{"id":876,"date":"2011-04-04T19:43:42","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T23:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=876"},"modified":"2011-04-04T19:54:57","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T23:54:57","slug":"idealists-at-large","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/miscellaneous\/idealists-at-large\/","title":{"rendered":"Idealists At Large"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Will LoTurco, Tom Connor, and Michael Kochol, editors of .45 Magazine<\/p><\/div>\n

At my local independent bookstore, the UConn Co-op, a group of UConn students gave a reading<\/a> last Thursday to celebrate the publication of a new literary magazine.\u00a0 Welcome to the world, .45 Magazine<\/em>.\u00a0 Tom Connor, one of the spearheading trio who conceived of and edited the project, began with a heartfelt letter about the power of art and how, in a time when many think the print magazine is dying, written art remains real and vibrant.\u00a0 It\u2019s true that when you hold the magazine in your hands, it feels good.\u00a0 The stark black and red woodcut print on the cover of the original first printing has slightly raised, powdery ink you can feel as you puzzle out the image.\u00a0 The contents are equally inviting, a combination of prose, poetry and artwork that is genuine and startling.<\/p>\n

Half a dozen poets and writers read their work, including Claire Kenny, whose poem \u201cBathrooms are Interesting Places\u201d ends with a couple of pithy lines:<\/p>\n

If bathrooms could write poems
\nWe would be pissing in the street.<\/p>\n

Ph.D. candidate D. Michael Jones read his piece \u201cA Dirty Deck of Cards,\u201d which plays with the form of a prose poem as the narrator plays with cards and memories: \u201cI threw the card into the Danube that empties into a Black Sea \u2013 it is bad luck to meet the dead in foreign cities \u2013 heroin addicts \u2013 perverts \u2013 cops \u2013 the living are trouble enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Kochol\u2019s piece about abandoning a stint of self-discipline to remain true to his apathetic self was absurdly comic, and in contrast, Will LoTurco delivered his evocative \u201cTaxidermy Horse\u201d with calm sincerity:<\/p>\n

Please allow four to seven days for delivery,
\nA white mare with a silver mane<\/p>\n

She eats bullets, drinks ripe chardonnay
\nAnd gallops in her sleep<\/p>\n

In daytime, she runs valiantly with
\nRed speckled cavalry<\/p>\n

Through waterloo, through canopies, suburbs
\nAnd up the stairs to the moon, where<\/p>\n

She pounds grooves for the beasts
\nWho have outlived man.<\/p>\n

\"\"Frankly, I was inspired.\u00a0 Most of all, I was blown away by the unapologetic, casual idealism of the three editors, Tom Connor, Will LoTurco and Michael Kochol.\u00a0 Sometimes we\u2019re especially ready to hear a certain message, and I was ready to hear them tell me to write not what I think other people want to read, but what I alone can write honestly, from my heart.<\/p>\n

.45 Magazine<\/em> is on sale at the UConn Co-op<\/a>, and the editors are accepting submissions for the second issue.\u00a0 Submission info is here<\/a>.\u00a0 The editors intend to keep the publication going after graduation, when they move to New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At my local independent bookstore, the UConn Co-op, a group of UConn students gave a reading last Thursday to celebrate the publication of a new literary magazine.\u00a0 Welcome to the world, .45 Magazine.\u00a0 Tom Connor, one of the spearheading trio who conceived of and edited the project, began with a heartfelt letter about the power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}