Editrice Missive--When life gives you lemons, you know what time of year it is.

Editrice Liz never thought she would have to credit her mother in this note. But she paced back and forth downstairs, being bitter, trying to think of something to say on the squeezed dry topic of summer. “I don’t want to be as sour and depressing as I really feel,” she said. “Then no one will ever want to pick up this magazine, not even for the unabashed honesty of the editrices!” It was at this fateful juncture that the Mother Figure suggested lemonade, of which there was a convenient jug in the fridge.

And that’s the story, folks. If you like summer, you might like lemonade. And no, life hasn’t given us a freighterload of lemons lately. No more than the usual weekly delivery. Just can’t think of anything to say in the missive from the Editrices, that’s all. Well, this will be our longest issue yet—44 pages dripping with type—crap, they’re not supposed to be dripping—dammit Editrice Laura, how many times have I told you not to drink that stuff around the proofs? Now go get a towel and a glass for our mascot, and see if you can persuade it (often the gender of a toucan cannot be discerned without genetic testing) to stop smoking that stogie. We have a pulchritudinous specimen on the front, referring to the bird-bird, not the…bird. Clearly, we’ve lost our minds, so we’ll shut up now and tell you about the issue. And not our issues.

We had a little fun here, especially with the poems. We were feeling lighthearted before we started drinking lemonade. “Cash and Carry” has the rather fantastic distinction of being the only poem we know of containing the lines “And I burped!” And aren’t you just dying to know what on earth the creation of human emotion has to do with Oreo cookies? Or are you just hungry? Well then, better make sure “The Truth Fairy” hasn’t swiped any of yours…she has a nasty habit of doing that, you know.

Before we spread this fowl mood any further, we’d better go jump in the nearest lake. If you’re interested, and you know you are, Editrice Liz recently did an interview with Duotrope. Find it at http://www.duotrope.com/interview.aspx?id=4420. As always, check out our site at www.thetoucanonline.blogspot.com, and if you have anything to send our way, it should be going to thetoucanmag@gmail.com. We’re all full for fall, but why not shoot for a piece in the issue diametrically opposed to this one, AKA winter?

Summertime, and the magazine business is mildly aggravating. So we’re off to have an ice-cube fight.

The sweltering, sticky, occasionally sweet but more often sour editrices,

Liz and Laura (guess who's who)