Wilkinson's Edge

My latest for Asbury Pulp is in a style I haven't really used since college. I had a regular column then in the Trenton State College newspaper, The Signal, called "Wilkinson's Edge." Then-editor John Robinson had invited me to write a couple of articles and from there, encouraged me to step it up into a regular column. I would probably never have tried it otherwise. The column name was his doing and I always liked it. (For the record, I'm not related to the Wilkinson Sword Blade family that I know of.)

The style of those columns was free and snarky and the words flowed easily, like water out of a clean deep well. It was a joy to write those, to try to make myself laugh out loud as a I wrote them. At my first newspaper job, a small Princeton Packet Publications paper called The Franklin News-Record, I wrote one or two and my editor used the same name, "Wilkinson's Edge." At the Times of Trenton, a few years later, I ran one, toned down a bit, but still in the same vein. (To my knowledge, none of those are available online.) But since then, now writing mostly about classical music, I've restricted myself to a more serious approach, a more conservative style.

Writing this article on Mitt Romney (see the link below), I came back to that pure happiness, hammering away to make something a little silly and still opinionated and punchy. And I'm pleased with the result. With Asbury Pulp editor Steven Froias' encouragement, we decided to run it and it appeared Saturday morning.

I'm hoping to make it a regular part of my contribution there. Will be interesting to see how it develops.

• Mitt Romney: King of Comedy

--C.
www.theandofone.blogspot.com
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Greetings From Asbury Pulp!

In addition to my work with the Asbury Park Press, I’ve started writing for the website, Asbury Pulp, an writers portal featuring commentary on websites, restaurants, visual arts, music and whatever else the community is talking about.

Today there’s a great article about Carrie Potter-Devening’s new book on the old Upstage club at Asbury Park, one of Springsteen’s boyhood haunts.

As that article and the site’s name imply, the principal focus of Asbury Pulp is Asbury Park, but its interests fan out over the region, the nation and the globe. The site was conceived and created by Steven Froias of the local paper TriCity News (the tri-cities being Red Bank, Long Branch and Asbury Park), a highly opinionated tabloid covering news and issues relevant to the region.

I had approached Steven a couple years ago about possibly doing some work for the TriCity, but obstacles popped up for both sides. So when he started the website, he contacted me again. This time it seemed an easy, natural fit.

My two articles so far:

• The Silence of John Cage talks about the importance of the composer/philosopher in the centennial year of his birth
• A Hymn of Praise to Vinyl talks about the spiritual importance of 12-inch records

Less hard news, more literary magazine, Asbury Pulp invites contributions from writers in the community. Visit the site, read and join in the conversation if you’re so inclined.

--C.
www.theandofone.blogspot.com
Follow @CarltonOne
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