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04 October 2005

Magazines. I have five magazine subscriptions.→[More:]
The linked article is from the New York Review of Books, which I read for its great writing, and for the frequent gems (like Freeman Dyson on Richard Feynman) that grace its pages.

I also read Science News, my favorite weekly magazine, for its readable, digestable, and concise articles about everything new in science.

World Soccer is the best sports magazine I know. Nothing else quite covers such a vast sporting world so completely.

For my monthly dose of righteous dudgeon, I read Church and State. A subscription is more like a donation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a worthy cause.

And, last but not least, to put by the can and show off how techy and counterculture I am, is 2600. Free Kevin!

Do you read magazines?

post by: Hugh Janus at: 11:34 | 37 comments

I get Volksworld every month.

I usually get 'Classic Cars' every month, but not always.

I occasionally get 'Practical Classics', but only if there's an article that I'm interested in.

That WorldSoccer site is good, but it would be even better if it was WorldFootball. /pet-peeve

posted by veedubya 04 October | 11:45

Yup.

I subscribe to:
Science (as a member of the AAAS)
National Geographic (my favorite)
Ms (cos I was sick of stealing it from our library)
Wired (cos it's free with something or other)

Nothing very out there.

posted by gaspode 04 October | 11:47

I subscribe to:
Fortune
The Smithsonian

On a regular basis (but not regular enough to subscribe) I buy:
Harper's
The Atlantic Monthly
Mojo
The Believer

Also, I always buy McSweeney's. I have every issue starting with #2, and I have a reprint of issue 1.

posted by Fuzzy Monster 04 October | 11:53

only maisonneuve. I'm not much of a mag-reader.

posted by dabitch 04 October | 12:03

Hey, they came up with the name "soccer" the same place they came up with the name "football." Which is the same place World Soccer is published. Which is the same place that makes fun of the US for calling it the "wrong" thing: England. Most of those peeved just don't like American football.

Me, I think the US should go along with the rest of the world and quit all these other nonsense sports. If Terrell Owens played soccer, the rest of the world would be begging the NFL to start anew.

Forget it. Thank goodness for the NFL, MLB, and NBA, keeping the beautiful game interesting.

posted by Hugh Janus 04 October | 12:05

I don't subscribe to magazines because I am too lazy to fill out those cards, even though it would save me money. When I move and take on my mortgage (ack!), I will though.

The mags I buy & will consider subscribing to: The New Yorker, Harper's, Domino, Dwell.

I also receive USMS Swimmer because I am a member of Masters Swimming. I may consider subscribing to another swim mag, especially since bookstores & such rarely carry them.

posted by dame 04 October | 12:11

I get:
Natural History
Discover
Malt Advocate
Saveur
Chicago Magazine

posted by me3dia 04 October | 12:12

I currently subscribe to The Baffler and Frank 151. I let my subscriptions to Bitch and Dirt Rag lapse, but keep meaning to pick 'em up again. I probably won't renew the Frank 151 subscription.

I read Vice, Cook's Illustrated, Mojo, Outside, Harper's and The Economist at least occasionally, in some cases very frequently. Also The Nation, and probably some others I'm forgetting.

posted by box 04 October | 12:21

I used to be sort of adicted to magazines... the worst was when I had 18 subscriptions at once.

Nowadays I get Newsweek for free, and pay for:

Dwell
Metropolis (both are design magazines)
The Baffler

I had subscribed to SPIN magazine since issue #3, and stayed with them until about 5 years ago when it became clear that every issue from now on was going to be some stupid, VH-1 style "list."

I dropped The Advocate once I realized that they would never give a damn about gay people living anywhere except New York and California, especially in the south. Their idea of political progress for gay folks down here seems to be for all of us to relocate to NYC.

posted by BoringPostcards 04 October | 12:21

9. I have zero magazine subscriptions

posted by mcgraw 04 October | 12:24

Chunky Asses, Cigarette Afficionado, Shotgun News,Field and Stream (this was for a raise money for the school thing the kid was doing and it was that or US Weekly or Jane, I'll fucking read sassy but I won't read Jane, no way, no day), Grappling, Over 50 and Foxy (for the articles), Laser Tag World, Garage Life.

Some of these are not true.

posted by Divine_Wino 04 October | 12:43

There is an unhealthy and overwhelming magazine addiction at the Slack household. We get a few cooking magazines, a few health magazines, Fast Company, Esquire, Vanity Fair, PC World, National Geographic traveler, Wired, Time Out Chicago, Rolling Stone (just waiting for the subscription to end), Chicago Magazine (also waiting for the subscription runs out), and few girlie mags for the Mrs. (make up and clothes girlie, not Playboy girlie) I also still buy a few magazines a month, usually British music mags, home magazines, or graphic design magazines like Print or Communication Arts.

Some I read very thoroughly and some I only skim. I get backlogged at times, but then a lazy rainy Sunday and I can get caught up. A few are just so damn cheap that it's cheaper to subscribe for one year than to buy two issues off the stands during the year. Unfortunately my book reading is greatly hindered by the magazines. And I get some extra exercise carrying out the recycle bin once a week.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 04 October | 12:48

I don't have any subscriptions, but I manage to nick someone's copy of Rolling Stone every week, even though it's Teen People for music geeks now. I also read Cosmopolitan on the plane when I fly. Mmmm...filling my brain with trash and smut...

posted by muddgirl 04 October | 12:51

Also, I always buy McSweeney's. I have every issue starting with #2, and I have a reprint of issue 1.

I am more envious of this than I can put in writing here.

posted by Specklet 04 October | 13:02

Harper's
Cook's Ill.
Seed (I just got it, I'm not sure about it yet)
Make (Just to look at, I'm too stupid to make any of the stuff)
Ultramarathoning
Marathon & Beyond

I'm soon to get NYRB again, as soon as I fill in the card.

I thought about getting Readymade, but then I got a galley of their new collection, and it was so unremittingly mediocre (and I assume it's the cream of the mag) that I think I won't.

I'd like to get a good science mag, and maybe the London Review of Books.

posted by omiewise 04 October | 13:03

I get Volksworld every month.

Man am I glad this isn't a Nazi magazine.

posted by omiewise 04 October | 13:04

I am such a freaking girl. I get: Glamour, Lucky, Allure, Shop Etc, Seventeen, and Teen Vogue. Oh, and Time Out New York.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 04 October | 13:27

Until this year I got Vogue Knitting and Toronto Life, which also came with Toronto Fashion. Then in a cost-cutting move I let my subscriptions lapse. It was such a wrench. Maybe I'll subscribe again next year.

posted by Orange Swan 04 October | 13:44

• New Yorker (hated it in the 80s/90s, love it now)
• Wired (a gift, most months meh)
• NatGeographic
• slew of professional video magazines I get free (videosystems, DV, millimeter, etc; whee!)

We have a retired friend who subscribes to an absolutely sick number of magazines, and every few months he sends us home with copies of air&space, SciAm, Harpers, and assorted and sundry others.

In my youth, I would wait with bated breath for each month's issue of Hot Rod.

Some months I eat em up, and then other times I'll go for a long while just not caring to read any...

posted by pliskie 04 October | 13:48

We get The Nation, Harpers', and Make in the mail. We used to get The Economist as well, but I couldn't keep up. I regularly will pick up Punk Planet and The Big Takeover. Used to grab a Print, or two. Was briefly infatuated with Skyscraper and NEST. Maybe I'd pick up an Art Forum or Art in America for giggles. For plane trips, sometimes I'll grab a GQ or its equivalent. We've got a few McSweeney's in the vault.

posted by safetyfork 04 October | 14:16

I get the New Yorker, Oprah, and for some reason I absolutely cannot fathom, Bon Appetit. I didn't sign up for it, I'm not paying for it, and I hate it, but what the hell? It won't go away. I have piles of old National Geographics since my parents felt you cannot raise children adequately without a lifetime subscription, but I finally, finally begged them to stop. I read Harpers and Smithsonian at my moms and Esquire (which I actually quite like) at the gym. I used to get Mountain Astrologer, Paranoia and Atlantis Rising as a gift from my weird(er) brother, but those have stopped too now, thank the gods.

posted by mygothlaundry 04 October | 15:09

wow... for a vapid group of insipid codependent dullards, you guys read a lot of pretentious horseshit, eh?

admit it: you read Juggies/Barely Legal/Penthouse Letters, Anime Dork Monthly, and Nouveaux Yuppie. and then you buy you all that other pseudointellectual bullshit so you can leave it conspicuously laying out on your coffee table to impress your guests.

posted by Wedge 04 October | 17:01

Thanks, Wedge, I just spit a mouthful of my ironic can of Tecate all over my new copy of the Utne Reader.

posted by Frisbee Girl 04 October | 17:08

I'll admit it if you admit that you adopt your nasty trollish irc nihilist thug persona because you are afraid of showing the real you, showing sensitivity and perhaps a little bit of... hurt? Just a regular person that likes a good cry sometimes, sweatpants, a little Ben and Jerries and the Fried Green Tomatos dvd of a lonely friday night?

It's ok man, when you're ready well be here, group hugs, scented candles and cardigan sweaters. Now cry for poppa, let it out...

posted by Divine_Wino 04 October | 17:14

Fris, you too?!

posted by Specklet 04 October | 17:14

admit it: you read Juggies/Barely Legal/Penthouse Letters

I stopped reading Barely Legal once Tina Brown took over as editor and hired all new writers.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 04 October | 17:22

I stopped reading Juggies when they changed the name to "Amphorae" and hired all new writers.

posted by taz 04 October | 17:41

admit it: you read Juggies/Barely Legal/Penthouse Letters, Anime Dork Monthly, and Nouveaux Yuppie
Not since they invented the Intarweb.

posted by dg 04 October | 18:10

My name dropping claim to fame is that a guy I knew in college actually got a job as an editor at Penthouse Forum. He said the mailroom guys wear rubber gloves, ew, ewww, ewwwwww, and that yes, the letters are all "real" and they aren't written by the staff despite the fact that they all sound the same. And then she took out her glass eye and my 9" throbbing one eyed python of love . . .

posted by mygothlaundry 04 October | 18:21

Also, I always buy McSweeney's. I have every issue starting with #2, and I have a reprint of issue 1.

I am more envious of this than I can put in writing here.

Specklet, I feel morally obligated to inform you that I live just a few sweet block from "826 Valencia".

So's you knows.

And, mygoth, that made me gag a little. EW.

posted by Frisbee Girl 04 October | 18:28

No one reads Anime Dork Montly since the publisher slipped in a favourable review of Gundam 28, that he had written.

posted by haqspan 04 October | 18:47

Back in the day, I was a magazine subscription whore. But it was too expensive to maintain. I feed most of the various joneses from the net nowadays.

I'm impressed that you subscribe to 2600.

Everythying I've subscribed to I honestly am very interested in, but aside from my hackles rising from Wedge's use of the term "pseudointellectual", I have to agree that he probably has a point. Magazine subs, as much as or perhaps more than what music one buys, seem to me to be an important part of one's constructed persona. Don't you think?

posted by kmellis 04 October | 19:15

Only if you leave them out on the coffee table, kmellis.

New Yorker, National Geographic, Vogue, Biblical Archaeology Review (not the great read that it used to be but I can't give it up), Time/Newsweek, 7x7, Elle. I grab a lot of other stuff off of racks but those are the subs.

Double "ewwww" about the mailroom. Gak.

posted by puddinghead 04 October | 21:55

Oh, and Real Simple, but that was a gift.

posted by puddinghead 04 October | 21:57

aside from my hackles rising from Wedge's use of the term "pseudointellectual"...
hey at least it wasn't "psuedo-" ;) ..anyway, yeah, i think i meant "pseudosophisticated", but i was in a hurry so i just hit 'post'...

posted by Wedge 04 October | 23:30

Sometimes "pseudo-" doesn't mean "false." Sometimes it just means "more so than me."

On the other hand, sometimes it does mean "false."

Tough call.

posted by Hugh Janus 05 October | 08:49

Sometimes "pseudo-" doesn't mean "false."

Είναι ότι ένα αστείο; Μιλάτε τα ελληνικά;

posted by Wedge 05 October | 17:48

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