The fifth issue of Pop Up Magazine — self-described as “the world’s first live magazine” — unfolded onstage in New York last night (May 12) with a 25-member cast that included WNYC’s Radiolab producer Pat Walters.
In a May interview, Pop Up’s Editor in Chief Dougal McGray explained the group’s origin in 2009: “We’re a small group of old friends — writers, editors and designers who have worked for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, This American Life, The Atavist, Wired, Spin and Interview. On a whim, we decided to launch a magazine that would exist for just one night, live on stage. A live magazine. Nothing would get published, nothing would go online. Instead, we would present a rapid-fire series of new stories, images and ideas in an evening that unfolds like a classic print magazine.”
Walters presented “One Breath,” capturing the excitement and terror of freediving, or swimming underwater to enormous depths without using any breathing apparatus. (The world’s record, by the way, is 288 feet in 3 minutes 30 seconds.) A review in AdAge said his was the “most interesting” offering of the evening.
The revue, at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, also garnered an enthusiastic review from Fishbowl NY on Mediabistro, which called it “a lot of fun.”