Spoiler: something is missing, but it might be more than you think.
Another issue of Space & Time has crested my personal event horizon and is released into the universe. As always, the magazine is full of inventive stories, transformative poetry and… a little original art. Just a few pieces of original art, actually. This is not by choice, but by necessity.
For a magazine that is known for innovative, graphic rich layouts (thank you Anthony R. Rhodes), this is probably disappointing. I feel the same way. As you are probably aware, times have gotten a bit tougher for all of us. While the magazine is in no danger of closing our covers anytime soon, we did have to cut back on some costs for this issue. Sadly, it was art that got pinched. Rather than try to replace our artists with free alternatives, we opted to leave the magazine plain to contemplate what it will look like if our arts begin to disappear.
Beyond Space & Time, there are more serious things disappearing. Books are vanishing. We have all been told not to judge a book by the cover, and yet there are entire genres being lined up and executed without trial. PEN America, a literary advocacy group that keeps track of such things reports “From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans (https://pen.org/banned-book-list-2021-2022/) lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles. The 1,648 titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of 1,553 people altogether.” (https://pen.org/issue/book-bans/)
The Missouri state legislature passed a law banning books that contained “explicit sexual material.” The definition of what is explicit seems to be decided by the whim of only a few. Last month, Missouri’s House passed a budget that would strip all state funding for public libraries — $4.5 million in total. Libraries are being defunded. Librarians are under threat of going to jail for passing out books that have been shelf staples for decades, now considered pornography.
This issue of Space & Time is visually more sparse. It illustrates how important it is for each of us not to take our arts for granted. I grew up sheltered by my local libraries, finding refuge in books. I grew up believing my country is where an American Dream is rooted in intellectual freedom. When that freedom is stripped away, I promise we will find ourselves in a nightmare.
Next issue, the art will return to our pages, but will the books return to the shelves?
I have no answer. I guess it depends on us.