AN INTRODUCTION & AN AFFIRMATION

There's a LOT of goooood stuff in the second issue of Otoliths--kudos to editor/publisher Mark Young. For me, there was at least an introduction and an affirmation.

The intro: Caleb Puckett, by which I mean I'd not read his words before but I love what I read in Otoliths. Like this:

Once upon a time in a muddy black land where something as simple as a missed note on a harmonica could ruin a man’s reputation, you turned back and forgot your revenge. You had too much too lose, especially considering that you had that national surgeon’s conference to chair in the near future. Especially considering that she would soon be nothing but a broken blade of grass beneath a rusted lawn chair leg. Especially since assault, let alone murder, could lead to such dire turns on the wheel of life. Especially considering that we mark time with more than one tense, direction in more ways than left and right, and action in a number of fashions—least of which is the intention—as its wobbly spokes spin through history. Though thought may ultimately satisfy through ferocious fiction, its greatest sin seems so slight compared to an honest assault. You want no more misery, so you decide this is the part where you whistle Dixie like it is Mozart.
--from "The Assault" by Caleb Puckett

Then there's David Baptiste-Chirot. So glad to see the discussion by Geoff Huth and then David himself.

I could write reams about how much I appreciate David's work. But it'd be reams of silence. So let me just approximate my appreciation by saying: The way David Baptiste-Chirot creates -- HOW he does it -- is very important to me, and even as I don't claim to know/understand all of his process, his process is a source of spiritual sustenance.