: TOMAS
Janet's book reviews were often five hundred words and three sentences, with lots of long, vaguely poetic, but impenetrable, phrases. At one stage we limited her to a certain number of reviews, so she called and sniped at the other book reviewers, which was just not good policy.

Is it too late to say we're sorry?

: DAN
I decided to cut the book reviews altogether, mainly because we weren't generating very many good ones. Within a month of rudely blowing off Janet, her own first book came out, Oprah selected it, and she probably became a millionaire overnight.

: TOMAS
One of my most uncomfortable moments at Speak was when Dan decided he was not going to allow a certain writer into the office. The writer was knocking on the door and when somebody knocks, my inclination is to answer it. Even if it was a stranger who wanted to visit, I had seen Dan let them come in. But this day he just wasn't going to open the door.

: DAN
This guy always insisted on showing up in person, often unannounced, and talking ad nauseum. One day when we were screening calls, he rang from outside wanting to be buzzed up. I put my foot down and didn't let him in, but he still managed to get into the building.

: TOMAS
We were sort of milling about the office for three minutes as he was knocking over and over again. He knew we were in there. I don't think we were even trying to be quiet.

: DAN
He had come by not long before and would not stop talking about his personal experience with a particular article, how it had changed his life, all of this hyperbole crap. We couldn't get him out of there with a crate of tear gas. As time has passed, I've ridded the magazine its more difficult writers, even if they weren't necessarily the least talented. Life's too short to have to work with wienies.

At least someone was smiling in the office.

: ELISABETH
Dan seemed excited about selling the magazine, as long as he could keep control of the editorial. He took a whole lot of something the morning of his big meeting and didn't feel safe to drive, so he asked me to drive him there. He came out an hour and a half later and was clearly not pleased with how things had gone.

: DAN
The potential buyer was a sinister foreign businessman. The two of us sat at a large conference table. I had a proposal prepared by my lawyer and he tossed it aside and said, "As two men we can sit here today and make a deal. But you get lawyers involved and it will take forever." Then he added, "I would like to include my lawyer. He is a good man."

He wanted to give me a generous employment contract and allow me to keep a small percentage of the magazine. But I would have no control, and no guaranteed position-- I could have ended up washing windows. When I rejected the offer, he dramatically slid a copy of Speak in front of me, pounded his finger on it, and said, "Why do you do this magazine?!" I was very nervous and said something like, "Well, hopefully to produce something that I can be proud of." He interrupted me and said, "Wrong answer! You do this for the same reason you do everything. For money! And I am offering you money." Obviously he didn't know me.

: MARTIN
The thing that always frustrated me about Dan, more than anything else, is that he never took the bull by the horns as far as promoting the magazine and himself. He was always so modest and insecure. I felt that the magazine could take off, that there were a lot of outlets, even early on, where people would have been interested in doing an article or interviewing him, but until he felt the magazine was perfect, he didn't want to do that. I thought, "There is so much being wasted here." But I couldn't take over for him because I have the same problem, and of course I wasn't the publisher and editor.

: CAITLIN
I don't think Dan was as vocal as he could have been. He could have been out doing interviews and all that sort of thing. It's ironic that when Speak is over he'll have to sell what it was and who he is in a way that he never did when it was all happening.

: RENEE
When I spoke with Dan for the first time on the phone, I tried to exact a narrative from him about starting the magazine; what motivated him, how he felt about creating something tangible, unique, a mode of communicating with thousands of people around the world. He seemed unable to acknowledge the accomplishment of pulling off a national magazine. He was not only not interested in glorifying it, he didn't seem to have time to contemplate such things.

: MARTIN
The people who really succeed are the ones who not only don't mind publicity, but know how to actively promote themselves.

: DAN

At his current rate of distribution, Dan would have needed to reprint business cards in 2148.

I was never satisfied enough with the magazine that I even wanted it to be seen, which is admittedly odd since I spent so much time on it and by nature it was a public project that required people to be interested in it. When I met people away from work, I never mentioned the magazine, or I'd just say that I was an editor. I printed five hundred business cards three years ago and I probably have four hundred and ninety left.

: MARTIN
The magazine got a lot of play in the design press, which Dan resented a bit. But that was happening because I was granting interviews, sending pictures of spreads. He could have achieved similar things on the editorial side, but he was a lot more resistant.

: DAN
Design press is much easier to come by than general press; there are lots of design magazines and books, it's a self-promoting business, they hand out awards every five minutes.

If I felt any resentment, it was because designers didn't seem to be reading Speak. Plus, we weren't selling more ads; the design may have hurt ad sales. A magazine like RayGun got lots of design press, every designer knew about it, but it never generated much ad revenue or sold many magazines relative to other national music titles. At one point it was only a vehicle for its art director's fame, which was all it deserved to be. I didn't want people to perceive of Speak in the same way. Still, it was inevitable to the degree that much of our designer audience couldn't tell the difference.

: MARTIN
The magazine has labeled me as this strange designer doing, as some have said, unfathomable design. Granted the first issues were like that. Some of it is visually interesting, just as visual stuff, but that's just the kind of design that Dan resents, and I resent, too.

: DAN
Early on, I thought Martin's design was the only reason to pick up the magazine. I encouraged him to go all out. If it didn't look cool, I don't think we would've sold anywhere near the magazines that we sold. But as the editorial improved, there was more tension between Martin and me. Suddenly I was saying, "You can't do this anymore." "You can't do that anymore." "I don't like color."

: MARTIN
Dan would make these pronouncements, he would give me categorical statements, but he was actually much looser on what he liked and didn't like.

: DAN
I have always hated lots of color and Martin tended to go overboard whenever he'd use it. We typically would go to lunch together during the design of the first issue. But one day I let him go by himself, then I sat at his computer. I didn't know what I was doing, but I changed these bright colors on a fashion feature to a muted, dark green. I thought that was a subtle way of telling him I didn't like what he was doing.

: MARTIN
We ended up with a pale yellow, which wasn't bright and was ultimately the best choice. I think Dan would agree that his dark green would have been a bad choice. Today we would just sit together and look at it; it's not such a subversive thing.

: DAN
Martin isn't someone who deals with praise well, he seems almost surprised to hear it. Of course that lets me off the hook because I'm not great about giving it.

: MARTIN
When Dan does say something like, "I think that's pretty good" or "I'm really happy with this spread," it's such an amazing thing to hear, it kind of just makes me feel calm for the whole day. Whereas that might be nothing for some people, I always assume people are going to dislike what I do.

When others give me praise, I don't attend to it, but I attend to criticism very seriously. That's not necessarily a good way to be because you can never enjoy the fruits of your labor. Whenever I get an issue of Speak, I'm pretty critical of it and how I might have done things differently.

(cont.) Too much news is bad news. >>

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