Letter from the Editor

Back when my wife and I owned a coffeehouse occasionally people would complain about the music. Our mission going in was to make the coffeehouse a cultural light, which included monthly art shows, and live music on weekends, as well as offering a variety of multi-genre music playing at all times in the shop (unless live music was happening). This was when I learned firsthand about how opinionated and what strong feelings folks have about art–primarily music, but also visual, and textual–we also sold books, people upset by what we offered or didn’t offer. During a lunch rush, one customer said about the music, Can you change that? I can’t eat my lunch to this! It was The Fairfield Four. Occasionally this happened. Another time someone was rocking to Led Zeppelin too loud. I remember once complaining about the staff playing Bee Gees and the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack–I was just simply embarrassed by it, having lived through that era–these were college girls having a giggle to Stayin’ Alive. Another memory too was that we had aspiring musicians on staff and while I had color-coded our cds by genre and wanted five different genres in the CD tray at any given time, one employee only wanted to play two artists on his eight hour shift: Dave Matthews and Elliott Smith, because these were who he wanted to sound like and learn from. It wasn’t an issue of quality in this case but variety, and customer service? What does the customer most need or want to hear? It isn’t all about you. Maybe something quiet, something calm, is appropriate in the morning while perhaps after lunch distraction becomes welcome. Variety, quality, excellent musicianship and reading the room, setting an ambiance, always the goal. I learned to temper my goal and aspirations of exposing the customer to new things–my idealism tempered–this was a bit before the internet took hold and electronic music opened the doors wide open to anything and everything, globally. Now everyone wears headphones. Music always became a problem for us, whether it was the customer, the staff, or we were being taxed to simply play music by ASCAP, BMI and others, all wanting their copyright cut for music we never played or might happen to play, or the possibility of the occasional cover that a live band might offer up–the tax was calculated based on the number of seats and potential or hypothetical infringement–and it was hefty (thousands annually)! I remember my first phone call to ASCAP (the first who found us, and then others started tagging on), and he said, we bring in billions (I think he said 80?)–you can’t fight us, don’t even try, we’ll win. You just have to pay up. Because we advertised our live music they identified us and the bill for the fee showed up in the mail.

Many many local bands started out at our place–we became legendary and many Portland bands still remember getting their start at our place. But there was also a cost, and eventually we stopped offering live music, and subscribed to a service, cheaper with the music curated and the copyright fee built in–this was after over a decade though–thus the shop’s status as legendary. My barber who used to work for us as a barista while she went to college, and whose husband is also a well known drummer, and they both have connections with the music and art scene in Portland, was telling me this. It turns out our shop, that we owned for 21 years then sold six years ago, to her was like Kevin Bacon–everybody had either started out or at least played there. Decades later, the reward!

My original point was, art always seems to cause wrinkles–problems. It always seems to come with a special set of demands, complaints, risks and a bit of cost at times. It wouldn’t be worth it if not for the almost intangible rewards. Rewards are high: meaning, beauty, purpose, goodness, truth? Memories of friendship and community. Impacting people’s lives–for the good! Sometimes it can even put money in your pocket? But also too often there’s the price. Let me say offhand, it’s important to me to fund Triggerfish. It’s important to me that people shouldn’t have to pay to submit their work to us.

But is poetry dangerous? Is art risky business? Is it costly? I would argue it can be. Ask Osip Mandelstam who recited a poem to the wrong friends mocking Stalin’s mustache–and it somehow got back to Stalin. If not for his wife who memorized his work and later transcribed it, we wouldn’t know or remember him. Or, even at Triggerfish, I have had poets pull their work because they didn’t like a review they got, or they didn’t like another poet’s poem in the issue and didn’t want to be associated with Triggerfish because of it. Or they disliked the peer review process because of feeling obligated to comment, and if commenting on one, needing to offer comments on all, or too many of them. I have had poets not like the images I’ve paired with their poem and ask me to replace it, and I’ve had an artist bail out, wary of having their artwork being paired with poets’ poems, not knowing in advance what they might be associated with. So we’ve gone full circle. Not everybody appreciates our mission. It’s risky. Occasionally offensive. A big example in art for us was a past issue in which the painter’s subject matter featured self-immolation. He was not promoting it, but he did make it somehow beautiful? Another featured graffiti, another a tattoo artist. And people have strong feelings about art and what they are willing to consume, be associated with, or be in close proximity to.

Rather than be upset by how controversial art can be, perhaps the best way to view it is that art is vital, it has vitality. If done right, it will grow to have a life of its own. It moves, it threatens, it shakes things up. Sometimes the purpose is to make us uncomfortable. Other times we simply want comfort and someone to come alongside, or perhaps what we most want is to laugh or experience awe, to be moved, other times we want to be scared out of our wits, or discomfited out of our complacency. Maybe it’s not about what we want, but what we need? Anything but indifference, please!

Regarding this issue specifically–welcome to Issue #32–we had an artist bail unexpectedly last minute, so I decided on a whim to show you pictures from a recent trip my wife and I took south to California and what we found along the way. While the photos might have been more professional or our knowledge of what we were shooting might have been more thorough, what we discovered was awe-inspiring enough. I believe that despite whatever shortcomings are involved, you will be entranced by what you find.

As for the poetry showcased this time around, we have more poetry from Italy and Ukraine, as well as many from the US, and Oregon :), and several returning friends. One thing to note was the convergence of so many submissions working from and influenced by Asian forms. As this started to pile up in my inbox I began to grow more favorable in my acceptances toward this trend, just because it was tying the issue organically and cohesively together. You’ll see what I mean. Whether it’s the poetry or the artwork that comprises an issue I can never predict at the outset what I’m going to end up with or where we will go. And the surprise adds to the joy of curating. Please have fun perusing Issue #32.  I hope you value it as much as we did in offering it up.