“The day after my 25th birthday I walked into Nectar’s, the local bar-slash-diner, where there is usually a band and it is usually shitty.  But on this night, people that I only barely knew in town-people who give me a special “I’ve got a crush on a rock star” thrill if they remember my name-these people were onstage and in the audience, and they were wearing wigs and smashing guitars and playing Led Zeppelin.  And while the air was thick with Camel Lights smoked by domestic-beer-drinking-rockers, I found that I could take a full breath for the first time in what felt like weeks.

ReadyMade is like that night, like the moment Jason Cooley sang, “You need Cooley/Baby I’m not foolin’/I’m gonna send you/Back to Cooley.”  Your magazine speaks to people who live in cramped spaces they don’t own and work jobs that aren’t necessarily what they want to do forever.  Your 88 pages show that it can all be art, subversive or apparent, simple or complex-the whole day can be fun from start to finish, even if all you do is take five minutes to arrange a “suggestive” display (using yesterday’s produce) for your coworker to find the next day.”

Kelly Horan
Burlington, Vermont

Thanks, Kelly!