L.A.'s Limited Magazine Scene

It's a common complaint -- Los Angeles just won't support a second city magazine. Ask anyone who worked at, or even just read, the late, lamented Buzz.

Patt Morrison -- yes, the woman with the wacky hats (you were wondering, so I might as well satisfy your curiosity) -- discusses L.A.'s magazine conundrum in the L.A. Times' Calendar Weekend section, arguing that it's useless trying to paint Los Angeles with one stroke via a general interest mag. Niche publications are the way to cover this city, she says:

To write about L.A. for L.A. presumes there is "a" Los Angeles, but just as L.A. defies conventional templates of cityhood, its psycho-geography defies the standard-issue magazine. L.A. is a vast centrifuge that flings people across hundreds of miles of neighborhoods. Unlike the dense urbs of Europe and the East Coast, this place has few common actions, little common dialogue, few common characters — apart from movie stars, and mags in Ouagadougou can write about them. In L.A., "the mayor" is a different guy or gal in each of scores of cities, and a "well-known fact" in Silver Lake may be as much a mystery in Calabasas as it is in Kiev.

With that out of the way, Morrison critiques a handful of Los Angeles-based mags -- although, interestingly, she leaves out Distinction, the upscale pub recently launched by the L.A. Times' sales department. Hmm.

Here's what she says about Los Angeles mag: "Los Angeles mag is to the local glossy pub biz what the Tournament of Roses is to holiday parades — the granddaddy. It's a grand slam page-turner through the Los Angeles the world believes we all live in — the glitzkrieg Westside of L.A.'s rich and gorgeous, the theme park ride where You Must Be This Blond to Enter."

And Los Angeles Confidential: "The best I can say about this is that it doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is: derivative, empty, glossy, utterly indulgent, guilty-pleasure junk-food gossip calories."

Angeleno: "Everything between its covers has the brevity that makes Angeleno perfectly suited to be the official magazine of Those Waiting for Friends in the Lobby of the Standard, or Those Waiting to Get the Bandages Off the New Nose in the Plastic Surgeon's Office."

Morrison also critiques Ingenue, Metro Pop, Anthem, Fugue, Beautiful Decay, Giant Robot and Arkitip.