An always helpful LA Observed correspondent was digging around on the LA Weekly website and stumbled upon this chronicle of the many writers and editors who have passed through the paper—and in several cases, who on the staff they married and the story behind their departures. It covers the rift between former editor Kit Rachlis (now editor of Los Angeles) and then-publisher Michael Sigman, the staffers who quit to protest Rachlis's 1993 ouster—Tom Carson, Steve Erickson, Michael Ventura, Ruben Martinez and returnees John Powers and Ella Taylor—and current editor Laurie Ochoa's origin as an intern. Ex-staffers treated include CityBeat's Donnell Alexander, authors Ann Louise Bardach and Steve Coll, New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles contributor David Davis, novelists Janet Fitch and Helen Knode, Los Angeles Times Metro desk editor Sue Horton and the Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson. Media types who began as Weekly interns include Los Angeles Magazine executive editor Mary Melton, LAT writer Lynell George, Atlantic Monthly senior correspondent Amy Waldman, "Pacific Drift" host Ben Adair and Bloomberg News editor Tony Palazzo.

My nomination for most intriguing life path:

Ginger Varney: Part of a group of talented unknowns that Jay Levin imported from Texas to start the paper. Stayed until late 1980s. Did movie reviews for four years, then went to Honduras on the cheap for nine months, filing stories every other week on the Reagan administration’s Central American shenanigans. At one point, she "crossed seven rivers without bridges trying to get to a military installation," while also smoking two packs a day....Returned to Central America in an unsuccessful attempt to write the great American novel. Then tried the import-and-export trade — "folk-art crap," she says. Also taught English as a Second Language in L.A. and went to Vietnam in the ’90s, trying to open a Mexican restaurant in Hanoi: "It was an adventure." Fell into current work as private investigator by accident...As far as writing goes: "I haven’t written anything except a check since 1990."

Staff writer Christine Pelisek compiled the family genealogy in 2003 with Howard Blume, whose subsequent (and prominent) departure goes unmentioned. Incidentally, Blume's newly announced Times-ward exit from the Jewish Journal will be followed by Susan Freudenheim's elevation to managing editor.