EDITORS’ NOTEBOOK

The memory retrieves not only the good times or the bad. Sometimes, the things that flash most readily to mind are the moments of absolute absurdity. So it is, squinting back over our first year of publication, that we remember more easily the little quirks and miscues, which I am convinced, despite the panic they cause, provide the sort of perverse fascination that attracts so many bright people to this business at such low salaries. With the kind permission of my colleagues, I’ve pulled together some of the more outstanding examples, which are offered here as our own first annual awards.



For Best Overall Aberration, an as-yet unidentified staff member who took it upon himself to designate our fourth issue, last January, as “Volume 2, Number 1.” This issue in your hands, as you well know, should be “Volume 2, Number 1,” but our staff member apparently thought he would welcome the New Year with an innovation. Why, you may wonder, didn’t we correct the error? Behold our Special Award to the U.S. Postal Service, which it seems, not only understands our issue indexing system, but likes it and wants – no, requires – us to maintain it. Seems the government doesn’t care if you number issues in Mongolian fertility symbols as long as they move sequentially forward. No turning back. No matter that the numbers are wrong, just so long as they are consistently wrong.



For Best Over-all Panic of the Year, Wick Allison, publisher and editor-in-chief, for his behind-the-scenes sabotage work during preparation of our March issue, “100 Ideas to Make Dallas a Better Place.” A few days before deadline, Art Director Alan Neuschwander, in a heroic attempt at organization, decided that we should clip all of the ideas – then set in preliminary galley type – and tape them up on poster boards so at least we could see the issue in perspective.



Lo and behold, we did have exactly 100 ideas. But not for long. At five that afternoon, Neuschwander, who was in the final stages of preparing the “100 Ideas” pages for the printer, limped into my office and said, “I’m down to the last page and guess what…”



Enough. I gathered a lynch mob and went looking for the culprit, a maneuver which consisted of stomping into the publisher’s office and asking why the hell he was tearing down our ideas. He puffed his pipe contemplatively and said in a fully confident voice: “I got to thinking. 100 is such an obvious number. How about 97 ideas to make Dallas a better place?”

For Best Typo of the Year, a tie between two mistakes from our “Keeping Up” section. One item, which should have read, “NTSU Summer Institute on Aging will conduct two week courses. . .” came back from the typesetter styled, “NTSU Summer Institute on Aging will conduct two week corpses. . .” The other was supposed to have read, “… a gospel singing contest. Singers will receive cash prizes,” and came out reading, “… a gospel singing contest. Sinners will receive cash prizes.”

For Best Mixed Metaphor of the Year, Senior Editor John Merwin, in his first draft of “Whatever Happened to the Great Land Boom?”: “Land booms blossoming on paper chains wilt quickly.”

For Best Dangling Syntax of the Year, Robert Finklea in the first draft of “The Dallas Sting”: “A thin, balding man limped in the door of the East Dallas bank, dragging a stiff right leg behind him.” Our typesetter queried, “His own, I hope.”

For Worst Pun of the Year, a tie between Assistant Editor David Bauer and Arts and Entertainment Editor Charles Matthews: Bauer for an attempt at a head for his backgammon story in the August issue, “Gammon Eggs”; Matthews for his try at a headline for his column on actress Ellen Burstyn, “Burstyn With Talent.”

Our readers deserve their share of credit, too. Best Reply to the circulation department goes to Bruce G. McDougal. Our advertising agency had prepared a Christmas gift; solicitation written to the tune of “Deck the Halls.” In response, Mr. McDougal wrote: “Spending dough on friends is folly/Saving cash is much more jolly/Bring we now a quick declining/Order forms I am not signing.”

Two ladies, writing anonymously, deserve some of the glory, also. On the very same day last week the circulation department received scribbled notes exclaiming, respectively, “Too, too liberal for the average person!” and “You’d be a good magazine if you weren’t so Republican!”