Fermentzine: A Single Letter by Fermentzine zine

No. 2

Spring 2011

ÂŁ3

Hello. Woohoo! We made a second issue! I was a little worried we may have suffered from the old “Difficult second album” syndrome but, I hope you’ll agree, we seem to have the opposite with what I feel is a really strong collection. We chose this issue’s theme because we wanted to go with something completely different from our first issue’s theme, ‘Naked.’ ‘A Single Letter’ was initially quite low down on our list, but we all thought of different ways it could be taken and decided that this was in fact the idea we had that was most open to interpretation. I think this shows in the variety of responses we had to it; I don’t think any two writers have treated it in the same way. By a stroke of luck too, each piece almost immediately suggested itself to an illustrator we had waiting. Selecting this issue’s people pairings was an incredibly easy process. The illustrators have not let us down either, producing some fantastic pieces. We have some great complementary pairings for you to feast your eyes on. As I said of the first issue, this is something that I am very proud to have been a part of putting together. A big big thank you to everyone who contributed. It amazes me how much work people are willing to put into something they are not being paid for. I sincerely hope you all feel we have done your pieces justice. And another big thanks goes to you who parted with cash and are holding this zine in your hands right now. I really hope you enjoy it. Paul

Brought to you by…

Paul Askew

Sarah Plant

James Weiner

@misteraxl paulaskew.tumblr.com

@plantsarah

@jamesweiner

Sarah spent too much time in Birmingham and the

In a previous life James was a disorganised record

Paul labours as a wage slave serving incompetent

effects are only just wearing off. Nowadays she

cover designer and magazine editor. He then spent

members of the public. Inbetween he is an apprentice

spends her time designing nail technician manuals

some time inside the music industry machine where

literary academic and gets regular gigs inflicting his

and dreaming of a time when she will be art director

he learnt that listening to music is a lot more fun than

bizarre ramblings on unsuspecting audiences at venues

of the world. For Ferment, Sarah likes to look at lots of

marketing it. He left to reform his character and now

across Oxford and London. His number one heckler is

fonts and argue with James about white space whilst

works for himself. For Ferment, he has a pseudo-

his own mother. For Ferment, Paul is in charge of words

corralling our cabal of illustrators.

publisher role, making sure everyone else does the work

and keeping all our writers happy.

Injected with a poison.

Searchin for my rizla.

Matt Blease

and that he gets the credit. Trip to trumpton.

Matt Lewis

Thanks Newspaper Club (www.newspaperclub.co.uk) for the mega

www.mattblease.com

mattlewis.deviantart.com

Matt Blease is an illustrator, designer and art director

Matt Lewis was born in Hereford and taught himself

cover. Thanks also go to chocolate-covered bacon, wine

from London. Senior designer of Liberty London,

to draw as a child by reading comics. He moved to

gums, chunky watches and of course all of our

editor/art director of The Liberated Press and one half of

Oxford in 1997 to study and lives there still with his

fantastic contributors.

Chair-like Teeth.

partner Hannah and their son Frank. He enjoys charity shops, long johns and detective fiction.

easy to use printing service and to Matt Blease for this issue’s

Reproduction rights All content is copyright their respective creators. Please contact them with any inquiries for republication or commissioning.

Ferment

A SINGLE LETTER

A Single Letter

VICTORIA203052 My Dearest one. How are you doing i hope you are feeling fine? It was very great when i got your profiles i felt a great interested

on you

which really gave me a nice pleasure to communicate with your will have the same feelings with me contact me that i will send my pictures and more as soon as i read from you, love. i wish you best of all of good luck and have a nice day as i am waiting to hear from you soonest.yours lovely one to be,

Victoria.

Andrew Hykel Mears (Pet Moon)

myspace.com/apetmoon bfevents.tumblr.com All you laundry fresh fuckers talking to me about dead writing, fuck you. There’s a hole in the mountain (in the sequence of our domes), I’ll stack my words here, to brace. There is a hole in the mountain and the sun hangs behind it like a hood.

Valeska Hykel Mears valeska-hykel.tumblr.com Valeska Hykel is an artist specialising in screen printing. Upcoming exhibitions include a collaboration with Charlotte Freeston in London’s second smallest gallery and installations as a part of Blessing Force’s art curation at this year’s Truck festival. To view more of her work please visit valeska-hykel.tumblr.com

Ferment

Letter to Bill, 2011 (im. William Raeper, Langtan Himal 1992) The paper world, the word world we still share after all these years. You said ‘Katmandu is very stimulating and smelly a bit some people that we know.’ You’ll notice I’m still talking to you Neil Gunn, Grassic Gibbon and all his silly peesies crying; Assynt crofters and their collective; that bloody awful quarry on Harris; Runrig playing; another toot of whisky; who said what, who did what, Well really! News was final and not final. You always scoffed at such limits, and always your big laugh comes bouncing back into my ears Once again you and Martin caught us breathless. Your bold going out over edges, crossing our thresholds, coping with critics, laughing at librarians, dealing with the dreaded Delhi Belly. Back here we’re still islanded. Monsoons buffet and blind us. You made them your weather wings, lifted off over the Mearns, out over Stord and Oslo up to the world’s ledge the Himal outwards... You began something bigger and we were dizzy with loss. You two larger than mountains. On clear nights still I can almost touch your stars. Days I’m still talking to you, staring out into the bright opening blue. F

Lisa Curtis Lisa Curtis is an Oxford based artist, designer and textiler. As well as hand drawn illustration and colouringin, she specialises in creating one off pieces of original artwork made from a variety of found materials. She also crafts homemade jewellery, screen prints and knits hats. Tea and cake help to fuel all her crafternoons.

Helen Kidd Helen Kidd is a tutor at Ruskin College, poet,essayist, reviewer and editor, has taught Creative Writing in schools, prisons, hospices and Higher Ed.for many years. Her collection Blue Weather won the Cork Manuscript Award. She was co-editor of the Virago Book of Love Poetry, and founded the inter-arts group Folding Air in the 1990s. A Single Letter

ONE THOUSAND KILOS OF DUCK Eg’s of extreme roboviolence = rare = on the rise = = interr. of offenders w/ increased idiosynch. req. interviews w/ interest esp = thoughts and actions immediately before the ‘violent’ event / ‘murder’ w/ regards to self control = scrap metal plan = ...

Edward Cottrell Edward Cottrell is better known as the ghost writer of Harry Putter. He has moved away and works on a computer. Likes dreams of flying.

Murray Somerville cargocollective.com/murraysomerville murraysomerville.blogspot.com Murray Somerville is the eccentric illustrator who lives in the land of exploding melons, crime fighting toasters and spider skull mountains! Forever drawing and imagining, head over to cargocollective.com/ murraysomerville to see what his demented conscience will make next!

Ferment

...YTF.7.135 Tell me about yourself. What was the last thing you remember doing? ...Well, ZTL.7.135, I’m basically an ass. I made the check out woman be nice by being nice. I was aggressively nice and then I felt ‘bad’. ...Being good makes you feel bad, YTF.7.135? ...No. I felt numb. Again. Still. And headed toward the exit I’d come in through rather than the one that let me out me nearer to my house. Yeah that’s right I know, I fucked that one up a bit because I’m a robot etc etc etc. And what did I see on the way out? I saw a packet of chocolate buttons, and they were sitting on the customer comment section just behind the self-checkout kiosks and I thought to myself, hey, they’re nobody’s I could nick those, I could have them! ...What made you think that way YTF.7.135 ...Things for sale are on shelves. They weren’t on a shelf, right? And this is a malfunction. I must have bought something if I had time to think this, to notice these things. But I didn’t! That’s kind of amazing. I looked at the prices. I walked back down the same aisle I’d done a few days previously when, having cycled round and looked at the ‘deals’ etc etc I bought beer, pineapple juice, a toothbrush and some toothpaste. But well today I didn’t. I didn’t get a fucking thing. Except two books I won’t read for a good long while and a beef and horseradish sandwich. ...You know, either you did buy something or you didn’t, YTF.7.135. ...Yes, I didn’t. ...OK. YTF.7.135. ... What happened when you bought the food and books? ...I put on my best ‘Hi I’m normal’ voice at the check out and I paid with my 10 note. Yes I’d earlier got cash back and it was a weird, crazy, weird hassle, I’d pushed in front of a young woman with an older woman who I suspect was her mother, and in the back of my mind I kept saying ‘shes got a baby with a pram!!’ but she didn’t really. I was looking at her while I was waiting for an employee that I couldn’t even BEAR TO BRING MYSELF TO GET THE ATTENTION OF - SO I JUST SAT THERE WAITING ‘TIL SOMEONE NOTICED THE RED FLASHING LIGHT (WEAK FLASHING LIGHT BARELY NOTICABLE) GOING OFF 3 FT ABOVE ALL OUR HEADS until I got my cash back, and I looked at my miserable wins - and that was a sandwich and a 10 note I didn’t even know how to sign properly for so I just initialed it ‘Y’ (I’m going to live on my own soon - who trusts me with this?) and then I went to the library and scanned the smallest self-help book I could find from cover to cover (really a pamphlet). It was all about elminiating struggle in our lives. Like I haven’t eliminated all struggle! Like I’m not streamlined to effortlessly bullshit my way through it all! ...YTF.7.135 - How many ducks are in a ton? ...Well, actually ZTL.7.135, I think the correct answer is ONE THOUSAND KILOS OF DUCK! Hurr hurr. ...YTF.7.135 - Why have you not got a soul? ...Well, actually ZTL.7.135, I think the correct answer is ONE THOUSAND KILOS OF DUCK! Hurr hurr. F

Hero A knock at the door. I was excited. Harriet had a new boyfriend. She’d sent me an email saying she’d be bringing him round today. ‘I feel I should tell you, he’s a hero.’ A hero? Whose hero? One of our heroes? Her heroes: Seamus Heaney, Deborah Harry, Billy Connolly, David Bowie. Hmmm, too old for her tastes really.

Paul Askew

My heroes: Serge Gainsbourg, Ivor Cutler, Jimi Hendrix, Humphrey Lyttleton. Hmmm, too dead for her tastes really.

paulaskew.tumblr.com

I went to let them in. ‘Paul, I’d like you to meet Dexter.’ She motioned to a bird next to her whose wing she held tightly.

performed his poetry in Oxford and London and hopes

I couldn’t contain my shock. ‘You said you’d told him!’ ‘I did! I did!’ ‘Yeah, right! I can’t believe this!’ He flew off. She turned to me. ‘What the fuck, Paul? What the fuck?’ ‘Sorry, but how was I supposed to react?’ ‘Well, after my email, a bit better than that!’ She stormed off. I closed the door and went to my laptop. I opened the email again and read, ‘I feel I should tell you, he’s a heron.’ F

Paul Askew is a third year English student at Ruskin College, Oxford. He also works part time in a retail chain store, as well as editing Ferment. He has one day to perform somewhere less obvious.

Jess Gill www.jessicagill.co.uk Jessica is a freelance creative, specialising in fashion, lifestyle and decorative illustration, lettering and design. Currently based in the heart of England, Jessica works from her humble desk, romanticising, observing and making marks endeavouring to make the world a prettier place. Jessica is available for commission and open to collaborating with fellow creatives.

A Single Letter

Letter to W.E. – a villanelle w

Simon Hughes myspace.com/thevaticancellars Simon Hughes is a songwriter and lead singer with The Vatican Cellars. He also sometimes plays guitar for other acts, and is available for weddings and bar mitzvas. His favourite cheese is aged and unpasteurised, and his favourite architectural style is Palladian.

Duncan Mackenzie duncanmackenzie.art@gmail.com Duncan Mackenzie Illustrator. Studied Design and Illustration at Leeds Met Uni graduating in 1995. Has since continued to exhibit his paintings and prints (currently in Cornwall and Suffolk) as well as producing illustrations for numerous books and magazines.

Ferment

Because you saw that quanta change and flow, And brave enough to say, but who to hear? You cannot care, but I would tell you so. What gentlemen prefer they think they know; Sex was both wish and sting and not to fear, Because you saw that quanta change and flow. It’s not ours to remake the world, you knew and showed The closest truth you could and dared the jeers. You cannot care, but I would tell you so. The soft old stories would be replaced, although You did not love the new ones, looming near, Because you saw that quanta change and flow. The world hates discomfort, and fashion’s always slow Accepting any voice that does not cheer. You cannot care, but I would tell you so. You knew that time would dry the marrow in your bones And a system is a God, then disappears Because you saw that quanta change and flow, You cannot care, but I would tell you so. F

Penelope and the Proliferation of Plosives Perched prettily yet precariously on the precipice of a promontory in Penrith, picture-perfect Penelope Pinder (perfectly poised, palms pressed, with pristine Parisienne plait) procrastinates. Penelope places picnicking paraphernalia on the pinnacle of the promontory, and pouts. Peter (political prodigy, pathetic playwright, with private pyromaniacal preferences) pleads and pontificates; proffering profuse promises to Penelope of a paradise of pleasures in exchange for a pithy prologue to his pitiable play. Penelope, pausing playfully, produces profound purple prose to perturb Peter. Peter professes pleasure and paints a portrait of the promised paradise. Penelope pounces, propelling Peter from her presence. In preference to practising the performance of the protracted pretentious prologue to poor Peter’s political play, Penelope (perhaps) ponders the particulars of particle physics, or (prosaically) pots, pans and percolators; planks, pliers and planers; or (possibly) the purpose of plastic cups, porcupines or ping pong. Parallelly, Penelope passively, pointlessly and with precision perforates a plastic pack of party poppers; paces the promontory, then proceeds in pleasant perambulation, that presents her (neither panting nor perspiring) with Postlethwaites: Purveyors of Perfectly Pure Pleasure Ported into a pantry of pudding paradise, Penelope places a piece of purple pastry in her pie-hole, and her prim phizog professes perfect pleasure. She partakes of: pistachio and plum pebbles; a profusion of precious potions; pairs of pickled pears; and pink, perfumed pillows. Paradise precisely. F

Rachael Hemsley

Holly Exley

hrhemsley@hotmail.com

www.hollyexley.com

Rachael spends her days thanklessly finessing other

mail@hollyexley.com

people’s words. Outside of that she can generally be

Holly Exley is a hard-working illustrator who graduated

found creating something or other, which usually results

from Middlesex University in 2010. Inspired by the

in a small beautiful thing and a giant mess as she’s

life and work of Beatrix Potter, she lives amongst her

not the tidiest of people. This is the first bit of writing

beloved animals and her paint pots in East London.

Rachael has let anyone else see.

Clients have included Redwood publishing and Dazed Digital. Moreover, be sure to look out for her work in the up coming AOI annual, out in April 2011. A Single Letter

Rebecca Johnson www.smokingcrow.com Rebecca Johnson was born in Liverpool and ran away to Oxford four years ago to follow her dream of escaping alcoholism and living in a cottage with two cats, and a pug called Brian Ferry. This dream has yet to be fulfilled as she is often seen clutching a bottle of vodka whilst trying to steal stray kittens. But she does have her own Vintage Clothing website called Smoking Crow.

Seb Thomas Sebastian Thomas is an Oxford based artist whose creative practice takes the form of sculpture, large scale installation and more recently drawing and illustration. His work finds inspiration in the ancient stories of greek mythology, the strange creatures that exist in the depths of the world’s oceans and the futuristic visions 1970s science fiction.

Untitled Beneath the ground, lights sky rocketed around a black stinking room, swinging around like trapeze artists, red, green and yellow, all of them igniting the monsters beneath their aching glows. I was in the middle, crushing glass and mud underfoot and smelling of spilt whiskey and Red Bull. I, like the lights, had been propelling myself around this stink-hole with limp limbs and a Cheshire cat grin, the music was my driving force as my eyes filled my head like dry glassy marbles. I felt on fire, even my skin danced as if the whole universe was touching me. Every time my arm brushed into my fellow monsters I wanted to turn and touch them, stroke their beards, kiss their mouths and love their bodies for just being in the same room as me. I was a maenad this evening, crazied, energized and ready to celebrate sin for the rest of my life. I was so aware but so much out of control, like someone had taken my spine and stuck an aerial in its place, their thumbs dominating on a plastic controller, making me move and feel like never before. Tonight I was St Teresa, touched by ecstasy, carving my way around the room, my jaw revolving free like a child’s empty swing. We were all alive and I could feel everyone else’s heartbeats blast through me, all together dancing in one whole mass, staring at each other with pupils as big as my own ones felt. Our arms waved heavenwards like a mass of anemones on a sea bed, swaying collectively in a stormy tide. And that’s when I saw him, the octopus. I recognized him but didn’t know him. His face was twisted in disapproving sweat. He came towards me through the sea, slimy tentacles reaching outwards, feeling me out through my fellow creatures with puckered fingers and anger set in his eyes. I wasn’t quick enough to move and his arms slithered around me all tight and cold and damp. “For God’s sake, come on,” he hissed down my ear, dragging me from the safety of my pounding seabed and upwards into the cold night. My whole body shook with ice and he walked away from me, only to return when his eyes caught me trembling. “What have you taken?” I shook my head forcefully. “Nothing,” I hissed. I wanted to kiss him on the mouth. I wanted to feel that big fat pink tongue in my own. I reached forward to clasp his hair and he pushed me away. “You promised me…” My body shuddered harder, I had never been so cold in all my life. Someone opened the door to my cruel aquarium and the music begged me to re-enter to join my fellows in the warmth and the wet. “You’re not even listening are you?” His throat gravelled as he started walking away from me and before I knew it my arm reached out of it’s own accord. “Just get off me,” he snarled. “You may as well have a great big fat letter E stamped on your forehead.” F Ferment

“FUCK” The shouting, the locked jaw, the eyes singing murder The contorted spasm, the ever-study cutting The January down marrow, the fever called to order The rollies, the tea, the wanking and the staring Won’t get that fuck of a vertical flashing line To spill its guts and get on doing what lies Easy and brilliant under old pox ridden clothes Heavy, time dilating bullshit mass and inertia Each cruel beat, coquettishly reveals the white expanse Of what is to be filled, and the very particular empty Bringing on the end, one surly flicker at a time F

Stuart Robert Bryant Stuart Robert Bryant was born into the declasse Bedfordshire petit bourgeoisie in the winter of 1980. He is a Historian of Political Violence, a Barman and a MIG welder. He would kill for Chicken Kievs. He lives in Oxford.

Matt Halliday www.needlebath.co.uk info@needlebath.co.uk Matthew Paul Halliday was born in High Wycombe on the day the Reverend Jesse Jackson flew to Syria. He likes most to drink wine and to ride trains. As co-director of web designers Biff Bang Pow, he profits from painting your tubes. He lives in Oxford with five men.

A Single Letter