Caught Up!
All the dentist visits have left me caught up on my light reading. It’s such a reflief to know there is no People unexamined. Yesterday’s visit reminded me of how much I miss Esquire and GQ now that my local library has let its subscriptions lapse. The library is very big on subscriptions that are funded by community members and therefore has a lot of niche publications.............age and/or disease oriented. Yes, if I had money and gumption I could give them a subscription to something good - First Things, Faith & Family, MAD. Something good. (My daughter has let me in on a little secret. The staff has a subscription to The Onion, but it is never put out in the periodical room. Staffers read it in the back room when they should be working. Patrons are stuck with lively stuff like Arthritis Today......no offense to anyone with arthritis.............I have a few bad joints and some auto-immune problems myself. I just don’t want to read about it at the library.)

I had never before realized how much Esquire resembles women’s magazines in its need to make the reader feel insecure. Do you need Viagra? Is your hair thinning? Need more $100 shirts in your wardrobe? Perplexed by the woman in your life? Are you unattractive? I always thought men were more secure. Maybe they are. But someone has figured out that there is gold in making men feel that they must be personally shored up by ‘products.’ Not just selling them tires and Craftsmen tools, but undermining their sense of self worth and then offering a salve in the form of clothes, fragrances, gadgets and other male enhancements.

I’m starting to sound like my father when he would warn me about the damage Glamour, Mademoiselle and the like were doing to my soul. You there, young man, drop that Esquire, it’ll only make you feel bad...........