Letter from the Editors

“Two Leaves from the Mirror of Human Salvation”" repurposed as a book cover (Germany, late 14th century)

Dear Readers,

In the second issue of Love & Theft, we invite you to explore an age-old creative practice that only entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1984: to repurpose, to convert or adapt (esp. something holding electronic data) for use in a different format; to use for a different purpose.” Our contributors repurpose material across genre or medium, mining unlikely sources—from music videos and political pamphlets to coin-operated massagers—for new meaning. In these excavations, cultural artifacts reveal hidden layers, blurring the boundary between past and present.

For the poet Crystal Simone Smith, repurposing takes the form of erasure, a tool not of censorship but exposure. Excerpts from her forthcoming collection, Common Sense, dissect the famous doctrine of the same title, penned by Thomas Paine in 1776. Smith highlights deep-seated hypocrisy in a credo that galvanized antimonarchists and revolutionaries across the colonies and beyond.  “The twist,” she notes in our interview, “lies in [Paine’s] argument on the principles of equality and individual liberties for some—not for all.” By “disrupting” the original text through blackout, Smith creates “new social perspectives for what is hidden and unsaid.” At a moment when calls for subjugation dominate the public forum, her work challenges readers to interrogate—or repurpose—seemingly sacred, foundational documents in the search for a more inclusive vision of truth and justice.

Sculptor Chris Combs approaches the act of repurposing with a background in media and mechanics. Installations depicted in this issue equip found technologies with nonessential (and at times quizzical) functions. For example, “Uncontrollable Light,” a push-button enclosure, has been rewired to frustrate user input with intensifying beams of energy. Or there’s “Insert 25 Cents to Feel Something,” a reboot of the coin-operated “Relax-A-Lator” originally designed to soothe tired feet via vibration; the new version, fabricated from factory scrap, plays cat videos set to song. Combs challenges our expectations, manipulating context to encourage a more dynamic exchange between artist and audience.  “By playing with timelines,” he noted during our studio visit at the Otis Street Arts Project, “by making something look visibly old, but then do something new, I hope to bring viewers into a bit of that space of thinking about time and thinking about change.”

In “On Interpolation: Heartbreak Beats,” the essayist Sebastian Langdell untangles a web of lyrics interwoven among alt indie rockers. Here, musicians like Shirley Manson, Mike Berninger, and Cassandra Jenkins breathe new life into familiar refrains. Langdell writes movingly of the ways “interpolated” lines accrue unexpected weight, offering solace in difficult times—a global pandemic, the loss of a friend, the loss of a child. But this type of repurposing is not merely an act of mourning, Langdell suggests, it can also be redemptive, “something to do with music, joy, riding free for the hell of it. Letting loose and staying alive.”  Indeed, through repetition, through incantation and interpolation, Langdell finds a forward path, a faintly beating pulse.

We thank you for visiting Love & Theft. As always, feel free to reach out with questions, queries, connections or coincidences at loveandtheft@gmail.com.

All the best,

Edward Helfers & Chloe Irwin