Jim Walsh

Twitter and other social media channels might have changed the way many of us receive information. But somehow trying to express yourself in 140 characters cannot bring the sense of mystic, a level of information, an assault on the senses or a lifting of the spirit, in the way that good writers can do.

That is not to say that tweeting does not have its place as a communication tool. Clearly it does. But if we confine our interest in communication to tweets, facebook, texts or emails we are missing out on a range of interesting experiences.

In Ireland we are gifted with not only excellent writers of books but writers who can turn their accounts of special interest topics into samples of a life experience. Con Houlihan and Tom Humphries are great examples in the sporting genre and Cormac McConnell’s weekly column in the Irish Examiner’s supplement, Farm Exam, conjures up vivid images of ordinary lifetime experiences from rural Ireland.

I have generated a lot of amusement among my friends over the last year or so because of my addiction to Vanity Fair. Not the entire magazine I must say. I generally skip the first fifty to one hundred or so pages. That is where you can find the fashion and make-up info and advertising. Get into the editorial proper and you find that this monthly glossy contains some of the most interesting articles around. While the magazine itself is a first rate production both in layout, photography the variety of topics it covers and the space it gives to its writers is superb.

In the March edition an article on Ireland by Michael Lewis ran to about 10,000 words. As well as having the space the writers appear to have the freedom to express themselves. The sheer unpredictability of the topics is also a great reason to read Vanity Fair. If there is a common thread in the articles is that they mainly focus on people. The January issue, which featured an exclusive interview with Johnny Depp, also had a feature on the latter years of Jackie Kennedy Onannis who for 20 years before her death worked as a book editor, and how America’s worst doctor hid for three years in the Italian Alps.

In February attention turned to Wikigate, Justin Bieber, Surfing and an alleged rip-off behind a 350 million online phenonomen.

What prompted this acclamation for Vanity Fair was the current edition which moves from the Royal Wedding Countdown to tracking the most destructive computer virus yet, to the next big idea from the man who invented twitter and then to an analysis of Piers Morgan’s attempt to become the king of the US primetime chat show. In a withering put down the writer James Wolcott says of Morgan, “How did we get stuck with Piers Morgan? Who is he, why is he here, is he returnable? Now that would make a perfect tweet as ironically Morgan is an insatiable tweeter and not adverse to making critical remarks about others.

I’m glad that Vanity Fair is a monthly magazine. There isn’t a hope of reading it in a shorter time.