Stone-cutters 2014

harvard-westlake school

2014

stone-cutters

ston

e-cu

tter

s 2014Harvard Westlake School

3700 Coldwater Canyon Studio City, CA 91604Phone: (818) 980-6692

www.hw.com

Editor-in-Chief Julia Aizuss ’14Literary Editors

Kacey Bae ’15Louly Maya ’14

srotidEtrArrlausiViEmma Lesher-Liao ’14

Danielle Stolz ’15Alisa Tsenter ’14

Selection CommitteeAlisha Bansal ’14, Kaleigh

Bergmann ’15, Emma Graham ’15,Jonathan Heckerman ’15, Emma

Kofman ’16, Hannah Kofman ’14,Melanie Krassel ’15,

Robert Lee ’14, Eric Lin ’14, SachaLin ’16, Chelsea Pan ’14, Rachel Porter ’16, Sam Schlesinger ’15

noitcudorPJensen Davis ’16, Alex Gordon ’16,Marissa Karo ’16, David Ozen ’16,

Dora Schoenberg ’16, Lauren Song’16, Francesca Walker ’16

Faculty AdvisersAmber Caron, Cheri Gaulke, Sasha

Watson, Jen Bladen

stone-cuc ttuu ers is printed by SouthernCala ifornia Ga raphics in Culvl er Cr ity,

Cala if. on 70# dull enamel paperstockc , and uses Georgia typefa aff ce. ThT e

production staff uses sevee en of the school’s Dell PCs. 750 copies were

distributed fi rff ee on campus.

Front cover: Emma Lesher-Liao ’1’ 4Ode to Orthodontia:

Walnuts and wirw eBack cover: Luke Soon-Shiong ’14

Yart of the Recluse (Solos):Acrylic on canvas

stone-cutters is an art and literary magazine written by and for students atHarvard-Westlake School. The editorial staff meets as a student-run, after-

school club. Submissions were solicited by an all-school e-mail, and juried by the student staff.

Contents

2 Self Portrait with Mountains Eric Lin ’14

3 Inside the Galle Fort Xenia Viragh ’15

4 I can’t write Rebecca Katz’15

5 Sock Sarah McAllister ’15

6 I Will Fade Out Kayla Dillard ’15

7 What’s out there? (El Salvador) Alberto Rivera ’14

8 Patient 307 Sydney Foreman ’14

9 Shell Jordan Ellison ’15, Sophia Gonzalez ’15,

Anne Kim ’15, Xenia Viragh ’15, Katie Zipkin-Leed ’15

10 Steffany Hannah Kofman ’14

11 I’ll Take It To Go Danielle Stolz ’15

12 Mottled Jade Cups Koji Everard ’15

14 Rise and Grind Audrey Wilson ’15

15 Glass Bottle Robert Lee ’14

16 PM Louly Maya ’14

17 Untitled Scott Nussbaum ’15

18 (waterbed) Ethan Weinstein ’15

19 Now What Luke Soon-Shiong ’14

20 This Is Not a RISD Bike Christopher Yang ’14

21 Untitled Mazelle Etessami ’14

22 Portrait of a Young Woman and her Father

Matt Leichenger ’14

23 Daphne, A Bildungsroman Julia Aizuss ’14

26 Samson and Delilah Aidan Yetman-Michaelson ’14

28 Perseverance Josh Shapiro ’14

29 Untitled Melanie Krassel ’15

30 Faible Jacob Goodman ’15

32 Untitled Eli Caplan ’14

34 Untitled Lauren Lee ’14

35 A New Perspective Alisa Tsenter ’14

36 Faithful Hannah Kofman ’14

37 Packrat Sammi Ho ’16

38 Tube Sock Emma Lesher-Liao ’14

39 Go On Clare Chou ’15

40 something to say Levi Craske-Curtin ’14

41 Mathis Darby Caso ’14

Big IdeasWood, tin can, silicone,

graphite, paper and a pencilLiza Woythaler ’14

2

Inside the Galle FortwPhotography

Xenia Viragh ’15

L01_HW_stonecutters_FINAL2014_PAGE2.indd 1L01_HW_stonecutters_FINAL2014_PAGE2.indd 1 5/16/14 9:29 PM5/16/14 9:29 PM

3

Self Portrait with MountainsAcrylic and ink on board

Eric Lin ’14

4

I can’t write.

I can’t write

Because I’m nervous to read this.

I can’t write.

I can’t write

water from a burst pipe.

Since the thoughts remain in the real estate between my ears, listening to stories, my ear a safe haven for others as I struggle to get out my own words.

I can’t write since all I want to do is write.

I can’t write.

I can’t write

When I have to wait to be asked the question

When the answer is always the same –

“I’m good, thanks, and you?”

I can’t write.

I can’t write

5

SockCarved Styrofoam

Sarah McAllister ’15

I can’t write because I sit and wait.

Because I don’t know what the outcome will be and I don’t know why I’m so afraid of that.

Because I’m caught in the white space between knowing too much and knowing too little.

I can’t write.

I can’t write because I’m nervous to read this.

Rebecca Katz ’15

6

I Will Fade Out

(inspired by I Will Wade Out by E.E. Cummings)

we will fade out,

then, our biggest

dreams and aspirations

will be as distant as the

swirling cosmos

as untouchable as

your

beating

heart

we will not settle

until then, we will

discover, learn and love

until the sun beams

from within our sincere

and tired eyes

our story

will be recorded in the

steps we took

we will not fade

we will go out

as quickly

and as beautifully

as lightning

Kayla Dillard ’15

7

What’s Out There? (El Salvador)Photography

Alberto Rivera ’14

8

Patient 307Oil on canvas

Sydney Foreman ’14

(Opposite) Shell

PhotographyJordan Ellison ’15, Sophia Gonzalez ’15, Anne Kim ’15, Xenia Viragh ’15, Katie Zipkin-Leed ’15

10

I’ll Take It To GoWater color pencil and gouache on cold press boardDanielle Stolz ’15

11

Steffany

You hated her so I agreed. When she laughed through walls.

And wore Mickey Mouse

But I liked her

Hair yesterday

And her earrings

And she’s nice

I think it was the braids stuck on her head

And that she didn’t wait for the shuttle and walked instead

But made the decision so quickly that it was worth it.

We waited

For the shuttle and our hands stung and our skin drained

And we grew angry and annoyed and older

Meanwhile she was walking

With a girl with a nose ring

A coat over her knees

And her knitted hair made a hat

But her ears were out and cold

And on the shuttle we wondered if we would see her outside

Young and walking

And our knuckles stung in the slowly warming air

And we immediately forgot to look

Hannah Kofman ’14

13

Mottled Jade CupsGlazed stoneware

Koji Everard ’15

15

(Opposite)Rise and Grind PhotographyAudrey Wilson ’15

Glass Bottle

Once,

There I trembled with an empty glass.

Believing the conviviality could inebriate my spirits,

I only became overly sentimental and in need for sobering up.

But coffee didn’t work so well.

The glass was too cold

And I got tired of smiling at people I passed by.

Brooding, I stumbled across a water fountain.

Though it became so clear,

Nobody would ever know what I was drinking.

Sometimes I felt like heaving that bottle up in the sky,

And probably more in a different state.

Oh, what should I imbibe?

Robert Lee ’14

16

PM

Carla waits on the edge of the tub as the water runs. Dave isn’t home

yet. Dave hasn’t been home before nine o’clock for the past three months.

A lot of work, Carla, I have a lot of work. Carla believes him and believes

no mark on the calendar for dinner reservations or show tickets like there

has been for the past four years. Carla can’t tell if Dave really did forget,

humor.

the knob off. Before she can get in, the phone rings.

“Hello?” she answers.

“Carla, it’s me,” the voice sighs.

Dave won’t be home till midnight. A lot of work, Carla, I have a lot of

work. Carla laughs. Dave tells her not to wait up, not to make food for

is sorry. A lot of work, Carla, I have a lot of work. Carla says it’s okay, she

understands. Carla is a very understanding person.

She returns to the tub and sinks slowly into the water. It’s almost hot

enough to burn her bare skin. It’s electric, but she likes it. Carla sits in the

bath as the water slowly loses heat and her skin slowly prunes until she is

left shivering, wondering why she has stayed in it for so long.

Louly Maya ’14

(Opposite)Untitled

Scott Nussbaum ’15

18

(waterbed)

we were awake while everyone else slept

and your eyes didn’t close for three minutes at a time

i listened

as our kaleidoscopic conversation

drifted in

out

and our eyelids fell

with the push and pull of the moon

we fell asleep —

reading out loud

as what we thought was the sun

started to rise

we couldn’t turn it off

so the lamp stayed on all night

i woke up with corduroy lines pressed into my arms

and while the notsun rose

we didn’t know if we should too

and i am sure the tide was going out —

even from so far away

i could hear the waves breaking

softer and softer

as i drove homeward

pushing the speed limit to its limit

Ethan Weinstein ’15

19

Now WhatAcrylic and sand on canvas

Luke Soon-Shiong ’14

20

This Is Not a RISD BikeGraphite

Christopher Yang ’14

21

UntitledPhotography

Mazelle Etessami ’14

22

Portrait of a Young Woman and Her FatherAcrylic on wood

Matt Leichenger ’14

23

Daphne, A Bildungsroman

An IntroductionHer Critical Reading score had stagnated at 690, and Tate returned

to her childhood. She descended to the basement of the Odd, toting in

one arm what used to require two. Books she dog-eared at seven, ten,

sometimes as late as thirteen: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Phantom

Tollbooth, The BFG. Her taste for fantasy when she was younger had

not translated into a taste for what she sometimes called high literature,

delicate pages encased in ivory towers she could not reach. No Rapunzel in

this world to let down her hair. Thus, the Critical Reading score.

A SceneAfter school, the latest practice SAT results in her hand, January. Her

school college counselor encounters the stagnation with penciled-in raised

eyebrows, lowers the papers to her lap. She says, “Didn’t you use the word

‘welkin’ in an email to me once?”

Tate sits on her hands, although she solved her nail-biting problem in

because a couple strands of hair have slipped in front of her face, dark

streaks cordoning off her vision, like: you shall not pass. Hadn’t she sent

the guilty email back in ninth grade, or tenth? Wryly: “Well—once.”

tableau, which has repeated itself ever since Tate’s PSAT sophomore year.

True, Tate could ably employ the word “welkin.” Tate was fond of words

certain majestic heft to them, a dash of antique rust. But she had no use for

She used “threnody” in her history term paper, and it came back to her

circled in blue ink, with a hint of a chortle in the comment written in the

margin: “A bit much, don’t you think?”

24

An EkphrasisThe basement of the Odd housed books whose decades-long presence

had at last deemed them, maybe doomed them, unsellable. Unsellable,

sometimes, by choice—here rested the books Tate’s dad hoarded in the

dusty corners, unwilling to showcase to the purses of the public. He wasn’t

as discreet as he pretended, but Tate didn’t begrudge him his hold on the

Books than a tweedy antiquarian bookseller.

Books rose around the room in stacks falling just short of towers,

granting them the divine power to remain sturdy. Not that they would have

matted green felt, that Tate had often clambered when she was small to

read whichever yellow-paged paperback she’d pulled with patient wiggles

out of the overstuffed children’s shelf, lying on her belly between two

leaning stacks of Pisa; and it was onto here that Tate now pulled herself,

as a stack some inches away on the pool table quavered ominously. Her

hair shook into her face with the force of her thump onto the felt, and she

pursed her lips (between which a strand of hair was caught).

A DigressionShe’d cut it, the hair, short over the summer, with the half-formed,

garbled thought of Reinventing Herself. But she’d cut it only three inches,

and she felt just about the same. Somehow, though, the loss had impelled

a change of temperament, if not in herself, in her hair. It frizzed thickly

about her head now, obscuring her vision. More than anything (she

realized one day, after an unwise head-turn thrust a thatch of hair in her

face and nearly, in turn, caused a freeway accident) she felt as if she walked

all day with her head in the clouds. Or stuck in the dirt, like an ostrich.

Last Sunday, when business behind the register had slowed to a yawn,

Tate ventured this second comparison to Miles, who she thought might

basement.”

“Shut up,” Tate said.

25

“I won’t let you leave the register if that girl comes again. I’ll trap you.”

At the time, Tate hadn’t deigned to respond. As she opened The Last

(between which a couple strands of her hair were caught).

A RegressionShe knew how less-than-romantic a throatful of basement air redolent of

yellow-paged books was, so she heaved an indulgent sigh—appropriate, she

She thought about what Miles would call a “missed opportunity,” and what

she would with histrionic lament call, maybe, a lost dalliance. Tate wasn’t

sure how she felt about dalliances. That was something she had liked about

would feel about dalliances like hers, the ones she usually lost. The answer

was Susan Pevensie, the sister left behind for her interests in frivolities—

nylons, lipstick, parties—for her interest in what Narnia did not have.

Tate had always been most interested in what Narnia had. Or in where

the car of The Phantom Tollbooth would drive her, in the frobscottle the

BFG drank, in how the Odd could replicate any of it. And when she realized

at about twelve or so—in a moment of threnody, if you want to go there—

that it couldn’t, she put down the books. Thus, the Critical Reading score.

When she closed the books, she left the basement and moved on to the

dalliances. Only this past spring, when her parents divorced, and her mom

moved over the hill to the Valley—the Valley!—had Tate returned to the

basement, where her thoughts began descending as she drifted off during

SAT tutoring in Woodland Hills, staring at the head of that girl in front of

her. Before that, she’d forgotten what happened to Susan.

A Sign, & A CodaFor years, in her end-of-year evaluations, Tate’s English teachers wrote

that she had “promise.” Tate wondered how long they could keep writing

Julia Aizuss ’14

26Samson and Delilah

Ink on paper

27Aidan Yetman-Michaelson ’14

28

PerseverancePhotography

Josh Shapiro ’14

29

Untitled

Smog hazes out the Clear blue sky-

Killing the Birds that pass –

Weights falling to the ground – they crash

On Girls amid the Grass

Burgundy paint now covers Green

High pitched shrieks shake the earth

Yet not a soul can hear the cries --

For the Ground hates the Earth

The Grass – it wilts – The eyes grow wide

When did the clouds turn Dark? Alas—

A storm lurks, waiting to Attack

When Suffocation takes its Toll

What then be of our world?

When the Firmament faints at last

Our Ground will merely Fold

Melanie Krassel ’15

31

FaibleAcrylic and pastel on cold press board

Jacob Goodman ’15

33

UntitledPhotography

Eli Caplan ’14

34

A New PerspectiveInk and black paper on cold press board

Alisa Tsenter ’14

35

UntitledOil on canvas

Lauren Lee ’14

36

Faithful

Please don’t question

It’s not hard—

Just move your family

To my land

And I will bring you legacy

A dream for a promise

2 for 1


Just search for animals

A pair of each kind

And board them on an ark

Hand built with no assistance

Because you are righteous


Just kill your son

That’s all

Throw in the charred ram,

And I’ll double it


The customer is always right

Hannah Kofman ’14

37

PackratCamera Obscura Photography

Sammi Ho ’16

39

Go On

Quietly, your footsteps fall

on the stone pathway that

we paved together;

the winding coils

required long hours, where we

paused our work to

wipe our sweat away

in the glorious rays,

satin stars winked at us

to signal our rest,

but we didn’t go inside;

we lay on our work,

held our hands together

as the playful winds

calmed, and caressed

our cheeks and hair

as we drifted off

into the morning,

when we open our eyes

to see the birds

the sun carefully

hanging in the sky;

it shines on us,

only to realize

our work is done,

and we are back

where we started

(Opposite)Tube SockPorcelain Emma Lesher-Liao ’14

It’s your turn, now,

to go on and

build your own road

while I stay here

and work on it some more.

Clare Chou ’15

40

something to say

there’s something to be said

about the way

you electrocute yourself

these pretty thin wires seething through

blood never meant to touch air,

breaking out,

and I’m not sure what the words are

‘cause I’m bad with my tongue

but you tell me there is no ugly, that

our organs care too much about us,

that every cell in our body

is devoted to maintaining the

light in this vessel

but you –

compress your thighs with

squeezing until the cellulose yellows.

you’re always saying

‘not my bruises,

please just look at my eyes’

these – the same.

I see a blood sweet with glucose,

sick with so much heavier

I see a humor brittling and a bee hive in your

chest humming ‘cause you

keep taking parts of yourself out

into the trash

out the backdoor

down the sink

depositing these perfect pieces

trying to pardon the rotting,

but with your makeup smearing

and your lips slipping into your gums

I know that this not a metamorphosis

every laugh rippling in your throat

crippling before sticking to the roof

this decay is wholly shattering.

this decay makes me want to practice the words

tell you you are more than your mistakes,

more than your failures,

more than that whittled soil in your garden

because bodies are hard to live in

bodies are almost impossible to live in

but there must be something said

about the way you’re electric

why are the words still stuck on my tongue

Levi Craske-Curtin ’14

41

Mathis Acrylic on skinDarby Caso ’14

Stone-cutters 2014

Documents

Transcript of Stone-cutters 2014