Letter From the Editor
Last week the server went down. Those words hardly have the ring of “Hier ma mere est morte,” but believe you me, the existential profundity is there. At four in the morning, three pages were incorrectly sent to the printer, resulting in our second Borat feature in a matter of three months. The man gets enough press.
The first order of business is to apologize to our film editor, Emily Rauber, and music editor Justin Goncalves, both of whom put together stunning pages and whose articles will run through the week in the daily Spectator.
The unfortunate mishap was a testament to the futility of planning. But did you really miss anything in those three pages of The Eye?
I remember a TA of mine, a writer for the New Republic, telling the class that he had read the Times Op- Ed pages every day. One day, he threw the habit away, and after a migraine and group session, felt hardly the worse for wear.
Needless to say, as an aspiring journalist, the anecdote proved a rather thorny barb. As a magazine writer, my place in the world is already rather tenuous.
I recall the era before I interned at a magazine. The wondrous ignorance I lived: How did they fill their pages? From where did they cull their troves of hidden vintage, and how did they balance it with a handle on substantive news and research?
A trip into any magazine office is a pilgrimage to the fax machine and an homage to the press release, and an entry into a world where the best font takes all. Then there’s the shameless theft of intellectual property, which as a retired fact-checker I can tell you afflicts more than once celebrated critic.
To continue to read trend pieces—and what’s more, to create them—would seem the ultimate fall. How low my self-esteem! It’s a matter due for consideration: Magazine reporting makes news. In spite of the machine designed to bring you the latest trends, a good piece speaks to the power of the individual editor. Matt Mireles brings you said good piece as he brings you a recurring dispatch and the voice of one man in Iraq.
Reading integrates you into the world. With Columbia’s reputation in flux, the very meaning of your degree hangs in the balance. Jennie Morgan speculates on the inflation of your $40,000 investment.
Analysis can even rewrite history. In one new box set, TK sees the resuscitation of the much-maligned band Alkaline Trio. Max Foxman and I visit an exhibition of Wallace Berman’s work, where NYU curators reveal the enduring relevance of an artist all but forgotten.
Magazine reporting is a clean metaphor for life. The Eye sees on!