FIRST DISCOVERY AT HIFF - JERRY'S INK

I'm something of a magazine junkie. One of my favorite things to do at conferences and when visiting new places is to pick up the free literature and see what's locally interesting.

At the Hamptons for HIFF (HIFF = Hamptons International Film Festival), I picked up The Independent, a local paper, and looking through it noticed, in bold caps, in the middle of the page, "DIETRICH HATED SEX".

That caught my attention. I started right there and read down to the end. Then I went back to the beginning and read the whole column. It was funny, clever, interesting, and really great writing. (As for my own writing, by contrast, I just used the awful phrase, "really great writing".)

I finally checked the by-line.

It was Jerry's Ink, written by Jerry Della Femina, the advertising powerhouse who also owns Della Femina, an East Hampton's restaurant that rates a high score and capital letters (ie. very popular) in the Long Island Zagat.

As a magazine junkie, I mostly think that typography -- even newspaper typography -- makes an article more fun to read than unformatted Arial. Still, thanks to the web (The Internet is really amazing!) even if Jerry's Ink is not syndicated in any paper near me, I can still follow it on-line.