Weekly/Reader

When I moved to Los Angeles (in the previous century), there were a bunch of lively alternative weeklies available.  The top two were the LA Weekly and the LA Reader. 

The Weekly was a huge publication with plenty of thoughtful critics, original reporting, and lots of information about what was going on around town.  There were also pages and pages of classified ads in the back that I assume kept them rolling in dough.  The Reader was a bit more compact, but in some way preferable.  It got to the point, any may have been a bit more fun.

The Reader left us years ago, but the Weekly is still with us.  Sort of.  I'm looking at the latest edition and it's 20 pages front to back.  There's scant copy.  It's mostly ads--about two-thirds.  The rest amounts to basic summaries of events in LA and a few short pieces.

It would seem, in the internet age, the Weekly is not long for the world.  I guess we move on, but it's too bad.  I haven't given up reading things on paper, and it was nice to pick up a fresh copy every Thursday and plan for the weekend.