LISTEN: The Page in the Times Where No News Is Good News

I took over the column in August 2016 and the events of the world, the events of the city we live in, the country we live in, they’ve gone a bit haywire. The news never stops, and it’s overwhelming, and things are changing, and it’s like whiplash back and forth, and everything is contentious.

The diary is this sort of oasis, a place where things are quiet. There’s kindness, there’s some humor. There are things that are wholesome and things that are sort of quotidian or mundane: everyday life. 

It is so distinct from everything else that’s in the news that it’s gotten new life and more popular because of everything else that’s going on. People need a place to basically hide out for a little while, and that’s what Metropolitan Diary helps to provide.

https://rss.buzzsprout.com/2616688.rss?dd!

The Metropolitan Diary — the longest-running column in The New York Times — turns 50 this year.

For a half century, a page that was introduced as part of a push to relieve the publication’s  stuffy reputation has been the only one in the paper of record where ordinary, so to speak, inhabitants of the paper’s namesake city could read, and publish, brief stories and bits of doggerel about ordinary life here.

Ed Shanahan, who’s curated the page for the last decade, joins Lit NYC host Harry Siegel for a deep dive into the diary, the online community that’s developed around a pre-internet institution and those glorious days of yore when every successful contributor was rewarded with a bottle of Moët. 

Lit NYC comes out weekly, usually on Fridays. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, through RSS or wherever podcasts are found, or listen to all the episodes right here at The City.

Our nonprofit newsroom relies on donations from readers to sustain our local reporting and keep it free for all New Yorkers. Donate to THE CITY today.

The post LISTEN: The Page in the Times Where No News Is Good News appeared first on The City Reporter.