Go!
Issues 14 and 15 are now both SOLD OUT in our online shop.
Sorry. I’ll order more copies next time.
But don’t despair. Try the digital editions (14, 15) and you can join our mailing list for news of future issues.
There’s also still physical stock in the world at these locations. Now please recreate It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World to ensure that you get one of the last few copies. Go!
It’s This
You know when you stumble upon writers or bloggers who just seem to get the same issue that you’re turning over in your mind? And you read and then some of their suggestions make you go “Yes!” It’s this.
Whoa, this is a really lovely review of New Escapologist from blogger Alasdair Johnston. Thanks Alasdair!
The guy has a spare copy of Issue 15 to give away too. Read his post for instructions on how to get it. (This is extra valuable now that the magazine has almost sold out).
With Wings and Hands and Leaves
Thanks to Reader A for drawing our attention to Mandy Brown’s United Theory of Fucks.
Don’t give a fuck about your work. Give all your fucks to the living. Give a fuck about the people you work with, and the people who receive your work—the people who use the tools and products and systems or, more often than not, are used by them. Give a fuck about the land and the sea, all the living things that are used or used up by the work, that are abandoned or displaced by it, or—if we’re lucky, if we’re persistent and brave and willing—are cared for through the work. Give a fuck about yourself, about your own wild and tender spirit, about your peace and especially about your art. Give every last fuck you have to living things with beating hearts and breathing lungs and open eyes, with chloroplasts and mycelia and water-seeking roots, with wings and hands and leaves. Give like every fuck might be your last.
Nice.
*
If you give a fuck about life on Earth and zero fucks about grifting for the man, New Escapologist is the magazine for you. Respond to our beacon, hear our song.
The Good Life for Wage Slaves is also back in print. It’s a shoulder to cry on for those still trapped like a wasp beneath an upturned pint glass.
A Little Freaked Out
According to his excellently-titled memoir Every Man For Himself and God Against All, Warner Herzog’s brother is of a different temperament to our rogue filmmaker.
At the age of nineteen, he was a little freaked out because he could see his business career so clearly mapped out ahead of him all the way to eventual retirement.
He was no stuffed shirt though. To have such insight is impressive and he even planned to act on it:
So he decided to quit and see the world instead. He had a VW Beetle and planned to drive to Turkey.
Werner’s advice to his brother?
I urged him to be more ambitious and range farther afield.
*
Work vs. Work
I was trying to “work” today. My work is writing, though it is not particularly arduous writing.
Downstairs, my neighbour was playing his guitar and it was breaking my concentration. I’ve asked him before not to amplify his instrument at home (surely he could play acoustic only?) but he claims to not even be at home during the day.
The confrontation at least had the effect of him no longer playing at night, and I’m prepared to accept his lie about daytime hours: he’s a grown man who doesn’t enjoy being ticked off on his own doorstep, and he deserves to protect his dignity.
It occurs to me that it might not be right for me to complain at all though. I have, after all, turned my home into a place of work, which it was never intended to be. If I want silence perhaps I should rent a hot-desking booth in an office somewhere. Obviously I don’t want to do that because it would incur a cost and I hate going to work, but my request that this neighbour knock it off might not be morally upheld. He should be able to play guitar at home if he wants to.
Maybe work shouldn’t be done at home at all.
Then again, my neighbour seems to be practicing for something. He probably sees his guitar practice as work too. So we have a situation of “work vs. work.”
When did creativity become work?
When did work invade the home?
I know the answers to these questions because for 16 years I’ve been advocating for creativity as a way to escape drudgery and also for the sensible benefits of WFH as a way to escape the commute and the office environment.
Why do I feel like I’ve shot myself in the foot?
*
Issue 14 is sold out and is now only available in digital formats. There aren’t many copies of Issue 15 left either, so here’s where to go if you’d like a copy in print or indeed digital.
NE in DC
American readers! If you happen to be near Washington DC anytime soon, you should visit the mighty Politics & Prose Bookstore.
You should go anyway, but an additional reason is that they now stock New Escapologist.
You can see our happy little mag in this photograph. We’re snuggled in the shelving system with Sight & Sound, Apartamento and our friend Jonathan’s Analog Sea Review. The divider tag describes us as “Niche, Cheeky, Defiant,” which is true.
As it happens, this is nothing to do with the new distribution arrangement that will see New Escapologist in thirty or so shops across the UK, EU and US (news of which is coming soon).
In this case, bookseller Shane got in touch independently to request copies for sale. He was not deterred by the now-parodic cost of shipping to the US from Scotland and the order was placed. What a hero.
Honestly, little pleases me more than evidence of émigré copies of New Escapologist. Thanks for the pic, Shane, and for stocking our mag.
*
In the unlikely event that you’re not in Washington DC, you can still order Issue 15 in our online shop.
And if you happen to be a bookseller yourself, please see this page about how to stock New Escapologist.
