Tim Powers: Below the Surface

* Robert Sparrow Jones *

“Tim Powers: Below the Surface” is a quiet meditation on the mundane and intimate space of sleep. His source of investigation is the philosophical and existential oppositions that manifest themselves in the industrial materials he uses. The theme of the unconscious is carried through in the ethereal hues inherent to polystyrene and latex, which collectively invite the viewer into a meditative space. But what stirs this exhibit are the oppositions Powers designates in the details. They are full of physically engaging contradictions that lure you inside the work. And while dreams themselves remain nameless; a sustaining eternal question about what makes our own landscape lingers.

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“Bad Faith: The Worst First Date of an OKCupid Moderator,” by Christopher Kempf

* nonfiction by Christopher Kempf, excerpted from MQR 53:2, Spring 2014 * I began to understand by the second beer that I’d been misled in more than mere appearances. Aubrey was not, as she suggested in the “What I’m doing with my life” section of her profile, “petting every single dog she saw” for a living, but was, like so many young San Franciscan hipsters I’d been trying to avoid, working for a tech start-up in the Financial District. *

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What Stinks?

* Lillian Li *

I eat the stinky tofu on my second day in Beijing, passing up two metal carts before finally biting the bullet at a stand in Wangfujing. I hand over ten kuai and watch as the vendor first deep-fries the tofu, and then ladles the golden cubes into a grey gravy. Then he scoops the wet tofu into a cup, spoons a dollop of hot chili paste on top, and presents the nightmare sundae to me with a long toothpick as my only utensil.

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