With the New Year nipping at our heels, the GAPAs have been planning a theme for 2013’s random threads. We’ve decided to get back to our Muserly roots by devoting each month to a different memorable article or issue of Muse. Your comments on the blog make it clear that some of them linger in your minds and undoubtedly played a role in warping shaping your characters.
Of course, to do this effectively, we’ll need to know just which issues and/or articles those are. So… suggestions, anybody?
(That reminds us: the Muse Contents page needs updating. Any help from current subscribers will be most welcome.)
Huh.
Maybe some blog-related month names? Like Giant Space Squidtember?
I think my top three all-time favorite articles are as follows:
3. “Making Memories: Why You Can’t Remember Your First Birthday” by Jay Ingram, issue 10.4, April 2006
2. “Your Inner Copycat” by David Dobbs, issue 10.9, November/December 2006
1. “Learning to Speak” by Fiona Cowie, issue 10.5, May/June 2006
It seems likely that the third issue there, the language issue, is what set me going on the twisting linguistic road I’ve dedicated much of my life to. I honestly can’t begin to imagine how my life would’ve played out if I had never begun receiving Muse. Everything since then–the people I’ve met, the subjects I love, my hobbies, everything can be traced back to this magazine. It boggles the mind.
Oh, I just remembered something: the first Q&A, the one about alphabetical order, in the September 2011 issue was my question, but that issue came out after my subscription lapsed and so I still have yet to read the response. Is there any way I could read it here? I don’t know of any libraries around here that carry the magazine.
The language issue is my all-time favorite issue as well. The “English as She is Spoke” one stands out in my mind, as does the one on cognitive linguistics.
Does this mean we’ll have a mutual cats-and-dogs month so that nobody complains either one was done first?
My all-time favorite articles were the one about priest holes and the one about napolean’s wallpaper. Secondary favorites are anything by paul baker.
Yesss Priest Holes.
Oh yes, Napoleon’s wallpaper, I remember that one…
Probably the article about lightning and music and the guy who heard music in his brain after being struck by lightning. I’ll look up what issue it was later.
Some of my favorites include Napoleon’s wallpaper, the Severn Bore, how to spot a fake Rembrandt, and I think in that same issue cochineal and Calder.
I liked the articles about Damascus steel and about guardrails — both were reprinted in the 10th anniversary January edition, as I recall.
I also recall fondly an article about fencing in movies, as someone who went on to be active in the historical reenactment fencing scene. (I’ve read through the archive linked, and it seems to be February 2003).
Also the article on Chihuly glass, which I can’t find in the archive — I’ve seen a couple of his chandeliers in real life, and they always make me think of Muse.
also, every math page.
Oh, and the Chess article, definitely.
Which one?
Whoops, I meant the chess ISSUE, September 2002.
“The Hue of Death” is one that readily comes to mind.
And the article about the Shakespeare forgeries. (That was Muse, right? Sometimes I get confused as to what was in Muse and what was in Odyssey.)
It was Muse. I have the book that it was adapted from.
Good, thanks for telling me!
LotR! Priest Holes! Black Holes! I shall probably think of more tomorrow once I’ve slept.
I liked that article about carvings in old cathedrals. Also Paul Baker’s “A Surfeit of Coneys”.
Hmm, I think this gives me a good reason to read through all my old magazines.
First issue ever? (January 1997)
Tomorrowlands that never made it? (January 2001)
The one with the headless guy holding a jack-o-lantern? (October 200?)
The photomanipulation issue?
Yes, that one.
Didn’t it also have urban legends?
*checks*
Nope, the photomanipulation one was October of 2001, the urban legends one was October of 1999.
Hey guys! this truly is quite random!
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1234
When I clicked it, there was an error and it showed all the html basic coding that went into the museblog home page! It’s really weird! Try it! you might see it too!
I think you misunderstood the purpose of this thread. This isn’t the random thread (although the title does have ‘random thread’ in it, so it’s an understandable mistake); it’s a thread about random threads–specifically, suggestions for later ones this month that are consistent with the theme.
One of my favorite issues was the one about the cholera epidemic. (march 2008?)
Oh yes, that was a great one.
What about the moon landing issue (April 2002) or the one about living forever (January 2004?)
What about the issue which introduced many of us to MuseBlog? It must have been February or March of 2006(?) . There was a contest thread for commentary on some event and the posts there were reprinted in Muse in that month.
Seconded! That issue brought me here.
Was that the one about the IAT?
Yes, let’s. It was the March 2006 race issue, aka the one I have shown the most to other people and also the one that brought me here. I heartily second this.
Um, we already used it as the subject for this year’s March thread…
No, no, April, sorry.
It’s more recent than most of the classics mentioned so far, but I saved it from my local library’s discard (they discard magazines after a year) pile and really enjoyed it, so… May/June 2012, with the articles on maps of invented places, designing future cities, and the fictitious continent of Lemuria?
I loved that one! I’d only been getting Muse since the year before that, so I’m not as familiar with Muse history as people who’ve been getting it for longer, but still.
I absolutely ADORED the issue with a liger on the cover!