who subscribes to the sun magazine?

kinda spiritual, kinda arty, kinda literary, um, not really new agey, very liberal/humanism thing going on?

have you ever even heard of it?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2203/3531316487_14eb2f25c2.jpg?v=0

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/

do they ride recumbent bicycles?

they're based right here in durham!

the first issue of theirs I ever read had a piece trying to rationalize adult/child sexuality in a historical sense and it really pissed me off!

go say hi!

oh x-post maybe don't go say hi

no they're all right, I am just really reactionary about some stuff

also I think they're actually chapel hill, or they were, there used to be a shingle outside their offices

I have a friend who used to subscribe, not sure if she still does.

The Chicago Reader wrote an article about the magazine recently:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/look-into-the-sun/Content?oid=1098563

I have maybe 5 years of back issues up to now, it's a family thing. They fit the Unitarianish ex-hippie-but-a-little-older demographic. No recollection of the issue that pissed J0hn D off but the mag as a whole is frequently fascinating. My fave part is a short section where they have readers send in short submissions on generalized one-word topics (hiding, cars, marriage, etc) and they publish the best of them.

The interviews can be either tedious or interesting, the photos are usually good b&w stuff, the poetry really isn't my thing, and the memoir/fiction pieces are all over the place.

Overall I'm happy my mom buys the subscription (they run no ads and are totally sub-funded), but ymmv.

um also their format is like a mix of b&w photos, memoir pieces, short fiction, poetry, a feature interview, and the "readers write" section in each mag. The interviews are very much in the more radical new age vein (Paul Stametz, Derrick Jensen, etc) with lotsa focus on nonviolence and spirituality. Plowshares interbiews, reconciliation, restorative justice, etc.

=interviews

yeah, i've read some good interviews in the sun.

"They fit the Unitarianish ex-hippie-but-a-little-older demographic."

this is exactly what i would have said. which gives it a very specific niche in a way. not mean enough for rabid Nation-reading lefties and not hardcore spiritual enough for the new age types. it's a very mellow read.

that chicago reader story is great!

"I told Bremer I thought of the Sun as the sad magazine. "There's a lot of suffering in life," she replied. "Those experiences are universal, and you don't see them written about in a thoughtful way in a lot of the mainstream media."

it makes me want to subscribe!

yeah there has been some interesting dialogue in the letters section about the whole "how come so much of your stuff deals with depressing issues" thing. I think that's a good quote to defend the frequently intense themes.

I got a subscription invitation in the mail (I guess because I subscribe to Aperture?) and my immediate reaction was "lol old hippies" and threw it right in the recycling.