Issue 2 of Power Cut literary magazine is here!

Featuring; Ricky Monahan Brown, David Partington, James Bone, Irene Cunningham, Marka Rifat, Iain Bain, Kris Haddow, Laurie Donaldson, Jesse Hilson, Ike Attah, Kristina Stevens, Esther Arthurson, Alexis Somerville, Liz Kendall, Peter Newall, Stephen McQuiggan, Cormac Culkeen, Christina Curran, Jason Jawando & LG Thomson.

For the uninitiated amongst you, Power Cut is a literary and arts magazine, based in Scotland, UK, with a love for 20^th century culture. Issue 2 follows the same winning format as Issue 1 with short stories, poetry, memoir, art, retro recipes and a column from our resident bibliotherapist and foot dominatrix – Madame Bruttipedi.

Provocateurs Are Provoking!

Issue 2 kicks off with the superbly creepy ‘Artiste’ by Esther Arthurson. Set in a psychiatric/forensic unit it explores the boundaries of sanity and madness – while giving off serious Silence  of the Lambs vibes!

The theme of Issue 2 is ‘provocateur’ and Jesse Hilson’s drawings/artwork and both provocative and subversive. ‘Miss Scarlet’ flow nicely on from ‘Artiste’ and before we can take a breath we are into the work of Cormac Culkeen. Cormac has contributed two poems that don’t take any prisoners in their intensity,

                   where our mind was a consumptive’s and we were motes dancing over an open grave’s howling

                       maw, our gazes and hearts narrowed to blurred horizons.

                                                                                  (Recollections by Cormac Culkeen)

His second poem ‘Detail of an Uninvited Guest, 2003’ is written in prose style and charts the desperation of someone searching for escape and release.

Vintage Style

Our vintage ads provide some light-hearted relief from all the intensity and the first one taken from ‘Practical Householders’ demonstrates how to build your own fridge.

Marka Rifat features some beautiful poetry that evokes childhood memories, nature and electronic music pioneers Daphne & Delia.

‘Rochester Vibes’ by Liz Kendall has us consider the similarities between Axl Rose and Mr Rochester. Never again will you think of one without the other creeping in next to him.

‘Spirit’ by Kris Haddow opens up a moment in time in an unnamed Scottish city and reflects on the fragility and interconnection of life that often goes by unnoticed.

Laurie Donaldson’s poetry has a cultural edge and opens up brutalism, the work of Nam June Paik and the bursting of the Dom Aquarée in Berlin,

bunched shoals slowly rotating

  to freefall, clownfish, batfish,

surgeonfish tumbling in gravity’s

         sudden embrace.

‘The day the fish were free’ is curated with ‘Drift’ by Ike Attah, a painting in acrylic of the shoreline at Redcar beach, in the northeast of England.

The next story is a tongue-in-cheek re-imagining of a Famous Five story with a modern-day twist by David Partington. See what happening when the gang investigate the local milkman!

Gen-X, Nudity and Horses

Kristina Stevens’ prose poetry explores protest and anti-establishment lifestyles and leads us into Ricky Monahan Brown’s blistering take-down of (or tribute to?) Gen-X in ‘Phantom Limbs’. Things get intense and raw again in ‘The Father, The Scum and The Holy Spirits’ by John Tinney which describes a man torn between his role as a father and his corporeal desires. Warning: it contains nudity. James Bone and Irene Cunningham serve up some much needed poetry before Peter Newall takes us back to post-war Germany and the cost of our innate need for freedom, in ‘All the King’s Horses’. Madame Bruttipedi provides the comic relief this time as she takes a trip to Comoros to open a library and train a burlesque troupe in Hahaia (yes, it’s a real place).

LG Thomson has written a beautifully honest and touching essay/memoir about growing up and her affinity with and love for the American new wave band, DEVO. The photograph of the author in her yellow plastic DEVO suit alone is worth the price of the magazine!

We move on to odd behaviour next with Iain Bain’s ‘Horses Mostly’, a story about the ultimate grifter, anxiety and hating Marcel Duchamp.

Surrealism and Recipes

Finally – we get to what everyone has been waiting for, the retro recipe. I’m not going to give any spoilers, but it involves bananas, boiled ham, mustard and cream.

Jason Jawando’s story ‘Tupac is Dead’, is a farcical encounter involving a bicycle and a Chinese  takeaway. And then things get really surreal in ‘Lobsters’ by Alexis Somerville which continues the burlesque vibe in a rundown seaside town.

‘Eldorado Nights’ by Christina Curran is a surreal photograph which highlights how everyday objects can create beauty if we are prepared to change our perception. The odd and surreal continues in our last story, ‘Win the Headlines’ by Stephen McQuiggan. After reading this you will always be wary of free newspapers. Issue 2 ends with the poem ‘Boat the the May’ by Marka Rifat,

Sand eels, the only glint of light, held in serrations.

Sandwiches, held in gloved hands, forgotten in the whirr.

You can purchase Power Cut here

You can also give yourself the gift of an A3 print of the inimitable Madame Bruttipedi or – if you are feeling brave – a personal bibliotherapy prescription from her! 

Let’s Start With Your Stripper Name

The first thing we need to know about burlesque dancers is that they all have exotic names – Gypsy Rose Lee, Tempest Blaze, Blaze Starr, Immodesty Blaize (I’m detecting a pattern here), Lili St Cyr, Dita Von Teese etc. No one, except Bettie Page, seems to have hit the big time in adult entertainment with a pedestrian name (ok, I’ll concede Josephine Baker also). Every so often a meme will come round on social media to generate your stripper/burlesque name. A common ‘formula’ is your first pet’s name plus your childhood street name; however, this gives me the stripper name Buster Riddell. Buster Riddell is more likely to be a burly inmate of HMP Belmarsh than an alluring femme fatale selling out The Crazy Horse in Paris.  Another formula is to pair the colour of your underwear with the last thing you ate: this time I would be Grey Cheese, again, not sexy.

It is said that striptease and burlesque are sisters not twins. With the former the focus is all on the nakedness, burlesque however focuses on the story, the tease, the imagination, the art.

History of Burlesque

Historically there are two well known forms of burlesque – Victorian Burlesque and American Burlesque. The word itself derives from the Italian burlesco, which in turn derives from burla meaning ridicule or mockery. A burlesque show has its roots in vaudeville and variety performance, popular with the lower and middle classes as a way of lampooning the culture of the upper classes. It could be argued that there was a political element to burlesque in the form of social commentary, unlike stripping which was purely for male sexual gratification. Burlesque arrived in America in the 1840s and developed from ‘hoochie-coochie’ dancing, a form of provocative belly dancing. Millie DeLeon id said to be the first American Queen of Burlesque and created her act when she ‘forgot’ to wear her tights on stage.

The golden age of burlesque was 1900-1930, the time when Josephine Baker was performing at the Folies Bergère in Paris. It was here that she wore her (in)famous banana skirt. In addition to being an exotic dancer, she also worked for the French resistance and adopted 12 children from around the world. Baker was the trailblazer of the ‘rainbow family’, long before Madonna and Angelina Jolie.

Burlesquing the Burlesque

In Issue 2 of Power Cut, ‘Lobsters’ by Alexis Somerville is a story set in a rundown British sea-side town where dancing and glamour have long parted company,

“…I performed in second-rate shows at the end of the pier, dancing into the stark cool nights in a place run by an old bloke who fancied himself the Hugh Hefner of breadline Britain, decades after the golden age of striptease when Gareth’s dad had opened the club, with those stunning burlesque stars whose photos now lined the walls, and the son wouldn’t shut up about those halcyon days as he slapped us on the arse…”

 

The Lobster Girls of Langton’s satirize the era of all female dance troupes and the objectification of female performers. All burlesque dancers have a prop or gimmick – Dita Von Teese performed in a large martini glass, Lili St Cyr her transparent bubble bath, and Blaze Starr often had a black panther on stage with her. In ‘Lobsters’ the twist at the end makes all these props pale in comparison.

Power Cut has another link to the burlesque world in the form of Madame Bruttipedi, our resident bibliotherapist and foot dominatrix. In Issue 1 of Power Cut we learn that Madame used to work as a burlesque dancer until her feet got too sore and she retrained as a bibliotherapist. Madame Bruttipedi is, of course, a parody or burlesque of the burlesque conventions of beauty. She looks like a stereotypical 1950s pinup girl apart from her hideous feet, challenging beauty norms and expectations. In Issue 2 we see her jetting to Comoros to train burlesque dancers in Hahaia, and she also offers us another highly entertaining bibliotherapy prescription.

Vintage Vibe or Stereotype?

The neo-burlesque of the 1990s kick-started the burlesque revival with stars such as Dita Von Teese and Immodesty Blaize. Driving this resurgence was a nostalgia for the glamour and spectacle of days a different era, and burlesque continue to have a vintage aesthetic and association. But is there still a place for burlesque dancing in today’s world? Like everything burlesque has evolved – there is now boylesque (male-fronted performance) and, of course, drag shows. Do these 21^st century interpretations offer us anything new or simply serve up stereotypes in contemporary costumes?

Madame Bruttipedi appears in Issue 1 & 2 of Power Cut magazine. If you are new to Power Cut and want to get up to speed on her exploits, both issues can be purchased here.

Mona Llsa by Maria De Campos

Long before I’d ever heard the term literary appropriation I came across Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which confused the hell out of me. It really did. It was transgressive and subversive. I just didn’t know you were allowed to do that sort of thing. It broke with convention and unspoken rules, it was akin to stealing someone’s boyfriend or cheating in an exam. Something you might want to do but didn’t dare. Don’t get me wrong, I love Wide Sargasso Sea, but I couldn’t quite get my head around the idea of taking someone else’s story and putting your own interpretation onto it. A bit like Ian Rankin finishing off William Ilvanney’s The Dark Remains which, coincidently, is also a prequel. But my introduction to Wide Sargasso Sea was long before the advent of fan fiction, where it is the norm to create your own stories featuring your favourite fictional characters.

Hard Work Maketh the Writer

Until I knew better, I had this idealistic notion that all writers were gifted with a creative power, and inspiration would effortlessly flow through them in fevered bouts of productivity. Once overcome by the muse they would work in a trance-like state oblivious to corporeal hindrances such as food or sleep until the job was done. I saw them as near-mystical beings blessed with the ability to interpret the world in a beautiful and unique way. This ridiculous notion is what prevented me from writing until later in life as I believed that not being in possession of such superpowers was proof I didn’t have any writing talent. When I sat down to write there was no spiritual experience, I didn’t produce flawless spellbinding work and so I assumed I just didn’t have it. My doors of perception always seemed to be wedged shut. In my naive and purist beliefs, all writers were visionaries who, almost involuntarily, exorcised unique ideas and masterpieces. But then Jean Rhys came along and took someone else’s story and reinterpreted it from an entirely different perspective. This was mind-blowing stuff.

Modenschau by Hannah Höch

Fast forward a couple of decades and I encountered Jean Rhys on crack –  a.k.a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) by Seth Grahame-Smith. For anyone unfamiliar with a mash-up novel, or ‘frankenfiction’ as it has been termed, it takes a classic novel from the 18^th or 19^th century (out of copyright) and reworks it with another genre, usually horror and more specifically the supernatural (most mash-ups feature zombies, werewolves or vampires) with titles such as Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Alice in Zombieland, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and so on. They can also be known as hybrid genre, multigenre, fusion genre, remixes, parodies and knockoffs. This is taking literary appropriation to another level. The mash-up novel is a happy citizen of remix culture and is a descendant of music mash-ups, themselves a product of hip-hop and house music sampling. If we dig further we can also see the roots of literary mash-ups in the work and ethos of the Dadaists, who used collage, surrealism and assemblage extensively. An academic interpretation might conclude they are a prime example of metamodernist intertextuality. Of course, appropriating and ‘recycling’ is not a new concept in literature, it was common among the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights for example to reuse and borrow each other’s ideas and words. And I don’t think there is a novel or poem in existence where the influence of previous authors or poets can’t be detected. There is a fine line between appropriation and inspiration/influence, and without the latter we would see very little movement or development in the arts.

Money Over Inspiration

Literary mash-ups however, seem to take it too far. The literary appropriation is blatant to the point that a mash-up novel isn’t simply inspired by the original but actually just takes it wholesale and inserts its own flourishes here and there. Integral to the mash-up novel is parody, which I explored in my last blog post on Satire in Literature, and again this relies heavily on the original work.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. Never was this truth more plain than during the recent attacks at Netherfield Park, in which a household of eighteen was slaughtered and consumed by a horde of the living dead.”

This is the first line of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, we can see how reliant it is on the original,

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

P&P&Z is clearly playing on the formal language used in P&P and juxtaposing this with out of context images and ideas e.g. the living dead.

Dead Kennedys

So far so creative genius in their ingenuity. But are mash-ups really an innovative development in literature, one of these techniques that come along and change the course of things forever, like stream of consciousness, or are they a product of consumer culture where the driver is profit rather than creativity? Remember how I used to think all writers had to be touched by the hand of God to possess ethereal talent? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the opposite of this. What came first was the marketing idea; an editor at Quirk Books was looking around for the next big thing and began pairing popular archetypes such as pirate, zombie, ninja, dinosaur etc with work in the public domain (as mentioned, this is important as there are no copyright restrictions) e.g Tess of the D’Ubervilles and Ghosts* – not catchy enough, A Christmas Carol and Poltergeists* – getting there…Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, perfect. He had a title now needed someone to write the content, and using 75% of the original made it even easier, why reinvent the wheel?

The cover was released before the book and sales were driven on this image alone. Of course, it was a sensation and the mash-up element ensured it captured TWO consumer markets – the Jane Austin fans and horror fans. A stream of similar titles followed. But was it a shrewd move that ensured double revenue or was it a case of trying to appeal to everyone and pleasing no one?

Were mash-up novels a gimmicky flash in the pan, or have they changed the way genre is written and consumed? Is genre still even a thing? It seems the boundaries are ever-blurring – with romantasy, hist-horrical, sci-noir, sci-cozy, gothic fantasy, silkpunk, etc etc.

Rule Breaking, Convention Bending

I’m all for breaking with rules and conventions – while I’m not a literary mash-up fan (in terms of the genre), I like the concept. When we listen to a piece of music that has been sampled, we’re given a different perspective on it and it bestows a fresh and contemporary meaning. I think the same can be achieved with literature if done well. Although not a mash-up novel in the strictest sense, Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut splices storytelling elements and themes that didn’t normally sit together; a semi-autobiographical war story combined with time travel and creatures from fictional planets. The end result is a powerful anti-war satire and exploration into free will.

A brilliant example of literary appropriation is Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018). Circe brings the myths and characters from Greek mythology, principally the Odyssey, and presents them to us in a modern retelling from a different point of view, i.e. Circe, the witch. Circe is appropriating Greek mythology and like Wide Sargasso Sea, taking an existing story and re-framing it from the female lens. But unlike mash-ups, it doesn’t parody or heavily rely on the existing text, it takes an idea and develops it into its own story. What is interesting about Circe is that it makes Greek mythology accessible.  Not many people would pick up Homer or Euripides for light reading, Greek mythology being seen as too academic or intellectual, and beyond the realms of popular culture. But Circe straddles this divide and perhaps introduces a new generation and legion of fans to these myths and stories. Circe repackages Greek mythology for the modern reader, but is it creative genius or lazy opportunism?

Where does your work sit – are you a full-on mash-up artist or do you flirt with a light sprinkling of influence?

* Titles are my own.

Satire in Literature?

‘A work infused with humour and satire…’

‘A biting social satire…’

‘A social commentary oozing satire and acerbic wit…’

It seems that every poem or novel published these days is a satirical commentary on the flaws in modern society. Is there really such a plethora of witty contemporary satirists in our midst – or (asks the cynic in me) is this just sneaky spin by publicists to re-package otherwise quite pedestrian work? What even is satire in literature?

When setting out to write your own scathing satirical opus, I don’t want you getting your parody confused with your spoof and – heavens forbid – writing a sequel to Android Karenina instead of the next Animal Farm. So let’s look at how these techniques differ and overlap.

Parody and Cyborgs

Android Karenina (2010), by Ben H. Winters, falls into the category of parody. Parody is classed as imitation of a specific work for comedic purposes, and it is usually obvious what the targeted work is. For example, Android Karenina, part of the literary mash up genre, is clearly a play on Anna Karenina, written by Tolstoy in 1878. While it retains the characters from the original, the novel goes on to juxtapose tsarist Russia with steampunk, time travel, space travel and cyborgs. Winters uses two literary devices – incongruity and subversion – to create parody. Incongruity; the novel Anna Karenina conforms to literary realism and so, being set in 19^th century Imperial Russia, we wouldn’t expect to see cyborgs wandering about. Subversion; not only is steampunk anachronistic, but its aesthetic is anathema to the formal style of Anna and Vronsky, and this shatters our expectations and the world-building blueprint we would have.

Other examples of parody novels are:

Bored of the Rings (1969) – Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard lampoon Tolkien’s behemoth

Snowball’s Chance (2002) – John Reed’s sequel to Animal Farm

Fifty Shames of Earl Grey (2012) – there are dozens of Fifty Shades rip offs, this one was picked for the wonderfully named author, Fanny Merkin (aka Andrew Shaffer)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) – by Seth Grahame-Smith. Another mash-up novel; does what it says on the tin

Shamela (1741) – Henry Fielding’s lambasting attack on Samuel Richardson’s popular Pamela (1740), proving that parody novels aren’t a modern invention

Don’t Scream or I’ll Spoof

Spoof is similar to parody; however, it takes a broader approach by mocking the hallmarks and conventions of an entire genre, often incorporating and pastiching the defining characteristics from several works. It isn’t identifiable to one specific movie or work, but cherry picks the best (or worst) of the genre. So, for example, the Scary Movie franchise spoofs teenage horror films and tropes, through mimicry and exaggeration of conventions such as the jump scare, sequels, stereotypical characters, dark/secluded setting, the male gaze, and violence and gore, etc. It ridicules movies such as The Blair Witch Project (1999), Scream (1996), and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997).

Satire as a political tool

What do Spitting Image and Animal Farm have in common?

Answer: They are both examples of political satire.

Satire is often more subtle than parody or spoof while still using humour to comment on or criticise an aspect of people/culture/politics/society. Whereas spoof and parody are usually employed (but not exclusively) for entertainment, satire has a point to make. Spoof, parody and satire are not precious entities and will often work together; the 1980s tv show Spitting Image was both parody and satire. The puppets parodied specific individuals, e.g the famous Margaret Thatcher puppet, however the show overall commented on and satirized the politics of the day. As well as humour, metaphor is a common device often used in satire, as is hyperbole and irony.

Thatcher’s schnoz-tastic puppet was based on the caricatures of political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, known for his grotesque and surreal style. Political cartoons have been a major vehicle for satire in the UK since the 18^th century, one of the most famous being ‘The Plumb-pudding in danger’ by James Gillray (1757-1815).

 

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

 

Examples of satire in literature include:

American Psycho (1991) – Bret Easton Ellis uses caricature and hyperbole to ridicule and expose the excesses of 1980s Wall St, itself a metaphor for wealth and power. Bateman’s relentless obsession with the banal and superficial – such as cleansing products, clothes, and hair mocks both societal materialism and fragile masculinity.

Catch-22 (1961), by Jospeh Heller is so influential that the term is now part of everyday speech. Heller used satire to highlight the absurdities of war,

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

 – Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Animal Farm (1945) – George Orwell uses allegory, analogy and metaphor to critique the Russian revolution, however, it can be interpreted more broadly as a warning of how seductive power and totalitarianism can be.

Madame Bruttipedi’s Masterclass in Satire

Madame Bruttipedi is a character invented for Power Cut. She embodies the pin-up girl vibe generally, taking elements from the genre as a whole, making her spoof rather than parody. Had she been illustrated splashing about in a martini glass and called Gita Von Sleaze, then she would have been a parody of Dita Von Teese.

What makes a satirical Madame?

Madame Bruttipedi employs several satirical devices. Firstly caricature or hyperbole; Madame is a stereotypical pin up model, incorporating all the tropes of male fantasy of a woman to the point of almost being a caricature of the genre. She is a highly sexualised version of a woman, her hair, make-up, waist, breasts, outfit – until we see her feet. Whoa – what are they??? We weren’t expecting bunions to be peeking out the stockings. Bunions are sexy, it’s clearly incongruity – a device touched on above. Ugly feet don’t belong in the fantasy – ridiculing the expectation of female beauty. She also makes a statement about society’s expectation of perceived perfection – with her stinking feet Madame is far from perfect. Madame is perfect on the surface, but the reality is she is rotting from the inside out. Satire often plays a role is social commentary, and this is often achieved through metaphor. Madame can and should be interpreted  metaphorically. A metaphor of what? You tell me.

Madame also subverts our expectation of what her role might be. Her look is very striking and clearly based in the glamour world, but she is a bibliotherapist and foot dominatrix. What on God’s earth is a foot dominatrix many of you will be asking? What the hell is a bibliotherapist? And here the satire moves on to the elitism of the literary world;

“Madame will prescribe books for you that reveal new perspectives, shine light on your potential and re-enchant the world for you.”

(Power Cut Issue 1)

Do we really believe that she can do this by telling us what books to read? Does Madame succeed as a form of satire in literature? What point she is making – I’ll leave  for you to decide.

If you enjoy what we do, please consider supporting us by purchasing a magazine, or a bibliotherapy prescription by the wonderfully satirical Madame Bruttipedi.

“What struck me as I wandered through the exhibition was how widespread and significant photomontage and collage are in women’s art”

A woven red Double Labia; images of a stoical women dressed up as a cooker or a washing machine; disorientating screams on constant loop and visceral photographs of a punk performing in a meat dress long before Lady Gaga entered the stage. Where was I? The Women in Revolt! Art & Activism UK 1970-1990 exhibition in Edinburgh.

What struck me as I wandered through the exhibition was how widespread and significant photomontage and collage are in women’s art: from the visual art of Linder Sterling (meat dress provocateur), and Gee Vaucher – to the feminist zines of Lucy Whitman (aka Lucy Toothpaste), and the Riot grrrl movement of the 1990s.

Collage and Counterculture

Photomontage and collage have long been associated with counterculture movements, from the Dadaists to punk, due to its anti-establishment aesthetic. Hannah Hӧch was the only female artist included in the Dada movement (Lady Dada) and seen as a pioneer of the photomontage style, her most famous work being, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919; a commentary on Weimar Germany’s culture and politics. While Jamie Reid’s God Save the Queen image is the most iconic and enduring of the punk movement other – female – artists, were producing, arguably, more subversive and provocative work such as Gee Vaucher’s artwork for Crass and Linder Sterling’s art for the sleeve of The Buzzcocks’ single, Orgasm Addict.

Photomontage and collage were low-tech; usually cutting and pasting from mediums that were classed as disposable or without great value e.g. used newspapers and magazines, and most importantly it was DIY – the antithesis to the slick chimera sold by brands and corporations. Indeed, many of the artists used the branding and adverts of these corporations in their work, subverting and reworking them as satire and parody. This approach is now commonplace, and in 2012 the artist collective Brandalism was formed. 

However, the roots and significance of the female relationship with collage and pastiche is much older than the relatively new commentary and rejection of consumer society.

Women’s Crafts and Scraps

Although scrapbooking as a practice can be traced back to medieval times, the modern scrapbooking movement grew in popularity in the US in the 1980s/90s. The essence of scrapbooking is to document memories and stories about your life. It not only combines journaling and photographic imagery but offers sensory appeal with tactile fabrics and even fragrant dried flowers; clippings of recipes, cards, tickets and invitations can be included also. Scrapbooking is about taking, often disparate, snapshots in time and curating them into a comprehensive and united narrative.

This idea of taking scraps to create one comprehensive story is seen over and over in female art and craft; quilting and patchwork for instance, or weaving – the patterns of different countries each telling different stories. In her experimental weavings, Sheila Hicks blurs the distinction between craft and fine art, and uses a variety of materials such as shoelaces, elastic bands, shirt collars and even transparent noodles. Miriam Shapiro also blurred this line and coined the phrase ‘femmage’ – a combination of feminine and collage – and often used materials such as lace, thread and chintz. This highlights the significance in female art of the relationship between environment and materials; often there was no separation between home and art – art had to be made from the ‘scraps’ of domestic life.

“The collagists who came before me were men, who lived in cities, and often roamed the streets at night scavenging, collecting material, their junk, from urban spaces. My world, my mother’s and grandmother’s world, was a different one. The fabrics I used would be beautiful if sewed into clothes or draped against windows, made into pillows, or slipped over chairs. My ‘junk,’ my fabrics, allude to a particular universe, which I wish to make real, to represent.” 

                                                                  Miriam Shapiro, 1977

 

Women’s Time is Also Pieced Together in Scraps

By their very nature, scrapbooks, quilts, collage art and zines all have a fragmentary and dislocated aesthetic, it is what creates the art. However, this stitching together of segments is also a powerful visual metaphor of how women experience time.

Rigid structure in the arts is often seen as a male characteristic, whereas collage is chaotic, often contradictory, with several themes or ideas jostling for prominence. And this reflects women’s lives – pulled in several directions at once by competing demands and traditional roles; mother, wife, homemaker, employee and often carer. The disjointed nature emulating the scraps of time stolen and stitched together to hold and carry the work.

Zines and Power Cut

“with nothing to lose – it was able to take risks, to shock and to provoke.”

 

The Women in Revolt! Exhibition has many feminist zines on display, one of the most influential contributors being Lucy Whitman. In 1977, Whitman created JOLT a ‘feminist, anti-racist, anti-fascist punk fanzine’. JOLT contains all the elements of the anti-establishmentarian collage aesthetic – it is very much DIY (often handwritten), it has a ‘scrapbook’ like quality with bits taken from disparate sources and glued together. It subverts the expectations we have of the images and deconstructs cultural and social purviews. There is something deeply truthful about JOLT – and with nothing to lose – it was able to take risks, to shock and to provoke.

I’d like to think that Power Cut maintains a bit of this spirit and ethos. With a budget of zero, our logo was created in the collage tradition with scissors, glue, wallpaper remnants and poster paints.

And although the magazine isn’t literally a photomontage or cut and paste job like JOLT or Sniffing Glue; it doesn’t adhere to the traditional literary magazine format, but rather cuts and pastes across form and genre bringing in humour and satire, visual art and commentary to prod and poke at what a literary magazine is or should be.

If you enjoyed reading this and would like to support us, please consider buying a magazine or a bibliotherapy prescription from Madame Bruttipedi.

So Thrilling It’s Hypnotic!

We made it! Issue 1 has arrived! The foggy who-are you-kidding idea of summer 2023 has become a physical reality – a print magazine.

I cannot stress enough the gratitude I have for the writers and artists who took a gamble of trusting a newbie-nobody with their work. Without them Power Cut would not exist.

There have been ups and downs – and mistakes – but overall, for a first attempt, Power Cut has scrubbed up pretty well. Producing a printed magazine has been a huge learning curve and one that I hope continues as we grow and develop. Saying that, Issue 1 is better than I could have hoped for and features 17 unique contributors, including three evocative pieces of visual art by Mike Dmytruk.

Surrealism, Struggles and 20th Century Vibes

In an extract from her memoir, Jenny Vuglar leads us into the heart of the women’s peace camp and the struggles she faced as a protestor at Greenham Common in the 1980s. Callum J Grubb is a remarkable young man who lives a 1940s life in modern day Scotland, without the desire for a mobile phone or social media. His typed article about his fascination with 40s is an inspiration for anyone wanting to pursue a vintage lifestyle. And our poems by Danielle McMahon, Jason O’Toole, Oz Hardwick, Don Palmer, and Berin Aptoula ooze 20^th century vibes and pop culture.

For metal heads there is an essay on the relationship between metal, horror and the occult. Where else are you going to find Nicolo Paganini, Giuseppe Tartini, Metallica, Jaws and Shock ‘Em Dead referenced in the one article? If you find this surreal – wait until you read the short stories by Terry Holland, Callum Henderson and George Smith! Terry’s unfortunate protagonist only wanted a relaxing soak in the tub but had to deal with esoteric musings by Malcolm McLaren’s ghost. Callum tells a strange tale about a ‘sineetah’ who eats cakes for the dead, and in ‘Strathclyde Regional Cooncil’, George creates a parallel universe that might have come to pass had rave culture become a political force in Scotland.

Kristina Stevens offers some dirty realism in ‘Trolley Dolly’, her absurdist story about two people waiting for a life that has already passed them by. She also contributes an evocative piece of memoir about a childhood visit to Nigeria.

“more facial hair…than a Mariachi Band convention.”

As the yin to Jenny’s yang, Annie Foy gives us a blistering piece of women’s lib satire in ‘Sisters Are Doing it for Themselves’ that has “more facial hair…than a Mariachi Band convention”. Careful with the rhinestones!

We then lurch into a bit of crime noir with ‘Alfie’ by Joe Murphy, where our eponymous anti-hero is a two-bit player is Glasgow’s underworld. It is old-skool crime, Kray-brothers-style, with a bank robbery and dreams of a Spanish getaway.

And then – just to make sure we can’t be accused of being too ‘samey’ – we have two powerful pieces of flash by Sinéad Ní Braoin set in wartime Germany.

Toast Water and a Foot Dominatrix Bibliotherapist

By now you’re probably thinking – wow – this magazine is simply jam-packed with cultural goodness, could it get any better? Actually yes. We also have an exclusive recipe for Toast Water – the go-to refreshment for Victorian invalids, and an abundance of kitsch mid-century vintage ads. And – what a coincidence – our Hovis ad ties in nicely with our recipe,

A well-balanced bread is essential for men and women who need to maintain a lithe and lighter body…

As if all that isn’t enough of a retro feast, there is none other than our very own Madame Bruttipedi, fresh from the burlesque stages of Yoshiwara and ready to provide bibliotherapy prescriptions to our lovely readers. Madame has a regular column in our print magazine where she will endeavour to untangle your problems and salve any emotional disturbances through the wonders of literature. For those of you who don’t already know, Madame has really ugly feet and will only work with readers that dig that sort of thing.

Phwew! It’s some ride…what are you waiting for? Start your digital detox and join the print magazine renaissance. Get your copy now!

If I told you reading print magazines rather than online magazines would improve your health and well-being would you believe me? What if I said that it might also reduce your carbon footprint?

Power Hungry Internet

Way back in the 1980s when Amstrad computers and fax machines began to furnish leather-topped hedge fund desks, the dream of the paperless office began. Administrators and associates fantasised about the day when chunky metal filing cabinets and endless dog-eared files would be banished forever. But we are still a long way from being paperless; we use more paper now than ever. We’ve all heard a variation of the joke about the volume of photocopying killing a whole tree – wasn’t the digital age going to be the saviour of the rainforests?

There is still a consensus that less paper is good, it seems a reasonable and logical premise. But what you don’t hear about is the carbon footprint of data storage. Every email, text, file, photo or video that is sent has to be stored, usually in ‘the cloud’. Most people don’t give the cloud any thought, assuming it drifts benignly above us, an ethereal entity a bit like 1950s radio waves. But actually data storage occurs in village-size electricity-guzzling data centres; thousands of square feet of servers requiring industrial energy-thirsty cooling systems. According to the New York Times,

“Worldwide, digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants,”

And this was in 2012!! Let’s not even think about the ethics of mineral mining and the ever-growing problem of discarded electronics.

Paper Fights Back

Paper, on the other hand, is easily recycled and modern inks are now much less polluting than before. The paper industry is fighting back and contesting the ‘go green go paperless’ claim. And when you consider that storing a terabyte of data for a year produces 10kg of CO2e you can see that digital isn’t as clean as we are led to believe. (University of Cambridge).

But you’re still not quite convinced so you search for your favourite online magazine. Jesus, Elvis and the mother of all hangovers this is tedious! Have you noticed the Columbo-esque dogged determinism required to get to the damn thing? GDPR cookie preferences, shit wi-fi, slow-loading site, pop-ups, notifications, pop-ups, pop-ups…you’re finally there and…BAM! Another pop-up; sign up for a subscription, a newsletter, chips and curry sauce on Mondays, adverts with 10%, 25%, 150% off. Are you still persevering or have you given up yet?

Having finally reached the website, very few of us can resist the FOMO lure of hyperlinks; this looks interesting…no this really is fascinating…I just need to find out about...and into another article, another review, another site. This isn’t happening by chance, the internet is designed this way. You could click through links day and night for the next hundred years and still be nowhere in sight of an ‘end’.

In contrast, the serene world of a print magazine has no annoying pop-ups, no rabbit warrens of time-grabbing hyperlinks or relentless demands for your e-mail address. It is a finite product that is self-contained, giving the reader control over what they read and the time they spend on it.

All Tattoos Are Beautiful

My first tattoo was an old-school swallow, beloved by sailors and jailbirds (especially on the thumb webbing). From the minute that first squeeze of Savlon was applied, I knew I’d made a mistake. Sometimes the cheapest tattoos aren’t always the best. Years later I finally got round to sorting out a cover-up courtesy of the genius, Xed Le Head. On inspection, he confirmed my swallow was, indeed, shit, but that was ok as, ultimately, all tattoos were beautiful. Xed lived for tattooing and any tattoo, by its very existence, was a piece of art to him.

And I feel the same about print magazines. A print magazine is a beautiful thing. Unlike the soulless endless scrolling on a device, it offers a sensory experience appealing to all senses… Yes, including taste – some people LOVE chewing paper! Visually, a print magazine can be akin to walking through an art gallery, it pops with vivid colours and evocative images that are so much more powerful than those viewed on a screen. And what about the ASMR satisfaction of listening to the pages turning? This rhythmic sound has a calming effect and roots us in the here and now. The feel and smell of the paper also enhance the experience making it immersive and interactive. I’ve never met anyone who smells their phone screen or laptop keyboard.

Print Magazines are the Antidote

As so many of us now spend the majority of our working days – and leisure time – staring at a screen, a print magazine can offer respite from this, a sanctuary from the online world, quiet time from all the digital demands. It is an antidote to information and content overload. We are all aware that extended screen time can lead to eye strain and poor sleep (from overstimulation of blue light). A print magazine, however, offers a different reading experience, one that is more focused and engaged; the deep reading allows us to slow down and enter into a meditative, dreamlike state. Although magazine content can be read in any order, it is designed to tell its own story with a beginning, middle and end. Picking up a print magazine is making a conscious decision to take time out and allow the world to stop for ten minutes.

“investing in a fitness magazine can make the difference between a chocolate muffin for breakfast and a green smoothie”

So you’re convinced. You went out and purchased a print magazine. Chances are you chose it because it aligns with your values or interests or aspirations, and so naturally you will want to keep it to remind yourself of these or simply to enjoy re-reading the articles. A print magazine can give you a sense of community and belonging, a worldview that you identify with. If you are into fitness, investing in a fitness magazine can make the difference between a chocolate muffin for breakfast and a green smoothie. A photography magazine in your back pocket lets the world know that you know your aperture from your composition. You may carry your magazine around in your bag to look cool, or display it on the coffee table to impress your friends and let them know how intellectual/arty/hip/edgy/nerdy you are. You may be a super fan of a specific magazine and collect every issue. And that is another beauty of print magazines – ownership; they are yours, you choose where to store them and how to display them. You can go back to them again and again, and flick through to a favourite article or image. How often do we do this with online content? Yes, you can go back to them again and again and again. Print magazines cannot be changed; unlike digital content, they cannot be deleted or edited, updated or ‘enhanced’. I collect vintage magazines and stepping inside the covers feels like I have mastered time travel, discovered a portal to a bygone age. Will we ever get such a thrill from vintage websites?

Fly Swat or Ransom Note?

And for all those lingering sceptics among you how about these; a print magazine can be read in the bath without fear of losing charge/electrocution, it doesn’t ring or beep or lose connection, no one can track if you’ve read it or not or what % is still to be read, it doesn’t have cookies, it can be used as a wasp/fly swat, cup coaster, wobbly table wedge, lining for a cat litter tray, any paper-mache project you have coming up, it can be donated to the doctor’s surgery or dentist waiting room, it can be used for wrapping glass when moving home, it can be cut up for a collage project or ransom note, you can make paper hats and paper boats from it, and if you are having an argument with someone you can tear it up or throw it at them for dramatic effect (not advisable as you’ll probably regret it and the other person will rightly think you are a bit unhinged). And if none of these appeal – you can channel your inner Duchamp and draw moustaches and doodles on it when you’re bored.

Have you got any other uses for the printed page?

Anecdote or story? What’s the difference? Every so often I come across a social media post by an aspiring writer who wants to write a book about the funny and/or humanly impossible experiences they’ve had in the course of their jobs/travels/crazy relationships. However, as entertaining as these situations may be, they do not a story make. They sound like a series of anecdotes – which probably couldn’t carry a whole book, unless it was a unique and well-written ‘Diary of a…’. Even the most zany of situations can come across as quite dull on the page with a you had to be there to appreciate it quality.

“The police raid was…wild and scary and clearly memorable – but is it a story?”

I was on the phone with my aunty Jane the other night and she was asking how submissions for the magazine were going,

            ‘You should write about that night at the Rave at the Cave, when it got raided,                   that would make a good story.’

My aunt is not a typical aunt (whatever that might be), and she introduced me to the London acid house scene in the late 1980s. It got me thinking. The police raid was a dramatic event, certainly an action-packed event, it was wild and scary and clearly memorable – but is it a story?

Anecdotes Don’t Do Deep Emotions

So would my potential Rave at the Cave tale work as a story or is it best kept as an anecdote? An anecdote is a retelling of an event; it can be funny or sad and will usually include the main elements of a story – character, action, and setting. Pubs and bars the world over are the spiritual home of the anecdote, which often start with, ‘You’ll never believe this…’, or ‘Guess what happened to me..,’ or ‘Wait till I tell you this…’.

An anecdote focuses on what happened, usually a specific or unusual incident. It deals with facts, but also perspective, i.e.‘ x happened and then y followed leading to z, it was terrible/brilliant/disgraceful,’ etc. However, an anecdote doesn’t explore the deeper significance of the event; there is no subtext. The punters in the pub are looking for jovial banter, not to be pulled into an emotional autopsy in search of meaning or epiphany. Some anecdotes can be developed into stories if the writer can tease out the story arc, the conflict and the stakes. But not all anecdotes can go the distance. Knowing when to keep the narrative to the realms of drunken repartee is an art.

What Makes a Powerful Story?

Stories, on the other hand, help us make sense of the world, they mirror back to us our secrets and desires; they dissect and explore the emotional crux of the action and why it is meaningful. According to Carl Jung, stories help us to tap into universal truths and social connection through the use of archetypes and the collective unconscious. A memorable story will grab us by the guts, it will resonate with something fluttering within us. We will feel an affinity with the protagonist or revulsion/anger at the antagonist. Most good stories involve a conflict, a series of obstacles that the main character has to overcome to achieve their goal. By doing this, change is achieved. Perhaps what they want has shifted, or a choice has unforeseen consequences – the outcome may even be tragic, but things will never be the same again. The main character can never go back to who they were before. Stories provide a safe space to explore our deepest fears and darkest thoughts through metaphor and symbolism; think of the witch or the forest in Hansel and Gretel, or the serial killer/psychopath, like Hannibal Lecter, in horror movies.

The Rave at the Cave Police Raid

So what did happen that night…?

Rumours had been going around for a while that undercover cops were infiltrating the raves, trying to buy drugs, and gain intel on the dealers. You could usually spot a fed – there was something about them that didn’t quite fit, something ever so slightly off. Maybe you could sense their discomfort, or that they weren’t on the same wavelength as everyone else. Or maybe because they weren’t shit-faced they were as wooden as a peg-legged granny doing the slosh. Despite the smiley t-shirt and bandana, you could see right through to their law-abiding core. And looking down at the shoes always confirmed it. You would never see a fed going mental mental radio rental.

The Rave at the Cave was one of the best underground warehouse parties in London, held in a greasy unit underneath a railway archway at Elephant & Castle. The venue was a working garage during the week and, for anyone who didn’t notice where they were, the flatbed lorry parked in the middle of the main dance room was a big rusty hint. This didn’t faze anyone, in fact, getting a spot on the lorry-come-stage imbued the lucky matey with a nimbus of acid-shiny kudos for the night. On the lorry you were cooler, brighter, sexier and had all the moves. The air was always thick and humid; saturated with spliff and poppers. The contact high alone would get you off your nut until Sunday teatime. Everyone was on the same trip and the energy sparked unrelenting all night long.

We hadn’t long arrived, and I’d just taken an ecstasy, an E. I was about to get on one to Break 4 Love by Raze when it all went tits up.

            ‘Nobody move, this is a police raid.’

There was a millisecond of confusion where I thought it was a joke or a mistake and the music would come back on and I could get back to waving my hands in the air like I just didn’t care. But it quickly became apparent that it was real. And serious. My aunty Jane’s mate had asked her to keep a couple of E’s in her purse for him. The police were going to be searching everyone and she really didn’t want to be caught carrying class A drugs. So she tossed her purse. But immediately she was worried that as she had her name and address written inside the purse in case she lost it, they would find it and arrest her. She’d also thrown away £40 and a precious black and white photo of her dad, looking handsome in his navy uniform.

The atmosphere had changed instantly, instead of Balearic beats, we were surrounded by menacing-looking police dogs snarling and having a go at anyone not dressed in navy blue. Two hundred officers had descended on the rave and were systematically processing everyone. When it came to my turn I said I’d already been searched. It was a lie, I just didn’t want to let them win. Everyone who had been searched had been sent to the opposite side of the room or outside, it was impossible that they would have searched me and left me in situ. But I held my ground with a female cop. My aunt intervened, and being older than everyone else, carried an air of authority.

            ‘If she says she’s been searched, then she’s been searched,’ she declared.

There was a bit of a to-do and I caused a minor scene but, miraculously, the officer of the law capitulated and I was sent to the searched side of the room. Later, I told my aunt that I hadn’t actually been searched.

            ‘Then why the fuck did you cause all that commotion?’

             ‘I don’t know.’

And I really didn’t.

So, what do you think – anecdote or story? is there an arc here?  Are the stakes high enough? Perhaps it would work better from a different point of view? Could this be developed into a story – or is it best kept as a you had to be there pissed-up pub yarn?

If you enjoyed reading this post please share on social media or buy us a coffee. Or you can check out our 1980s toolkit for some more pop culture.

Greetings Power Cutters!

Power Cut literary magazine is now open for submissions! We are extremely excited to read all your seedy, creepy, freaky work. We want spirit and energy, sweaty armpits and bleary eyes – the underbelly of writing. Give us high-voltage stories, bulb-shattering poems, grid-surging essays, socket-melting artwork, and electrifying haikus. You’ve torn those words from the gutters of your brain and mashed them into a semi-cohesive state – now send them to us! We want the stories that stay with us long after we’ve read the last line. Show us the world in a new way.

Misfit writing for misfit readers by this misfit magazine.

To see the world differently, you have to think differently. And so, we love outsiders and loners! We want the writers who have wandered away from the crowd and are doing their own thing. Let us in on your unique and possibly slightly oddball ideas, reveal your fresh use of language and your sharp imagery. We say write like it’s 1978 – step outside the virtual panopticon and allow your imagination to lead you to all those weird and wonderful places.

We want to hear from all writers who love the ethos of the 20^th century as much as we do. We believe writing and publication should be accessible to all and, therefore, do not charge a reading/submission fee. Writing has become a big business and many new writers can feel intimidated if they don’t have a degree in English literature, a post-grad in creative writing or a PhD in character development. We don’t care about that. Voice is the most important aspect of writing and cannot be learned in a class. We are open for submissions until 31st January 2024. Tell us the stories that are important to you, the stories that have shaped you.

We can’t wait to hear those beautiful, seedy, creepy, freaky, misfit voices.