I have a problem with magazines. I love them, and while I still have the attention span necessary for a novel, my brain is wired more for the quick hit of a magazine article. I used to think of magazines as additions to my library – it was just as difficult to throw out an issue of Macworld as a collection of John Cheever stories. But after many, many moves, you begin to understand that these babies are heavy. And how often am I going to refer to an Utne Reader from March 1999? It’s been a hard lesson for me to learn: pass them on or toss them. Let’s face it, people who save years of newspapers are considered crazy.

I read Adbusters, and I also read Revolution. Is that wrong?

Signs your life is spiraling out of control:
1. You alight on a TV movie about the Osmonds, and you want to change the channel, but you can’t. It’s weirdly fascinating. The giant hair and lapels. You watch almost the entire thing, frozen in a sort of hypnotic daze.
2. You download “Paper Roses” and “Puppy Love” from Napster.
3. You admit this on your weblog.

Watched “A Man for All Seasons” last night, a movie whose only flaw is appearing not to have any. Literate dialogue, amazing photography, wonderful performances. (Stay away from the Charlton Heston TV remake.) The writing here is some of the best in movies, ever.

Thomas More: You could be a good teacher, perhaps even a great one.
Rich: And if I were, who would know it?
More: You, your pupils, your friends…God. Not a bad public, that.

Amen, brother.

winter in madison

Channel surfing last night (an activity much less rewarding than web surfing, but sometimes you just don’t have the strength), I came upon a commercial for a new magazine, Lucky. This is a magazine proudly and baldly devoted to…shopping. Shopping. Clearly, we are thisclose to having “specially-targeted messages just for you” beamed straight onto our retinas and therefore into our brains, making a visit to Boston Store as instinctual as a visit to the restroom. This is not a good thing.

Not sure how I feel about this whole Blogger mess. I’m still sorting it out. But the bottom line is, they worked hard to create something cool for everyone on the web to use. And that’s worth applauding, no matter what the outcome. Now that all the “buy dog food online” foolishness is burning off, maybe we’ll get closer to what the web should be about: community and ideas.

Glad to know that my enormous melon head has some positive aspects.

I really enjoy Plastic, the new news and culture aggregation site. But it’s crammed with what design genius Edward Tufte calls chartjunk – lots of heavy boxes surrounding all the stories and headlines, making everything hard to read, or at least harder than it needs to be. They’re partnered with Feed, which recently redesigned to an understated, clean, beautiful look. Plastic, heal thyself.

I tried to send a feedback e-mail to Plastic, but I couldn’t find any sort of e-mail link that wasn’t intended to send a story to them. Another big mistake for a news community site.

Of all people, Ned Flanders is on the cover of Christianity Today, under the headline “Saint Flanders.” As much as I enjoyed this development, it does seem to indicate that the Rapture is at hand.

Definitely the coolest name for a blog ever: splorp