bonsaial1

There are not many things in life that get me miffed. I am a pretty easy going guy. I think alot of that comes from the fact that I call a spade a spade and I do not mince words very often. Sometimes I may burn bridges, but if the bridge needed burning, so be it.

I find myself at just that sort of place in my life. I had the opportunity to look at a famous American bonsai magazine today. Issue 105. Not exactly a first issue since it only comes out every two months. The copy is fat and feels as though it has a lot of pages. I was very surprised to find that additional pages were added this month for some extra savings on more books that are old , outdated and hardly sell. In fact some of the books are offered at a price that the bonsai shop owner could buy cheaper as "joe shopper" than the owner of the magazine wholesales them to the shop owner for? Talk about cutting the throats of your advertisers.

Then on to the articles. Another gem on mushrooms by guess who? I thought this was a bonsai magazine, at least that is what I always bought it for.

Then the coup de gras! Another four page spread of shohin trees by our friend across the ocean. These trees and accompaneing text have been prostituted all over the internet. Any one willing to give it some bandwidth has published these photoes and text on the internet. There is a book ( I was eagerly awaiting something new on shohin) on shohin by this author due in 2007, yet I am convinced that this material will be once again be regurgitated a fifth time for us to savor next year. WHY? Anyone worth his bonsai salt has read this material on any one of five bonsai internet sites, now a magazine and soon a book. Come on, I know there is more out there.

Don't magazine publishers try to find propritary material to publish in their rags. This is the 21st century, the age of computers and the internet. Why are we acting content with reading this stuff. I think it's time that we make our bonsai voices heard and start getting some bonsai in the bonsai magazine. These things are not going to fix themselves if we sit back like sheep and entertain medocrity.

Hint, the first guy that starts offering a decent cash incentive for inspiring bonsai articles is going to own the bonsai magazine world for the future. If a magazine were to offer even $200.00 for a decent article, there would be more than an editor could look at in a publishing cycle. Articles would be coming from every corner of our nation.Trust me it would not last long and would die the slow death as my favorite magazine WABI has done. But at least it would be good for a while.

Thanks for reading my rant, Al

I just may make this a monthly addition.

__________________
Real men don't wear coats with "happi" in the title.

Advertisement