Do we read magazines to waste time on the train or the toilet, to stay informed, to appreciate pretty pictures or thoughtful writers? It's hard to subtract my love of magazines from my professional interest - so I'm curious what motivates other people to pay good money for something that is basically disposable. I'm also curious to know about other people's rituals for reading magazines. I look all the way through a magazine without reading anything, then return to the front and read everything cover to cover. I usually read them in bed late at night, or sometimes I take one to a coffee shop. I usually have a little notebook by my side to make notes on people or things I find interesting. I don't buy magazines unless they are the kind that I would never throw away - so I've become very selective in what I purchase. If I get my hands on a so-so magazine, I'll tear out the most interesting images and put them in a box. Right now I literally have a 2 foot stack of unread magazines to get through over the weekend - this blog has made my love and ritual into homework. So while I get to work, discuss amongst yourselves. Have a good weekend.
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Comments (3)
I also only buy the magazines I intend to read, those which really interest me. On the newsstand I usually flip trough various pages to see if I like what I see. When I buy it, I flip through the pages from the last trough the first and then I read the articles I'm interested in in no particular order.
Posted by Héctor Muñoz | March 9, 2007 5:00 PM
Posted on March 9, 2007 17:00
yeah Mr. Mcginnis, when we read magazines together our differing approaches annoy each other. i tend to flip from back to front first. then open to random pages and read/look at whatever is there. then go through more carefully from front to back. unless i'm reading the new yorker. then i go back page, current cinema, all cartoons, see if there's a dance article, then talk of the town, glance at fiction to see if i feel like reading it, then everything else.
Posted by Ms. Keough | March 9, 2007 5:21 PM
Posted on March 9, 2007 17:21
In the case of a book purchase, I take my time - because I expect the book to be there waiting for me when I'm ready.
But it's precisely because a magazine is disposable that I feel impelled to grab it: Who knows how long it will last on the rack? The thing is, for that reason, the magazine needs to punch harder and faster than the book; magazine graphics and text need to strike me as being meant for ME. (Too, reading a mag for which I am not the target audience makes me feel that I am trespassing in a way that reading books for other audiences never makes me feel. Somehow, they're more intimate.)
One really good article/pic will me get into the mag. And then I'll read outward from there.
Posted by Paul | March 9, 2007 8:23 PM
Posted on March 9, 2007 20:23