Required Reading: The Smart Set
November 07, 2011, By Jack Heffron 0 comments
I discovered The Smart Set online magazine through Arts & Letters Daily, an aggregator that provides links to articles and reviews about the world of, well, arts and letters. Since then, I've made it a habit to check in regularly on The Smart Set for sharp, witty reviews, essays and articles on a wide range of subjects from entertainment to pop culture, history to politics to sports. The first-person columns range far and wide—and sometimes deep into the writer's life.
The site is produced through Philadelphia's Drexel University, but its tone, if erudite, is not at all academic. Instead, you'll find a surprising vitality and irreverence, one that brings to mind revered literary lions George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken, who edited "The Smart Set" magazine way back in the 1920s. Both were known more as smart asses than "smart" in the sense of fashionable and well-to-do. The new online version also features cool graphics that evoke the early decades of the 20th Century, the heyday of print magazines.
A recommendation if you want to stick just a toe in the water before making a splash: a first-person story by Mark Kram, Jr., about his relationship with his father, who was one of the top sports writers of his era, appearing in "Sports Illustrated," "Esquire" and "Playboy." A powerful look at fathers and sons.
