Category Archives: magazine

My Response To Dara Horn of #TheAtlanticmag

Posted on by toddpanther

This is an edited version of what I left in her email prompt on her website:

“Hello, first of all, I want to say that I admire the passion of/in your writing. Yes, take no prisoners (pun unintended). I think you wrote something for The Smithsonian about Anne Frank that I really enjoyed.
“Since we no longer have an old Village Voice Letters Page to emphatically argue these points:
“I appreciated your article. I’m unapologetically on the other side of this issue. Because of that (most of my tears are for those Palestinian babies), I would have appreciated it a lot more if it had carried this paragraph or something like it, using your argument and tone:

*****
‘Many people–including some of my fellow, deluded Jewish Americans–incorrectly believe that Israel is an apartheid state. Therefore, openly supporting such a state, in their (the activists’) view, means that they (the victims in the article) are fair game, whether in Harvard Yard or at a music festival in Israel. I think this ‘thinking’ is morally, politically and spiritually bankrupt and I would have believed so if there was a substantial Afrikanner-American population in the United States being abused during the apartheid years. (There was not.) No one has the right to make an American citizen, privileged or not, feel unsafe in the United States because of their views of, and open love for, their ancestral homeland.’

*****
“We’ll agree to disagree on this one. But thanks again for that work on Anne Frank.

–TSB”

All Of Our “Back In The Days” :) (Or: R.I.P., Or Last-Rites I.C.U., 20th-Century Post-World-War II Print Magazine Culture)

Posted on by toddpanther

Since we all have this kind of song in us, here’s mine! The funny part is that I never experienced this “full monty” directly or fully as a wannabe magazine writer. (Thanks, Victoria Valentine, for letting me write for The Crisis! Thanks, Marcus Reeves, for connecting me with The Source‘s Akiba Solomon, who connected me with E. Assata Wright! And thanks to Richard Prince, who connected me with Lyne Pitts at The Root!) But knowing it existed, even if out of my grasp for one reason or another, made me happy:

Man, the good ol’ days…a magazine feature article at least 10,000 words long (and was at least .50 a word!) that took at least two drafts and six months to do….sitting for days with an editor who was more talented than you but believed in the cause so he/she sat with you and co-wrote, without even thinking of credit, a much-better third/fourth draft (known in magazine world as “editing”)….a serious illustration on the left, opposite the opening text….listed in the Table of Contents and, if you were a star, a cover line (and if you were a superstar, an added byline)…..on every newsstand in the country…knowing you were the public envy of some other writer somewhere….Knowing for somebody, somewhere what you wrote was their favorite article and he/she/they would keep that issue for 20 years, too emotionally attached to it to throw it away……*sniff* 🙂

Wait, 10 is 14 Again?!? Yeah, that’s “Doctor Who” Math For You :)

Posted on by toddpanther

As the ultimate David Tennant-as-10th-Doctor fan, I can’t explain to you how much I am against his return. So I can’t tell you how happy this trailer makes me!!! LMAO!!!!!

(For those who need catching up: Previously…..)

*********

🙂

Interesting That These Rich, Famous Network Anchors/Hosts…..

Posted on by toddpanther

…..have openly demoted themselves to special correspondents. I’d like to think it’s a public commentary on the limitations of network anchoring and a true hunger to produce 20th-century, middlebrow magazine-like narrative–and those professional aspects might play a part. But hearing these goodbyes, it really sounds more like the intimate results of a work-life balance self-inventory, a real understanding that they are in a post-COVID/pre-old-age-illness vortex. (I mean, even Amy Goodman–who used to helm Democracy Now! no matter how sick she got!–actually took a day off last week to be part of a relative’s graduation.) In Chuck’s case, it’s almost like someone in his family told him, “You’re missing it.” Well, now he, Judy and Rachel won’t.

SEPTEMBER 10th UPDATE:

Marvel Studios’ The Marvels | Teaser Trailer

Posted on by toddpanther
x3

Just the trailer makes me want to see this team in its own movie trilogy! And I love this choice from The Beasties!

SEPTEMBER 14th UPDATE:

55

Posted on by toddpanther

So my quest for a hit single/EP is beginning to fade, the long-nebulous goal of grasping Solange-level power in a public-sphere world of Beyonces starting to look sad, even to me. (Since my pilot never aired, I don’t have to worry about cancellation.) My decades-long nightmare of becoming the lead character in Mr. Holland’s Opus–for an intellectual adventurer like myself, a horror movie personified!–has slowly come true, despite my best and worst efforts. During my five decades of life, I have had to learn how to be my own writer, which means for me that writers should take sides but not necessarily be on sides. My provocative approach to my professional journey means my skeleton will one day be found in some wings somewhere, still waiting for its close-up, its all-too-brief moment of viral spin in a writing world dominated by bots. But for right now, inspired by ever-infuriating, ever-fascinating and often-courageous magazine journalism, take-no-prisoners podcasting, diligent documenting and powerful historical narrative nonfiction, I am still here to contribute and complain. As a writer (and now audio commentator) who will probably be remembered best as my superhero secret identity The Human eNewsletter 🙂 , I give thanks to God, the Ancestors and you.