The Cleveland Journal's Sunday Magazine

 

Oh, Boys and Girls and everyone on their own Self Identified Spectrum of Gender, Cookie is dating himself when he tells you that there were once big fat Sunday Newspapers, chock full of news, features, travel, living, life, living life, and sports section.  

Classifieds were in their own chunky section! Comics galore in COLOR!  And then there were the locally produced Sunday Magazine inserts, printed on better paper that were sort of shiny.  They had long articles and short stories of featured articles.  The articles were heavy with local content,  with locally placed writers and headlines like "HIGHLAND HEIGHTS CELEBRATES THE ANNUAL GOURD FESTIVAL" and  "AMRAP, LOOKING AT PARMA DIFFERENTLY".

Sadly, over the last 30-40 years, these magazines have been discontinued in all of the most ginormous markets, replaced with PARADE, itself just a shadow of its former glory.  Headlines now include "Affirming Yourself" and "Celebrity Gossip" which really isn't gossip, such as "What's Joan Van Ark Up to These Days?" and Harry Styles, Does He Date?"  (The answers usually read,  "Former TV Star Joan Van Ark was born in 1943, and business herself with reading and taking longs walks on the beach," and "MEGA Star Harry Styles, born in 1994, is very much in demand, and a well know fashionista. Perhaps he'll update us on activities when cupid acts.")  So it really isn't in-depth, or mildly interesting.   

The Cleveland Daily Journal's Sunday Magazine also had local gossip ("Our sources tell us that Mrs. Edwin Smith Standish, of Shaker Heights, has been tapped to Chair the Cleveland Symponic's Societies annual Fund Raiser which will be themed Escapade in the Equidor, this winter..." and "Our sources tell us that Cleveland City Council member Mary Rose Oakar is a career-minded lady who hopes to become a congressional representative..."

Alas, the Journal ended its role as Cleveland's fifth most popular news source in 1963.  

The building, is now the Lake Line Luxury Lofts, market-rate condos, decorated in neutral gray tones, offering exquisite views of downtown Cleveland ("that you will not find in any other location!" because only one building stands on its site, right?) and the I-71 corridor.  

The main floors, once populated with well-known locally owned businesses along with the Cleveland Curmudgeon Club, and Stouffer's Slid on Inn, is now populated with expensive tightly focused boutiques (Raffia Rendezvous, Birkin and Birkenstock's, for example) and a raw-juice bar that you could find in any city. And the perfunctory Starbucks, of course. 

Modern SNIT, October 1954

 

Modern Snit - an offshoot of the one time New England Journal of Haughtiness,  was the magazine for the pissy, the put-out, and those who held preteen girl grudges.  Each episode was filled with affirming articles that bespoke to easily tipped teen-tots who felt that the cards were stacked against them. 

REPOST: Empress Magazine, Brumaire 1801

 The following is a repost of the image that appeared on Periodically Anachronistic way back in the oughts, 2009 to be specific.  I have no idea what Google is doing, but the first few works of satire still have their posts, but the pictures have disappeared from view.  So we are reposting. 

(C)2009 and 2021 Periodically Anachronistic

Though it had a limited audience, Empress Monthly was a favorite with its readers because it understood what they were up against. 

One would think that its subscribers, who had all the comforts afforded royalty, would have a full dance card in life's little fete. Truth be told, aside from producing a male heir, the only other duties were dressing well, and appearing at the ribbon-cutting ceremonies whenever a new bakery or meat rendering company opened its doors.  Wait, I take that back; as Empress, you changed your clothes a great deal - like six or seven times a day.  And with all that dressing and undressing, there was no time left for being able to take a mad lark every now and then and go junking like the commoners do  - but they, of course, called it "shopping." 

For the readers of Empress, life was made up of little trade-offs; and there is that constant reminder that with power comes great responsibility.  A palace here, a castle there, and all of those furs, the gold and ah yes, the jewels.  But at what price?  Well, you can't have everything in life;  if one can not roll in the hay with the farmer's son because it would be slumming, then one must be content with starting a multi-national conflict over the batting of your eyes at some other Queen's prince royale or having the head of the Church of State drawn and quartered for disapproving of your extreme wealth, and good fortune, no? 

Indeed, it is lonely at the top.

REPOST: Trailer Park Majesty

 Several of the first posts to this blog no longer have the satire pieces visible through Blogger, though I can see them on the edit pages.  Since it was 12 years ago, I am reposting them. 

(c) 2009, 2021 Periodically Anachronistic

Trailer Park Majesty was the type of magazine that the residents of the nation's mobile home parks loved to hate, but couldn't stop reading. 

Like the Amish-based "Budget", Trailer Park Majesty was the "Tattler of the Trailer Park." Of course, the magazine had legitimate roots.  Founded in 1930 by Earl Woolumsey, Trailer Park Majesty aspired to ennoble the lives of those who either exchanged their homes for the carefree life of a manufactured home. 

But hey, like the sign says, "Mobile Home Living is Luxurious."

REPOST: The New England Journal of Haughtiness

 Several of the first posts to this blog no longer have the satire pieces visible through Blogger, though I can see them on the edit pages.  Since it was 12 years ago, I am reposting them. 

© 2009, 2021 PERIODICALLY ANACHRONISTIC

Of all of the Alcott's, only Louisa May understood that just as there should be a place for everything, and everything in place. So it should be with great unwashed.

Slouch and Leaning Digest, 1931

 

It didn't start out like this.  SLOUCH MAGAZINE was the preferred periodical of moody poets and literary types, hunters and outdoorsmen.  It spoke to the humanity in all men who refused to observe traditional Victorian norms.  Then the Edwardians took over, followed by the Great War, and everyone was tiring packing up that old kit bag and smiling for damn sake.  Then the unthinkable: the editors of LEANING Digest wanting to retire to the South of France.  Bother! The next thing they knew, Slouch had to change to accommodate them. 

"But it's not the same!" readers protested. And it wasn't.

Well then came along an America, fat with cash, and a heart heavy with unrequited love, who just wanted to forget and throw himself into something to distract.  And that's how the thing ended up in America - a place that was at the height of rouged knees and flappers, young men in tuxedos drinking bathtub gin and making poor investment decisions.  "Why the future looks bright for Huppmobile and Atwater Kent!"  Bright, but not for long.  

"There was a beauty in that marvelous tome that bespoke of the idle hour between the end of work and the return to home when a man could simply wander and read.  And when the time had ended, and the sun began to turn deep orange against a darkening blue sky, you beat a path for home and hearth, your mood is been lifted, and his mind elevated as well. SLOUCH and LEANING Digest, indeed.  Stranger things have happened, no?" ~Ned Jordan, 1929

At its height in the 1930s SLOUCH and LEANING Digest was the most read magazine of the leisure class who had the time to slouch, lean, and yes, do it with style.  It's downfall?  World War II, bub.  To beat the hun and bury the Kaiser once and for all meant there was no time for idleness, careless days, and daydreaming. No, now it was time for round-the-clock work the home front and bombing the bejesus out of Hideki Tojo and that Hitler. 

And thus SLOUCH and LEANING Digest faded into the distant past. 

STAND Magazine - The magazine for people who prefer to stand, 1966

"Standing," said Editor in Chief Dortha Abzug, "is something that almost every abled-bodied people enjoy doing."

STAND was the result of a merger between STRIDE Magazine and POSTURING Quarterly.   At it height, STAND was found in every podiatrist and orthopedic doctor's office in the United States and Canada. 

What killed off Stand was the running fad.  It wasn't just enough to stand, but now people expected to move about. Exhausting business that. 

The final issue of Stand came with its Woodstock issue.  Not a whole lot of standing at that one. 

 

4th Wife Magazine

 

Well, you most likely have heard of the Third Man, and now we give you 4th Wife, the monthly magazine for young women who marry those men who may be in the home stretch of life.  The men who haven't been able to find a woman who understands him.  The man looking into the eye of eternity with a full bank account and no heirs.   Yes, you are you, footloose and fancy-free, maybe even hot to trot with a couple of divorces under your bodice.  Read and learn from that most successful fourth wives.  "But stay away from Rubirosa," warns Barbara Hutton. 

STAMPS: Broads, Dames and Others

 

Pick up some at your local market, TODAY!

 

If it's something that kids won't eat it's cold rare steak - just ask Christina Crawford!

But kids will eat cold luncheon meats because we've cleverly disguised the pork snouts, pig lips, cow ears, and haggis that go into them.  Your moppets can't get enough of them!  Why? Because they are packed with flavors and fine salts and spices. 

That's why picking up a pack, or six of your favorite luncheon meats is a sure-fire way of ensuring peace at the dinner table.  Who doesn't love Falangee, Pork Scruppy, or Tunswiger?   

On a budget? Try our Perpetual Ham - the only luncheon meat that grows every time you slice off a piece.  

Pork Toreodors are always welcome on a picnic, served with yellow mustard on soft white bread.  

And for cocktail hour?  Try some Toenail Loaf wrapped around fresh turnup - NOT TO BE MISSED!

Sold where finer pack meats are sold.