The End of Jane

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.