Outside the icebox
Feeling stircrazy after a week of cold? This is no time to hibernate. We’ve reviewed the latest exercise magazines to see which ones inspired us to break out of the winter doldrums.
Outdoor is aimed at adults with discerning tastes who have the money and inclination to go off the beaten path. A list of recommended vacation spots includes Kerala in Southwestern India. The flattering description makes no mention of the crushing heat, but it seems like a neat place to visit anyway — especially if you rent a houseboat. There’s a nice short feature on how goose feathers in down jackets are procured in an inhumane fashion. Workers in China and Hungary pluck the feathers from live birds they later kill for foie gras. Later, though, the mag recommends buying a down-stuffed shirt for $265.
Bicycling is not easy on the eyes, with an unflattering, fullpage closeup of 58yearold master builder Dario Pegoretti’s face. There’s another fullpage fuzzy picture of a cyclist doing a wheelie with a graphic that explains how you can learn to pop one, too. It starts with a paragraph saying that if you want to learn more, move to the next page, where we found a paragraph that could easily have fit on the unremarkable photo. We did like a thrillseeker leading the “five inspiring cyclists” section, who, af ter five stints in prison, went from “badness to radness.”
CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is on the cover of Triathlete. The feature on him is short but thoughtprovoking. Gupta says training an hour a day, while being a dad and having a full career, brings order to his busy life. Much of the magazine includes tips for beginners, including the Gupta feature that shares how he trains each year with a group of novices who compete in the New York City triathlon. Some cooking advice like “cracking quinoa” is likely of interest to the aspiring triathlete crowd. We must say it’s hard not have triathlete dreams after reading the uplifting edition.
Runner’s World is all about running — serious running — including a pictorial of 50yearold Californian Carla Corbett, who eats only fruit during the week and runs 100mile races. We were exhausted just reading about her. Lots of running memoirs and race tips fill the remaining pages. The main feature is writeratlarge Steve Friedman’s eightpage memoir about training his annoying younger sister. Reading it felt like running up a brutal hill. Elsewhere, an attractive young blonde tells us to strengthtrain regularly, crosstrain regularly, eat more vegetables and cook at home more often. We should also stretch and foam roll after running.
In the creepy technology department, the New Yorker has a story about computers that can read emotions, or at least facial expressions, better than we can ourselves. “We really wanted to focus on the dogood applications of the technology,” says one MIT scientist, although she acknowledges the “Big Brother” risk. She doesn’t expect to return to her earlier research using the software for autism work, even as corporations and political machines salivate over its potential to predict consumer habits and voting patterns. This, folks, is called progress.
New York looks to assess Obama’s legacy with a survey of university professors. “The contributors tilted liberal — that’s academia, no surprise — but we made an effort to create at least a little balance with conservative historians,” the editors tell us, with a seemingly straight face. Obama’s “administration has made the United States dramatically more prosperous, more egalitarian, and more sustainable,” Jonathan Chait writes. Tell that to your local union reps and Starbucks baristas.
Time’s cover story is by Steven Brill, who is pushing a new book on health care as he tell us “What I learned from my $190,000 openheart surgery.” Surprise, surprise: He learns that an MRI doesn’t seem like such a waste of money when your life is on the line. Brill does a good job explaining what’s wrong with ObamaCare, but it’s too bad he doesn’t offer more convincing ideas on controlling costs.