THE POINTED CIRCLE: ISSUE 40
Letter from the Editors
This issue of Pointed Circle is, as they all are, significant鈥攈istorically and otherwise. We are celebrating the longevity of 40 years in print. This fortieth edition is a creation born from an intimate team and compact time frame. When our editorial crew came together to discuss what we wanted this historical issue to be鈥攚hat we wanted to capture鈥攚e were all over the board, quite literally: our ideas were scrawled and splattered across the length of a 30-foot white board, spelling out every chaotic thought buzzing through our brains:
Transition, Rebirth, Spring, Burning flowers,
Dumpster fire, Riot cops, Fentanyl, Revolution
We thought about our city, in flux between public perception from afar (it鈥檚 burning! it鈥檚 anarchy! it鈥檚 all over for us!) and the reality on the ground (these apartments are unaffordable! this brunch is unaffordable! these cherry blossoms still bloom, despite clouds of toxic gasses!). This city, and us as editors, all exist in the contrast between these dueling realities. We tried to capture this juxtaposition in the journal, both in the visual art and in the written work we gathered from a collection of truly talented people.聽To quote the brilliant sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, 鈥淚f you work hard enough at something that doesn鈥檛 matter, you can forget for a while about the things that do鈥 (鈥淭he Evening and the Morning and the Night鈥). Luckily for us at Pointed Circle, this 鈥榯hing鈥 we have been working at so hard for the last two months matters to us a lot. In a world where awful things exist, we have used hopelessness and fear to drive us instead toward community, learning, vulnerability, listening, and growing. This is not to say we aren鈥檛 hindered by cynicism at times; it鈥檚 just that we don鈥檛 let it defeat us. We choose art and storytelling, and at the sake of sounding ridiculously corny鈥攚e choose love. We hope to inspire others to choose the same.
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