Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.16.
I know, I just know, that no matter how many warnings I put into this issue, some people are gonna call the Post's office next Tuesday and say, “I didn't get my copy this week.” And the funny part is that some of them will have read all of those warnings and will have just forgot it was coming. That's okay; I do that too. You tend to forget a few things after a week. It's just a sign that we're all slowly slipping into a nice, comfortable senility. (That may sound bad, but I actually welcome senility: that way, I won't be expected to remember everything as much as I am now.)
You may not be used to newspapers taking a week off for Christmas. Like I keep saying, the Post does everything a little bit different. Part of it is because Jill and I want to spend time with our families; part of it is because our advertisers blew all their money on Xmas ads and can't afford to advertise until New Year's—and they subsidize the Post, you know. Actually, I suspect they really can afford to advertise; they probably just want a vacation after the Xmas rush. Well, I don't blame them. I want one too. So I'm outa here.
If you're wondering why the next issue will be numbered 2.1 instead of 1.17, at the risk of boring everybody (myself included), I'll explain. Traditionally, periodicals have “volumes” and “issues,” and volumes change every year, either at New Year's or when a periodical has its anniversary. Since the Post's anniversary will likely be of no interest to anyone but Jill and me, there's no point in tying the volume number to it. It's only a number anyway.
Expect the next issue of Countryside Post, issue 2.1, to be in your mailbox on Tuesday, Jan. 5.
—Kent Leslie, managing editor
Update, 11/17/2009: Ordinarily I am against messing with the publication schedule. We switched distribution days with our third issue, which I was dead set against doing without any notification. But the week of Xmas—basically, the week everyone is paying attention to Xmas and little else—seemed to be a perfect exception. Jill wanted to spend it with her family and not think about newspapers; I wanted to leave town and spend it with my mom and siblings. So we made it an annual thing, starting with our first year: The last week of the year is our week off.
I had got Jill into the habit of referring to papers by issue number: issue 1.12, issue 1.13, issue 1.14, and so forth. I got in the habit of doing that at the
“It’s gonna be 2.1,” I said. “New year, new volume.”
As I pointed out in the column, volumes change every year—unless you’re Rolling Stone, Mad Magazine, or a comic book—to indicate, of course, the passage of a year. Most publications switch volume numbers at the beginning of the year. Many publications, including newspapers, don’t. They do this to honor their anniversary. Me, I just figured this was too arbitrary. New year, new volume. So every time Jill said “issue 17,” I said, “No; issue 2.1.”
I pronounced it “two one,” but Jill’s background is in computers, so she called it “two point one.” Makes it sound like an upgrade of issue 2. But that’s nitpicking things.