If you’re going to slip and slide, you might as well do it on the slopes instead of on the sidewalk. Here’s our take in the best in snow:
Skiing could claim the title for most majestic magazine photography in a sport that’s already over the top visually. The magazine’s 65th anniversary issue splashes an erie, gnarled tree stump on a nighttime Utah slope, a deadly impediment to careless downhill speeders. If that scary stump doesn’t grab the attention of aficionados of the nearly $11 billion pastime, perhaps its cover story might trigger a lifestyle change — at least until spring — with its amusing how-to guide on living a lavish life as a ski bum. For each of its 65 years of publishing, this month’s issue offers one quick ski tip in a page-turner piece, e.g., never ski with your dog (your ski edges are giant knife blades right at paw level) and stuff dryer sheets in your damp boots and gloves to prevent them from stinking. Besides insiders’ reviews of slopes from Japan to Kashmir, the mag’s lengthy page lineup of grandiose photos of snow capes and daring ski action is worth its $6.99 cover price.
Powder aims for the young bloods and innovators of skiing, with subtle, offbeat twists and turns in its coverage, such as Utah skiers who are teaching maimed vets to use the ease of gliding on snowy slopes as a form of therapy. The magazine also runs a close race with the other ski titles for its photo galleries of stunning visuals, which today are required elements for anything to do with skiing. Powder ranks the world’s 20 best skiers age 18 and under, half from the US in places such as Utah, Colorado and Vermont. Six young female stars are in the mix, hailing from European and North American locales. There are also lots of good tips for the alpine trips, such as be sure to prepare for high-altitude sickness that can be far worse than seasickness.
Transworld Snowboarding is a high-on-style, low-on-substance magazine. We could flip through it all day and stare at the awe-inspiring pics of kids doing crazy stunts in beautiful places. But we find it tough, if not impossible, to get through any of the type. One reason is that everything is written super small, as if by a fifth-grade girl trying to keep the contents of her diary a secret. What’s more, this is because every single story reads exactly the same way, which is to say, stories by boys hero-worshipping other boys on their boy adventures. Even the 2014 Gear Preview is a letdown, with the graphics taking up 80 percent of the page and very little explanation of what we’re looking at. Not awesome, dudes.
Snowboarder magazine is less stylish than Transworld Snowboarding but it’s the mag to pick up if you’re looking for inspiration or gear. The mag features a mess of goggles, jackets and boards for review with a layout that makes it easy to figure out what description goes with which item. We want the Burton birdie jacket, especially as it’s only $79.95. What a steal! Also fun is the feature on Snowboarder’s awards to what it deems the best in the sport. Normally we hate coronation gimmicks, but the mag does it up in a fun and creative way by giving each prize-winner a yearbook page and the occasional dorky yearbook photo. Because, yes, snowboarding pros are pretty awesome, but it’s just a sport.
Asked by New York about his controversial hire of disgraced fashion designer John Galliano to help out with his new collections, Oscar de la Renta’s response is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser: “I’ve said that when I am designing a collection, I wish the Virgin Mary would sit next to me.” Well, Oscar, we agree that wish might be a tall order. Still, we’d think you might have gotten a little closer than Galliano, who got himself ejected from Christian Dior for his drunken anti-Semitic barroom rants. De la Renta adds that he took the pencil-moustached potty-mouth under his wing at the behest of Anna Wintour. “It is so strange to me what people who don’t know Anna think of her,” de la Renta adds, in what appears to be a show of genuine bewilderment. “She is the most wonderful person, so smart, and so funny and an unbelievably loyal friend.”
Mayor Bloomberg writes the obit for Ed Koch in Time, recalling how Koch once advised him, “Don’t worry about what people think!” So then, it’s Koch we have to thank for the upscale nanny state the city has become. Thanks for the parting gift, Ed! Elsewhere, this issue declares on its cover that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is “the new voice of the GOP.” We’re not sure why another serving of Rubio needed to be reheated this week, but we remain unconvinced. In addition to his lightweight résumé and reputation for self-promotion, Rubio himself admits that immigration will be a tough issue for Republicans any way you slice it. Indeed, the cover story itself concludes that it’s highly doubtful whether Rubio will run for president in 2016. Chalk it up to a slow news cycle, or the progressive media’s constant push to say something confusing and incoherent about the GOP (a strategy which, one might argue, appears to have served it well).