http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-ca-robertson13nov13,0,5207639.story?coll=cl-calendar
In the above article Mark Swed talks about the director of the St. Lous Symphony and tell me more about the City of St. Louis than Steve Lopez has told me about LA - since he's been here.
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Brady , why so ambivalent?
You know, understanding that not everything is black and white is a sign of good mental health. And you certainly have that understanding .
Because of your ambivalence it is difficult to say you are a psycho . Keep up the good work.
Everytime I start to doubt you , you surprise me and bring me back.
My point is that Steve Lopez HAS grown into his role at the LA Times. His Skid Row series was brilliant - one of the best pieces of newspaper reporting I have ever read anytime, any place.
When Lopez is digging into a story and doing actual reporting, he is as good as it gets - and I have stated that repeatedly. But when it came to his final column, after the reporting was done - it all fell apart. There was no long any there... there.
And in all the years he has been doing his column, there has been exactly one time when I recognized the city I live in. Just once in one column set in a South Los Angeles barber shop.
Mainly, though, he writes about himself and his opinions and talks to people who can echo his viewpoint, which is fine, for that kind of column. But there is never any sense of Los Angeles as a unique place in any of those columns. Even his again superb columns about his homeless friend, they could have been printed in any city in this city - and no one would have known the difference.
Lastly, there are plenty of people at the Times to write about Arnold and Iraqi - but there is no one who writes a column about what it is to live in this city at the start of the 21st Centruy, and those was supposed to be his job
The closest thing the Times has right now is... Mark Swed. In his classical music reviews he relates with is going on in the concert hall with what is giong on in Los Angeles and he does a far better job even in that limited vneue than Lopez ever will be able to - or should even bother to try any more. You can't fake caring about a city you do not care about.
Lopez has found something he is great at - and the Times should allow him to do what he is best at.
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