Funny Story

Magazine junkie that I am, I could not resist, on one of my recent long walks in Manhattan, checking out the month-old Magazine Cafe on West 37th Street.

The sign outside had promised 3,500+ magazines, and the shelves inside certainly kept that promise. I passed up all the usual suspects (The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, and so on) to thumb through various zines I'd never seen before, finally picking up a Canadian feminist mag -- obviously operating on a shoestring but not of the thinnest variety -- titled "Shameless." Then I delved into the craft mags, picking up "Handwoven" and "Embroidery & Cross Stitch," neither of which I'd seen before, one published in New South Wales, the other in Colorado.

Then I went in search of "Poetry," a magazine I try to remember to get whenever I'm in a place full of periodicals, but I was unable to locate it.

Giving up fairly quickly (I was starting to feel overwhelmed), I brought my choices to the register, paid, then decided to ask about "Poetry."

"Oh, yes, we have that! Do you want? I will get it for you!" "Sure," I agreed and followed the clerk to a shelf I hadn't searched throughly. He reached in, pulled out a magazine that looked surely too large for the small-format "Poetry," and handed it to me.

The name of the magazine was "Poultry." The cover illustration was of a rather magnificent rooster.

I burst out laughing. "No, no, 'Poetry,'" I said and spelled it out for him. "Oh, yes! That's down here!" He pulled out the correct mag, I paid, we chatted about the newness of the store and the mind-boggling completeness of the stock. I promised I'd be back.

Oh, yeah. ** Wonderful ** place. You couldn't keep me away if you tried!