About Meniscus

Contributing Artists, Issue #1:

  • Boudreau, Dan
  • Bynum, Evan
  • Collins, Ryan
  • Edrich, Sarah
  • Gagne, Brian
  • Gumuchian, Derek
  • Keil, Kara
  • Lewis, Emyln
  • Heinrich, Jon
  • Heinrich, Mike
  • Hopkins, Chrystie
  • Johnson, Erik
  • McPhee, John
  • Meier, Derek
  • Neilds, Hunter
  • Pidgeon, Pete
  • Prince, Laura
  • Ralston, Aron
  • Ratko, Wesley
  • Seifert, Josh
  • Stevens, Daniel
  • Teti, Regan

 

 

 

 

Meniscus Speaks!!!

Issue #1

August 14, 2003

Links:

It is my pleasure to dedicate this premier issue of Meniscus Magazine to Aron Ralston. Many have heard his story of entrapment in Blue John Canyon, where he bought himself a new life by severing his own arm to get out of the canyon. That new life is nothing but a celebration.

Aron began his great journey by first freeing himself from the bondage of the cubicle, allowing full actualization of his dreams of becoming a professional mountaineer. Any of us who have dared to imagine a world free from the shawshank grey limitations of the American status quo, may take heed in Aron’s life.

I could go on for pages about his phenomenal adventure resume, but evidence behind this powerful soul lies beyond his accomplishments. His love for life and his will to accomplish superhuman feats, prove that only our minds and concepts limit our ability to ACHIEVE ANYTHING.

“What courage!” I have heard that courage is not a lack of fear; it is becoming fully aware of fear, and allowing passion to overcome it. All of us have fear in our lives. It is the most prominent entity holding back the human race. Fear paralyzes the spirit of action if you let it—but not if you have the fire of initiative burning in your soul. Aron has never let fear dictate or alter the path of his life. How does he do it? The ultimate faith that he may overcome any obstacle, no matter how physically grueling.

Action is courage.

Now I apologize in advance for dragging you into the depths of my own idealism, but I want to get into the essence of what Meniscus Magazine is. I was reading an article on deoxy.org ("The Critical Mass of Enlightenment", John Hogue) that does a good job of describing my grandiose personal vision for Meniscus:

Right now in history, we have more strife than I can remember in my 27 years on this earth. We’ve got war in Iraq and Afghanistan, disease epidemic, nuclear crisis, natural disaster, terrorism, nightclub disasters and to top it off, Mr. Rogers is dead. But as all of this SHIT goes on, in order for the universe to stay in equilibrium, there must be an equal GOODNESS out there. Meniscus is a HUB OF GOODNESS; a nucleus of positive energy that will contribute to things like enlightenment and world peace through artistic vision. This article convinced me that my notion is not so far fetched and that we can make a difference if we help just one “buddhatomic Christ” find his/her way to enlightenment. To quote the article, “The guru of TM, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who once counted the Beatles and Beach Boys as his disciples, predicts that only one-tenth of one percent of humanity is needed to create enough good vibrations to usher in world peace.”

Meniscus is here to spread positivity and solutions.

In the current world of media, we have a sugar-coated version of death and destruction that doesn’t even go into the brutal truth of it all. When is the last time you read about the depleted uranium (DU) trash we—the U.S. war mongers that is—spread about the city of Baghdad? If you’re not familiar with depleted uranium weapons, you should look it up.

Instead of burying DU, the U.S. military has discovered that, because of its atomic density, it will punch through the armor of just about any conventional metal. As a result, it is our practice to tip the fronts of our Tomahawk missiles, and the rest of our deadly munitions, with it. Now not only are the Iraqi people plagued with radioactive trash all over their city, our soldiers are suffering from “unidentifiable illnesses” from breathing radioactive dust particles.

We’ve got to remember the GOODNESS side of the equilibrium equation, it grows stronger with each misfortune. There are a lot of amazing people out here. Although this was an apparently random selection of submissions, they seem to contain a common Awareness. It appears our generation is ready to lead the change.

It is up to the artists to spread the message that the world is a beautiful place. We can show the way individually, but we must unite to make a difference in the big picture. We need to raise the consciousness of our thoughts from every day life.

As Hakim Bey observes in his interview, we are a nation of tell-me-what-to-do. There is but a sliver of Intellistaliga remaining of people who question the status quo. Example: Why haven’t we started impeachment proceedings on Bush for his criminal lies to Congress and the American people? (Although I think the FBI is still searching for the ventriloquist mastermind that somehow got into the State of the Union Address mumbling something about Niger...) Somehow we have breed unjustifiable complacency; people should be standing up politically against what they know is ethically wrong, but they don’t.

So now we’ve got G.Dub as the commander-in-chief of oil company real estate and Cheney as the commander-in-chief of oil company contractors. How much I wonder, in real dollar terms, will Cheney realistically make in the coming years, because of the war with Iraq? I’m sure Ari Fleischer would have told you he has nothing personally to gain from Halliburton’s success. I wonder why Ari Flischer resigned as spokesman for the White House.

What caused Madonna to write a song about the lunacy of war, but then change her mind before she released it. It sounds like the ranting that Emlyn Lewis captured in “The Star Said” in the Elements section.

If we do not approve of the current use of resources we can have the courage to stand up for our values, such as our friend “Ten Forty” when he stood up to the tax man.

Let’s learn from Aron. Our destiny starts here. With you. With us. Look at the beautiful things in your life, and live for those. Realize everyday that you intend your life one direction or another. You either control that, or you don’t. Its time we start spreading our positive vibrations and take control of tomorrow.

Aron, we’re glad, glad, glad you’re alive. Thank you.

-Jon Heinrich


Meniscus Magazine © 2003. All material is property of respective artists.