Li Evans has asked me about my magazine subscriptions. Andy Beal says that knowing this can tell you lots about a person. I can only deduce from this that I am an empty shell, devoid of meaning and thought, a two-dimensional paper cutout. I’d be hollow, except for the whole two-dimensional thing, so instead I’m more line-like. (Speaking of cardboard cutouts, don’t you think I should have Buffy for my office? Or maybe Spike.) The point is that I read absolutely no magazines. At all.
It’s not that I’ve never read magazines. I used to subscribe to many of them. I subscribed to Newsweek for years, mostly my very young high school and college years, back when I thought I would be a world-changing investigative reporter or perhaps a (also world-changing) politician. For a brief period in my late twenties, I subscribed to Maxim, FOR THE ARTICLES, PEOPLE. Sheesh. And I got Cooking Light for a really long time until I realized that I mostly found all my recipes online.
I have also, at various times, held subscriptions to Business Week, Forbes (mostly to get the quarterly FYI, edited by one of my most favorite writers, Christopher Buckley), Jane, a snowboarding magazine that came with my season pass, and many more I can’t recall. For some reason, I keep getting Fortune Small Business in the mail, although I have no idea why.
The trouble with magazines is the clutter. You feel like you need to keep them. What if you want to refer to them later? Your mind can’t possibly absorb all of the knowledge, so best to have them around for reference. Or maybe this is some odd habit I have about keeping things I read since it’s an absolute given that I keep all my books. Everyone keeps all of their books, right? You never know when you might need a book.
Which leads me to the other reason I don’t read magazines. I barely have time to read at all, so in the time I do have, I’m going for the books. Give me a choice between books and well, just about anything, I’ll pick books every time.
And really, the types of things I would generally read about in magazines, I get online these days. All the news, the tech stuff, the food stuff, even the gossip, it’s all in blogs and forums and web sites. And it’s more up to date! God bless the internet.
Li mentioned comics, which aren’t exactly magazines, but I do read those. In fact, I just picked up some comics last weekend. I got Buffy season eight and Phonogram, drawn by a friend of mine. (Perhaps I should mention to my friend that his site’s home page has no title or indexable content and is described in the search results as “unique visitors counter” due to his noscript tag, but I digress.)
And I do sometimes pick up magazines at the airport to read on planes. I bought Wired a few weeks ago, you know since it had the whole naked blogging thing on the cover and I figured they were stealing the idea from my clever blog name so I should check it out. Except that I suppose it’s possible they went to print before I started blogging. But still, odd coincidence, don’t you think? Perhaps they somehow tapped into my brain! OK, probably not, but the magazine is called Wired. They probably have an inside line on the brain tapping technology.
But for the most part, I have transformed from being a magazine reader to a blog reader. I would have never thought I’d see the day. I’m a fan of the old school paper-based reading, of having something to carry around and keep. And I still don’t think you’ll ever find me with one of those new-fangled online book readers those young whippersnappers keep promising, no matter how tightly I hold on to my blackberry and thank for for coming back to me, my dear sweet blackberry, never leave me again. Ahem. But I’m definitely keeping my books.
I’m supposed to tag five more bloggers but I’m much too sleepy, so I charge the first five people who read this with writing about their magazines, then posting a link in the comments.