Magazine Memories
Plus: Kudos to the mustache department
I was killing time in a Barnes & Noble the other day and wandered into the corner where they keep the magazines. Back in the pre-COVID days, before this B&N went from two stories to one and had to get creative with its shelving, the magazines spread across a full wall on one side of the store, their variety on full display, benches in front of them for those who wished to browse or just bask in the glow of glossy journalism. Now they’ve become kind of an afterthought in an out-of-the-way where the bleep are we going to put these? sort of situation.
Which is, of course, a metaphor for magazines these days—significantly less thriving and essential than they used to be, but still hanging in there, hoping to catch your eye.
It would be wrong to say that my family no longer gets any magazines. My husband has a gift subscription to a TV nostalgia magazine, which is fun, and my husband and son each receive a magazine called Columbia because they are members of the Knights of Columbus. These stack up on our coffee table and may make it look like we are still magazine people.
But the last subscription we actually sought out and paid for—for a weekly news magazine that involved people I was a fan of online—was quickly canceled not because we didn’t like it but because we didn’t have time to read it. If you never quite get to that article online, it fades away into the ether; if you don’t get to it in a magazine, it sits on the coffee table guilting you.
Which makes me nostalgic for the time in my life when I used to read a magazine cover to cover fresh out of the mailbox. Those were the days, when I had the time and the patience and the eyesight. Tiger Beat and TV Guide were early favorites. I think I had inaugural subscriptions to People and Entertainment Weekly. I know that at one time I subscribed to Film Comment and to GQ, since I have an issue of each among my collection of old books. One I kept for a story on The Big Chill, the other for a recipe for hot buttered rum (which although I gave up alcohol longer ago than magazines, still inspires warm memories of a particular snowy getaway with friends).
Do you still read magazines, whether by subscription or B&N browsing or an impulse grab at the grocery checkout? Weigh in in the poll, and share your magazine memories in the comments.
This week on the Parenting Roundabout Podcast
We had a double episode of new streamers on Wednesday, as we said goodbye to A Gentleman in Moscow and howdy to Only Murders in the Building season 4. I liked AGIM more than I expected to, and if you have access to Paramount Plus somewhere on your overabundance of viewing options (it was rolling around in my cable’s On Demand), and you enjoy historical dramas and found families and impressive mustaches, give it a look. It’s eight episodes, so not a huge commitment. And you can listen to us ramble on about each one afterward.
What’s making me feel old this week
Besides remembering when I used to read magazines, and write for magazines, and edit magazines? Maybe realizing that at the end of a decades-spanning drama, the aged characters are still probably younger than I am. Alexander can still climb all those stairs to his room! I’d be sleeping on a couch in the lobby.
When I was working full-time I subscribed to & faithfully read about 6 different magazines by reading them over my lunchtime. Once I retired & had time to read them whenever I wanted to, I stopped reading all of them, let all the subscriptions lapse, and now just (rarely) go back & read some of those accumulated back issues. That is the last thing I ever expected to happen. (smh)
I miss the days when I worked at a magazine, so reading magazines was part of my job! Now I just shelve them as part of my job.