Tag: Musings

Within the journalism trade

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to mass media, the real power brokers are the big advertising agencies that foot the bills or at least allocate the payments. Forget “liberal media,” the rig of the game is elsewhere.

Here are some of my early journal entries along the topic.

  • Journalists are not eunuchs, or shouldn’t be. Those are the propagandists.
  • More people know the latest Alka-Seltzer ad than what Scotty Reston wrote last night.
  • The people of Fostoria hate the paper; they pick at the people who write for us, isolate them, castigate them. Within the city our only hope for recruits is among those outsiders who, like Teresa Beatty, simply don’t care about the neighbors. Yes, paradoxically, among the surrounding areas, our virtues are appreciated.
  • Another difficulty is in our correspondents; they want to write only about their interests, will not take assignments or cover feature-news … In writing only what they want, they miss the cream …
  • The R-T is a sinking ship. I see no hope … the paper cannot meet the city residents’ level of expectation without losing half of its circulation, the half that matters, beyond the city limits …
  • These “news” items they send in: “such-and-so met at the home of so-and-so and discussed the topic of (insert title). Mrs. A was in charge of refreshments, Mts. B was program chairman, Mrs. C was greeter, and Mrs. D was hostess. X, Y, and Z were elected.”
  • I used to think that if people were interested in the event, they would have been there and already know the outcome. Now I suspect they really don’t know where they were till they read it in print.
  • So much potential here, nobody in our five-state (but not five-star) circulation area touches: so many “off news” angles, one could win it all. [Thinking now of Marcy’s touch / specialty / inspiration …] [Also, of Kurt’s later … and wishing we hadn’t lost contact.]
  • Monday, an unsigned letter at work today, man who didn’t like anything: if we’d put out the kind of paper he wants, he wouldn’t like it: there would be nothing for him to rage about.
  • Some people exist on their dislikes.
  • Living devils, caught in their own hells.

“I used to think I had some control, but I’m finding out more and more that I have no control over the film. The film is gonna come out the same way,” depending on the performers, scriptwriters, prevailing moods, and other factors. “The material is being filtered through me, so it’s gonna wind up having my shape. And for me to think I can unshape it is crazy.” – Robert Altman, producer and director

My feelings after “having my own paper” on the prairie

“I hate to admit it, but everybody’s got the same news.” – Chicago Tribune Managing Editor Maxwell McCrohen on promoting features and columnists. He broadened the definition of “news.”

 

As we get into traditional weddings season

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Celebrities get the headlines, of course. What makes them so special?

“Hollywood marriages are two constructed images colliding,” said bandleader Artie Shaw, reflecting on his ex-wives. He married eight times, in addition to 11 serious girlfriends. So much for expertise.

Let’s turn to ten others.

  1. “Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.” ― Marilyn Monroe
  2. “Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably, they are both disappointed.” ― Albert Einstein
  3. “A girl can wait for the right man to come along but in the meantime that doesn’t mean she can’t have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.” ― Cher
  4. “I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed, too ― for being married so many times. ― Elizabeth Taylor
  5. “You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.” ― David Bowie
  6. “Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other … You can’t spend a lifetime breathing down each other’s necks.” ― Paul Newman
  7. “You never really know a man until you divorce him.” ― Zsa Zsa Gabor
  8. “When you first get married, they open the car door for you. Eighteen years now … once he opened the car door for me in the last four years ― we were on the freeway at the time.” ― Joan Rivers
  9. “For marriage to be a success, every woman should have their own bathroom. The end.” ― Catherine Zeta-Jones
  10. “Huh, celebrity marriages. They never last, do they?” ― Donkey, in Shrek

 

More wisdom on the practice of writing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Again, I’ll argue that this round of insights is applicable to much more than serious writing.

  1. “I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times ― once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.” ― Bernard Malamud
  2. “My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.” ― Anton Chekhov
  3. “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” ― Somerset Maugham
  4. “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” ― Henry David Thoreau
  5. “No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published.” ― Russell Lynes
  6. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ― Ray Bradbury
  7. “Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.” ― Jane Yolen
  8. “Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don’t let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won’t matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.” ― Esther Freud
  9. “I go out to my little office, where I’ve got a manuscript, and the last page I was happy with is on top. I read that, and it’s like getting on a taxiway. I’m able to go through and revise it and put myself ― click ― back into that world.” ― Stephen King
  10. “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” ― Mark Twain

 

Is this too harsh? Even on a bad day?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

A few asides on the small town where I was dwelling.

John Quinn, who grew up in Fostoria: “Small, flat, uninteresting. Platt-Deutsch. Smelly. Thick-skulled Catholic diluted with third-removed Yankee.”

B.L. Reid: “An ethnic polyglot with many Germans and a sprinkling of Irish and one unusual strain, a tribe of Belgians. To the time of the First World War, three out of four sermons a month in the Catholic church were preached in German. The Belgians were the glassworkers and conducted the local industry. A small opera house was visited by traveling musicians and players. Pretty public parks were much frequented by the Germans and Belgians, often observing their transplanted holidays in their native costumes. The Belgians formed a fine concert band and Belgian funerals, led by the band and followed by mourners on foot, were a familiar and impressive sight.”

Radio “newsman” Mel Murray, in his own voice, used my newspaper column as his “editorial” this morning on WFOB, two days after the concert I had reviewed. Obviously, he wasn’t there.

The people of this town gossip and bitch to each other but when it comes time to stand up, run away. They all want somebody else to stand up for their view, yet are afraid of anything different or new. They seem to be sleeping on their feet.

“Findlay’s only got nickel millionaires, but here, shit, these pishers may got money but they stick it up their ass.”

Nickel millionaires, sez the trashy town’s foot doctor.

[Findlay was headquarters of Marathan Oil and Cooper Tire & Rubber; Fostoria had none.]

~*~

The town sat at the nexus of four major railroads , the B&O, C&O, New York Central, and Nickel Plate lines. They were a constant presence. Photo by Nathaniel Railroad via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

This piss-hole of a city! So much negativity, jealousy, and hatred it’s a struggle for anyone to remain alive long – negativity that could kill a horse

This place is still a swamp, not even an idea to look up to.

Everything’s got to be good or bad. Their minds can’t handle anything more. Their minds don’t work anywhere near as fast as their hatreds do.

They keep electing crooks just like themselves.

Reporter Tom, a West Virginian, observing how these Midwestern towns build statues of their founders and then live in the shadows: They think they’re friendly, chattering all day, cutting down each other, not a good word to say, a whole damned town of gossips, women and men …

As I saw it, the thing about this place is there’s nothing to look at, no lofty ambitions like a mountaintop, not even a holy man with a begging bowl.

There wasn’t even a river running through it or a lovely lake or pond to ponder. Just the railroad tracks and truck traffic.

 

As seen from my second-floor apartment window on Main Street back in Fostoria

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Municipal parking lot: park all day, 25 cents.
  2. Cadillac/Oldsmobile used car lot.
  3. Brick Mansard house turned into offices.
  4. Footlighters Playhouse in the old Methodist church.
  5. Three boarding houses.
  6. Tri-County Glass.
  7. Back of the roller rink.
  8. Ray coming to work at 5:30 a.m. at Dell’s Restaurant.
  9. Fruths’ Hardware, Penney’s with Emergency Corps bingo games upstairs, Firestone office (repairs around the corner), the old Sohio gas station turned into a second-day bakery outlet.
  10. Police cars, firetrucks, trees, assorted traffic.

Plus the sign for St. Vincent’s below me

~*~

The corner restaurant in more recent times. 

Prime signoffs

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Formal letters may be an endangered species, say apart from legal actions, but you may still find a need for a snappy closing line for other written transactions.

Here are a few of note.

  1. Cheerio, luff, and all that. Alternatively,” Luv ya,” or, “Love & hugs.”
  2. Cheers or beers.
  3. Whoops!
  4. Too’s yours. (Knockoff on “toujours.”)
  5. Tally-ho. Also, “Tally-ho-ho-hon.”
  6. Warm fuzzies.
  7. Taa-taa. Also, “Too-da-loo” or “Tou-da-lahjh.”
  8. Keep sizzlin’. Or, “Keep smilin’.”
  9. Hippity-hop.
  10. Tootles.

“Laters!” got misappropriated.

 

Forget ‘sincerely’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Letter writing may be a dead art, thanks to email, texting, and online job application forms, among the changing means of communication, but one of the challenges of on-paper correspondence had been in selecting an appropriate closing line, which went right above your signature. (Few youths today, I’m told, actually have signatures. Ahem.)

As one bit of advice noted, “sincerely” is for lawyers, better to be too warm than too distant.

Here are some alternatives, should the occasion arise.

  1. Thank you for your time. Alternatively, “Thanks for your time” or “Thanks again.”
  2. Good wishes, always. Or even, “Always,” or, “All the best, always.”
  3. Toujours.
  4. Enthusiastically.
  5. Only the best or betters.
  6. Stay well.
  7. Cheers!
  8. Thanx and g’day.
  9. Let’s go!
  10. Onward!

Gee, now I’m wondering about “Truly.” Or even, “Actually.”