Show and Tell: A Very Beautiful Magazine — in Braille

The story behind one of my favorite possessions.

Show and Tell is an occasional recurring feature of Inconspicuous Consumption, with most of the entries contributed by the site’s readers. Today’s installment, however, is by me. You can see additional Show and Tell posts here. — Paul

One night in 2002-ish, I was at a bar in Appleton, Wisconsin. Along with me were two friends who lived in that town plus a colleague of theirs.

In the 20-plus years since then, one of the friends has died, I’ve fallen out of touch with the other one, and I no longer recall their colleague’s name. But one of my Very Favorite possessions came my way as a result of that night.

Here’s the deal: As the four of us were chatting and sipping beers, my friends were telling their colleague about me. “Paul likes unusual objects,” they said.

“Really?” said the colleague, turning to me. “Then I have something I think you’ll like. Let me have your address.” She wouldn’t tell me what she was planning to send me, but she assured me that I’d find it interesting.

A week or so later, a package arrived at my home in Brooklyn. Inside was something I’d never seen before: a magazine rendered in braille.

Obviously, I was aware of braille, and I’d periodically encountered it on elevator keypads and things like that. But I’d never seen an entire braille publication. It probably came with a letter from my friends’ colleague, explaining how she had acquired it, but I didn’t save the letter (bad move on my part) and no longer recall the details.

As promised, it’s a fascinating object, and an immensely satisfying one to boot. The pages are thick, heavy kraft paper, like something you’d use for a premium edition. The embossed braille markings are pleasingly tactile and form a beautiful series of abstract patterns — or at least they seem abstract, for those of us who can’t read braille. A magazine set in Devanagari (Indian), Katakana (Japanese), Hangul (Korean), or any other unfamiliar alphabet would probably look abstract as well.