Exotic Magazine - Issue 340

The Gritty Graffiti of Ancient Rome

by Wombstretcha

When we conjure images of ancient Roman culture, we think of gladiator fights, togas, warriors with funny hats, giant mosaics, huge public baths, mind-boggling architecture, and emperors getting stabbed. We also think of Pompeii: the city swallowed by a volcano when Mount Vesuvius erupted around 79 AD.

The curious thing about Pompeii, and its sister city of Herculaneum, is that the volcanic ash very nearly perfectly preserved things as they were nearly 2,000 years ago. People and animals fixed in place, like slightly morbid statues, to serve as memories of times nobody can recall.

From this, we learned about their culture, their habits, their general way of life, and the city they built for themselves. We also learned about some other things... You see, when excavating this wondrous find from antiquity, unearthing artifacts and buildings to learn about these people, we also found antique graffiti...

Three Portland-Centric Music Festival Ideas To Kick-Start The Summer

by Blazer Sparrow

I feel like last year, I was revving up for this sort of article to help us break out of the dark shadow of the dystopian nightmare that was the world-crippling plague. We needed a hot girl summer on fucking steroids to help undo—or at least distract us from—worldwide trauma, deaths, loss of livelihoods, etc. For like five seconds, it looked like it was safe to crawl out of the cave and wave our genitals at the sun. But alas, too many folks thought the vaccine would make their dick fall off, and COVID came back with a righteous left hook. It didn’t knock us out, but it did put us down for a spell. Before you know it, holy crap, here we are at the second summer where we’re coming out of the haze of an unprecedented global health crisis. Like, didn’t we just do this?

I stand by my idea last year of having an all-nude music festival out on Collins Beach on Sauvie Island. That still needs to happen. However, if this is indeed the end of COVID-life, I think it’ll take more than just one bareback, sandy-butts-and-boobs fest to help celebrate the end of a truly shit era.

Summer is festival season, and this is the time when every city is trying to do its own regionally-flavored Coachella. Since Sasquatch died and Coachella has basically become an Instagram content generator for fashion, there’s definitely room for another city to pick up the torch. Why not Portland?

Before you @ me with South By Southwest, Bumbershoot, or Treefort, I think those are their own animal of festival with tech, film, and other stuff. I’m talking specifically music (and obviously, skimpy outfits.) We need a Pacific Northwest Lollapalooza. An urban answer to Pickathon...