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Editorial In
just one year The Wheneverly has firmly established its reputation as the
most exciting new literary magazine to appear in Paris since Henry Miller took
out his glass eye during a cocktail party to impress Anais Nin, and ended up in
bed with Gertrude Stein. It was
soon after this that he left the country, forever. The
Wheneverly does not make any compromises.
We only publish the highest quality stories and saturated-fat recipes to
keep you on the cutting edge of contemporary experimental literature and
cuisine. We are firmly opposed to
any attempt to identify our cynical, bloodthirsty and fun-loving generation with
any letter of the alphabet. We know
what we want and are prepared to wait until someone gets around to giving it to
us. This
issue brings together writers from 4 continents (from downtown Auckland -yawn-
to uptown Philadelphia -yuck-) in a collection that has virtually no coherence
whatsoever. Yes! we believe in
heterogeneity and other oppressed sexualities, and will continue to fight for
equal rights for all (as long as they are subscribers). In
spite of the large amount of revenue generated by institutional subscriptions,
we have kept to the same modest format. No
amount of glossy paper can replace pure imaginative content.
Money atrophies the brain, weakens the spirit, and clutters up the
drawers in your desk. This is why you, too, should get out your checkbooks and
subscribe for yourself and all your friends now. Ten year subscription applications go before a special
committee with an almost 100% acceptance rate. The
continued health of the magazine depends on the amount of good wine and food
ingested by the editorial staff (hence the need for funds), and the continued
submission of stories, poetry and
any other combination of words that you can invent that we consider worthy of
printing whenever. Generations of
young artistic people have come to Paris in the mistaken belief that this was a
cultural mecca. Generations of
young artistic people have ended up drinking cheap red wine in filthy garrets,
and paying exorbitant rents to arrogant landlords while the rain filters slowly
down onto the leaden roofs spread beneath them. All of them caught the Paris flu. Nevertheless, generations of young artistic people also need
something to plug up the cracks in the windows and the space under the door -
hence The Wheneverly. We
are not proud, nor are we politically correct.
We believe in art which can not only be appreciated by the masses, but
also bought by them. This is at the
heart of our philosophy. We also
believe in the information superhighways. Soon,
The Wheneverly will have its own site on the WorldWide Web.
A laptop computer in every baby's mouth and a baby's mouth on every
screen, this is what we call progress. Plug-'n-play,
that's the future. Massive
information overload. High-speed
transfer of emotions. Flashing
electronic literature. Virtual
Light. Virtual Thought. Virtually
Everything. Whenever... J.B. Paris, June 1995 |