So good...

The drama teacher in heaven.

Related

Here's a preliminary report of content either already gathered or in the works for AWKWARD issue 2:

- Sublimely suggestive photography from the tender tendrils of Amelia Anderson, who is currently residing somewhere in the high hills of China, probably taking pictures that will make you cry.

Here's a small sample of some of Amelia's work to whet your whistle;

No Face

Untitled

- An interview with my favorite contemporary Norwegian oil painter Charlotte Jonsmyr.  Readers can expect the conversation to span subjects in equal parts obscure, disturbing, erotic, retarded, anti-ecclesiastical and of course painterly. Image samples of Charlotte's superb work will be ready and waiting for your sordid gaze.

- At least one beautiful and complex pen illustration by Florence Poppy Deary of AWKWARD issue 1 and 'that-girl-that-works-at-the-Cobbet' fame.

- A second cartoon strip contribution from borderline arch-angel and pioneer of fledgling breathing technique Tai Chi Accordian - Toby Dyter. Early reports suggest that the cartoon may or may not revolve around ideas involving The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, fleas and hedgehogs.... no, I cannot wait to read that either!

- Something or other from beglittered sculpture artist Carl Gent, whose recent installation The Universe Is Poisonous provoked many a bemused and fascinated onlooker to stop and ponder the very air they were breathing (between gulps of free wine) at the recent UCCA Farnham degree show. The piece itself consisted of a rusty wire cage, about the size of a giant victorian wardrobe, wherein a small flock of bright yellow canaries were lightly fluttering in that delicate, palpitating manner that is common only to very small birds and mice. The floor of the cage was covered in a sprawling array of shoddily constructed cardboard replicas of the sites of human tragedy - I could only really make out the twin towers, some sort of earth quake and the Titanic. With all that in mind, its Carl's cosmically evocative written work that we shall be focusing on in AWKWARD issue 2.

- Shit-loads more amazing stuff.

Thanks for making it this far,

Jack.

Unrelated

Uprooted from the depths of Youtube by the enigmatic Javena Wilkinson;

My extremely frail memory is telling me that this was first played to me by Luke Branston about 4 years ago. Luke was the first person to ever say the words 'Ethiopian Jazz' to me. Unfortunately I was smoking far too much weed at the time to remember the names of any of the remarkable artists he played to us in the back of another friend's rusty hatchback, but I'm pretty certain that this guy, Tamrat Moller, must have been one of them.

This song sends tickles down my spine that flourish throughout my entire body as flowers whose pollen acts as the greatest cure for a paranoid drug hangover since the dawn of man.

Home Sphere

So, I'm starting a Blog! 

Call your mum and let her know, she's going to love it.

Basically the first issue of AWKWARD has been a measured success with almost all of the first print run of 80 copies having been sold, traded for pleasantries or other zines and in one very special case swapped for a set of earplugs. 

I'm constantly looking for stuff for the future issues and am currently preparing some briefs for people to possibly work to. PLEASE DON'T HESITATE TO GET IN TOUCH IF YOU WANT TO GET INVOLVED! 

In monetary terms its just about broken even. In other less quantitive measures I feel like I've just spent a couple of hours talking to Osho. And no, I don't really know exactly what that means, but check out his fucking watch!

Also I'm pleased to say that I've had some really positive feedback and one puzzlingly aggressive assault of a review from one of my very best, closest and most trusted friends, which I'm still trying to decode. The latter message came complete with one of the most appalling photographs of myself that I have ever seen, taken abound 8 months ago by the friend in question. For reasons unknown, I've put it up there, look, up there, at the top, that's me that is...  

"This is all complete garbage though! Where does it leave us Jack?" I (don't) hear you beg the question. 

Well, the creation of this website (I really hate the word 'blog') is hopefully going to serve as some sort of power-tool/dare/network hub that will help to keep what momentum AWKWARD has gathered thus far going. I mean I really do want to do more of these. It was honestly so much fun gathering people's work together and editing the thing. All that's left now is to work work work and get better better better in the hope of one day scaling that monolith of apathy and confusion that threatens to beam us all off into no-where, from which vantage point we can commence to unleash the maelstrom of shit from our cosmically augmented arseholes down onto those still scrabbling around at the bottom trying to log onto Facebook with their raw, broken, shattered fingers. Fingers that they broke shielding their ugly and contorted faces from the TV screen on the day it took its mask off and revealed iself to be the lab-born child of Edward Bernays, Andy Warhol and a Space Lizard. Twittering and twitching at the mouth, talking at 10,000 miles per hour with its brain attached by spindly, previously invisible wands of translucent piping to your eyes.

Finally then, here is what you can expect to see popping up on the blog in the next who-knows-how-long:

- Interviews with the artists and writers featured in AWKWARD.

- Synapse shattering mixtapes recorded onto shitty blank cassette tapes bought from PoundLand. 

The first one will likely include, amongst other delights; audio from solo girl porn, Allen Ginsberg talking gibberish and about Kerouac, Jun Togawa's incredible self, plenty of sludgy doom metal, blissful electronic waverings, up to 17 songs at once etc.

- Any amazing internet weirdness that I, as ultimate oligarch at AWKWARD, choose to deposit here (likely to be the busiest port-of-call).

- Youtube videos of wonderful and odd shit like this

- Some work that didn't quite make it into the final edit of the magazine for whatever reason.

- Periodic drunk & stoned diatribes as 'blogging' slowly and inevitably takes over my life.

- Oh yeah! Some awesome work every now and again! PRAISE!!!

- Eventual news of AWKWARD's online Pulitzer prize, scheduled for summer 2041.

- .....errrhhhh, that's about it really. 

All that remains is to say that there are still a few copies left of AWKWARD ISSUE 1, so if you'd like to take a punt and spend £2 supporting this lunacy, then seriously, do.

Contact awkwardmagazine@gmail.com 

To be honest the address doesn't get many emails whatsoever at the moment, so how about sending me a transcription of a conversation you overheard between two ladies on a bus talking about dildos or something even if you don't want to buy one, have no money or simply hate everything you have just read? I'd love it. 

Oh, and some excerpts from Issue 1 will be up here soon, as well as some exciting updates on plans for Issue 2, which is just starting to emerge from the dreary fog of working as a GCSE exam invigilator (seriously).

Thanks for making it this far,

Jack.