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I wrote this entire column without picking up a single magazine.
Instead, in preparation for this week's edition of ``Periodicals,'' I logged on to the World Wide Web of the Internet to see what it has to offer in the way of magazines on-line.
One caveat: I cruised the Web using a text-only browser called Lynx. What that means in English is that my computer screen only displayed words. Most of the sites I visited are optimally designed to be viewed with a ``graphics interface,'' meaning software that can display pictures as well as words. This made my journey on the so-called ``information superhighway'' less than ideal - somewhat akin to driving a Model-T Ford on the Mass Pike to Boston.
I began my journey in familiar territory by going directly to the home page of the Atlantic Monthly . The Atlantic was one of the first major magazines to go on line with a proprietary site on American Online's network; it now boasts a hefty presence on the Web, too.
The Atlantic is one of the few major magazines, as far as I can tell, to wholeheartedly embrace the world of electronic publishing. In most cases, magazines only offer a small sample of themselves on the Web. Most all of the contents of the print version of the Atlantic, however, are available on the Web, free to anyone with an Internet connection.
When you first sign on to the Atlantic's home page, you are presented with a host of options. These include the table of contents of the February print issue, an on-line only section called Atlantic Unbound, an on-line ``marketplace of ideas'' called ``The Agora,'' a virtual store, and an advertisement for Sprint long-distance telephone service.
Atlantic Unbound includes a monthly arts preview, a recipe of the month from Atlantic food writer Corby Kummer (which earlier this week still featured his December recipe for holiday cookies), and the text of a two-year-old lecture by Cullen Murphy on Religion and the Cultural Elite.
The Agora makes it easy to send a letter to the editor via E-mail, or to correspond with the Atlantic's editors. You can also read transcripts of on-line forums that have been held in the ``Atlantic Auditorium'' on America Online. I clicked onto one with Sven Birkerts, a media critic who laments the information revolution. This made for fascinating virtual reading - reading Birkerts on the Internet on the evils of the Internet. ``Paper books dead-end you on the page and drive you back into yourself,'' said Birkerts, ``while electronic writing sends you into the strange sorcery of the circuit.''
Digging myself out of the circuit, I clicked back to the cover story of the February issue, ``Why Americans Hate the Media,'' by James Fallows. While the text is the same as in the print issue, imbedded in the virtual text are ``links,'' analogous to footnotes, that take the reader out of the text and into other areas of the Web. This is what is meant by the term ``hypertext.''
These links make the experience of reading on-line totally unlike reading print. For example, clicking on Fallow's by-line took me to his ``home page,'' where he has cataloged other articles of interest to readers, his favorite Web sites, and other resources on the Internet that may make for good companion reading.
Clicking on the name ``William Westmoreland'' in Fallows' text brought me to an encyclopedia-style entry in what is apparently a reference book about the Vietnam War. Similarly, clicking on ``Newt Gingrich'' brought me to the official member directory of the U.S House of Representatives. While there I checked just to make sure, and Jane Swift isn't listed yet.
Back in the Atlantic, I viewed Steven Stark's profile of Republican presidential contender Pat Buchanan. The article includes links to Web pages for all the other presidential candidates. It also provided me with a link to the National Review's home page. That weekly journal of conservative opinion stingily offers only one article from an issue a few weeks back defending corporate welfare. What's worse, it doesn't offer any links within the article: apparently, conservatives are not in favor of hypertext.
But the National Review's site did lead me to the Electronic Newsstand, an index of over 300 print magazines available on the Internet, including Arthritis Today, Modern Drummer, Smithsonian, Forbes and the New York Review of Books. Once in the Electronic Newsstand, all these other journals are merely a click away.
The New Yorker is apparently not fully up to speed yet in cyberspace. I clicked onto an icon for the Jan. 15 ``Shouts and Murmurs'' and got an excerpt of an article about a computer hacker from the Jan. 29 issue. The New Yorker is apparently not offering its complete contents on the Web; it does offer some excerpts and the current table of contents.
I clicked onto the New York Review of Books and found yet another story by James Fallows, this one aptly enough titled ``Caught In the Web,'' which is precisely how I felt at this point. Alas, what was posted here was just a short excerpt of a longer piece in which the author reviews recent books about computers and the Internet.
Coffee Journal takes cyberspace much more seriously, offering not just a few chintzy excerpts but a fully brewed pot of features. The cover story of the winter issue is actually about tea _ in particular, the difference between ``high tea'' and ``afternoon tea.'' The terms are often used synonymously; they are very different rituals. Other articles, some of which include recipes, are ``The Quintessential Cookie,'' about biscotti, and, aptly enough, a feature on ``cybercafes'' - coffeehouses that offer patrons computers hooked up to the Internet to go along with their java.
Mother Jones has one of the best sites I found. Claiming to be the first general-interest magazine with a Web presence, Mojo Wire, as it is called in cyberspace, has up-to-the-minute reporting on the presidential campaign. I read a day-old piece analyzing the results of the Louisiana caucus. The site offers an extensive archive, cataloged by topic, of past articles (including a fascinating 12-year-old profile of Newt Gingrich with enough dirt to ensure that he never gets elected president), as well as lots of corollary resources available on the Internet.
I had never heard of BoomerPhile, a bimonthly by and for the Baby Boomer generation. Judging from the few article excerpts posted on its page (and I speak as a member of that generation) it seems mostly to be dedicated to whining about the travails of Boomerhood.
Buzz has a ``way cool'' site, featuring more than you could ever need to know about Los Angeles culture (yes, that's an oxymoron) including a list of the 100 coolest people who live and work in L.A. Perusing magazines on the Internet is definitely a mixed bag. In its favor, there is ease of access. In the comfort of my own home, I can instantly browse through hundreds of periodicals, many undoubtedly otherwise unavailable.. How else would I have come across Coffee Journal?
On the other hand, most of the on-line magazines only have abstracts of articles, a poor substitute for the real thing. And even when the complete text of an article did appear, as in the case of the Atlantic, I didn't find myself drawn into the text of the article so much as into the links.
Besides which, for some of us, magazine reading still has its non-virtual rewards and rituals: a favorite reading chair or throne; the ability to take it from place to place and put it down and pick it up again later; the ease of sharing it with someone. It's a brave new world, but it's not time to say goodbye to the old one, yet.
To subscribe for one year:
The New Yorker: Box 52312, Boulder, CO 80321, or 1- 800-825-2510; $39.95
Atlantic Monthly: Box 52661, Boulder, CO 80322, or 1- 800-234-2411; $17.94
Buzz: Box 56796, Boulder, CO 80322-6796, or 1-800-876-7884; $14.95
Mother Jones: Box 469024, Escondido, CA 92046-9024,
or 1-800-334-8152; $18
COPYRIGHT 1996 by Seth Rogovoy
This article first appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Feb. 10,1996.
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