It was the only time I had taken a Metro-North train from Grand Central up to New Rochelle alone. It was the 4th of August 2012 (a Saturday night), and that’s when it all began.
My days in New York City were winding down fast and I was trying to comprehend how my summer had just flown by. Interning at BOMB magazine in Brooklyn for three months, as well as celebrating my 24th birthday on the Upper West Side on a rainy July day, was not something I had planned. But I’d be quite the disappointment of a Fitzgerald-worshipping, aspiring young writer if I didn’t spend at least some time being inspired in New York. Plus, Bruce, my short story instructor-slash-senior editor, is a firm believer in being young, and crazy, and just living in New York (or Paris) in your 20s.
I just never thought I’d end up falling in love with New York City.
The temperature on the train was ridiculously low, and I vaguely remember wishing I was back in Los Angeles where I could just get in my car and have complete control over the temperature instead of cursing at myself for not bringing a hoodie or a cardigan or something, when I realised I was staring at a man’s hands holding a couple of magazines. In hindsight, I must have come off as a stalker, but honestly, he was holding Black Clock #13. Our mixtape.
The only natural next step in my process of thought was to imagine Black Clock and BOMB dancing together a very elegant waltz on a pink cloud. The male lead being Black Clock in this scenario, and maybe I was onto something with BOMB magazine—being the artist’s voice since 1981—a graceful female artist that is oozing the sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit—while Black Clock is ‘singular, idiosyncratic, and a little mysterious’ since 2004 (perhaps channelling Humphrey Bogart). In true star-crossed lovers fashion, BOMB and Black Clock find themselves in each other; small, fractured pieces of their souls found in the pulse of their printed words. (New York City’s love affair with Los Angeles beautifully overcoming the distance between them).
Surely BOMB is Catherine, Maria, Padmé, Princess Diana to Black Clock’s Heathcliff, Tony, Anakin, Dodi Fayed, the difference lying in the swanlike grace of the quiet exchange that can be found in both magazines’ contributors lists. Steve Erickson, Bruce Bauman, Lynne Tillman, Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Don DeLillo . . .
There is no tragic ending in this metaphor. There are, instead, stolen kisses at reading events (perhaps most notably at the McNally Jackson reading in March 2012 for Black Clock #15, where Lynne Tillman read from her piece “Two Serious Ladies: The Film” as Black Clock staff listened through the bookshelves); a quick exchange of glances via blog posts on upcoming events; even passing notes as contributors press light pecks between issues. (Or perhaps their love affair—soundtrack by Hans Zimmer—is sidetracking me.) My point being, if Black Clock had a delectable soulmate, it would be BOMB. (2,972 miles apart if we take the I-80 East from CalArts to Brooklyn.)
With the continuing trend of bookstores declining in the USA—a further 2% decrease from 30,4000 in 2011 to 29,795 in 2012—and the American Bookstores Association having 1,900 member stores (500 member stores fewer than in 2002), with eReaders on the rise, and fanfiction writers becoming overnight sensations, my heart reverberates between two decades. Here I am, in the land where u’s have no place being next to o’s, and my favourite love story is written between the pages of two magazines that live on the two coasts. Their feelings are echoed and reflected in Editor’s Choices, in the breaths of line breaks and italics, and interviews. Where the short stories and poems that can be found in Black Clock share the same intimacy and give off the aura of BOMB’s First Proof. Where Artist on Artist interviews shine with contributors from the West Coast magazine.
Ultimately, Betsy Sussler and Steve Erickson have been transforming, pushing, and re-writing artistic and literary boundaries since 1981 and 2004, respectively, both providing readers with works of art.
So to the guy who was on that Metro-North train that night—thank you. Thank you for reminding me that a little love for the written word can go a long way.
I got off at Pelham.
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http://blackclock.org/blog/2012/tick-tock-i-wrote-this-for-you/
[Published OCTOBER 18TH, 2012]
Thoughtfully, Yours 