MHR:A Review of Issue #7
by Daniel Y. Harris
http://www.madhattersreview.com
Lewis Carroll, patron saint of the unsaintly and unpatronized, in
bestowing such idiosyncratic mirth to the Hatter’s position at the tea
party, sets the parameters for Mad Hatters’ Review and its Internet and
Outernet world. Adorned with Carroll’s 19th century vision of the demented
hatter as “victim of mercury poisoning” (the poor, working-class hatter
“worked with hot solutions of mercuric nitrate, in poorly ventilated
rooms”), the Review makes contemporary and metaphorical the plight of the
hatters, who suffered “neurological damage, resulting in such symptoms as
tremors, slurred speech, irritability, and depression.” This enfolding of
legacy bestows Mad Hatters’ Review with a new canon particularly interested,
as publisher Carol Novack says,
“in edgy, experimental, gutsy, thematically broad (i.e., saying something
about the world and its creatures), psychologically and philosophically
sophisticated writings.”
Issue #7 continues to endow this canon. Poets Joe Amato, Gunnar
Benediktsson, Bob Marcacci, Sally Molini and Michael Neff are genes spliced
from E.E. Cummings and some of his inventive and eloquent ancestors and
progeny. Each contributor is granted a vibrant trove of visual and musical
accompaniment, if s/he so chooses. Custom-made artworks are provided by
staff and guest artists and composers, including (classical) Sandra Scheetz
Wise, Quartetto Constanze & Jon Leifs, Suchoon Mo, (jazz) Benjamin Rush
Miller, the versatile, melodic Guthrie Lowe, Steve Kane, Paul Toth, and
fusion ace Benjamin Tyree. Stay for the mad multimedia spree, a unique
experience in the expanding field of cyberitic publishing.
Gryphon, dormouse and dodo metaphorically abound in Mad Hatters’
Fiction, Non-Fiction, Whatnots, Dramas and Audio Text Collages. Notables,
among the fine work of Claire, Millas, Ratner, Wilson and Wuori, is Brandon
Hobson, who retells Hellenistic Alexandria, illuminated by the epochocal art
of Peter Schwartz. A King of Hearts (writer Kevin P. Keating) appears to
wrestle with Kubricks’s demons.
In case you’ve been beaten by love or have reified sex, pedagogic
lessons to redeem erotic neurotics surface in Lynda Schor’s “Sex for
Beginners 2.” Be not dismayed; the end is not near. Check out the Columns,
Comics (including “The Perils of Patriotic Polly”), Contests, Galleries,
Interviews, Site and Book Reviews, Video clips, and text and visual
collages. Pay your nickel and the brilliant Don Bergland’s “Mental Theater”
comes with 1954 American cheese. You’ll stay parked, neck, and miss the
movie.
Before sleep, as the rabbit hastens to his black hole, Mad Hatters’
Review probes Scottish talent in “Viva Caledonia.” Featured artist Calum
Colvin was born in Glasgow. It is well-worth perusing Colvin’s
phantasmagoric visual wit, as you extend your stay with fiction, poetry, and
a play by the famous Alastair Gray, selected by associate editor Peter
Robertson. Each issue includes a special section devoted to creations from
a different part of the world.
Frontispiece “Lamb,” by artist Camille Martin, exemplifies the
Hatters’ daemonic ethos, carried from the inaugural issue. The sublime and
the agitated meld in these seven issues. Of note in prior issues: #6, the
poems of acclaimed poets Meltzer and Rothenberg, the art of Lynn Schirmer,
Art Director Tantra Bensko, associate art editors Peter Schwartz, X-8, and
D.K. Macdonald, and the expressionistic art animations of Jean Detheux, who
moves colors and primordial forms to music.
The Review’s resolute spirit and determination to artfully exploit the
expansive possibilities of Internet publishing and offer quality, inventive
creations, is manifest in every issue of the journal.