Best of ‘Times’
by guest columnist Doug Nufer
IN FEBRUARY, John Hartl and The Tentacle more or less called it quits.
Apart from the coincidence of timing, these events wouldn’t strike most people as being connected in any way. A daily newspaper movie critic and an avant-garde music magazine collective of editor/publisher/writers might even seem to be enemies.
Besides, what common cause could there be between a hugely commercial art form, as exemplified by the Hollywood blockbuster known to all, and an assertively bizarre artistic foray, as exemplified by performances where the players have been known to outnumber the audience?
Maybe nobody in management at the downsized Seattle Times now appreciates that publication’s erstwhile status as Washington’s “paper of record,” but John Hartl did.
He made it his business to review everything. No matter how obscure the film or broke the theater or short the run, for 35 years Hartl went out of his way to let you know what was out there and what he thought about it. His consistency of views, depth of experience, and breadth of interests made his writing a reason to subscribe to that paper.
Although he will continue to cover movies for the Times as a freelancer, this coverage is bound to be less comprehensive than it was.
In the aftermath of a six-week strike, in which the paper lost $21 million while resisting contract demands that would have cost the company $3-4 million over one year, paternalist rules force returning strikers to be nice to bosses and scabs while bosses are free to sneer as they please, and morale is about what you would expect it to be at an office run by zombies whose Bible is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
By not calling most striking reviewers back to work (and by urging long-time employees like Hartl to take early retirement), the paper has slashed arts coverage.
NEXT: Another fond adieu, this one to a most peculiar music zine.
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