Dear reader,
Everything starts best in the middle.
I don’t ask you to flip a few entries ahead. I can tell you the article there meditates on troublesome developments, as do its sisters before and after it. And as this volume arose, I found a common voice gather between its pieces. This volume grabs us by the ears and begs us to listen to the ancient rumbling below our feet: change.
But that rests in the middle between mundane and cosmic. It takes the safe sureties we once knew and delivers them back to us as a blurry future. Somewhere in that disruption, change occurs: a cold apartment; an empty beach; or a flooded field. If you flip between pages, you will see it.
Though intense, that is the gift of the middle. This being our 10th volume—our 5th anniversary—we are given perspective. Our esthetic emerged as outwardly edgy and boundless, but internally reserved, calm—wind caught in amber. Equally, this volume contains pieces which discuss flux: from the mutating of human nature in the Victorian Era, to lesbian life during the Cold War; from queering Harry Potter, to the strange task of ordering a ‘taxi.’ This breadth of knowledge lets us recombine the old with the imperative moment and refocus. History in this way is about seeing.
And I believe Forbes & Fifth edifies this message: to pilot away from a vanishing genesis and toward the unknown borders. We are given the chance to remember and to dream. We are—luckily—in the middle.
With that, I invite you to read on. Enjoy what’s in store.
Happy reading,
Lucas Grasha