Kevin Allman

Book review sections get the axe

Following the news that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has jettisoned its longtime book editor and replaced its book review section with canned wire copy, I'm glad to see that the National Book Critics Circle has organized an effort to save the section...as well as to send a message to other papers across the country that might be considering the same move in the name of cost-cutting.

I know book-section ads are down (and I know every newspaper in the country thinks the key to financial success is to offer readers less original content while charging them the same amount of money -- a unique business plan that's another rant entirely). Still, cutting out book reviews is a false economy. And a dumb idea. Why?

At a time when newspapers are trying to hang on to readers--not just people who read the paper, but people who are readers--getting rid of the one tiny specialty section of the paper geared toward people who read is spectacularly short-sighted. Most of the newspapers considering scaling back their book sections have already accepted the fact that local coverage is the one thing that television and the Net can't provide. (You don't notice too many ads in the Metro section--but that's another area of the paper that can't be duplicated effectively in any other medium. Yet.)

So why would any paper drop a locally written book-review section that focuses on its own singular community? That's an audience that's telling the editors loud and clear that it would rather get its news from the paper instead of from CNN or a blog. At a time when circulation numbers are giving stockholders migraines, why drive even more readers away?

The Atlanta books community is organizing a Thursday protest outside the Journal-Constitution's offices. I'll be interested to see what happens.

Roux and Boomsday

Two new short pieces today in the Willamette Week. One is a review of the Louisiana-themed North Portland restaurant Roux (pretty darn good), and the other a review of Christopher Buckley's new satirical novel Boomsday. I loved Thank You For Smoking, and this was even sharper.

Getting paid to read books and eat every day...my ideal job.

I love copyeditors

Really. I do. Sure, once in a while they'll foul you up, but 99 times out of 100 they'll save your butt from an embarrassing mistake. (That said...some of 'em could use a brushup on popular culture. I've blogged before about the copyeditor who saw a colleague's reference to the flash-in-the-pan soul star Jesse Johnson and changed it to Jesse Jackson. And I once had a run-in with an editor over the sentence "Aerosmith boomed from the open door" -- puzzled at the unfamiliar reference, she consulted the U.S. Patent Office.)

But copyediting is a tough, nitpicky, unheralded job, and one really good copyeditor is probably worth a clutch of decent reporters. Merrill Perlman is one of those--she's the head of The New York Times' copy desk, and she could probably find six errors so far in this post. Plus she takes questions like this one:

Q. Why does The New York Times insist on not using the serial comma? Its absence can often lead to ambiguity or misunderstanding, and without it the rhythm of language is damaged — try reading aloud a few of your serials.

A. Ah, the serial comma. Also known as the Harvard comma (or the Oxford comma in British English). I'm surprised wars haven't been fought over it (or over split infinitives, which also elicit strong opinions).

I couldn't care less about most of the wars in the world, but I am passionate about the serial comma, and I can say without shame or apology that The New York Times is just plain damn wrong in this matter. (They have been known to err Judith Miller in the past.) Which sentence makes more sense?

"I remember watching Jan and Dean, Sonny and Cher and Peter, Paul and Mary."

"I remember watching Jan and Dean, Sonny and Cher, and Peter, Paul, and Mary."

(Actually, neither sentence probably makes any sense to anyone under 35, but my point stands.)

There's another nice Q&A with Merrill Perlman from NPR's On the Media, in which she takes on the second raging issue from the copy desk--split infinitives:

There was a time in the late 19th century when somehow, somewhere, someone – and I don't know the actual derivation – decided that split infinitives were a bad thing, and all the public schools started teaching that split infinitives were bad. Well, tell that to Gene Roddenberry, because it is not "boldly to go where no man has gone before." It is "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Because people feel so strongly about that, New York Times' newspaper style is, if you don't have to split it, don't aggravate people. But if you have to split it, it's okay, because it's not wrong.

And on that, we are in complete agreement. My philosophy is: don't split an infinitive, unless it makes the sentence awkward or clumsy, or it makes you sound like a complete dork. Then split that sucker, and don't look back.

But this is the quote that would make me vote for Ms. Perlman for president:

[T]here are no laws regulating grammar. (If there were, the first people to be arrested should be those who think an apostrophe and the letter "s" create a plural, as in a sign that says "All Shoe's on Sale.")

President, police chief--I'd vote for Merrill Perlman for anything.

New article

I've got a story about senior fitness programs in the spring issue of Get Active! magazine.

Priorities

CNN: Your Most Trusted Name in News-Flavored Programming Content(TM)

Real-life horror certainly has a way of jumping the shark in record time these days. Not 18 hours after the the mass murder at Virginia Tech, and already CNN has ceded the newsdesk to Dr. Phil, who is right now Putting This Tragedy Into Perspective...and, presumably, laying the groundwork so We Can Begin Healing.

Oregonian ouch

...or: Why online papers need an editor, too:

That's some really unfortunate juxtaposition there -- both in terms of image and story -- and it's been online that way for more than 2 hours. Hello?

Celebrity gossip

Brad, Angie Say They'll Take Ray

New Orleanians breathed a collective sigh of relief last week, as celebrity super-couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie confirmed they are in late-stage negotiations to adopt New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin....

My new favorite blog: David Kamp

David Kamp's The United States of Arugula, a funny and insightful look at what we eat and why we eat it, was one of my favorite books of last year. And today I stumbled across his blog.

It's all gold, from his persuasive argument as to why we need retire the phrase "equal-opportunity offender" to his reminiscence about how he got The Family Circus' Bil Keane to produce a political cartoon during the 1992 presidential election:

I thought it would be funny, in light of all the tribulations that Bill Clinton had faced en route to the Democratic nomination, to do a Family Circus-style cartoon that traced “Little Billy Clinton’s” winding path to the top of the Dem ticket. Unfortunately, the legal people quashed the idea of hiring an illustrator to do a Keane parody, on the grounds that Keane could sue. But Robert Priest, then GQ ’s art director, said, “Well, why don’t we just ask Bil Keane if he’ll do it himself?”To our surprise, Keane was thrilled to do it, and promptly delivered a wonderful two-page cartoon based on my script. (I’d show it here, but Keane owns the rights.) Little Billy Clinton looked just like any other ovoid-headed Circus-er, except he wore a blazer and had a head of bushy, graying hair. I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments that I got Bil Keane to draw Sister Souljah, the militant rapper-activist who achieved a measure of minor ’92 fame when Clinton repudiated her inflammatory racial remarks. (Souljah actually looked kind of adorable with an ovoid Keane head.) Keane also drew a nude Gennifer Flowers making goo-goo eyes at Billy from behind a bush, and Arsenio Hall applauding Billy as he played sax.

There's more at Kamp's site--lots more. I'll just add that his enthusiastic pitch for Christopher Guest and the Best in Show crowd to take on the food world is the best idea I've heard for a movie in years.

Them thar cars

(Found on Rangelife.)

And, yes, the paper's managing editor is mortified.