The Open Face Sandwich – 2008
Number 19
2008
Annual
Sheheryar B. Sheikh
It’s here. It’s finally here. The first issue of The Open Face Sandwich. Is it glorious? Yes! It’s a breath of fresh air. It’s the cataclysm I’ve been waiting for. It destroys my sense of place; it unhinges my hold on reality. It de-clasps my notion of a literary journal. It’s been advertised in a million places with a small, tasteful card. And it’s finally in my hands. O, the marvel of it. I gush for reasons such as:
It’s here. It’s finally here. The first issue of The Open Face Sandwich. Is it glorious? Yes! It’s a breath of fresh air. It’s the cataclysm I’ve been waiting for. It destroys my sense of place; it unhinges my hold on reality. It de-clasps my notion of a literary journal. It’s been advertised in a million places with a small, tasteful card. And it’s finally in my hands. O, the marvel of it. I gush for reasons such as:
1. I find a postcard in the middle. “Kirkwood Road #1 (The Glutton)”, with a picture of a squirrel slumbering after a feast.
2. There’s a 30-page photocopy of a booklet called “My gernll” (the wonder of childhood phonetic spelling), with such magnificent lines as “The firs week of school was borring and horrabl and the wrrst week of my life,” and “Frogs are qute. They eat wrms, flis, and all cins of flis they eat mesketos, mesketo eaters.”
3. “at Majority” by Ariana Reines begins with a great R-rated line, and goes into the theory of crying in the outside and crying in a room: “People cry into the telephone a lot, that’s another thing.”
4. Photographs of road kill, “Found in Atlanta.” Not appetizing, but a great photo-essay.
5. A story called “Angles” begins, “He wanted to see everything from a new perspective.” Simple, fun, about a chair, a boy, and the lack of a light bulb.
The cover’s to be coveted, too. The hole at the front is filled in on the back, where text runs in the shape of a piece of bread. “Send works of wicked and unbearable tenderness. Send uncommon prose . . . Send absurdities, misinformation, pornography, libel, personal correspondence.” Receive these, when you open.
[www.openfacesandwich.org]
