The Believer - February 2012

The February issue of The Believer did not disappoint again.   

For example, the interview with Chris Johanson by Natasha Boas captures a thoroughly unfettered authentic man who expresses clearly the need to practice his art form.  The business side of showing his art and the artist’s responsibility in this regard flies in the face of what he does best, the doing part.  It’s a perennial obstacle for any creative person.   

Katie Bachner’s interview with Sam Farber, collector of ‘outsider art’ exposes essential points on how art is defined in the mainstream and how the traditional definition may be changing; whether biography informs the content significantly; how ‘outsider art’ may be confidently forging its own path and smudging the lines between what is mainstream and what is not all the while protecting its unique aesthetic.

‘La Bibliothèque Impossible’ tells about a collection of work which few people know about, the Oulipians.

And then, the piece by Aaron Bobrow-Strain on the making of the USDA White Pan Loaf No. 1 was an amazingly informative, fascinating study on the origins of the enriched white loaf which occupies miles and miles of grocery store shelves throughout the continent.  Who would have thought that this spongy nothingness played such an important role in the military strategy of the country in the 40’s.

Each of the articles in this remarkable magazine has to be savoured.  There is so much packed into them.  For the time it takes for McSweeney’s Publishing to prepare the next issue, it takes me to read the one in my hands.  No gleaning over the words here.  In fact, to the contrary.  I feel enriched, just like  Pan Loaf No. 1 and well fortified for the creative day ahead of me.