It's getting dark too early, and the long, cold New York winter is looming. 'Tis the season when exotic beaches, palm trees and women lingering in hammocks adorn the cover of travel magazines.

Upon first glance at the November 14 Forbes, I thought I'd unwittingly been transported back into the dank netherworld that was 2003. And what a forbidding time it was: technology, business and lifestyle publications were foisting "blogs might be worse than Communism!" cover stories upon an unsuspecting and often indifferent public.

It's been said that irony is dead, but Heeb: The New Jew Review, is keeping it alive and dancing the horah. This month's issue of the magazine, which is written for a certain kind of hip, downtown, probably-more-likely-to-do-yoga-or-meditate-than-go-to-shul (except on the High Holidays)--and yes, slightly-self-hating Jew--is devoted to sex.

I say hip-hip-hooray for shopping magazines, perhaps the only print genre that doesn't demand of its audience functional or even partial literacy. So with the ol' brain in the shop for its 50,000-mile tune-up, I grabbed a copy of the November SHOP Etc., hoping to glean a bunch of gift ideas for the gals (I mean, gal) in my life without breaking a sweat.

Everyone loves to hate Radar. It's kinda the equivalent of making yourself seem cool by hating the too-cool-for-school kids in high school. I really tried not to hate it and to read the latest issue, which is devoted to the scariest thing of 2005, with an open mind.

It was around mile 22 of Sunday's New York City Marathon when, hamstrung and hallucinating, I realized that I seriously needed a new hobby. Prompted by a chorus of voices in my head, including one approximating the clipped cadence of Judi Dench, I first considered power-walking, which I dismissed as something one does when the car won't start. Weight training came and went as a possibility, owing to my distaste for non-eating-related grunting. Tae Bo, tai chi, tidying the closets...none seemed likely to offer the mental and physical release of a multi-mile romp.

The Week is one of my favorite reads--not only because it is the most objective publication out there for U.S and international news, but because it's got that great combination of snarky satire and serious commentary that only the Brits do best.

An initial run through the November issue of Golf Magazine made me wonder what I'd gotten myself into. First there were the Glamour-ous cover lines ("Nail the new sweet spot," "Lower your scores with their magic moves"). Then the first few pages revealed a host of women's-mag staples: tons of reader Q&As, a self-test, even a cutesy-pie events calendar. Save for the absence of the adjective "multi-orgasmic," I thought I'd unwittingly wandered into the forbidding netherworld of--gasp!--the service publication.

In the premiere issue of Tango magazine, Andrea Miller, the founder and CEO, explains the reason that she started a magazine about relationships: she looked at the newsstand and realized that "there was nothing that spoke to women--and their partners--about the most fundamental part of their live: their relationships."

As best as I can tell, the intended appeal of Us Weekly is best captured by one of its regular features, "Stars--They're Just Like Us!" In it, we're treated to photos of a post-jog Matthew McConaughey resting in the sun, Jay Leno gassing up one of his 62,275 roadsters and Ben Stiller's wife shopping for what appears to be some sort of ornate walnut bangle. By deflating and--cough! cough!-- humanizing celebrities, then, the magazine helps make Janey and Johnny Lunchpail feel better about their minimum-wage gig at the sardine cannery.