I don’t recall why I started getting Esquire. I think it was because I got some kind of discount magazine subscription card. And since Sarah gets lots of women’s magazines, I thought I’d try a men’s one.
I’ve been quite delighted with it since I subscribed. And one thing that I like about it is that I don’t feel compelled to read everything in it. I enjoy the letters, although my favorite part of the letters page is the “Context-free highlight from a letter we won’t be running” which always contains a random sentence or two from a letter. This sentence is always weird and it’s awesome to imagine what the rest of the letter contained. An example: “Our prime minister is pretty harmless, but he licks his lips a lot when he speaks.”
As the Man at His Best section starts, I enjoy “The Vocabulary” which defines the words they will introducing in the section. And of course this section has The Rules, a randomly selected number assigned to a rule that should be followed. Example: “Rule No. 815: Of the clocks in the house, the coffeemaker is the least likley to be accurate.”
This section also contains the usual line-up of media reviews: books, music, film and TV. These are all short and sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t, and that’s fine. Usually the books and movies they like are too “butch” for my taste, and that’s a general note about the magazine that I’ll get to shortly. But the music section tends to introduce me to stuff I don’t already know.
There’s also stuff about food and drink, and I always want to try the food advice, because it’s mostly about foods I try to make, but I never save the pages so I always forget the clever suggestions.
Some other fun things are the “Ask” sections, where you can ask a specialist in a field, or you get tech advice from Barry Sonnenfeld–a film director and tech guru with expensive tastes who nobody could ever afford to listen to. The other Ask folks are The Answer Fella who (I’m sure he would bristle at this) is like Cecil Adams of the Straight Dope. And there’s the sex lady who gets to make silly jokes about sex questions…which I guess is the nature of all sex columnists. There’s also a Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman, the funniest part of which is the asterisk on Funny that says “Esquire Cannot Guarantee that this joke will be funny to everyone.”
There used to be a column by Chuck Klosterman who quickly became my favorite magazine author, and whose books I’m planning to check out one of these days, but he is absent these days and is sorely missed.
The bulk of the rest of the magazine is “men’s issues” and I realize I’m just not manly enough to enjoy these sections. There’s medical advice from a doctor–some of which I already do, and the rest I liklely never will. In fairness though, most of the advice is designed for ten or fifteen minutes a day. There’s also a style section, an area in which I am deficient and always have been. I could use the advice, but I won’t take it, as cheap and comfortable is my style.
The main articles are usually about some Man, be he actor, politician, or some other noteworthy figure. The interviews are usually pretty fun and slightly irreverant. There’s also often a story abouty a soldier or sports guy, that I rarely read. There’s also a Woman We Love, a section about some woman, often an up an comer who is typically hot and usually skimpily dressed.
This particular issue had a large section called What is a Man? And this is the kind of thing that in name I think is bullshit about the magazine. The Mythical Man blah blah blah. But in reality these “men” sections aren’t as obnoxious as they could be…they’re not about being a tough guy or any other thing like that; in fact, two in a row in this list include: “A man doesn’t point out that he did the dishes. A man looks out for children.” So yeah, I can get behind that. It’s just the solemnity with which these things are reported that’s quite over the top. And often their fiction is about rogh and tumble guys who drink hard and blah blah blah. Not my scene.
And yet, their occasional features like “How To” or “What It Feels Like” are alaways cool. In this issue: “How to…fell a tree, calm a crying baby, sew a button, and parallell park.” The What It Feels Like have included “Getting hit by a truck, to survive an avalanche, to be shot in the head [all these accounts are from people who have actually done the action]. I just learned that theres’ a book available of the best from this category.
So, yes, it’s a good general magazine. I never read everything in it but I always get my money’s worth out of it. And that sounds like a thing a Man should do, or at least a Rule, right?
Original content from Periodicals Page:
Esquire. I decided I needed another mindless type magazine. So, I got Esquire. It has some fun sections, and then lots of silly sections about buying $400 belts and whatnot. My criterion for magazines of this type is: Do I get a dollar’s worth out of it (or whatever my current “super subscriber’s rate” is). With Esquire, definitely. They always have one or two fun things, and that’s worth a dollar to me.
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