There’s a trendy little coffee shop in downtown Boulder called the Laughing Goat; affectionately, ‘the Goat.’ The baristas make a mean bhakti chai there, with lots of ginger, perfect for these cooler, early fall mornings. The warm lighting and the art on the walls, the smells of fresh coffee and strong tea, mean it’s also a great place to hold meetings. It was at the Goat that the editorial board for the fall issue of Bombay Gin got together yesterday, to discuss our progress on solicitations and fundraising ideas.

This fall, we’re going with the theme of ‘threshold,’ variously interpreted as any or none of the following:

Threshold–the thing you cross into/over, so as to discover what’s beyond/beneath/hiding in the liminal.

Threshold–the space of trans–the site of exchange–the wall, the ceiling, the carrying capacity of breath.

Threshold–the significance of space. The between place.

Over the next few weeks, the work we’ve solicited will begin to trickle in, slowly, companion pieces flanking ribs filling inboxes defining threshold obscuring space. Then will begin the work of editing, of suturing the threshold as wound, unearthing the threshold as secret, letting fall the wrecking ball into the threshold as crack, sliver, liminal i-need-you-i-want-you-oh-baby-oh-baby-space of impossible seduction.

Let’s talk about seduction. The window’s open this morning and the dawn is cool. Air wafts in chilly and scented with leaves that refuse to turn as of yet but will do so, inevitably. Seduced by autumn. My maté sends up spirals of steam that sing and dance and dissipate. Seduced by a wide, pink sky. Ginsberg: “I’m with you in Rockland / where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica.” Seduced by Apollinaire, at the threshold of reality.

What say you, dear reader, of seduction, of threshold?

–Jess