Jasper Magazine January/February 2016

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The Stone Necklace Sparks Multidisciplinary Arts Events

In celebration of the 2016 One Book, One Community selection, The Stone Necklace by Carla Damron (USC Press, 2016) a number of multi-disciplinary arts events are planned to more fully enjoy the community reading experience, including a three-person photography exhibit opening on Thursday, February 4th with a panel presentation by the participating photographers. In the weeks to come additional programs involving theatre arts and music, all inspired... Read More

More poetry from the fight for racial equality – Ed Madden’s “Confederates”

Ed Madden’s poem for the rally against the Confederate flag reminds us of his earlier poem “Confederates,” which appeared in Signals (2008).  The poem is set just months before the 2000 removal of the flag from the South Carolina statehouse dome.  “Confederates” offers a poet’s take on the historical and cultural context of the move of the flag then, and perhaps a comment on the issue now.   The poem takes place between a MLK Day... Read More

Film Review: Love and Mercy

An effectively stylized glimpse into Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson’s troubled life composing what remains as the arguable pinnacle of the modern American popular music canon, in the brilliant Love and Mercy we find depicted his mid-1960s creative eruption as well as the sad, bizarre interlude twenty years later when the shattered Wilson, his work by then rightly venerated and admired, nevertheless found himself under the mental... Read More

Writing What He Knows — Spotlight on James D. McCallister by Kirby Knowlton

  James (Don) McCallister grew up in Kershaw County, where he dreamed of one day writing big, literary novels. Now, a published author and teacher, McCallister has created an entire fictionalized world: Edgewater County, SC, where most of his writing is set. This summer, McCallister returns to his Storytelling Workshop at Midlands Technical College after a year-long hiatus during which he finished Dixiana, a three-book series. He brings to the... Read More

On Andy Warhol’s Jimmy Carter 1, by Ed Madden

  His hand is a fist but it is not a fist.  His watch is on the inside of his wrist.  Doctors do that, and nurses.  But so do farmers.  It’s so you don’t scratch the crystal when you’re doing manual labor, doing something difficult.  Is this a signal?  He is about to do something difficult.   Warhol’s image of Jimmy Carter takes me back to my childhood, but not in some kind of nostalgic way.  When I look at this image, it... Read More

The Capote-Van Halen Hypothesis: Michael Spawn Talks Guitar Gods and Wordsmiths

  A week ago, a friend and I were sitting in a local tavern, drinking Yuengling, talking literature. Next on his hit list, he told me, was Truman Capote’s landmark true-crime opus In Cold Blood. “It’s a great book,” I said. “You’ll like it. Capote’s got a really interesting style.” “What’s it like?” he asked. “I’ve never read him.” A tough question. How best to describe what makes any author’s style so thoroughly... Read More

Spotlight: Julian Ryan And Workshop Theatre’s Lend Me A Tenor

By Haley Sprankle “Well at first I thought ‘this will be like a cakewalk,’ but then reality gave me a big ol’ slap across the head,” says Julian Ryan on his preparation for playing a lead in a nonmusical production for the first time. Ryan steps into the lead role of Max in Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me A Tenor at Workshop Theatre as their season comes to a close. Typically, Ryan can be found working on musicals with Columbia Children’s... Read More

Caroline Lewis Jones Loves Herself and is Glad

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley Caroline Lewis Jones told her parents that she wanted to be a professional dancer when she was twelve years old. Now at 30, the performer, choreographer, and teacher whose impressive career has led her to New York City, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, among other exciting places, is back in South Carolina and stronger and smarter than ever. The powerhouse still has no room for “trying” in her vocabulary, only “doing”. Known... Read More