a column pitch i just made to the latimes:

ok. i've pitched you many times. once more with a fresh angle. obviously, the ideological divide between left and right should be thrown into question, blown up by some external force, trance-channeling ambrose bierce. but we might also think about the form itself of the op-ed column, which is immensely exhausted. i propose to you an avant-garde, transformative opinion journalism: experimental, strange, provocative in terms not only of what but how it speaks. so below are some of the formal experiments i've tried over the years. occasionally i remember notes like these: "we think you've lost your mind. sincerely, cherry gee." i think i could do this *every week.*ideas might include: writing in a persona, perhaps that of a senator, or ann coulter, or satan, or kofi annan, or a chechen rebel, or an inanimate object; the meta-op-ed, in which we assess the state of the art and its practitioners; the op-ed consisting entirely of a quotation from anne hutchinson or michel foucault; the list; op-eds in the form of obituaries for living people or fictional characters, or a sports column covering the senate, or a press release from the internal revenue service; surealistic op-eds which are composed through "automatic writing"; the two-word or two hundred word or two-thousand word column; etc.

http://www.crispinsartwell.com/unanimity.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/helpamerica.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/seminole.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/suicidessris.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/evict.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/desoto.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/jesus.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/waronfaith.htm
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/harmfulbooks.htm