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Requiem
Date of Review: May 15, 2000
Life magazine has been a mainstay of American culture for decades. It has been one of those items that worms its way into the national conciousness; permeating who and what we are. Life has not only been part of us, but also our primary photographic record of the times.
Life has always been. primarily, a photograph magazine. Its focus was on images, and what images they were. Who hasn't seen that stunning, dreadful shot of a Vietnamese man with a gun to his head? And that picture is only one of thousands that come to mind when we think of this magazine.
Life has prided itself on offering the best photography to be found anywhere in the world.
The articles that accompany those pictures are weak. They seem as thin as the paper they are printed on. In addition they often seem poorly written; not in a concrete way, but rather in some nebulous, collateral fashion that you can never quite put your finger on.
Even so, this can be forgiven. The articles are, after all, merely filler. Many of them were probably chosen as an afterthought. It is easy to imagine an editor thinking "oh my, we have too many empty pages! I'd better pick an article to face that great photo of the tornado".
I have, and do love Life. Unfortunately it is finished. After all these years, and all those photos Life has ceased publication. It is defunct. As John Cleese would say: an ex-magazine.
I am saddened by this fact. It seems that we are losing something we need. It is not so much like losing a magazine, as like losing our collective memory. How will we, in years to come, be certain exactly what these days meant, without Life to remind us?
