The Musical Brain: And Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

printers they’d given us a
provisional “cost schedule” for various sizes and quantities of pages, in different
combinations. The quality of the paper, it turned out, made very little difference.
There could be thirty-two pages, or sixty-four, or . . . The printers worked with
numbers of “sheets,” which was something we never fully understood. Mercifully, they
simplified the choices for us. We took it on ourselves to complicate them.
    We thought long and hard about the frequency of publication: monthly, biannual,
triannual? Had it been simply up to us, dependent only on our zeal, we would have
made it fortnightly or weekly . . . There was no shortage of material or enthusiasm
on our part. But it all depended on the money. In the end we adopted the view of
Sigfrido Radaelli, one of our obliging advisers: literary magazines came out when
they could. Everyone accepted that; it was the way things were. When we accepted it
ourselves, we realized that irregularity would not oblige us to give up our idea of
selling subscriptions. All we had to do was change the formula from a period of time
(“yearly subscription”) to a number of issues (“subscription for six issues”).
    Recounting all these details now, they seem absurdly puerile, but they were part of a
learning process, and maybe a new generation is repeating these lessons today,
mutatis mutandis
, as the love of poetry and knowledge is eternally
reborn. The prospect of having subscribers and, more generally speaking, the desire
to do a good job led us into an area of greater complexity. The general perspective
was important: we felt that whether or not our readers were subscribers they were
entitled to a product that would continue over time. The subscribers would be
more
entitled, of course, because they would have paid in advance.
Continuity mattered to us too. We were depressed by the mere thought that our
magazine might decline or dwindle with successive issues. But we had no way to
insure against it. In fact, there was no guarantee that we’d even be able to get
enough money to print a second issue. With admirable realism, we left sales out of
our calculations. Even more realistically, we anticipated a diminution of the energy
that we’d be able to devote to bothering our families and friends for money . . .
Basically, the question was: Would we be able to bring out a second issue of
Athena
? And a third? And all the following issues, so as to build up a
history? The answer was affirmative. If we could get the first issue out, we could
get the others out as well.
    I don’t know if we hypnotized each other, or were led to believe what we wanted to
believe by our fervent commitment to literature, but we ended up convincing
ourselves. Once we were sure our venture would continue, we felt we could indulge in
some fine-tuning. Our guiding principle was a kind of symmetry. All the numbers of
the magazine had to be equivalent to the others, in number of pages, amount of
material, and “specific gravity.” How could we ensure that? The solution that
occurred to us was curious in the extreme.
    We’d noticed that literary magazines often brought out “double issues”: for example,
after number 5, they’d bring out 6–7, with twice as many pages. They usually did
this when they got behind, which wouldn’t be the case for us, because we’d already
opted for irregularity. But it gave us an idea. Why not do it the other way around?
That is, begin with a double issue, 1–2, not with double the pages, though, just the
36 we’d already decided on. That way, we’d be covered: if we had to make the second
issue slimmer, it could be a single issue: 3. If, on the other hand, we maintained
the same level, we’d do another double issue, 3–4, and we’d be able to go on like
that as long as the magazine prospered, with the reassuring possibility of reducing
the number of pages at any time, without losing face.
    It must have occurred to one of us that “double”