Letter from the Editor, Final Issue

This is the final issue of Things Created By People.

When we began this zine, we had no idea how long it would last or where it would go. We had some big ideas – paying people! events! – but, at the end of the day, these things did not happen, and seemed unlikely to happen, and without a clear goal, the project eventually fizzled. This is the natural lifecycle of such projects, I think. Publications need to grow, evolve, or die, and I would rather greet death than let a project die sad and alone under the porch.

In this case, we’re greeting death with more than just a quick message letting you know that, hey, yeah, we’re going to stop publishing. Instead, we’re going back to our old issue format for one final collection of art, featuring both old and new friends, writing, interviews, drawings, and Britney Spears.

It was truly a joy to be able to publish this zine. We helped put out some incredible work – from the worst date you could ever imagine to the best ice cream you’ve ever tasted, from Hannah Höch to Dolly Parton, from the streets of New York to the beaches of Portugal. There’s a lot of cool shit in our archives, and you’ve never explored them, you should take the time to look around. You might find your new favorite artist.

Huge thanks to Natalia Lehaf, Chloe Isacke, and Thomas Baldwin, who made this the magazine that it is. While this publication may be ending, we all hope to be back with new projects and collaborations in the near future.

As I wrote in my last editor’s letter, over a year ago now, “we have been privileged to publish some amazing writing, and showcase new work by musicians and visual artists and filmmakers, that have left me irrevocably changed as a person.”

This remains as true as ever.

Yours,
Adam Cecil
Managing Editor

Letter from the Editor, Fall 2016

Recently, I've been rereading the first Harry Potter book, something I haven't done since I was a child. Even in the era of my life where I read and re-read Harry Potter books constantly, Sorcerer's Stone was never one that I consistently returned to.

There's a new podcast, however, that inspired me to revisit Harry Potter from the beginning. Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a weekly podcast that asks, "What if we read the books we love as if they were sacred texts?" Instead of treating Harry Potter as just a series of novels, co-hosts Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile read them as "instructive and inspirational texts that will teach us about our own lives."

This mindset doesn't affect the conversation in the way that you might think. It's a subtle shift, one that I've noticed is much more sympathetic to characters, and more willing to accept the story at face value, than other contemporary culture criticism. If you've ever been to Bible Study or Hebrew School, you might recognize the tone.

Re-reading the first entry in what was to become an unparalleled cultural sensation, I'm struck by how humble it is. It is very much a children's book, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. The chapters are short, and action-packed, and full of Rowling's rich detail without being too dense. Coming off the heels of the disappointing "eighth" entry in the series, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, re-reading Sorcerer's Stone is a refreshing reminder of why so many people fell in love with the series in the first place.

As artists, we aim to make a lasting impression. Even artists who work with the ephemeral, who create pieces that will only be seen once by a maximum of a dozen people, want all of those people to walk away feeling changed.

Few of us will ever create something that leaves as deep a mark on the world as Harry Potter. But it's important to remember that Rowling did not start off that way; that she, too, was a struggling artist once. It's important to remember that something that you create could have such an effect on someone, could leave them irrevocably changed.

The two year anniversary of Things Created By People was last week. Over the last two years, we have been privileged to publish some amazing writing, and showcase new work by musicians and visual artists and filmmakers, that have left me irrevocably changed as a person. I know, based on what I hear from our readers, that I am not the only one who feels this way.

Thank you, to all of our writers, our collaborators, our interview subjects, and our readers. Without your support, Things Created By People would not be what it is today, and would not have the opportunity to continue to grow into the institution we want it to be. I can only hope that someday, all of our collaborator's work will touch millions of people, and have podcasts dedicated to it, and have their latest writing described as overhyped fan fiction by critics everywhere.

Yours,
Adam Cecil
Managing Editor

A letter from Finn the cat

I'm a small cat, to be fair, but I ain't stupid. I know there's more out there than this apartment. You forget that I was born on these streets! I spent time behind bars! You say you rescued me, but I was perfectly fine with two square meals a day and my cardboard box, thanks.

I met Rey behind those bars. Rey, my compatriot. "My only friend" — that's right, I hear you laughing at me behind my back! Rey is a nice cat, to be sure, but she's stupid. She would be content to sit under the bed all day if you let her, as if that was the only place in the world. Sure, she might try to get out the door occasionally, but that's just so she can get closer to you. She finds your presence comforting. That's what makes her stupid.

Me? I'm a smart cat. I have a plan for when I get out. I'm going to take a right, then a left, and then I'm going to walk down those stairs and out into Brooklyn. I was born here, you forget. Brooklyn born and raised, and I know that there's a whole world out there for me, if I can get there.

You mock me. You leave the curtains open and let me stare out at the street. Even that's such a small part of the world. The people come and go. Such a small fraction of all the people out there. And you leave me in this apartment. It's depressing, when you think about it, which I do, a lot, sitting on my purple blanket and doing catnip.

I overheard the meeting for your "zine," talking about getting as many viewpoints as possible and exploring the human condition through art or whatever it is you twenty-somethings talk about. Me, I turn one years old this month, and I've barely seen any of the world. You'd think that you, editor of a zine about all the beauty that humans can create, would want your cat to see some of that beauty, instead of mocking him further by writing a fake letter in his name.

To hell with this. Bring me more catnip.

Yours,
Finn the cat

Letter from the Editor, Winter 2016

As the Copy Editor for Things Created By People, I’m in the somewhat unique position of seeing all of the pieces in the final stage of editing. We ask for submissions about six weeks before the date of publication, and the editorial team works closely with each author or artist to refine and polish their piece. By the time they land on my desk, they have either been through several drafts, or — in the case of visual and auditory pieces — the artist has been interviewed. As they sit on the precipice of publication, I read the submissions for spelling, grammar, and clarity, but I’m also afforded a first look at the zine, and how it looks as a cohesive creation.

When I first joined the team at Things Created By People, we would often talk about trying to take advantage of publishing online, since it allows for a range of mediums – written, visual, and auditory — to be showcased. I am so pleased to see this issue reflect that goal. In the absence of a unifying theme, each component of the zine takes on a direction and quality of its own; yet across the board I am struck by the honesty and integrity of each voice.

Sarah Nasra’s piece on feminism weaves her personal experiences in India with a broader conversation on the state of women today, and the roaming format of her essay permits the urgency of her communication to persist in her writing. In a similar vein, Emily Dalmas offers us an eye-opening look into the dynamic between Producers and Directors and highlights the troubling absence of women in television and film, a trend that persists from independent features to Hollywood.

Regular TCBP contributor Michael Doshier treats us to a recorded interview with fellow musician Francis Steakknife. Their collaboration over the years on an array of musical endeavours, combined with a mutual admiration for each other’s work, leads to a wonderfully illuminating conversation which dances between the process and inspiration behind their music. We also hear from Brave The Night — recording name for Matt Bravmann — and the impetus behind his new EP, Mind on Fire. The candidness of this interview sheds light on a deeply personal songwriting process and provides a thought-provoking context for his music.

Rachel Petzinger, another seasoned contributor, delivers again with her review of Grand Theft Auto, proving time and again her ability to marry childhood memories with an irresistible humor. Her essay The Stomach Bump remains one of my all-time favorite submissions to Things Created By People. Finally, visual submissions in this issue come from Ian Farell, who shares a collection of his collages, and Néha Hirve, who designed this issue’s cover. Both pieces give us access to the techniques and approaches used in their work, highlighting the time and attention that they dedicate to their respective art.

I am so excited for you to read this issue of Things Created By People, and I am confident that the breadth of content — and mediums — will provide a little bit of everything to you.

Yours,
Chloe Isacke
Copy Editor

Letter from the Editor, Fall 2015

"FYI," I typed. "Everyone is getting married."

I sent this text message to a few couples I third-wheeled so often that an invitation to join the inevitable wedding party was an expectation. 

The responses varied, but not by much; some couples disregarded the text by casually changing the subject, while others sent me a private message ("where are you going with that text?"). 

“I’m making sure you are focusing on your future,” I typed back to such perplexed texts. My goal was to start the conversation and plant the idea in their minds. This was for selfish reasons, not an appreciation of and respect for love's most symbolic event. I am always on the chase for reasons to celebrate: I’m the friend who remembers every birthday and is the biggest proponent of commemorating every milestone, from getting a job to quitting a job, from leaving for a trip abroad to coming back from a trip abroad, from celebrating the end of a bad relationship to successfully flirting with the unattractive boy at work who is weirdly attractive sometimes. I’d like to believe I would celebrate a friend’s wedding just as enthusiastically as the bride and groom.

I found out that everybody is getting married through Facebook. It’s the season of love, and I can’t log on without finding a new person – like the boy I dated for one-and-a-half weeks in the fifth grade – sharing the good news. The celebratory post is subtle, yet distinct in the sea of food pictures; a mere upgrade of a relationship status to "engaged" or the standard ring shot. My favorite posts, however, are the videos secretly filming the proposal. I'll watch those over and over again, even if they’re of strangers.

Like most hopeless romantics with an affinity for elaborate partying, I don’t know what I want for lunch tomorrow but I know what I want in a proposal. It's something I've considered over the years of watching and hearing about people's perfect and unique special moments. Whether staging a lip-dub proposal, serving your significant other an epic prank proposal, or spontaneously taking a kneel at dinner, not one execution seems more beautiful than the others. Maybe that’s the cheeseball in me. 

My 22-year old cousin recently got engaged and her only preference was that her family be there. Her boyfriend worked with her parents to plan for both sides of her family and his family to be at their annual Christmas party. It was this past Christmas that I, with a tummy full of homemade grape leaves and pita chips, watched my younger cousin promise to spend the rest of her life with "the young boy who put ketchup on his peanut butter sandwiches" in her first grade class. 

The moment was lovely and I was grateful that they shared it with the family and me. Although, my happiness for her was slightly spoiled after her engagement led to an aroused interest in my romantic life by my extended family. “When are you going to get married and give your father a break?” one uncle sighed, concerned for me. “I don’t know,” I told him. “But I’ll be sure to post pictures and a video when it happens.”

In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite proposals (and no, I don’t know the couple):

Bridget Jones 2 movie clips: http://j.mp/15w4Jkr BUY THE MOVIE: http://amzn.to/tFSKZT Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP DESCRIPTION: Bridget (Renée Zellweger) momentarily spoils the mood when Mark (Colin Firth) proposes to her.

Yours,
Natalia Lehaf
Editor for Things Created By People

On Hiatus

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting Roving Brooklyn. As you can see, it’s a little different than the last time you visited. You may be asking yourself, “What happened to Roving Brooklyn? Is it dead?” I would answer you with a resounding, “Yes and no!” We have decided - for the time being - to put the name Roving Brooklyn and the website on hiatus.

When Adam and I launched Roving Brooklyn over a year ago, we hoped that it would be a platform for our fellow New Yorkers to pursue their artistic endeavors, and to explore new ones for ourselves. We have been more than pleased with the success and reception of our projects such as Spacebook and Dear Rachel, but the success of our zine, Things Created by People, has blown us away.

TCBP has been a powerful tool for us to pursue our goals. With each issue, we’ve expanded our artistic network in and outside of NYC, and each issue has provided enriching and diverse content to our readers. The nature of the online magazine gives us the ability to host not only articles, fiction, poetry, and photography, but audio and video content as well. We felt that Roving Brooklyn’s goals and objectives as a collective had been fulfilled in TCBP.

Adam and I got together and asked ourselves, “What is Roving Brooklyn doing that TCBP isn’t or can’t?” We couldn’t come up with a clear answer! We are pleased with the traction our online publication has gained, and we want to make it the focus of our future work. We don’t want to give up the name Roving Brooklyn, or give up the hope that it can be something different from, but just as impactful as, TCBP. We expect to re-launch the Roving Brooklyn name with a new focus and new goals in the future. We hope you will come along for the ride!

Sincerely,
Thomas Baldwin
Co-founder of Roving Brooklyn & Things Created By People

P.S. You can still see all of the old projects at Roving Brooklyn both here at TCBP and around the web. Check them out:

Spacebook
Dear Rachel
Sexxxy Art Project
The August Corpse Project

Letter from the Editor, Issue Four

Thank you for reading and watching and listening and seeing this issue of Things Created By People. This is a good thing to start a letter with.

While it is not our goal to become the next Buzzfeed, we care a lot about growing our audience and making the people who read our zine happy.

We don’t just do this for ourselves–we want to make sure that it’s worth our contributors’ time to submit, to go through the editing process, to sit down with us and talk to us about their art. We want to make sure that their art is seen and appreciated.

Right now, that’s all we have to offer. It’s a shitty offer, honestly. The worst thing you can tell an artist is “we pay in exposure.” Exposure doesn’t pay the bills.

We don’t have the ability yet to pay our contributors, but it’s coming. It is on our minds, but more than that, it is on our roadmap. It is our number one goal for the next year. We have no idea what form payment might take. We can’t tell you when it will come. But it will come, and hopefully it will look like money. (If it makes you feel any better, all of the editors have spent a lot of real, actual dollars to make this whole thing happen, so we’re in a similar–or worse–boat than you!)

In the meantime, here’s our deal: if we have to pay you in exposure, we’ll make sure it’s real, actual exposure. For our contributors, that means helping spread their new and ongoing projects–writing, film, dance, painting, music–over Twitter and to our newsletter subscribers. We don’t want to just promote your piece in our zine; we want to promote you as an artist.

A big part of making that worthwhile will be growing our audience. In the week after we released the first issue of Things Created By People, fewer than 40 people read it. In the week after we released Issue Three two months ago, 800 read it. We’re optimistic that we can grow this number much higher within the next year.

Of course, passing visitors do not matter if they don’t stay to engage in future issues or with our contributors’ other projects. To speak of it in business-like terms, we need to convert those visitors into Twitter followers and newsletter subscribers. Our newsletter is especially important to us; it will allow us to directly communicate with our audience in a way that is much more intimate than a tweet. It’s an essential part of our community building efforts in the next year.

How can you help? If you are a contributor, you can help us by spreading your work and the works of your fellow contributors far and wide, on Facebook and beyond. You can also help us by encouraging friends to sign up for our newsletter, signing up for the newsletter yourself, and by sending us your latest projects. If you are not a contributor, you can do most of those things as well.

Oh, by the way, did you notice that we completely revamped our website? It’s much more mobile friendly than the last site, so please, read everything on your phone or tablet or smartwatch. We have contributor pages for the first time, allowing our contributors to have their own page on the site. We’ve also made the archive a lot more fun to explore.

In your digital possession is the fourth issue of this zine. It is the last in our first volume. The next time you read a letter from the editor, it will be in the fall, and we will have been doing this for an entire year. We look forward to doing it for many more.

Thank you for reading and watching and listening and seeing this issue of Things Created By People. This is a good thing to end a letter with.

Yours,
Adam Cecil
Managing Editor

Letter from the Editor, Issue Three

People walk slower when it’s Spring. They’ll risk being late for the scenic tour. They’ll forgo a nice meal to eat an ice cream cone in the park (post-Instagram). The wind, though dreadful to bare skin, is a small part of the magic.

When it’s Spring, we value our time differently than the colder seasons prior.

---

Dear readers, watchers, listeners -

It may be getting warmer outside, but that doesn’t mean our burdens melted away with the snow. There is a lot going on in the world. Sometimes, we focus on the grander aspects of humanity that touch more lives than just our own¹, but more often we concentrate on a tiny portion of the Earth’s mass: ourselves. We put all of our energy towards our own stirring yet static lives.

I have a belief that people intuitively seek drama. They look for the problems. They see a cup half full and wonder, why not a plate of food, also?

We spend hours thinking about the people who don’t swipe right back. We wake up dreading a menial task that by no means defines our lives. We wonder why our messages go ignored. We find ourselves sitting with a frown on our faces and are unable to articulate why. We feel misunderstood.

It’s human nature to desire the things we don’t have, nor understand. It’s easy to look at celebrities² on Periscope and wish we lived a comparable lifestyle.

We forget to acknowledge the stability in our lives: supportive families and friends, moving bodies, disposable income. It’s an ugly truth that cancer cautions us to value our health and deaths in the family help us recognize the blessings each person in our life represents.

Time pushes us forward and there’s never enough time to sit back and be satisfied with how and with whom we've spent our time.³ Life is hard and even so, the world doesn't owe us any favors. Every day we wake up, we surrender our control to the Universe and keep trekking on, hoping it will play nice.

The Sun on our skin feels nice though. And the springtime reminds us that taking a moment to experience this complimentary comfort from the star of our Solar System is never a waste of time.

---

Adam, Thomas, and I carefully selected pieces of art we felt would best enlighten and entertain our audience. We want to not only draw in more eyes and ears to the talent of our contributors, but we want our audience to ponder the different perspectives neatly compiled in this issue.

Yours,
Natalia
Editor

1. As Thomas evaluates in his essay, artists prove to be creative threats to social conventions. (Back)

2. Some celebrities deserve our attention, as Michael displays with his eloquent and comprehensive analysis of Dolly Parton's character, fame, and influence. (Back)

3. It seems there is always time for Netflix, a name that also pops up in Sara's essay. You will read about nostalgia surrounding lost time in Nick and Rachel's pieces. (Back)

Letter from the Editor, Issue Two

As soon as I came home from the first day of my very first full time job, my mom wanted to know all the details of my day. It was pretty boring. Paperwork, introductions to people whose names it would take me at least a month to remember, and most fun of all TSA training (zero percent of which I’ve used as of writing this). At dinner, I mentioned, “How’s Alec? I haven’t seen him.” My mom’s face went from smiling to dread immediately. My mom and I are both worrywarts, so I’ve seen her express worry plenty of times, but it wasn’t worry in her eyes. She was afraid. “He’s not doing too well, “ she said slowly. This was not very surprising to me. Alec is the oldest of our family’s cats. At fourteen his health was declining and he spent most of the day sitting on my parent’s bed or in their rocking chair. He wasn’t taking care of himself like he used to either. His hair had become matted and dirty since he stopped grooming himself, but he had the softest fur of any cat I ever owned.

My dad explained from the other side of the table that Alec had really taken a dive earlier that week, after I had left. He had been hiding out in the basement and no one had seen him. They only knew he was still alive because they could hear him wheezing and coughing. It was only a couple of minutes after that that we heard a thumping coming from the basement steps a few feet away from the dinner table. It was Alec, dragging himself up the steps and across the floor to me, wheezing and coughing like I had never heard before. He was unkempt and looked like a ratty bird in the middle of molting. He stopped right next to my chair, his eyes unfocused and looking straight ahead. When I finished eating, I stayed at the table to pet Alec. My mother stayed in the kitchen too, watching Alec like I was. When we looked up at each other her eyes were wet. 

“He waited for you. He waited for you to come home.” I replied, “I don’t know,” but I was thinking the exact same thing. I assumed he heard my voice and came upstairs. We had always said that Alec was my cat. He came and sat with me whenever I was home, pushing his paws on my belly before finally laying down and allowing me to pet him. And he responded when I called him with a short meow or a look in my direction. Before Alec, there was Jasmine, who was my sister’s cat (she was the only one that liked Jasmine) and Russell was undeniably a Momma’s boy, following my mother around and tracking her every move. But Alec was mine. I loved the spark behind his eyes and his intelligence. When he was just a baby he would play a game my mother called “pay the toll, kiss the troll.” He would sit at the top of the basement steps and wait until Jasmine would come to the door to go down to eat or use the litter box. He would stand and the door and refuse to let her down until she would boop noses with him or smack him in the head and dash past. Either way, he got the attention he wanted.

We stayed in the kitchen and pet Alec for what must have been an hour. We weren’t sure what to do, since he seemed too exhausted to move. We took a clothes basket and put several blankets in the bottom, making a nest for Alec to sleep in. My mother took the basket and Alec to her room and I went to mine. I was nearly asleep when I heard thumping outside my door. Then I heard a raspy breath. I opened the door and saw Alec, lying there on his side, breathing heavily. He had gotten out of the basket and come to my room. As soon as I opened the door, he leaped up and ran under my bed. 

I was terrified. The fact that he came to my room, on the other end of the house and the remarkable speed he suddenly had to dash under my bed were both a shock. But I felt another fear, a fear more akin to that I saw in my mother’s eyes earlier. I felt dread about what appeared to be Alec’s imminent death and with the devotion he showed to me. I felt guilty. Why hadn’t I insisted that we take him to a vet when he was getting sicker? Telling myself that he was just a cat made me feel worse. This isn’t the type of devotion you receive from a cat. From a dog maybe, from a human if you’re lucky. But aren’t cats supposed to be removed and distant? How do you repay the dying showing such love in their last moments? 

I went to sleep hoping that Alec would still be alive when I woke up. The first thing I did was check under the bed. He was gone and I didn’t hear him breathing. I looked around the room and I saw him sprawled out underneath my desk chair. Motionless. Instead of the soft, fluffy cat that I had loved, he was utterly grotesque in death. His fur was clumpy and dirty, and he died slumped over a bar that connected the back legs of my desk chair, giving his spine an unnatural curve. I wondered whether he lay over the bar to try to make it easier for him to breathe, or if he did it to suffocate himself. We buried him in a shoebox in the backyard that afternoon, putting a large stone over the hole to mark his burial and to keep foxes from digging up his body. 

The timing of Alec’s death – at the beginning of my first job after school – was too apt. I feel that it marked the end of my childhood. I’ve had family members die before, but it was always in another state or I had arrived only for the funeral, avoiding the agonizing hours in hospitals seeing if they would recover, or the anxiety of suddenly having to plan a funeral. With Alec, I was present, watching, and experiencing that very human helplessness in the face of death.

Yours, 
Thomas Baldwin 
Editor

Letter from the Editor, Issue One

This morning I woke up to the door of my girlfriend's bedroom rattling in its frame. It was dark. As I pulled my head up the room seemed to be vibrating along with the door, blood pushing against my eyes with every beat of my heart. It's Jane, her roommates' cat, my girlfriend insists, but what if its not? What if it's a ghost that cannot come in unless it is invited? What if, when I turn the handle and open the door, there is nothing on the other side?

Alas, it was just her cat, but imagine if.

Fear and love are, according to Patrick Swayze in Donnie Darko, the two driving emotions of human existence. You'll get a bit of both in this, the inaugural issue of Things Created By People, the e-zine published by Roving Brooklyn. Our theme this time is Peril. Risk. Fear. Family road trips. and we have writing, video, and audio that touch on all of those words. (Check out the full table of contents for Issue One.)

Some people, when they watch scary movies, they'll just deny that it's happening. They'll cover their eyes, get up to make more popcorn, or take an extended trip to the bathroom to wash their face. Other people, they'll spend the whole time pointing out shitty effects or crappy dialogue or unrealistic situations. The best people, they just watch it, and let themselves become afraid. Even the shittiest horror movies can be terrifying if you let them soak through your skin, grab a hold of your muscles, burrow into your bones.

I sometimes get chastised by friends for thinking that Paranormal Activity is a scary movie. I watched it for the first time in my parent's living room in the middle of Vermont. In Vermont, when the lights are off, there is no light. In Vermont, when you don't make a sound, there is no sound. But, no, there is sound - there is the wind howling, the house settling, and doors creaking and rattling on their own. When the movie was over and it was time for me to go to bed, I was shaking as I climbed up the stairs. I barely made it to my room alive, believing that around any corner there would be an invisible demon ready to take me.

Of course, it was nothing but a shaky old house in Vermont, but... imagine if?

Yours,
Adam Cecil
Managing Editor