beauty and aethetics

wednesday will be the debut of the other journal's issue on aesthetics. i preferred to name the issue "Beauty," but i was editorally outranked. still, in some sense i had the last word--

during the last fifty minutes of work today, i was comissioned to write the introduction for the issue. and so i escaped the cramped quarters of our subway-sandwich-smelling office (take that however you wish), squatted in a sun-soaked room overlooking elliot bay (take that squat in the pioneer sense, not the awkward physical exertion sense), and composed a few paragraphs that used Augustine (seen here blasting away at an unarmed man in yellow pants) as a lens for alluding to the various pieces we'll be publishing this issue. i don't know that the paragraphs are worthy of much attention (they are, after all, very short), but i'm happy to report that i got away with avoiding even a single mention of the word aesthetics.

as for the issue itself, we'll begin by publishing several interesting meditations on art, some nature-centric pieces, and of course, some poetry. however, i am especially excited to publish a chapter from jesus girls by jessie van eerden and interviews with greg wolfe and scott cairns.

read my introduction here: http://www.theotherjournal.com/info.php?page=intro.

stay tuned to the latest content from the aesthetics issue here: http://www.theotherjournal.com/index.php.

photo: andrew david. "isn't it beautiful how the monk is handy with a shotgun?" the art institute of chicago, chicago, il (4/09). i'm not certain of the name of the painting or painter, but it was in a series of six or so that illustrated a sequence of the yellow-pant fellow attempting rob the monastery and being outwitted/shot by this monk man. according to the placard at the museum, the paintings were based on a real historical event, but the non-nonviolent priest was not augustine.