Welcome

In this issue

 Another side of the coin …

We sometimes hear about renaissance men, but it’s less often we can appreciate them in their lifetimes. So it is with great pleasure we profile George Nelson Preston, a New York City native son who traces his lineage farther back than almost any of us can to the 18th Century. A septuagentarian man who plays baseball with unabashed enthusiasm, who ceremonially and effectually presides over the Ghanian tribe to which he claims the deepest roots, whose studio on the lower east side of Manhattan in the ’60s hosted the greatest poets, artists and writers of the latter half of the 20th Century. And more… Preston has been called a National Treasure, and to know more about him, as you will discover in this in-depth profile by author-photographer Petra Richterova, will convince you of no less.

News from the sidelines, and inside baseball …

Music editor Jeff Katz is taking a sabbatical to write a book about the 1981 baseball season and strike …. Qualifications: Jeff not only is a baseball fan, but also mayor of Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He has great access to research materials. And people who  really care about The Game. Fred Roberts, On Location in Germany, has picked up the ball, so to speak, with a look at a David Bowie redux exhibit on the artist-musician’s years in Berlin, and reviews of au courant European music groups.

Lynda Barreto, who contributed “The Litchfields” cartoon/illustrations for a couple of years a few years ago, is back with a new series she’s managed to produce between turns as a barrister in her café in Naples, FL.  She and Benoit Jammes join Walter Gurbo and Jonathan Kelham with illustrations on ‘gray pages’ and other suitable locations to inject a change of pace into our cyberpages.

Art …
Contributing art editor Jose Rodeiro , with photographer Christie Devereaux, take readers on another art odyssey, this time to ancient Greece and Rome and “Art of the Mediterranean.”  Midori Yoshimoto interviews artist Babs Reingold, whose latest series “The Last Tree” speaks to the unnatural decimation of the natural environment.

Photography …
An e-interview with Sebastian Łuczywo by photo editor Chuck Haupt reveals the passion that drove the Polish photographer to pursue his art and craft. Brent Williamson, aka Teknari, is back in Ragazine with Whatever Comes, a showcase of large images on tempered glass created using his own film and plates in a unique photographic process. Ellen Jantzen returns with a series titled Compressing Reality produced by blending a series of shots ‘taken in the moment,’ into a moment. Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy share their ultra-high resolution images of nature; unfortunately, you won’t be able to see them here as they and others do when properly presented, but you’ll certainly get the idea. Rounding out “photography” is “Photo Editor’s Choice,” vibrant images from some of Sweden’s top photographers.

Video …
Contributing editor Ginger Liu, On Location/LA, interviews videographers Enrico Tomaselli and Francesca Fini.  Video posts include works from Fini, Cecelia Chapman, Steve Johnson and Jeff Crouch. Tomaselli is project director of The Project 100×100=900, which celebrates the 50th anniversary in 2013 of Video Art. One hundred video artists from around the world are invited to participate; each will produce a video artwork inspired by one of the previous 100 years, with an international exhibit to follow.

Politics …
Politics editor Jim Palombo extemporizes from his winter residence in San Miguel Allende on re-thinking Karl Marx. In this latest chapter of his ongoing analysis of “Is it Capitalism, or is it Democracy,” Palombo looks at the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and how they relate to America’s economic, social and military presence in the modern world.

Literary …
Contributing editor (Latin in America) Lilvia Soto reviews Eulogy for a Brown Angel, by Lucha Corpi, ”a murder mystery set against the background of the Chicano civil rights march of August 29, 1970.” Books editor Alan Britt reviews Lost Arts, by Leslie Heywood, Ragazine‘s creative nonfiction editor. Britt writes that what you will find in Lost Arts is “a hands-on, often literal, bare-bones diction that is occasionally peppered with the right dose of metaphor.”

Poet and professor Silvia Scheibli reviews Duane Locke’s The First Decade, a collection of poems the reviewer describes as “a book that takes its readers day by day through the pantheistic, sacred landscape of the imagination into a new and exciting linguistic reality and also constructs a broader picture of the callous and inhumane treatment society perpetrates on itself through menial self-deceptions and unmistakable denials.”

John Smelcer, Tom Sorci, Dave Bonga, and Trudell Guerue  remember author/friend Michael Dorris. Dorris (1945-1997) was the award-winning author of numerous books, mostly about the Native American experience, including his popular novel, A Yellow Raft on Blue Water (1987).

In Sarah Odishoo‘s creative nonfiction  piece, “The Projectionist: Show Me,” the author grapples with the existential balancing acts of love and life. Thaddeaus Rutkowski, in his fiction piece “Out of Fashion,” examines reasons why one might not want to declare as an artiste.

On the poetry front,  poets Emily Vogel and Lisa Flowers take a look at each other’s work in two analytical essays that reflect each woman’s approach to her own poetics, as well as an understanding of the other’s. Reviews and analysis aside,  we trust you’ll appreciate and enjoy the work of poets Abby Murray, Paige Gittelman and Andy Doyle.

Holding up the roof …

Mark Levy, Casual Observer: Comments on the anxiety created when you don’t know where your anti-anxiety pill has gone.

Mircea Filimon, Gay Life: Ponders the contradictory roles religion plays, and the influence it has, on being gay.

Bill Dixon, From the Edge: Delights in not sharing   oddities of the English language, preferring instead to keep a beer-drinking friend a friend. Dixon, by the way, recently underwent quadruple bypass surgery and isn’t back, yet, to his old habits… or haunts. That should be something to write about.

Scott “Galanty Miller, Re-Tweets. The professor rants in short form about peeves, pecadilloes and personal favorites, among them, Sean Connery.

Fiction Contest …
Ragazine.CC ’s fiction contest is under way! We are offering $1000.00 first place prize for the best speculative fiction story written by a person of color in 2013. Complete information on the contest, including its origin with fiction editor Joe Weil; a bio of the final judge, speculative fiction author Sheree Renée Thomas; and, contest guidelines, can be found on the “Contest” page.

 Thanks for reading!
— Mike Foldes

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