Four Minutes to Midnight: Issue Ten
Saturday December 06th 2008, 11:41 pm
Filed under: 23:56 issues,portfolio,type and typography

Issue 10you,
dressed in a formica yellow flower-print skirt
dark eye’d long leg’d, sweet lip’d,
took a pull from the bottle and
blew a line of smoke into the sky,
laughing “fuck them!”
(it didn’t really matter who)
and I fell into it then…

The tenth issue of Four Minutes to Midnight explores the idea of radical beauty (a theme inspired from this year’s Memefest) interpreted through the words and images of over 30 artists. Our ‘anniversary’ issue is the thickest (and prettiest) one yet, clocking in at a tidy 180 pages.

Some of my personal favorites among the diverse work featured in the issue include a selection of poetry from American ‘outsider’ poet F.A. Nettelbeck, two collaborations between myself and Montreal photographer Dita Kubin, a series of beautiful, seductive portraits painted by Kevin Ledo, and the surreal illustrations from my former student Ilinca Balaban.

I’m also incredibly proud of this issue’s fugue which in itself pulls together fragments from over 20 artists and writers. John and I worked incredibly hard to compose what we feel to be the best expression yet of the core ideas that started this project years ago, hanging out in his basement apartment, fuming at the world…

spread 01
spread 02
spread 03
spread 04
spread 05
spread 06
spread 07
spread 08

Many thanks to this issue’s contributors:
Hoda and Dima Adra, Caroline Aquin, Ilinca Balaban, Emily Kai Bock, Simon Carrasco, Marilyn de Castro, Kyla Chevrier, Grant Collins, Ian Finch, Jesse Ferguson, Jason Gillingham, Sacha Guney, Alexandra Hall, Erica Ruth Kelly, JP King, Dita Kubin, Kevin Ledo, Tony de Marco, Billy Mavreas, Maria Mavrig, Joshua Mensch, Debbie Millman, F.A. Nettelbeck, Omen, Catherine Rizzetto, Christopher David Ryan, Valerie Sanguin, Hilary Schaenfield, Clare Sheldon-Williams, Louis Sobol, Vincent Tinguely, Visualingual (Maya Drozdz & Michael Stout), Caroline Weaver, and Colin White.

A special thank you to Patrick Beauduin for his belief in this project and myself, giving generous financial support for the issue’s production.

Download a PDF of issue 10 (18.6 MB).

The Chronographical Survey #3, issue 10 reviewed by Kenneth Fitzgerald.


5 Comments so far
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What a lovingly-produced collection. Very few literary/arts magazines are so visually appealing as to call out to be revisited at a later date, but this one certainly does.
Glad to be on board,
Jesse (Fredericton)

Comment by Jesse Ferguson 12.10.08 @ 9:56 am

Thanks Jesse, glad to have you…

Comment by kevin 12.12.08 @ 6:35 pm

from FA… :

man, I don’t know bro, I’ve been in a lot of publications in the past forty years but I must say, this issue is in the top 3, Jesus FUCK brilliant, brilleeeant. I forgot about deleting that line on AMERICAN POSTCARD but the way you put it back in there is fucking beautiful, now I gotta put it back!!!!! and Fugue 10… man O man as exquisite as broken glass in the yard at Pelican Bay… TOO FUCKING MUCH. and I’m in love with Debbie Millman! a solid issue you got there. I have one question: when are you going to publish my next book! all best wishes from here and MANY thanx for including my shit. FA

Comment by kevin 12.21.08 @ 2:09 am

Hi, I’m a Graphic Design student from Mexico, and I just discovered 23:56 last night. I haven’t been able to stop seeing your work, it’s hard to get enough. To me there’s nothing better than being able to express yourself, and this has it all, written and visual expressions, it’s Visual Poetry.

Your work is very inspirational, it really makes me wanna keep on going and to always try to get a better effort from myself.

Unfortunately my actual economic situation isn’t at it’s best, studying Graphic Design, working and being a father at 20 isn’t the great business. But I’m really looking forward on buying a few of your issues for sweet treasure collection.

Geovanni [Mictlán]

Comment by Geovanni Trujillo 10.11.09 @ 12:51 pm

Thanks so much for your kind words Geovanni, I’m really happy to hear from you and know that my work is reaching people. Send me your address and I’ll see what I can do.

Comment by kevin 10.14.09 @ 11:22 am



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