When we assemble an issue of Still Alive, we don't go in with a plan for making it cohere. Our style is to gather pieces from writers we admire, and see what emerges. Late into putting this issue together, we noticed multiple people had pitched Iraq War-era figures. We talked about what to do with this, and what it might say. The "Operation Iraqi Freedom All-Stars" section was born, a tribute to the worst time immediately preceding our current worst time.
Our cover boy is Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush. I love how he looks in that shot, holding the 9/11 Commission Report with what can only be described as glee. In a brilliant and hilarious essay, Daniel Kolitz dissects the Wolfowitz ethos--namely a psychotic fixation on Saddam Hussein--and his own obsession with the man. Also in this section, Jameson Rich tackles Dick Cheney the heart patient. Reed Jackson takes on Ann Coulter, then and now.
I like when the essays start to speak to each other, and I like even better when they speak to the present moment. These old ghouls are still around, and worse, so are their ideas. What's going on now will echo out in the same way, its villains hanging on for decades longer than you'd want or expect them to.
Also in this issue we have: A. Natasha Joukvosky on prom, Johannes Lichtman remembering Milan Kundera, Rachel Vorona Cote on Kinky Friedman, a comic by Jason Novak about Justine Frischmann, a poem by Anne Carson, and much more. Plus art by Still Alive favorites Kees Holterman, Calli Ryan, and Eric Hanson, among others. Our Edna O'Brien piece, written by Sarah Healy, is illustrated with an original, handmade quilt!
This issue will be our last for a while, and possibly forever. We're all too busy to sustain the work of a magazine, especially the work it would take to make it solvent. It's been a blast putting it together, and an honor to publish writing that is so moving and accomplished that otherwise would likely not find a home. In a perfect world, a rich person would discover us and fund us forever. But let's be honest, we are too weird for this and too resolutely unprofitable.
It's made me incredibly proud to collaborate with the SA team on these three issues. Most of all, I have valued working with these writers, who I hope will continue to publish widely. May they live forever through their strange and beautiful work. Thank you sincerely for reading.