Last week I got a free copy of Outpost. This is a well-written magazine for people who love a travelling adventure. People who would consider sharing a bathroom. People who perhaps hike. In other words — people not at all like me. I read it — it came to my house and it was free. But the sales pitch letter enclosed will have no effect.

I subscribe to House and Home, Metropolitan Home and Dwell. I don’t think any of their marketing folks are doing an Outpost cross-promotion.

Oh wait, I do subscribe to one other magazine. Brokenpencil — one of the only magazines around devoted to underground culture and the independent arts. Zines, baby! That has to be it.

I’ve been a reader since the start. Perhaps I should’ve stopped when Hal Niedzviecki stopped editing it. But hell, he’s still the fiction editor so I can’t be too old for it yet.

Besides zines are not just for the young. There is a rumour that Factsheet 5 is going to publish again. (Oh wait, gushing about its return may date me.)

As Fran Lebowitz said: “the great outdoors is what you see on your way from the apartment building to the taxi.”

Besides zines are read indoors. Brokenpencil, was it you that sent me this?