MMmmagazines!

Magazines!  The glossies.. !  The Literary Journals.. !  Mags about the environment.  About cooking.  About travel.  About politics.  (Mainly liberal politics.)  There is a magazine i love with my whole heart and soul that is devoted completely to... CHEESE!  Name one, and i have purchased and read it from cover to cover at one time or another.  Or borrowed it from the library.  I rarely subscribe though it's cheaper, because i absolutely cannot bear it when one comes crushed or even bent a tiny iota.  Wait!  That was redundant, wasn't it?!  lol  Anyway.. even when i tell myself that mags are made out of the trees i also love with my whole heart and soul; i still buy 'em.  I do, however; when i can bear to part with them, donate them to the library.  But this post is going to be about my two favorites.  They are two that have absolutely nothing in common.

 I ask myself how, if i'm an environmentalist, and i am, can i adore 'Vanity Fair' the way i do?  It's the first on my list of favs.  It's all about materialism.. consumerism.  And worse.. i love the ads the most.  I mean, we're talking some SERIOUS eye candy.  You know what i'm saying if you've ever looked at one.  I'm drawn to those ads like a bee is to honey.  (And yes, i know that expression is as old as the hills.)  The colors, the models, the layout, all of it.  And the models in these print commercials are always rail thin.  They set bad examples for young girls everywhere.  These airbrushed faces and bodies.  The ads all shout 'buy our product!', which of course, is what they're made for.  Thing is, as much as i love looking, i have no desire to buy any of it.  I'm a lookie-loo!  Of course i picture myself a much thinner version of me wearing the Donna Karan.. the Calvin Klein.. the Burberry, etc.  My imagination works overtime.  But to me, these ads are just beautiful candy without calories.  Then i think of the amounts these items cost, and i think bahahahaha!  Never in a million freakin' years would i purchase any of it.  No matter what i could afford.  This frugal Maine Yankee could never do it.  And i can't believe many 'real' women do.  And if they do; they must be deep in the quagmire of debt.  So there really isn't any logic to my love of 'Vanity Fair'.  It feeds my imagination well, though.  It satisfies my girly-girl desire for pretty stuff.  I just don't take it seriously.  Like i like to say often.. imagination is much more fun than logic.  And i stand by that statement.  :)

My 'second' favorite.. which is sometimes my first favorite.. it depends on what mood i'm in at the time.. is 'Orion'  It's sort of an environmental journal with a subheading that reads, 'Nature - Culture - Place.  It's hard to put my love of this journal into words.  It's everything that 'Vanity Fair' is not.  'Orion' is NOT a glossy. The pages are magnificently matte!  The cover is always brilliant.  Sometimes gorgeous artwork.. sometimes amazing photography.  And the articles and essays!  Well.. i just can't say enough about those.  The writing is superb.  I never miss an issue.  Ever.  :D  It contains work by some of my most favored writers.  Bill Mckibben, Rick Bass, Janisse Ray, and on and on.  Always well thought out and intelligent.  I don't read this one from cover to cover right away.  I savor it.  Every word is a treasure to be discovered.  And there are NO ADS!  Not a one.  It's the anti- Vanity Fair or Vogue or Bazaar.  Well, i suppose it is trying to sell the idea that we should pay more attention to the world around us, endangered species and cultures, global warming, etc.  But i don't find it preachy in the least.  This past weekend i bought both magazines at the same time.  And i thought to myself.. what a hypocrite.  Seriously.  Took me a couple days to get over that feeling.  Of guilt.  I just decided that VF will be my guilty pleasure.  It's okay if i just look once in awhile, right?  Hah!  I'm a healthy well-adjusted female.  :)  And for a vice (not that it's my only one, mind you,) perusing a materialistic magazine is pretty harmless.  Don't ya think?  And i never have been good at... logic.  I also love to look at 60s era classic gas guzzling cars every so often.  Those are some pretty decent eye candy too.  But i'd never drive or own one.

So that was my dilemma the last few days.  To admit my addiction to a 'bad' mag, or to keep it a secret.  Well, it's certainly no secret now.  My love for pretty is out there for the world to see.  Pretty is in the eye of the beholder after all...And that's it for this Wednesday, the Fourteenth of September, Two Thousand Eleven...

M.. for Magnificent Reading..  :)