UCSB is lucky to have a literary magazine like WORD. Clever, stylish, and relevant, WORD magazine provides a quarterly peek into the romantic Isla Vista lifestyle. We at Gaucho Marks admire WORD greatly, what with their color print on glossed, magazine style paper, their heavy funding and faculty attention, as well as their dedicated and incentivized staff (they also have a big, colorful box that says “WORD” which lets everybody know where to get the issues, so that their staff don’t have to hand out each pamphlet like crack rock). Needless to say, we encourage everybody to read WORD, but for those of you who love IV in a way that can only be expressed with flowery prose and poorly focused photographs, there’s a place for you on the WORD staff. Here’s a guide to the six types of article you could have published in next quarter’s issue of WORD magazine.

Local Band Highlight

 

These home-grown, afro-beat-turned-folk-turned-fusion hip-hop artists bounce beats on their state-of-the art pro-tool sets (courtesy of the Bank of Mommy and Daddy) and somehow manage to keep it underground.

Excerpt: “Grimm’s uses her ankle bells and fellow musician Arrington De Dionyso uses only his multiphonic voice to perform a complex throatsinging number” (WORD Magazine Issue 16 Spring 2012)

Culture Clash 

Despite publishing for over five years, WORD’s editors still find foreigners fascinating. I mean they look different, speak different, dress different, eat different, but we all go to the same school! There’s nothing patronizing or crass about pointing this out in every issue!

Excerpt: “People at UCSB drink so much more than they do at schools in Singapore. I wouldn’t use that much Steel Reserve if I were trying to drown myself.” (not cited)

Cultural Analysis of Something Bro 

There’s more to frats than just partying and making offensive comments to freshman girls. You can’t spell Brotherhood without bro…right?

Excerpt: “Bros are not as simple to define as initially believed. Some bros do conform to the gender expectations placed on them, but others break these parameters. Some focus on the parties, while others emphasize the friendships. But please, don’t judge a bro by his tank.” (WORD Issue 15 Winter 2012)

Something Hippie Written By a Hippie 

Many students embrace the counterculture of the 1960’s with such sincerity that we can refer to them as hippies without observing them through an ironic or retro lens. They know this better than we do, and they brag about their freedom from societal norms like sundress clad chanticleers, trying to wake us up from square-dom.

Excerpt: “We dressed in wild animal outfits and paraded through the streets of I.V., growling, barking and moo-ing.” (WORD Issue 15 Winter 2012)
 

Assorted Nonsensical Poetry 

Of course, no self-respecting arts magazine would omit original poetry. Topics range from the ocean, the sky, a particularly bad hangover, and of course, the dewy nether regions of 20-year old girls.

Excerpt: “Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?

Let us play snappa in the wind…

Goodbye.”

(not cited)

The Rant of the Albino Raccoon

Need I say more? We are all familiar with the obligatory manifesto from Isla Vista’s elusive fair-haired critter.  The Albino Raccoon uses every column to condemn residents for their shameless debauchery, naïve politics, and neglect of reality. In other words, their youth.

Excerpt: “Well I’ve got a message for you, Isla Vistans…[insert blowhard snark here]”