Table Topics - judging magazines by their covers

Table Topics is the impromptu speaking section of a Toastmasters club meeting, where people give one to two minute answers to questions. Ideas for those questions (the role of Table Topics Master) can come from anywhere. This topic came from looking at the magazine rack while I was standing in a supermarket checkout line at WINCO.

It occurred to me the National Enquirer has a  very misleading title. Based on the stories shown on the cover, it instead really should be titled Misbehaving or Dying Celebrities, as is shown above.

On February 17, 2019 I blogged about Table Topics – Tell us about another magazine with a similar title. When I got around to being Table Topics Master for our last meeting in March, I realized that I needed to provide more information than just the title. For each magazine I brought both some background information and a copy of a cover (showing article titles).  

  

I also suggested how the answer might be aimed. Was an adjective in the title rather weak? For example, back on June 5, 2016 I had blogged about Was Fairview really the best street name you could come up with? Why just Fair, and not Good, Better, or Best (the categories from a Sears catalog)? I also noted you might change an adjective to its opposite, like Clean Eating into Dirty  Eating. Here are four examples.

One woman got a cover from Good Housekeeping (which began way back in 1885). Story titles included Awesome Makeover Ideas for Every Room, Top-Tested Solutions for Dry Skin, and Your Happiest and Healthiest Year Ever. She said the title should also be a superlative, like Very Best Housekeeping –  to top Better Homes and Gardens. I don’t have time to waste hearing merely good ideas.  

I gave one man a two-year-old cover from the National Enquirer with a feature story titled Cher Dying, and noted that Cher seem to still be with us. He said that’s just what they want you to believe. She actually died but was reanimated - we secretly have that technology. The Queen of England also has died but was brought back.

A retired club member got the March 2016 issue of Sunset magazine, with article titles of A Modern Guide to Mexico City, Easy Spring Brunch Ideas, and Design a Daring Succulent Container Combo. I told him the magazine began in 1898, and once had the subtitle of The Magazine of Western Living. (Currently the subtitle is Experience the West, but it only is in the Table of Contents). He asked if the magazine was for people in their sunset years, and might better be called Grandparent’s Digest. Another possible title, Coasting Downhill, is shown above. Later I found that at Lenny Mud you can buy a $10 ceramic picture frame with a pretend cover titled Grandparent DIGEST and subtitled The Magazine for the Grandest Family Members. One article title is 365 Ways to Spoil Children. Also, the April 8, 2019 issue of The New Yorker had a cartoon on page 29 showing a cover for Grandma Digest with titles like Top Ten Pieces of Furniture to Wrap in Plastic.

Another woman got the February 2019 cover for Real Simple (subtitled Life Made Easier). I pointed out that issue had 130 pages. She said if it really was simple, then it would be less complicated and more like thirty pages long. And don’t give me a long discussion of how to cleverly organize my kitchen – just tell me to throw some things out. Later I realized that you could start from that title and change it into Real Pimple (the teen magazine of zits).

Images of an old man on a bicycle and a painting of Marat both came from Wikimedia Commons.