Garden & Gun Magazine (No Joke!)

It's alive and it has a press release:

Garden & Gun, a new Southern lifestyle magazine, will hit newsstands in April. The publication will reflect "the modern lives of affluent Southerners and those who aspire to the sporting life of the South," according to a company statement.

And on their website we find gorgeous photography and this ad copy:

In the 21st Century American South there is a breed of modern men and women whose mindset is at once old world and new....Stewards of the land, they love the outdoors and long to conserve all that the favorable environment and climate affords them.  They seek a magazine that is contemporary yet classic, confident, sophisticated - a new kind of Southern magazine.

Garden & Gun will attract men and women who live an adventure bound, art loving, skeet-shooting lifestyle and who have a love affair with the South.

Thanks, Garden & Gun, for reminding me why I carried myself OUT of ole Virginny as soon as I legally could.

And thanks to Doreen Howard for alerting the (disbelieving) Garden Writers Listserv to this new publication (subscribe now!)  She also passed along this information about a gun soon to be introduced by Marlin Firearms.  "It's marketed as 'perfect for getting rid of chipmunks, mice, snakes, and other garden pests', sort of a mini shotgun.  Without the loud blast.  It will be called the 'Garden Gun'".

Now get this.  According to the website, Garden & Gun is being published by none other than Rebecca Darwin, former publisher of New Yorker Magazine.  We've heard the publishing world is all a-fluster over its new competition on the Internet but this is just bizarre.  So bizarre, in fact, that I'm still not entirely sure this isn't an early April Fool's joke, in which case - ya got me!!

Joke or no, the Garden Writers Listserv has been having lots of fun with this, using subject lines like "Let the Games Begin!" and tongue-in-cheek reports of Poetry Magazine's takeover by the NRA and subsequent roll-out as Poems and Pistols.  Et cetera.  Readers, your contributions?

UPDATE:  Called Garden&Gun, We Done You Wrong.  Turns out it's a really good magazine.

Comments

[william]

Black people seem to be carrying out their traditional role in the deep South - blatently rascist - shame on them - see the pictures on the splash page - if the content of the magazine reflected these attidudes, they would be prosecuted in the UK and rightly so. Does the Cru Clux Clan still exist?!

[ginger]

Well, it is a beautiful web site and you have to applaud when a company picks a name which is both politically incorrect and offensive to a good portion of the public. Using a gun in the garden is nothing new but to brag about it is in bad form...just one opinion. They are offering a free first issue so let's all call their bluff and see just what is inside that cover!

[Dave]

C'mon, Gardenrant, you're better than this. So this magazine's goals are to promote 'upland bird hunting, gardening, fishing, sailing, equestrian sports and conservation'... which one of those do you find offensive, and why?

[K Wade]

Hmmm, let's see. Decadence? Entitlement? Wastefulness of resources? Cruelty? Or just a continuation of the me me me attitude that keeps us focused on how 'life is just a big bowl of cherries' ...unless, of course, we can't even afford the magazine. I would take them up on the free issue, just to see whether there is any focus whatsoever on conservation... other than for the wealthy and priviledged. Yeah boy, that's what I want to support.

[Ed Bruske]

I can do better than that. I'm starting a new magazine called "Garden, Gun & Skillet." It also will employ that new mini-shotgun. But instead of treating squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons as pests, it will treat them as food. Lots of garden veggies and new ways to consume those four-legged critters who've been making off with your tomatoes. How about Brunswick stew with frisee?

[ginger]

Ed: Great idea and could you please include some 'road kill' recipes. That is sustainable living!

[Michelle Derviss]

Dick Cheney should be their first center fold pin up boi.
After all he's the poster child for gun safety and is himself Americas' best weapon of mass destruction.

For their culinary department he could be shown splayed out ceramoniously in the center page with a big red ripe apple in his mouth and a side of good old fashion Southern style deep fried chitlens, served up by the same person on the cover of Guns and Garden who is assisting the lily white fisherman in servitude .

They still don't get it do they ?

[The County Clerk]

Hey... sounds good to me. I am a rather serious skeet shooter. I simply don't care to kill things for fun, so I don't hunt. But I would if needed. And if you break into my house late at night and put my family in danger, I will shoot you.

But my REAL attraction is the shotguns themselves... I love my shotguns... beautiful Italian works of art (one is Belgian)... magnificent really (and substantial investments). I'm not a "gun guy" except for these sporting field guns... which live in a safe, disassembled, the metal only touched with gloved hands (that's what the wood is for).

And I love my gardens to.

And I'm Southern, living in a cold place.

I'm not too keen on the title though. Seems a little... uh... not for me.

I'm also a big supporter of the Ruffed Grouse Society (which is also supported by hunters) beacuse the goals are to protect upland gameland and upland game species.

What's wrong with that?

If the title were less... uh... in my face, I'd probably subscribe.

Sporting Guns and Gardens? I'd buy that.

[Amy Stewart]

I'd like to start "Books & Bombs: The Magazine of Detonative Prose." Because, you know, writing stuff down and blowing stuff up just goes together so naturally.

Let's send our new friends at Gardens & Guns some story ideas. How about: "Ten Easy Ways To Bury Bodies in the Perennial Border (And Get Those Spring Bulbs Planted, Too!)"

I mean, if you've shot it, you either need to eat it or bury it, right?

[Ellis Hollow]

My sister (Pacific Northwest, not Dixie) is an avid gardener and also enjoys skeet and bird hunting as well as fly fishing (though without the 'guide' on the splash page). But my guess is that she would rather subscribe to more specialized magazines for each of those avocations. Heck, I'd even consider one of those 'garden guns' now that the snow's retreated and I can see the rabbit damage. (Who am I kidding. I couldn't even kill the groundhog I live-trapped last year.)

That splash page really gets me though. I was going to take folks to task for reading too much into this publication. But that image is no accident. I don't think they're selling a lifestyle I aspire to.

[Ed Bruske]

It keeps getting better. I'm seeing a number of synergies here, such as produce that doesn't work in the compost bin, but does work as ammo. For instance, 10-guage acorns. Or, for smaller game, coriander seed buckshot. I'm willing to bet that okra seeds, properly cured, could bring down a raccoon or a small deer. And those long, tough flower stalks that beg, What can I do? at the end of the season. I'm thinking sunflower stalks, amaranth, jerusalem artichoke. Aren't they just waiting to be made into some kind of spears for big game hunting? Now I'm getting a glimmer of a "Survivor" or "Lost" episode. This is where a guy in a loin cloth is running through the landscape with a mint julip in one hand and an okra spear in the other shouting, "You are mine, rabbit! All mine!"

[Pam J.]

That website is such a howler! So over the top... I think it actually may be a joke... I checked out the website before I read Susan's original post, so I didn't see her remark "So bizarre, in fact, that I'm still not entirely sure this isn't an early April Fool's joke." If it's NOT a joke I feel sure the creator(s) snorted and snickered while he/she/they wrote the copy, picked the photos, etc. I HOPE they did..

And yet, and yet...demographically there IS a population of people who would defend hunting, love gardens and all things "outdoors," & buy stuff. I'm married to one: a fly fisherman who loves gardens. And while I can't call him a hunter, he's been known to shoot a bird or two. He was raised in, and still lives in Maryland---some would call that a southern state. He subscribes to a ton of fly fishing magazines. Hell, if Garden&Gun turns out to be real magazine & they have a decent promotion dept they'll find my husband and send him glossy solicitations in the mail--you probably know the kind I mean, the ones that can't be composted w/o polluting the environment. I'll report back if we ever receive such mail (but I still think it's such a howler that it has to be a joke).

[Heather]

That HAS to be an April Fool's joke, but I'm not checking back in case it isn't. Yikes.

[Pam J.]

barf. I read a little further and now believe the mag IS real and then I read this from their press release:
' “We aim to be more upscale, more targeted and more niche than older, mass-audience titles like Southern Living,” says Darwin. “Our reader is someone who enjoys the outdoor life — the men and women who aspire to the traditions of the sporting lifestyle. They will typically be in their 30s and 40s, affluent, well-educated and lead active lives.”'

ugh.
"more niche"
"aspire to the traditions of the sporting lifestyle."
so elitist. pee uuu.

[Pam J.]

sorry. one more remark:
I bet it'll have great photos.

[Susan Harris]

Naturally I signed up for a free copy of their first edition and unless they deem my zipcode to be too low-class - and that's entirely possible - I'll be reporting back.

[bev]

Thanks to all commenters for the best laugh I've had in a week. I laughed till I cried; you all really had fun with this one.
As for the magazine, I truly don't know whether to laugh or cry!

[Ed Bruske]

This just in: "Guns & Gardens" has been forced to cease publication effective immediately. The publisher/owner was out shooting in the garden, bagged her neighbor's dog and celebrated by consuming a toxic dose of rhubarb leaves. A spokesman for the magazine explained that the deceased owner/publisher mistook the rhubarb for Swiss chard. Employees responded by taking up arms and shooting all the rhubarb.

[ginger]

I just read a timely article mentioning that one way to bag mistletoe is to shoot it out of a tree! Great article fodder for this new magazine! Can't wait to see my first issue unless, like Sue, they deem my zip too 'northern'! Still LOL at all the comments. It doesn't get any better than this!

[Yolanda Elizabet]

Well shoot, people, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Personally I've been gardening with my gun for years. It makes deadheading flowers so much easier. Honest!

[Michelle Derviss]

Yolanda's post lends a whole new meaning to the phrase : "dead heading".

snort !

[Ellis Hollow]

I recall a picture from one of the old Foxfire book series with an old guy aiming a rifle from behind a tree. The caption: Organic woodchuck control.

When it comes to those darn whistle pigs, whatever works.

[The County Clerk]

I'm subscribing.

Looks good to me.

Thanks for letting me know about it.

[Bryan Hunter]

I find it so amusing, albeit disturbing, that so many self-described "enlightened" people could be so ignorant of the facts. Sportsmen, in the South and elsewhere, have done more for conservation in this country than any other group. The National Wild Turkey Federation brought wild turkey to near-threatened status to the point that populations are prolific throughout their range. Ducks Unlimited has saved more wetland habitat than any well intentioned but batty government initiatives (except for the ones DU itself lobbied for). Quail Unlimited is scratching like mad to reverse the damage done by development and ecologically unethical corporate farming practices that have decimated quail populations across their range--an 80 % decline since the late 60s--and are beginning to see some success. So hunters harvest a small portion of the game they have struggled to preserve? Were it not for their efforts, chances are there would be no wild turkey, ducks, or quail at all. Get educated about the facts before you start spouting your supercilious ignorance. Talk about misplaced elitisms. As to the magazine's title, which I agreed from the beginning was a bit obscure: it's named for a now defunct Charleston nightclub that went a long way towards breaking down rigid racial, gender, and social lines in the city. Unfortunately, I doubt very few outside Charleston would get the allusion, as I feared from the beginning. Fact of the matter is, those of us who live in the South—and whose families have lived in the South for generations—really don’t care what you outsiders think. I’m just glad the person who started this blog left Virginia. Goodbye and good riddance, but shame on you for denigrating your heritage. It betrays a small mind.

[Elizabeth]

The magazine takes its name from a Charleston bar in the 70's that was basically Charleston's version of Studio 54. One of the few places around at that time where people of any race, gender, or sexual orientation were completely welcomed.