Letters from New York #03:
Writing Brooklyn into existence

In early July, Time Out New York surveyed the city’s boroughs under the declared goal to determine the coolest (or hippest, if you will) borough of all. The winner? All five in their own right: every borough is different, adds to the city’s diversity, and, therefore, has a right to the title “cool” or “hip.” Among Brooklyn’s special strengths, Time Out lists its magnetic pull for bibliophiles, particularly writers. Indeed, many a successful writer calls Brooklyn his/her home. And where there are writers, publishers – from magazines to small presses – are never far away.Among the most visible magazines calling Brooklyn home is The Brooklyn Rail. The Rail is distributed freely, but only in select places (usually bookstores). The magazine is headquartered in Greenpoint, just south of the art hotspot Hunters Point, and appears once a month, with special issues in-between. Its hallmark is its intellectual wordiness. The texts speak to an educated readership that is well at home in (left) politics, art, and culture. Seemingly uninterested in winning over new readers, the articles are only rarely graced with an enlightening introduction. Instead, the magazine publishes interviews, essays, and opinion pieces about artists, movements, and countercurrents with an almost conservative earnestness (and, somewhat surprisingly, little love for photos or images). Fun is to be found, if at all, in the editorials. Last December, for example, The Rail bid farewell to outgoing New York mayor Mike Bloomberg by noting:

Although Mayor Mike has been criticized repeatedly in these pages over the past 12 years, he is to be commended for remaining a genuine article all the way to the end. … “Mayor 1%” is, among many other things, decidedly coherent.

All in all, The Rail makes for a rewarding read, but certainly not one that comes easily.Compare that to Cabinet. Steeped in sociocultural debates about objects, feelings, and possibilities, and thus echoing discussions in the social sciences and the humanities, the magazine is a beautifully designed publication that, for its enchanting style alone, deserves a wide circulation. The main offices of Cabinet have recently been relocated: they can now be found just behind the Gowanus Canal that is currently undergoing a major environmental cleanup. In each of its issues, Cabinet focuses on a main topic (celebration, wheels, money, death, trees…), while still leaving room for articles about other subjects. The essays are well-written, footnoted, and accessible to a wider readership than the pieces in The Rail, but, unlike the texts there, provide less inspiration for reflection, creativity, and (political) action.

The unabashed newcomer among Brooklyn’s magazines is hello mr., a magazine “about men who date men.” After launching hello mr. in early 2014, the magazine’s publisher, founder, and creative director Ryan Fitzgibbon has recently come out with the third issue. Given this concentration of titles in one person, hello mr. is a very personal publication that grew out of the desire to give voice to experiences, histories, and encounters made in a world where everything but the sexually normalized is still struggling for acceptance. Avoiding academic prose and discourses (one looks in vain for references to queer or gender studies), the texts flow as the stories unfold, embracing the readers with an honesty, authenticity, and eye for detail that is increasingly rare in other magazines, particularly where commissioned pieces cover much of the written ground. hello mr. is a joy to read, and also very funny. And fun, much like love, knows no bounds.