Orange Forest Quarterly Editorial Forehead
By Editor-in-Chief Maximilien Subabillian
Allow me, dear reader, to dispense with perfunctory pleasantries and instead illuminate the Orator’s audacious future through the prism of my prodigious past. For I, Maximilien Subabillian, am not merely editor in chief of this institution, I am a cartographer of cognition with an uncanny knack for problem solving.
For, you see, dear reader, I have heard stories of a forgotten time when the Orator’s name conjured up images of bespeckled intellectuals of hunched over mahogany desks, ink quills rhythmically scribbling nuanced and insightful critiques and opinions that pierced the heart of tyranny and injustice. But alas! How the mighty have fallen. Most egregiously, mentions of the Orator today barely conjure up a response at all.
Hear me, dear reader, and rejoice! No longer shall the Orator remain relegated to the rubbish bin of afterthoughts. As a highly educated polyglot, I am fluent in reading tea leaves, and the current tea leaves quite clearly state that the future of newspapers is games. Based on this unimpeachable data, the Orator’s reporters will now chase Pulitzers with pixels from a Proust meets Pac-Man playbook.
A Cartographer’s Compass to Navigate the Newspaper Labrynth
May I remind you of my previous tenure as Assistant Cartographical Editor at Measuring Treasures? For, you see, this prestigious role was no mere employment but a crucible of enigmas, syllogisms, and arcana in which I forged my métier in the art of decrypting complexity.
Now, after ascending to and mastering the helm of this august quarterly, I shall apply the same principles that guided my professional hero’s journey through map-captioning and puzzlecrafts. By treating journalism itself as the ultimate puzzle, one that demands not just keen observation and Pneumatosophic rationale, but careful observational orchestration, I, Maximilien Suballian, through sheer force of will to power, shall single-handedly raise this ephemeral publication up to transcendent heights and transform it into a bastion of absolute brilliance.
Indulge me as I chart our course, not through sweat and toils, but through the gentlemanly art of delegation and stratagem, along with the occasional burst of genius inspiration that strikes between the most riveting polo matches. For, just as a chess grandmaster must think ten moves ahead or more, so too must an editor-in-chief craft an elaborate plan to reach the endgame, even if it means strategic gambits with personnel, resources, and “so-called” best practices.
Readers can take assurance in the knowledge that no blinders occult mine keen editor-in-chief eyes. Recent data shows that the most profitable route for media organizations involves enhancing the reader’s dopamine drip by offering a diversified portfolio of highly rewarding, easily clickable, never-ending games and puzzles.
Do not despair, dear reader, for my perspicacious rational has already deduced that several questions have already squirmed their way into your thoughts. Inquiries such as, how will esteemed Editor-in-Chief Maximilien Subabllian, even with his vast experience, intelligence, and wisdom, craft enough puzzles in enough varieties to satiate all readers?
As you continue upon your consumption of this article, you will notice that I expound upon these verysame ideas and concepts below.
A Gentleman’s Delegation Strategem
The first and most important motion toward success in this infallible plan involves the gentlemanly art of delegation. The concept occurred to me via a moment of deep Descartian conversations with my mind, causing my unwieldy thought process to proceed accordingly, and, perhaps, in no trivial part, due to the current contractual circumstance that binds my residence in this foreign city, a foreign idea immigrated into my head. To wit, I will attempt to interpret this inimitable idea into simple workinfolk vernacular:
If an individual, particularly a man of unquestionable destiny, desires to achieve an ambitious, but obtainable, result through proper rational methods, said man of magnanimous destiny must avoid transactional agreements with unreliable individuals to achieve the desired results, and should instead endeavor to shoulder the burden himself in undertaking the actions using the proper rational methods necessary to bring into fruition his desired results via more reliable individuals.
Charrmed with my pithy aphorism, I followed my very excellent and admirable advice by exerting noninsignificant additional effort into my search for more reliable individuals with whom I can practice the gentlemanly art of delegation.
Why strain one’s own precious energy when one might instead strain a subordinate’s patience?
Going for Baroque
Moving onto the second motion necessary for success, the editorial standards and publication’s style guide must reflect preternatural prose and unadulterated magniloquence. In an age that reduces discourse to emojis and TL;DR epitaphs, the Orator shall “go for Baroque” by emphasizing the lost arts of lexical illumination, virtuous verbosity, and the purplest of newspaper prose.
For, you see dear reader, only by utilizing erudite, and in some instances nonexistent but contextually requisite, diction, can the staff empower the Orator’s ability to incorporate more exhilarating and engaging gaming interactions.
At the same time, a puzzle must test players’ cerebral mettle and provide a challenge worthy of the most celebrated unriddlers and depuzzlers. Every reader, from a first-timer to a grizzled veteran, must have access to a veritable Matryoshka doll of meaning, each clause nesting within another to reveal ever-deepening truths and rack up ever more points on the Orator games center leaderboard.
The Orator’s readers deserve exacting syntax that stimulates, not sedates. Let the naysayers natter. Let the algorithm-addled masses scroll past our profound punditry. Those readers who treat language not as a tool but as a game’s instruction manual shall find their ergodic efforts and attention-span investments rewarded tenfold.
Introducing Jigsaw Journalism
Now comes the momentous moment when we shall connect the scattered dots to solve this column’s enigmatic theme. Puzzle-solving is the convergence of fragments. The jigsaw’s scattered shards, when snapped into place, showcase a single whole. Similarly, journalists must assemble disparate facts, leads, accounts, and threads into a cohesive narrative mosaic that showcases an uncovered truth.
For you see, a population well-versed in puzzle-solving is a population adept at critical thinking, capable of parsing nuance and connecting the dots to see the larger picture. Equipped with the ability to rotate and solve a mental Rubik’s Cube of geopolitical current affairs, the Orator’s gamermonger subscribers will gain enlightenment as they achieve ever higher ranks on the leaderboard.
Much like the Fill-In-The-Blanks Poetry Puzzle, which I must admit, I admired the moment I learned about it after accepting the editor-in-chief position and then reading an Orator issue for the first time, each issue should require as much brainpower to complete. And, unlike Gerardus Mercator’s revolutionary, though greatly flawed, 1569 world map, projecting a warped worldview that distorted the public’s perception, the Orator will dispense with any distortions, regardless of two-dimensional nautical necessities, to project only the most accurate worldview possible.
Let the rabble and the philistines clamor for their concise, succinct, snackable news bites. The Orator will chart a 12-course meal that maps a ludological investigative tessellation of articles, features, and reviews all interlocking as tightly as a paladin’s chainmail in D&D.
As we bulldoze forward with elegant finesse, one truth remains indubitably true: the Orator’s transformation from one of the Orange Forest-Port Azure-Nomadville metropolitan statistical area’s newspapers of record into the world’s favorite gaming platform continues as a consequence of socio-economic necessity.
After all, in a world where attention is the scarcest resource, perhaps GAMES is simply a five-letter word for PROFIT.
