Not Your Mother's Better Home and Garden
I love my magazines. I have mentioned several times about going to the bookstore and spending a couple of hours going through the magazine rack for my inspiration and additions to my stash. Last week I was at Hastings, enjoying a hot chocolate, buying a couple of gifts and relishing a bit of bookstore time. I was seated next to the magazines rack, the side where all the Vogue, Glamour, Elle magazines reside. In other words, an area I seldom venture. Looking up, I noticed a little 'black duck' in amongst all the glossy swans and the article captions on the front cover immediately caught my eye.
I think the one about living a passionate life was the one which snagged me immediately. I skirted around the rope separating the cafe area from the bookstore, grabbed the magazine, brought it back to my table and started flipping through it. It only took a quick look to know this was going in the pile coming home with me.
The cover is grey-tone with splashes of pink, a really nice change from the elaborate covers of many magazines, including my beloved "O". The next thing I noticed were there were few, very few, ads. In fact, the couple of ads which were there were to help Indie Chick be published. So no annoying perfume ads (although I could use a couple of new strips in my undie drawer). No ads trying to sell me $500 shoes while I am trying to figure out what bills to pay this month. Many of the pictures have than 'instagram' look to them and the page layouts are edge to edge. No over abundance of white, glossy space here. And then there are the articles.
At the grand age of 57, I am thinking "what do some 20-somethings know about life"...for me that was half a decade ago and I'm still learning. A bit gritty and in your face, those are not stories on "how to catch your man" or "50 uses for kumquats". These are truths your BFF would tell you, bold, bald and out there and not for the faint of heart. (Definitely not Family Circle. If you are easily offended and need things glossed over, don't pick it up.) And this five- decades-of-living-under-my-belt woman enjoyed every one of them.
I giggled a bit over the "7 signs it's a quarter-life crisis". Even at my 'half-life' many of these questions still arise. And the passionate life article (by Chrystal Rose) that initially stopped me? Well, I wish I had known these hints when I was 25 rather than having to struggle at forty-something on starting to redefine and reinvent my authentic self.
The problem with this magazine? Where was it when I was 20? 23? 27? Instead I had Cosmopolitan giving me permission to have sex with everyone that came along, a quiz on my style, and how to do it in heels (hey, it was the late 70's, early 80's!) Another article, by Julie Zantopoulos, (which is going up on my board), is "Screw You, I Don't Need Your Support". As someone who only in the last few years acknowledged to herself about being a writer and artist, this really hit home. "You succeed because you're a badass and you're not going to let anything stop you." has become my mantra. Most of the articles are written by the same handful of young women. They might be young in years, but I found most of their advice and comments pretty spot on. The things they are writing about are things I hope I taught my daughters at an early age so they don't have to struggle later on like I did/do.
Showing the magazine to Savvy meant I lost possession of it. She's looking to subscribe. Here was a magazine which spoke her language as a young, soon-to-be 24 year old woman. She fits the tagline of IndieChick - self-empowerment for women. I subscribed to their website. Funky, linked to the latest in social media, and insightful, these young women are a force to be reckoned with.
Meanwhile, the magazine is on the bathroom floor - which is a good thing. It gets read and re-read and read again. Until the next issue takes it's place.
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| picture from IndieChick site |
The cover is grey-tone with splashes of pink, a really nice change from the elaborate covers of many magazines, including my beloved "O". The next thing I noticed were there were few, very few, ads. In fact, the couple of ads which were there were to help Indie Chick be published. So no annoying perfume ads (although I could use a couple of new strips in my undie drawer). No ads trying to sell me $500 shoes while I am trying to figure out what bills to pay this month. Many of the pictures have than 'instagram' look to them and the page layouts are edge to edge. No over abundance of white, glossy space here. And then there are the articles.
At the grand age of 57, I am thinking "what do some 20-somethings know about life"...for me that was half a decade ago and I'm still learning. A bit gritty and in your face, those are not stories on "how to catch your man" or "50 uses for kumquats". These are truths your BFF would tell you, bold, bald and out there and not for the faint of heart. (Definitely not Family Circle. If you are easily offended and need things glossed over, don't pick it up.) And this five- decades-of-living-under-my-belt woman enjoyed every one of them.
I giggled a bit over the "7 signs it's a quarter-life crisis". Even at my 'half-life' many of these questions still arise. And the passionate life article (by Chrystal Rose) that initially stopped me? Well, I wish I had known these hints when I was 25 rather than having to struggle at forty-something on starting to redefine and reinvent my authentic self.
The problem with this magazine? Where was it when I was 20? 23? 27? Instead I had Cosmopolitan giving me permission to have sex with everyone that came along, a quiz on my style, and how to do it in heels (hey, it was the late 70's, early 80's!) Another article, by Julie Zantopoulos, (which is going up on my board), is "Screw You, I Don't Need Your Support". As someone who only in the last few years acknowledged to herself about being a writer and artist, this really hit home. "You succeed because you're a badass and you're not going to let anything stop you." has become my mantra. Most of the articles are written by the same handful of young women. They might be young in years, but I found most of their advice and comments pretty spot on. The things they are writing about are things I hope I taught my daughters at an early age so they don't have to struggle later on like I did/do.
Showing the magazine to Savvy meant I lost possession of it. She's looking to subscribe. Here was a magazine which spoke her language as a young, soon-to-be 24 year old woman. She fits the tagline of IndieChick - self-empowerment for women. I subscribed to their website. Funky, linked to the latest in social media, and insightful, these young women are a force to be reckoned with.
Meanwhile, the magazine is on the bathroom floor - which is a good thing. It gets read and re-read and read again. Until the next issue takes it's place.
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