Ink Stain publishes some ink in the new
(Derek Brou, publisher of Contango takes a closer look at some article submissions)
Derek Brou, publisher, asked me over a glass of wine one night (as he adapted a Tom Waits song for acoustic guitar--not an easy thing to do, BTW)--if I thought enough people in Denver would respond to a magazine whose tag line was, "Where artists dig for inspiration."
The obvious answer was to start the magazine and see who picked it up. Derek became a publisher to answer his own question. He calls his magazine: Contango.
It's a lot like the early 1970's
counter-culture publications I used to
sneak a look at--the forbidden ones--in the funky readeries I would
slip into when in San Francisco on vacation from sub-suburban Los
Angeles with my fam.
I remember the drawings and the images most of all in these pubs; they were wild and strange, like upheaval's allegory in black and white; the subjects were always in mid-scream or locked in a trance; they were the characters of an Aquarius ethno genesis: the far-out, urban tribe of talented freaks, cartoonists and writers and poets who had created an alluring world of inky arcanum, social crit and who re-casted pop-culture iconography into tools for anti-establishment political satire.
It was all over my head, but I knew something great was going on. Add the perfunctory Sandlewood aroma as icing on the experiential cake. Always, I would get ushered out of these SF underground bookstores by the concerned grip of a hippie hand.
"You're a bit young, chum. This material is for adults, K?"
I would play dumb and scramble to find my family playing tourist close
by--now beginning to wonder if they'd have to scour the Upper Haight to
ever see me again. I would forever try to figure out what made those
70's bookstore counter-culture publications roar so compellingly in
mind...
Building a playground for yourself allows new things come to life. If you don't have your own playground yet, crack open a copy of Contango. It's the sandbox where you can dig for inspiration.
Contango Magazine...
An ultra-niche retro-politan newsprint publication
An ultra-niche retro-politan newsprint publication
targeting the... curious minded
(Derek Brou, publisher of Contango takes a closer look at some article submissions)
Derek Brou, publisher, asked me over a glass of wine one night (as he adapted a Tom Waits song for acoustic guitar--not an easy thing to do, BTW)--if I thought enough people in Denver would respond to a magazine whose tag line was, "Where artists dig for inspiration."
The obvious answer was to start the magazine and see who picked it up. Derek became a publisher to answer his own question. He calls his magazine: Contango.
It's a lot like the early 1970's
counter-culture publications I used to
sneak a look at--the forbidden ones--in the funky readeries I would
slip into when in San Francisco on vacation from sub-suburban Los
Angeles with my fam.
I remember the drawings and the images most of all in these pubs; they were wild and strange, like upheaval's allegory in black and white; the subjects were always in mid-scream or locked in a trance; they were the characters of an Aquarius ethno genesis: the far-out, urban tribe of talented freaks, cartoonists and writers and poets who had created an alluring world of inky arcanum, social crit and who re-casted pop-culture iconography into tools for anti-establishment political satire.
It was all over my head, but I knew something great was going on. Add the perfunctory Sandlewood aroma as icing on the experiential cake. Always, I would get ushered out of these SF underground bookstores by the concerned grip of a hippie hand.
"You're a bit young, chum. This material is for adults, K?"
What made those independent and counter-culture, basement publications
so intoxicating? Their rawness. Their homemade-ness.Their lack of
commercial savvy and nakedness of ideas. They were a cosmic garden
where minds were denuded of convention, where ideas ran streaking,
where the voice of a new power of expression got published on the big
cheap. It's almost strange to see Contango out there subtly chanting "death to the gloss, death to the formula: restaurant review, hot girl, handbag, repeat--take a seat!"
Perhaps that's what Contango is to me: the fulfillment of an incomplete memory of a counter-culture magazine that I wasn't supposed to look at but one I write for occasionally. But Contango isn't counter-culture. It's a read for an over the counter culture looking for less to buy and more to buy into.
Because my imagination runs wild with Contango just like it did when I was a kid. I know what's behind the curtain now. It's a playground. Just like I always thought it was.
And for this issue I wrote about Marty Gregg's playground, the owner of ArtHouse and his prolific personal journals: Drawings From the Empathetic Unconscious: The Journal of Marty Gregg, How Denver Buildings Learn to Shake Hands, and What Jet Engines Really Look Like.
Marty has designed wayfinding for the Denver Art Museum, Children's Hospital and Denver Public Library. He knows what goes on in the unconscious minds of passersby. He knows because his journal, the playground, gives him access to it.
Perhaps that's what Contango is to me: the fulfillment of an incomplete memory of a counter-culture magazine that I wasn't supposed to look at but one I write for occasionally. But Contango isn't counter-culture. It's a read for an over the counter culture looking for less to buy and more to buy into.
Because my imagination runs wild with Contango just like it did when I was a kid. I know what's behind the curtain now. It's a playground. Just like I always thought it was.
And for this issue I wrote about Marty Gregg's playground, the owner of ArtHouse and his prolific personal journals: Drawings From the Empathetic Unconscious: The Journal of Marty Gregg, How Denver Buildings Learn to Shake Hands, and What Jet Engines Really Look Like.
Marty has designed wayfinding for the Denver Art Museum, Children's Hospital and Denver Public Library. He knows what goes on in the unconscious minds of passersby. He knows because his journal, the playground, gives him access to it.
Building a playground for yourself allows new things come to life. If you don't have your own playground yet, crack open a copy of Contango. It's the sandbox where you can dig for inspiration. 
