new home

2005-05-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

come visit us at our new temporary home at http://thelifevicarious.typepad.com - thanks!

strike three. and it's out?

2005-05-10T22:19:00.000-07:00

OUR NEW HOME IS http://thelifevicarious.typepad.com

radar.

for two dollars it packs a lot of offense between its pages. so if you want to be outraged by mediocrity you won't find a better deal anywhere unless you have someone interning for you for free whom you can't fire this summer.

even at the future price of four dollars an issue it's the cheapest of all the quarterly magazines you don't want to pay for a subscription to out of fear it won't survive three more months. like city magazine. if only they merged, this magazine may have a coherent style.

the first thing that strikes you about the magazine is the cover of course. that's not a misprint, all the letters starting with the title are slightly almost perfectly askew. maybe they wanted to project that radar staying afloat is an uphill battle. or that it's likely to tumble and crash down upon itself. or it's even as if the words are the fedora on britney's or kevin's head and tilted just so thus captivating you in a way that makes you forget all the pregnant ignorance underneath. but while radar may be ignorant, it's definitely not pregnant with ad pages.

but don't blame boy wonder. maer really just is what he is. note his picture on the letter from the editor page. taken below a billboard of 50 cent and yao ming in their "I am what I am" reebok ad. what does maer have in common with them? they've all been given massive amounts of money despite having poor means of communication. radar just doesn't translate. who is he trying to reach? you of course. if you grew up reading spy and suddenly devolved into a teenage girl who now reads nylon for your fashion and music sense. and is random dated and obscure gossip too lengthy to consume in weekly e-mails from popbitch? you can now read it only four times a year in radar. and if you prefer hard hitting journalism that is also seasonal you can read about our troops in the iraq desert this summer while lounging by the pool at the hard rock hotel and casino in las vegas.

in fairness the soldier stories are the best writing in the magazine. unfortunately it's printed on newspaper and in black and white and almost begs to be skipped to get to the second half of a story on the next aaron carter. speaking of which, there's also an article on the gay kids of conservative politicians. and then after a spread of gay reality show advertising there's a page devoted to the gayest corporate logos in existence. at least they're not askew.

don't care about gay kids that much? what about people who eat at the four seasons? julian niccolini reseats his dining room with the sort of inside snarkiness you don't even find in his gotham magazine contributions where it would be appropriate. or not, since the people who eat at the four seasons may actually read gotham. best to just flip forward - nope, more gays - flip back a page and enjoy some fun facts about muammar qaddafi. they're spread throughout the magazine.

or just jump into the middle of the magazine if you want to epitomize it. an article entitled "famous for what?" a subject maer knows so much about, he goes back to it every few years. and every other issue if you check your back copies.