Tabby by Kelsey

Back From the Dead

I am a hopeless romantic and I have always been troubled by the idea that we are only allowed to live one life at the current moment. I craved to live in Norway for my childhood or become a painter in Madrid, the possibilities of life are so enchanting. For this reason I love photographs and books because using both these objects I am able to place myself somewhere else for awhile. My personality is a mix breed but enfj makes sense for me, dreamer, optimist, nostalgic, romantic. I live vicariously through the photographs I hoard in a basket beside my bed, family members I never met, people who managed to be in the background of a family photo, so many stories that I could create and watch in my mind. My longing for time is something that haunts me as is my ability to fall in love with little details of strangers I meet. I joke with my friends that I wish I could collect people and they think I am crazy until I explain to them that I observe things with great attention. I enjoy watching and I do take part in life but analyzing the behaviors of humanity sparks my interests and lets me think of stories I would want to write. People are both monsters and works of art, utterly complex and so beautiful. I get attached to moments, feelings, people, places, songs, and elaborate series of events in my mind. When I look at the photos I feel so completely happy, I make trips to my attic to get more photos to add to the basket. Many times I will get so caught up while looking at them and sit up there for hours but I enjoy that time. The photos allow me to forget reality for a bit which is something every dreamer needs to survive. The basket of photographs next to my bed is precious to me. My bookshelf is another crucial object in my life. Books have always been present for me, when I was younger I would watch my dad read thick books about life and modern sciences or politics. He would have stacks of books all over his desk, all over his nightstand and filling under the bed. My mom would collect old antique books and pile them in every hallway and on top of tables in every room. It makes sense to me now that I volunteer in both the school and public library and take advantage of any book sale ever. My bookshelf holds all the people I have ever been and best friends I have made. They are like photo albums. The books and the photos hold the same purpose to me. It was never the idea that I was stuck with who I was because I am confident in the quirky and clumsy person I am but rather the idea that I could experience more things than reality would let me. I could cheat reality. I would lend books from my bookshelves when I felt it was their time to grace someone else for a bit. The books had also been antidotes. I lent them to those who could be benefited from the story the greatest at that moment and my friends would read them and they would understand because they felt understood. The power of literature is something I find hard to fathom but will always remain fascinated by. Through the magic in old photographs and worn in books I found comfort and my wanderlust was tamed while I traveled to faraway places and met people who didn’t yet know I existed.
-Ember Nocturne

Sans Pareil (Without an equal)- Liz Lemon of 30 Rock

Sans Pareil is basically "best of" moments in tv, art, film, you name it I can and will make a list of it. If you're like me (and I know you are Jerry) I quote 30 Rock without realizing it and pay the price dearly when non-30 Rockettes (you would not believe the sass I got for calling someone a jag weed) so without further ado Liz Lemon her all her glory!

Sherlock Homo

Star Wars Liz

Liz almost became the Barefoot Contessa

Liz gets her period.

She dabbles in modeling

She knows how to party in Frankfurt

Liz has a few skeletons in her closet..

And that eye roll 

And finally everything Lemon says wrapped up in one video

Hope you enjoyed this installment of Sans Pareil as much as the staff here, I shall sign off with this gem

What We Thought We Already Knew

It was because we were allowed to convert religions and dye our own hair that we felt old

old in the sense that we were free, independent, and rightfully so we could become someone so different from who we had been the day before

the sequence of events that created an angsty period of our short lives called high school became nights spent watching lolita

or cursing loudly with passion in our eyes regarding a book about teenage suicide and the virgins who fled their Catholic parents before they tasted alcohol

We felt a temporary fix of adulthood, idolizing dead men whose synth was the soundtrack to our adolescence 

we thought we knew things about people and what it meant to love

a romantic hormonal pessimist will never understand the deepest definition of love until she is there, in that moment of final admiration

otherwise said hormonal optimist teen will fall in love everyday on public transport or in the safety of her bedroom, watching strangers walk on the sidewalk, each of those people leaving her with a glimpse of a life on some faraway planet, exsisting only in the crevaces of her mind, she wrote their stories threaded together by lies

we were old because we knew that people could feel shitty and darkness comes quickly sometimes leaving you breathless or making you want to vomit or sing or preach or cry or dance or laugh half heartedly at misfortune

and when we watch men of great stature falling from great heights because of some kind of addiction

we recognize the face of repression

and the paradox of humanity

we read to escape suburbia and to find solace

we are nocturnals, insomniacs without a reason to dream because we thought we knew reality

just because you wear black doesn't mean you know life has given you the worst its got

just because you say something you heard on the news doesn't mean you know more than the common man

just because you can carve your name into a tree that will grow to be a 100 doesn't mean you will leave legends

and just because you declare yourself an original doesn't mean you have had a thought of your own

little girl, this is a cruel world and your tongue hasn't tasted ignorance 

little girl you know but one thing, humans are complex creatures and those who claim to know Gods secrets

are lying, convinced themselves blind and power hungry leaches

there is no hell, little girl, I am a walking paradox

but if we learn to forgive

he who is almighty must forgive

otherwise he shall be a hypocrite like me

otherwise he would be a human

we thought we were old because we were simply alive and doing things on impulse and doing things with a few more years in our back pockets

nobody knows what we had thought we knew

-Ember Nocturne

Auroras and Solar Wind by Zoe Jensen

One day
We will shoot up to the stars
Fast
Quickly
Beautifully
Inches away from a plate-sized star
Our faces glow from the bright light
And for three seconds

Everything is still

But those three seconds pass
And the pull of the star slowly fades
We grab each other’s hands, falling backwards towards 
Earth
Wind in our hair
Smiles on our faces
Somehow your eyelids seem amazing

God, Allah, Buddha places us like glass figures
Onto a dim, grassy field
Hands entwined 
We are happy

◄Summer Rewind◄

 Above Photos By: Kaitlyn Sandvik

Above Photo By: Liza Hemingway

Where The Leaves Fall: An Autumn Mixtape (illustrated by Jessica Dantas)

1. And If We Both Fail? // Mixtapes 

2. Past Lives // Diiv

3. Black Comedy // Bright Eyes

4. Le Temps de L'amour // Francoise Hardy

5. Carnation // IO Echo

6. Ungirthed // Purity Ring

7. Misguided Ghosts // Paramore

8. Piazza, New York Catcher // Belle & Sebastian

9. First Day of My Life // Bright Eyes

10. Playing God // Paramore

11. Oxford Comma // Vampire Weekend

12. Tainted Love // Soft Cell

13. The Ghost Inside // Broken Bells

14. Blah Blah Blah // Say Hi To Your Mom

15. I'm Writing a Novel // Father John Misty

16. Horchata // Vampire Weekend

17. Dead Hearts // Stars

18. Everything You Wanted // Clubfeet

19. Dear Fellow Traveler // Sea Wolf

20. Get What You Want // JJAMZ

21. Fidelity // Regina Spektor

22. San Francisco // Foxygen

23. Full Moon // The Black Ghosts

24. Heartbreak // Clubfeet

25. Run // Vampire Weekend

26. Sweater Weather // The Neighbourhood

27. Thunder // Gold Fields

28. By Surprise // Gemini Club

29. Here // Hellogoodbye

30. Magic // Olympic Ayres

31. Bruises // Chairlift

32. I Sold My Bed, But Not My Stereo // Capital Cities

33.  Falling // Ben Kweller

34. Two Weeks // Grizzly Bear

35. Critical Mass // College

36. Animal // Miike Snow

37. Thirteen // Ben Kweller

38. Miss Halfway // Anya Marina

39. At Home ( Passion Pit Remix) // Crystal Fighters

40. Lights & Music // Cut Copy

41. It's Not Over // Panama

42. Spirit // Delorean

43. Lola // The Kinks

44. Leaves in The River // Sea Wolf

45. Skeletons // Yeah Yeah Yeahs

46. Age of Consent // New Order

47. Chicago // Sufjan Stevens

48. Harvest Moon // Poolside

49. Daydream // Youth Lagoon

50. Midnight City // M83 

-Ember Nocturne

Surreal Art Featured Below By: Ember Nocturne