The Mystery Nestor

Somewhere, I have no idea where, there's a person named "J Nestor" who bought a subscription to Entertainment Weekly a few months ago.

Now, I use aliases. Torgo is one. I have a few others I use when I call competitors of mine from work so I can get on their mailing lists, find out how the compare to us, etc. J Nestor isn't one of mine.

But I've been the lucky recipient of about a dozen issues of Entertainment Weekly this summer and fall.

I used to love EW. I read it when it was brand new in the early 90s and I was a pop culture junkie. I remember having aspirations of being a critic like Owen Gleiberman or Lisa Schwarzbaum. I remember being devastated when I was about to go see the movie "Congo" on opening day with my friend Fernando. We'd both loved the Michael Crichton book. That afternoon EW came in the mail and trashed the movie. So I knew going in it was going to suck. (It did.)

At some point I got something vaguely resembling a life and EW was no longer important to me. That was around 1997 or so.

Getting issues now, it's a little bit nostalgia, a little bit of having something light to read, and a little bit of sadness over how incredibly shallow and meaningless the magazine is.

My first clue that the magazine didn't take a shift towards the New Yorker (which is also shallow in many ways, foolish in its snootiness in others, but at least has some articles that challenge and stimulate) was on the letters page. Other magazines with letters pages may highlight one letter in a special box, as though that letter typifies a common response from readers, or is a particularly interesting one.

EW just extracts a sentence from one of the letters it runs on the same page, usually just below the box, so readers such as myself, who read everything on the page, often in sequence, read the same letter twice. And I'm not talking about five-paragraph, op/ed piece-style letters here. They take one sentence from a two-sentence letter.

There are things I like to read, like the current issue's interview with Eddie Vedder, talking about doing the soundtrack to Sean Penn's new film, Into the Wild.

But the usual attempt at "depth" is something like Stephen King's "last page" columns. I've enjoyed one King book (The Shining) and been disappointed in others I've read (The Green Mile, Shawshank, etc.). He's not a profound writer (and I don't think he'd claim himself as such). And his columns are usually pointless and superficial. The latest one is about him going on a trek across the Australian outback and, now that he's back, enjoying going to the movies again. That sentence is his thesis and is also the most interesting thing in the article.

So I read it, or at least skim it. But I can't imagine subscribing to it.

Even though I'm not much of a business person, I thoroughly enjoy Inc. Magazine, which I subscribe to through work. It's full of innovative ideas, clever people, and enough of an emphasis on making the world more green as both a moral choice and a sound business plan to keep me engaged. EW offers none of that. Nor does it aspire to.

I also read American Poetry Review and Sports Illustrated--both gift subscriptions, both of which I usually find something worthwhile in.

Sooner or later, I may just have to find this J Nestor and either get him or her the EW subscription, or warn J not to waste time with fluff.

For now, though, there is that cover story on Britney Spears I haven't read yet.