In his introduction to BLAST, Mark Morrison cites Hugh Kenner's description of the magazine's "posterish conventions" as evidence of BLAST's intergration of consumer culture into its rhetoric.The "Blasts and Blesses" section of BLAST consciously evokes this aesthetic of advertisments, contrasting the content of a piece with its presentation. The attention-grabbing, variable format of BLAST's initial pages evokes the appearance of a propaganda poster: large, block letters, spartan sentences, and inflammatory diction. The eye-catching presentation of BLAST's front matter convinces the reader that this section of the magazine is of dire importance; yet the actual content of these first pages is not all it's trumphed up to be. Contradictory, bombastic, and often incoherent, the "Blasts and Blesses" hardly present a unified message in the same way that the Manifestoes do. Instead, they wallow in emotionality and hyperbole, taking a great deal of space to say very little. I read this section as a commentary on the pervasiveness of advertising and propaganda in society: BLAST wants to point out to its readers how the content of the day's polemical rhetoric has degenerated, even as the presentation techniques have increased. As a rhetorical statement of principle, the "Blasts and Blesses" say very little; but as a satirical adoption of advertising culture, this section is an interesting artifact.