Spassky at a Safe Distance, Issue 20
“End of the Overture”
1: Introduction
2: Spassky’s Assorted Somethings
3: Bonus + Short Story of the Week
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20 Spasskies, 20 000 words – to quote the introduction of Spassky 10, “Most people
celebrate in the face of such accomplishments, but I feel it more appropriate in my case to apologise.” Though there are more reasons for repentance than ever, I’m afraid we’ll have to overlook the oversights of the past, and instead gaze (for metaphorical cadence) at what will certainly be remembered as a 21st century Hindenburg, or a dry-land Titanic.
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This will be the last “Spassky” of its kind. Everything is going to change.
From talking to fervent Spassky enthusiasts (when the nurses of the insane-asylum were
kind enough to let me visit) I have gotten a full view of their view of Spassky – and I don’t like it. “He is a sort of cosmic entity – with a fixation for Victorian England – looking down with amusement at the follies of mankind.” In another description I was “an immortal descendant of a pre-adamite protoplasmal primordial atomic globule – with a fixation for Victorian England – looking out of the window of his log cabin with amusement at the follies of mankind.” Now I take exception to being called a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule; I don’t deny it, I just take exception to it.
But seriously: these descriptions are symptoms of a bigger problem which I have been
battling with for some time now: “Spassky” is getting old (almost a year old, as a matter of fact – February 14, mark your calendars; I expect chariots and fireworks). But seriously: Spassky is growing old; writing one is so matter-of-course, the subjects are shallow, all to make way for the “voice”, which is itself getting monotonous. The lofty cosmic entity was fun, and I got some good Spasskies out of it (18, 11, 15, and 12), but I want to pull it “down to Earth” now and try something new. I don’t quite know what that means yet; my only concept of The Next Stage is sort of musical – these twenty Spasskies, a light, fun overture fades into silence, as Misterioso starts playing in the flies. Damned if I know what happens after that.
Don’t expect another Spassky for a while; if you have any hopes to hold, hold them for the
Sometimeth of February.
And it seems I couldn’t have timed this change any better; really, you might think it was all
planned. Kzine seems to be undergoing their own little metamorphosis: from the old blue to the bold red (it seems to be a gradual process, though; their Website and Spotify are still Smurf-blue). The new administration has completely won me over; their vision of Kzine is so beautifully biZarre, bold, and this redshift shows that they are in charge of Kzine, not just holding the helm for the pleasure of some long–since plank-promeneering captain’s ghost. Salvador Dali is scrolling their Instagram-page with happy tears in his eyes (and an anteater on his head).
For the first time in Kzine’s long and languid history, I see the potential of a Golden Age.
The latest Kzine was the best I’ve ever read; 2013 and on, nothing compares with it. Exciting, surrealistic, thoughtful, questioning, questionable at times, and always entertaining. (By the way, reviving “KG Biktar Sig” was a great initiative; happy to see the editorial staff is reading the old winterprints, too).
And the Website is livelier than ever (“the Sahara is wetter than ever”). Spassky 16 wasn’t
immediately followed by Spassky 17, but got a most welcome interruption in the form of “Vända Blad och Skriva Nytt”, a wonderful essay, whose author I pray will bless us with many more interruptions in the future.
Of course, I wish the podcast-branch would get some more attention. Those four episodes
of Before You Close the Storybook (that I hear is going viral in torture-chambers all around the world) should have been buried and forgotten long ago. There was this initiative a couple of years ago, “Humans of KG” that would do well in a podcast-format: a simple interview-show where the host interviews a random KG student for an hour, making a sort of “Podcast Portrait” of them. Everyone in this place is interesting – no matter if they think so themselves – and there’s a lot we can learn from/about each other. I would do this myself, of course, if it weren’t for a big little Something which I might dedicate a whole “reformed Spassky” to later on.
All of this is to say that whether you’re on the editorial staff, or a humble contributor, a
fan, or one that has only heard of Kzine in passing, nowhere are you more needed (or more welcome) than in this league of (as I put it in Spassky 10) “the most talented set of lunatics I have ever met.” You don’t even have to be a member – I’m not a member, yet here I am.
It’s sad to see (it’s such a sad sight, in fact, that I’ve talked about it as far back as Spassky
6) that KG is full of people with things to say, “Våfflor och Socialism” to “KG Skriver”, yet the MEDIUM for them to say this, Kzine, the MEDIA association, is lightyear-off-Saturn silent. In Spassky 10 – on the lack of “video-content” – I said, “The Marketing Committee is practically KG’s media association”, and, though there’s been some improvement, that’s still very true.
Maybe people just don’t know where to send their stuff. Well, you can do it in three ways:
1) Straight into Kzine’s Instagram Direct Messages
2) Email contact@kzine.se
3) Send it to an administration-person; video to the video-person, podcasts to the
podcast-person (you might already be familiar with the podcast-person if you’re podcasting, to get the key to the “studio”), and stuff for the website to the (praise be!) webmaster. You can find out who’s who by way of step 1 or 2.
And here we are, at the end of it. Or rather, the new beginning. I suppose it’s only
appropriate that the Story of the Week – which might be the last Story of the Week – should also be about ends and new beginnings (if you’re one for looking on the light side of things). I’ve included many of my favourite stories in the course of these 20 Spasskies, but this one, which is a fierce competitor for my “Top Three”, I have purposefully withheld. It’s not that I’ve done it with an awful lot of gravity, it just never felt right, I don’t know.
I suppose all there’s left to do is to wish that you fare well, have a merry Christmas, and a
Happy New Year. So here it goes: Farewell, merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
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Bonus: The ”Overture” As I Imagine It (Starting From 2:10)
Story of the Week: ”The Little Match Girl” (H.C. Andersen, 1845)
Your humble servant,
