Saw a magazine subscription on sale at one of the daily sale websites. It's called ReadyMade and bills itself as "Instructions for everyday life." When I look at that cover, it strikes me that it's not a new concept. It reminds me strongly of the old Apartment Life magazine, before it became the hoity-toity Metropolitan Home. Cover blurbs include "47 ways to transform your cramped corner into a roomy retreat," "Recycle everything," "Kill kitchen clutter," "Build floating shelves," "Home-brewed hard cider" and "Make art you can sit on." If there were no photos, I'd swear these articles were published over 30 years ago in Apartment Life. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. In these uncertain economic times, we should be going back to basics. Metropolitan Home focuses on fancy furniture that goes for thousands, set in the typically sprawling late 20th/early 21st century American house. Its predecessor and ReadyMade write about making the best of what you have, without breaking the bank and in cramped confines. That can-do DIY spirit we used to have 30 years ago (also seen in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics issues of the day) may just may a comeback. Times were tough then as now. Let's just hope in a few years, we don't lapse back into the wretched excess of the 1980s.