Click through for a review of SLEEPING FISH ZER0.5, the eleventh in this full-press review series of Calamari books.

Sawako Nakayasu, Spencer Selby, Ric Royer, Kevin White, Ruben Torres Llorca, Guy Beining, Robert Lopez, Daphne Buter, Bruce MacDonald, Jim Leftwich, Robert Miltner, Wendy Collin Sorin, John M. Bennett, Geof Huth, Michael Basinski, Thurston Moore, Steve Dalachinsky, Carlos M. Luis, Scott Helmes, Jessica Fanzo, SS Hampton, Sr. Lacy Schutz, Kenzie Burchell, Tim Gaze, Ian Bickford, Margarito Cuéllar, Nancy Burr, Anthony Tognazzini, Steven J. Stewart, & Peter Markus

In my review of SLEEPING FISH [0], I discussed its collective endeavor, how it felt like that issue was on a mission, had the goal of creating this entire new journal line in a single volume, but SLEEPING FISH ZER0.5 feels much more narrative-bound, paying a bit more allegiance to the individual works themselves & a little less attention to the collective whole (which seems good & right & natural for a journal).

from Robert Lopez’s ‘Contact:

‘The gray wool ski cap James Henderson’s grandmother knitted for him when he was six and which was missing between the ages of eleven and fourteen, was knocked clean off with the first blow. The second swing, coming only moments after the first and doing the most damage, broke three ribs and knocked the wind out of him. The only blood visible trailed from his right ear, staining his neck. Even as the assailant walked away, leaving James Henderson and the gray wool ski cap on the pavement, he could feel the tingle of contact up and down his arms’

This minimizing of aesthetic endeavors is something that feels natural to me here because though SLEEPING FISH ZER0.5 is still a vibrant conjoining of art & text & the journal was still new at the time, the straight upward trajectory of Derek White’s private tastes quickly became public knowledge & SLEEPING FISH no longer needed to struggle as mightily to establish itself. It had become, & so SLEEPING FISH ZER0.5 could widen its lens ever so slightly without worrying as much about aesthetic dogma.

from Peter Markus’ ‘Girl’:

‘Girl steps in through our bedroom’s window to tell us she can’t sleep. I had a dream is what she tells us. This dream, Girl says, wasn’t good. She lays herself down between us brothers—out two beds—Girl is a bridge between us. So tell us, we tell Girl, what was this dream all about, we say. What Girl begins to tell us, us brothers, we already know. This dream, it has been a bad dream hanging between us brothers since the night we first made Girl out of river made mud.’

& though this particular volume of SLEEPINGFISH is now out of print, you can still see some of its online remnants & remains here.

Next up, Derek White’s MINING IN THE BLACK HILLS. Stay tuned.