Amidst This Mess Are Faces

Abstract

Fran Leibovitz wrote, “As a teenager, you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.” Truer words never spoken, not even by Fran. In a College of 1800 faces, we cross the threshold from 19 to 20 under special pressure, beset by the onrush of personal responsibility in a world without privacy. For the journalist who is also a neighbor, friend, rival, lover and peer to his subjects, such close quarters give rise to an anxious accountability. The lines dividing news from gossip and image from impression suddenly become urgent questions laden with consequence. How do words written in dormitory solitude come to ring untrue in the echo of the dining halls? What must be told outright and what should be kept secret? Lilah Raptopoulos unpacks the unique quandries of collegiate journalism on the hyperpublic campus, reflecting on the first time her phone rang and she wished it were for anybody else. -Ed.

ALL INSIDE WORK, SOME HEAVY LIFTING

Ars Brevis currently seeks natural-born watchers, thinkers, talkers, writers, and designers of every manner and sort. If you believe in taking a hard look at soft subjects, getting worked into a lather about compelling minutiae, and thinking deeply about cast-off frivolity, then we may be the place for you.

AB accepts any contribution that:

1) Can be formatted into a WordPress post and published, be it narrative or expository writing, short films, or infographics.

2) Evinces an unaffected love for its subject and a dedicatedly researched approach.

3) Resonates with our ”so-called’ ‘research interests”. Broadly-speaking, if you’ve read this far, you’ve probably got something resonant to say.

Anyone looking to submit work, suggest article topics, or pose further questions should email parallelmajor@gmail.com

On William Clift

Abstract

When Polaroid announced in February 2008 that it was discontinuing its eponymous line of instant film, two reactions ensued. First came the crowds of devout hoarders, searching out and buying up the last stock in bulk. This response was predictable enough, rooted in the basic dynamic of supply and demand. But then, amidst the growing proliferation of digital photography, polaroid film had also acquired a voguish appeal among the kinds of white middle and upper-class kids who strive for ever-more instantaneous, authentic, and blemish-free reproductions of life. And so with the decline of instant film, demand is filled with the unlikely enshrinement of the disposable camera. Today disposables are sold and packaged with the same glint of savvy that used to encircle the polaroid, conferring its gleam on the grainy, ill-exposed, off-kilter photographs that result. In his memoir-analysis of William Clift, Noah Fowler explores not only the man and his work, but how we might see him in the shifting context of an artistic culture driven in equal parts by markets, aesthetics, and shutterbug pubescents too young for the analog world. -Ed.