Reader survey: How would you feel about receiving this magazine on handmade, undyed paper? Lettered by hand with dyes made from coffee and onion skins, beets and blackberries? Images either drawn by hand — no two copies alike! — or printed in our yet-to-be-constructed dark room; the pages bound together with homespun yarns from the wool of local sheep? And all this bounty delivered to your door by bicycle messenger, or by crow?
Each month’s issue will cost, say, $500, to pay the craftspeople and the crows for all their extra labor. And our advertisers will probably have a few comments about our, no doubt, vastly reduced circulation numbers.
But think how lovely!
Okay, that’s probably not our real future. Still, I think there’s a reason I — someone who has embraced the latest technology all her life — am feeling a pull toward the extremely analog, the staunchly not-online, the rebelliously slow.
When I opened a blank document on my laptop to compose this letter, my word processing program inquired what I wanted it to draft for me. At the top of the screen appeared three prompts: Perhaps I might like to “draft a potential itinerary for a college reunion in London,” or “write an interview guide for a software engineer intern position at Microsoft,” or even “write an article about 3 outdoor activities in Seattle in July.” If I close the document and open a new one, I’ll be served three new prompts, and on and on in an endless loop, never once finding the option that offers to delve into the recesses of my own mind and extract a column in my own voice.
I can look at the writing of anyone on our editorial staff, byline removed, and with 99 percent accuracy identify the author. I know my colleagues’ quirks, curiosities, foibles; our bad habits and moments of brilliance. Generative AI may eventually discern how to mimic personal tone more convincingly, but it’s not there yet — and I’m not sure it ever will be.
Technology has its place, no doubt. Once upon a time — not really all that long ago, in earth time — printed books were new tech. But tech should open our minds and broaden our connections, not leave us isolated and grumpy while dueling AI programs talk to each other. We’ve reached a point already at which some students (who knows how many) submit AI-generated work that teachers in turn use AI to evaluate. What is the point?
We’ve made plenty of mistakes in this magazine. Last year, a few of you might have noticed that a snatch of text was printed in … Latin?! We’ve messed up small details, made bigger errors in judgment. But our errors are deeply, aggravatingly human. That may not be worth $500 for each issue — but it’s worth something.
Our cover story this month is about a bookstore that — miracle of miracles — has stayed in business for 150 years. Burke’s is a wonder, a treasure, and a reminder of the joys of an analog life. The shelves are lined with both new and used books, the sharp smell of fresh paper mingles with musky antique leather; on wooden chairs throughout the store rest vintage typewriters, reminders of the people who sat in solitude bringing these many thousands of worlds to life.
Michael Finger, who wrote the cover story, has an uncanny ability to unearth the strangest, most curious details to accompany the histories he tells so fluidly. I mentioned antique leather — and, well, I don’t mind telling you I audibly gasped on first glimpse of one particular book-binding detail. You’ll just have to read it for yourself. Plus, he managed to secure on-the-record quotations from John Grisham himself, whose marathon book signings at Burke’s are legendary.
And lucky us, to work with Martha Kelly in illustrating the story so tenderly. She brings the people, places — and pets! — of Burke’s to life in these pages with unmistakable humanity.
So many of us have Burke’s stories. I know I do. That’s what happens when a place stays in business over three different centuries! We would love to hear yours: Drop us a line any time (letters@memphismagazine.com).
Thank you, sincerely, for reading. You, lovely fellow humans, are why we’re still here, and we don’t take that lightly.
