HIVE ZINE

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The ARCH-HIVE is a Mormon-themed arts collective in Utah that's doing some interesting work these days. I just bought the first five issues of their HIVE ZINE. Here's a brief reaction:

001: God and My Ex by LAZERos

Poems* and images, *all in the Deseret alphabet. Which I have not yet bothered to translate. Because, well, hassle. That's all, that's my whole excuse. (Sorry.) But it's cool!

002 by The Desert Prophet

A phony Revelation that reads much like a statement of influences. Although Andy Warhol's missing, so ... maybe not just that exactly.

003: Deseret Brands Vol 1 by LAZERos

Popular brands Mormonified. Now available on tshirts.

004: The ARCH-HIVE Post by Saint Michael

A Provo newspaper from an alternate timeline. A bit of parody, a bit of fantasy, a bit of nonsense. It fit in the envelope and included a lovely aged paperclip, but honestly I would have loved something more ambitious. At least an interesting paper! Nice draft, though. Mostly, I appreciate they're coming them out on a schedule. I know how hard that is.

005: Spells for Many Blessings by The Desert Prophet

This is the strongest of the five so far. The most complete and coherent as a piece, for one thing. But also a distilled example of an important trend in Mormon letters. You take something like Stephen Peck's King Leere or Mel Larson's Pilot Program and you get one strain of the weird in this literary moment. Then you take something like what Dave Butler's doing with his Witchy books and you get another strain. "Spells" combines both these trends but strips away plot and character. It's like---essence of weird Mormon, 2019. Even Ardis approves!