Hasn’t everything been done to death? Evidently not. This is my 4th foray into the literary/art world as an editor. In the mid-1970s/80s it was Polis (Boston, Provincetown) made with ye olde paper, a few hundred copies for each issue, with fiction, poetry, essays, art. My stint as Music Editor of the (pre-Wired) visionary-tech, psychedelic glossy out of Berkeley, Mondo 2000, late 1990s, where I interviewed some music heroes. Then Artzar, (fiction, interviews, essays, photography). So here we go again in the Year of Our Planetary Upheaval, 2017.

Athens is — along with a friend’s band name in California circa 1969 — a State of Mynd. Where artist misfits (um, the vibrant creative community) (not excluding misfits in general nor the general population, it’s presumed) have half a chance to live a decent life. Way more than half. I’m a yo-yoer, as my esteemed colleague described. I left town after 3 years for further misadventures, returning as soon as the coast was clear.

Is Athens less broken than anywhere else? Not a chance. Can there be a life, any life, outside of Athens, Georgia? Me thinks not.

Or maybe I just had too much to dream last night.

Mark Katzman