Sarah Perry

March 7, 2012 -- Forget the gleaming stainless steel skyscrapers. Forget the latest recording equipment, overpaid executives, and auto-tuning. Walk by the ramshackle red-brick build­ing on 115 Troutman Street in Brooklyn, and hear those riveting R&B vocals pouring from the other side of the door. The window might be cracked, dirt-smeared and stained, the awning hanging at an awkward angle. But those voices, they’re coming from a deep place, and they have an uncanny power to move, captivate, and transform.

Fall 2011 issue -- When he graduated from college, Dennis Byrd did the unexpected: he negotiated a deal to take over a failing beachfront restaurant. Byrd was familiar with The Spot: four years prior he had worked various jobs there, including busboy, cook, dishwasher, delivery man, and cashier. “I knew immediately, [the restaurant business] is what I wanted to do,” he recalls. Since then the restaurant had fallen into disrepair. The kitchen was a cluttered mess of malfunctioning equipment, and even the menu board was in disarray, with paper taped over every other item listed.

Fall 2011 issue -- The biggest moment of her life was about to arrive, and Katie Torpey didn’t even care. It was a Saturday night in Los Angeles, and Katie and her husband had dinner plans with friends. Katie, an award-winning screenwriter, was about to have her splash on the big screens when her movie, The Perfect Man, starring Hillary Duff and Chris Noth, debuted in movie theaters across the United States. Katie had worked for this moment for decades, bartending her way through film school, selling scripts that went nowhere but trash cans.

Summer 2011 isssue -- She stood on a bank of snow with an outstretched hand and decades of hope. It had snowed for seven straight days and three-foot drifts lined the tiny town. The woman walked the streets every day, inching along on a cheap wooden cane. Her feet were wrapped in cloth tennis shoes. She wore flowered dresses and draped her head in scarves. Her face was the color of sandpaper and creases had etched their way around her eyes and cheeks years ago.

Summer 2011 -- One decision can change so much.

Sidebar to: A River Ran Through ItSpring 2011 -- The beauty of eastern Kentucky was never apparent to me until I moved to Texas and didn’t see flowers bloom for two years. I flew home during summer for the first time in 2010 and was astounded by the beauty. The leaves were mint-green, the grass was as soft as my mother’s voice.

Photos by Josh Birnbaum