The STACK Blog
Still time to buy Stack
Monday, December 19th, 2011
The last mailing of the year left the office on Friday afternoon, but you can still buy Stack as a Christmas gift.
When you subscribe we’ll put one of our welcome cards in the post to you (there they are above) and we’ll also send you a PDF version by email, so we can guarantee that you’ll definitely have something to give your loved ones come Sunday morning. I’m going to be driving up north on Christmas Eve, but will make sure I check emails that evening to catch the stragglers.
The first magazines will go out in early January – what better way to start the year?
Words of the Year – The New Yorker
Monday, December 19th, 2011It may be Monday morning. It may be sub-zero temperatures outside. You may have suddenly realised that the presents you ordered haven’t arrived yet. But forget all that and retreat to the Stack review of the year’s best writing, this one recommended by Sasha Wizansky, editor of Meatpaper.
“Favourite article? It’s hard to choose. But I do love getting sucked into some of the longer New Yorker essays. Here’s one that was particularly riveting.”
Words of the Year – The Atlantic
Sunday, December 18th, 2011Ahhh Sundays in December; the perfect excuse to curl up in front of a roaring fire and expand your mind with Stack’s review of the best writing from 2011.
Georgiana Ilie, editor of Romanian magazine Decat O Revista, picked out this piece on changing ideas of romance and family. It caused a storm when it appeared in The Atlantic, and has since been reproduced in several newspapers and ignited a heated debate on the Guardian’s comments section. Georgiana describes it as a great example of exploratory journalism.
Words of the Year – The Guardian
Saturday, December 17th, 2011We asked our favourite independent magazine editors to cast their minds back over 2011 and nominate their favourite pieces of writing of the year.
Kevin Braddock from Manzine has picked this piece written by Will Self in the Guardian. Diagnosed with a rare blood disease, Self reflects on illness, addiction and mortality.
Words of the Year – Rolling Stone
Friday, December 16th, 2011We’ve been doing a bit of work with Drowned in Sound recently (look out for it appearing on DiS soon). Sean from DiS suggested that as part of the work we should ask music magazine editors to name their favourite pieces of writing from 2011. We thought that was a fantastic idea – so good, in fact, that we decided to steal it (with DiS’s blessing, of course).
So, between now and Christmas we’re going to have a new article each day, as nominated by a different independent magazine editor. Matt Bochenski, editor of Little White Lies, kicks things off for us with this piece from Rolling Stone. Happy reading!
“Angry, articulate and accurate, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi is fast becoming the voice of the 99 percent; one of the few writers with the erudition, the talent and the balls to stand up to the Wall Street bastards fucking up the world. His best piece of a brilliant year was titled ‘Wall Street Isn’t Winning, It’s Cheating’. A blog post published on 25 October, it took some of the disparate strands swirling around the still-opaque Occupy Wall Street movement and wove them into a blistering, heartfelt and utterly lucid critique of the corporate shills criticising the protestors. This is journalism as both provocation and citizen democracy in action. I think I actually love him.”
The magazine that wants to be a Christmas tree
Friday, December 16th, 2011First came the magazine that wanted to be wrapping paper, now comes the magazine that wants to be a Christmas tree. Thanks to William at OK Periodicals for passing this video on.
Monocle 24 on magazines
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
On Saturday I’ll be digging out my Rolex watch and Gucci loafers to take a trip down to the studios of Monocle 24. They’ve asked me on to talk about independent magazines with Tyler Brulee himself, so I’m currently assembling the list of titles that NEED to be discussed.
The show starts at 12 noon, with 15 minutes of magazine chat tucked somewhere between then and 1pm. At the moment I’ve got Boat, Delayed Gratification, Cagoule and Little White Lies. There should be room for one more if I talk fast enough – any suggestions?
Quick flick – Cagoule
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
If the people behind Britain’s best children’s magazine decided to make a magazine for grown-ups, what would it look like? Well for starters it would probably have a big pair of abstract breasts on the cover.
Cagoule is the new magazine from the makers of Anorak, and the influence of that title is clear to see. There are loads of great illustrations, like these by Matthew the Horse.
The strange nonsense poems (also by Matthew) are good too.
There are creative activities, like this invitation to draw characters. I’m sure they genuinely want me to scrawl over the pages, but when they only printed 1,000 copies that just feels a bit wrong.
And of course there are stories, including two really good, disturbing tales by designer Supermundane. Who knew he could write as well?
It’s whimsical, nonsensical, self-indulgent and absolutely brilliant. Cagoule could very easily have turned out as a weird, disjointed, even plain irritating magazine, but instead it has managed to construct a distinctive take on grown-up fun, and has given me two very enjoyable train journeys as a result.
On the back page editor Cathy explains that they made Cagoule because people asked for it. I’m very glad they did, and I really hope issue two follows soon. If you like the sound of all this, join them for their launch party tomorrow night (Wednesday 14th) at Beach London. See you there!
