Is this really Madonna?

Decades ago, in the 1980s, I heard the writer Tom Wolfe talk about magazine covers and potted plants as corporate Americas contributions to culture. “I want to lick them,” he said, holding one or two aforesaid magazine covers at arms length from his white suit. We were in the lobby of a Manhattan modernist icon formerly known as the headquarters of the business formerly known as investment banking. The terrazzo floor studded with black planters paid homage to glistening surfaces and made for apt parallelism between sleek architecture and magazines. But any magazine watcher today has a lot more to worry about than the occupational hazard, on that day, of being busted for depositing a cigarette in the potted plant. And never mind that today its a magazine morgue out there. This month Modern Painters folded, having been preceded in demise by Louise Blouins other pub, Culture+Travel. The New Yorker, print wisdom-incarnate, has moved its publisher to a new job as”director of online sales.” Come again. Why does all this make me think of records, about which the refrain, at least 30 y ears ago, had something to do with finding them heavy to carry? But you know Madonna, Id always carry you.