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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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Born Magazine
Reviewed by Curt Cloninger
Born Magazine's masthead declares, "Design. Literature. Together." The order is no accident. Born's design is far better than its literature. Born is first and foremost a site for Web designers. Its writers merely provide base content for inspired form to follow. And yet, in terms of sheer visceral impact, Born blows away many a literature-based hypertext Web zine. Rather than using the Web to make a decent story worse by giving it twelve possible endings, Born uses the Web to make a decent story better by "illustrating" it, in the true sense of the word. |
Born Magazine |
In the canon of literary greats, few authors have also been illustrators. (Tolkien, Howard Pyle, and particularly William Blake come to mind.) Not surprisingly, all three authors wrote fantasy (directly or indirectly, arguably, but fantasy nonetheless). Most "serious" writers seem to eschew illustration of their work. "My story should be able to stand on its own. This ain't no comic book! I'm a novelist/poet/essayist, by gum!" Consequently, most of the writers at Born Magazine are just folk journaling, rambling, or experimenting with words.
As a rule, Born's writers are understated and conversational. Occasionally, however, the dread Virus of Grandiloquence rears its ugly nucleus, and we are treated to something like this:
Yet now, his angst brings a pitiful ache for the gift of spirit, a yearning for the power to uplift with the power of hers, but he cannot reach beyond a tethered hope. He has begged upon it's [sic] indifference to feed sweet sustenance to the mutant, to bestow a loving nurturing, but can only irrigate the seed with illusion.
Oh man, that is some frilly, baroque wordsmithing! But for every bad piece, there are five not-so-bad pieces, and two downright provocative pieces. And if you're not into a particular story, just click on through and take in the groovy design for its own merit.
Born is re-born once every other month, and all past pieces are easily accessible via archives sorted by genre rather than date. Genres include short fiction, articles & essays, poetry, and a "whatever" section called "divergence." Born also has an area called "the birthing room" which features cutting-edge multimedia installations, only a few of which are word-based.
So as a design site, Born is very cool. As a literary 'zine, Born is fairly decent. But Born is "Design. Literature. Together," remember?
And for what it is, Born is the most promising strain of hypertext literature I've yet encountered. I don't have to dig very deep into Born's archives for enchanting examples that illustrate my point, like this month's features.
PROOF TEXTS PLUS
"The Sandbox" is a poem about risk. As a stand-alone poem, it makes a clever enough analogy, but lacks potent imagery.
I remember the first day of kindergarten
I felt like I was the first to take that step
I didn't just jump right into the sandbox
I wanted to make sure the FUN was worth all the grit.
