Vogue Magazine, 2 Issues

2 issues of Vogue magazine:
* Sarah Jessica Parker on cover, mint condition, Sept 2005
* Madonna on cover, Aug 2005



I received a couple magazines in the mail yesterday. I got the alumni magazine my alma mater puts out from time to time (bi-monthly? quarterly? I just don't pay attention). I also received an industry rag I get every month as part of my professional life. I looked them over ("what are other members of the '93 class doing?" "what's the latest time-saving software I need?"), and I did what everyone, everywhere, does every time: I put them in the recycling bin. It is the natural end of the short lifecycle of the magazine. It does its glossy, informative job, then goes back to the beginning. They are not novels. They are not treatises. They are magazines, disposable and disposed without a second thought.

Is this the best use of a magazine? Probably not. They say "reuse, don't recycle," because recycling takes energy, and just isn't that efficient. So it's better, for example, to use that spaghetti jar to store rice than it is to throw it in with the old beer cans. From that perspective, it makes sense to reuse magazines. Don't recycle, instead, let the paper fall in other hands, let others read the words it contains, let it live on forever.

And indeed we do that with some magazines. We keep Readymade handy in a little magazine box, in case we ever get around to making that chair out of child's car seat and the remains of a pair of bicycles. We have a whole set of them, not in any particular order, but we know we may have cause to go back to them. They're a reference.

Which brings us to two three-year-old issues of Vogue magazine. They probably should have gone in the recycling three years plus one month ago. But this poster has held on tight, guarding the valuable tips and advertising contained in each. Not a collection of Vogues, mind you, just two, from a whirlwind romance with the magazine the poster had in late summer 2005. And for some reason, three years later, the bloom is off the rose. The Vogues are taken off the shelf, removed from their position of honor. But they can't just go in the recycling, not these Vogues. They must live on.

So time is put in taking pictures of the covers,* posting on craigslist, and waiting for responses. This poster is willing to take this time and endure the prospective discomfort of interacting with strangers, just to make sure these Vogues live on.

Vogue poster, no one wants two three-year-old issues of Vogue. Would you drive somewhere for a couple of old magazines someone found while they were cleaning the house? Even if someone did want them, the degree of want would never be sufficient to make them willing to leave home to go get them from you.



*This, I believe, is the first time Vintage Microwave has used italics and bold simultaneously. That should let you know how very strange we find it that the poster put in time taking pictures of the covers.