42 Magazine, Celebrating Life with Meaning

This weekend is all about layout. I should have finished this up months ago, but should'ves are not helpful, so here I am, working away like a good little worker bee.

I planned badly, too, so there's WAY more content than I envisioned, which is simultaneously a good thing and a pain in the rear. I'll definitely have to rein it in next issue, or resign myself to never breaking even again. :-)

When I get tired of looking at the layout, I answer submission emails, so my inbox has gone down from 900+ emails to 847.

Have I mentioned that cancer sucks? I really, truly love doing this work, and I feel like I lost about three months of productive time, so I'm far behind where I wish I was with this, but it's okay. I keep reminding myself that this is my hobby, and it's about joy, so it's okay to be flexible about timing and so on.

This link-collection thing is more time-consuming than it looks. I'm going to switch to only doing these on Mondays, and consolidate them in one post.

Justice:

Say it with me: Rape is committed by rapists

California Governor Schwarzenegger proposes doing away with textbooks (sort of)

Imagine a world where the Federal Government seeks its citizens' input

The crazy, it burns!

Welcome to the world, Chaz!

Why I'm ever suprised when FoxNews does something loathsome, I'll never know


Simplicity:

You can call, but I probably won't hear you, from autographedcat

Outrageously Ridiculously Easy oven-roasted corn on the cob from Susan V. at the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen


Economy:

Top 50 frugality blogs



Joy:

Steampunk raygun!

Geekiest pants ever? (thanks, mactavish!)



Ecology:

Invent Your World winners


Reason:

$2.5 billion spent, no alternative cures found (Thanks, mactavish!)

Swedish humanists and the "God probably doesn't exist" campaign (again with the mactavishy thanks)

I've so far gotten the mailbox down to 451, which is better than it sounds, because stuff keeps coming IN as I'm clearing stuff OUT. :-)

What I love about this job is reading people's love in their work, seeing the stuff -- even the stuff I don't like -- that they've cherished and labored over. It's very rare that I get something that just feels slapped together. Even the stories I can't use are almost always obviously works of love. I like that a lot, and feel honored to get to read people's work.

The printer didn't respond to my RFQ. I have to decide whether to be more aggressive in contacting them, or to take this as a sign that they're unresponsive. (Of course, I am a slowwwww responder, so I have no moral judgments on that, I just want to make sure that if I turn in the magazine, it'll be printed in a reasonable amount of time.)

The first issue went swimmingly -- it cost more than I planned and went out a week late, but it was beautiful, albeit small, and I'm very proud of it. The second issue is in the works, and should fix some of the problems I had with the first. For one thing, I'll get the table of contents right.

This community blog will be a cooperative effort, I hope. There will only be 11 tags: one for meta/administrative posts, and one for each of the magazine's Ten Key Themes:

Peace :: Justice :: Ecology :: Economy :: Self-reliance :: Simplicity :: Reason :: Joy :: Love :: Art

If you see something on the web that you think fits one of these Themes, please share it with us. If you want to talk about a meaningful life, or about the magazine itself, go for it. I hope to be here with you on Dreamwidth for the duration, because Dreamwidth seems to embody a lot of our themes already.

(Note to LJers and other non-Dreamwidth folk: This is a DW-only community, but you're more than welcome to join with your openID or post anonymously or whatever.)