Why Deluge?
Deluge is an old idea. Actually three ideas here, or three uses of one, all with worn histories.
There is the original itself: the wiping away of “all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land” is but the turn of a page from the generations of Adam in my King James Version. We hear repeatedly, latterly from Russell Crowe, of the myth’s universality, gods performing a reset on their early creation, calling time on a false start and offering a rebirth in a way that is far too brutal to call redemption.
The false start is apt for us; so is the cursing; so, we hope, is the setting of a new stage and a world to be filled. Most of all, there is the globe covered in water, all under the waves reflected and refracted to those above – either in the ark or the eye of God. And not all was lost, remember: swept away were merely the living things in the dry. Fish would have cast their eyes upward to the light of the opened heavens and perhaps the keel of the saved. In the utter peril of a world on the brink, the gaze was given a universal lens.
The deluge covered everything. So should Deluge; which is to describe the world, whatever can be seen of it and described meaningfully. There is a name for this, a newspaper, or perhaps a journal: usage number two.
In an ideal world, the perfect vision of an organ entitled The Sun would not have been sullied by all that goes with the name Murdoch. Titles such as these are noble beyond any triteness; they are either spatially or temporally all-encompassing, or they proclaim prophecy: Argus, Herald, Der Spiegel, Times, Globe, Clarion, Star, Harbinger, Chronicle, Life.
In adding Deluge to this list, we affirm an intention to be aware of the world beyond the trade whence we have arisen, namely art. Following traditions established elsewhere, the work of our profession will be humbly placed alongside discussion of it, the gaze directed out and inwards, criticism and production, artistic and literary, side-by-side. Different directions of seeing should be counterpointed; themes, the kiss of death rather than the intended breath of life, are to be avoided. Establishing whereof it is possible to speak is half the task; at the outset no limit is given.
One further axiom: in drawing the world in the sense of telling of things that are made – criticism – judgment is a consequence of clear description, and clarity is sought. As well as the ensuing negative findings, the positive are desired, too. Praise is the hardest form due to its susceptibility to banality; it is also the highest.
Beyond diluvian editorial policy is a personal connection with inundation which, along with the first person now, cannot be avoided. This would not need be mentioned, save that some reading this will be aware that this Deluge is also old in gestation and they will have wondered if it would ever arise, or pour down. I bring this up, then, by way of apology and thanks to the infinitely tested patience of those who have helped put this together, especially to Liz Dawson for immense help, Gerhard Mantz for building the website, and all the other contributors.
Two or so years ago, a home really was awash, and that was only a very minor consequence in the scheme of things. The phrase ”after the deluge” was a soundtrack involuntarily branded on my mind for days – usage three. Those who don’t yet know it – though, having recounted it to the entire world in the meantime, I find it hard to believe such people exist – may inform themselves via the soap opera version over coming issues. Though I have now committed the crime, proscribed in Fabian Ginsberg’s Tipps in these pages, of writing about myself, the story simply refuses such reticence. Back in my King James, someone indeed had decided to destroy what they had created from the face of the earth. Should our offering have a smidgeon of that act’s power to mark a before and after, our work, for good or ill, will not be in vain.