Stare No. 801 is devotedentirely to the story of how Stare was and iscreated.

Allabout Stare

Can you remember when art was fun? When you had a lotmore freedom and a lot less responsibility? Before you hadto get a real job? Back when you thought that art and lovewere all you needed? Back when art and love were allyou needed?

Stare is published on the premise that art stillis fun. Yes it's magical, enlightening, mysterious, and (ifyou hang out with the wrong crowd) awfully damn serious. Inevery issue of Stare, our editors, publishers andGroup of Experts That Dare Not Speak ItsName® bring you the excitementand energy only good art can provide.

Now, you're probably sayin' to yourself, how do theydo it? Maybe you figure we ain't got any real jobs an'just live off the behemoth insurance settlement from somebig accident that damaged part of our brains and stopped ourmental development just at the point when we found out howfun art can be. Or, more likely, you're guessin' we'reprobably just a bunch of low-life bohemian riffraff gettin'fat off all the burritos and cheap red wine on which wespent damn near our entire Guggenheim and National Endowmentfor the Arts grants.

Well, you just might be surprised to learn that neitherof those explanations is all that far from the truth. Yousee, Stare's unique editorial contents are madepossible in part through a bizarre government experimentthat began in the 1970s ... one that continuesto this very day.

It all began when The President's personal photographer(who shall remain anonymous for reasons which will soonbecome apparent) got bored with his job. He was relating howtedious his ostensibly prestigious position had become atlunch one day to the head of the Environmental ProtectionAgency's toxic waste disposal division. To make a very verylong story very very short, the discussion eventually ledthe EPA so set up a top secret lab to recycle certainfrighteningly toxic wastes from a highly classified militaryprogram into a (mostly) harmless (as far as we know)substance calledAesthetigen®.

Here's the secret:Aesthetigen® temporarilysuppresses the brain's acquired tendency toward unnaturalpretentiousness and acute seriousness. That's why all of ushere at Stare magazine always takecarefully-controlled doses ofAesthetigen® before we edit andpublish each issue. Although the neuro-chemical reaction isquite complicated, the result is easily described in layterms: Aesthetigen® allows us topresent all the really good stuff in art without all thereally boring stuff. And especially without all the reallydreadful stuff.

So, why doesn't everyone useAesthetigen®? It's simple: nobodycan use it except us.

Ha!

First of all, the researchers who studyAesthetigen® have burrowed sodeep into the bowels of the bureaucracy that no one in thegovernment except for the President and his most trustedadvisors have even heard aboutAesthetigen®. And second of all,Aesthetigen® has a fewunfortunate and most embarrassing side effects researchersare trying really hard to eliminate. But until they do, ourgroup is the only group in the whole world that can useAesthetigen®. (Perhaps JimmyCarter said it best: Life is unfair.)

And that's the incredible story how Stare came tobe. Life, art and burritos are good; pass the wine.