So we’re tooling along, minding our own business, sort of thinking we should get started with work with this morning, then, thwap!, slap in the face. Buried in the lead of what was supposed to be a puff piece about Amy Tan taking over as literary editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine is news that said magazine is, oh oh, changing its name.
Can nothing remain the same anymore? Can’t we have a little stability in our world? Is this the result of the collective additional seconds afforded the LAT’s brain trust? Did they learn nothing from the millions of outraged and confused Chris Erskine fans? Rhetorical question.
Sorting the newsprint from the ads is a task done largely from visual memory. See magazine’s title, put in this pile. See ad that looks like a magazine, put in that pile. Now we have to think on Sunday mornings. Not good, not good at all.
4 responses so far ↓
Karen // Jan 13, 2006 at 10:34 am
Well, you probably don’t remember this (and I’m too lazy to verify), but it seems to me that the Sunday mag was called “West” back in the 70s. If you ignore the 30 years in between, and however many other incarnations there may have been, you could see this as more a return to the paper’s roots than a sign of instability. I’m more worried that the fiction (fiction?) they’re looking to run must be 2500 words or less AND capture the spirit of California. Sigh.
Booksquare // Jan 13, 2006 at 11:51 am
Yes, they say it’s a return to the roots of the publication, but I’m told to go back in time. I need, demand, stability.
Also longer word counts.
tod goldberg // Jan 16, 2006 at 1:56 am
And a close reader of other blogs — namely mine — would have noted that I wrote about this, like, a week before it was in the LA Times. I’m totally Lois Lane over here. But no. You’re over on that other blog in the Goldberg household, no time for literary scoops elsewhere…
Booksquare // Jan 16, 2006 at 11:01 am
I am shamed, truly shamed. I have no excuse except sheer laziness. Please forgive me — I will never again make the mistake of choosing one Goldberg over another. I have learned my lesson.