My favorite name for a literary magazine is NOON. NOON is really a great name–it’s a palindrome two ways, horizontally and vertically. When you are on your head and you read the word NOON, it is the same as when you are standing or sitting, when you are not trying to read things while you are on your head. It does not matter which way the spine is when NOON is on a shelf. Even if the spine is facing the wall, NOON would still look like NOON, if only you could see through objects. So much of the day gets rounded into ‘noon’. If you wake up at 11:24, you could tell people you woke up at noon. The part of the day that you do until you feel like the day has to end is talked about in relation to noon. Things fold up into noon. You cast no shadow at noon when you are at a theoretical place, the equator. Diane Williams’ writing collapses into itself sometimes when I read it; it collapses like a rich French actress does when she collapses and asks for a cigarette and a lighter from her collapsed position, straightening her garter and her gabardine smock for a camera, and I don’t know why she is wearing a smock, so I kick her a little with my riding boot while I am taking her picture. Okay. NOON covers are a black background behind the body of an animal, and the scientific name for the animal appears on the cover in sans-serif font. Scientific names in sans-serif fonts are really nice looking.

I like SIR! as a name for a literary magazine. Brian Foley said something about wanting to publish a certain kind of humor, and SIR! makes me think of a certain kind of humor, and also the words ‘wainscot’ and ‘cummerbund.’

Pindeldyboz, NOÖ Journal, and Zyzzyva–I like these names because it’s like how the hell do you pronounce them?

No Posit and SmokeLong I like because these names say something about the content and form they want to publish. So does Six Sentences, but that doesn’t seem as catchy, like it doesn’t want to grab on to me when I am running past it wearing a smock.

Lamination Colony makes me think of a sweaty clown suit and the sound of rubber clown shoes walking on gravel, and that is creepy. I like it.

N+1 and Ninth Letter sound like chance word games, and that is clever I guess.

Opium. I do not like the name Opium much. For a drug opium is passe–name it Adderall or something, or Soy Protein Powder. I am probably ‘missing the point.’

There are so many, I could do this for hours. When I think about making my own literary magazine I think, There are so many.

There are so many. But I keep thinking about the thing I would add to the heap of them, what would I call it? Something about the feeling of being about to experience a really good thing you have been anticipating, something pre-apocalyptic.