MetaFilter posts tagged with magazine

It's good to be the king.

Room 641-A — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:19:38 -0800

On June 6th, 2013, Mel Brooks will be presented with the 41st AFI Life Achievement Award, but this post is about his Tomato and Onion Omelette. Bon Appétit talks cooking, coffee, and career with Mel Brooks, Omelette King.

"The Lower Depths"

zarq — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:02:52 -0800

Before the National Enquirer, TMZ, Globe, The Star and other gossip tabloids, there was the National Police Gazette. Founded in 1845, it originally covered "highwaymen and suchlike malefactors, the thought being that the public would get on to the evil-doers and fix their wagons." Thirty years later a new owner transformed 'the oldest weekly in America' into a full-on tabloid covering "murders, Wild West outlaws, and sport... well known for its engravings and photographs of scantily clad strippers, burlesque dancers, and prostitutes, often skirting on the edge of what [was] legally considered obscenity." Some even consider it "America’s first popular men’s magazine." The Gazette shut down in 1977, but has now been resurrected. Google's image search turns up some fun engravings. A small archive of articles from the original Gazette Interview with the magazine's current owner.

Starlog Magazine

ricochet biscuit — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:24:26 -0800

Attention fellow aging gen-X geeks: the archives of Starlog magazine are now online. Want to see what some of the biggest sf hits and flops from the late seventies to the mid-nineties looked like from the far side, months before they arrived? Want to dream of pie-in-the-sky projects that never came to be?* Want to read interviews with people you will find interviewed nowhere else? Here is your chance! *I still recall the creepy production stills for Cry of Cthulhu and the concept art for Childhood's End.

"If you're reading this, it's a safe bet you read magazines."

the man of twists and turns — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 08:07:01 -0800

The Art Of Making Magazines "By making what they call "not a how-to book, but… a how-to-think-about-it-book," they help us look at something we've probably been taking for granted: What is a magazine?"

The Work Magazine Reprint Project

Harald74 — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 05:16:20 -0800

Brooklyn-based Tools for Working Wood are in the process of weekly reprinting every single issue of Work: An Illustrated Magazine of Practice and Theory on their blog, having just finished the first year. The original magazine's first issue was published March 23rd, 1889, and the blog is republishing 123 years after the original. The latest issue has instructions on sign-writing and gilding, how to make a piano, electric clock fitment, construction and application of kaleidoscopes and much more. Earlier issues feature everything from brooches to gas engines. For easier navigation an index is available.

Kitchen Junkets and Contra Dance

Miko — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 10:45:09 -0800

Kitchen Junkets in New England homes were a wintertime venue for live music and contra dance - a social dance form that's never really faded from the region's popular culture. Often credited with keeping the form alive, scholar/musician Ralph Page celebrated the kitchen junket and other contra traditions from 1949-1984 in his hand-printed magazine Northern Junket, available indexed and fully digitized via the University of New Hampshire. Ralph Page's name is known today primarily because, in his memory, UNH hosts an annual Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend - a well-attended contradance gathering. Page was also a founder of the New England Folk Festival Association, familiarly known as NEFFA, which still hosts a popular early spring folk festival of music and dance. Ralph also wrote the book on contra dance...five of them, actually. Chris Page (apparently no relation) created a handy index of favorite/notable Northern Junket features. Chris Page's contra dance site contains some great links to other resources. A pretty comprehensive pile of links is available at contradancelinks.com. If this interests you, there goes your Sunday! I apologize in advance for the many dead links you're likely to encounter. The grassroots/volunteer nature of the contradance community tends to mean that things come and go, but there's always someone keeping their corner of it alive. Dance manuals from the Library of Congress. Contra grew up alongside of (and had some pretty complex interactions with) formal European-style dance traditions taught by dancing-masters in the 18th and 19th centuries. Early American dance manuals often combine a bit from both traditions.

New from VIDEO Magazine, it's Electronic Games!

JHarris — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 05:43:30 -0800

NEW from VIDEO Magazine, arising out of its popular "Arcade Alley" column, it's ELECTRONIC GAMES Magazine!(page of PDF links) Brought to you by editors Frank Laney Jr. and Bill Kunkel, and filled with all the latest news on programmable home console games, computer games (with special coverage for the new ATARI 800 system), stand-alone electronic devices and arcade gaming. In the premier issue on newsstands now:

Page 8: "Congratulations on the debut of your new magazine. As games designers, we are naturally pleased that there will be a magazine entirely devoted to the field of electronic gaming. Good Luck!
-- The ActiVision Design Staff: Alan Miller, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Bob Whitehead, Steve Cartright."
Pages 10-11: One of the infamous George Plimpton ads promoting the Intellivision over the Atari 2600. "Atari Casino. No Dealer. Intellivision Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. You play cards with a shifty-eyed dealer."
Page 12: An article on David Crane's Freeway. "'That's where the San Diego Chicken came in,' says Activision spokesperson Diane Drosnes."
Page 14: "Atari confirms rumor; secret messages exist! Sources at Atari have confirmed one of arcading's most persistant wild stories. If a gamer sends the hero to a certain room in the VCS Adventure and performs a specific action, a secret message revealing the designer's name will appear on the screen."
Page 14: "There's quite a story behind the delay in the release of the VCS Asteroids cartridge. The version the company showed a year ago received such a frosty reception from those who got an advance peak that the designers went back to the drawing board. They developed a special process that puts twice as much program--8K vs. 4K--on the cartridge as was previously possible. It seems that Atari's wizards came up with a special bank-switch that flips back and forth between two 4K programs, fooling the VCS into reading them both..."
Page 16: "Those who were planning to give (Atari's standalone game system) COSMOS to someone this holiday season had better start looking for a substitute present. Although Atari lavished much advance publicity on its holographically enhanced stand-alone programmable, the company has shuttled it back to the design department for more work. Although the accomplishment of actually developing a commercially viable holographic process drew much admiration, the game itself received mixed reviews. The chief complaint: The holograms served as mere decoration and did not directly affect play."
Page 18: "Holiday Gift Guide for Gamers," features a chess computer, a calculator watch with a game mode, a satin jacket reading "SPACE INVADERS," and the new Merlin and Pocket Simon handheld electronic games, among other things.
Page 22: Introducing the new Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer! "Gamers who have felt shackled by the black and white output of the TRS-80 series can now fill the screen with green, blue, yellow, red, buff, cyan, magenta and orange."
Page 24: Q&A with the Game Doctor! "Q: Do video games damage television sets? A: No, no, a thousand times no!"
Page 25-28: A four-page ad for the Odyssey 2's classic game Quest for the Rings, a combination video and board game. "Ten rings of power lie hidden within the Dark Lands of the evil Ringmaster. In gloomy dungeons. Crystal caverns. Molten infernos. And mysterious shifting halls. Each posing its own challenge. And its own threat."
"Each ring is guarded by the treacherous minions of evil that lurk within these halls of doom. Menacing Orcs and Firewraths. The loathsome Spydroth Tyrantulus. Doomwinged Bloodthirsts. And hiddeous (sic) firebreathing dragons."
Page 29: 15-year-old Atari VCS Space Invaders champion Frank Tetro Jr. gives game tips!
Page 31: An article on the rivalry currently heating up arcades, between Space Invaders and Asteroids.
Page 37: "The Player's Guide to Programmable Videogames." "Programmable" systems are consoles that can accept cartridges on which are coded new games you can play without buying a whole new unit, as opposed to all those units that only play Pong or other simple games. The age of those systems drew to a close with the recent release of the new Atari Video Computer System.
Page 39: "1981: Game of the Year: Superman." Although if you ask me, Adventure was robbed.
Page 40: The guide continues. Coverage of the state of the industry, covering the major companies. Atari, Activision, Phillips (who have taken over distributing the Odyssey2 from subsidary Magnavox), Mattel, and Zircon, who is reviving the Fairchild Channel F, the original programmable game console. Although the images in all these articles are obviously artist recreations, probably from the game companies' own promotional materials. If only someone could reliably take a picture of a video monitor, making some kind of "screen shot," it would advance the art of game magazines tremendously....
Page 49: Reviews of Quest for the Rings, and also Missile Command, Air-Sea Battle, Breakout (Atari), Kaboom, Tennis and Boxing (Activision) for the VCS, Auto Racing and Space Battle, for the Invellivision, UFO and Alien Invaders--Plus! for the Odyssey2, and... Video Whizball for the poor Channel F. Of the latter: "If you like explosions, you'll love UFO. There are at least three different ones, plus an occasional strange hybrid the machine concocts to take care of extraordinary occurrences[...]"
Page 58: Computer Playland is the magazine's computer software review column, covering among other games Star Raiders for the Atari 400 & 800, Empire of the Over-Mind from Avalon Hill, and Scott Adams' version of Lunar Lander.
Page 63: An arcade column covers Phoenix sequel Pleiades, Space Odyssey, the awesome Venture, and the even-more-awesome arcade version of Warlords. "Fantasy adventures, role-playing games, dragon-slaying and heroic quests have been hot media topics for over a year now. Just as 'Star Wars' launched the science fiction boom a few years back, films like 'Dragonslayer,' 'Knightriders', 'Excalibur' and even 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' are piquing nationwide interest in 'adventure' simulations."
Page 66: Joyce Worley contributes an article on the burdgening standalone game device scene, with reviews of several devices, including Dark Tower.
Page 70: An article on (dare we dream) buying your own arcade machine!
Page 73: "Within the next year, a sizable number of arcaders may be playing games on their very own IBM computers. The company, virtually synonymous with electronic brains to most folks, is finally going to produce machines for the home and small business markets. IBM plans three systems, ranging in price from $1,560 to $4,500. Gamers will most likely be interested in the low-end unit. Sold without monitor or cassette, it comes with 16K of memory. An additional 64K is available for slightly over $500. All the IBM personal computers are based on a 16-bit microprocessor, the 8088. This chip is faster than the ones used in most other home computers and will be able to handle significantly more complex programs. This could lead to the creation of some mighty complex games, particularly in the realm of fantasy adventures. How soon will games be produced for the IBM system? IBM will initially concentrate on business software. Once there's a sizable corps of owners, however, suppliers will undoubtedly begin pumping out entertainment software."
The issue wraps up with rundowns of football games and chess-playing devices, and "Arcade Spotlight," a general arcade news column.

Coming up in the NEXT ISSUE of ELECTRONIC GAMES:

The History of Videogames
The 1982 Arcade Awards
The Videogame Hall of Fame
How Videogames Are Made
The Players Guide to Electronic Science Fiction Games
All these columns, plus one devoted to electronic role-playing games, Passport to Adventure.

So watch for the second issue of Electronic Games ON SALE JANUARY 14 1982! - - - - - - - - Electronic Games is also preserved at the Internet Archive.

Madam Would-Be Mayor

roomthreeseventeen — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:34:47 -0800

An early look at Christine Quinn's bid to become the first woman (and lesbian) mayor of New York,

Like Lazarus with a triple bypass

Mezentian — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:08:49 -0800

Amazing Stories, "the World's First Science Fiction Magazine", founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1926 and cancelled in 1995, and resurrected in 1998 and again in 2004 before being cancelled again by Paizo Publishing in 2006, is back -- again. Amazing is now a website, claiming to have "more than 50 bloggers covering the field from more than 50 different perspectives". The idea is to develop an online following and release a print version. Bonus cover galleries from the Golden Age

So high, so low, so many things to know.

zarq — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:20:09 -0800

Its mission was to explain America to itself

zarq — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 07:12:46 -0800

The First Rough Draft of History: A Behind-the-Scenes History of Newsweek Magazine

High Times

daksya — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:30:18 -0800

Lapham's Quarterly, Winter 2013 - Intoxication - essays and notes on drug-taking, from across eras.

Instead, your article suggests that women should be focused on making one shitty dude's life better.

Jon_Evil — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:15:26 -0800

If a man finds himself attracted to a woman who doesn't conform to this list (more on the specifics of the list in a minute), does he not count as a man? What if she's "perfect" for him? What if she makes him feel like a whole person for the first time in his life, but she just happens to have chunky ankles? What does "perfect" mean then? What does "hot" mean? What does "the One" mean? What we're setting up here is an impossible cultural standard that excludes...well...100% of women. Because literally no one is that weird Frankenstein's Monster-with-Benefits that your art department put together. In her typical masterful style, Jezebel's Lindy West reminds us that being a perfect woman is no excuse for being actively harmful to humanity.

This ain't your daddy's TSR (but his name's on the cover)

Mezentian — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:11:55 -0800

Luke Gygax and E. Gary Gygax Jr, sons of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax have announced they have formed TSR Games. The company's first, brave, foray into the market will be a print publication: Gygax Magazine with a very familiar logo. Apparently D&D owner Wizards of the Coast (and its owners, Hasbro) the last trademarked “TSR” for a game company in 2003, opening the door for the Brothers Gygax to scoop up the name for their company Hexagonist Publishing LLC on May 25, 2011. To be published quarterly, Gygax is designed to cover independent and major publisher games such as Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, The One Ring, Shadowrun, Godlike, Labyrinth Lord, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Warhammer 40K, Traveller, and others, as well as classic out-of-print games with a modern following, like AD&D, Top Secret, and Gamma World. Although the new TSR is unconnected in any way with prior incarnations of the company, it does include several former employees and contributors of TSR Hobbies, notably Phil Foglio (What’s New With Phil and Dixie), Rich Burlew (Order of the Stick), Jim Ward and Cory Doctorow. It will no doubt complete for market share with Dragon Magazine. Dragon ceased publication in its original form in 2007, although it continues under WOTC has a digital publication, as does Dungeon.

The Stupid and Evil Magazine

zarq — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:04:12 -0800

In 1960 humorist Georges Bernier, author François Cavanna and comic artist (and artistic director) Fred Aristidès began publishing the satirical magazine Hara Kiri, which attacked the French establishment, including politicians, the government and Catholic Church. In 1961 and 1966 it was temporarily banned by the French Government. The magazine's covers were often tasteless, NSFW, "famously perverted, bizarre and highly creative and at the time, and in fact even by today's standards in a league of their own." "After an early reader's letter accused them of being "dumb and nasty" ("bête et méchant"), the phrase became an official slogan for the magazine and made it into everyday language in France."

It's been a good run.

DoctorFedora — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 16:00:21 -0800

It's touched the hearts of all sorts of people, but after twenty-four years, the final issue of Nintendo Power is here. One thing's for sure: if the cover doesn't make you feel all kinds of fuzzical nostalgia, then the doctors have called to say that you're dead inside and it's clear that your life is a god damn mess.

"I often read dozens of books simultaneously."

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:22:22 -0800

My 6,128 Favorite Books - "Joe Queenan on how a harmless juvenile pastime turned into a lifelong personality disorder."

A Chat With Jon Ronson

the man of twists and turns — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 22:06:35 -0800

But I couldn't do it. I spent three months and I just couldn't do it. And the reason was because I kept on meeting people who worked in the credit industry and they were really boring. I couldn't make them light up the page. And, as I said in The Psychopath Test, if you want to get away with wielding true malevolent power, be boring. Journalists hate writing about boring people, because we want to look good, you know?

A Chat With Writer Jon Ronson Addicted To Weird - An Interview With Jon Ronson

I think there are themes and the biggest theme, for me anyway, is how everybody in the book, including me, feel in some way as if they’re lost at sea, and are grasping for something to get them through. And the thing that they often grasp for is something that’s kind of irrational, makes no sense, is ridiculous. But the book is never, I hope, condescending. It’s always kind of empathetic. And it becomes almost a celebration of irrationality as a human character trait to be cherished. Other themes come through which really interest me. People’s fear of humiliation is a weird recurrent theme. The number of times people in the book — I noticed this when I was doing the audiobook for Audible — the number of times people say, “The thing that I was most afraid of in life was being humiliated or looking stupid, and here it was coming true.”

Ronson is the author of Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Psychopath Test and Lost at Sea. Jon Ronson also wrote 'Amber Waves Of Grain' - previously, 'DIY Science' - previously, and 'Clear Eyes, Full Plates, Can't Puke' - previously

Reinhold Messner

Egg Shen — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:07:31 -0800

"Murdering the Impossible" - a 2006 National Geographic profile of Reinhold Messner, "the greatest climber in history". The Crystal Horizon is Messner's account of becoming the first man to summit Everest solo and without supplemental oxygen: Only quite seldom can I overcome my separation from the world, can I feel myself at one with the cosmos - when I am climbing. And then only if through extreme stress, and concentration on the greatest difficulties, I reach a state in which my ego dissolves itself.

27.5 years of gameplay

Wordshore — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 06:49:36 -0800

A study-based analysis of UK gaming magazines in the 1980s and 90s argues that the analysis of computer games, independent of attributes such as the platform or narrative, becomes more evident after March 1985 when the term 'gameplay' begins to be used in this media.

"I played so much tragedy and woe on stage that in the end, the woe is on me as well."

Fizz — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 07:04:39 -0800

When Satire Conquered Iran: [NYR Blog] Molla Nasreddin, an early twentieth-century Azerbaijani magazine that “attacked the hypocrisy of the Muslim clergy, the colonial policies of the US and the venal corruption of the local elite, while arguing repeatedly for Westernization, educational reform, and equal rights for women.” From a commenter on the NYR Blog:

1. The full version of the Slavs and Tatars edition of "Molla Nəsrəddin" can be accessed at the publisher's website [Note: PDF file, 19 MB]: http://www.slavsandtatars.com/MOLLA.pdf 2. While “Molla Nəsrəddin” had a broad readership all across the Middle East and Central Asia, most of the authors and artists who contributed their work were Azerbaijani writers and artists - Cəlil Məmmədquluzadə (the editor and author), Mirzə Ələkbər Sabir, Əzim Əzimzadə (cartoonist), Ömər Faiq Nemanzadə, Əbdürrəhim bəy Haqverdiyev, Məmməd Səid Ordubadi and others. Here is a short scene showing some of these figures at work and Mirzə Ələkbər Sabir reciting one of his poems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk3_2TXszoE&feature=youtu.be&t=48m [Film: “O olmasın, bu olsun”, Baku, 1956]. ~ Farid Guliyev

Every culture is passionate about food; some are just passionate about food and the food is shitty.

lemuring — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:49:58 -0800

Believer Magazine interviews Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold as he waxes poetic on Marcela Hazan, the peculiar aspects of Korean food, Pago Pago's love of Spam, and douche food.

What to do in 5773

latkes — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:53:53 -0800

Dr. Ruth, Shmuley Boteach, Mayim Bialik, Shalom Auslander, and 23 more on ensuring a meaningful year. Jonathan Goldstein, frequent contributor, This American Life In my early 20s, I was in a spoken-word band. I performed a piece about a pirate trying to steal my penis, and another about defecating out a racing horse on a first date. That kind of thing. My best friend Howard was the drummer, and just before our first actual show, standing there on stage about to start, I turned to him and said, off mic, “I love you, man” to which Howard replied, “What’re you, Prince?” That cured me of the spontaneous I-love-you’s for a good many years, but it’s something I miss and would like to re-instate because, as awkward as it can be to say such a thing, having someone die and never getting to say it at all is worse. I need to start slipping them in somehow, like insurance. At the end of phone conversations might be a safe bet. “I love you.” “What?” But it’ll be too late. I’ll have already hung up, and they won’t be able to do a thing about it.

Picture Framing Magazine

jedicus — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 07:42:13 -0800

Do you have questions about picture framing? Picture Framing Magazine has answers. For over 20 years, Picture Framing Magazine has been the "the only magazine devoted entirely to servicing the needs of the professional picture framer." Not a professional picture framer? Don't fret! The dozens of (pdf format) articles available online cover many topics of interest to the interested layperson or amateur framer. For example, there's a six part series on the history picture framing, beginning with twelfth century panel paintings and ending with the 19th century. Maybe you'd like to try embellishing some of your frames with gilding, but don't want to start with expensive gold leaf. In that case, this article on working with metal leaf is just for you. Maybe your interest lies in matting rather than framing. Or maybe you just want to read some inside baseball about the framing industry. Whatever aspect of picture framing interests you, Picture Framing Magazine has got you covered.

Looking Back With Virtual Boy Tinted Glasses

The Whelk — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:50:47 -0800

Do Go On - A tumblr celebration of totally rad 90s video game magazines [via mefi projects]