OUR THING #1
A Creative Community
Though its name may imply otherwise, the germination of Megawords was a photography magazine. Created by graphic designer Anthony Smyrski and photographer Dan Murphy, Megawords is a free publication made and distributed in conjunction with a worldwide network of artists. Since its beginnings, Megawords has grown to include video, Megawords Radio, and a recent pop-up storefront.
megawordsmagazine.com
freenewsprojects.com
So, first off, state your name.
Anthony Smyrski
So we were going to ask, "Why Philly?" A lot of the questions we've been asking people are like, "Why did you stay in Philly?" or "What drew you here?", but you were telling us that you grew up here.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I've never lived outside of Philadelphia for a significant amount of time: I was back and forth between here and Los Angeles, and spending a good amount of time in L.A., but I still had my house here and an apartment there. Philly's the home base for now and the foreseeable future.
So what is Megawords?
It can be difficult to define sometimes. The base is pretty much the magazine, but really Megawords is a much larger project that came out of conversations between me and Dan Murphy, the other half of Megawords. It's sort of a place where we examine and think about our surroundings and this city. It definitely started very Philadelphia-centric in many ways, but we're both very curious people and we both travel a lot, so it's expanded into examining other cities and other places and taking a look at how other people experience their cities. It's gone beyond cities even. It's almost a document of contemporary life, at least as we're aware of it or the people that we interact with are aware of it. I think that's one thing that we're always trying to find, is other viewpoints and other ways of looking at things and thinking about them.
Was photography your first choice for the magazine's medium? How did you morph into the written word?
The original reason we chose photography as the medium was because of the power of photographs to communicate to people across a wider scope of political, social or economic class. Someone can look at a photo of something and instantly have some sort of rapport with it in their mind: it says something to them and they don't have to stop and read it. It's sort of letting them put their pre-associations with the photograph. I think we do try to control that in a certain way, by what photographs we present, by how we arrange the photographs in the magazine, and what order they go in. But I think part of it is that no matter who picks it up they're all going to get something different from it, just because they're going to bring their own associations to the photos that we've shown. The reason there's text in it now is that there are no real rules to what we do with the magazine—if we decide that what we're trying to say is going to be better communicated with text, than that's what we're going to do; if we want to explore that avenue, then we'll do it. A lot of the magazine is our own personal experimentation with media, and the actual format of the magazine, what you can do with that and how people interact with it, text or photos or lack of those things and how they're combined, are all just tools in the toolbox. It's obviously not new, it's just our rendition of it.
Since you and Dan are both from Philadelphia, was there a deliberate choice to make Megawords in Philly as well?
The decision to make Megawords didn't necessarily come out of place, at least not consciously. I think on certain personal levels we were both sort of dealing with you know, the psyche that comes with growing up in a certain place: you're surrounded by how you think about things and how you look at the world. But the magazine didn't come from that, it was more from our personal frustration with other magazines that were out there. We didn't really feel like there was anything out there that we could respond to, and felt that the best course of action, really, was to just to make our own.
Our next question was whether you saw a need for Megawords in Philadelphia or were just scratching your own personal creative itch, but you answered all that.
Yeah, not even just [a need] in Philly—just in general, I think. Philly can be myopic at times, just like any city: There's a particular scene that's popular and a way of thinking or artwork or style that's popular. We had always looked outside Philadelphia for our influence, and we both travel frequently and we both have a lot of friends and people outside of Philadelphia. I think it's definitely been a factor in Megawords success that we're looking to the entire world and reaching out to people globally to generate the content for the magazine. In that sense, we're not just trying to find the same five people that everyone works with in Philly.
Saying that you've gone global, is there still an underlying thread that's inherently Philly about Megawords?
I think it changes in each issue. I don't sit down and say "I need to make sure that this magazine really comes from Philadelphia." I don't want it to be tied aesthetically or politically or in any way to a particular place because I want it to be something that someone from any city anywhere could hopefully respond to in some way. I don't want it to be something that's esoteric for all but a certain group or genre of people.
What were you and Dan doing pre-Megawords?
I'm a graphic designer by trade, and that's still what I do now. I think I bring a lot of the perspective of the designer to the way the magazine looks. To get off track a little bit, I think Dan and I sort of think almost completely differently about a lot of things, but I think that brings a lot of the character to the magazine—that collision of two sort of thought processes, which sometimes works really, really well. Dan's a photographer and I don't think he would call himself an artist, but he's a photographer.
Did Megawords use any outside financial support?
The majority of it is our sweat and money, we do receive some financial support to print the issues from Free News Projects. I'm part-owner of Free News Projects, so it's not really outside money in that we're not sponsored by any corporation or company or anything. For me Free News and Megawords have a lot of similarities, it's just that Free News is a business that makes money and sells stuff, while Megawords is an art project. Eighty-five, 90 percent of the money comes from me and Dan, we don't sell the magazine, it's free. People can buy online, but they're basically paying for the shipping of the magazine. We give it out for free in stores, we spend out own money to send it to places—everything that's in the magazine is either generated by us or by contributors who are unpaid, so they're doing it because they believe in a project or because they understand what we're thinking about. The September storefront project was sponsored by PEI, the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative and the Pew Foundation.
How do you get Megawords out there?
We cast our net as wide as we possibly can. Each of us have friends who live in different cities, and there are a good number of cities overseas, who we rely on to be distribution points and tell us where the magazine should go. Over time, people will read about it and a store will contact us and we'll send them 10 copies. We get a fair amount of international subscribers, which is cool. It's nice to see that the magazine appeals to someone in South Africa or Korea.
Do you see Megawords as a part of your work, or something separate from that?
Megawords in one of the things that I want to do [away from work]. From a creative standpoint, the magazine is completely separate. The skills I have as a graphic designer definitely contribute to the way the magazine looks, but the thought process and the motivation behind it are very different from my design work, because that is commercial graphics that I'm hired to design. I put Megawords in my portfolio and people will find out about Megawords through my design work and vice-versa, so they are beneficial to one another in that respect.
Philly is a town known for its artistic collaborations, like the one between you and Dan. What are the advantages of working with someone else as opposed to just going it on your own?
If it was just me, it definitely wouldn't feel the same and if it was just Dan it wouldn't have the same feel, and it wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't for the collaborative aspect. The magazine wouldn't exist otherwise: Dan and I have similar aesthetic tastes, but just our working methods and our process behind things are very different. I think I'm much more rigid, in a lot of ways, than he is, but we play off each other perfectly in that our weaknesses and strengths really balance each another out; they generate this unique aesthetic and feel behind what we're doing. And you know, a huge part of the magazine is who we choose to work with and what they bring to the project. We do the radio show, interviews and our storefront project bring all these people in, and that's really where it all comes from. It's really different from a painter toiling in his room all day. The magazine is really our interaction with the world and our community, and how it comes together.
Do you sense that there's a real persevering spirit in Philly artists?
Persevering in...?
Nose to the grindstone, keeping on working...
It's a work ethic. I mean, Philadelphia's a working-class city, and I don't know if that's where it comes from.
It seems like a lot of people come here to try and get their art off the ground.
Philadelphia's not a cultural backwater—it's the fifth-largest city in the country, it's two hours from New York, the rent is extremely cheap. It all depends on your attitude and what you bring. If you can't get something going here you're not going to move to New York and get something going. I guess Philly does make it easy in those ways, the rent's cheaper here and it's close to things, and there are museums and there's a fantastic music scene here, people come through here—and things happen. It's a little more real here, I think, than it is in New York. I think a lot of the stuff that people romanticize about New York, it's done, it's over. Philly can be myopic, but New York can be one of the most narrow-minded places ever. A lot of people think that something's happening, but they're just talking about other people doing stuff. And not to be a New York hater, I love New York but...
No, we understand. On another, ahem, note, is there a relationship between music and any of your projects?
Yeah, especially for Dan, but definitely me as well. It's hard to maybe, make direct connections between things, but I've definitely taken aesthetic considerations and influences from certain genres of music. A lot of factory records stuff, and Peter Savile stuff, kind of that whole Manchester scene. And a lot of that comes from when I was younger, too—that stuff carries over into your adult life in a lot of ways.
What would you say is the best unknown music venue in Philadelphia?
You know, it's been so long since I've been to a show anywhere—I have to think about this. Johnny Brenda's is great place for shows, but I wouldn't say it's unknown, by any stretch...
What about an under-the-radar local food spot?
There's Tony's Pizza right at the corner, I've been going there since I could walk—that's not on the beaten path at all. On Allegheny Avenue there are a number of places where you can get pierogi and kielbasa and stuff that you can't really get anywhere else. The neighborhood [Kensington] is sort of changing—there's one place called the Hinge Cafe, maybe half a mile from here—it has sort of a downtown feel to it, there's definitely nothing else like it around here. They have cappuccino and espresso—which nowhere else around here has. It's nice because they've come here and they're trying to be a part of the community—they have art classes and cooking classes and they do all this stuff besides just running the store, and that's really great. As far as like, if I had to name a downtown spot where someone could go, it would be Charles Plaza, a vegetarian Chinese place on 9th Street.
Philadelphia—better with Iverson or without?
(Laughs) I have no idea.
Finally, what Philly trend would you say is dead?
Dead one? Bike messengers.