If any of you saw the Spring '08 issue of the Neokoroi newsletter, He Epistole, you may have seen my painting of Hyakinthos (Hyacinth) in there. Prints of that painting are available are my Lulu.com storefront. I'm on disability allowance from the state of Michigan due to scoliosis, so I supplement my income with my art, my writing, and my music, and I thank the Gods daily that I at least have these talents. If you like my paintings, I urge you to purchase a print. I'm in the middle of re-scanning a lot of paintings for additional prints. The rest of my paintings can be seen here, at my on-line gallery; if you have any favourites, let me know so that I know which one it would behove me to scan first. Take care, -- RJ

My first novel has been out for a bit over a month now. you can check it out at http://www.lulu.com/youngsoulrebel

So I picked up newWitch #14 (no, periodicals are NOT Italicised or underlined — if you do that to the names of periodicals, you are WRONG) cos there was a cover-story interview with Wendy Rule. Being a fan of her music, I had to pick it up, even though I probably wasn’t going to get much use out of the rest of the issue.

Now, one thing I noticed about the cover besides it featuring a photo of Ms. Rule is that the magazine’s subtitle has been changed from “Not Your Mother’s Broomstick!” to “Cutting-Edge Paganism,” so I read the letter from the editor. I think it’s neat that the new editor is MTF. I don’t think this somehow makes her a better editor than the last one, but it’s interesting to note. She noted the change in subtitle/tag-line and said that while some past reader’s poll “literally” represented every age-demographic possible for newWitch readership, the subtitle was changed because she felt “Not your Mother’s Broomstick!” made some potential readers assume that it was directed at ‘teens and young twenty-somethings. Of course, maybe all of the articles on “celebrity” Witches and Pagans (Fiona Horne, Faith & the Muse, Goth singer Voltaire, etc…) might have something else to do with the assumedly young target age-demographic, but I digress.

Seriously, of the non-Wendy Rule related articles that I actually read in this issue, there were two sizeable articles about music (one about Prog-rock and one about Black Metal), three articles about “Pagan fashion” (with a considerable push toward “Goth”-like finery) and one article about the importance of “skyclad” rituals and why the Wiccan/Pagan community should embrace “going skyclad.” There was some fiction piece I haven’t read yet, but the illustrations feature Anubis and some other Egyptian deities that I can’t name. There were a few other articles I didn’t read either cos they didn’t interest me or cos, three paragraphs in, I couldn’t figure out what the purpose of the article was supposed to be. The Letters From Readers-type column proved worth the twenty-five minutes of my life, and this issue includes a letter from a Crazy™, so I guess it can’t be all that bad. Of course, one of the letters was criticising the fact that a past issue of newWitch didn’t seem to contain much substance outside of “fashion and celeb” articles, so if that’s anything to go by, gee, I can’t imagine why so many people seem to assume that newWitch is primarily directed at teenage girls!

Now, the Wendy Rule interview proved interesting enough for me to consider it worth the $6 cover-price. Apparently she talks to fairies and has a fourteen-year-old son. That was something I didn’t know about from her music or webshite. And she’s planning on touring the U$ either late in 2007 or in 2008, so naturally, I’m going to watch her MySpace page for news on that, to see if she’s going to be playing any dates in my general area, or at least somewhere close enough that I’d still be willing to pay train fare and would be able to crash at a friend’s place. (Hrmm… I wonder if her son would be legal at that point? [omg, I am such a creepy perv….])

Now I’ve considered picking up the back-issues of the F&tM and Voltaire issues before totally writing off this magazine as a dud. Seriously, after reading the new editor’s cover-letter and allegations of having an extremely diverse reader age demographic, I was hoping that there would be some substance, but I guess not. Another minor complaint is that a few times I could swear that various writers were using the terms “pagan”, “Wicca” and “witchcraft” interchangeably and as if all three concepts were one-in-the-same, but I’d rather point out examples before I can safely say that is what they actually did. Consider my remark speculation based on hazy memory.

All in all, not a terrible magazine as long as you know what you’re getting into, but if you’re expecting something with a bit more substance and, you know, more than 50% of it’s articles to actually be about Paganism, I’m sure there are other publications. I think a better subtitle for newWitch would be “Pagan and Witchy Pop-Culture,” but considering the response from that letter of criticism in #14’s “Rants & Raves” column, I probably shouldn’t say that directly to the editor.

 

[originally posted here, please go there to leave comments]

OK, so I'm under the impression that I'm the first practicioner of Hellenismos on this site. In fact, that's not even a tradition that's selectable on the drop-down menu. BOO!

Ah well, if you're reading this and you feel like adding me, I'll probably add you back.

Take care,

Boy Ruadhan