NY Times Watch: Does ArtsBeat Have a Pulse? Does Ephron Have Op-Ed Cred?

Just to be annoying, I have now clicked on every one of the NY Times blogs that can be accessed through its tiny blogs link near the bottom of its homepage. I can now report that ArtsBeat is the only ongoing blog that hasn't updated in recent days. (Its last entry was on Apr. 30.)

At least they have prudently changed their self-description from "all culture, all the time" to:

The place to get your culture events coverage on NYTimes.com. Reporters and critics from The Times will be reporting from arts events from around the world.

Yes they will! (Or maybe not.)

In another exciting NY Times development: Huntington Post blogger Nora Ephron (she of the elbowed Picasso eyewitness account) has joined the Times as a "guest Op-Ed columnist," whose observations will appear on the page "periodically." (Whenever the mood strikes her?)

According to the Times announcement:

Her recent articles for us---on subjects ranging from presidential interns to cabbage strudel---have been hilarious, insightful and deeply memorable.

Gee, how could I have forgotten that strudel one?

Her first column, about her obsession with online Scrabble, appeared yesterday. Next essay topic? Maybe Mah Jongg.

Speaking of old games, does anyone still remember when the serious political commentator Flora Lewis played on the Op-Ed page with the big boys? Now, it seems, girl pundits just gotta have fun.

UPDATE: I guess the ArtsBeat editors must have heard me. Soon after I posted the above, Virginia Heffernan, the Arts web page's sole blogger prior to the dubious debut of ArtsBeat, posted a flurry of entries about new television shows. This was more appropriate fodder for her own Screens blog, but ArtsBeat needed to be roused from its torpor.