Strike a pose...in 100 pages

Looking back, my first entry was super serious, wasn't it? And now on to the topic that first inspired me to start this thing in the first place.

Recently I picked up a copy of Vogue magazine, a favorite among many of my peers. I admit that it was an impulse purchase, a decision made as I waited in the check-out line at my local grocery store.

I was drawn to the issue by the pretty blue color of Gwyneth Paltrow's outfit on the cover, and the teaser, "Age Issue," which caught my eye because I'm starting to grow ever more conscious of my increasing number of gray hairs and fine lines.

As someone who majored in magazine journalism in college and once aspired to be the editor-in-chief of a major women's magazine -- but a smart one, one that didn't focus solely on looks and pleasing your man! -- I am arguably more critical of the glossy publishing industry than the average citizen.

But I find it preposterous that the first page of the magazine that actually contains an article is page 84. 84! This means that the magazine contains at least 80 pages of advertisements before the reader gets to something even remotely information-driven that is not trying to sell her something. (Let's forget for a moment that many of the articles and editorial pages are essentially just thinly veiled ads for clothing, accessories, and other products.)

It's a shame that the Internet is killing newspapers. But I think it's even worse that the magazine, a once unique and exciting medium that served extremely specific niches of the public, has denigrated, for the most part, into a package of advertisements with a few "articles" snuck in to hold people's interest.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that, despite my complaints, I still subscribe to three magazines and regularly buy others off the stand. Maybe I'm trying to support what I still see as being my profession, or maybe, just maybe, I'm an optimist after all.

But I doubt it.