Chips? Check. Liquid refreshment? Check. Now, all you need are these magazines and you’re set.
If you ripped out each of the 288 pages of the NFL XLVIII preview and laid them end to end, they would stretch from one end zone to the other at MetLife Stadium. Indeed, this would as good a use as any for this horrible waste of trees. It wasn’t until page 78, having hacked through endless ads and advertorials, that we came across anything that resembled actual editorial content. Even that is mostly sanitized beyond recognition. “Trust, respect, and a shared vision drive the unique partnership between Giants owners John Mara and Steve Tisch,” declares an “article” on page 120. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
Sports Illustrated, on the other hand, gets down and dirty once it begins its Super Bowl coverage on page 38, rubbing it in about Peyton Manning “buckling in big moments,” and calling him “the closest thing there is to an undisputed heavyweight champion in shadowboxing.” Ouch. Elsewhere, amid kvetching about how this Super Bowl will be too darn cold, columnist Steve Rushin isn’t sweating it, and instead waxes positively poetic: “Even a man standing at a urinal this month can produce his own rising steam, that ethereal vapor associated with the heaven portrayed in movies.” Wasn’t it our favorite author, I.P. Freely, who first wrote that?
How many times have we seen the greatest players in Super Bowl history ranked, and in how many different ways? For those who love to be provoked, TD delivers. If you’re not annoyed that Joe Montana is ranked at No. 1 ahead of Terry Bradshaw at No. 2, how about the fact that Jerry Rice is ranked at No. 3? Was this mag written in San Francisco or what? Big Apple fans will be happy, at least, that Lawrence Taylor and Joe Namath are Nos. 4 and 5, respectively. “Though his public image has been tarnished some since his retirement, LT’s on-the-field legacy remains utterly unparalleled,” the mag says.
The New Yorker delivers a lead article on the supremely provocative subject of abortion that manages to be painfully boring. Focusing on rogue abortionist Steve Brigham, the 13-page story is three-quarters over before it mentions the rather striking fact that protesters have cut the ranks of US abortionists by a third since 1988. We get endless citings of Brigham’s infractions, but little effort is made to decipher the doctor himself, whose career path went remarkably shady early on despite fancy degrees from MIT and Columbia. Elsewhere, media reporter Ken Auletta rehashes the story that video streaming is eating away at TV networks, with CBS chief Les Moonves denying there’s a problem.
New York’s Frank Rich, on the recently popular subject of Roger Ailes, writes that the Fox News chief “is making no plans for secession.” From the context, it would appear that he meant to write “succession,” and this was simply a careless typo in the spirit of Rich’s endlessly cavalier word processing. Needless to say, it’s highly amusing to think that Rich’s subconscious has cast itself in the thick of the Civil War. Elsewhere, Chen Guangbiao, a rich Chinese kook who wants to buy the New York Times, notes that, in his zeal to be environmentally friendly, he sometimes blows his nose on his sleeve to save tissues. “Or into my hand. Then I wipe my hand inside my pocket.” Eeeeww.
Time has a cover story on “mindfulness” that is shameful in its utter mindlessness, amounting to a massive advertisement for something called “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.” It charges $3500 for a meditation class whose tips to focus on your breathing have been rather ordinary since the days of the Maharishi. More interesting is a takedown of “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua’s new book, which contends that some ethnic cultures are inherently better at succeeding in America. Aside from being less than rigorous, the magazine notes that Chua’s book seems to define success solely in terms of money. “Nowhere are cultural traits like kindness, community and public service or martial valor given any value.”