Magazines Hunt Me

I always know exactly what books I want to read. I allow for some surprises, like bumping into actor Danny Aiello's memoir at the Green Valley Library yesterday, but like reviewing Empire of Sin by Gary Krist for BookBrowse, which I waited months to read, there's very little I don't know about books either coming out or that have come out that I want.

It's different with magazines. Back in Southern California, I subscribed to The New Yorker because John Boston, the historical face of The Signal newspaper in the Santa Clarita Valley, where I interned, subscribed to it. I considered him a friend and mentor, and still do, and so I wanted to read what he read. But I let that subscription expire this past September because it didn't fit me anymore. I wanted writing that encompassed all 50 states, not just everything from a New York City perspective. I wanted to read writers from Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Florida, varied perspectives that I could get to know.

On my 30th birthday, my family and I went to McCarran International so I could walk through the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum there, a small set of exhibits spread throughout the airport, accessible by all except for those exhibits in the gate areas of the airport.

I walked through the exhibits, reading all the historical information about the formation of aviation in Las Vegas, but what interested me more were the shops in the airport, including a stunningly detailed newsstand, with magazines from everywhere. I looked at them all, glancing over the glossy fashion magazines, and honing in on the ones about travel, particularly National Geographic Traveler, which truly spans the world. I'm interested in Japan and Sweden and China, I want to visit all the presidential libraries in the nation (save for Reagan's and Nixon's, both of which I went to when I lived in Southern California, Reagan's numerous times for the gently mountainous view from the replica of the South Lawn of the White House), I want to visit Florida to see how my old haunts have changed, to travel throughout New Mexico, and to visit New Orleans. So a magazine that lets me see the sights of the world from my beloved reading recliner without having to spend hours on the Internet is my kind of magazine.

However, I haven't subscribed to it yet because I haven't found new issues anywhere I usually go, including Target, where I last found it, and Smith's supermarket, where I think I once found it. I want to read one or two more before I decide whether to subscribe, but so far it's hard to do that. It's easier with The Sondheim Review, a quarterly magazine devoted to one of my heroes, quite possibly the Zeus of the musical theater, which I've been eyeing for some time. There are two archival issues, one from Spring 1999 about Kelsey Grammer and Christine Baranski starring in an L.A. concert production of Sweeney Todd, and another from Fall 1998 with Carol Burnett and director Eric D. Schaeffer discussing the revised version of Putting It Together, which was also staged in L.A. I'll use those to decide whether to subscribe to The Sondheim Review, though chances are I might very well do so anyway after reading both issues, since the entire magazine is devoted to Sondheim, after all.

For others, I'm not yet sure. Saveur magazine changed editors-in-chiefs and I worry that the quality will decline dramatically. New Mexico Magazine might very well stay with me, but I hope that they cover the same yearly events in different ways. Of course, considering that it's been around since 1923, they've figured out different ways, but I just hope that the same high quality I've been getting so far remains.

Generally, outside of these experiences, I like to let the magazines hunt me. I know what I like to read, I have some ideas of what I want to read, but I'm not as dogged as I am with books. That's why, at Target today while the dogs were being groomed, my disappointment in not finding the latest issue of National Geographic Traveler mostly faded when I found a quarterly magazine called American Road, all about America's two-lane highways and the sights and sounds and experiences they offer. Trains and planes, sure. That's what National Geographic Traveler is for. While I haven't read all of the Autumn 2014 issue of American Road yet, I get the sense that it goes deep into the United States, what I've hoped to find in some magazine. I can't travel widely right now, but I can certainly read about it and it feels like this might be my gateway into learning so much more about the entire United States, beyond the books I check out, because no doubt American Road keeps track of what's happening today. I might subscribe.

Never too many magazines, though. I don't need Time or Newsweek or anything else with news that seems to change by the hour but pretends that it changes by the week. I want magazines with articles to really consider, and these feel like the greatest possibilities. I wouldn't be surprised if another one hunts me down at another Target or even at that airport newsstand whenever we visit again. I'd consider it just like these ones.