A Good Day

With all due respect the the internet, I still cling to my hometown newspaper, which in my case happens to be The New York Times, which was also my longtime employer. As with any good web site, I hardly read everything; I cherry pick, and some days or some Sundays I can zip through the paper pretty fast. Only occasionally is there an article that interests me deeply, or at least deeply enough to get me past the headline and the lede.

That said, a few weeks ago the Sunday Times was particulzrly full of things I wanted to read. An unexpected front page Arts & Leisure article about my old pal Linda Ronstadt and her San Jose mariachi festival. A really good piece by Michael Tilson Thomas about Lenny Bernstein. Roslyn Sulcas on the Paris Opera Ballet. The front page expose about fake disabiliy claims by retirees from the Long Island Rail Road. Dexter Filkins in the Magazine on Iraq. Several pieces in the Book Review and, as usual, in the Week in Review. And of course my daily fix on the presidential election.

It made me nostalgic for the good old days, meaning the days when there was more I wanted to read in the paper and less commercial pop-culture dross (by which I am careful to make a distinction from real criticism about real pop culture). Mediums are not necessarily the message; mediums are the mediums, and if the future is the internet, the present is still partly in print.