FIRST REVIEW OF LENSJOCKEY MAGAZINE

Here it is:

I picked up a copy of your magazine at the DUMBO photo fest this afternoon.  I read it on the train going home.  I was very impressed.  On the front cover there's a price of ten dollars.  Is that how much you charge people for the magazine? Or is that how much you pay people to read it?  Cause I read the whole thing and want to know where I can go to collect my ten dollars.  I never read such drivel.  And the photographs in the magazine, well, what can I say.......... drek.

— Hasifleur Wagibigit

fair enough I'd say - yet it has been very strange seeing the really angry responses that I got personally... for what really is a valid effort at presenting a fun, original and different look at a part of the NYC photography scene... perhaps it is right in the end that negative attention is still attention. In the spirit of punk — it seems right! I mean, this wildly named person will probably not forget the LENSJOCKEY name! And if you want to see for yourself how awful my magazine is, you can see it at St. Mark's Bookshop in NYC and at McNally Jackson Booksellers!

I told my friend Steve in Texas about this letter and he immediately said that the name was made up hahah. I love that someone hid their name while writing me this. That's a pretty good one, I never thought of that. I guess it would also have to be someone who sortof knows French, some sort of European something... a worldly wit of some sort. The truth is though, that if someone wants to make up a name to tell me they think my magazine is bogus, or too expensive, with such silly (and rather unseeing) venom, well, I still have to think that no matter what, they know I'm doing something, they will always be able to change their minds later. Because it is not just about that 2nd Issue of LENSJOCKEY. People really did think punk was awful when they were confronted with it. That's a real effect. Just looking at my magazine as an experiment, I feel like it is a success.