Worth the wait
09/13/2007
As foretold by Dave Bowman, the time- and space-tripping astronaut from “2001: A Space Odyssey” who landed in a key role in the 1984 sequel “2010,” “something wonderful” is going to happen.
We feel that way around here at the Pasadena Weekly, mainly because of all the changes that have already happened and all the exciting additions and improvements that are to come in the next few months.
Many people may not have consciously noticed, but there have already been a few critical adjustments to the paper over the past few weeks, not the least of which is the addition of former Weekly owner and publisher Jim Laris to our already stellar lineup of guest columnists. Jim will be appearing every week.
Just back from a trip to the East Coast, where she's been performing and promoting her one-woman show, “Now That She's Gone,” Ellen Snortland has also returned to the fold in recent weeks, joining Hannah Naiditch, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Peter Scheer, Sally Sheklow, Marvin Schachter (another former owner of the paper) and a host of other great opinion writers.
But there have been a number of important structural changes to the paper as well. One is the expansion of the very popular Letters to the Editor section. Normally, that “hole,” as the space saved for text is called, would fit 1,000 to 1,100 words. After knocking down the point size of the text a hair or two, we now manage to squeeze in 1,600 words worth of letters, meaning your letters will be running a full two weeks faster than they normally would. That's important, considering we already have nearly 30,000 words worth of letters on deck, and nearly all of them commenting on one issue or another that we've covered recently.
If you'll notice, we also retooled the Table of Contents page in order to make that more complete and useful for finding things in the paper each week.
In the Citybeat news section, we've included a new column, Planet Watch — a kissing cousin to The Count, our weekly look at the casualties in the war in Iraq — which provides critical information about the overall health of our environment. We've also become more committed than ever to using more art to help tell our stories, and we're adjusting our Upfront section in order to make those news items not just more fun and interesting, but easier on the eyes.
We've also reduced the point size of the Calendar section, just so we can fit more happenings than ever into that space.
Really big changes, though, are occurring in our Dining section.
Along with a wealth of listings for places offering the best happy hours, steaks and martinis, we are now including recipes from some of the top chefs in the country, many of whom ply their trade at restaurants within walking distance of our Old Pasadena office.
Plus, we are now also featuring the work of Donna Barstow, whose clever and amusing cartoons are on a par in terms of taste and talent with something one might find in The New Yorker.
And since the Pasadena restaurant business represents an industry unto itself, we've decided to include news briefs about the world of local dining in our Dining Bites column.
The really cool thing is, though, there are lots of more great things on the way. We're undergoing a redesign as I write, and those changes, unlike some of the things that we've done lately, will be immediately noticeable.
Unfortunately, much like the spectral and cryptic Dave the Astronaut, played in both films by Keir Dullea, we can't really say just yet what all those changes will entail.
Just know that something wonderful is about to happen to your hometown paper. o
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