Digital Squash Magazine Not There Yet

I've been trying to keep my yapper shut for a while to give the magazine time to get over the inevitable miscues of a new publishing endeavor. But the time for caution has past.

I have complained about Squash Magazine before, but I was very hopeful that the new arrangement with US Squash, in which the two "merged operations," would benefit both the magazine and, probably more importantly, the website. The magazine, despite being peppered with grammatical and layout mistakes, is demonstrably better, although it still suffers from reportage based on events that have happened too long ago to make for scintillating reading. But there are new elements that have appeared and the overall tone has improved. So, okay ....

The website for the publication, which was nothing short of pathetic before the merger, now is, well, still pathetic. In viewing the site on December 30, I see a series of articles, all of which are dated October 1. There is a column dubbed "Recent Posts," which again lists articles dated October 1. There is the slight saving grace of a column labeled "US Squash News" that does indeed have more recent items, but who is going to bother to look for these few items when the rest of the homepage screams October 1, fully 3 months earlier?! It's a shame.

I had hoped that the involvement of US Squash would include some concern about the website and its presentation, but that is clearly not the case. If so, then please god kill the site. Why have it available when it is an embarrassment? I don't get it. 

The website has its own tile ad on US Squash's homepage, so clearly the organization wants readers to go there, but for what? 

My (unsolicited) advice: Kill the website until there is the time and money to support it.

My even better (unsolicited) advice: Kill the publication, and put all your efforts into a great website.

A Chapter in 'The Club From Hell'

I've just contributed a chapter in The Club From Hell, a communal effort among some squash writers (or, writing squash players). You can check it out here on the DailySquashReport site.

Meanwhile, just yesterday I was playing a game, ran up to the front left corner to pick up a shot, which I easily got to, only to feel something go POP in my right knee. Not good...

I'm not hurt (much), not limping, no swelling, etc., so it seems relatively minor. But the POP thing was a new one for me, and unnerving. I have an appointment at the orthos next week, but until then, no squash for the Squashist. Merde.....

Squash in the Fourth Dimension

The 4th dimension is of course Time, and time, in publishing, can throw a wet blanket on things.

I just received, on June 5, the April/May issue of Squash Magazine, the official publication of US Squash. The fact that I received it late, not even within the extra-wide 2-month window of its publication date, was noteworthy. Why would a publisher do that? Well, being in publishing myself, I can guess that the answer is probably related to ad dollars. The publisher and editor, Jay Prince, was probably holding out for a few more ads before he put the magazine to bed. Jay gets some money from US Squash to put the magazine out, but he relies heavily on ad dollars to keep the enterprise afloat.

I can completely understand. We have had to do that a few times when advertisers have turned uncharacteristically impecunious (ie, cheap!). But it is dangerous to do that when publishing a news magazine, because it puts in jeopardy the usefulness of the very thing that constitutes the reason for the publication in the first place: news....

In the April/May issue there are four feature articles. Each one reviews the results from a squash tournament. And all four of the tournaments on display in this issue were from March.

So I received the issue in June, and am to read a series of articles about tournaments from March... In the age of the internet, this is not a winning formula.

The issue has a few other head-scratchers, like an invitation to attend the CitySquash 10th-year party at the University Club in NYC, which had already taken place nearly a week before I received the issue.

Now, this should not be read as criticism of the management of Squash Magazine. I am sympathetic to the problems of publishing under financial duress.

But I think it might be time to change the model. Forget publishing a print magazine; printing and postage costs are too expensive anyway. Prince and his editorial staff can publish the news about squash and run all their feature articles online as quickly as possible so that the information on their website is still fresh. I visit online squash sites all the time, so Squash Magazine's current articles about the US Junior Championships, the adult US Championships, the US Doubles Championships and the US Skill Level Championships were no longer of interest to me -- I had read about them months ago!

US Squash gives Jay Prince money to help fund the magazine because receiving it is a benefit of membership in US Squash, so if the magazine were to resort to an online-only presence, then some significant additional information on the site should be closed to US Squash members only. That could be easily done by setting up a password-protected part of the site. In this section would be additional articles, association news, and enticing visual items, including images and videos from tournaments as well as podcasts, blogs, and other online-only offerings.

The internet is perfect for covering a sport. You can talk about it all you want, include some pictures and diagrams, but actually watching it is always going to have the most impact. But above all, the internet respects the dangers of the fourth dimension when it comes to the dissemination of news. It's time Squash Magazine made the digital leap. 

Cad Alert!

At this year's Tournament of Champions in New York I was walking over to the bar when there before me was a fellow with books to sell. It turns out this was Aubrey Waddy, author of Sex and Drugs and Squash'n'Roll, who had set up a little table and was hawking his book. Mr. Waddy and I exchanged quick howdy-dos and sure enough I bought his book. However, after long custom, I put the book at the bottom of my book pile, where it would have to wait until I had finished reading the 6 books above it. Those books tended towards Scandinavian murder mysteries, and included Karin Alvtegen's "Betrayal," Anders Roslund's "Box 21," Yrsa Sigurdardottir's "The Day is Dark," Lars Kepler's "The Hypnotist," and, in a stretch, a book of poetry, in Swedish, by Tomas Transtromer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature last year. 

So I had a lot to get through before the squash novel. But when I finally cracked the book, with its goofy cover art and its problematic typography, I have to confess I was a little dubious. It just didn't look like I was cracking open a first-rate yarn.

But I'm ready to admit I can be wrong, and boy was I wrong about this. Sex and Drugs and Squash'n'Roll lives up to its billing, providing plenty of lusty sex from the very first page, drug use by some of the protagonists that gets our squash hero into trouble, musical interludes from the squash player's avocation of mixing tapes, and, of course, a ton of squash. The author knows what he is writing about... Well, the squash, at any rate; about the sex and drugs and rock'n'roll you will have to ask him. Though I have my suspicions... 

Sometimes flat-out funny, the story includes the spicy bits but also interesting detail about how to make it on the pro circuit. Plus, the novel features one of the worst mothers in recent literature, and a very deranged father -- though of another player. Plus there is attempted murder....

You can get the book cheaply via Kindle or throw caution to the wind and buy the print version (here).

Mr. Waddy, you cad you, you've written a great book.