From the Desk of the Publisher

From Black Oak Presents - Spring 2010 (coming March 1)

By Michael Kleen

Since we released the first issue of Black Oak Presents over three years ago, it has been one uphill battle after another, but we have come a long way. We started with a simple vision: to provide a vehicle for the artists, writers, poets, photographers, musicians, and philosophers hailing from the "flyover states." Since that time, we have not deviated from this vision.
    
In my inaugural editorial in our Winter 2007 issue (we used to start the issues on January 1), I wrote:

"I had been brought up in the Britney Spears culture, a culture of fashion and trend, where a girl was groomed from her earliest days in the Mickey Mouse Club to become a sex idol as soon as she reached maturity. She was marketed, sold to an eager populace trained to buy anything that was 'new,' and then discarded, where her tragic personal life became a sideshow amusement while a new trend ascended the throne of the almighty dollar.
    
We at Black Oak Media say, 'NO' to this culture of greed and human waste. We do not believe culture should be marketed, packaged, and sold like dog food. We do not listen to those who say Middle America is worthless— nothing more than a vast sea of consumers with their hands reaching for scraps of urbanity.
    
A not-so-silent groundswell has reached our metaphorical shores. Rising from our villages, towns, cities and farm fields, we have reawakened an ancestral hunger for a genuine cultural identity. An identity that reaffirms life, not reduces it to stock options and cashier’s checks."

The affirmation of life—such a small but important notion! What does it mean to affirm life? To feel alive and vibrant? To feel like your own existence is worthwhile? It cannot be known without art. Art is a completely human endeavor; ever since our distant ancestors blew colored chalk around their hands on cave walls. We need art just as much as we need love or a sense of belonging. Without expression and creativity, without art, we wither on the vine.

And is that not at the bottom of the problem we face today? We are told by every outlet of media that the entire human experience is reducible to our base impulses. Produce and consume. Produce and consume. Produce and consume. That is the end goal of all our life activities. Where are the redeeming qualities in that?

So this is my appeal to you, dear reader. Help us affirm life in our publication. It doesn't matter how small your town is. It doesn't matter if you've never been published, recorded an album, or hung a painting in a gallery. We care about you, and we want to hear from you. While you are ignored by the mainstream media, we seek you out. There is an ocean of talent out there just waiting to be seen.

And maybe, just maybe, through our celebration of local talent from the "flyover states," we can dispel the malaise that hangs over our lives. This is an ambitious cultural project to be certain, and one for which not everyone will be cut out. It takes courage to go against the grain, but it also takes the good sense to realize that simply being "different" or "extreme" for the sake of it is no better than the alternative.

Do you have the courage to pick up this banner and fight for a better, fuller, and more life-affirming culture in Mid-America? I hope you do, because we can't do this alone.