About a month ago I received and email from an anonymous person looking to start a project called Dear Jacksonville. We corresponded for a while and it culminated in this interview. I think it’s an interesting idea, and I won’t go into describing what Dear Jacksonville is except to say it will be revelations of a young and confused city trying to make its way in the world.
1. What is Dear Jacksonville?
Dear Jacksonville will be an anonymous zine that I’ll put together based on anonymous submissions from anonymous locals. I’m hoping Dear Jacksonville will be an interesting, entertaining, happy, sad, and cathartic zine of sorts—a purification coming of age story based on the introspection, confession, and revelations of a young and confused city trying to make its way in the world.
Jacksonville just seems like such an awkward pre-pubescent teen of a city, standing along the wall, staring blankly at the empty dance-floor of downtown, and wondering what to do next. It’s just going through that awkward stage that cities go through, and all it needs is someone to talk to who will listen and not judge. Maybe it just needs a note of encouragement and understanding—you should write one and send it to me. I’ll pass it along.
As a concerned citizen, my relationship to the city is often that of a “strict father”—a concerned parent worrying about his young teenager (“I mean, I love you Jacksonville, I really do, but sometimes you drive me insane.”); conversely, my role in ‘Dear Jacksonville’ is more about being nurturing and facilitating development without imposing too many restrictions and punishments.
I’m appropriating the distinctions George Lakoff, the linguist and cognitive scientist, uses to expose the unconscious system of concepts underlying modern political discourse in America, in my analysis of Jacksonville’s own meta-discourse (the way we talk about our own town). You can check out Lakoff’s book Moral Politics for a more in-depth discussion, but basically he goes on to show how conservatives have embraced the strict father model while liberals favor the nurturant parent model as they relate to the family and the nation. He then proves that liberalism is empirically superior to conservatism based on developmental research and numerous childrearing studies, etc.
All of this is to say that perhaps it’s no coincidence that the dominant discourse of a conservative town like Jacksonville, even from its own residents, is often overly critical and enervative—whereas my friends from liberal cities like Boston, New Haven, Portland, Providence and Seattle aren’t nearly as critical of their cities. Though aspects of Dear Jacksonville will surely be self-critical, I’m hoping it will be empowering rather than abusive.
2. How do people contribute and what if they don’t want to be anonymous?
Anyone can send a “Dear Jacksonville” email to me at dearjacksonville@hushmail.com. I’d prefer that contributors ALSO
use an anonymous email service like hushmail.com or even the free and super-easy to use anonymous emailer at anonymouse.org.
While anonymity is not required for submission, I won’t attach your name to you letter because names aren’t as important as messages (despite what some names might think), and names can be falsified—which could result in my receiving multiple, conflicting emails from Mayor Peyton.
At the moment I’m only accepting emailed entries, which I’ll be publishing in their entirety or in part, in a 20-30 page zine. I will edit misspellings and grammar issues unless specifically told not to. Note: I am trying to anonymously acquire a domain name and host site for a website where all of the emails will be published in their entirety.
3. Where did you get the idea from?
Well, I’ve wanted to put together a local zine for a while. I love what you and other local bloggers have done for the community, and I’d like to contribute in some way as well; unfortunately, I’m lazy and hermitic and completely incapable of being up-to-date on things or intelligently insightful enough to produce a blog. Plus, I just think Jacksonville needs something good written down on paper.
The Florida Times-Onion is a joke (though I don’t blame them per se—news outlets in general no longer perform the adversarial role that is so important for a healthy, functioning democracy) and the Folio Weakly seems overly restricted by financial limitations as well as its numerous entertainment, informational and commercial obligations. Though, in their defense, Folio has some amazingly talented writers (i.e., Schindler, Cooper Eastman, Holmes, Stuart, and Citrone) and produces practically the only investigative reporting in town.
Anyway. I knew I wanted to do an open-source type zine with differing agendas and approaches written by a variety of people (as opposed to a more centralized production—ala “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”), but I needed a theme. A friend who arrived back in town after almost two years abroad wrote a short letter entitled “Dear Jacksonville” to his friends as an expression of his feelings for Jacksonville. It was critical, supportive and hopeful, but primarily it was that ubiquitous gesture of kissing the ground put down in words. Overall, I thought it was a nice gesture, so I stole it.
4. What type of contributions are you looking for?
I’m looking for thoughtful rants and love letters to Jacksonville; for heartfelt apologies; for reasons to hope, to stay, to try, and to even care. I’d like letters with suggestions and secrets, recommendations and rumors, congratulations and complaints; and I’d like letters from people who can’t say what they want to say in any other format…surely there are things that can’t be written in Folio or Flog or the Florida TU that could be submitted in the form of an anonymous Dear Jacksonville letter. Kind of like The Capitolist, an anonymous website for those who work on the Hill in DC to publish their stories, inside jokes, ideas and dirty laundry. Lastly, and most especially, I’m looking for contributions that I don’t even know I’m looking for…the unexpected letter is often the most appreciated.
