When I was fifteen I started photocopying a zine in Albany, NY and passed it around to the punk kids, mailed it to incarcerated felons who sent letters to my parents' house, and traded with other zinemakers from around the country and the world. By 1998, my last year of high school, the fourth edition was recognized by Maximum Rock n' Roll as one of the ten best zines for July of that year. That was the end for a while.
I made a new zine a few years later, in Boston, which was more about literature than punk. It was called Run Aground, and I gave it to local stores on consignment plus sold a bunch at all-ages shows in Dorchester and Cambridge. I felt it was pretty expressive, but I didn't get much of a dialogue going and so let it die after two issues.
In early 2006, after living in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn for three years, I launched a website and blog that was dedicated to the community (which was beginning to receive increased attention in the mainstream press as the next place to buy). The mission was to cover some of the culture and history in a way that would benefit residents, rather than real estate hawks or trolling hipsters. The site has been graced with some wonderful contributors, including Erica Lies, Tam Tran, Ned Vizzini, Matt Levy and Sabrina Seelig, and their work will remain available in the original location. There have been no updates since August 2006, shortly after I moved 1.3 miles west from Bushwick to a loft in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Many inquiries have been made as to whether the site will continue, and it looks like the answer is a continued hiatus.
So now, a clean slate. A new folder for writing and contributions that literally extends from the work of last year. http://the-wick/55/index.htm.
It's called 55 because I have a font that looks like the cut used for highway signs and because Double Nickles on the Dime is one of my favorite records ever made. I can look out the window at the rusty church steeple on the corner of Jefferson and Bushwick, the notorious hospital on Broadway, and a white rainy sky with grey-painted rooftops, and somehow it all looks just like my screen. The other day I went to church in downtown Brooklyn. Then I rode bikes to the Cloisters. This week I've been sitting out of work so I can read more. For now, I make enough money housepainting. I have Faulkner, Proust, the Markson book, Baudelaire and John Yau prose poems. I've forgotten to return phone calls to my mom and to an old friend. All are welcome to contribute.
9/11/07
