Over the years, I have been an avid magazine subscriber. At times, I’ve had four going at once. I’ve done Harper’s (my first and longest, though I finally had to give up after the “maybe HIV doesn’t cause AIDS” article), The New Yorker, The Atlantic, n+1, New Left Review, New York Review of Books, Bloomberg Businessweek, and London Review of Books. The latter two kept me busy for a couple years, but I finally let my Businessweek subscription lapse and am now at a critically low level, contenting myself with LRB alone.
Hence I come to you, dear readers: should I add anything to my arsenal? Should I return to one of my past subscriptions? (For instance, has Harper’s bounced back?)
An und für sich 
One of my correspondents has generously given me a subscription to Vanity Fair and the Atlantic as a birthday gift. I guess I’m set now.
I don’t think anything has bounced back, although I’m not sure about Harper’s and the AIDS thing was about 10 years ago…Atlantic went downhill, probably gradually for a long time now, it’s not all bad but it was probably better in the 70s (I’m not that old but used to live with someone with a lot of back issues). NYRB I used to drool over (around 15-20 years ago?) and now I find it boring, I don’t know if it’s me or them that’s changed though. It’s full of the kind of things I wish I could learn the info in without actually reading.
I guess the New Yorker is the one I’d probably get although there are often 5 page features about things I’d be interested in reading two pages about.
Best advice is stock up on back issues of Mad.
I somehow have a subscription to Architectural Digest. It comes to my apartment under my name. I never asked for it, and don’t pay for it. I wish it would stop. Fuck Architectural Digest.
My only thought on the matter is don’t get a weekly. Every time we subscribe to a weekly, I end up going, “What? It’s been a week already?! Good lord!” It was distressing, but part of that could’ve been because I often hadn’t read any of the previous issue.
I really can’t recommend Jacobin strongly enough.
Have you tried the Washington Monthly?
Le Monde Diplomatique (no relation to Le Monde) : at its worst the best left blogs ever mustered, its best remaining unequaled.
Read lots of government documents instead. Serious articles are based on them, and they don’t have any fancy prose.