BK, I know the collapsing of the neswpapers, both in size and quality, is tough, but people just aren't buying them or magazines much anymore and they are all fighting for survival. Though our local paper is pretty much crap, I still subscribe because I like to hold a physical paper at the breakfast table. The saddest part, of course, is that newspapers are no longer strong independent voices for news and people rely on the 24-hour faux news stations in cableland. Clowns like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have replaced the Walter Cronkites and Edward R. Murrows of the news world.
TOD: In my house, we subscribed to LIFE, LOOK, and THE SATURDAY EVENING POST and I looked at them every week. As Elmore mentioned, we had the WEEKLY READER in school. My dad bought PLAYBOY and it was on the coffee table for all to peruse -- he saw nothing dirty in the nude female form. I later subscribed to it from the 1980's for about 20 years, finally stopping when it started reviewing video games and the playmates could be my daughter. Since high school, I used to buy TV GUIDE every week and marked the movies I wanted to watch. When it changed format and got so unwieldy with all the cable channels, I just stopped.
As a teenager, I was heavily into Edgar Rice Burroughs and subscribed to several fanzines. My grandfather gave me a gift subscription to CIVIL WAR ILLUSTRATED. For awhile my dad had subs to shortlived magazines like SHOW BUSINESS ILLUSTRATED & SHOW and I still have several copies. I used to read any Theatre magazines and FILMS IN REVIEW in the library. I used to buy AFTER DARK on the newstand until it finally just got so blatantly gay, it wasn't worth it for the theatre articles. I used to subscribe to PLAYS INTERNATIONAL, a British Theatre magazine, and pick up another, PLAYS & PLAYERS whenever I saw it on the newstand. I also used to subscribe to BIBLIO, a magazine about book collecting, now defunct, I believe. My mother has long given me a Birthday subscription to CINCINNATI MAGAZINE. Since she passed away this year, I guess I'll have to renew it myself. In high school, our history teacher made us subscrbe to either NEWSWEEK or TIME. I choose TIME. For awhile there was a revival of LIBERTY MAGAZINE (both new and old articles) and I used to buy that. And I used to buy the late Richard Valley's SCARLET STREET. Belonging to AFI, I used to get the now-defunct AMERICAN FILM. One of my joys when I lived on Yucca in LA was walking my dog, Hotspur, down to the newstand on Cahuenga between Hollywood and Sunset Blvds. several times a week.
The magazines for which I currently have subscriptions are CINCINNATI MAGAZINE, MYSTERY SCENE MAGAZINE, THE DRAMATIST (as a member of Dramatist Guild), AMERICAN THEATRE (as a member of American Theatre), WRITTEN BY (as a member of the WGA), SOUTHERN THEATRE (as a member of Southeastern Theatre Conference), THE WEEK, and THE BURROUGHS BULLETIN (as a member of The Burroughs Bibliophiles).
I have several boxes of old magazines on theatre, books, film, and history as well as several I've saved for various articles or memorabilia (Kennedy assasination, etc.)
