must-have magazines

I'd recommend 40 subscriptions to Vibe.

 

Texas Monthly is always an interesting read (and I'm not from Texas). Wired is normally worth the time, as is Esquire.

 

Went to Borders after a good workout at the gym, ordered up my new favorite drink, Javanilla shake, and pulled up to this month's New Yorker. I've only picked up the mag once in my life, when I house-sat for a New Yorker editor in Vermont. Didn't read any of the issues that laid around the house, not so much because it was over my head but because I'm a short-attention-span reader with terrible reading habits. But today I found myself enthralled by what I read.

• Good article by Jeffrey Goldberg about the fallout "last meeting" between Ken Adelman and Don Rumsfeld. Quite poignant at the end in relation to Adelman's quotes about Rumsfeld and how such a bright future back in '75 turned out to be a sad way for a career to end. Later in the issue there's a long profile on Rumsfeld that I didn't begin. But the full-page portrait of Rumsfeld is mesmerizing.

• Laura Collins wrote an article about winners and losers within the winning New York State elections (Clinton, Spitzer, Rangel), how the shamed comptroller (name is escaping me without notes) had to hold his party in another hotel, basically by himself though with a few true friends. But the funniest line of the article is a mention of Ned Lamont who, during a campaign stop in New Haven, walked into a Jamaican restaurant and asked "So, do you like Bob Marley?" Priceless.

• And then there's the large feature by Bill Buford on wildlife biologist Joe Hutto and his love affair with wild turkeys. A good piece that maybe starts a bit slow but becomes fantastic when Buford starts talking about one of his wild-turkey hunts, and when Hutto tells the story of "Turkey Tom." Quite informative story, too.

• There's a funny cartoon, too, with two gay guys in their living room, obviously quibbling, and one says to the other, "Sometimes I think you only married me for the political statement."

 

Even if New Yorker has a long article that doesn't interest you, they'll make up for it that week with the cartoons. Look around, you should be able to get a year for about $25.

Plus you'll want to get Leg Show.

 

if you like any of The New Yorker, or The Atlantic, or Harper's, try Granta.

i'm also a big fan of The Sun, which is a difficult to describe mag. Spiritual but not religious, often liberal and sometimes libertarian, and always very human.

 

Ditto on the New Yorker, Esquire, the Atlantic.
One no one's mentioned yet is the Oxford American. Quirky, very well-written, about all things Southern (and I'm a Yankee), particularly literature and music. Only comes out four times a year, so there's plenty of time to read it.

 

Gigantic Asses

 

I get Business Week. I like it because I have a short attention span (much like Songbird, I guess). I also read Newsweek.

 

i have to agree about wired. i recently cashed in some soon-to-expire miles for an airline i never fly any more and picked up a wired subscription. i hadn't read wired in about five years. i'm only a partial techie but i found the first couple of issues fascinating - they had a great story about the genesis of the ipod last month.

 

Only seven months worth of BT now though. That's a pain. They should raise the (cheap) USBWA dues if that's what it takes to get all 12.

 

the economist is my favorite non sports mag, but i travel a lot so i have time to read enough of it to justify the cost. if you don't spend a lot of time on planes, trains, or buses (or the john) i would probably look for another option.

p.s. My wife and i miss US Weekly. sad but true....