I bought a copy of the not-strictly literary magazine, The Baffler, last weekend at a Davis-Kidd sale. I had not seen a copy in a long time and apparently it has been on a sort of sabbatical. I am glad to see it back in the magazine racks.

As best i can describe it, The Baffler is contrarian with style, wit and aplomb with a certain artisan steeliness. Good writing; good writers; good editors; good art. It cost $12, though.

I grew to enjoy the magazine flying around the upper Midwest for PRC in the 90s. I looked forward to reading it on the plane particularly returning home to Indianapolis.

Take a look at one if you can. In this day and time of instant Internet and cable commentaries, you may appreciate something well-thought out, rational and printed. Here’s their somewhat whimsical pitch with tongue-in-check, as printed among the last pages of the current issue (Volume 2, Number 1, by the way).

Supremacy
It resides in the written word, printed in neat columns on the papery page. You can tweet all you want. Twenty years from now nobody will give a damn.

But the authorial majesty of this Baffler, like all other Bafflers, will still be intact then. Whatever we choose to splatter over the page today, will still be as true then as what’s written in the Federalist Papers, only a little more fun to read.

Yes, the medium is the message, my friend, and the message of this particular medium is SUPREMACY: ink+paper+careful typesetting=eternal rightness.

In fact, the only weak point is you. Will you actually subscribe to this magazine, feeding our delusions of grandeur in the style to which they are accustomed, or will you sit there before your computer screen, whining that you will only read what comes your way for free?

We think we know the answer: It has to do with something called SUPREMACY. So get off your ass, you file-sharing, bit-torrenting, freeloading liberal. Make with the personal check, enclosed in a physical envelope, dispatched (with postage stamp) to the address below.

The Baffler
P.O. Box 812090 Chicago IL 60681
312.240.9902 thebaffler.com