Stay Horny for Art: A Review of theNewerYork
theNewerYork wants me to “Stay horny for art.” It’s right there on the back cover. Right there on the front cover, a pink-skinned mop-topped nude with rosy cheeks sits open-legged, the subject’s mouth obscured by a stark, black exclamation point which stretches down between the ample breasts and settles betwixt said open legs, barely obscuring whatever genitalia the androgynous figure might possess.
Yes, I am horny for art.
This is “Book 0” of the magazine, and it’s a great way to kick things off. It’s ballsy. Its contents are as androgynous as its cover image. They may be poems, and they may be short stories. They may be accurate quotations from Richard Simmons, or they may be outright lies. Who the hell cares? theNewerYork is less concerned with category, and more concerned with touching its readers inappropriately.
I don’t think that there is a radical idea circulating around the literary community to galvanize a definable and legitimately new avant-garde. The cynic in me might extrapolate from this observation to conclude that there is nothing “new” to be done in the making of literature. With the turn of every page of this Book 0, I am excited by the new stuff I get on every page.
Between these horny bindings, there is a Craigslist “free items” thread about the meaning of life. There are very many upside-down pages. There are instructions on stargazing, diagrams of atoms, God, boogers, badly-defined jellyfish, and bluesy loving no one wants. The remarkable thing is that each page, whether it is Annabel’s letter from Danny or a full-color glossy of a man in an uncomfortable chair, compels this reader forward.
A disclaimer on page one cautions readers to temper their expectations: “You won’t like some of this work.” I disagree; you’ll like all of it, but it’s likely to make you feel just a little dirty. In an afterward, editor JSR admits the work is “all over the place,” which is true to an extent. The magazine is disjointed by design, but all of these weird little literary gems share a common impulse. They’re all exciting, they’re all challenging, and some of them are even beautiful.
theNewerYork is a hell of a project. Issue #2 is out, and I’m pumped for #3. Book 0 was new, and I have every confidence that Issue #3 will be even newer.
