Atlantic slinks out of town
The Atlantic Magazine announced it is moving to Washington. D.C., and this has sent a fiery javelin into the mufti camps of Boston arts and letters. Alex Beam, the best writer in town, lampooned the move by creating a few working analogies and stretching them. His ludicrous vignettes include Harvard moving to Nebraska. He's right. If the New York Times were to move to New Jersey, nay, [as the Gints did that], to Indiana, the effect could not be more telling. This is sure the end of the road of something just like the closing of Chess records - or the move of Motown [or the Dodgers] to L.A. The Atlantic would be better off throwing in the towel, one feels.
This place could be a center, certainly for politics, science, technology, and art. Beats anyplace I've been from these points of view.
But Massachusetts has taken a lot as Texas has ascended. Boston was once the Hub of the Universe. No less, in its mind at least. It was the brains and [mostly Puritan] moral compass for America, as New York was really about commerce [well the kind of commerce where the money would break a sweat]. You probably heard the joke describing U.S. newspapers: The Washington Post is read by the people that run the country, the New York Times is read by the people who think they run the country. The Boston Globe is run by the people who used to run the country. Guess ustabe is better than never was. Boston defined American culture .. but now, maybe, it is most defined as a sports town. And save haven for Senators red-nosed Kennedy and pouty Kerry.
Anyway, today was Patriot's Day, a true state holiday. Unlike Evacuation Day, which is only Boston only. Eat your heart out world, these are our days. On both, the boys of Mission Hill start early.
I always like Harpers better than the Atlantic. But I got a feeling that its offices were there on the edge of the Public Garden. Still, those offices moved a while ago. Never got accepted by Atlantic. But once Jeff Hull asked for some of my poetry [Phantom jets flew constantly over the city], which he cut up and applied to his wilderbeast grey-black-and-white oil paintings, and those were hung in the Atlantic antechamber. Hail, Atlantic!
8:38:35 PM 
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