I found myself part of an Asian style clique, a bunch of trend-happy editors and writers who introduced me not only to sample sales, but also to the soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown.
"Aren't you happy?" the editor asked.
While the majority of these marketers and publicists are worthy of having an editorial input, I wonder if they would be happy for editors to start assuming they could market or publicise titles as well as members of their profession?
And there's a certain droll wit: we fast-forward through entire scenes (who hasn't wanted to edit out the Gravediggers?), and, in an attempt to replicate the pans and zooms of the 1964 movie, the furniture is permanently being shunted this way and that, the cast juddering jerkily back and forth as if at the whims of a trigger-happy video editor.
And in our lawsuit-happy culture, editors are afraid of massive lawsuits if they don't err on the side of caution (this is likely why foreigners' deaths are more acceptible on screen, because there is less chance they'll sue, but I have to admit that is mere supposition on my part).
"What Publisher A can't publish, Publisher B may be happy to; what Editor A sees as unpublishable, may for Editor B be exemplary.
"If the teen is unhappy, then no one is happy," said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of the online magazine Cruise Critic.
"I have skills in the kitchen, but the writers keep the project on track, meet the deadlines, make the editor happy".
Meatless and Happy To the Editor: Re "I Love You, but You Love Meat" (Feb. 13): My husband is a fabulous cook.
Between its two sides there should be a happy marriage, and editor and business manager should march hand in hand, the first, be it well understood, just an inch or two in advance.
