Read our August 2013 issue here.
I will always remember that one episode on One Tree Hill where Brooke asked Lucas after a basketball game if he felt everything change the moment he made the winning shot. I am in that moment. This issue changes everything and it is all because my partner-in-everything, Jared Carl Millan, poured blood, sweat and tears just to make our August 2013 issue the best one yet. So, we’re breaking tradition and I made him write the Editor’s Letter. Here’s what he has to say:
I wish I could talk to you about Miley Cryrus’s hot mess of a performance in the VMAs, or Ben Affleck’s being cast as Batman, or even Janet Napoles’s surrender—I have a few particularly hearty words about those subjects, but because this space is reserved for an altogether different topic, I won’t.
You see, I find this letter particularly difficult to write because I don’t think I have the right words with which to tell you how much this issue means to me, and how special we wanted it to be for you. I am overwhelmed and quite speechless. But I guess I’ll just have to make do.
I want to say this at the outset because I don’t think this issue would have been possible if it weren’t for Raymond Ang’s nominating us in this year’s Globe Tatt Awards. If you didn’t know, we won, and I believe a thank you is in order. This issue is our way of thanking everyone who voted and supported us throughout. We also like to thank the judges who believed that we were doing something significant through Stache. Thank you.
There are a lot of great things in this issue. First is the amazing set of artist that I had the pleasure of interviewing. You have Vanessa Correia Rosa from Spain who takes beautiful photographs, and award-winning visual artist Catherine Nelson from Australia, whose stunning works of floating worlds astounds me even as I write this. (Our graphic artist Ches Gatpayat also had the pleasure to interview Andrew Vastagh, who’s created great concert poster for bands we all know and love.) Second, I had the chance to talk to folk-slash-intrumental-slash-bluegrass-slash-acoustic band Saintseneca, Rick Webster from Unkle Bob, and up and coming dream pop band from Sweden Postiljonen. Speaking of Sweden, we also featured in this issue some of the best acts from the Land of the Midnight Sun. Dr. Richard A. Falk, an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University; speaker, activist on world affairs; and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories also joins us this issue with his take on the NSA issue and Edward Snowden. And last but definitely not the least, you have our cover artist: The National.
I’ll tell you a little story about how that came to be.
Because I am the kind of person who can never tolerate bullshit—excuse my French—I put proverbial salt and proverbial lemon juice on my proverbial wound by way of calling myself out on my own bullshit. One dreary July day it was cold and raining and I had been afflicted for some weeks by a little self-pity. “Slow Show” started playing on my iTunes library then and I thought that, because I was already at the bottom of my barrel—something I knew even then was an exaggeration—I had nothing to lose if I e-mailed the band and asked for an interview. If anything, I had hoped that the particular sting which comes from rejection would jolt me out of my funk. As it happened, I did not get that jolt, but I did get out of that funk, and I did get an interview. And now we are here.
I don’t know what else to tell you except that I, and the rest of the team, worked really hard on this issue. We don’t get paid for what we do. The money we spend to make this magazine happen come out of our own pockets; the only thing that comes back to us by way of compensation is the knowledge that people all over the world read and enjoy our magazine. I am not complaining, don’t get me wrong. I guess what I am saying is that we love what we do, and we do it because we love sharing art. We’ve been doing this for more or less two years now, and I don’t doubt we could do it for at least two more.
Jared Carl Millan
Creative Director
