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I find the "Trends" section utterly irritating. For one thing, they are obviously not really trends - they're things some corporations made up hoping they BECOME trends in order to sell stuff. For another, it is exactly the sort of smarmy shallow stuff that I read the Almanac to get AWAY from. "People are talking about 'tablescaping'." No, they aren't. You wrote the article months before I'm reading it, I live in a cultural mecca, and I've never heard the term. A corporate boardroom made it up, and is trying to turn it INTO something people are talking about.
And you place it in the FRONT, like it's the most important thing. There are LOTS of magazines that will tell us all about what they think will be the latest consumerist fad. PLEASE - don't turn into one of them. If you do, your 224-year-old Almanac will become ONE of the fads. And be gone as quickly as a fad is.
Hi, Carlo, Thank you for caring so much about the Almanac to write this passionate letter. We really appreciate your enthusiasm for the Almanac. Here’s some background on the Trends: This section has been in each edition of the Almanac since 1988, when it was introduced as “A Consumer’s Guide to 1988, based on an analysis of statistics, sales trends, and human behavior, a professional forecaster offers a glimpse at what the year ahead might hold.” It evolved into the abbreviated title and deck you see today but the reason to include it was the same: The Almanac is a calendar of the heavens, first and foremost, but it is also a time capsule of the year. The “predictions” in this section are meant to report our findings and record them for posterity. Only a few people have written this feature since it was introduced; we kept the same researcher/writers for periods of years because it’s a massive project that requires an extensive contact network. And, as importantly, many of the trends that each forecast became a part of the social fabric or was cited months later in national and other media. Sometimes years after they appear on our pages.
We put the Trends in front for several reasons; as noted, it defines the Almanac as a time capsule of the year. This is a preview of the year. Additionally, the categories, brief here, mirror the content areas on the other pages.
As for writing the article months before you read it, most of the Almanac content is developed months in advance. However, the Trends are the second-to-last section to be delivered, edited, and produced. (The last section to be delivered is the weather.) The schedule enables us to publish Trends that are as current as possible.
Thank you again for taking the time to express your heartfelt opinion.
Janice Stillman
Editor
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