I’ve been a reader of The New Yorker magazine for many years. Since the magazine is not sold in the newsstands here, and since the company does not deliver to Iran, I turned to some good friends to come to the rescue.
I now have a network of people around the world who are kindly at work to get the magazine to me. The delivery system falls into the following categories:
Mass hand-deliverers: Subscribed people who live outside, pile the back issues, and bring them along when they come for a visit.
Single hand-deliverers: Unsubscribed people, living either outside who are coming inside for a visit, or inside coming back from an outside visit, who remember to pick up the latest issue at the airport.
The Islamic Republic’s postal service (I.R.I.P.C): The man who sometimes delivers my mail if he’s in the mood, and rings the bell when he does to receive his tip.
The last one is the delivery system that I’ve abandoned now, not just for its inconsistencies, but also for being expensive in the long run. But there’s one more problem too. It looks like before the above mentioned man gets my package for debating whether and when to deliver it, there is another man who sits in the office all day, whose activity is to cut sheets of blue adhesive paper into small patches with a pair of scissors and stick them on things he doesn’t want me to see. Given the fact that I like to get my New Yorkers solely for all the skin and nudity, and not for the articles, I’ve asked friends not to use this method anymore.
Tags: censorship, magazine, new yorker