Saturday, August 2, 2008

Writers' Haven

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer, despite the high gas and food prices, and that you have been able to get away somewhere. In any case, most of us will be "getting away" to DC next month for the Global Peace Festival.We had a great meeting last week at the Saunders' house. Present were both Alan and June Saunders, Kerry Pobanz, Richard Panzer, Dan Sladich, Bob Beebe and newcomer Carla Mahnken, who came with her recently published book on raising small children. We began with a discussion about Carla's book, which contends that for children to grow properly and keeping their creativity intact, they need plenty of positive reenforcement. Unfortunately, in our fallen world, parents or caregivers are prone to squash a young child's natural creativity and curiosity, making then overly sensitive to making mistakes. As such, their full potential as human beings is never able to develop.From that discussion, we moved on to Dan Sladich, who presented several of his poems that will be included in our upcoming anthology. These mostly-short poems explored the realms of human and divine love, the attraction of opposites, rejecting temptation, physical and spiritual love, purity, filial piety, empathy, patience, and many other topics weaved in among his seven poems. We had a good time trying to understand the meaning, both hidden and obvious, in these poems.Our next meeting will be held at the Sladich's this Sunday, July 27, 3:00-5:00. We will be discussing Kerry Pobanz's second submission to the anthology, "You Are the Same Person After Death", perhaps contrasting it with his other one, "We Are Destined to Become Different Creatures." Both are attached here. Also, we will discuss Jerry Chesnut's piece, "A Simple Life," which I sent out to you last time. I hope to finalize our anthology contributions. Everyone, except for two, has made at least one submission. We also received a short essay from Kate Tsubata entitled "What Marriage Has Meant in My Life." I hope we can get full participation in this first project of our group.Everyone seemed to be happy with June's suggested name for our group, "Writers' Haven", so we plan to go with that as our official name from now.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Will blogging save journalism ?

Sorry to have been absent for a while.

I've been at the vortex of a CNC programming maelstrom for about a month now.

(whatever does he mean by that ?).

It means I've been overwhelmingly busy at work.

Just wanted to add a few interesting things I've come across recently to this blog.

See you all soon, and enjoy your writing efforts !

This is an interesting blog about a NJ writer who has had quite a bit of success in the book marketplace recently. Her name is Debie Galant. I haven't read her most recent book, but it has the interesting title of "Fear and Yoga in NJ"

It seems to be a satire of NJ suburban life. Mmmm ...

Her blog can be found at

http://www.baristanet.com/

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Also, I think I reported in a previous post about the music industry, information on Magnatune.

They are a Abel-type music distributor from Berkeley, CA.

They mainly sell music on-line, they offer very open-ended licensing terms, and give 50% of their royalties to the artists, (which is unheard of in the music industry).

A new subscription option allows for the unlimited streaming download of their library for $ 9.00 per month. Unlimited downloads are $ 18.00 per month. This is quite a bargain for a very rich musical collection of a wide variety of genres. There are many quality artists that most people have not heard before. (Their classical selections are one of my favorite genres).

You can also just go the site and listen to many, many songs for free. Let me know what you think of the site !

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In keeping with the title of this post, (you were probably wondering when I was going to get around to that), here is an interesting article from WebPro News.


Tuesday, Jan 29, 2008
After declaring (again) the death (or at least the dying) of print, bloggers and academics have clothed their straw man with proposals that include even government subsidies. It's not just print that's in peril, but real, investigative, long-form journalism. But print's not dead yet, neither is the argument, and bloggers might just lead the resuscitation efforts for journalism itself.


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Editor's Note: Basic formula for failure: high expense + low return. To reverse course, reverse the terms, which is what employing a network of geographically targeted bloggers could ultimately do. No need to subsidize. No need to fear extinction. Market evolution (revolution) will cure all ills. An accurate prediction? Let us know if you think so in the comment section.
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The print-is-dead argument is a bit of a straw man because the scarecrow is still awaiting the (tech) wizard to give it life. Fact is, people are still buying newspapers. Fact is, they're still making money, especially small local papers, even if it's less money as the market changes. That means layoffs, and it means some publications with too much overhead shut down.

But dead implies extinction, and I think it might be better to look at it through an evolutionary lens. That is, print must evolve, as journalism must.

A gadget like Amazon's Kindle (once streamlined and less expensive – compare 50 cents to $300) has the potential to transform the way people access the written word. It is conceivable, some time in the distant future, that the newspaper box is replaced with a downloading station near the parking meter – the special parking meter designed not only to take payment via mobile device, but to charge for the space above in addition to the right and left. Talk about double parking.

But that hasn't happened yet, and it will take a while if it ever does.

Though small town newspapers beg to differ about the death of print media, as do collectors of worldwide subscription data who report record numbers, we saw a couple of print casualties in 2007.


But just like in any business, the inability to adapt is often what drives the extinction of a species. In this case, market forces, environments, and technologies are changing much more rapidly than society's habits, or even wants.

There are still romantics out there, even in this generation. People still like their morning newspaper with their coffee; they like to fold up a paper and tuck it under their arm; they still like the smell of books and the look of them on their bookshelves.

At some point, I imagine, there will be new-wave romantics who would rather irradiate themselves with technology than cut down trees to support an old-world way of doing things. Until then, there is market evolution.

The threats to print and long-form journalism are these: market saturation, which dilutes not just audiences, but advertisers; high overhead; craigslist; local search; babies being born right now.

The question, then, is about how to adapt. Some are cutting staff and other costs. Some are closing their print face and going online exclusively. Some are using their online income to supplement their print side. Some are cutting just how investigative they're going to get about news. Some are selling out to conglomerates who are better at adapting, have the resources to adapt, and who have lessened the competition for ad sales by buying up the competition.

And that's a whole mess of problems, especially for the purists – the high-minded academics suddenly very seriously considering government subsidies to save real journalism.

But there's something else going on that's interesting, and may play a role in how the industry evolves. Like I said, the days of print (on paper) are likely numbered, even if the number of days is larger than Silicon Valley might expect. But for long-form journalism there is hope without a government bailout.



About the Author:
Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology.

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Additionally, (if you've read this far, congratulations !)
from a professional standpoint, I am exited to learn about a new manufacturing service called TechShop. You can find details at the following link.


http://techshop.ws/


Unfortunately, it may be some time before they come to the Northeast.


Take care all.


John Lombaerde

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Sex and the Civil War

We had our last writers' group meeting on Sunday, April 20, at the home of Sandra Felberbauer for the first time. We appreciate Sandra's efforts to keep us well supplied with coffee and tea with various delicacies on the table as we held our discussions. In attendance were Dan Sladich, Kerry Pobanz, June Saunders, Paul Russell, Valerie Shimoyama, Jerry Chesnut, Bob Beebe, Sandra, and, for the first time, Richard Panzer.

Bob began the meeting with a short reading from Canadian writer Margaret Atwood who spoke about how as we grow older it becomes more and more difficult to identify with our "former selves." In other words, we are always changing and evolving, to the point where we may become someone much different than we used to be. We may think of our own previous incarnations as hippies, druggies, atheists, Marxists, or even MFTers. Can we recognize ourselves in them?

From there we launched into June's most recent chapters of her novel Into the Breach. The plot continues to thicken as her protagonists' original and fallen natures do battle within themselves and with each other, their personal struggles soon to be caught up in the maelstrom of the battle of Gettysburg. Everyone agreed that June was doing a masterful job in developing the plot and crafting her characters so that the reader is drawn in and finds him/herself caring about what is to become of them.

Next we discussed the beginning pages of Richard's upcoming book, Condom Wars, which is a follow-up to his book Condom Nation. As in the previous book, Richard paints a detailed picture of the sex education scene, using recent studies and anecdotes to illustrate his points. Richard discusses the poisonous efforts of what he calls the "condom culture," focusing on the activities of Planned Parenthood and an online teen magazine called Sex, etc. He explains how sex educators have redefined abstinence to include everything short of actual intercourse. Suggestions were made by the group to balance some of the negative information with positive developments in the field, to include case studies, and to more directly target his book to parents, most of whom would be up in arms if they knew half the things that were taking place in their children's "health" classes.

Our next meeting is planned for this Sunday, May 4, at the home of Valerie Shimoyama, 7 Adams Court, Apt. A-3B, Nutley. On the agenda will be Paul Russell's critique of the Book of Jonah and Bob's most recent short story, a futuristic drama entitled "For the Sake of the Children."

Thursday, March 27, 2008

The World According to Jerry

Our last meeting was held at the home of Kerry Pobanz. Present were June Saunders, Dan Sladich, Valerie Shimoyama, Jerry Chesnut, newcomer Marlo Watanabe, Bob and Karen Beebe and, of course, Kerry. It was great to have Marlo with us, a second gen, among us old-timers. She seemed to hold up well among us, not at all intimidated, and we hope she will continue to grace us with her presence.

After reading and commenting on a few quotations about writing by real writers (except for maybe one read by June, whom we all agreed, accomplished as we are, that he didn't know what he was talking about), we launched into an analysis and critique of Jerry's sort-of-autobiographical novel-in-progress. The reviews were quite positive, that he had made great progress in adding some dialogue and tightening up some sections, while retaining that distinctive Chesnutian prose which interweaves sometimes oblique cultural references, especially to Marlo, with life-shaping personal experiences.

We got so wrapped up in Jerry's piece that we never got to the second item on the agenda, Valerie's memoirs, which turned out to be all right with Valerie as her printer had stopped working and she had no copies to pass out anyway.

Thus, Valerie's work will be the main item of our next meeting's agenda, scheduled for this Sunday, March 30, 3:00-5:00 pm, at the Saunder's house (6 Emerson St., Clifton). Even as I write, Valerie is feverishly editing her piece and will be sending it to me tomorrow for subsequent distribution so that we may all be ready with our feedback for her on Sunday.

There are also reports that Paul Russell will be appearing with a new version of his review of the Book of Jonah. We hope as well that Dan Sladich will share with us a few of his poems.

Look forward to seeing all of you this Sunday.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

About Spirits and Quotes

Well, we had a very nice meeting of our New Jersey Writers Group (can't we find something less formal? we need to knock our brains together) a week ago Sunday at the home of Dan Sladich. Once again his daughter baked some dynamite chocolate chip cookies to ease along our discussion. In attendance were Dan, Valerie Shimoyama, Kerry Pobanz, Jerry Chesnut, June Saunders, Irene Sasao, Bob Beebe, and even Jerome Carroll came out of the woodwork at the end of the meeting.

We started off by distributing to each person fortune cookie type strips of literary quotes (or, more accurately, quips by writers on the art of writing). This helped to get us in the mood after reading quotes from the likes of Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Henry David Thoreau, and others. Each person had to express his/her agreement or disagreement with the quote he/she got, and why.

From there we moved on to the highlight of the meeting, a discussion of Kerry's soon-to-be-published article on ancestor liberation, specifically entitled "A Comparison of William Baldwin's 'Spititual Releasement Theory' and Dae Mo Nim's Depossession Healing." This discussion was very animated, since we Unificationists have attended more than a few liberation ceremonies in the past decade, in faith, but also sometimes with some scepticism (at least among some). Kerry's article showed that there are other practitioners of spiritual liberation in the world community who have found evidence of spiritual possession or attachment to people's bodies, although not necessarily understanding the origins of such phenomena.

Our next meeting is planned for this Sunday, March 16, 3:00-5:00 pm, at the Pobanz residence: 466 Chestnut St., Nutley. Appropriately, Jerry Chesnut (without the "t") will be presenting an update of his pseudoautobiography (with dialogue), along with Valerie Shimoyama, who will treat us to some more delicious stories from her past life (no, I don't mean previous reincarnations). If Paul Russell shows up, we may also get a chance to comment on his essay on the Book of Jonah. In any case, please being your written comments and we will mail them to him if he doesn't show.

I look forward to seeing you all there.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

First Blog Report


We had a wonderful meeting of our writers' group on Sunday, Feb. 17, at the cozy home of John and Kazuko Lombaerde. The main meeting was preceded by a coffee at Starbucks down the street where Dan Sladich, John, Bob and Karen Beebe, and newcomer Jerome Carroll gathered. After polishing off our coffees, we met up with June Saunders, Kerry Pobanz, Jerry Chesnut and Valerie Shimoyama at the Lombaerde's.

First on the agenda was John explaining about our group's blog once again, pointing out its uses and advantages. With a computer readily available, Jerome Carroll signed in on the spot. Dan Sladich tried to get in but couldn't due to a glitch (apparently still not resolved as I don't see his name up there yet). One of the advantages is posting a message like this one for all to see rather than e-mailing it out to everyone like I am doing. Obviously, for us old fogies old habits are hard to change. After all most of us started life in the letter-writing/typewriter era and we got thrust warp-speed into cyberspace. No wonder we're still bumbling around. But I'm sure we'll get to the promised land some day where we will feel totally comfortable living our lives on the internet like our children do.

After that, we time-traveled back to 1914, which was the time period of the short story Bob read to the group. He (that is, I) really appreciate the feedback everyone gave, which helped me to ratchet up the quality of the piece. I finished it yesterday and am now just waiting to collect my $150 before sending it off to the publisher. I am now preparing to write a futuristic drama of a world where the traditional family has ceased to exist and the state controls all child-bearing and child-rearing, which is basically what I think would have happened had True Parents not appeared.

Our next meeting is planned for this Sunday, March 2nd, 3:00-5:00 pm, at the home of Dan Sladich, 46 Myrtle Ave. in Clifton. We are planning to discuss the piece on the Book of Jonah written by Paul Russell and Kerry Pobanz's article "A Comparison of William Baldwin's "Spirit Releasement Therapy" and Dae Mo Nim's Depossession Healing" (a little light reading before heading off to bed). Please contact them if you need a copy of either one. Anyone else that has something to present is welcome to do so.

I look forward to seeing you all this Sunday. God bless!


PS You can observe half of our group in the accompanying photo. Let's get the rest of us up there!