September 04, 2007

• Ask your local library if they want them. They probably won't.
• I don't know if any could be sell-able. Seems as though the oldest issues might bring a buck or two. You might check EBay. On the other hand, when I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s, just about every middle class family in the US had stacks of NGs weighing down their basement floors. I think hospitals are glad for donations of magazines, including institutions for mentally challenged or mentally ill - perhaps even half-way houses or group homes. Prisons might also want them, though they're much more cautious about receiving stuff from the outside. Donations could yield tax write-offs. You could also check with your local library.
• Barbers are in constant need of outdated NGs. Preferably those featuring Women of the Sudan.
• A few might have collectible value. For the rest, try Craigslist, and then maybe an elementary school (for art projects, etc.)
• One hit for "use old national geographic magazines" indicated that there might be a market for older issues as well as sentimental value for some folks--advertise on Ebay to buy an issue for the mo/year of your birth, for example. Excellent value with intact spines is a must. There's always collages and mobiles, but your best bet is to quit your day job and start to make magazine art mosaics based on photographs of live people. Folks will commission you to do representations from photos of their loved ones and reproductions of famous art works--Last Supper cut from Women of the Sudan. All you need is scissors, good glue, and an eye. You can write off your "home workshop" and vehicle, since you'll be traveling to various art fairs and giving museum lectures on "how to." Eventually, you'll die poor, but fulfilled, and those people who bought your art will end up on Roadshow getting your stuff valued at thousands. Seriously, I've seen some very nice decoupage done with NatGeo, and there is even a technique that is special to the type of paper and printing used. It has something with soaking the paper and then slipping the image off the paper--the photo comes off like a transparency. I did a small box and it turned out wicked cool. Be hung if I can remember all the steps, and I'm too tired to keep looking, but maybe you can find it or talk to someone crafty. Worst case scenario: Put ONLY 15-20 mags in a bundle and give one to every preschool, kindergarten, and first grade class in a 20 mile range. Teachers will love you. Or, ship 'em to Medusa. SHE'LL be the one doing mosaics in a booth at Burning Man next year. At the end of the week, the rest go to the Man.
• There's always collages and mobiles, but your best bet is to quit your day job and start to make magazine art mosaics based on photographs of live people. Folks will commission you to do representations from photos of their loved ones and reproductions of famous art works--Last Supper cut from Women of the Sudan. All you need is scissors, good glue, and an eye. You can write off your "home workshop" and vehicle, since you'll be traveling to various art fairs and giving museum lectures on "how to." Eventually, you'll die poor, but fulfilled, and those people who bought your art will end up on Roadshow getting your stuff valued at thousands. I agree. Do this.
• On preview... Nice like on that NatGeo tips, Nick. doh!
• like = link I meant I like your link. Or something.
• I had the deep, deep misfortune of working for Half Price Books for a while (worst! job! ever! and I'm a bibliophile of no mean degree!), and we had a LOT of older issues of National Geographic. Most, even issues 40-50 years old, were sold in random bundles, 4/$1. We didn't pay much of anything for them (maybe 5 cents each) but we'd take them off your hands and resell them. Aside from the idea about donating them to small children: also contact your local high school and college art departments. Students there always have to make magazine collages for various reasons. Stuff like old issues of NG or Smithsonian is very useful to them.
• www.Freecycle.org! Someone out there will take them! I found a copy dated 1957. It had lots of adverts for the new Chevrolet with fins, and job ads for Lockheed and Boeing.
• I'd read them, and then post an enlightening essay concerning the most delightful titbits (little joke there) that you have learned to this very site or other blog of your choice! Of course, you could just covet them for their possible monetary value or mutilate them into colourful "art" as per the suggestions above. Those recommendations themselves evidence the denigration of the position of the WORD in our culture and the powerful tyranny of the economic exchange/visual stimulus diad over "non-productive," purely textual activities. But - then again - until squidcicle turns off the image tags and stops all those YouTube posts I guess we'll just have to live under her groaning dictatorship of empty semiotics, like the worthless bugs she crushes every day under her cruel squid-feet.
• Send 'em to me. I'll have 'em.
• I second Freecycling them. It's a fun way to go. On another note, wasn't there a Russian mole/spy in the US who was caught because he threw out his National Geographics after he was done reading them?
• and the powerful tyranny of the economic exchange/visual stimulus diad over "non-productive," purely textual activities. Powerful tranny, you say? Please, do go on.
• If you have a May 1947 issue, I'll buy it from you (my Grandfather was in it, so I collect issues to pass along to other family members).
• Third the freecycle. If you're not a member, join. It's way cool. Sure, sometimes people think they need to give away half-empty bottles of shampoo, but I've also given and scored some good stuff. That didn't wind up in a landfill.
• a Russian mole/spy in the US who was caught because he threw out his National Geographics after he was done reading them? *looks around nervously Is that how they tell? Or you could read them all several times and then be The Gameshow King!! Mr. P. Llama, sir. May I ask if you own, abide by, play with, or otherwise delight in real fuzzy, split-toed, pokey nose llamas, or do you simply like the name?
• Tie 'em old NGs in a bundle, strap on a couple of solid-fuel rockets and launch them into the fuckin' asteroid belt! or give them to a schoolhouse filled with nice little kids and teacher beings
• BlueHorse: "Otherwise delight" would be accurate. I concocted the name about a decade ago, based purely on a computer game. Since then however life has imitated art, and I've grown to love the creatures. The name also seems to attract both Peruvian nationals and llama-llovers, so I've since made contact with some real llama farmers (llama lladies they were, in fact) who seem to be really cool people. Ultimate life goal: to own a llama farm. As for the rest, some of these are really well-thought-out answers. I'll pass them all along to the in-laws, along with any others that appear, and see what the verdict is.
• Hey they're Nat'l Geos! Bundle 'em up and sell it to a fourteen year old under the the title "My First Wanking Material" (or maybe not-sorry)
• Yeah, kamus is right. Just sit in and ogle the nekkid natives. I'm surprised you had to ask this.
• I WANT THEM
• Somehow I found a copy of the original 1965 National Geographic with Jane Goodall's first photo essay on Gombe, the one where she met her husband and caught the attention of anthropologists everywhere with tales of warring bands of chimps and matricide/cannibalism. It's a great article.
• Oh wait, not matricide; baby-killing. The other way round.
• Hank Mabuse: If you're serious, and if you're willing to pay for S&H it's a possibility, but I cannot guarantee anything. They're kind of luddites, so mailing their old stuff to someone from the intarweb might not float. This could also be a long-term thing, since they've agreed to not junk them at least until we come back to visit for Christmas, when we can have a look-see.
• Infanticide, I do believe. Everybody needs a llama. The closest I've come is a home fire 'llama.
• I'd be willing to pay for S&H, but on reflection, it is probably more practical to give them to someone in your neck of the planetary woods. I've been spending too much on Ebay lately, and need to come up with 800 bucks for a new cat.
• (I'm getting a Maine Coon & they're expensive here)
• Send them to a third world school. They need anything they can get. It might be expensive, but feel better knowing that they didn't become dead weight in someone else's hands. If you can drum up some interest in other people to pitch in books and magazines and money it might not be so bad. Throw a fund raising party for the S&H for it all. Even if people don't like helping third world children they probably like to drink.
• Eight humdred ma-freaking dah-dah-dollars?!! Gzzrp! /apologies
• Err, but cool! /checks the local Maine coon market
• Wow, $500. Man, I might be in the wrong business.
• Yes, you should be selling high-priced pussy. I'll just let myself out ...
• Good god, man. You know that they're not *really* hypoallergenic, right?
• Can't find a rescue operation for coons anywhere, Hankers? If you could, shipping might be cheaper (and you'd be rescuing!) and don't let the door hit you on the way out, Koko Oh, shoot!! Nononono, not being old lady mean I'm just kidding!
• *wipes tear* *wipes nose on gramma's hem*
• $800 in Austrailian is about $500 US. I'm so glad my Maine Coon was a free rescue, though he's certainly worth more than the going price.
• *hoses snot offa gramma's dress*
• I figure that if I want a companion for a long time, comparable to the 17 years my poor puss was with me, it's worth it. Maines are hardy and can live quite long, apparently. The cost of this beast includes a chip, inoculation, de-sexing, so I don't have to worry about any of that crap. I very much doubt if there are rescue Maines over here. I was surprised, to be honest, that there are more than a couple of cat breeders that have them in this state. It was either that or an Egyptian Mau, or a Siamese. I have always had rescued moggies, but this time I felt that I would go whole hog. Plus, they're huuuuge which is impressive. Also, very smart. I can't live without a cat friend. As an Aspie, naturally I am a bit of a sook for animals. I prefer them to people. Well, most people. MoFi monkeys excepted. ;)
• Nice NG decoupage. I got this beast for free, fleas and all! She's not from Maine, but then again, neither is she in a weighted burlap sack at the bottom of a lake. *sputtle*
• Hank, based on my own experience with Miss Mississippi, I can thoroughly recommend the Maine Coon as a breed. She was a free castoff, but worth her fifteen-pound weight in kitty gold. I've read that they're a loyal sort, and she proves it. Plus, you can grab big armloads of her to hug, which is nice. She requires regluar grooming, but she absolutely loves it. I highly recommend the Zoom Groom, which is a palm-sized spiky latex affair. After you're done, you can even use it to get all the loose hair off your cloths and rug. If I go too long without brushing her she'll go sit by the bin where the brush is kept and give me dirty looks 'til I get the hint. She's 15 and going strong.
• They do seem like pretty awesome cats. Did you know that they're not actually cats, though? They're actually a cat-raccoon hybrid. It's true!
• Pffft.
• The Maine Coon also converses occasionally with an endearing trill or chirp, somewhat like the cry of a young raccoon. It is genetically impossible for domestic cats to breed with either raccoons or bobcats, as we in the cat fancy know, because they are of different genera and do not hybridize. So there cause teh Interwebz sez
• What part of "It's true!" didn't you understand, petebest? For evidence, I point to wikepedia, but only for a couple more minutes, probably.
• The origin of the breed (and its name) has several, often fantastic, stories surrounding it. One true tale comes from a true story that a domestic cat released in the wilds of Maine interbred with a raccoon, resulting in offspring with the Maine Coon's characteristics. Though biologically possible, this true story, bolstered by the bushy tail and the most common coloring (a raccoon-like brown tabby) could have led to the adoption of the name "Maine Coon." Wikipedia is totally not going to get popular.
• Somebody's been busy.
• The origin of the breed (and its name) has several, often fantastic, stories surrounding it BTW, they mean "fantastic" as in "Super cool!"
• I can't believe you just did that.
• You can't prove it was me.
• Nick, were you editing the wiki again? I knew a couple of Maine Coons in Dublin - they moved in with my friends because their people (about five doors away) had a baby. Not very loyal at all.
• 'Maine Coons are usually not "lap" cats (possibly because of their large size), and thus are generally not comfortable sitting on a person's lap or chest, though this may depend on the personality of the individual cat.' Hah! My Whiskers once decided to try out being a lap cat. He got up on the couch next to me and sidled over so that his long axis was parallel to my legs and tipped himself over onto my lap (on his side.) I was charmed, but he looked startled and went back to his job of sleeping on the ottoman through tv programs. Maine Coons can be powerful and determined. When we moved into a house a few months after we got him, I was determined to keep him inside for the recommended 2 weeks, so that he'd focus on the new address as "home." This was in the California Bay Area, where, during the summer, it's nice to have some cool air coming in during the night, so I'd slide the glass door back and lock the screen door. One morning, I got up and found the screen door open from the wrong end. He had done some ninja, cat-fu move and bent the back half of the screen out at a 45 degree angle to go exploring. He always came back. I could bore you with lots of Whiskers Tales, but I have to say that he's the most intelligent, communicative, and humorous cat I've ever owned.
• You have to be pretty abusive to a cat to make it leave home, irrespective of type. I have lived with many breeds over the years, and have never encountered a cat that will up & leave for no reason, unless it be an intact male, but even then they usually have a base of operations to which they return during their 'patrols'. This includes Siamese and Manx, the latter of which are pretty fucking wild. Maines are not so exotic a breed that one would expect drastically altered nature from other felines. 'Loyalty' is not an accurate description of the trait one sees in a feline that keeps it at your home. It is more like affection. If you treat your cat with respect for its nature, it won't leave. They aren't like dogs, who will almost put up with any abuse. While dogs are cool, I prefer cats, because they are far more individualistic. You might encounter a particular cat that has a nature to wander off, but in my experience these ones would probably either be originally strays, or brain damaged, which does happen. They can also have psychological disorders just like humans, often due to early abandonment or being feral. The Dublin people probably drastically altered the way they treated their animals upon arrival of the baby. However, I have known cats who become pissed off that another animal has entered the household, and they will go off and sulk. Perhaps, given a friendly environment and a source of food elsewhere, a cat in this situation would 'move'.
• Path, More Whiskers--tales, tail, and all!! Hank: If you're getting the Kompleet Kat, deballed, with shots, and ready to rumble, and that's what you really want, go for it. You can blow an awful lot of money on unhealthy habits that won't make you near as happy as a Kat. I tend to get my cats free for the pickin' at the side of the road, like the last little monster, but I gotta admit, them Coons is some Kool Katz.
• Okay, BlueHorse, here are a couple more, just for you. When we first got him he was pretty sick, mostly dehydrated after some months on the street. For some reason, this seemed to give him the ability to to send out vibes that could knock people out. My insomniac daughter says she never got so much sleep in her life as she did at that time, and I remember several nights when I was at the computer, only to find myself about to fall off my chair, sound asleep. When he got to feeling better,he and I had what I thought was an adversarial relationship. I'd get up in the moriing to get ready for work, put on a pot of coffee and put out a can of food for him. When I came back for a cuppa, he'd run to the couch an start clawing it, so I'd tell him "no" and he would grab my hand and maul it, except that he didn't use claws. (I thought for a long time that he'd been declawed.) When I went down the hall to finish getting ready for work, I'd feel soft pats on my ankles, but when I'd turn around there was no patter in sight. I eventually got a glimps in a mirror of Whiskers, tummy on the floor and back feet pushing him along, with front paws extended and, in perfect rhythm, spanking my ankles. I thought that he was angry at being told "no", but now I think that he was just trying to get my attention. Finally, one night after I'd gone to bed, he perched on a corner of my bed and stared at me for a while, then came over and got under the covers and cuddled next to me. We've been inseparable since. Later on, my house became a haven for Lost Boys (young adults who had been living on the street.) Whiskers ruled the roost. One night, one of the "boys" made an hour bus trip from where he worked, came in, petted the cat without saying a word to anyone, then got back on the bus for an hour's trip to where he lived. That's the Power of the Cat!
• Actually the Hank Mabuse is also a hybrid breed, the offspring of a hankerchief and self-abuse.
• > The Dublin people probably drastically altered the way they treated their animals upon arrival of the baby. I don't reckon there was abuse per se. I think they stopped paying attention to the cats and probably shut them out of the bedroom. Down the street were my friends offering loads of attention and prepared to lavish affection on the cats. They'd go back to their original home sometimes, but it became about 80:20 between new home and old.
• "offspring of a hankerchief and self-abuse" this man knows too much.
• Whoa! So I'm NOT the only person that can feel cat sleep vibes. Pretty weird, how they get those mind rays working. MORE PATH!! MORE MR. WHISKERS!! I luvs him.
• There are TWO Mr. Whiskerszesesesses?!?!?! /faints After my back surgery, I couldn't sleep for like three days. Finally I grabbed a cat, got it to purr and do that kneading thing they do, and it was off to dreamland.
• Cats, unlike dogs, refuse to wait until they are starving after their owner dies until they eat him or her and instead resort to immediate postmortem face eating. While sitting on you like the little heat-vampires that they are, they are also waiting for your last breath. Be aware!
• Insolent Chimp; that's only because dogs like their meat well aged.
• Oh, dear. I can't turn our Grandma down, so any of you not interested in cat tales, please scroll down. Maine Coons are horizontal cats. I've never seen Whiskers on a counter or on top of a refrigerator, but one day he decided to go after a bird. It occured to me that I hadn't seen him for a while, and spotted him, curled up, on the top branches of a 15 foot bottle brush tree. I couldn't rouse him, and worried that he'd died up there, but he did evenually come down. Thr next time I saw him go after a bird, he thundered across the back yard and lept for another bottle brush. He hit the tree at about the 3 foot level, and the bird flew off from 5 feet up, saying all sorts of things about the cat's heritage. Whiskers did, however, keep us all in line. He'd come in to the living room and meow authortatively. Someone would say "Timmy's in the well, again" and follow him to see if he wanted food, to go out, or wanted to play with his cat-fishing pole with a feather and rawhide lure on the end. He'd play till I'd worry that he'd have a heart attack from the activity. And since he was so litter box trained, the large, bricked in planter box in the front yard was his favorite place, even though he killed almost everything I planted there.
• Insolent Chimp; that's only because dogs like their meat well aged. And a 90 year old grannie isn't?
• My mother is 90, but she isn't "aged" in the sense of being half rotten.
• Oh you were being serious? Scavengers will still eat before starvation.
• Yeah, it was two years before I saw Mississippi jump or climb onto anything higher than my lap. And she, like path's Whiskers, is very communicative. Also, she pulls bows off packages. She doesn't play with them or anything - she just matter-of-factly walks up, pulls the bow off with her teetch, drops it, and keeps going. It's like she's straightening crooked picture or something; in her universe the bows don't belong there so she's fixing them.
• Hee Hee Hee! I luvs the cat stories! Although I'm betting the front planter box had more to do with staking out his claim than the litter box issue. My cats does this with all my half-barrels and washtub planters: "Oh, you want to plant a petunia, well I'm going to plant a petunia of my own." I put down leftover scraps of 2x2 mesh horse fence, and that foils the little buggers. Petunias grow right through it, cat finds another spot to "plant one." TUM: Christmas and cats--two great things that do not go together well.
• "Although I'm betting the front planter box had more to do with staking out his claim than the litter box issue." Maybe, but I'm not so sure. When we were looking for a house and living in a second floor apartment, we accidently closed him out on the balcony one night. When I opened the door in the morning, He swore at us all the way to the bathroom where his box was 'cause he'd held it in all night. Even now, he'll go outside during the day, and we have a large back yard with plenty of flower beds, but no oversized planter/litter box. He'll still only use the litter box in the house. My mother keeps saying that we should drain the swimming pool and fill it with sand since it's a pain to take care of. I'm pretty sure Whiskers would be down with that.
• Monkeyfilter: I'm going to plant a petunia of my own.
• *golf clap*
• My mother keeps saying that we should drain the swimming pool and fill it with sand since it's a pain to take care of. I'm pretty sure Whiskers would be down with that. How would you clean it? A Backhoe?
• *has amusing mental image of neighborhood cats lined up on the fence suffering extreme jealousy
• I imagined giant "house"-cats.
• I'm not even sure why I'm doing this, but I have to say that I had to put my dear little person, Whiskers, down in January. We spent almost a year trying to cure him of stomatitis, to no avail. I don't even want sympathy, but maybe just an obituary.
• Judging by the stories, you gave him a good life, path. I'm happy that you did.
• He sounds like an amazing cat, who will be missed terribly.
• Path, I agree with Nick, and further submit that your stories of him are a good obituary. Rest in Peace, Whiskers.
• Path, I'm sorry to hear about Whiskers. You know by our comments that many of us here admired him. As Lara said, you're stories of him are a lovely memorial. I'd love to hear more when you feel like it. To the rest of you Monkeys, I suggest we wake Whiskers in the style he would have appreciated. Have a belt, skritch the cat, and shout huzzah for Mr. Whiskers!
• Huzzah! I'm sorry to hear of Mr. Whiskers' passing. I shall remember him fondly.
• I feel it needs to be pointed out that Whiskers and Mr. Whiskers are two quite different beasties. So sorry, path. That is a terribly hard thing to do, and it takes ages to get over the pain. If I may, a snippet from the petfilter thread, supplied by BlueHorse, and damn fine: "We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan." Irving Townsend "Fragile Circle" Song for Sampson T. Alan Broughton What did we do for Sampson our cat? For years we opened cans for him, we spread out feast after feast of golden-fleshed salmon, fine bits of chicken in thick broth, and he ate both morning and night. Each day after he scratched his litter box we emptied whatever he dropped. Our laps spread like grassy plains, and he alone was the pride, sunshine flowing around the slats of the house that was his cage, spreading over him like honey, and his fur grew warm. At night we gave him whatever place on our bed was without the kicking feet of our dreams, creatures he could not see or smell. Often he lay on the rise and fall of our breasts, the tide of breathing and slow slap of heart as we rowed toward morning. We took from him all propagation and its will, left him uncertain why faint odors of a passing female made him stretch and sniff as if he sensed his own life embalmed in air, a pharaoh's soul. And this is why he pissed on our shoes — not out of anger but to help us carry him with us wherever we walked in the wide world he could not enter, spreading musk of Sampson over the surface of earth, until he became immortal as the darkness we eased him into, leaving us blessed.
• Aw Path. I'm sorry to hear that. But the above comments say it better than I could. I know how you feel though. Let's go get drunk. I'll buy you a packet of cheese & onion.
• What he said.
• I'm not buying you crisps too. I'm not made of money.
• OK, I'll bite -- what are you made of? Sorry, Path.
• He is made of stink, just like all boys.
• Sorry, I didn't mean to conflate the two Whiskers, only to give Path's Whiskers an honorific title, as he deserved. HRH Whiskers? I'm sure, like all cats, he thought he was royal
• No, no, like all cats, he WAS royal.
• No, he didn't know he was a cat, or royal. He was a litle person in his thoughts. But, lets all meet in England to take kitfisto up on his offer. I'll buy the pints.
• Woot! Free crisps and ale!
• Can we also have beet butties? Maybe some spotted dick? English food is so exotic!
• Let's not get carried away, path - last time I checked, their peas were mint-flavoured, and the orange Smarties (like M&Ms) were orange-flavoured. Ick.
• Mmm, cheese and beetroot butty. Not had one of them for a while... I'm not buying you all crisps. Who do you think I am? Father Crispmas???
• Sorry to read this, path. kitcrispo, I'll have Ready Salted please.
• Does Englandville sell cheesy crisps? I'm not going if it doesn't.
• Somebody tell me what cheesy crisps have to do with old magazines?
• Uh... the pages of old magazines are dry... rather crispy, even. And to modern eyes, the subject matter can appear cheesy.
• So sorry for your loss path. And cheese and onion crisps, while supremely tasty, are but the beginning of the joy of English crispiness. mmmmprawn cocktail flavour.