The Passion of Clare Luce Booth
Sep. 19th, 2007 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraThe most heinous misinformation follows.
Before its merger with AOL, Time Warner was structured along the lines of medieval Europe, a confederacy of feuding vassals – media properties loosely yoked together by belief in the one true profit motive as handed down by Gerald Levin from a big glass office on the Time Life Building’s millionth floor. (The rumor that Michelangelo was resurrected to decorate Levin’s ceilings with inspirational scenes from the life of Clare Booth Luce is simply not true.)
The movie studios hated the magazine properties. The magazines hated the book publishers. The book publishers hated the cable channels and the record companies. And everybody hated Road Runner.
In the beginning, each individual Time Warner property was in charge of its own scouting forays into cyberspace. Time Magazine was the most proactive. Several of its editors – notably science editor Phil Elmer-DeWitt and computer writer Josh Quittner – were Well members and active in the community. Phil tapped Tom Mandel to lead Time’s online message boards and Tom did a such a spot on job, infusing them with so much information, wit and sparkle, that they quickly became more entertaining than the Well itself.
(Most cyber-communication is evanescent. The only examples of Tom’s brilliance that still exist are the snippets Cynsa and I archived on a tribute site we put together after he died. He was writing about death, his death. He left them begging for more. Sadly, there wasn’t any.)
Before he threw together Pathfinder, Jim Kinsella had been Time Online’s managing editor. He was an ambitious guy with the social skills of Darth Vader, a really nasty piece of work.
Maria adored him.
I am tempted here to go off into a five thousand word screed on the emotional food chain, les liaisons dangereuses. It was only right that a femme fatale of the first degree like Maria should suffer the pangs and heartache of unrequited yearning, it proved the existence of karma. And karma always wins in the end! Yada yada yada.
Except the other beautiful, charismatic and utterly ambitious heartbreaker I know never falls for people who are emotionally unavailable. “There’s no pay-off,” she told me once.
“Well, no,” I said. “Obviously not. But, I mean, you can’t control your emotions.”
“Of course you can,” said Erica.
The pay-off for Maria was obvious: someone early on had taught her that love equals pain, so being hurt was the only way she could experience an emotion roughly analagous to what many call love. Duh!
I’m talking feelings here, I must hasten to add: I have no idea what went on behind Maria’s bedroom doors, and I wouldn’t care to speculate.
On the other hand, oh to have been a fly on the wall at those corporate meetings where Kinsella pitched Pathfinder to the corporate masters! I can only imagine the scribbles on the whiteboards!
Anyhow he succeeded, dubbed himself managing editor, installed Maria as second in command. Looked around for the biggest match he could find and started setting fire to big piles of money.
Before its merger with AOL, Time Warner was structured along the lines of medieval Europe, a confederacy of feuding vassals – media properties loosely yoked together by belief in the one true profit motive as handed down by Gerald Levin from a big glass office on the Time Life Building’s millionth floor. (The rumor that Michelangelo was resurrected to decorate Levin’s ceilings with inspirational scenes from the life of Clare Booth Luce is simply not true.)
The movie studios hated the magazine properties. The magazines hated the book publishers. The book publishers hated the cable channels and the record companies. And everybody hated Road Runner.
In the beginning, each individual Time Warner property was in charge of its own scouting forays into cyberspace. Time Magazine was the most proactive. Several of its editors – notably science editor Phil Elmer-DeWitt and computer writer Josh Quittner – were Well members and active in the community. Phil tapped Tom Mandel to lead Time’s online message boards and Tom did a such a spot on job, infusing them with so much information, wit and sparkle, that they quickly became more entertaining than the Well itself.
(Most cyber-communication is evanescent. The only examples of Tom’s brilliance that still exist are the snippets Cynsa and I archived on a tribute site we put together after he died. He was writing about death, his death. He left them begging for more. Sadly, there wasn’t any.)
Before he threw together Pathfinder, Jim Kinsella had been Time Online’s managing editor. He was an ambitious guy with the social skills of Darth Vader, a really nasty piece of work.
Maria adored him.
I am tempted here to go off into a five thousand word screed on the emotional food chain, les liaisons dangereuses. It was only right that a femme fatale of the first degree like Maria should suffer the pangs and heartache of unrequited yearning, it proved the existence of karma. And karma always wins in the end! Yada yada yada.
Except the other beautiful, charismatic and utterly ambitious heartbreaker I know never falls for people who are emotionally unavailable. “There’s no pay-off,” she told me once.
“Well, no,” I said. “Obviously not. But, I mean, you can’t control your emotions.”
“Of course you can,” said Erica.
The pay-off for Maria was obvious: someone early on had taught her that love equals pain, so being hurt was the only way she could experience an emotion roughly analagous to what many call love. Duh!
I’m talking feelings here, I must hasten to add: I have no idea what went on behind Maria’s bedroom doors, and I wouldn’t care to speculate.
On the other hand, oh to have been a fly on the wall at those corporate meetings where Kinsella pitched Pathfinder to the corporate masters! I can only imagine the scribbles on the whiteboards!
Anyhow he succeeded, dubbed himself managing editor, installed Maria as second in command. Looked around for the biggest match he could find and started setting fire to big piles of money.
