No New Yorker at Indigo

The magazine section at our local Indigo has been condensed over recent months: a substantial section of magazine racks has been removed, and replaced with puzzles and games. 

The area where general interest magazines like Harpers, Monocle,  The Atlantic, and The New Yorker used to be has been removed, and condensed into a new “Business / Entertainment / Young Readers” section that looked like this today:

I know this because I decided today that I wanted to go and buy myself a real live copy of The New Yorker. 

I let my subscription go just before COVID, a big step for me, a longtime subscriber who had once been the magazine’s foremost advocate on Prince Edward Island. I decided I was ready to dip my toe back in the waters, and I knew Indigo to be a reliable source. 

Except it wasn’t. 

No copies in evidence, with “we don’t track inventory of magazines”  the only comment from staff, followed by a suggestion that if it wasn’t there, well, then, it wasn’t there.

This all brought back the memory of an email to the magazine’s then-publisher about problems with delivery of the magazine to the late great Tweels, where I wrote, in part:

For some reason, for weeks where Monday is a holiday in Canada, but not in the U.S. — days like Victoria Day in May, Dominion Day in July, and so on — your magazine never arrives at Tweels Gift Shop. I ask at the counter and they tell me some variation of “we were shorted this week.” I don’t really understand what this means. But it is a reliable and consistent problem, and has been for some time.

I have no idea how the The New Yorker gets from New York City to Charlottetown, PEI. But on those weeks — like this one, where November 11 was a holiday here but not there — when The New Yorker is not available, my entire week is affected.

It’s like a small part of the air I breath is not available to me.

I realize that in the grander scheme of things this problem pales in comparison to others I imagine you have on your desk. But I would very much appreciate it if you could be of some assistance in helping to track down and solve it.

Much to my surprise, Mr. Carey replied within 24 hours:

Thank you for this note, and your connection to The New Yorker.

I will pass this on our newsstand operation, who perhaps can answer your question.

Have you ever thought about subscribing, which may prove to be more reliable?

(I love the prompt to subscribe: that’s what publishers are supposed to do!)

True to his word, the query was passed along, and I received a reply, in part:

We apologize for the difficulty that you had in finding the New Yorker at Tweels Gift Shop. We looked into this.

We found that Tweel’s normally receives 15 copies of The New Yorker and, thanks to loyal readers like you, sells an average of 7 copies each week. However, I was told that one recent issue was not delivered to Tweels for some reason. (That’s what they mean by being “shorted”.) Tweels did not get the issue with the cover date October 8. If you have not been able to get a copy of that issue please let me know . I would be happy to send one to you.

Regarding your comments about the Mondays that are holidays in Canada , I have found out that on those weeks Tweels gets their copies on Tuesday. That’s because the magazine distributor also takes off on the Monday holiday.

I love the humanity of this reply, and the earlier ones, a humanity that seems of a bygone era. 

I also like the historic data point that Tweels once received 15 copies of The New Yorker every week, and sold 7 on average.

In the meantime, I think maybe they still stock the magazine on the front counter at Brighton Clover Farm, and perhaps I’ll head over there.