by Chris Barrus
A couple of years ago I caught Sandow Birk’s history of the Great War down at the Laguna Art Museum and was totally blown away. In Smog And Thunder details a fictional historical war between Northern and Southern California with historical paintings, dioramas, topological maps, model war machines, propaganda posters, and an audio CD with war songs, recruitment commercials.
I picked up the book and CD at the show. Now it’s a film…
*sigh*. Admittedly, I’m still embittered from when the New Times organization bought out and shut down the L.A. Reader and Village View back in 1996, but damn…
Los Angeles New Times, the second largest alternative weekly in the L.A. area, is shutting down, silencing a quirky and inconsistent, yet valuable, journalistic voice, while costing the jobs of about 100 employees.
The closure is part of a complex deal with Village Voice Media, the parent company of the L.A. Weekly. Village Voice Media will purchase client lists from New Times, but no hard assets. VVM, in turn, will shut down the Free Times, in Cleveland, turning over client lists to the New Times paper in that city. Privately held VVM, based in New York, operates six remaining papers.
“To me, this is all about making us more competitive, particularly with the L.A. Times,” said VVM president David Schneiderman. “Like most daily newspapers, they have an aging readership and they want our readers. We’re not going to sit around and let them have them.”
The reaction was short and blunt from Michael Lacey, executive editor of New Times newspapers. “Go fuck yourself,” said Lacey, who was reached Wednesday morning at a Santa Monica beachside hotel. He slammed down the phone without responding to questions.
Even more irritating is that the LA New Times article archive is permanently off-line. Should have PDF’ed more. And worst of all, Meredith’s restaurant column now needs a home.
Nice article on the greatest taco stand ever. Absolutely, positively worth the drive up to Santa Barbara.