Late yesterday afternoon, Imagine philosopher-king Brian Grazer's introduction to his ill-fated Current section was saved from the oblivion to which it was dispatched by the LAT's cautious publisher, whose decision to kill the stunt-edit called down from the media heavens a shitstorm arguably equal in filthy intensity to the one he was trying to avoid in the first place. Today, Grazer's statement on the matter is circulating in reports about the controversy (words probably lovingly composed by the same publicists who got him into this mess), hinting at the delights the intellectually voracious superproducer of easily digestible populist entertainments had planned for the Times' readership this Sunday morning. From THR:

"I was surprised and delighted when the Los Angeles Times asked me to guest edit its Current section, because it gave me a chance to work with the L.A. Times and these seven extremely talented writers — Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, Vogue's editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley, psychologist Paul Ekman, social scientist Dalton Connelly, attorney Martin Singer, urban planner Sam Hall Kaplan and artist Shepard Fairey," Grazer said.

"Working together, we came up with a collection of essays and art that I think readers would have found genuinely stimulating and would have added to our understanding of our ever-changing culture. My hope now is that we can find another way to present the results of our efforts to the audience it deserves."

Given the way events have played out over the past 24 hours, we're doubtful that the Times would accept the mogul's initial idea for finding an audience for his contributors' hard work, a special advertising section in Sunday's paper entitled, "Brian Grazer Salutes His Favorite Stifled Voices: A Brian Grazer Production." Instead, Grazer will make the respectful gesture of offering to take a symbolic one-dollar option on each of the killed pieces, with the promise of a much larger sum should he decide to dumb down any of their essays for a feature film adaptation directed by longtime collaborator Ron Howard.