About 69 Flavors of Paranoia
Originally launched as a small press 'zine in August of 1996, 69FoP imploded during its 13th issue, sometime in 1999.
Ah, we were so young and ideal back then, running in slow motion on the sunny, sandy beaches of our own delusions, lost in the swelling muzak, never aware that there was darkness in those crashing waves, dangers lurking beneath the frothy, gurgling surface until...too late. Blind to rights, we were up to our necks, doing the doggy paddle for days, tired, beaten, encircled by sandpaper-skinned creatures nudging past our delicate bellies, sniffing past our feet, jellyfish stinging and wrapping their gelatinous confetti around our exposed flesh, and nevermind your tired, hungry and poor masses, dredging up their legal sharks and donning the dreaded kinetic bathing-in-law suit, the kind that's loud and faux-Hawaiian, but really not any fun to look at. Indeed, dark, skeletal hands grasped at our exposed ankles, pulled us down for a nip o' the old "seawater in the lungs" trick, until we dropped a brick and then our loads, and sputtered for the sandier, sunnier beaches of less obtuse writing...
Wow, did we really let you read that?
What you should have culled from that is that 69FoP was a labor of love by two newly married kids (with just two kids of their own, at that point--now grown to four) who really had very little idea of what they were getting themselves into in the publishing world. We thought we'd be a doorway for young writers to establish their voice through young publishers trying to establish their own voice.
We managed to publish exactly 13 issues over three years. The 13th issue did see print, but never sported the postage necessary to find its way to its various homes throughout the world...It did, however, find its way into the short film "Déjà vu," written and directed by 69FoP editor Rycke Foreman. In the film version, the 13th issue featured the short story "Déjà vu" upon which the film was based, though the real 13th issue did not actually contain this story, nor does the story contain a reference to the film or the 13th issue (or, indeed, the magazine at all)!
So there you go. Now you know a little more about a lot of paranoia, without knowing much of anything else. But that's our fault and not yours.
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