Opening Volley
By David Lewis |
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20 November 2009; 6:02 a.m. - and I am not an early riser. I've been up all night.
I am penning this letter in a moment of profound sadness and loss.
Christopher Atwood is leaving me ... and you.
The moment, and its impending finality, began to gnaw at me two weeks ago, when he first told me. It has been there all month, hiding behind other Important Matters, or buried in our mutual revelry (and despair) as we worked through our typical editorial projects. It first sank its matured fangs into me today, as I interviewed Mayor Coleman ... this was going to be the last story I did with Atwood.
Chris Atwood and David S. Lewis at the studio
Photo: Patrick Mizenko
Atwood, the genius behind the images you have grown to love in this publication, birthed the magazine with me, just a few months ago. We have worked on it together, so hard, so viciously, that it feels as though we have been doing it all my life. He was there when we started it last November, this magical, anxious little fellow. He was there at the launch party, months after the pilot issue, which he photographed completely on his own. There, at the Park Street Tavern, with the opening strains of "Jambalaya on the Bayou" wafting quaintly from the jukebox, the weird bastard coaxed me into a fistfight, which immediately got us ejected from the bar. We bro-fully made up (before it was started, really; Atwood wasn't even in the Marines, for pity's sake), but they wouldn't let us back in.
That was the first of my battles with the furry beast, but certainly not the last. We warred over everything, from Nikon versus Canon, to the locations of the very stars in heaven. There were screaming matches in the photo department, there were awkward fencing tournaments under streetlights; there were brutal drinking contests begun that no one was prepared to win.
There were many moments of addled joy, seeing things come together on the layout screen, crowing triumphantly when we knew we had both struck paydirt and hit that very thing we were both looking for, that holy marriage of image and prose, those magical moments when it was so clearly Art ... and moments of resounding Gloom, too, there in the tense, sharp, adrenaline-fueled part - of Deadline, when we would assure each other that it was not, in fact, coming out this month, and 'We're both fired, we're all fired,' and 'Can I please stay at your house? Your wife won't mind if I clean,' ... yes, there was that, too.
Atwood is leaving, to pursue his interests in fine art photography. He promises to make occasional photocameos, and that he won't travel too far or too long ... so he says.
We at a monthly magazine tend to live in the future. The holiday lights you will read about were largely not up when we wrote of them ... or took their photos.
So it is anticipation of the New Year, a month ahead of when most of you will read this, that I write toward. To Chris Atwood's New Year, and all the luck ... you rotten filthtoast. I will so miss you.
It is also, then, a New Year for Chris Casella, who will be taking Atwood's place at the helm of our photography department. Some of his photos are in the issue you hold; they are fantastic and bold. Casella, who has shot for Time Magazine and Revolver, is certainly a worthy addition to our sagtag and rowdy bunch here at 614. He seems Game ... and I think he is that.
And he will need to be. Because 2010 is just around the corner, and we have hit our Stride. I don't want to ruin the surprises, but we are working on some huge and beautiful stories, and our irons are scorching hot in the fire.
Okay,
David S. Lewis
Originally Published: December 1, 2009
