Inquisitor Mediarama

New York's smartest "analog" zine has gone digital, in a "low-res" format (it's mostly text, with a few graphics tossed in for good measure). In the Web-based Inquisitor Mediarama,editor Danny Drennen excerpts a handful of the best features from his paper-bound zine, Inquisitor. Inquisitor Mediarama proves that the solipsism born of urban alienation can be instructive and even funny--Drennen's "New York Diary," in which he chronicles the everyday iniquities of life in New York City, is one of the best features: One week it's the trauma of a trip to the post office, and the next it's the indignity of an arrest for jumping the turnstiles in the subway (you see, with ten people on queue, the "idiot clerk" who sells tokens was "nowhere to be seen") Another window on the inanities of life (the fictional inanities of life) is the "90210 Weekly Wrapup," which is all, "Kelly shows up in a red dress and Steve 'Overt Penis' Sanders goes, 'lady in red!!' and Brandon goes, 'she's just showing off' and Dylan goes to Tony, 'I hadn't noticed [her dress]' and you realize that Kelly has slept with all the guys present at the party that evening and that every shot of her shows her guzzling wine." No need to tune in to the TV show, itself--the synopses are much more fun, kind of like watching the FOX network with those guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000. There are lots of think pieces focusing on the absurdities of mass media and technology ("PDAs for Tots," the electronic footprints you leave behind every time you go online, a list of supporting monsters in Godzilla movies, etc.) One problem that the editors of Inquisitor Mediarama might want to work on: There's not enough full-text editorial online. The editors ought to 86 the excerpts and get the complete editorial backlog of Inquisitor online ASAP. (JW)

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