$5.99

I'm addicted to The New Yorker. Go ahead, hurl your nastiness at me it won't matter. I tried not to be addicted to it. I tried to break up with it during the Tina Brown blip but that didn't work, I came crawling back like the pathetic person I am. It's there for me ALMOST every week of the year except for the few times of the year when they see fit to deny me my fix for a week and I have to endure the dreaded "DOUBLE ISSUE".

Today I had an interesting revelation. I looked at the cover price. I did. I never think about the cover price because I buy my subscription in 3 year chunks; 141 issues for just $99.95! WOW!!!! What is that, like, a buck forty an issue? I can't even get my Dunkin' Donuts coffee at that bargain price.

Oh but that cover price; $5.99! I couldn't believe it. That's more than a lot of paperbacks you can buy at Costco. Now for me, I think it's worth every penny of that $5.99. I think that it's a STEAL at my subscription rate.

You may be wondering why I harbor these deep and wide feelings for a magazine. Let me tell you. My heart warms each and every time I read about a writer who's dream is/was to get published in The New Yorker. I cheer for them and their lofty goals. I think that the fictional journalist in The Devil Wears Prada dreamt of getting that first acceptance letter from The New Yorker and that deserved a cheer from me; YOU GO GIRLFRIEND!

I love it when a crusty old writer dies and (OF COURSE) he/she had some kind of legacy at The New Yorker and another crusty old writer eulogizes the dearly departed in the pages of The New Yorker. With the recent loss of J.D. Salinger I'm treated to reading a personal tidbit written about him by Lillian Ross in which she refers to him rather familiarly as "Jerry", I never even thought of ol' J.D. as having a first name other than those initials but good ol' Lil just blurts it out onto the glossy print page of The New Yorker.

I have the big gift box of discs of every New Yorker issue from the beginning of time and not long after I got this treasured compilation they came out with a hard drive of The New Yorker. I don't have that hard drive yet but it seems like a true dream date for me. Imagine how special this publication is that you can just buy the whole thing on it's very own hard drive. It's searchable! What fun to type in random words and see what was written about those things some time around 1943.

And there's the cartoons. I read those first. It's kinda like asking someone how they eat an Oreo or a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Some people start with the short pieces up front about current art installations or concerts. Some like to start with Talk of the Town. I start by looking at the cover and trying to guess what the cover title is (I've only been right once or twice) then I flip to the table of contents page and find out what the cover title is, then it's off to flip through the magazine to check out all the cartoons.

Every year I look forward to the anniversary edition which always features a new interpretation of Eustace Tilley the fopish gent who is visually associated with The New Yorker. Sometimes I like to pop in one of the discs and look back at other anniversary editions to compare to the current one (it should be out in a week or two).

I can still remember fondly some of my favorite articles like the one about calculating Pi in some apartment in Hell's Kitchen being done by some computers and two Russian brothers. It somehow managed to romanticize the whole concept of Pi. SWEET! Or an article I read about some interesting personality quirks of former President Richard Nixon; an eye-opener to be sure.

I wanted to resist becoming a Gladwellian but I just couldn't because more than being a best selling author and an extremely well paid guest speaker he's a New Yorker columnist and doesn't that make it all okay?

When I was far too young to even understand the humor of James Thurber I was already reading his books because, well, he was JAMES THURBER...of THE NEW YORKER. I was tickled to read that when The New Yorker moved offices some time ago they cut out Thurber's wall doodles and moved them to the new office space.

I'm a big fan of eMedia. I read it; clearly I write it (you're reading this blog aren't you?). I have a Sony eBook Reader which I adore. I only access my local news and national news online. I'm happy with all things "e" except The New Yorker, for some reason that glossy paper showing up every week is a thrill that can't be matched online for me. I can access it online; after all I AM a subscriber; but I generally don't access it online. I rarely even think about it as being online, it exists in a romantic paper world for me.

I'm not someone who worships all things nostalgic; I'm an "early uptake" person and all that. I don't wax romantic over EZ Bake Ovens or Mork and Mindy lunchboxes (I have a friend who does) but somehow or other I feel the need for my New Yorker to be paper.

So if you weren't convinced I was a geek during my previous GLEEK admission, well think again.

$5.99, go ahead, just try one...