Saluting No Depression, the joys of paper, and adapting to the new economy

I prefer paper. I like paper newspapers and magazines. I would rather read a paper paper and then hunt online for a link to a favorite story, than do it the other way around (find it online and print it on paper).

One of my guilty pleasures is to purchase the most recent paper edition of a music magazine, and take it to a quiet corner in my local pub (for me, it is Rorys in Edmonds), and sit there for hours sipping a beer and paging through.

I have tried this using a laptop and wireless. It isn’t the same. The computer takes half a beer to wake itself up, and then it takes the rest of the beer for me to banish the application update messages and actually find the online content I want to read.

And there’s something inviting about the crease in the magazine, where the pages meet in the middle. It draws me in; makes the experience more intimate.

I’m distressed that so many paper magazines have gone out of business, or have gone paperless. And that’s true in the non-music world, too. We are in danger of losing one or maybe both of our local newspapers. ‘

That said, I completely understand why No Depression took this new approach, and I like it. This takes advantage of a collaborative approach by readers and writers, and I think it could be a lot of fun.

Whew! First blog post nerves, and all.