Opus II, Issue I of Half Mystic Journal is a constellation of contemporary art, lyrics, poetry, and prose celebrating music in all its forms. This collection showcases the theme of presto: a sleight of hand, a piano flourish, a beat drop in a crowded bar, a mirrorball-spun hymn to a god of doors and light. Our eleventh issue, the first in the new opus of Half Mystic, and the underside of the allegro theme that began this project, Opus II, Issue I is our most ambitious and evasive release yet. It lives swathed in smoke and teetering toward the real, spins ever more rapidly to the beat of becoming.

Opus II, Issue I features the voices of Genevieve DeGuzman, [sarah] Cavar, Aurora Shimshak, Will Cordeiro, Harrison Hamm, Maggie Warren, E.B. Schnepp, xochi quetzali cartland, Grace Kwan, Amanda Hawkins, Suzannah Watchorn, Abigail Chang, Jesica Davis, Hannah Yerington, Ivi Hua, Annione Ryan Platten, and Morphic Rooms.

The presto issue flirts with sun and darts to darkness, sings of man-made magick, blurred vision, glitter in the shadows, an aria half-lucid and bewitched by the myth of movement. The music is real, the body electric and imaginary. Issue XI lives on the currency of old dreams and new speed, and right at the moment when you think you’ve learned its dance, it dares you to circle back and look again.

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Reader photos