Catwyrms
ISSUE #64
Meow.
Atlanta has long claimed the symbol of the phoenix. Set ablaze by Sherman in the Civil War, it charged into the unknown to become a city rebuilt. No loss at all, depending on who you ask. There are material benefits to leaving history in the ashes. With the pages all burnt, power rewrites the story.
About a month before I started cramming The Odyssey, I was halfway through a pocket-sized Macmillan Collector’s Edition of The Maltese Falcon. It was my first time reading it. I’ve actually never even seen it. But! I did study Hammett in a paperback class in college—he was the genesis of hard-boiled crime fiction, which was called noir when adapted to screen. His prose could be sharp as Hemingway’s, at his best.
Olivia Rodrigo’s universally acclaimed third album came out the same year the film Obsession made over $300 million dollars at the worldwide box office. This is nothing less than a fact, and the implications are far beyond the scope of this issue; nevertheless, it speaks to a generational changing of the guard, and the universal pattern of emotion and memory for our centennially challenged species.
I’m subject to a lopsided and very minor synesthesia—I see colors with my numbers. I associate the early integers, 1 through 9, each with a hue. 1 is sunflower, 2 the blue of dusk. 3 is green. 4 is neon fuchsia. 5 is marigold, 6 is midnight. 7 is blood red, 8 is maroon. 9 is pale and jaundiced yellow.