Contributors
Louise Bullock - Artist @louiiib
Maik Keefe - Poet @aztechsounds
Alex Taylor - Writer @alexjtay
Catherine Jack - Artist @cjack_artist
Mike Ranahan - Poet @likestowritemmikedoes
Bethan Cox - Photographer @meatgrinder____
Clara Rose Bullock - Poet and Editor @clararose_b
David Sturgess - Logo Design @boredatthebar
When I chose The Orange by Wendy Cope as the theme for this issue, I noticed it was carrying over into my daily life. I started seeing orange everywhere, in the evening sun that has started setting later and later, my cat Bertie, napping on the sofa, the Sainsbury’s bag I use for my shopping, the houses in my neighbourhood. Orange turned into a feeling, warm and sweet on my tongue. A hug is orange, the first cup of coffee is orange, falling asleep is orange. I saw what seemed like an unusual amount of oranges that had fallen in the roads, torn open to reveal their flesh. I did what anyone in my position would do and booked myself in to get a tattoo of an orange on my forearm. It’s a delicate tattoo, it looks so ripe one can imagine the stem coming right off. It would taste sweet and tangy and the juice would run down my chin, stick to my hands. I would have half, and I would give you each a quarter.
I hope you enjoy what orange has done to all of us who put together this zine. Whether it’s the colour in Catherine Jack’s collages or the feeling of warmth in Mike Ranahan’s poem about socks who fall in love, it has been a huge pleasure seeing what Wendy Cope’s poem inspired in us. I hope it makes you feel held.
Clara Bullock Editor
Material Heaven
by Alex Taylor
We’ve all heard the phrase ‘appreciate what you have’, but what happens when the world tries to stop you?
I own a pair of shorts.
The exact moment I acquired these shorts or where they even came from is, at this point, unknown. I’d imagine this is down to the fact that they’ve been in my possession since before my university days, drinking my way through Bristol’s King Street and buying one too many grandad jumpers from Bedminster charity shops.
Even since before my secondary school days of stumbling around my littleseaside hometown with friends, keeping ourselves entertained by getting underaged tattoos and spending all our cash on slot machines in the safety hazard that was our local pier.
Further back still than my teen days of violently crying over my disobedient Nintendogs and living off a diet of chocolate wafers and Nesquik.
Next year, I turn 30. So you get the gist: I’ve had these shorts for a long time. A very long time.
The shorts in question are brown and pink striped, with no holes or tears, and by some miracle, have grown with me through the years. Don’t ask me how. They just have, ok? They’re my comfort shorts. Shorts that have stood the test of time. Shorts that I continue to wear and appreciate.
My friends and family, however, do not have the same idea. I recently went to a sleepover with some childhood friends, to which I proudly wore my eternal shorts.
One friend I’d known since the early days took one look at my lower half, and with a mild look of shock on her face, said: “Alex. I swear you’ve had those shorts since we were TEN. How are they still in one piece?” More striped-short-slander came from my younger sister, who referred to me keeping the shorts as “gross” and that it was about time I threw them away.
I get it. If you see a pair of shorts that have been around for longer than most of your relationships, you might feel compelled to question what on earth is still keeping them kicking.
But if they still (kind of) fit, continue to hold onto their seams for dear life, and bring you some comfort whilst wearing them on the sofa binge-watching Mad Men for the millionth time, then why not let them stay?
So, for as long as they continue to escape the gates of material heaven, they will stay.
I love my stripey shorts. And at this very moment in time, I’m glad they exist.
WHEN I WAS A CHILD I WANTED TO BE A CLEMENTINE
I WANTED TO GROW UNDER THE SUN
Clementine by Louise Bullock
by meatgrinder/Bethan Cox
Photo by meatgrinder
I want to be a sock sometimes
Their role is so defined
Sure it’s not a glamours life
But what a fulfilling ride
You get to start the day with your buddy
Lovingly entwined
Before you’re put to work and stepped on
Toeing a familar professional line
You’d finish limp and lifeless yes
But what’s really new there
Not too long and you’re hanging out
Together with your pair
Do socks fuck by Mike Ranahan
Paper collage with magazine imagery, water colour and vinyl sticker
Catherine Jack
“Meadow”, 2024
Authenticity Delivered In Two Weeks (Or It’s Free!)
by Maik Keefe images by meatgrinder
Day 1
We spoke about our writing today. It came from a discussion about music and my thoughts on love songs. I cannot write them, because I can only write about vague existential anxieties, about rust on the iron of safety. I decide, tomorrow, that I will write something real and append the information regarding that decision to the end of today’s entry.
Day 2
Each time I reread Orange, trying to find something authentic in it, I am only left with questions. The harder I try to feel with the poem the only thing that I seem capable of is to think about it. Recording the creative process chronologically seems a good place to start. Did Cope pick up that particular large orange meaning to write about it? What about it spoke to her? Being a ‘real’ (employed) creative person, is not every moment of her life infused with a search for inspiration? Is not each event a tributary leading into the delta of creative output? Are experiences, whether they manifest visibly within one’s oeuvre, ever truly authentic or merely observed?
Day 3
Now I simply have to wait. Doubtless a bolt of tangerine authenticity will present itself soon, my truth will be revealed, and the words will flow out of me like juice squeezed out between teeth.
Day 4
Do we know each other? I’m not asking, here, if you’re one of the parts of this piece’s readership with whom I am personally acquainted. I’m asking if we, generally, know each other, generally? I am tying myself in knots trying to make sure this piece is as true as it is generally assumed Cope’s musings on the titular orange are, and only now do I find myself asking how close this could ever be, even under the ideal conditions (whatever those would be)? To be too open is performative, to conceal too much is to isolate myself.
Day 5
“Yeah, that’s right”, respond the children, to another example of the orange that follows me. This time it appears in Boards of Canada’s Aquarius. This sample is from an episode of Sesame Street, broadcast on 07/02/1986, almost exactly 38 years before I write these very words. I am distracted, wondering what the children have been up to in the meantime. Wondering, as I wonder about Wendy Cope eating her orange, whether the two brothers that comprise Boards of Canada go through life with the feeling that they are sifting through it for parts to use in their creativity, as I have sifted through their music for a part to use in mine.
Day 6
Coming up with ideas for this project seems difficult so I visited the library today in search for something that would help and came upon Simulacra and Simulation. Up until this point I’ve felt a little worried that I’m just playing the part of someone writing a diary as part of a creative process, but by researching this book in advance and listening to the audiobook, I was able to be sure that having this book in my flat and mentioning it to people around me would make the writing of this diary seem as authentic as possible. Arriving home with the book, I place it on the table by my front door, where it will stay untouched until it’s time to return it.
Day 8
Perched on the edge of the second week of this process, I am still no closer to achieving the authenticity I have been trying so hard to contrive. Perhaps writing every single one of these entries on the day I had this idea was a mistake?
Day 9
Everywhere I look, there are oranges. The hat I wore today, the carrots we ate last night (ignore the flatness of time), the oranges, obviously, I will purchase from the market later to create a third example. (Note: it is a supermarket, the cheapest in the UK, so says The Truth in their advertising, but to say market lends more authenticity) A cat is referred to in a message, received as I write this, as ‘orange man’.
Day 10
“Oh my god, I think I’ve worked it out,” I will explain this as we watch a film I have selected. This film will have an orange in it at an opportune moment, and my practiced surprise at this will serve as the inspiration I need to finish this piece. In film, oranges have come to signal that something bad is about to happen. Someone I love views a fox as a sign of something good. I begin to question whether the colour is simply too common to make these observations worthwhile. I hope when it is day 10 that I will be able to make my realisation appear convincing for you. I will practice this many times, even setting up a camera to watch it back. It will have, then, become clear to me that the recording is as much a part of this piece as what you are currently reading.
Day 11
Real events are all this thing is made of. Nothing whatsoever described herein is untrue, and I’ve made absolutely sure of that. Authentic.
Day 12
“Are eggs (I note the colour of the yolks) vegan?” asks the woman behind the counter, assembling my fragmentary breakfast from the pre-cooked selection of fry-up standards. They are not, I say. They are, in a sense, very specifically not, I want to say.
Note: This happened eight months ago, but was eligible as an experience and so here is presented within the flow of events.
Day 13
Notes like the one at the end of what this format makes identifiable as ‘yesterday’ are to be ignored as readily as they will be forgotten when the day herself is consumed by sunset. I have stopped seeing orange everywhere I look, and stopped questioning the authenticity with which Cope’s orange was purchased, eaten, considered.
Day 14
Gone was my desire for authenticity. I had allowed it to smoke and burn in the fire of artifice. I tried so hard to reach the heights of reality Cope has achieved talking simply about the appreciation and eating of a simple, if large, orange. There was only one more thing to try. I grabbed an orange, one of the many still sat in my kitchen (or not). It was only average size, but I ate the whole thing. “And that orange it made me so happy”.
Day 15
Every time a truly great piece of reality media- documentary, writing, or otherwise- breaks its own format to make it feel truly real. I decide, here, to do the same in what I have now decided to pretend for the reader is the first part of this that I wrote.
Pink & Orange
by Clara Bullock
I made a friendship bracelet for you, pink hearts and orange beads. On Saturday, in the chip shop, I ordered extra cheese and garlic sauce. We sat down under the neon lights, I could feel every single chip land heavy in my stomach. At home, you kissed me goodnight and all was forgiven.
