#298 is "a triple memorial issue for RDHanson, dom sylvester houedard and Joe Singer." Hanson was a little-known but talented Canadian poet who was only 33 when he died, houedard one of Canada's--and the world's--leading pluraesthetic poets, and Singer (who shot himself last year at the age of 42) a publisher/writer well-known in the small press for The Printer's Devil. The issue includes reminiscences of his dead friends by curry; a news article on houedard; scraps of Hanson's, houedard's and Singer's work; and additional pieces by Gustave Morin, Alberto Rizzo and Rosemary Hollingshead.

I was bowled over by Morin's cover for #298, which is labeled, "ECOSYSTEM: A FRAGMENT." Two knife-&-fork settings are shown in it, one large, the other much smaller, and between the knife and fork of the first--which jolts us into taking the settings as upright, with one deep in the distance, and makes us see how the place-settings existence provides for us recede into nothingness.

But the piece is also a quietly devastating satire on man's irresponsible use and understanding of existence as nothing but a series of meals for human beings, tastefully served up.

Central Park, which is printed on excellent paper and has a glossy, perfect-bound cover, is at the opposite end of the production-value spectrum from 1CENT. It specializes in "forms of thought and feeling that address the most general and pressing concerns of our time, and do so through passionate and/or unpredictable means," according to its editors. The following are just a few of the fine items it contains:

A refreshingly even-handed and thoughtful discussion of "Political Correctness and Popular Culture" by Robert Stam, who feels that the left should stop looking for correctness of character and text, "and assume instead imperfection and contradiction. A correct left is not only a privileged left, but also . . . a losing left."

"Counting Sheep," a poem by Maria L. McLeod that contrasts a "good" wife (who, for example, won't mind your owning a copy of Playboy) with "I," who will burn your Playboy and lock you out of the house till you've gotten a series of articles into print called, "Pornography: One Link in the Patriarchal Chain of the Victimization of Women."

A very funny piece of fiction by Jonathan Brannen whose narrator is trying in vain to recall the name of a film someone called C made. He runs through the film's plot--and plots of others of C's films. They are all absurd, full of loony situations, and characters like the two women "who live in each other's bodies."

Excellent criticism by Stephen-Paul Martin, Kirpal Gordon, Susan Smith Nash and others. And . . .