MISCmedia for 8/17/00
What Now, My Love?

THE SIXTH ISSUE of the print MISCmedia magazine should be out to subscribers by now, after (yet another) delay.

I'm learning this thing as I go along. One of the things I'm learning is I can't put out this thang at its current size on its originally-promised monthly schedule, without the budget to hire additional help in the editing, layout, and distribution sides of the operation.

There will be at least one more issue under the current format. After that, it's hard to tell. It's not going away, but it is at a crossroads. Either it becomes smaller and stays monthly or it comes out less often and stays the same size (or, if operating capital can be raised, perhaps even grows into a bigger and slicker thang).

What is becoming clearer as I go along is what I'm trying to do with it. (And before you ask, none of the following is to be considered a "mission statement.")

• I want it to be a "must read" for all the intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, and pseudo-pseudos out there.

• I want to draw readers in with a retro-classic design, clean graphics, and articles that at first appear to offer entertaining affirmations of hipster-party-line thought--but which then subtly veer off into actually challenging the reader's received ideas.

• I want it to promote an exchange of ideas about the city's future.

  Seattle's on the verge of greatness. Seattle's also on the verge of losing it all to rampant upscalism and sprawl. We could become another Paris or Rome (or at least another Vancouver); or we could instead just become another Aspen or Phoenix.

• I want it to promote a way of thinking, of looking at issues beyond the oversimplified dualities of us/them, hip/square, female/male, black/white, stoner/redneck, etc.

• I want it to have fun, and to encourage readers to look at life in a slightly more lighthearted way.

• And I want it to earn its fiscal keep, and perhaps eventually turn enough of a profit to support me when I become too old to, say, work on merchant ships.

Of course, to achieve any or all of these goals, I may have to start running the magazine more like, dare I say, a business. And that might mean reading, and heeding, more of those goofy business pep-talk books.

More about that tomorrow.

TOMORROW: Seeking a cure for the "Ideavirus."

ELSEWHERE:

• Erotic fan fiction for the show you'd least expect anyone to write erotic fan fiction for, Jack Webb's Emergency! (found by Memepool)....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Nudists aren't really as 'weird' as a couple of magazines claim.
• One "grass roots movement" wants to save the Monorail Initiative; another wants to kill all public transit.
• In defense of political conventions.
• A new fiction anthology goes to the edge.
• What's really the matter with you kids these days.
• Go ahead--become a walking billboard.
• What e-books might be good for.
• My sordid past with John Carlson.
• The He-Man Woman-Lover's Club.
• Yeah, I still like Seafair. Wanna make something of it?
• Surviving Survivor.
• Does a potential future 'Post-Corporate World' have to be one of those baby-boomer utopias of mandatory mellowness?
• Learning to love the cacophany that is Digital cable TV.
• De-mall-ishing the suburbs.
• Ballard Avenue, the next Pioneer Square?
• Parts one and two of existence in moving purgatory.
• Abandoning Belltown to the Ucking Fupscale.
• Misadventures in the housing market.
• Thoughts on driving and intelligence.
• The 'clueless look' in designer men's fashions.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• The origin and future of MISCmedia