Prof. McI.,

Hmm....... so dealing w/ the New York Times 'overlords', rather than their groveling "underlings" WILL get us somewhere in this unfortunate 'worst of 'Times', worst of 'Times' scenario? (Clearly there's no BEST of 'Times'.

Frankly, being out here on the Left Coast, I must confess I rarely read the New York Times, (let alone, their magazine), except for say some excerpted, or more precisely, bootlegged articles on-line. Astute, IMO barely right-of-center political columnist David Brooks comes immediately to mind.

I have enough of a formidable challenge doing justice to my meaty Sunday edition of the L.A. Times (quite the slog of a read), who in my view have 'borrowed' much of their evolving overall aesthetic (look), and formating style quite shamelessly from the venerable NY Times. Copy cats!

Sadly, our monthly L.A. Magazine (called "LA") , curiously, is delivered w/ our Sunday edition ONLY to those upper-crust subscribers living in say Brentwood, Beverly Hills, or Los Feliz, and other upwardly-mobile, more affluent neighborhoods.

Of course my pipsqueak, grittier, working-class, hard-scrabble community of Van Nuys gets short shrift, where we under-class folk are obliged to log on, or phone in to 'The Times' to initiate regular delivery of the 'mag' supplement, at no additional cost. (Thanks for small mercies.)

I guess Van Nuys' long-standing association w/ the 'seXXX-rated' film industry doesn't help. HA! (Frankly, if my little community here in The Valley is a veritable hotbed of smoldering porn production, these purveyors and producers of smut are keeping an amazingly low profile. Not that I've been doing any gumshoe sleuthing in that regard. Am I blushing? HA!)

Up till recently, one of my best, most reliable defenses of Van Nuys used to be that wacky, very cerebral NPR frequent commentator Sandra Tsing Loh at one time lived for quite a stretch right here, smack-dab, in our fair L.A. County municipality, and was even inspired to write a hilarious book titled, "A Year in Van Nuys"------a very funny recounting of her many trials and tribulations living in what some detractors have labelled one of 'the armpits' of the San Fernando Valley. Clearly, her title is an obvious play on author Peter Mayle's very popular, best-seller, "A Year in Provence".

Hmm..... not too may vineyards in Van Nuys and environs, although regrettably there is no shortage of winos. HA! (Just a little first-hand observational humor there. Nothing against winos, per se.)

Au revoir!

ALEX

If the editors can't find the space to put the "On Language" column, I suggest they take another look at their beautiful, glamorous, useless, pointless two-page table of contents. Has anyone ever used the table of contents in a Sunday magazine? They're especially stupid now that the fashion is to be cagey about describing the contents:
"I had no idea about plastics".........34
Things and such..............................42
[photo of a leg]...............................56
The Collection................................58

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