The 23 Apples of Eris

I know we were all excited when the prominent Discordian mystic and all around nice guy The Other Anonymous decided to take the time from his busy preaching schedule to edit the next issue of INTERMITTENS. I, myself, could hardly stand the wait to see what this Pinneal mastermind would come up with. The end result– and I say this with no small amount of regret– was a touch on the disappointing side.

First of all the cover art. Well, there wasn’t any. A bold choice, and certainly one that lives up to the theme of the issue, “A poor choice of editors” but in the end I feel it was a bad decision. The cover is what sets the tone for the issue, it’s what makes a zine a zine rather than just a flyer.

Which brings me to the next point: content. Where this issue is perhaps most sorely lacking is in content. Gone are the stories, articles and comics that are typically a staple of our beloved pseudoperiodical. And of course, that would be fine if the editor had seen fit to replace the traditional content with something new and exciting. But such was not to be, and the bulk of the issue seems to be dedicated to vacuous platitudes. “Log off?” “Go outside?” “Live life… passionately?” Why, thank you for reminding me, I was in danger of forgetting to do that.

That’s not to say the issue is without its good points. There is an incisive and poignant quotation attributed to the editor of the previous Intermittens, which might have been, in and of itself, enough to salvage the entire issue. It certainly helps to highlight the sad and fatalistic irony of this issue.

But perhaps that was the whole point? Irony? And that may be, and I can respect this issue as an attempt at a radical experiment with the Intermittens format. But it is, in the end, a radical experiment gone horribly awry, a pathetic Frankenstein’s monster of an issue. But if nothing else, this issue has taught us that substance cannot be subtracted from the Intermittens equation.

The sparse clipart illustrations are lackluster and disappointing, only serving to underscore what might have been. Overall, this issue was not worth the split-second of download time and the wear and tear on my hard drive from hastily deleting it.