their increasing availability, there will

be more captivating photos. Every photo has the opportunity

to surprise us with a detail we would otherwise have lost to

time.

Luck of the Draw

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—Michael Gilliland ’13

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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Scarlet WindRiley Graham ’14

“I was trying to illus-trate the chaos that occurs when the sun sets. The spinning red object contributes to the continuous mo-tion that never ceases. ”

WhITe roSeS UnloveD

Quinn in WindowNick Brodsky ’14

Forest Cummings-Taylor ‘15

Elegance passes by unnoticed,

For want of self-regret and pity.

Splendor waits for recognition,

But withers like white roses unloved.

“Wherefore art thou winter?”

Dreams of summer taint its hazy glory,

Thoughts of golden brown suppress its quiet beauty.

Like the rose it scatters in the breeze,

And in its place is grown a lily.

Weather warms a heavy heart,

And backs are turned to greatness.

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Pe

rM

it D

ay

sby

Bre

nt W

eisb

erg

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t’s a stop sign.Still only halfway down the street;No need to brake yet.Mirrors look fine.Feet positioned correctly.To the side, green lawns,Still a little wet.

Children are playing ball off to the side.“Slow and have caution,” says mother.You know that driving is not about pride.Across the intersection, cars parked,Stop sign coming up clearly marked.Rear-view sights anotherComing up, a few blocks down.

Red stripes, green paint like sedgeIridescent in the noontime sun.Quite out of place on this last test run,It banks out of sight behind a hedge. Eyes swivel to the road.Two seconds have passed.The stop sign has passed.You have not.

I

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Moving ForwardHalbert Bai ‘14

“To illustrate a sense of movement and discovery, I made an arrow out of Post-It notes and placed a toy stealth plane to signify exploration. I utilized signifi-cant white space to suggest curiosity, providing a more complete outlook on adventure.”

Sands of TimeRiley Graham ‘14

“I caught this biker cruising down the sand just after sundown and used a long exposure to show his speed in the context of what was a very slow, gloomy scene.”

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01-06 The Dish (Series)

The proliferation of satellite dishes has made them an unignorable feature on many American houses. In this series, I convey just how much of a dominant motif—albeit an eyesore—the satellite dish is and how it interrupts the archi-tecture of houses.

PhotographyShowcase of works by Michael Gilliland ’13

01

02

Showcase:

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04

05 06

0353

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2-D Art

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2-D Art

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There is something so intense and intriguing about

being able to capture a moment, to tell a story

through drawing and painting, and to twist reality

with your own voice and imagination. Drawing allows both

the creator and the viewer to clearly see and interpret the “big

picture” of certain truths and realities of humanity. A per-

son’s drawing or painting reflects his or her mood, emotions,

and expressions of themselves and the world through a wide

variety of lines, colors, and shapes, the artistic language. A

silent form of art, drawing reveals quieter, more concealed

parts of the self, which always exist within the artist’s be-

ing. While we can easily convey literal and concrete realities

through written and spoken language, we can depict more

complex, abstract ideas through colors and forms. I find that

I can speak with a louder voice through the power of a pencil

or brush, both of which are vehicles of my expression. Draw-

ing and painting provide me with the colors and forms of life

and character—they give me the courage to express.

Vehicles of my Expression

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—Purujit Chatterjee

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GraphiteShowcase of works by Purujit Chatterjee ’15

01 VenusIn this graphite study, I learned a lot about the anatomy and value of the hu-man face.

02 Venus, DeconstructedA common exercise for draftsmen is to draw a bust that has been broken into planes. This exercise always helps me understand how light and shadow play upon surfaces as complex as the human head.

03 Jared, Deconstructed (Opposite)By rendering multiple busts divided into planes, I have learned to be extremely meticulous in articulating tonal values and contours. Here, I have recreated a 3/4 profile.

01

02

Showcase:

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hin wispy clouds gathered over the ocean every spring morning. Mild morning sunshowers awakened us from our sweet dreams. The cool rain licked the lethargy from our bodies and enriched our souls with

happiness. We savored this season of fertility, love, and life. We enjoyed our time outside while taking care of our responsibilities. Even the children sensed the fresh warmth of each spring day and frolicked on the sand ditch-es by the sea.

Halbert Bai ‘14findingheart

Urban Coastline Reid Stein ’14

T

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I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. The morning of

March eleventh was clear and sun-ny. While waves glistened under the rising sun, my people began to hustle and bustle about our rustic village like any other day. Children began racing toward the sandbanks, and tourists began flocking to the village shops. Our canoes, along with an old frigate, began oscillat-ing with the sea current. I rushed outside and found my people begin-ning to gather around the dock. No one dared to step onto the gnarled wooden deck except for a few wild chil-dren who walked across the dock with a nonchalant gait. We began to hear thunder growl-ing from afar and the raging wind striking against the sandy shores. Suddenly, a sponta-neous wave overturned one of our canoes. The parents of the wild children rushed across the wood-en deck. Under sparks of lightning, a wave not far from the dock rose above the wooden deck and clawed the sandbank. I looked at the fam-ilies stranded on the dock. They were frozen; their faces told the story of the tragedy that plagues my people to this day. The parents embraced their children, and the heavens began releasing pellets of ice that crackled as they struck the ground. The wave dashed across the sea like a lion rushing after its prey. The gusts of wind were cold, and the warmth of the sand had dis-

sipated. People arriving at the scene shouted, “Run!” But it was too late.

The wooden planks on the dock loosened. Water swirling with

debris circled around our feet, but even as the tide rose, we stood stead-fast. We could not step away from the families that had always been a part of our lives. Everyone watched as the water lifted their bodies from the deck, enveloping them in its wrath and carrying them into the depths of the sea. Yet the parents and children kept their heads up-

right, relentless in their efforts to con-quer fear. I remem-ber how their fac-es glowed and how their eyes sparkled underneath the wa-ter, encouraging us to have hope.

When the waves began to latch onto our feet and drag us into

the deepening water, we began to follow the quickly eroding beach toward our homes. I returned to the whistling sound of the teakettle and the cool Moso bamboo floor. The thunderclouds moved rapidly and shrouded my village in near dark-ness. I could see the tide rising and the waves devouring homes along the coast. The wind was shockingly fierce. Terracotta tiles ripped loose from our homes and circled the air like a vortex preparing for landfall. I could stretch out my arms and feel debris colliding against my skin. For a moment, I stood resolute and closed my eyes. Murky seawater be-

People arriv-ing at the scene shouted, “Run!” Yet, it was too late.

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gan to inundate my home and en-gulf my feet. Then, I felt heat run-ning through my blood and into my bones. I ran. I ran like lightning, my body racing with spontaneity. I ran for my life, my family, and most im-portantly, my people.

It has been a year since the de-struction terrorized our island.

Our stories, hopes, and dreams are now known all over the world. Yet no one can distinguish my people from the rest of the country. Until a year ago, we had never heard of the World Cup, nuclear fission, or Fukushima. We had always lived on our pastoral grounds raising cattle, growing rice, and picking tea leaves. Occasionally we went overseas, past a narrow strait over an underwater abyss to the mainland to sell our goods and hear news of the last sa-murai. Although my people are no longer unified, we continue to re-member the simple, bucolic lives we once had. I returned to the desolate lands of my people last winter. The sandbanks, littered with items of our past life, remain under the whim of the sea. From the wreckage, I dis-covered a heart symbol etched on a jagged wooden plank. I remember looking back towards the sea and imagining the families with their eyes alight with love and hope.

I now live in America, the land of opportunity. Sometimes I feel like

a transgressor from a far away plan-et seeking to learn the customs of an alien species. Here, people obsess over their toys and gadgets. Every day I see parents walking alongside their children who have earbuds trapped deep inside their heads; girls are glued to their keypads, and boys are engulfed in a world of imaginary military missions. I long for the rustic life I once had. I now awaken to the sounds of a screech-ing alarm clock and a buzzing cellu-lar phone instead of the even patter of the soft morning rains. The soft, cool sand has become rock-hard as-phalt that burns my soft skin. My favorite day of the year is American Football Day—the day when every-one oggles plastic screens and mov-ing pictures. This is the day I tra-verse for hours over rough asphalt to reach a sandy beach far from civilization. I allow my body to sink into the cool sand while the saline water lapses over my skin, licking away my pains and worries. That wooden plank is always near my heart—the center of hope and inspi-ration. I strive to keep my eyes open and focused on the future. When I return to my new home, I have re-newed hopes of finding light where there is darkness and of seeking love where there is emptiness.

StrandedMason Smith ’15

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FragmentedCharles Thompson ‘13

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Henry Woram ‘13

The waiting drove me mad.

A siren’s charms

all this lovesick body needs is an embrace,

nothing more

don’t know whether it’s impotence or fidelity

but it keeps me from tasting her

The waiting drives me mad.

I scream and tear until something is released

we are nothing until we are brought to snap

and in that moment, as tension is released,

so are we, spilling out in whatever terrified or

bristled state

that the truth manifests.

The love that bites it the love I never expected.

Come home.

Godspeed, come home borne on wings

before I am torn apart.

c o r D U r o y

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We are all victims of our own paralysis.Wouldn’t it be good just to fly?

No nagging voices, no deadlines, no alarm clocks.

Without judgement we lose formand what can be said for the virtues of elasticity?

of the rubbery virtues —they never lose hold,

wholly subject to currents and flowsnot to impositions and inquisitions.

Wherever rubber goes, our souls do follow.

r U b b e r

One of those skies that’s filled with bold color —

intensity and a fear that begs to be realized.The color smolders in the sky while rain

pats mywindshield, and the fires in your eyes

slowly extinguish.Your eyes slide shut and you sink

backwards, trusting.While the city sleeps I stare, and watch

as the sun dies nobly and the rain taps softly.

S m o l D e r

Henry Woram ‘13

Henry Woram ‘13

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Lonely Cul-de-sacMax Naseck ‘13

01-05 (Series)

This series started out as a combina-tion of El Greco’s portraitures and Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art. Through humor, I wanted the figures to actively engage with the viewer.

AcrylicShowcase of works by Robbey Orth ’13

01

Showcase:

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04 05

02 0367

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Woodworking is unique because the fin-

ished product is tangible. Not only can

people appreciate the aesthetic quali-

ties of a piece from an unlimited variety of angles,

but they can also interact with the piece. I like to

view woodworking as uniting form and function:

only the best pieces manifest both. I work with a

multitude of materials, including wood, steel, and

plaster. These media are unique because they de-

mand attention and skill. I must saw, sand, and

varnish wood. I must plasma cut, weld, and grind

steel. I must mix, pour, and shape plaster. Even af-

ter all this work, I may not be satisfied with the

product. Parts may not fit together. Shapes may

not be perfect. Surfaces may not be smooth. How-

ever, I have discovered that the engineering in-

volved makes woodworking so interesting. The

resolution of each puzzle and problem drives me.

During each project, I find myself delving deeper

into the concrete mystery of art.

Engineering Art

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—Harrison Lin

woodworking

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woodworking

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ambITIon’S ThreaTMitch Lee ‘13

Ambition sometimes is a reckless will

That strikes its victims when they’re least immune.

Inside it slowly conquers with a skill

That keeps hosts dancing madly to its tune.

Desire can leave a sky-starved garden bare,

Sling outbursts from a mouth to no address.

A prince himself can trip its hidden snare,

And choke on others’ diamonds of success.

Delusion commandeers true value’s place

If popularity appraises life.

A family will assume a stranger’s face.

Regret will cut through hearts as if a knife.

Ambition swamps a boat that chases fame,

And leaves a wake of empty, bitter shame.

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WisdomMason Smith ‘15

“Amongst the many Cambo-dian merchants enticing us to try their food or buy their products, I happened to come across a little old lady who had no food, no money, and begged for my help, who put her hands together and prayed for my help.”

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Spinning TableHarrison Lin ‘14

“This was my first piece, and I wanted to make something that looked cool but was still usable. The piece ended up as an exploration of aesthetic relationships embodied in a functional form.”

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Rust & MarbleOliver de la Croix-Vaubois ’13

“I like these two textures together because one is al-most metallic while the other is stony.”

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SeafoamOliver de la Croix-Vaubois ’13

“The patina of the teal glaze suggests to me clear, tropi-cal waters.”

2

Broken CloudsOliver de la Croix-Vaubois ‘13

“In this piece I contrasted the apparent motion of the lower finish with the solid, study-looking upper finish.”

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1 2

3

umbling with fonts and ungrammatical nonsense,Superficial children try to seem profound.We live in an age when masterpieces are feces strewn on a canvas. Where is the art in the world?

Random letters assembled together by insomniacs wearing hipster glasses,“It’s artsy” they exclaim.They need a new prescription to see the crap in front of them.Where is the art in the world?

There is order in disorder, unless it’s actually disorder.There is beauty in chaos, unless it’s just chaos.There is meaning in ambiguity, unless it’s only ambiguous.Art isn’t a puzzle to solve; it is a man’s idea in its most beau-tiful form. Where is the art in the world?

Mozart would laugh,Picasso would chuckle,Frost would cry,They worked with a concrete methodology, not superfluous, vague abstractions.Where is the art in the world?

Put the pens down unless you have something to say.Where is the art in the world?

the DegraDation of artRajat Mittal ‘13

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WoodworkingShowcase of works by various upper schoolers

01 Vertigo TableGeorge Lin ’15

02 Three Peaks Luke Munson ’14

03 Vicegripped SurfaceMatthew Meadows ’15

04 PipingCameron Baxley ’14

05 HalfcirclesCameron Baxley ‘14

03 04

05

01

02

Showcase:

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Bottle 06Cameron Baxley ’14

Sutured Drawer 07Winston Brewer ‘14

Bulletnest 08Cameron Baxley ’14

Fight Night 09Philip Osborne ’14

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07

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08

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FILMMAKING

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Marque Magazine

FILMMAKING

All artists tell stories. Writers, painters,

even those who hang tire pumps and

plungers from ceilings (or whatever pass-

es as abstract art these days), are all storytellers.

The beauty of film is that it allows for the most

direct and pure transmission of stories between

artist and audience. Film is, after all, just a win-

dow: action unfolds before your eyes. Film offers

a view into our heads, our world, and our stories.

These stories never stop. They’re floating around

our world or springing from our own gray matter,

and all it takes is a camera to capture them and

put them on display. It’s like catching your first

fish, frog, or firefly. When you collect something

special, you have a giddy desire to show it off. The

same is true for stories. My friends and I have

made fictional films inspired by stories we caught

unfolding around us. The stories are always there.

The world just needs a window. As filmmakers,

our goal is to simply cut, polish, and assemble the

glass.

Film is a Window

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—Cole Gerthoffer

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refreShmentCole Gerthoffer ‘14, William Sydney ‘15, and Kunal Dixit ‘15

A blender rests alone on a counter…

CUE TITLE: REFRESHMENT

FADE IN:

INT. KITCHEN— DAY

MAX (17) enters the kitchen, shuf-fling his feet. He’s wearing a dark long-sleeve shirt and long, baggy jeans. He reaches the fridge, bends down to grab a drink, and notices some pictures attached with mag-nets. The pictures show an eight-year-old Max, smiling, reading a book, building a puzzle, and playing with Legos. Max sighs; a slight smile creeps onto his face. He SLAMS the drink on the fridge shelf and sets off, determination in his eyes.

INT. BEDROOM— EVENING

Max walks to a shelf, and grabs a handful of Legos.

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INT. LIVING ROOM— EVENING

He lifts a jigsaw puzzle off of the floor.

INT. OFFICE— EVENING

Finds a childish pencil box, opens to find crayons.

INT. CLOSET— EVENING

Pulls a colorful picture book off a shelf.

EXT. BACKYARD— EVENING

Max walks outside into his backyard. It’s dusk and there’s very little sun left.

EXT. TREEHOUSE – EVENING

As Max climbs up the ladder to his tree house, we pan over to a pile of leaves. Buried under leaves and twigs is a small stuffed lion. Max gently digs it out and brushes off the dirt.

INT. KITCHEN— DAY

With all his materials, Max ap-proaches the blender. He drops in the Legos. He dices the crayons, as if they were carrots, with a CHOP, and drops the diced crayons in as well. He crumbles in the puzzle pieces. After rolling a damp cloth over the picture book with a rolling pin, he squeezes the ink from the

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book into the blender — his final step. Max pushes BLEND. He stares at the blender longingly and hope-fully. Pushing stop, he sees that the blender now contains a multicolor smoothie.

CUT TO: An empty glass rests on a counter, and the purple smoothie, dropping from above, fills up the glass. Max lifts the glass to his lips, closes his eyes, and takes a drink. The glass SLAMS back down on the counter, and we slowly pan back up the arm. An eight-year-old Max licks his lips, smiles, and runs off.

FADE OUT:

THE END

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BubblesHansen Kuo’13

“The splashes were ran-dom, yet they had a synergy to them. The bubbles were inspired by Dyst.”

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manly DancInGRajat Mittal ‘13

orced to surrender his armor that protects him from judgment, a man is most vulnerable when he dances; his true form is revealed. With his shields down, he is exposed and defenseless; without protection, he becomes insecure. But I don’t. From a young age, I’ve happi-ly thrown down my armor to dance to the music. Of course, high school jeers and social repercus-sions are not a part of a toddler’s world, but still, the feeling of exposure exists. At the age of two, I twirled and spun to Barney & Friends whenev-er it came on the television. During the opening credits, I’d fill with excitement, manifesting in my uncontrollable, off-balance revolutions. As I grew older, too old for Barney, my dancing took to the streets when I listened to a local band with my family during a walk-in concert. The music, like Barney’s, was energizing, and I started danc-ing in front of the stage. My moves now involved randomly flailing my arms and uncoordinatedly kicking my feet, a significant advancement from spinning to Barney. But the band’s enlivening chords possessed me to dance this way, so I did. To this day, the overflow of excitement from a galvanizing song is all it takes to energize me

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into dance. But some of my male coun-terparts repress the desire to dance; they feel the flood of exhilaration when they hear their favorite song but hold back the instinct to ex-press their excitement even when it’s overwhelming. They stand awk-wardly, fruit punch in hand, leaning against the walls at school parties; their nonchalant façade becoming transparent. The convenient, almost empty plastic cups of fruit punch they sip from are their life buoys; they reply, “I can’t join! I have a cup in my hand! If I did, I’d spill punch on ev-erybody!” to any invi-tation onto the dance floor. But in between my moves, I see them bobbing their heads to the beat and tap-ping their toes to the rhythm. They feel that excitement and gal-vanizing musical energy as I do. They want to join in and unshackle themselves from the wall and from their insecurity. They see the mass of people—mostly girls—enjoying the party and want to celebrate with their friends. I try to pull them into the crowd, but they resist me and suppress their urge to dance. To them, the wall is safe; it’s either the wall or looking ridiculous in front of girls. The choice seems obvious, so they stay. But to me, the wall isn’t safe-

ty; it’s suicide. The wall is death. Life is about movement and the expression of emotions. Our first steps as toddlers are celebrated, not ridiculed. By standing against the wall, my friends rob themselves of those vital necessities of life; they cripple themselves by standing still, suppressing the instinct inside of them that wants to move. But still, they’d rather be dead and unnoticed than alive and ostracized, so they stay. So why do I dance? I elim-inated the choice between safety

and risk. I willingly dance not because I’ve confronted and over-come insecurity but because I’ve never ac-knowledged it. Maybe never acknowledging insecurity stems from never stopping to con-sider the social conse-quences; or perhaps

it’s a natural effect of growing up dancing. Regardless, when I dance, I feel a surge of electrifying ener-gy that eliminates superficial social anxieties. I’ve sacrificed my armor and gained the empowering feel-ing of unabridged enjoyment. And now, after I’ve realized the social significance of dancing at parties, the choice isn’t between safety or risk; it’s between continuing that tidal wave of triumph or leaning against a wall. Dancing is the obvi-ous choice.

Life is about movement and the ex-pression of emotions...

m bacGateway into Shangri-laHalbert Bai’13

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o d i a

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to KnowLuke Williams ‘14

Are nanda?Wakaritakunai.Nandemo nai.

Over there, what’s that?I don’t really want to know.

There is nothing there.

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Geometry

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Michael Gilliland ‘13

the crew

Robbey Orth | Editor-in-Chief

Mitch Lee | Managing EditorMarta Napriorkowska

Nic Lazzara

The Staff: (From Left to Right) Brent Weisberg, Rajat Mittal, Matthew Co, Rachit Mohan, Purujit Chatterjee, Halbert Bai, Jef-fery Wu, Grant Ubele, Hansen Kuo, Ryan Eichenwald, Luke Williams, Robbey Orth, Mitch Lee, Nic Lazzara, Stuart Montgomery, Jonathan Ng, William Su, Max Naseck, Will Jelsma, Zuyva Sevilla, Nic Buckenham, Alex Kim, Brody Ladd, Raymond Guo, Wesely Cha, and Mrs. Lynne Weber

copy teamRyan EichenwaldRajat Mittalphotography team Adam Merchantgraphics team Purujit ChatterjeeZuyva Sevilla general staffNic BuckenhamWesely Cha

Matthew CoForrest Cum-mings-TaylorRaymond GuoWill JelsmaAlex KimShourya KumarBrody LaddAidan MaurstadStuart MontgomeryNabeel Muscatwalla

William SuGrant UbeleBrent WeisbergJeffery Wuadvisors Lynne WeberMarta Napiorkowska

editors-in-chief managing editor copy editorsubmissions editorarts editorliterature editorphotography editors

graphics editor

Nic LazzaraRobbey OrthMitch LeeRachit MohanJonathan NgNoah YonackLuke WilliamsHalbert BaiMax NaseckHansen Kuo

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This year’s Marque Magazine of Arts and Letters was printed by Etheridge Printing on Heidelberg Plates and bound using perfect binding. The magazine was printed on Endurance Silk Book and Finch Fine Cover papers with 4/4 color pro-cessing. The staff used Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illus-trator CS6 to produce the magazine. Typefaces used include the families of Colfax, Chift Text, and Chift Display. The press run for this year’s Marque was 450 copies.

colophon

The Marque Magazine of Arts and Letters is meant to serve as a collection of the literary and artistic works produced by students in St. Mark’s Upper School, comprised of grades 9 through 12, during the 2012–2013 school year. The Middle and Lower Schools students (Grades 1–8) have an arts and letters publication of their own: The Mini-Marque. Works of all types and forms are welcomed and considered equally for publication. The Marque is printed and distributed at the end of the school year, representing a culmination of the finest of the year’s creations.

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The End

10600 Preston RoadDallas, Texas 75230

Care of:Lynne WeberFacebook:The MarqueWebsite:

www.smtexas.org

contact

Mrs. Lynne WeberDr. Marta Napiorkowska

Mr. Ray WestbrookMs. Jenny Dial

Ms. Debbie O’TooleEtheridge Printing

special thanks

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the marque | vol. 51 | 2013

Documents

years magazine

arts magazine

literary magazine

p r e s t o n r o

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