I tend to jump around from issue to issue, reading the movie and theater reviews as soon as an issue arrives in the mail.
That's sort of like what I do. I start with the movie reviews, especially if they're by Anthony Lane or involve a movie I've heard of. I also read the back page cartoon contest, because that's quick and occasionally funny. Then the "Shouts and Murmurs" if it looks at all funny, the letters, the contributors' notes.
Then I read anything I think will be good based on the writer, especially David Sedaris -- any issue with a David Sedaris piece is a winner with me -- but also Malcolm Gladwell and to a lesser extent Larissa MacFarquhar (again, dating back to her oddly memorable Brian Grazer profile), Louis Menand, Nicholas Lemann and a few others.
Then I read anything about what looks like an interesting subject on its own merits.
Then the magazine gets cast into a pile where it sits for months.
Then it's time to clean house and I go through the by now giant pile and rip out any articles that I still feel compelled to read.
Then those ripped-out articles sit there for months. Occasionally, I grab a bunch of them the way you might grab a wad of Kleenex, stick it in my purse and have it there to read when I have idle time. Just today, for example, I was out and about and had some extra time so wound up reading part of a profile of Arianna Huffington that originally ran who knows when and was in my backpack.
Then I eventually take the still unread ripped-out articles -- by now dating back practically to the Clinton Administration -- and throw them out.
I should add that the half-life of my New Yorkers used to be a little shorter before I became a Brokie. They did go through the same basic life cycle, though.