When L'Avenç magazine published issue 500 last April, many raised their hands because they had announced that it would be the last, although they left "the door open to a third life." And this could be seen on Tuesday in the Alibri bookstore, where they celebrated the rebirth, now with the number 501 and a new management with Simona Škrabec at the helm.
Núria Iceta, editor with the now former director Josep M. Muñoz, appreciates the possibility of reviving the publication, especially for “the decisive contribution of an individual and the Department of Presidency of the Generalitat”, because “a magazine without readers is not a magazine, and a project without money is just an idea.” Muñoz acknowledges that he was skeptical about the future, and immediately praises the magazine as a concept based on Patrick Radden Keefe's preface to his book Maleantes (Reservoir Books), where he writes that he fell in love with magazines in high school, in the eighties, when “they were omnipresent and seemed like they would be there forever and ever”; He believed that “a long magazine article could be the best format.” Muñoz does not surprise anyone when he says that the magazine “filters and hierarchizes”, and talks about the “culture of metabolizing the printed word”, and alludes to slow journalism that has paradoxically been saved thanks to the internet, because now we have the article at a just click to win the “war against mediocrity”, and quotes the article by collaborator Martí Gallén: “The only war worth fighting is the war against human stupidity.”
The room is full of friends, such as Chronos editor Gonzalo Rodríguez ("had to come to support them", he says) or Les Hores, Maria Sempere, writers Carles Torner, Joan Todó and Jordi Puntí - member of the editorial board with Cristina Massanés, David Fernàndez, Ana Sánchez and Julià Guillamon, who couldn't be there -, the researcher in literature Mita Casacuberta, the president of CoNCA Vinyet Panyella, the director of literature at the Ramon Llull Institute, Joan de Sola or the entrepreneur Jaume Roures .
While Škrabec – “the magazine is a bound section of time” – and Massanés – “the magazine is a thinking device” – are still talking, I quickly leave for the Gabriel García Márquez library so as not to arrive at the last minute to another unexpected celebration: the issue 800 from El Ciervo. Newspaper journalism often requires hurry.
Mayor Jaume Collboni opened the event by defining El Ciervo as a “school of coexistence, dialogue, respect for others, openness in the world and opposition to dogmatism and fanaticism” that is so needed in times like these, and he explains with amusement that When he was born the magazine already existed, and it continued now that he is mayor, and he hopes that it will be like this when he retires. The director of the publication, Jaume Boix, goes further and after the usual thanks he dares to wish: “I would love to have my obituary written in El Ciervo!” In front of the deputy director general of the Book of the Ministry of Culture, Jesús González González, and the manager of Libraries of Barcelona, Ferran Burguillos, Boix asked, and even more so having recently been awarded the National Prize for the Promotion of Reading, to increase the presence of the magazine in Libraries, “a natural place.” He also explains that they are modernizing in search of new readers, “without ceasing to be what we are,” that “we cast the nets but the fish is expensive,” although he wonders if perhaps it is not actually better to “wait for these young people to grow up a little.” ”.
Afterwards, he invites the writer Eduardo Mendoza, the journalist Xavi Ayén and the poet, translator and musician José María Micó to speak. They talk about the magazine, humor, Comedy and Dante – Micó is an expert – and the super agent Carmen Balcells – a few months ago the square next to the library was named after her. Ayén highlights the selection of topics and the style of the magazine – “irony and clarity” –, pointing out that he can encourage young people – “my daughter the other day was telling me about a very interesting article,” he says.
Among so many people, there are the Commissioner of Culture of Barcelona, Xavier Marcé, the director of Librújula, Antonio Iturbe, and the editor-in-chief of Serra d'Or, Joaquim Noguero, Xavier Roig of Politics
The following day, Wednesday, in the Horiginal of the Calders Bookstore, Raquel Santanera and Laia Carbonell will announce that at the end of this month, the cycle will move, hoping that it will be definitive, to a new home, in Sants, at the Deskomunal. But today is today and they are celebrating the book that the digital magazine La Lectora has published with Barcino as part of its Carner Project. There are audiences and readers of poems, but the book is not available due to technical problems. They pass by the stage to read and celebrate the prince of poets, the hard core of this new magazine that also delves into the things of old, with Gerard Cisneros, Gemma Medina, Jaume Coll Mariné, Marc Rovira, collaborators such as Artur Garcia Fuster or Adrià Targa , or the poets Enric Casasses, Joan Todó, Víctor Obiols, Raquel Pena, Jordi Florit - the idea of the book came from a tweet of his - or the actor - and now librarian of the house Héctor Mellinas -, until Rovira y Targa they start the Carner Consultancy, the exact science of Carnermanship: a question is asked, a page and a verse are said at random, and the answer is always correct. Like magazines.
Catalan version, here
