Yo,
Welcome to our 7th issue, the "Next Level" issue.
Thus far, it's been quite a ride. This webzine began as a rather straight-forward email marketing tool for the eyewear company, Gin Optics, but after the first issue of the (then titled) "Gin O Report," it became apparent that the potential for a webzine which spoke to athletes & artist alike had a very high ceiling. Maybe it's because it's free...
Regardless, readership & support have taken off and here we are; on the next level.
This particular issue is a doozy. On the feature side, we get limber with a pair of yoga sisters who are bringing their twisted game to a new level. We dance to our booty's content with Seattle's very own Dita Vox, of the band, Thee Emergency. And we spend an afternoon with Ed Ewing, director of the Major Taylor Project, where we're reminded just how much a caring mentor and a bicycle can change a child's life.

Favorites of mine? Check out Riain Callahan's photography in the Dita Vox piece. Everyone here at The REVIEW is enamored with her work and the Dita piece is (sorry to be redundant) on the next level. This issue's Chronicles of NikWick is particularly funny and in the Life of HARM column, someone finally tells Dan exactly what so many of his readers have been praying he'd someday hear.

Thanks for reading.
Enjoy.

The Yoga Sisters, Angela DiMario & Jillia Baumgardner, arrived at the interview for this feature pedaling a tandem bicycle. Painted a sparkly blue, their ride was a fitting metaphor: healthy and fun, riding a tandem is possible as a solo venture, but is a far superior experience when outfitted with the proper partner.

Angela and Jillia were born to a pair of entrepreneurial parents.

Their mother, a distributor for Anheuser-Busch, eventually launched & sold a highly successful beverage company that specialized in bottled water. Their father, an apparent Renaissance man, followed many entrepreneurial passions which culminated in over a dozen businesses.

 gWe got to see all the different hats.h says Jillia, commenting on the various roles a businessperson often needs to gwearh to succeed in their business...

gWe are taking this to the top,h Dita Vox said to me. She was sitting on a worn couch; the patterns in the fabric were sun-bleached beyond recognition. The couch nestled on a balcony, extruding from an old condemned house, perched back from a busy arterial street, forming a hidden cove to watch the tide of traffic-light controlled cars passing by.

Beneath this porch crouched the basement, formed into a labyrinth by the numerous speakers and instruments stacked haphazardly about. This is where Dita Vox and her prominent Seattle band, Thee Emergency, create their music.

I sat across from Dita, the low sun occasionally burning into my eyes as I watched her paint her nails another thick coat of black. Her large aviator glasses pushed back into the long chopped up Mohawk; wavy, her bangs--dyed pink and black--hung into her shadowy brown eyes; her pupils seemed to disappear into her irises, and her irises then blended into her soft, dark tan skin...

When I met with Ed Ewing, director of the Major Taylor Project--an after-school cycling program--he made one thing very clear, gDude, this is absolutely not my show. Sooooo many people have pitched in to make this thing happen. Itfs been a team effort since day one.h

And as Ed recounts the story of the Major Taylor Project, that theme remains true.

Despite individual influences that are as personal as his parents and as public as President Barack Obama himself, the culmination of the Major Taylor Project has indeed been a team effort. In fact, the effort of those many people coming together is analogous to that of a team in a bicycle race; the pack worked together to give Ed a draft, setting him up to break away and forge ahead with the teamfs support as they push towards a spectacular finale.

Edfs an easy character to spot in the Northwest cycling scene. Hefs often the only African American racer at most bike races. The programfs namesake, Major Taylor, also African American, was a world champion cyclist in the late 1800fs and early 1900fs...