Winter, 2007
For most of its long pre-life and perhaps the reason that its pre-life was so long, the working title of Geist magazine was the Flush Times, a name that amused friends and colleagues, but failed to excite their passion, and as the years went by it seemed more and more to be merely a relic of the seventies, an era that had been bygone for some time already, as our senior editor and co-founder was heard to remark more than once during the long pre-life mentioned at the beginning of this sentence. Only when the word geist detached itself from zeitgeist during a solitary late-night brainstorming session did the concept of the magazine begin to assume the form it takes today. The key attribute of the new name, besides its complex and venerable pedigree, was the fact that geist as a word does not exist in either of our official languages—in itself perhaps reason enough to adopt it. The brainstorming session, I recall, consumed at least two bottles of Savage Caves, a wine of uncertain vintage that itself would assume relic status when it disappeared from liquor store shelves shortly after these events.
And so from a little-known fact of interest emerges a story of genesis and the road not taken. We at Geist acknowledge gratefully the non-taken road, which brings us to this moment, and to this piece of paper.
To all of our readers, and particularly to you who read this now: please accept our best wishes for the new year. May there be many of them, and many of you.
Thank you for reading.
Stephen Osborne, Editor-in-Chief
PS. Share your passionate convictions, strong opinions and interesting passing thoughts with other Geist readers by emailing editor@geist.com, day or night, any time of the year.
