Reading Between The Lines

Thought you might like to see this week's Sun column. The real reason I was browsing so intently was to find magazines to write for. It's no wonder I'm not getting anywhere when I'm so easily distracted!
So far I've found no new publications, but have picked up another little teaching job for the autumn. If I chipped away at golf the way I do at trying to work, I'd be a champion by now!

Have you ever thought about how many magazines are published every month? Eight-thousand, seven-hundred and ninety-four!
Actually, that's a lie. Or it could be true. I have absolutely no idea, but I thought you would be impressed by my research skills. It's certainly a lot, as I discovered when browsing through the magazine section at the Nichols Library this week.
On newsstands I normally head straight for the women's section, but being a library, they obviously feel they have to use the Duo Decibel system, or whatever it's called. (Two loud rings and its closing time). So when I headed to W for Women, all I got was Wine Spectator, a magazine for people who presumably like to look at wine bottles.
I decided to wander back and start at A, some four blocks back. The first one to catch my eye was Alternative Medicine, an interesting title that got me thinking. What constitutes alternative? If I decide to have gin and tonic when I get a headache instead of an aspirin, I would certainly consider it a reasonable alternative to taking medicine. Just the thought started to make my head throb, so I moved on.
Sports seemed to feature heavily throughout the shelves. Baseball Digest, Bicycling, Canoe and Kayak, Car and Driver. Not sure if the latter is actually a sport, but it can seem like it when you're racing for the last place in the Main Street car lot on a Friday lunchtime.
I found Chicagoland Gardening and Chicago Wilderness side by side. Very apt, especially as my garden is often at odds with the wilderness that is trying to reclaim it.
The next one was called Domino. I reached for it, only able to see the spine.
"This must be really dull," I thought. "A magazine for domino players." It turned out to be a style magazine, no idea why. Some of the magazines do boast somewhat cryptic titles.
ENR turned out not to be Entertaining New Relations, but Engineering News Record. Futurist was not this month's horoscopes, but forecasts, trends and ideas about the future. Games for Windows had nothing to do with fun ways to clean or open your windows, or even how to make blinds or curtains, just ways to waste time on your computer.
I picked out a copy of Southern Accents. I guessed this would help me to talk like Paula Deen, very useful if I ever tire of people saying "I love your British accent" when I meet them, although unlikely. This turned out to be another style magazine, especially for those who want their homes to look like a Deep South plantation house a la Tara in "Gone With The Wind." Very strange.
I returned it between Online and Seventeen. Online was another unusual magazine. The cover told me it was a leading magazine for information professionals. The title, which for once was not ambiguous, was to do with things you can find online. Surely anyone interested enough would prefer to read it on their computer. I couldn't see why they would print a hard copy in the first place.
Seventeen, is of course, aimed at 17-year-old girls. It's obviously been going a long time, because I used to read it back in England when I was that age. (Or I could have been 15 trying to act older, it's so long ago I can't remember). I ran back a few blocks desperately seeking Fifty One, but oddly enough there didn't seem to be one. I wonder what makes 17 an iconic age, but 51 is something you'd rather forget?
Giving up on Fifty One, I discovered a hidden gem called Family Handyman. Nowadays, I have my own family handyman, Jett, but reading the magazine was the funniest piece of fiction I have read for months.
"How to make a shaded retreat that's surprisingly easy to build. Place it next to your deck or anywhere in your yard," I read. "Don't be intimidated by the post and beam design." I wasn't intimidated, I was actually quite amused. It looked so complicated a master builder would struggle.
"You'll need at least three full weekends and occasional help from a friend to complete the job."
That obviously meant three full weeks and the team from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
"Our total materials cost almost $3,000 but you can save a bundle by choosing different building materials."
What? Newspaper and glue?
In case any other readers were either laughing uncontrollably or disputing it was true, the magazine thoughtfully included diagrams and photos with little arrows everywhere. I returned the magazine and decided not to bother. It looked like too much work and potentially dangerous. Heaven knows what alternative medicine you would need if you dropped a piece of timber on your foot, and I couldn't be bothered to look it up.