My Love Affair with The Oxford American

So, I’m in love. No, no, no. It’s not a girl.

No, it’s not my beautiful red 1990 Buick Reatta (though she makes for a fine temptresss).

No. It’s not Killer Mike. Though his rap is deep, dark and twisted and makes your heart feel like a welterweight.

It’s not Kimchi. A recent affair I’ve had with the Korean fermented cabbage that I use as liberally as salt on everything from oatmeal to kimchi on top of more kimchi.

It’s not my dreams and aspirations, though they are lovely, lofty and perhaps, as any good thing is, likely unattainable.

It’s not any of these things or people.

No. My recent love affair is with the The Oxford American (or as I recently learned, the OXAM, for you literary snobs out there).

In all her raw beauty, the OXAM is a magazine talking about Southern culture. And you know what, to be honest, the only issue I have read so far is the most recent issue that profiles music in the state of Georgia.

So, I should reframe this a bit. I am told that the magazine is “dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South.” I wouldn’t know this because I’ve only read, like I said, the most recent issue which talks exclusively about music, but that is no matter. This love affair has legs.

It started after I read a profile of Duane Allman. It was a good article. At the time, it didn’t seem ‘special,’ but after a few weeks, it was still rolling around in my head. In particular there was one quote from famed producer Rick Hall:

Duane’s playing around this time “smelled like it came out of the bottom of the Tennessee River.”

I loved the way the article combined the writer’s personal search for the ‘story’ with the actual story of Duane Allman and the band. It was beautifully written and made the story flesh in a weird way. I could’ve gotten the same story via Wikipedia, but Amanda Petrusich’s personal anecdotes turned an otherwise listless biography of a band into something that seemed to sing at you from the page. You could hear the guitars. The laughs. Duane Allamn’s voice reverberated from the pages. You saw the sheen of the sun on the side of their Boeing 720B. You sweated with them as they played the Fillmore East. The mustaches, the long hair, the images all came together into this blur of beautiful Southern lunacy capped with peach ice cream and burnt rubber… A sticky, melting popsicle on a hot summer night… … … …

Now, before I devolve into a muttering, poetic lunatic, we’ll pull back here.

After a few weeks of rolling around the article in my head, I decided I wanted to purchase a hard copy of the magazine. I called a local bookstore and they assured me they had a copy. Even offered to hold it for me. I said this wasn’t necessary and drove immediately over, brekaing a ton of traffic laws on the way.

At the checkout, I fumbled in my pocket for $18 in cash and tried not to blink at the price while the man in front of me informed me The Oxford American had just won an Ellie Award (the Academy Awards of magazines for those living with complete and utter disregard for their surroundings). In fact, he said, with the dwindling number of magazines in circulation, the fact that The Oxford American had maintained journalistic integrity while staying profitable was phenomenal. And with the internet, it is amazing that a physical magazine can continue to have such an impact with the ever shortening attention spans and need for flashier and flashier entertainment. He continued on to say that the internet was eating our children’s minds and magazines and somehow ended up relating Descartes’ Theory of Mind to the impending cybernetic doomsday. I mumbled something about how Ellie was the name of my second ex-girlfriend, finally found the correct change and left.

In my car, I couldn’t even leave the parking lot without reading two articles (one on Outkast, another on Blind Willy McTell). What’s more, I read while I drove home, completely missed my exit on 440, ended up on 65S and by the time I had read the entire magazine was stuck in Mobile, Alabama.

Looking out at the Mobile Bay as the sun rose, I thought, fuck Mobile and turned around and drove back to Nashville while reading the issue cover to cover again.

My roommate came home to me sprawled on the couch, nose in The Oxford American, looking like I had stuck my head out the window of a jet airplane for a few hours. I assured him I was just thrilled to have found my rock, and he nodded and went to bed as I ordered the other 3 issues from 2015 and a nice OXAM t-shirt to match.

That night, I dreamed that I started an online magazine in the spirit of The Oxford American. It was more raw, less literary, but fed your curiosity and informed your world. It was silly, irreverant and fun. Then a giant robot in the middle of a fight with Godzilla stormed onto the scene and I instantly forgot about the magazine and fled for my life.