There's $750 Hidden Somewhere in S.F. Clues from Longshot Magazine Coming Monday.

By Ashley Harrell Fri., Aug. 20 2010 at 11:35 AM

Categories: Local News, Media

Issue Zero of Longshot Magazine (known as 48 Hour Magazine before the cease and desist order from CBS) was a smash. The magazine came together in two days back in May, received 1,500 submissions on the theme "hustle," and attracted 8,000 subscribers. (Our reporter, Lois Beckett, covered the whole thing in serious detail.)

The New York Times, PBS, and the Village Voice all praised the mag, and it was awarded a Knight-Batton Award for Innovation in Journalism. Not only that, but the damn thing actually turned a small but encouraging profit of $3,000.

To get folks psyched up for the next issue (look for the theme here on Aug. 27), the founders will also be hiding a quarter of the previous issue's earnings -- $750 -- somewhere interesting in San Francisco this weekend. Then on Monday, they'll be issuing clues on the money's location. Finders keepers, people.

"The idea was to do something a little off the wall," said Longshot co-founder and editor Sarah Rich. During the discussion of how to use the money, Rich said, somebody brought up the Whole Earth Catalog Demise Party at San Francisco's Exploratorium in 1972, where $20,000 was handed over to 1,500 party-goers under one condition: They had to agree on what to do with it.

Although there are varying stories about what happened to the money at the Demise Party, we're gonna go with this version: After hours of discussion and yelling, $5,000 was flung into the audience, and the other $15,000 was handed over to Fred Moore, a charismatic dishwasher.

Monday's Longshot treasure hunt (which will be complete with a treasure map designed by Wendy MacNaughton), won't quite rival the Demise Party. But seriously -- who couldn't use an extra $750?

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