are you going to vanity fair?

On the whole, there are as many reasons for not working your way through Vanity Fair magazine as there are reasons for making the effort.

For starters, the magazine is about as dense with its ad content as any monthly publication out there. And there’s that scent of perfume that wafts up from the pages as you doggedly hunt for the wheat amongst the eye-candy chaff.

And I swear, there are more of those infuriating inserts in VF than any other magazine that arrives on my doorstep. By the time I pluck out the subscription postcards, the advertising inserts and those full-page cardboard subscription pages that make it impossible to read an article without a fight, the book weighs half what it did in the cellophane wrapper.

Still, I consider it a worthwhile read – and I do mean read. Not that I have anything against seeing Scarlett Johansson’s pale ass against both a black background and Kiera Knightly’s naked body. Or George Clooney in a sea of lingerie-clad beauties (interesting in a sepia-toned way) or Pamela Anderson’s ample bosom being out-boobed by Mamie Van Doren (I always knew Mamie had it in her). And I did pause to take in Sienna Miller reclining topless – but that was just to remember who the hell Sienna Miller IS and what the hell she’s doing lounging around in the middle of my magazine.

And there are regulars in the magazine who I find irritating.

Christopher Hitchins is a drunken sot who a) has a career alcoholics mistaken belief in his own infallibility and b) has an equally mistaken belief that a well-written stupid idea is better than an ordinary stupid idea.

And while I understand that Dominick Dunne has lived through his share of tragedy, but his writing always struck me as an odd combination of someone intent on kissing up to the rich and powerful all-the-while looking down his nose at them.

However, there is one regular feature that makes the whole effort well worthwhile.

James Wolcott is a must read.

Wolcott’s subject this month is George W. Bush’s craven use of the military as a political backdrop. It’s smart, extremely well written and even more sharply thought out. I heartily recommend it to anyone who appreciates good writing – especially those of us growing more and more angry with a president who use his role as Commander-in-Chief as a permanent campaign strategy.

And while I’m at it, I cannot recommend James Wolcott’s book, “Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants : The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror,” highly enough. Same with Wolcott’s blog – one of the best out there.

More soon.