/&amp/ &amp Magazine General - Things Fall Apart Edition

[Anonymous No.20898396]

/lit/'s very own homegrown magazine
editor currently MIA quit asking
yes, we know the website is down
&amp accepts all
>poems
>plays
>stories
>screeds
>diaries
>manuals
>manifestos
>photographs
>illustrations
>schizology
>shopping lists
>translations
>ASCII art
>and etcetera
(literally fucking anything)

talk shit post crits
got any favourites? post em
hate an entry? post it
afraid of failure? git gud

get published in &amp! (do not) put it on your résumé!

SUBMIT:
[e-mail]

READ PAST ISSUES:
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K3JNLg0xCcojM-Iuu0JtbLB5ngpPJdbs?usp=sharing

ETA TO NEXT ISSUE:
??????????????????
??????????????????

LAST THREAD:
>>20855401

BEST-OF:
Interested in a potential (totally unofficial, totally rigged) best-of issue of &amp? Email [e-mail] and talk shop. Any posts recommending pieces for inclusion in the (highly tenuous) BEST-OF &AMP VOLUME#1 are highly appreciated. Post and discuss your favourites.

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[Anonymous No.20898399]

[Anonymous No.20898489]

I am a bit behind on the novel but in a week I should submit a second, shorter story. Changed the ending of it completely in a recent edit.
>poems
Anons have been discussing poetry quite a bit recently. I thought about doing one but I'm still waffling over what meter I want to use. I've learned the general strengths of more metered poems in English, but I kind of like Free Verse it's just I'm confused by what's going on under the hood. How do you decide on the flow of your lines and white space? The effects arent as apparent to me as something like trochaic substitution.

[Anonymous No.20898553]

>>20898489
I got nothing to say about poems, but do you have any favourites from &amp? Poems or prose or whatever. And what was your last short story about?

[Anonymous No.20898602]

>>20898553
I havent completely read all the issues yet so I'm not sure on all my faves, I do own Dose Makes the Poison so let me get back to you after work on my favorite entry by K-anon.
Dog Killer from last issue was amazing in my opinion.

My first submission was for the upcoming issue I already mailed to the submission email address. It's a 5600 word short story set in a dystopia, it's a prequel to the novel I'm working but has a different tone to it. Hoping you all get to read it.
Next short story I mentioned is also related. It has a paranormal yet quaint feel, I hope it freaks readers out if they realize what is "wrong."

[Anonymous No.20898648]

>repostin for critique
Any thoughts on Phantom Tollbooth? How's the dialogue? Were things too sudden? confusing? Was Josh too sympathetic/antipathetic? Do you hate crickets too?

Also, I'm going to do up a list of all the current suggestions for pieces to include in the best-of (including stuff discussed in the threads). Hopefully I'll compile that this weekend and have it up as a Google Doc so anons can comment.

>>20898602
Editor is MIA, so sadly nobody has eyes on the submission bin right now (it's only editor who has access to the email). Me and the other anons are just doing a best-of, which editor is so far uninvolved in. Anyway, agreed on Dog Killer, I really liked that one.

[Anonymous No.20899603]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20899907]

>>20898648
i liked it. dialogue could use some work. i saved this image, regardless

[Anonymous No.20900082]

>>20898648
Should I share the short story with the other &amp anon that was critiquing? Not as much for rewrite but was just curious because I havent had many people share their feelings about the setting, the characters and events. Theres one particular event I sign posted multiple times and still I got questions about why some specific event happened.

[Anonymous No.20900194]

>>20900082
I'm a beta reading whore. Show us what you got.

[Anonymous No.20900217]

>>20900194
Should I send to unofficial.drivel? That's what I meant to ask.

[Anonymous No.20900248]

Nobody writes.

[Anonymous No.20900286]

>>20900217
I'm not him

[Anonymous No.20900295]

>>20900217
Nah, [e-mail] is the one offering editing help, but that's not really associated with &amp an any official sense. Might as well post it here too, though. I (unofficial.drivel) am just fielding emails about the best-of, so I've got nothing to do with the "real" issues of &amp or any submissions heading that way. None of us do, and, like I said, editor is MIA/uninvolved. As of right now the only &amp activity I know of is in these threads and relating to best-of effort (you can call it a "fan" issue).

But please email me if you ever end up with a consolidated list of your favourites pieces from &amp, if you have suggestions, or if you want to help with the eventual "work" like pruning, editing, and design. (&amp has never been strictly restricted to the domain of any particular anon in the first place, so calling any of this "real" or "(un)official" is sort of beside the point, though for now my only plan is to get a best-of issue out.)

[Anonymous No.20900449]

>>20898396
OP pic is comfy, wish editor could see it

[Anonymous No.20900460]

>>20900295
Back from work, I am thinking my favorite of K-anon's stories is "Half of a Melody." When I read it there's what I believe to be a typo where it says "humans is if through" and I think he meant "as if.' That story was one of the more beautiful ones he did. I also liked "Longing" "the Balcony" and "Burial of Field Mouse" but the first two I think are too harsh for me (though K-anon hits on some great feels and I've heard other anons express liking these) and the mouse story is odd kind of like Chekhov's "Kashtanka" except nobody cares about the mouse.

[Anonymous No.20900570]

>>20900217
>>20900295
I’m atlaspherea— you can email it to me if you’d like, but it’s probably better if you just post it in the thread. It helps to keep the thread active, and that way other anons can comment on it too.

And yeah, any help with editing isn’t really associated with &amp in an official way. Editor anon did send me submissions to copyedit for the July edition, but that’s more like checking for spelling/grammatical errors and correcting formatting mistakes than actually giving critique.

[Anonymous No.20900759]

>>20900570
Okay what is the best way to share it? I'm trying various textbins but I either lose all formatting or cannot space the first lines of paragraph so it becomes tough to read.

[Anonymous No.20900775]

>>20900759
Can you format it using Canva and post it as a PNG like >>20898648 did? Or if not, can you try pastebin? I’ve never used it myself but I’ve seen people use it in /wg/.

[Anonymous No.20901019]

>>20900248
meaning?

[Anonymous No.20901297]

>>20900775
Here you are. This is the story I submitted a few weeks ago. Like I said before here >>20900082
I'm mainly looking for feedback on how the story makes you feel (the style, ideas, characters &c) rather than a prescription of how to fix it but any feedback will probably help me. For now, it is what it is. There were a number of parts where I wanted to elaborate in the scenes but it was running 5600 words so I tried to get to the point.

It's an intro to the novel I'm working on which is maybe 3 months out from being "done" though I don't know when it will be published. Would you like to know what happens to Claud and Phoebe?

[Anonymous No.20901469]

>>20898396
Fuck it. I’m starting a competitor if the editor is going to be MIA; imma make an email for it. I do graphic design and write. How hard could this shit be. Be on the lookout fellas.

[Anonymous No.20901477]

>>20901469
mane there's already miniMAG
if every fag and his mum makes a ""/lit/"" mag we're just gonna shit the bed n-times faster

help with the best-of if you're really desperate to do something for now

[Anonymous No.20901494]

>>20901477
checked
I wont miss an issue. Fuck miniMAG, you’ll see. I got pizazz and spirit. I have a visual style in my graphic design work, I want to work on an internet magazine. I even bump [wsg] I can make video editions.

[Anonymous No.20901505]

>>20901494
That you, editor? It's like someone wound the clock back a year and a bit because I'm pretty sure &amp started the same way. I'm certain there's an &amp Youtube channel with Adult Swim-esque bumpers on it.

You should call your magazine l&mp and see if anyone notices a difference. I'll be running one called ampers& (pronounced: "am-per-slamp") and I'm gonna phish your email to steal submissions, bitch. Gonna buy some GPT-3 access while I'm at it. Watch your ass.

[Anonymous No.20901522]

>>20901505
You could not phish me if I were a brown trout in a breeding trough at the local fish hatchery.

But; I think I will name it something else. I like doing my own thing. Maybe we can work together in some capacity to avoid double posting.

[Anonymous No.20901535]

>>20901522
You're just trying to steal all my talent and GPT-3 access, aren't you? Well good fucking luck, bimbo, I'm onto you. First issue of ampers& is dedicated to how HARD I'm gonna FUCK you. (Yeah, bitch.)

Have you read anything from &amp? Got any favourites, huh? Email me, why dontcha?

[Anonymous No.20901548]

>>20901535
Cool well I will update you with the name of the magazine when I come up with it. So you can adlib it in the hate rant. I will do the same; slander and libel will be on the way.

I mean using GPT-3 is kinda gay, but it might be worth it if you aren’t getting that many submissions. I’ll submit to your mag btw. And yeah I do have a few favorites, what email?

[Anonymous No.20901554]

>>20901548
[e-mail]
or just post em in the thread

[Anonymous No.20901600]

>>20901554
Alternatively. What about a partnership? I could be a co-editor. One time offer. Minimizes the amount of mags, ups efficiency and workflow?

[Anonymous No.20901781]

I worry that my poetry submissions were so bad they sent editor-sama into a depressive spiral

[Anonymous No.20901834]

>>20901781
which poems were yours?

[Anonymous No.20901841]

>>20901834
Ones that I submitted for the August issue

[Anonymous No.20901897]

>>20901469
have u submitted to &amp before? which subs were yours?

[Anonymous No.20902022]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU_mJuJvxys

[Anonymous No.20902111]

>>20902022
How is this related to &amp?

[Anonymous No.20902667]

bump

[Anonymous No.20902680]

>>20901469
Do it. I lost respect for &amp when i went to the website and saw their 2005-tier sardonic “maybe if you’re lucky” style of accepting submissions. That and even after swallowing my pride, never heard back from them regarding my submission.

[Anonymous No.20902980]

>>20902680
when did you submit? &amp takes in everything. maybe you're just too low-tier a writer to even be published in &amp.

[Anonymous No.20903041]

>>20902980
NTA but I recall editorsama saying he has rejected stuff that he found too tasteless. So while he has published stuff he thought was bad he definitely has a threshold.
Also still waiting for any comments on the story I shared ITT. I know it takes a while to read.

[Anonymous No.20903105]

>>20901297
This could use some work. It feels almost parodic in its use of epithets and clichés. Both the narration and dialogue come across as stilted. I don't think it's particularly bad, but it doesn't feel good to read.
The big issue is style. Pay attention to style.

[Anonymous No.20903203]

>>20903105
>pay attention to style
I thought I was.
Anyways What did you think about the characters or what happened? Also I kind of agree that it's cliché (partly on purpose) and why I removed it from the book since it didnt fit the tone.

[Anonymous No.20903861]

>>20902111
> Doesn't know

Just enjoy and get inspired

[Anonymous No.20903989]

>>20901600
one time offer: post yer favourites and i won't glass yer ass

I can't tell if you're being facetious, but &amp was struggling for submissions, and it was a tremendous amount of work that generally fell onto a single person (editor). Looking at editor's letters early on, you can tell he started out or had hopes of being judicious, but eventually he was publishing literally everything to maintain &amp as it was, and even then this year's July issue had to be trimmed down to 80 pages from the usual 96 (which was still a rough mix of good and bad pieces). It's always been editor's design work and a handful of good pieces that buoy &amp up.

I've really enjoyed &amp and appreciate it as a slice of /lit/, but I don't think it was sustainable in the form it took. &amp at least has something of a readership now, so I think it'd be silly to copy it and inevitably (probably quickly) fall into the same pitfalls while also trying to compete with it (and Unreal Press, and miniMAG).

The whole thread I've been shilling for this best-of thing, which is going to need editing and design work, so if you'd be down I'd take the extra help.

>>20901781
>>20901841
You'd have to be impressively bad for editor to bat an eye at it.

>>20902680
Post it here, mane, I'm curious. But the other guy is right: editor published just about everything he got. Chances are he just missed your email.

[Anonymous No.20904151]

might it be time for us to start compiling works for the august issue instead of waiting for editor-anon? i'm sure he would appreciate it. or maybe we could do a september issue, and only do the august issue once he returns. and if he never does (god forbid), we'll leave that issue unpublished in his honour.

[Anonymous No.20904593]

>>20901297
>coffin apartment
Confused me, and only became clear later that you meant it like a literal coffin, but it's not clear until the third paragraph that he's locked in (and even then you say "his coffin locked" rather than "his apartment became a coffin").

>He withstood his hopelessness because something placated his unease that something else might deem him unfit to live.
Double use of "something" is repetitive, sounds bad. Whole sentence is overwritten and becomes unclear--you already said the guy is holding onto hope, so it's redundant to say something else is placating yet another feeling in him. Try: "He withstood the hopeless notion that he might be deemed unfit to live." (I think the "something else" is also pointless since there's necessarily a vague judge included in the "deem him".)

>The normalcy of his life, strange compared to his younger years, had long since shattered and nothing could put it together again.
Confusing. On first read it was unclear to me what you were actually trying to say: you compare back to the past twice, first saying he's normal and then that he's not.

>The litmus test analyzed his genes.
Redundant ("test" and "analyze" are the same) and sounds like they're doing a literal pH test on his genes. Could be "A genetic litmus test."

And I skipped making comments on a lot of things leading up to this point. The other anon is right about clichés, and it bogs the whole thing down. The impression I get is that you're not a bad writer but you mistake overwriting for good writing. Go through all of this and try to ask yourself whether things are clear/necessary/consistent, otherwise your work gets fat with extraneous bits that are just going to confuse and bore the reader.

I can see what you're attempting at times with lines like "He never even pulled up a chair to search in vain to lift loneliness up to apathetic liberty" but you fail at it: you try to make his dread palpable but you just drag it out. Do we really need to be told that the guy isn't sitting? Just say he's hopeless (ironically, considering you just finished saying he wasn't). I'd almost say "lift loneliness up to apathetic liberty" is a nice phrase, but the closer I look the more meaningless it becomes. Is he hoping to see others? Or are you talking about some kind of resignation to everything?

Then you've got stuff like the "read/write" thing going on, which I take is something about his DNA being collected, I dunno. You jumble all of it up with indeterminate talk of synths and coffins and tests and drones and goddamn dragons and etcetera and it starts to seem like I'm reading a description of a Half-Life 2 mod rather than a short story. It seems like a lot of it is banking on some prior knowledge or a hope of mystique that will draw the reader in, but it doesn't. By the end it felt like way too much had gone on, and none of it had been properly explained or related.

[Anonymous No.20904611]

>>20904151
I'd be down to try continuing &amp after the best-of gets out, but I don't think I'd be able to do it if it stayed the same as it has been.
>we'll leave that issue unpublished in his honour
Man, &amp has had a silent multi-month hiatus before, I don't think we need to declare a holy month in editor's honour.

[Anonymous No.20904614]

>>20904611
Not to mention the fact that he's probably going to resurface at some point. It's not like we've got an obituary for the guy--he's got a job and &amp was a lot of work.

[Anonymous No.20904786]

>>20904593
Thanks for reading it. I was still hoping someone cared about any of the characters but I guess I failed at that too. Whatever subtlety I tried went unnoticed because the writing's just not good. I will do better at the novel (thankfully, will have no smorgasbord of monsters and be more thoroughly edited since I seem unable to myself).

[Anonymous No.20904865]

>>20903989
I would be willing to handle more of the design work, I will shoot you an email with my favorites soon. The Chinese Restaurant is one of my favorites, and the post from /k/ anon. I have a group of friends that I can badger into writing on a variety of subjects.

I also have a few ideas to generate more submissions as well. I found &amp pretty late on; never really felt anyone would want to read what I had written. Then the hiatus started, and a fire was lit underneath me. I also think it might be worth reaching out to the Unreal Press guys. I have talked with them before, and they are chill. Having them post reviews of books, and discussions on topics in a magazine might be a fun idea.

[Anonymous No.20904998]

>>20904865
>/k/ anon
I am now imagining Kit with a gun.

[Anonymous No.20905197]

>>20904786
i'm >>20903105.
read episode sixteen of ulysses (eumaeus). avoid writing like that.

[Anonymous No.20905205]

>>20904865
For now the only original content I'm expecting to put into the best-of are letters/essays from past contributors, and at the very least some simple edits to the included pieces. Apart from obvious spelling mistakes I'd probably avoid "fixing" anything without the respective authors helping out. But there'll probably be a good deal of transcribing from &amp, since I don't have the source documents for anything (barring my own work).

Today I'm going to start properly compiling a list of the favourites I've been given so far. Haven't gone through and picked out my own yet, but there's already pretty good coverage. Won't be a final list by any means.

[Anonymous No.20905542]

>>20905197
Oh, I just finished reading Ulysses last week actually. But I read that chapter after I had already submitted it. I try to be conscious of stilted dialogue but part of my issue is I think I am attempting certain techniques with a faulty understanding of why it worked when I read it.
Also concerning the poorly explained technology, a previous draft I had discussed with /wg/ lore dumped way too soon about how it worked. I feel kinda bad it came off like fanfiction after seriously reading nonfiction and speculation on GNR revolutions, so I will have to give more clear vignettes if I write on that later
Then I scrubbed most of the scientific explanation for a bleak "look it does this just trust me bro" approach since the novel goes into a paranormal direction anyways. Not that it would have been better otherwise, but this story was originally chapter 1 of a novel, and honestly it cant work as a short story alone because it introduces way too many things without exploring much. If I had written it from scratch there'd been a lot less going on and simply focus on the beliefs of the two main characters. So in hindsight I totally get your points of my swallowing a camel.

[Anonymous No.20905859]

>>20905542
oh, by the way, i (>>20905197) am not >>20904593! sorry for the miscommunication

[Anonymous No.20905881]

>>20903989
Monthly was too ambitious. Whatever happened to the /lit/ quarterly?

[Anonymous No.20905947]

>>20905881
Pretty sure Lit Quarterly got sucked up into normalfag madness after it started getting submissions from people outside of /lit/ while draining the pockets of the editor. I think I heard that it made its way onto some internet lists of publications for fledgling writers to fling their shit at and got flooded with submissions. Not certain, but it's talked about in some of the early &amp threads.

I agree about monthly releases being too ambitious (at least for how dense/pretty &amp has been), though I think it's hard to capture attention over longer timescales. Dunno where the right balance could be struck. Honestly, looking back at the old threads gives an interesting idea of what editor really envisioned for & he used to suggest people send their stuff in already done up in Canva or whatever, contributions from other boards, regular features (Neologist is one), plus mention of an alternating host of editors.

Early on editor joked about gangstalking contributors/readers "for a behind-the-scenes making-of docu-drama mini-series".

[Anonymous No.20906034]

>>20905947
>he used to suggest people send their stuff in already done up in Canva or whatever,
wait, seriously? i would have done that if i knew.

[Anonymous No.20906076]

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Wanna help with the best-of edition of &amp? Comment on the growing list of candidates.

CANDIDATES (WIP):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TMyRTrB6SEjbDFkFixaMqNpr0--Fb3T9Pdv1x2s7Z7g/edit?usp=sharing

Continue posting favourites in the thread and I'll continue updating the list. Currently adding page numbers to everything, but they're gonna kick me out of this coffee shop soon. Also planning to link screencaps n sheit (please help with that if you can).

(pic related shows some ancient &amp covers editor deleted)

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[Anonymous No.20906124]

>>20906076
Didnt Nesmer have parts of Eggplant in &amp or am I thinking of something else? That book is kind of exemplary for those on /wg/ so iirc maybe one of those excerpts would be good.

[Anonymous No.20906187]

was Eggplant a good book? i'm hoping this thread flies under the shill radar so i can get an honest opinion

[Anonymous No.20906219]

>>20906124
Yeah, he did, but I'm cautious of including works that are part of separate publications, especially since Ogden in particular has other non-Eggplant material worth including (Void is on the list I posted).

>>20906187
Reading it currently. Will get back to you. Pretty sure &amp has a review of Eggplant somewhere in the various issues.

[Anonymous No.20906223]

>>20906187
I did reviews for a lot of anons stuff this year and Eggplant was not my fav but in my top 3 (of 6) I was hesitant at first because it was set in an art scene but there are wild descriptions of characters, good char development on the protags and a really satisfying buildup to a theme about circles and wave near I think chapter 11. There were parts that came off a bit didactic in one scene and a couple paragraphs I found dull but otherwise I thought it was a satisfying read.
I dunno why &amp threads dont get much spam but /wg/ has at least 3 rotating schizoshills a week.

[Anonymous No.20906370]

>>20906076
Anons PLEASPLEASEPLEASE keep posting your favourites. Anything I see will be added to the Doc, and I'll continue trawling the archives for shit people mentioned in the past.

Comment on the document if you dislike a piece or want to vouch for it, but right now the biggest thing is just sharing your favourites. Post screencaps of them too if you can, and I'll try to link those into the Doc. I'll try to post more myself as well.

[Anonymous No.20906443]

>>20906370
How many more stories do you think you need?

[Anonymous No.20906490]

>>20906443
I'm not shooting for a strict number at this point, just something representative of what people have actually liked from &amp. Eventually things might be whittled down, but I want to see how it shapes up first.

[Anonymous No.20906493]

>>20906490
Thus why I'm digging through old threads, considering each release thread often had at least a few people discussing their favourites.

[Anonymous No.20906758]

&amp graphic design: you'll shit bricks when you see it . . . !

[Anonymous No.20906764]

>>20906758
>best of &amp: finite zest

[Anonymous No.20906765]

>>20906758
&amp graphic design: too close for comfort

[Anonymous No.20906773]

&amp graphic design: this is whatcher gon' get

[Anonymous No.20906776]

>>20906773
don't zoom in on this one

[Anonymous No.20906784]

>>20906773
I got a sweet idea for how we're gonna stand out from the other /lit/ mags:
>landscape mode
You heard it here first, fuckers: 8.5x11 is old hat. &amp will now be exclusively published in the much-coveted 11x8.5 format, a hallmark of true /lit/erary intent and high-browity.

[Anonymous No.20906803]

>>20906784
thanks, anon. i knew at least one person on here would understand my intent

[Anonymous No.20906836]

>>20906803
Don't worry, the genius intellects contributing to &amp are telepathic masters. My next greatest idea:
>11x8.5mm
Yes, MILLIMETRES. Suck on THAT miniMAG. Not so MINI anymore, eh? This will be an offshoot of &amp called &Åmp (where my materials science chads at?) dedicated to the exclusion of genetic defects with eyesight worse than 20/10, furthering &amp's goal of uplifting humanity's genetic character. Little known to most is &amp's very ambitious eugenics department.

[Anonymous No.20906847]

>>20906836
Any day now the greatest minds at &amp are slated to execute the final step in realising fractional-point font sizes. 12-point my ass! &amp will be the first with true sub-pixel rendering of characters, first being our patent-pending 0.5-point sans serif font.

[Anonymous No.20906956]

Why not just continue &amp as &amp
why new mags? editor could be dead, website is dead. we can just make a new website. if he comes back hoopla, if not who cares. this be a coup

[Anonymous No.20906963]

>>20906956
Any new mag talk on my part is a joke. Editor always envisaged &amp as something that could be done by anyone, and even offered to have the lamp.by.lit email forward directly to other anons. I think the consolidation of the website and the email are a bit of a problem for future issues if editor remains MIA, but regardless the spirit is in a collective approach. Don't you worry, pal.

[Anonymous No.20906970]

>>20906963
what email to submit favorites and new writing for next edition. I can do shitty graphic design. I want to help.

[Anonymous No.20906972]

>>20906836
>materials science chads
alternatively: STEMfags, STEMcels, autists

[Anonymous No.20906985]

>>20906970
nevermind, you posted it earlier

[Anonymous No.20907082]

>>20906490
ye do this >>20906493 i used to write reviews for every issue. heres a list of amp poetry to be considered. * denotes greatness

>1
bad mom greentext*
sci fi open source
wagie
>2
i am at last
i took you to my home
i long for days
words are windowpanes
>4
mauve blood*
corona blues (normally i hate relevence but this ones good)
i started running
thats what the judge told me
>5
cat in abu ghraib*
john keats is dead*
>6
three poems loosely about spiritual doubt*
atop the stone walls
dodgemedge to catalonia*
>7
horses
>8
its a redhead
wrapped myself in
if things dont end well
she was a cutie
upon inspection

nothing beyond 8 since i didnt have them downloaded and the site seems to be down. i did find a tiktokker using lampylit as his handle

[Anonymous No.20907139]

>>20907082
I've got all of the issues re-upped here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K3JNLg0xCcojM-Iuu0JtbLB5ngpPJdbs?usp=sharing

Thanks for the list. I'll update the document tomorrow.

>>20906970
>>20906985
You can just post favourites in the threads if you want, but having a copy in email is a bonus.

>>20906956
Dibs out on covering hosting fees.

>>20906972
The humanities fag fears the physex-haver.

[Anonymous No.20907346]

>>20906836
Chemist here but apparently still a massive retard at writing lit. I will get the hang of it by the second or third novel.

[Anonymous No.20907839]

>>20900248
Yeah.

[Anonymous No.20907982]

>>20907082
continuation. the quality does drop from thereon

>10
of all the faces present
a curse unto thee
>12
i drank the sea, i have to pee
>14
apricot

[Anonymous No.20908102]

>>20906758
>>20906765
>>20906773
>>20906784
>>20906836
this has to be ironic, right ?This shit is terrible

[Anonymous No.20908145]

>tfw too shit even for amp
oh

[Anonymous No.20908357]

proposal: end the "best-of" issue with this image

[Anonymous No.20908967]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20909125]

>>20907139
I am building a home server. I'll just host the website myself. I need to do it to learn more cybsec stuff anyways. It's not like there will be too much traffic.

[Anonymous No.20909269]

>>20904998
Kit,
Please post guns.

[Anonymous No.20909275]

>>20906223
Really? What was your favorite? I thought eggplant was the best, but here's my feedback:
>It opens very strongly, more daring than other books I've read recently. The themes of creation, artistic persona, control/limits are a refreshing read.
Better than any other book I've read from 4chan. I doubt Jack Ma has shot a gun before writing about it. Shitkickers needed an editor.
>If there were a couple rooms for improvement: Eleanor / Toby threads seemed unnecessary, and the backstory with Aron could have been fleshed out earlier. It's tempting to include multiple plot lines (especially after reading so many other novels that appear as collections of short stories), but I would have trimmed the extraneous, and given emotional stakes up front.
>Then again, perhaps I critiqued those two things because it's the feedback I received on my own novel.
>Overall, very well done.

[Anonymous No.20909306]

>>20909275
Woolston's first collection Last Free Man, loved it and really soul. Egregore was a recent horror novel one /wg/ anon put out, that scared the hell out of me and I thought it really tapped into one of the biggest contemporary fears: that human ideas (inhuman in that sense) have somehow hijacked our world and we have to live with it.

[Anonymous No.20909344]

>>20909306
Ah. I read Woolsy's second collection. Was good, but hard for me to put any short story collection as best.
Passed on horror because I don't read horror.

[Anonymous No.20909876]

>>20908102
Yea, we're going to print the best-of on sticky notes with an MS Paint cover.

On a serious note, it already seems settled that the best-of will have slightly sparser design than mainline &amp and focus on a simple and consistent style. In the early days it looked like anons were really on board with ordering print copies of &amp, but that seems to have fallen off, probably because it's pretty expensive (~$24 an issue) and hard to justify the cost on monthly issues. Plus it's not like &amp was making any money off it, so it was more of a novelty/vanity thing, although undoubtedly cool.

So one idea I've had is to do a printer-friendly version of the best-of. One version will stick to the big 8.5x11 format, but it's shouldn't be too hard to format a copy that can be printed booklet-style on regular printer paper where you stack all the pages and staple along the "spine"/middle-fold (pic related). Extra zine-y, do it up in B/W, making it easy for anons to print an official copy themselves. Not sure what the page limits would be like for this kind of format, but it'd be secondary to the "standard" issue anyway. Could do a booklet per chapter/category.

Any thoughts on that?

>>20907982
There's definitely a divide on whether early/late &amp is better. All your recs are different from the ones I have marked down so far, so hopefully there'll be a good variety.

What about the later issues made them worse? Just style-wise, or what?

>>20909306
>>20909344
Any chance you guys would be willing to submit reviews for the best-of? Could be short write-ups on particular pieces you liked, or on &amp in general.

[Anonymous No.20909929]

>>20909876
I dont know about more reviews because I am really behind on my writing deadline pace. I do love to support anons though so I will consider it for another time.

[Anonymous No.20910362]

>>20909929
It wouldn't have to be immediate. For now I'm still just compiling a list of candidates to include in the issue. I'll try to make it clear when the "real" work stage comes.

[Anonymous No.20910660]

>>20910362
In that case maybe. I will have to reasses my progress next month, but I may extend my deadline a couple weeks or a month anyways. I could probably write a short review on a lunch break I just dont know what for yet.

[Anonymous No.20911090]

>>20909876
I really liked the current format of &amp. That big high gloss is really impressive in your hands. And I normally love that Xerox B&W DIY look. Having a semi-nice edition for the anons here who would be in it would be nice. But then if you have a cheaper version you guys could be dropping it off in coffee shops or hiding in Barnes and Noble. Tough call.

For favorites:

>001
Entangled Particle
>006
Noodle House
>007
Nahma

[Anonymous No.20911272]

>>20911090
I'd definitely still do a normal high-quality version, I'd just do a small-format version of it on the side so anons can have a copy in the physical a little more easily. Plus, like you said, an easy-to-print forward-facing copy would be nice, packaging up the best (so far) of &amp.

And thanks for the favourites. I'll update the list tonight when I get the chance, and I'm thinking I'll mark multiple recs with stars. Have you read any of the more recent issues?

>>20910660
If you shoot me an email I'll give you a heads-up when I start looking for written contributions. [e-mail] is me. I'm hoping for a release sometime mid-early September.

[Anonymous No.20911939]

>>20907082
>>20907982
>not posting actual titles
Fuck anon, you're killing me. Good taste, though. And thanks for all the poetry recs. Might trim it down just to your starred entries, and for now I'll keep your other suggestions greyed on the list.

Digging through all the issues now to sort this shit out. So far not sure which is "Wagie", but I'm assuming it's "Prayer to the Minimum Wage Burger". Sloggin through but I should have the list updated soon.

[Anonymous No.20912221]

Alrighty, folks. It's getting late and I feel my eyes burning out from browsing the archives and scanning old &amp issues. Further suggestions for inclusion or removal are encouraged, and I'm still trawling old threads. Lemme know what you think.


BEST OF &AMP CANDIDATES (so far):

>001
Burgerpunk [p79]
Entangled Particle [p61]
>greente/x/t [p56]
The Justice System [p7]
Sci fi open source [p71]
?“Wagie”? (Prayer to the Minimum Wage Burger?) [p50]

>003
Bvrgerpvnk Vol 1: Eat at Kip’s [p73]
Dear Mr. Pynchon [p8]
Rural Life (The Good/The Bad) [p48]
Phoenix [p30]
postmodernism [p56]
the pandemic year (COVID-19: supplier of the court by royal appointment) [p23]
6 Thoughts [p58]

>004
Covid Blues [p40]
Deep Under the Covers [p54]
Did you watch the Super Bowl? [p70]
Esoteric Epstein Worship [p41]
I started running [p44]
Mauve Blood [p16]
That Guy’s a Murderer [p50]

>005
Burger Spunk [p15]
Cat in Abu Ghraib [p8]
John Keats is Dead [p51]
Jumper/Runner [p79/92]
Newlyweds [p22]
TRILLIONAIRE [p57]
Thine is the Kingdom (aka: “the biblical tweeker tie fighter greentext story”) [p82]

>006
At the Noodle House on the Edge of Forever [p8]
Dogemage to Catalonia [p78]
SuburbPunk [p53]
Texan-Mexico [p71]
Three Poems, Loosely About: Spiritual Doubt [p7]

>007
Area 22 [p60]
Eggplant, Chapter One [p16]
Horses [p9]
Nahma [p20]
Notes on a Devil’s Threeway [p32]
Untitled (But Mr. President) [p36]
Don’t verify(?) (lizard comic) [p24]
PSVCHOENERGETICS [p61]
Prophile: Alex Bienstock (Real Men Eat Their Girl’s Shit)* [p67]
Racial Sensitivity Training [p30]

[cont'd]

[Anonymous No.20912226]

>>20912221
[cont'd]

>008
Buddah Money Mystery [p50]
If things don’t end well [p56]
It’s a redhead [p40]
A /lit/ PSA (SUBJECT/SELFHELP/SCHIZOPHRENIA) [p22]
Longing— [p11]
Mademoiselle [p77]
Milk [p18] [gz]
The Second Opium War [p52]
She was a cutie [p80]
Upon inspection [p78]
¡VIVA EL ESTADO DEL BEISBOL! [p19]

>009
Burgerpunk delivers [p88]
A Curse [p87]
day in the life. [p69]
Everyone else is at home [p24]
Of all the faces present [p75]

>010
An Anonymous Diatribe (Against Laughter) [p13]
“Burger Crusader”(?)
Jibaku Session#1 [p71]
Vignette: A Chili April (2021-04-22) [p26]

>011
Jibaku, Session#2 [p62]
The Only Computer Crime for Which Theologians are Consulted [p40]
Phantom Tollbooth [p84]
Shiva’s Phallus [p26]

>012
The Bog Brother [p36]
Dinner (Spit in my soup) [p25]
I drank the sea [p53]
Panther Pride [p75]
Untitled (Sickly luminescence fries) [p29]
To the Victor, The Spoils [p17]
Void [p60]

>014
The Crabomorphosis [p39]
Dog Killer [p8]
Shower Thoughts of Apricots [p43]


FULL LIST (pls help):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TMyRTrB6SEjbDFkFixaMqNpr0--Fb3T9Pdv1x2s7Z7g/edit?usp=sharing

The full list has categories n sheit so things can be broken into chapters later, plus a vague ranking system. Comments enabled so please come help categorise and give your 2¢.

&amp&amp&amp&am
p&amp&amp&amp&a
mp &amp&amp&amp&
amp&amp&amp&amp
&amp&amp&amp&am
p&amp&amp&amp&a
mp &amp&amp&amp&
amp&amp&amp&amp
&amp&amp&amp&am

[Anonymous No.20912234]

I submitted something a month and a half ago and got no response. Was that around the time the editor disappeared, and it was just bad timing, or should I take that as a rejection?

[Anonymous No.20912240]

>>20912234
Same here, I think he just smoked so much crack he ascended this reality

[Anonymous No.20912252]

>>20912234
>>20912240
Nobody has heard anything for the last two months, fags. Help with the best-of while editor wanders Elysium. We got a whole fucking list right above your posts. (With page numbers!)

I'll try to post screencaps of some of the more popular pieces eventually.

[Anonymous No.20912256]

>just found editor's private email
>and his Youtube channel
fug

[Anonymous No.20912310]

>>20912256
I don’t think you should bother him. He has done a fuckload of work for this mag and might want to take a break. We’ll try to keep &amp alive in the meantime.(which is almost impossible because he did so much work)
He might be off the perc, nodding off or dismantling a TV for parts.
Fun fact: In exchange for crack he put my stories in the mag

[Anonymous No.20912474]

>>20912310
which pieces were yours?

[Anonymous No.20912803]

>>20911272
I’ve skimmed the last 2 issues. I’ll try to read through them again and see what i like.

[Anonymous No.20912963]

>>20912221
Id like to point out some that got missed but i have to finish reading the last couple of issues first. Id also like to critique some that are on. Will the best of have opinions from other anons on the pieces?

[Anonymous No.20913150]

Designwise, if you have a nice, black-and-white, pocketbook-sized pdf, another option would be to print it as a paperback on Lulu – in between the diy and the relatively expensive costs of the &amp magazine – the flash fiction anthologies did it, and are about $5

[Anonymous No.20913311]

Here's Void from my backlog of screencaps.

>>20912963
Were they favourites that anons posted in recent threads? or are they from way back? For now I'm trying to include anything that's ever been called good/interesting in the threads.

And do you mean opinions as in written commentary, or more additions/subtractions from the list? About commentary: I'm thinking I'll try to get the authors to reflect back on their own pieces. In my head I've futzed around with the idea of including things like margin notes and annotations on pieces--could help liven things up and include more opinions without drowning out the relatively short pieces. Special edition copies where we Xerox the thing back and forth while scribbling notes in pencil, I dunno.

>>20912803
Thank ya kindly. Feel free to weigh in on the pieces already listed too. If anons hate something that made it onto the list then I'll consider pruning it.

>>20913150
Yeah, considering the length of some of the pieces it might be hard to pack even just a chapter into something your average office stapler could go through. You got any links to the flash fic anthologies? I saw the Unreal Anthology does a 5x8, and it was some anarcho-primitivist zine that got me thinking about the booklet format. If I decide to fuck around with home-printing options I'll test things first before forcing anons to print 20 booklets of /lit/fic.

[Anonymous No.20913551]

The Crabomorphosis, &amp issue 014. "Stop swearing Gregor, that's most unlike you."

[Anonymous No.20913575]

>>20913311
for the Lulu listings:
https://www.lulu.com/shop/anonymous-/simian-deluxe/paperback/product-y6z687.html
https://www.lulu.com/shop/anonymous-/rags-and-bones/paperback/product-9d7gp2.html
https://www.lulu.com/shop/anonymous-/gifts-evil-and-good/paperback/product-mgwkgv.html
For the anthologies in general (-Print.pdf are the paperback versions):
https://archive.org/details/@_lit_anthology

[Anonymous No.20913611]

>>20913575
Thanks, anon. Any suggestions for what to do about the more format-heavy pieces? That mainly falls into the territory of schizology, like Shiva's Phallus where the presentation is more or less vital to the work.

[Anonymous No.20913695]

I posted this in /wg/ a few months ago and at least one person seemed to enjoy it. I've also edited it since.
Tried to submit it to &amp but mr. editeur seems to have fucked off, so I'll post it here if anyone wants to read it.
Don't know if anyone cares about new stuff or if this thread is just dedicated to the best of collection discussion. If no one cares: So sorru, forgivuness preashe.

[Anonymous No.20913702]

>>20913695

[Anonymous No.20913781]

>>20911272
Okay sendin my mail for when you want some short reviews
>tfw first fiction submission wont possibly be good to receive kudos even from amperslam magazine
At least it's not gonna be a newfag's untriforce, right? We'll gettem next time.

[Anonymous No.20914603]

Dog Killer, &amp issue 014. Bumping so the thread won't die while I make dinner.

Gonna try to screencap all the starred entries later tonight while still hopefully getting some sleep.

[Anonymous No.20915011]

>>20914603
This one's great.

[Anonymous No.20915202]

>>20913311
Re-reading through 014, the story on pages 56-57 about that guy thinking about his grandmother. Reminds of when I was a younger man and my grandmother was in her final years.

Cheers to you anon for working on this project.

[Anonymous No.20915225]

>>20915202
Want it included in the candidates list? I'm not a fan of it, but I'll put it on in case any other anons want to vouch for it.

[Anonymous No.20915238]

>>20898396
>&amp
>&amp
>&amp

Wtf clean this mess up, OP

[Anonymous No.20915250]

>>20915238
&amp&amp&amp&am
p&amp&amp&amp&a
mp &amp&amp&amp&
amp&amp&amp&amp
&amp&amp&amp&am
p&amp&amp&amp&a
mp &amp&amp&amp&
amp&amp&amp&amp
&amp&amp&amp&am
p&suckmydick&amp&
amp&amp&amp&amp
&amp&amp&amp&am
p&amp&amp&amp&a
mp &amp&amp&amp&
amp&amp&amp&amp
&amp&amp&amp&am
p&amp&amp&amp&a
mp &amp&amp&amp&
amp&amp&amp&amp

[Anonymous No.20915256]

>>20914603
> while I make dinner

what’d you make for dinner, chef anon?

[Anonymous No.20915709]

>>20915256
Sardines and tomatoes on basmati rice. No new screencaps.

[Anonymous No.20916111]

>>20915709
based struggle meal, I had tuna with off-brand kd and frozen peas. cheap canned seafood gang rise up

[Anonymous No.20916171]

>>20916111
>buttered cornbread a coworker offered me (his wife made it)
>two anisette cookies from a box after I took the whole thing for free, no one wanted it
>1 ounce of sausage, 1 egg, 1/2 cup of grits (cost me $0.15 to make)
>a keurig coffee pod I bummed from the lounge

[Anonymous No.20916313]

>>20915709
This reminds me of that old Biggie line:
>Born sinner, the opposite of a winner
>Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner

[Anonymous No.20916507]

>>20915225
Sorry, yes, i meant that to be a nomination.

[Anonymous No.20916830]

>>20912221
Nominations that werent mentioned, from rereads so far:

>1
Samsara code page "enjoy the void"
>4
Photographer story ("the couple entered...")
The Patterson Footage (I usually skip the essays but there should probably be more on the list. also this was where I first read about the house on the rock and recently i was unable to recall its name so Im happy I reread it)
Scrotum greentext
Qqquest (annoying goledygook but easily the best burgerpunkish piece ive read)
An obituary for f gardner (better than he deserves)
>5
Generals
Sometimes in the field
Mask poem
>6
Egomet (not sure if it counts since it was only found)
A letter to the homeowner
Pretty Plain (I had completely forgotten about this one though it might be my favorite piece ever and should be in)
>7
People who look like henry rollins
Shit yourself in exotic places
>8
Pinakes (goes from small to a short epic. along with Qqquest and Pretty Plain Id like some thoughts from the author)

To be continued

[Anonymous No.20916838]

>>20912221
Nominations that werent mentioned, from rereads so far:

>1
Samsara code page "enjoy the void"
>4
Photographer story ("the couple entered...")
The Patterson Footage (I usually skip the essays but there should probably be more on the list. also this was where I first read about the house on the rock and recently i was unable to recall its name so Im happy I reread it)
Scrotum greentext
Qqquest (annoying gobbledygook but easily the best burgerpunkish piece ive read)
An obituary for f gardner (better than he deserves)
>5
Generals
Sometimes in the field
Mask poem
>6
Egomet (not sure if it counts since it was only found)
A letter to the homeowner
Pretty Plain (I had completely forgotten about this one though it might be my favorite piece ever and should be in)
>7
People who look like henry rollins
Shit yourself in exotic places
>8
Pinakes (goes from small to a short epic. along with Qqquest and Pretty Plain Id like some thoughts from the author)

To be continued

[Anonymous No.20917104]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20917303]

>>20916171
>cornbread and grits.
Southern Anon?

[Anonymous No.20917441]

>>20917303
You got me. Started my next draft this week. Maybe I will be done in October?

[Anonymous No.20917927]

>>20898396
I think I'll submit one of my old stories. I just need to come up with a pseudonym first.

[Anonymous No.20918041]

>>20917927
>doesn't read the OP
As far as I know there are currently no plans for issue 015. Editor is MIA and I'm currently only concerned with putting together the best-of. I'm considering doing 015 after that, but nothing definite on my part, though somebody else might decide to spearhead it. But nobody I know of has access to the submission inbox apart from editor, so you might be waiting a while to see anything published if you go that route. And pseudonyms aren't necessary--most of &amp's material just goes down as Anonymous.

If you want to contribute something right now, I'm fielding candidates for the best-of, so post any favourite pieces you have from old issues of &amp. Everything is getting compiled in here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TMyRTrB6SEjbDFkFixaMqNpr0--Fb3T9Pdv1x2s7Z7g/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.20918049]

>>20898396
>editor currently MIA quit asking
>yes, we know the website is down
Good riddance desu.

[Anonymous No.20918100]

>>20918049
Thanks, fag. Now go here
>>20912221
>>20912226
and tell me which you hate the most so I can trim the list down a bit.

[Anonymous No.20918106]

>>20918100
>tell me which ones you hate soi can be le contrarian
No I don't think so soijak

[Anonymous No.20918155]

>>20918106
>hates &amp
>also illiterate
sasuga

[Anonymous No.20918219]

>>20918106
get the fuck off my general, faggot. go back to /v/

[Anonymous No.20918859]

>>20916838
>Samsara code
>The Patterson Footage
Good taste. And another anon suggested Generals but I forgot to put it in, so I'll make sure that gets in there.

>>20916507
Gotcha, will do.

>>20916111
Just gotta dress it up right. I started out frying onions before adding garlic and tomato, sardines in last, and I did the rice with vegetable bouillon.

[Anonymous No.20919765]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20919769]

>>20916838
>pieces listed under wrong issue
fug mane :( take it easy on me
on the plus side I found pic related in 004 while I was digging around in there
For They Are the Ones Who Do the Research isn't on the list but I might include it just to have an excuse to include this as commentary

[Anonymous No.20919775]

>>20919765
new rule: every time you bump you have to post one of your fav pieces
:)))
(or I'll beat your ass)

[Anonymous No.20919820]

>>20917441
Novel? I'm on a similar timeline. Just finished handwritten notes tonight, will convert into digital through next month.

[Anonymous No.20919821]

>>20919775
bring it on fat fuck

[Anonymous No.20919832]

>>20919821
eh I take it back
maybe tomorrow if I feel like it
bitch

[Anonymous No.20919835]

>>20919832
that's what i thought sponge

[Anonymous No.20919856]

>>20919835
watch yer mouth bitch or I'm gonna bury you deeper than my BMI
and I need to focus on fixing up the list

[Anonymous No.20919868]

>>20919856
what about your basketball erotica

[Anonymous No.20919900]

>>20919868
it's on hold until I pump out the best-of
and 2bqhwy the basketball erotica pretty much writes itself
something about LeBron and Shaq getting it on is just...natural, I guess

[Anonymous No.20920267]

>>20919900
who would top?

[Anonymous No.20920297]

>>20920267
In my head they do it on their sides. Probably not very realistic given how big those guys are, but they seem like fairly egalitarian fellas so I figure it's not just one or the other, ya' know?

[Anonymous No.20920405]

Pink Fog

Escape the soul cage never accept no pills from strangers
For in blaspheming verses
Bacchus and Cupid are danger
Foreign objects assimilated by universes

He with scars and ink lives in the bog
Defiled by the nymphs of ununpentium
See, bile charrs the sand their bodies flog
The wisps’ dry infants off on the requiem:

“Now at last I bury both love and punk
Each as dead as the other in neighbouring graves”

He sculpts their graves with emulsion of hardened blood and plastic powder
How the pair stick! The sight rips vision away from my soul

Stochastically. The senses talk but the mind ignores,
Descends to cause brutality, the stalk grows through my last memory

The wreck we ended becoming, the minds of children tuned to the Word
Mummified but aware, lost it and asking where?

O Vermis in Excelsis!
Donum sicut Saturnus
Ad orbita inanis
Yersenia pestis, bacteria reginae in sanguis

The nymphs disappear
Like sparks born of friction
Beholden to the Egregore
The chief good in the teat of infection
Let me huff your soul

[Anonymous No.20920413]

>>20920405
Yersenia pestis, reginae bacteria in meo sanguis*

Had to correct that lol.

[Anonymous No.20920422]

>>20920405
wtf is this? is it a submission for an upcoming issue? or a nomination from a previous issue?

[Anonymous No.20920424]

>>20920422
Idk, do u like?

[Anonymous No.20920437]

>>20920424
Pink Fog (took off the line about bubonic plague/yersenia pestis. My Latin is not good)

Escape the soul cage never accept no pills from strangers
For in blaspheming verses
Bacchus and Cupid are danger
Foreign objects assimilated by universes

He with scars and ink lives in the bog
Defiled by the nymphs of ununpentium
See, bile charrs the sand their bodies flog
The wisps’ dry infants off on the requiem:

“Now at last I bury both love and punk
Each as dead as the other in neighbouring graves”

He sculpts their graves with emulsion of hardened blood and plastic powder
How the pair stick! The sight rips vision away from my soul

Stochastically. The senses talk but the mind ignores,
Descends to cause brutality, the stalk grows through my last memory

The wreck we ended becoming, the minds of children tuned to the Word
Mummified but aware, lost it and asking where?

O Vermis in Excelsis!
Donum sicut Saturnus
Ad orbita inanis

The nymphs disappear
Like sparks born of friction
Beholden to the Egregore
The chief good in the teat of infection
Let me huff your soul

[Anonymous No.20920440]

>>20920437
and btw it's a submission for the upcoming issue. I came up with a new metric system. I don't use it throughout the poem but specifically the second stance has this new approach. It's very constricting but it squeezes out good ideas, ask and I can explain how it works :)

[Anonymous No.20920473]

>>20920424
> do u like?
No.

>>20920440
Did you even read the thread at all? The &amp editor isn’t active here right now, so he won’t see it. Send it in via email if you must, but there’s no point in posting it here unless you want critique.

[Anonymous No.20920478]

>>20919820
Ive been working on it too long, its my first of course. Only recently has it started to come together.

[Anonymous No.20920526]

>>20920437
lol this shit is terrible, fuck off

[Anonymous No.20920700]

>>20920297
sounds like something that a bottom would come up with

[Anonymous No.20920905]

>>20920440
>ask and I can explain how it works
i'm interested, anon! i didn't think there could be such a thing as a "new metric system."

[Anonymous No.20920941]

>>20920478
Congrats. Don't forget to shill.

[Anonymous No.20921268]

>>20920905
there can’t be any such thing. the writer is a total schizo with no knowledge of poetic structure.

[Anonymous No.20921289]

>>20920905
>>20920440

also, stop samefagging, no one is interested in your work but you

[Anonymous No.20921674]

>>20920905
>>20921268
If you looked closely at stanza 2 you'd see what I mean. The structure can be modelled not only in how many syllables there are in a given section of the poem but also technically you can structure verse as it were a physical object. What does this mean? It does sound pretty crazy but let me show you:

He with scars and ink lives in the bog
Defiled by the nymphs of ununpentium
See, bile charrs the sand their bodies flog
The wisps’ dry infants off on the requiem:

The first two lines have no seeming rhyme at all so far, but the third line starts with a partial rhyme for the first word of the first line (He) and so the first word of the third line (Defiled) rhymes with (defiled) and because it is a two syllable word I rhyme it with two words, one from the first line and another from the second and so on successively. It takes a while to get right.

Now, the fourth line, it's the same as the third. But alternate in that the first word of the second line starts the rhyme. It's a dumb little idea I came up with which simulates the periphery of the undead circulatory system.

[Anonymous No.20921738]

>>20921268
>>20921289

Don’t be an asshole— if you don’t like someone’s work then just mind your own business.

>>20921674
Interesting— I’m not super versed in this kind of poetry but I see what you’re saying. Also, your style seems so familiar—are you the same anon who wrote Le City Brie in the November issue? You should keep submitting.

>>20912226
Finally have wifi again as of this morning, so I’ll try to post comments/favourites sometime today.

[Anonymous No.20921781]

>>20921738
>if you don’t like someone’s work then just mind your own business.
Not him, but I'd prefer to be shit on than ignored. At least when you're shit on you know people don't like it and you should improve, and if they offer constructive criticism that's actually helpful if your ego isn't fragile.
Feeling invisible and being uncertain of what people think is far more painful.

[Anonymous No.20921785]

>>20921738
Oh hey! I did write Le City Brie! How did u know?

Also, it's basically free verse but while the chaotic structuring of it can be good I think that culturally we're at a point where it needs a kind of technical restraint in order to be really give it the poetic value.

[Anonymous No.20921816]

>>20920440
>>20920473
>>20920526
>>20921289
>>20921781

You're like children to me, even if I suck no advice or hate from you could help. The chasm between us is just too wide and too deep, and my end is much higher than yours.

[Anonymous No.20921826]

>>20921816
Actually I take that back. Children actually have insight, I would be a fool to compare you with the young and innocent. You're just pedants who gather knowledge but never learn, and it shows because no one actually gave advice.

[Anonymous No.20921854]

>>20921781
True, and I’m not against harsh comments if they’re useful, but that anon didn’t even offer any constructive criticism or even explain why they felt that way. They were just being pointlessly nasty without giving any specific suggestions for improvement. I often critique people’s work, sometimes pretty harshly, and likewise I appreciate getting critique of my own work. But I try to point out specific areas where I see issues so that the creator can understand where I’m coming from and benefit from it—making blanket statements about something being bad with zero explanation is just shitty.

>>20921785
I’ve read LCB (and I’ve seen another submission of yours as well a little while back, if you remember)— I guess I just recognized your style right away, haha. I also agree on the point about the necessity of technical restraint in our current cultural moment. The themes of your work aren’t ones that I’m personally familiar with at all, so not sure that I can fully understand some of the more esoteric aspects, but I definitely see and appreciate your efforts either way. Keep at it.

[Anonymous No.20921879]

>>20921854
Thank you!!! I'm always glad when someone takes the time to appreciate what I do, it means everything to me.

[Anonymous No.20922587]

>>20921738
I'm a little skeptical of the drive-by approach to seeking critiques (whether it's explicit or implicit). I've got nothing to say about the piece itself, but it kinda flips the whole point of &amp on its head: rather than using &amp as a sort of funnel to distill things, we get caught up in a deluge (hyperbole, but I'll say it's a slippery slope) of pieces preemptively filling the threads. When something is bad in &amp, it's at least going to sit alongside a few other worthwhile pieces that can attract attention and critique and keep the standards a little higher. If it's just a thread of "submissions" then it's just clutter. Another part of it as that critique post-release at least forces people to read the issue in order to discuss it, which raises the bar a little.

Again, this isn't commentary particular to the pieces that have shown up in &amp threads, but as a trend it gives me flashbacks of /crit/ circa 2 years ago when you could drown in the schlock being posted while still being starved of proper critiques. I don't want &amp to become the go-to avenue for anons to dump their shit without giving something back. Anything good gets drowned in the noise and it pushes "better" posters away.

Of course &amp has accepted submissions via threads before, but I worry about that becoming the standard or about encouraging it. Critiquing pieces in the &amp threads before they ever have anything to do with &amp seems like a bad way to go. I've done it (I mean the critiquing), and I guess it's a little hard not to considering &amp 014 is past and 015 is in limbo, but still. Gotta gatekeep somehow, I dunno.

[sage No.20922604]

9 issues already then why i hear about it for the first time now?
Really, fuck you guys, it would be such a great motivation for me to get together my writings and translate it, i feel you would love it

[Anonymous No.20922610]

>>20898396
I wrote a poem but no one in /wg/ noticed :/ so can I please have it published in this magazine? thanks.
>>20920863

[Anonymous No.20922662]

>>20922587
You have a point. The problem is right now there is no way to submit to &amp so that initial filter of rejection or acceptance from the editor is gone. Posting here is a substitute in the meantime, though I do understand that by doing so we could be opening a door that can't be closed.

[Anonymous No.20922702]

>>20922604
>ESL
>can't count
>high on his own farts
It's 14 issues, 12 if you exclude the photography ones. Way back &amp published one of Yukio Mishima's essays translated for the first time by some anon. Any chance you know anything worth translating in your first language?

>>20922610
>doesn't read the OP
>doesn't read the thread
>shitty ironic gross-out poetry
Sorry, at this time &amp is only accepting cum tributes for submission, so if you're still interested please pick your favourite works from &amp and give 'em a good splattering. Post ITT with your SIN, place of employment/education, address, and mother's maiden name and you'll be added to the ever-growing slush pile (heh, or should I say CUM pile? hahaha). Hope to see you in 015, anon! If you're doing this to fuck with me then good job.

>>20922587
>>20922662
Case in point.

[Anonymous No.20922752]

>>20922702
if I do a cum tribute for my own poem, can it get in that way? like as a sort of loophole

or maybe, if you need an editor, I can be the editor and I'll put my own poem in that way (idk what editors do)

[Anonymous No.20922791]

>>20922752
Nope, cum tributes of your own work don't count, immediate disqualification and an indefinite ban. One done on your least favourite &amp work would be acceptable, but of course you may not be able to keep it up for something sub-standard, so I respect that it may be a challenge.

Although there are no openings currently for full-time editors (we've hit a practical ceiling of 0 for now), you can take an assistant editor position of cumming on any unsolicited works posted in the &amp threads. Let me know if this interests you and I'll be happy to talk!

[Anonymous No.20922958]

>>20922587
Yeah, I see what you mean. When I said to keep submitting I meant to keep emailing work in for inclusion in future issues of &amp— I agree that posting something in the thread shouldn’t necessarily constitute a formal submission, especially since editor-anon isn’t here to keep track of any of it. But, at the same time, at least these posts seem to be a good-faith effort to engage with &amp. When other anons respond by angrily shitting on someone’s work, it just creates an antagonistic back-and-forth that derails the thread even further. So it’s better to encourage posters’ interest in participating in &amp while suggesting that they send their work in through the proper channels instead.

And, like >>20922662 said, editor is MIA and the website is down right now, so no one really knows what’s going on. Despite the details shared in the OP, there’s probably a lot of understandable confusion surrounding the submission process at the moment. It makes sense that people would rather share their work in an active thread than send it off into email purgatory indefinitely.

I guess my opinion is this: if people want to post their works-in-progress in the thread, they shouldn’t do it in lieu of a proper email/website submission. They should do it in order to seek critique/feedback before sending in their “official” emailed submission, and they should be asked to pair their post with with further discussion of &amp (ie. a critique of a previous &amp piece or a list of their suggested favourites from past issues) as a caveat to receiving a response. Perhaps that’s enough of a filter?

[Anonymous No.20923200]

>>20922958
I get the spirit of it, but I think it's still got a backwards order to it. In practice I think it only invites the sort of drive-by posting that I mentioned, especially while things sit in our current limbo. Part of what I liked about &amp is that it forced me to finish things and accept the outcome, though that was more of a self-imposed thing that I doubled down on in not doing it fully anonymously. Like I said before, I think receiving critique after publication is the right way to go about it, partially because it forces some kind of completeness into the pieces, whether they end up good or not. Plus it partially solves the problem of quality control, even if all submissions are taken. Rather than making these threads the dumping ground for WIPs it's the place to discuss the aftermath. And do you want these threads to be host to revisions 1, 2, 3, &etc. or would you rather critique someone has at least declared "finished"? If things are taken prematurely then we invite an indefinite cascade of unfinished works.

I come at this with the bias of trying to put together best-of. I'd rather the current threads (until something about 015 materialises) be staked on that, especially since we've got a large pool of material to draw from. Do we really need a dogpile of anons who haven't even flipped through &amp dumping their incomplete cum poems on us when none of us have anything to do with them? I gotta split, but I think that about sums it up.

[Anonymous No.20923274]

>>20923200
Um. You do realize that the name of the game right now is resilience in art, right? That means crowds, politics of any kind and self expression are allowed for everyone but they must be filtered by the culture of mass appeal. Sadly that's how it is but since we all want to be fucking socialists the art can't be specifically designed for some churchy organization or rich nobles. It has to be more than that, it must defy expectations at a rate that is increasingly demanding because people will immediately judge not only the artwork as a consumer product but also the very ancient ethicist take on aesthetics will be apparent; so everyone has to be on our best fucking behaviour. An anonymous setting as this is unfiltered and lets most things pass but it's good enough because not everyone is going to make it regardless. Right now it is a perfect time for artists to post what they want because there is a vacuum of literary organization, no one needs to fall in anyone's good graces because there is no one controlling the game and I am HERE for it. Chaos is the source of all, and those who cannot withstand the incomprehensible shall have their enthalpy flux reversed and yes...be consumed by entropy.

Madriiax iadanamad, solpeth ge lava.

[Anonymous No.20923327]

>>20922958
I agree, we have time to develop an actual voice. Right now what is happening in this board reminds me of what was happening in the underground music scene during the late '80s and earl '90s of last century. Sure, there's always been authors writing to God Himself but in this situation I find that there is a synthesis between the classically informed and the more informal writers.

An example of what I mean is perhaps this album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnqjxwDV8Uc

It follows a narrative structure and an understanding of voice leading in music at a theoretical level but the way in which it is presented is not the usual classical setting, all the pieces for it are there but its literary analog would be good quality pulp perhaps but my point is that we are not likely to end up with the desired transcendent art if we force it. Let's let nature take its course first, stop worrying about who gets published or who posts what when and where. The internet is democratizing at an alarming rate, the amount of stupidity overflowing it and making it an incoherent tower of Babel is growing exponentially and the notion that everyone can be an artist is going through it as well. So I suggest we simply adapt and hope editoranon gives us a sign of life...if not, we shall hope not to fail him or her.

[Anonymous No.20923348]

>>20923200
> I gotta split

where are u going? we all know u have zero social life mane

[Anonymous No.20924041]

>>20912226
I notice that over time the quality of each edition seems to improve. With most starred reccs clustering in the most recent issues. Nice to see the mag pick up momentum! If the trend continues better writers will be encouraged to submit and it will be a virtuous cycle. Over time the content might even become halfway decent!

[Anonymous No.20924151]

>>20924041
issue 11 and 12 were great.

[Anonymous No.20924187]

anyone here good at graphic design? i was wondering if any of the anons in this thread have submitted visual art to &amp. while we're waiting for the best-of list to near completion, let's talk about the visual aspect of &amp, and, in accordance with the current central topic of these threads, of the best-of issue.

[Anonymous No.20924227]

>>20923348
Every Wednesday night I go downtown to piss on the floors of public bathrooms. On Thursdays I do it in a dress.

>>20924041
I think the starring comes from visibility: recent issues are still on people's minds, so they're discussed more. And I started contributing in issue 010, so my awareness of the magazine mostly follows from that point forward. Regardless, look at how many more favourites are listed from 001-008 compared to afterwards. It's certainly not a uniform opinion that &amp has improved in quality--I've seen anons say the opposite.

>>20924187
My interest is in making the best-of a little more subdued with simpler, consistent typography (partially because I don't have editor's design skills). I think this suits the ideal of being an issue dedicated to the true "meat" of &amp, which is the written material. Someone earlier suggested going with a typewriter-inspired monospace font. Double columns. I'd like there to maybe be simple illustrations or photographs to accompany pieces (I draw, and another anon offered help with illustrations). Prussia got back to me and offered to help with design.

I had the idea that we might borrow some elements from the Futuba/Yotsuba themes, incorporating the colours and/or fonts subtly, but I don't want it to be too on the nose. Pic related is a very rough idea for what I mean.

Sometimes the format of certain pieces was better than others (some not so great pieces were uplifted by good design work as well), so I'd like it to be fairly uniform for the best-of, letting the pieces speak for themselves, so to speak.

[Anonymous No.20924299]

>>20924227
i see. how about something like this?

[Anonymous No.20924306]

>>20924299
maybe the top margin's a bit too wide, actually. noticed it immediately after posting

[Anonymous No.20924419]

>>20924299
I dig it, you did a good job, though the more I look at both examples the more blatant it feels. Too referential? I dunno. I'm not sure I want the best-of to just be a "4chan thing", might undersell it. I'll mess around with more style ideas when I get the chance.

[Anonymous No.20924502]

>>20924419
>I'm not sure I want the best-of to just be a "4chan thing", might undersell it.
you're right. i might also try to think of more layout ideas, if you're okay with it; i don't want to bother/hinder you

[Anonymous No.20924592]

>>20924502
just one more before you get back.

[Anonymous No.20925120]

couldn't help myself. i did some more between classes. it's the most fun i've had this week.
i'll bump with these.

[Anonymous No.20925123]

another one in the same vein, just to illustrate the basic idea:

[Anonymous No.20925129]

and here's another one. this is all i did. all criticism welcome. i champion the low-brow

[Anonymous No.20925614]

>>20924592
>>20925120
>>20925123
>>20925129
These are sweet, anon. I'm not sure if there'll be room to give each piece a separate title page, especially since a lot of the pieces fall on the short side, but I like the style you went for. Have you shot me an email before?

[Anonymous No.20925646]

Proven Until Guilty Innocent, &amp issue 008


>>20925129
It shouldn't be square and im not a fan of the faint lines of &amps but otherwise this looks the best.
>>20925123
really appreciate the itch.io aesthetic on this one
>>20925120
this is too serious for the schizo pieces and too schizo for the serious ones

[Anonymous No.20925692]

>>20925614
thanks, anon. i haven't emailed you, but i think we've interacted before. just to be clear, are you the one who's running the google doc for the best-of candidates?

>>20925646
not too sure what itch.io is, but i liked the desert one too.
i don't think the images of the sandwhich or the man o' war are in the public domain, but the desert picture is! i can do a higher-res1, 8.5x11' version of it too, but i don't know if there's a desert-related entry in the candidates list. maybe phantom tollbooth, unless i'm remembering incorrectly.
the main aim was to scribble around and see what kind of look we'd be going for. for these i just used whatever was on my laptop. obviously we want to use images that are somehow relevant to the pieces!
i want to clarify: is it the man o' war itself or the general aesthetic that's too schizo?

i believe we CAN do a separate title page for each entry if we sort of "template-ise" them. i'm thinking a uniform, "standardized" aesthetic would be best? for example, idea 4 (>>20925129) is the easiest to "mass-produce!" it's just text on a background.

sorry for rambling; looking forward to more discussion.


1 the original is insanely high-res. it's 5,700 × 5,900 pixels and takes up like 112 MB.

[Anonymous No.20925702]

>>20925692
Yea, the list guy is me. [e-mail]

>>20925646
Want this on the list?

[Anonymous No.20925708]

>>20925702
oh yeah. i sort of helped with the list a little bit.

[Anonymous No.20925712]

>>20925708
to clarify, i'm >>20925692, not >>20925692. whew.

[Anonymous No.20925716]

>>20925712
holy shit i'm sorry. i'm too goddamn sleep deprived. i'm 20925692

[Anonymous No.20925869]

>>20924227
>Someone earlier suggested going with a typewriter-inspired monospace font. Double columns. I'd like there to maybe be simple illustrations or photographs to accompany pieces (I draw, and another anon offered help with illustrations).

I'm the anon who suggested this in a previous thread:
>I was thinking black-and-white, with the selected pieces reformatted in a sort of retro monospace typesetting, like something printed from an old typewriter. We could try to include hand-drawn illustrations and sketches, or even hand-written letters from the editors and contributors, if people were interested in doing that. Maybe some black-and white photos as well. I draw a little, so I’d definitely contribute to illustrating some stuff.

Maybe the idea is lame, but since so much content in the zine is focused on the internet and the current cultural zeitgeist, it seems to me like it could create a compelling contrast if we were to curate a best-of issue in a format that’s sort of antithetical to that.

I've since repented of the monospace font idea, since the kerning makes it hard to read. But here's a little mock-up I did in Canva, just to give you a sense of what I mean.

[Anonymous No.20925875]

>>20925646
Also, thanks for the screencap. I'm compiling a folder of them on Google Drive, so I'll add yours to the pile. Figure it'll be a little more accessible than forcing people to leaf through &amp to check out the candidates.

[Anonymous No.20925904]

>>20925869
nice drawing, anon!

[Anonymous No.20925907]

BACK FROM THE DEAD.

>>20925869
The contrast is a nice idea, though I also don't want the best-of to totally turn its back on the &amp style--it'd be easy to become indistinguishable from the other /lit/ collaborations, though maybe "mainline" &amp has done enough to make that difference. I agree for a simplified look, though.

Anyway, your mock-up looks good. I think we can play around with visuals per-piece anyway. We can keep the typography consistent while trying to make the illustrations fit while catching some of that zesty essence o' &amp.

[Anonymous No.20925925]

>>20912221
>the pandemic year (COVID-19: supplier of the court by royal appointment) [p23]
this one really stuck with me

[Anonymous No.20925939]

>>20925925
That's pic-related, right? I'll bump it up from grey status.

[Anonymous No.20925961]

>>20925907
YES!

[Anonymous No.20926012]

>>20925904
lol, not my own work— it’s just a sketch I ripped from Canva. There’s no way I could draw a hand that well. I don’t have any photos of my own art right now (besides one of a pencil self-portrait that I did a while back, but I won’t subject you all to that). When I get back to home base in a few days I’ll have access to my sketchbook again, so I’ll try to post something then.

>>20925907
Glad the site’s back up! Also I see what you mean about not wanting to lose the essence of &amp— it was just an idea, anyway. I know the mock-up isn’t the best in terms of font choice and everything (I really like >>20925646’s iteration—which font did you use?) but I just wanted to post something quickly. And including some sort of handwritten/hand-drawn elements is what I’m most interested in, because it’s a way of giving anons the option to contribute something personal to the best-of, and adding some new elements to the already established text content. Anyway, I haven’t got much time today, but I’ll make some more mock-ups and experiment with some different styles later.

[Anonymous No.20926129]

Not best of &amp related, although the samples above look good, but just wanted to mention something from last week’s thread. Some anons were having an interesting convo about American Psycho there, so I decided to read the book over the weekend. I didn’t expect it to have such an emotional impact on me.

I’d really like to discuss it further if those anons are still around. Or maybe I’ll make a new thread and link it here, but I feel like every American Psycho-specific thread seems to attract losers who circlejerk over the more fucked up scenes while entirely ignoring the complex ideas that the book contains. Don’t really feel like fending off a cohort of edgelords who wanna talk about how they feel a soul-deep affinity for Bateman’s perversion, ya dig?

[Anonymous No.20926143]

Something tells me editoranon was observing us from a distance the whole time.

[Anonymous No.20926177]

>>20926143
what do you mean?

[Anonymous No.20926181]

>>20926143
like in a social experiment sort of way?

[Anonymous No.20926201]

>>20926012
lmao >>20925646 is ripped straight from the magazine.

>>20926143
I feel like the fucker is gonna come in here and rapture us.

>>20926129
I dig. I worry a little about derailing the thread, but it helps keep it bumped anyway. I liked the discussions going on before, and I'm a big fan of the novel. What'd you take from it?

[Anonymous No.20926318]

>>20925939
yep

[Anonymous No.20926808]

>>20925869
>but since so much content in the zine is focused on the internet and the current cultural zeitgeist
a lot of the ones on the list arent i think. and whatever it is it should have cohesion and should be tasteful, so im totally for it being simple but maye black on white is too devoid of color.

[Anonymous No.20926891]

>>20926129
I was one of those anons, the one drawing comparisons to Dostoevsky (notice Ellis quotes him in the intro). Im busy this week but glad you read it too and yeah honestly I thought it was moving also. I know anons are doing a /lit/ reads Tolstoy now, after recently Ulysses but I wonder how many would enjoy /lit/ reads AP? Everybody knows the memes but its more than that, perhaps my favorite postmodern work.

[Anonymous No.20926971]

I just realized Eggplant reminded me of To the Lighthouse, at least thematically. I wonder what my book will remind readers of?

[Anonymous No.20927349]

>>20925907
>BACK FROM THE DEAD.
Is this Frankenstein's Adam or editor anon?

[Anonymous No.20927485]

>>20927349
Oh the website.

[nesmer !XfgPwJA7M6 No.20928113]

&bump

[Anonymous No.20928271]

>>20898396
I submitted a short a while back that y’all didn’t add like you said you would and whoever I was dealing with ghosted me when I asked about it

[Anonymous No.20928294]

>>20898396
I submitted this a hike back but don’t think it ever made it in.

https://geovansz.blogspot.com/?m=1

[Anonymous No.20928314]

>>20928271
>y'all
It's pretty much one dude, and join the club. Nobody has heard from editor in a couple months, and even as a regular contributor he and I only chatted a little via email. Chances are he just missed your email or there was a change in editors at the time, so don't get pissed. I wouldn't take it personally.

>>20928294
It's in 005.

Do either of you actually read &amp?

[Anonymous No.20928669]

>>20928314
>Do either of you actually read &amp
Skim, then read what seems interesting

[Anonymous No.20929231]

>>20928314
Oh is it? Ok well that’s cool he still missed my last one but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Just made me less confident in the whole process.

[Anonymous No.20929697]

bump

[Anonymous No.20929894]

hello editor are you here yet? I miss you :/

[Anonymous No.20930388]

>>20928113
this is sinister

[Anonymous No.20930562]

>>20930388
Before writing Eggplant, Ogden Nesmer experimented with the horror genre through baked goods. His early work, Rhubarb, was deeply unsettling.

[Anonymous No.20930856]

>>20930562
Why so much horror from 4chan? I've seen Egregore (or however you spelled it) multiple times. Do people really read horror?

[Anonymous No.20931544]

>>20930856
It’s one of the most popular genres

[Anonymous No.20931703]

whats the deadline of the best of looking like?

[Anonymous No.20932114]

>>20931703
Planning for mid-September, but I have no set deadline. Wouldn't wanna go later than that. The candidate list is starting to look pretty full/complete, so soon I'll start organising and pruning and sheit. Want to see how thick each category is at this stage. I've been saying I'll get screencaps of the candidates posted for review somewhere as a final stage of the list. After that will be editing and typesetting.

[Anonymous No.20932741]

>>20930856
Those are the only two horror novels I know of that /lit/ has birthed. I wouldn't say it's very much. Anyway, Ogden browses these threads. Ask him.

[Anonymous No.20932952]

Editor-kun confirmed alive and working!

[Anonymous No.20933098]

>>20932952
Nice! Does that mean we pause the RIP / best of issue till later?

[Anonymous No.20933106]

>>20933098
Hell nah, I ain't stoppin for nobody. Wasn't meant as an end to &amp anyway, I just wanted to collect all the really good shit. From a few conversations editor was on board with it anyway, but that was before I ever started for real.

[Anonymous No.20933211]

>>20933106
Ah gotcha. Hell yeah.

[Anonymous No.20933246]

>>20932952
You're not just trying to give us false hope, are you anon?

[Anonymous No.20933669]

>>20933246
I would never. I'm just a humble messenger getting the word out as I was instructed to.

[Anonymous No.20933758]

>>20932952
&amp is coming

[Anonymous No.20934374]

>>20932741
There's another one called Xeno something I forgot what it was. Coverart is really dark.

[Anonymous No.20935037]

>>20932952
huge if true
large if veritable

[Anonymous No.20935224]

how about something like this? i liked what >>20925869 said:
>since so much content in the zine is focused on the internet and the current cultural zeitgeist, it seems to me like it could create a compelling contrast if we were to curate a best-of issue in a format that’s sort of antithetical to that.
https://imgur.com/a/Sg44RFZ

[Anonymous No.20935274]

>>20935224
why the imgur link? post it as a JPG or PNG

[Anonymous No.20935300]

>>20935274
2 reasons:
a. the images were both larger than 4mb and i was too lazy to compress them
b. i didn't want to double post (there are two versions)

[Anonymous No.20935317]

>>20935300
they look exactly the same??

[Anonymous No.20935335]

>>20935317
there's a minor texture difference, unless i fucked up bad and uploaded the same image twice. let me check.
yeah no they're different. the second one is patterned with vertical lines. i know it's a minor thing but it makes a big difference. at least to me it does. i might be biased because i was staring at it for like 15 minutes

[Anonymous No.20935446]

looks like we’re looking at a mid-sept release date, gang.

[Anonymous No.20935581]

>>20926201
> What'd you take from it?

I guess the biggest thing I took from it was (as another anon mentioned in the last thread) the sense of profound isolation. Even though Bateman was constantly around other people— at work, at social events—he seemed totally alone, as though no one cared about him beyond wanting some sort of financial/social benefit. It conveyed this idea that love, or more broadly, genuine human connection, is terrifying to people in this postmodern hyper-individualist hellscape. Even if you’d like to have some sort of meaningful closeness with others, you can’t, and so it’s futile to even try. It’s like that scene where Bateman imagines the child in the desert dying of thirst and starvation. Maybe that’s depressing, but in a way it feels true. To actually be vulnerable enough to connect with someone else requires a huge degree of risk, and why risk losing control for the sake of some other? Being alone is painful, but it’s easier than making futile efforts that would only be thwarted.

The depictions of relationships and sex in the novel really disturbed me. Sex—the most intimate, tender physical expression of closeness—was just warped into the pursuit of a crude, fleeting sensory high, that gradually devolved into increasing violence and depravity. For Bateman it became a way of emotionally distancing himself from everything and engaging in more and more perversion and cruelty, treating his partners with contempt and reducing them to objects to be toyed with, tortured, and consumed. Not to be all “we live in a society” but that is, in a way, an exaggerated reflection of the transactional, exploitative nature of so many relationships.

That scene when Bateman’s secretary confesses her love to him at brunch really got to me. Also the chapter Confronted by Faggot, where Luis follows and approaches Bateman at the shop. Not sure why I was so affected by those scenes in particular, but it was almost a feeling of second-hand embarrassment. I guess those two characters were the only ones who seemed to care about Bateman in a non-transactional way and wanted to actually know him, even if Jean was mistaken about his true nature and Luis was deluded in imagining that Bateman could return his feelings. Maybe the idea that being vulnerable enough to confess those feelings of love is an expression of weakness or naivety, in a way? Idk exactly, but there’s something poignant about that.

[Anonymous No.20935883]

>>20926201
>>20926181
>>20926177
This is the only underground in literature I know of.

>>20935581
This made me want to purchase and read Only Death is Real. Thanks

[Anonymous No.20936042]

Somewhere I read that Mr. Ellis himself later admitted that he was not so much satirizing Wall St. and the seeming emptiness abound in it nor his father or anyone other than himself.


> Sex—the most intimate, tender physical expression of closeness—was just warped into the pursuit of a crude, fleeting sensory high, that gradually devolved into increasing violence and depravity.

Human connection is an overrated risk considering the instances of abuse, people hiding bizarre psychopathic tendencies, boring and stupid people we idealize temporarily whom we give a shot. All in all I don't think that sex is the most intimate thing you can do. I would tell you to go "have sex, incel" but I think that extreme chastity is the other face of the same coin that most people flip to promiscuity. Heads or tails? Why does it matter? It's better to conquer all that you know than willingly make yourself the sandman of a moral system that humanity has always shun. I've tried the celibate nice guy thing and believe me, it's an absolute scam nowadays. I think that if you got 'em you should smoke 'em. Sex is never not violence and depravity, to bring life on this garbage heap should tell you that we're probably more than fallen and enticed by material goods. That there is the real thesis of American Psycho in my opinion, an implicit subfiction that points to the existence of evil aliens that have conspired to transmute the rational essence of virility into what the Tao Te Ching called the 'Myriad of Things' and the solution to this alien invasion seems to be an escape into a technological paradise and starve the aliens out.

Human connection is as artificial as the art inspired by it, Hell is a real place and it is right here where we stand. Authors don't have to have a certain social stance on matters that we have been indoctrinated to disagree with. In fact, a true author like Ellis must know the profound feeling of NOT wanting to be an author, because it is easier work to make a fuckton of money at a bank or a law firm or hedge fund than selling books! This divide where the cool bohemian types are artists who are enlightened and the boring corporatocracy that consists of oppressive men who are stuck in the 50s is FOLLY you mark my words, future generations will think of XX Century America as nothing lesser than Atlantis and sadly just like them we will destroyed ourselves by refusing to acknowledge where true greatness lies.

Critiquing is fine but vulnerability is a damn privilege. People in the West don't starve enough to realize that most people in the world don't get to do that shit because there's work to do with abusive governments in dangerous lands showing vulnerability is the same as signing your own death certificate.

"Privacy and intimacy as we know it
Will be a memory
Among many to be passed down
To those who never knew"

It's already fuckin' happening my brother. May God find us all one day.

[Anonymous No.20936053]

>>20935224
I like both of these, but I think we should stay away from texturing and coloured backgrounds if we're going to keep physical printing in mind. The layout and illustration are both really good though, apart from the margins. The bottom text gets really close to the edge of the page, which makes it difficult to read, plus in print there's likely to be some cut-off near the edge of the page (early &amp threads had some schematics and discussion about how to deal with this).

[Anonymous No.20936267]

>>20936042
>>20926201
>>20936042

Let me clarify. I don't think the act of having sex is violent and depraved. I think conception is an atrocious act of violence, though. It can't be corrected with abortion, according to Ernst Jünger unfortunately the age of the Last Man is over, to this I add that we're at a point where suburbia has decayed and there is nothing left to fight for. I genuinely think that suburbia was more privileged than any king could ever dream of except for the fact that it was too inconvenient for the elites to have a middle class. In some places, the politicians have gnarlier pasts than any slutty bitch could spread her legs at! I'm talking mass murder type shit and yet over here we worry about building a nest over the one we already live in...My God I swear if the world doesn't end soon we're gonna' live through shit that will. Just don't try to be like your parents who were the ones who voted for fucking idiots like Biden and the bad orange man.

Incels don't realize what hearts of gold some of the girls they talk shit on have, I'd rather a kiss from one of them than anyone stupid enough to blame them for wanting to enjoy life. Imagine having to choose between happy go lucky, fun loving Riley Reid and some asexual moralist Churchcel. If you reject the former for the latter because the former is 'crazy' I am sad to inform you whoever wants to control what another person does with their genitalia is even crazier and you're the fucking craziest one for thinking that person isn't going to do that with you...I'm sorry but I'm not sorry...not one bit.

Fuck school and fuck jannies.

[Anonymous No.20936395]

>>20935446
man, good for him making his bag
editor-sama, if you're reading this, all the best (and I hope you're getting paid overtime)

[Anonymous No.20936426]

>>20936267
>nothing left to fight for
There are some insular communities out there that arent really experiencing any of that. They are particularly interesting for me to write about because everything that seems to be hopelessly shipwrecked has not even entered the minds of some people.

[Anonymous No.20936468]

>>20936053
thanks for all the feedback. everything you said is absolutely correct. i hadn't even considered printing. i think another problem is the size of the main text. it has to be smaller. i had a feeling i was pushing it too low, and i made it worse by increasing the font size for readability.
the texturing was to kind of hide the lower quality of the illustration of the hand, but i think i should focus more on coming up with a "template" rather than a final product.

so i redid it just a little bit:
https://imgur.com/a/3QUW4KT
now, i know you're gonna be a bit disappointed, but i'm too addicted to the noise filter. imgur stifles the grain a bit; it's more apparent when uncompressed.

[Anonymous No.20936488]

>mid september for issue 015
How much time do I have to submit one more thing, one week?

[Anonymous No.20936500]

>>20936468
>https://imgur.com/a/3QUW4KT
damn it. i just realized that i forgot entirely about the left margins. oh well. it's an easy fix.
also, if you like this template, i might post multiple samples that demonstrate two different ways to include illustrations (one of them might be a bit more printer heavy than the other). but seeing as best-of-anon wants to get it out before mid-september, we might just have to drop illustrations entirely.

[Anonymous No.20936505]

>>20935446
My story better be in it, editor. If it isn't, I swear to fucking God, I will do absolutely nothing. Mark my fucking words.

[Anonymous No.20936519]

>>20936426
No, not insular. Mainstream, you're just not understanding that all the left wing and feminist fights of the '60s and onward were won but humans are never happy. Nothing left to fight for is good, stupid people no appreciating that is bad.

[Anonymous No.20936596]

>>20936519
That image is literally me, though. I climbed out of the doomer pit years back.

[Anonymous No.20936770]

>>20936596
Yeah I'm glad you've found the true pill memes now. There's more like this on 4chan archives, archive.org, etc. just search "Greenpill Comics" I was always a fan of these, especially early in college and such they provided my friends and I with some laughs and occasional insights. Thankfully I always had my older bros to sort me out as well.

I don't understand the whole dooming stuff but social media does push some very demoralizing stuff like mgtow porn addicts, red pilled divorcees, alphabet males, etc. I'm glad you've overcome the doomer nonsense, we all get down in the dumps sometimes y'know? Sex isn't everything let me assure you of that, I think that if the species is to continue its existence, we have to understand our own sexual selection patterns and not make ourselves think that we have slipped into a Hobbesian state of nature; the reason for this is that while I do believe there is a spiritual war within mankind, the defeated will always claim victory when it's not the case at all. By this I mean that freaks have always existed and have always been obsessed with power, when they do reproduce it's awful but again, it's up to us to fight back and make better humans ourselves. Jesus brought a sword, not peace. Doom not, rejoice that you were made a monster.

[Anonymous No.20936997]

>>20936770
i'm not too sure what exactly you guys are talking about and i wish you the best, but the first paragraph of this post is so fucking funny to me for no reason

[Anonymous No.20937116]

>>20936770
preaching hope is evil. life is suffering

[Anonymous No.20937197]

>>20937116
NTA but I believe life is suffering but I'm tired of imagining I know what happens next, despite how prophetic human experience seems to be.
In regard to &amp, I'm editing that flash fiction I mentioned before.

[Anonymous No.20937966]

>>20937197

>>20937116 doesn't know what yet let's give him time.

Captcha: G4SH8

[Anonymous No.20938039]

>>20936997
I wish you the best too.

[Anonymous No.20938148]

>>20936997
This post (>>20935581)
was about American Psycho. The responses (>>20936042, >>20936267
>>20936770) were a bunch of uninteresting, incoherent, nonsensical rambling riddled with conspiracy theories, ignorance, distasteful misogyny, and false and illogical assumptions. Anyone else who actually wants to share their cogent thoughts about Ellis’ work, please continue the conversation. But >>20936770? Fuck off. Stop derailing the thread with your inane monologues, because your opinions are totally worthless and nobody here has any interest in reading more of your bullshit.

[Anonymous No.20938163]

>>20938148
based, im so fuckin sick of this retarded schizo

[Anonymous No.20938629]

Editor here. I got really busy at work and I forgot the password to the email and domain host payment site. I am also going to prison for putting copies of call of the crocodile in public libraries. Apparently that holds a hefty sentence of 17 years to life. I am fucked. Cannot afford a lawyer. Go on without me. I give full permission to use the name “&amp” “&amp by /lit/“ and renounce all holds on copyright or trademark that I have. It is now in a creative commons space, similar to scp. That is all.

[Anonymous No.20938925]

>>20938629
>It is now in a creative commons space, similar to scp. That is all.
all content in &amp has always been in the public domain.

[Anonymous No.20939011]

>>20938629
>forgot to pay
>website is up
Then who was phone

[Anonymous No.20939022]

>>20938148
I woke up from an american psycho nightmare just now. Me and my friend were IN the movie but the kills were a bit different (there was one where he choked a fat guy in a pool with the seperation ropes for example) and my friend was Bateman and I was the victim and when it was time for the first kill I said okay I know youre going to kill me but can we still skip this part? And he laughed and grinned sinisterly and said no and then he killed me and then it was my turn to be Bateman so I killed who I had to kill and that was it. Barely a nightmare really, altough nightmares are still bad karma, but its still annoying that my dreams are being influenced by fucking 4chan posts.

[Anonymous No.20939072]

>>20939022
Get the fuck out of this thread, faggot

[Anonymous No.20939091]

>>20939072
What did I do?

[Anonymous No.20939601]

>>20935581
i also found those two scenes you mentioned impactful. it was strange bc confronted by faggot was almost comedic on the surface, but it was also deeply sad.

[Anonymous No.20939944]

>>20939601
Yeah, there definitely was a comedic element to it, especially when Luis was grabbing onto Bateman’s legs while he tried to extricate himself. But that almost made it more upsetting somehow? I don’t know.

[Anonymous No.20940349]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20940357]

>>20940349
death bump

[Anonymous No.20940684]

>>20935581
He says autobiographical twice
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/47587-american-psycho-at-20-catching-up-with-bret-easton-ellis.html

[Anonymous No.20940708]

I like the state my flash fic is in but can critique anon give me an impression next week? I feel like my writing is improved but I swear sometimes I never know what will set a reader off.
I use bigger, dramatic words with this one. Trying to capture how I feel about irony and sarcasm.

[Anonymous No.20940713]

>>20940708
He's told people to just email him if they want a critique. [e-mail] is him.

[Anonymous No.20940770]

Oh boy I'm going to post my smelly man story then

[Anonymous No.20941035]

>>20940708
>>20940770
Post pastebin

[Anonymous No.20941356]

>>20940684
Okay, but I don’t think that his statements about the autobiographical nature of the work render any of my thoughts invalid. In the same interview, he says:

> Patrick Bateman seems to embody something about masculinity that was blooming at a certain point in the late '80s to early '90s... A lot of it had to do with my frustration with having to become an adult and what it meant to be an adult male in American society… There's got to be something universal about him and what he's going through—regardless of how autobiographical and personal I felt it was. Obviously, what I was feeling was what a lot of other people were feeling.

Ellis also explicitly states elsewhere in the interview that he wrote the book as a black comedy/social satire, so I don’t think that it’s a stretch for me to suggest that elements of the book are relevant to society today.

Anyway, anything personal and autobiographical is still going to be connected to the larger world in some way, because the causes of people’s personal pain aren’t unique. Personal suffering is caused by a variety of social and cultural factors, not just by exclusively individual experiences. Ellis said he wrote the book at “a stage in (his) life where (he) felt very lost and confused about what the future was going to mean…” which is a personal sentiment that I would say taps into a part of the universal human experience.

To end, I’ll say that the author’s retrospective statements in interviews shouldn’t be the deciding factor that dictates whether the reader’s interpretation of the text is “correct” or not. Although it’s interesting to consider what personal factors influenced Ellis’ writing, the book stands on its own as a cultural/literary work and should be interpreted based on what it actually contains, not based on Ellis’ comments in an interview two decades later. Consider the essay “The Death of the Author”— it’s somewhat flawed, but nonetheless a useful perspective to consider when interpreting literature.

[Anonymous No.20941727]

>>20935446
cool, looking forward to seeing my essay in print

>>20933106
any updates on that? ive got some favorites if you still want em

>>20936500
i like the new version the best. simple but has some nice touches to it

>>20936042
>>20936267

>>20935581 is absolutely right. saying that sex should be an intimate thing isnt an incel talking point. take it from someone whos had a lot of casual sex and is now in a LTR: the former is good in the moment but leaves you feeling empty and gross. its not worth much. sex is far better w/ someone you love, who knows you well and cares for you. thats when the vulnerability comes in.

maybe youd rather kiss a slut like Riley Reid. but if youre looking for someone to share your life with youre an outright fool if youd pick a literal porn star over a “moralistic” girl who goes to church. nothing wrong with having had a sexual past within reason, but fucking countless guys on camera for money isnt harmless fun that shows a girl likes to enjoy life and has a heart of gold. its a huge red flag, and any chick who does it is seriously messed up and mentally disturbed. girls who disdain that kind of life arent crazy, theyre smart.

look: you can teach an inexperienced girl to satisfy you sexually, esp if she loves you and wants to please you. but a girl with zero sexual boundaries is guaranteed to be screwed up near-irreversibly. american psycho is about much more than sexual cruelty. but one thing it does well is portray the fucked up mentality of girls like that, and of the equally fucked up men who use them for sex. think the bleak, mechanical sex between bateman and courtney or eleanor. theres a reason that innocence is such a desirable trait in women, and is part of the ideal feminine archetype in so many stories. hence why batemans “innocent” secretary is the only chick in the story who he doesnt decide to use and fuck over or kill.

and vulnerability isnt a privilege. lots of people in “dangerous” developing countries with collectivist cultures have better relationships with their families and friends than people in the cynical and selfish west. opening up to people emotionally isnt something thats only for rich people w/ easy lives. if you think otherwise youre a fucking idiot.

[Anonymous No.20941775]

>>20941727
>any updates on that? ive got some favorites if you still want em
Editing the list right now to give each category its own column, and yes I'm still taking suggestions.

Just post your favourites here, and I'd prefer if people started going through the current list of candidates to declare which they like/dislike. It's getting close to the point when I'd like to prune things, but I'd like more input before doing that. There are a lot of pieces that were recommended by single anons (unstarred entries in black text) that I'd like to have other anons go over. A lot of the poetry recs fall into that category.

I'm fucking with the "real" list right now, so here's a copy of the last clean revision:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wLFCMJYUH1B6-xxhIuy_YaOn38Wr3ciui3juqTf5rT4/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.20941994]

>>20941775
poetry list anon here. the list is a bit overwhelming, though the poems are short. have you checked warosu for people who read the entire issue when it first came out?

[Anonymous No.20941999]

>>20941035
https://pastebin.com/NSy4BTG7
Already sent to atluspherea but I will send to editor-sama by Wednesday. This is based on the /ffa/ prompt "interesting object at the bottom of the sea" but I can't submit to /ffa/ anymore so here it is. I think I did better than "And Over the Town." I just hope someone feels what I'm feeling even if I am still trying too hard.

[Anonymous No.20942048]

>>20941994
Yeah, I've done a few dives through the archives and included/starred a few pieces based on that. Prose stuff generally got more attention, so right now poetry is a bit of blind spot. Might do a more systematic dig tonight, but I've been fairly rigorous already.

I still need to go through and pick out my own favourites, but most that I know of are already populating the list. That'll probably dictate some bumping/pruning of pieces. I'll also try to get some of the anons I've been in contact with via email to do some reviewing if they can.

The updated list is hopefully going to look a little less dense, and (although I've been saying this for a week) I hope I can get screencaps of things posted somewhere so it's easier to review individual pieces. I have a folder here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Nugvttz1ju0OVVMZwn83UgNXdH3V5aS?usp=sharing
but it's mostly stuff that's been starred anyway. I might redo it as PDFs so the rendering and shit is a bit better, but it's gonna be a chore anyway.

[Anonymous No.20942194]

>>20941727
I appreciate you taking the time to actually respond to my hypocrisy. If I didn't know better I'd argue you and >>20935581 but in the depths of me that just doesn't happen, guess I'll never be Bruce Wayne but that's fair, I wouldn't trade my life for anything. That being said I should not project my idiocy on a board I actually like spending time in. Oh and I'll read the novel.

[Anonymous No.20942280]

And for the record. Just so everyone on /lit/ knows, I know the devil personally. I come across hard as fuck but I am in too deep with this art thing to sell my soul to not be an artist. My upbringing is marked by an insistence upon the well-being of a civilization as contingent with healthy shareholder capitalism, but that being said there are unknown reasons as to why the reasons to do so disappeared over time. Perhaps the people who raised me noticed the horrid truth, I simply want to please sometimes but I shouldn't do it at the expense of discussion on this board. If anyone wants to talk more you can find me on these threads pretty often, I usually talk about the metaphysical implications of materialism, Milan Kundera and loud obnoxious music so if any of that is not immediately repulsive to some of you feel confident that we can talk in peace.

[Anonymous No.20942313]

>>20942280
I say "artist" but I mean well, that word gets used with too much disregard lately. Same with "creative" neither really suit me...These words might apply to some of you here but honestly I just needed a placeholder. I just wanna' say I'm sorry guys I just got back from church and the sermon today concerned matters like pornography and dwindling of the Faith among the youth, which I particularly worry about sometimes myself. I wish you all the best and please let me know what I can do to make up my social gaffe.

[Anonymous No.20942350]

>>20942313
>church
Actually for the sake of one story I was writing I attended a Mormon service this morning to understand some the differences in the experience. On surface level it was almost exactly like IFB church, but with different art, a few different words and emphasis. Sunday school felt exactly the same and the discussion on Ecclesiastes was as if they werent Mormons at all. Really interesting seeing as the theology and corporate structure is so wildly different. Its the kind of things you cant really appreciate reading about, seeing it yourself has a bigger impact.

[Anonymous No.20942381]

>>20942350
Man, whenever I'm feeling down I go for Ecclesiasticus. Just simple and logical advice, can't go wrong with it!

[Anonymous No.20942393]

>>20942381
>Ecclesiasticus
You mean the apocryphal one, or Ecclesiastes the canon one?

[Anonymous No.20942405]

>>20942393
Ecclesiasticus is canon in some churches.

[Anonymous No.20942408]

>>20942405
What did Prince Phillip mean when he had this read at his funeral?

[Anonymous No.20942438]

>>20942408
Idk man, something about surviving a car crash in your 90s must hit different.

[Anonymous No.20942514]

>>20942194
how do you have the audacity to think that youre even remotely qualified to criticize someone elses opinions about a book that youve never even read? youre an absolute pseud. the original anon took the time to make a effortpost with interesting observations about scenes in the book that moved him, and you felt entitled to ruin the discussion and shit up the thread with multiple posts containing nothing but masturbatory word vomit. why would your responses please anyone? it sucks that any interesting side convos in these threads get immediately derailed by schizos like you. no one here gives a fuck about your life and backstory. no one wants to talk to you any further. if you want to remedy your gaffe then leave now and stay away from these threads in future. youve now ended the entire thread by making multiple irrelevant posts and starting a pointless one-sentence back and forth thats made us hit the bump limit. do us all a favor and stay out of the new &amp thread if OP makes one. i should never have even wasted my time responding to anything that you said. im only replying now to speak for everyone here as i reiterate what >>20938148 said: fuck off.

>>20926129, you should make a separate american psycho thread and link it here before the thread dies, bc i like the book and i wanna hear more of your thoughts on it. even if itd attract losers, id be at least one person whod respond in earnest, and im sure the other anons here would go and do likewise. and hopefully this moron will have learned his lesson enough to stay out of it.

[Anonymous No.20942590]

NEW THREAD >>20942587

[Anonymous No.20942591]

>>20942514
That sounds like a you problem. Good luck.