Shelf Life — Scott Dickensheets: O, brother: New magazine a tad overbearing

Friday, May 5, 2000 | 9:15 a.m.

Scott Dickensheets' books and magazines column appears Fridays. Reach him at 990-2446 or dickens@vegas.com

Uh oh. The sinking feeling starts at the cover. "Live your best life!" the headline on the premiere issue of O: The Oprah Magazine commands us. "Start right here, right now." That means you -- you who are unempowered, you who are not living up to your potential, you who do not enjoy the benefits of a personal chef (who gets a column inside) or a personal trainer (he gets one, too).

There must be a depressing number of such people -- my local Borders Books and Music ran out of the first issue almost upon putting it on the shelves. Memo to self: In that (apparently near) future when everyone prints their own publication, make sure S: The Scott Magazine capitalizes on people's apprehensions that they're not being all they can be.

If you think I'm making too much out of a cover headline, open it up. The forced march to a better you begins on the table of contents page: "I believe you're here to become more of yourself, to live your best life" our hostess purrs reassuringly in the first of many uplifting homilies.

With its editorial course charted by the personality and passions of its brand-name creator, O immediately brings to mind the magazine put out by that other human logo, Martha Stewart. But their publications reflect different philosophies. Martha moves from the exterior inward, espousing personal growth through color-coordinated place settings, attentive gardening and doily-based crafts -- her chicken soup for the soul involves actual chicken soup.

On the basis of O's first issue, Winfrey reaches past all that to directly apply open-heart massage. (Because your heart is aching.) Page 20 offers "This Month's Mission: Tap Your Personal Courage." It's a to-do list that begins with buying a notebook to use as your "courage journal." You are then prompted to evaluate your so-called life by answering the question, "What was I created to do?" "Each time you do something courageous, no matter how small, write it in your journal." At the bottom of the page is another punchy aphorism, suitable for embroidering: "The only courage you ever need is the courage to live your heart's desire." Well, except for the courage to keep a courage journal in the same house where your nosy spouse and snoopy kids might find it and use it against you.

O goes on like this all the way to the end. Folk pixie Jewel offers a few suspiciously polished diary entries ("Does anyone believe in love?"). The "Reflections" page actually provides spaces to answer such questions as "Am I satisfied with the life I am living?" (You can picture the editors excited by the reader interactiveness of that feature.) The O List offers "Oprah's faves: cozy pj's, eye-catching candles and chic totes." The "Oprah to Go" section offers perforated cards with Winfrey's fave inspirational sayings by Martlin Luther King and, of course, Epictetus. "Slide these pullout cards into pretty frames," the magazine advises, "slip them into your handbag or paste them into a journal" -- in case you need a booster shot of Oprah widsom.

It continues like this to the end ("Connect With Your Friends This Weekend," "Make Your Dreams come True: A Step-By-Step Planning Guide," "Sunday: The Day Just For You"), a 318-page, painfully earnest, largely joyless tromp toward personal betterment. At least Martha Stewart Living teaches you how to make centerpieces with pine cones. All you really learn from O is that you're not as fit, balanced, self-actualized, courageous (in that small, everyday, items-in-your-journal way) as Oprah must be -- but you can be! Probably not a bad deal for $2.95.

Still, you might wonder: What does she do for fun? Aside from scribble "Didn't take any crap from my driver today" in her courage journal, that is?

Because what I didn't find amid all these strategies for spiritual nourishment is any real sense of playfulness, of actual joy in life -- although letting your mind escape to a serene mountain lake (Page 258) sounds kind of fun (especially if your body goes along). Shouldn't being more of yourself involve having a good time? I certainly wouldn't want anymore of that part of myself that would fill out a courage journal. But O is so intent on telling us how to feel better, it ignores the best way to do so: have fun.

Now this is where Mrs. Shelf Life would remind me that as a bookwormy male of distinctly non-touchy-feely extraction (who, lacking a personal trainer, is already more of himself than he can stand), I'm seven or eight demographic zones away from O's target audience. "A lot of people like this stuff," she said, listing the day's small braveries in her courage journal.

Point conceded.

But I find it sad nonetheless that shortly after the ad-fat O launched, the much-better women's magazine Mirabella folded, lacking sufficient support. With its articles on culture and politics (real-world stuff O can't pry its eyes from its inner horizons long enough to be concerned with), Mirabella assumed the best of its readers -- that they had wide-ranging curiosities and could be enticed to read about topics they might not on the surface be interested in. O assumes they need textual healing.