JPG-COMMUNITY OP-ED
By Gary Joseph Cohen
2 Jan 2009
Dear JPGMAG,
I am saddened by the news, and wish first and foremost the best of luck to your team, hoping each and every person involved in making JPGMAG a community
finds fulfilling employment as soon as possible.
I can't help but wonder what would have happened if even a third of us were called upon to make a contribution to keep the e-gaslights on and the e-trains running.
A community is, after all, a group of people living together in one [e]place. How many of us would disagree that we waited up late at night for the "jpg-contact" to come home
with posts of his/her day; that we shared with [at first] complete strangers news of births and deaths, illness and recovery, fears and persuasions, desires and accomplishments;
that we, from around the world, developed intimacy and dare say, empathy for the "other," offering our own "otherness" as a kind of start-line for conversation.
Can we call to action and keep our community together? Or, and I ask this with no judgement attached, is it time to move on and develop new communities and new understandings
of our cracked and heaving world? Are we each a wedge, or are we collectively a glue?
I thank my community for helping me to grow, for it was only with the thought that others were looking I tied my shoelaces and tucked in my shirt, and sharpened my pronunciation
and took a good look at all of you, and myself, directly in the eyes. My community--you have made me a better man, and for that, a better artist, too. And I can only hope that my concrete community can live up
to half that promise, and me up to the promise of what I gathered here.
To a better year, for all of us.
Gary Joseph Cohen
8 responses
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Martin E. Morris said (2 Jan 2009):
Way to go Gary!!!
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Hector rtiz gave props (2 Jan 2009):
we need to do something...
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Johnny McClung said (2 Jan 2009):
I'm willing to donate $$. Who's with me...
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linda woods said (2 Jan 2009):
I am with you. I would definitely be willing to donate $$.
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peggy gardner gave props (2 Jan 2009):
I say we're the glue and we need to stick together now that we've bonded.
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peggy gardner gave props (2 Jan 2009):
I couldn't have said it better myself...your story - very very true.
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Paul Lavallee added a link (2 Jan 2009):
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Joy B gave props (21 Sep 2009):
I vote YES!
