Around 12 years ago my old friend Won't bought me a BUST Magazine because it had a funny article on Madonna in it, and I've got some Madonna worship in me. It was their Goddess Issue, filled with wonderful tidbits and clever articles written by, and about, gals just like me circa 1996 - single, a little left of center, a lot interested in having a different perspective on things. It was the complete antithesis of Cosmopolitan, not so much in subject matter as much as viewpoint.
The pages even LOOKED like me ... filled as they were with collages of retro images in arresting black and white all coming together like a young girl's bedroom cork board. (Oh, woe ... do young girls even HAVE cork boards in their rooms anymore? Or has Facebook et al relieved young girls of the need to pin up every single thing they ever got their hands on that suddenly seemed cool ... from a ticket stub to a business card from a funky store ... to a message scrawled on a post it note? Does anyone even WRITE in pen anymore? DAMN YOU, INTERNET! cried the Blogger ...)
Anyway, I loved this magazine. It reminded me of all the cool magazines I'd get during the 80s when New York was full of new wave and androgyny and black rubber bracelets. It was edgy and a little amateurish, but in an appealing way that worked.
Plus, all the models were real live girls who looked more like me than the usual fare served up by Elle, let's say ... or Glamour. (Well, truth be told, they actually looked more like those girls in that Gardasil commercial than they looked like me ... but still, on the spectrum, I was closer to their zone than the Christy Turlington zone).
I was working at TIME at the time ... such a very very different magazine in every way imaginable. I dreamed of working at a funky magazine like BUST... roaming the creative halls and living life on MY terms --- YEAH! (Air kick w. platform boots). Instead, I trudged to my boring little job every day, wishing I could be one of the fantastic San Fran chicks who popped into the BUST offices every day regaling their co-workers with the results of the fantastic new all-organic hair care products they'd tested the night before for one of the articles. Everyone got to participate there -- even interns! Whereas the closest I got to being a part of TIME magazine editorial was keeping up "space over day-rate" spreadsheets on all the contract photographers. Yeeeee. Haaaaaaaa.
I tried to tell a few women at work about BUST, but one woman mis-remembered the title and ... well ... let's just say she that when she asked for it at her local (New Jersey Transit) Hudson News she was pointed in the direction of a very different, more bosom-related aisle than she'd bargained for. It's BUST, my dear, BUST. Not Boobs, Busty, or Tiny Tops. BUST.
Anyway throughout my late 20s and early 30s I loved BUST ... I waited eagerly for it to come
out (quarterly! oh no!) and when it arrived in my mailbox I raced up the 3 flights and read it cover to cover. Sure, I was embarrassed that the mail carrier got an eyeful when (s)he delivered the issue that had a full page ad for the Rabbit on the back cover (think that episode of Sex and the City), but then again ... so what! I was a liberated woman of the 90s! (yes, the 90s). It was my right to subscribe to any grrrrrl power magazine I chose, and who cared what they advertised. (Air kick with platform boots ... AGAIN!)
Throughout the years BUST changed. Not a lot at first, but enough. And, let's face it kids ... throughout the years I changed too. Again, not a lot at first, but enough. By the time BUST was perfect bound and printed on 80lb stock, I was just randomly flipping through it for the captions.
It was rare for me to actually sit down and devour an issue with the same fervor that I'd done in those early years. Still ... I kept subscribing and each time one arrived I put it lovingly to the side. Because I really thought I'd find the time one day to sit on a Sunday afternoon, in winter, as the light streamed in through the window, and curl up with a cup of strong coffee and read to my heart's content. Never happened. We'd grown apart, me and BUST. We were just phoning it in. (Cue that sad song from Toy Story 2).
Eventually, rather than just watch them stack up, I canceled my subscription.
Sure, it was tough at first, but soon enough I got used to not having BUST around. Still, I just couldn't part with those archived issues. That's why the Container Store makes those boxes. For all those people with Magazine Guilt.
Recently after the honeymoon, Quibbit and I started re-arranging my small small small apartment to simultaneous a) get his stuff situated while also b) creating more space for two grown people to exist in. This, in reality, is much like the loaves and the fishes in reverse. I mean, seriously, how in the world can you expect to keep adding things and yet still have an empty basket - devoid of bread and fish?
Easy - you basically just do that Sell, Keep, Toss thing only in my case it's Donate, Keep, Toss. It's hard, sure. And if you've lived in the same place for 15 years alone ... well then it's REALLY hard. But not only did I do it, I was the one who demanded it, so really, I can't complain.
So, there I was ... staring down boxes and piles of never-read BUSTs. Wow ... seriously. Wow. Had it come to this? Marriage or BUST? Well, of course it had to, for the punny phrasing alone. Marriage or BUST - who ever heard of such a thing? As if I'd choose a magazine over a mate? hahahahaha. But I love a good pun.
So, out went the issues ... Bye-Bye Bjork, The Donnas, Le Tigre and Amy Sedaris. Bye old standby
articles like Ayun Halliday's "Mother Superior". Bye ads for Repro Depot and Babeland and Damed Dollies (yes, that's one screaming her head off over there. Rock thought I resembled a Dolly. Note: we broke up just weeks after). I'll miss you, fo' shizzle, BUST o' My Youth. But, you know, the old girl's growing up.
The BUSTs got recycled, the space got made and lo and behold ... I could now see the floor around my desk. WOW! I should have done this years ago. But really ... we both know I had to wait till it was time ... Marriage or BUST indeed. Not to say I won't pick one up on the news stand some time. I might. But all in all, my BUST days are behind me.
Plus, all the models were real live girls who looked more like me than the usual fare served up by Elle, let's say ... or Glamour. (Well, truth be told, they actually looked more like those girls in that Gardasil commercial than they looked like me ... but still, on the spectrum, I was closer to their zone than the Christy Turlington zone).
I was working at TIME at the time ... such a very very different magazine in every way imaginable. I dreamed of working at a funky magazine like BUST... roaming the creative halls and living life on MY terms --- YEAH! (Air kick w. platform boots). Instead, I trudged to my boring little job every day, wishing I could be one of the fantastic San Fran chicks who popped into the BUST offices every day regaling their co-workers with the results of the fantastic new all-organic hair care products they'd tested the night before for one of the articles. Everyone got to participate there -- even interns! Whereas the closest I got to being a part of TIME magazine editorial was keeping up "space over day-rate" spreadsheets on all the contract photographers. Yeeeee. Haaaaaaaa.
I tried to tell a few women at work about BUST, but one woman mis-remembered the title and ... well ... let's just say she that when she asked for it at her local (New Jersey Transit) Hudson News she was pointed in the direction of a very different, more bosom-related aisle than she'd bargained for. It's BUST, my dear, BUST. Not Boobs, Busty, or Tiny Tops. BUST.
Anyway throughout my late 20s and early 30s I loved BUST ... I waited eagerly for it to come
out (quarterly! oh no!) and when it arrived in my mailbox I raced up the 3 flights and read it cover to cover. Sure, I was embarrassed that the mail carrier got an eyeful when (s)he delivered the issue that had a full page ad for the Rabbit on the back cover (think that episode of Sex and the City), but then again ... so what! I was a liberated woman of the 90s! (yes, the 90s). It was my right to subscribe to any grrrrrl power magazine I chose, and who cared what they advertised. (Air kick with platform boots ... AGAIN!)Throughout the years BUST changed. Not a lot at first, but enough. And, let's face it kids ... throughout the years I changed too. Again, not a lot at first, but enough. By the time BUST was perfect bound and printed on 80lb stock, I was just randomly flipping through it for the captions.
It was rare for me to actually sit down and devour an issue with the same fervor that I'd done in those early years. Still ... I kept subscribing and each time one arrived I put it lovingly to the side. Because I really thought I'd find the time one day to sit on a Sunday afternoon, in winter, as the light streamed in through the window, and curl up with a cup of strong coffee and read to my heart's content. Never happened. We'd grown apart, me and BUST. We were just phoning it in. (Cue that sad song from Toy Story 2).
Eventually, rather than just watch them stack up, I canceled my subscription.
Sure, it was tough at first, but soon enough I got used to not having BUST around. Still, I just couldn't part with those archived issues. That's why the Container Store makes those boxes. For all those people with Magazine Guilt.Recently after the honeymoon, Quibbit and I started re-arranging my small small small apartment to simultaneous a) get his stuff situated while also b) creating more space for two grown people to exist in. This, in reality, is much like the loaves and the fishes in reverse. I mean, seriously, how in the world can you expect to keep adding things and yet still have an empty basket - devoid of bread and fish?
Easy - you basically just do that Sell, Keep, Toss thing only in my case it's Donate, Keep, Toss. It's hard, sure. And if you've lived in the same place for 15 years alone ... well then it's REALLY hard. But not only did I do it, I was the one who demanded it, so really, I can't complain.
So, there I was ... staring down boxes and piles of never-read BUSTs. Wow ... seriously. Wow. Had it come to this? Marriage or BUST? Well, of course it had to, for the punny phrasing alone. Marriage or BUST - who ever heard of such a thing? As if I'd choose a magazine over a mate? hahahahaha. But I love a good pun.
So, out went the issues ... Bye-Bye Bjork, The Donnas, Le Tigre and Amy Sedaris. Bye old standby
articles like Ayun Halliday's "Mother Superior". Bye ads for Repro Depot and Babeland and Damed Dollies (yes, that's one screaming her head off over there. Rock thought I resembled a Dolly. Note: we broke up just weeks after). I'll miss you, fo' shizzle, BUST o' My Youth. But, you know, the old girl's growing up.The BUSTs got recycled, the space got made and lo and behold ... I could now see the floor around my desk. WOW! I should have done this years ago. But really ... we both know I had to wait till it was time ... Marriage or BUST indeed. Not to say I won't pick one up on the news stand some time. I might. But all in all, my BUST days are behind me.
