My trip to 50-59 contained a little more angst than usual; the topic is Magazines, and the pickings are slim. Technically, collected volumes of the New Yorker should count, I guess, but they live in the Periodicals room, so all I had in front of me was memoirs of magazine employees, deconstructions of the social import of assorted publications, and the history of various rags. I ended up with Shocking True Story, which is the history of the country's first celebrity gossip sheet, Confidential. I'm not hurting myself. Sure, the history of Hollywood in the 40s and 50s touches on everything from unionization to the Red Scare, but the chapters are short, and each one starts with a (surprisingly literate) excerpt from an original article. Did Rita Hayworth neglect her children? Did Desi cheat on Lucy? By now, with most of the participants safely located where what anybody says about them can no longer ruin their lives, it's pure entertainment. And the 50's definition of "shocking" is a little different from ours, so it's rather mild entertainment at that.
PS: Why are so many famous people so spectacularly miserable? I don't think anybody's ever figured it out, but an occasional reminder that the grass is not in fact greener is always welcome.
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