Fall 1997
This issue marks the appearance of Speak's final fashion feature. During this period, the magazine was approached by a potential buyer: an Israeli businessman with no discernible affection for publishing. During one negotiation, frustrated that I wouldn't accept his offer, he bluntly asked me: "Why do you do this magazine?" When I stuttered something sappy about creating a publication of which I could be proud, he impatiently interrupted: "Wrong answer! You do this for the same reason you do everything—for money." The businessman's girlfriend ran a local fashion styling company, and to gain our affection (and probably hers), he paid for an entire crew to travel to Morocco and photograph a model traipsing among the locals. The photographs were quite good, but didn't belong in Speak. In the end, it was a sell-out without a payoff—I broke off negotiations just before the photos were published.

Content
Interviews with filmmaker Michael Apted, NPR's Terry Gross and artist Edward Gorey.

Transgress and Be Damned: an overview of extreme publishing.

"Ball Lightning": an original play by Barry Gifford.

Abstraction at the End of the Millenium: four modern painters violate tradition.

Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things: art zine Craphound's thousand pictures tell a story.

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