BoSacks Speaks Out: I Salute You - A New Year's Homage to the Ink-Stained Irregulars

BoSacks Speaks Out: I Salute You, 2025/2026

A New Year's Homage to the Ink-Stained Irregulars

There's something about the calendar doing its annual pirouette that makes me sentimental, or maybe it's just the Bo-bourbon talking. Either way, as we say goodbye to 2025 and squint uncertainly at the future that is 2026, I find myself pausing, as I've done for decades now, to raise a glass to all of you who have kept the ink flowing and the presses humming.

You magnificent, stubborn souls, you've done it again. You've survived. And in publishing, survival isn't just victory; it's an art form.

It's been quite a ride, hasn't it? Somewhere along the way, we became the last romantics of the analog world, the guardians of grainy halftones and perfectly kerned headlines. We've heard the doomsday prophets chant "Print is dead" more times than I've ordered lunch at Junior's Deli. Yet here we are: ink-stained, slightly older, definitely wiser, and still unbowed.

The world did change. It continues to spin at algorithmic speed. But so did we. We learned to dance rather than dig in our heels. The magazine, that miraculous blend of image, story, and touch, has transformed from a utilitarian medium into a luxury object, as tactile and desirable as a fine vinyl record.

Now your creations are not just read, they're admired, collected, and proudly displayed. In a world drowning in content, you offer curation. In a sea of scrolling, you offer stillness. The thump of "thwack" mail, the joyous arrival of a printed magazine, is now an event, not a routine. And that, my friends, is something close to magic.

You've managed what few industries ever do: evolve without surrender. You've embraced the digital tools that amplify your reach without abandoning the soul of your craft. You've proven that the screen and the page can coexist, frenemies at worst, creative collaborators at best. Because real storytelling, storytelling with heart and heft, was never platform dependent. It was always about connection.

And connection, my friends, cannot be automated. The algorithm may sort, suggest, and even simulate, but it will never feel. That, as ever, remains your domain. You have survived. In this business, that's not a consolation prize. That is the championship ring.

From High Times to Hard Times to High Print

When this adventure started for me back in 1970, it was with a scrappy little weekly in metro New York, written with more nerve than budget. That led to more newspapers, then to High Times, where we weren't just making magazines; we were making mischief and building our own renegade distribution network, because at first the respectable world wanted nothing to do with us.

By the time I landed in the corporate corridors of McCall's, Time Inc., the New York Times Magazine Group, and other "respectable" addresses, I had ink in my veins and a permanent distrust of anyone who claimed to know the exact date print would die. The prophets of doom have been calling the time of death since the Nixon administration, yet you and I are still here, still making things you can hold in your hands.

Print: From Utility to Luxury

Many years ago, in a debate with my friend and frequent sparring partner, Professor Samir Husni, I suggested that print was on its way to becoming a luxury product rather than a mass commodity. Not dead, not dying, just evolving into something rarer, more precious, more intentional. That prediction, much to my ongoing delight, has not only arrived; it has unpacked its suitcase and moved in.

Your magazines are not disposable anymore, if they ever really were. They are objets d'art and curated experiences. The thump of a magazine on the doorstep is now an event, not a routine. The reader who subscribes isn't just looking for information; they're looking for a moment of sanity, focus, and pleasure in a world that insists on screaming at them 24/7.

Permanence in an Age of Scroll

The digital world is impressive. It is fast, flexible, omnipresent, and exhausting. Platforms rise and fall, attention spans shrink, and we now measure success in fractions of a second. Yet in the midst of this constant motion, you, the keepers of the printed page, have doubled down on something that digital cannot replicate: permanence.

The weight of a magazine, the smell of ink, the rustle of a page turning, these are not just nostalgic quirks for aging boomers. They are deeply human experiences. A dog-eared feature story that you return to months later without a search bar is a quiet rebellion against forgetfulness. In a world drowning in content, people don't actually want more; they want less but better. That's your superpower: curation.

Hybrid Souls in a Binary Age

One of the best-kept secrets of this era is that you have become masterful hybrids. You have learned to publish across platforms without selling your soul to any of them. You have proven that print and digital don't have to be gladiators in some zero-sum arena. They can be partners, each doing what it does best.

You've taken the tools of the digital age, social media, analytics, AI, and bent them to your will without letting them define your purpose. You still chase what matters: stories worth telling, photography worth printing, design that earns the right to exist on paper. The algorithm can rank and recommend; it cannot care. Empathy, intuition, and decades of editorial gut feeling are still human-only features.

This wasn't just another year in publishing; it was a plot twist. Generative AI burst into editing rooms, marketing decks, and audiobook booths like an uninvited intern who somehow got a keycard. Sure, it boosted productivity, but it also stirred up ethical storms about authorship, transparency, and who gets paid for the magic.

Meanwhile, real humans kept hustling as automation and consolidation quietly trimmed the ranks. "Do more with less" became less of a motto and more of a lifestyle, preferably with caffeine on tap.

So here we stand at the crossroads again, trying to balance innovation with authenticity, progress with payroll. The survivors will be the ones who adapt with humor intact. After all, if you can't laugh while the industry reinvents itself, again, you're in the wrong business.

The Invisible Costs of Survival

As we step into 2026, it feels important to acknowledge the part that doesn't make it into the glossy case studies: the sacrifices, the all-nighters, the painful restructurings, the colleagues and brands lost along the way. This industry did not survive because of luck. It survived because you refused to give up on the idea that words, images, and intentional design, delivered in a form you can actually hold, matter to the human psyche.

You've done hard, unglamorous work to keep it all going: negotiating paper prices, wrestling with postal regulations, rethinking business models, learning new technologies, and doing it all while trying to keep the lights on and the mission intact. It has been, at times, a knife fight in a dark alley. And yet, here you are. Still publishing. Still believing.

The Mediterranean, the Menu, and the Memory

Now to the personal part of this annual ritual. Carol and I have just returned from a glorious Mediterranean cruise, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, the kind of trip where every sunset looks like it was art directed and every meal seems designed to ruin your previous standards for food.

As we prepare for our 24th annual New Year's Eve tasting extravaganza, that journey is coming home with us in the form of a seven-course, multi-country culinary adventure. There will be Spanish tapas whispering of Barcelona evenings, French elegance on delicate plates, Italian comfort in soulful pasta, Greek brightness that tastes like whitewashed walls and blue water. Each course is a chapter; by the time dessert lands, we will have eaten our way through a small, delicious atlas.

It's not unlike making a magazine, really: sourcing, editing, sequencing, presentation, pacing, and hoping to hell it all comes together by deadline. If there's a better metaphor for this industry than sweating over a complex menu for people you love, knowing that some things will go wrong and it will still be wonderful, it hasn't introduced itself yet.

"Take Peace. Take Joy."

Before the ball drops, before the last plate is cleared and the first 2026 headache arrives, I return, as I do every year, to a voice from half a millennium ago. Fra Giovanni, writing to a friend in 1513, offered a kind of New Year's benediction that feels as relevant in the age of AI as it did in the age of quills:

"No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace. The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy."

These words, echoed centuries later by Ram Dass in "Be Here Now," remind us that the only place we ever really live is in the present issue, the current deadline, the page in front of us right now. There is no future where everything is magically calmer, kinder, or easier. There is only this moment, this work, this story.

To Those Who Make Things That Last

So, to you, the publishers, editors, designers, photo directors, printers, paper vendors, mailing wizards, sales teams, marketers, and the whole merry band of accomplices who conspire to put ink on paper with meaning and intent - Carol and I raise our glasses.

You are not relics of a bygone era. You are pioneers of what endures. You are living proof that in a disposable age, there is still demand, deep, emotional demand, for things that last longer than a swipe.

May 2026 bring you strength for the hard parts, delight in the creative parts, and the profound satisfaction of knowing that what you do still matters, perhaps more now than ever. May your presses run true, your postal receipts be merciful, your advertisers enlightened, and your readers endlessly curious.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, dear friends. May your pages continue to turn with brilliance and may the stories you shepherd into the world leave marks that time, and no algorithm, can erase.

With affection, gratitude, and a comfortably heavy pour of Buffalo Trace,
Bo and Carol Sacks