Carol picked up a bunch of funky magazines at “Newsbreak,” the store off Route 6 on Pope’s Island behind the Dunkin Donuts (“Over 7,000 titles”). Among the magazines she picked up is Out Your Backdoor: A Catazeen of Homegrown Adventure and Culture. The catalog part has a bunch of indy-press books including titles like Dream Boats: A Rare Look at Junks, Outriggers, Dhows, and More, and Momentum: Chasing the Olympic Dream (a bunch of Americans pursuing a gold medal in XC skiing), and Recumbent Bicycle, touted as “the only book about this booming and innovative field of bicycling.” The catalog also sells things like “Move-It” car magnets, which have large legends like “Paddler!”, “Geek!”, and “Bike!” — and which say in smaller type, “If you like me… take me… keep me moving! The social bumper sticker — Public property” –an interesting alternative to the usual hostile bumperstickers and ribbon-themed car magnets.

The magazine part of Out Your Backdoor is even more interesting, with a couple of longer articles and lots of little bits and pieces about “do-it-yourself outdoor culture” — like a reference to an ultralight movement in backpacking where you make your own gear, and a bit about Rivendell Bicycles, where you can still get bicycles that you can strip down and rebuild and completely maintain yourself. In other words, a look at some serious outdoorspeople who haven’t bought in to the culture of bright nylon and spandex which has turned the outdoors into just another consumer commodity.

Didn’t know there were any people like this left in the world. I wonder if Out Your Backdoor is a cultural anomaly, or if we’re seeing the beginnings of a reaction to mass consumer culture?…