Meanwhile, Several Months Later...

Late to the party, certainly, I picked up a copy of McSweeney's superb San Francisco Panorama in late May and have been slowly making my way through the fat chunk of newsprint and higher quality stock paper that compose the thing. It's all fairly old news, so I'm taking my time. If you're not familiar with Panorama, it came out in December of '09 and stands as McSweeney's, well, some would say swan song to the print newspaper, but I'd like to consider it a blueprint for the future of the medium. It contains several segments including news, sports, entertainment/book review and an interesting news-magazine supplement.

By far my favorite section is the magazine. I've been enlightened on the subjects of what transpires when two gay San Franciscans visit a NASCAR race in Michigan, why film distribution is broken in the U.S. (very handy while writing for Screened.com), how a green (as in experience) lawyer broke through the red tape to deliver a family from home foreclosure and how a black woman from Oakland experienced the cold southern climes of Antarctica.

It's that latter most article that's been continually blowing my mind these days as I read and then re-read the thing over and over again. It's the style the draws me in, as well as the story. Author Mary Williams writes from a third-person perspective and placing you in her place. There are plenty of "Your new boss..." and "You will..." moments where she pulls the reader into her place where I feel like she's just writing about me; I was the one suffering through frostbite and food-zealous dive-bombing skuas on the ice sheets of Antarctica. If she's still in Oakland I'd really like to meet her, shake her hand and buy her a hot cup of...whatever.

--Matt