Letter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednEditing the SouthnI have a more or less professional interestnin Southern regional magazines.nSome I’ve written for, others I’ve writtennabout, one or two I’ve cribbednfrom — one way or another a few subscriptionsnand the odd newsstand purchasenwind up as deductions on mynincome tax. Whatever else these magazinesnmay be, they’re all part of thenimage machine that exploits and celebratesnand burnishes Southern differencenand self-consciousness. Month afternmonth, year in and year out, evennhumdrum trade magazines like ThenSouthern Sociologist and The SouthernnFuneral Director say by their veryntitles that the South exists, that there’snsomething different (and usually atnleast by implication better) about it.nOne reason I follow these magazines isnto keep track of what that something isnsupposed to be.nA few examples and maybe you canndraw your own conclusions. Consider,nfor instance. Southern Living, an extravagantlynsuccessful house-andgardennmagazine out of Birmingham,nthis year celebrating its silver anniversary.nI’ll have more to say about SL nextnmonth; for now, simply note that morenthan three million subscribers make itnnot just the most successful Southernnmagazine, but the most successfulnregional magazine, period, leaving thenWest Coast’s Sunset far behind andninspiring imitators that include the recentnMidwestern Living. SouthernnLiving has acquired a number of othernmagazines itself, among them TravelnSouth, essentially an expanded andnfreestanding edition of SL’s travel section,nand Southern Accents, sort of anSouthern Architectural Digest. SouthernnAccents appeals to a more upscalenmarket than its parent magazine, butnthe basic message — that Southernersnhave both a different idea of graciousnliving and a special knack for it — isnapproximately the same.nCORRESPONDENCEnIn the interests of science, I readnanother magazine with pretty muchnthe same view of what the South isnabout. “The days of Scarlett O’Haranmay be gone,” says an ad in SouthernnBride (subtitled “The Magazine ofnTraditional Weddings”), “but thatnsame graciousness and majesty, thatnsame elegance and style so steeped inntradition live on in the Southern weddingsntoday.” No Kahlil Gibran here,nin other words, and the magazine’snletters column provides a forum fornaggrieved traditionalists like the ministernwho wrote to complain about ancouple who wanted “She’s Having MynBaby ” played at their wedding.nRegional chauvinism can provide anpotent hook for advertising, as it doesnfor the Birmingham engraver whongushes in Southern Bride that “There’snJust Something About a SouthernnWedding — Something Only a SouthernnEngraver Can Capture!” Butnsometimes the pitch is a little morensubtle, like: “Thanks to her grandmother,nher hair is red, her eyes arengreen and her flatware is silver.”nA somewhat less old-fashioned imagenof the South can be found innSouthern Style, a big glossy women’snmagazine from the Whittle Communicationsnempire of Knoxville. “ThenSouthern woman stands apart from hernneighbors to the north and the west,”nthe first issue proclaimed. “She isnproud, she is dedicated, she is capablenand she has the courage to live life, notnmerely observe it.” (I have no ideanwhat this means. Do you?)nClearly the editors hope that “thenSouthern woman” stands apart at leastnenough to want a magazine of hernown. One way she stands apart, theynclaim, is in what she wants to look like.nAccording to the magazine’s marketndirector, “Editors in New York don’tnknow [Southern women’s] taste innclothes or hairstyles and they don’tnunderstand their pride in the region.”nBefore Southern Style came along,nmany Southern women had given upnon Yankee fashion magazines: “Theyneither didn’t want to look like that or itnwas unattainable.”nMaybe so. Anyway, the attractivenwomen pictured in Southern Style arennnnot the killer androgynes one finds innVogue — although few are as unandrogynousnas Dolly Parton, whongraced the first issue’s cover andnallowed inside that “I’m always defendingnus. I’m quick to jump in whennsomebody tries to make light of thenSouth.” If you’ve ever picked up anmagazine only to find all the cents-offncoupons already clipped, SouthernnStyle has found the answer: each ad fornDuncan Hines cake mix in its specialn”Salon Edition” (distributed free tonbeauty parlors throughout the South)nis accompanied by a dozen coupons.nThis sounds tacky, but Southern Stylenis actually well-edited, pleasant to looknat, and surprisingly literate.nWhen you’ve had as much gentilitynas you can stand, though, turn for anpurgative to a magazine that’s one ofnmy personal favorites: Southern Gunsn& Shooter. A recent cover shows twonpistols superimposed on the Confederatenbattle flag and headlines an articlenentitled “The Threat From Up Northn•—They’re Still Trying To Take OurnGuns Away.” In the same issue anothernarticle reviews the “45 ACP: S—tnKicker of a Gun,” and a regular featurenis the “Sheriff of the Month.” This isnnot some low-budget lunatic-fringennewsletter. At $2.50, it is chock-full ofnadvertising and color photographs withncaphons like, “Jan likes the feel of anlong barrel, something she can get hernfingers around and caress like a finencollector’s item.” Eat your heart out,nHoward Metzenbaum.nRight now the question of Southernnidentity, what it means to be Southernnand who qualifies, strikes me as up forngrabs, and regional magazines offer anremarkable variety of answers, somenonly implicitly, others more forthrightly.nThe Southern Partisan, forninstance, a fire-eating quarterly out ofnColumbia, still stoutly maintains thenclassic “Forget, Hell!” position. ThenPartisan never apologizes, seldom explains.nIts views on current politicsncould be characterized roughly as NewnRight, but the issues that really excite itnare old ones. Very old ones. Its sectionsnhave headings like “The Smoke NevernClears,” “From Behind EnemynLines,” and “CSA Today,” and itsnJANUARY 1990/47n