What is Gyrofrog?

(1996)

One morning in July 1995, following a particularly heavy rainfall, I stepped out to the back patio to smoke my first cigarette of the day. I sat down in the white plastic patio chair and lit up. The smoke passed through my gullet sharply, but reassuringly; a few seconds after inhaling, I could feel a tingling, yet relaxing, sensation in my head and my toes. After basking in the morning sun for a moment, I semi-consciously leaned over to flick my ash into a terra cotta saucer, which had filled with rainwater. Part of the coal flew off with the ash, causing a hiss as it landed on the surface. At that instant, from the corner of my eye I saw something in the saucer shift slightly. I turned my head to get a better look, and found my gaze returned by a dark pair of eyes which rose from the water's surface: along with a few dozen cigarette butts, there was a fist-sized frog in the saucer. When the beast once again shifted slightly in the infusium of nicotine and rainfall, I immediately sprang to my feet and backed away from the chair and the saucer. The frog was now well within jumping range of where I had just been sitting. As I imagined what might have happened had the frog decided to leap, I somehow remembered that amphibians respirate mostly through their skin, and came to this realization: "Man, that is one fucked-up frog!" I also realized that I had finally come face-to-face with the Gyrofrog. Within forty-eight hours, I had given up cigarettes for good.

Welcome to Gyrofrog! The website you are now viewing is, in some respects, the third issue of a 'zine I publish. Or more correctly, considering the fact that the second issue of Gyrofrog came out in October of 1992, used to publish --- perhaps this endeavor could be seen as an on-line resurrection of Gyrofrog the 'zine.

In any case... much of what is presented on this website was originally earmarked for the third issue of the print-version of Gyrofrog (I'm recycling a few items from previous issues, however). I had been working on that third issue for damn nearly four years, and each day that went by merely increased the odds that a third issue would never be printed. Meanwhile, the amount of material continued to grow. Although it seemed less and less likely that I would ever print a 'zine again, I hated to see my efforts go to waste and wished to find some outlet for everything I had put together thus far.

Fortunately, starting a website presents itself as a viable alternative/successor to printing a 'zine: no layout headaches, no neglected articles covering my desk and collecting dust, no stapling issues together, no glue mess... With a website, the entire project is put together at the computer and transmitted electronically (no postage costs).

So then... I hereby declare that the debut of this website marks the end of Gyrofrog the 'zine, and the beginning of Gyrofrog as an electronic medium. Unlike a 'zine, material here will not be published in chronological "issues" as such. Links to new material will simply be inserted somewhere in The Index. Thus Gyrofrog will be more like a singular entity than a 'zine with its separate issues. This may change if Gyrofrog grows particularly large and unwieldy... but given my tendency to procrastinate I do not see this becoming a problem for quite a while.

Enjoy!