20 Egg

I remember a year when the children were small, we hid one egg so well for our Easter egg hunt in the house, that we never found it until it started to smell! So it may have been for this magazine, Egg, Premiere Issue, March 1990. Although you would have a difficult time hiding or misplacing this journal--it is very large, about 11 x 11 with a sexy pair of legs on the cover. According to Hal Rubenstein's note to the reader on page 8, there had been some buzz in the bizz--was it about cooking, was it for the intellectually gifted, was it about biology, computer languages, women or Fabergé.

Egg is about fun. That's it. Fun. . . Doing whatever it is that interests you because it makes you happy. [long list of celebs you might enjoy meeting] Our goal is to get you to share our enthusiasms, steal our curiosity, use the book as a guide to what you may not have the time to find out for yourself.

Then Malcolm S. Forbes, the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief (who died two weeks before it was published) chimes in on p. 15. He tells a long, rambling story about trying to find nightlife in New York on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday by trial and error and who the people are in the making/shaking cities around the country having a good time.

So, that's why Egg. If you're into the fun of being alive. . . discovery. Singers. Swingers. Platters, Players. Clubs. Balls. Films. TV. Fashion. Art. Galleries. Stage. Stagers. Resaturants. Chefs. Food. Drink. Design. Designers. Architecture. Buyers. Sellers. Makers. Those about to be.

In a March 1 Folio article about the strange, brief life of Egg, Rachel Lehmann-Haupt writes

Egg launched in 1990 running 496 ad pages for the year, 20 percent over its target, according to Sharon Phair, its ad director. The first cover featured TV personality Mary Hart, and was headlined “On Golden Calves: Whose legs are worth $2 million?” a tongue-in-cheek interview about why America was obsessed with Hart's legs. The magazine was square, about the size of a record album and art directed by a newcomer, Douglas Riccardi, who had worked as a graphic designer for Tibor Kalman's M and Co. . In 1998, the editors of the now defunct POV magazine resurrected Egg after buying the name from Forbes Inc. for a dollar. The editors published four issues.

One of the celebrities you meet (low editorial budget, big ad budget) in the first issue is Sy Sperling. Never heard of him? He's the guy on the late night infomercials for Hair Club for Men. Surely you haven't forgotten, "He's not just the president of Hair Club for Men. He's a client!" Also a comedian. In the interview, he discusses staying humble after becoming a celebrity because of the ads: "I never lose touch with my roots. . ."

Egg re-premiered in April 1998 as a bi-annual, still focused on nightlife, but without the LA/NY focus. It kept the logo, but lost the square share.

I also have in my collection the premiere issue of Yolk.

Egg
March 1990, Premiere Issue
ISSN: 1046-5278
Subject: Nightlife, Lifestyle
Publication schedule, monthly, bimonthly June/July, December/January
Status: ceased after 11 issues
Egg Magazine, a division of Forbes Inc.
7 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
$2.50;$10 for 10 issues
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief: Malcolm S. Forbes
Editor: Hal Rubenstein