They are everywhere.
Sports Illustrated is on the couch. Men’s Journal is on the bed. Vanity Fair is under the bed. The damned New Yorkers are all over the house — even in the car, somehow.
I cannot figure out how to get all my magazines while I flee the state each winter. So, not only do I face snow on the lawn when I get home, but piles and piles of mags. They are much too precious to junk. So there is an annual triage on the couch with each magazine content page examined. If there is a compulsory read, it goes on one pile. If there is none — SI, mostly — they go on the other pile to be discarded.
Now the magazine pile has been halved. I have nothing to do the rest of my life, sure; but how much reading can I do when “Ally McBeal” reruns await on Netflix? How can I get the latest news from Stalingrad if I read, read, read? But read I must.
I never read anything about Wisconsin’s fabulous basketball player Frank “The Tank” Kaminsky, even though he was the Player of the Year. He killed my Kentucky favorites and ruined my brackets. I had never seen a player of his size able to move from the top of the key, through an 8-foot stud defender and get an easy layup, time after time. It was magic. Even though the Big Dance is over, I must learn more about Kaminsky in the March 23 SI issue. The SI issue of April 13 on the Duke victory over Kaminsky and Wisconsin will be at the very top of the pile.
The New Yorker drops in the mailbox each week, and I find myself reading less and less of it. Each Talk of the Town must be skimmed, then each cartoon must be perused. The movie, television and stage reviews are a must, of course. Most are discarded. I have culled a John McPhee article on The Writing Life (March 9) because — well, because. I must confess I always liked Joan Rivers since she first appeared on the “Tonight Show.” I shall save “Last Girl in Larchmont” by Emily Nussbaum (Feb. 23). Rivers is called a “devotee of rude candor” in an outstanding understatement.
Somehow, the Dec. 22 New Yorker issue was overlooked, probably because it was my birthday. I have to read David Denby’s reviews of “Selma” and “American Sniper.” Yes, I am an ardent pacifist, but I have always been fascinated by all things sniper including the brilliant Stephen Hunter books. That Denby piece shall join the “To Read” pile.
“Better Call Saul,” the brilliant spin-off from “Breaking Bad,” has been the highlight of the brutal winter season, along with “Justified.” Thus, I must read “My Idea of Fun” (April 13), a New Yorker review of the show by Emily Nussbaum. Any show that can keep me up after 10 p.m. must be examined carefully.
Some Luddites among us laugh at my attraction to Vanity Fair, but I maintain it has the best photography along with some brilliant writing. The May issue not only features a cover photo of someone luscious called Sofia Vergara, but also James Wolcott’s examination of the comparative media disgrace of Brian Williams and Bill O’Reilly. Truth be told, I never liked Williams and his lightweight news. O’Reilly goes without saying. But I must peruse.
The April Vanity Fair profiles Robin Wright, who burned into my brain when she walked across that Alabama lawn in “Forrest Gump.” I would have been as foolishly dedicated to her as Forrest, I must admit. Wright is now tearing up the small screen in the American remake of “House of Cards.” I have lost touch with this brilliant show, but I shall reconnect with Netflix and binge-watch with delight — after I finish the “Beautiful Schemer” article on Wright in Vanity Fair.
The magazine survivors of the triage will be gloriously spread over my queen-size bed to be enjoyed at will, like Forrest’s box of chocolates.
The reading deadline is Labor Day.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the BDN in Rockland for 30 years.