What Magazines Do You Read?

[Gary Sisco]

Money's tight here so I had to let one go. It was a choice between *The Wire* and *The Economist*, both of which are expensive subscriptions. I kept The Economist and let The Wire go. I always read The Economist. I don't always read or have time to read The Wire.

I kept my sub to *Signal To Noise* and *Military History* (the latter's quality can vary but when it's a good issue it's a good issue).

I'll miss the oddball CDs that came with *The Wire* but otherwise I won't miss much.

[Brian Olewnick]

I stopped getting the Wire over two years ago. There's a cliquish aspect about it that really annoys me and I can get pretty much the same or better info on the Net anyway. Plus I was tired of seeing white rock stars on the cover every month.

Still getting Harper's and The Atlantic, though the former's become an iffy proposition. If they didn't have the excellent puzzle, I might drop it.

[Gary Sisco]

Agreed it's a selfcentric magazine, The Wire. I found over time that I was only reading reviews and not all of them, and very rarely a feature article. Mostly, I looked forward to the CDs as curios.

[steve(thelil)]

I used to buy a ton of magazines. The net and the ability to read them in bookstores has changed that. Also, my wife and I are licensed professionals without private offices, so magazine companies apparently think we have offices at our home address, so a few send us free subscriptions (apparently for our "waiting room").

The magazines I actually read (some of) every issue of:

Downbeat
Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel
New Yorker
New York
Time Out New York
New York Times Magazine
Outside
Consumer Reports

Sometimes, either purchase or read at the bookstore

Atlantic Monthly
Mojo
Paste

[Tom Storer]

The only magazine I have a subscription to is The New Yorker, and that's an annual gift from my father. I might as well have a subscription to the Economist, since I get it weekly at the newstand. I buy two French jazz monthlies every month, too: Jazzman and Jazz Magazine. There's a third, Jazz Hot, that I also get when I see it on the newstand, but it's not always there. In airports I'll pick up a copy of Harper's, and my wife will pick up Vanity Fair. And from time to time I buy one of the popular science magazines for a change, or a computer magazine if something on the cover addresses a current interest or need. And that's about it.

Oh, and my wife gets Elle at the office and brings it home. I leaf through it, check out the recipes, and occasionally take one of the silly quizzes. She also gets Publisher's Weekly and the French equivalent, Livres Hebdo, but I rarely read them. Actually, I think she also gets one or two others that I don't pay much attention to - art or architecture or something. Amazing how unobservant I am.

[Monte Smith]

I have only one subscription, to the (UK) Spectator. It's good but really hasn't been the same since Addison died in 1719. What? This Spectator was originated in 1828 and has nothing to do with Addison and Steele's efforts in the 18th century? I did not know that. Huh.

Also read The Economist, with a little less regularity than I used to. I only subscribe about twice a year when I get one of those "Four free weeks of The Economist" cards in the mail. I read the NYT Sunday mag pretty regularly, though I have let my NYT subscription lag because of poor delivery service (missing the paper one to two times a week, having to call them up, annoying drag).

Also, I still love Mad Magazine or a good Detective Comics. Don't ever read the New Yorker, or the New Yorker knockoffs Brian mentions. Maybe I find the inherent mix of such seriousness of purpose with magaziney ephermerality off-putting. Anyway, I am off-put. It is nice to have many Manhattan friends who gasp, "You don't read the New Yorker? And you live in the provinces?" I know, I know, it's possible to do both and still maintaining a knowing superiority to the other people on the municipal bus, this is what they don't understand.

I read the literary journals from London at the public library. The celeb rags at the grocery check out. Parenting at the pediatricians. And also Publisher's Weekly.

[Rob C]

The only two I always read are Signal to Noise and The Believer (I love The Believer, my favorite magazine). A couple I like, but don't regularly read, are The New Yorker and Harper's.

[Gary Sisco]

What's The Believer?

[Alastair]

I think The Wire is especially good this month, what with its six pages on Christof Kurzmann and reviews of the new Quincunx and Cathnor CDs.

And if anyone discovers Christof's music (not just the Quincunx CD) because they've bought the magazine on the strength of the Joanna Newsom cover story then that's ok by me.

Kool Keith was on the cover a couple of months ago, Brian.

[Scott Dolan]

Still a loyal Economist reader. Just re-upped my scrib.

Sometimes get the Atlantic, but not very often. Those 17 page stories that start repeating themselves after the first three pages can wear a man down.

Have had the NYT delivered for over a month now, so that cuts bigtime into my reading time. Oh, and the service was so bad at the house, I had them deliver it to my work which is just 4 minutes down the road. I have to stop and pick it up on my way back from dropping Mr. Pootz off at school, but at least it's always there.

[Gary Sisco]

A friend told me a story while I was out in Wyoming in August to play a festival. The festival is co-organized by a guy who's a noted record producer in certain circles. Once he was thinking of moving to Idaho so my friend and he go for a roadtrip from Laramie to check things out. First morning, he goes out to buy a NYT. He's gone for hours. When he gets back, turns out he'd driven 75 miles to get a Times. All he had to say was: "I can't live here." So they got back in the car and drove back to Laramie.

I bought and read the NYT every day for many years. Now that it's online there's no point. It's too expensive here when it can be read for free.

[burning dog]

I haven't read The Wire for years. I usually read about music on the web and skim through The Economist, Time, The New Statesman and The Spectator in the local library. I only buy one, most likely The Economist, if I'm going on a long journey.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I bought and read the NYT every day for many years. Now that it's online there's no point. It's too expensive here when it can be read for free.

My problem with that is that I can't just carry my computer outside so I can read it on the deck.

[Gary Sisco]

That's a problem. We have wireless now so we can use the web anywhere in the house. I imagine I could also on the deck but it's never occurred to me.

[jesus marion joseph]

I've had a subscription to Car and Driver for years now. I should also subscribe to Automobile, since I ususally pick it up every month when I'm done with C&D. My wife has an office in the house, so we get the maggies that show up from who knows how. I usually keep Vanity Fair in the bathroom for my morning constitutionals. Occasionally read Outside, Powder and Backpacker. Usually peruse the Cape Cod Times and Boston Herald online. I used to subscribe to The Economist, but it's so densely packed with info that I never finished an issue before the next one arrived and, being a weekly, they started piling up on me, so I didn't re-up.

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally Posted by Alastair

Kool Keith was on the cover a couple of months ago, Brian.

'Tis no Keith kooler than Rowe.

[Gary Sisco]

I keep a book for constitutionals. The last one took me more than five years to read.

[Jon Abbey]

I let the Economist go a few years ago, and still get the Wire. it definitely has its (sometimes major) problems, but is always worth my time, although it does take me a while to wade through it sometimes.

I also get The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated and Time Out New York, plus three newspapers a day (NY Times, NY Post, USA Today), and the free NY weeklies mid-week (Village Voice and NY Press, both of which are almost always virtually worthless), and the print version of the Onion. can you tell I'm a former (current?) media junkie?

[Root Doctor]

Non-music mag subs:

New Yorker
New York Observer
London Review of Books
Transition
Southern Cultures

[stonemonkts]

I used to read a ton of magazines, and also save them in boxes like a chooch.

Now, all I read are The New Yorker, NYT, and (ahem) Entertainment Weekly (before you mock me, this has been coming to me free for a year, courtesy of Emusic....but, alas, I admit I enjoy reading this toilet paper each week).

[Rob C]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

What's The Believer?

http://www.believermag.com/

It's mostly dedicated to literary stuff, but to me, it's a pretty wide-ranging general cultural magazine, with great writing and interesting points of view. I read it pretty much cover-to-cover every month.

[Gary Sisco]

stone -- I hear ya. I'm getting to ready to toss a huge pile of Wire and other stuff. I'll keep the STNs because I have a complete collection of them going so far. We have a move coming up eventually, when we sell our spread. I'm not going to haul boxes of mags around. Last time I moved, I told myself, Anything that's still in a box that was in a box when you moved in here, goes into the dumpster. Jah alone knows what I may have trashed that day but what the hell. Who's ever going to give an actual shit. You can't take 'em with you.

[Root Doctor]

I'll take those Wires off your hands, Gary.

[Gary Sisco]

You got it. Bring a truck...

The do have a dub and reggae reviewer who actually knows what he's talking about. You don't see that every day in a multigenre magazine.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I keep a book for constitutionals. The last one took me more than five years to read.

Wow, talk about being constipated.........

[stonemonkts]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

stone -- I hear ya. I'm getting to ready to toss a huge pile of Wire and other stuff. I'll keep the STNs because I have a complete collection of them going so far. We have a move coming up eventually, when we sell our spread. I'm not going to haul boxes of mags around. Last time I moved, I told myself, Anything that's still in a box that was in a box when you moved in here, goes into the dumpster. Jah alone knows what I may have trashed that day but what the hell. Who's ever going to give an actual shit. You can't take 'em with you.

My moves have been hellish due to those damn boxes. They are mostly gone now, except for a few boxes of old Scientific Americans that I just can't bear to part with (cherished them growing up....but I haven't opened any of them in years, so like you said, there's really no point to it).

I sprung a short while ago for the compete New Yorker portable hard drive. I have access to every page from 1925 to April 2006, with updates each year.

One of my pleasures has always been receiving the latest edition of whatever magazine I was reading, fondling them, scanning the contents, etc...

I guess I've always had a magazine fetish.

[Alastair]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Last time I moved, I told myself, Anything that's still in a box that was in a box when you moved in here, goes into the dumpster.

I think this is a good rule of thumb for everything, not just magazines, although you might want to have a yard sale or something first.

I've been in this flat for nearly five years and I still have boxes of stuff I've not sorted out, some of which go back several residences. Never again.

[Scott Dolan]

If it hasn't been used in the past two years, pitch it!

[JamesH]

Downbeat, Jazz Times, Stereophile, The Absolute Sound

I've always thought reading The Economist would be a great idea but I don't have the patience for it. I'm more of a knowledge dabbler, I can talk a lot of shit about politics but my understanding is mostly philosophical and somewhat superficial.

I read a lot of fiction by black male authors from the 50's through the 70's.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Harpers and American Square Dance. I always keep a copy of Harpers in the car in the not so unusual case that there's a wait before I go on. Never happens in the clubs, but at weddings delays of an hour or more are not unusual. Or times like this past Saturday, where I called for a nursery school in Sausalito and I DJed for 2 hours (dinner and silent auction) before I called, and polished off most of an issue then. Actually, I seem to be skipping more and more stuff in Harpers, so it may be time for a switch.