Happy Birthday, EW!

In the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, which hit newsstands and my mailbox yesterday, Managing Editor Jess Cagle notes in his editor's letter that the magazine celebrated its 20th birthday this month. It's a significant milestone, and even though my only connection to the magazine is as a reader, I still feel like celebrating.

In fact, I've been an EW reader since that very first issue in February 1990, and have read every single issue mostly cover-to-cover (all 1,092 of them). During these 20 years, I've spent some summers away from home, and I changed my address or bought duplicate copies during those times so I could stay in the loop and wouldn't miss anything. At one point, about 10 years ago, when I was in my hoarding days, I had actually saved every issue of the magazine, and the day my parents asked me to get rid of them (i.e.: to throw them out) because they were selling their house and couldn't lift the heavy boxes, was a real bummer. I do, however, still own issue No. 1, with k.d. lang and Nena Cherry on the cover, and a few others I just couldn't part with. Reading the issue on a Monday was one of my favorite parts of commuting to work, so now that I don't have a commute during which I can read, I've made it a bit of a habit to spend my Saturday lunches sitting at Finagle a Bagel reading the latest issue. In short, I'm a bit of an obsessive fan when it comes to Entertainment Weekly.

In the summer of 1996, shortly after my graduation from college, I actually had an interview for a job at EW. To say I was excited is an understatement, and unfortunately, I let that get the better of me. (Perhaps the fact that I didn't watch ER or The X-Files, the mag's obsessions at the time, also did me in. It'd be like if I interviewed now and didn't know what Twilight is.) From time to time, I wonder about the ways my life would be different if I had gotten that job. I'd likely be living in New York now, and perhaps I'd even be an editor there (or at some other magazine). Maybe I wouldn't like the magazine as much if had to work there, and was reading it as a job instead of a hobby. Who really knows.

One thing is for sure: My life would probably be less fun if EW had never come along. Sure, I'd probably find some other way to channel my entertainment passions, and I'd never know what I was missing. But EW makes being a fan of entertainment more enjoyable, and for that I say thank you to all the writers, editors, photographers, and designers who have worked for the magazine all these years. Congrats on this exciting milestone.

One Degree Closer?

I was reading the new issue of Entertainment Weekly this weekend, and in a Q&A with actress Kyra Sedgwick, who is, of course, married to Kevin Bacon, I saw this exchange:

Do you pay attention to your press?
My husband is a Google Alert guy. He has one on himself and me. I'm like, Dude, I don't want to know what people are saying.

So I just wanted to test that out. If you're reading this, Kevin or Kyra ... Hi there! How's it going?

Still My Favorite, Week After Week

Entertainment Weekly is out this week with its 1,000th issue. It's a double issue, so it's really the 999th and 1,000th, but the point is, EW has put out that many issues. And what I think is pretty cool is that I've read every single one of them just about cover to cover. Until last year, I didn't read many books, but I certainly did read magazines, and since its first issue in 1990, EW has been my bible. I'm a real geek when it comes to this pub. It's the first magazine I read every week when I'm commuting to work. Actually, I wouldn't say I read EW — it's more like I devour it. Often I can't wait to see it in my mailbox at home, so I'll stop off at Barnes & Noble on Friday night to see what's on the cover and skim through the latest issue. I take offense when EW doesn't like a movie or CD I love, and give a small cheer when our tastes are in synch. EW has given me great pleasures, like Michael Slezak's "Idolatry" series and Josh Wolk's Cabin Pressure. I get a little sad when there's a double issue and I know another one won't arrive for two weeks. At one point, I owned every single issue of this magazine — that was in 2000 or so, so there were plenty (and those boxes were heavy). I still own EW issue number one, with k.d. lang and Nena Cherry on the cover (it's right there on my bookshelf), as well as all the year-end recaps since year one. So congrats to my favorite magazine for reaching this impressive milestone. I look forward to reading the next issue. And the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that ...

Under Pressure

One thing I've come to really like about traveling is that it gives me a couple hours to get deep into whatever book I'm reading. (Yeah, look at me, turning into a regular bookworm.) This weekend I flew to New York for my second cousin's bris, and by the time I landed back in Boston Sunday night, I was more than halfway done with my new book, Cabin Pressure, by Josh Wolk. I've long enjoyed Wolk's writing — he's a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly, and among other things, he writes the Real World morning-after recaps — so when I heard he had written a book about his return to summer camp, I just had to pick it up. That's the plot: the summer before his wedding, when he was 34-years-old, Josh decided to return to his boyhood summer home as a counselor as a way to say a final farewell to his childhood memories, and to his childhood in general.

To say the book hits close to home with me is an understatement. For eight years (one of them as a junior counselor), I spent my summers at Camps Kenwood/Evergreen up in New Hampshire. Can't say I have the most idyllic memories of my time there, and in fact, the summer I was a junior counselor was one of the worst summers of my life. But despite that, camp still holds a fond place of honor in my heart. For a while now, I've wanted to take the two-hour drive up to Potter Place to see how the place has changed in the 16 years since I was last there. I'm unsure why I still have yet to do it.

Suffice it to say, Cabin Pressure only makes me long to see the ballfields and bunks that much more. For Josh, camp was magical, and he rhapsodizes about his experiences there with all the enthusiasm of a kid talking about his favorite pet. So much so that in his earlier chapters, he's lamenting how things have changed. But it's a testament to the place — and to Josh's writing — that it soon becomes clear the more things change, the more they stay the same. How fun it is to read about meals in the dining hall, staff talent shows, bug juice, rat tails, random trips to random natural "wonders" (his natural water slides place sounds vaguely like the Polar Caves), bunk camaraderie, swimming lessons in the cold lake, campfires, etc etc etc. Josh has changed the specific names (to protect the kids, and the camp), and it's obvious from the get-go that we didn't go to the same place (his camp was boys-only, mine had a sister camp on the same grounds), but so much of his experience mirrors my own. Better yet, he's written the book in a very loose, conversational style that makes me feel like I'm there with him. And true-to-form, there are parts of Cabin Pressure that are laugh-out-loud funny.

If you'd like to read an excerpt from the book, there's one at EW.com and of course, one at Josh's own site. There's even a guided tour of the dining hall at the publisher's Web site. If you've been to a summer camp, you'll totally relate to this book. (And I know one reader of mine who would really like it.) It makes Cabin Pressure the perfect summertime read. The bus will arrive this Saturday morning to take campers to Kenwood/Evergreen. Reading Cabin Pressure, I feel like I'm already there waiting for them to arrive.

Yaaaaaaaay A.J.!

For as long as I've been an active reader of magazines, I've been a fan of A.J. Jacobs. As far as magazine writers go, he's one of the best.

I first became aware of A.J. when he was a writer for Entertainment Weekly. A.J. would write some of the funniest articles EW published, including one where he spent, if I remember correctly, 24 hours watching TV and documented the experience. (Something like that.) Long story short, when I went for a job interview at EW in the summer of 1996, part of my excitement came from the fact that I might get the chance to meet A.J. On my way out of the office, after blowing my chance to work for my favorite magazine (one of the worst job interviews I've ever given), I passed by his office. The door was closed. Oh well.

A.J.'s made quite a career for himself. He is now an editor at Esquire and he's kept on writing some of these stunty-type articles. A month or two ago, he outsourced his life by hiring two assistants in India, and turned that into a great article. And actually, he turned one of his ideas into a whole book: The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, which came out about a year ago and is now available in paperback. It's a great, very funny book — and I don't just say that because I got to interview A.J. (!) and he told me it was. It's an easy, quick read and I highly recommend it. (You can read an excerpt of the book here.)

Anyway, A.J.'s at it again. According to CNet, he's written a story about Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that invites readers to post entries and edit others. Call it "the people's encyclopedia." Essentially, since the theory is that the Wikipedia readers can collectively rid the site of errors better than a small group of editors could, A.J. thought he'd put his story — which intentionally included a bunch of mistakes about the site — on Wikipedia and see what happened. Brilliant. I love it. This is classic A.J. Jacobs.

The story is going to appear in Esquire's December issue. You can get a good idea of its final version by clicking here. Good stuff. Check it out. And hey, help a brother out by buying his book next time you're in your favorite book store.