Arthur Mag, Annoying
February 5th, 2008 by Legs GinigerHey it’s the week for new contributors. I will be bringing my own particular brand of the hate, but sometimes the love.
Lately, Arthur Magazine has really been annoying. I mean they’ve always run small annoyances like that column for the practice of magic, or as they like to say “magick”. I don’t know, affected early-modern English nonstandard spellings really annoyye me.
In the December 2007 issue, Douglas Rushkoff, regular contributor, wrote the tedious “Raising Baby Einstein” to make a point about how raising a baby has become so commercialized and professionalized. And I usually really like what he writes, you know tearing down the whole edifice of 9/11 conspiracy thinking as a waste of valuable time was right on! But Rushkoff made the regrettable error that afflicts most parents, the belief that what they’re undergoing is so special and magical that they must then inflict the magic of parenthood on the rest of us. I tried to read the whole thing but had to quit when I reached the paragraph on, “the lost art of breast-feeding”. Writers, please do not use the word “latch, nipple, draw, and infant’s lips” in a column published by a putative music mag. Gross. Seriously.
A year ago Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond annoyed me when she renounced her class hate in favor of a particularly icky brand of Topanga Canyon free-love. But I would expect that from someone named Lavender Diamond. Rushkoff, you’re losing your edge to the babies.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Ha ha! I like your post. My sister is a nurse practitioner who specializes in breast feeding and prenatal care. She works at Detroit Receiving Hospital (one of the city’s most notorious.) Her patients need to be informed and it’s hard to find a copy of Arthur Mag in the ghetto.
Also, I just heard some friends mention they try/want to like Arthur but it’s kinda hard sometimes!
I give ‘em props for keeping it going!
February 6th, 2008 at 10:08 am
What we needed was somebody else to bring the deep thoughts. So awesome!
BTW, next month’s Arthur will be totally different. Word is, it features Ms Actually Huizenga.
February 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The band name “Lavender Diamond” makes me feel irrationally angry and violent.
February 7th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I like Legs