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I'm compiling two publications this summer that I thought this group of heads might like to help out with (I started another thread for the other publication, PLUCKY DUCK COMICS.) They are mostly being staffed and filled with my local cronies, but should have LOTS of space for non-local contributions, and I figured Barbelith would be the first place to start.
The second publication, codenamed HUMAN GENOME PROJECT, will be a longer-term project. I would like to finish it by the end of summer but there is no set deadline at this point. There will likely be an accompanying website.
There was a killer magazine in the late eighties and early nineties called MONDO 2000 which many of you may remember–it was the first "cyberspace" magazine but was staffed completely by utopians, anarchists and DMT-smokers, unlike WIRED which came into being shortly thereafter, pushed MONDO out of business by being more respectable, heralding the coming dot-com revolution of Yuppie Hell-Beasts. WIRED was way lame. MONDO was cool, and there hasn't been anything like it since.
I want to bring back that vibe–I want HUMAN GENOME PROJECT to be a guide to "being cool" in the 00s. Articles should focus not on lame-o ideological whinefests like ADBUSTERS or just product placement like GIANT ROBOT or every other magazine on the market; HGP should focus on content–actual features on "lifestyle choices," how to mutate and evolve and get off the planet, DIY-oriented, how to foment revolution within the boundaries of your own skin. Like the now out-of-print HAPPY MUTANT HANDBOOK, which came out around '95 and featured articles on building your own spaceship, making your personal brand to stick on things (hello Corporate Swine!), how to sneak into and explore big, sprawling buildings and underground tunnels ("building hacking"), weird pets, weird body mod, etc.
HGP could encompass nearly anything and everything, as long as it's the kind of thing that most people have never heard of. When I recently interviewed the musician Momus, he had this to say: "Conformity, and the threat of a global monoculture eradicating all difference, are the world's biggest cultural problems. We need to encourage true diversity of thought and texture. This will involve tolerating things that seem unpleasant or wrong-headed or even fascist. But it's the things that seem self-evident and 'right' which will always pose the bigger threat, ie the threat of conformity."
This is what I want to do. No Marxists, stuck-in-the-past-lefties, or rigid-identity politicians: I want this to be a magazine for MUTANTS and FREAKS by MUTANTS and FREAKS, for lo, verily, one day we shall outnumber them.
This is probably (no, it is) a bit jumbled. I'm still concreting my thoughts on this one, but I need help, so if you want in, let me know, and we can start planning this thing. I want to make a magazine so strange and weird and fucked that they'll think it's too out-there even in the Bay Area.
Tell me if this strikes I chord. I can only hope.
If you're interested, respond here or email me at jlouv@cats.ucsc.edu
This might be a good space to arrange inter-Barbelith collaborations.
Thanks in advance and looking forward to working with anybody who wants to work with me! |
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