Bicoastal

New York — New York

Like jaywalking or a forecast of snow across the Southland, the announcement several weeks ago that the New Yorker magazine now has more subscribers in California than in the state of New York didn't feel right.

But there it was. For the six-month period that ended Dec. 31, California had a total paid circulation of 167,583, compared with New York's 166,630, according to David Carey, the New Yorker's publisher and vice president. Though the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) accounted for the highest percentage of readers in any market, San Francisco and Los Angeles finished second and third, at 65,000 and 54,000, respectively.

What this will do to the well-worn cliches about California is uncertain. The Atlantic Monthly also has more subscribers here than in any other state.

Perhaps the New Yorker figures can be attributed to nothing more profound than this: People keep moving here. California, the state, has many more people than New York, the state -- 34.5 million compared with 19 million, according to the 2001 census estimates. Some of these people, to be sure, are expatriates who retain their virtual New York-ness locally. Here in L.A., this includes talking about how much better the (insert foodstuff/activity/whatever) is in New York and subscribing to the New Yorker. Plus, being able to cite New Yorker stories can help at certain parties.

Still, in recent years, the magazine has by degrees seemed to tilt its coverage to the West Coast. There have been pieces on the Iranian emigre community in Southern California, the quirky history of the Golden Gate Bridge as it relates to suicide jumpers, the annual biker rally in Hollister, the L.A. River and, of course, the gubernatorial bid and reign of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In his office 20 floors up in the Conde Nast building at Four Times Square, New Yorker Editor David Remnick regarded the curious publishing statistic as just that -- curious, in a passing way, the firewall between editorial and marketing firmly in place.

As guardian of the magazine world's most burnished weekly report of ideas, culture and politics, Remnick stressed that it is not his job to bend toward what the numbers say. So, if Californians love the New Yorker in greater numbers than New Yorkers these days, so be it.

"It's not as if our circulation has dipped in New York," Remnick said. "The best thing is that close to 80% of our subscribers re-up every year." In the magazine world, he said, "it's numbers that are equivalent to UCLA basketball in the '60s."