Issue 43 | The Sun Magazine

March 1979

Readers Write

Job Experiences

Agency fees, electric shocks, “chronic” customers

By Our Readers
Sy Safransky's Notebook

March 1979

The Sun Also Changes

I’d always been interested in journalism, in writing and in self-expression. The magazine actually grew out of a conversation with Mike Mathers, who then ran the Community Bookstore. That’s when I was running the juice bar and I used to bring him juice drinks for lunch every day. Then one day we got to talking about how it would be nice if Chapel Hill had a newsletter or a magazine.

By Sy Safransky
Quotations

Sunbeams

A man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.

Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

The Sun Interview

Getting Unstressed

An Interview With Ken Pelletier

You can think of our bodies as being naive. They can’t tell if your life is really in danger or if you’re just thinking as if your life were in danger. The fear of losing your job might feel just as threatening as if a speeding truck were coming at you.

By Tom Ferguson
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Facing The Struggle

(Part One)

I find myself angry and determined. I do want to know why so much money is poured into trying to discover the cause of cancer and so little into experimentation with other forms of treatment which give more responsibility to the patient, and which help the patient to believe in her own ability to mend disease.

By Peg Staley
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

No More Chores

I’m gouging (laboriously) in a drainage pipe to avoid paying $20 an hour to somebody who knows how to do it right with proper tools.

By Jim Evans
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Doing What I Do

Studying Buddhism; Growing Trees

It didn’t take long to see that I had no talent for making money. Sure, my mother was disappointed, but I figured she’d get over it. As the years rolled by, it became apparent that trees and eastern religions were my lot in life.

By Geoffrey Driscoll
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Chapel Hill

Eating Out

In this issue, we review nine Chapel Hill restaurants that offer “high dining,” places where you expect carefully prepared dishes, a distinctive atmosphere, and attentive service.

Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Every Man An Island

Book Review

Then one day on the street he sees a “stout elderly woman in a shapeless brown tent-like dress”; astonishingly, it is the girl from the days of his youth: it is Hartley. Charles has retired to contemplate his dead past, and the past has risen up to greet him.

By David M. Guy
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Small Press Review

Sweet Gogarty And Anaconda

How many novels have you read lately that challenge stereotypes, while giving you characters you can love and hate, with a plot and an ending that satisfy both your sense of what must happen and what you wish would happen?

By Judy Hogan
Fiction

When It Is Right With The World

Father put his arms around his ebullient brood. “Hush,” he soothed. “There is no wind and it is too dark to see. The kite will fly when it is ready. We shall go to bed and wait until it is right with the world.”

By Viola Prune
Fiction

Six Stories

She got her dogs and some tough little kids after me, and I was forced back to the highway. I can’t prove this, but I felt there were rifles aimed right at me.

By Nyle Frank
Photography

Decisive Moments In Medical History

The cartoon in this selection is available as a PDF only. Click here to download.

By Mark Mitcham