Colophon Redux, Part One

I blame the internet… for everything, usually. A book I bought goes missing… the internet ate it, running late for work… bloody spam comments took too much time checking, bad hair day… well, I’d think of some way of blaming the internet. You know what the internet has gone and done now. It’s only deleted all me posts from MagCulture’s [magculture.com/blog] live blogging experiment whilst at Colophon2007 [colophon2007.com] in Luxembourg. Luckily the internet can back stuff up for you too, suddenly we’re friends again! Only I’ve had to rewrite these a bit, but they’re better now, I think. A big ‘ta very muchly’ to Jeremy at >MagCulture for asking Boicozine to participate in Colophon2007. Take my word for it, it was a magazine lovers dream. Here’s my account of what happened over 3 days in Lux…

Thursday, Preparations

Magazine people are the nicest sort of people
I’m sitting on the grand staircase at Casino Luxembourg [casino-luxembourg.lu], which I’ve decided is my fave spot for now. Things are starting to wind down after a frantic day getting spaces ready for tomorrow’s launch. A few of the magazines are still prepping their spaces. On the top floor Shift! [shift.de] are getting their ‘This should be made public’ artwork lined up using bits of string, Yummy magazine [eat-fast.net] are sticking the last of their little packets on their walls and Carl’s Cars [carls-cars.com] are putting bags of car shaped sweets on their walls. Other magazines with rooms at Colophon2007 include Coupe [coupe-mag.com], Frame [framemag.com], Omagiu [omagiu.com], Rojo [rojo-magazine.com], S Magazine [spublication.com], Street/Fruits/Tune [fruits-mg.com] and thisisamagazine.com [thisisamagazine.com].

Magazine people manufacture mystery
Something spooky has been going on in the Omagui room [omagiu.com]. For a start, it’s kinda of dark. There’s just a desk, a lamp, some chairs and what looks like a couple of military uniforms in the large-ish space (no windows). On the desk are a stack of Omagiu magazines and a big red book. Weird thing is every time I’ve looked in stuff seems to have moved around and yet I haven’t seen anyone around setting things up. It’s spooky.

Closure
Deep down in the underground vaults that lie beneath Casino Luxembourg is special place. Some might call it a sacred place. It’s a place where those that have been well loved (and sometimes equally well loathed) have been lain to rest. The names of those that fought and have fallen strewn the walls and nooks and crannies of this subterranean world… Yes, I’m being a tad melodramatic. This is the Magazine Graveyard (see ‘Your subscription has been cancelled’ in the official Colophon book, ‘We Love Magazines’ [die-gestalten.de]) where you can read about magazines that have made a mark on the cultural landscape before being taken out of print (but often not out of circulation). This is proving to be one of the most popular exhibits at Colophon2007 even before it’s opened.

Colophon Redux continues…