Magazines as spaces of relative immediacy—back in the days when writing was exclusively available in print—in which to publish hybrid texts that crossed the lines between poetry, the amateur essay, and the atmosphere of a point in time. Magazines as zones of freedom in which to blur the boundaries between subgenres and share new ways of thinking. In seasons of social monotony, magazines as subtle winks, secret codes, echoing bell strokes that called to all the countercultural faithful. Avant-garde, provocative magazines, thirsty for innovation. Fragmentary or all-encompassing spaces of aesthetic pursuit, visionary expression, and epic promise.
Here we present three texts by writer, monologist, and journalist Enrique Symns, a key figure in Argentina’s countercultural scene of the eighties and nineties, creator and director of the magazine Cerdos & Peces: “A Pirates’ Toast,” “Life Is a Bar,” and “Path, Lose My Path,” pieces that stand out from the time when he was writing his finest work.
We also present “The Ship on the Pavement,” a confessional reflection by Argentine writer Vera Land on her formative years in the editorial offices of the print magazines of the late twentieth century.
Translated by Arthur Malcolm Dixon
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