Stack: January

New year, new Stack subscription!

January opened with The Lifted Brow, "a quarterly attack journal from Australia and the world". Looking back through my 2014 Stack entries, I can't find any magazines that I really disliked. There were quite a few about subjects I had no interest in, and a couple that were mediocre, but nothing I really had any trouble reading. The Lifted Brow has now changed that! I found it both boring and pretentious, and spent the last three weeks carrying it around, opening it, reading one page, and then abandoning it in irritation.

Its focus seems to be contemporary art and it features a mixture of essays, photographs, art, comics and poetry. I can't really say much beyond that though. I actually feel like I can't review this magazine as I read so little of it. I can say that it is the first magazine I've received through Stack that I've seen someone else reading though! My fellow commuter seemed engrossed in it so I can confidently say it appeals to someone.

Would I buy it again? No. This is one I never want to see again.

The Zoo of Tranquility: The Lawnmowers

This one was a huge disappointment, which I will only take half the blame for! Part of the problem is that the instructions for the models in this book are very complicated and need much more space; the instructions for this model could easily take up twice as many pages. They would also benefit from more diagrams so you can see how things are supposed to fit together. On this model, I made several mistakes fitting the base together as the three layers that form the base are never shown together. The whole thing was completely maddening to build.

Sadly, my execution of the instructions was also a bit lacking. There are numerous holes in the car washing figures that act as pivot points. (The model uses 18 sticks, each one tinier than the last, as pivots.) I should have made all of these holes before I cut the pieces out! Then I could have widened them without worrying about damaging the pieces. As it is, all of the holes are too small and the figures don't really move. I also cut the lawnmowers' legs too short, so they don't catch properly on the ridged surface inside the base. (Although the instructions suggested that it would be a problem if the legs were too long so I focused on avoiding that, not understanding that too long would have been fixable!)

With all of that out of the way, here is a very underwhelming video:

Process photos after the cut. The instructions had just eight steps so that's what the photos reflect!