LTTR #4 - DO YOU WISH TO DIRECT ME?

We called and asked about your wish to direct, to project and to move, a proposal for action to be passed from our hands to yours and onward, to the community, beyond the face-to-face. You sent it in, and some of it hit and some of it stuck. And with it struck a curious feeling. What are your stakes? Where do you want to take me? (I mean, are we going together?) The contributions in this issue build private insurrections that loosen public ground. Each piece a testimony. It’s about our labor, people! How we work, and for whom. Toward resilience and refl ection.

Halfway through the process of reviewing and discussing, we, as editors, faced each other feeling an absence. “Where were the political demands of our queer community?” we asked. We felt hungry for some direct analysis of current state politics, government war tactics and homophobic strategies and their effects on our rights and daily life. We are all being directed through several wars, by a government whose “US” does not include me.

Sometimes, when you ask a question and you get a question back, that’s better than any answer. Your contributions fi lled us with personal narratives, visions, past and future. Between them is that tried-and-true claim that the personal is political. Like you, I have fantasies and desires that shape my confrontations with the pressures of reality. When I speak out loud, and someone answers back, I feel my commitment to collective efforts. Perhaps this is where we can effect change. Sometimes, when you call, what you get back is both an echo and a response. The residual pleasure makes you want to call again.

Community is built on singulars like you and me, who can be found with our noses in the crack of a book. Time spent reading is time spent living. Our bodies are evoked and affected, and we are actively remembering and masquerading. There are many things to experience and to read about, and yes, there are things to do.

We asked for direction and you said you needed some yourself. So let’s move in together and read this issue, ours.