So Gene Weingarten, esteemed Washington Post humor columnist and Pulitzer prize winner has taken a buyout from the Washington Post. I know it's the nature of life for my favorite players and bands and columnists to call it a day, but as a hometown boy, it was tough to see Kornheiser finally give up the newspaper ghost, and it's sad to see Weingarten go.
I will say that there are still a number of great writers at the post, Steven Pearlstein is one of the few and proud liberal business columnists (Not an oxymoron!!!), Lisa de Moraes's American Idol recaps are fucking hilarious, and Robin Givhan is a fantastic fashion writer. And alas they still have the undead corpse of Tom Shales to criticize all television things from his zombie lair, but I don't hold that against them.
Personally my favorite Weingarten article was a really beautiful profile of the most isolated of Alaskan towns (sorry you gotta pay for the full article). As a humor writer he was a fearless experimenter -- calling up company call in numbers, having endless post-feminist dialogues, and writing a column almost completely of footnotes. The Alaska piece was essential a jokey idea that became a much more serious feature.
Basically now there's gonna really be no reason to now read the Post Sunday Magazine.
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And so we witness the end.
10 years ago
5 comments:
I really enjoy Date Lab.
I go back and forth on Date lab. But it always has a certain car crash quality that is hard to find elsewhere.
One of the best pieces of writing I have read in an extremely long time was a Post Magazine cover story from a few weeks ago about a man deciding to forgive his son's killer and speaking at his parole hearing. Really powerful stuff.
I also enjoy the food critic they have - Tom Sietsma (Sp?)
I have to be honest - I've only read Gene's column 2 or 3 times, but in those times I was never impressed. Given your thoughts on him, and a Pulitzer Prize, I must never have seen his best work but as of right now my Magazine Reading looks relatively unchanged.
XX files are often good reads too.
i'm still bitter against weingarten for trying so hard and failing to be dave barry. i stopped reading him years ago so maybe he dropped that bit, but it inspired pretty deep hatred.
Oh I never thought Gene Weingarten was trying to be like Dave Barry!!! I love them both differently.
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