Magazines

8/29/2012

 

Magazines

Oh I love my periodicals.  Do they still call them that?  Who cares.  I keep a basket by “my” chair and at any one time it’s overflowing with pages of glossy advertising and the occasional story.  The ads promise you everything from smooth skin to spot erasers for your face, firm thighs, better hair color, longer lasting nail polish and less shine on your nose.  IF you wrote down all the hints and tips that are in a monthly ladies’ magazine, your cup would literally runneth over .  The models make everything look amazing – their faces are painted on with care and their hair flows freely like water down their backs with nary a stray hair out of place.  Not to mention nobody’s eyebrows ever need to seem plucking and there are no pesky lines to be seen. Imagine if I had a team (or perhaps a whole village) as well as some nifty editing tools how different I'd look.

Clearly the ladies' magazines are adorned and bedecked with multiple pages of advertising which bring nothing to the table unless you're wondering if the latest product would benefit or help you.

Even with all the beauty hype (which most of I don’t ascribe to), I still love them.  It’s been a long love affair with magazines but I think my longest relationship has been with People Magazine.  It’s got it all – stars, advertising, gossip, book, movie and tv reviews and even a puzzle!  Who could ask for more? 

Jeff would tell you and he’d be right (unfortunately) that I don’t really read magazines or newspapers for that matter.  I glance at the pages, and ooh and ah over the latest fashions all made for someone 30 years younger than me as well as pounds lighter.  No matter, don’t care.  I like fawning over clothes and accessories as much as the next woman. The fact that elastic waist clothing never seems to hit the Paris runways continues to mystify me!

I really hope that the day doesn’t come when magazines stop printing on high quality glossy paper and go with more of a  matte finish.  If and/or when they do I think that some of the joy of “reading” my magazines will dim for me.  I want bright and shiny paper.  Anything else would be dull and boring like a manly tech magazine (the kind that generally only has pictures of doodads).

Truth be told and let’s just keep it between you and me – Jeff actually has subscriptions to more magazines than I do!  They are all technical and many now are aviation oriented (duh),  and don’t have a lot of pictures, but they are magazines none the less.  It just looks like my magazines are bigger and bolder (due to the extra heft required to tell us about mascara and hair dyes) which they are.

Jeff is planning on being away some of this weekend.  This  gives me a good excuse to go to the grocery store and buy at least one food item (perhaps ice cream? and magazines!  Oh the choices!  Just think how much fun I'll have this weekend curled up in my chair while I "read" through a large, new stack of magazines.   I want you to know that I do try and recycle my reading.  I stockpile them up for my daughter-in-law because she likes magazines as much as I do.  And giving her a whole bag of magazines makes my son crazy – how wonderful is that?

And don't suggest that I become "green" and start reading my magazines on some electronic device.  I don't mind reading my books that way but magazines no way.  There is no tactile satisfaction in flipping pages electronically.

“Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.”  Robert Bresson

People, it's Wednesday and likely Friday will be an early release day - so technically and using the way I count, we only have one and a half days left to work.  I never count the actual day I'm beginning in case you were wondering.