Apparently Conde Nast has pulled the plug on Jane Magazine.
I’m depressed. Jane was trash, but always amusingly, smugly arch in its trashiness. The result was a sometimes disorienting pastiche of fashion, gossip, and quirky cultural surprises. Case in point: the June/July 2007 issue of Jane put Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night on its summer bookshelf! I doubt the word “bluestocking” has ever been used in Cosmo or Glamour, much less with approbation!
In its trendy, smart-girl snarkiness, Jane was a spiritual successor to Sassy, which I devoured in middle school (both were created by Jane Pratt; her departure from Jane appears to have led to its eventual demise). It was pure mind fluff – I looked forward to my Jane fix even more than the arrival of the high-maintenance, “read me or be uninformed” New Yorker. My friends won’t understand this, but I’ll miss you, Jane.
I read Sassy like a fiend, but never read Jane. But what I really loved? Your description of The New Yorker as “high-maintenance, ‘read me or be uninformed.'” Gaudy Night is pretty good too!!
My condolences. I would be awfully sad if the powers that be took away my Vogue; what would I do without its comically hideous fashion spreads and those lame, pseudo-literary puns that top the captions of all the photos? I bought an issue as an undergrad so that I could cut it up, but before I knew it, I was a subscriber. I love Vogue for its pretentious precariousness between European runway and Stop n Shop check-out aisle. And yes, I read it much more faithfully than I read my New Yorkers, even if people DO make fun of me for citing it.
Sigh. Believe it or not, I also loved Jane. I was ashamed yes, read it alone, secreted away, and felt a little dirty afterwards, but I loved it so. What’s a girl to do? Cosmo just ain’t gonna cut it.