I don’t know what’s with me and magazines…. I used to love them. Now I barely look at the 2 longtime subscriptions I have – Vegetarian Times and Tennis. I will usually eventually read Tennis – the gossip, the profiles, the tournament wrap-ups. Vegetarian Times I keep more for the covers, which serve as decor for the coffee table. And I don’t even subscribe to my former favorite, Star Trek.
I subscribed to Ode last year in a weak moment at Christmas. It is really great, positive, uplifting. But I already know most of what’s in it, the stories seem written for folk who are not already deep into this new world, and don’t intrigue me. They got me this month with a Karen Armstrong story mentioned on the cover: Why God is still a good idea. Which, as usual, I argued with all the way through.
Christian Science Monitor was a similar story. Used to be a subscriber to the newsprint version. That’s gone in this recession. So they’ve tried a large news magazine weekly. I felt sorry for them and subscribed. Mistake. It doesn’t offer more or different, and I’m already not reading it.
Part of it is the short format. Just skims the surface, and I can’t click for more. Then again, in many ways it’s old news. And mostly – I just don’t want to read it. Ugh.
For some reason, Symphony, which I used to love, strikes me the same way. And I’m wild about Paavo, who is an incredible musician.
I don’t understand the shift in me – but I have to honor it, and assume I will know sometime what’s going on.