075. ...jammed full of new discoveries.
(idea)
Kathleen bought me a fortnightly subscription to New Scientist. Thank you Kathleen! Plenty in there goes right over my head, I actually understand very little of the nitty gritty detail in the articles, but each page is a lovely nugget of hope. New ways of producing energy and food, fresh ideas about how our minds work, revelations on our predecessors or our connections to spiders. Not that last one so much. It’s jammed full of new discoveries, progress, curiosity and growth and reading an article or two a day is a wonderful addition to my routine.
In this week’s edition there’s an advert for the New Scientist January Sale shop where you can buy, amongst other things, binders for your collection. I struggle to see the point of branded anything but unnecessary merchandise, a thermos flask or whatever have you, proclaiming an association with a magazine seems particularly egoic. But I do like a binder… hmm.
I don’t want or need branded t-shirts, tote bags, travel mugs, calendars or masks but there's a definite appeal to keeping magazines tidy.
Mmmm biiiinders.
Look at the monolithic majesty of those. I can imagine Vader having those on his bookshelf.
I’ve had, at various points across my life, shelf space stacked with the Beano and Dandy, 2000AD, Loaded, The FACE, Computer Arts, Wired, Grand Designs, Wallpaper, World of Interiors, Empire, Adbusters and others. Even without the occasional dips back in, having magazines on the shelf is reassuring evidence of having read something current and a wee nod to myself, and for any guests, that says I’m a switched on chap who engages in culturally relevant thinking. It’s mid priced signalling isn’t it? A message to ourselves and others saying “this is who I am and I am living”.
Keeping those publications neat and vertical, in a binder, on the bookshelf will really show visitors to my home that I'm a serious intellectual on the cutting edge of curiosity, and neat!
Looking back on that list of magazines shows a timeline of my interests that suggests and charts my growth. I like that. I like the idea that, after a break from magazines, New Scientist might signpost the next chapter in my personal narrative. If I were collecting them I would definitely want them kept neat on the shelf, but I’m not going to collect them.
I’d be going back to gathering mags on a shelf for my own personal narrative or to project an image of myself to others, it’d be an ego project that I don't think is really necessary anymore; I do not need to hoard magazines. Or anything else for that matter.
So despite the bewitching appeal of a binder, NO.
Instead, I’m going to share them.
When I finish an edition I’ll pop it in an envelope and send it to my dad. Hello dad! That way he gets the benefits, albeit a week behind schedule, of the reading and we might have interesting subjects for future conversation. We might build a little habit of catching up over the phone and talking about developments in A.I. or microbiome health. We might muse on the possible impact of self cleaning photovoltaic paint used in an urban setting for energy generation.
In the envelope I’ll include a sticker with the address of the person I’d like him to send it on to when he’s finished reading. I’ll ask him to include a sticker with the address of someone he’d like the magazine passed on to next.
I realise I’m nominating two people in this nascent chain but I think that’s ok. The first links need to be strong. It’s about setting the thing up well. I need to get the ball rolling.
Each of us, as we finish reading and before we post it on, might write our names on the front cover. Over the lifespan of the magazine, as it’s passed from one reader to the next and gets slowly degraded by bath steam or dog paws, it’ll build up a chain of evidence connecting all the readers.
Perhaps new friendships will emerge as readers seek penpal relationships with a predecessor who's thoughtfully annotated the margin of an article on mammoth cloning.
Maybe someone will be spurred to take up their own subscription to a complimentary magazine and fold it into the mix. Or link it onto the chain. Let's not confuse metaphors.
The beginning looks like this…
There’s now a pack of A4 envelopes on my desk and two books of second class stamps in the top drawer. I'll print off a sheet of address labels for my pal Craig and stick them in the first envelope to my dad.
I wonder if this will come to anything.
In talking to my dad about this I discovered that he takes his completed magazines to the gold club and leaves them there “for the younger ones”. I expect there must be folks who stock up doctor’s surgeries and dentist waiting rooms. Do you pass on magazines when you’re done with them? Do you use and then share something else in a kindly way? I think i’d like to know.
Thanks for reading!
I used to leave finished books on the 45 bus in Edinburgh, With a little “pass it on” msssage written inside.
I also love magazines, I used to sit in library when I was a teen and read Rolling Stone, NME, Smash Hits, the Face, Scientific American, Dutch weeklies like Vrij Nederland and De Groene Amsterdammer. My trouble with subscriptions was that they would eventually be gathering dust and I couldn’t keep up with reading them. So I like the suggestion to pass them on. Doctors surgeries and dentists in the Netherlands always had lots of magazines, perhaps one of the reasons I didn’t mind going there. People would also keep a stack in the downstairs loo so you and guests would always have something to read...