Issue Seven out now!
Issue Seven – On The Lam – looks at the ideas of running away, life on the road, transience, and movement. Featuring articles on Arizona; Robert Walser; Apocalyptic Road trip Movies; an Escapological tool kit; and two special interviews: one with comedian Dave Thompson and one with Idler’s Glossary compiler Joshua Glenn. And loads and loads more. Possibly our best issue to date.
Astonishing artwork from Landis Blair, Samara Leibner, Billy Mavreas, Seth, and other supernaturally gifted folk.
It’s a 100-page monster and costs just £6. (€7.80 / $10). Zero Adverts. Minimal bumph. Maximum Quality.
Subscriber copies are making their way across the Earth’s surface as we speak. Ever the Situationists, we even delivered some copies by hand to Glaswegian subscribers today.
Remember of course, if you’re one of our Scottish readers, there’s the launch event on Monday too.
The ‘complete’ package below will be updated to include Issue Seven soon. For the moment, it just includes Issues One to Six.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
Issue Seven launch event, 5th November
You are cordially invited to our last-minute pop-up launch event at The Old Hairdressers in Glasgow.
Come and have a first look at Issue Seven of New Escapologist. Meet our eudaemonology editor Neil Scott, our editor-in-chief Robert Wringham and various other fugitives and stumblebums.
The theme of Issue Seven is “On The Lam” and features interviews with Idler’s Glossary compiler Joshua Glenn and comedian/teletubby Dave Thompson. It also contains exciting essays on Steve Jobs, literary anti-heroes, Robert Walser, apocalypse road trip movies, and much more. It features artwork from Seth, Paul Milne, Lawrence Gullo and many others. It’s a finely-typset, 100-page beast of a bookazine.
Come! Buy a copy. Get swigged up. Ignore the burning-of-celebrity-anarchists festival surely going on outside.
The NE7 Launch Spectacular: it’s basically a drink in a pub.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
Escapological Vocab (Part 1)
Gradually at New Escapologist, we’ve invented our own terminology. It can probably be a bit confusing to newbies, so here’s a guide to some of the terms we use.
Escapology. The art, science, and phenomenon of breaking away from undesirable obligations into a self-engineered lifestyle of pleasure and integrity. Usually this involves stepping of the prescribed treadmill lifestyle of school > work > family > retirement > death, but not necessarily. Perhaps you already live the life of Jack Kerouac or The Mexican Fisherman and it is the treadmill world to which you’d like to escape. Either way, the art of getting there is Escapology. It must never be confused with escapism.
Escapologist. One who practices the art and science of Escapology. She is often characterised by a high degree of personal integrity, a critical bent, and an adventurous spirit.
New Escapologist. A printed periodical (and companion website) dedicated to reports of real-life Escapology, the sharing of Escapological practicalities, the seeding of Escapological thought, and the discussion of Escapological theory. All with a sense of humour and a tongue in the cheek. It is created and supported by Escapologists (there is no such thing as a New Escapologist or New Escapology).
Escapism. Escapology’s uncouth twin. Where Escapology methodically loosens the mind forg’d manacles, escapism will attempt to ignore them through tailored or off-the-peg distractions. Escapism is television, video games, general retreat into fantasy. All the while in the real world, the body grows weak and the manacles stronger. A bit of escapism can do you good, but not to the exclusion of proper, systematic Escapology.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
Escape is…
Escape figures as a crucial tactic of resistance against neoliberal governance and contemporary forms of oppression. Escape is a multiplicitous gathering of concepts, practices, sensibilities, acts, and affects; these variations on escape have been named exodus, desertion, nonexistence, illegibility, and idealism. Importantly, escape not only expresses a desire to exit current regimes of control but also to cultivate forms of living otherwise, or living autonomously. Escape, I would argue, is about radical hospitality: it is a collective attempt—aesthetic, conceptual, political—to eradicate forms of control, exploitation, and domination, which just might make the world more hospitable to all.
From an interesting escape-themed editorial and video selection from Rhizome.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
Dave Thompson
One of our big interviews for Issue Seven (the other being with Joshua Glenn) is with travelling comedian Dave Thompson.
Dave is a stand-up comedian, novellist and clown. He’s been on TV a lot, often with Ben Elton and Harry Hill projects, and he was also one of the famous Teletubbies.
I first interviewed Dave as research for my book about comedy, You Are Nothing. I enjoyed talking to him so much that I decided to invite him for another chat, this time for New Escapologist.
As a comic, he lives a very mobile life, performing all over the world, so he’s a great person to talk to for our On the Lam-themed issue. Pre-order the issue here. It’s due for release any moment now.
Glenn’s Glossaries
One of our Issue Seven interviewees is the witty and studious Mr. Joshua Glenn, who — among other things — is the driving force behind The Idler’s Glossary and The Wage Slave’s Glossary.
As if that weren’t splendid enough, the interview is accompanied by the original concept art for The Idler’s Glossary cover by Seth (i.e. a never-seen-before rough sketch version of the above).
For a sample of Joshua’s well-researched and illuminating definitions, roll your limpid peepers in a HiLo direction.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
The Cheese Mule and Other Stories
The newest member of New Escapologist‘s house staff, Tom Mellors, is posting a mini-series of original travel writing to his blog about his time in Los Angeles. It’s called The Road to Skid Row and it’s a rather gripping tale of three months spent on the lam.
Tom also writes in our upcoming Seventh Issue about his experience of hitch-hiking.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
Creating Freedom
This documentary looks good. The central premise seems to be that we’re not born free. We’re born into systems of ideas, ethics, and norms. We’re not skeptical enough about those systems. Even if we become skeptical over time, we’ve still absorbed many cultural norms by the time we’re old enough to question them.
It reminds me of Richard Dawkins’ somewhat shocking but almost certainly correct idea that raising children religiously is tantamount to child abuse.
It also touches on something we’ll be discussing in the upcoming Seventh Issue (Pre-Order here!) of New Escapologist: the idea that ‘normal’ is a very elastic concept, geographically and historically. Appropriate perspective comes all too late, if ever.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
Coming Soon: Issue Seven
If it’s seemed at all quiet here, it’s because we’ve been working on Issue Seven of New Escapologist. In fact, it’s available to pre-order now.
Here’s a wholly premature sneak-peek at Issue Seven’s table of contents:
Missing from the table of contents is this issue’s big interview. I’m working on three separate interview pieces now, one or two of which will make it into the issue. No clues as to the interview subject yet, but we’ll announce it very soon.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
New Montreal Stockist
Formats Bookstore, Montreal, is the latest realworld stockist of New Escapologist. Thanks to Louise and team for taking us on.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount today.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
