I’ve subscribed to The New Yorker on and off for years – the “off” happens when I willfully ignore the flurry of annoying letters that arrive prior to the expiration of my subscription. Three and a half of those years found me living in Manhattan, though I’m currently thousands of miles and another coast away.

A subscription to any weekly magazine is a commitment. If you subscribe to more than one, it’s even more important to ensure you stay on top of your consumption. I’ve developed the following process to ensure a timely yet comprehensive digestion of the beauty and wonder that is The New Yorker. Here’s my 10-step approach to the 7 January 2008 issue.

1. Admire the cover.

2. Turn the magazine over and open to the last page to peruse the Cartoon Caption Contest. Yes, we’re going to cut to the chase and read the end first. It is, after all, only a magazine. In any order:

• The Winning Caption – enjoy or scoff.
• The Finalists – pick your favourite or wonder why you witty words aren’t featured (you’re so much funnier than Robert of Boston, Tom of Alexandria or Albert of Philadelphia).
• This Week’s Contest – immediately craft something stellar or grumble at the seemingly dwindling quality of the weekly cartoons.

3. Flip through the magazine in a leisurely manner to enjoy the cartoons, photographs, and art (with the emphasis on cartoons – my favourite is on page 38). You can also make a mental note of what stories you’d most like to read when you reach later in the process (#8).

4. Goings On About Town. Feel free to skip if your dance card is full or you no longer live in New York (like me) or you’ve never lived in New York or you won’t be visiting any time soon or the depth and breadth of goings on will only leave you pea green with envy.

A note about the advertisements: for the most part, the ads in The New Yorker are pretty inoffensive. If you’re as thrilled about the return of The Wire as I am, you might take a moment so enjoy the two-page spread that HBO has thoughtfully sprung for (pgs. 20-21). If you missed the premiere, rest assured that it will be rebroadcast a dozen times this week. Otherwise, the ads are tasteful, never smell (in the way that those in Vanity Fair or Vogue might) and can be quite intriguing (I’m referring to those tiny ads that appear towards the end of the magazine. Tell me you haven’t snickered once at the thought of a “Poke” boat).

5. Talk of the Town (or, tasty morsels that can be enjoyed in the time that it takes to make a cup of tea – I especially enjoyed Dept. of Labor “Strike Beards” as there is some facial activity happening at our house). [Editor's Note: I have no idea what she's talking about.]

6. The Political Scene. Oh, dear. I’m not looking forward to the election-ness of the election-being that is 2008. Though it will be made somewhat more palatable by Messrs. Stewart and Colbert, it’s going to be a very long year. Don’t feel guilty if you skip any an all election reporting this year (especially if it involves Giuliani).

7. Shouts & Murmurs. Sometimes funny “ha ha” or funny “weird.”

8. The Middle Bits. Sandwiched between the preceding front “bits” and the review is the meat of the beast that is the New Yorker. Longer and more in-depth, these are typically suitable items for a longer commute (strictly as a passenger) or a nice hot bath. My eye is drawn to the “Mystery on Pearl Street” by Burkhart Bilger.

9. Fiction & Poetry. This might not be an appropriate time to confess the following, but I’ve never read The New Yorker’s fiction. This isn’t to say that you won’t enjoy it.

10. The Critics (Books, Music, Theatre and Movies). There are two kinds of people in this world: those who read reviews and those who don’t. If you’re one of the latter, then you’re missing out as The New Yorker’s reviews are thoughtful, well written, and as often a not, snarky as hell. Most long-time subscribers will have a favourite or two. I don’t know that anything will ever eclipse Anthony Lane’s stellar review of the awfulness that was the Phantom of the Opera.

If managed correctly, the above process of consumption should take about a week. In fact, that’s what you should aim for lest you become “that” subscriber who’s hopelessly behind. You can tell who these folks are by the height or width of the stack that graces a coffee table, nightstand or languishes beside the toilet.

Happy reading.

In October 1995, Suck.com published a story by editor Joey Anuff (aka The Duke of URL) on How To Read Wired. In short, his advice was to take a hearty dollop of irony and then rip out all the back-to-back ads.

Twelve years ago, according to Suck, Wired 3.09 contained 206 pages, of which 90 were full-page ads. If you included the partial-page ads, the ad/content split was an even 50/50.

I decided to revisit Suck’s how-to with Wired’s December 2007 issue (15.12). It had 290 pages, of which 151 were full-page ads. Today, if you include the partial-page ads, the ad/content split is about 53/47.

If anything has changed, it’s the amount of product-driven content. This issue contained 18 pages in the front of the book that were devoted entirely to products (What’s Inside Lotrimin Ultra? Play Super Mario! Wow, Expensive Motorcycle!). Then there’s the Wish List, “a survey of the stuff we’re dying to get (and give) this holiday season,” which includes a Top Ten that lasts for 12 pages, plus 24 pages of some of the most blatant product placement I’ve ever seen in a magazine. Check out this spread and tell me if it’s an ad or not.

If you include all this product placement with the ads (where it belongs), it totals 198.5 pages, which is 68% of the magazine, leaving 91.5 pages of actual content. Sad.

Suck’s instructions still work like a charm. Wired is printed with perfect binding, and pages come out like butter. I removed any page that had ads on both sides. If Wired has changed at all, it’s that they’ve gotten better at avoiding this situation. Of the 151 full-page ads, only 88 were doubled-up, allowing me to tear out 44 pages. Still, what a difference.

Inset photo courtesy of Suck.com.

I’ll say this for Wired: As much as they’ve let rampant consumerism take over the book, they still treat their Features section as sacrosanct. There’s nary an ad to be seen from Noah Sachtman’s “What Went Wrong” on how techo-optimism led us astray in Iraq (an amazing story, a shame it had such an ugly corner-to-corner design) to the end of Carlyle Adler’s “The Secrets of Silicon Valley” on thefunded.com’s pole vault over the walls of Sand Hill Road (with a beautiful angular text design and b&w photos by Rainer Hosch).

Wired, like the internet itself, has grown up a lot over the last 12 years, sometimes with the grace of the adolescent it was. But in web years, it’s about 150-years-old now, and far be it from us not to show our elders the respect they’ve earned.

Here’s to ya’, old man.