RIP Let’s Stab Caesar!

Let’s Stab Caesar! was a five-pronged project that was active from 2021 to 2025, consisting of five issues built by René, Sophia, Marisa, Ara, and Mckenna (see “Assembly”). Our swan-song volume was titled the The Sacred Edition, which was a print exclusive (you can indulge in the penultimate issue (and personal favorite) online, though, here). One of the taglines of this magazine from the beginning has been: “overthrow all that claims to be sacred.” It was always meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek (or even tongue-in-throat)—a jab at the hyper-standardized, hyper-commodified, sexless, sanctimonious world of modern publishing—but our ultimate aim, realized here, has been to sanctify what truly matters, what connects us to each other and to the world. Once you’ve scraped away all of the oppressive forces, atomizing categories, and false idols, what’s left? What fills the space where we’re left wandering together?

All that remains is what’s sacred.

The idea of the sacred has been muddled by wealth, by individualism, by moral posturing, by commodities. What we mean by the sacred is what transcends these obsessions with self, social climbing, and the meaningless flow of capital. Something is sacred when, amid all the bustle and noise and endless posts and TikToks and texts and press conferences and Zoom calls, it forces you, finally, to fall silent. The sacred reminds you of your being, of being alive. Simone Weil: “It is neither his person, nor the human personality in him, which is sacred to me. It is he. The whole of him. The arms, the eyes, the thoughts, everything.” To Weil, and to us, the sacred is a wholeness, an appreciation for the fabric of life, and it must be protected against all odds. As such, we want our lasting volumes, proffered here in their digital reliquaries, to serve as protection for that ineffable sacredness, as we carry your art with us to the place where all magazines go after they’ve published their last issue—not quite Heaven, but maybe something close to it.

Amen.

—René & Sophia