Media Monoliths [antikvár]

Introduction 'The biggest bazaar in the world' It is a sultry, overcast day in downtown Manhattan, and I am looking for a very special store. I'm acting on a friend's casual tip-off: 'You're interested in the media, right? You have to see this place - I reckon it sells every single magazine that's published. It's on Broadway somewhere, near SoHo.' I finally track it down - a narrow green-painted store on the corner of Broadway and Broome. A banner outside tells me that it is called Universal News Café, and that it stocks no fewer than 7,000 magazines The store is very long and thin, with a counter running along one side and a few tables and chairs squished into the middle. People drink coffee and leaf through magazines that they have no intention of buying. It would be an entirely unremarkable place, were it not for the walls, which are lined from floor to ceiling with magazines. Lurid covers screech at me, their headlines promising to supply the latest info about sex, fashion, food, drink, music, movies, sport, business, vacations, men's health, women's health, going out, staying in, being single, being gay, falling in love, getting married, having a baby, getting a divorce, and retiring. And that doesn't include the specialist magazines aimed at everyone from archaeologists to zoologists. For a second I am dizzy, and the store's garish walls seem to expand and contract like the prisms of a kaleidoscope. Then I balance myself,