Tagged: Los Angeles Times

It’s been real.

Approaching the floating islands of Lake Titicaca in 2012.

Hey Folks:

As anyone who has had the patience to follow this blog since its early days can attest, things have been a little sporadic — dare I say nonexistent — in these parts over the last couple of years. Part of this is due to the fact that it seems like I’ve spent the last two years moving: from New York to L.A., from L.A. to Peru, from Peru to L.A. and all over L.A. In between, I’ve gotten altitude sickness, covered the Pritzkers, talked social practice and spent hours watching TV in the name of journalism.

Now I’ve finally settled into a new home, both personal and professional. For the foreseeable future, I will be found over at the Los Angeles Times, the paper I grew up reading and the place that gave me my first job in media back in the dark, pre-texting days of 1990. (Also, the place that bit my blog name back in 2008, but what can I say? I have a short institutional memory.) At the Times, I will have my own blog — Culture: High and Low — where I’ll cover many of the same things that have made me excited about  culture over the last seven years: artists, ideas, oddities and stuff that makes me outraged and thrilled. Hopefully I can convince you to follow.

When I started this blog almost seven years ago, I never imagined I’d still be at it (sort of) so many years later. I began C-Monster (a nickname, btw) because I’d never blogged and wanted to try my hand at it. I imagined I’d do it for a few months and then move on. But I got addicted. And I did it solidly for several years, before all the other writing and radio work began to slowly overtake my time. But it’s been the best experience I could have possibly had. Blogging let me try on personas. It let me practice my writing. It let me investigate issues that no paying publication had any interest in. Blogging, in the end, helped me find my voice.

I am deeply grateful for everyone who took the time to read it and Tweet it and Share it. I’m also indebted to all the fellow bloggers and writers who linked to my crazy stories and photo essays over the years. You all do what you do much better than me. I am also deeply indebted to the magazine editors, radio producers, website chiefs and everyone else that has kept me gainfully employed all of this time. Freelancing isn’t easy, but I’ve loved every minute of it. In fact, I never imagined that I’d be giving it up. But the Times is offering me the opportunity to do what I love AND get health benefits.

Thank you all for the support over the years. It’s now time to put C-Mon in carbonite. Big internet group hug. (And remember, you can always find me on Twitter.)

xox,
C.

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Help the L.A. Times comes up with a new name for their arts blog.

Culture Monster Sucks
Here’s a story you’ll never see on C-Monster. And thank god.

If you’ve been reading C-Mon for the last 24 hours, you know that the L.A. Times just debuted a brand spankin’ new arts and architecture blog called Culture Monster, which needless to say, smarts. In thinking about the whole ridiculous situation this morning, I realised that either one of two things happened:

  1. The L.A. Times is trying to achieve some measure of blog credibility by coming up with a name that echoes my ridiculous online enterprise. If they were really smart, however, they woulda ripped off the names of blogs who have been doing this way longer and way better than me: AFC, Looking Around, MAN, Art to Go, Winkleman, to name but a few…
  2. The L.A. Times didn’t know that C-Monster.net existed when they decided it would be a good idea to have an arts blog. Which leads me to believe that finances are so bad at the Times that their reporters don’t have access to the Internet.
In the interest of helping the Times fix this terrible oversight, which I’m sure they will remedy very soon (as in any minute), I’m hoping that everyone can pitch in and help them come up with a new name for their blog. C-Monster.net Rome correspondent San Suzie has already come up with a couple of suggestions:
  • LALApalooza
  • Culture Impostor
My two cents: anything that doesn’t involve the letter “C” closely followed by the word “Monster.”
Post your ideas in the comments section below. I’ll make sure that my colleagues at the Times hear all about ‘em.
xox, C.
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Dear L.A. Times: WTF????

Culture Monster
Culture Monster, the L.A. Times’s new blog.

Proving that there’s no such thing as an original idea, the L.A. Times recently debuted an arts and architecture blog called, ahem, Culture Monster. It’s been around for approximately five minutes.

I mean, really, people. I know you’re just hoping to ride C-Monster’s coattails out of dead-tree obscurity, but did you have to be such flagrant biters? I’ve been toiling for more than a year now. I’ve even covered stuff in your home turf. So, don’t even try to tell me that you didn’t know C-Monster.net didn’t exist. Besides, my Statcounter tells me that there’s someone over there at the Times who Googles “C-Monster” on a semi-regular basis and then reads the blog. And I’m sure it’s not the mail guy, because if you’re anything like the rest of print media, corporate has already fired them all.

All I know is that if this isn’t remedied somehow, I’m gonna go all Sarah Palin on your asses. And you guys are gonna be the moose.

xox, C.

Unfortunate discovery made via Modern Art Notes.

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