Here in the Hub of the universe, it's easy to see all the petty little fractures that define New England life, but from afar, we all start to look alike. A case in point is in the new George, which refers to US Senator Joseph Lieberman as a "Yankee moralizer," even while focusing on his practice of Orthodox Judaism.
Adventure floods the magazine racks for March, beginning with the 30 "ambitious" ones that lead Men's Journal. But there are more thrilling accounts, both foreign and domestic, in Esquire and American Heritage, respectively.
It is a question that could be asked in any field, among athletes, or mathematicians, or statesmen: Is greatness innate, or can it be learned? In W magazine, the context is fashion, so it asked the icons: How did you get to be so stylish?
They are just a couple of interviews in a couple of magazines, but put them together and they offer intriguing little comparisons and pose some questions of their own.
The Boston Globe, Jan. 21, 1998
Literary Life
Hey you! Bozo!
Yeah, you, reading this article.
Don't you know that nobody reads print journalism anymore, that in these days of television, radio, cable, and the Internet, there's nothing left for us to say?
OK, so I'm extrapolating a bit, but that's just about the sorry theme of a wonderfully written story by Bob Drury in the February Men's Journal. He's talking only about sportswriting, but after going through his wringer, I think I hear footsteps.
It has a pretty face on its cover like so many magazines on the rack, but right away, you can tell that Gastronomica comes from a different part of the herd.
Whenever I hear a cut from "Cosmo's Factory," the 1970 classic by
Creedence Clearwater Revival, I think Venezuela. That's because when my
family carted me there on vacation that year, I carted that cassette
among a shoebox full of others, along with a player that rivaled the
shoebox in size.
When I stepped onto the plane for the New Orleans Jazz Festival on
Thursday, I carried seven or eight times the amount of music on my
iPod, slipped into my shirt pocket.
Not because I ever expect to make one, but motivated by the same
interest that's led to viewing "This Old House" for 20 years, I asked
the Google search engine "how to build a deck." I found lots of
information among the 651,000 sites that came back, but the most
interesting tale among them was labeled, "How NOT to build a deck."
Many of us, even the gift-entitled, would have a hard time looking someone in the eye and telling him that we want, say, the $125 zircon-encrusted tweezers. Writing it on a list with other items seems to make it less embarrassing, which is one reason gift registries are so popular.
If even one commercial music station were better than warm spit, I might have been in the position to hear the Eels and Vertical Horizon, two of my new favorite bands, when they started out in the '90s.
But because radio stations all play the same 10 songs or are as
stuck in the past as my music collection used to be, I never listen to
them. For a long time, that meant if a pal didn't turn me on to new
music, my collection stood still.
But now I have Audioscrobbler.com, and I am loving it.
