3.20.2005
In Praise of Periodicals
Often when I find myself nearby, I’ll stop in at the local Tower Records WOW Superstore. While I love music and I usually end up buying a CD or two while I'm there, there's another reason I like to visit this particular store: Magazines. The store itself is huge. I can't guess at the square footage, but it has to have at least two football fields worth of space. Nearly half of the back wall of the store has racks stacked 8 high with magazines. What is it about these flimsy and glossy periodicals that make them so popular, even today?
As much as I love the Internet and the Web, there is something to be said for being able to hold something tangible in one’s hands, fumble through the pages reading articles and looking at pictures. The best thing about a magazine, for me, is that it’s portable; it can go anywhere you want it to without bulk, cables, extensions, or batteries. Magazines are often the “reading material” of choice when I have to visit our “john.” Another feature that makes the magazine so wonderful is variety of content. While the overall theme of the magazine might be about computers, science, trivia, or fashion, the content within that focus is diverse enough to keep me interested. If a particular column or article does not strike my fancy, I can always move on to the next one.
Reading is Fundamental (or is it obsessive-compulsive?)
I have a pre-reading ritual with magazines (advertisers and magazine subscription departments, take heed, there will be a quiz later). The first thing I do is flop through the magazine looking for card stock. I carefully remove these (so as not to damage the content). Once I’ve removed the extra-thick pages, I look to see if there are any tri-fold advertisements and remove these. Rarely do I personally purchase magazines with those extremely annoying perfume or cologne advertisements, but should I encounter them, I excise them. It makes me wonder if magazine companies that have smelly advertising make hypo-allergenic versions of their products for those people who are extremely sensitive to them. I know I’d be willing to pay extra for that. As a matter of fact, I would be willing to pay as much as two dollars extra if the publisher would forego the card stock, smelly perfumes, and tri-folds all together. I don’t think I’m in the minority here.
One of the best ways to evaluate a magazine is to read their letters. One can learn a lot about the mag from this simple exercise. Reading letters to Penthouse for example, leads one to draw the conclusion that this magazine has something to do with people fantasizing about sexual experiences they would like to have. Other things one can learn from the letters is which order to read the columns. The person who gets the most complaints/hate mail is always the first place I read. This person is whom I call (to borrow a literary term) the “foil.” Contrary to its more traditional meaning, a good magazine foil riles up the readership and keeps them asking for more, they can make or break the entire magazine. It is walking that "razor's edge" between riling and annoying that makes being a magazine foil so difficult. If this person does their job right, they help keep readership steady because whether the reader loves or hates them, they want to find out what they’re going to write about next. An excellent example of this is John C. Dvorak. from PC Magazine. John has the singular talent to simultaneously stimulate and infuriate his readers which, I for one, find refreshing. Not every magazine does this, and many that do don’t do it very well. Where it seems to work best is where the primary focus of the magazine contains many diverse "schools of thought" with broad perspectives and opinions. It isn't really so much that the facts change, it's just that the opinions, egos, and perceptions surrounding differ. John's Column in PC Magazine contains a lot of controversial opinions and positions which can drive experts and novices alike up a wall, but that's exactly the point! We need people like this to stimulate and motivate us, otherwise we all become mindless lemmings gleefully marching to the beat of the same drummer, all jumping off the same cliff in a mindless purge.
After reading the letters and feature columns, I start to dig into the actual articles. I pick the ones that interest me the most and work my way through them, usually over a period of several days. If something strikes my fancy, I might annotate it for further research, otherwise, I have pretty much “sucked out the life” of a magazine in a few days time. Being a “packrat,” this is not the end of their life, quite the contrary. Usually they collect dust for a few months before I consign them to the deep of the local landfill. There is always the chance I’ll go back through them for anything I might have missed the first time, and if there is a reference or annotation, I have to get that before I bury it with honors.
(Meanwhile...back at the WOW Superstore...)
At WOW, the process of selection is difficult. Starting out on the far right are the extreme hobbies and sports, then it is the aficionados, which includes everything from coffee, fine foods, wine, cigars, women, men, and hemp. Then we start getting into my section: science and technology. From there we head into politics, news, facts and statistics, and spirituality. Next are the “mainstream” sports and hobbies. Then we start to get into the stuff I have no interest in: fashion, home, decorating, parenting, etc. Finally, at the far left of the section, we see the “partition” that is meant to keep younger eyes from peeking at the porno. Yes, if you are wondering, I have perused the porno section. They have every conceivable fetish (and quite a few I’d never have thought of) imaginable represented, from the rather tame and docile soft-core, to the ever raunchy hardcore. But I digress...
The selection process cannot be rushed. I try to limit myself to three magazines a visit, but it is difficult. Very nearly always one will be a computer magazine (PC World), another science (Scientific American), and the third is usually the “wildcard” of the bunch. To my way of thinking, (seeing as I do not make it to WOW very often) at least one of the magazines I buy should be one I’ve never read before, (or at least one I’ve not read regularly). Most recently, I have been regaling myself of a small magazine known as Mental Floss. Here is a magazine like no other. Within its slender pages are nothing but facts, dates, trivia...in other words, “Jeopardy! Knowledge.”
This month’s issue of Mental Floss includes: An A-Z Guide to 46 Outlaws, It's a Blunderful Life: Embarrassing Moments in Engineering, 5 Freds You Should Know, Vanishing Act: Explaining the Mystery of the Maya. It also contains features for both the left and the right brain. It is in essence, the magazine for anyone who likes to know really weird stuff, the kind of stuff that might actually impress people at a party (I said might). Mostly one finds information that the majority of human beings seem to get along fine without knowing, but for those few of us who have an unquenchable appetite for knowledge (i.e. nerds) it’s the cat’s meow.
Magazines are the ultimate portables. They can go just about anywhere you do. They provide a wide variety of topics loosly connected to a similar theme, they can be rolled up to swat flies, they can fit in your back pocket, they are great when you're sitting on the "John," and they are relatively cheap. So the next time you find yourself looking down a rack of magazines, take a chance; pick up one or two you’ve never read before. You may not know what you’ve been missing.
©2005, J.S.Brown
0 comments
As much as I love the Internet and the Web, there is something to be said for being able to hold something tangible in one’s hands, fumble through the pages reading articles and looking at pictures. The best thing about a magazine, for me, is that it’s portable; it can go anywhere you want it to without bulk, cables, extensions, or batteries. Magazines are often the “reading material” of choice when I have to visit our “john.” Another feature that makes the magazine so wonderful is variety of content. While the overall theme of the magazine might be about computers, science, trivia, or fashion, the content within that focus is diverse enough to keep me interested. If a particular column or article does not strike my fancy, I can always move on to the next one.
Reading is Fundamental (or is it obsessive-compulsive?)
I have a pre-reading ritual with magazines (advertisers and magazine subscription departments, take heed, there will be a quiz later). The first thing I do is flop through the magazine looking for card stock. I carefully remove these (so as not to damage the content). Once I’ve removed the extra-thick pages, I look to see if there are any tri-fold advertisements and remove these. Rarely do I personally purchase magazines with those extremely annoying perfume or cologne advertisements, but should I encounter them, I excise them. It makes me wonder if magazine companies that have smelly advertising make hypo-allergenic versions of their products for those people who are extremely sensitive to them. I know I’d be willing to pay extra for that. As a matter of fact, I would be willing to pay as much as two dollars extra if the publisher would forego the card stock, smelly perfumes, and tri-folds all together. I don’t think I’m in the minority here.
One of the best ways to evaluate a magazine is to read their letters. One can learn a lot about the mag from this simple exercise. Reading letters to Penthouse for example, leads one to draw the conclusion that this magazine has something to do with people fantasizing about sexual experiences they would like to have. Other things one can learn from the letters is which order to read the columns. The person who gets the most complaints/hate mail is always the first place I read. This person is whom I call (to borrow a literary term) the “foil.” Contrary to its more traditional meaning, a good magazine foil riles up the readership and keeps them asking for more, they can make or break the entire magazine. It is walking that "razor's edge" between riling and annoying that makes being a magazine foil so difficult. If this person does their job right, they help keep readership steady because whether the reader loves or hates them, they want to find out what they’re going to write about next. An excellent example of this is John C. Dvorak. from PC Magazine. John has the singular talent to simultaneously stimulate and infuriate his readers which, I for one, find refreshing. Not every magazine does this, and many that do don’t do it very well. Where it seems to work best is where the primary focus of the magazine contains many diverse "schools of thought" with broad perspectives and opinions. It isn't really so much that the facts change, it's just that the opinions, egos, and perceptions surrounding differ. John's Column in PC Magazine contains a lot of controversial opinions and positions which can drive experts and novices alike up a wall, but that's exactly the point! We need people like this to stimulate and motivate us, otherwise we all become mindless lemmings gleefully marching to the beat of the same drummer, all jumping off the same cliff in a mindless purge.
After reading the letters and feature columns, I start to dig into the actual articles. I pick the ones that interest me the most and work my way through them, usually over a period of several days. If something strikes my fancy, I might annotate it for further research, otherwise, I have pretty much “sucked out the life” of a magazine in a few days time. Being a “packrat,” this is not the end of their life, quite the contrary. Usually they collect dust for a few months before I consign them to the deep of the local landfill. There is always the chance I’ll go back through them for anything I might have missed the first time, and if there is a reference or annotation, I have to get that before I bury it with honors.
(Meanwhile...back at the WOW Superstore...)
At WOW, the process of selection is difficult. Starting out on the far right are the extreme hobbies and sports, then it is the aficionados, which includes everything from coffee, fine foods, wine, cigars, women, men, and hemp. Then we start getting into my section: science and technology. From there we head into politics, news, facts and statistics, and spirituality. Next are the “mainstream” sports and hobbies. Then we start to get into the stuff I have no interest in: fashion, home, decorating, parenting, etc. Finally, at the far left of the section, we see the “partition” that is meant to keep younger eyes from peeking at the porno. Yes, if you are wondering, I have perused the porno section. They have every conceivable fetish (and quite a few I’d never have thought of) imaginable represented, from the rather tame and docile soft-core, to the ever raunchy hardcore. But I digress...
The selection process cannot be rushed. I try to limit myself to three magazines a visit, but it is difficult. Very nearly always one will be a computer magazine (PC World), another science (Scientific American), and the third is usually the “wildcard” of the bunch. To my way of thinking, (seeing as I do not make it to WOW very often) at least one of the magazines I buy should be one I’ve never read before, (or at least one I’ve not read regularly). Most recently, I have been regaling myself of a small magazine known as Mental Floss. Here is a magazine like no other. Within its slender pages are nothing but facts, dates, trivia...in other words, “Jeopardy! Knowledge.”
This month’s issue of Mental Floss includes: An A-Z Guide to 46 Outlaws, It's a Blunderful Life: Embarrassing Moments in Engineering, 5 Freds You Should Know, Vanishing Act: Explaining the Mystery of the Maya. It also contains features for both the left and the right brain. It is in essence, the magazine for anyone who likes to know really weird stuff, the kind of stuff that might actually impress people at a party (I said might). Mostly one finds information that the majority of human beings seem to get along fine without knowing, but for those few of us who have an unquenchable appetite for knowledge (i.e. nerds) it’s the cat’s meow.
Magazines are the ultimate portables. They can go just about anywhere you do. They provide a wide variety of topics loosly connected to a similar theme, they can be rolled up to swat flies, they can fit in your back pocket, they are great when you're sitting on the "John," and they are relatively cheap. So the next time you find yourself looking down a rack of magazines, take a chance; pick up one or two you’ve never read before. You may not know what you’ve been missing.
TANSTAAFL!
©2005, J.S.Brown
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