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You are here: Home / He uses magazines

He uses magazines

by DougJ|  September 7, 201712:35 pm| 99 Comments

This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing

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I just saw that the editor of Vanity Fair is stepping down and for some reason the NYT and others are treating this like a big deal. That magazine has always annoyed me though I will say one thing for it: they employ James Wolcott, and he’s the only magazine writer I enjoy reading. I used to like Matt Taibbi but I got sick of him, plus he’s a Russiagate denier and possibly a sex offender. James Fallows and TNC are good, too, of course, but that’s a different type of article, more like serious reading.

I used to be a big New Yorker reader when I was younger. In high-school, it was probably my only contact with the larger world, other than David Letterman (I grew up in the middle of nowhere), and even now, I’m one of those people with an unhealthy reverence for Pauline Kael. I still remember the great profiles I read of Paul Schaefer and Penn & Teller. But when I try to read the New Yorker now, a lot of it seems either corporate (profiles of Jeff Bezos and that kind of crap) or pathetically trend-chasing (read the part of this about Bien Cuit etc. — whatever that stuff is — if you want to be mildly nauseous). I know there’s important stuff too about how the world is going to end because of plastic and so on, but again, that’s too serious for me. Plus, the style generally annoys me.

Do you all read any magazines? Who’s a good magazine writer in a lighter style?

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99Comments

  1. 1.

    Butch

    September 7, 2017 at 12:42 pm

    I made it about three paragraphs into the New Yorker article; I’m way too rural to read that stuff. I’m currently kinda between subscriptions to magazines, trying to decide where my money should go (the Atlantic?). I receive a couple oriented toward scuba diving as well as Mother Earth News.

  2. 2.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 7, 2017 at 12:42 pm

    I had this song stuck in my head just the other day.

  3. 3.

    geg6

    September 7, 2017 at 12:45 pm

    Well, now that Graydon Carter is leaving, that’s one less magazine I’ll be reading.

    I don’t read magazines anymore with the exception of the Food Network magazine. They all pretty much suck. I read New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer, Mother Jones and The Atlantic (sometimes) online. But that’s about it.

  4. 4.

    FlipYrWhig

    September 7, 2017 at 12:49 pm

    Harper’s is often good with that kind of long-format essay, but they tend to fuck up when covering partisan politics, skewing in an “Obama didn’t even try!”/”politics sucks because of THE ESTABLISHMENT!” kind of direction. They’ve done good stuff on economic and social trends, like retirees living in RVs doing shit jobs to support themselves, the rise of Mormonism, fan cultures, etc. No particular writer springs to mind by name, though.

  5. 5.

    Doug!

    September 7, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I think that for, whatever reason, the magazine format does not lend itself that well to covering politics.

  6. 6.

    Doug!

    September 7, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It’s a great song.

  7. 7.

    germy

    September 7, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    I miss Spy Magazine.

  8. 8.

    MattF

    September 7, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    I used to subscribe to several magazines, now I’m down to Science and The NYRB. Neither of which qualifies as ‘lighter’.

  9. 9.

    Tokyokie

    September 7, 2017 at 12:54 pm

    The last magazine I read faithfully was Film Threat, even before I freelanced for them. Once control reverted back to Christian Gore, I stopped writing for and reading it.

  10. 10.

    Ohio Mom

    September 7, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    Somewhere along the way, I started finding the New Yorker’s tone a little too privileged — they were comfortable in their knowledge that they were above whatever fray they were writing about, and they assumed you knew you were safely above the fray too. Which is a conceit I have never felt.

    My magazine reading currently is mostly the eye-candy decorating magazines found in waiting rooms — stuff like Country Living and Better Homes & Gardens. All of which look alike and are soothing in their sameness.

    After checking in on the blogs I follow, I’ve absorbed as much news as I can handle, frankly. I admit I feel a little bad I am contributing in a small way to the death of print.

  11. 11.

    JGabriel

    September 7, 2017 at 12:57 pm

    DougJ @ Top:

    I just saw that the editor of Vanity Fair is stepping down and for some reason the NYT and others are treating this like a big deal

    I’ve never had any particularly strong feeling about Vanity Fair one way or the other. To me, Graydon Carter’s crowning achievement will always be Spy magazine.

  12. 12.

    Shell

    September 7, 2017 at 12:57 pm

    Bon Appetit

  13. 13.

    cope

    September 7, 2017 at 12:58 pm

    I am old so I grew up with a lot of magazines. Scientific American, National Geographic, New Yorker and Science come to mind as early publications we had in the house. In college, I moved on to Rolling Stone and National Lampoon and any number of science journals pertinent to my major (geology).

    In later years, Harper’s and Consumer Reports and still later, The Week. I did subscribe to The Nation for a while but eventually let that lapse. We are currently magazine-less in our home but I am about to renew my Harper’s subscription.

    As for individual writers, I have always loved to read Hunter Thompson, John McPhee, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kevin Philllips, Tom Wolfe, Kirk Vonnegut, William Greider and a couple of others who don’t immediately come to mind, though obviously, some of them are gone and some of them have not aged particularly well.

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 7, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    @germy: Moi aussi.

    I used to be a big magazine reader about 30 years ago, but the 90s and the Clinton scandal mania destroyed my desire to read them.

  15. 15.

    Oatler.

    September 7, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    I quit “Goldmine” the music collector’s paper when the editor started shooting for Junior Scholastic/Tigerbeat style points.

  16. 16.

    eclare

    September 7, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    I may get skewered, but my go-to light reading magazine is People. It faithfully shows up in my mailbox every Friday, and I need some mind candy from time to time.

  17. 17.

    Jeffro

    September 7, 2017 at 1:00 pm

    Mrs Jeffro subscribes to Runners World, which makes me laugh when it arrives every month. How they manage to find a NEW TWIST! on putting one foot in front of the other every issue, I’ll never understand…

    I think we still get Wired, but that has kinda sucked lately. Fro Jr. gets MAD and that has been so anti-Trumpov throughout each and every issue, even I’m bored (but hey, it’s good propaganda for the kiddos!!)

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    September 7, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    In my last few years as a reporter, I stopped reading even the (physical) newspaper I was writing for, and read it on the Internet instead. That’s where I get all my other news and views and amusement. I haven’t bought a paper magazine in years. I don’t do much light reading anymore. Print media are gradually fading out of people’s lives. I can name writers I like, but I read them all online.

  19. 19.

    efgoldman

    September 7, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    @geg6:

    I don’t read magazines anymore with the exception of the Food Network magazine.

    I had subscriptions to Newsweek for decades from the 60s. I also regularly read Sports Illustrated untik about 5-10 years ago; I just let it lapse, I don’t know why. Mostly because I LIKE dead tree magazines (old and crotchety that I am) and most of their best content moved to the toobz, and even for a subscriber, is difficult to access.
    I read various specialty magazine. Model Railroader when i was a kid. Stereo Review from when I was in high school until they stopped publishing; High Fidelity ditto; British Gramophone when I could get it.
    I read New Yorker from time to time; very occasionally The Atlantic; and once upon a time Saturday Review.

  20. 20.

    Ohio Mom

    September 7, 2017 at 1:02 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Ohio Dad gets Harper’s and your assessment seems exactly right to me. I only give it a passing glance because it can be a little too doom and gloom.

    This thread is making me realize that I am too picky a reader, which is probably limiting me. I’ll have to think about this.

  21. 21.

    Frankensteinbeck

    September 7, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    Shamelessly OT, but I saw someone on Twitter link this article and its informative graph to argue that we need to reach out of our liberal/conservative bubbles.

    Why am I linking it? Because it actually shows the opposite. The color code is by moral language used. Information bubbles would look like separate red or blue-leaning purple clumps. What this shows is that we are facing an absolute gap in moral values. There is almost no overlap between conservative and liberal morality. It suggests strongly that there is no point in reaching out of our bubbles, because the other side does not care about what we care about.

  22. 22.

    LS

    September 7, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    I’m pretty sure one reason it’s being treated as a big deal is Trump’s ongoing hatred of Graydon Carter. Back when Carter ran Spy Magazine, aka the greatest magazine ever, he was always mocking Trump, calling him a short-fingered vulgarian. Which is, of course, true. But Trump hates Carter with a white hot passion.

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    September 7, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    @eclare:

    In the celebrity genre, I actually prefer Us magazine. I feel like the tone is a little lighter since People will also cover things like murders and disasters. And Us doesn’t feel as tabloid-y as OK.

    I’m assuming the Graydon Carter story is huge because he’s been a dedicated foe of Trump’s since the 1980s. I hope this means he’s going to dedicate his life to full-time Trump mockery on an at least weekly basis. That would make me so happy.

  24. 24.

    catclub

    September 7, 2017 at 1:06 pm

    Who’s a good magazine writer in a lighter style?

    Hunter S Thompson… oh, wait. William F Buckley… oops

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    September 7, 2017 at 1:06 pm

    The last magazine I subscribed to (on paper, at least) was Cat Fancy. I wound up giving it up because way too much of it seemed to be taken up by veterinarians trying to scare you about all the rare diseases and conditions your cat might have. What does it say when you give up reading a magazine that’s supposed to be about cute cats because it’s too scary and depressing?

  26. 26.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 7, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: John MacArthur and Adolph Reed.

    I also see Taibbi as the Canibus of gonzo journalism – legitimately good at the mechanics of writing, but light on substance and ASTOUNDING reserves of butthurt unbecoming your average Joe, never mind a self-proclaimed shit-starter.

  27. 27.

    Yutsano

    September 7, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    I haven’t bought a paper magazine in years.

    Same. I pretty much am like you in that all my reading is online. I also try to read as many international resources as possible just to knock my American chauvinism down a peg or two.

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 7, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    @LS: Because Graydon Carter absolutely NAILED Donald with “short-fingered vulgarian”. It’s perfect. It captures the most wrong wrongness of Donald to perfection.

  29. 29.

    StringOnAStick

    September 7, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    The only magazine I still get is Smithsonian, just to have something with bite sized articles about things not related to politics but still interesting. Maybe its now become a way for me to escape into a non-trump world. The news moves too fast now for weekly print media and I find our city paper too right wing.

  30. 30.

    efgoldman

    September 7, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    I don’t do much light reading anymore.

    Funny, at my advanced age light reading (meaning mystery/police/spy novels) is pretty much ALL I do. SiubhanDuinne and i have a mutual friend, almost exactly my age, who still goes back and reads Melville Hawthorrne, etc. Not me.

  31. 31.

    Betty

    September 7, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    Teenage Vogue is getting lots of praise for its thoughtful articles, but somehow I don’t think you fit their usual demographic.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    September 7, 2017 at 1:10 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I was reading a feminist/atheist blog by a woman who had escaped from a homeschooling family — I think it was Love Joy Feminism. She had a really well thought-out explanation of what the moral gap was. Short version, the gap is over consent vs rules. Liberals tend to see everything through a filter of consent, conservatives tend to see everything through a filter of rules. That’s why conservatives feel comfortable haranguing rape and child molestation victims for being unclean: the fact that they were forced to break the moral rule of chastity is not an excuse. I haven’t read it in a while, but it’s a great blog and well worth seeking out.

  33. 33.

    catclub

    September 7, 2017 at 1:10 pm

    @Tokyokie:

    Once control reverted back to Christian Gore

    Is that a film genre?

  34. 34.

    JGabriel

    September 7, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    DougJ @ Top:

    Do you all read any magazines?

    I don’t read magazines much anymore, probably spend too much time on the internet instead. But I was a pretty big mag reader in the late 1970’s – early 90’s. Back then my favorites were: The New Yorker, Harper’s, Village Voice, Spy, and sundry magazines about music and computers (Rolling Stone, CMJ, Billboard, Spin, Byte, PC Mag, Wired, Artificial Life, etc.).

  35. 35.

    maurinsky

    September 7, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    I was an avid magazine consumer as a child – we got National Geographic, I still have my black plastic 45 with whale songs on one side and I think the song Falling Leaves on the other. I also got the World Wildlife Federation magazine, and Mad.

    I was a subscriber to Spy magazine as a teenager and was so sad when it died.

    I get Entertainment Weekly and Martha Stewart Living; my husband gets the New Yorker and Rolling Stone.

    I used to love Paste Magazine solely for the music sampler, but their online presence is annoying and Berniebroesque.

  36. 36.

    JGabriel

    September 7, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    @catclub:

    @Tokyokie:

    Once control reverted back to Christian Gore

    Is that a film genre?

    Yes.

  37. 37.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 7, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    I still subscribe to National Geographic. Educational TV comprised about half of my childhood viewing (the other half being Disney, Nick & Cartoon Network), and it was the channel I stayed with after TLC, Animal Planet, the History Channel and Discovery fell victim to network decay. (Now my edutainment is mostly Nat Geo Wild, the Science Channel and one or two of the History Channels affiliated channels).

  38. 38.

    germy

    September 7, 2017 at 1:14 pm

    @Ohio Mom:

    Somewhere along the way, I started finding the New Yorker’s tone a little too privileged — they were comfortable in their knowledge that they were above whatever fray they were writing about, and they assumed you knew you were safely above the fray too. Which is a conceit I have never felt.

    That’s the reason I haven’t bothered renewing my subscription. It became too much.

    They still send me begging letters, which I ignore.

  39. 39.

    LS

    September 7, 2017 at 1:14 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: It’s 100% perfect, and I still use it to this day.

  40. 40.

    Marcopolo

    September 7, 2017 at 1:16 pm

    Twenty or thirty years ago, I think I singlehandly helped sustain a lot of magazine publishing in this country. I remember being so excited by the Utne Review when it debuted–though looking back it’s format was just a hint of things to come of ever shorter articles until they are left with too few words to actually convey information. Now it’s a few literary magazines no one knows about, Consumer Reports and the New York Times Magazine for the Sunday crossword. Instead, I follow writers I think do a good job of both writing & reporting.

    Oh, and I am reliably informed that Teen Vogue is where it’s at right now–and I have read some good work that appeared there.

  41. 41.

    StringOnAStick

    September 7, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    That link in this post about Taibbi and Ames in Moscow is worse than Eye-opening; what absolutely horrible people those two are. At one time I liked Taibbi’s writing but his bro-ism had long since turned me off; now I think. he should be a registered s#x offender. Fuck him with hurricane Irma’s sustained winds.

  42. 42.

    Amir Khalid

    September 7, 2017 at 1:18 pm

    @Jeffro:
    I’m a little suspicious of the “technology” that shoe companies put into running shoes these days. I suspect they got it right decades ago; and, having run out of meaningful improvements to make, are now relying on fashion and bullshit tech to sell shoes. But there is a running community, and it has celebrities to celebrate and news to report, and I guess that’s enough to provide Runner’s World with new content every month.

  43. 43.

    Stuart Katz

    September 7, 2017 at 1:19 pm

    Historically I always to subscribe to exactly two magazines. For years that was The New Republic and a list of titles which changed every few years (Economist, Harpers, New Yorker, Nation). Then I discovered the New York Review of Books, and I dropped the New Republic when I couldn’t stand Marty Peretz any more.

    Right now I subscribe to the NYRB plus three lefty magazines (Mother Jones, Jacobin and Dissent). I highly recommend Mother Jones although it is not light.

    For an excellent “light” magazine I would recommend the Baffler. I’m probably going to resubscribe to it as soon as my subscriptions to Jacobin and Dissent expire.

  44. 44.

    The Moar You Know

    September 7, 2017 at 1:19 pm

    Science News, when I was a kid. The only magazine that didn’t even try to dumb things down for the average reader.

    They exist online now. Not bad but not what they used to be. They still have a print edition and it’s still every two weeks. Might have to throw them some cash – they’re trying to keep it smart.

    Funny you mention The New Yorker. I have always hated them with a fulminating rage, ever since I was a youngster. The cartoons were idiotic and the articles boring. Hate them more now that I’m older, largely for the same reasons.

  45. 45.

    JGabriel

    September 7, 2017 at 1:20 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Harper’s is often good with that kind of long-format essay … They’ve done good stuff on economic and social trends …

    Yep, there were a lot of reasons I liked Harper’s, but one of those reasons was that, during the 80’s and 90’s, it felt like Harper’s was the only magazine consistently documenting the decline of the middle class and the rapaciousness of the capitalist/CEO upper class.

  46. 46.

    zhena gogolia

    September 7, 2017 at 1:20 pm

    @eclare:

    People is really not bad, especially for the treadmill.

    I enjoy Vanity Fair for the most part. They have too many Trump articles, though.

    The New Yorker can certainly be annoying, but every once in a while they really hit gold, so I keep my subscription.

  47. 47.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 7, 2017 at 1:22 pm

    @The Moar You Know: “Christ, what an asshole.”

  48. 48.

    zhena gogolia

    September 7, 2017 at 1:22 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Same here!

  49. 49.

    trollhattan

    September 7, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    At present I subscribe to none. Considering my folks once got a dozen at the least and I once subscribed to at least half that many it’s quite a change. Most of the special interest magazines I once read have either ceased publication or became irrelevant and the weeklies are all crap. Also don’t travel any more and travel downtime was a compelling reason to tote a few.

    Think of the trees I’m saving!

  50. 50.

    sharl

    September 7, 2017 at 1:27 pm

    In terms of the old fashioned dead-tree magazine format, I’m kinda with FlipYrWhig at #4: I subscribe to Harper’s, although i use my subscription more to gain access to its online archives. Otherwise I don’t think in terms of favorite magazines or media outlets, but rather favorite authors. And given the current turmoil in the non-specialty magazine business (similar to that in the news business), that presents a challenge when my favorite authors regularly get dropped by one outfit and (hopefully) picked up by another, like sports stars but with shitty paychecks and limited name recognition.

    Years ago I signed up for Wired magazine based on some authors on their staff, only to see those authors move on. And there are cases like MTV’s hiring of some very good young writers like Kaleb Horton and Ezekiel Kweku, only to have MTV bust up that entire enterprise when some of their pieces upset entertainment stars who had big contract deals with MTV. So much for that short-lived endeavor.

    Right now I like a fair amount of what’s being put out by The Baffler and Current Affairs, which is consistent with my political interests. Both of those publications are in the same general political camp as Jacobin, but they tend to be a lot more irreverent and less politics-focused. Most of these outlets I like seemed to be based in NYC, which is fine by me except when they or their authors get too self-referential on matters that require a less NYC-centric perspective.

    If corporate forces (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Comcast, Verizon, etc.) conspire to slowly strangle online access to a wide range of less popular opinion and analytical works, I’ll revisit the idea of subscribing to magazines. But for now I’m not going that way, for the reasons stated.

  51. 51.

    Doug!

    September 7, 2017 at 1:27 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    That nails Taibbi.

  52. 52.

    Hungry Joe

    September 7, 2017 at 1:28 pm

    New Yorker (I read maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of it), Harper’s, Smithsonian, Mother Jones, Free Inquiry, Consumer Reports … and Tennis, for me the most infuriating magazine on the planet. It does everything wrong: moves regular features around so you never know where to find them, uses the same pedestrian writers every issue, goes through a redesign about once a year, is devoid of good story ideas, has no depth at all. But I read it anyway because I love tennis. Then I’m mad at myself for having read it.

  53. 53.

    Doug!

    September 7, 2017 at 1:29 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    The article about Soylent was good.

  54. 54.

    Doug!

    September 7, 2017 at 1:29 pm

    @StringOnAStick:

    Yeah, I thought it was pretty damning.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 7, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    I must confess to having read the dead-tree version of The Economist for a couple of decades now. I can’t imagine eating lunch without it, and have no plans to stop subscribing/reading.

  56. 56.

    lgerard

    September 7, 2017 at 1:31 pm

    @JGabriel:

    When I lived in NYC during the 1980’s I eagerly looked forward to Thursday’s Village Voice in order to read Mark Alan Stamety’s Washingtoon.

    His character Bob Forehead certainly anticipated politicians like Scott Walker.

  57. 57.

    The Moar You Know

    September 7, 2017 at 1:32 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): That would have improved the magazine 100% right there.

  58. 58.

    Tokyokie

    September 7, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    @catclub: If only.

  59. 59.

    The Moar You Know

    September 7, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    I used to like Matt Taibbi but I got sick of him, plus he’s a Russiagate denier and possibly a sex offender.

    Mother of God. If any of the linked is true he should be in prison.

    I had always lumped him into “brilliant but deeply flawed and at least 50% useless bullshit” until last year, when he started in with his Gish Gallop about Russia. Dead to me from that point out. But that’s not even in the same league as raping teenagers.

  60. 60.

    O. Felix Culpa

    September 7, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    I used to get Modern Ferret, back when my kids were young and we had a trio of ferrets (Kato, Clouseau, and Bilbo). I recently tried Washington Monthly, but don’t care for it (stupid best colleges issue) and will let my subscription lapse. I like the idea of the New Yorker much more than the reality of it.

  61. 61.

    sharl

    September 7, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    @lgerard: Oh man I loved Washingtoon and its star Bob Forehead, the vapid political Frankenstein created by charismaticians and perceptual engineers. Somewhere around here I have a paperback of those collected toons.

  62. 62.

    StringOnAStick

    September 7, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    @Doug!: It’s worse than damning, it is hideous that anyone puts either guy on staff or on their TV show. What they proudly described as their fun days in Moscow shows both of them to be morally perverse sadists openly behaving like monsters in a city so corrupt they could get away with it, and they’re proud of it, oh how gonzo they got to be, aren’t we cool and so edgy! Fuck those guys, I will never give so much as a free click that might give them a fraction of an internet ad penny!

  63. 63.

    karensky

    September 7, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    I give New Yorker subcriptions to my daughter in Philly and my son in Denver. They are great about sharing. I love getting on a train or plane with a couple of copies. Great reading and they don’t weigh much. I especially like John Cassidy.

    Sometimes, absent a New Yorker, I will buy a Mojo (British music mag) before a trip.

  64. 64.

    O. Felix Culpa

    September 7, 2017 at 1:42 pm

    @efgoldman: I don’t read “high literature” any more either. Mysteries and spy novels are my current go-to genres. I’m revisiting LeCarre’s Smiley books right now.

    Who are your favorite authors?

  65. 65.

    lgerard

    September 7, 2017 at 1:48 pm

    @sharl:

    There are two of them, Washiingtoon and More Washingtoons. The second one has that great cover

  66. 66.

    sharl

    September 7, 2017 at 1:51 pm

    @lgerard: Hahaha I need to get that second one just for the cover alone.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    September 7, 2017 at 1:54 pm

    @StringOnAStick:

    One of the reasons the movie of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a great film is that it shows what absolute fucking monsters Thompson and Dr. Gonzo are. By the end, you hate them and their casual cruelty, and you’re supposed to.

  68. 68.

    Suezboo

    September 7, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    I hang with a motley crew of worldwide feminists, some of us old enough to have been in on the Second Wave and the consensus is that Teen Vogue is where it’s at. Personally, I trust the interwebs to show me specific articles I might enjoy and eschew paper.

  69. 69.

    scav

    September 7, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    @The Moar You Know: Oh I did like Science News, cover to cover (which isn’t as pretentious as it might sound).

  70. 70.

    Motivated Seller

    September 7, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    As a kid I read Ranger Rick, which it turns out was an indoctrination effort by my Grandparents. I turned out OK I guess.

    I read the New Yorker because it works so well on my commute. I tolerate the SQUEE-pieces that Doug describes, but really anything that written under the subline, “Personal Profile” is typically garbage.

    I tried Jacobin during the Occupy era. I liked the artwork, but the editorial voice was too preachy. Everything else I get from blogs.

  71. 71.

    sharl

    September 7, 2017 at 2:06 pm

    On a serious note, this tweet by a former Gawker editor is part of a short thread that seems to be suggesting in a roundabout way that someone – who could it be? (*cough*PeterThiel*cough*) – might still be secretly funding a lawyer to go after specific writers and editors regardless of how shaky the legal cases are.

    odd to me that a working lawyer keeps taking on these worthless cases, and vindictive that he keeps naming writers and editors in the suits— Max Read (@max_read) September 7, 2017

    In this modern tech-based Gilded Age, a magazine needs to not piss off the wrong billionaire, even if the readership likes the content.

  72. 72.

    Robert Green

    September 7, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    i worked at and come from a family that has worked at The Nation going back 40 plus years, and my grandma ran commentary mag back when it was a center-left magazine in the 50s (she actually hired podhoretz and kristol peres and that was her/its undoing).

    what has happened to The Nation, with katrina van den heuvel running a russia protection racket is so depressing. worse, i hear from my dad the inside scoop as editorial meetings turn into katha pollitt and joan walsh and my dad trying to get a word in edgewise on russia truther/katrina’s husband Stephen Cohen’s putin-ass-kissing hagiograpy. it’s the fucking worst.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    September 7, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Oh I kid, I kid…every group wants to keep up on the latest and greatest in their group and their ‘thing’.

  74. 74.

    geg6

    September 7, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    @Robert Green:

    Really sad what she’s done to one of the magazines my mother always made sure was in our house. I can’t even look at it anymore and I’m a fan of Pollitt and Walsh.

  75. 75.

    sharl

    September 7, 2017 at 2:23 pm

    @Robert Green: Thanks for sharing that. It is consistent with the speculation I’ve seen online about why The Nation is so awful these days on Russia/Putin-related content, when so much of their other stuff remains good.

    It would have been far better if people in the U.S. had heeded Cohen’s writings back in the Yeltsin days when things in Russia were going to hell for regular folks (including the aforementioned young and rapey American types like Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames doing their predatory thing in Yeltsin-era Moscow). Instead we were too much into our post-Cold War celebratory partying. But that was then and this is now, and where Russia is concerned, it appears the Stephen Cohen analysis & writing machine only has one operating gear (or a broken clutch).

  76. 76.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 7, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    @Robert Green: Who’s your dad? (Holland, Dreyfuss and Alterman have all taken wacks at the Nation’s editorial line on Russia).

    And unfortunately it seems like the magazine couldn’t go a full month W
    without enthusiastically shoving its head up Putin’s ass.

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 7, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    @Robert Green: I never read The Nation regularly, but from seeing on TV I always thought KVH was smart and perceptive. I’ve been less impressed, to put it mildly, by what I’ve seen over the last year, and her/their stance on Russia has been a surprise, even if I’ve been vaguely aware that her husband was a crank on the subject. Has she always been goofy and I just didn’t notice, or was she broken by 2016?

  78. 78.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 7, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    @sharl: Cohen has been a toady for the USSR since Brezhnev’s day.

  79. 79.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 7, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    @sharl: Putin’s descent into authoritarian wingnuttery – and by extension the collapse of Cohen’s worth as an analyst – can be traced back to the aftermath of the Orange Revolution, I believe.

  80. 80.

    randy khan

    September 7, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    These are the magazines and magazine-like things that come into my house on a regular basis:

    Wired
    New York
    Smithsonian
    USA Today Sports Weekly
    American Craft
    Martha Stewart Living
    Dwell
    New York Times Magazine
    Washington Post Magazine

    New York is a treasure. It’s certainly NYC-centric, but it has good national coverage and good arts coverage, and since I grew up in the area and go to the city fairly often, a lot of the local stuff still feels relevant to me.

    I’ve subscribed to Wired almost since the beginning, back when it had a feature about cool things you could find on the Internet and you had to use ftp (or other now-obscure protocols) to get them. It has its ups and downs, and is a bit more gee-whiz than it should be, but it’s still interesting, not to mention that without my subscription to Wired I wouldn’t have known about the Telegraph Museum in Cornwall.

    I get Sports Weekly for the baseball stuff. I liked it better when it was Baseball Weekly and before they junked it up with the other sports.

    You may scoff at Martha (and we do, too, sometimes), but it often has excellent recipes.

    Dwell is our replacement for the late-lamented Metropolitan Home.

    The NYT and WaPo magazines come with our subscriptions. The NYT magazine is really awfully good.

  81. 81.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 7, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    the collapse of Cohen’s worth as an analyst

    You are attempting to describe something that has never existed.

  82. 82.

    LaNonna

    September 7, 2017 at 2:52 pm

    Probably dead thread. We still get the New Yorker mailed to us, always a week or two behind, just to keep us native NYers up with the City. A German neighbor passes along the Emma feminist magazine when she’s done with it, keeps my German reading skills challenged for sure. Occasionally see Vogue Italia or the Italian version of Vanity Fair at the dentist.

  83. 83.

    sharl

    September 7, 2017 at 2:53 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Cohen has been a toady for the USSR since Brezhnev’s day.

    That seems plausible. I first encountered Cohen as a relatively frequent guest on the old PBS McNeil-Lehrer report (probably in the 80s). He was pretty much a one-track mind then as well – with an annoying monotone delivery style if I recall correctly – and other guests were necessary for providing viewpoints critical of the Soviet Union.

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I’ve always assumed that multiple factors are involved in the evolution of Putin’s now-thuggish governance style, including any event that threatens his power.

  84. 84.

    FlipYrWhig

    September 7, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @Robert Green: Is it better or worse than those Hitchens-Cockburn days? I could never tell if they hated each other, or hated everybody else and loved to hate each other.

    I was a loyal Nation reader for more than 20 years until the 2016 coverage just drove me up the fucking wall and I couldn’t take it anymore.

  85. 85.

    Sab

    September 7, 2017 at 3:00 pm

    I have always liked the New Yorker, which seems to have recovered from Tina Brown’s efforts to make it Vanity Fair without pictures. I often love the Atlantic, especially now that they are allowing themselves to hire the occassional intelligent informed woman instead of McMegan and Caitlin Flanagan.

    I also like Science News, although it is mostly over my head.

    I used to read the Economist, until I realized that for politics or curent events anywhere in the world whenever they were writing about anything I knew much about they were writing nonsense. Made me wonder about the rest. Now I read Bloomberg, which has really improved with the newish editor, but their graphics remake is UGLY.

    Weirdly, I actually like Time a lot these days.

  86. 86.

    FlipYrWhig

    September 7, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    Oh, I forgot the magazine I read most now: Times Literary Supplement. It’s fun keeping up with what’s happening in books. But even they publish some weird shit sometimes. They have a soft spot for conservatives (including TBogg whipping boy Victor Davis Hanson). There was a whole long and gleeful essay by Edward Luttwak last month about how the rise of Trump was entirely explicable by how liberals had made cars unaffordable for average people by making them have backup cameras and survive crashes. Double-u-tee-eff.

  87. 87.

    craigie

    September 7, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    The Week, a British newsmagazine. Short, cogent discussions of world events.

  88. 88.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    September 7, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    @sharl: In the New Yorker, Remnuck indicates that Russia was liberalizing somewhat until 2005.

  89. 89.

    Sab

    September 7, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    I have always liked the New Yorker, which seems to have recovered from Tina Brown’s efforts to make it Vanity Fair without pictures. I often love the Atlantic, especially now that they are allowing themselves to hire the occassional intelligent informed woman instead of McMegan and Caitlin Flanagan.

    I also like Science News, although it is mostly over my head.

    I used to read the Economist, until I realized that for politics or curent events anywhere in the world whenever they were writing about anything I knew much about they were writing nonsense. Made me wonder about the rest. Now I read Bloomberg, which has really improved with the newish editor, but their graphics remake is UGLY.

    Weirdly, I actually like Time a lot these days.

    @randy khan: You are right about New York Magazine being a treasure. I should subscribe instead of free-loading their online version.

  90. 90.

    sharl

    September 7, 2017 at 3:47 pm

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): In the New Yorker, Remnuck indicates that Russia was liberalizing somewhat until 2005.

    I’ll have to look for that piece. That and the “taming” of the oligarchs – ultimately leading up to the murder of Magnitsky – were certainly key events in the history of Putin’s rule.

  91. 91.

    The Golux

    September 7, 2017 at 4:36 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    …Graydon Carter absolutely NAILED Donald with “short-fingered vulgarian”. It’s perfect. It captures the most wrong wrongness of Donald to perfection.

    The funniest part of this is that the TSG is apparently perfectly happy with the “vulgarian” part; his only objection was to the mention of his puny digits.

  92. 92.

    Jamey

    September 7, 2017 at 5:24 pm

    Wolcott is a god.

    Not sure if The Voice is a magazine, but Roy Edroso is a great thinker and stylist in the Wolcott mode. Alicublog is the original “He Reads this Shit So We Don’t Have To” publication.

  93. 93.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    September 7, 2017 at 5:28 pm

    The Sun magazine — now there’s some lighter fare (it’s actually the most ironically-named periodical I know of). My favorite magazine (my wife’s, too) it’s like typically-tragic Oscar-nominated live action shorts and documentaries in print form. Been subscribing for decades (never any ads has been nice) and expect to continue to do so till my on-going existential crisis (same as all of yours) reaches its inevitable conclusion. Fits me perfectly in the meantime.

    The New Yorker (half good, half crap, not a bad ratio considering)
    Scientific American (decent for science-curious lay people such as moi, I think)
    Harper’s (kinda similar to the New Yorker)
    Nat Geo (read it every month since I was a kid, it’s still ok)

    Used to subscribe to the Atlantic, bailed when the execrable Michael Kelly became chief editor, never returned. Gave up on the Nation quite a while ago, Mother Jones more recently. Utne Reader and Mother Earth News in the long ago time (been many years now since I’ve seen either) along with others like Rolling Stone that I kept up with a bit longer but haven’t looked at for a while (not missing much with RS, I don’t think).

  94. 94.

    Doug!

    September 7, 2017 at 5:29 pm

    @Jamey:

    I love Roy Edroso too.

  95. 95.

    David Lowe

    September 7, 2017 at 5:33 pm

    Laurie Penny

  96. 96.

    Bjacques

    September 7, 2017 at 5:58 pm

    Private Eye is the only magazine I pick up regularly. Started in 2011. It’s addicting. Read Charlie Hebdo just before the attacks and a year afterward. Still pick it up from time to time.

  97. 97.

    Bill

    September 7, 2017 at 6:04 pm

    NYRB is my favorite. New York and Wired both have way too much dark or odd-colored print on dark backgrounds with tiny font sizes. Makes my eyes hurt and I’m not even that old.

  98. 98.

    bluefoot

    September 7, 2017 at 7:17 pm

    A period of unemployment put an end to my subscribing to magazines and though unemployment ended a few years ago, I didn’t pick the subscriptions back up. I got National Geographic for decades. My other regular was NYRB, and for a while Wired and The Atlantic. Also the Economist. Now the only regular magazine reading I get is in waiting rooms….where I tend toward Car and Driver, Wine Spectator, and Wired. I miss getting paper science journals; it was a good way to see what else was going on that wasn’t directly applicable to my work or something I was looking for.

  99. 99.

    Peter H Desmond

    September 7, 2017 at 11:33 pm

    coincidentally, i cancelled my subscription to the New Yorker just a few days ago.

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