I’m enthralled by the idea of “cultural DNA” – how strands of influence, style and knowledge can be passed from writer to writer, chef to chef, artist to artist – or any vocation, really. Elephant trainers. Nose-stud designers. TV meteorologists. And find expression even after multiple generations.
The Best of the Valley feature you’re about to read reflects dozens, maybe even hundreds of such lineages. Assembling this annual salute to Greater Phoenix – which we’ve built into quite the high-tech contraption over the years, with celebrity taste-tests, diorama-like party planners and a very popular online readers’ vote – amounts to a massive cultural genome study for me as editor.
I see the BOV pick for Kevin Binkley’s chef dinners and wonder about the ways his celebrated post-nouvelle style might linger at his former protégé Brandon Gauthier’s restaurant, Confluence – or vice versa. Then I read about Best Music Festival winner Viva PHX and think about its founder, Charlie Levy, now ensconced in Tucson with his newest venue, La Rosa (also a BOV winner in our special Old Pueblo section). Can a music festival have genes? Maybe.
I don’t mean to complicate things – or worse, get ponderous about them. This special, more-unabashedly-patriotic-than-usual Best of the Valley – it’s the Semiquincentennial this month, you know! – was a ton of fun to put together, and just as fun to read, we hope.
But I can’t leave the DNA thing alone, because this also represents the final issue of my friend and colleague Leah LeMoine, who interned for me as a college student back in the early 2010s before joining the magazine’s edit staff. For the last decade, she served as its managing editor, the second-in-command – essentially, she was our Mr. Spock, and like that storied first officer, a very dependable and principled member of the team.
Anyway, Leah is stepping away to pursue other things in life, but I harbor hope that her editorial DNA – which is to say, her smarts and decency, along with her affinity for local art and products, and unbeatable knowledge of Valley breakfast menus – will linger here for many editorial generations to come. Vaya con Dios, friend.
