rashbre central: a different kind of voice

Wednesday 23 August 2017

a different kind of voice


It's a stretch to link my recent left bank Paris excursions to this story, but I couldn't help notice that New York's Village Voice has decided to go digital only.

The Voice used to be my immediate acquisition when travelling through New York and was something that survived otherwise ruthless packing when returning to to the UK. That whole process disappears in the world of digital.

Why the Paris link?

Many would say that Greenwich Village (the origin of the Voice) was like an American equivalent of left bank Paris. Add a couple of the Voice's catalysts Mailer and Malaquais/Malakai first meeting at the Sorbonne. Back in the village, Malaquais introduced Mailer to Wolf, the second of the Voice's founders. And Greenwich village's San Remo bar is a kind of NY version of a Café de Flore, so I think my link just about works.

The Village Voice I used to pick up was a kind of pre-blogging blog with its come-all-ye approach to attracting writers, plus its Craigslist quantity of entertaining small ads, It was inevitably competed with by other formats. I expect a few other 'magazines' are looking over their shoulders.

Caught between the twisted stars
The plotted lines the faulty map
That brought Columbus to New York.

As the front cover artist featured this week would have said.

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