Celebrities? Who cares?

I really don't give a crap about celebrities.

This isn't a new thought, from me or anyone else. But I had this particular epiphany yesterday while sitting in a doctor's waiting room, desperate for reading material. I picked up People Magazine (the best choice among some really poor offerings) and scanned it, trying to find something of interest. Except for looking at the book and movie review section, I got to the back of the magazine without much interruption.

Because: I don't care who wears what, or what their kid looks like when they haul them out annually for a grocery store jaunt. I don't care if someone I don't know and will never meet has broken up with their boyfriend or if she (it's always she) has put on some pounds. Why should I or anyone else?

A friend once told me she read People Magazine because it had its finger on the pulse of what America was about. That was back in the days when PM carried stories of real-life heroes and deal-makers. But there was nothing like that in the issue I skimmed through yesterday--unless reality stars are our new everyday-type folks.

Having ignored celebrity culture for awhile, it all seemed, well, silly. I am never going to be able to afford a couture dress, so why should I care who wore Valentino or Dior to a gala? Am I supposed to feel envy, or that I'm in on something, sharing that particular, spectacular moment? Or, am I supposed to feel falsely superior when the scrutinized person fails to live up to a near-unreachable standard?

There is so much entertainment news--on TV, in print, and on the web. It's disheartening that this is what passes as knowledge for many people these days. They can't name the birds or flowers in their yard, yet they can name J Lo's latest love interest. It gets us all nowhere; perhaps it's to keep our minds off melting ice caps or the evolving oligarchy.

Thank goodness my other doctor's office carries The New Yorker...

The omnivorous reader

In order to pursue my Goodreads challenge this year (a target of 20 books, with a self-imposed limit of books written by women), I neglected to read anything not within the confines of a book cover. Magazines piled up, one story issues remained unopened, newspapers were recycled before I unfolded them.

I love books but I am an omnivorous reader--I like to read anything, especially magazines. I wish there was something like Goodreads that would let me also note significant stories/articles*--not to get credit for it by way of a challenge, but to just remember what and who I have read.

I suppose that's what Facebook or Google+ are for--to link to articles you've read or proclaim the talents of writers you like, but I would prefer something more private and individual. There's the possibility of jotting down notes and names on index cards or even keeping a spreadsheet of everything significant I've read, but it seems like too much work--and I probably would lose track of them. There's also the Pocket app--but it lets you keep track of online articles only.

Perhaps this begs the question: must everything be noted? For me, it's not about tooting my own horn but my need for a vehicle that lets me remember who I've read and liked so that I can find other works by them, given my poor memory for names.

By the way, I didn't reach my goal of 20 books, mostly because I chose really long books this year. I read more than 6,000 words in 16.5 books. Fortunately, Goodreads allowed me to edit my goal, even on the last day of the challenge, in nearly the last hour, so that 16 suddenly became my goal and my accomplishment.

[The illustration above shows what I read. I tried to choose a mix of popular and more literary books, in addition to one on technique. It was really about the enjoyment of reading versus reading things to boast about.]


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* After I finished writing this, I looked around Goodreads and found that a few issues of one story have been listed there (including the Jim Shepard story I noted in a 2012 post). I'm not sure if the Goodreads staff has added them or if readers can add them. I'll look around and update this post accordingly...

Writers Ask

I am planning a couple of posts about the newsletter, Writers Ask (WA), published by Glimmer Train Press. I am describing it a little, in this initial post, so I won't have to keep referencing it.

WA continually offers something I had wanted to do on this blog (going beyond my occasional interviews with individual/creative people)—it asks multiple writers about the particulars of their craft. For example, the most recent issue,  Issue 58, asks 13 writers (including T.C. Boyle and Ann Patchett) questions on "Theme."

It's a little pricey—$22 for four issues a year.  I'd thought I wouldn't renew it in the New Year, to save some money. But in that recent Theme section, writer Aaron Gwyn said: "Show me a list of the masterpieces of world literature and I'll show you a list of trouble." He goes on to prove it by describing several novels succinctly in this way, e.g., Ullysses: "you're the only Jewish guy in Dublin and someone is dating your wife and doing a very fine job of it." Just with that little bit of text I realized what is wrong with the fiction I've been writing recently—no trouble, no conflict, no plot.

It was also through WA that I made my way to Michael Cunningham. I had resisted him, for some reason, after watching the movie version of "The Hours." But in Issue 57 (Fall 2012), under the theme "Place and Setting," he was asked about the futuristic, drone-filled world he had created in his novella "Like Beauty." Intrigued, I checked out the audio book for Specimen Days (the novella is part of its trilogy), read by Alan Cummings. The ending of its first novella, "In The Machine," was so good I found myself wanting to get out of the car to stand up and applaud.

The newsletter is maddeningly (at least to this former librarian) unorganized. I wish there was some kind of paper index or online metafilter for the topics and authors that have appeared on its pages thus far (I've asked the editors if they would consider doing that someday). Until then, I'll read every page, and take notes, looking forward to it as a wonderful surprise that arrives in my mailbox every three months.

A moment of serendipity in the laundromat

Due to our ongoing septic problems, I've been going to the laundromat a lot this summer. I like watching families doing their laundry together and women looking after each other's children and, especially, visiting the adjacent Mexican food truck. It is a far less lonely pursuit than running up and down the stairs to my laundry room, where I've stood alone many evenings folding warm laundry straight from the dryer.

The other benefit is that the laundromat offers me one of the few occasions these days to just sit and guiltlessly read. Unless I've gone out to the food truck for cilantro- and radish-filled tacos, I must sit and wait 43 minutes until the final spin. It was with this aim that I went to the laundromat yesterday morning after rushing to drop E-girl off at school. To my dismay, I found I was without either a book to read or a pad of paper to write on. The three flatscreen TVs on the laundromat walls were all tuned to Spanish-speaking stations, with captions also in Spanish; no free newspapers were scattered on tables there, as they had been on weekend afternoons. It was going to be a wasted hour, with nothing to do, and no one else to watch. But then, fumbling through my purse, I found the two most recent copies of One Story magazine. So the next half-hour was spent reading His Other Fathers—the words like a snack for a ravenous child.

Yes, I could have had a Kindle with me and, therefore, potential access to hundreds of books. But I am still resisting the lure of the eReader partly because I think I would miss those occasional serendipitous moments where you read whatever you have on hand.  My resistance is also because having an array of books always at my fingertips might give me that anxious feeling I used to get in bookstores: all those books calling out to me at once. Given too many choices, like when I receive a stack of books for Christmas or have a pile of New Yorkers to read, I often don't read at all, going outside to garden or walk—or I'll read what is quick and easily accessible, like that day's newspapers. I feel the weight of words, and (now, more and more) the limits of time pressing against me.

Publisher Profile: Sy Safransky

The following interview was 23 years in the making.

In 1988, while taking a graduate-level journalism course at UNC-Chapel Hill, I interviewed three local small press publishers for (what turned out to be) a never-published story—one of them was Sy Safransky, publisher of The Sun. In retrospect, I’m surprised and honored that Safransky took the time to speak with me, given the fact that he was, at that time, putting in more than 60 hours a week at The Sun’s offices, doing everything from answering the phone, reading the mail, and talking with and giving advice to writers, and I was without press credentials and assured publication.

In case you don’t already know, The Sun is a monthly, ad-free magazine that publishes “thoughtful and authentic” interviews, stories and essays. It publishes some of the best literary work in the country; several of its pieces have been chosen for the Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories collections and the magazine has won the Pushcart Prize. It began life as a self-published magazine that Safransky sold out of his backpack on the streets of Chapel Hill. When I began reading it in the late 1970s, it still had a funky, homegrown feeling (it used line drawings by local artists and stock clip art). Today The Sun reaches more than 70,000 subscribers and is printed on glossy paper, with beautiful black and white photos featured in each issue.

Back in 1988, The Sun had two full-time staff members with additional volunteers helping to get it out. Today it has 13 full-time and seven part-time staff members. It has moved from the small, sun-yellow house on Rosemary Street, where the initial interview took place, to a house around the corner that a staff member in an email said is still “quiet and homey… with creaky hardwood floors, warm colors, photos, and old magazine covers adorning the walls” but which has enough room to accommodate its larger staff.

Note: Unlike other interviews that have appeared on this blog, this is not in a straight Q and A format since the original interview notes are gone, converted to newspaper-style write-up. Instead, it’s a hybrid of (excerpts from) the original write up and years-later follow-up questions.

[May 1988]

The Chapel Hill-based The Sun is so much a part of Sy Safransky's life that it is sometimes hard to separate the man from the magazine.

"I print what seems important to me, what moves me, what honors the human heart,” he said in interview at the magazine office. Safransky, a tall and lanky man, sat crosswise in his chair, speaking in thoughtful sentences, pausing to stroke his beard.

Safransky said he is more concerned about the honesty and feeling a writer is able to convey in a ·piece than he is about writing technique. In the past, that kind of heartfelt sincerity often was expressed in reference to spirituality and mysticism. Safransky said that the magazine is moving away from the self-conscious spirituality that used to characterize it.

"I believe that the less you announce yourself along those lines, the more effective or persuasive you're able to be," he said.

For him, the magazine doesn't fit any particular genre. It is always evolving, always open to new ideas and possibilities, he said. Its identity is made up of its writers and its readers, its time and its place in the culture, he said. Many readers write in to share their opinions on a prescribed topic, such as "Obstacles to Peace" or "Taking Risks."

Safransky was drawn to the idea of publishing his own magazine because he thought that it would allow him the freedom of expression he had missed while working as a journalist for a Long Island newspaper for three years after graduating from Columbia University with an M.S. in Journalism. Quoting Ben Bagdikian, he said drolly, “Trying to be a good writer on the average newspaper is like playing Bach on the ukulele.” Writing for The Sun allows him the time to be the kind of writer and editor he always wanted to be, he said.

"There's nothing I'd rather be doing," he said. "I feel tremendously blessed. I am always challenged and always rewarded."

[Interview by email-May 2011]

When I interviewed you in 1988, you had 5,000 subscribers; you now have 70,000. To what do you attribute the growth? Do you think going ad-free helped?

The magazine’s growth was due largely to our direct mail campaigns. Thanks to a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, we were able to market the magazine nationally by sending out brochures to potential subscribers. We continue to do this today, always aiming to be conscientious with the mailings by using recycled paper and keeping the materials to a minimum.

The readership has also grown by word of mouth. Many Sun readers are fiercely loyal to the magazine; they share the magazine with friends and family and colleagues, who become readers themselves.

The Sun discontinued carrying ads around the time our readership reached 10,000. This was when we could have raised advertising rates and really started profiting from the revenue. But the possibility of publishing a reader-supported magazine with absolutely no advertising was far more intriguing to me. After all, ads interrupt the emotional current of the magazine and clamor for the reader’s attention, distracting from the heart of the writing. Dropping advertising allowed for an uncommon atmosphere of intimacy in our pages. I think that also helped The Sun’s subscription base grow.


You also said in the prior interview that the magazine was moving away from the “self-conscious spirituality that used to characterize it.” Would you say this has happened and, if so, do you think it has attributed to the growth in readership?

Yes, the magazine has gotten away from the kind of self-conscious spiritual writing that wears God on its sleeve. But we still run philosophical and metaphysical work that’s thoughtful, well tempered, and emotionally evocative, and occasional interviews with spiritual teachers and thinkers. In fact, we now have a section called the “Dog-Eared Page,” which consists of a short but uplifting excerpt from a classic work of literature. Often this section will feature one to two pages of writing that is overtly spiritual – by teachers and preachers and spiritual luminaries – but it’s just as likely to feature a literary excerpt. Our Sunbeams page – the last page of the magazine, featuring quotes arranged on a particular theme – often includes quotes of a transcendent nature. So while the overt spirituality has been toned down, the deeper intention is the same: to honor the mystery at the heart of existence.

I’m not sure how this has affected our readership. We very rarely hear complaints about the content being “too spiritual” or “not spiritual enough,” and the Dog-Eared Page and Sunbeams pages are usually well received.


How do you know when a submission is right for The Sun? Is there anything particular that you expect from a writer/submission, or do you like to be surprised?

I’m drawn to writing about love and loss and betrayal and compassion, writing that honors our fundamental connectedness. I like writers who are brave enough to be honest and vulnerable. A unique, accessible, engaging writing voice can also be important. If a manuscript stays with me long after I’ve read it, that’s a good sign. But I don’t have a list of qualifications or some rubric that I expect writers to stick to. I do like to be surprised.


Is there a common trait that characterizes the pieces that run in The Sun now? Would you say you’re still looking for writing that “honors the human heart”?

Yes, I’m still looking for such writing. Most pieces in the magazine read like a meaningful, heartfelt conversation with an old friend.

AVSM Flashback: Birke R. Duncan

 AVSM Flashback is a new and occasional feature in which I'll reconnect with the people who once appeared in the pages of my publication, a very small magazine.


During my self-appointed tenure as a small magazine publisher, I came to dread the once-a-week task of opening  the submissions that were sent me. Most were tedious, poorly written prose and poems that weren’t worth my time or even the amount of postage used to send them.

So it was with delight when I opened an envelope and found quirky gems like Birke R. Duncan’s “Passage of a Moudlyn,” a short, humorous essay in which the narrator pays tribute to his comrade and cousin, Norman Henry Moudlyn. I happily printed it in a very small magazine, issue 18, in 1992.

The last issue of the magazine was published in 1997 and I lost contact with most of my contributors over the years. Then, a year or so ago, Duncan wrote me out of the blue and asked for permission to convert the Moudlyn story into a radio play. I was charmed that he would even ask, since the magazine no longer existed. Since then, “Monty Moudlyn: Founder of the Hug Brigade” has played on select public radio stations across the country. [I am pleased that the back of its CD cover states: “Based on the stories published in A Very Small Magazine, The Ecphorizer, and www.ecphorizer.com.”]

I asked him Duncan recently about how he found AVSM, how he supports his writing habits, and what else he has in the works.

Birke R. Duncan

Do you write for a living or do something else?
I sell suits for a living. One shop was so dysfunctional that it has formed the basis of a stage play, "Wolfsbane in Mocha," which I'll produce locally this summer. I advise all aspiring writers to get a job they hate, because all fiction arises from conflict.

How did you find AVSM?
I found AVSM in the "Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses."

What prompted you to write "Passage of a Moudlyn"?
It was in a creative writing class in the winter of 1989. The professor was a novelist named David Shields. He told us to write a funeral eulogy. At first, I started writing something serious, but then went for humor. The main character was based on an eccentric friend.

How did you go about turning it into a radio play?
At the time, I had spent several months producing the complicated thriller, "Riders of the Three-Toed Horse." It had bogged down in tedious sound effects mixing. I did "Monty Moudlyn" to give myself a break. A friend has a studio in his sound-proofed basement. We concocted most of the sound effects ourselves.

How did you distribute to radio stations (or get word out about it)?
I looked up audiotheater.com , which has a mostly outdated list of radio troupes. I then emailed the groups, to see if they'd like to hear the CD.

How many stations have played it so far? So far, to my knowledge, two stations have aired it: WFHB "Fire House Theater" in Bloomington, IN, and KUNM "Albuquereque Radio Theater" in New Mexico. Writer/director/host Fred Greenhalgh says he will air "Monty Moudlyn" some day on WMPG "Radio Drama Revival."

Have you made other radio plays or non-print creations?
"Monty Moudlyn" was my penultimate radio drama. The last was "Union of the Snake." A short film version of two other Monty stories goes into production in March.

Zines live!

I thought that zines were dead — or, at least, had mostly migrated to the Web — until I happened to visit Internationalist Books in downtown Chapel Hill last week. Maybe this was a surprise only because there are no independent bookstores within easy driving distance of my home in Maryland (save for the tiny bookshop that is more gift shop than book nook). But there in the back of the narrow store was a bookshelf of tiny, amateur-looking magazines with black and white graphics.

It's hard to describe the feelings that rushed over me in that moment—déjà vu, relief, hope and maybe, almost, happiness. It was wonderful to see a group of folks still stubbornly bucking the trend toward electronic publishing, even reveling in their primitive publication methods. Of the four zines I bought, one was typed on a typewriter and photocopied, another was hand set on a printing press, another was hand-assembled, its pages stapled unevenly.

I admire the publishers' perseverance, though I know I'm unlikely to go down that road again myself.

If every action has a counter-action then my purchase of those four zines was perhaps balanced (or weakened) the same day when I downloaded the Kindle App for the iPod I received for Christmas. Already I've put Pride and Prejudice (free) on it and a collection of poetry (also free) from the Poetry Foundation. My excuse is that I sometimes find myself waiting in doctors' offices with nothing to read except a stack of People magazines on the table beside me, mad at myself that I've forgotten to put a book or small magazine in my purse. I tell myself it's better that I'm reading poetry rather than news of Snooki or real housewives, but I'm not sure that I'm innocent of the murder of paper publishing as I flip the digital pages with a flick of my finger...

Suggested gifts for writers, or those who love good writing

Anyone who really knows me understands that I am not the biggest fan of the Christmas season. I dislike the annual frenzied, consumer-driven ritual it has become, and the constant, media-inflicted we-must-save-the-American-economy guilt.

However, if you love Christmas and/or feel the need to buy gifts, you might as well support good writing, and publications that deserve to continue. [Note: These are not paid promotions...]  Here are a few of the things I am giving to others and to myself:

I Just Lately Started Buying Wings is by Writing Home friend, Kim Dana Kupperman.
    "In this collection of essays, Kupperman looks at major life events—divorce, death, falling in love—with a candor and wisdom that gently places the reader into scenes from her life. We experience her mother's crazed neglect, her father's distance, a new lover's exquisite beauty. ...Kupperman proves that she has found her own wings, and is soaring." [from my Amazon.com review]
     For more on this book, see the NYT book review and NYT Paper Cuts interview with Kim.

A wonderful surprise arrives in my mailbox every three weeks in the form of one story magazine, which provides just what it says—one short story—in a pocketbook-sized issue. While other short story markets continue to dry up, OS keeps plugging away, publishing more than 140 short stories since 2002. I have to admit that it's the size that prompted me to subscribe to it—it's just a little bigger than the early issues of my own (defunct) a very small magazine. But it's the stories that keep me reading and wanting more.

Amazingly, The Sun magazine has been continuously publishing intelligent writing since the mid-1970s and, in recent years, without the support of advertisements. What began for publisher Sy Syfransky as a venture put together in a friend's garage and hawked from his backpack on the streets of Chapel Hill, N.C., is now a respected prize-generating enterprise; stories and essays from The Sun are regularly picked for Pushcart, Best American..., and other publishing awards.
      The long interview, at the front of the magazine, is almost always provocative and interesting; "Readers Write," at the back of the magazine, offers lyrical glimpses into readers' lives; and the fiction and essays in the center of the magazine showcase some of the best writing around. My only criticism of The Sun is that is can veer toward the dark and depressing a little too often. But not to read it is to miss out on things that feel important and necessary.
    The Sun is currently struggling, it seems, to stay afloat, requesting contributions and suggesting that subscribers give friends gift subscriptions. So, if you subscribe to The Sun (as a present to yourself), consider also giving gift subscriptions to people you know who cherish good writing.

Stephen Colbert's advice on saving the publishing industry

In case you didn't see it a few days ago, The Colbert Report vividly described the last, desperate option available to the magazine industry.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cosmo Is Available in Mongolia
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

How can we read good prose when we're reading so much junk?

As my daughter and I stood in line at the grocery store yesterday, facing a display of magazines including Us, People, and The National Enquirer, she asked: "Why are people interested in reading about all these celebrities and made-up stuff?"

"Well," I said, unloading food from my cart onto the conveyer belt, "I think people like to read about celebrities for a couple of reasons. Making fun of how the celebrities look or what the celebrities wear makes people feel better about themselves."

"That's not very nice," E-girl said. "And it's dumb."

"Yeah, it's dumb," I replied, "but what's dumber is when people read about celebrities and think they really know something. That's what they know and share with people."

"I don't want to read about it," she said simply. I would have given her a big hug and kiss at that moment if the cashier wasn't ready and the grocery cart wasn't between us.

Would it be hypocritical at this point to confess that I read People magazine whenever I'm sitting in a doctor's waiting room? Reading it occasionally is like a trivia challenge, trying to guess why people are it in. I can recognize rock stars and most actors. But Snooki and all these "real" housewives? I don't know why they are important enough to merit my time, or a magazine cover. What have they done besides appear on TV?

Women's magazines used to publish short stories, but now they fill those pages with celebrity profiles. Sigh.

I looked at the rack of magazines and wondered at how much effort had gone into producing them—the writers, photographers, editors—and how, as far as I was concerned, it was all for naught, for no real value. Was there one paragraph with valuable information, one sentence of beautiful prose, in the entire rack of them?

Where are the writers who once might have written the short stories and essays for national publications? The lucky ones have retreated to literary magazines, the luckiest to The New Yorker and a few other journals that actually pay. The rest of us, to blogs.

Follow-up: The Last Page (one more thing I like about Smithsonian Magazine)

I failed to mention one of my favorite features in Smithsonian Magazine in my June 25th post: The Last Page, a one-page humorous essay that has appeared in the magazine for several years now. I often turn to it first when I pick up a new issue. Some of my favorite recent pieces include Green Eggs and Salmonella? ("Beware the hidden hazards lurking within popular children's books"); and Words to Remember ("Amanda McKittrick Ros predicted she would achieve lasting fame as a novelist").

I can't find a direct link to its archive on the magazine's web site, but you can hunt it down online two ways:

• Go to the full issue magazine Archive, click on each individual issue, and look for The Last Page as the last listed item, or
• Try your luck with an advanced search I devised on Google, searching for The-Last-Page as part of the URL (this may not bring up everything).

It's also worth noting that The Last Page is cited on many writers' web sites as an excellent potential market for humor writers and essayists—probably because, right now, it pays $1,000 for accepted pieces, according to the magazine's The Last Page Humor Column Writer's Guidelines.

Magazines I actually read: Smithsonian Magazine

Those who are regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I've been referencing Smithsonian magazine in recent posts. The reason is simple—my in-laws give us a membership to the Smithsonian every year, and the magazine comes free with the membership. But only in recent months have I become a steady and appreciative reader.

Unlike the New Yorker, the Smithsonian arrives in my mailbox once a month—perhaps it's most important characteristic for this harried reader. But the magazine also features gorgeous photographs (which, yes, means less text to burn through in one sitting) and, even better, frequent articles on literature and/or authors.

One of its regular features, "My Kind of Town," invites prominent authors to write about their hometowns or adopted cities. (You can access the feature from this link, and search past articles both geographically and alphabetically, by author. From this site you can also upload your own "My Kind of Town" submission, both text and photos.)

Recent articles written by and about well-known writers have included:

• Going Home Again (March 2010) - Joyce Carol Oates writes about the upstate New York town that influences much of her work;

• Mark Twain in Love (May 2010) The woman who, for Twain, was like Dante's Beatrice;

• Harper Lee's Novel Achievement (June 2010) [This was referenced in my June 21st post]

You can search its online archive for articles on:

• Books
• American Writers
• Literature (a broader subject category than books or American writers )

A full electronic archive of the magazine is available, from 2007 to the present.

However, despite my promotion of the magazine's web site, for me it's still a publication that is best approached tactilely, letting the pages fall open to a beautiful photograph or an unexpected revelation.

Catching up on a little reading...

In the early 90s, when I was working at the U.S. General Accounting Office, I sometimes brought a bag lunch from home and took it down to the dungeon-like lunchroom that had been set up for library staff. Usually there would be a woman sitting there, intently reading the Washington Post, too busy to talk to anyone else.

I admired her dedication. She started with the front section and worked her way through every page, in page order, section by section. I seem to remember her running her index finger under the type, making sure she caught everything. Then one day I realized that K. wasn't reading that day's Washington Post, but one from three months previous.

When I asked her about this, she said, "I didn't get to read it then, so I'm reading it now." Oh, I thought, she must bring papers to work that she missed reading at home. That's a good idea. No fear of losing a fresh paper in the shuffle to and from work. But the next time I saw her, she was reading another Post from almost exactly three months before from that day's date.

"I'm three months behind," she said, when I asked her why. "So I'm reading them in order." She then explained that she wouldn't read any current issue until she had finished all the previous issues. K. was still doing this when I left a couple of years later. Her news was always three months old—the weather forecast was for the wrong season, the movie listings were useless, the people in the obituaries long buried.

If I had more time or imagination, I would make K. a character in a short story. But I don't, so I'm leaving her here (though I imagine that Joyce Carol Oates, if she had read this far, would already know K.'s fictional destiny).

What brings me to write about her is that I have a similar relationship with the New Yorker. I subscribed to the New Yorker full of hope and excitement a couple of years ago (taking advantage of the unbelievable offer of $25/year). The best magazine in the United States would soon be coming to my mailbox. I eagerly started reading the first issue that arrived, but too soon the next arrived, and then the next.

I tucked a couple of issues here and there—in my beach bag, in a reading basket in the bathroom, in the car. But it was no use. It felt like I was waging a losing battle, each new arrival a fresh defeat.

I let the subscription run out. Now a pile of two-year-old New Yorkers hovers above me on a tall shelf. I can't throw them out because they're too full of good writing to just toss them into the recycling bin.

Another bargain offer to the New Yorker arrived in the mail last week; I was so tempted to check "yes" and mail it back, but that pile of unread NYers taunted me. I tell myself that I don't want to turn into K., so I let them gather dust. Yet perhaps such neglect is a fate worse than hers, for at least she tried to continue the task, no matter how desperate or impossible it grew to be.