peach acid- nostalgia's role in contemporary media

 Nostalgia’s Role in Contemporary Media

We all have fond memories and our senses may be strong enough to associate distinct smells, tastes, sounds, and sights that bring us straight back to those times and places, stimulating a sense of comfort and longing. The Hippocampus is an organ attached to the Temporal lobe of the Human brain, where memories are stored, certain conditions like Alzheimer's and Concussions can significantly impact the Hippocampus, causing memory loss. It’s usually between the ages of 2 to 4 that children start making memories and remembering previous events, It’s very uncommon for children below the age of 2 to remember specific details but some Developmental psychologists have hypothesized even newborns can store basic sensory information in the deepest parts of their hippocampus even while in their mother’s womb. However, retrieving that information to active consciousness is still not entirely understood considering the brain is not considered to be finished developing until the age of 25 in females and 27-30 in males.  Nostalgia, originating from Greek roots meaning “Homecoming Sorrow” is defined as a a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Some say, you know your childhood is over when the responsibilities of the working adult lifestyle step in, and you dream of the untouchable past that was so much easier before you realized they were. A large part of maturing is the ability to accept the past for exactly how it is, communicating how you interpreted the past through a more Innocent lens and sharing it with people who witnessed it with you. In 2014, a study was done by Smith College students that looked at medical, psychological, and psychiatric descriptions of nostalgia as a pathological condition and concluded that nostalgia is described in terms of developmental delays, excessive attachment to one’s mother, habitual idealization but, importantly, aberrated mourning and melancholia. When Freud claimed in his 1917 theory of “Mourning and Melancholia” that, “Hysterics suffered mainly from reminiscences,” he used a paradox to describe the recollection of past events can result in psychic maladies, and that recalling previous traumas proves cathartic, and many Modern Psychotherapists follow this belief today.  Catharsis employs a sense of relief of tense emotions, thus prompting Nostalgia. Our Generation, (Gen Z) born 1997 to roughly 2012, now experiences Nostalgia just like the generations before us. Nostalgia of course depends on the environment where those memories originally toke place, In our case, The Western part of the world, moderately upper middle-class societies, in the American K-12 education system, with working-class parents and guardians. With this in common, we share a relative pride for our 21st-century technology from the decades we first remember it applies to our lives, the American architecture, food and the melting pot of a culture in Urban areas of the U.S, all while the War in Afghanistan was going on between the 9/11 attack and the US invading Iraq in 2003 before the Great Recession of 2008 making Obama the first African-American president. These were big controversial talking points during our Early Childhood.  With that same Psychological lens, Nostalgia can be broken down into two different forms. Reflective Vs. Restorative. Restorative Nostalgia involves happy memories and positive associations with the past, these Restorative Nostalgia flashbacks usually make us motivated to seek new experiences to create more of these memories.. On the Other hand, Reflective Nostalgia is a gloomy and depressing perspective on recalling old memories, sometimes making it seem that the present moment doesn’t compare with our memories, preventing us from moving forward and making new positive experiences., this can be caused by traumatic experiences, Childhood neglect or abuse. Reflective Nostalgia though can be used in treatment for CPTSD and PTSD cases, when it comes to contemplating and rationalizing unhappy past events. In other words, Nostalgia plays a role in Entertainment as well.  shows such as Friends, Gilmore Girls, and Full House make a resurgence, and as new media develops set in older time periods, like Stranger Things, The Derry Girls, Young Sheldon and many more all capitalizing on the retro aesthetic, bringing us as close as we can to relieving the past.  With literature, Nostalgia is capitalized on taking a prior proposition and twisting it into a plot-significant one, whether that is emphasizing the foil of a Character or embedding a quality caused by past events.. In Eric Sanberg’s essay “The Double Nostalgia of Literature” he proposes a thesis about Homer’s The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel offers a particularly clear example of how nostalgia can operate as a theme in a literary text, as the desire to go home is contrasted with the impossibility of doing so. But Kazantzakis’ poem is also an indication of another way that literature can be seen as an inherently nostalgic form of expression. The very fact that he has looked to the Odyssey for his main character and point of narrative departure indicates how literature, and perhaps cultural production more generally, tends to rely on its predecessors for material, using an interpretation of the past to make sense of the present.  Moreover, Nostalgia is a marketing method and Publicity opportunity in Modern Media. The marketer uses symbols from the past to associate the modern product with the audience's fond memories. Symbols, in this context, refer to images, signs, icons, or other representations that are recognizable and carry particular meanings or associations based on shared experiences. For example, several U.S. department stores sell reissued retro children's toys from the 1980s -- such as Lite Brite, Hot Wheels, My Little Pony, and Care Bears -- that evoke positive memories in the buyer's mind and find a new audience with the current generation of children. Companies can use nostalgia marketing to sell products that promise to return the customer or audience to an early, simple, and happier life. Companies often evoke nostalgia through reboots, remakes, and throwbacks. Nostalgia marketing also works because it feels uniquely personal while still working for thousands of people at a time. This makes it a social emotion, where people can bond over rosy memories of the past together, catalyzed by a nostalgic advertisement.

the voynich manuscript- a research essay

 Language is a powerful tool, that carries communication, the epitome of self-expression. Language is an art while doubling as a science that diversifies in every corner of the world. The Voynich Manuscript (the World’s most mysterious book) was an illustrated codex hand-written in a unique writing system whose pages have been carbon-dated to 1404-1438. The fifteenth century was the latest of the Middle English literature movement, the next century would be the start of the Renaissance movement. One might ask In what way does Mystery as a genre contribute to Modern literature as a whole? Mystery is subjective to curious people, we all wonder why something is in the condition that it’s in and why or, how and what got it there? Mysteries happen all around us, some more serious than others because humans don’t like the feeling of not knowing and letting something they care about go, so artists and writers indulge in this Human want to solve Mysteries into a literature movement. 

According to The House of Camdus, Historical Magazine. The Voynich Manuscript seems designed to inspire the most mystical and mysterious of conspiracy theories. It’s been described as a magical or scientific text and features pages of strange, otherworldly botanical, astrological, and biological illustrations among others. While the 55 pages of botanical illustrations at the beginning of the manuscript may look like straightforward scientific descriptions, the truth of the drawings is strange and intriguing: most of these plants do not exist, making the Manuscript all the more puzzling There also a handful of bizarre floating castles and some describe it to look like children’s drawings. It could be nothing more but an obscure, abstract, and detailed art project done centuries ago, but could it mean something much more to those inclined enough to decode it?  The Voynich Manuscript coined its name from the man who discovered it, Polish collector Wilfred M. Voynich, credited by historians for establishing one the largest rare book businesses in the world. In 1912, he bought the book for about $30 (literally in Today’s currency) from Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. After that, it was housed in the Yale Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where scholars, linguists, cryptographers, and armchair code breakers never decided on what Language the manuscript was written in and what it meant.  the text is written on vellum in brown ink, and the drawings are colored with vibrant greens and blues, deep red, and dusty gold. Carbon dating, which is a traditional scientific method that allows researchers to determine on accurate century going back to 60,000 years based on the decay of the carbon-14 isotope of the parchment tells us that the manuscript was likely written in the early fifteenth century, but over 500 years later it’s still considered gibberish. One common argument is that the Manuscript is a detailed and elaborate hoax, meant to fool Scientists and researchers as an artistic statement or to amend and validate their philosophies on what Science of the 16th century was supposed to be and teach. According to a Secret Knowledge article published in 2021, "it's hard to imagine a punchline that required so elaborate a build-up." To put such painstaking effort into an over-two-hundred-page document that would have required some fourteen or fifteen entire calfskins to manufacture seems unfathomable. For starters, who would have the money, the time, or the gall to create such a thing? The likeliest suspect is Voynich himself, who in a fit of greed may have fabricated the manuscript to resell it for a pretty penny (he did estimate its value at around $100,000). Scholars have speculated that the underlying language may have been old French, Spanish, Ladino (a dialect of Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews), Berber, Occitan (the medieval version of protoFrench used in what is today’s southwest France), Hebrew, Provençal (spoken in medieval southeast France), West German dialects of Flanders from the 12th century, Basque, “medieval Galician”, Yiddish, and even Nahuatl or Mazatec/Otomanguean, an indigenous language of the Indians of Central Mexico. However, there is always the possibility is the long-lost evidence of a secret society or small organization from over 500 years ago that spoke and communicated with the language of the Voynich Manuscript. Ciphers were not uncommon literary riddles back then, The Native Americans actually believed if they could create a language only they understood it could keep their records only interpretable to their own people, instead of their Rival villages or colonizers. If this is true, Historians failed to collect any other piece of evidence that proves the existence of this language and the people who speak it. Letters and groups of letters are consistent in frequency “gallows characters” and it seems like it was written by two or more hands because the handwriting is slightly different from each other or the writer was writing in a different direction. 

• Roger Bacon: One of the earliest theories attributes the manuscript to the 13th-century English philosopher and Franciscan friar Roger Bacon. Proponents of this theory argue that Bacon's interest in experimental science and alchemy aligns with the content of the manuscript, but the timeline doesn't exactly match up However, According to the International Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Bacon was convinced that mathematics and astronomy are not morally neutral activity, pursued for their own sake, but have a deep connection to the practical business of everyday life, In that it matches Bacon’s beliefs but would be far after Bacon’s era even existed. Bacon was committed to the view that wisdom should contribute to improving life. Nevertheless, The theory summarized goes that the codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon

• John Dee: A 16th-century English mathematician, astronomer, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee is another candidate. However, there is little evidence to support this theory, and Dee's known works do not resemble the Voynich Manuscript. I personally think If any, John Dee is the most likely author of the Voynich Manuscript because the timeline works and the Beinecke rare book and manuscript Library affirms John Dee is the most likely writer of the manuscript Because it aligns with his personal and educational beliefs. 

• Leonardo da Vinci: Some speculations suggest that the famous Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci might have authored the manuscript. Proponents argue that the intricate illustrations and scientific content are consistent with da Vinci's interests and knowledge. However, there is no solid evidence to connect him to the manuscript.

• An Unknown Author: The possibility exists that the manuscript was created by an unknown individual or a group of people. It could be the work of a medieval scholar, alchemist, or herbalist who recorded their knowledge in a coded form

The latest discoveries on the Voynich Manuscript may secure the legit author or original owner of the Voynich Manuscript. Thanks to a 17th-century letter written by the royal doctor Johannes Marcus Marci, scholars can trace its ownership back to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who bought it from an unnamed seller for 600 ducats, or gold coins, sometime between 1576 and 1612. But as the manuscript was created in the early 15th century, this leaves around 150 years of ownership unknown. Now, after scouring imperial account journals kept by Rudolf’s court, Stefan Guzy of the University of the Arts Bremen, Germany, has identified records that could shed further light on the manuscript’s sale to the emperor tracing its ownership back a little further. 

peering straight through me- november short story contest (rough draft)

I live on the street the alley cats avoid and the trees lean their leafy branches obscuring my hollow hole of a mailbox. T

his is Luxembourg, a land of priceless Renaissance architecture,

and unfathomable prizes nature behold. Every winter season the snow falls, sprinkling every

European mountain peak and the headstones to the centuries-old graveyards and Catholic chapels,

but I’m spared from it all, behind these windows I’m a prisoner of a prissy, darling, icing-on-the-cake reality.

I have soured into a miserable witch, dreaming about the day I have the strength to run far away maybe to the Motherland of

Belgium. But in the meantime, I take a long stare at the face through the vanity mirror and turn back down to my blank

sketchbook paper. I started this dance countless weeks ago, trying to illustrate the human portrait, but I occupy the version

nobody else seems to recognize. I don’t understand what makes an Image so exceptional.

Now my bedroom is tinted with the outside darkness.

It must be late in the night now, but I still haven't even marked anything down.

My utensil is a chunk of black chalk, I could start with a simple jaw, leading to my cheekbones, then my forehead,

and the start of my hairline. But I look up again, and that’s when I peer through the little girl, watching back at me.

This young girl has creamy blonde curls and the glassiest of viridescent eyes like two Chrysoberyl crystals.

Her skin appears smooth like fresh linen, tinted a fair peach I think this girl is far prettier than me

and I wonder the last time I’ve seen her like this.

I snarl my teeth, dragging a finger across my throat to put her back in that frame capturing her so she shrinks with fear.

I focus now, etching the point of my chalk and smudging along the way, I like to see her timid,

brows raised and lips tight. I used to pinch this girl until she bled, and wind her around to the point of hysteria,

and now I commit even worse, but she’s just the result of my sight cast on that glass.

When the sun rises, I have more than an outline but when I glance back at her she’s distracted by the morning gleam

and I hate how the corners of her mouth rise, reminding me she’s the hopeful one.

My bedroom is illuminated by this light, my milky pink wallpaper, ceramic baby dolls,

and wooly white rabbits propped along my shelf.

But my vanity mirror reveals the princess of my kingdom where I’m her queen.

If she’s lucky enough I'll feed her well tonight, with the stickiest apple bread and the

thickest pudding to keep her throat full so I don’t have to hear her wallowing.

Every time I stuff my beast of a belly to the brim, I pray she chokes.

I used to wonder What went wrong with me. And Why do I neglect this girl of the humanity her eyes crave?

But I watch her veins pulsate each time I let the ink leak into the tunnels traveling through the body we share. I laugh each time she whimpers at the impact of these penetrations, the dark solutes that taint her pure figure. The next day arrives and I carve apotropaic symbols to keep my evils at bay but the itches only swell and I must keep gutting this fish. The young girl in the mirror only exists in her portal to her rotting wicked world I trap her in, the interior chemtrails eating her. When the moonlight beams through my curtains I scratch my details on the sketch paper and when I’m finally through I dip my body into my feathery fortress of fluffy fleece pillows and frown at my ultimate product, but I hesitate to name this Beautiful. Her new face is mildly concentrated with concern, brows furrowed, the surface blushed with soft brightness, but the expression torments me the longer I reflect on it, so I turn my chin up once more to see her there in that vanity mirror, Her jaw is sharp, skin thinner than cheap cloth and her eye sockets seep deep in, sinking the center of her expression to a sickly tart scowl, not like she’s angry but like her precious existence is threatened to decay just where she is, She’s destined to die by my hands. I grin at this sight, I smile so wide my cheeks cramp up and a tear falls from me. I make a few final touches and sign my name with pride. Now, the once young and alluring sight of her is entirely dampened and decayed beyond recognition, her mouth is wide, eaten away by the blowflies and moths that nibble at her, like an abscess that never concludes, her eyes are dark, no sight to be traced, puss oozing down the bones outlining the husk of what used to house her absent soul, there is no hair attached to the top of her any longer, but burnt fuzz on the skull. If this sketch is accepted by the deities, I will be liberated for the first time. I can implode that vanity mirror on the dresser and leave, I can take a step again and again down that long carpeted hall and petal down those stairs as fast as I want, and then open that front door, fling that gate wide and smell that clean tree sap and autumn winds, listen to the crows chirp and breath up and down. Now that this girl is diminished from me, all of my responsibilities and obligations are released. I’ve paid all of my debts. I pull some lacy white socks on, stretch the better parts of my legs, and stand there, staring at this vanity from an absent-minded lens. Her neck snaps pathetically and the weight of the skull tumbles down, thumping at the old wooden floor and shattering, the cavity of her neck bleeds a dark oil that emits a foul chalky gas. I gag at the sight of her, my gut folds at the harsh displeasure of witnessing her. I step over these dry remains and make my way to the exit. With my new youthful shine, I triumph down the stuffy atmosphere of the house interiors, falling deeper in love with myself along the way. I march out towards the landscape I’ve wished to greet, wandering through the snowbanks that blanket my vast front yard. I venture down into the canopy of the Bambësch Forest but a new sense creeps up from the soles of my feet to the base of my spine and the cavity of my temples that I’m entirely alone, I look ahead and for the next days, I see no other live being. All is silent and it irks me, even when I sink my exhausted weight into the soil along the trail, listening to the chorus of waterfall, that runs the creek. I don’t even remember the last time I heard a frog croak or a pigeon caw. My misery depended on the company of the young girl in that vanity mirror and now I’m fated to a life of solitude. I peer my sight to the pure clarity of the creek, piercing right through me are those two Chrysoberyl crystals for eyes, creamy blond curls coated by snowflakes, and my skin like fresh linen. I’ve been unaccompanied since the day of my birth till my last.

edgar allan poe mysteries- peach acid episode 3!

Everyone has heard of Edgar Allan Poe or his gothic presence in early 19th-century literature and poetry. Still, his life and death stirred a lot of speculation and curiosity about what inspired his work, what his work meant, and exactly what or who killed him. Known for his keen intellect and evocative, often macabre imagination, Edgar Allan Poe is often credited as one of the most groundbreaking authors of early-nineteenth-century America. Although Poe is remembered by most readers as the author of such stories as "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," critics recognize him for the versatility and range of his talents.

Edgar Allan Poe first came to the attention of the literary world as a magazine editor and critic. He wrote an estimated thousand essays, reviews, articles, columns, and critical notices that appeared in magazines, newspapers, and annuals. Poe was among the first to propose setting standards by which to judge literary works, what aspects should be criticized, and what should be praised and created while creating his own vision of what constituted good literature by studying dying writers that ranged from Plato and Aristotle to Milton and Coleridge, along with more philosophy endeavors like this in his 30’s. 

His influential theory of “unity of effect” states that the author of a short story should construct a tale to fit one overall purpose or effect but just as importantly, Poe is recognized for inventing the modern detective story, creating a new formula for the mystery genre (you know the ones); indeed, many of his principal techniques, particularly his use of deductive reasoning to elucidate the complexities of criminal behavior in his writing, form the foundation of the crime genre. 

On that same note, Poe's in-depth explorations of the interior lives of his characters helped pave the way for psychological realism, inspiring several later fiction writers, among them Fyodor Dostoevsky. Poe's critical writings, notably those on the relationship between philosophical principles and artistic style, also influenced the aesthetic theories of Charles Baudelaire, Stephanie Mallarme, and other members of the French symbolist movement of the mid-19th century to the first decade of the 20th century.

Born January 19th, 1809 in Boston, MA. He was the only child of his parents, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, a very talented actress, and David Poe, his father abandoned Edgar and his mother, who became terminally ill with Tuberculosis, dying in 1811, only a month before his third birthday, in December. John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a prosperous tobacco exporter, sent Poe to the best boarding schools and, later, to the University of Virginia, where Poe excelled academically. After less than one year of school, however, Poe was kicked out for gambling and John Allan refused to pay off his son’s debts.

Did you know? In this period, Popular english author Charles Dickens (author of A Christmas Carol, The Signal Man, Hunted Down, The Battle of Life: A Love Story, and Oliver Twist) met Edgar Allan Poe? During his 1842 tour of the United States, He met with Dickens at the United States Hotel located on Chestnut Street, where the two men discussed literature, especially the need for an international copyright law to protect the works and rights of all authors.

Poe's work was very successful and recognized in Philadelphia. The Walnut Street Theatre produced a short play based on Poe's popular mystery story, "The Gold Bug," and Poe spoke to large crowds several times talking about American poetry. He found a picturesque escape from the city by walking along the scenic Wissahickon Creek, which he wrote about in a short article entitled "Morning on the Wissahickon."

Edgar Allan Poe’s death is the most mysterious and disputed theory about his life along with his career. Notoriously most people believe he died from alcoholism, In 1831 he was accepted into the West Point Military Academy where he celebrated with bouts of over drinking, his friends even had a running inside joke that Poe could get belligerent drunk off of just one glass of wine. It wouldn't be a surprise that he died from these surrounding alcohol dependency.

One of the more prevalent theories states that Poe fell victim to forced voter fraud or “Cooping” as they used to call it. In the 19th century, corrupt politicians paid gangs to kidnap unsuspecting victims, disguise them, and force them to vote for a specific candidate multiple times in different outfits, because Identity was easily faked back then and elections could too be easily corrupted. If the victim refused to comply they would be beaten or forced to chug large amounts of liquor. He was found on election day by his friend, Dr. Joseph Snodgrass, on the street near Ryan’s Fourth Ward Polls, which was both an Irish pub and a place of voting. 

 His friend found him in a severely drunken state, wearing cheap clothes that didn’t fit and were not his usual style. He was rushed to the hospital slipping in and out of consciousness. He died a few days later, reportedly saying his last words “Lord help my poor soul”,  If this is true, then that would confirm the theory that he died from alcohol poisoning on October 7th, 1849. Poe’s Mother in-Law “Maria Clemm” that Poe referred to as “Muddy” noted that his death was reported as “congestion of the brain” synonymous with alcohal poisoing, but could this be suicide? 

The first woman Poe “fell in love with” was  Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, rumored to have been his fiancée at the time of his death. Poe had known Shelton since childhood when they were neighbors and first took a romantic interest in each other. They fell out of contact when Poe left for University of Virginia and Shelton married another man. They did not speak again until 1848 after the death of Poe’s wife Virginia. By that time, Shelton was a widow and Poe took the opportunity to ask her to marry him. She declined, but he continued to pursue her for several months. Poe wrote to his aunt, Muddy, to tell her that the two would be married in October 1849 but he died just ten days before the supposed wedding date arrived, some conspire that he knew she diddnt love him and found the only solution to be suicide by overconsumption of alchohal since he knew he was so sensitive to it. He was known to drink after the death of his first wife.

However, Aside from alcoholism, historians and biographers have suggested alternative causes of death ranging from lesions on the brain, epilepsy and tuberculosis to cholera, syphilis and even rabies. Many members of Poe’s family have reported seeing him throw himself to the floor with fits of sporadic movement.  Back then they assumed it was due to his lack of spiritual identity and god was punishing his body and mind but of course now, this is a textbook- epileptic seizure with muscles spasms. The Rabies theory infers that one of his many cats got infected with the Rabies bacterial virus and bit him, causing him to days later. At the end of the day, Edgar Allan Poe’s demise does not define his career and legacy in 19th-century American Literature, the theories about his death don’t account for all the wonderful literary theories and analysis about his work, especially his horror and mystery

"her castle ahead" poem- 11/11 jabberwocky submission

 Her Castle Ahead

Up ahead, you'll follow a northern star

She settles her Morning gleam, not too far

pink and tender, calm and congenial.

You seek shade from the blizzard, a place peaceful

You’ll fall famished, fingertips burned by the malicious cold

Still, she soothes the fawns and cossets, the fragile nature beholds

With a familiar song, hushing them to cozy slumber

Up ahead where the crystal rain sheds,

delicately decorating her mountain peaks rising and falling. 

You climb these prominences, rewarded with the sight of her Castle Ahead

The one belonging to all, the house for the restless, 

the unfortunate and the injured are treated so gently

Up ahead, you will watch a new sunrise, abundant, she’s fruitful

She provides it there, encourages all to sink deeper into their pillows,

soaking the woody, welcoming musks, beneath the thick linens, 

guilts tossed in valerian and lavender. When you reach the Castle ahead, you will be home for once in forever, time stirs you in and out, tidings like distant legends, 

where she rocks you back to sleep, while the fireplace cracks and crinkles.

Her Castle ahead, you’re welcomed in the Kingdom of familiarity,

Wide array, nursing the weak, the broken with many hues of candlelight

And brewing pekoe. All are relieved, she casts out their pain

You will finally find solace atop the Snowy swarms of an unforgiving reality

All prejudices are forgotten, suffering is pacified and all innocence is guarded, 

In her Castle Ahead.

peach acid- shakespeare's lost years first podcast outline

 New Semester Introduction-

 Hi Peach Acid Listeners! My name is Cira and I´ḿ this year's Media Team, leader. I am the scriptwriter, researcher, and podcast coordinator as well as aiding the layout team in promoting and publishing the AHHS Literary Magazine, The Jabberwocky. This year I plan to publish episodes frequently and interview many talented students and staff alike. 

Hi, I'm Tori Valadez, I'm a Junior on the Art team in LitMag and am very excited to help create the Artwork for this year's JubJubs and Jabberwocky!

• Do you consider yourself an artist? 

To an extent yes, but I don't think I qualify to be labeled as an artist, mainly because my creative thoughts only relate to creating written pieces. Although I can make suitable art for the Jab, I think I'm more of a writer than an artist.

• What made you choose to work with Lit Mag? 

I love the idea of contributing to a written magazine, and especially since I looked up to the people in lit mag and my creative writing class I'd get to produce and create alongside them, and I thought that was pretty cool.

• We have an upcoming publication coming up, can you tell us a little bit about the theme? Have you submitted it? 

The theme is sort of a third person, stalking, admiring, observing the type of style where you are writing about something or someone being watched (or something along the lines of that, creatively). Personally, I've actually had a hard time thinking of something unique to submit, I already submitted one piece, a classic carrier-type narration

• What Shakespeare pieces have you read? What did you think of them? Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, are obviously both esteemed classics in literature but this also makes them the blueprint for so many other movies plays, and pieces, so when you read them straight up, they're a tad bit predictable 

• What does Shakespeare mean to you?

Shakespeare to me is essentially the founder or first creative writer who got to get his pieces to the public and on stage, gaining so much appreciation and allowing him to continue writing his stories.

1. To start, the mid to late 1500s in Europe were remarkable times for the height of the Renaissance movement, While England became the most powerful nation in Europe, new ideas and religious concepts emerged and the growth of a middle class held power without noble birth, radical changes erupted in  European society. William Shakespeare, The Bard of Avon, as you may have been taught in any English or Literature Course, spoke and wrote in Early Modern English or Elizabethan English which paved the way for the modernized grammar and spelling of New English. Shakespeare also expanded on the idea of Characterization, plot development, and genre, he also was arguably the first playwright to connect the dots between love and tragedy and paved a new possibility for literary tropes wordplay, and symbolical concepts in one universal language that still dominates today. 

2. William Shakespeare was a world-renowned English playwright, known for the creation of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Timon of Athens, Macbeth, and many more extensive works of fiction that paved the way for the Renaissance drama literature movement of the 16th century in Europe, But it’s not as well known that Shakespeare had many obscure years of his career, where he wrote many plays that have been missing to this day. Shakespeare left school at the age of 14 like most students, married 4 years later, and had a daughter in 1583 and twins later on in 1585, which happened to be the same year the Plague began to break out in London, For one thing, as a shareholder in two playhouses and a company, he was as anxious as any West End producer in 2020 about theater closures, the effect on the bottom line, and whether there was even any point in him generating new scripts if no one could stage them, with nothing else to do, Shakespeare turned to writing poetry with an air of early Romanticism ideas. 

3. In 1593 Shakespeare published a poem, Venus and Adonis, dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, a young courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth, writing Shakespeare attempted to illustrate the unfortunately close relationship between love and sacrifice, a subject he touched on in Romeo and Juliet. But the Plague had a dramatic and painful influence on the young Shakespeare’s life, the writer had seen many people die often from this eruptive disease. However, the lockdown only lasted about 6 months so Shakespeare returned to playwriting and aided many more productions. By 1597, Shakespeare moved him and his family to a new place in Stratford- upon Avon and continued to strengthen his production business, this is when Shakespeare’s notoriety bloomed into much more relevance than ever before in his career, he’s known and respected by most around town, even approached by many fans. 

4. By 1599, Shakespeare used old timber from his old theater to build “The Globe” an even bigger, improved theater which had been built by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576. The Burbages originally had a 21-year lease of the site on which the theater was built but owned the building outright to pursue a wider range of theatrical entrepreneurs. In 1600, Shakespeare is now 36, he wrote ¨Hamlet” and for the first time in his career his poetry his featured in Bell- Vedere the first literary common compilation book to include playwrights. Around February of the next year, the First recorded performance of 'King Richard II', a revival performed at the Globe and commissioned by supporters of the Earl Of Essex and a year later Shakespeareś's father dies from the plague at only 55.

• Shakespeare’s Lost Years and Lost Plays

1. It’s theorized there is a gap in the timeline scholars have constructed – a seven-year period during which we know nothing at all about where he was and what he was doing, although there is much, unsupported, conjecture about it, those years have been labeled ‘the lost years”  beginning in This period spans from 1585 to 1592. According to an interview with David McInnis, co-founder of the Lost Plays Database from the Folger Shakespeare Library. “there are at least two plays Shakespeare wrote that has definitely been lost: Love’s Labour’s Won and another play he wrote with John Fletcher called Cardenio. But when Shakespeare’s First Folio was put together posthumously, it was not a perfect document. The plays included are of uneven quality. Some of them are very roughed, worked over manuscripts and some of them are much more polished final products. They took whatever they could get, and they printed it. In the course of doing so, they managed to publish for the first time about 18 of Shakespeare’s plays that hadn’t appeared in print during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Plays like Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth and Twelfth Night.”

• Shakespeare’s Mysterious Death

The mystery surrounding William Shakespeare's death primarily revolves around the exact cause of his demise and the circumstances leading up to it. While the traditional account attributes his death to a fever contracted after a night of heavy drinking with fellow playwright Ben Jonson, there are several aspects that have led to ongoing debate:

1. Lack of Detailed Records: One of the key factors contributing to the mystery is the limited amount of detailed historical documentation regarding Shakespeare's final days and illness. We have some basic facts about his death date (April 23, 1616), but there are very sparse death medical records, autopsy reports, eyewitness accounts, or letters describing his condition.

2. Conflicting Accounts: The accounts of Shakespeare's death come from secondary sources and vary in detail and reliability. For instance, the Reverend John Ward, a 17th-century cleric, wrote in his diary that Shakespeare died of a "fever." However, the lack of specificity leaves room for interpretation.

3. The Drinking Bout Theory: The traditional narrative suggests that Shakespeare died of a fever contracted after a night of heavy drinking with Ben Jonson and other colleagues at the Mermaid Tavern in London. Some have questioned this account, as it relies on anecdotal evidence and might have been embellished over time.

4. Poisoning Theories: At various points in history, theories have emerged suggesting that Shakespeare was poisoned. These theories often speculate about political motives or personal vendettas. However, they lack concrete evidence and are largely considered speculative. 

5. Alternative Medical Explanations: Some modern medical experts have attempted to diagnose Shakespeare's cause of death based on historical records and the limited descriptions of his symptoms. The proposed alternative explanations include various diseases, infections, or even a stroke. Still, these are speculative and inconclusive due to the lack of concrete evidence. According to the Shakespeare’s Chancre (Did the Bard have Syphillyis?) Shakespeare's obsessive interest in syphilis, his clinically exact knowledge of its manifestations, the final poems of the sonnets, and contemporary gossip all suggest that he was infected with “the infinite malady.” The psychological impact of venereal disease may explain the misogyny and revulsion from sex so prominent in the writings of Shakespeare's tragic period. This article examines the possibility that Shakespeare received successful treatment for syphilis and advances the following new hypothesis: Shakespeare's late-life decrease in artistic production, tremor, social withdrawal, and alopecia were due to mercury poisoning from syphilis treatment. He may also have had anasarca due to mercury-related membranous nephropathy. This medical misadventure may have prematurely ended the career of the greatest writer in the English language, this is a bold claim to make, but if we take a look at the cited evidence Shakespeare often refers to the immense variety of syphilitic skin lesions. In Comedy of Errors (act 3, scene 2), a woman of dubious beauty and virtue has “her nose all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires,” alluding to the syphilid of late benign syphilis, a “deep indurated nodule that varies from pinhead to pea size and is brownish red in color,” which is found primarily on the face, upper back, and extremities [17, p. 501]. Lesions of nodular syphilis may scale and produce plaques, mimicking psoriasis or pityriasis rosea [18, 19]. This whitish, psoriaform appearance may explain Shakespeare's use of the term “hoar leprosy” for syphilis in act 4, scene 3 of Timon of Athens. Shakespeare also frequently puns on “French crowns,” which refers to gold coins but also suggests syphilitic alopecia from the French disease, but we would never know for sure how he might have gotten infected with any of these diseases. 

Of course, Shakespeare's awareness of syphilis does not mean that he was personally infected. Shakespeare would be familiar with syphilis from the London arts scene of the 1590s, as an observer of the New York arts scene of the 1980s would be familiar with AIDS. Shakespeare's fellow writers Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, and George Peele all died young, apparently from syphilis acquired in the London brothels 

6.  Nonsense Theories- Was Shakespeare even that good or even the true author of his plays at all? Until the 1800s, the debate was not about whether Shakespeare was a fraud, but rather whether he was really all that great. Ben Jonson and John Fletcher were generally thought to be superior in the centuries after his death. But critical evaluations shifted, as they are wont to do, and by the 19th century Shakespeare was becoming enshrined as the greatest English-language author of all time. There was also once a theory that Shakespeare was actually a woman all along, 

In summary, the mystery surrounding Shakespeare's death stems from the absence of detailed, contemporary records, and the reliance on secondary sources that offer conflicting accounts. While the traditional explanation of death due to a fever after a night of drinking persists, it is challenging to definitively confirm or debunk alternative theories. As a result, Shakespeare's cause of death remains an intriguing historical enigma that continues to spark curiosity and debate among scholars and enthusiasts.

Sources

• K, Amelia. "Shakespeare's Lost Years." Shakespeare.Org.Uk, 24 Aug. 2020, www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeares-lost-years/#:~:text=A%20popular%20story%20revolves%20around,in%20order%20to%20escape%20punishment. Accessed 14 Sept. 2023.

• McGreggor, Kurtis L. "Shakespeare's Conspiracy Theories Uncovered: InsideHook." Insidehook.Com, 9 Jul. 2019, www.insidehook.com/article/books/inside-the-weird-world-of-shakespeare-conspiracy-theories. Accessed 14 Sept. 2023.

the guest house} AHHS jabberwocky literary magazine publication

 Thursday night the weather flatlines and again the clouds drip, lighting penetrating the sky, the pause and then the booming cry. The Power blinks off and on before failing, abandoning my apartment to the illusive depth, leaving me with the only source of light; the vast window that stretches beyond the human eye can see throughout my broad place of occupance that is still far from what I would name a home. I sit on the sofa parallel to this window view and cozy myself  Here, 15 Central Park West Condo, between 61st and 62nd Streets adjacent to America's lush Garden, above me houses Denzel Washington and beneath me; Sting. I don't work at all or move a muscle; I have nothing more to learn and nothing else to do. 

Now all that is left to do is admire what I will never have but across from my place is a sight more valuable than any period piece framed in the hall of the Louvre museum, nor any worldly treasure could impress me as much as The Guest House ahead of me run by the many inhibitors over the years, identical to mine. The fascinating Guest house is a home belonging to nobody and everybody. It's warm in there, I can tell because the snow falls and I can see a thin steam emit from ahead of me. The first family had come for a wedding, they decorated the table before the window with Turkish delights, finger pies and thick strawberries dipped in bright white chocolate all laid about a lacey cloth on a silver platter, the flowers in the bright white vase. 

The sweets stayed still for days and days, a car accident on the way home from the wedding, drunk driver, mangled and there I foolishly watched for a week where the strawberries began to rot and the delights oozed and the flowers withered. Again, Rain catapults and shatters the ground beneath me, rattling the lights on and back on. I focus ahead the lights are still off but the candlelight flickers I see my picture looking back at me. Every window is a reflection, a reflection of thee, many of them the cleaners come, wash away before and incomes the next, keeping my entertainment fresh yet fangled while springs hope above the fence. They string together a bare thin wire. 

The Guests will evolve into the next and the family leave the traces of another fine story, The Missionary trip, harbouring their stolen youth of Christ and then a mafia boss father with his paranoid wives, nothing else left to flee on the run for the rest of their lives, or the high school friends from decades ago, who play poker and reminisce on before that language can show. Do they realize we are all on display, no ghost thin outline, no creature can ever disobey?  We are both wooden caricatures along the totem pole, that such sciences and rhythms could control. But the piercing bone of the glassy frame was my loneliness, masked by empty frames. Wealth amassed, but happiness became elusive games. As these guests departed, one by one, day by day. And in their fleeting presence, I found a semblance of a whole. I wish deep within, another would complete me, end my story No longer lonely, he cherishes each day, For I've already learned that true riches lie not in wealth's display. But instead, I keep watching, I keep Imagining but there is no Guest House, there is, no traveller or visitor of any foreign company but my cold reflection across from me and my filthy, stinking gluttony.