Editor's Desk
Y'know, when I first decided to do an illness issue of Gravity, I had great hopes of finally finishing an essay I've been living with for several years, a response of sorts to having read Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor. Didn't happen, of course. The question, in short, has always been this: if, as SS says, any attempt to give "meaning" to illness is necessarily perjorative, what does that do to what I regard as a basic human need for meaning?
Hell if I know. This is not an academic question here at Rancho Gravity. I'd sincerely love to get some feedback, if anyone out there has thoughts on the matter.
I see this issue as a sort of fact-finding mission. I've been entirely selfish this time around - I wanted to see how other people wrote about being sick. The Language of Illness. How can we talk about this? We're not so removed from the time that cancer wasn't mentioned in polite company. I was growing up when AIDS patients were still untouchables - a high school teacher of mine once told the class that all AIDS patients should be confined to colonies. Mental illness is still largely spoken of in whispers.
(I've been pleasantly surprised at the number of submissions for this issue dealing with mental illness. My personal blinders - "illness" conjures chemotherapy.)
Read the 'zine. Gravity welcomes several writers for the first time in this issue, as well as a cast of usual suspects.
News of the upcoming - The next issue, 26, will be another theme issue, "War and Morality". Submissions are being taken through March 1. Beginning with the issue you're reading now, Gravity is a bimonthly, so 26 will be the number for March and April.
And, just in case you weren't thoroughly sick of hearing about it already, Silhouettes In The Electric Sky is now available! I have 300 of these puppies hanging out in the office, and they're only $12 a pop!
JC, 1/99