Weighty Openings and Grand Declarations

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From the Editorial Board

The MÉLANGE Occasional Journal of Everything sprang nigh fully formed into the sloshing bathwater of our consciousness during a tipsy pique of hypomania one Saturday night while we were doing, of all things, the dishes. Proof that, as the erudite among us know well already, glimmering gemstones of genius are sometimes unearthed in the mundanest of settings.

If you’ve any doubts as to our intentions, we invite you to cast your eyes on our nameplate. The very title of our feisty little rag should, per se, disabuse you of any misconceptions. Much like the disposition of any member of our editorial staff, the Journal’s title is just as audacious, ambitious and pompous as it is noncommittal.

What shall we publish? Don’t race all at once for the dictionary! We’ll save you the trouble. “MÉLANGE” is a noun borrowed from French, meaning “We’ll publish whatever we damn please.”

How often? Ask any logophile: “Occasional,” adjective, means “Whenever we damn please.”

“Journal” means —— well, we’re grasping for, and failing to arrive at, anything jocose or sarcastique, so any definition found in Merriam Webster will have to suffice. Except we advise you to ignore the “daily” bit (from the Old French jurnal, reflected in the modern French jour, quite literally “day,” as in soupe du jour). Because between our day jobs and our million hyperfixations, we’re almost certainly not going to be doing anything daily here.

And in case you missed the whole “MÉLANGE” bit back at the front, please allow us to flog the proverbial equus mortuus with the “Everything” at the tail end.

Everything: that’s what we’ll produce, publish and proudly present to you. We solemnly swear to write, draw, paint, sing, photograph, recite and/or ululate wantonly at you whatever (and whenever) we damn please.

So here we are! Pleasure to meet you. We like our infinitives split. We end our sentences with prepositions. We take our metaphors mixed, and stirred — not shaken. Bond be damned. Fictional character or not, the idiot has no idea how to order a drink. Unless, of course, it involves citrus or egg yolk. In which case, shake that mother ‘til its eyes pop out and its teeth rattle like maracas.

We digress. Often, as it’s an editorial imperative here at the MÉLANGE Occasional Journal of What Were We Saying?.

What we were saying is: Pleasure to meet you! We are ecstatically happy to be here, so reader beware! We find ourselves in the same (what we’d deem enviable) predicament as Salinger’s Buddy Glass, who warned his own readers that there’s little more “totally draining” than “an ecstatically happy writing person,” because of what such people will drown you in: purple prose. And we’re afraid that’s exactly what, as you meander these (digital) pages for (hopefully) years to come, is in store for you.

Sincerely,
The MÉLANGE Occasional &c &c &c

1. Translated: “Weighty openings and grand declarations often Have one or two purple patches tacked on, that gleam Far and wide.” Believed to be the origin of the term “Purple Prose.” ↩︎