fallen soldier

Spending 12 years doing anything is hard, but spending 12 years reading magazines and writing about them intelligently is a feat worthly of Sisyphus. Well that's exactly the feat that the Washington Post's Peter Carlson has pulled off in his always-engaging column "The Magazine Reader." Unfortunately, Carlson has penned his last column, choosing to take the Washington Post's buyout offer in order to explore other arenas, "such as sloth and gin" (nobel pursuits both). Carlson's departure is a sad statement on both the state of newspapers and magazines (because, one would imagine, if they still felt vital, he'd have kept the beat going), and one worth noting here.