MQ 2017
Martha's Quarterly
Issue 5
Fall 2017
Paper Tiger
8” x 5”
About the contributors:
Lorne Swarthout is a history and economics teacher at the Berkeley Carroll School. His academic compass has pointed him towards the histories of East Asian peoples, of the world's oceans, and of national economic development.
Larry Ossei-Mensah is a Ghanaian-American curator and cultural critic who uses contemporary art and culture as a vehicle to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. Ossei-Mensah is also the Co-Founder of ARTNOIR, a global collective of culturalists who design multimodal experiences aimed to engage this generation’s dynamic and diverse creative class.
Saretta Morgan is author of the chapbooks room for a counter interior (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2017) and Feeling Upon Arrival (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018). She has designed interactive, text-based experiences for the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dia Beacon and as a 2016-2017 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace resident. She is a member of the feminist publishing collective, Belladonna* Collaborative, and a contributing interviewer at The Common (Amherst College).
“There was no way she would have won,” a man at the table said of Hillary Clinton. He continued, “She’s a tiger, and he’s a dragon, and when a tiger meets a dragon, they will always lose. In order to take him out, the next person who runs against him will have to be a dragon too.” Laughter followed his explanation.
This man was one of my parents’ friends, and they were all having dinner at another friend’s house after an afternoon of dancing at the Vietnamese community center; karaoke was to follow the food. These folks, all over 65 years old, were Vietnamese refugees, displaced from Vietnam after the war, having made their way to the San Francisco Bay Area over a period of time by various means.
It has frequently been striking to me that my parents and their peers can keep calm and find humor in stunningly consequential events. While media and local conversations have tried to make sense of last year’s election, here, this group of war-experienced people speculates the results with faith.
The term “paper tiger” has been coming up in foreign policy, especially in discussions about US relations to China. It was a term first used by Chairman Mao to describe “one that is outwardly powerful or dangerous but inwardly weak or ineffectual.” Martha’s Quarterly, Issue 5, Fall 2017 features an essay by the history teacher Lorne Swarthout, who recounts Chairman Mao calling the United States a “paper tiger.” As Swarthout’s essay continues, he advocates that that this term may be relevant in thinking about the nuclear powered China and its “little brother” North Korea.
Nations are big entities as they are ideas, but those big things trickle down to the little things like us, and our communities, and our loved ones. Thinking about this, Passenger Pigeon Press invited curator Larry Ossei-Mensah and poet Saretta Morgan to respond to the term “paper tiger.” Ossei-Mensah annotated a facsimile of a conversation between Chairman Mao and Henry Kissinger where Mao admits to calling the US a “paper tiger.” The two arrogant men talked casually about the their countries, Germany, Russia, and England with riddles, sarcasm, and a lot of laughter in between. (Chairman Mao even called US intelligence a bunch of flying pigeons.) It is hard to read such a transcript and know the fatalities of both Mao’s reign and WWII. Ossei-Mensai’s scribbling shows his coming to grips with such language. At one point, Ossei-Mensah writes in the column, “Are Democracy and Communism just one and the same?”
Saretta Morgan moves forward with the term “paper tiger” in her poem on lines. Juxtaposed with images of influential books, Morgan’s words and the space in between them seem to talk about a border. She opens, “a border is only habitable. sensual”. Morgan’s poems brings us inward perhaps as a way to allow us to push back on the greater institutions that are nations.
In the last few months hurricanes have devastated America and Latin America. The people of Catalan roared for an “out.” A terrorist was successful in Las Vegas. The Rohingya people of Myanmar flee for survival in Bangladesh. Flames destroyed parts of Wine Country. These events are not “paper tigers;” they are tigers. What the nations prove to be, paper or flesh, time will tell.
I googled the birthdays of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton was born in 1947, Trump in 1946. This makes her a fire pig, and he, a fire dog. The two signs are compatible.
— Tammy Nguyen, Editor-in-Chief
Martha's Quarterly
Issue 4
Summer 2017
Giant Balloons
7” x 5”
About the contributors:
Peniel M. Dimberu, PhD is a biologist, writer and educator. His graduate work was focused on how cells detect an infection and then alert the immune system to respond. Peniel is an ardent believer that science literacy is an important metric for any society but even more so under the current US political climate.
Chayce Marshall is a 9-year old student at Pierrepont School in Westport, CT. He enjoys Star Wars, soccer, and karate, but his true loves are the outdoors, nature and his classical guitar. When he grows up, Chayce would like to be a farmer, thinking of new ways to grow food.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a philosopher, scientist, and stateman who served as the Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. He has been frequently called the father of empiricism– the theory that knowledge comes from one’s own sensorial experiences.
It's hot in Manila, as it was a week ago when I was in New York. Today, on July 9th, I sit at Manila Ocean Park, at a pan-Asian lunch buffet pleasantly chilled in air conditioning. is was my escape from the humid heat and stench of Manila Bay, where this tourist attraction sits side-by-side with the US Embassy. The shore’s contour is artificial, as much of it has been designed and manufactured with sand, extending Manila’s natural landmass. Here, the aspirations of militaries and capitalism merge— this water has been the stage of many battles and now it serves as the Port of Manila distributing goods throughout the Filipino trade-dependent economy. Like many bays throughout the world, this bay has served the interests of powerful navies and then transformed into a site for commerce.
I’d like to think about this setting of Manila Bay as an allegory for the climate change crisis. Along this bay, capitalism appears in many forms which all follow the military trajectories of the Spanish, Japanese, and Americans. As the battles have left memories of massacre and visible neglect, the ambitions behind them have also left an invisible trail of damage felt and smelt in the air and heat. Climate change is sublime; and a literal consequence of collective human passion and pursuit of power.
Last year, I learned of geoengineering from the Carnegie Council’s program: Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative (C2G2). Geoengineering is a, “deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that affects the earth's climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming.” (1) It entails solutions for the climate change crisis that I have found as equally sublime as climate change itself. And so, this issue of Martha’s Quarterly entitled Giant Balloons addresses the profundity of climate change by springing from the idea of geoengineering through the contributions of the biologist Dr. Peniel M. Dimberu, the 9- year old poet Chayce Marshall, and the philosopher/scientist Francis Bacon. Dr. Dimberu explains geoengineering as Marshall presents his observations of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in NYC. Juxtaposed to these pieces is the preface to Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum where he transforms man’s gaze on his planet— turning nature into a natural resource. (2)
I’m finishing this introduction on July 12th. As I navigate torrid Manila for souvenirs to gift my friends and family, an iceberg the size of Delaware broke off of Antarctica. While scientists have not confirmed the direct link between this event and climate change, one thing is for sure: maps will be redrawn creating new opportunities for the doubled edged ambitions of capitalism.
— Tammy Nguyen
(1) https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/geoengineering
(2) Idea adopted from The Darker Side of Modernity by Walter Mignolo, The Formation and Transformation of “Patrón colonial de poder”
Martha's Quarterly
Issue 3
Spring 2017
Skyglow and the Desert Fox
8.25” x 5.25”
About the contributors:
Emma Colbert is a Northern Irish born artist who specializes in pastel portraiture, wildlife, and landscape. Inspired by nature, she produces paintings in a realistic vibrant style. To see her work digitally, visit: www.emmacolbertart.com.
Andrew Hughes is a Writer, Musician, & Nomad. Traveling and performing in Europe.
Andrew Stein is a history and American Studies instructor at The Berkeley Carroll School. His research interest lies in race, gender, and sexuality in the U.S. and the Global South, particularly South Africa and the Caribbean.
On January 19th, 2017, The Financial Times published an article by the Delhi-based author Nilanjana Roy, The dark side of too much light, where she described “skyglow” — a phenomenon where the night sky is brightened over inhabited areas. This is commonly seen in the night skies of urban areas, where the stars are faint, and the horizon radiates from the city’s electricity. This light has lengthened the human’s work day, allowing for more productivity. It has allowed for more interaction and connection into the darkest hours of night. Yet at the same time, this light is also the sublime sky of pollution, the brilliant child of oil and man.
January 19th, 2017 was also the eve of the inauguration of President Trump. In only a few weeks, he denounced the EPA, implemented an immigrant band, and comparisons between his administration to Hitler’s was viral. In this context, this issue of Martha’s Quarterly takes the toxic phenomenon of “skyglow” and considers it as sky, light, and heat of many literal and figurative understandings.
History, climate change, xenophobia, and government are interrelated, as any other seemingly separate subjects. Before we invited contributors, Passenger Pigeon Press conceptually compared skyglow to the light of Orientalist paintings in the 19th century. These images were some of the first cinematic imaginations of the brown and black body as “discovered” by European explorers. Some of these paintings were interpretations of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt— the region of some Nazi operations in WWII led by Commander Erwin Rommel, also known as, “The Desert Fox.” This nickname is also the common name for the fennec fox, a fox breed famous for its small size, and big ears which allows it to bare the extreme heat of the Sahara Desert. That said, greenery has sprouted in patches across the desert due to climate change as if to turn the region into a grassland as it once was, 11,000 years ago. Only this time, plants sprout beneath a sky lit by the dazzle of globalizing cities across North Africa.
With this daisy chain of connections, Passenger Pigeon Press invited three cultural producers— the history teacher Andrew Stein, the visual artist Emma Colbert, and the poet Andrew Hughes — to respond to a directed prompt. Andrew Stein is a history teacher in Brooklyn, and we asked him to tell a story about Erwin Rommel and to incorporate skyglow as part of its literary atmosphere. The visual artist Emma Colbert and poet Andrew Hughes are currently traveling across Europe in a motorhome that is also their studio. A naturalist who specializes in animals, we asked Ms. Colbert to interpret the fennec fox with the knowledge that it lives in North Africa and possesses special temperature-controlling ears. Finally, we asked Andrew Hughes to read the Financial Times article mentioned earlier and to respond with a poem.
Their work is now juxtaposed in this Martha’s Quarterly, entitled: Skyglow and the Desert Fox. Mr. Stein recounts Commander Rommel’s theatrical activities in North Africa. Meanwhile, Ms. Colbert and Mr. Hughes’ work were made in Tarifa, Spain as they looked across the Strait of Gibraltar towards Tangier, Morocco. Surrounded by the same cacti that covers North Africa today and throughout WWII, Ms. Colbert painted the fennec fox as Mr. Hughes’ poem created tension between notions of darkness, brightness, and power.
— Tammy Nguyen
Martha’s Quarterly, Issue 3, Spring 2017, Skyglow and the Desert Fox was designed by Tammy Nguyen, founder of Passenger Pigeon Press. It utilizes risograph, digital, and letterpress printing. The papers used are: Staples 20 lb. Ivory, Staples Coverstock Beige, French Paper Poptone Snow Cone Lightweight Cardstock, and Basis Colors 80 lb. Light Yellow. The front image behind Emma Colbert’s painting is a photograph of US military vehicles in Tunisia during WWII. The photograph of Erwin Rommel’s death mask was found discovered by the U.S. Seventh Army troops in 1945. The map of North Africa is a cropped section from 19th century map drawn by the German cartographer, Adolf Stieler.