Who would go by the advice they read in those titles?
By Heidi Dawley Aug 25, 2008
Things were not going well for 37-year-old divorcee Cathy Alter. She was stuck in what seemed a downward spiral, sleeping with the wrong men, annoying her best friend, and eating lunch from vending machines.
So Alter took an unusual step. Rather than trying psychoanalysis or finding a life coach, typical courses for so many women these days, she subscribed to a raft of women's titles, from Cosmo to Real Simple and O The Oprah Magazine and Vogue.
Alter, a Washington-area writer, committed herself to following their advice on everything from toning up bingo wings to turning around her messy love life, and she would do it for a year.
Hers was an unusual step because, as much as women read the sort of advice found in women's titles, most dismiss it out of hand, as visual chewing gum, a fun read when there's nothing else handy to pore over. They're also dismissed for contributing to body image problems and for playing on women’s insecurities.
“I thought it was the smartest idea ever, the idea that I could read all these magazines that were silly and fun,” she says. “I didn’t expect it to have such an impact on my life. I had no way of predicting how all these magazines would work on me."
It turns out, great surprise, that the advice Alter read and followed actually worked. At the end of the year, her life was no longer a mess. It was turned around. She was eating a balanced diet--always as good thing. She was happy. She was engaged to a loving man.
What came out of it as well is "Up For Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me About Love, Sex and Starting Over,” Alter's chronicle of her year-long journey.
Going into the project, Alter set three goals--to be loved, to be successful and to stop eating lunch out of a vending machine.
“If I put an exclamation on the end of each item it would be like the cover lines of a woman’s magazine,” she says.
She chose a different area of life to work on each month, including diet, home decorating and sex.
Alter’s turnaround started with Saran Wrap–and not in the way you might think when relying on women’s magazines for advice.
She needed to cut out the vending machines and ingest some protein, and one of the magazines offered tips on how to wrap a sandwich.
That might not sound like a big deal, but for Alter it was. She began brown-bagging it to work. That got her out of the office at lunch and away from a dodgy office romance.
More important, though, is what it got her into. She was going out every day, and at one point decided to look up an acquaintance. That person became her husband to be.
Atler says that along with learning things like how to scrub a pan without a scouring pad (use crunched-up tin foil), the magazines taught her how to sift the good advice from the bad in life.
She says she also learned how to open up to love and improve her relationship with her mother.
But Alter cautions that not all the advice in women's magazines is worth following.
"The articles aimed at insecurities are the ones to be careful of. Sometimes the best thing is to turn the page and not read it. If you know it will make you feel rotten, don’t read it. Read about shiny hair instead.”
***
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, the Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder” was No. 1 at the box office over the weekend for the second week in a row, bringing in another$16.1 million. The new comedy “The House Bunny” debuted at No. 2 with $15.1 million in ticket sales.
In DVD rentals for the week ended Aug. 17, according to IMDb.com, “Nim’s Island” was No. 1 for the second straight week, followed this week by the new release “Smart People.”
On iTunes this morning, T.I.’s “Whatever You Like” was No. 1, followed by “So What” by Pink.
And in books, Jerome R. Corsi’s “The Obama Nation” remained at No. 1 on The New York Times’ hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list for the week ended Aug. 16, and it improved to No. 8 on USA Today’s book chart for the week ended Aug. 17.
TOP MOVIES Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of Aug. 22-24, 2008
Rank
MOVIE
Engagements
Box office (millions)
1
Tropic Thunder (DreamWorks)
3,352
$16.10
2
The House Bunny (Sony)
2,714
$15.10
3
Death Race (Universal)
2,532
$12.29
4
The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.)
3,163
$10.31
5
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Warner Bros.)
3,452
$5.66
6
Pineapple Express (Sony)
2,620
$5.60
7
Mirrors (Fox)
2,664
$4.88
8
The Longshots (MGM)
2,089
$4.30
9
Mamma Mia! (Universal)
2,326
$4.30
10
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Universal)
2,422
$4.07
Source: Yahoo Movies
IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS Week ending August 17, 2008
Rank
TITLE
Last week
1
Nim’s
Island
1
2
Smart People
-
3
21
2
4
Harold & Kumar Escape from
GuantanamoBay
3
5
The Bank Job
4
6
The Art of War II: Betrayal
-
7
Doomsday
5
8
Never Back Down
6
9
Vantage Point
7
10
College Road Trip
8
Source: IMDB
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS for week ended Monday, Aug. 25, 2008
Rank
TITLE
1
Whatever You Like, T.I.
2
So What, Pink
3
Disturbia, Rihanna
4
Paper Planes, M.I.A.
5
The Day That Never Comes, Metallica
6
All Summer Long, Hit Masters
7
Viva la Vida, Coldplay
8
Crush, David Archuleta
Source: iTunes
NEW YORKTIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS Week ending August 16, 2008
Fiction (hardback)
Rank
TITLE
Last week
Weeks on chart
1
Smoke Screen by Sandra Brown
-
1
2
The Bourne Sanction by Eric Van Lustbader
2
3
3
Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon
1
2
4
The
Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
3
3
5
MoscowRules by Daniel Silva
4
4
Nonfiction (hardback)
1
The Obama Nation by Jerome R. Corsi
1
3
2
Stori Telling by Tori Spelling with Hilary Liftin
2
12
3
The Way of the World by Ron Suskin
3
2
4
Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
6
17
5
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
4
11
Fiction (paperback)
1
The Shack by William P. Young
1
13
2
Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand
2
10
3
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
4
49
4
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
5
50
5
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
3
50
Nonfiction (paperback)
1
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
1
81
2
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
3
2
3
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
2
82
4
I Hope They serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max
-
46
5
Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert
5
17
Source: New York Times
USATODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS Week ending August 17, 2008
Rank
TITLE
Last week
1
Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
1
2
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
2
3
New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
4
4
The Last Lecture by Randy Rausch and Jeffrey Zazlow
3
5
Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
5
6
The Shack by William P. Young
6
7
Playing For Pizza by John Grisham
8
8
The Obama Nation by Jerome R. Corsi
12
9
Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks
13
10
You’ve Been Warned by James Patterson and Howard Roughan
