Bless the Marin Independent-Journal. I have resisted subscribing to it, on and off, for years, but this dandy local paper happens to hire the most irresistible phone salespersons.However, my most recent lapse into subscriberhood happened about a year ago on the main sidewalk of San Rafael, when an overly glib guy talked me into taking a year for a mere $19.99. What a playa: When I flipped him a crisp twenty, he pointedly refused to give me back a penny. Penny = worthless; $19.99 one-year subscription to hometown paper = Meh, $20.
So. Today's edition. Rich with food items.
First up. "The Novato Senior Citizens Club has scheduled its annual chicken barbecue at 12:30 p.m. Aug. 28... The menu for the event will include barbecue chicken." D'oh! Oh, best part: "Guests are encouraged to come early." (Insert earlybird special joke.)
OK, next. A beloved local baking team which has sold its wares at farmers markets for the past several years is opening a bricks-and-mortar shop in Novato. These beloved bakers call their operation FlourChylde (which is very Marin; Marin squared, even). But the copy editor of the Marin I-J wrote a cutline for the huge, above-the-fold photo leading off the story with a misspelling: "Flowerchylde." Not the end of the world, but oh, such a punch in the guts for a couple of hopeful, dedicated entrepreneurs. Hang tight, guys, we'll find your new place.
More cutline cutups: a feature on Bing cherry recipes included a photo of a dish using "balsmatic" vinegar. No, I don't even think Ronco makes a "balsmatic." Yowch.
Another photo in the cherry series showed an "elegrant" dessert. Words frail me.
But it's not all dissing and hissing here at I'm Mad and I Copyedit.
The estimable Leslie Harlib managed to get the skinny on a Japanese restaurant recently opened in the space of the former Tomoe in San Rafael, and her writeup has me salivating for a visit to the new place, Sushi Lin. F'rinstance: "Wafu-burger, a Japanese-style beef burger sauced with soy, sake, Japanese brown sugar and honey, and served with rice." All that and sushi? I am so there.
Come to think of it, I'm all done ragging this rag for its paltry (not "paultry" — wait, that was supposed to be "Falkner," not "Faulkner") misspellings. Eh. There were a few others as well.
But not enough to wreck my appetite.
Not for that well-spent $20.
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12 comments:
Ah yes, small town papers. The police blotter reports were so funny in the Twin Cities Times (Larkspur and Corte Madera not MN) that my mom sent one into the New Yorker and they published it. It was about a woman reporting a vampire in her neighborhood. I am not kidding.
In other news, today's SF Examiner had a feature on the food of China, and a sidebar on Barbara Tropp's China Moon Cookbook. It mentioned that Tropp is the owner of China Moon. Interesting since the restaurant closed in the late 90's and Tropp DIED almost five years ago. Fact checking, anyone?
Heh heh, Balsmatic. That made me laugh out loud.
OMG. You owe me for a new keyboard, because mine is soaked with coffee. :-)
CC,
If only I were as good at catching my own typos as I am at catching the newspaper's.
20 years ago, we used to laugh at the Contra Costa Times. Now they're not as laughable. Perhaps that will be the case of the Marin I-J.
And I'm with Alice. "Balsmatic" made me want to cry because I was laughing so hard.
I know a really good copy editor but unfortunately she chose to move to Colorado earlier this year.
Words frail me too on that one but my laughter was more than abundant. Thanks for the grin this morning.
"Words frail me." Bwah!
Thanks for the trip down amnesia lane. We used to live in Marin and the I-J was a source of amusement and slack-jawed horror for us.
By the way, FlourChylde (I think the "chylde" is too much work but I do love the mariness of it) comes to the Davis Farmers' Market and their stuff is heavenly. Out of this world good. Scary good. [And they try to source local ingredients whenever possible.]
Glad it wasn't my Marin newspaper you chose to out. If you want some really wonderful reading, go to the police log in the Point Reyes Light. You can almost read it like a serial since so many of the perps are habitual offenders of drink and drug laws. And the off-the-wall paranoid calls from Bolinas to the sheriff's office are especially fine.
Hilarious! Gotta love a small town...when I first moved to Coos Bay Oregon to start grad school their local newspaper, "The Coos News," had an, um, interesting byline: "Printed on recycled spotted owl." Yikes! At least I knew which businesses to avoid.
I got so mad at the phone calls asking me to subscribe I promised a lawsuit.They stopped. I do read the food section but most of the articles orignate with other papers that I already read. Kudzu your paper should be a daily instead of a weekly..with a bigger food section and of course more of you.
Amy: I used to work at a former incarnation of the SF Examiner... I have STORIES that would blister your skin.
Newspaper copyediting is such a crime. The reporter writes the story, and then a know-nothing comes along and changes everything before it goes to press... including photo captions.
Suzanne, I agree that "chylde" is just way over the top... and yet -- and yet -- So Renaissance Faire!
Kudzu: You're safe. :)
Greg? Ooh. I better not make you mad.
Hilarious. We have a paper like that, too, but my frustration with them is more with their biased reporting and coverage than their editing.
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