OQ | E D ITO R’ S N OTE
OJAI WITHOUT US ‘The species will continue, whatever apocalypse we manage to unleash. It just won’t be much fun to live through.” — Naomi Alderman My former boss, friend and mentor, Bob Wick, died last year, and I am still struggling to fill the hole. I’ve known him since I was 10, and we became especially close eight years later when his son Stanley, my best friend, died tragically at age 18. (As if there’s any other kind of death for an 18-year-old). My own father had died two weeks prior, so we bonded over grief. Few substances are more durable. Bob’s family owned three dozen newspapers, including at one time the Ojai Valley News, which is how I, circuitously and fortuitously, ended up here. Best decision I ever made, though I thoroughly enjoyed working for Wick Communications as an editor and publisher for 15 years. It didn’t just feel like family. It was. Bob was a well-known sculptor of monumental bronzes, often representing female nature forms, with built-in earth elements. He showed the cycle of birth and death in layers of that expressive metal, many incorporating cacti and desert plants, like 10-foot-tall hybrids of vegetable and mineral. Bronze is an interesting substance; an alloy of tin and copper that takes on a beautiful patina with age. Alan Weisman’s book, “The World Without Us,” reports on what would happen to the world should humans vanish overnight. For example, the first rain will take out New York City’s subway system, where dams hold back 13 million gallons of water every day. Our homes, depending on where they’re built, will fall apart in 50 to 100 years and completely vanish in 500 years. But bronze will likely be the last man-made trace remaining, surviving as long as 25 million years. So it’s not implausible that all the future may know about us and our time is through the art of Bob Wick. With his expansive kindness, wisdom and enduring artistry, I can think of no one I’d rather have represent us to that far-off future. This sense of impermanance and ephemerality comes often when I’m down to the last stages of assembling the Ojai Quarterly. It’s not the stories we cover — they are eternally relevant. As in Ecclesiastes: “What was will be again. There is nothing new under the sun.” The persistence and resilience of Ojai’s downtown during the twin tests of the Thomas Fire in late 2017 and the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 showed the substance behind our mystique. These businesses are critical to Ojai as a living community because nearly two-thirds of our city budget comes from tourism. Ojai Music Festival Artistic Director Ara Guzelimian makes reference to that ineffable, even mystical quality to Ojai as he prepares for June’s highly anticipated return of Rhiannon Giddens, this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in Mark Lewis’ profile. So we’re happy to also have Kit Stolz’ interview with Rhiannon on the publication of her children’s book, “Build a House.” Of course a bright talent like hers would be appreciated in Ojai. And from where else but the “Little Orange” could the antic word-slinging talents of someone like Sami Zahringer come together? Peter Fox takes us deep inside the mind of this comic legend. As always, Sami caps the issue with her highly anticipated column. We will not hold it against you if you start from the back of the issue and read your way forward. It’s hard to resist. In some sense, the Ojai experience ranges far and wide; Jerry Dunn takes us on a tour of Pasadena, the once-stolid exemplar of what passed for the Old Guard in California and is yet a vibrant intersection of money, art and history. We are proud to publish Chuck Graham’s journey into the Mountains of the Moon as he travels vertically through the diversity of Africa’s terrain and wildlife. Ilona Saari’s profile of homegrown restaurauteur Sophia Miles of Deer Lodge and now Tres Hermanas fame brings all those themes together; resilience, persistence, talent, enduring values and a place to call home. I have every hope those Ojai values will last as long as Bob Wick’s bronzes.
OQ / SUMMER 2023
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