This is the archive page for Otium, Volume 2, Number 2.

Once, at an editorial meeting this winter, our staff discovered banana pizza. Little did we imagine that our taste for crazy toppings would resurface months later in our conversation with writer and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman. Apparently, the author of American Gods takes apricot on his pizza.

The spring has renewed our taste for the untried. Joe Hanson renders the banal world of high school humorous and dynamic in his short story “Mourning.” Jack Tamburri's play, Two-Fisted Tales in a Four-Color City, also broaches the calculus of identity as a young man finds himself amid the rubble of his life-long passion, the comic-book industry. “Angela on the Road” by Jamie O'Hara Laurens examines the equally touching struggle of a young woman caught in the perpetual ebb and flow of Los Angeles traffic reports. Additionally, we present photography by fourth year anthropology major Andrea Millar whose work highlights the contrast between the organic and the imposed.

Finally, in an Otium exclusive, staff members Terry Huang and Lee Wang sat with Gaiman to discuss food, fantasy, fiction, and the quotidian nature of being a god. Novelist, graphic writer, and filmmaker, Gaiman prefers to call himself a storyteller. "The universe likes writers. It hands you evidence that almost anything is true," he said during an interview with lecturers Achy Obejas and Ron Gregg. "Then, writers go mad," Gaiman added. And they opt for lunatic pizza.

Yours, in both literary and culinary delights,
Deanna Day and Sarah Frank, Volume Two Coordinators
on Behalf of The Otium Staff

Vol. 2 No. 2 Articles

  • A Conversation With Neil Gaiman

    by Terry Huang
    Lee Wang
    27 May 2005

    Dream-logic isn’t story-logic. You’ll be explaining it to somebody, “You’re walking down a corridor and you know that you’re being followed by something but you don’t know what it is, but it’s really really troubling you and then you go into the kitchen, and you’re just trying to figure out what that thing was when you notice that there’s a swimming pool in the kitchen that nobody every told you about,” and you’re trying to explain this to them and that’s not really story logic.

    (read more)

  • Two-Fisted Tales from the Four-Color City

    by Jack Tamburri
    27 May 2005

    I just picture him, flying through the window of his apartment or secret lair or whatever after a long night of crime…and he’s exhausted, he’s totally beat…had to force bank vaults and make guards shoot themselves all night…and he reaches up to take the helmet off so he can finally get some sleep…and all those voices scream at him at once…NO! Don’t take it off…without it, without US, you are nothing. Putting on that helmet was the only significant thing that guy ever did. I don’t think he ever takes it off.

    (read more)

  • Mourning

    by Joe Hanson
    27 May 2005

    Before Gabe was buried, Sidney thoughtfully placed a handwritten poem into the breast pocket of his suit. Three days later, she decided she wanted it back. She had tried to rewrite it, but just couldn’t match the original. She even tried staring at a picture of Gabe and imagining his corpse, but still, the words would not come. This left no other choice but to dig up his grave and take the poem back—she just dreaded seeing it again. The words might be faded or smudged, leaving blanks that could never, ever be filled.

    (read more)

  • Angela on the Road

    by Jamie O'Hara Laurens
    27 May 2005

    In the shadow of a tree, I hold still. I quiet my breath. I don’t want to listen but I can’t just ask him to tell me what happened. He tells her the man was old, at least in his seventies. He was waiting for the bus with about four other people at a stop on the road curving away from the university. The other people at the bus stop said he got fed up, and though he was groggy, he was absolutely determined to cross the street. They said they tried to stop him.

    (read more)

  • Photo

    by Andrea Millar
    27 May 2005

    (view)

  • Story Behind A Conversation

    by Terry Huang
    27 May 2005

    …WOAH…

    (read more)

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