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From Gene Weingarten's weekly chat, "Chatological Humor," October 25, 2005:

Washington, D.C.: In the archives of these chats you have referred several times to Tropic Magazine. What is this, and why are we supposed to care about it?

Gene Weingarten: Tropic Magazine was the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald. I was the editor of it from 1985 to 1990, when I arrived at The Post.

The reason it matters to you is that, basically, Tropic Magazine is The Washington Post. Its staff contained me, Tom the Butcher (who was my assistant editor and became Tropic's editor when I left), Dave Barry, and Joel Achenbach. Frequent contributors to Tropic's pages included David Von Drehle, Marc Fisher, Guy Gugliotta, and Jeff Leen, who is currently The Post's investigations editor and whose back pocket is stuffed with Pulitzers. He uses them to clean the windshield of his car. We regularly ran photos by Carol Guzy and Michel DuCille, who share more Pulitzers than Leen.

Tropic Magazine was a wild and crazy place, a little larger than life, and a little out of control. In a good way.

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. . . And furthermore:

Tropic Wins Four Awards

"It's Money That Matters," by Jacob Bernstein, Miami New Times

Letter to the Editor, New Times

"Tropic Blues," by Lori Robertson, American Journalism Review

"Expensive But Well Worth the Cost," by John Morton, American Journalism Review

"He's Not Making This Up" (Dave Barry Says Goodbye to Tropic)

Added March 2007:

"Doris Mansour, 68, Kept Tropic Magazine Writers on Their Toes," by John Dorschner