Monday, October 23, 2006

Missing Me Magazines...

...I've always loved my rags, as far back as I can remember. So often, my day was made (which doesn't say much about my days) by the arrival of a subscription issue in the mail, or the trip to the local newstand when I knew when the favs were showing up.

But I was in the 'library' yesterday and realized that the most recent issues I had of anything was a Premiere mag from July...an Entertainment Weekly from June...and a Q Magazine from May. Hmmmm....

At some point recently, the necessity to have the mag 'in my hands' disappeared. I read so much on-line now, and can find pretty much anything I want quicker and faster and more up to date - the impetus to buy the issue whenever it gets to town has disappeared.

Anyway, here is a brief snapshot of my magazine staples...


Mad Magazine - my first subscription...Alfred E. Neuman, Don Martin, Spy vs. Spy...loved it


Rolling Stone - have read this forever, since the mid-70's...

Spin - went through a phase where I read it religiously, but that was quite a while ago...


Q Magazine - British music monthly - my rock n' roll bible for oh so long...


Entertainment Weekly - I bought the first issue of this and hadn't missed one since until recently...


Premiere - I also bought the first issue of this way back in the late 80's...


Creative Screenwriting - I have almost every copy of this...including the old old days when it came out as a small blue journal about 3-4 times a year...


And then there was Playback - the Canadian industry paper (except it comes out every two weeks and when you add the week for shipping what you'd read was so often yesterday's news) - and of course Variety, which I subscribed to (the weekly version) for a long time but again, as the ability to read what's happening as it happens on-line...bye bye.

That would be about it - and it's really too bad. Much like poring over the album jacket (or cd sleeve) of your most recent music purchase has gone by the wayside with the ability now to download our 'tunes', that physicality of holding the mag has also more or less disappeared. These days it seems to be about 'want it all and want it now'...and it's tough to go back once you've converted.


So I stopped in at the convenience store last night and got the 'Hot List' issue of Rolling Stone...something new for the library, for old times sake.

What were some of your favourite mags and where are they now?


SONG & ARTIST? - "I've got a freaky old lady name o' Cocaine Katy
Who embroiders on my jeans
I've got my poor old gray-haired Daddy
Drivin' my limousine
Now it's all designed to blow our minds
But our minds won't really be blown
Like the blow that'll get ya when you get your picture..."

10 comments:

Good Dog said...

Oh boy, I used to buy so many. Mad and Cracked came over to England and I snapped them up.

I used to buy Q magazine for about the first 100-odd issues.

Film magazines like Empire, Total Film, Sight & Sound, Premiere.

Creative Screenwriting, Script and Written By, although the last two aren't readily available in the UK anymore.

Spy magazine, which I loved.

Rolling Stone, occasionally, especially when Tom Wolfe was writing Bonfire of the Vanities and getting it published a month at a time.

Entertainment Weekly and the odd SFX (although stopped when the writers turned into Doctor Who sycophants).

Nowadays I buy Entertainment Weekly, Creative Screenwriting and the occasional Empire (although the UK film magazines are trying to be too clever for their own good).

In magazine boxes I still have Ent. Weekly, Spy, and the screenwriting magazines.

But yeah, now I go to the websites and read the articles I want to.

And let's not even talk about comic books and porn...


Song: On the Cover of Rolling Stone. Being obtuse, I'm going to say the band is Stillwater in Almost Famous.

ME said...

I currently subscribe to a total of 18 magazines. My mailman hates me. Really. I live in a condo with teeny tiny little mailboxes.

Current entertainment-based stuff I subscribe to includes: Premiere, People, Entertainment Weekly, Script. I buy Creative Screenwriting off the newsstand if I have time and inclination. I borrow a friend's Written By since I am not a member of the WGA. I read Hollywood Reporter and Variety online, as well as a myriad of crazy newsletters.

Non-entertainment stuff runs the gambit really - chick magazines, travel magazines, money/finance magazines, cooking magazines, healthy living magazines (so I can at least aspire to clean living while swilling wine and eating pasta in cream sauce).

Books and magazines have always been my crack cocaine.

Callaghan said...

I'm in the exact same boat. I used to buy at least 5-10 magazines per month religiously. Now, I might pick up Entertainment Weekly if I've got a bus ride or the cover looks interesting. But almost everything else has fallen by the wayside.

Spin: I got older and they got younger.

Rolling Stone: Somehow lost interest a few years ago.

Uncut: Used to be one of my faves, but somehow it doesn't seem worth 10 bucks anymore.

I think a major reason that I stopped buying music magazines is this: I used to soak up every bit of knowledge that I could about every single band that I liked. But eventually, I learned pretty much everything I could about The Who, the Ramones, The Beatles, the Pixies and all the other classics. Meanwhile, while I had contemporary favourites, they didn't seem to have the same mythology around them, so the in-depth articles didn't seem as vital. So my interest in the traditional "Q Magazine 12 page article" waned.

I stuck with No Depression for quite a while (an alt-country magazine) but somehow even lost interest there.

I miss them though.

wcdixon said...

You know - good dog reminded me of a stretch in the late 90's when I was gobbling up every issue of Empire, SFX, XPose, even Fangora, etc. ... all the scifi/paranormal rags. And Maxim, of course.

Caroline - I described it as my crack cocaine at one time as well, just not so much anymore.

And Callaghan - you have summarized the music mag circle of life quite well, I must say.

The Film Diva said...

I'm a big nerd and mostly read/have read journals.

Foreign Affairs -- for my political porn fix;

Architectural Digest -- house porn

zyzzva

Azmiov's Science Fiction

And, of course, PEOPLE. I blame Hollywood for corrupting my brain.

Anonymous said...

I subscribed to a few this summer.

I have Entertainment Weekly, Creative Screenwriting, Discover (great potential sci-fi ideas in there). I want to get a Popular Mechanics or Science.

In the 80's I had a subscription to Premier mainly to find any news on a possible Star Wars sequel. Premier introduced me to the Coen brothers who I probably wouldn't have discovered until much later.

Sometimes I think I turn to the TV, iPod, blogs, magazines, news, to run away from my thoughts, or worse, a possible lack of interesting thoughts. I probably need to meditate. We live in a crazy information vortex.

Lee said...

I subscribe to Uncut, which still provides me with surprising and engaging recommendations each month, and Edge, a videogame magazine. Edge has struggled to maintain my interest recently, though - mainly because I can't find anything worth playing right now.

I pick up the occasional MacUser and iCreate, and every now and again I enjoy a New Statesman and Economist double bill. And I make sure to at least flick through every issue of New Scientist.

Other than that, not much. Maybe an issue of SFX and White Dwarf a year, just to see what they're doing these days.

Oh, and I check out The Comics Journal from time to time as well, mainly to see who's being interviewed, as I have little patience for the rest of it.

Is Interzone still being published? Because I used to love that.

Good Dog said...

Will, you've just reminded me of a time in the late 1970s, early 1980s when I bought the likes of Starlog and... was it called Fantastic Films? I remember one issue reprinted Ridley Scott's storyboards for Alien, while another had a great article on Michael Mann's The Keep. And then Cinefex for a while. Good grief.

Riddley Walker said...

I subscribe to Private Eye magazine (bi-weekly) in the UK, to find out what's actually going on in the news... ;-)

Kelly J. Crawford said...

I wish I had more time to read actual hold-in-your-hands magazines but my 110 hour work week means that I have to sacrifice a lot of the fun/relaxing stuff and just get straight to business.

Right now on my desk I have a pile of 14 magazines, from as far back as May of this year. The info is probably, for the most part, irrelevant and outdated now -- but, still, I feel the need to steal a few moments over the next few weeks and browse through them before I toss them in the recycle bin. And so they remain on my desk, taking up space.

I have only one subscription, one magazine that I read cover-to-cover every week, and that is my beloved TV Guide Canada. You've probably heard that, as of next month, they will be an online only publication, which kinda sucks because I like reading it in bed.

FYI, I'm mentioned in next week's issue. Read my blog for all the details.

KJC
http://www.showbizprgirl.blogspot.com/