i am alt lit

79.9 :: ‘illuminati girl gang vol. 3’ by various; edited by gabby gabby

‘illuminati girl gang vol. 3’ by various; edited by gabby gabby // illuminati girl gang, 2013

79.9

Gabby Gabby is pretty much ‘the shit’ 

her writing never seems lazy & neither does her magazine ILLUMINATI GIRL GANG 

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Brittni Collins opens the magazine with photo collage that explores the tension btwn the ‘natural’ & the ‘urban’

her pictures overlay attractive fashion-savvy black women over ‘scenic’ wilderness

I feel pleasant while looking at these pictures – they’re very ‘tumblr’

Catherine Lemble, the second person in the magazine, offers pictures too 

a picture of a dead tree wearing a garbage bag – a picture of a tree growing out of a jar, for examples

forms of ‘nature’ being ‘suffocated’ perhaps, or ‘domesticated’

when I came across the first two ‘girls’ in the ‘girl gang’ I automatically assumed there would writing involved

but I was pleased with the lack of language 

Lucy Tiven starts the writing portion of the magazine with ‘lies of omission’ 

which leads into a few more poems from her 

this first poem has a light ‘tone’ & is a bit disjointed

despite the light tone though she still breaks out lines like:

‘I cannot imagine that there is anyone in the world who is comfortable’

maybe ‘jumpy’ would be a better word than ‘disjointed’

someone used ‘jumpy’ to describe Frank O’Hara once & I realized I like ‘jumpy’ (most of the time)

when a piece ‘jumps’ around or is ‘mobile’ instead of staying locked to one linear thought, scene, etc. - that can be pleasurable & surprising 

(probably the Internet etc makes a lot of ‘us’ ‘jumpy’ - probably a lot of ‘us’ are shaped to think in fragments bc of things like Twitter) 

she makes provocative allusions to seemingly disparate things like ‘Parks and Recreation’ & ‘Goethe’s Faust’ 

since if I go like this for the whole magazine this ‘review’ will be too unwieldy & long I will choose my favorite pieces / writers here to talk about (no offense to any of the others)

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Brett Elizabeth Jenkins! 

her first piece is subtle & stirring & a bit less ‘contemporary’ seeming than her others

her second piece reveals an admirable vulnerability 

her third piece uses a conversational ‘voice’ to convince us that ‘sometimes / every oncein a big big while / I even am [happy]’

Alice Connor writes beautifully & seemingly with ease

she blends emotional intrigue with very relateable settings etc. 

she addresses consumerism & loneliness & insecurity 

she alludes things like to TJ Maxx, McDonalds, Victoria Secret 

this piece is set up as a 7 part (creative non?) fiction story 

as an exploration essentially of a mother & her child (the narrator)’s relationship 

abt a father’s & mother’s potential ‘cheating’ on each other 

Chelsea Martin: I’ve seen her read & rly enjoy her readings – she delivers blunt, vulnerable subject matter in a deadpan tone of voice & the whole audience ‘dies’ laughing 

yeah so this story, as all her work does, is emotive & funny 

she makes you feel a lot & laugh a lot 

something abt her ‘honesty’ makes me want to write more 

something abt her clarity makes me ‘jealous’

the story reminds me of Lydia Davis

I kept thinking that, but simultaneously thinking, ‘no, this & Lydia Davis are definitely different’

I think Chelsea’s ability to give us such a dynamic & quirky insight into the narrator’s ‘interior’ is what reminds me of Lydia Davis

in this story the narrator is at a bar where a dude keeps touching her leg & she has a boyfriend & her friend is talking to the ‘less attractive’ friend & the narrator is talking to the more attractive friend & the narrator never tells anyone abt her boyfriend that night & feels ‘guilty’ for that but she still wants the dude to touch her leg 

thought ‘damn’ when I saw that molly soda was in here 

Kelly Schirmann (who is a badass)

poems play w/ sound a lot in IGG#3

‘alliteration’  

ILLUMINATI GIRL GANG feels good to say outloud a lot, I realized 

try it 

Kelly’s poems mention ‘snow’ & ‘the moon’ recursively 

she’s got a great knack for clipped turns of phrase & textured language: 

‘there’s a part / of your body // that does not disappear / when i call to it’ 

‘do you still love me / incompletely / what is that big deadness / we yell at / over the trees’ 

Sarah Jean Alexander’s first poem seems like a collage almost 

I like the shifts in it 

there’s a lot of visual-based art here 

I am glad that, with such a wide range of contributors, the magazine oscillates in medium 

I particularly enjoy Júlía Hermannsdóttir’s work here (apparently she lives in Iceland) 

some of these names I didn’t know & I tried to look them up on Facebook & some of them produced no results :(

Melissa Broder has this line:

‘I pour black flower milk into a goblet but you refuse to hallucinate’ 

I like Melissa Broder (have you seen her TWEETS ? ? ?)

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altogether IGG VOLUME 3 is something you need to check it out if you haven’t 

altogether IGG in general is something you shd check out

Gabby Gabby has orchestrated a hub for women artists / writers on the Internet