Why don’t we have intelligent culture articles published in the local media? Or why don’t we have intelligent magazines published locally? And by local media, I mean the printed media in the form of newspapers and magazines. Is it too much to ask for something like a Vanity Fair or a New York Magazine type of publication? I guess it is.

We have a plethora of showbiz gossip magazines. Nothing wrong with that, they cater to the majority. We have a lot of those blogs too. Now, I have to admit that I like reading about showbiz occasionally. I appreciate showbiz articles written in an intelligent, analytical manner (Yes, intelligent and analytical can be applied to showbiz when done right). But we don’t seem to have that in the Philippines. We do have a showbiz website, though, in English peppered with grammatical errors in every sentence. But at least there’s a website, right? Beggars can’t be choosers.

We have a lot of fashion magazines as well. But it’s like these magazines only repeat themselves and they lack ooomph.

The two local culture-related publications I used to love reading before but are now no longer in publication were Pen and Ink and Jessica Zafra’s Flip. My friend suggested I get a copy of Rogue Magazine because he says it’s good. I’ll make a mental note to do that when I get to the bookstore, if they carry it here in my neck of the woods. Here’s a sampling of a controversy the magazine caused in February. And of course, there is the current Joey Mead brouhaha with her wearing nothing on the cover, just body paint of the Philippine flag.

This post came to mind because I have been reading Vanity Fair online. I read this essay on Coldplay and I had to laugh. It’s funny but smart. I rarely am able to read funny-smart locally. But I guess, since articles of this kind are sure to offend a sector of society (and we have a whole lot of the holier-than-thous), then
it would be kinda hard to have it here. And wishing for something like Slate or Wonkette or the Huffington Post would be just that, wishful thinking.

Okay. So I’m off to reading again. And if there’s a local publication that I might have missed that I shouldn’