Although it’s been several years, it feels like only yesterday that this little publication cracked the 40 page mark. At the time, that seemed like the Mount Everest of page count for ANTIGRAVITY. It was preposterous to imagine that one day we might exceed that by an additional 20 pages, and finally ring that 60 page bell. But here we are, this small milestone for the October 2019 issue. It really speaks volumes of the hard work and dedication of the AG team over the years. (I’d also like to thank the following: all of the significant others who were either conscripted into AG duty or left to be temporary publication widow/widowers, caffeine and other things, sympathetic and/or unaware day jobs, and a few things that could only be classified as miracles to make this magazine happen).
One thing I can tell you in my old age is that I’ve come to appreciate the monumental creep it takes to create monstrous things. When you’re younger, it’s kind of easy to think that your life will unfold in a series of lottery-type events, that someday you will just “make it,” and that day will be definable, a very specific inflection point. But as I’ve come to learn, these kinds of victories are achieved by a million smaller victories. It takes a lot of patience to abide by that kind of timeline.
You could say that about most of what we cover this month. Although we’ve condensed our picks for this year’s New Orleans Film Fest to a mere handful, I hope you will appreciate the army of creative people it must have taken to assemble each and every production, whether it was a few minutes or a few hours long. The same could be said for our frustrating electoral process, which is why I hope you will pay attention to this and every election that comes down the road. Yes—vote for president and governor, but please also pay attention to your state senator races, your school district representatives, your commissioners of agriculture and insurance. These are the people making incremental, yet fundamental changes in how our communities are governed. Here, in these “small-ball” elections is where you will find tomorrow’s society. Or take a look at Morgus the Magnificent and his team, who built a New Orleans icon one episode at a time.
So I will leave you with this thought (since this issue has melted my brain like a Morgus experiment gone awry): chances are there are no winning lottery tickets for you or me or ANTIGRAVITY. We may never see 60 pages again (things usually tend to calm down a bit going into a New Orleans winter). But this is a cool moment, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did seeing it all come together, one page at a time. —Dan Fox
Photo from the Global Climate Strike at Tulane University’s Pocket Park, September 20, by Laura Borealis