Short Takes

> On the Sound and On the Shore have been on the rocks. A pair of slick leisure monthlies catering to those who live near Long Island Sound and Delaware and Chesapeake bays, they were foundering for lack of financing. Happily, the crisis was only temporary. Editor Roy Rowan announced last week that Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp. (Family Handyman, Natural Gardening) will take over the two magazines, pump more than $1,000,000 into circulation promotion, and revive On the Sound (circ. 50,000) in December, after a two-month recess. On the Shore (circ. 25,000) will resume publication later.

> Only 14 months ago, James W. Brady took his reputation for brass and innovation from Women's Wear Daily to Harper's Bazaar. He soon won the titles of publisher and editorial director and set out to shake the frilly fashion monthly to its lingerie. Brady replaced conventional models with recognizable people posing against busy street backgrounds to show how fashions would look outside the salon. Trouble was that this approach merely irritated many women readers who wanted to get a straight, uncluttered look at the clothes. He brought a daily newspaper's intensity to Bazaar's leisured shop and introduced a gossipy, current news-fashion section. Serious nonfiction received more space than before. Circulation (409,000) remained static, and advertising continued to slide (off 80 pages for the first ten months of this year). Last week the parent Hearst Corp. abruptly gave up on Brady and named two executives from its other magazines to replace him. Advertising Director Thomas Losee Jr. of House Beautiful became Bazaar's publisher, and Anthony Mazzola, editor in chief of Town & Country, moved in as editorial boss. The prospect is for a return to more traditional couture coverage. Brady, 43 and unemployed, took off still insisting he knows it all. Advertising is about to rise, he insisted, and his approach represents "the fashion magazine of the future, immensely superior to the pious essays, second-rate poetry and bad fiction of many women's books."

> Nothing so useless as yesterday's newspaper? The Minneapolis Star is running full-page house ads declaring that "the Star will work on your yard." Lay the paper flat and anchor it, the ad advises, for erosion control. Or use it as a compost-pit liner: "It is good to have woody material like newsprint decomposing in your soil." Moreover, says the Star, "newsprint ink is like dessert. The ink contains valuable trace minerals in the seaweed-derived binder."

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