As we sit down to write this, our very first blog post on SCREE, we are bom­barded with a whirl­wind of images: the first step on the moon, Al Jolson’s first words on screen in The Jazz Singer, that moment when Fezzik saw Wes­ley first wig­gle his lit­tle fin­ger after being “mostly dead all day”…. While we observe these voices and pic­tures, all spin­ning and twirling past us like Phyl­lis Diller on shrooms, we can’t help but won­der what it took to get to those ini­tial state­ments. They sound so spon­ta­neous and inspired, and yet we sus­pect Neil Arm­strong spent hours on that trip decid­ing what his first relay back to Earth would be. When it came down to it, was he more ner­vous about the actual first step for mankind—or what he would say when he got there? And how many crum­pled bar nap­kins got tossed on the floor before the famous lines, “Wait a minute, Wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” were uttered?

All this is to say that it feels both impor­tant and like a whole lot of pres­sure to write a very first blog post for this mag­a­zine, which we have worked so hard on. And yet, in truth, we could not be more excited. Metaphor­i­cally, it’s what SCREE is all about, after all—taking that first step toward your dream. And like Neil, Al and, yes, even Fezzik, the utter­ance was not con­ceived in an instant. It was care­fully thought out, deliv­ered and fol­lowed through on. And while JFK may have ulti­mately killed the space pro­gram with his haste, the point is that none of these peo­ple deliv­ered their first line…and then sat down. They were in it for the long haul.

As are we.

As are you.

So, wel­come to SCREE. Let’s climb this beast of a hill together.