Everything We Love Is Locked Under Glass

Rye Magazine|Issue 60

- David LeGault

“PRINCESS,” the commemorative Princess Diana Beanie Baby bear, first edition, royal violet with lace around her throat, a white rose over her heart, currently lists on eBay for upwards of three-hundred fifty-thousand dollars.

There are 4664 beans inside of Millennium, a Beanie Baby bear of identical size and shape to Princess, though Millennium boasts violet fur with a golden necklace, a globe embossed directly on her chest, the rays of the sun eclipsed behind it, the number 2000 printed in yellow below it all.

I know the number of beans because I’ve counted them individually, taken the three hours needed to sort them into a glass mason jar as I separated translucent spheres from cotton stuffing, making check marks for every hundred beans for fear of losing count.

I am not sure where this impulse comes from: my need to quantify, to know something’s value based on the sum of its parts.

Assuming all Beanie Baby bears are created equal, we can calculate that a Princess Diana Bear costs roughly seventy-five dollars per plastic bean.

A coworker of mine claims to have paid for his daughter’s college education entirely through the buying and selling of Beanie Babies.

The same man I’ve witnessed pull an incredibly rare thousand-dollar book out of a recycling Dumpster, a man who claims to know the age and condition of a book based entirely on touch.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Issue 60 من Rye Magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Issue 60 من Rye Magazine.

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Rye Magazine

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I AM KNEELING in damp grass marveling at an anachronism in the world of Ubers and Waze: a sandstone marker about two feet high, handcarved with an old fashioned “24 M…” and missing its remaining “iles to New York.” It is mortared into a long wall and looks out on US 1 like some Knight Templar of American history. In the 1800s, this is how you might have found “the old Jay place” in Rye. Even with its inscription fragmented, it conjures visions of mail carriers on horseback, with dirt-streaked, buckled shoes wedged into stirrups looking for a familiar guidepost to tell them the distance to their secret assignation or a good beer down the road.

10 mins |

Issue 61

Rye Magazine

The Case For Taking A Gap Year

ACADEMIC BURNOUT is a growing issue for students across the U.S. Far from being “the best years of our lives,” most will recount that high school was like living on a conveyor belt of SAT tests, extracurriculars, and self-doubts while under extreme pressure to rack up achievements that might help you to stand out from the crowd. Students graduate with a sigh of relief, hopefully anticipating a future full of opportunities, only to be body-slammed by another four years of even more intense academic pressure. Some students roll with the punches and learn to juggle essays and schedules and “adulting,” but a growing number are being leftbehind.

6 mins |

Issue 61