Growing up in a small town, I really wanted a Playboy. I was eleven or twelve. There were only two sources I could think of. My friend Hiro’s dad collected pornography in black binders, with the magazines stored in plastic sleeves. Anyone who so carefully organized their pornography, I figured, was certain to notice if some went missing. The other option was the town news store. Across from the train station, where my mother bought her morning newspaper, they had a big magazine rack, four shelves high, spanning an entire wall. And among the Glamours, National Geographics, all the obscure foreign photography titles, were a few porn magazines, way up high. The trick was figuring out how to steal one.
I find magazine stands beautiful visually, but it’s deeper than that. They reassure me civilization is still standing. In college, my girlfriend and my best friend and I would drive half an hour to sit in a Barnes & Noble in Augusta, Maine, and raid the racks. Titles like Outside, The New Yorker, foreign fashion like i-D, weird hobbyist stuff like Ferrets. After school, I did the same thing in the evenings, after work, at the Barnes & Noble in Manhattan’s Union Square. I’d sit there with my laptop, procrastinating by paging through the latest Thrasher or Purple. And I love foreign newsstands—halls of manga in Japan, beachside Italian kiosks that sell beer—but I have a special spot for the American shops, the little stores selling potato chips and knick-knacks alongside gay porn and paperbacks, and I seek them out. Smoke Signals in San Francisco. Casa Magazines in Greenwich Village. Did I become a magazine writer because I love the format, or simply how they’re sold?
At twelve, I didn’t know any of that, but I did ascertain that not all magazines were the same size. One afternoon, I rode my bike into town, walked into the store. When the owner wasn’t looking, I grabbed the new Rolling Stone—large format, perfect for smuggling—and slipped a Playboy inside. Had he seen me? I took both to the counter, and a lemon Snapple. The owner rang them up and peered at me over his glasses. “You want a bag?” Before I could say no, he picked up Rolling Stone, and the contraband slipped out, flapping on the counter. He stared at it, then looked up at me levelly. “What do I say to your mother?” he said. I ran.
Magazine stand photograph by Charles Law
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