Weekly strength

Mar 15, 2007

Walking back to the office this afternoon after a visit to Locopops, I grabbed a copy of the Independent, the Triangle’s free newsweekly (when I first moved down here, there was a second paper, the Spectator, but that paper was subsumed into the Indy).

I grab the Indy every week, and each time I reach into the newsbox for the paper, I have this rush of satisfaction, knowing I’m about to hold a treasure. For each issue of the Indy, like the other newsweeklies I’ve encountered, is a wonderful mix of news and commentary and comprehensive cultural calendar listings.

In Hawaii, I practically ran out each Thursday to grab the Honoulu Weekly, often taking back a stack so I could pass it out to my coworkers. Riding around Oahu on The Bus, I pored through the paper, planning my week’s activities around the listings of concerts, hikes in the pali and movies at the Academy of Arts.

Earlier, during college, it was the short-lived but influential Cleveland Edition — it’s where I first encountered the great writing of John Ettorre, who would mentor me through a couple years of my own editing of a newsweekly (the Carroll News) and would then become my friend.

When I hold the Indy each week, I feel the connection to those papers, those places, those times.

Anton Zuiker ☄