The Impossible Dream

One of my favorite Sassy (or maybe it was Seventeen, I don't know, but if so, it was when Seventeen was great -- like from 1993-97, back when that 'Boy' Column was written by an actual dude, the guy with blond hair and glasses and they visited real schools and took pictures of androgynous girls wearing their boyfriends flannels and their boyfriends wearing their own flannels and 1 out of every 3 people pictured would have either white-dude dreads, a Gwyneth Paltrow haircut or be wearing overalls, or both. If they weren't wearing overalls, they were wearing kilts and thigh-high socks. Everybody was named 'Rain'.) articles was where they told you how, in great detail, to have a dinner party for people using items you bought at your local 7-11. When I read it I felt like they were pretty positive, pretty sure they believed in our motor skills and brain capacity. It was inspirational.

One of my favorite Seventeen features was a piece of fiction, about a girl who ended up having a sketchy phone relationship with her uncle who was also a radio host and she wore camouflage pants and the whole thing was inappropriate yet crazy intriguing. That and then a story about two sisters, one wrote/worked for the magazine, who went on a road trip and ate green chile cheeseburgers and took Polaroids of themselves standing next to cacti. There was also a sidebar in one issue, a narrative about finding the perfect back to school outfit for senior year. She ended up wearing a pair of tuxedo pants and her friend wore a long floral dress and ankle weights.

I also really liked Lacey Chabert's recipe for Pralines.

Lots of women my age bemoan the death of Sassy, and then we mourned Jane, and now we're holding a wake for Blueprint because that's what we're supposed to do -- get behind a magazine that finally either tries to or sort of gets it and then say "What? What?" when it goes away. I bought the last copy of the last issue of Jane at New Seasons, and it had some sort of random sticky residue on the cover and as the older clerk apologetically wiped it clean despite my "No, seriously, it's cool, I'm probably going to spill on it later" protests, I felt like she was apologizing for the actual fold of the magazine.

The readers are out there, we're all still waiting, we're all hoping something hits and sticks and gets it and I think Blueprint did a lot of things right, almost too right in some cases, too on-it, hip and with-it. It was a little unapproachable, your friend who wouldn't let you set the table and made chili using veal and porcini mushrooms because she can. She carries a muff, too, during the cold months and no one says a goddamn word about it.

I love Vogue, I love Domino and InStyle and ElleDecor and I can't ready Lucky on a regular basis because it makes me feel homeless, but I really loved Sassy, really enjoyed Jane when I remembered to pick it up and actually had a subscription to Blueprint. And while Sassy taught me how to make a casserole with cornbread mix and canned chili, Blueprint told me how to decorate the foyer of my 786,000 thousand dollar single-family home. I'm not there yet, I'm always a few years behind the demographic or income level catered to by any of the magazines, but one day maybe I will be and then I'll know that the perfect holiday foyer involves small purebred canines, fresh fir garlands and no actual furniture.

I have no idea what I'm trying to say, just that I miss loving a magazine as much as I loved the few years of Sassy I was old enough to find relevant, I wish I had saved my old 90's Seventeen magazines for my youngest sister so she didn't have to read the current format, which is 90% Clean and Clear ads, 10% Baby V and Zac Efron, I miss Jane and I wish Blueprint wasn't going anywhere -- it had good roots, it had a clear target audience and people willing to grow with it as long as it grew with us.

But really I just want a magazine that goes backstage and shows me pictures of people's makeup bags and what they buy at Plaid Pantry during overnight drives to the next city, I want to know how to throw a dinner party in the woods using tinfoil-wrapped baked potatoes and I want a review of the best sparkling wines under 10 dollars, with Polaroid pictures and taste-tests by drunk people on the street. I want to know who makes the cheapest but most luxurious cashmere among national department stores as tested by perma-itchy children who won't lie, which big-box stores have the best free samples and gifts with purchases, how to somehow get stuck in the elevator with that guy at work you like, how to make real buttercream with a hand mixer and why Lisa Loeb's Food Network show brought on feelings of seasonal affective disorder and immense empathy for Dweezil. I want to know how to get people to actually come to the parties you throw that aren't random, impromptu ones, I want to know how Maggie Mason and Lisa Congdon find all the great stuff they do, I want Jonathan Adler to put together a hot bedroom using items found only at TJMaxxx, I want a roadtrip diary from Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci despite their last (and only) movie together being released a good three years ago, I want Martha Stewart to throw a white-trash food party for socialites, I want interior pictures of mini-fridges belonging to famous people, I want to know who designs my favorite book covers and I want Cesar Milan to spritz cosmetic counter employees in the face with a spray bottle every time they come at you with 'Obsession' or 'White Diamonds'. And I want it all bound and sold to me with a glossy cover with a nice font choice for the masthead.

Conde Nast, get on it.   

Comments

[knitopia]

I wish I had all my old Sassy issues. I haven't read it, but there's a book about Sassy: "How Sassy Changed My Life."

[emma]

I'm so with you, I can't even tell you. (Hi! Found you via NotMartha!) Bust does not do the trick; it needs to grow up. Jane stopped being awesome and then shriveled and died. Blueprint was the only thing that kinda-sorta came close... and now that's gone, too.

Oh, and I also loved that story about the shady relationship with the uncle. :)

[rach]

I would buy that magazine. Please to make it now.

[L.]

I'm so taken aback by the response this (What I believed to be simpering) post received. Thank you guys, for joining the melee. Hopefully the 14 of us can get something spearheaded. We're like the Camden 28, except there are 13 of us. The revolution starts NOW. And thank you for all the recs for Bust -- I am signing up for a subscription in the new year, no doubt.

Emily, I know! I love Domino, but I feel like I come away wondering why all my clothing smells of rendering animal fat, I always have soot on my face and the inability to straighten up my hobo camp into something worth living in. And yes, for sure -- I look to blogs like yours and Jordan's and Not Martha for all those topics I can't get enough of.

LyB, Oh man -- 'Zodiac Guide to Fashion and Beauty'. I'm ON it.

Tracy, We could totally organize that cashmere test. "Ten minutes, ten sweaters, and five children we borrowed from Candy Cane Lane fun center next to Orange Julius."

em, you are so nice.

Oh man, Miss Sassy, that sounds intense -- a Sassy/Martha feud? When is it going down? And you're not old. And now I'm bummed, with two recs for it, that I've never looked at Budget Living.

gp, you fully voiced my other concern that I didn't want to get too into. I know so much of what makes everyone's teenage years/experience what it is, is the climate you're growing up in. But how has the world regressed in so many ways, and how are all these women who read Sassy and the like and were part of that, now out of the picture? Why are the women who were these teenage girls now encouraging teenage girls to be something completely different? I know Advertising has a huge part in it, I know most magazines have switched to media content coverage, etc, but seriously. It's depressing.

Becca, thank you to you and your grandma. I wish I could make my grandma almost lose her urine. And I promise not to go anywhere for at least a little while. Thank you again!

Supa, yes! And then we're looked at as this strange relic, this weird hovering period in time, where teenage girls where a little more savvy, a little more outspoken and less concerned with All Things Efron -- how is that period, things like MSCL and Sassy so retro already? It is crazy.

[supa]

Also, I want exactly what you want in a magazine. Please to subscribe.

[supa]

You know, ever since My So Called Life got the boot ... our demographic keeps getting our semi-realistic and non-patronizing media taken away from us.

R.I.P., Blueprint, you will be missed. And you will be added to my old Sassy collection, to be lovingly paged through whenever I overdose on the CW.

[Becca]

Ok, I have to say even though I *just* started reading your blog, I want you to promise to please never stop writing it, because I would start to feel alone in the universe. Ha ha, kidding, but kind of not. You said all the things about magazines that I wish I could say without sounding shallow and whiny. Also, I read it to my 54 year old mother and she came dangerously close to wetting her pants.

[gp]

I am so sad Sassy is gone. But sometimes I think that whole era is gone, and that whole way of being a teenage girl. I hope not.

[Miss Sassy]

I must be too old. I was sad when Martha Stewart Kids folded. I liked Budget Living, too. Now Blueprint... again, I must be too old as I'm just a tiny bit disappointed. Plus, I'm mad at Martha Stewart and her stupid staff.

[Lynn in Tucson]

I still remember vividly the heft of my first back-to-school issue of Seventeen (I was twelve, maybe?) and the plaid somethingorother on the cover.

Now, who has time to read?

[Jenn]

You know what else was a great mag? Budget Living. When they folded, the publisher continued my subscription by sending GOOD HOUSEKEEPING!!! Yes, both magazines have thrifty tips for around the house, but they couldn't be more different. When Jane folded, I started receiving GLAMOUR. Sigh.

[em]

Since I now live in Japan, I had no idea Jane folded nor Blueprint even existed. But when I discovered this blog a few months ago, I immediately loved the witty real-life writing that had me addicted to Sassy, early Seventeen, and Jane. Keep it up :)

[tracy]

"I want to know who makes the cheapest but most luxurious cashmere among national department stores as tested by perma-itchy children who won't lie."

omg. if i had food in my mouth it would have sprayed all over my room.

wait? why don't i have food in my mouth.

you crack my shit up!

[adrienne]

Yes. Can I have a subscription to that magazine too? (I'm especially interested in the wine...)Now I don't think Blueprint was perfect either, but it was a heck of a lot more relevant than some of the other crap out there. I want to know what they're going to do with the remaining parts of our subscriptions. When Jane folded they gave me the rest of my subscription in Glamour Magazine. Right. Vomit. So can Martha give us something better? Lets hope.

[LyB]

I just had to post this link, hope it works:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SEVENTEEN-MAGAZINE-JULY-1990-CAMERON-DIAZ_W0QQitemZ190177525046QQcmdZViewItem

[LyB]

I remember loving Seventeen, really. And the cover I remember best is the first one Cameron Diaz did. I think it was like July 1989 or 1990 and they had that Star Spangled Banner theme going on. I remember thinking: "She has the whitest teeth". Man those were the days.

[taylor]

Former Sassy lover here, and all I've got to say is...Bust. I felt all giddy about finding Bust - just like I did when I was in high school and found Sassy.

[Emily]

I wish there was such a magazine too. I hate how low I get after reading Domino, all those perfectly decorated apartments outfitted with perfect clothes and perfect dogs that I can't afford.

Thank heavens for blogs and the real life coverage they provide for many of those topics. Blogs are the new Sassy?