history – TERSE. Journal

When We Lost Our Heads: A Review By T.S. McNeil

There is a strong social push toward order. At least in terms of western democracies, including those that also have queens, whether they want to or not. Even so, chaos, or at least a need for freedom, can be found in almost every human heart. Canada is a country with order baked into its DNA. The…
The History of Rain: A Review By T.S. Mcneil

When is a war not a war, or when does a war really end? Can the impacts ever really be shaken off until every person who remembers it is dead? For Canadian novelist Stephens Gerard Malone, the answer is no, at least if his novel The History of Rain is anything to go by. Written…
Broader Depictions– The Art of Wes Bishop: an Interview by Mauve Perle Tahat

What are your thoughts on being a self-taught artist? It’s something I am a bit self-conscious of actually. I started off in college as an artist, wanting to become a studio artist and to have my “paying job” be a graphic artist/cartoonist. That was kind of my thinking through much of my high school years.…
Vivid Reflections by T.S. Mcneil

Painting is not photography and photography is not painting. Both with their limitations, painting not reaching the clarity of photography and photography lacking the lushness possible with the brush. This has been a notion basically segregating the two since roughly the 1940’s. Though if it is assumed to be true, someone might want to tell…
The Chemistry of Mayson W. Burnham and His Surrounding Universe by Cavin Bryce

Ninety-nine percent of Mayson W. Burnham is composed of these following elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Roughly zero point eighty five percent of the Mayson W. Burnham is composed of potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. As with all matter, an incredibly minute amount of Mayson W. Burnham is composed…
LILITH: PERCHED IN SILENCE by Moriah M. Mylod

In my dreams we were in Charleston imagining apparitions and clowns I wonder how we could devise plans to become ghosts together in a tourist town to scare off kids and lovers alike And seeing how they still wanted us around even The devil horned The pale-blue eyed The predatorial smiles The dirty skinned …
And In That Republic by Wes Bishop

And in that republic, they built a machine, a machine of a million names, but one purpose, cruelty. Inflicting pain was a virtue of nettles on bare skin, leaving kindness’s soothing balm treason. It is why I stopped searching this world for guidance, instead pilgriming to myself to find the capitol of compassion. But…
What is the United States of America? by Wes Bishop

“Has it been like this in the past or is this something new?” my friend Pádraig asked. We were sitting in one of the coffee shops close to Purdue’s campus, and around us I could hear the familiar chatter one associates with a café that caters to college students, professors, and artsy town folks.…
20/20 at the Carnegie Museum of Art by James Carraghan

20/20: An exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA, July 22nd through December 31st 2017 REkOGNIZE: An installation by Bradford Young at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA, June 16th through December 31st, 2017 When you explore the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer number of…
Playing the Riot Box by James Carraghan

The beat of the heart my love / Is stronger than the charts my love / Your water sign just lit my fire. –“No Matter What Sign You Are,” Diana Ross and the Supremes. There’s a lot of Motown sound coming out of a hole-in-the-wall bar on Christopher Street. That sound, that space, that park,…