JUST MY TYPE
From four colours of ink and enormous, bloated reels of paper came a world of information and wonder, writes
In 1984 I started my first job at what was Republican Press, in Durban. If I thought it was going to be a sleek and smart building housing its stable of magazines, I was wrong. It was an industrial building in an industrial area out near the old airport. The offices were ’60s-shabby and drab and hummed faintly from the humongous printing presses that were housed underneath.
No coffee shops around then, no Engen 1-Stop shops, not even a café in the vicinity, just a grisly canteen.
I was usually broke, so at lunch time I used to go down to the factory and just sit and watch the presses roll, the great bloated reels of paper whirring up and then sweeping down, covered in bright pictures. I couldn’t believe that all of the colours in creation could come from just four: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
It was, honestly, thrilling. Sitting on a crate or a chair missing a wheel, next to shifting piles of Sister Louise photo books and Scope, in that deafening, dusty, clanking factory I fell in love with print, and I love it still.
I’m not a Luddite by any means. When you had to write a feature for your magazine you would go down to the library and hope like hell the staff there had clippings on the subject. I bless the interwebs every day. As a book journalist I appreciate the convenience of e-readers, and if I was a young mother again I would sure as hell be giving my toddler my phone to keep her quiet in a restaurant.
Of course there is evidence that not only should young children be read to, but that they must turn the pages themselves, all to do with building comprehension skills, imagination and so on. This is not about that.
This is about coming to love the feel of the pages, the smell of them. The shelf of books that a child builds up that will one day be a record of who they are, who they have been. The delayed gratification of waiting for a new edition of National Geographic Kids to come into the shop.
It’s no secret that sales of magazines and newspapers are falling off the cliff. Digital versions of those that have survived are inviting and immersive but therein lies the problem.
When you have turned the last page of a publication, there is the satisfaction of putting it down, contented that’s all you need to know for now. Sated. On to the next thing.
With digital, there simply is no end. Link after link beckons you on and on, deeper and deeper, until you feel overwhelmed or lost, needing to come up for air.
Linda Stone, a former researcher for Microsoft, coined the term “e-mail apnea” to describe holding your breath as you plunge into your inbox. It applies to internet surfing, too. Down you go into wormholes, promising yourself just one last click until hours have passed and your brain is blitzed.
There is no oxygen out there, no time to reflect or properly process the information coming at you.
There is no print apnea. You can put it down and pick it up, at leisure, where you left off. And when you do settle down with your expensive, shiny magazine, you know you’ve earned it. It’s a reward.
It’s worth noting, too, that in this age of algorithm menace, when you buy a book, a newspaper or a magazine in a shop, you leave no digital trail. No maddening ads flicking up with travel deals to Iceland when you’re reading a review of a Nordic Noir book, or Keto diet proselytizing when you’ve googled a cauliflower recipe.
You can spill wine on your copy of Vanity Fair but it’s a catastrophe when you spill it on your iPad. Someone can nick your Kindle, but no-one can run off with your shelf of books.
No, give me print any day. Give me the slick, sticky gloss of high-end magazines, the ashy rustle of newsprint, the snap and crack of the pages of a new book.
That old factory in Durban has long been mothballed. Printing operations today are quieter and more efficient. But I’ll never forget the thrill of being there when the presses rolled.