With Sentinel and Saraba (1)

Surfing the web could be elating, time-wasting, indulging and in other instances fulfilling. It all depends on what takes your time and how much knowledge you garner during the cyber-period. I have had moments which left me with aftertaste that I can't just stop relishing. There were days too when I recoiled from the screen and wondered at the frivolities and trivialities the Internet offered. The internet is functionally multifaceted. You chose which grain your pestle gets to grind. I roughly have 20hrs access to the Internet a week. But the trove stored on my hard-drive conflicts this. You would think my connection is always up and running. Really, it isn't. Not in this part of the world where connection is measured in meager bytes with preset timing. What I do on the web with the shortest of access time could be amazing. Reading newspaper, magazines, blogs, literary portals and journals makes my eyelids puffy from multitudinous of words.

They say life is in twos in everything and to every individual. The internet is not without the contradiction of use that people make of it too. Your internet is for inane chats, mine is for reading. What a striking opposition. The way the web works is in the attitudinal individuality of persons.

I have two ways I want people relating with me whenever my netbook calls for my attention. When I surf the net over a cup of kunu and roasted plantain, with intermittent laughter appreciating the pleasure of the food, I could be selfless in giving my attention to other things apart from what mesmerizes me on the screen.

The other, I can't really couch in words for clear definition of the mood that submerges my whole. But I know the symptom before and the effect after it. When I hunch slightly, creating a slantingly tangent view with my screen, blinking sharply at the screen's glare, rushing over meals, preferring taking meals on the bare floor over the dining table that seats my netbook; I know the latter moment beckons to me. In this period, I could ignite when my skin senses the least of friction on it. The effect; my eyes redden, pores break out sweat and my mind goes into a trance of reasoning induced by the words the Web screens on my netbook.

Of some of the activities that currently take my web-time; I share with you these two:

 

On Sentinel Nigeria Issue 7

Sentinel Nigeria has berthed again. This time at the sea with tidal waves that direct all to the dock of variously apt pieces. It is moored to Issue 7. In my years of fraternity with Sentinel Nigeria, a quarterly literary magazine, giving preference to previous Issues over the current has always remained herculean. So is this same Issue that partly inspires me to write this. The issue is new and the steam that each contribution boils with still visible.

Reading literature online is more engaging; this I have observed over time. It interacts with the reader, unlike a paperback that leaves the reader slurring between pages that feed him without taking in personal reflections from him. Online, the beholder's views are only some keystrokes' away. In this Sentinel Issue 7, find yourself disagreeing and acquiescing with opinions so compact yet resounding. Observe when you nod to the exactitude of points so correctly driven. Validate my claim when you converse with each writer in a telepathy that can only be in pieces very spellbinding. 

Read Sentinel Nigeria issue 7 now >>>>

 

Of Saraba 9: The Food Edition

Always on Saraba do I notice myself immerse in the analyses that brew out of fertile minds of versed resourcefulness. The correctness of every year's submissions to the subject they individually peruses is intellectually engaging. Subconsciously, I have built an ingrained attitude of keen interest in the artistic depiction this downloadable magazine showcases.

Each issue usually works on a tailored theme. Not in order though, there have been Fashion, Technology, God, Economy, etc. With each of these themes, new perspectives are delivered. It is in the way Saraba achieves deepness from clichéd topics that takes one in. In the end, there is always a reinvention of ideas from simple hackneys.

In Technology for example, technology is looked at from ways it affects and shapes our literature and lives. The pains and benefits it has holed through basic human endeavours are bared.

In this newly published edition, Food is closely juxtaposed with Literature. Its advantages are weighed with the knowledge the mind needs feeding on. In this new collection, writers strive to show the indispensability of Food to human and literature to the mind. Some contributions portray the infusion of Food into the literature of humanity. Food, in this issue becomes the mirror that reflects the importance of literature. This edition goes out to array the intermingling of literature, Food, knowledge and life.

Download the magazine now>>>>

I would implore you frequent this blog more in days to come. This space will be featuring rundown of pieces in these magazines and other literary websites yet unmentioned. To download past Issues of Saraba, browse the archives on the site for it. Sentinel Nigeria, a non-downloadable magazine also stores past editions on the site for easy rummage.

Follow this activity of mine and maximize your web-time. Up online Literature!!!