Thursday, June 7, 2007

Time Out, TONY

The only magazines I subscribe to are the New Yorker and the Atlantic monthly, so the thick Time Out New York that showed up in my mailbox was easy to spot.

It was also a surprise because I didn't order it. I called the subscription line, and they said I was not in their system. And yet, I insisted, I have a copy with a traditional label on the cover. And they insisted I wasn't in their system, I didn't really exist to them, and wouldn't be charged. There's no arguing with publisher's subscription services.

It's now the third week of getting TONY, and so I accept it--since I'm not in their computer, there's no way to stop it anyway. Maybe like a cold, it comes out of nowhere, runs its course, and then disappears again.

I'm not a fan of the magazine. It's a great resource, but on a weekly basis it's exhausting to even glance at 184 pages of 'things to do and know about.' I will not get psyched out that I've never heard of the band at the Mercury Lounge--maybe when I was 20 that would have worried me, but no longer.

I took the What's Your New York Age? quiz on the cover, and it set my clock back 15 years. Is that good? The young air-brushed woman on the cover is "76" in New York years. Does that make her happy? The Cosmo quizzes are much easier to interpret.

The one nice thing about this weekly gift horse is that I will turn to Gia Kourlas's dance feature. I like her writing a lot. So much so, that I hired her for one of her early-career editing jobs at The Museum of Broadcasting. Many years later, she reviewed a book by Lynn Messina, called Fashionista, for TONY, and she gave it a favorable review. I had also hired Lynn, years after Gia, for the same position, in what was then The Museum of Television & Radio. I had never mentioned either to the other. Now that was a very New York moment.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

MA, I took the quiz even though I'm not a *real* New Yorker -- just one at heart. (Have been since I learned of the place -- probably around 9 years old)

I'm 22!

I think that's bad, though. I think that means I don't know anything! What 22 year old does?

Maybe that's mean. And I'm off the mark.

I'd go back to 22 in a second. Cuz I'd be heading to NYC.