So TheMarioBlog reaches its first minor milestone: the first 100 postings. Well, it is not the celebration that requires that you open your favorite bottle of Dom Perignon, or even bake a chocolate cake and blow the candles on it. We serve that for another occasion. But maybe you will enjoy an extra cup of coffee or, if you feel really festive, a caramel macchiato.
Why write a daily blog
As I have said here several times, I was one of the last persons in the media to start writing a blog. I was afraid that it would take too much time of my already busy day.
I started practicing for about two weeks, without publishing my entries, just to see how blogging felt. My good friend Ron Reason had been after me to write a blog, and, finally, while sitting through many lunches and dinners in Lagos, Nigeria, where we both work on a project, Ron finally gave me the final push.
“Just do it, Mario,” he said, “you are always telling stories, so why not share them with others.”
Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I said. By the time we had taken the Lufthansa flight from Lagos to Frankfurt, Ron had me convinced. The next morning I woke up and sat at the computer, stared at the blank screen and wrote the first unpublished blog number one.
It felt good. So here we are 100 postings later.
What is it all about?
I am learning as I go. I confess that I do not read too many blogs myself.
But I had read enough to know what I WOULD NOT DO in my own blog.
I wrote me a short mission statement, for my own consumption. Part of what it said:
use the blog to stimulate discussion about our craft, use the blog as a teaching tool, don’t use the blog to destroy others or their work, or to become a platform for the brewing of poisonous soups that are negative and never advance the cause of what we do.
I began my career as a reporter and as a copy editor. I soon found out, after starting this blog, that it would allow me a daily opportunity to flex my journalistic muscles, to go back and review writing, editing, and language use.
Each morning I gain new respect for all those newspaper columnists who manage to write a daily column. I think of the ones who inspired me in my journalism student days. Two come to mind, both columnists for The Miami News, the newspaper where I did my apprenticeship: Bill Baggs, editor of The News, and funny man John Keasler, who had something humorous to say about his surroundings daily. Reading Baggs and Keasler I learned more than my second language, English. I also learned that a good journalist uses his senses as the best tools. These men wrote about what they saw, heard, smelled and touched. And they managed to make me feel it as well. Baggs and Keasler had something interesting and profound to say most days, unlike me. But they are my models.
I also learned that blogging can be a solitary activity. There are no editors to read one’s material, to offer advice, to correct grammar and spelling, or, most importantly, to question statements made in the text.
To me, this was the most difficult part of blogging. It is still painful to complete each posting, and to wonder how it could have been refined.
Blogging is about instant thoughts, spontaneous ideas, and meditations and musings done thorugh a huge megaphone. Scary, right?
One becomes his own censor. I know I have done it twice, with no regrets.
The blogger as his own censor
Twice as I have finished a posting, then decided not to run it. Nothing major. Nothing controversial. And, looking back, I know that an editor by my side would have encouraged me to go ahead and publish those postings.
Yes, I know you are dying to know what they were:
When Yves met Batusi
The Yves St. Laurent cover in Paris Match—- I happened to be working with the Paris Match magazine team the week that Yves St. Laurent died. I was in a meeting about the redesign of the magazine, when someone interrupted to ask the editor and art director about which photo of the fashion designer icon to use on the cover . It was a fantastically smart discussion: what would work best in all of France, not just in Paris; since the photo was a nude that Yves had done when he first introduced his men’s cologne in the 1970s, the question was how much torso to show, and, of course, if nipples could be shown. My ears perked up, and I knew, instantly that this would be great blog material, since editors and art directors find themselves in similar discussions. I decided not to run it, partly because it was a private discussion, and I was sort of the intruder in the room.
How much of an intruder is a blogger? What can we say about the fact that we all go about our daily business, whatever it is, but we also cocoon back into the cozy world of our blog, where our “experiences” of the day become all too attractive a subject for blog postings. This is a subject for discussion when journalism schools start teaching Blogging 101—-is anyone doing this already?
And Batusi Perez Prado did Shirley Bassey—I also left the colorful Batusi out of the blog. Shame on me. I was spending a few days of vacation during July in Maspalomas, in the Canary Islands. A waiter at the hotel who noticed my Cuban accent told me: You must go to this nightclub here where we have a Cuban artist performing weekends. She is terrific.
Well, indeed, HE was. Batusi Perez Prado claims to be one of the oldest working drag queens in the world. I believe it, but what talent. His specialty is doing Shirley Bassey and Josephine Baker. And the two of them would be proud if they saw Batusi. Of course, Batusi found out a fellow Cuban American was in the audience, and, after the show, came over and took a picture with me. I loved every minute of the show, and even more when she sat at our table and sipped champagne with us. I prepared the blog entry, but pulled it out in the last minute. “Mario, this is a blog about design, not about the colorful characters you meet along the way, or in the tropical nights of Maspalomas.” Good advice, I thought. Batusi did not make it.
Well, maybe I include that photo here today! When the heat of summer gives way to the golden leaves of fall, the mind, too, adopts a more contemplative mode: here is Batusi Perez Prado and moi.
Writing about the competition? What’s wrong with that?
I have sent a sort of blog birthday card to my dear friend Roger Black on the occasion of his 60th birthday last August; I have done three-minute interviews with Lucy Lacava and Bob Newman, and quoted Juan Señor, of Innovation.
And what do I get asked? “Why do you give space in your blog to your competitors?”
Well, I have the greatest respect for the work that these people do. And, although it is true that we may “audition” for the same jobs, and compete with each other at some level, that does not take away from the respect that I have for them and what they do.
And, since this blog is a forum for advancing our craft, we have space here for anyone who is doing things that others should see and hear about.
What next for TheMarioBlog?
Well, the next 100 postings will be as much a surprise to me as they will be to you. This blog evolves a little each day, and so do I: at 61, life is still like waking up each morning and getting ready for first grade class. This blog is the big blackboard on which to scribble what I see, hear and think about. The other day my granddaughter Sophia told me she was happy because it was “show and tell” in her first grade class. Well, it is show and tell for me here daily and, like Sophia, I am happy too.
In these past 100 postings I have traveled through 16 countries, 25 cities, and ran about 450 kilometers, not to mention miles flown (don’t even want to know, although Lufthansa keeps records).
And, one thing remains clear: there will be a Mario blog as long as Mario has something to say.
One wish for the next 100 postings
If I had a wish, it would be that YOU leave your comments here. Although we sometimes have 15000 plus people coming to read a blog in a day, few leave comments; many write me emails. I don’t mind the emails, but I would like to see TheMarioBlog become more of a forum for discussions of the things that we all share in this industry. Also, tell me what topics you would like to read more about.
Yes, I know, you send me more personal comments when I write about an African melon seed soup, or a lychitini drink made in a Manhattan bar, or even my mother’s Cuban coffee, than when I write about what ails U.S. dailies. Just post your comments here, so that others can share them.
The daily writing experience
One of you wrote me recently, asking if I ever wrote a column for a newspaper, and I answered NO. However, I think that that was the wrong answer, as I did write a weekly column when I was editor of the University of South Florida’s newspaper, The Oracle. It was 1969, the Vietnam war was at the top of the evening news, and I believed in that war and said so repeatedly, angering many of my classmates at the time.
The University’s underground newspaper, Aquarius, blasted my column week after week, desribing me as “this Cuban refugee editor who sees commies everywhere.” Perhaps that was true at the time.
But one thing remains true: I was writing about what I believed in, and how I saw it at the time.
I am still doing just that.
Finalists for Best Magazine Cover 2008 announcedl
Our Three-Minute Interview with top magazine designer Bob Newman got us in the mood for all things related to magazine design. So the following item seems appropriate here.
I like the variety of styles that we find with all of the finalists, from Type Attacks to Photo Attacks, and even great use of conceptual illustrations. I have some favorites, of course, which I try to post here.
NEW YORK, NY (September 22, 2008)—The finalists of the third annual Best Cover Contest organized by American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) were announced today by Marlene Kahan, Executive Director, ASME.
The winners will be revealed on Monday, October 6, during the morning general sessions of the American Magazine Conference in San Francisco, California. The American Magazine Conference is the premier business summit hosted by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) and ASME for top-level magazine executives.
Magazines with multiple nominations include New York (6), The New Yorker (4), Wired (3), The New York Times Magazine (2), T: The New York Times Style Magazine (2), Texas Monthly (2), TIME (2), and Vanity Fair (2).
http://www.magazine.org/asme/2008-best-cover-finalists.aspx
Enjoying my very busy week in Paris, working with the team of Paris Match magazine as they prepare for the October 2 launch of the new design for this legendary French magazine. Today I will do an early morning run on the left bank of the Seine, then do a first meeting at 8:30, presenting the new design of PM to the media. If time allows tonight, I will have a glass of my favorite bubblies, Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label: to the next 100 postings, wherever they may take us.