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Pomona College Magazine is published three times a year by Pomona College
550 N. College Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Online Editor: Mark Kendall
For editorial matters:
Editor: Mark Wood
Phone: (909) 621-8158
Fax: (909) 621-8203
PCM Editorial Guidelines
Contact Alumni Records for changes of address, class notes, or notice
of births or deaths.
Phone: (909) 621-8635
Fax: (909) 621-8535
Email: alumni@pomona.edu
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Letter from the Editor
Threads
“Where do your themes come from?”
Since I became editor of Pomona College Magazine eight years ago, I’ve
probably heard that question, in one form or another, a hundred times.
In response, I’m always tempted to borrow science fiction writer Roger
Zelazny’s reply to the question: Where do you get your crazy ideas? Each
night, he explained, he left milk and cookies on the back step, and in
the morning the milk and cookies were gone and in their place was a pile
of crazy ideas.
But the question deserves an honest answer, despite the fact that—like
the terrifying and similarly worded question that once inspired parents
of young children to conjure images of bundle-toting storks—it touches
upon some untidy, uncomfortable and mildly disillusioning truths.
You see, the truth is that themes just sort of—happen.
Not always. Sometimes they’re coldly premeditated and methodically
executed. But not often. In part, that’s because I don’t care too much
for simple, obvious themes. Let me offer a couple of recent examples.
Our previous issue (Spring 2006) was inspired by an essay by Rachel
Stewart Johnson ’96 about the joys and tribulations of being a
stay-at-home mom. Or rather, it was inspired by the way that piece
seemed to hit a nerve with so many of our readers. The resulting issue
began life with a focus on “Parenting.” At some point, though, as the
stories developed, that notion was flipped on its head and the theme
became “Growing Up.” It wasn’t until we saw that delightful Carlos Puma
photo that would eventually grace the cover that we realized that we
were really talking about what it means to be a family. I’m fond of that
issue, and I think that theme—which eventually became “The Many Faces of
Family”—ties it together in a thought-provoking way, but we didn’t set
out to do precisely that. It just sort of—happened.
Or take the issue you’re now reading. It started, as so many themes do,
with a story that caught our eye—the rise to incipient pop stardom of
the Pomona-connected rock group, We Are Scientists. Now incipient
stardom is, by its nature, a fickle thing, so we thought we shouldn’t
wait too long, but we had a problem. We’d already done an issue on
Pomona music a few years before, so what sort of theme could we build
around this story? Then someone pointed out that these rockers weren’t
known only for their music, but also for the preppy-geeky way they
dressed, and we began to think about fashion. When someone proposed the
word “Threads” as a funky synonym, we began to consider ways to stretch
the theme with double entendres. Eventually, it morphed into the loosely
knit (so to speak) issue before you.
What I’m getting at, I suppose, is this. For the staff of PCM, at least,
putting together a themed magazine is a process of discovery. That’s
what makes it fun to do—and, we hope, fun to read. We collect story
ideas, catalog them, revisit them, shuffle them, agonize over them,
juxtapose them, always looking for something that connects—not always
something obvious.
Sometimes just—a thread.
—Mark Wood |
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