LIC magazine Ins&Outs hits the streets today with it’s 12th issue, ‘Health’

First, I must commend Ins&Outs on another great edition. As an avid reader I always look forward to what you choose to feature. However, in this issue I am a little perplexed by your photo quality in your fashion spread. As a professional in the fashion industry with over 10 years in the biz I must question your decision to feature a CHICKEN in your fashion spread. Not only this but were you blind when you decided to select fuzzy and unclear pictures as the best representation of the designers and your own?

- Perplexed Fashionista

I have never been wowed by this magazine. It always seems a bit glossy and not enough human interest stories. I also don’t think they’re LIC focused enough- hard to believe- but I don’t feel like I’m reading a magazine about my neighborhood. While I know its an arts magazine- I wish there was a little more connection to LIC.

3, agreed. Seems more like a promotional vehicle for advertisers than anything else.

It seems like a promotional vehicle for developers trying to sell an “upscale” image of the neighborhood.

It reminds me of an airline magazine. All fluff and no substance.

Why would liqcity regret it? My opinion of ins and outs has nothing to do with LIQ. I like that I can count on LIQ to post anything and everything LIC. Whether it’s good or not. I’m not so interested in the real estate stuff, but I like all the neighborhood news. As far as Ins and Outs goes, I personally think it has great potential as a magazine. They haven’t quite achieved it yet. Maybe they will take this as critical feedback and make the magazine better. And I agree about the confusing focus. Is it an LIC magazine or just LIC based?

Check out the “mission” statement and “about us”, on their website. It’s a magazine about business and the arts. Last time I checked, the “arts” is business. You probably won’t see any human interest or general neighborhood stories; unless it’s a human interest story concerning a business owner, or a neighborhood story linked to/about a business. Accept the magazine for what it is. It doesn’t appear that their introduction and the presentation of themselves, are deceiving in any way.

Charlie.

Possibly one zero too many.

Charlie.

My mistake. At 2.5 persons per apt. that would be about 189 Citylights sized buildings.

Charlie.

one citylights is enough thanks. zing!!

Beautiful cover.

Who is the long time resident that started INS&OUTS?

As a L.I.C.-resident musician whose ensemble (Zikrayat) is profiled in this month’s issue, i’ll make a bit of a defense of the magazine (though you’ll be justified in calling me out on the bias). My wife and I do Arabic music and Belly Dance, focusing on music from the “golden age” of the Egyptian movie musical, especially the 1950s. We’re trying to make this music and dance more well-known in the mainstream community, and we are also participating in the L.I.C. scene (we did Live at the Gantries last tuesday).

I’d like to commend Ins&Outs for doing their research well and getting so many details right (down to spellings of Egyptian names) on this rather obscure genre of music and dance (at least to Americans). There is a lot of real substance in that article on us–it’s not a fluff piece! So say what you will about the magazine being pitched to advertisers & luxury condo developers–and I don’t entirely disagree–but I will say that they are making an effort to put some real content about Long Island City artists in the magazine.

Gabriel Medina is Publisher. They are heavy on advertising, because they depend on advertisers to defray costs; otherwise, the magazine would not be FREE!

I think this is part of why I feel weird about Ins & Outs. It was the subject of an LIQcity post back in March. I just don’t understand the tone: there are gift bags, there are funny graphics, there’s a saccharine reporter… I just don’t get it. Are they speaking on behalf or artists who may detest the prospect of two bus loads of brokers? Or, are they welcoming them with gift bags and stupid questions? There’s just no clear point of view to me.

i&o is an art project. it isn’t a typical magazine — so very many people have been working on it since its beginnings four or five years ago, and things have changed from issue to issue — starting with issue 10 there was a complete overhaul of the sections and the way the magazine is presented. things keep changing.

i&o also isn’t an LIC newspaper — it CAN’T be, because it is a quarterly publication, and if it tried to capture all of the day to day events going on in LIC, as a newspaper would, everything would be out of date. speaking of which, #4, we are well aware of this. we made it a point to improve on our timeliness with this new issue. during the production of the last issue we had many personnel changes (some abrupt) and started working with a smaller staff, and we had to try our best to cope and get the magazine out as soon as we could, while tying up many loose ends.

#27 is right — it is a FREE magazine. magazines have ADS. some magazines have TONS of ads. why can’t i&o have ads, too, especially if we are a free magazine? we need to support ourselves in some way. in fact, if you look at older issues of the mag, we have LESS ads in the past two issues than i believe we’ve ever had. AND i&o covers the arts, but also businesses, small and large. we like to cover people working in LIC, like kenny from krypton neon or buz vaultz from exquisite glass & stone. yes, we are doing an article about a person who is an artist, but we are also promoting their business. we think that is a good thing — we support each other. the ads in the magazine — much more often than not — are also from LOCAL businesses, which we have always made it a point to support.

i&o has gone through many changes in personnel over the years — perhaps this is what accounts for the confusion. however, i think it is clearly stated in the liQcity post above, as well as in the publisher’s note in the current issue, that we are a magazine BASED IN long island city — we will ALWAYS be made in LIC. we LOVE to cover events in LIC, astoria, and queens in general, because we feel that queens is often overshadowed by the goings-on in manhattan and brooklyn. however, we are NOT entirely LIC-centric. perhaps we were more LIC-centric in earlier issues, but as i said, personnel have changed, the magazine has evolved, it is a continuing project with new writers and new contributors each time. we are ins&outs magazine from long island city, new york. but over the years we have expanded our focus to cover the rest of the NYC area as well as LIC/queens, including the other neighborhoods and boroughs, and i took care to indicate that in the statement posted on liQcity above, because i am aware of this confusion.

i myself am from LIC. born and raised, and i still live here. i’ve been here for my entire life. however, i haven’t been working on i&o since it began. as i said, many different people have worked on the magazine, some for a short time, others for longer. i feel so strongly about this magazine because i get to work in my neighborhood and find out more about the people who live and work and make art here, as well as people making art and doing interesting things all over NYC. since i’ve been working at i&o, i personally strive to integrate as much LIC/queens content as i can, even as we expand. this is why we covered zikrayat, from LIC. krypton neon, from LIC. the texas firehouse, in LIC. we reached out to residents for an article (asking them the question: “is LIC still a community”?), and did some research about toxic soil in the area. we covered olafur eliasson in PS1, nicole atkins at socrates sculpture park, a retrospective of flux factory, new comedy venues in LIC and astoria, art-o-mat’s “endless inspiration,” and sought out talented musicians/bands from QUEENS instead of anywhere else. why should content like this be called fluff? why is content like this cold or off-putting?

the magazine is changing, and we are always striving to be better. we would appreciate if you would pick up the new issue and check it out — please don’t rely on your impressions of the website or of older issues. the actual hard copy of the magazine is so different, colorful, and unique when you can actually hold it in your hands. we work with a very small, tight-knit staff, and we are changing and integrating new content as we go along. i have had so many amazing experiences creating this new issue in particular, and making this magazine in general.

you don’t have to turn to us for your day to day LIC news, because a daily newspaper or a frequently updated internet site like liQcity is much more efficient. we’re an art project in the form of a magazine created in LIC, always trying our best to feature amazing people, amazing artists, and the especially the people who wouldn’t have a forum or a chance for coverage in other media.

thank you for your comments and criticism — we will try our best to use it constructively. we are ALWAYS looking for comments and contributions — if you’ve seen the magazine, the website, or our subway posters, we are continuously promoting the fact that we are ALWAYS open to new writers, new voices, and especially LIC RESIDENTS who have something to say. TALK TO US (as you have in this post!). get involved in our photo project, even. we’d love to make you feel more like this magazine is from your neighborhood, or about something — at least one thing — you can relate to. LIC is my neighborhood, too.

two more points: #1, the fashion editor and the rest of the staff were not involved in the final production of the fashion spread in the magazine — the final decisions were solely those of the publisher and his chosen photographer. wait till you see the spread we have in store for the next issue :)

and clarice, # 29 — i myself am obviously not a fan of gentrification. in the area of LIC where i’ve lived all my life, condos have finally started creeping up, and the views i’ve had since childhood — the views right outside my front door — have suddenly been altered. it, of course, is unsettling. however, i haven’t injected this opinion into the magazine. we like to focus on creativity and progress and the positive things going on in this amazing neighborhood, and the many other neighborhoods in NYC — perhaps, to some, this makes us seem like we write fluff pieces with no substance, but as i said before, we are an arts magazine, an ongoing art project, and we very much enjoy meeting and working with people and telling their stories. i know i do.

we would love to delve deeper into what actual residents feel about what has been going on in neighborhood, as we started to do with our “is LIC still a community?” piece — we will try to do this more in the future. the video you mentioned, clarice, was, i believe, the very first — or at least one of the first — episodes of “ins&outs tv,” when we were initially trying things out. sometimes we like to poke fun at things and make it a little ambiguous. everyone is entitled to an opinion about what we do, of course! the videos are just supposed to be fun and interesting.. and as i said, we are always evolving, and trying to get better at what we do.

i apologize for the length of this comment (!), but there was a lot to respond to.

thanks again.

Just like I said previously in post #13; they’re a magazine about the arts and business, and the arts is also business, in addition to being an outlet of creativity. They’ve in no way been deceiving, as to what the magazine is; at least as far as I can tell. Now you’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth.

Like everything else in life that can’t be judged by concete measurements; drawing opinions & conclusions on Ins & Outs or any magazine, is based on subjectivity . You’ll either like it or not, to some degree, or you won’t care one way or the other.

Perhaps those who don’t like it, are not a part of their target market; which might explain why they don’t like it, because it wasn’t designed for them. Who knows? Of course this is just speculation, because it would take readership and demographic/psychographic studies to determine that.

Charlie.