Frankie goes to Wayward

As said in the last post, I bought my very first issue of Frankie Magazine at Restored in Amsterdam. I found it through a guest post on Pamflet and just knew I needed to buy it!

Frankie Magazine has a really cool vibe. It uses great thick paper, amazing soft colours and is filled with great articles, shopping tit bits and good looking fashion. And next to the nice interviews they also give you tips on how to recognize vintage chairs and what to do with your spice rack or how to reuse random things lying around the house. It also comes with a pretty calendar! There are a lot of things that I liked about the magazine, but it’s just too much to write about! So I’ll only tell you about some of my favourites.

The first one is a column by Rowena Grant-Frost about her childhood dog that died recently. It was heartwarming, funny and also really sad. Anyone that has ever had a childhood pet can read it and understand how she feels.

The second article is also by Rowena (I guess I already picked a favourite), which gives you biggish ideas for small talk. She lists 15 ideas to keep a conversation going. Some of my favourites:

2. If the world depended on you sexually reproducing with Simply Red or Kenny G., who would you choose? I would choose to watch the world be consumed by a fiery fountain of lava and obsidian. But I am very selfish.

I had to look up who Kenny G. was, but I completely agree with her. Let the world burn while I watch with my dignity still intact.

11. Would you rather suckle on a monkey, or have a monkey suckle on you? The answer seems obvious, right? Who the heck would want a monkey nipple in their mouth? Well, you’d be surprised.

This one was tough! I also went for suckling a monkey right away, but they both have their downsides...

12. When was the last time you vomited? Vomiting is a rich topic for conversation. There is context to appreciate, circumstances to explain and colour and texture to describe in great detail.

I absolutely hate vomiting, but I love the stories that other people tell me about it!

14. What was the last book you finished? An unacceptable answer is: ‘I don’t read.’ If you hear this, you should shimmy towards the closest exit and get away from these people. They cannot be your friend.

Lotte and I encountered someone on work who gave us a similar answer and our response was the same. If you don’t read, there is no way we can be friends.

They also featured an article about being cool. Four writers tell their concept of cool: what it is, where it comes from, and whether we care. I really liked reading what different types of people think about what it means to be cool and what they think is cool. Caro Cooper was the last one to write a column and I really appreciated her enthusiasm in the first paragraph, when she thinks she can write about what is cool right now instead of the concept itself. The overall concensus for me was that real cool is very relative and you shouldn’t give a shit about what other people think.

I wanted to pick a third by Rowena, but I’m already acting like a crazy fangirl, so ‘ll go with 30 days from Justin Heazlewood, who’s an Australian comedian, author, actor and songwriter (busy much!) The article is about a challenge one of his friends gave him. He couldn’t say anything negative or bitch about anyone for 30 days. He writes about some of the days and how difficult it was to not bitch, and how often he did do it. I don’t think I could ever win this challenge and especially not under the circumstances he had to do this. And even though he doesn’t make the challenge, it still worked out fine in the end.

To show you what the article was like, I picked my favourite day as an example.
Day 25: Honestly, I’d stop bitching if bands ould stop being boring. Life is spent in a cocoon of loner superiority. You are above everything- never participating fully. Guarded, defensive, skeptical. It’d be kind of cool if it made you happy. I had a dream last night that I got really angry at my best friend Josh Earl. I was shouting at him about all kinds of things. He’s a performer as well. I think I’ve managed to fail this challenge on a subconscious level. That makes me feel better.

An illustrated Justin Heazlewood

I think Frankie is a great magazine and I would love to read it more often, but I do also think it is too expensive in Holland. One issue will set me back 20 euro's, which is very mean, because an issue in Australia costs only 9 dollars. If it is something you can afford, I urge you to get it, but I don't think I'll buy every issue that comes available. Maybe I should just reconsider my finances... who needs to eat anyways?