Wordless magazine cliché declared POA (passé on arrival) : This weblog has spotted a trend we believe may already be careening off into cliché before it ever has a decent shot at trendiness. Today, WWD.com’s Sara James reports “David Granger, who picked up four National Magazine Awards this spring, three of them for writing, will forgo text almost entirely in October when he unveils Esquire’s first photography issue. ‘The idea is to reflect the variety of a typical issue without using text,’ said Granger, sounding suspiciously like Lars von Trier in ‘The Five Obstructions.’ (Note: this weblog is sure most of its five regular readers instantly picked up on that reference to the obscure Danish film, De fem benspænd.)

However, Gawker, apparently not the obscure Danish film fan Sara is, suggests issue 13 of Benneton’s [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "ftpSite" hasn't been defined.]
Colors is more what Granger sounds like.

However, [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "ftpSite" hasn't been defined.]
Granger sounds like he’s editing the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

Later: Patrick (I Want Media) Phillips emails a note of irony: In an I Want Media interview last September, Granger contrasted Esquire favorably with other magazines that exist almost without sentences, “primarily with images and captions.” In the interview, he explained that Esquire is “substantial” because “we believe in words.”

Patrick’s e-mail reminded me also of some additional irony. A long, long time ago, a young employee of Esquire Magazine decided to stay in Chicago when the publication moved to New York. He decided to create his own magazine for the same audience, but with less emphasis on words and more emphasis on images and captions. Oh, sure, he’d have lots of words in it also…and everyone would say the articles were why they purchased it. But almost overnight, it became a lot more “substantial” than Esquire (bottomline-wise, that is) because of the photography approach. And even though the pictures were of naked women, that former Esquire employee went on to be awarded “magazine industry’s highest honor.”

Welcome back, once more: From my e-mail (and just from, I don’t know, a wild guess), a few of the people who for whatever reason bookmarked this site have discovered that it actually didn’t [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "ftpSite" hasn't been defined.]
. That’s because, sometime in the past few hours, all those links to the rexblog’s old URL are now being redirected to www.rexblog.com (Have I mentioned you should update blogrolls, bookmarks and RSS feeds accordingly?). This redirect will last for 90 days.

I would like to personally thank Dave Winer for making this redirect possible. I have publicly vented my frustration with Dave over the past week, but I tried my best to do so in a reasoned and reasonable manner and in the context of my appreciation and gratitude for his role in the creation of blogs and in hosting this weblog for over three years witihout ever asking for a fee. I have had a unique spectator/participant seat for observing the aftermath of the whole incident. Emotions flared. Mistakes were made. A community of very talented and very generous individuals responded. Mistakes were corrected. Emotions subsided. And sure enough, the earth still spins on its axis. And once more, a thanks to my hero, Steve Kirks for helping this weblog get back up on its feet, so to speak.

Blogging lite: Duty (professional and personal) calls and I’m offline. Back late today.