Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Boy, what a life!

Quick announcement. As my colleagues already know, I've given notice at the Boston Globe. After four years here, during which time I wrote a column and edited copy for Ideas, briefly filled in as the Ombudsman, and (most recently) played a modest role in the effort to transform this great newspaper into a dynamic media company, I'm heading back to the life of a freelance writer, editor, multimedia producer, and consultant.

I will, however, continue to blog here at Brainiac. And I may begin to contribute more frequently to Ideas -- we'll see what happens!

By way of saying goodbye to the life of a newspaperman (though I was never a reporter), here's a couple of audio clips I published to Boston.com this morning. I was listening recently to the Lux Radio Theater's 1937 production of "The Front Page," starring Walter Winchell as newshound Hildy Johnson, and two scenes in particular cracked me up, for obvious reasons.

In the first clip, Johnson rhapsodizes about how great everything will be once he's quit the newspaper biz ("Boy, what a life!"). And in the second clip, Johnson tells his colleagues from other papers how despicable he thinks their profession is. Funny stuff... and funnier if you already know that Johnson will never actually quit his job. Because he loves it too much.

OK, that's it. Back to Brainiac. But first, an image from "His Girl Friday," the absolutely perfect 1940 film version of "The Front Page." That's Rosalind Russell as (the female) Hildy Johnson.

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 10:23 AM

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