In the 21st century we will be hearing the death knell of magazines as we've known them for the past 100 years. There's nothing like pages of text interspersed with pictures, and while an argument can be made this lay out is reproduced electronically, it's not really a magazine for me unless I have the tactile sensation of flipping the pages. Part of my dislike of Zinio, electronic magazine subscriptions, has to do with where I read magazines.
I know you can surmise this place. It's been called many things in the 19th and 20th centuries: It's 'the throne', (everyone is a king in his/her own castle), 'the crapper', (supposedly referring to the inventor), 'latrine' (oh, you're in the military), the 'pot' (shorthand for chamber pot), 'john', (inventor again) 'can' (who knows? - maybe the shape), 'potty' (toddler toilet training language), commode (the 19th century reference), and 'rest room' (the 20th century reference) Sometimes I think my entire digestive system is dependent on glossy pages.
Magazine reading took place everywhere in my 1100 square foot childhood house. Jack and Jill as well as Highlights were dentist office treats, but the early magazine staple in my house was the Reader's Digest. I started reading this publication when I was eight. The format of the RD was the same for my entire child and teen years. Thirty condensed articles (one for each day), drawn from other American magazines. Additionally, you could count on 'Humor in Uniform', 'Life in These United States', 'Amazing Anecdotes', and 'Personal Glimpses'. There was usually a condensed book as the largest and last article in the magazine. All of this was documented in the table of contents which was printed on the front cover. My very, very favorite monthly article was "Word Power". (A one page vocabulary test. Pick the multiple choice answer of word definitions on one side of the page, with the correct answer choices on the back of the page.) I LOVED WORD POWER! I credit that one monthly page as the nascence of my love of language.
Not only the outside table of contents, but also size of the magazine set the Reader's Digest apart from other publications. It was founded by a husband and wife team and has been published since 1922. I'm in good reading company: It's been consistently the most read magazine in America for more than 100 years, and although it's been jazzed up and graphically enhanced (more pix and more electronic references), it's still instantly recognizable. It's printed in Braille as well as in multiple countries in multiple languages. There's an electronic version. You can also get this magazine in large print. FYI, I read my first large print RD, and I hated it - the format and size suck.
The Reader's Digest condensed book in the back of every issue were my first grown up books. About age ten I was easily reading these, so I just naturally graduated out of the kid's books - remember, young adult lit hadn't been invented yet - into adult fiction at the public library branch I patronized each week. In my late elementary school and junior high school days, I read Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Four or five of the most popular fiction and non-fiction books were abridged and published together in one book four times a year.
The literary minded despised those offerings, but they were immensely popular being published from 1950 until 1997. Those abridged books certainly increased my reading speed and comprehension. It was a great day in my young life whenever I scored unread volumes at garage sales. My other monthly magazine came to me via my Grandmother Sartor. She subscribed to two magazines: The Farm Journal and McCall's. I had zero interest in farming, but I was entranced each month by Betsy McCall, the monthly paper doll.
As I matured, so did my magazine choices. I graduated to Time when I was in my teens. As soon as we had a permanent address, Drake and I began adding magazines to our household. My mother gave us Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine as our Christmas gifts from 1974 until her death in 2007. My first response to our move to Texas was to subscribe to Texas Monthly followed by Texas Highways. After our visit to Washington D.C. and the Smithsonian complex of museums in 1977, we added Smithsonian to our house magazine rack. Our old friend, Reader's Digest, rejoined our household during Sarah's growing up years together with ZooBooks and Highlights. At the zenith of our home ownership, we added Consumer Reports.
One of the few things I dislike about our current nomadic existence is our inability to subscribe to magazines. Today, I buy only one magazine each month: Real Simple which is the modernized 21st century home making magazine for today's working woman. (While I don't work for pay anymore, I appreciate the 'Zen' quality of this magazine.) When in Arizona, I fill my periodical addiction with pre-read mags which I buy for about $.25 each.
Sometimes, I find really old magazines which today seem archaic in their attitudes toward women. Sarah and I read a 1961 version of 'Good Housekeeping' over Christmas. Jackie Kennedy was prominently featured as well as Velveeta cheese recipes, and my favorite, the Letter to the Editor from the tobacco industry defending their product and asserting there was no link between cancer and cigarettes. Just an aside, in December of 1952, Reader's Digest published "Cancer by the Carton" the first widely disseminated anti-tobacco information to the public.
My magazines have migrated to the throne room because even as much as I love them, they have been squeezed out of the living area by my electronics. Since the remodel has started, we've been reduced to one bathroom, and I can tell my tendency to 'camp out' in the throne room with my magazines is one of the many things sitting on Drake's very last nerve. It's my fervent hope magazines survive in print. If they don't, I may have to dedicate a tablet to the bathroom magazine rack even if it will be a poor substitute. Perhaps holographic technology could sway me away from ink and paper. Until then, I'm going to cling to my 20th century magazine vibes.
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