UNDERSTORIES
TIM HORVATH
BELLEVUE LITERARY PRESS
NEW YORK
First Published in the United States in 2012 by
Bellevue Literary Press, New York
FOR INFORMATION ADDRESS:
Bellevue Literary Press
NYU School of Medicine
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Copyright © 2012 by Tim Horvath.
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This publication is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. |
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
The following stories were previously published, sometimes in slightly different forms or with different titles: “The Lobby” in JMWW, “Urban Planning: Case Studies Numbers One, Two, and Three” in Sein und Werden, Circulation by sunnyoutside press, “The Understory” in Carve, “The Discipline of Shadows,” “Urban Planning: Case Study Numbers Four and Seven: The City in the Light of Moths,” and “Altered Native” in Conjunctions, “Planetarium” in Puerto del Sol, “A Box of One’s Own” in Mad Hatters’ Review, “Internodium” in Everyday Genius, “Pocket” in DIAGRAM, “Urban Planning: Case Study Number Five” in Alimentum, “Urban Planning: Case Study Number Six” in Wigleaf, “The Conversations” in The Collagist, “Tilkez” in The Normal School, and “Urban Planning: Case Study Number Eight” in Fiction.
Book design and composition by Mulberry Tree Press, Inc. Manufactured in the United States of America.
FIRST EDITION
135798642
ISBN 978-1-934137-49-9
For Mary Ann and Ella
Contents
Urban Planning: Case Study Number One
Urban Planning: Case Study Number Two
Urban Planning: Case Study Number Three
Urban Planning: Case Study Number Four
Urban Planning: Case Study Number Five
Urban Planning: Case Study Number Six
Urban Planning: Case Study Number Seven
The City in the Light of Moths
Urban Planning: Case Study Number Eight
Welcome! Please stop at the desk for a moment to sign this waiver. Though we wish you to enjoy the architectural apotheosis that surrounds you, since you are a mere pedestrian onlooker (henceforth “voyeur”) rather than a lessee (henceforth “resident”), you are subject thereby to certain restrictions and provisions. Continued presence in this lobby constitutes tacit acceptance of the following terms and conditions:
Management cannot be held responsible for any physical or psychological damage pursuant to the perceptual intake of this lobby, including but not limited to hyperventilation, fainting, seizures (epileptic or non), hives, acid reflux, anomie, ennui, generalized anxiety, mania, lethargy, manic lethargy, chromosomal ambivalence, rugburn (psychosomatic or otherwise), stiffarm, etc.
Note that any form of recording, photographic, videographic, sketch pad doodling, or representation in any traditional or untraditional mode of painting, whether in vogue or otherwise (this includes Impressionist, Postimpressionist, Rococo, pre-Raphaelite, prelapsarian, Expressionist, neo-Expressionist, neo-Lascauxian, agitprop, Dadaist and Surrealist, Mamaist and hyperrealist, Futurist, installation, uninstallation, Pointillist, smudgist, etc.) is strictly prohibited. Failure on the part of this document to anticipate new developments and/or movements in the arts not covered by the aforementioned does not exonerate voyeur from attempted portrayal.
Note that remembering is strictly prohibited, current research being staunchly ambivalent on the representationality of memory.
At the request of residents, no description of their habitation shall be given in ink, sound waves transmitted from vocal launching apparatus to aural landing pad, sign/gesture, semaphore, biophysical reenactment, encoded encapsulation, or telekinetic approximation. Failure on the part of this document to anticipate unprecedented forms