16. Interlude Issue 2 – 2005 (Edited by Helen Nodding, Rebecca Philp
and Francesca Ricci, 61 pages, ISSN 1748-9121, £3.50)
http://interludemagazine.co.uk
If you’ve ever happened upon your sister’s journal of most
intimate feelings, perhaps littered with a smattering of poetry and doodles,
and found yourself unable to resist a sneaky peek at the innermost sanctum
of her thoughts, perhaps this magazine is for you. Coming across as a
well-presented scrapbook or writer’s portfolio, its informal design
principals and writerly ethos are all part of the same package.
There is something appealingly artisanal about this magazine, and that
is not meant in a patronising way: the editors have expressly set out
their philosophy of minimal editorial interference into the work of their
contributors, who are responsible for designing and laying out their work
as well as writing it. The aim is to provide a space for writers and artists
to explore ‘roaming ideas’, to act as a refuge for artistic
waifs and strays or as ‘a melting pot where ideas could be stirred
up, exhaling new inspiration’, according to the online manifesto.
Each piece certainly achieves a certain newness by sitting side by side
with contrasting and complementary work, and the ensemble comprises a
diverse range of ideas as well as ways of presenting them.
Although each issue has no particular theme, amongst the deeply personal
pieces nestles work exploring the intermingling of nature with urbanity,
such as a recipe for graffiti made of moss, or an investigation into the
poisonous weeds growing in the Back Rivers of Bow. The magazine also provides
a forum for literary experimentation, such as the virtuoso ‘Vow…el’:
‘Fractured acclamation with vacuumous buzzing and wagging fingers
threatened to founder Tressi Hall: a meta-invisible phenomenon (Extol,
not the Hall) congregated by monotonous coupling and instinctive disunion
(akin to accidentally handling blistering pans and scalding oven plates)
of copulating palms producing sonorous adulation’, and so on. Who
knows what it all means, but it’s great fun, as if someone has taken
my list of fabulous words and manipulated them all into a story.
I think my favourite piece was the poem ‘Living with the architect’,
where a spouse’s ego is dissected – ridiculed through a combination
of down to earth irony, and tolerated via idiosyncratic self-expression.
An insight into a person’s psyche, personality and personal mayhem.
There’s also the interesting premise of taking a printed book and
obscuring all except a few select words in order to create a new text.
I’m sure this idea has been ‘borrowed’ from an artist
I once knew but whose name I can’t for the life of me remember (answers
on a postcard please). This seems to embody the notion of looking at the
act of creation in a new and possibly subversive way which typifies the
ethos behind the magazine. Jumbled up amongst this self-conscious literariness
we are also presented with film reviews, satire, cartoons, artwork, and
one of those questionnaires that close friends send you endlessly by email
asking what colour knickers you’re wearing and how you’d like
to die. This, along with the minimal editorial input, seems give the magazine
an inherent open-mindedness and expansiveness.
However, I must say that I found the latter something of a double-edged
sword. As there has been no correction of such superficial notions as
spelling, punctuation or grammar, an annoying Lynne Trussesque demon inside
me can’t help being distracted by the mistakes, and feeling that
they hinder my enjoyment of the content, acting as some kind of communicative
barrier. This was a bit of a conundrum for me as a reader, as I can see
that this is a deliberate policy fitting in with the ideological position
of the editors, allowing contributors freedom of expression and enabling
readers to appreciate works in progress. No doubt another reader would
not even notice, but my dullard proof-reader’s eye for detail is
letting me down again.
Kate Parrinder
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