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Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
Published by:
Pif, LLC
PMB 248
4820 Yelm Hwy SE
Suite B
Lacey, WA 98503-4903
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| PAST ZINE REVIEWS | MORE ZINES |
aLT=TeXT
Reviewed by Ingrid Woodrow
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I wish I could feel more strongly about this site. aLT TeXT starts off well enough with a striking graphic of a breaking ocean shore with a simple black background overlaid with yellow and white lettering. Alt Text calls itself "a two-way interaction (Is there any other sort?) between reader and writer, or writer and artist." The site features various "facets": episodes, images, and rants. |
aLT=TeXT |
The episodes section is the most substantial, featuring works specifically designed for the Web. Currently featured is Richard Rutter's "Fumbling for Lip Balm" – a fairly mediocre narrative about a guy with a hangover stumbling around the streets of London who finally decides to "flop from job to job and lie dead-man-floating on top of each problem until it's squashed". Not altogether inspiring, but an interesting enough piece with a nice picture of the London underground behind it.
More substantial was the poem by Mark Pist entitled "The Kiss of the Mother":
Kiss me sweet mother and show me
everything I have forgotten
A haunting picture of a forlorn-looking little girl serves as its epilogue.
Ben Edwards, the producer and designer of aLT TeXT, features his own work "Inside Out", a meditation on how "lonely commonly has a negative stigma associated with it...but our very individual singularity is to blame." I was not in an analytical mood, but there was some good writing here, complemented by striking, austere graphics and handwritten fonts.
The "images" section features some fairly average photographs: a tombstone angel, some dolphins at sunset, some basketball players. Apparently, all are images that the folks at aLT TeXT find "intriguing, visually appealing, or funny in some way", but I don't know, maybe something was lost in the translation. You can submit your own opinion if you're so inclined.
The "rants" section proved interesting, if a little disturbing. It claims to be a "moderated" forum where visitors can air their views – its stated aim being to encourage "thoughtful posts that will, hopefully, blossom into intelligent discussions." No such luck here, when you have people like Boone discussing "what's wrong with girls"; Adam counseling Willy about his relationship problems ("break it off"); and Richard Wayne Anderson, who refers to himself as a "somewhat angst-ridden painter that resebels [sic] Jesus, Oppy, Kurt Kobain [sic] and Beck." All I can say is that maybe a little more moderation is in order for this to become the profound philosophical forum that it was originally intended to be.
aLT TeXT is best described as "promising": there's nothing really wrong with it, but it doesn't exactly knock my socks off, either. Maybe I'll check back in a couple of months. Until then, keep trying guys.
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Ingrid Woodrow is a writer based in Brisbane, AUSTRALIA. Her novel, Goddess and the Galaxy Boy, was shortlisted in October 1999 in The Australian/Vogel Literary Awards and is currently under consideration by three major Australian publishers. She is completing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland and working on a collection of short stories, one of which received second prize in the Banjo Paterson Writing Awards in June 1999.
Ingrid is the founding editor of the online writing journal Mangrove, which is listed as a "Site of National Significance" in the National Library of Australia's PANDORA archive. Mangrove is also a finalist in the upcoming AIMIAs (Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Awards). Further information and samples of work can be obtained by visiting http://www.uq.edu.au/~eniwoodr