Daily Office Wednesday
¶ Matins: A look at this week’s Book Review.
¶ Prime: Two stories show the superiority of Gothamist to The New York Times for local reporting — and one of them involves a Times writer!
¶ Sext: Which would you rather have, a dollar or a dollar-fifty? Don’t be too sure!
Oremus…
§ Matins. Three Yeses in this week’s Book Review — all non-fiction, and two of them bearing the ordinarily fatal How X Changed Y formula in their subtitles. (Variations: The X That Changed the Y Forever.) Haven’t we all had enough of this superlatition? The Editor Who Changed Subtitles— AAARGH! —Forever!
§ Prime. The Metro North story took forever to appear at the Times’s site, and by then it was pretty much over, with service restored and nothing but delays to report. Tara Parker-Pope’s account of the unexpected finale of a performance of Gypsy appeared in the Times first, of course, but the Gothamist summary gets to the point a lot more quickly. Feuilletons have their place in journalism, but I wish they’d stop serving as the default template for every story.
In other news, copies of The Sun, addressed to Kathleen, have begun to appear at our doorstep, unordered, every morning. As far as I’m concerned, The Sun is a neocon rag that I can barely pick up with tongs. As long as it lasts, though, I’ll give the Arts section a glance.
§ Sext. A link for which I am perpetually in George Snyder’s debt leads to Luc Sante’s Web log, Pinakothek. Featuring the writer’s collection of postcards and other printed matters, Pinakothek is everything that a carefree visit to the attic ought to be. Mr Sante follows the sometimes surprising associations that are prompted by his found objects. I find no end of reassurance in the blog’s complete indifference to “news.” Everything that pops into Luc Sante’s head is news.