This issue's Letter From the Editors was written by co-editor Kathleen. The theme for this issue serendipitously crystallized after she recounted to me a strange dream she had about ATA. History's secrets beckoned us from her dreams to look further into stories that would normally be dismissed as nostalgia for the '80s and to do the research that would take us even further beyond. Read on for the full story...
—Gilbert

This second issue of the ATA webzine was inspired by a dream about the hidden and forgotten spaces in ATA that had been covered up by furniture and time. In the dream, resident filmmaker Craig Baldwin (who has been at ATA since the early days) finally decided to move out after nearly two decades. Upon removing his possessions, we discovered all kinds of spaces and rooms in ATA that we never knew existed (including a whole other wing of the building with a coliseum behind the refrigerator!) During my conversation with ATA Co-founder Lise Swenson ("When Truth Meets Fiction," in this issue) she informed me that a dream like this signifies a search for something more within yourself–which of course makes perfect sense. I realized then how much ATA has affected me personally in the relatively short time that I have been involved with it, which made me think about how many other individuals there have been throughout the years who have been equally as affected. We also found out from Lise, almost by accident, that this year marks the 20th anniversary of ATA as we know it—which is no small feat! All of these bits of information eventually came together to form the inspiration and direction for this second issue of the ATA webzine, "Myths of Thee Underground." By turning a metaphorical dream back around on itself we ended up with a handful of stories about the history of alternative media in San Francisco that teetered between whatever reality went into creating them and the truths, the misunderstandings and the total leaps of logic that come with trying to make sense out of all of them at once. Our original intention was to present in this issue stories about San Francisco and more specifically the Mission District, but what happened was that the more we branched out, the more we ended up learning about ourselves (like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz). The stories we chose to include here were intended not to define anything specifically as historical information, but rather to enhance the history of a neighborhood and a community. It is our intention to negotiate the fine line between reality and the subconscience in our conveyance of that which is (or might be) San Francisco's alternative art and media underground.