Time flies when youâre making awful puns and sitting through 2 a.m. production nights. Seems like just yesterday we were tabling for fall open houses and then BAM itâs the beginning of April. While the year is by no means over, the Other Press enters a semi-stasis for the summer months, publishing only once a month with the occasional online update in-between. Itâs a chance to give our team some time away so they can recharge their creative fuel cells and get some sunburns. Personally, itâs also a transition period as my year-long term as EIC is nearing its end.
Issue 30 will be my last as Editor-in-chief and itâs somewhat of a relief. Not surprisingly, being at the head of a publication is pretty stressful. What may be surprising though is where a chunk of that stress originates from: my weekly Lettitor. Sure, having the freedom to basically write about anything you want sounds great at first, but that kind of freedom can be suffocating. Thereâs no way to say this without sounding like an egomaniac, but the Lettitorâs a big part of the newspaper. Aside from the cover, itâs the first thing readers usually see. (The fact that youâre reading this sentence further proves it.) There are a lot of expectations placed on it, though most are self-induced. Should I focus on wittiness? Go for the heart strings? Past editors have used it to preview the issue, while others used it mostly to talk about hockey. I honestly couldnât tell you what my thought processes have been, but theyâre equal parts enjoyable and hair-pullingly frustrating.
Twenty-five Lettitors ago, I found myself dreading the months to come: how could I possibly come up with a new one of these every week? Now, with only four more to go, what once seemed like an impossible, infinite gap of creativity has closed to a meagre four issuesâ worth of Lettitors. I have to be picky with what I write about from now onâbut before that, I decided to compile a list of Lettitor ideas that just never took off. A couple of them even have 400-word drafts floating around on my desktop but I ultimately decided to forgo giving them their own byline.
âTwenty-three years later, I realize I suck at karaokeâ: a to-date timeline of my tragic romance with karaoke. The first time I sang it, the moment I realized I wasnât good at it, and why that last part doesnât really matter. But as much as Iâm sure you want to hear about the various ways Iâve murdered âAmerican Pie,â I realized it was just an anecdote without a message.
Being tall at concerts: written haphazardly after Iâd gotten home from a concert, this was to be my courageous last stand against short people complaining about being behind me at concerts. Basically an extended, âSorry Iâm so tall but not sorry.â When I went back to read what Iâd written, it was so unbearably incoherent and full of swearing that I simply deleted it.
The return of pop music to my life: for a bit of context, I come from a jaded musical background where my favourite band for years was Evanescence. When I dropped the Top 40 and started to listen to more diverse music, the genre of pop became the Devilâs music. It wasnât until recently that I began to accept pop music for its simplistic yet overproduced nature and enjoy aspects for what they are.
âRoom on my head for two EIC hatsâ: Iâve spent the last seven months balancing school with two jobs: EIC for this here weekly publication and EIC for a monthly music magazine. I found out I got the two jobs a week apart and my feelings were, in chronological order, overjoyed, proud, and terrified. Physically, itâs been draining; creatively, even more so. The reality was I needed both jobs to be able to pay my bills and live comfortably, but I had an even more powerful motivator: I loved what I was doing. I still do and Iâll positively miss things about having to check two work email addresses throughout the day, but itâll also be nice to take a load off.
Iâve had a million other Lettitor ideas come and go, but these were the top failures. I promise itâs all quips and life knowledge from here, so go kick ass on your exams and Iâll meet you all back here in May.
So it goes,
Jacey Gibb
Editor-in-chief
