Periodical Ramblings (18) (And Much More)

    This is one in a series about serials and I have likely written a similar sentence in one of the other seventeen posts related to magazines. The periodicals covered range from Arizona Highways to the Village Voice, and include lesser known literary publications like The Sewanee Review and Prairie Schooner. The last one was about The Farmers' Almanac, which ceased publication and The Old Farmer's Almanac which is still going strong.

WIRED
    If you are vaguely aware of Wired and are thinking that, a magazine covering technology started over 30 years ago, back in the last century, is one you are not much interested in, you might want to have another look. Like The Old Farmer's Almanac, it is doing well and lately it has been doing much better.
    One reason it is doing much better is that it now covers much more than technology and it appears that Wired has gone off-topic largely because of a new energetic editor. She  is a Canadian, who travelled from Calgary to a bigger stage and has nimbly moved through some rather tough publications as a writer and executive. Along the way, she probably had to fetch a few coffees for the guys, but she was well prepared. She credits her stint at Tim Hortons when she was in high school: "It taught 16-year-old me that I like chaos, I like a fast pace, and I like to do something demanding." She has tattoos.
   

   I will not write much about Wired. Go to Wired.com and have a look for yourself. I just did, which is unfortunate since I really can't subscribe to another magazine, even though you will know that I just cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post. The illustration next to this, is one iteration of the cover of Wired, which was also pasted on various billboards in some major cities in the U.S..

Katie Drummond: A Real Golden Gael
   The newish editor at Wired is Katie Drummond, who continued her education after Tim Hortons and went to Queen's. (As someone who went to and worked at a rival institution, I will say only that Queen's is ranked higher than Tims. Those associated with Queen's are known as the "Golden Gaels".) I know much of this because I still have a subscription to the New York Times. In it, there was recently a good article about Ms. Drummond and Wired and I will supply for free, some of the information it contains, since you are likely to trust more, the information for which I have paid. 

   As the title implies, Ms. Drummond can be direct. When asked if Wired "has strayed too far from its techno-optimism roots with its hard-hitting coverage of the Trump administration and skeptical eye on billionaire tech bros?," her reply: “If you still don’t understand why Wired covers politics,” she said in an interview, “you are either willfully ignorant or a complete idiot.”
   Ms. Drummond was hired as editorial director in August 2023 and "she immediately focused on getting scoops and speeding up the pace of publishing. On her second day, she decided she needed a politics team. She rehired a former executive editor, Brian Barrett, to run day-to-day operations and built up a social video team to increase the number of vertical videos shared on social media. She shook up the staff and made hires; revamped newsletters, launching five new ones for paying subscribers; and started podcasts that placed a greater spotlight on Wired’s journalists and their work...."
   “She’s gone after stories the publication has normally avoided and avoided ones the publication has normally gone for. Wired is never boring to read.”

    "But Ms. Drummond’s approach appears to be working. Condé Nast does not disclose profits or losses for its publications, but Ms. Drummond said Wired had added more than 200,000 new paying subscribers in the past year, and subscription revenue increased 24 percent last year in the United States. Wired currently has more than 500,000 paid subscribers. It has a newsroom of around 80 people with plans to hire up to a dozen more this year, and was recently named a finalist for general excellence in the National Magazine Awards."

   At a time when many periodicals are struggling, it is good to see that Wired is doing well. Ms. Drummond is also apparently doing well and can be spotted running in Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband and daughter. If she needs advice, she should run over to Greenwich Village and chat with another Canadian expat who had great success at Condé Nast - Graydon Carter. 

Sources:
  The New York Times article is by Katie Robertson and appears in the March 17, 2026 issue. 
   That Ms. Drummond valued her time at Tim Hortons is reported by Jeff Pappone, in Queen's Alumni Review, Feb. 2, 2025.
   "After Exiting Vice, Katie Drummond Joins Wired as Top Editor,"Todd Spangler, Variety, Aug. 10, 2023.

   "Drummond’s background in online media spans hard news, technology and lifestyle coverage. At Vice, as SVP of global news and entertainment, she led the expansion of Vice News across Latin America, Europe and Asia, and oversaw all Vice digital brands including Noisey, Munchies, Rec Room, Motherboard and Waypoint. She also led efforts to create opportunities for the editorial brands across Vice TV and Vice Studios.

   Prior to Vice, Drummond was deputy editor at Medium, where she oversaw editorial content across politics, wellness, science and technology, and ran the audience development team for Medium’s subscription program. Drummond began her career as a reporter, writing for outlets including the New Republic, New York Magazine, Popular Science, Marie Claire and Wired, where she covered military research and medicine for Wired’s Danger Room blog. She then served in a managing editor role at the Verge and as a deputy editor for Bloomberg News, before taking on executive editor appointments at The Outline and Gizmodo Media Group, where she was editor in chief of Gizmodo."

   "Katie Drummond: ‘Democracy in the US is Under Threat. And That Threat is Facilitated by Technology and the Makers of that Technology’," Ana Vidal Egea, El Pais, July 5, 2025.

    "Since 2023, this Canadian philosophy graduate has directed the most influential publication in the field of tech. She was a pioneer in understanding what is now obvious: the inseparable connection between technology and power. Since Donald Trump won the elections, ‘Wired’ has also been covering US political news, and subscriptions have skyrocketed." 

The Bonus:
  For an enjoyable read about the career of the other Canadian at Condé Nast who went to Carleton see: When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, by Graydon Carter. 

 

Periodical Ramblings (15)

 More Magazines We Soon May Be Missing
  In Periodical Ramblings (13) I mentioned that National Geographic was laying off its staff writers and more recently, among some news stories, I indicated that Reader"s Digest Canada would soon cease publication (see, Palewall (5).) Now, two more periodicals are in trouble and may have to resort to a cover such as the one above. It is from National Lampoon, but obviously the threat didn't work since it stopped publishing at the end of the last century. 

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
   The headline this time is, "Sports Illustrated Employees Left in Limbo As Publisher Faces Money Troubles," (Joe Reedy, AP, in the G&M, Jan.19, 2024.) The magazine used to be a weekly, then biweekly and since 2020 has been a monthly. The illustrations were excellent and the coverage broad, as the cover above indicates (although I admit that the European Court of Justice didn't declare that bridge isn't a sport until 2017.) 

It has been loosing subscribers over the years, as have other periodicals. A while back, for just a few bucks, they sent copies to me all the way up to Canada and I got the jacket pictured as a bonus. I have to be careful where I wear it since Washington had not yet changed the name of the team to the "Commanders."

      

Beware  of hedge funds and investors bearing brand names like "Trusted Media Brands", which is closing down Reader's Digest, and "Authentic Brands Group" which owns Sports Illustrated. Authentic also owns the intellectual property for Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Muhammad Ali, all of whom are dead, but still making more money than Sports Illustrated. 

BUSINESS WEEK
   Another dreaded headline if you like magazines is, "Bloomberg Businessweek to Go Monthly: The Publication Has Not Avoided the Persistent Headwinds Facing All Print Publications," Katie Robinson, New York Times, Nov. 30, 2023. Business Week has been published weekly since 1929, but it will now be a monthly, albeit on "heavier paper stock for a more high-end look and feel." Bloomberg bought the publication in 2009 and affixed his name to it, as he has to many things. I suppose the name will have to change again. It was a readable magazine, even it you weren't much interested in business.

The Loss of 'Local' News
  It is unfortunate that such publications are disappearing. You may soon have to rely on "Sam on Substack" or even MM, if you are only looking for "freebies" and don't want to pay for solid research and good writing that has been edited and proofed.
   It is also the case that the loss of these magazines can have a 'local' impact and I have written often about the devastating loss of local newspapers. I am using the term "local" here to mean "Canadian". We generally think it is a good thing to have journalists embedded in the community and poking politicians about local issues about which they care and have been following closely. 
   Back about the time Bloomberg bought Business Week, I was in charge of a business library at a university which has a good business school and had very good libraries. I received a call from Toronto from the folks at Business Week, who wanted to know if I was interested in getting their entire collection, since they were shutting up shop and the journalists covering Canada would no longer be based here. 
   This has happened before and it is likely that good coverage of 'local' Canadian news has suffered.  The Times of London shut its Ottawa office in the early 1970s and the New York Times closed its Canadian news bureau in 1999. Perhaps good journalism can be produced from afar, or by a reporter passing through, but it is likely better to have a local observer who, for example, goes out drinking at the pub with some politicians and people in the neighbourhood. 

Sources (And A Bit More): That's Why 'Ramblings' Is In The Title!

  For more about Business Week: "Who Ever Said Magazines Need to be Ink on Paper?", Peter Coy, New York Times, Dec. 4, 2023. On the importance of BW, he notes: Business Week's editorials offered perhaps the most sophisticated Keynesian-style economic analysis of any mass publication, and its influence may have been disproportionate to its circulation, as it targeted an elite audience of businessmen." He is quoting, Professor Ranjit Dighe: “Business Week and the Coming of Keynesianism to America.” Research in Economic History 35: 25-57 (2019).
   The Times of London announced it was shutting its Canadian bureau in 1970, but that was delayed until 1971 by Canadian-born Kenneth Thompson, who was the chairman of the Time's board. "Times Decides to Close Bureau in Canada," Globe and Mail, March 31, 1971.

   The New York Times closed its Canadian bureau and moved it to Denver. The reason for the closure was TAXES. They were prohibitive: "During the 1990s , one American newspaper after another quietly folded its tent in Canada. In an exodus largely unnoticed by the Canadian public, The Detroit News, closed its Ottawa bureau. The Chicago TrIbune closed its Toronto bureau. The Los Angeles Times  moved its Canada correspondent to New York and The Wall Street Journal adopted an informal policy of not sending Americans to Canada." ("Why The New York Times' Canada Bureau Isn't in Canada: Canadian Taxes on Taxes Have Made the Cost Prohibitive. But the Story Is Larger Than the Times," James Brooke, The Globe and Mail, Oct. 4, 1999. 
   The Columbia Journalism Review explained the exodus in this article:  "Why Canada Is Shrinking: The New York Times  Berlin Correspondent covers Germany from Berlin. Its Nairobi Correspondent Covers Kenya From Nairobi. And Its Canadian Correspondent Covers Canada From ....Denver, Colorado." (by Dayna E. Simon, Mar. 2000):
" The Times joined the exodus last summer after paying $114,000 in income tax to Revenue Canada for its resident reporter. The sky-high bill results in part from "tax equalization," in which the company pays the tax bill that is over an above what employees would pay if they were working in the U.S. An American in Canada could be taxed as high as 52% when federal and provincial rates are combined. But, it isn't the higher rates that the Times objects to -- it's what happens next. Under Canadian rules the money paid for tax equalization is added to the correspondent's salary as income in the following year. Thus, the amount builds, year after year." Plus, the reporters didn't qualify for Canadian benefits. 
  This long tax digression is interesting, but provided only because Toronto may soon be loosing Tavares because of tax issues and therefore it has some relevance: "Maple Leafs Captain John Tavares in $8M Tax Dispute With CRA," CBC, Feb.7, 2024 and many other examples c. Feb. 2024.

  The basic point is, I suppose, that while the Internet has led to an increase in the number of sources available to us, we are losing magazines, newspapers and other reliable sources and are surely not getting any smarter.

The Bonus:
  Unfortunately, billionaires may not be able to bail us out. Here is another recent headline: "Billionaires Wanted to Save the News Industry. They’re Losing a Fortune. Time magazine, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times — owned by Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong — Are Still Losing Money," Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson, The New York Times, Jan. 1, 2024.

Beyond the Palewall (5)

 

[Beyond the palewall is the title of this series because beyond the paywall is taken. Information for which you are not willing to pay, along with information you may not wish to know, is presented in abbreviated form without charge. What has caught my eye may sometimes feel like a poke in yours and, in that sense, be beyond the pale. Items will appear weekly, or perhaps monthly, or maybe semi-annually, if I can get started and the weather is bleak.]

Something Else to Worry About

   One would think that it would be good news that fish are able to survive in Hamilton Harbour, but that is not the case. Very large goldfish have been spotted there and elsewhere in the Great Lakes (and elsewhere around the globe.) The point to be made in this post is simply that you should not take your goldfish out of the bowl and put it in the Thames.

   "Over the past several years, Ms. Boston and her colleagues have been tracking invasive goldfish in Hamilton Harbour, which is on the western tip of Lake Ontario, about 35 miles southwest of Toronto. The bay has been decimated by industrial and urban development as well as by invasive species — making it among the most environmentally degraded areas of the Great Lakes.

Their study, published last month in the Journal of Great Lakes Research, could help pinpoint goldfish populations for culling, said Ms. Boston, who is the lead author. “We found out where they are before they start spawning,” she said. “That’s a good opportunity to get rid of them.”

   The fast-growing female goldfish, Ms. Boston noted, can also reproduce several times in one season. “They have the resources,” she added, “and they can take advantage of them.”

   Goldfish were first spotted in Hamilton Harbour in the 1960s, but largely died off in the 1970s because of industrial contamination. In the early 2000s, their population appeared to recover. Goldfish can tolerate a wide range of water temperatures, reach sexual maturation quickly, and can eat nearly anything, including algae, aquatic plants, eggs and invertebrates, Ms. Boston said.

   Their football-shaped bodies can swell to a size that makes them too large a meal for predators — up to about 16 inches long. “A fish would have to have a really big mouth to eat it,” she said....

   Nicholas Mandrak, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said that while goldfish were introduced to North America in the late 1800s, the wild population had begun to “dramatically increase” in the past two decades. Their spawning explosion, he said, resulted partly from people in densely-populated areas releasing pets in urban ponds.

   Climate change may play a role, because of the goldfish’s capacity to adapt to warming and poorly oxygenated waters, he added.

   “There are literally millions of goldfish in the Great Lakes, if not tens of millions,” Dr. Mandrak said.

Sources:

 "Once They Were Pets. Now Giant Goldfish Are Menacing the Great Lakes.

Released into the Wild, the Humble Goldfish Can Grow to a Monstrous Size and Destroy Habitats for Native Species. Canadian Researchers are Tracking the Fish, so That They Might be Culled," Livia Albeck-Ripka, New York Times, Dec. 8, 2023.

  That the problem is a global one is clear from the picture, which portrays a goldfish caught in Europe. "Behold Carrot, The 67-pound Goldfish Caught in France," Jennifer Hassan, The Washington Post, Nov. 22, 2022.

 

Magazines Are Disappearing Along With Newspapers

   In Mulcahy's Miscellany there is a series titled "Periodical Ramblings" and the last post in it was about, Liberty magazine which stopped publishing in Canada long ago. The Last Post has now been sounded for Readers Digest Canada which has been around over 75 years. Although one commentator called it the "Barry Manilow of magazines," another noted: “It’s going to be missed by a lot of readers,” said Mark Pupo, who was editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest Canada from 2019-2022. “It was a great space for Canadian storytelling. We’re losing a lot.” The following brief bits are from: "Reader's Digest Canada, Once A Household Staple, Will End its Run After 76 Years," Jana G. Pruden, Globe and Mail, Dec. 5, 2023.

   Employees were told Reader’s Digest Magazines Ltd. will continue to publish its five Canadian magazines until March 31, 2024, and that the websites will remain in operation “for a certain period” with “basic support” from employees in the United States.

   A spokesperson from American parent company Trusted Media Brands – identified in the presentation to staff as the person to handle all media inquiries – did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

It was an unceremonious announcement for a digest that has been a venerable part of the Canadian magazine market since it began publishing in the country in 1947. It was declared the most influential magazine in Canadian publishing history in 2008.

   As recently as April, a press release described Reader’s Digest as Canada’s most-read monthly magazine, boasting more than three million readers every month. Reader’s Digest Magazines Ltd. also publishes a French edition, Sélection, as well as Best Health Canada, Our Canada and More Our Canada....

   Founded in the U.S. in 1922, Reader’s Digest grew to be a dominant global brand with dozens of editions published all over the world in multiple languages, including braille, and sold in over 60 countries.

The magazine became known for its mix of upbeat and informative stories, health and wellness news and dramatic storytelling, often condensed and updated versions of other magazine pieces. Issues were also peppered with vocabulary quizzes, facts, jokes, comics, puzzles and lighthearted anecdotes in features such as Laughter, the Best Medicine, and Life’s Like That.

Post Script: 

   It is worth noting that the owner of the magazine is Trusted Media Brands. 

   Unfortunately, those of you who are saddened by this loss will no longer be able to reach for a Kleenex. See: "What Kleenex's Canadian Exit Reveals About Our  Grocery Sector's Lack of Competition," David Soberman, Globe and Mail, Sept. 11, 2023.

City Living

   I am not a big fan of big cities, nor do I put much faith in rankings. I did, however, call your attention to "The 100 Most Livable Cities in Canada", and particularly to the fact that London does not appear in that ranking. Another one has just been completed and London does not show up in it either. Ranked, this time, is the "Quality of Living", which must be related, one would think, to being "Livable." Given that I have provided you with the Globe and Mail and Economist rankings, I will now point you to the one by Mercer: "Quality of Living City Ranking 2023." You can go through the rankings by clicking on that link. If you don't want to take the time, I will suggest that you move to Vancouver if you wish to stay in this country or Vienna if you want to live abroad. 

Sources:

  "Vancouver Beats Out Toronto For Cities With the Best Quality of Living For Expats," The Toronto Star, Dec. 14, 2023

  Five Canadian cities made it on to the list ranking quality of life for newcomers and expatriates, but only one made it into the top ten.

   Vancouver - at eighth - beat out Toronto (17th), Ottawa (tied for 18th), Montreal (tied for 20th) and Calgary (tied for 23rd).

   "Move to One of These 10 Global Cities in 2024 If You Want to Work Somewhere    With a Great Quality of Life," Michael Grothaus, Fast Company, Dec. 15, 2023.

   "If you’ve ever wondered which of the world’s cities might be the best to live and work in, you’ll want to check out Mercer’s 2023 Quality of Living rankings, which look at the quality of life that workers and their families who work outside their home countries have.  

   This year, the consulting firm ranked more than 200 cities on five continents. The top city in the world, according to Mercer’s rankings, is Vienna, Austria. Mercer says the central European capital is “known for its rich history, stunning architecture, and vibrant cultural scene, Vienna offers its residents a high standard of living in various aspects.”

   The remainder of the top 10 list is dominated by European cities, which take seven of the 10 spots. Germany alone takes three of the top 10 spots with Frankfurt in 6th place, Munich in 7th, and Dusseldorf in 10th. The only North American city to make the top 10 list is Vancouver, Canada, which came in 8th place."

Periodical Ramblings (13)

 National Geographic

  A "Happy July 1st" and a "Happy July 4th" to all of you. We should celebrate such occasions while we can since they soon may be cancelled and we soon may be gone. 

   It would be fitting if my first post in July was a celebratory one, but being contrarian I will instead chronicle another extinction, or near extinction. Although the National Geographic may be around for a bit longer, it is like Martha, the last passenger pigeon, likely to be soon extinct. 

   The last sightings are found in three recent articles which will be excerpted below since the passing of the National Geographic is worth noting. You will not be surprised that corporations played a role in this extinction and that the cast of characters includes Walt Disney and Rupert Murdoch. 

1. "National Geographic Lays Off Its Last Remaining Staff Writers: The magazine, which remains among the most read in the U.S., has struggled in the digital era to command the kind of resources that fueled the deep reporting it became known for," Paul Farhi, Washington Post, June 28, 2023.

"Like one of the endangered species whose impending extinction it has chronicled, National Geographic magazine has been on a relentlessly downward path, struggling for vibrancy in an increasingly unforgiving ecosystem.

On Wednesday, the Washington-based magazine that has surveyed science and the natural world for 135 years reached another difficult passage when it laid off all of its last remaining staff writers.

The cutback — the latest in a series under owner Walt Disney Co. — involves some 19 editorial staffers in all, who were notified in April that these terminations were coming. Article assignments will henceforth be contracted out to freelancers or pieced together by editors. The cuts also eliminated the magazine’s small audio department.

The layoffs were the second over the past nine months, and the fourth since a series of ownership changes began in 2015. In September, Disney removed six top editors in an extraordinary reorganization of the magazine’s editorial operations.

Departing staffers said Wednesday the magazine has curtailed photo contracts that enabled photographers to spend months in the field producing the publication’s iconic images.

In a further cost-cutting move, copies of the famous bright-yellow-bordered print publication will no longer be sold on newsstands in the United States starting next year, the company said in an internal announcement last month....

The magazine’s current trajectory has been years in the making, set in motion primarily by the epochal decline of print and ascent of digital news and information. In the light-speed world of digital media, National Geographic has remained an almost artisanal product — a monthly magazine whose photos, graphics and articles were sometimes the result of months of research and reporting.

At its peak in the late 1980s, National Geographic reached 12 million subscribers in the United States, and millions more overseas. Many of its devotees so savored its illumination of other worlds — space, the depths of the ocean, little-seen parts of the planet — that they stacked old issues into piles that cluttered attics and basements.

It remains among the most widely read magazines in America, at a time when magazines are no longer widely read. At the end of 2022, it had just under 1.8 million subscribers, according to the authoritative Alliance for Audited Media.

National Geographic was launched by Washington’s National Geographic Society, a foundation formed by 33 academics, scientists and would-be adventurers, including Alexander Graham Bell. The magazine was initially sold to the public as a perk for joining the society. It grew into a stand-alone publication slowly but steadily, reaching 1 million subscribers by the 1930s....

The magazine’s place of honor continued to dim through a series of corporate reshufflings that began in 2015 when the Society agreed to form a for-profit partnership with 21st Century Fox, which took majority control in exchange for $725 million. The partnership came under the Disney banner in 2019 as part of a massive $71 billion deal between Fox and Disney."

  Those of you who thought that the "television versions" were sometimes inferior to the print ones are correct:

"The magazine was eventually surpassed for profits and attention by the society’s video operations, including its flagship National Geographic cable channel and Nat Geo Wild, a channel focused on animals. While they produced documentaries equal in quality to the magazine’s rigorous reporting, the channels — managed by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox — also aired pseudoscientific entertainment programming about UFOs and reality series like “Sharks vs. Tunas” at odds with the society’s original high-minded vision."

I do confess that both my wife and I enjoyed, "Restaurants at the End of the World," which were found in very remote areas. The program aired on the National Geographic channel. 

Comments:

  Many Post readers commented about the article. Here are a few samples:

The National Geographic went from a board of directors comprised of World renowned Scientists, Explorers, Educators, Photographers and Adventurers to a Corporate Board beholden only to the raw banality of bottom line Capitalism.

Thank you for this post. I will be cancelling my Nat Geo subscription. The writing has been declining (probably because they don’t have enough staff writers). Disney’s desire to create a low quality product as a profit engine is one I will not support with my money. I stand in solidarity with the writers. Disney won’t get another penny out of me.

When Rupert Murdoch bought it, I cancelled my subscription.

2. "National Geographic Lays Off More Writers: The company did not specify how many were shed and said that the magazine, known for its focus on discovery and exploration, would continue to be published on a monthly basis," Jesus Jimenez, New York Times, June 29, 2023.

"National Geographic, the science and nature magazine that for more than a century has sent its writers and photographers to explore and document some of the most remote corners of the Earth, shed more writers and other staff members this week in a round of layoffs that had been announced in April...."

The magazine is still well-read at a time when other magazines have lost subscribers or folded their print publications entirely. Through the end of last year, the magazine had more than 1.7 million subscribers, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, which audits publications."

3. "The Virtual End of National Geographic Magazine”, Jim Geraghty, National Review, June 29, 2023.

"On the menu today: This is going to sound like an extended version of an appeal to support our webathon, but the news that the illustrious magazine National Geographic has laid off all of its last remaining staff writers is a demonstration that we, as a society, have largely chosen to stop paying for news or entertainment, with far-reaching consequences for our lives. The belief that we’re entitled to high-quality information in almost every form — and will accept lower-quality stuff if it is free — is one big reason that the current state of American discourse looks and sounds like a WWE match among insane-asylum inmates held in a sewer.

What Happens When We Stop Paying for Quality?....

The rest of the article is worth reading and paying for. 

  Unlike passenger pigeons, old issues of the National Geographic can still be found. The October 1912 issue pictured above can be purchased at Attic Books here in London, Ontario for $25.00

 For now, at least, old issues can also be found for free in libraries. Western University has, for now, at least, many print volumes in storage and some on microfilm. 

Periodical Ramblings
  You have now been provided with a "Baker's Dozen" of posts about old magazines. The first is "Periodical Ramblings (The Series) and in it I mentioned that my sister had magazines stacked everywhere and many of them were National Geographics. As a subscriber her husband appreciated that that made him  a member of the National Geographic Society. The twelfth "Periodical Rambling" was about the Saturday Evening Post, which, you may be surprised to know, still exists. The one before that was about Look, which does not.

Periodical Ramblings (10)

 The Steven Lamazow Collection of American Periodicals

   Dr. Steven Lomazow is a neurologist in New Jersey. He has been collecting magazines for almost fifty years and has over 80,000 of them, many of which are very rare. One can only imagine what his waiting room is like. 

   It is fitting that the tenth post in the series, "Periodical Ramblings" is turned over to someone who is really interested in magazines. Many of those he has collected are now being exhibited in The Grolier Club in New York city. You can visit virtually here: Magazines and The American Experience: Highlights From the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D. You can spend the rest of the day rambling among periodicals that range in subject from the avant garde and archery, to wars and wrestling. 

    If you want to spend more time browsing, then visit his major website: The Great American Magazine: The Periodical Collection of Steven Lamazow, M.D. There you can search thousands of periodicals and view images, and find links to other periodical-related resources. It is also worth looking at his older blog site: Magazine History: A Collector's Blog Documenting and Illustrating the History, Importance and the Joy of Collecting Magazines, 2008-2013. 

The Bonus:
   If you are interested in books and libraries, you should visit The Grolier Club and do some browsing. There are many interesting books and resources to be found and among the other exhibitions, there is this one about medical history books related to plastic surgery: The History of Plastic Surgery: "Much More Than Skin Deep" from the Collection of Douglas M. Monasebian, M.D.
   Speaking of medical history, Dr. Lomazov has yet another blog relating to the health of FDR: see FDR's Deadly Secret. 

Sources:

"How Magazines Helped Shape American History: Explore 300 Years of the Periodicals in an Encyclopedic Exhibition Opening at the Grolier Club in New York City,” Nora McGreevy, Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 23, 2021.

"For national audiences, Lomazow and librarian Julie Carlsen have curated an extensive online exhibition, chronicling the magazine experience against the backdrop of American history on subjects ranging from the birth of democracy, to emancipation and the Civil War, the mid-century information age and the battle for civil rights, as well as a host of niche publications on celebrity, humor, art and baseball."

"What Are Magazines Good For," Nathan Heller, New Yorker, Feb. 16, 2021.

"The Grolier is a club for bibliophiles, but magazine nuts are admitted if their obsession reaches sufficiently crazed levels. (The home Lomazow shares with his wife and collaborator in collection, Suze Bienaimee, teems intimidatingly, some might say alarmingly, with bound volumes.) Lomazow strode over to one of eleven glass cases displaying his magazines, moving like a man whose number has been called at a busy deli counter. In winnowing down his collection to about two hundred issues for display—the show, in the exhibition gallery of the Grolier’s clubhouse, is open to the public by appointment—he focussed on those of acute historical importance."

The Series:

Here are the ones that have been posted so far in "Periodical Ramblings."

Periodical Ramblings (The Series)

Periodical Ramblings (1) (The Sewanee Review)

Periodical Ramblings (2) (Fortune)

Periodical Ramblings (3) (The Village Voice)

Periodical Ramblings (4) (The Wilson Quarterly)

Periodical Ramblings (5) ( The Prairie Schooner)

Periodical Ramblings (6) (Flair)

Periodical Ramblings (7) (Weatherwise)

Periodical Ramblings (8) (Journals Devoted to a Single Author)

Periodical Ramblings (9) ( Arizona Highways) 

   

Fall Blues

    When I started the series of posts titled "Periodical Ramblings",  I noted that I shared a fondness for magazines with a sister who had tons of them piled around her house.  It has been pointed out to me that I also have several pounds of them as well, many of which I can access electronically. As fall approaches I have been throwing them out. Reluctantly. While doing so, I paused over the covers of the New Yorker. Here are two from almost a decade ago and they seem still to have some relevance. Unfortunately. 

The Bonus:

   Loyal readers will know that this often is where the good stuff is found. In this instance, it is not so much a clever remark or insightful insight, but an actual gift. The first reader to respond, and who has a pickup truck, can have a huge stack of Spy magazines. Here is the cover of one from 1993, which is also relevant since it will apply to a sizeable segment of the U.S. electorate in early Nov. 

Periodical Ramblings (4)

The Wilson Quarterly

    Canada is one of eight nations (conveniently ignoring the indigenous ones) in the Arctic Council and as Canadians we tend to look north and think most of it belongs to us. On this blustery Arctic-like day, I can perform a civic duty while conveniently inside and point you to some of the articles on the Far North in a recent issue of The Wilson Quarterly:

THE CHALLENGE OF ARCTIC GOVERNANCE
BY DOUGLAS C. NORD
Governance is challenging in any context, but it becomes even more complex when attempted in an area that, until recently, has had little experience with regional decision-making.

CHANGING CLIMATES FOR ARCTIC SECURITY
BY SHERRI GOODMAN
Shaped by changing climates – political as well as planetary – our understanding of security in the Arctic has morphed since the Cold War and continues to take on new forms.

THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT IN THE AGE OF MAN
BY ROSS A. VIRGINIA
The Arctic is hurtling into the Anthropocene, and caribou, walruses, and even mosquitoes are responding.

THE ARCTIC, FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY
BY MICHAEL SFRAGA
From oil paintings and poetry to militarization and melting (and yes, even video games), our quest to understand the region at the top of the planet continues – and the stakes today are higher than ever.

LANGUAGES OF THE ARCTIC
“The languages of the Arctic - carriers of the culture and identity of the region’s people - are fighting for their survival. In this special interactive project, explore the linguistic diversity and human spirit of the Far North.”
A special project by The Wilson Quarterly [this will take you to a very interesting YouTube presentation].

     Unfortunately you cannot run to the local newsstand (which is probably far away) or to the nearest Indigo and grab a copy of The Wilson Quarterly. Fortunately you can read it here. The print publication which began over forty years ago had to cease publishing print copies about five years back. You are probably saying "So What?, I can read it without getting cold.”  Still, I would like to suggest that something has been lost and, besides, it gives me another excuse to ramble among the periodicals we used to find in good libraries and even at newsstands on a nearby corner.

     The first thing you should know is that it was a much better reader's digest than the other one. The first thirty to forty pages were devoted to alerting you to what was being published in various magazines and journals. This section, (initially called "Periodicals" and later "The Periodical Observer" and still later, "In Essence"), offered thorough summaries and digests of articles that were much longer than typical abstracts.  If you are a researcher interested in in the intellectual or popular culture of, say the late 1970s, you could learn a lot by grabbing a single issue of The Wilson Quarterly from that period. 

     In the first issue in the autumn of 1976 the editor, Peter Braestrup, indicates that The Wilson Quarterly “ is designed to bring the world of scholars and specialists to the intelligent lay reader" and that is what it did. There were articles, book reviews, interviews and "clusters" of essays on particular subjects, such as the Arctic cluster in the current issue. The coverage was eclectic. Two of the books reviewed in the first issue demonstrate this: A River Runs Through It takes care of the subject of fish while Beautiful Swimmers deals with crabs. (That was a cheap way to get in a plug for the latter book which is about crabs and the Chesapeake Bay area - an area where I grew up. William Warner, the author of the book, did win a Pulitzer for it, however, and it does illustrate that the WQ was more than a political or economics journal.)

     The print publication was published by The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the digital one still is - for now. That such an interesting periodical, even with some 'institutional' support, has to struggle is unfortunate. As one 'obituary' writer noted when the print edition ceased:

     "I'd hate to see The Wilson Quarterly fold," said Daniel Akst, a longtime contributing editor, and author of "We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess." "Few publications are as reliably (and pleasurably) non-hysterical, historically informed and pragmatic in outlook. WQ's infrequent publication schedule has only made it more precious in this day of unlimited instantaneous blab."

Some Sources:
     An article about the first issue of The Wilson Quarterly notes that the initial press run was 80,000 and that it cost $12.
“The Wilson Quarterly, Review of Ideas, Issued,” The New York Times, Oct. 19, 1976. It says that “ the 160 page review is a digest of articles that have appeared earlier elsewhere, as well as a printed record of excerpts from discussions at the center. It also contains reprints from books, short book reviews, and recommended background reading lists on subjects it treats. There is an original article, on Brazil, and a reprint of Russell Lyne’s 1949 Harper’s piece entitled, “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow,” with Lyne’s recent reflections on his 1949 selections.’

For two articles about the demise of the print edition see:
“Wilson Quarterly to End Print Publication,” Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times, June 9, 2012.
“The Wilson Quarterly, the 36-year-old general interest magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, has announced that it will put out its final print issue in July….”
“Mr. Lagerfeld said he did not know the magazine's current circulation figures, but a blog post at the Nieman Journalism Lab noted that the Wilson Center spent $1.96 million on the magazine against $950,000 revenue in 2010. The Wilson Quarterly's spring issue, currently on newsstands, is titled ''The Age of Connection,'' and includes several articles on the promise and perils of the digital age.”

“Wilson Center May Sell or Fold its Esteemed Wilson Quarterly, as Readership Declines; The Wilson Center’s 37-year-old Publication Center has Struggled to Find a Footing in the Digital World.”Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2013.
“The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is exploring selling or ceasing publication of The Wilson Quarterly, a wise, wonky and sometimes witty magazine that showcases the work of renowned intellectuals and policy experts but has struggled to find a footing in the digital world, according to sources.
The quarterly abruptly canceled its print edition last year, shifting its focus to digital platforms such as the Kindle and iPad, as well as its Web site. But readership has declined, and the cachet of a 37-year-old publication that once cultivated a loyal and elite audience drawn to its special brand of brainy, yet accessible, writing has slipped.”
The quotation by Akst is from the article above.


     
Fortunately the archive is provided on the web site, although the link is not immediately apparent. You will find it here.

  To conclude with some Canadian content, here is a sample from the first issue.
This is a summary of an article by George Woodcock that appeared in The American Scholar. 

“Rediscovering The Noble Savage: “The Lure of the Primitive" by George Woodcock, in The American Scholar (Summer 1976), 1811 Q st., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009. “Although many scholars have studied vanishing primitive cultures, few have asked why civilized man is so fascinated nowadays by what Europeans used to call "savage cultures." Woodcock, editor of Canadian Literature, writes that Portuguese voyages to Africa and the discovery of America first brought Europeans into contact with primitive peoples. They were regarded as inferior pagan beings, "as unspoiled children to be converted into imitation Christian gentlemen," or simply exploited for commercial purposes (the ivory trade and slavery). Paralleling these derogatory attitudes, there emerged among rationalist thinkers in the late seventeenth century the romantic cult of the Noble Savage. Real knowledge percolated slowly into Europe from the reports of travelers, missionaries, and traders. Then came Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871) and the slow development of anthropology. Not until early in the twentieth century was primitive man seen "as the representative of a complex, valid way of life contemporaneous with our own, neither intrinsically inferior nor necessarily improvable." Woodcock says such recognition came about largely through shifts in perception among Western artists and intellectuals: Picasso, who discovered African art and in 1907 painted the pioneer work of cubism, Les Demoiselles d'dvignon-like primitive art, a projection of inner visions; Sir James Frazier, whose 12-volume The Golden Bough (1907) revealed a worldwide network of common mental constructions -including the mythologizing habit we share with primitives; and the pioneering field studies by Anglo-Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of the western Pacific. The lure of the primitive, says Woodcock, lies both in a desire to find what is common to all societies and "in a pointless nostalgia for peoples and ways of existence that our greed for land and resources has destroyed." 

PERIODICAL RAMBLINGS (2)

Fortune (Magazine)

 

    This is one in a series of posts about magazines and this one attempts to prove that even business journals can be interesting and attractive. (For more in this series on this blog see Periodical Ramblings.)

    Back in 2005 Fortune published a “75th Anniversary” issue which is full of useful information about its publishing history. The short essay that follows is about that issue and it was also written in 2005 in an attempt to encourage students to have a look at Fortune and to make them aware of the richness of the collection found in the stacks which they rarely visited. I doubt if it helped, but perhaps you will find the information to be of use.

[ This essay was published in 2005 in a newsletter produced by the staff at the C.B. “Bud” Johnston Library at the University of Western Ontario (now Western University). It is no longer found on the library website. What follows was retrieved from the Internet Archive. A few editorial notes are added in brackets and are bolded - like this one. I wrote the original and am alone responsible for it and the edited comments. The newsletter was called The Bottom Feeder. Jerry Mulcahy. June 2017]

Fortune Magazine - 75th Anniversary Issue

    

    Serious students of business - particularly those interested in business journalism - should have a look at the Fortune issue dated September 19, 2005 (Vol.152, No.6) where it is noted that:

"Ever since  our first issue in  1930, Fortune has been known for storytelling. There's the classic walking-the-halls-of-power company profile. The deeply reported tale that reveals a technological revolution. Insightful articles about leadership, big ideas and social change. Beautifully rendered photo essays. Great new examples of all these - and more - can be found in this special 75th Anniversary edition."

    Henry Luce, the founder, thought that "accurately, vividly and concretely to describe modern business is the greatest journalistic assignment in history". The magazine was luxuriously launched with 18th century Baskerville type on "wild wove antique" paper and hand sewn between 125-pound weight covers that often required many press runs. Fortune was large, beautiful and expensive and it was introduced just as the depression began.            

Fortune is often analyzed in American Studies programs and is the rare business periodical that is the subject of debate in American intellectual history. During its early years, the magazine exhibited great art, published great writers and took stands that seem odd for a 'business' magazine. A good description of the early Fortune is provided in the opening paragraph of a new book by Michael Augspurger about the magazine:

“To open a Fortune magazine from the 1930s of 1940s is to confront a series of incongruities. Here is a self-described "beautiful" magazine that devoted itself not to society life or fashion but to the grim world of business and industry in an era of economic disruption and tragedy; a magazine presumed to be a "booster" for business that printed scathing exposes not only of easy targets like the munitions industry, but of U.S. Steel and the housing industry and the producers of women's clothing; a champion of corporate capitalism that acknowledged the right of unions to strike, supported higher wages, and called for federal programs ranging from social security to the Securities Exchange Commision. Beyond these economic tensions, however, the magazine's intense interest in art and culture, whether in the form of rare books, or the art programs of the federal Works Progress Administration, seems inconsistent with its business focus. An essay on the American workingman might be illustrated not only by Margaret Bourke-White's industrial photographs but also by paintings by Reginald Marsh and Thomas Benton, and sculptures by Max Kalish. A piece on the bullfighting industry might be contributed by Ernest Hemingway and complemented by the art of Goya and Eduard Manet. Any one issue might contain an essay on major American orchestras, the revival of the craft of stained glass, or the state of American painting. Even the magazine's writers were poets and intellectuals, whether remembered like James Agee, Archibald Macleish, and Dwight Macdonald, or otherwise.”

    As an aside, it could be argued that our own Business Quarterly was influenced by Fortune, in that the covers often were aesthetically pleasing (see, for example, the Summer issue of 1988 which displays a Picasso painting. Business Quarterly  also began in the 30s and continues online as the Ivey Business Journal). [Business Quarterly was published by the Business School at the University of Western Ontario. Its successor is now produced by the same school which is now known as the Ivey Business School at the same university which is now called Western University].

    The anniversary issue of Fortune provides some of the photos and contains an interesting essay about a story that they did not publish - the one that became the book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Those interested in the role of women in business should read "My 51 Years and Counting" by Carol Loomis which begins on p. 298. That essay should be supplemented by the following chapter that discusses, among other things, the use of "girl" researchers by the magazine: "Fortune: Vol. I, No. I",  in Elson's Time Inc. The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, 1923-1941. For a thorough discussion of Fortune see: An Economy of Abundant Beauty: Fortune Magazine and Depression America by Michael Augspurger.

    Fortunately, we have a complete run of Fortune in our collection and you should have a look at the older volumes which are in the oversize area (as another aside, the folks at the Canadian office of another major American business publication- Business Week- donated a pristine set of volumes of that magazine, the covers which are displayed here, along with some details). As well, there are other related books such as Walker Evans at Fortune, 1945-1965 and a large number of works by and about Bourke-White, whose photographs are frequently found in Fortune. In 2005 an example of how Fortune is used in an American Studies program is provided at the University of Virginia, along with a display of some of the covers of the magazine.

[After this was written the old issues of Fortune were placed in storage and one can no longer browse through them. Gone also are the “pristine” bound copies of Business Week. Interestingly enough, Fortune is still being used in the UVA American Studies Program along with a display of covers. J.M. Aug. 2017]   

Post Script

   It is noted above that the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee began as an article for Fortune, but was never published in the magazine.  Recently the manuscript intended for Fortune was discovered and has been published in book form as: Cotton Tenants: Three Families, edited by John Summers with photographs by Walker Evans. A portion of the book can be read in The Baffler (No. 19, March 2012) which is responsible for the publication of the book by Melville House.

Here is the background piece that explains why the story was never published:

“The Most Famous Story We Never Told”, Whitford, David, Yang, Jia Lynn, Fortune, Vol. 152, Issue 6, 2005.

“In 1936 this magazine sent a poet and a photographer to Hale County in Alabama to document the lives of sharecroppers. The result wasn't published in these pages, but became a celebrated book. Sixty-nine years later, we return.

Sixty-nine years ago, in the summer of 1936, FORTUNE sent writer Agee and photographer Evans south to document the lives of cotton sharecroppers. Their story was to be part of a series called "Life and Circumstances." Agee was a published poet, not long out of Harvard, who once described himself as "a great deal more a communist than not." Evans--the partner Agee insisted upon for this plum assignment--was on loan to FORTUNE from the Farm Security Administration. They left New York by car on a mid-June afternoon and were gone two months, long enough for Agee to conclude that the story he had found was too subversive for FORTUNE, and possibly bigger than any magazine could hold, and more important than his career. So when his editors demanded a second draft, and Agee refused, and the story finally was killed, that was okay. "Half unconsciously, and half consciously, Agee saw to it that it would not get into FORTUNE," Evans later said.

Houghton Mifflin published Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1941, with photographs by Evans.

Here are some excerpts from Cotton Tenants which may indicate why Agee’s work was not published in Fortune.

On pregnancy:

“How late in her pregnancy a woman works around the house and in the fields and how soon she gets back to work again depends on her health and how much grit she has. Since that is the code she believes in and lives up to the answer is, she works as late and soon as she can stand to, which is likely to mean later and sooner than she should.”

On Infant mortality:

“Of the seven children the Tingles have lost, one lived to be four, and pulled a kettle of scalding water over on him. (Such accidents, with milder results, are not infrequent in large families with distracted mothers.) One lived to be five and ate some bad bologna sausage one night and was dead before morning. The rest died within their first year. One died of colitis. From what people said of it another must have died of infantile paralysis. The rest, they don’t know what they died of, the doctor never told them. William Fields’s twin died winter before last, of pneumonia. Last winter William was very sick, too. He got choking spells and his face got as black as a shoe. The doctor has told them that unless his tonsils are removed he may not live through another winter. They don’t know whether or not to believe him; meantime there are other expenses already incurred that they can’t afford as it is. The Burroughses’ daughter Martha Ann was six months old when she died. The doctor found out what it was but there was nothing he could do about it. It was an abscess behind the eye.”

A typical Evan’s photo: