The first time Jim Berg’s tires got slashed, he attributed it to a random act of vandalism. Within days, when his tires were slashed a second time, he got the message. Somebody was very angry about a scathing theater review he had published that month. After the third time his tires were slashed, he made a point of parking at random locations blocks from his home.

Such was the passion and angst that was aroused by NoHo Magazine, a small community publication based in the newly created NoHo Arts District.

In 1992 a group of business leaders and theater operators voted to create the NoHo Arts District in North Hollywood, a Los Angeles bedroom community located in the San Fernando Valley. They were led by David Cox, artistic director of the American Renegade Theatre. Shortly after the founding of the arts district, Jim Berg began publishing NoHo Magazine, a monthly publication devoted to the arts and the NoHo community.

Over its 20-issue run, NoHo Magazine both celebrated and challenged the creative community of the NoHo Arts District. A mainstay of the magazine was theater reviews that took theater seriously as an art and featured writers who were as passionate about theater as those who were putting on the shows. While the magazine commented on the art of NoHo, it was also a product of NoHo, giving voice to the creative aspirations of the community.

Jim Berg says that he started NoHo Magazine with a “good idea and bad credit.” One year later he had created a magazine that was vibrant, smart and passionate. He had grown as a writer and publisher, but his financial condition had become dire. He was destitute, without a car and on the verge of being put out on the streets.

Until an act of God intervened.

The 1994 Northridge earthquake destroyed his apartment building with him in it, but he escaped with a few possessions and minor injury. The miracle came in the form Federal aid money, which he used to buy a car, pay a few months rent, and keep the magazine going. It was a new beginning, but it was also the beginning of the end for NoHo Magazine.

Perhaps the earthquake was a wake-up call – an event that caused Jim Berg to seriously ask the questions, “What are we doing? Is it meaningful? Is it worthwhile?” It was as if the earthquake demanded answers and inane, mindless pap could no longer be tolerated – it had to be challenged.

In the months after the earthquake, NoHo Magazine published reviews that were honest but harsh. People who were supporters of the magazine were hurt by what the magazine had to say about their work. They felt betrayed as the magazine that purported to be supportive of the creative community had turned against it.

Ten months after the earthquake, NoHo Magazine ceased publication.

Critic’s Dilemma is about the creative impulse in the face of nearly impossible odds and the desperate need to create meaning. It tells the story of NoHo Magazine and the beginning of the NoHo Arts District. It is about a community that harbored the unlikely vision of someday being comparable to the NoHos of New York and London. It is about a publisher who was uniquely unqualified to shepherd and champion a creative community that barely recognized itself. It is about how a person and a community discovered themselves and did not always like what they found, but nonetheless found something closer to the truth.

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