Newsstand

With the royal wedding, the Japan earthquake, the Occupy movement and the Arab spring, it's not like there was a shortage of news in 2011. But you wouldn't know it looking at newsstand sales for the nation's magazines. Though some brands, such as Food Network Magazine, ended up, single-copy sales of consumer magazines took a hit in the second half of last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations . Publishers sold 28.9 million newsstand copies - 9.96% less than the number sold over the same period in 2010.

The last edition of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner was published on Nov. 2, 1989, with the headline: "So long, Los Angeles. " But 23 years later, one employee has not yet said goodbye. Chuck Lutz hasn't even left the building. "They never told me not to come back to work, so I just kept coming back to work," said Lutz, who was exaggerating a little. When a colleague declined an offer to supervise the shutdown of the newspaper plant, Lutz - who joined the Her-Ex in 1973 as a truck driver - gladly stepped into the job. One task led to another, and the Hearst Corp., which published the newspaper and still owns the building, kept the reliable Lutz around to keep an eye on things and open the door for film crews that use the property.

The tabloid weeklies come out on Monday. That means more than the usual amount of traffic on Don Pio Drive, a quiet street that leads south from Ventura Boulevard into the hillside homes of the wealthy in Woodland Hills. There, just off the boulevard on the east wall of a liquor store, a Valley youth named Ken Zietz is cultivating an urban tradition in the middle of a young suburban community. It's the only newsstand west of Encino. Zietz calls it "What's News."

Prince Harry has flown home from the U.S. just in time to see that picture of himself flying off newsstands in the U.K.: The Sun broke ranks with the rest of Britain's tabloid media and finally published those naked photos of the royal that were taken during his recent Las Vegas vacation. "Heir it is!," the headline screams, following with a bit of snark: "Pic of naked Harry you've already seen on the Internet. (Click the link that follows to see the cover and the accompanying story, but beware, in case the headline is too subtle: The cover proudly displays that compromising photo of Harry.)

World Book & News Co., the 24-hour newsstand at 1652 N. Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood, a local landmark for over 50 years, has helped to inspire a new musical, "Hard Copy." Sam Harris of "Star Search" fame will star; he also wrote the book, lyrics and much of the music. The production, populated by a varied assortment of characters who meander into an all-night newsstand, previews May 4 and opens May 12 at the Coast Playhouse. Harris told us he gathered impressions from numerous newstands, but added, "I (particularly)

Magazine subscription promotions are coming thick and fast, all apparently offering different rates. But which is better: $1.09 an issue of Sports Illustrated for 54 weeks ("50% Savings") or 22 issues for four payments of $5.99 each ("$32.80 Off")? Who knows? "I took a six-month deal from Time, 50% off," one consumer says, "but now that you ask, I have no idea whether it was a good deal or not." It's a valid question.

Playboy Enterprises: The Chicago-based publishing and TV company said third-quarter net income dropped to $262,000 from $2.7 million a year ago. Revenue rose 7% to $40.7 million. The year-ago period included income from discontinued operations of $1.7 million as well as a $610,000 federal income tax refund. Playboy said profit in the publishing group was depressed by an adjustment due to soft sales of newsstand specials published in previous quarters. The company's video entertainment group reported a profit of more than $600,000 for the quarter, compared to an operating loss for the same period last year.

"See No Evil, Hear No Evil" (citywide) is an apt title for this brisk, ingenious and funny comedy that happily reunites Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. Pryor's Wally is blind, and he is as proudly stubborn about acknowledging his disability as Wilder's Dave is about admitting that he is totally deaf. They skirmish mightily upon meeting each other, but Dave recognizes enough of himself in Wally to hire him as an assistant at his Manhattan lobby newsstand. Wally doesn't even have a chance to start work before he and his new boss are swept up in non-stop adventure.

Some people in the East love to talk about how there's no intellectual life in Los Angeles. "Nobody reads there" is the derogatory refrain. Bernie Weisman, who's lived in both New York and Washington but who now lives in Northridge, knows better. And he ought to know. Bernie sells a lot of reading material. Weisman, 59, runs a newsstand--in fact, the largest newsstand west of the Mississippi--World Book and News, at the corner of Cahuenga and Hollywood boulevards, in the heart of Hollywood.

I was hanging out the other morning at my favorite newsstand, Current Events, in downtown Manhattan Beach, when a young man strode in with an unusual sense of purpose. He was handsome, when one took a second look, in a gentle way (the younger son, the future small-town banker with a heart). He had curly reddish hair and a square face with a wide, even mouth. He scanned the magazine rack, then turned to the counter with 10 copies of the Hollywood Reporter.

With the presidential primaries, the Occupy movement, continued unrest in the Middle East and the Kim Kardashian wedding disaster, it's not as if there was a shortage of news in the second half of 2011. But you wouldn't know it looking at newsstand sales for the nation's magazines. Single-copy sales of consumer magazines took a major hit in the second half of last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Publishers sold 28.9 million newsstand copies, 10% less than the number sold over the same period in 2010.

With the royal wedding, the Japan earthquake, the Occupy movement and the Arab spring, it's not like there was a shortage of news in 2011. But you wouldn't know it looking at newsstand sales for the nation's magazines. Though some brands, such as Food Network Magazine, ended up, single-copy sales of consumer magazines took a hit in the second half of last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations . Publishers sold 28.9 million newsstand copies - 9.96% less than the number sold over the same period in 2010.

Newsstand owner Robert Kelly is well aware that he's not in the most profitable of businesses these days. But, at 58, he says it's too late to get out of the print business. Plus, he enjoys having a front-row seat to the comings and goings in Los Feliz. Kelly has become a fixture at the corner of Vermont and Melbourne avenues, where he has operated his newsstand for 11 years, greeting neighbors and regulars by name and instinctively reaching for their favorite magazine or newspaper when they approach.

Almost six months after a mudflow caused by a winter storm destroyed World Newsstand in Laguna Beach, it is now open for business at its original site at 190 Ocean Ave. Owner Heidi Miller, who also owns Tight Assets, a sportswear store a block away, walked downtown Dec. 22 to discover that everything — including newspapers, magazines, racks and even the cash register — was ruined. The water had rushed in through the 20-foot wooden doors, covering the small area with 3 to 4 feet of mud. She estimated the damage at $15,000.

It's the month that Condé Nast folded Gourmet and a couple of other big-name magazines, the week that newspapers reported tanking circulation, again, and the day that hundreds of micro-bloggers gathered in Los Angeles to celebrate a world of tiny messages on glowing screens. So here I am at the Farmers Market in Los Angeles, in the midst of a bunch of folks who didn't seem to get the message: Ink on paper is dead. There's actor Mario Roccuzzo, camping with a newspaper at his usual spot in front of the lottery screen.

When Clifton Moore ran the Los Angeles airport system from 1968 to 1993, there wasn't much emphasis on dining and shopping for people waiting for their planes at LAX. About all they could get were the basics: a newspaper, a cup of coffee, cafeteria fare and a preflight libation. The mantra was "We are an airport, not a shopping mall," and people on the staff were proud that Los Angeles International Airport had the least concession space of any major airport in the United States. Not anymore.

This is Beverly Hills?, I wondered, oh so many years ago when a friend took me to lunch in a sweet little house with a fireplace on South Beverly Drive. Chez Mimi later moved to Santa Monica, and Urth Caffé now dispenses soy lattes and iced green tea from that rose-covered cottage. Back then (and now), South Beverly Drive didn't seem fancy at all, more like a small-town Main Street where you'd find shops selling nightgowns and one-piece swimming suits, baseball cards and birthday gifts.

It was just an online classified ad, under Collectibles for Sale, but it sounded like a cry from the heart: "I'm tired of these things now. Please save me from them." Kelly Cabral of Tracy, Calif., placed the ad recently after coming across a box in her garage crammed with dozens and dozens of Beanie Babies, the floppy little stuffed animals that sparked an international trading frenzy in the late 1990s.

Ann Bryan Mariano, who was one of the first female combat correspondents covering the Vietnam War and who sued the Pentagon to keep her publication on military-base newsstands, died Feb. 25 of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Belmont Manor Nursing Home in Belmont, Mass. She was 76.

For Awatif Ahmed Isshag, covering Darfur is the story of her life. Nearly a decade ago, at 14, Isshag started publishing a handwritten community newsletter about local events, arts and religion. Once a month she'd paste decorated pages to a large piece of wood and hang it from a tree outside her family's home for passersby to read.