?Attack the Stack? Ushers the First National Magazine Day?

?Attack the Stack? Ushers the First National Magazine Day? -

It is a good sign of things to come. In fact it is a very good sign that this National Magazine Day is not aimed at the advertisers or ad agencies and is not sponsored by a magazine publisher or even an ad club in this city or that. It is the first National Magazine Day organized by a reader, an avid reader who discovered his first magazine, Highlights for Children, at a very young age and never looked back.

His name is Kevin Smokler, a writer and author who lives in San Francisco, CA and the creator of what he hopes to be a national annual holiday event. Mr. Smokler writes on his website, “On Saturday, February 27th, ordinary folk across America (like you, like me) will spend the day “attacking the stack” or reading their way through the unread magazines they’ve accumulated. If you’re a big goody-goody and read your magazines straight through the moment they arrive, you may spend the day at your local library/bookstore/university exploring new periodicals, discussing your favorite magazines with friends, tweeting your favorite articles. As you wish.”

I asked Kevin about the origins of his idea, and his answer did not surprise me a bit. He told me that as a child he used to watch his dad, after dinner daily, go to his study room where a pile of magazines covered his entire checkerboard coach. “It is time to attack the stack, dad would say,” Kevin said. “It was the time to relax.” Kevin learned to humanize magazines and build relationships with them. “A magazine is like a person who will have something for you, whether you have five minutes or two hours,” he said.

Magazine Day is “a celebration of magazines and attacking the stack of unread titles piling up next to your bathroom sink.” Kevin invites folks no matter where they are, to “invite friends over and rumage though each other’s stacks (of magazines). Spend the day reading at your local coffee shop or library. Multch your magazines and construct a giant paper mache wildebeest. It’s up to you. The idea is to spend the day having fun and forming community around a shared love of magazines.”

Congratulations to Kevin on such a great idea, and congratulations to all magazine lovers on finally having a day they can call their own. To find out about the first ever National Magazine Day click here.




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