Book: Open City #16 (I Married An Artist)
Edited by Robert Bingham (Open City, Inc.)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

---

Literary magazines once represented a vibrant corral of new, divergent literary styling, with work from everywhere along the spectrum: the ranks of the up-and-coming contributed in step with those more established authors. The avenue provided outlets for voices seeking a first audience and forum to display less commercial work for names as staggering as America's first literary celebrity, Jack London.

Today, the role of the literary magazine is more confused. The sheer numbers of media outlets, due in large part to the internet's vanity publishing capabilities, have exploded. Home desktop publishing is available to anyone with a PC, siring another wave in the micro-press revolution. While the mainstream press is being swallowed by media barons left and right, and rules lifted as to their ability to monopolize, the small press flourishes in the fresh greens of a spring garden.

This leads to the question: Can a magazine with a publication run of one thousand or even less, actually make an impact amid this sea of paper?

Issue Sixteen of Open City out of New York features one of the best covers in the history of publishing. One look at the weeping woman and scan of the headline "I Married An Artist" sets the tone of commitment: both in terms of their collective dedication and their gathering need for therapy, the sense of hungry artistry emanates from the outside. Inside is a mish-mash of poetry, fiction and a few pieces cut from the wide swath best described as "other." Cryptic pieces of Allen Ruppersberg's novel Greetings From L.A. are mixed throughout the periodical, taking aside two page glances at the book's larger story. What to make of David Bunn's "Book Worms" or Nina Katchadourian's "The Sorted Books Project" is a mystery: both are predominantly visual, with elusive illustrations of the depths and repetitions in the library catalog. Bunn's project consists of photos of catalog cards for the same book "Drilling and Boring" by Fred Herbert Colvin. In Katchadourian's work spines of random art books are depicted, from Van Gogh to Picasso. But why? These two are standouts in form where Bruce Jay Friedman's short story "Lost" and the poems of Nathaniel Bellows are standouts in function.

While Open City isn't going to change the world, the quality and presentation in each issue just might change their readers. Never stodgy or even predictable, its publishers keep fresh words and images bursting forth from each page of their tri-annual.

© 2003 - Erick Mertz