Wits End | 48.1

2024

Humour is sacred. It is also biting, born of grief, heartbreak, and life’s everyday pleasures and absurdities. Humour ribbits, as does bailey macabre’s cover art, scream, “WTF!” at the state of the world and the accumulative indignities that pock our lives.

When putting this issue together, I was drawn to the big whys and little ironies of laughter. The pieces we chose not only pack satirical punch but also offer a buffet of vulnerability and insight—wry, tender, and brazen. Their quiet inside jokes catch me off guard and break me open, remind me why humour is always there for me as armour. From the pressures of growing up to leaving your old self behind; from the West Edmonton Mall to your porn-viewing history, these poems, stories, interviews, and art pieces sprout with wits that end us, don’t end, and do. In “The Durian Demon,” commissioned writer, Lydia Kwa, invites us into the antics of a fragrant, rules-defying trickster figure—illuminating the compassion and wisdom of working-class people in Singapore along the way. Amber Krogel’s “Ablution” asks, what decisions do capable adults make, anyway?

Compassion threads this issue from end to end: for mothers we had to mother, for the fierce protectiveness of elders, for when we, as Meghan Harrison observes, “can’t protect anyone,” for our childhood sweet tooths, for the spirit, for the land. After all, Jenan Afaneh urges, “This Is Not a Good Time to Forget About the Land.” In her interview by Sadie Graham, Zoe Whittall reminds us that we can’t be funny without being self-aware. Indeed, the pieces in Wits End are both self-aware and shadow-aware, probing deep and wide about living in these times and about living. Between snake facial ASMR, millennial nostalgia, and good ol’ allegory, I feel less alone within these pages. I hope this issue challenges you, amuses you, and changes you as it did me.

Wits End couldn’t have come together without the generous support of Sadie Graham, Tara Preissl, and Gitanjali Divisha Bal! Thanks for all the giggles.

– Jane Shi