Club classics: In the second response to our winter letters prompt, Jacqueline Oury delivers a paean to partying. Against the stifling cult of individualism, parties—raving, clubbing, “sweating side by side with equally inebriated strangers”—offer the quickest reprieve. Drawing from an old lineage of pagan feasts and solstice festivals, such gatherings loosen the “corset of manners, taste, and class” and allow us to breathe. When morning comes and hangovers fade, the liberatory radicalism of a “collective ego” might remain.
Emily Sun, senior editor
Heavenly dream: It has been a year since David Lynch died, leaving behind the certainty that no such human luminousness would break through again. I often return to his 2019 Artforum interview. Lynch sits in a grey corner, cobwebs everywhere, an old phone nearby. His hair is perfectly blow-dried, his teeth are cropped and uneven. He opens the conversation by saying: “The art life is a great life. It’s coffee and cigarettes, maybe some red wine.” In a Lynchian sense, this is elegance, not decadence. Any imagined wine-tipsied haze is immediately undone by the sharpness of spirit with which Lynch speaks about his practice of painting and transcendental meditation. His words are precise, with a clarity that undercuts the myth of intoxicated genius.
This transcendence lies at the core of his work. In his paintings, he eschewed flatness. He wanted things to break the surface, to exist somewhere between ideas and organicity. His films function under the same impulse, in a liminal state of awakening, charged with an indeterminate light. This light is the one he loved in Los Angeles, his city at heart. Upon the discovery of such light, recounted in the interview: “It knocked me out,” like a “heavenly dream.” It is within this light, both physical and remembered, that Lynch’s art continues to reside.
Meri-Li Mercier, contributing editor
Do it together: Zines, shortened from “magazine,” are small-circulation, non-commercial publications appealing to niche audiences. Most often associated with 90s riot grrrl culture, some argue that zines have existed since 1517—when Martin Luther distributed his Ninety-five Theses. There is a long history of alternative publishing that rejects dominant economies through deliberately messy, DIY methods (collaging, photocopying, doodling…). Zines activate literacy’s material competence: texture, unfolding, ink bleed, smell. The contemporary book-art medium is built on this premise—that paper facilitates human connection better than digital formats, and that operating under the algorithmic radar furthers political reach. For this reason, the local dimension of self-publication is key. I recommend browsing bookstores like Quimby’s, Volumes Bookcafe, and Seminary Co-Op, or attending the Chicago Zine Fest come July.
Still, physical publishing is limited by cost, time, and distance. Many creators have moved online to surpass these barriers, epitomized by platforms like Substack that promote think pieces and host an artsier crowd than other social media. Algorithmic distribution and template-based design stray from the core of zine culture, but online artistic spaces still present a valuable contribution. Many online publications also exist in print and accept submissions of all forms, so they are useful for first-time publishing. Here are my favorites: Antler Velvet, Nowhere Girl Collective, Jardin Zine, and for the wild.
Jacqueline Oury, contributing editor
Image: Julius Hübner, Luther publishes the 95 Theses, oil on panel, 1878 (Lutherhaus, Lutherstadt Wittenberg).