Ironocle -Humor Magazine
Established in 1910 as a political pamphlet written by Timothy Kim: a Korean immigrant fed up with the government distributing cornmeal as Jasmine rice.
In 1908, Kim, along with fellow enraged countrymen, donned their powdered wigs and frock coats to rally at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station (what they believed to be Independence Hall) to protest the year's misrepresented crop. They demonstrated the difference between rice and corn to lingering passengers while pleading to beleaguered conductors to change their agricultural nomenclature. Tragically, their cries of injustice fell upon deaf ears due to Kim's confusion of transit ticket-takers as government officials. Frustrated by the futility of their efforts, Kim stormed home to his two story shed and wrote his righteous manifesto by candlelight. The next morning, he awoke only to find his charged declaration a written recipe for blanquette de Veau. Kim lifted his eyebrows in shock at the excessive use of mushrooms, and with that, the monocle he had been wearing since the protest, fell to the table. He examined the simple ocular piece with fascination then lightening stuck, literally. Kim ran from his shed in horror and realized what he had to do. Put the fire out of his hair.
Later, in a dive bar frequented by local whalers, hair still sizzling, Kim wrote an incendiary political proclamation centered upon the cyclical nature of politics and the unfair treatment of the lower-class. He titled the pamphlet, Ironocle (which he had mistakenly thought spelled monocle), the inspiration behind the document's structure. Elated, he went on a bender and consequently ended up in a Chattanooga beauty parlor penniless, rank and dripping of eggs.
After two years of selling novelty novels, Kim migrated home. He found his hovel good as garbage and pamphlet securely hidden under his dog's dish bowl, which he published the very next day. The public reaction was unanimous and Ironocle became a household name. Pennsylvanians rolled with laughter at the crude drawings and childlike understanding of governmental principles. Hailed for it's literary comedic genius, the magazine became one of the earliest humor magazines despite Kim's ardent protests. Kim never published again and so retired to a life of cobbling.
A hundred years later, we continue where Timothy Kim left off, with an adolescent humor magazine littered with poor grammar and curious a preoccupation with Jasmine rice. Thank you, Timothy Kim.
