Artist Profile: Adam LoRusso
How do you represent the boundaries of the known world? Adam LoRusso seems to have found a way. The Orris interviewed this talented artist, illustrator and tattoo artist who has developed a unique style to explore “both the seen and unseen…”
American Dream Recommendations
Orris Contributors share their favorite American Dream inspired works like Arcade Fire’s “Modern Man,” Sherry Garland’s “Shadow of the Dragon” and Ilan Stavan’s “Spanglish”
Looking at You, Twenty-Four Years On
We remember imperfectly, thank God;
you across to me; me across to you.
Still some measure of sympathy, I guess:
parity, we realized early on,
is one sure recipe for disaster —
Artist Profile: Sarah Gay
The Orris asked “animator x illustrator x educator” Sarah Gay to share her fantastic work and reflect on her artistic process. We welcome you to her enchanting world.
Who Touched My Occu-Pie?
There are, however, thousands of such crumbs scattered in the kitchen, and sometimes they get on the occupants’ shoes unnoticed.
Even a ruined pie sticks around, no matter how it looked, how it smelled, and how it tasted.
Artist Profile: Krista Langley
What would you do if you knew you could not fail? Krista Langley had a question and a Polaroid camera. She yielded an inside look into her friends and family’s dreams.
New Maps to American Hell: Dystopian Warnings Then and Now
I’m half filled with optimism as I witness the potential for a great collective change that I believe is only at its beginning. But there’s another part of me that is sunk with a real sense of dread and fear.
Old, Old Seamus
was thirty-five and looking for death in
every phrase; would meet you half-way if you thought you couldn’t get at it. He knew what you were saying. He’d find it. Was every month now giving me another Mishima novel
Memories Within the Stone: Texas’s Enchanted Rock
I think what’s most striking about reaching the top of Enchanted Rock in the winter is the sense of loneliness. On the gray day that I climbed the rock for the first time, I sat down on the cold pink stone and stared into the wind at the surrounding Texas Hill Country.
The Saddest Story
Be warned–this is the saddest story in the world.
It might put you in mind of the rabbit you had once, the one who got run over, back when you weren’t exactly still young but not yet what anyone would call an adult. You remember.
A Retiring
With no way to get up there anymore
without hitching a ride with the old enemy;
disgraceful maybe, or just over-trusting.
The world stage changes ever faster these days.
Big Brows
In fashion, there is no middle ground. You respond to the world around you—to the trends or the fashion shows or the news—or you don’t. … Erasing your eyebrows is an expression of modernity as much as it is an exercise in transferring the ephemeral styles of the catwalk to modern life.
A Dream Deferred
When I was six, I told my parents I wanted to be a writer. They responded with the quintessential “follow your dreams” parental response and encouraged my obsession with writing poems and stories, and having more literary friends than real ones. That was 1993.
Outgoing President George W. Bush at the Inaugural Speech of Incoming President Barack Obama
Man I’m never as free as when I’m there
racin’ that truck over the Crawford dirt,
’bout 60, 70, feels like 90 —
The American Dream
This dream we have been taught to strive toward has failed him, yet he hasn’t given up on the dreaming part. Kay’s enthusiasm for his country wasn’t about his own economic well-being anymore. It involved governmental reform, and a better society.
Issue Two: Letter from the Editor
The American Dream is a dream of freedom, of opportunity, of a fair chance at happiness. We have national dreams, familial ones, and the personal ones deep in our hearts. At their best, these dreams motivate us toward better lives, advanced education, and improved circumstance.
The Orris: A Cultural Journal 