I was saddened to learn of the death of Peter Kaplan, my last editor at the New York Observer.

The Observer was the love child of its founder Arthur Carter. It was never flush with cash, but it managed to be lively and newsy, even with a weekly printing schedule. I told Peter once he was like someone who could take a quarter and two matchbooks and produce from them a panorama of the Battle of Borodino. Small-budget, edgy publishing required skills of that kind, and he had them.

The Observer was also politically heterogeneous. I could write about whatever I wanted, however I wanted to. I was honored to share its pages with Andrew Sarris, the great movie critic; Simon Doonan (on fashion); and Joe Conason (left-wing politics: always wrong, but always serious).

Kaplan died age 59, of cancer. R.I.P.