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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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His newest blog wuz pretty ter'ble.
I posted this response:
Man, what a tough gig. Maybe if your demographic wasn't 16 year old gym rats you could report on something, er, interesting. Unfortunately all the grown-ups (that might be me, I guess) have already realized we can read these articles for free in Barnes & Noble.
The 152nd ascent of some hard sport climb, while incredibly impressive, is banal enough that no MTV talk can make it interesting.
I still enjoy your articles, just let the 'grown-up' in you take over. Remember, some of us old dudes (well, 24 year olds at least) prefer something that hits a little closer to home.
-Supertopo LOLcat
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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It's too bad that the magazine doesn't take the money it is wasting on Bisharat's salary and spend it to get more articles from people like Doug Robinson and Largo. One article from one of them is more valuable than all of Bisharat's "eblasts" combined.
Also have you read any of Bisharat's gear reviews? He has no business reviewing gear. Some of us remember when R&I was a real climber's magazine and had quality gear reviews written by Clyde Soles. How far R&I has fallen.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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It is interesting, and I'd guess not at all coincidental, that Rock & Ice has an on-line forum. http://www.rockandice.com/forum/
It has a total of 890 articles and 17868 registered users. Plus weird stuff like a moderator. I'd guess that SuperTopo's statistics dwarf that. SuperTopo has many excellent and informative discussions, often better than those seen in magazines or their forums. (I know - having started an index for SuperTopo, which after review of six months of threads had 35 pages of "good" stuff = 700 or 800 threads)
Perhaps it's simple commercial logic - the news media, including R&I, are desperately trying to figure out how to make money off the internet, and survive. We're on the cusp of economic problems. SuperTopo represents well-established and formidable 'competition'. If you were the editor or publisher of R&I, would you be happy?
In general reply to Mr. Bisharat's comments on the stature and relevancy of the SuperTopo community, and its members, I quote Sir Isaac Newton: "If I could see farther, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants."
The demographic of active posters to SuperTopo on climbing issues leans toward those who are older, and who live in the southwest U.S. It also includes many very well known climbers. Older climbers, even in their 30s, by definition often have more to their lives than climbing, not to mention posting to forums. I know a fair number of young climbers, who I sometimes read about in the magazines. Many lurk here, and enjoy and learn from the experience.
On another note, armchair mountaineers are a very well-established sub-species of our community. Most of us sooner or later become armchair mountaineers. They like to read, including things like magazines. They still dream, though, and sometimes do so through things like this forum.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Maybe some of you R&I bashers should take a step back. Or take a deep breath. Or something.
I'm older than most of you. I don't sport climb -- well, not if I can avoid it -- and couldn't care less about who did the fifth ascent of some boulder problem. I've also done a hell of a lot more climbing writing than most of you. And a lot more editiing of climbing writing.
But just because I'm an old trad climber/writer doesn't mean I have to drip bile onto people simply because they are younger than I am or because their climbing passion is differently directed than mine, or because they write in a different style than I do.
If you don't like what's being written in R&I, don't read it. We've got Alpinist. We've got ST. And if you do have to complain about it, then base your complaints on something other than "he doesn't write like Largo."
Wake up. Climbing writing changes from generation to generation. Every climbing generation spits up writers who both capture their time and also change the course of climbing writing. Is Andrew B such a writer? Probably not. But neither is he a bad writer.
So quit complaining and go climb something.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Tami, Tami - how many times do I have to tell you to give the cat the catnip BEFORE you let it write?
Worked for Coleridge.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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"But neither is he a bad writer."
Go and read his crap. Then come back and try to say that with a straight face.
I read though quite a few of his articles because, unlike Bisharat, I read enough to form an opinion before criticizing. His writing is unbelievably bad. I've never seen writing that bad in any publication. It's difficult to believe how bad it is until you read it yourself.
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Standing Strong
Trad climber
sunlight on the surf
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does R&I have an L?
does R&I have a werner?
how 'bout a hartouni?
or a jaybro?
or a climbrunride?
riley?
yo?
tuolomne*rainbow?
how 'bout a mrs. blinny?
UM no.
thanks to the internet, paper 'zines are becoming obsolete. perhaps bisharat feels threatened - subconciously reacting to online forums because he's a magazine writer?
RIP R&I
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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So, upon being shown the Alaskan Alpine Club archives copy of Rock & Ice #1, a previous Rock and Ice staff person commented that even Rock and Ice does not have an original copy of #1.
Like REI and most other institutions, Rock & Ice was acquired by marketers.
There is no profit among climbers. They have no money compared to the market for the image of climbers. The magazine staff needs subscribers, not climber concepts.
How do such things happen? Consider a climber contributer to SuperTopo. Climbers challenge limits. Government imposes the most idiotic limits humans can identify, unlike the real limits of the mountains. All real climbers rag the stinking National Park Service dolts who decree that climbers cannot climb without first kowtowing to absurd Park Service climbing regulations. Real climbers violate them with impunity, as an afterthought, if any thought, in comparison with the currently perceived limits of the route.
The majority of SuperTopo contributors who are institution-supporting people (Park Service, AmerAC, Access Fund, environmentalist groups) rather than actual climbers, respond with outrage or ridicule for daring to challenge the worshiped government-decreed limits.
What is the inherent result?
The SuperTopo market will do to SuperTopo what the subscribers did to Rock & Ice, Climbing Magazine and all institutions which cannot exist on their original concept of individual thinkers who therefore attracted attention and attacks by those afraid of individual thinkers (actual climbers).
If there is any mountain climber club in the US, in addition to the Alaskan Alpine Club, that verifiably represents actual mountain climber concepts, please be so kind as to inform me. Our communications would effect another original market opportunity.
Oh, and you missed No Notice Monday. Small group this time. We solved all the problems. Alas, nobody took notes, albeit as usual. We were Laughing Out Loud most of the evening.
Oh, and the Rock & Ice person said she would get the AlaskanAlpineClub a complementary subscription. That did not happen. The metaphorical distance between climber institutions and climbers is vastly too great for any climber institution to risk any association with the Alaskan Alpine Club and climbers who understand the concept of climbing, much to our ongoing amusement.
Doug
AlaskanAlpineClub.org
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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I thought a while back that R&I was actually improving and doing a pretty good job, but it seems the tide has turned. As long as we're ragging on them, a couple things about the last R&I (so far) bugged me a little.
The article about the "Staggering Rise of the American Climbing Comp" was the first. Staggering Rise...talk about your LOL!!! The guy who wrote the article starts off the whole thing by tearing into his audience and telling them that they're all competitive BECAUSE they climb. Then it's just one superlative after another about how climbing comps are where it's at and how comps are the future of climbing. Then at the end, you find out the author is the managing partner of the comp circuit. Wow, what a shocker that was!
The other thing that caught my eye was the line by Bisharat (who's recent TNB columns have taken on an obnoxious quality) in the article he wrote on climbing around Mesquite, NV, where he says "Mesquite is the first plot of dirt in Nevada, directly over the border from Arizona and Southern Utah. Any swinging dick can cross the state line and enter a fantastic galaxy..." I guess yous wimmen are out in the cold. I don't really get upset at that sort of marine-style humor, but for a mainline magazine not to edit that out for the possibility of offending the many glorious women who climb seems sort of callous. I get a little tired of reading the f-bomb in the many juvenile-gangsta bouldering article they feature, but this one seemed to just be even more pointless.
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atchafalaya
climber
Babylon
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"I’ve never climbed the Nose. For a lack of anything better, it’s the pivotal tick to becoming a Real Climber. But give a kid a break. I just haven’t gotten around to doing it for the same reason I avoid rolling in dehydrated piss.
Besides, El Cap trade routes these days are a strangely bad rip-off—like Bikram’s yoga, where people seriously pay $16 to sit in a hot room and have their neighbors sweat and fart on them for 90 minutes."
Actually, if you have climbed the Nose in the last 10 years, thats a pretty good comparison. Bisharat's writing is pretty good. If you think you can write something better, please, get off your ass and submit something. Otherwise, what do you expect for a $12 yearly subscription?
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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R&I has no LOIS!!!!!
And no Ouch!.
And no Mighty Hiker.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Strange bedfellows... I don't know if I'm supposed to be complimented, or insulted. Or both.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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AB writes
""I’ve never climbed the Nose. For a lack of anything better, it’s the pivotal tick to becoming a Real Climber. But give a kid a break. I just haven’t gotten around to doing it for the same reason I avoid rolling in dehydrated piss.
Besides, El Cap trade routes these days are a strangely bad rip-off—like Bikram’s yoga, where people seriously pay $16 to sit in a hot room and have their neighbors sweat and fart on them for 90 minutes."
Sounds like he's got to dis the nose to cover his lack of experience. Has he done ANY El Cap route? How many walls?
Is the route really the problem or is it something else?
Peace
Karl
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Relax Anders. Any publicity is good publicity.
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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I say cheers to AB for getting so many panties in a twist just by calling ST denizens LOL cats. Good stuff.
I don't get how people can get so worked up about writing they don't like. If you know you don't like someone's writing, why keep reading it? Just so you can leg hump them and cut and paste on the internet to go LOOK HOW BAD THE RITINGS IZ??
Get a life!
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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"I don't get how people can get so worked up about writing they don't like. If you know you don't like someone's writing, why keep reading it? Just so you can leg hump them and cut and paste on the internet to go LOOK HOW BAD THE RITINGS IZ??
Get a life!"
Caughtinside, so why do you keep reading this thread? You like humping legs?
"LOOK HOW BAD THE RITINGS IZ"
The only one who writes like that here is you. Stop projecting your own inadequacies onto others.
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 5, 2008 - 04:24pm PT
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I never intended this to be a Bish Bash. I actually thought it was kinda funny. Sometimes you gotta laugh at yourself, too.
Was also curious to see how sensitive we would be.
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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graniteclimber, sorry to take away from the time you have to cut and paste bisharat's stuff, by forcing you to cut and paste mine.
keep up the good work you LOL cat!
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