Essay from Kristen Caven

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Take A Walk in My Scarpa

When one travels to Italy, one luxuriates over leather goods, namely shoes. And anyone who knows me knows I’ve had a thing or two to say about footwear. Alexa took me to two markets and a shoe store to indulge my lust for shoes. She showed me how to look at labels to find the real leather, and to determine which were made here and which were made in China. At one market, we were greeted by a sea of seconds and last season treasures, with leather boots for only 10 Euro (About $15). Alas, they were only as large as a 37, and I start at a 38.

One can hardly afford NOT to buy them!

But we did find a few crazy stylish pairs that fit the parameters. There is no room in Alexa’s legendary shoe closet, but what’s a girl to do when one finds pointy gold leather booties wrapped with little belt things for only seven Euro?

The thing is, I couldn’t get my head around the Italian word for shoes: Scarpa.

I mean, in the country that is known for buttery soft, elegant footwear that fits so comfortably style can be a part of every step, the country that is literally shaped like footwear, and where the most musical of all Romance languages is spoken, why wouldn’t there be a more mellifluous word for shoe? SKARpa. Scar. (ew.) puh. (ugh.) The word has sharp edges and a spitting quality, calling to mind how painful shoes can be. What were Steve Martin’s Cruel Shoes with the right-angle turn and the embedded razor blades, if not scarpa?

I needed some help to understand the magic of this word, and asked Davide (Dáh-vee-day), the Vesuvian Cowboy, to illustrate. Sure enough, when a dashing Italian man says this word, one wants to slip one’s stockinged foot into whatever he happens to be holding in his hand at the moment….

My trophies: a pair of soft grey wedgie boots; some sleek leather Beatle booties; a pair of whimsical felt t-straps with a crocheted flower on the toe, dangerous six-inch heels and red soles (Alexa found a matching pair of pumps in her size… we really need to do an act, right?); and the perfect pair of first pumps for my niece’s Bat Mitzvah. (The girl is smart. She knew just what to ask for as a souvenir.)

And now for some shoe porn. 
The high holy grail of Cinderella shoes appeared in a window in Venice.
(I may have to rewrite my novel around them.)

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Poetry from Christopher Bernard

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What Is a Poem?

By Christopher Bernard

Writing it:
a moment of pity, plus a little skill, plus an absolutely absurd pride.

Reading it:
echoes, echoes, echoes of the dead.

*

Words and cats:
proud seductive minds.
Writing it,
like herding cats
who just happen to be on fire.

Reading it,
on the other hand,
like listening in on a convention
of drunken, but supremely eloquent, dogs.

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Poetry from Joan Beebe

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The Rising and Setting of the Sun

 

   A new day dawns and there is an eerie silence around us.

We wonder as we look at the darkened sky

And we perceive a tiny sliver of gold appearing.

With a shimmering afterglow that gives one a feeling of

Being in another time and place.

Now the rays of the sun shine bright upon the earth

Our senses awake more intensely

We are one with the panorama before us:

There is a freshening of life upon the earth.

Slowly but steadily we watch the morning sun appear.

It has beauty as shades of pink

 begin to stretch out across the sky.

  In the quiet of this new day,

 we reflect on the gifts of this sun

Our spirits are lifted and we are happy

We are thankful for the warmth and nourishment it provides.

As the day ends, we watch the slow setting of the sun.

The sky becomes a canvas of red, pinks and gold with

Streaks of light clouds blending in so beautifully that

It becomes a palette of colors across the sky.

It is now the quiet time of the night and we rest.

Poetry from K.C. Fontaine

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A Slow Suicide

I.
the pakistani painter’s studio
a shrine to her lost self

the finer things
glossed resistance
depressed days
blunted nights

II.

the darkest corner
of
her dust-laden studio
whisper
brighter
daysze.

untitled

Poetry by Aditya Shankar

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Measuring Achievements

I count calories before and after workout,
collate data in charts and turn my home into
a museum of achievement, unsure about the
measure for the world to know, the desire of
fallen leaves to fly into houses, the loneliness
of colors for Abanindranath to call his peace,
The Peace Cottage*. I am used to the way we
climb mountains to celebrate temples on the
pinnacle of certain, and worship longing on
the rest. Slight tremors on countryside rail
tracks that reach us before the train mark
the achievement of arrivals and departures.
When eyes bury in themselves, a complicated
dial that resembles the engine room, I record
the waterfalls of blood in my body, the arrival
of death like the hiss of an alligator rising from
its depths. The devices make me a prophet
of transparent lies that dissolve like ice cubes
into my divination. When I leave, I am a cargo
train that passes through all stations and no
passenger knows where I am heading.

Note: * – A work by world renowned painter, Abanindranath Tagore.

Bio: Aditya Shankar is an Indian English poet living in Bangalore. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the Hour After Happy Hour Review, CC&D, ‘Purrfect’ Poetry, Beakful, Shot Glass Journal, Earthborne, Terracotta Typewriter, and Eastern Voices anthology, among others. He is author of a poetry chapbook, After Seeing, (2006) and a poetry collection Party Poopers (2014).

Synchronized Chaos March 2016: Life Energy

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Welcome, readers, to March’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine! This issue seems to center on energy in various forms, both literally as a power source and poetically as a metaphor for people finding the inner strength needed to spur them on to greater insights.

Jaylan Salah writes about finding solace and creative energy through the Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall. As a writer and artist and a young person, Jaylan found welcome, affirmation, and thought-provoking ideas in the lyrics and beauty in the voices of her favorite band.

Since ancient times music has punctuated our life journeys and lubricated our experiences, from early hide drums and wooden dulcimers and lyres and chants to modern sounds produced through technology.

Michael Robinson also writes of his poetic inspirations in taut, restrained free verse, using birds and nature as a motif. Seagulls and peacocks have been present during various seasons of his life and thus evoke various emotions.

Joan Beebe celebrates nature’s renewal and beauty during spring. Her work, written with joy and full sincerity, heralds the coming of warmer weather. She also encourages readers to keep track of their pleasant memories by holding onto mementos.

Peter Jacob Streitz contributes a short story on the loss of innocence and natural human life-energy due to repression and fear from people who moved too fast to control what they did not understand. Elizabeth Hughes, in her monthly Book Periscope literary review column, reviews novels from Hazel Boyd which describe how a group of people, friends and lovers, work to maintain the caring and energy in their relationships over time despite the complications and challenges they face.

And, finally, in a writeup from museum docent Cristina Deptula, there’s a discussion of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researcher Dr.Adam Weber’s research into improving the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells. While Weber affirms the promise of this form of energy storage within the next 50 years, the technology will require much thought and effort to bring it to the point where it can become commercially useful. He outlines some challenges researchers are facing and methods they are using to work around these issues.

We hope this issue serves as a kind of ‘muse’ for readers as they continue their own creative and personal journeys.

 

 

Egyptian writer and critic Jaylan Salah interviews Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall

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Poets of the Fall: Belated Interview and Self-Discovery

 

Poets of the Fall in a 2008 live performance By wlodi - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wlodi/2447716470/sizes/o/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8938315

Poets of the Fall in a 2008 live performance By wlodi – http://www.flickr.com/photos/wlodi/2447716470/sizes/o/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8938315

I first listened to the Finnish band “Poets of the Fall” in 2006. I was just starting college and they had just released “Carnival of Rust”; their second album. The first song that I listened to was “King of Fools”. I was awe-struck. It felt like I’ve been chosen to guard an ancient god that only whispered its secrets to me.
The guitar solo was great. The vocals were raw and emotional. Every single aspect of the song suddenly made sense. To a lonely, angry teenager, “Carnival of Rust” wasn’t just an album, but more of a way to adapt to the 2000s while carrying a hormonal hurricane deep inside you. Mark Saaresto’s –lead vocal- voice was more of a Jiminy Cricket to the wild, troubled writer who lived within me.

As he gently whispered lyrics from their song “Illusion and Dream”:
Hear them sing their songs off key
N’ nod like they agree
Buying the need to be discreet
Poof, my weariness would magically disappear. I would find courage and strength within to go on.
Okay, first things first.
Proper introduction: These guys are technically salt of the earth. Singer Marko Saaresto, guitarist Olli Tukiainen and keyboardist Markus “Captain” Kaarlonen started from scratch throwing everything away to seek the yellow brick road to art. Their songs tackled various subjects from life to sex, death to joy, and despair to empowerment. Their most recent album “Jealous Gods” reached the #1 spot on the Finnish album chart and the #1 spot in my heart as well. A collection of instrumental versions of five of the band’s songs will be released February 16th in an album under the title “Instrumental Collection Vol.1”.
They say every critic is a failed artist. That’s true to a point. I’ve always dreamed of being a rock star. As I juggled failed auditions to be a female lead vocal from one contraband to the other, I realized that writing about music could be easier than actually pursuing a musical career.
I had the privilege of representing Synchronized Chaos magazine in interviewing the “Old Gods of Asgard” via email and the result was a sincere and thought-provoking insight into the kitchen where the Poets shed their skin and become dragons, monsters, demigods and superheroes. One of the best things about “Poets of the Fall” is that their darkest melody never gives in to despair. Poets of the Fall’s lead vocalist Marko Saaresto described the musical process as an “inner need to write music” or else it would be “a short-lived love affair”.
Isn’t that just spectacular?

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