Wired for wealth

I'm getting ridiculously low offers for subscriptions to Vanity Fair ($8) and Wired ($5). (Both owned by Conde Nast). Magazines are vehicles for ads for expensive products, always have been. They are capitalism on steroids. Country Gentlemen (1831-1955) had a huge subscriber base, but the ads for farm equipment just didn't move city folk mired in nostalgia for the "old days." Vanity Fair insults probably 90% of the country to attract rich people or their wannabees as its editorial policy gallops leftward, and Wired does the same but without make up and fashion ads.

http://www.magazineart.org/main.php/v/farm/countrygentleman/Country+Gentleman+1924-10-04.jpg.html

This is an adorable cover of a teen girl in 1924 with headphones!

FLOTUS as a fashion trend setter

It's really too bad that the Trump haters have refused to feature the lovely Melania Trump on magazine covers--I'd love to have dresses available that come to mid calf or lower. I might even buy something new. There's not much between jeans with holes and dresses 1" below the panty line.

Shape up Self

We've never been able to figure it out, but for about 3 years we've been receiving "Self" and "Shape" magazines published for the under 25 body obsessed, narcissistic female. When my husband was still teaching an exercise class (all female) he would pull out the (impossible) routines and add a few moves. Women's magazines whether Godey's in the 19th c. or Prairie Farmer in the 20th, have always been dependent on advertising, not subscriptions, so how we fell into the demographic interested in make-up, exercise, dieting, and sweaty sex really baffles me. http://wwd.com/…/conde-nast-closes-self-magazine-10715645-…/ But the marketing didn't work, and it looks like the print editions will go belly up (but a toned belly).

Bustles have come to stay--1889

An ad in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1889, assured women they needed the bustle:

“If a woman has too large hips, the Bustle relieves them of their protuberance; if she have no hips at all apparently, the Bustle supplies the lack; if she have too large an abdomen, the Bustle gives her symmetry, if she be too tall and thin, the Bustle helps her; if she be too short and broad, the Bustle helps her none the less.” from Magazines in the United States, (Ronald Press, 1949)

Traveling suit worn by Louise Whitfield on April 22, 1887 during the evening of her quiet wedding to Mr. Andrew Carnegie of New York while aboard the steamship Fulda on her way to European honeymoon. Designed for her travels, this practical ensemble consists of skirt with two bodices, extra set of cuffs, collar and front gold embroidered pastron insert of red silk velvet for more formal occasions. Costume Institute at The Met. Found at Pinterest, Becky Morris.

Carnegie became the richest man in the United States, and gave about 90% of his fortune away, much of it to build libraries. He was a poor immigrant—a very interesting person, as was she.

Obsequious, groveling, sniveling and up for a possible ambassadorship

Vogue editor Anna Wintour was a big fund raiser for President Obama and has Michelle Obama on the cover again and a puff piece inside called  "Leading by example." Laura Bush was up for the tough questions, but not the current FLOTUS.  Do they think she can’t handle it?

Tickled Pink

You can take a look at it here, and it won't let me copy the cover, which is not worth scanning. However, be forewarned if you see one (free-circ, usually in lobbies of stores or supermarkets), it's just a package of ads with a few articles in the margins. That's actually how women's magazines got their start in the 19th century, but they have come full circle. Anyway. . . the all out dumbest thing I've ever seen in a woman's magazine is on p. 15. An advice column for women by a gay man--on sex and relationships. Truly, it was beyond dumb, it was disgusting. I'm glancing through to see if there's anything else you couldn't find in the stack you have waiting to go to the trash. . . breast cancer, skin spots, exercise tips, fall weddings, safety tips for halloween, Thanksgiving tips, and so forth. One thing worth reading, however, is a very short piece on p. 37 that looks like a scanned diary, called Soul Searching. If I would have known then. . . addressed to a 21 year old into the clubbing life.

"This drinking and smoking, the stress you are under, trying to take on the world's problems, it's a ridiculous way to live, The risks the doctor is talking about with this disease. . . pregnancy complications and skin infections and heart attacks. . . all very real things that will happen to you.

The daughter you think about having one day that will look just like you? Gone at 8 days old, when you are 26, from complications of open-heart surgery to correct a heart defect your uncontrolled diabetes gave to her. The body you are abusing with the Alabama Slammers and the Marlboro smokes? Riddled with scars from a staph infection that gets into your bloodstream because you are too stubborn to go to the doctor. Think you are going to live forever? Think again. . . you are lucky to survive the massive heart attack that almost kills you on January 2, 2004.

Please. . . listen to what the doctors are telling you right now. . .Oh that guy you think is perfect for you right now? Drop everything and Run!!!"