OFF THE COAST OF THE NEW YORKER: I was a fool for the New Yorker magazine for quite a few years in a row. They were publishing fiction by George Saunders and T.C. Boyle and David Eggers, essays by Nick Hornby and Adam Gopnik and James Surowiecki, and searing political commentary by Hendrik Hertzberg and (editor-god) David Remnick. I was way into it, reading the mag at warp speed each week and sending gift subscriptions to friends and family. Then, gradually, the short fiction started to seem less crisp, the essays less vital, and the political commentary somewhat more wrong-headed. And, I should add, I had a child, which rendered my reading hours nearly non-existent and scattershot -- hardly the right prescription for savoring a highbrow periodical habit, such as it was. Thing is, I was and am a Midwestern salaryman buying a portal into the worldviews of some coastal intellectuals and the bohemians they love to publish. And stacked up against global war and child-rearing, that optional look-see, she sure do fade in relevance.

So of late it's not been so much the New Yorker for me. As a man without a literary country for the past few years, I've pretty much reverted to the odd Internet surf-session here and there, visits to aldaily.com, and late-night perusals of books bought at airports. That's why it was such a delight to pick up a meaty issue of The Atlantic Monthly a few days ago. It had my old favorite Mark Bowden in there, that wise old James Fallows, and the intriguing William Langewiesche. It felt serious and political without seeming like a brag-rag for some haircut-lefty (guys like Wenner, Carter, and Lapham). I don't know where The Atlantic's politics are supposed to reside, but the good news is that I don't think I'm supposed to be able to figure it out. Sure, it's "the media," and smart media at that, so the slant must be leftward, but I'm in lust with the magazine for now, and maybe just maybe I've found a patch for the hole left by my abandonment...of?...by?...the New Yorker.