Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts

Sunday, January 3, 2016

How to spot a fun guy in a magazine's staff photo


One guess which one isn't pretentious. The "most influential automotive journalist" you've never heard of, (long pause for effect to complement the overly pretentious image of odd looking duck with a scarf) or the designer / writer by accident, or the lawyer and rock band manager too cool to be seen without sungalsses, or the goof ball in the garage wearing a tshirt - not a suit, ascot, or scarf?

Image from http://www.automobilemag.com/staff/

FYI now that Source Interlink has bought Automobile Magazine, Ezra won't be with them anymore (he is now switching to Car and Driver) now that they moved to LA, and Jean Jennings split instead of uprooting from everything where she's lived and worked for decades.  http://www.automobilemag.com/features/columns/1408-explaining-the-recent-changes-at-automobile-magazine/

A new writer to enjoy has joined Automobile magazine

The following is an excerpt from the column "Asphalt Jungle" in the Sept 2014 issue of  Automobile Magazine, which is, and will be, written by Arthur St Antoine

an assignment might actually be “Yugo GV Road Test.” Yeah, we “road-tested” nasty little Serbian-built Fiats that cost $10 less than a contemporary cell phone. And what did one say after driving a communist box less impressive than Marshal Tito’s coffin? Well, what could you say -- at least without sounding like a typical capitalistic jackass? “The GV’s headliner showcases the auto industry’s most creative use of papier-mâché.” Or maybe: “Eventually you get used to the, um, aroma. Our editorial nose wouldn’t call it ‘new-car smell’ exactly -- it’s more like stale Turkish cigarettes and cabbage mixed with a soupçon of totalitarian angst -- but after an hour or two at the wheel, one pleasantly surmounts the overwhelming urge to vomit.”

Like a swarm of zombies, the four-wheeled atrocities just kept coming. The Chevy Citation -- almost sued for defamation of character by a dead racehorse. An endless shell game of Chrysler K-cars, culminating in that transcontinental hybrid, the TC by Maserati -- which married la dolce vita of Benito Mussolini with the American breeding of Archie Bunker.

From the Sept 2014 issue, also, http://www.automobilemag.com/features/columns/1409-when-almost-no-new-cars-were-my-type/