—Comitia—

 

Curator
Well, shucks—that’s me. 

 

Site Correspondent
Aleksandra (Sasha) Vartelskaya is a regular correspondent for FWIW, sniffing out the best stories and morsels of media from here to eternity. When she is not on the beat for the site (admittedly an arduous job which takes up the vast majority of her time), she can be found prowling the mean streets of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, translating Russian articles into English, reading great literature, learning the nuances of the French language, playing Spanish Guitar, and balking at the economic policies of the United States at her job at the Central Bank. Startlingly, she has foregone the traditional method of payment for her investigative work, or even sweat equity, choosing instead to be paid exclusively in pickled herring—a decision which, while it has taught this curator much about the distinctions between Scandinavian, Northern European, and Eastern European ichthyological pickling practices, also costs the site dearly every week in terms of sheer manpower. Her motto is: “1. Everything is impermanent. 2. Everything is better with wine.” A little-known bit of trivia: In her former career as an amateur female boxer, her nom-de-guerre was “The Little Dachshund.” This may have been partly responsible for her failure to go pro.

 

Anti-social Media Guru 
S.W. Whelan Anti-post artist, paradoxical photographer/videographer, and poet, S.W. Whelan periodically contributes incalculably bizarre and profound posts to FWIW’s ‘social media’ pages. 

 

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—Contributors—

 

♡ You, The Readers 
It is a pleasure bringing you writings and other media through FWIW… But the site takes a lot of time and money to run, and I keep it completely Ad Free. DONATIONS from engaged readers like yourself are immensely helpful (and indeed indispensable) 


Anand Vyas is a sitarist and multi-instrumentalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. His sitar style is noted for a “round sounding” clarity of tone, the use of a heavy gauge string to employ a full sound, reminiscent of Ustad Rais Khan and Pandit Nikhil Bannerjee, and sparing use of the drone strings only if they serve a particular purpose. Treating the sitar like any other single note instrument, such as a flute, Anand’s sound is unmistakable—very full, rich, and fitting in occidental situations. Anand regularly performs and records, most recently for Levar Burton’s (of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek fame) podcast ‘Levar Burton Reads.’ He has published the following works on FWIW: Babe I’m Gonna Leave You on Sitar (in tribute to Led Zeppelin)


Andy Clausen came to prominence as a younger member of the Beat generation—friends with Gregory Corso and Neal Cassady, friend and informal protégé of Allen Ginsberg. Influenced by the earlier Beats’ vision and stylistics, he has carried on these traditions in a style marked by his earthy and workingman lifestyle, literary breadth, orality, dedicated communality, moral fervor, touching lyricism, and spiritual purpose. “The frank friendly extravagance of his metaphor & word-connection gives [his] poetry a reading interest rare in poetry of any generation,” quoth Ginsberg. He is the author of many poetry books, including Home of the Blues, Extreme Unction, The Iron Curtain of Love, 40th Century Man, and Poems for the Nation (co-edited with Ginsberg & Eliot Katz), and the memoir The Latter Days of the Beat Generation. Find out more about Andy here at Litkicks; interesting interviews can be found Here and Here; and some more of his poetry online Here. He has published the following works on FWIW: 5 New Poems

 

Andrey Zimin, artist, mystic, humanist polymath, is near equally skilled in literature, poetry, philosophy, music, and drawing (personally considering writing and philosophy his strongest mediums). He alternately uses these mediums to plumb the depths as far as they will yield so as to bring back a dancing star apparent even to the most blinded. His work hearkens back to a time, after all not so very long ago, when people read fervently, felt and longed for art and philosophy deeply, and held works of creation to considerably higher technical and ‘metaphysical’ standards. Will such a time ever return? Maybe if the world gets a whiff of more works by those as reverential of, dedicated to, and pregnant with the aesthetic as Andrey is. He hails from St. Petersburg, Russia, and for the last few decades or so has called the Boston area home. He has published the following works on FWIW: Improvisation to the Flatlands & The Scattered Sun [a piece for guitar]


Chris O’Bray is an actor and director from Toronto. When not staring at a wall during lockdown (or in general), he makes bizarre-o sketches and even more bizarre-o music. Look him up everywhere under the pseudonym “nobrayn.” He currently appears in Star Trek: Discovery, has been Ash in Evil Dead: The Musical, Lurch in Addams Family: The Musical, and even produced a bizarre-o 2019 Toronto Fringe sketch show called ‘Swallowed Whole’ adored by those who saw it. He’s still working towards that big film break, but for now “Police Officer #2” in an undistributed MOW remains his most cherished film performance. He has published the following works on FWIW: Man in the Age Of Consumerism (A Humorous Review of Jolly Rancher Cereal) [a video]


The Comedy Collective is • Anthony Scibelli • Michael Litwak • Luís Leal Miranda • Kristina Libby • Timothy Cahill • Laura K. Duncan • Chris Gural • Michael Pershan • K.A. Polzin • Robert Criss • Jeff Kulik • Arun Durvasula — a crack group of humor writers and cartoonists who participated in an online humor workshopping group. They include contributors to The New Yorker, The Old Yorker, The Ye Olde Yorker, McSweeney’s, McDreamy’s, McSorley’s, McCreamy’s, The American Bystander, The Weekly Humorist, The Weekly Bystander, The American Humorist, The American Weekly Humorist Bystander, the graffitied highway underpass, notable filmmakers, novelists, TV writers, stand-ups, flamenco dancers, dental technicians, equestrians, poodle colorists, chicken sexers, underwater basket weavers, and everything in between. They’ve published the following on FWIW: A Humor Extravaganza


Costas Despiniadis is a Greek writer, translator, and founder of Greek publishing house Panopticon. His books and essays have been translated into numerous languages. As a translator, his work includes 25 books and dozens of essays by Arendt, Shelley, Goldman, Thoreau, Huxley, Kropotkin, Foucault, and others. His latest book in English is Franz Kafka: The Anatomist Of Power. He has published the following works on FWIW: Dream Vignettes (from Nights Redolent Of Death)

 

Gato Loco was formed out of the ashes of Dart Club in 2005 by NYC jazz musician and filmmaker Stefan Zeniuk. Taking inspiration from early cartoons, irreverent mountain goats, and Mezcal smuggled in from their day jobs, the band vowed never to speak of Dart Club again (and indeed the club’s cardinal rule was “Never talk about Dart Club,” and only now, after much time and many vicissitudes, have the band broken their silence on this account), and moved forward immediately with their philosophy of subverting the world with a disorientating, debilitating use of tone, volume, and freakishly foreign sound waves. Their chief weapon is surprise. Their ancillary weapons: swiftness, focus, and humor. Oh—and amazing music. 

 

Incorporating equal parts latin, rock, and jazz, Gato Loco is not genre music. Finding the surprising connections between scratchy pre-war Cuban records, early mambo and salsa of the ‘50s and ‘60s, early punk of the ‘70s, and post-modern avant-garde jazz of the ‘80s, Gato Loco embraces an all-encompasing sound of irreverence, rebellion and abandon that defies place or time. It is tightly written, thrilling and confusing, killing boredom with thought, thought with passion, passion with power, power with—a flaming saxophone.

 

Exotic and foreign, yet simultaneously urban and familiar. A modern schizoid mentality, and yet universal. Mysterious: yes. Ambiguous: no. Their live shows, like a decadent latin mambo ballroom thrown into the midst of a 21st century rock show, deliver an instant party, filled with celebration and joy. This is BIG music, people. Does any of this make any sense? You’ll just have to hear and see them for yourself. 

 

The band is comprised of an all-star cadre of musicians, individually having played and-or recorded with The Violent Femmes, Vampire Weekend, Sigur Ros, Lauren Hill, Zola Jesus, T.S. Monk, Duncan Sheik, Zakir Hussain, Blue Man Group, to name a few. Since 2010, they have released two albums on the acclaimed Winter & Winter Records, 2010’s Gato Loco (recorded live in Bordeaux), and 2013’s The Enchanted Messa, a reimagination of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem. They have published the following works on FWIW: Cumbia Call [a music video]

 

Jared Daniel, a Toronto native, enjoys writing fiction while sipping cappuccinos, cat sitting, washing dishes, and self-expression in the art of the movie extra. He regularly travels around the Americas and the world, writing here, there, and everywhere. He has published the following works on FWIW: Bill’s Epiphany [a novel excerpt]

 

John Guzlowski was born in a refugee camp after World War II, and came with his family to the United States as a Displaced Person in 1951. His parents had been Polish slave laborers in Nazi Germany. Growing up in the immigrant and refugee neighborhoods around Humboldt Park in Chicago, he met hardware store clerks with Auschwitz tattoos on their wrists, Polish cavalry officers who still mourned for their dead comrades, and women who had walked from Siberia to Iran to escape the Russians. 

 

His writing tries to remember them and their voices. He has published three collections of poetry: Language of Mules and Other Poems (Biblioteka Śląska), Lightning and Ashes (Steel Toe Books), and Third Winter of War: Buchenwald (Finishing Line Press). His poems, which have been praised by Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz and read by Garrison Keillor on his Writer’s Almanac radio show, have also appeared in the anthologies Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust (Time Being), City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry (University of Iowa Press), and in manifold literary magazines. 

 

A Professor Emeritus at Eastern Illinois University, John currently lives in Danville, Virginia, where he recently completed a novel about two German lovers separated by World War II, Bone of Roads, to be published by Cervena Barva Press.

 

His blog Lightning and Ashes explores his parents’ experiences as Polish slave laborers and Displaced Persons. He has published the following works on FWIW: My Grandparents [a poem]


Martin Dixon-Tyrer, originally from the UK, is an inveterate world traveler and proponent of holistic living. Among memorable travel experiences are crossing the Atlantic by sailboat numerous times, and wonderful months spent hiking from the Atlantic to the Med along the Spanish Pyrenees. Since 2009 he has been living and sailing aboard his own boat-cum-intentional living community Otra Vida. The pandemic, clearly, has put a little pause on that. He has published the following works on FWIW: On the End of Every Fork: What the Pandemic Has Uncovered [an essay reflection]


Matthew Murphy is from Sudbury, Ontario, and currently lives in Montreal. His debut novel A Beckoning War (Baraka Books, 2016) was called a “wonderful novel… from an author ready for a glittering literary career” by Kirkus Reviews, and a “creditable first novel” by Margaret Atwood. Writings have appeared in Carte Blanche, Montreal Writes, All Lit Up, and other Canadian journals. More info: matthewmurphyauthor.com He has published the following works on FWIW: Night Shades [a novel excerpt]


Matthew Saks is a Colorado-based writer of essays, stories, and poems. Things he enjoys include old houses, coffee, epic conversations with friends, mountains, and long books. He has published the following works on FWIW: Corona [a translation of the poem by Paul Celan]

 

Marianne Lorthiois, a French native, resident of Canada for the last decade, and regular sojourner and traveler, sees herself as a ‘sedentary nomad.’ A mindful entrepreneur, and burgeoning poet, her work in both domains questions the modern life humans created and tries to reconnect in updated ways with the one we lost. Her writing recently appeared in Revue Moebius, a francophone Canadian literature journal. You can check out her music website/app SONAR CITY, which allows you to explore music by musicians performing in your neighborhood this very week to see which shows you find most promising, currently based in Montreal but expanding to other cities. She has published the following works on FWIW: Three Poems (en Français et un peu d’Anglais)

 

Robert Criss is a young-ish humor writer living in Atlanta. Prolific, in the past 3 or 4 years he’s published over a hundred humor pieces in Points In Case, Slackjaw, The Weekly Humorist, Two Fifty One, RobotButt, Little Old Lady Comedy, The Smokelong Quarterly, Flexx, and other publications. His book of ‘Optical Disillusions’–humorous and sarcastic optical illusions serving to ‘disillusion’ the viewer–is forthcoming from Weekly Humorist Books. He’s currently writing a darkly comic play about a penitentiary in the afterlife titled WWIII, and hopes to distribute a collection of his short humor work in the near future. You can find a full list of humor writings and visuals on his Website. He’s published the following works on FWIW: Introducing the Humor Writing of Robert Criss

 

Robert Leonard Reid is a writer, musician, inveterate mountaineer, and social chronicler. He is the author of five eclectic books of non-fiction, four works for the theater, and numerous magazine articles and essays. Arctic Circle, his latest book (David Godine Publishers), is a polyphonic meditation on the North, inspired by a journey to the Yukon and northern Alaska to follow the long and precarious migration of the Porcupine Caribou to give birth to their young.

 

Reid’s stories have appeared in Harper’s, AGNI, The Progressive, and many other publications. He has received artist fellowships and literary grants from the Nevada Arts Council and Sierra Art Foundation, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. A native of Pennsylvania, he attended Harvard University, lived for many years in the American Southwest, and now resides in Carson City, Nevada with his family. He is currently completing a collection of stories, in which That Doubling Is Always Observed appears, and other writings of a similar uncanny vein and timbre. He has published the following works on FWIW: That Doubling Is Always Observed (Author’s Cut)

 

Stefan Zeniuk is a saxophonist, composer, animator, and inventor. He leads the bands Gato Loco, The New York Fowl Harmonic, Baritone Army, and The Green Mambo. His music has been described as “Exotic and simultaneously urban” (Le Monde, Paris). He has released 4 albums with Gato Loco on Winter & Winter Records, and has toured Europe extensively with them. He is the creator of The Flame-O-Phone, a fire-breathing baritone sax, the only one of its kind in the world. As a freelance musician, he has recently performed with Father John Misty, The Violent Femmes, Patti Smith, and Vampire Weekend. His stop-motion animations have been featured in Billboard, NPR, and other online publications. He has featured the following works on FWIW: Down, Down, Down [music video] & Cumbia Call [music video]

 

S.W. Whelan lives in New Jersey. His first poetry collection, Holy Hell, was published in 2011. His second poetry book, Watch Your Eyes, is forthcoming. He is most interested in essence, primordiality, and psychophysiology. His poetry has appeared in The Moon, Grout, and Right Hand Pointing. He has published the following works on FWIW: It Is All Undone [a poem]


Werda Shermeen Zia is a poet and polymath from Lahore, Pakistan who started writing from an early age, and found the courage to start sharing her work with the world several years ago. She mainly writes about human emotions and everyday struggles, and occasionally in the fantastic vein. She has been a Fulbright Scholar in NYC,  has worked as a teacher and content writer, and is currently ruminating on how to introduce updated practices of self care, mental health, and wellness to her home country. In her spare time, you can find her finishing jigsaw puzzles, singing to her German Shepherd, climbing trees, reading epic Fantasy novels, and facilitating meditation sits. You can check out more of her writing and support her on her Patreon page. She has published the following works on FWIW: Four Poems