Refreshing the Wells 5

Today I’m refreshing the wells by flicking through a truly apalling magazine.

 

Called “The Wide World. The True Adventure Magazine for Men” and published in 1958, the cover had three men in grass skirts, wearing scary masks. This story is called “Sacrifice to the Forest God”.  It’s about a man’s trek into the heart of French West Africa, and how he finds the ‘dreaded Guelamai’ tribe.

There’s another story, about the Foreign Legion, with a picture of naked ‘savages, shrieking their blood-curdling battle-cries”

 

Apart from these, the stories do seem rather exciting, but it’s hard to get over the nature of the story-telling.

 

It’s a bizarre insight into what seems to be another world.

 

 

Here’s Jo Anderton:

“Words are awesome things, I think we can agree on that. But you know, sometimes I feel like I’m just surrounded by them. TV, radio, internet, phone, people on buses, signs inside buses, signs on the back of buses, billboards, street signs, meetings, skyping, loud neighbours, words words words! You know what I’ve found really refreshing? To wash them all away. Go somewhere without words or — and I’ve only just learned this — somewhere where you can’t understand them.

 

The middle of nowhere is a brilliant place. It’s even better if you get there on horseback. A small Japanese town or a silent Sri Lankan ruin is pretty damned good too.

 

It’s like a rinse for the brain, cleansing away all the words that have been piling up on the old grey matter, cluttering it, burying it. Stagnating it. That way, the new words can grow.

 

I just wish I did it more often. Maybe I should.”