commentary

I call Deep Water an on-going experiment. “Experiment,” in this case, doesn’t refer to the scientific process for testing a hypothesis as much as it refers to the kind of idiot curiosity that urges a match to a combustible substance.

Face it, magnesium is just cool, the way it burns bright white; the cone of granules begs the spark.

Going back to Issue the First of the printed magazine, you can see our cast shadow from this flame in the “Thunderclap Toad” composition. I love that picture, but nothing evidences the anthropology of idiot curiosity like “Thunderclap Toad” or the “Page of 23s.”

If you’re not careful, the incendiary moment becomes the purpose of the exercise, instead of the action necessary to produce the desired outcome. Deep Water has always been an attempt to produce a magazine of thoughts about music, culture, and ideas without commercial constraints determining or limiting editorial decisions.

The lack of constraints enabled, even spurred, us to create “Thunderclap Toad.” And, while I still love the moment that created that image and the image itself, it represents the confusion between means and purpose. By Issue the Third, we had gained that sense of restraint that balances the difference between what we can do and what we ought to do.