[PRCo] Re: The Tartan

[Fred Schneider]

But everyone has his own talent.  Swindler has a great talent  
analyzing the buffoons in the government arena.

And I wish I could play a musical instrument.   I would love to be  
able to play piano or organ but when you have someone in the  
immediate family who plays at Lincoln Center and the Houston Symphony  
etc., etc., and who runs a music school, it's a little intimidating  
to go to them and take basic lessons.  I'll just never do it.    
Instead I'll simply enjoy sitting in St. Martin's in the Field in  
London and listening to the music.

You may recall the late Harre Demoro.    His business was writing.    
He wrote for the Oakland Tribune and later for the San Francisco  
Chronicle.  Some considered Harre the undying optimist when it came  
to promoting BART.   He simply felt it didn't do any good to keep  
hammering on BART's mistakes ... afterall, here was one of the first  
new transit systems in the U. S. A. and Harre was proud that he lived  
in the city that was part of it.    But back to Harre's job.  People  
in that field don't make a whole lot of money.  A planner for PennDOT  
in Harrisburg would make more than a writer for a major newspaper.    
He needed to moonlight in order to keep body and soul together in the  
second highest cost region of the United States.  He wrote for a lot  
of other magazines on the side just to make a buck.   He also wrote  
books on the side.  I remember watching him disappear into his  
basement den and park himself behind the typewriter after dinner.   
Thirty minutes later he came out with an envelope addressed to  
Metropolitan magazine.  A complete article ... out of the brain, to  
the muscles, onto the keys, onto paper, proofed, a cover letter  
written, in the envelope, stamps on it, and ready to drop in a mail  
box in 30 minutes.    Amazing talent.  And then he and I went out  
somewhere.  Of course he had to be able to do that in order to write  
on daily deadlines for one of the nation's major newspapers.

I never came close.   The best I ever did was a one column piece for  
Trains magazine on the GG-1 that Strasburg Rail Road rebuilt  ...  
that took me an hour to bash out plus the time to process the film  
and make the print.   I was no where nearly as cost effective as  
Harre's work.

On Feb 23, 2007, at 1:12 PM, John Swindler wrote:

>
>
> Maybe it is because journalist are trained in composition, grammer and
> creative writing, not in the topic they are trying to write about.   
> Creative
> people go into journalism.  Logical people go into engineering.
>
> I once spent some time trying to edit a magazine.  Found that I  
> could not
> compose text and then edit it.  Seemed to be two completely different
> thought processes.  So I would try to spend several days putting  
> together
> "garbage" just to get something down on paper, then would have to  
> come back
> week or so later and try to edit for grammer and facts.  (and I am  
> very
> envious of several others who seem to have the ability to compose  
> finished
> text with no problem at all.)
>
> Many many years ago there was an article in Harvard Business Review  
> that
> discussed that people seemed to analyze/plan on left side of brain  
> (sort of
> logical side) and the right side tended to be more intuitive/ 
> creative side.
> One comment was that those who are technically proficient don't  
> always make
> the best managers/leaders.  Seemed to make a lot of sense to this
> non-creative person.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: Bill Robb <bill937ca at yahoo.ca>
>> Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: The Tartan
>> Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:31:29 -0800 (PST)
>>
>> We have become a society that is always in a hurry.  I've had slides
>> printed backwards. All you have to do is look at the image.  When  
>> the words
>> on the destination sign are backwards the image is backwards. But  
>> in the
>> photo lab all they do is look at the slide mounting.  If the slide is
>> mounted backwards, they print it backwards!  You will find images  
>> scanned
>> backwards in online archives. Obviously, no one is checking if the  
>> image is
>> correct. Quality takes time and as a society we don't want to take  
>> time.
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Why is it so many journalism writers constantly make so many  
>> mistakes?
>> What
>> ever happened to getting the facts straight?  I get frustrated  
>> when I see
>> mistakes after mistake that should not have ever gotten away.
>>
>> A 29 year old journalism major did an article on me here at  
>> Purchase and
>> there are more things incorrect than correct.  Major music  
>> magazines going
>> out to educators that have cover photos printed backwards are  
>> constantly
>> showing up in the mailbox.
>>
>> Yes, I make mistakes and they have shown up in the PTM calendar  
>> and my
>> book.
>> God (and most people) knows I am not a perfect musician.  A few  
>> years back
>> there was a stress reducing book entitled something along the  
>> lines of
>> Don't
>> Sweat the Small Stuff.   We need to learn to sweat the small stuff  
>> and the
>> big stuff looks easy.
>>
>> Dennis Fred Cramer
>>      Trombone
>>
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________________________________________ 
>> _______________
>> Do you Yahoo!?
>> Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
>> http://new.mail.yahoo.com
>>
>
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