I was highly impressed and amused by Blast magazine. Though I found it to be oppresively masculine and possibly slightly mysoginistic, it's been a long time since I've been assigned something so amusing. I was particularly entertained by the 'blast' and 'bless' pages, specifically by the blessing of the pope. I thought this was a little bit odd considering the number of authoritarian institutions that had been blasted on the previous page, but then thought maybe it was a little bit satirical. The violent, sparsely punctuated text got me caught up in an aggressive, quick read that felt like reading an angry, nonsensical Shel Silverstein poem aloud.

I suppose, more than anything, I was completely and utterly bewildered that a magazine like this existed at the time. I've always thought of the early 1900's as immensely conservative, particularly in media, and was pretty surprised to see this and read the content. It was inflamatory, intelligent, angry, and really funny. I didn't take any of the text personally because I'm so removed from the time period and most of the issues they confronted, so it was easy to read as a possible satire - a little bit like The Onion. I would be interested to know how much of it was satire and how much of it was honest anger or sensationalism.