Uneasy Rhetoric

I just finished scanning the inaugural issue of Sactown Magazine. The short verdict is that I am whelmed. I give it two and a half stars.

Sactown Magazine is a mildly nice addition to the small list of magazines about Sacramento and I hope it will soon take some market share away from the decidedly suburban Sacramento Magazine, that pay-for-play ad rag that feels like a Realtor and a Dentist got together and made a magazine so that all their friends could run photographs of their painfully attractive but otherwise vacant staffs.

Sactown Mag almost didn’t start off on the right foot with me, though. In their first column, the editors listed their big-name magazine pedigrees (bleh), praised Sacramento (yay!), and then came dangerously close to suggesting that Sacramento might be becoming more like New York (gag). Fortunately, they backed away from that last bit, but not before claiming that they knew where they could get Chinese food delivered at 2am. I wish they’d given a restaurant name because getting Chinese food delivered at any time in this town isn’t exactly de rigeur.

Like it’s older, shallower, cousin, Sactown Magazine has its share of full-page advertisements for new housing developments and upscale kitchens and kitchenware. It also has that staple of city-centric magazines: the section of photographs of people at “mover and shaker” events designed to make the people in the photographs feel like important movers and shakers. Whatever.

On the other hand, the magazine had several interesting articles on the Eames/Sacramento connection, Ron Artest, and Christmas Trees. In the back was a short interview with Gary Snyder, local survivor of the Beat Poets, about photographs Alan Ginsberg took that are currently on display at the Crocker. In other words, there are actually articles to read in this magazine, tucked in amongst the forest of full-color advertisements and photographs.

I’ll probably read it on a semi-regular basis and hope that it allows itself to get a little bit more edgy and critical and a little less designed for the short attention span. The only problem is I can’t remember if I only agreed to receive the first issue or if I agreed to subscribe. I’m guessing they’ll probably let me know either way.