Issue #43 has been slow in coming together—probably the new normal, although there’s no intention of stopping. As well, it took longer for our theme to emerge: Light and Shadow. It’s more than fitting, not only because it resonates in both dramatic and subtle ways with the material in this issue, but because one of the paintings in Tom Schultz’s apartment is so evocative of light and shadow. And fate had it that this issue will stand as an unexpected memorial for this passionate and gifted artist.
     I met Tom Schultz quite by chance. The trajectory of our brief relationship began with some ambivalence on my part and ended in  fine attunement. I look back in profound gratitude for this as no one could have guessed that Tom would die eleven days after our interview. This stark fact created its own angle of clarity.
     In that sense, it overshadows everything else in the issue. But the cornerstone for #43 was in place a couple of months earlier thanks to my conversation with actor, playwright, mask-maker, drama professor and general creative spirit Fred Curchack. I’m tempted to say there’s something epic about our conversation.
     We lead with our interview with painter Jan Wurm, an artist whose story is rich and deep. Her striking gestural style has been a consistent feature in her work. We've talked at length on several occasions and it was time to get one on record. Somewhere in this one I realized that ”the Social Contract” is a revealing lens through which to view her work.
     This phrase first entered my awareness in my college days—oddly enough, not from a class, but from overhearing a conversation while having a morning coffee. A graduate student was criticizing his friend. Didn’t he realize there’s an implicit and fundamental social contract that we all should be bound by—that the consequences of our actions should never be overlooked, nor the sacrifices and labor of others who have come before us.
     This was in the 60s—the era of Existentialism and psychedelics. Overhearing this chance conversation triggered remorse for a few things I’d done. How striking life can be in how unpredictably it presents us with its lessons.
     In general, this issue could be, as I hope all our issues are, an occasion for some reflection about the choices we make, what values we follow and a reminder of the mystery of it all.
     Steve Georgiou’s remarkable experience—and his reflections about it in Mana—could hardly be a better example. And this applies equally to our account of meeting an “accidental artist,” John Steinberg. What a joy, really.
     So what was the last step? Included was a new installment of “Walks with Ula”—and its Ula magic—and a new episode of Rue Harrison’s unique creation Indigo Animal. Then one morning, I happened to be walking under the Rockridge BART station in Oakland and wondering about those last few pages. My attention wandered to the memorial of Oakland’s catastrophic firestorm in October of 1991 in which over 3500 homes in the Oakland Hills burned. I’d never really looked at it—two thousand 6”x 6” ceramic tiles hand-painted by those affected by the fire. They adorn the walls enclosing a stairway to the BART tracks above. I realized it was the missing piece. A somber one, to be sure. A memento mori.
     It remains something of a mystery that I wrote these reflections on the Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991 just a month before the devastating firestorms took place in Los Angeles.
—Richard Whittaker