Letter from the Editor: A steady drip, drip, drip

Photo by Cassondra Jones

Greetings, dearest reader, and welcome to the February 2024 issue of The Pitch. Our vibe this month is “Liquid Love,” which is, admittedly, one of our more abstract-themed issues. Our publication has had food on the cover hundreds of times over the past 44 years. How often do drinks get the same spotlight? Well, far fewer. And that’s wild because the act of drinking—in all its forms—is one of life’s great (and oft-complicated) pleasures.

In looking at the place of assorted fluids and solutions across our culture, it’s fantastical to consider the building blocks of one entire type of matter and the degree to which we both depend upon it while reinventing and expanding its reach. Water itself—the foundation of life and its delivery system from the sky above us or parts of the earth deep below us—has such a journey to even reach humanity. Its abundance or limitations change everything about our economy and our population and dictate what food we have access to. Hell, the very rumor of its existence dictates whether or not we believe life can exist on other planets.

At the same time, we find it so boring that we’ve invented thousands of ways to carbonate and flavor it. That hydrogen and oxygen bonded together is our biggest hurdle to settlements on Mars, and/or getting properly fucked up on White Claw is such a staggering spectrum of possibility… Yee-haw!

With the mystery and malleability of limitless libation options, it’s no surprise that the healing powers of assorted tonics, baths, and over-analyzed hydrations have always held sway in some corners of Americana mythology. The healing powers of everything from the latest GOOP-adjacent cleanse to the spiritual promise/threat of a wishing well represent the sheer scope with which we are willing to ascribe power to wetness in all its forms.

Thanks to fellow Missouri journalist Sarah Kendzior’s book They Knew, I’ve recently fallen down a rabbit hole regarding Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and the life of huckster Norman G. Baker.

Baker was an early American radio broadcaster, entrepreneur, and inventor who secured fame—as well as state and federal prison terms—by promoting a supposed cure for cancer in the 1930s. Coming off the Spanish Flu in the 1920s, Baker saw potential to fleece the desperate and began near-constant radio sermons, advocating for his own brand of miracle tonics while also ranting endlessly about a secret cabal running America into the ground and declaring scientists, doctors, and other educated voices to be “fake news.”

Perhaps you see why I’m currently obsessed with the deceit of a fraudster 100 years ago, who pedaled a brand of exploitation that got people killed, and how his process to fleece the gullible has somehow echoed through time to carry such modern connotations.   

His reliance on the fictionalized power of Eureka Springs and his ability to do great harm under its guise somehow only partially reflect the lore and the stories of “healing” waters at play here. It’s all wrapped together in a convoluted, difficult-to-parse history of just how far humans want to take their belief and enjoyment of all damp matters.

Far, far from the medical malpractice of a snake-oil salesman, the last few years of my life have involved a heightened focus on the double-edged sword whenever I find a cup that runneth over. Liquid courage is responsible for taking daring romantic chances, for building bonds with friends and strangers, and—unchecked—it has more than once dared to burn my life into ash. The toast is, in so many ways, the highest form of community and compliment that humanity shares across all cultures and nations. Even my last 15 months and a journey into the deep fascination with teas and juices from across the globe have opened up my mind and body to entirely new forms of pleasure.

So that’s where “Liquid Love” started for us in this issue. Everything from a brewery carving out a new homestead in an otherwise whitewashed industry to the contemplation of a tea room that dares you to disconnect from the hubbub of the outside world, to—yes, you knew it was coming—our own physiological reactions to the wonders of sexuality… These are the pages where we decided to turn on the waterworks. Come for a swim in the deep end with us.

Pitch in, and we’ll make it through,