Getting words together

There’s something very special about the pozzie occupied by small magazines in the immensely complex structure of any modern society. From the surreptitious and dangerous distribution of broadsheets in countries less fortunate than our own, to the high-gloss high-chic and/or High Culture mags that emanate from the ‘top end’ of more comfortable societies, they keep groups of likeminded folks in touch, involved and informed. In a world where all but the merest handful of us live in a state of mental or physical bombardment, where we have given over more and more of our lives to that handful of manipulators and brainwashers, browbeating us to consume or conform, the small mags are unique in that their content is largely derived, in a chicken and egg sort of way, directly from readership. They stimulate creativity and involvement. A drop in the bucket perhaps, a few desperate strokes against the tide, the merest pinch of leaven in an awfully large loaf. But where there is the stirring of response there is hope.