THE LAST AIR GUITAR EDITORIAL

This is my editorial send-off for La Petite Zine. It's been a great ride, putting together whole issues of a literary magazine I've come to love, and that has patched together its own sensibility.

What is that sensibility? At first, I daydreamed it would be mine and mine alone, being the authority-worshipping man I am. But it's not. From LPZ #4, my first edited issue, to LPZ #12, the present one you are clicking through, the sheer accretion of different voices has, thankfully, drowned out my world-conquering plans. And that is beyond a good thing. It's a gift. Cue strings.

A few issues ago, I did say that La Petite Zine was the "only lit mag you could play air guitar to," and I still stand by those words. I think, conversely, that there should be more lit mags out there you can play air guitar to, which is partly why I am starting yet another lit mag, Unpleasant Event Schedule.

What do I mean by air guitar-playing lit mags? I mean literary journals that have the serious and the playful, the solemn and the crude, the drama and catharsis found at an arena rock concert, where this editor would find himself in his teens and twenties and thirties, unconsciously moving his body in the manner of a lead guitarist, aping places on the fret board, trying to induce catharsis. Too often, the mood of a lit mag is that of a parent scolding the child to turn the volume down, slamming the door.

You might think that comparison is asinine or youthful or campy. It's all of that. But that behavior, for all its faults, is also wonderfully unselfconscious, and involves a corporeality that often writing does not include, especially experimental writing. Writing is made of words that represent thoughts that represent actions yadda yadda yadda, but it's all worth nothing unless the reader reacts to it, and reacts to it in a bodily way. Raise an eyebrow. Pucker the lips. Smile. Mime Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" on top of your steering wheel.

So I turn over La Petite Zine into the capable hands of two new editors, both of whom have been published in these pages, both of whom play real mean air guitar -- Jeffrey Salane, a drummer-poet and all-around raconteur; and Danielle Pafunda, a person-poet of profound and innate wit.

I hereby entrust the pages of La Petite Zine to them, with the knowledge that future readers will enjoy their curatorial work from issue #13 until they turn it over and keep the love going. This is the first time I've ever turned over any journal to new editors, so if I sound officious or showbiz here, please do accept my apology.

But you only get that first time. Enjoy.