Farewell to the Whole Earth

January 31, 2004 9:41 AM

Farewell, Whole Earth magazine? A lament at worldchanging.com: "... spawn of the amazing Whole Earth Catalogs, source of the WELL, first to mention in print the Gaia Hypothesis, the Internet, Virtual Reality, the Singularity and Burning Man (or at least so the legend goes), the place where folks like Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and Howard Rheingold found their voices, and where a whole generation of young commune-kid geeks like myself learned to dream weird... " [via Smart Mobs]
posted by Slagman (10 comments total)

It's always been hanging on by its fingernails. I remember reading the catalogs as a kid, full of weird and cool stuff. I still have the originals from the 70's. The magazine was never quite as good, in my opinion, but I hate to see another unique voice disappear. Tough biz, magazines. (Now let's see if I can get this dang thing to post -- .)
posted by Slagman at 9:46 AM on January 31, 2004

Farewell!
posted by scarabic at 11:46 AM on January 31, 2004

The Whole Earth Catalog and Whole Earth Review taught me how to think.
posted by digaman at 12:07 PM on January 31, 2004

Perahps that explains why you thought doing something like this was anything other than an interstate-highway-car-wreck-in-Hades just waiting to happen...
posted by JollyWanker at 3:16 PM on January 31, 2004

It's not digaman's fault that the thread immediately degenerated. It's totally unfair to hold him responsible for the deplorable level of that discsussion when he made every effort to direct the thread toward the topic of media policy and propaganda. It was an interesting link and a well-framed thread. You tried, digaman.

Thanks for spreading the pain here, as well, JollyWanker. That's really classy.
posted by scarabic at 7:50 PM on January 31, 2004

Anything I can do to make your day more pleasant is effort well-spent, scarabic...

(You're a frequent MeTa reader; you know, as well as I do, and as digaman should have that No. I/P. Thread. Goes. Unpunished. The only way to avoid the degeneration is to not post it in the first place. It certainly didn't take me posting a snarky reference to it here to make the reek of that thread spread...)
posted by JollyWanker at 10:05 AM on February 1, 2004

learned to dream weird...

*sniff* And all we had when I was young were the Sears and Monkey Wards catalogs.


Seriously, I was just thinking about the Whole Earth Catalog a few days back, wondering what the collector's price for the first edition in mint condition is and how hard it would be to find one, seeing as how dog eared, worn and crumpled every copy I ever saw became. I do have a copy in that shape.

One of the most inelegant layouts ever invented and yet endlessly fascinating.
posted by y2karl at 10:13 AM on February 1, 2004

Jollywanker--nothing excuses you from peeing all over an entirely unrelated thread. As a frequent MeTa reader, you should know That.Is.Just.Wrong.
posted by y2karl at 10:16 AM on February 1, 2004

This magazine and the catalogue was wired way before Wired magazine. What a great magazine I've been turned on to lots of ideas from it. It will be sad to not have it around.
posted by thedailygrowl at 1:17 PM on February 1, 2004

I agree, for the most part, but how many of us actually subscribed?
posted by mecran01 at 9:01 PM on February 2, 2004