Writing, editing and designing the November/December issue of PHOENIX always requires an enormous feat of mental play-acting for its editors and art directors. “Suspension of disbelief,” they call it in movies.
The problem: This is a very holiday-focused issue, with a people-positive yuletide magic we try to synthesize. But it’s still early September when we start writing and shooting it. Do you know how hard it is to synthesize people-positive yuletide magic when it’s freakin’ 115 degrees outside?
This year was especially challenging, given the 19 consecutive days of all-time record-high daily temperatures that brutalized the Valley in early October – itself a national record. I know I’m not alone in finding the ordeal terrifically discouraging. I’m usually the first one to talk people off the ledge when they grouse about Phoenix heat. But this one felt different, speaking to a problem that seems to be sloping decidedly downward at this point.
Then we started reaching out to the brightly self-actualized Phoenicians profiled in this year’s The Great 48 – essentially our annual “who’s who” list. And managing editor Leah LeMoine popped the seal on her yearly gift-guide roundup of local food, fashion and crafts. And art director Mirelle Inglefield got to work dusting off the holiday-light photo essay we shot last year, specifically for this issue.
I hate to use the term “holiday miracle” (actually, I do kind of like using it, because I have a sarcastic streak), but something subtle happened. Our spirits lifted. Our thoughts sweetened. Even in the heat, our cold moods started to thaw. It’s amazing what a few silly State Forty Eight T-shirts and playful headlocks around the office can do for your sense of magical lightness.
And, then, just as this issue went to press, it was suddenly 75 degrees outside. Not exactly the stuff of Frank Capra, I grant you, but certainly endearing in some way – part of the push-pull of living in the Valley, the bargain we all strike with it, and one of the things we love about it, maybe.
In any case: Welcome to people-positive yuletide magic season. No disbelief to suspend.
