Sassy!

Yesterday I was very excited (irrationally excited, some might say) to learn that the Lemonheads are coming to town. While I was unaware that they had released any albums since 1993, apparently they put one out last year. I haven't listened to any excerpts yet, perhaps delaying the inevitable discovery that it is really bad. Instead, I pulled out It's a Shame About Ray and have been basking in the memories of my circa-1992 teenage crush on Evan Dando. He was so cute! He seemed kind of sweet and goofy and somehow wholesome despite writing a song (a great song) about going out to buy pot! He took a fan to the prom!

Wait...what's that? Took a fan to the prom? Yes...that's the bit that won my whole heart over to Mr. Dando. The story (perhaps apocryphal?) was that a fan, having been stood up for her prom, instead found her way to the Lemonheads' party, where she told Evan about what had happened, and he offered to escort her to the prom. I dreamed that this would (or even could) happen to me. What a guy!

My knowledge of the prom story, and my crush on (or even awareness of) the Lemonheads' lead singer, is owed entirely to my subscription to Sassy Magazine. It only lasted about 6 years, and I only subscribed for two at the most, but those were formative years, and I was an impressionable girl. Sassy was founded by a feminist, and while it had normal girls-magazine articles about boys and celebrities and clothes, it steered us away from the brainless trends and encouraged to be individuals (er...well...as much as possible, for people following the suggestions of a widely-read magazine). Sassy girls didn't go google-eyed for jocks, they swooned for brooding creative types like Evan Dando. They didn't like boy bands, they liked boys who were in bands. They didn't wear what all the other girls were wearing, they layered their clothes and stitched things onto them. I remember one article about how to make your hair look like you've just come from swimming in the ocean. They wrote fiction and poetry and discussed Issues. They were in bands. They read zines. OK, so I didn't do any of those things myself. (I tried the hair thing but it looked ridiculous.) But I definitely identified with that independent spirit more than with the vapidity of Seventeen or 'Teen which I occasionally read. Most of all, Sassy influenced my music and pop culture tastes. The editor, Jane Pratt, was friends with Michael Stipe. The first time REM published lyrics was for Losing My Religion, in Sassy. Spike Jonze worked for the magazine, as did Chloe Sevigny.

Sassy was, quite simply, the best girls' magazine ever. And as it turns out, I'm not the only one who thinks so, and a book is due out this spring on that very subject. You bet I'm going to buy it. If you have never read Sassy, it's your loss, but here's a great article about it.

Once I looked in my mom's attic to see if I had saved any of those magazines. Unfortunately, although I have every notebook from every class in high school and college, I must have thrown out the magazines. As it turns out it is my loss--both in terms of nostalgia and in terms of potential financial gain.

Anyway, enough reminiscing for one day. In two weeks I'll be in the front row, screaming like the 16-year-old I used to be, but for now I'm going back to adulthood.