My friend
architect Abraham Rogatnick, who died five years ago informed me of his
forthcoming death a year before. He told me, “I know this is a cliché, but
after my death it’s the deluge.” What I believe he meant is that whatever would
happen after his death would not be of any bearing to him. Oblivion may have
had something to do with it. At my age of 73 I am beginning to get the message.
About a
month ago I found out (it was not reported loudly anywhere) that the Vancouver
Courier would no longer publish twice a week. It was also revealed that it
would be business as usual on the net and that they would “publish” every day.
Since I am
a product of the last century, for me real publishing is something that ends up
with ink on paper and on my fingertips. I publish a blog every day but I squirm when I think that
this is true publishing.
Furthermore
I found out that the Vancouver Courier would now be available in special boxes
like those of the Georgia Straight, the Westender, and Xtra Vancouver. For
those like me who might live on the West Side you would not note a ubiquity of
Xtra Vancouver boxes nor would you know that at some point this
gay/bisexual/transgender/etc publication was formerly called Xtra! West. Note
the loss of the exclamation mark.
Furthermore (again)
if you note the changing demographic of my West Side neighbourhood, recently
amalgamated as Vancouver Granville for the next federal elections, you would suspect
that it didn’t pay off for the Vancouver Courier to deliver their West Side
Edition here. Every few months we stop getting it but I then email the
circulation manager and it's delivered again. I guess we represent a house that is simile for circling wagons.
For those
who know and read the Vancouver Courier (I do but my wife opts for the "editorials"
for IGA, London Drugs, Best Buy, etc) they might go directly to Kudos &
Kvetches. This would be the only column where you might read nasty intramural (but newsy)
comments about the disaster that Michael Kissinger (we who know, know he is Mr.
Kvetch) thinks the Vancouver Province, The Vancouver Sun and the Georgia Strait
are. That is fun as well as the irreverent choice of language. Compared to the Vancouver Courier's real gossip columnist and that of the Vancouver Sun's specialist of the bent soprano sax Kudos & Kvetches is real gossip.
Those who
know and have a good memory might miss Geof Olson’s musings on the existence of
flying saucers. I do as I remember.
So it
was with extreme surprise that last week and in this week’s Vancouver Courier
(dated September 3) that I saw on the strange two “editorial pages”, page A
10 and A11(complete with a big ad – New Dentures or a Natural Smile? & Famoso -
Neapolitan Pizzeria) a tiny rectangular masthead.
If you ask
those who are under 30 they would probably not know what a masthead is. They
might guess it is a shark.
The
masthead had the picture of three people, Publisher Dee Dhaliwal, City Editor
Michael Kissinger and Tara Lalanne as Director Sales & Marketing.
Nowhere
could I find the name of the editor or find a street address. On the
Vancouver Courier’s web page there was no masthead but something like it can
be seen under “Contact Us”. I noted that there Michael Kissinger was listed as
editor. I pressed the email link and got a blink@ address. Barry Link was the
former editor. Not more than 30 minutes later it was all corrected and now Barry Link
like Ballet BC’s John Alleyne is now a non-person in the old Soviet style of
disappearing people.
Still in my memory is the Vancouver Courier scoop (not quite the same as Breaking News!!) in which they revealed that a West Side Manse was being used as a house of ill repute. The Vancouver Sun was caught with their pants up.
Still in my memory is the Vancouver Courier scoop (not quite the same as Breaking News!!) in which they revealed that a West Side Manse was being used as a house of ill repute. The Vancouver Sun was caught with their pants up.
But the
above is not all that bad if you compare the Vancouver Courier's crisis of a diminishing
masthead with that of art magazine Geist. If you live on the West Side you would
never suspect of its existence.
There is no masthead but there is a street address. They (Geist, whoever they might be) mention an editorial board. It is not hyperlinked. There is blog on the net that mentions some sort of palace coup that happened in April.
As an Argentine born Canadian all these behind the scenes rumblings and shifts in our venerable journalistic tradition make me homesick for the real palace coups of my country. In those palace coups that other venerable tradition that is our CBC would have been de-masteheaded a long time ago as they would not have waited for the slow and painful efforts to transform the Corporation into a geist by our present supreme leader.
I must stop
right here as I want to listen (and see) Rachel Maddow tell me the latest about
Trump.