On April 17, 2017, this publication observed its one-year anniversary. Note: “observed,” not “celebrated.” Actually, “observed” isn’t quite accurate. “Ignored” would be better, although “completely forgot about” would be best.
But what a year it’s been! An entire year of tip-top, first-rate, hi-kwality articles about every conceivable subject, including a couple of poems. An entire year of sensitive, insightful criticism, book reviews, fake smartness, real disingenuousness, and political observations stunning in both their timeliness and their copy-editing. A full year’s worth of v. beautiful public domain photographs noteworthy in their beautifulness. And yet this milestone passed without comment, mention, or a “peep.”
Why?
Because we were busy. Busy reading Twitter and composing scathing rebuttals to idiots. Busy reading Facebook and struggling with coming up with a snappy comeback or with despair. Busy being online, and either using or not using or not having the faintest understanding of Instagram or SnapChat or BitBucket or CopyGrabMaster or Spam-Itt! or SlapMonkey or BlipFixer or ScamDipper or ZapZipper or ZipZappr Pluss or DingDonger or Flinkl, Trendz, Kriq, QuoQuo, Pr7j!, or Flg, some of which are actual web sites. Busy being too lazy to be busy doing anything. But mainly busy living, damn it.
So we owe you, the reading public, an apology. But you owe us an apology, too. We’re sorry we didn’t commemorate The Sherman Oaks Review of Books’s one-year anniversary. But we’re also hurt, and a little mad, okay? that you didn’t say anything. It’s not your fault, although it sort of is, isn’t it?
We know that, what with earning a living and taking care of family and drinking heavily to manage the daily onslaught of rage at the president and the Republican Party, it’s easy to forget the little things. It’s also easy to forget the big things and some, if not all, of the medium-sized things. You go along, and then one day you look up, and you realize something’s missing, something’s lacking, something’s wrong. Of course, who told you to look up?
The Buddha said, “Understanding is the heartwood of well-spoken words.” Does anyone have the slightest idea what this means? No. And thus is it confirmed.
In that spirit, then, let us all resolve to do better in the future. But mainly, let’s you resolve to do better. We know you can. The coming year offers a myriad of plethoras. And we’re going to need each and every one of them as we confront the challenges of our increasingly global world and worldly globe all over this, our planet, the Earth.
Somewhere, a young child is reading these words. Ignore him (or her!). What has he or she ever done for us? So never mind them. Rather, instead, together, let’s make the Sherman Oaks Review of Books the best book review based in Sherman Oaks (or, really, Studio City, which is Sherman Oaks-adjacent) it can be. Thank you, and you’re welcome.
Tom Simpson
http://tinyurl.com/p7mmo9f
