birdhouse. winter 2012. volume iv. issue ii

in this issuepoetry & prose

3 Blaine Dzwoneczyk, ‘1313 Elizabeth Kristian, ‘15 16 Amelia Evard, ‘1319 Sofia Gua, ‘16

art & photography1 Jade Perry, ‘132 Audrey Mays, ‘134 Sophia Huang, ‘139 Taylor Peterson, ‘1310 David Survilo, ‘1310 Rachel Miller, ‘1515 Cleo Chung, ‘1317 Claire Bowie, ‘13

features7 Interview: Angella Abbey| We sit down with

Angella and talk about her artwork 13 Free Face Painting| We offered face painting

in the quad for the school to come participate

Cover Art by Cleo Chung, ‘13

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Jade Perry ‘13

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audrey Mays ‘13

breaking news in the world of collective nouns

think: a herd of cattle. a school of fish. a murder of crows–– okay.

but an unkindness of ravens?

an unkindness of ravens?

what will they call our collective, I wonder.

a scintilla of humans? a chalk of half-apes?or a gossamer of people, a lilt of two-leggeds,an ascension of stander-upperscaught trying to fit in

Blaine dzwonczyk ‘13

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Sophia Huang ‘13soPhia huang ‘13

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My mother was restless. Long ago, in her eyes, where she thinks I can't seeShe was restless.A little girl lost in the desert of white sand beaches and distant fathersWith a woman's voice, still in fetus, crumpled in her chest.She wandered, as the restless doWhere she went, the oasis she found-That is still hidden from me, all but tiny glimpses through the curtains behind her irises and corneasBrown like palm wood, like old Scottish whiskey.but as a writer, I interpretI piece together a storyfrom those paltry glimpses.She sat in the back room of the theater, treading away at an old Singermaking maps of colored clothcreating oasis in every sleeve and stitch and pleatShe liked an actor therewith blonde hair blue eyesand a million dollar smilewho now performs community theater in Lawrence, Indiana.She wandered home, thinking of those maps all the whileTo her little brothers,with faces like professors that tried to cut down their tree

ElizabEth Kristian, ‘15

Restless

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who cried when the blade cut their handsand she bandaged them better than her mother couldAnd at night, she sat up on the roof while her brothers sleptWith a copy of The Little Princeand watched the stars from her desertand dreamed.How do I know?I see it in hernot a word spoken, an understandingwhen I sing to her, she calls to herself, coaxing out the crumpled soundwhen we read together,she silently begged herself to keep dreamingwhen she taught me to make maps,she coaxed my hands and tried to keep me away.She wandered, and still does.I wandered for my motherand she wandered to find me.

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LM: What is your favorite medium of art and why?Angella: Well I’ve worked with a lot of mediums, but I don’t really

have a favorite. I guess if I had to choose—I like oil. Oil’s always fun, but my parents don’t like me using it cause it’s hard to clean and it won’t come off clothes.

LM: Why do you like using oil?Angella: Because of the textures you can make with it and the way

it shines. It just feels like more work goes into it. And then when you’re waiting for it to dry you’re like “okay, I have to wait forever for this to dry but it’s gonna look amazing!”But there are ways to make acrylic look like oil too because you can add different medium mixtures into to give it the glossy look.

Interview Feature:

Angella Abbey ‘14Next semester Angella will be attending the Oxbow Art School in Napa.

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LM: What drew you into being fond of the arts inn the first place?Angella: I don’t know, I’ve just always been attracted to the arts. It

started with finger painting. It was like as soon as I saw pictures—I could always understand pictures more than words. I just always loved it, it was just a calling.

LM: What are your plans for the future in regards to artwork?Angella: I want to, you know, do artwork as a job, or a way of making

ends meet. I want to go to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) because that’s one of the best art schools in the world and if that doesn’t work out then I want to go to a good abroad program so I can learn over seas. That would be an awesome experience. I want to major in graphic design and the fine arts in general, like painting, drawing and all that.

LM: Why do you like art?Angella: Art has always been my escape point, no matter what was

happening in my life or whatever was going on, no matter how stressful it got, I could always turn to art. That was always nice to do because I don’t like talking too much but my paintings can speak for me instead.

LM: Do you ever get artist’s block?

Angella: Oh yeah, all the time. It’s horrible because it’s like, I want to draw something but I can’t think of anything at that moment. But it always comes; it’s like a punch to the face, “You have to draw this!”

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LM: What drives you? What do you draw inspiration from?

Angella: It’s weird how it happens, it’s just anything. Sometimes I could be looking at an open doorway or something. And I can figure out how to create a portal to another world through that doorway or I can make designs just from looking at lines.

LM: Where did you get inspiration to do your drawing Monkey in Chains, that you got an award for?

I started that a long time ago, way before the whole competition. I was bored and I was looking through my reference books, and I saw that picture and I just started drawing it with pencil, and then I thought it wasn’t dark enough so I went over it with water color. But they thought it was ink because I did such a good job with making it darker.

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LM: Why is art important to you?Angella: Well, like I said before, it’s like my means to escape reality, in a

way. I can always go there and kind of let loose whatever feelings I had. And I don’t care because the paint won’t judge me. It will do whatever I ask it to do and it will understand and hopefully make my vision come true on the pages. I love seeing it unfold in ways that I didn’t think it would, because every mistake—it’s not a mistake to me, I can turn it into something else. I like how it’s kind of unpredictable in a way, even though I’m the one painting.

LM: What do you want viewers to take away from your art?Angella: Um, I hope that they kind of just look at it and see all the colors

unfold. I hope they see, hopefully, what I was seeing at the time, but if they don’t, I’d just, I’d like to hear what they do see. Because art has so many different ways of being described and it’s not the same to every two people. It’s always fun to hear what another person would say about something that I see. And then maybe I’d then see how they see that. So that’s always fun to do, and I like that. And I hope they get the emotion that I put into it, if there was any at the time, or that they get the gist of what I was doing.

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Taylor PeTerson ‘13

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DaviD survilo ‘13

rachel Miller ‘15

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Free Face Painting:Lit Mag offered a free face painting booth in the quad on Halloween, and invited the school to come showcase their creativity. These are some of the things they came up with.

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in autumn amelia evard ‘13

cleo chung ‘13

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Staff Works

records fast and low, the endless car window.unravel your kneecaps here.this is where we cometo break ourselves.

lay down your forearms,your hollow collarbone andvoice mails we don’ttalk about anymore. your muscle memory,and the unshakable acheof a glowing body that has too many exit routes.

crave the obsessivehunger in everybreaking swell. there are no secondchances, here.

in autumn amelia evard ‘13

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Staff Works

Name ‘00

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Claire Bowie’13

19 Staff Works

She floated in the tiny, clear plastic box that sat on the shelf next to my history textbook. The minute, perfectly rounded face was pointed up towards her frozen hand as her massive, cobalt eyes searched the dusty tops of her enclosure for a way out. Purple scales lined the woman’s legs, which were fused together to form a tail that swished towards the surface in a confused, desperate plea of help. Hair as soft and supple as golden silk flowed out behind her arched, slender white back, which curved downwards in a graceful U-shaped figure. I had long forgotten the enchanted mermaid’s name, for she had been put away years ago and forgotten about since, replaced by the other, more important matters of life that swam and splashed past her isolated cube. Life had grown too large for its home on the seabed, as more and more leaves had sprouted, unfolded, and crowded the stalk of kelp that reached up towards the sunlight, searching for a path to follow.

The first day of first grade. My Ohlone project in third, when I was so proud of my clothespin man and cried when my dad accidentally threw him in the trash. The awkward years of fifth and sixth grade where best friends became enemies, boys turned into aliens, and bras were the new trend to follow. Middle school, a time that spelled crazy fun, crazy disaster, crazy homework, and crazy pimples everywhere. The little mermaid had lived through all of those years with me, had managed to hide away from it all. She was a bubble in a flawless diamond, encapsulated inside that wonderful day of my fifth birthday when I secretly stole away from the party to rip open the tape of her crisp wrapping paper and examine her vast rubber wardrobe of mermaid tails and brightly colored purses. She had glowed with so much life, swimming through warm turquoise waters with schools of beautiful angelfish swooping and weaving their way around her delicate arms and legs. I had watched with young, innocent fascination as she twirled her hair and sang enchanting melodies that even the rainbows of coral lining the seafloor swayed along to. Paddling along her side, I could feel the soothing rhythm of quiet ocean waves lapping on a soft sand beach, hear the cries of seagulls circling overhead that my mermaid heard in her little plastic ears, laugh and play with the glistening tails of bottlenose dolphins romping in the deep blue waters that my mermaid had also swum in.

I sat at my mahogany desk, tapping a silver painted fingernail on the blank sheet of notebook paper that was supposed to be filled with answers to questions but instead had invisible questions that, try as they might, could not be answered. The mermaid was watching me through her glass, inquiring about my white paper and idle fingers, my blank, scorched stare of a haggard freshman suffering through the perils of first quarter homework. Suddenly, I felt the urge to revisit that Caribbean paradise I once knew, that perfect world where no troubles or worries existed, no endless piles of gritty, bitter reality were choked through my

Where It WentSofia Guo, ‘16

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nose and shoved up my nostrils with intense, burning pain. I dropped my pencil onto my notebook and stood up, yawning and rubbing my mascara streaked eyes. The mermaid seemed eager now to come out of her cage, and she waved her petite hand as a friendly gesture for me to hurry and set her free, to come and traverse a magical world with her once again.

I stepped over to my shelf and gingerly plucked the box up by its sharp corners, taking special care to avoid the thick layer of gray particles that covered its surface like clouds on a stormy day. Warm, sweaty fingers meticulously brushed off the dirt and grime of years gone past, and they hesitated for just a moment before slowly popping open an ancient, disintegrating lid. I glanced down at the mermaid, who was squealing and laughing with joy at the cloudless sapphire sky and brilliant golden sun that burst through the open box.

Quietly, I lifted her out into the air to breathe and stretch out her cramped, limber muscles. One finger held her hand and shook it pleasantly while the other waved her rosy tail back and forth, as if she were once again gliding through crystalline waters and searching for someone to play with. Those flashing blue eyes searched far and wide, scanning every whispering grain of sand, scouring the millions of hollows inside each coral, squinting far into the distant tides for any sign of life. A melodious, luscious voice sang loud and clear through the salty liquid, inviting a kind companion or two to come and frolic with her, to go on an amazing, thrilling adventure with her by their side.

But the waters stood strangely empty, their hearts eerily silent, the seafloor a desolate desert that had no pulse or breath. The waves were frozen, dark, lost in time, hard as frigid ice, no longer bursting with the sweet, salty virtue that had once flowed freely among soft, luscious fronds of carelessness and wonder. The mermaid gasped shrilly in fear. Like a fish plucked out of water, she flopped frantically around, her hair tangling into a bundle of brittle hay, her arms creaking and screeching with ear splitting agony, her iridescent scales grinding and scraping off bits and pieces to chip away ruthlessly at each other. The bitter taste of horror flooded into my dry mouth as I stared at her lifeless body lying accusingly before me, the pungent carcass of old painted plastic and broken polyester fibers glaring coldly back at me, this time with no longing, feeling, or expression radiating from that immaculately crafted face. My heart sank with uncontrollable sorrow as I placed the dead mermaid back into her coffin. I snapped the lid shut and set the package back onto my shelf, my foggy fingerprints a criminal screaming murder on the sides of the translucent container. The silence of the late night slammed into my face like a wall, viciously snarling with regret and sending jolts of frustration down my neck.

Slumping back into my hard chair, I buried my numb head in my trembling arms, the thoughts inside running, bumbling, and stumbling around, moaning with regret and calling, calling, searching for where that vanished world went.

litmag.lahs@gmail.comto submit, send all works to

Pieces can be submitted anonymously and can be written in a foreign language.

Pieces must be original work from a student currently enrolled in LAHS.

The Literary Magazine meets weekly to collect and evaluate student work, and to continue the publication process

All students are encouraged to apply.

editorial staff

Editor-in-ChiefSarah Corner

Managing EditorAmelia Evard

Creative DirectorsLibbie KatsevNikki KlepperBrenna Reid

Business ManagerClaire Bowie

Senior EditorsRebecca CohenSamantha KimVirginia Knight

Junior EditorsEli ColbertSofia Gua

Ariel MachellNaomi Palmer

Advisers Michael Moul

Keren Robertson