The online version of the Bohemian that you are currently looking at only came to be about a month before the global quarantine and I’m sure that it goes without saying that a lot of our plans went out the window: plans for this website, for the House of Ease, and for living generally disease free. Having more time to sit and think than I have ever had in my Millennial adult life has been a great boon in that it has allowed me to remember how we got here to reassess where we’re going. For those that don’t know, The Bohemian Monthly was once a print magazine started by some Johns Hopkins’ graduates tying to say something about a world that we were just thrown into. I would tell you the story, but I think our founders could tell it better than I ever could. What I can say is that we have digitized and the three print issues of The Bohemian Monthly and I hope you enjoy this snapshot of Baltimore history following letters from our founders.

Dear The Bohemian Reader,

How very nice to meet you again, in a different form. We’ve both grown up since we released our last issue from our little magazine project. It’s funny for me to be back here, and to reflect on how this magazine shaped an important decade of my life. The Bohemian has become my love letter to a city that raised me.

My dad passed away 6 months before The Bohemian’s ambitious, surreal, inception. He and I both began significant life chapters in the same city – he as a bachelor immigrant starting his new chapter in the States 8,160 miles from home, me as a new adult starting college in the city I’d grown up only visiting. Same novelty, different wonders in two very different Baltimore’s. His Baltimore didn’t even have the Inner Harbor, as we know it, yet. And instead of staying up late and trading stories with him about this city we both loved, I had the privilege to share my “pretty Baltimore cool” discoveries in this 3 a.m. magazine: the quiet, underrated awesome.

Although The Bohemian stopped production, my exploration of the funky and weird in Baltimore was just beginning. I put down my pen, walked out into the city, and listened. I met incredible artists, creators, and dreamers. Every week brought a new person to meet, a new angle to explore, a new project to brainstorm (and with it, often a new Baltimore pun). For me, the spirit of The Bohemian was very alive in Baltimore, in its passionate and brilliant social justice thinkers, dedicated and unwavering community builders. I felt an incredible loss when I moved away from the city, shortly after the Baltimore uprising. I stopped writing. But as I’ve tentatively reconstructed my voice, the most meaningful lesson I’ve learned about our communities is this: we are resilient. And we are not done telling our story.

I recall an anecdote of someone saying at the old Bohemian Coffee House: “Baltimore is a place where people get weird and then they leave.” I do believe that people feel it in our diaspora of whimsical charm, whether they are the transient passers-by, the shorter-term transplants, or the lifelong residents.

Baltimore is gritty, it’s got grit. My memories from my time there are starting to fade, much like an “I was here” etching in an Ottobar bathroom door, or these weathered pages from our almost decade-old magazine project. I feel so fortunate that I was here, producing a magazine with a wonderful community that banded together for each issue. And I believe that “very Baltimore spirit” of resilience and creative beauty is present in our new leadership.

Keep reading, keep dreaming.

Boh-bye.

Payal Patnaik

In 2010, we created The Bohemian as a love letter to Baltimore. I saw it as a celebration of the energy, creativity, passion, and resilience of a city that had hosted me for three years, a city that I felt I was only just beginning to know. As a sheltered college student, I spent so little time, in retrospect, actually living in the Baltimore beyond my campus; I sampled, tasted, explored the thrift stores of Hampden, the late-night music scene of Station North, the arts and food and natural beauty around me, but my only offering back to the city was this magazine, a reflection of what my friends and peers saw in this place, a town that felt so full of possibility.

My time in Baltimore was fleeting. As a wide-eyed 22-year-old, I was heartbroken to realize that my dream was unsustainable, that I couldn't afford to publish The Bohemian after graduation; my peers were leaving our temporary home, and I soon followed. I've lived in Brooklyn for the past nine years, but Baltimore will always fill me with wonder. When I visit now, I return as a guest. In reality, I was always a guest--a tourist with a camera and microphone. I'm now honored to hand this project over to a group of creatives who are true Baltimoreans, who will build The Bohemian beyond the earnest gaze of undergraduates and into an expression of the community that they've cultivated, the environment they've sustained. Communities deserve to tell their own stories. This time, I can't wait to listen.

Yours,

Stephanie Delman

Our Bohemian Roots