zyxt!  submissions . contest . editorial  about us
prose . poetry . photogallery . review
 
Editorial
 

 

      Zyxt is a literary magazine run by the students of the European College of Liberal Arts. Being born within an educational institution gives this magazine certain privileges - the primary one being that the magazine does not have or need an accountant. This also translates to cash- flooo? No problemo! However, the ethical nails hammered into us demands a guilt free conscience: if we aren’t out to make money, then what are we getting paid for? Well to be very honest and to put it into a nutshell, we are out to create Art. Given the dimensions that a three letter word like “Art” can cover, we believe that the word itself acts as a disclaimer for everything and anything that we exhibit. Indeed, one might be inclined to believe that this magazine is the digital equivalent of all the museums in the world. But on the day you visit, unfortunately, almost all the art work is being displayed in Mars due to the recent contact made with our solar brethrens, the Uranians. But who else, you might ask? But say, do you realize that goldfish live in water?

 

 

    Is this art? No, this is just the editorial. Is this an introduction to the magazine? Yes it is of course it is. Is it doing that? We already did that.
    Freedom from balance-sheets and income statements is a luxury. The magazine after all is completely funded by the European College of Liberal Arts. It is wonderfully righteous to be in school. But the freedom just begins there. Freedom from pesky advertisement agencies and the Chinese restaurant around the corner, that, my friend, is absolute bliss. No more calls complaining we typed lice instead of rice or couldn’t separate beige from purple. But finally and most importantly, the freedom of having a target market that we really don’t have to please. But please, kind reader, don’t think we do not care! We do! But we must remind you that this magazine is quite amazingly futural, written 5000 years in the future but published now so that these pro-found and pro-fund words and ideas may seep into humanity by the time they are written. And no, we do not have a time machine! We are just telepathic.

 
 

 

But such writing can carry us only so far... the goldfish awaits...

Knowing the temperament of goldfish, I had prepared propagandistic ideas. Nevertheless, ZYXT is no slogan, no news heading; so let’s try it another way. I’d like to ask you whether:

You’ve ever had that feeling…

that you’re living your life from a book?
that by writing in your own turn this book can be transcribed into a better one?that your role is being edited?
that you’re eating muffins with Marcel Proust?
or filling up the tank with Jack Kerouac?
that the Earth is round? It spins?that it spins you round and round until you’re dizzy?

 

 

 
That it’s all worth it, because:
(This is a very refined thing. Translated from Romanian)
 


Exciting?

But we are.
We are self-ish or sel-fish or self-is-h or just plain selfish… for we relish



We have no imperatives to offer.
Just ideas - neither decent nor incendiary.
Importance went to the dogs about a quarter century ago.

‘Foragainstism’ is a first principle to be introduced here – the disgust with bipolar opinions that know only how to accept or deny, while in reality the spectre of perspectives is far from limited in this way. This is why ZYXT refuses to be liked or disliked and nothing more.

Between the lines?

Try this Kerouac manuscript

 

As you can see there is hardly any space…

Liberal arts deal with everything, but then primarily, Liberal Arts deal with contextualising; contextualising intellectual history with its concrete contents and all that might be stated between the lines. This entitles us to believe in the Literary Experience – the ultimate medium, the ultimate context -may it be poetic, philosophical, historical, artistic or scientific. Experimenting with literature has much to do with reading per se and analyzing, as much as it approaches what we now dare add to the list with ZYXT – Writing; creatively. ZYXT literally meant to see; to us - to see between the lines (of reality?).

Our literary chemical mix is to be obtained through the alchemy between two pure elements: the predominant quote that stays in your mind after reading through hundreds of pages, or better yet – that single idea for the sake of which you’d be willing to write hundreds of pages yourself.

Only three wishes?

 
 
 

In the most concrete sense, our literary propaganda demands that libraries be built on the lunar surface. ‘But why not ask for something less likely to be attainable?’ the little gold fish asked. ‘You still have two more wishes’. What you are about to read in ZYXT is nothing but the fulfilment of those certain wishes that may only be satisfied through literature.

 

The Edit-o-real Team

 

 

ZYXT! - ECLA's First Online Literary Magazine
contact:  name:  e-mail:  message:
front page