Out on a Lim: The end of an era

And the hits keep coming: I wasn't going to mention anything for a while, but Anthony Kaufman has broken the grim news on his blog . . . I've tried to refrain from commenting directly on the deteriorating situation at the Voice, after the massive slaughter several weeks ago, but Michael Atkinson's dismissal shook and disgusted me, and now comes the firing of Dennis Lim. What is this grand scheme that the Voice's new(ish) owners have that involves getting rid of the most talented writer-editor I've ever worked with? (A: I've realized, over the course of this year, that there is no plan. They're shooting themselves in every possible foot. They hate culture and they hate New York.) Isn't this a great advertisement for the upcoming Voice film guide, which Dennis conceived of and edited?

Readers of the Voice's film coverage, which Dennis brilliantly and elegantly shaped over the last eight years (and which got rudely forced into a syndication format this year), are well acquainted with the delights of the typical Lim review/profile, and his recent film articles in the Times have been far-ranging and fascinating.

He's also written plenty of terrific book reviews for me, every time leaving me shaking my head and thinking, How does he do it? Here's a DL sampler: reviews of books by Kelly Link, William Gibson, and Mark Haddon. (I could keep linking all day, but my fingers would probably fall off.)

What might be less well known is that Dennis studied math in college, and is an agreeably lucid and entertaining writer on matters arithmetical. I offer for your reading pleasure three wonderful pieces that he wrote for me when I edited the Voice Education Supplement:

1) Dennis Lim on time travel.
2) Dennis Lim on the Riemann Hypothesis. (How can you resist the headline: "Satisfying a Zeta Jones"?)
3) Dennis Lim on Edwin Abbott's mathematical novel-cum-treatise, Flatland.

I'm not going to say anything else right now.