The Baffler was the first magazine I ever subscribed to. When I graduated from college in 1999, it felt very "adult" to have a magazine subscription. It would come with my name on a sticker on the cover (or on the plastic wrapper), and that was pleasing to see when it finally arrived. It felt that *I* had arrived.
I chose The Baffler, I think, because I had recently read and liked Thomas Frank's One Market Under God, which was basically about neoliberalism. I remember The Baffler seeming a bit more left-wing and hip, but it wasn't "edgy," as the current tagline says, "A Journal that Blunts the Cutting Edge." I think they're referring to irony? Rather than cut you with a rapier wit, they were going to wink at you and see if you got it. At least, that's what I remember--it's all so very 90s, in the "culture jamming" pocket, but not as obvious as Adbusters. I mean, much more distant, detached. If 90s Baffler were a band, they would be Pavement or the Silver Jews.
I just looked at their covers from the period I received issues--from late 1999 (#13) to 2003 (#16). I remember them so very clearly, in part because I displayed them atop my coffee table during those years, and also because they used such distinct colors for the covers.
I never ended my subscription. I moved the subscription from Chicago to Oakland. And then, after receiving 3 or 4 issues in California, I never received another one, even though I had just extended my subscription for another couple of years. It was like they ghosted me. Later, I heard rumors of a fire that wiped out their office or warehouse in Hyde Park (Chicago)--and destroyed all the subscriber information. I'm not sure if this is true, but the internet tells me there was indeed a fire, and they didn't issue #17 until 2006.
I occasionally read pieces in The Baffler, but that's because I was looking for a particular author and I happened to find them there. Even though they're now based in New York, they seem to have retained a bit of their Midwestern quirkiness?
Once in a while, I think about contacting them and asking about the issues they owe me...
Sidenote: The *other* magazine I subscribed to at the time was Harper's, which you mention in the piece. Yes, they were (and are) a bit quirky and off-beat. I remember looking forward to their Index section, which seemed very unique at the time. But I let my subscription lapse because, during the early years of the Iraq War (2003/04), the magazine basically became a super-earnest anti-war magazine. I was against the war, but it soon became tiring reading the same article about Dick Cheney over and over again.
I think it makes perfect sense that the reportage skews more towards New Yorker house style than leftist agitprop, actually! You've got competition in the agitprop space from all sorts of publications, most of which have much lower production costs, and many of which don't pay their writers. (Either for high-falutin' political reasons -- there's a hardcore Marxist newspaper called Desafio that's still going, apparently, and which doesn't even have bylines -- or just because you're printing your own 200-issue zine about Palestine on the photocopier at work.) No point trying to compete in that "market," if a paper so dependent on a rich patron even *can* compete in that "market."
I quite like the Baffler, particularly because they straddle the line of not being hounds for online discourse while not appearing hopelessly out of touch. They publish names I know from Twitter but they don't embed tweets in their articles. The big stories belong in real life.
Their archives can be quite good. I remember enjoying one that got featured from the 90s, about a guy going to a specific car's trade show incognito as a trade writer, but of course really from the Baffler. The writer becomes more interested in the other magazine schlubs who are there to eat some free food and enjoy a hotel room for a week before they crap out some copy on the plane home.
It's a magazine where when I read something that feels out of my wheelhouse or smarter than me I want to understand it better, where in other places I can more easily write it off. I hate the fiction, though.
The Baffler was the first magazine I ever subscribed to. When I graduated from college in 1999, it felt very "adult" to have a magazine subscription. It would come with my name on a sticker on the cover (or on the plastic wrapper), and that was pleasing to see when it finally arrived. It felt that *I* had arrived.
I chose The Baffler, I think, because I had recently read and liked Thomas Frank's One Market Under God, which was basically about neoliberalism. I remember The Baffler seeming a bit more left-wing and hip, but it wasn't "edgy," as the current tagline says, "A Journal that Blunts the Cutting Edge." I think they're referring to irony? Rather than cut you with a rapier wit, they were going to wink at you and see if you got it. At least, that's what I remember--it's all so very 90s, in the "culture jamming" pocket, but not as obvious as Adbusters. I mean, much more distant, detached. If 90s Baffler were a band, they would be Pavement or the Silver Jews.
I just looked at their covers from the period I received issues--from late 1999 (#13) to 2003 (#16). I remember them so very clearly, in part because I displayed them atop my coffee table during those years, and also because they used such distinct colors for the covers.
I never ended my subscription. I moved the subscription from Chicago to Oakland. And then, after receiving 3 or 4 issues in California, I never received another one, even though I had just extended my subscription for another couple of years. It was like they ghosted me. Later, I heard rumors of a fire that wiped out their office or warehouse in Hyde Park (Chicago)--and destroyed all the subscriber information. I'm not sure if this is true, but the internet tells me there was indeed a fire, and they didn't issue #17 until 2006.
I occasionally read pieces in The Baffler, but that's because I was looking for a particular author and I happened to find them there. Even though they're now based in New York, they seem to have retained a bit of their Midwestern quirkiness?
Once in a while, I think about contacting them and asking about the issues they owe me...
Sidenote: The *other* magazine I subscribed to at the time was Harper's, which you mention in the piece. Yes, they were (and are) a bit quirky and off-beat. I remember looking forward to their Index section, which seemed very unique at the time. But I let my subscription lapse because, during the early years of the Iraq War (2003/04), the magazine basically became a super-earnest anti-war magazine. I was against the war, but it soon became tiring reading the same article about Dick Cheney over and over again.
"I almost never got to the end of a piece and thought it was a waste of time."
I had to read this sentence twice to get that you meant the exact opposite of what you first appeared to say!
I think it makes perfect sense that the reportage skews more towards New Yorker house style than leftist agitprop, actually! You've got competition in the agitprop space from all sorts of publications, most of which have much lower production costs, and many of which don't pay their writers. (Either for high-falutin' political reasons -- there's a hardcore Marxist newspaper called Desafio that's still going, apparently, and which doesn't even have bylines -- or just because you're printing your own 200-issue zine about Palestine on the photocopier at work.) No point trying to compete in that "market," if a paper so dependent on a rich patron even *can* compete in that "market."
Your line about The Baffler being easier to pitch than Harper's is exactly the sort of thing I file away.
My sense with literary magazines is that no one reads them.
I quite like the Baffler, particularly because they straddle the line of not being hounds for online discourse while not appearing hopelessly out of touch. They publish names I know from Twitter but they don't embed tweets in their articles. The big stories belong in real life.
Their archives can be quite good. I remember enjoying one that got featured from the 90s, about a guy going to a specific car's trade show incognito as a trade writer, but of course really from the Baffler. The writer becomes more interested in the other magazine schlubs who are there to eat some free food and enjoy a hotel room for a week before they crap out some copy on the plane home.
It's a magazine where when I read something that feels out of my wheelhouse or smarter than me I want to understand it better, where in other places I can more easily write it off. I hate the fiction, though.