Author: Notes Magazine
Editor’s Note to Issue 14: On Surfaces, Construction and Concealment
IssuesThe fourteenth issue of Notes, due to be launched on Wednesday, is themed around surfaces, construction and concealment. It is the last issue of Michaelmas, and we are eagerly awaiting your response. In “Pop and Equality: on Andy Warhol and Steven Morrissey”, Daisy Churn discusses how constructed identities can be employed to conceal inequality. Kyung Oh explores, with melodious subtlety, the construction of literary character and identity in his poem “Criseyde”. The difference between creation and construction becomes apparent in Jamie Rycroft’s “Eva Araim”, employing images of childbirth. The adoption of a deliberately constructed identity for ourselves, and the imposing of constructions onto others is a timeless literary topic, particularly because any writer will construct, and ultimately always conceal, in the process of creating. Both Debahuti Chaliha, a writer from Perth, and Tam Blaxter, deal with this issue in their poems.
Surfaces are created in many ways throughout the issue – most notably the image of a droplet by Thomas Blunt, created using equations and computers. With this we hope to introduce Notes’ readers to a way of creating art that might be unfamiliar.
Notes’ final issue this Michaelmas encourages discussion about how we present ourselves and about the ultimate superficiality of both art and communication. Yet the issue is not constrained to this topic, and we are proud to present a very diverse collection of student art and thought. As always, we hope this magazine provides inspiration for future work and discussion. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on it, and seeing you at the launch on the twenty-seventh of November.
The Parallel Shadows of Logic Lane
Articles
The Parallel Shadows of Logic Lane
I had three Oxford interviews;
The first, the evening I’d arrived,
They asked me why I’d had 4 schools;
How sin2x could be simplified.
In silent streets I came that night
To the parallels of Logic Lane.
A strange confusion wracked my mind
As shadowed raindrops stung my face.
In the next one, on the 3rd floor,
2 men with large moustaches asked
The odds of what could be won of
Some money hidden under a
Table I couldn’t see under, but
The other told me what he saw,
But I’d get £50 from the other
If I chose not to make a choice.
⅓ of us would get an offer.
Or we could cut ourselves in 3.
That night I slept for 8 hours.
I ate 600 calories.
At home I’d cried 46 tears,
Gasping for breath 24 times.
In the next months I would tally
Those numbers that measured my life,
Roll them up countless hills, frozen
And then divide them by despair
To try to find a solution.
The answer that was never there.
In the last one, on the 3rd day,
2 men who smelled like virgins both
Asked me to solve 2a+6b=4, a-4y=8;
An equation with 2 unknowns.
2 variables I could not find;
When I confused the number 6
With a b in my handwriting
One suggested that I change it.
The white-jumpered one asked me to
Define a Universal Law.
I said something that’s always true
At any time or spatial point.
So he asked whether that meant that
Him wearing a white jumper now
And here was a Universal
Law. I didn’t know. I still don’t,
But throughout those next months I searched
For some truth which held these threads in
This stainless shape of moments, falling
Away like scales on violins
Approaching infinite nothing,
Expanding in Euclidian streets,
Were we count parallel lines in
Seconds; symbols on paper sheets.
by Max Maher
Editor’s Note to Issue 13
Issues
Dear readers,
Issue 13 will be coming out this week and it’s one of the most pervasively mature we’ve seen in a while. The submissions have a real sensitivity to them which, combined with the general theme, can leave the reader in a pensive mood and craving a good cup of tea. The theme is one which affects us all in the frantic university life we lead – identity and its ever-changing nature. From Shadow-South and its gentle nudging at our own mortality to the quiet, resigned innocence of ‘For Charley, an Apple’, this issue contains notes loosely themed around otherness, the self and preservation/destruction. The first half of this magazine is an exploration of the self through other worlds and urban landscapes. The second half is a more intimate discussion of the body and our tendencies to preserve and destroy. We hope this magazine provides inspiration for future works and discussions.
We hope you enjoy Issue 13 of Notes.
Keep reading, keep creating, be inspired.
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Issues
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