Other Magazine: the Fantasy Issue

[zdashamber]

"Lord, which wouldst thou rather have, the 400-Watt Dakota space heater, or the box it came in?"

Well, actually, the space heater, though the box is a great wide light sturdy flat surface, so I can sit on my bed with the laptop, and have water and spice tea and cran-cherry juice all to hand. But the space heater is awesome. I can live in my room without 4 layers of clothing! I'm free to move away from the spot I've warmed with my body heat! The circuit doesn't blow, it's hardly 3 inches wide, I recommend it highly to anyone who requires a space heater.

Freed from miserable huddling with chattering teeth, I can turn my attention to posting. A few weeks back I picked up a free copy of Other magazine courtesy of badgerbag, for the promise that I would blog about it. Other is, I believe, devoted to those who don't quite fit in to society, such as transgendered people or queer people or drug dealers. Well, maybe not the drug dealers every issue, but there was a fascinating first-person article about the marijuana business in the latest issue, #9, the fantasy issue!

Aside from the chance to read stuff by badgerbag and charliegrrrl, I wanted the magazine because of the purple unicorn cover, which was quite well-done, and promised lovely looks at how fantasy has influenced otherdom. Alas, the issue turned out to be more of a random collection of articles. The art, though, remained excellent. On the inside cover is a yaoish Kiriko Moth angel/demon line art thing that cries out to be colored. My favorite bit of the magazine is the surreal one-page "I Fucked Thomas Edison" cartoon by Isaac Cates, Mike Wenthe, and Tom (pencils). It's six panels, each a different person's contemporaneous reminiscence, a la Emily Dickinson's "He kindly shtupped for me." What can I say? I like surreal well-drawn low humor.

Cates and Wenthe also did a 6-page first-person cartooned musing about Civilization addiction. Many parts were familiar to a fellow addict: particularly fun were the visualizations of real-life battles in terms of a grid map with military units on it. The narrator comes to the conclusion that he enjoyed Civilization because of how he could crush small weak civs, while I liked it for the exploring and building aspects. So his escape from its clutches has an odd "redemption" flavor... Still, his explanation of how Civ informs his understanding of the current Iraq war follows in an interesting way from that.

Of the articles, I really liked the aforementioned pot dealer's explanation of how he got into the business, why he succeeded at it, and what it was like on a day-to-day basis. He takes plenty of time explaining each step in his path so it's all understandable, but it's not at all tedious. He details how he met and courted better suppliers, how dealers of pot related to dealers of other drugs, and joy of joys! he talks money. From a "running a busines" perspective, it was really useful stuff. Also, I'm totally saving the article in case I ever need to write about lowlifes, since he has great telling details to offer about them. Dialog, personality, it's all there, man, this is the good shit.

Lisa Lees wrote an article about the Real ID Act from a perspective I hadn't considered: the recently passed "anti-terrorism" all-your-personal-data-is-belong-to-the-government Real ID Act mandates that driver's license cards and ID cards contain a gender marker. This is going to be a huge trouble for transgendered people. She wrote about how there had been hope for more options than the "M/F" binary, but the Feds are unlikely to go for that. It got me to thinking about why it was even necessary to have gender on your ID card. Conclusion: ain't no reason 't all.

Charlie Anders (charliegrrrl) interviews Jacqueline Carey, author of _Kushiel's Dart_ among other fantasy books I've heard of but not read. In one question, Carey talks around the same stuff that Pam Noles addresses. I'm a little disappointed that she places balanced portrayals of the Middle Ages that "include people often left out" at the other end of a scale from escapism, and defends escapism. There's nothing to say that inclusive fantasy can't be escapist. I like my escapism with a nice mix of non-cliched people types. She does in general seem to be a reasonable person, though. And I liked one of her lines:

Overall, I envisioned The Sundering as a tragedy, with events building toward an inevitable conclusion, yet points where it all could have been averted were it not for pride, stubbornness, miscommunication, or plain old bad luck.

One of the most memorable bits in Steven Brust's _500 Years After_ is when Aerich is speaking with Adron about why Adron is willing to nuke the entire capital: pride... And I could speak similarly about how pride will/has caused terrific destruction in Mike's Verona Amber games (most recently Civil Blood).

I also liked Charlie's reviews and the reviews of the surgery painkillers. The review of American Apparel's attempt at "porn for girls" was funny; and the bit about Amanda Storm, the female professional wrestler, could have easily edified for thrice its length. Almost all the rest was stuff I wouldn't have clicked away from on the internet.

The magazine itself was on very nice thick paper, nice feel to the cover. I actually missed advertisements, though; I found myself interested in the kinds of businesses that would advertise in such a magazine, and it would have made it seem more professional. Larger art amongst the articles would likewise appeal.

Also, when looking for the wording on the Excalibur scabbard thing above, I found Excalibur's scabbard's Very Secret Diary.

Comments

[charliegrrrl.livejournal.com]

Hey I just found this. Thanks for reading the magazine, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for the kind words!