From the Editor: The Cadenza Issue

If there’s any friend who never leaves, I believe it’s this: jazz in blue & grey, in light & cloud. Jazz like circadian rhythm, like cityscape dreaming, like still before the train comes. Jazz, the one thing I’ll never understand. The one thing I’ll ever know for sure. These past six months have been a gorgeous & terrifying time for Half Mystic, both a wonder & a reckoning: wherein we reconsidered our company’s values, we pressed all the wrong notes on the piano, we stumbled through a time signature that no one else seemed to recognise, we learned the value of a friend who knows your favourite song as badly as you do. A friend—like cadenza—who shimmers with movement. Who at once stands by your side & pushes you forward into the future.

So I hope, reader, that you find a friend in this issue who soars & beams, a friend who knows what it stands for, knows what it’s here to do. I hope you find a friend to the rhythm of swing jazz & tapping feet, midnight on cobblestoned streets, drunken solo out a three-story window, drowsy night & clumsy dance, serenade with the stars as a microphone.

Issue V: Cadenza is a fizzling kind of light, a neon kind of song, a post-dusk kind of splendour. A forever kind of love story. This friend holds softness in its left hand & savagery in its right. It has wide eyes, open arms, never enough hours of sleep. Cadenza is a friend both inchoate & reckless, both uncertain & proud. It always eats breakfast. It surprises itself. It wanders. It wonders. It’s gutless but full of bones to break. It’s hungry & warm & grateful for so much it still doesn’t know how to name. It sings. It growls. It blooms. & if you don’t look in the mirror & see it glittering in your chest, maybe all you have to do is listen a little harder.

Issue V centres around the theme of cadenza: the saxophone laugh – the air of smoke and blue – the love affair as old-fashioned as it is timeless. It features the voices of Jill Mceldowney, Kate Bucca, Janice Lee, Jennifer Patino, Adrienne Novy, Alyx Jordan, Mariel Fechik, Amy Karon, Dana Alsamsam, Ann V. DeVilbiss, Emily Vizzo, SK Grout, Troy Kody Cunio, Give Me Motion, ÊMIA, VIRTA, Anne Paceo, Betina Hershey, and Allen Forrest.

Order your copy today. We're so honoured to share it with you. xx