I got an email yesterday from Jay Babcock about the death of Arthur mag, following a row between Babcock and his business partner Laris Kreslins, who apparently wanted out of the business but was unwilling to sell his half of the operation. According to the LA Times, Kreslins has yet to throw in the towel. But Backcock says he is broke, exhausted, frustrated, and very much through. Arthur's end is a sobering slap in the face for those holding out for vital noncorporate print publications in our millennial age. The free rag was dependably good and often great, with off-the-wall voices (David Berman's piece on the Dead is one of my favorite pieces on the band), lyrical design, and great taste in music. More unusually, it also spoke for and even helped create an authentic subcultural sensibility, just like the counterculture rages of yore that it so clearly drew from. Why can Vice—which I find excellent and repulsive in equal measure— do it and not Arthur? Is it too much to hope that the garage angels descend from the high on fire heavens and keep the freak flag flying?