The life of an aimless gypsy has several enviable benefits and a few troublesome shortcomings. “How do you get mail?” is an oft-asked question. It’s tricky enough for ordinary mail and too tricky for magazine subscriptions. The magazine I miss the most is The Sun. This is a thoughtful publication, literate and intellectual with three major features that are entirely reader-contributed. The Sun also pays well for essays, fiction, poetry and photographs. The magazine does not have advertising and appears to be supported only by subscribers.
Recently, I came across a couple of ten-year-old issues.
In the June 2002 issue, the publisher Sy Safransky wrote a letter to the readers soliciting donations. The letter, written when the 9-11 wound was still fresh in our national consciousness, included several thoughts I found provocative, even when taken out of context.
And the blog for today shares them with you:
“Every time you inhale, imagine it is the first breath you’ve ever taken. Every time you exhale, imagine it’s the last breath you’ll ever take.”
. . . .
“President Bush’s approval rating soared to 80 percent. (I don’t even approve of myself that much.)”
. . . .
“In the movie, Zorba the Greek, Zorba tells a young friend that he’s learned to embrace all of life: the joys, the sorrows, “the full catastrophe.” I’ve always wanted The Sun to be a magazine that embraces the full catastrophe.
“The Sun has come a long way since 1974, when I sold the first issues, barefoot, with hair down to my shoulders.”
. . . .
“Every month, we gather around the fire. We breathe in. We breathe out. We laugh and grieve and give thanks. We tend the fire, then we tend each other. Perhaps our hearts open a little. And when the hour grows late, and the world too much to bear, and weariness overcomes us, we take turns staying awake, feeding the flames.”
The Suns website is: Thesunmagazine.org. You can order a subscription there.
A Year on the Road 
If you have an address a couple of months in the future, you could call Sun Mag and order a bunch of back copies. Funny, i just got my first issue today.
Karin Ireland
Couldn’t agree more – though his fiction seems a bit slanted away from the white anglo male. Perhaps it’s that we don’t write as well; our experience, here, is less influential and deep; the horror in developing countries provides a sharper hook and more defining content; maybe readers are more drawn to Arabic, Latin, and Asian names and certainly there are more of them, I hope I am not sounding biased here, it’s only what I’ve observed. Anyway, I do agree … subscription well spent.
Dave,
I must confess I read the letters first, the “Readers Write” section next, then “Sunbeams”, and “Sy Safransky’s Notebook”. That is hours of reading and extra hours to roll the ideas around in my head. If I have energy remaining, I read the articles and the fiction.
AL
My favorite magazine! Including any quote from Zorba is like quoting from Socrates….Sy Safranksky is mind enriching. His “make sure that the things you do keep us alive” belief is haunting. That magazine does, indeed, keep us alive.
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