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eL aFGHANO Issue 1
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`ï `ü$$üï NO FAME - NO SHAME
-
- isSUEe1 -
- - -
-
We are Afghanes. We live in Afghanistan, a small country in
Central Asia, only slightly larger than France. Our life is
hard. The country has a rough climate and hardly any natural
resources, with the notable exception of opium. We Afghanes are
not a homogenous people. The largest ethnic group and the real
elite of us is the Pashtunes. The Pashtunes are an
Indo-European tribe. They represent a bit less than two-fifths
of the total population. The second largest group is the
Tadzhiks, of Persian descent, followed by the Mongolian Hazara,
living in the poorest regions of our country, the Uzbeks, the
Aimaks, the Nurestani, who are suspected to be descendants of
the ancient Greeks, the Baluchs, the Turkmens and the Kyrgyzes.
All that unites us is our belief in the one and only God, and
our pride to be Afghane. asuteramneskapedanesumlinetkodimfekne
_
- _ -
oa This is the premier issue of Afghanistan's first (mostly)
sb English language e-mag. We will hereby contribute to making
si propaganda for our country in the western world.
_
- _ -
emusnej Sorry if parts rasneskusitnemetylamenkoresnejnaspeste
manku of this e-mag are alemaneneputimsemeneteresimuliskesimo
ras a bit hard to read but we are forced umirestuseratimlenek
naputim by our belief to insert holy words unneseluratosbanek
solimenetferete into english texts soliferetsimulesnespustjet
or else we would do mongoloskimensuresneminhasulnepanutetarub
alumi harm to our mighty god simuliskemenuhinsedsumlamullaseb
arepesketalipanoskerotimuse and he would be very apset nutlnes
wellletsstartthisshitthinggoonnowwithhottrashholyyearreaddizzero
OK! PASHTUNA LANGUA WISDOM COMING UP THEN PASHTUNA ARTICULA!!!!
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Mahatma na simejka, nasud nam nemidim
pensim. Unna esta manesku, aske beste
limunesk. Menunin sa nasatin, ale mane
mankunu.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
Ne sumnereska airbus indiosne.
Asnekera raspitu li nutlni amerkrasnoj lamnidet karusima
listobenje ankristani airbus mastaniki lemnotorov arsibutim.
Unna erim nhe retalin askabad na kandahar usibeki nesborov
amneskarat. Eristerov amerkra, neski somibedt, ale mane
karustej nunka punja pashebet. Eskulapne indio, lemni este
karusten. Askabadne sumalet, uska munka erutin. Nijnov wente
nisturan, auke remnisentiej. Newladim ni skaromov, asperim ne
anne ku. Unna semni as na bare, simnos strete atre fakta.
Lumnidosne arumin, este peste kinka nug. Nunka pare, aska
umnijarim, pare maskadim, este vulnerim. Indiasne manuke. "A
sumanuma karu, a lumanuma hey. Eskemale divusne, anne mane kej,
a sumanuma karu, a lumanuma hey." Lomniset rimuta, askemare
brosveret. Ale mane rasputin, one more im na him. Ondsu meruski
india tal iban asta reske, kabulne ralevit na ritostandu
menjasim. Et si manesu nas kende ibrahim, leste mane kalevit
num ire kej. Pashtun na apel na saru unna skej, immohum rasputi
nesne ars. Lamme numeri, ale nesmotim respunem. Resnasne
aleksom, relmehem indiasi na airbus aperat na summe. Askebat!
Semniaskom relitim, eske peske parutim. Karu na hey na
luminesne meju, ele mene nasputim, are meske parutsne. Maskadim
som na simulni li anne kuravet. Skaramim aste ella numireita.
Auskoremo maratas, za ud semiaski lomniet as reske maske
karutin, indiasnem manaluga luma semnat arutim. Eske peske
simul neput, ne es strasnoskej rasputin rum ause asputim. India
nos omnerat mas artumin es kemalog. E pakistanom mempherat, ak
simul tanem peniet. Erutin set aste man, mane pus na kulmenat.
Somiel som ne skusim tje vaistvo aske mim. Ale, maru! Tal na
somniet! Rum skinesne lamiskum!
Abu Gaza
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Somniferet menuhin, sed aske nebet
banuhin. Ale enna sastamat, arru luka
ne meniheko. Maru somniet na bare.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
rasputim OKay sakaralastarasomtibulneperotisniskelotimnarasme
namenuhomin we want to kep our promise nesopestnerulatistovet
ne to be in english langua sumaletusnekamenakparimovskiskusne
welmingtonskoskene mostly nesputimsomanifestomosturetulnerati
karuhejuske so lets give ya sum english stuph numibidetaspeti
CENSOREDCENSORED yeah sumthing about naskorestimistesumoeltas
the fate of the world.
written by ...?
blinki blinki twinki winki. ah. sumalti nivosto. okej okej i am
s'posed ta writa in english. okej. so afghanbashi, pleaze
translate. okej. so, i am going ta write about ta fate of the
world. ojek. well so wot am i going ta write? i mean you know
our one and only god dont ya? so you know the fate of the world
dont ya? ya ya see its in his hands. gretinx to ale mane bashi
shroder and usa bashi klinton btw. et ta coaxcable ta writin
style rulez. okej so wut was i up ta? ah ja blinki twinki, ta
fate of ta world. ta world, ta world will exist, it will exit
for ever, eh, exist for ever! but only if everybady belief in
our on and onli! eh! ja! thats wot i wanted ta say! afgnanustan
rulat! hogy vagy! asemenuhinskenumerastunaminephobiastanumbisa
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Lumniteros meniasne. Laske mane
satusnin! Aske bane ale sed ne muna
sera laskutin, karu ne men bene lef
teg negad sartunim.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
Here comes our poetry section, edited by "afghanbashi". Don't
listen to what he is saying, he's a stupid old weirdo and a bit
revolutionary and nihilistic, but who cares, he can use magic
and so we need him. This magic is called English. Your right
its he who translate texts of us from Pashtuna on english. ale
my dear poetic friends,
here i am with a completely new form of poetry. poetry not in the sense
of rhymes or rhythmic texts. poetry as a means of expressing emotions,
without any restrictions. without caring about grammar, spelling,
vocabulary. rhetorical figures are accidents. content matters, encrypted
content hard to decipher most of the time. poems for people with psychological
talent. this is el afghano.
not a lifestyle
a life itself.
I am the Leader of the Afghanes. Afghanes - a fictional nation. Coincidence
that Afghanes exist in our real world too. In the third world. Coincidence
that we have alot of things in common. But never be too serious about us.
We are what we are, we are pure fictional.
Turkmens have Turkmenbashi. Their President. A really Democratic Leader.
100% of the people are for him. Logical? Well so I am AFGHANBASHI. Leader
of the Afghanes. Leader of a one-person-nation with hundreds of members.
we have no shame
because we need no fame
tal sastana negujim.
-AF
first poem
we rule we rule we rule!
we suck we suck we suck.
tata, ta ta ta tatata, ta ta ta tatata, ta ta ta ta-ta, ta ta ta
tatata ta tatata ta ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!
kalashnikov-mozart.
mozart sucks! music sucks! except mine!
i rewl!
second poem
holy ghost, my only ghost, what has happened to my spirit, how dumb
i am, how mad i am, i cant believe it, how deep i must have sunken
to write such a poooem, this sucks this sucks, i suck i suck, ah
well i am only af-ghan-ba-shi, and so i am no problem for this
world. eh, i know, rhythm was never my strength, but who carez, i
mean, i redefined poetry as sumthin non-rhythmic so its fully okej.
third poem
third pooooem... inspiration! where have ya gone!
third pooooem... felip! gimme back ma inspiration!
third pooooem... oh diz sucks i dunno whadda write
third pooooem... eh why not start ta fourth...
fourth poem
i adore, i adore, i adoradorador, toramilnusetenuminet, eh, this
is supposed to be english!
i adore, i adore, i adoradorador, malusemnijetaskemanuvet, eh, this
is supposed to be english!
i adore, i adore, i adoradorador, semnijaskemetalemunujet - eh,
peter und der wolf sucks as bground music when you are writing
an e-mag!
fifth poem
oh, what has happened to me, i am still trying to write poems, i am
still doing as if i was a great poet. shakespeare! mohammed!
marktwain! goethe! you all suck and i'm ta best. yes!
oh my god.
so many english words.
and so few pashtuna holy words.
THIS SUCKS!
compensation
------------
rasputim neskola sumalet somnifet ale mane menuhin suma tuba
nuba ras ne pas maskat numa kabul kandahar herat masar i sharif
dshalabad baghlan kundus felsabad rasputim neskola sumalet somnifet
ale mane menuhin suma tuba nuba ras ne pas maskat numa kabul kandahar
herat masar i sharif dshalabad baghlan kundus felsabad rasputim
neskola sumalet somnifet ale mane menuhin suma tuba nuba ras
ne pas maskat numa kabul kandahar herat masar i sharif dshalabad
baghlan kundus felsabad rasputim neskola sumalet somnifet ale mane
menuhin suma tuba nuba ras ne pas maskat numa kabul kandahar herat
masar i sharif dshalabad baghlan kundus felsabad rasputim neskola
sumalet somnifet ale mane menuhin hugi tuba nuba ras ne pas maskat
numa kabul kandahar herat masar i sharif dshalabad baghlan kundus
felsabad rasputim neskola sumalet somnifet ale mane menuhin suma
tuba nuba ras ne pas maskat numa kabul kandahar herat masar i sharif
dshalabad baghlan kundus felsabad rasputim neskola sumalet
somnifet ale mane menuhin suma tuba nuba ras ne pas maskat numa kabul
kandahar herat masar i sharif dshalabad baghlan kundus felsabad
phhhhhhhhhhh......... fiiiiiiinnnnnniiiiiiisssshhhhhhhheeeeedddddd!
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ïï ``
Selet nemed banuhin, aske paske
naska beret. Suskim te ok sineho,
neret sole nam ta sinuj nimim
ni sorejet manesne sum nostu
sovietsko.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
Okej, now let's go on with something completely different: the
world, as it's seen by us Afghanes! azramskinesputimnosperatum
----------------
POLITICAL NEWS
----------------
by the Afghane Secret Service
AUSTRIA. After the attempts of SPO and OVP to form a new
government failed, President Thomas Klestil wants to make his
wife, Margot Klestil-Loffler, form the new government. His
long-term plan is to reinstall monarchy.
EGYPT. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited President
Hosni Mubarak in his apartment in Cairo. While they were
drinking Mexican tequila and eating French frogs, Barak said:
"Hosni, there's something I still don't understand." "Whaddaya
mean, buddy", said Mubarak. Barak: "Why did you Egyptians keep
our ancestors imprisoned for such a long time?" Mubarak thought
a while, then he said: "Simple: To prevent them from electing a
fool like you as their leader who seriously thinks he can
establish peace with Arabs."
FRANCE. President Jacques "Hirochirac" Chirac has ordered
scientists whom he had beforehand kidnapped from Germany and
the USA to build new nuclear weapons in order to be able to
catch more frogs than ever before.
GERMANY. Ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl received 10 million DM from
France's ex-president Francois Mitterrand for his party CDU.
Rumour has it that in return Kohl was to cede Saarland to
France. Also, we've been informed that President Johannes Rau
is planning to make his horse, the leader of the
"Sozialdemokratische Pferde Deutschlands" party, his first
adjutant. We know that the two of them already exchange letters
via snailmail regularly.
INDIA. Prime Minister Vajpayee announced that every Indian
citizen will get free Internet access within a year. However,
everybody has to care for electricity and telephone lines
themselves.
LIBYA. The leader of the revolution, Muammar Gaddafi, is
working on new nuclear weapons in order to catch even more
frogs than the French. He is thinking of raising the water
level in the Sahara and create frog lakes.
MALAYSIA. It has been proved in court that Malaysia's former
minister of finance was indeed gay. His boyfriend was Prime
Minister Mahahtir.
NORTH KOREA. Kim Jong-il visited the 314th housekeeper brigade
in order to inform himself about their productivity. He was
very pleased to see their latest achievements, such as a blank
1qm chamber. To reward them for their great contributions to
the glorious North Koreanian nation, he proudly presented each
of them with a machine gun and posed with them for a photo.
PAKISTAN. Rumour has it that Pakistan wants to become part of
our Empire. Well, at least the shape of our Empire would look
even better on the globe, then!
RUSSIAN FEDERATION. The Austrian Press reports that Gospodin
Putin spent his honeymoon in a little Lower-Austrian town. He
enjoyed it so much that he seriously considered buying a house.
UNITED KINGDOM. After frenzy won the lawsuit against Prince
Charles of Wales concerning the title "King of the Scene",
frenzy has been encouraged to proclaim the title "King of
England" for himself, too. Watchers say that he has good
chances to win the upcoming royal elections. frenzy's slogan:
"The King must have Intellect."
UNITED STATES. Poland has become the 52th federal state of the
USA. (The 51st was Canada.)
VATICAN. The Afghane secret service has found out that the Pope
owns several hundreds of nuclear warheads and missiles. He
wants to use them on January 1st, 2001, in order to prove that
the Bible is right if it announces that the apocalypse will
happen on the turn to the 3rd century.
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___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Mene debe samudset, sentia
nas skarsom tim. Sustine ma
divonim, seste peska numa
tura. Soltamesko sumelski,
neske same nulatom.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
Now let's play a compleetely different game! (Yes! Hoorah! We
now these western soopa doopa entertainment words! We are
kool!) Wellwell actually its very serious now. lemnioskimsomiel
Before we made diz emag, we locked out for other e-mags. We
needed sum inspiration, ya now. So, we did look on ta Internet,
and we found lotsa of them. And I cant help but write my
opinion on them! (I = Mohammed Napolon, proud El Afghano main
editor! No, you fool, I, AFGHANBASHI, am the only main editor!
Ya sucks!)
emag reviews
written by mohammed napoleon.
editad by afghanbashi.
okej. i dled some of ta emags which i found on ta internat. it
took very long becuz these sucky thangs had 1-4 megabyte on
average. suckz deeply, har har. neway we didnt make this
mistake, ya know. we rulez. you can dl us even fast if ya have
a 9600 bps modem like us. menshewiksomniejskosimbalatnudeliasje
okej. ill now review ta thangs in the row i dled em. first ...
nitro. damn doesnt run on ma thang, suckz. but it was small.
well maybe to small who knowz, maabe too small thangs dont run.
okej. second ... a bigger one. what was it called again?
seenpoint. ah doesnt run either fuck. well, maabe it should be
still bigger... so lets try ta biggest i found, called, erm,
how was it called again, right, sanraj. sex megabaits thats it.
ohoh very big and ye kool it runs altho i had ta wait a couple
of minutes until it started. verry nice graphix altho i miss ta
afghane flag, our holy flag. font is hard ta read and i dont
care neway bcuz ta emag contains only reviews and otha shit i
am nat interest in. okej, forth one. how was it calld again?
well, dragon. issue 5. a bit smalla. i awready feard it wouldnt
run on ma compu. but it did. but it was in some langua i donot
understaand. sucks. well if i were god id force their editas to
read the pashtuna langua articles in ma mag! so, fifth one. diz
one runs fine altho its very slow. has some nice dark graphix
and kewl musik altho unfortunately not our afghane hymn, our
holy afghane hymn. lotsa texts but i wont read em all bcuz they
seem to be boring, their all written in good english so it
sucks. emags hav ta be unprofesional othawise their suck. ya
onli waste yar life if ya make an emag with a good quality,
nobody carez neway. ah, how was ta mag called? year, hugo18 or
sumthin like tat. dont care neway. sixth.. anti-sozial
magazine. 19. really kool thiz one, graphic colors remind ma of
ta afghane flag. also topiks of mag seem ta be kool,
undaground, hacking, xracking, freaking and so on. i like it. i
like it so much, i like only ma girlfriend even more. but now
seventh! demonjournal. wow, what a title! unfortunately i see
nathing bout demons in it. well maabe a typo. the ascii dezign
is kool, i decide ill also make ma mag in ascii becuz than i
dont hav ta care bout colors, ta make em look like holy
afghanes flag. IT IS COMPULSORY TO VIEW MY MAG WITH A TEXT
VIEWER THAT USES THE HOLY AFGHANE COLOURS - BLACK, RED AND
GREEN. so. okej. next one: the eighth one. very coloful altho
bad design id say: title bitchture lookin bright like a jungle,
navigation picture grey. stupid contrast, thats no feeling!
feeling means ya use same color scheme for whole mag! othawise
rulez, nice afghane-quality english language grammar. name of
ta mag? shite6 or so. okej, now ninth... egroups managers
newsletter. wow very kool, hardli any text, thats great, ya kan
read it fast, thats how an emag should be like! almost bettah
than anti-socialist managzine. and finally tenth... i love it.
really. they released two issues on a day. whaddaya mean, ya
ask? jonas! ... okej somehow i got ta feelin thiz review suckz
deeply but otoh i dont wanna kill it so lets leave it in after
all tits mag suck neway wheni compare it with all this rewly
good emagz.
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Mostne simore, neske peska muretalne sum
nos manjuresne nam jamusnamisku nolta
sualetomotsne.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
managusimulistenumerati Well, now you see what this fool
(sorry, buddy) Napolon thinks of e-mags. By the way, if you
wonder about the bad spelling in his article: The information
that I edited the article is not true, in fact I left it as it
was, to prove what cool a main editor he is. Great spelling he
has, doesn't he? I suppose he could already be on place 3 in
the international editor charts at least. numisatorimanesumske
Anyway, I actually enjoyed reading all these e-mags. And one
day I had the idea to contribute an article to one of them
myself. This was my article - my opinion on e-mag editors which
I had got after reading all these e-mags. I just had to write
it, because when reading all these articles, I already saw
myself as the editor of a big mag and imagined my career. Of
course I'm not an editor of a big mag (yet) but I think I now
know what it's like. Well, at least I thought so.
aburamidejtaomne And so, in order to learn if my ideas were
really true, if an editor's life was really like I imagined, I
submitted this article to the editor of a rather nice e-mag and
asked for his comments. I'll also publish his reaction of
course, but first here's the article. istfangoratelnostojemunsk
the dilemma of the editor.
editors are in the scene. and they are not in the scene. at
the same time. they are supposed to know everything, as they
inform the scene. they should kind of lead the scene. their
mags are the means of propaganda of their interests. they
could also be a lobby's interest. but there is no lobby
because most mags are group-independent, and the editors are
usually not so interested in the scene that they'd really
use the chance to manipulate heavily. a mistake. editors
nowadays watch the scene. and describe what they see, but
they're often not "in" the scene, they see only the outward
facade, they bring uninteresting reports because the readers
could easily have found out everything themselves, on the
web. or just by asking some ppl. editors need to get
internal (confidential) information and make it public to
offer sth new even to scene insiders as most of their
readers - in most cases - are. but they're too busy or lack
interest. this is because the work of an editors is highly
MANUAL. yes, they're lower-class ppl in some way, if you
define lower-class as ppl working manually. editors have to
check through texts, find mistakes and insert heaps of
stupid formatting codes. and fuss with the pictures, really
ugly work. bitch-tures. well, so they have so little time
for really creative work. and their brains eradicate. and
they get dumb. and they lose all interest in coding or gfx
or whatever they made before they became an editor. no
incentive to resume learning how to code coz the top coders
are already so far ahead of you that you'd need a year to
catch up if you are EXTREMELY fast. all the dreams of making
a demo after quitting the mag are gone. you can't release
crap demos when you have the image of a top editor, can't
you? you'd immediately be regarded as the biggest lamer and
everybody would questions why he admired your mag so much.
yes, mag-making is stupid, hard, hardly creative work, no
fun, eats your brain. with one word it SUCKS. but otoh it
could also be fun. if you were a mere writer and wouldn't
have to care about fools sending you crap texts full of
spelling errors and other shit. and if you didn't have to
care about organizing graphics for your mag. and all this
stupid fuss. this exhausting work of convincing ppl to help
you and being disappointed when, although they agreed, they
don't show any result in the end. if you could really make a
mag all alone, independent of anybody, just choosing if you
use other ppl's stuff when they send it to you - then you
would be free, that's the ideal. Even better than being a
mere writer or "co-editor" at another diskmag and leaving
all the hard work to someone else, the editor fool. but it's
hard to realize, editors mostly suck at what they need most
badly. if i were only a graphician! if i could paint a
picture i like without everybody else seeing it vomiting!
then i would be able to realize my dream ever since i got
active in the area of diskmags.
afghanbashi
Okay, this was the article... and here is the editor's reply!!
I received it just a day after submitting my article and was
really, really pleased about it, especially as it was my first
contact with the western world, and I have really fallen in
love with the wisdom of these people! They're almost as good as
our one and only God! (Good that my co-editors don't know
English so they don't understand what I was writing...) aremise
Hi, Afghanbashi!
Thank you for your article "The Dilemma of the Editor"! I was very
pleased at receiving a piece of your work. Of course I'll publish it in
the next issue of Hugi. It will fit the Diskmag Corner greatly!
You wrote that I should carefully read through your article and not only
edit and format it, but also comment "every single thought and mistake".
Actually this is not what I usually do. Usually I just edit the article
and, if there were passages in it which I didn't fully understand
(possibly incorrect grammar) and which I tried to clarify, I sent the
edited version of the article back to the author so that he can confirm
if it's okay for him, if I've understood him correctly. I fear that
I would get on the authors' nerves if I commented every single little
detail extensively, as there are usually hundreds of things in an
article we could have long arguments about. And indeed I had a bad
experience when I included heavy comments in a voting list I sent to the
editor of a newsletter, of whom I then had a good opinion, which was a
big error as I later saw. But that's a private affair, so I won't talk
about it here. I guess you're more interested in comments on your
article anyway. Well, what I wanted to say is, if you ask for comments,
fine, I'll give them to you. So let's start!
Ah, by the way: If you're really interested in the story with that
newsletter editor, check out the article "Charts suck!" in Hugi #18 -
The Eminent or its Russian translation in Hugi #18 - Russian Edition, if
you speak Russian (afaik Afghanistan was partly occupied by the Soviets
for a couple of years, so maybe you've learned some Russian).
First of all, I'm afraid your article is somewhat pessimistic.
Fortunately, at least you offer some sort of solution in the end,
although it is pretty unlikely to happen. So it's okay to be published.
You have to know, our readers don't like articles with a negative
connotation. Nobody wants to read that in a diskmag. It's only
understandable that there have already been polls searching for the
author of the lamest is-the-scene-dead article. That's why I personally
don't write anything about the scene - well, with the exception of
diskmags - that could be misunderstood as negative criticism anymore, at
least not in the public. Only in hidden articles I express my real
opinion from time to time. But it's a fact that if you don't want to
scare your readers away, you must not be too critical. And if you are
critical, you must always offer a solution. Otherwise it would be pure
pessimism, and that's always bad. Really.
Well, one general thing about the article: It's written all in lower
case, with the only exceptions being words that should be written in a
bold font and some characters which you probably didn't want to write in
upper case, but as it seems you accidentially hit the shift key. Please
refrain from writing articles entirely in lower case in the future.
Lower case doesn't look good in a diskmag, and it's not proper English,
either. It's really a lot of monotonous work for the editor to make the
characters where it's necessary upper case. I've fixed these mistakes
without indicating in the forthcoming quotations which character was
changed. I think it's pretty logical that this would only disturb you.
The topic of your article is editors. I assume you mean diskmag editors
with this. To be very exact, you mean main editors of diskmags, as you
set "co-editors" equal to mere writers somewhere at the end of the
article.
Okay, so you called your article "the dilemma of the editor." A nice
idea, actually. Well, if I really think about it, it suits the article!
After all, you're talking about the dilemma of editors being in the
scene and not being in it at the same time. Okay, great. By including a
suitable headline in your article, your article is already better than
50% of the articles I receive, because they either contain a boring
headline or none at all. However, once again, please don't write
entirely in lower case. As for your headline, proper spelling would be
"The Dilemma of the Editor." English headlines always start with a
capital letter. The other words can start with a lower-case or
upper-case letter, just as you like. However, I recommend writing
the first letter of nouns in capital, because in this way they're more
striking. As nouns are often the most important element of a headline, I
really recommend this. Sometimes it's also good if you do the same with
verbs, adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions, like for example in "To Be
or Not To Be". But nouns are most important. Only if they are of really
minor importance, leave them lower-case. OK?
The actual article starts with a paradox, a thesis followed by its very
antithesis: "Editors are in the scene. And they are not in the scene. At
the same time." That's what I call a nice use of this rhetorical device!
It really fits in here. It creates the tension that is important for the
average, bored reader to continue reading. In this way the reader will
be encouraged to continue reading until the tension, until the puzzle is
solved. Fine.
Then you state: "They are supposed to know everything, as they inform
the scene." Hmmm. I'm not sure if you can say this. I mean, you can also
inform somebody if you don't know everything. What you can't do is
inform them about everything. You can only inform someone about
something you know, or suppose. Otherwise it will be a lie, or a
fairytale. But I understand what you mean: You mean that diskmags are
meant to be the universal way of informing people in the scene. The
ideal diskmag should cover everything about the scene. I see. Well, I
hope you know this is a very idealistic idea (hehe, what a pun!). This
is practically impossible to reach... okay, actually it depends on how
you define scene. It is possible to define scene as something you can
write everything about. But that's not the definition of the scene most
people believe in. Talking of this, actually there is no real definition
of the scene. There have been long discussions about it in some German
diskmags some years ago. In the end the participiants agreed on a
compromise: The scene is the common denominator (phew, that's the
first time today that I had to look in my dictionary!) of the people
interested in a particular field. I think this applies to every kind of
scene. Of course it doesn't really determine the borders of a scene
because there are people who are more interested and others who are less
interested. Anyway, I suppose that with "scene", you mean what is called
"demoscene" in this diskmag, and what is rudimentarily described in the
article "Introduction to the Demoscene" on the Hugi website. Okay, fine.
Then it's obvious that you - practically - can't know everything. And
you're completely right that hence you can't expect it from an editor.
Otherwise the logical conclusion would be that there are no editors.
But forget this rambling. If I really think about it, I come to the
conclusion that with this sentence, you wanted to define the task of an
editor, or at least what somebody (you) think it should be.
In the next two sentences, you define another task of an editor: "They
should kind of lead the scene. Their mags are the means of propaganda of
their interests." Another interesting thought. I sometimes thought the
same. Let's continue: "They could also be a lobby's interest. But there
is no lobby because most mags are group-independent, and the editors are
usually not so interested in the scene that they'd really use the chance
to manipulate heavily." Here you emphasize on the notion of the editor
being the leader of the scene and disprove it at the same time. I fully
agree. If an editor has no interest in the scene, why should he make the
effort to manipulate, to lead it?
But then you write: "A mistake." So you say that editors _should_
lead the scene! Now I'm puzzled. Why should they do this if they do
not want it? In my eyes, the scene is a pure hobby. Okay, by making
demos or diskmags, you learn a lot about many subjects, including
psychology, i.e. manipulating people. But, is it necessary? You can
gain the same psychological skills with other activities, too, for
example political activities. Was Cicero a mag editor? No! And
nevertheless he had so good rhetorical skills that he lost only a
single lawsuit of hundreds in total. I think you cannot force
anybody to do a particular thing in the scene. I mean, maybe he
will miss some experience, maybe it will be harder for him to learn
some skills he would have learned in the scene, but then it's his
decision, not yours. You can be happy about it because if you learn
what someone else didn't learn, you will be superior to him in this
area and have an advantage over him in your future life.
All the same, let's continue with analyzing your article. After writing
what people (or you, respectively) expect from editors, you now intend
to list the real activities of the editors of today: "Editors nowadays
watch the scene. And describe what they see." (Here you actually wrote a
comma, but I think a foot stop is better, because what follows is a
separate thought.) I can identify with this, but this is not the main
work of an editor. This is the work of a _writer_. It's true that
editors also write articles, but their main activity is something
else, namely editing and formatting articles, as well as organizing
the mag.
All the same, I said I could identify with your statement. Why? Because
most of my scene-related articles in the last few Hugi issues were based
on the watching-and-describing procedure. Before that, I wrote mainly
pseudo-philosophical state-of-the-scene ramblings. One of the persons
who changed my mind was Fishwave, main editor of the Amiga diskmag
Seenpoint. He told me that there had already been so many
scene-philosophy articles and similar texts in older diskmags that
these topics were getting boring. Reports about people and groups would
be more interesting, he said. So I tried to play scene journalist. But
meanwhile I have come to the conclusion that writing
pseudo-philosophical essays is more satisfactory for me than forcing
myself to make investigations about things which, in fact, do not
interest me that much at all. All about the scene that still interests
me a bit is diskmags, but with time I'm losing my temper with the slow
pace the PC diskmag scene is evolving.
You continue: "But they're often not 'in' the scene. They see only the
outward facade. They bring uninteresting reports because the readers
could easily have found out everything themselves, on the web. Or just
by asking some people." As you see, I replaced some commas with
foot stops again. What you write here is important points of your
argumentation, so the readers should read them a bit more slowly instead
of rushing through the sentence, as the effect of the commas would have
been. I also replaced the abbreviation "ppl" with "people" because
it is too scene-ish an idiom, and after all we want Hugi to be
comprehensible for non-sceners too. Well, concerning the essence of this
part of your argumentation, this probably applies to some editors. On
the other hand, if you define scene as I did in my "Introduction to the
Demoscene", you can hardly be "in" the scene, because the scene is too
fragmented. You can only be an insider in some parts of the scene, such
as the Polish diskmag scene, the #pixel community or your local lamers
next door. Furthermore, I do not agree with your statement that the
readers could easily have found out everything themselves on the web
or by asking some people. This certainly applies to a part of the
readers, which can be a pretty big part in some cases or a pretty small
part. A lot of people do not know the resources where to obtain
specific information. That's one reason why we have diskmags: to give
an overview of the scene.
Now you demand: "Editors need to get internal (confidential) information
and make it public to offer something new even to scene insiders as most
of their readers - in most cases - are." I have to problems on trying to
falsify the statement that most readers of diskmags are scene insiders.
First of all, how can you measure who reads a diskmag? And secondly, who
is a scene insider? As I explained above, you can practically call
yourself "inside" only concerning particular parts of the scene. So if
you are an insider regarding demo programming, an article containing
rudimentary information on the Greek graphics scene might still offer
exciting news to you. But you are right, internal information would be
new for almost everybody. However, how to get them? Especially
confidential information! I doubt people would enjoy it if you published
confidential information about them. I already got into troubles when I
quoted from a publicly available chat-log without explicit permission.
If I quoted from a letter, people would be even more upset. Your desire
to publish confidential information in a diskmag hence cannot be
fulfilled, as much as I'd personally enjoy reading such things, too.
"But they're too busy or lack interest", you say next. Ah, you mean too
busy to gather confidential information. I guess I've already explained
the real reason why they don't do this. But I understand your alterior
motive why you suddenly come up with business and lack of interest:
because you want to explain why it is like this. Perhaps not the best
way of moving on to the next subject. Anyway, you explain it as follows:
"This is because an editor's work is highly <i>manual</i>. Yes, they're
lower-class people in some way, provided you define lower-class as
people who work manually. Editors have to check through texts, find
mistakes and insert heaps of stupid formatting codes. And fuss with the
pictures, which is really ugly work. Bitch-tures."
Minor mistakes: You used the genetive with "of" instead of the Saxon
genetive and used the plural of "editor" instead of its singular. As you
see, I slightly reorganized some of the sentences and marked the word
"manual" with an italic font instead of capital letters as well.
About the contents, you are now contradicting yourself. You see why?
Because now you are saying what the actual work of an editor's really
is: not watching and describing, as you said before, but all this manual
stuff. I'll offer you a solution to avoid this contradiction at the end
of my letter.
What else I'd suggest is, leave out the stuff about "lower-class". Some
people could really believe it. But this does not apply. Although much
of their work is repetitory, editors still need to be creative,
especially when the concept or the engine of the mag changes and they
have to adapt the articles, or they have to introduce new writers. There
is a lot of organizing work behind a diskmag, all done by its main
editor. The main editor is the person a diskmag depends on. But why do I
write this here, it seems that you know very well how a diskmag works
yourself.
"Well, so they have so little time for really creative work." You mean,
for writing articles. True. I myself usually write all my articles for a
new Hugi issue in the last three weeks before the release, often after
the deadline for external contributions. "And their brains eradicate.
And they get dumb." You are exaggerating a bit here, but it fits the
style of your article. "And they lose all interest in coding or gfx or
whatever they did before they became an editor." Please don't confuse
"to make" and "to do".
"No incentive to resume learning how to code because the top coders are
already so far ahead of you that you'd need a year to catch up if you
were <i>extremely</i> fast. All the dreams of making a demo after
quitting the mag are gone. You can't release crap demos when you have
the image of a top editor, can't you? You'd immediately be regarded as
the biggest lamer and everybody would question why he admired your mag
so much." Some typos and grammar mistakes were in here, but they didn't
disturb so much. Well, why do I say this, I've fixed them anyway. I
understand your point very well.
In the rest of the article, you complain about the difficulties
connected with the task of organizing a diskmag and propose your vision
of being completely independent of any contributor: "Yes, mag-making is
stupid, hard, hardly creative work, no fun, it eats your brain. With one
word: it <i>sucks</i>. But, on the other hand, it could also be fun, if
you were a mere writer and didn't have to care about fools sending you
crap texts full of spelling errors and other shit." (Oh Hugi, you talk
about "spelling errors" and write "pelling errors"! Sorry, couldn't
resist.) "And if you didn't have to care about organizing graphics for
your mag, and all this stupid fuss, this exhausting work of convincing
people to help you and being disappointed when, although they agreed,
they don't show any result in the end. If you were really able to make a
mag all alone, independent of anybody, just choosing if you use other
people's stuff when they send it to you - then you would be free. That
would be the ideal." Good. A very emotional passage. That's something
people enjoy reading after a logical argumentation that explained the
reasons for your State Of Mind. "Even better than being a mere writer or
'co-editor' at another diskmag and leaving all the hard work to someone
else, the editor fool", you conclude this part of your article,
indirectly explaining that a co-editor actually is no editor, but just a
writer (which has nothing to do with his skills of course; on the
contrary...).
In the last passage, you conclude why your vision is, unfortunately,
pretty unlikely to come true: "But it's hard to realize, as editors
mostly suck at what they need most badly." All of a sudden you start
talking in the first person: "If I were only a graphician! If I could
paint a picture I like without everybody else seeing it vomiting! Then I
would be able to realize my dream ever since I got active in the area of
diskmags." In this way your article, which started objectively, gets
personal, and you reveal that you actually are an editor yourself. Not a
bad end, I feel!
Well, as you see, your article is very good, but still not quite
perfect. Apart from the minor corrections which I already showed you,
I've hence tried to re-write the parts of the argumentation which seemed
a bit illogical to me. Also, I structured the text in paragraphs.
Although your article is a stream of thoughts, this makes it better
readable, which is important in a diskmag as it's hard to decipher such
small characters on a screen for several hours in a row anyway. So,
here's my proposal of the final version of your article, as I'd like to
publish it in Hugi:
<<<quote starts here>>>
The Dilemma of the Editor.
Editors are in the scene. And they are not in the scene. At the same
time.
They are supposed to know everything, as they inform the scene. They
should kind of lead the scene. Their mags are the means of propaganda of
their interests. They could also be a lobby's interest. But there is no
lobby because most mags are group-independent, and the editors are
usually not so interested in the scene that they'd really use the chance
to manipulate heavily. A mistake.
Similarly to most writers, editors nowadays watch the scene and describe
what they see. That's their way of writing articles. But they're often
not "in" the scene. They see only the outward facade. They bring
uninteresting reports. I call them uninteresting because the readers
could easily have found out everything themselves, either on the web or
simply by asking some people.
Editors need to get internal, perhaps even confidential information and
make it public to offer something new even to scene insiders as most of
their readers - in most cases - are. But they're too busy or lack
interest. This is because an editor's work is highly <i>manual</i>.
Editors have to check through texts, find mistakes, insert heaps of
formatting codes and fuss with the pictures, which is really a lot of
boring work.
As a consequence they have little time for really creative work. And
their brains eradicate. And they get dumb. And they lose all interest in
coding or gfx or whatever they did before they became an editor. There
is no incentive to resume learning how to code because the top coders
are already so far ahead of you that you'd need a year to catch up even
if you were <i>extremely</i> fast. All the dreams of making a demo after
quitting the mag are gone. You can't release crap demos when you have
the image of a top editor, can't you? You'd immediately be regarded as
the biggest lamer, and everybody would question why he admired your mag
so much.
Yes, mag-making is stupid, hard, hardly creative work. It's no fun, it
eats your brain. With one word: it <i>sucks</i>. But, on the other hand,
being active in the diskmag area could also be fun if you were a mere
writer and didn't have to care about fools sending you crap texts full
of spelling errors and other shit. And if you didn't have to care about
organizing graphics for your mag, and all this stupid fuss, this
exhausting work of convincing people to help you and being disappointed
when, although they agreed, they don't show any result in the end. If
you were really able to make a mag all alone, independent of anybody,
just choosing if you use other people's stuff when they send it to you -
then you would be free. That would be the ideal. Even better than being
a mere writer or "co-editor" at another diskmag and leaving all the hard
work to someone else, the editor.
But this is hard to realize, as editors mostly suck at what they need
most badly. If I were only a graphician! If I could paint a picture I
like that everybody else likes, too! Then I would be able to realize my
dream ever since I got active in the area of diskmags.
Afghanbashi
<<<quote ends here>>>
Hmmm. Well, maybe your original version was better, because it sounded
more sponaneous, more emotional. Maybe I should use the original version
and only fix the spelling, grammar etc. What do you think? Please let me
know what I shall do.
Regarding the ascii you demanded, I've already contacted Slash. As soon
as I've got it, I'll forward it to you.
I'm waiting for your answer!
--
Adok / Hugi Core & Royal Family
http://www.hugi.de/compo/
http://www.hugi.de/
rumski - What should I say... He was really friendly... Well, I -
somnie - think you know why I contacted him: because we - sumalatu -
know he's afghanophile. - romaskino - But as he's so wise I didn't -
manabuaruteria - dare answer him. Maybe a mistake? Nonono can't be,
I'm wise enough to know why I won't bother him any more! menlekujal
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Aska paka maru, lamnu tumna hej.
Sumi tumi nesputim, ramma tumma
oej. Aska paka maru, lemnu tumna
hej.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
Maabee yar interested in wot languages we learn in Afghanistan?
First language is German! Then English! Then Dari! Then Chinese!
Then Russian! Then Pakistani! (Okej it's ccalled Urdu.) Then we
learn ta boooooze!
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
soooof
sooof
soof
luma
tuma
buma
huma
eyeyey
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
Wa also knowa sum Finnish of coz! yksi kaksi kolme! perkele! haista
vitttttttuuuuu!! rumsitumnesterasumatunaleskutimnoremutalnianositimo
We are developiing plaans to conquer ta world! Look, this is the
world now:
-
North America - Europe, Asia
_
- - - - _ - - - -
-
South America - Africa, Australia
-
And this will be ta world in sum years:
-
Afghanistan - Afghanistan
_
- - - - _ - - - -
-
Afghanistan - Afghanistan
-
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(woooowowow, i typed tat without using copy+paste at all!!! belief
me!!)
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Indisomniejskoje, semnit nemiekiej ale mane
rapusom sto nasperati.
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
OKEJ. I think this issue of the emag should also have an end. Its
the first issue isnt it? Right, so it shouldn't already bee too
long. Who knows if ourr readers will really like us? Maabe they
like it more if the mag is rather short? More fun? Kurze Wurze? Or
how do ale mane sorekruts say it? lumniskomitetsamisdattorellimanet
NO! FIRST I; THE REAL MAIN EDITOR OF THIS MAG; ARTURO UI; WANT TO
SHOW OFF MY KEWL ASCII SKILLZ! YOU MUST KNOW; STRANGER; THAT WE HAD
AN INTERNAL ASCII COMPOTITION BEFORE WE DECIDED TO TAKE THE ASCII
YOU NOW SEE IN THE BEGINNING OF THE MAG! THE JURY WAS ALL STAFF
MEMBERS OF EL AFGHANO AND THEY VOTED FOR AFGHANBASHI'S ENTRY
ALTHOUGH IT SUCKS DEEPLY DONT YOU THINK SO??? HERE COMES MY ENTRY
SO YOULL SEE THAT THEY MADE THE WRONG CHOICE!! AND IF YOU DONT
BELIEVE ME YOU SUCK YOURSELF AND YOU ARENT WORTH READING THIS
EMAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!bla
.s$
.s$$$$s. .s$$$$$s. $$$
s$$$ $$$ $$$ $$$
$$$$ .s$$ $$$$$$$$$ $$$
:::: s$$$ $$$ $$$
.s$$$$$$$$s. $$$$ ü$$$$$$$ü ü$$$$ü
s$$$ $$$$ ::::
$$$$:$$$ .s$$$$$$$$s.
.s$$$$$$$$$$ s$$$ $$$$
$$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$:$$$$$s. .s$$$$$$$$s.
ü$$$$$$$$$$ü ü$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$ s$$$ $$$$:$$$$$s.
:::: $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ .s$$$$$$$$s.
$$$$ ü$$$$$$$$$$ü $$$$ .s$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$
ü$$ü :::: :::: $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$
$$$$ $$$$ ü$$$$$$$$$$ü $$$$ $$$$ $$$$
ü$$ü ü$$ü :::: :::: $$$$ $$$$
$$$$ $$$$ ü$$$$$$$$$$ü
ü$$ü ü$$ü
DO YOU SEE????????????? IT'S VERY COOL OLDSKOOL PICTURE AINT IT? NO
IT'S NOT NEWSKOOL YOU FOOLZ! I KNOW BEST WHAT'S OLDSKOOL AND WHATS
NOT AND WHATS GOOD AND WHATS BAD AND WHAT SUCKS AND WHAT DOESNT
SUCK AND AND AND AND AND::: AFTER ALL I REVIEWED ALL DSCENE
RELEASES OF AFGHANISTAN !)))! AND ILL DO THE SAME FOR "=== TROO!
you ask how many released damN MY CAPS LOCK SUCKS ah SUCKS AGAIN
OKAY WHERE DID WE STOP:::: YEAH; WELL; THERE WAS ONLY ONE RELEASE
IN !))); AND THAT WAS THE PREVIEW OF THIS MAG; BUT ANYWAY; I
REVIEWED !==%; AND I'M PROUD OF IT!!! I AM THE KING!!!!!! ROMAKULNE
and I, Napoleon, want ta show ma ascii entri to ofcos! heres it:
... ... ... . . . . . . . . . . ... .. . . ... . . . . ... .
. .
DAMN! I had selected Word Wrap in my text editor and now it's all
wrapped up! You cant read a damn fuck this sucks deeply well who
cares... Anyway now that it doesn't work I agree tat Afghanbashi's
entri is best. lumasentjenukebarumaskatnaratelniesumilostamaniskust
_____________________________________
___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
Remi, remi, remi, suma tera remi, remi, remi...
--___ ___--
øøøø------_____________________________________-----øøøøø
THE CREDITS
-----------
Main Editor: Mohammed Napolon
Real Main Editor: ARTURO UI
Modest Mind Behind The Mag: afghanbashi
We send out greetings to Taliban, United Freedom Force, Wladimir
Putin, Vladimir Meciar, Boris Jelzin, Jiang Zemin, Bill Clinton,
Gerhard Schroder, CoaXCable, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Nethanyahu,
Thomas Klestil, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterrand (RIP), Jacques
Chirac, Daniel arap Moi, King Saud, Cardoso, Hugo Ch vez, George
Bush jr., Viktor Klima, Viktor Orb n, Victoria, Nelson Mandela,
Laurent Kabila, Mobutu Sese Seko, Colonel Muammar Gaddaffi, Queen
Beatrice, Lady Diana Spencer (RIP), Theodor Herzl (RIP), David
Ben-Gurion (RIP), Ariel Muzicant, Saddam Houssain, Leonid Kutshma,
Mikulas Dzurinda, Vaclav Klaus, Vaclav Havel, Helmut Zilk, Menachem
Begin (RIP), Winston Churchill (RIP), Jorg Haider, Wolfgang
Schussel, Her Majesty Margot Klestil-Loffler, Jean Chrtien, Heinz
Fischer, Lionel Jospin, Vajpayee, Omar Sharif, Nawaz Sharif,
Musharaff, His Majesty Hirohito (RIP), His Majesty Akihito, Kim
Jong-il, Li Peng, Zhu Rhongij, Turkmenbashi and all other
politicians. numasumadumarejsomnaskabutterasomnelukanebissomnarreku
DISCLAIMER: IF YOU TAKE ANYTHING IN THIS MAG SERIOUSLY, YOUR IQ
MUST DEFINITELY BE FAR BELOW AVERAGE. godsaveournoblegraciousqueen
- the end -
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___----øøøøøø øøøøøø----___
ïï ``
