There’s this new magazine I’m digging right now, and you’ll soon see why, it’s totally up my alley. It’s called GOOD magazine and here’s what the founder has to say about why they exist:

“We see a growing number of people tied together not by age, career, background, or circumstance, but by a shared interest. This revolves around a passion for potential mixed with fierce pragmatism and creative engagement. We sum all this up as the sensibility of giving a damn. But to shorten it, let’s call it GOOD. We’re here to push this movement and cover its realization.

While so much of today’s media is taking up our space, dumbing us down, and impeding our productivity, GOOD exists to add value. Through a print magazine, feature and documentary films, original multimedia content and local events, GOOD is providing a platform for the ideas, people, and businesses that are driving change in the world.”

Did you get chills? I did. And still do when I check it out online at www.goodmagazine.com–they are doing some pretty cool stuff. They have a feature running right now on the 51 Best Magazines as decided by a dude with some clout–the editor of Vanity Fair (a man with amazing hair)–and the good people at GOOD. This feature is timely, as the Holland Crew has its first book/zine/cd/etc. drive on March 10 for the Media Center and Library and people are already giving me their much loved copies of Adbusters, Ready Made and Bitch to add to what’s looking to be the coolest library this side of the Mississippi. So this week’s favorite thing is MAGAZINES–a wonderful form of media that keeps on giving long after the issue date.

I have a long-standing love affair with certain magazines, I used to hide in my dad’s room for hours and spend a good 5 hours reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone and Interview–he had subscriptions to both for a good 5+ years, and has since narrowed it to Dwell and Communication Arts. There’s something very satisfying and current about reading a good magazine, and then saving it to cut up ads and photos for later use in various projects. I used to have 3 old briefcases full of magazines I had saved over the years, a lot of old Newsweeks and Rolling Stones and Spins (and the gymnast magazine I got once a month for 9 years). Before I purged everything, I went through every single one and had an incredible time traveling back in time through fashion and ads and fads and the like. PS. I was looking at an old issue of a music mag long since gone from 1993 (Nirvana was on the cover of course) and there was a letter to the editor that said, “I am a huge Guns n’ Roses fan and I don’t like that you called them jerks.” It made my day.

I love the photo shoots for the cover and feature spready (Vanity Fair has been great at that, with Annie Leibovitz and Mark Seliger on the roster). And slightly unrelated, but an important question nevertheless, how does it happen that every teacher has about 10 billion old copies of National Geographic from the 70s? They must have been government issued or something back in the day.

Anyway, as we shape this Media Library, I want to hear what you guys like. Good magazines we need to know about? Check out the link above for some ideas on what people more sophisticated than us think. I think they’re missing some key ones. And there’s not a single cooking one. Seems odd.