The Pedestrian • Editor's Blog

Thanks to every­one who sup­por­ted The Ped­es­tri­an this past year. Re­gret­tably, the journ­al is go­ing on hi­atus un­til more re­sources can be found to sup­port it. Dur­ing the hi­atus con­tent will con­tin­ue to be pos­ted to the blog and The Ped­es­tri­an's Face­book page. If you would like to be one of the first to hear when pub­lic­a­tion re­sumes with Is­sue No. 3, please sub­scribe to the blog's RSS feed or be­come a fan of the Face­book page where the an­nounce­ment will be pos­ted.

Dur­ing the hi­atus you can still pur­chase the print edi­tions of Is­sues 1 and 2, as well as read es­says from the first two is­sues on­line.

Thanks again for your in­terest in The Ped­es­tri­an.

From The Ped­es­tri­an No. 2, Jenn Bris­endine es­says on the use of Shakespeare for cop­ing with the day-to-day chal­lenges of be­ing a mom:

You’d be amazed at the num­ber of ref­er­ences to the mighty works of Will that come up around here. Suit­able lines sur­face with a curi­ous im­me­di­acy: “Come not between the dragon and his wrath,” I’ll warn my hus­band of the baby in a fussy mood. Or, a per­son­al fa­vor­ite of mine, “Oh hell! What have we here?” – a per­fect line to use at the dis­cov­ery of a sud­denly-ap­pear­ing mys­tery pile of Lumpy Something on the car­pet.

From the es­say “Aus­culta­tion” by Steven Church, one of three ori­gin­al es­says in­cluded in The Ped­es­tri­an No. 2:

Re­call the ice-cold press of the met­al disc against your cav­ity, the sting and soft burn as it warms on your clavicle, your breast­bone, fin­gers mov­ing met­al across your na­ked chest, around be­hind, fin­ger­tips step­ping down your spine, one hand on your hip, maybe your shoulder, the oth­er slid­ing around your rib-cage, al­ways, al­ways with the whispered com­mand, breathe … breathe … good, and the eyes star­ing not at you but at the cold dia­phragm, the metal­lic spot on your body, listen­ing as if your body pos­sesses a voice of its own and speaks in a lan­guage only oth­ers un­der­stand.

Phyl­lis Rose, in her es­say “Tools of Tor­ture", takes a can­did look at the dark side of tools, a look that is all the more chilling for ex­pos­ing the his­tor­ic­ally mundane and prag­mat­ic pro­cess of tor­ture – a pro­cess that is not so dif­fer­ent from that of beau­ti­fic­a­tion, like a trip to the spa. The es­say, from her col­lec­tion Nev­er Say Good­bye (1991), is re­prin­ted in The Ped­es­tri­an No. 2, out in Decem­ber. The es­say be­gins:

“In a gal­lery off the rue Dauphine, near the par­fumer­ie where I get my mas­sage, I happened upon an ex­hib­it of me­di­ev­al tor­ture in­stru­ments. It made me think that pain must be as great a chal­lenge to the hu­man ima­gin­a­tion as pleas­ure. Oth­er­wise there’s no ac­count­ing for the num­ber of tor­ture in­stru­ments. One would be quite enough. …”

From a clas­sic es­say, re­prin­ted in the forth­com­ing is­sue on Tools:

All of these tools are a pleas­ure to look at and to hold. Mer­chants would nev­er paste NEW NEW NEW! signs on them in stores. Their designs are old be­cause they work, be­cause they serve their pur­pose well. Like folk­songs and aph­or­isms and the grainy bits of lan­guage, these tools have been pared down to es­sen­tials.

Steve West re­views the first is­sue of The Ped­es­tri­an on his blog, Out Walk­ing.

From the blog of writer Philip Gra­ham, two re­cent posts worth a look:

• Oranges, Oranges
• Welcome to Wal-Mart

HT: BREVITY