I received two new magazines in one week and, very superficially, they looked oddly similar, although they are quite different in many ways and both maybe quite unique.
The Oystercatcher is the brainchild, or lovechild of Ron Sakolsky and he produces it every year, officially on the First of May. 2023 brings us up to issue 20 and I really hope he continues for many more years because it is very worthwhile. Ron situates The Oystercatcher fairly and squarely within the contemporary surrealist movement and from an avowedly anarchist perspective. It contains rants, reviews and more considered articles by Joel Gayraud, Penelope Rosemont and others. There are illustrations by Janice Hathaway, Rik Lina, Steven Cline, Guy Girard and others, including a very small one by John Welson.
Welson also makes an appearance in 'Patastrophe!, a rather more significant one, taking up a whole page., along with other surrealist luminaries including Doug Campbell, Jay Blackwood and John Richardson (who also appears in Oystercatcher, so I'm sure I could have made a better segue...never mind...)
'Patastrophe! is the journal/zine of Surrealerpool, which is a sort of meeting point for varied surrealists, 'pataphysicians and others, and I must admit I originally approached it with some doubts as to what it was intended to be. Anybody who knows me or has followed this blog will know I can get a bit exercised at stuff that purports to represent surrealism but fails to understand where surrealism is coming from in any way. My feeling is that 'Patastrophe! has very little interest in representing itself as some kind of official surrealist publication and intends to remain somewhat eclectic and quite fun. It sometimes, but not always, does this well. As an interface between surrealism, 'pataphysics and general weirdness it works well enough, with some high points and few low points too. It is well produced and illustrated, occasionally suffering from a what seems to me at any rate to be a self-conscious eccentricity that grates a bit. For instance, the article "Clarimonde - A Lost Weimar Film?" is so very obviously nothing of the kind, it feels a little embarrassing in its pretence. If one is going to write a spoof, one needs to be more convincing I think. The supposed film still of Clarimonde doesn't belong to the 1920s, but very obviously shows a modern woman dressed in Goth fashion. They provide a link to the film, (Clarimonde.website) and I have to say that it is, in its own terms, a successful and poetic interpretation of a story by Theophile Gautier, constructed of still photographs, and presumably made on a zero budget.
Two profile pieces are, by themselves, sufficient to make the purchase of this issue worthwhile as far as I'm concerned, one on Arthur Adamov, absurdist playwright and occasional participant in surrealism, and Jean Ferry, an important but too little known surrealist.
There's a good deal to be gleaned from both publications, I was fascinated by Abigail Susik's interview with the anarchist Ben Morea in Oystercatcher. It is in fact Part 2, the first part published a year ago and I'd forgotten, so obviously I need to look at the previous issue. Abigail's presence is felt in a review of "Resurgence! Jonathan leake, Radical Surrealism and the Resurgence Youth Movement 1964-1967" edited by Abigail Susik and published by the Eberhardt Press. I have my copy, but have not had time to read it yet. The effect is that these two magazines have done quite a lot to keep me busy over the next few weeks as I catch up with my reading, that must be a sign of a good publication, surely?
Oystercatcher #20 can be obtained from:
Ron Sakolsky/The Oystercatcher, A-4062 Wren Road,Denman Island, BC Sla-Dai-Aich/Taystayic, Canada V0R 1T0
email: oystercatcher@uniserve.com
'Patastrophe! #7 can be obtained from:
surrealerpool@gmail.com or from their ebay shop: https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/lamoncrans
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