Once there was a genii. No, wait. There was a bottle. No, a lamp. Actually, there was first a young fool who loved nothing better than to read. He read and he read, as soon as he knew how, from the time he rose in the morning to the time he retired at night, and even thereafter, under the covers with a pilfered flashlight. And he grew up, still loving to read, and he went to school to learn how to read even better. He so loved to read that he survived the education with his love of reading intact, and he married a woman who loved to read, and they had two children to whom they recited or read poems and stories every night before bed and very early on gave them a flashlight each without saying what for. And he gathered with friends who loved to read, and even by now — wonder! — to write. And he and his friends made it their life’s passion to nurture reading and writing in every way they could. Each of their nurturing acts was a brick — so they thought — in a wall you could see through and yet lean on for support. The youngster grew old but never stopped being a fool for reading. There is a genii still, but it stays in the lamp. Who would ever want it out? Wish in one hand, shit in the other, after all, see which fills up first. No, the genii is in there, that’s understood, but it never comes out, not even after a lifetime of rubbing up that lamp with a care born of great love. The lamp looks good though.

— A message of congratulations from Brick Books to all at Brick magazine on the “splendid achievement” of their 25th anniversary