Contents 1 Modern Alchemy by Rebekah Bergman 3 Taste Test By Kimberly Kaletsky 5 In May By Olaya Barr 7 See It Eat by Knox White 10 My Top 10 Failed Childhood Plans for Becoming Famous (And Why They Failed) By Maddy Raskulinecz12 Wrenches By Nicole Rivas 14 A Lil Interview with Lil Bub by Carolyn Keogh20 Life: A Review by André V. Katkov22 Bad Names for Celebrity Bands by Daniel Tews

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The apprentice of the future is the mad inventor friend we all have. His workspace, neither imaginary nor invisible, opens for the public on Thursdays. The storytellers have come for inspiration. The apprentice speaks of the hardness of metal, transmutations, things to hold and behold. There is an extremely visual nature of this field, turning crystal into liquid.

In June, there are sliding doors powered by the movement of pollen (and in other months, by other allergens).

When opened, the eye does not know where to focus: a bicycle wheel, a bat cage, something that looks like a mushroom.

The storytellers have come to spin material into their pages, but the storytellers do not know what to fictionalize (and there is a diminishing need for paper).

The apprentice embarks on a guided tour, speaks in Archimedes screws. Walking backwards says, Reject the view that composition is identity. He says, Think about it this way: there are no wholes with parts, only parts arranged in the appearance of wholes. He says, This is where I weld. This is what I wear while welding (and so on and so forth).

The storytellers blink in the bright lights reflected in the workshop of the future. Behold the beauty of my liquid crystals. The apprentice has very rough hands. Dangerous chemicals have dangerous chemical properties. Please protect your eyes. There is a process called quenching, torque, etching it all into acid. Paving tar made of sand and plastic. We hold it and still we don’t believe that’s what it is. Not paving tar. Sand arranged in the appearance of paving tar.

Science creates birds that fly backwards, darkness powered by light. There is a diminishing need for verse in the future that is our present. The apprentice births all that is new under the sun. What glistens here is gold that was once made out of straw.

Not straw. Gold arranged in the appearance of straw. Not stories. Words arranged in the appearance of stories.

Modern Alchemyby Rebekah Bergman

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Taste TestBy Kimberly Kaletsky

Thank you for holding. We value your call. You have opted out from special telephone offers.

You no longer need worry about receiving unsolicited phone calls from: telemarketers, public interest research groups, politicians, talkative neighbors, estranged aunts, pollsters, teamsters, gymnasts, alumni organizations, co-workers, guys you met once at the bar, belligerent alcoholic exes, exes trying to reconnect, any exes for that matter, sweepstakes, repair shops, vague acquaintances, fake friends, or insurance salesmen. So next time your inbox pings or your phone rings, don’t wince. It won’t be a poll, or spam, or a work-related luau invitation. You won’t be coerced into donating money. You’re free to sit at home, alone, without fear of social contact. Next time your phone rings, it won’t.

Image by Samantha Ulban

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In MayBy Olaya Barr

i don’t watch tv but i talk with my grandmashe talks of grandpa

Image by Jenna Petrone

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See it EatBy Knox White

Leaning in, his nose pressed flat on the glass, stepping onto his toes a head above the others,the boy said, ‘I want to see it eat.’

Image by Lauren Sumida

9Image by Star Montana

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Dig up the shopping cart buried by the creek and become known for riding it around town as a quirky mode of travel, then return it to Safeway for a hefty reward.Failed Because: Abandoned shopping carts are garbage.

Crown self the arbiter of Eastern Middle School’s youth culture through “Things That Bother Me” lists on Xanga.Failed Because: Struggled with popular shift to Myspace.

Force the circus to accept me as a tightrope-walking apprentice by hiding under my seat after the show and telling the custodian who discovers me that I’m a flexible orphan with great balance and no fear of elephants.Failed Because: Mom said we had to go home.

My Top 10 Failed Childhood Plans for Becoming Famous(And Why They Failed)By Maddy Raskulinecz

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Set a gymnastics record and attract Junior Olympics recruiters by maintaining this position as long as possible:

Failed Because: Mom said we had to go home.

Become notorious for using the catchphrase “cha cha cha.”Failed Because: Lost interest, understandably.

Draw a series of riotous “New Yorker”-style illustrations of a group of ~25 cartoonish deli meats and cheeses holding hands while falling over backwards, entitled “The Deli Club Falls Down.”Failed Because: Not familiar with enough distinct forms of deli meat.

Become “the female Weird Al” with a 50 Cent talking-babies parody song called “P.A.M.P.”Failed Because: Creation of YouTube yet two years away.

Create a trenchant, provocative art installation consisting of repurposed Barbies in troubling, macabre, or merely ironic environs to challenge the viewer’s own point of view of the gilded cage of modern femininity and the punishing dance of commodity capital and the nuclear family.Failed Because: Done to death.

Be photographed standing in the six-foot-deep section of the pool at my full adult height of six feet and one inch so that the top inch of my head sticks out like a furry lily pad.Failed Because: Stopped growing.

Get “discovered” by a powerful literary agent after developing a cult following on LiveJournal for my Harry Potter fanfiction.Failed Because: No idea honestly, this one should have worked.

All you can see of the father are his legs poking out from beneath the truck like chicken thighs. He’s wearing ripped-up tennis shoes and there are streaks of black oil on his jeans from where he’s been wiping his hands.

“The wrench,” he says. Now his hand is exposed from under the car, palm open, waiting. The large fingers wriggle.

His son hands him the wrench. He knows the names and uses of all the tools because every weekend he sits on concrete and hands them to his car-mechanic father. This is men’s work. No air-conditioned office bullshit, his dad says. The boy can already change a tire. You’ll get all the ass when you’re older, he says.

Tommy is eleven. The things he obsesses about most are wolves, going into outer space, and things that might kill him in the ocean, like sharks. He’s also incredibly shy. Anytime a girl looks at him, even if it’s an old lady adjusting her purse strap who just so happens to glance over his way, he blushes.

“So, Tom,” the father starts, “do you ever think about what you want to do when you grow up?”

It’s very unsettling to be asked this question by your father when you can’t see his face and he has a voice that echoes from under thousands of pounds of metal like a booming, mechanical god.

Tommy says a few different things very quickly.

He says he wants to kill a wolf with his bare hands and wear its hide like a cape. He wonders what it would smell like under there, and if there’d be any meat left. He says he sometimes wishes a shark would attack him while he’s swimming in the ocean, just so he could punch it in the nose. Or at least try. Could he make a job out of that? When his father’s legs become slack, Tommy changes his mind. He makes his voice deeper. He says he might end up being an astronaut if it pays well enough. He wonders how it would feel to be in a rocket ship that explodes deep in space, and how long the feeling of dying would last until he was just scattered, unfeeling pieces of human gunk floating in blackness. He doesn’t say that part out loud, though.

“Oh, yeah?” the father says. “I think so,” Tommy replies.No, Tommy doesn’t want to do any of

this. He doesn’t really want to kill wolves, fight sharks, or rocket into space. He’s terrified of all of these things. Even his father scares him with all that iron-smelling sweat, but he doesn’t say that either.“You know what they say: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” the father says, tossing the wrench back from under the car with a loud clank. “You could be a good mechanic one day, I’ll bet.”

Tommy imagines how an apple falls from a tree. The only ones he’s ever seen on the ground have been bruised up and sitting in bits of dry leaves. Has anyone ever actually seen an apple drop on its own accord? It must happen in less than second, the sweet thing snapping from its fragile stem. Maybe like the man sitting in a rocket ship when it blows up. And then what? Only the apple and astronaut know. A great surge of something terrible rises in Tommy’s chest, and all at once he wants to skin animals, fight sharks, get his hands dirty and turn a wrench, anything to be a man, to please his father, whose hairy legs look like dead wolf haunches from behind the sudden wetness in his eyes.

WrenchesBy Nicole Rivas

Image by GW Duncanson

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A Lil Interview with Lil BubBy Carolyn Keogh

In an internet-world full of cute cat videos and animal personalities, some would say Lil Bub reigns supreme. We would enthusiastically agree.

The pint-sized permakitten, who was born the runt of her litter, has skyrocketed to stardom with over 160,000 likes on her Facebook page, her own documentary, a book coming out in September and a TV show on the horizon. Bub took a some time out of her busy schedule to talk to Miniature Magazine and fulfill our deepest dreams and desires.

Miniature Magazine: We have something in common: we’re a small magazine and you’re a small cat. Do you ever wish you were bigger? What are some of the best things about being teeny, other than being so darn cute?Lil Bub: I’m actually quite large, but you can only see this one small part of me. The rest of me reaches far galaxies and distant planets. I’m perfectly happy with the size of my visible parts. I blend in nicely on your planet and my size makes humans very eager to hold me, which I like.

MM: Meow us through an average day in the life of Bub.

LB: Well I don’t really meow, but I can squonk you through a day of my life. OK. Here we go. SQUONK.

MM: Do you have a favorite spot to relax?

LB: I like to relax just about anywhere. I’m always relaxing though, you know? One place I actively try to relax is in my dude’s lap after a nice meal. Then I snore.

Image by Mike Bridavsky

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MM: Your unusual purr is probably one of the best sounds ever. Are there any particular sounds you love?

LB: I like one sound. The sound of a can opening.

MM: There is no doubt you are one special cat—with over 2.5 million views on YouTube and over 160,000 likes on Facebook—but in your own opinion, what do you think makes you so special?

LB: Other than my astounding physical appearance, it is my unflinching determination, heroic outlook on life, and genuine enthusiasm for the unknown that make me truly special. All those internet numbers simply reflect these remarkable qualities.

MM: The recent film in which you star, Lil Bub and Friendz, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April of 2013 and won the Tribeca Online Festival Best Feature Film. What does it feel like to be a cat, a movie star AND a winner?

LB: It feels a lot like getting my chin cleaned after a messy meal—great.

MM: You’re coming out with a book, Lil Bub’s Lil Book: The Extraordinary Life of the Most Amazing Cat on the Planet, set to be released on September 3. What was your inspiration?

LB: I was inspired by my magical and miraculous recovery from immobility. Also I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m inspired by my own story every day. I encourage everyone to be inspired by their own story every day. Then you’re always inspired, and maybe you too can write a

Image by Mike Bridavsky

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book, or bake a cake, or play a great game of badminton, every day.

MM: We know you’re one of the most amazing creatures on the planet, but it’s clear that you have one of the most amazing dudes/owners on the planet. How does it feel to be so loved?

LB: We are a team. I couldn’t do all this awesome stuff without him, and he wouldn’t enjoy his life nearly as much without me. We are both very lucky to have each other and that feels awesome, for sure.

MM: If you could share one line of wisdom to other aspiring internet animal-celebrities, what would it be?

LB: Being different is better and helping others is best.

MM: If cat heaven exists, what would you like to hear Cat God say when you arrive at the fishy gates?

BB: GOOD JOB BUB.

Image by William Winchester Claytorn

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Life: A Review By André V. Katkov

Now, I know that Life has been out on the market for some time now, but I can honestly say that knowledge didn’t stop me from practically peeing my pants with excitement when I saw the big, brown box on my doorstep. We’ve all seen the commercials. The television ads, the Groupons, the banners displayed all around the web…really, it feels nigh impossible to get through a day without some stranger telling you to get one. Now that I’ve been utilizing—or living—my Life for a couple days now, I feel like I can offer some decent feedback for anyone considering getting one of their own.

As far as first impressions go, I’ve been pretty wowed. The range of features available (or activities, as they’ve been branded) is absolutely mind blowing. I don’t care what kinds of programs you can run on whatever you’re using now or what apps you have. There honestly isn’t a product on the market that can top Life in regards to the limitless number of things to do. I’ve done little outside Life since I got it, and I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface as far as its capabilities are concerned.

When it comes to visuals, this product has it down. Supposedly, Life functions at a better resolution than we can actually process, and I believe it. Everything I’ve encountered definitely seems incredibly real, so much so that it’s occasionally unreal. There is no other graphical product for sale that I’ve seen that tops it. In fact, if you experience any lackluster visuals in Life, chances are it has less to do with the product and more to do with your eyes.

Now for some of the most obvious drawbacks that any Life hopeful should be aware of. The first is the matter of memory. It is one of the few things really required for

anyone hoping to make the most out of Life, yet for some reason nobody had the foresight to make it part of the package. Typically, I’d cry foul and accuse someone of bad business, but seeing as there hasn’t been a separate release of additional memory, or initial memory, I suppose, that doesn’t really seem to be the case. It’s just a sad truth of Life that its up to you to record the moments with whatever you can find if you want to save them for use in the myriad features that make use of your ability to recollect while living.

Another issue everyone will have to contend with while using Life is the presence of bad moments; that, and hurtful activities. Of course, this problem is sort of an ironic one, as it arises from the fact that the number of activities available is so great and that the activities have been made so pliable in consideration of the great variation in tastes from individual to individual. Because of this, some activities become warped, in which case you’ll almost always suffer a bad moment, which might lead to a bad memory, which is a pretty difficult thing to exercise from most memories that have been brought in for use with Life.

An even bigger issue with Life is that there really isn’t any reliable account of how long yours will last you. I’ve read reports of people who have been using Life since it first came out without any complaints, but there are just as many—if not more—reports about people whose Lives terminated prematurely. Heck, I know a guy who received a Life a few days after me who had the same problem. It’s almost reminiscent of the thankfully almost antiquated hard-drive technology we use today, which is reliably temperamental at best.

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Bad Names for Celebrity BandsBy Daniel Tews

Shelley Long & The Long SufferersJoyce Carol Oates & The Wild Oates Danny Glover & The Deglovers Kim Jong-Il & The Electric Ils Jude Law & The Law Abiders Ira Glass & The Glass Slippers Jon Hamm & The Hamm Strings Elisabeth Shoe & The Shoe Horns Willem Dafoe & Da Foes Boy George & The George Foreman Grills Julia Child & The Child Soldiers

Image by Michelle Longo

25Cover by Matthew Van Asselt

Matthew Van AsseltMatthew Van Asselt is a printmaker living and working in New York. His multi-layer silkscreen prints play with an underlying utopian drive, examining value systems through the interaction of built and natural environment. He can be found at matthewvanasselt.com.

Olaya BarrOlaya Barr lives in New York most of the year, where she writes most. Sometimes she writes in California because she gets bored there easily. In Spain, Olaya doesn’t find the motivation because she would rather eat ham on the beach. Her favorite thing to do is to imagine the realities of others, and ultimately, she can do this anywhere.

Rebekah Bergman Rebekah Bergman lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York where she is pursuing an MFA at The New School. She can be reached at Rebekah.H.Bergman@gmail.com.

GW Duncanson G W Duncanson makes sequential art, films and music. He can be found at www.cash-moneycartoons.tumblr.com.

Kimberly KaletskyKimerly Kaletsky is currently a student at New York University, where she is majoring in English and minoring in creative writing and web programming.

Her work can also be found in Teen Ink magazine. When she is not writing, you will most likely find her attached to her laptop, running her own online literary magazine.

André V. Katkov André V. Katkov is a California-based artist and writer who enjoys life and thinks that whales are pretty neat. He sort of has a blog at dreyfudojo.blogspot.com, which he infrequently updates with random doodles and words.

Carolyn KeoghCarolyn Keogh is an art history addict and sometimes-writer who likes to look at paintings and watch the Real Housewives.

Michelle LongoMichelle Longo is a New York-based photographer and graphic designer who rolled her eyes at that cliché just as much as you did. She can be found at michellelongo.com.

Star Montana Star Montana is a photo-based artist living in Brooklyn, NY but does most of her work in Los Angeles, CA. Star’s imagery deals class, family, and identity. The image included is from Three Dots and Tear Drops, a long term project with her family that deals with fragmented histories, loss, and the hope of the next generation.

Jenna PetroneOriginally from a small town in upstate NY, Petrone just graduated Cazenovia College with a B.F.A. in Studio Art with a specialization in photography and plans to attend grad school to pursue her dream to teach photography at a college level. She is inspired by the techniques behind Surrealism, dream-like narratives, and the playfulness of childhood, while using photography as a way to explore the depths of her own imaginative creativity. She can be found at www.jenna-petrone.com and @heyjennuh.

Maddy Raskulinecz Maddy Raskulinecz lives in Takoma Park, MD. Enjoy her publicly: @littleraskul

Nicole RivasNicole Rivas is a writer from Southern California. Her fiction can be found in Per Contra, Black Heart Magazine, Apocrypha and Abstractions, and elsewhere.

Daniel Tews Daniel lives in Philadelphia. He has been described as dark and twisty.

Samantha UlbanSamantha Ulban is a New York-based photographer. More of her work can be viewed here: samanthaulban.com.

Knox White Knox White is a writer and filmmaker living in Brooklyn.

Contributors