By Matt Pearce
I’m still working on this week’s passage, but I already had a few thoughts — the first being that to read James Agee and enjoy the experience is to have overcome a summit of tics.
Agee's prose is, to paraphrase Robert Lowell, a "monotony of the sublime." The natural proportion of things seems to have been thrown out of whack; details of the smallest sort are blown up to near-hysterical significance. Each little thing seems electrified with mortal urgency and has become shocking to the touch.
Then there’s Agee's paralyzing self-consciousness, on display from the beginning in a throat-clearing that spans dozens of pages. Agee seems paranoid about not fully representing his subjects, whom he holds in an incantatory awe of Biblical inflection:
“A man and a woman are drawn together upon a bed and there is a child and there are children: First they are mouths, then they become auxiliary instruments of labor: later they are drawn away, and become the fathers and mothers of children, who shall become the fathers and mothers of children: Their father and their mother before them were, in their time, the children each of different parents, who in their time were each children of parents: This has been happening for a long while: its beginning was before stars: It will continue for a long while: no one knows where it will end...”
And they begat, and begat, and begat.
As we go on, his frenzied deference is reminiscent of the Book of Numbers, where Moses’ men survey the foreign tribes of Canaan and return humbled:
“...The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
Walker Evans’ photos seem to take on a similarly intense focus. The close crop and the harsh conditions combine for a kind of claustrophobia. The subjects are rarely given a backdrop that suggests any kind of space. We can extract any number of interpretations for this, but one metaphor is easy to reach: these people are trapped in their lives.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Rachel Carson & Silent Spring
By Matt Pearce
Our perception of man and nature colliding is mostly iconographic and kind of hegemonistic. Something is always being dominated by a greater apocalyptic force. Houses are always getting flattened by mudslides, mountains of salmon are seen swung around in a giant net.
These things are sensational and make for great images. They inspire people to action.
So how, then, do you write about a disaster whose root causes are molecular? And in a time when prevailing scientific wisdom was seemingly sacrosanct?
Carson’s use of lyricism — metaphor, essentially — is the natural tool for jumping from place to place, from zoom to zoom; a wide-angle telescope with a perfectly-adjustible aperture capable of capturing her argument for nature’s — and man’s — interconnectivity.
I think it’s important to point out the successes of the written word when we encounter them. Nature is a beautiful thing, but as much as we’d love to luxuriate in its visual largesse, a physical camera can’t tell all its stories.
DDT: what is it, exactly? What does it do when it enters an organism? How does it affect an insect, a waterway, a township? These are the questions a crusading writer has to answer, and answer in ways that can engage the people who most need to be engaged.
On a related note, you have to be curious about who will be Carson’s heir for our generation, and what values they’ll challenge. We look back with pride on our successful muckraker journalists who, stripped of the context of history, seem to don great cloaks of justice.
But how were they treated in their day? As activists. Rabble-rousers, challenging the system.
This seems to conflict, slightly, with some of our inculcated values as journalists: impartiality, fairness, not becoming the story. I wonder how much the achievement of success affects questions of these journalists’ “impartiality,” and how much that empowers us as journalists to pursue causes we know are just.
Because what if we’re found in the wrong? We would have violated some of our most hallowed professional values.
I suppose muckraking journalism is kind in that its successes are much better remembered than its failures. It makes me also wonder whether our attempts at impartiality aren’t also hedges against the changing mores of history.
Nonetheless, Rachel Carson was right, and so we salute her. She had the facts on her side, and she delivered them with the grace of a litterateur. Given her success, and the success of the authors we’ve read before, it’s hard to argue against journalists taking a few more chances and making a few more stands.
Our perception of man and nature colliding is mostly iconographic and kind of hegemonistic. Something is always being dominated by a greater apocalyptic force. Houses are always getting flattened by mudslides, mountains of salmon are seen swung around in a giant net.
These things are sensational and make for great images. They inspire people to action.
So how, then, do you write about a disaster whose root causes are molecular? And in a time when prevailing scientific wisdom was seemingly sacrosanct?
Carson’s use of lyricism — metaphor, essentially — is the natural tool for jumping from place to place, from zoom to zoom; a wide-angle telescope with a perfectly-adjustible aperture capable of capturing her argument for nature’s — and man’s — interconnectivity.
I think it’s important to point out the successes of the written word when we encounter them. Nature is a beautiful thing, but as much as we’d love to luxuriate in its visual largesse, a physical camera can’t tell all its stories.
DDT: what is it, exactly? What does it do when it enters an organism? How does it affect an insect, a waterway, a township? These are the questions a crusading writer has to answer, and answer in ways that can engage the people who most need to be engaged.
On a related note, you have to be curious about who will be Carson’s heir for our generation, and what values they’ll challenge. We look back with pride on our successful muckraker journalists who, stripped of the context of history, seem to don great cloaks of justice.
But how were they treated in their day? As activists. Rabble-rousers, challenging the system.
This seems to conflict, slightly, with some of our inculcated values as journalists: impartiality, fairness, not becoming the story. I wonder how much the achievement of success affects questions of these journalists’ “impartiality,” and how much that empowers us as journalists to pursue causes we know are just.
Because what if we’re found in the wrong? We would have violated some of our most hallowed professional values.
I suppose muckraking journalism is kind in that its successes are much better remembered than its failures. It makes me also wonder whether our attempts at impartiality aren’t also hedges against the changing mores of history.
Nonetheless, Rachel Carson was right, and so we salute her. She had the facts on her side, and she delivered them with the grace of a litterateur. Given her success, and the success of the authors we’ve read before, it’s hard to argue against journalists taking a few more chances and making a few more stands.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Robert Frank, photographer & visualist
Recent articles about Robert Frank exhibit at MOMA in New York have appeared in Wall Street Journal by Luc Sante & by Anthony Lane in the New Yorker, Sept. 14, 2009.
Exhibit ends January 3, 2010.
Also, an article in NYT about Robert Frank, noticed by Matt Pearce.
See link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/arts/design/25frank.html?_r=1&8dpc
BH
Exhibit ends January 3, 2010.
Also, an article in NYT about Robert Frank, noticed by Matt Pearce.
See link.
BH
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Extraordinary Otherness
James Baldwin, John Edgar Wideman, Luis J. Rodriguez, and Ruben Salazar--along with Hunter S. Thompson, explore what it means to be an outsider in a culture.
What do you see as common links in their themes?
How does reporting strengthen their writing?
How does their use of language and voice make their writing memorable?
How do they reference their own race, gender, class or sexual-orientation identities in their non-fiction writing?
Read aloud from each of these. See how they differ. How does the place of publication or the era of publication influence their production and the audience consumption of what they write? Considering the manifold forms of media, who or where today reports and writes the way these authors do?
What do you discover about these authors when you Google them?
For example, Luis J. Rodriguez http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0907/p02s04-lign.html
When you read them deeply?
BH
What do you see as common links in their themes?
How does reporting strengthen their writing?
How does their use of language and voice make their writing memorable?
How do they reference their own race, gender, class or sexual-orientation identities in their non-fiction writing?
Read aloud from each of these. See how they differ. How does the place of publication or the era of publication influence their production and the audience consumption of what they write? Considering the manifold forms of media, who or where today reports and writes the way these authors do?
What do you discover about these authors when you Google them?
For example, Luis J. Rodriguez http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0907/p02s04-lign.html
When you read them deeply?
BH
Friday, September 11, 2009
Chien-Chi Chang
The other day I showed you the amazing book, THE CHAIN (UK: Trolley, 2002) with the photographs by Chien-Chi Chang. He made the pictures at a mental asylum in Kaohsiun, Taiwan, beginning in 1993 and ending in 1999.
Here is a link to his biography. Study it to learn what you can about photography, about him, about yourself, and about our world:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.Biography_VPage&AID=2K7O3R14TBS7
Here is a link to a photo archive of his pictures:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R14TN1D&nm=Chien-Chi%20Chang
Here is an article with a photo essay by him about the Taiwanese village where he lived as a child.
TIME Asia article:
http://www.time.com/time/asia/2003/journey/taiwan.html
BH
Here is a link to his biography. Study it to learn what you can about photography, about him, about yourself, and about our world:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.Biography_VPage&AID=2K7O3R14TBS7
Here is a link to a photo archive of his pictures:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R14TN1D&nm=Chien-Chi%20Chang
Here is an article with a photo essay by him about the Taiwanese village where he lived as a child.
TIME Asia article:
http://www.time.com/time/asia/2003/journey/taiwan.html
BH
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
How The Other Half Lives: Jacob Riis
Mel Mencher, my professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, introduced me to Jacob Riis and HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES. The book opened the doorway for my lifelong journey in writing and thinking about how class, impoverishment, economic and social issues are covered in newspapers, magazines, online, books, and images.
By the 1880s in New York, social reformer Riis benefited from a new invention – flash powder. In the era of early photographic technology without artificial lighting, images required long exposures. Flash powder helped Riis to illuminate the squalor of tenement houses packed with families, filth, and the choking smoke of coal stoves. Another reformer, sociologist Lewis Hine, later would help to establish photojournalistic documentation of societal problems.
What ideas do you get from Riis? His reportage? Writing? Photography? Point of View?
How is he a journalist? How is he a social reformer? How is his writing clouded by class and ethnic blinders?
Who are his heirs?
Have you read Jonathan Kozol's Rachel and Her Children : Homeless Families in America? He also wrote stories in NEW YORKER in early 1990s about homelessness.
Who is documenting and writing about the hard edge of the working poor in Missouri? The United States? The world?
What is interesting is the slippery slope, the borderlands between working
poor and the folks who end up at St. Francis House in Columbia. A friend of mine once worked as physician and researcher at MU. He had an employee who made about $16,000
a year. She ate squirrel sandwiches on occasion, made by her grandmother.
Missouri, including Columbia, has lots of people who work hard and barely get along financially.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
"Wintour and Some Discontent"
Here is a link to a NPR story on a documentary--"The September Issue"--about Vogue magazine.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112205015&ps=cprs
Read this. Listen to the audio. Think about the role of editors, the role of magazines in American culture and world culture, consumption, advertising, marketing, desire & journalism.
BH
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112205015&ps=cprs
Read this. Listen to the audio. Think about the role of editors, the role of magazines in American culture and world culture, consumption, advertising, marketing, desire & journalism.
BH
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Power of Long Form, Narrative, Non-Fiction Journalism
Chris Jones is an Esquire mag writer who won a National Magazine Award last night. Here is the interview on U of Montana's website. He will be a writer in residence there.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Rwanda Revisted
The Philip Gourevitch article I mentioned will be in the May 4 issue of The New Yorker. You can read it online (for free, if you're a subscriber, otherwise for a fee) on the New Yorker.com website. If you wait a few days, however, you can read it online through the MU libraries. It's not posted quite yet.
In the meantime, here's audio of Gourevitch discussing the article and Rwanda today. He talks about the Gacaca courts--something I didn't get to mention in class today--but which are keys to the recovery there. These neighborhood courts bring perpetrators and victims face to face--and they're working. The healing seems almost as beyond comprehension as the genocide itself.
Here's the link: http://www.newyorker.com/online/2009/05/04/090504on_audio_gourevitch/?xrail
In the meantime, here's audio of Gourevitch discussing the article and Rwanda today. He talks about the Gacaca courts--something I didn't get to mention in class today--but which are keys to the recovery there. These neighborhood courts bring perpetrators and victims face to face--and they're working. The healing seems almost as beyond comprehension as the genocide itself.
Here's the link: http://www.newyorker.com/online/2009/05/04/090504on_audio_gourevitch/?xrail
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Images of Louis B. Mayer
Here's Buster Keaton (getting on in years) describing Louis B. Mayer's theatrics.
And here is a rather humorous scene from the Coen Brother's movie Barton Fink that features a caricature of Mayer (I think).
For anyone interested in the experience of American novelists in Hollywood during the the '30s, Barton Fink is a must-see. It's portrayal of a Faulkner-like character is particularly great. Several of the scenes are loosely based on Faulkner's real experiences in Tinseltown.
And here is a rather humorous scene from the Coen Brother's movie Barton Fink that features a caricature of Mayer (I think).
For anyone interested in the experience of American novelists in Hollywood during the the '30s, Barton Fink is a must-see. It's portrayal of a Faulkner-like character is particularly great. Several of the scenes are loosely based on Faulkner's real experiences in Tinseltown.
Monday, April 27, 2009
What We Choose to Fight Is So Tiny!
Dear Learners,
Below I copied a portion of a note I had sent to a student who was working feverishly to complete a project. I thought some of you might benefit from reading some of my response and the two poems here.
------
You mention that you have short-comings. We all do. That's what thickens the
plot.
Otherwise we would be something other than human.
To share those short-comings is also a human necessity under the Big Tent of Journalism as I see it. And there are things that are kept private, too. Finding the right balance is the trick that I seek constantly.
Know that this project-- with its revelations of humanity, past and present‹forces you to grapple in enlightening and educational ways with your private truths and falsehoods and your public ones, too.
In that process, we professors grapple with our own truths and falsehoods as
well.
To that end, I offer two poems I like.
I thought about these when I re-read your note and when I thought about your work and the issue of control: who has it, who wants it, who does not want it, and why, and what is BEYOND control, in another sphere from it, in the land of meaningful Story, based on the time-honored verities and based on the things we can see, hear, taste, touch & smell, and, yes, photograph and record.
POEM ONE.
Antonio Machado untitled poem, translated from Spanish by Robert
Bly.
And he was the demon of my dreams, the most handsome
Of all angels. His victorious eyes
Blazed like steel,
And the flames that fell
From his torch like drops
Lit up the deep dungeon of the soul.
"Will you go with me?"
"No, never! Tombs
And dead bodies frighten me."
But his iron hand took mine.
"You will go with me"...And in my dream I walked
Blinded by his red torch.
In the dungeon I heard the sound of chains
And the stirrings of beasts that were in cages.
POEM TWO.
The Man Watching by Rainer Rilke, translated by Bly.
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Below I copied a portion of a note I had sent to a student who was working feverishly to complete a project. I thought some of you might benefit from reading some of my response and the two poems here.
------
You mention that you have short-comings. We all do. That's what thickens the
plot.
Otherwise we would be something other than human.
To share those short-comings is also a human necessity under the Big Tent of Journalism as I see it. And there are things that are kept private, too. Finding the right balance is the trick that I seek constantly.
Know that this project-- with its revelations of humanity, past and present‹forces you to grapple in enlightening and educational ways with your private truths and falsehoods and your public ones, too.
In that process, we professors grapple with our own truths and falsehoods as
well.
To that end, I offer two poems I like.
I thought about these when I re-read your note and when I thought about your work and the issue of control: who has it, who wants it, who does not want it, and why, and what is BEYOND control, in another sphere from it, in the land of meaningful Story, based on the time-honored verities and based on the things we can see, hear, taste, touch & smell, and, yes, photograph and record.
POEM ONE.
Antonio Machado untitled poem, translated from Spanish by Robert
Bly.
And he was the demon of my dreams, the most handsome
Of all angels. His victorious eyes
Blazed like steel,
And the flames that fell
From his torch like drops
Lit up the deep dungeon of the soul.
"Will you go with me?"
"No, never! Tombs
And dead bodies frighten me."
But his iron hand took mine.
"You will go with me"...And in my dream I walked
Blinded by his red torch.
In the dungeon I heard the sound of chains
And the stirrings of beasts that were in cages.
POEM TWO.
The Man Watching by Rainer Rilke, translated by Bly.
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
To be friends or not to be friends?
I was struck by the fact that the advice Lillian Ross gives on making friends with the people you write about is in direct contradiction to advice that the legendary rock journalist Lester Bangs gives to young Cameron Crowe in the movie Almost Famous. (Bangs is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Crowe by Patrick Fugit.)
Both points of view seem to make perfect sense. Hmmm. I wonder if one makes more sense, or if two arguments that contradict one another can both be true.
Both points of view seem to make perfect sense. Hmmm. I wonder if one makes more sense, or if two arguments that contradict one another can both be true.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Walker, Walker everywhere
A reporter for the New York Times retraces Walker Evans' footsteps through Alabama to see what has changed and what has stayed the same.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Ross on Ross
In 2006, Lillian Ross was interviewed on NPR about her work, particularly her profile on Hemingway that managed to be unkind and accurate at the same time.
Florida: more than just orchids
For another view of Florida's odd flora and fauna check out the April 20 issue of The New Yorker
Monday, April 20, 2009
Death of a dystopic visionary
I just wanted to note the passing of J.G. Ballard yesterday.
Ballard wasn't a journalist, but he was an important writer to people who shared a certain perspective on the world. His fiction was packed with very vivid and powerful dystopic imagery. This BBC obituary offers at least some sense of his life and work.
Ballard wasn't a journalist, but he was an important writer to people who shared a certain perspective on the world. His fiction was packed with very vivid and powerful dystopic imagery. This BBC obituary offers at least some sense of his life and work.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Susan Orlean and her fancy house
I loved hearing the segments from Susan Orlean's speech during class on Thursday and decided to look up that Times article on her house.
I also found this critique of Susan and the house article. I can't decide if I agree or disagree.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
NYT-Talese love-fest continues
The New York Times genuflects upon the news that two of Gay Talese's books -- “Honor Thy Father,” “Thy Neighbor’s Wife” -- are back in print and that he has written new afterwords for both.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Pros and Cons of Human Tragedy in Journalism
Read all the way through this article about Alfredo Jaar (cf. Rwanda Project in this blog). Think deeply about the issues here. I plan to go to see the exhibit in New York during the weekend of April 23-36.
The New York Times
Wednesday, April 15 2009
Roberta Smith
Art Review
One Image of Agony Resonates In Two Lives
The New York Times
Wednesday, April 15 2009
Roberta Smith
Art Review
One Image of Agony Resonates In Two Lives
Monday, April 13, 2009
MMWR
Randy Shilts frequently mentions the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) in And the Band Played on, and heaps scorn upon its sluggish and tentative response to the AIDS crisis.
For a recent update on AIDs in the U.S. check out the June 2, 2006 issue.
For a recent update on AIDs in the U.S. check out the June 2, 2006 issue.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Rwanda's Children
This week Newsweek has an interesting article on Rwanda's children of rape, conceived during the 1994 massacre. Here's the link if you want to check it out: http://www.newsweek.com/id/192201
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
And the Band Played On
Randy Shilts' book and the original reporting that formed the basis for the book offer much for us to consider.
The San Francisco Chronicle's online site has posted a May 13, 1982 Chronicle story that Shilts authored. Look at it to consider the evolution in cultural attitudes, and medical scientific understandings about HIV/AIDS.
What specific reporting and writing strategies can you identify in the book?
What weaknesses can you identify?
What are you learning by reading the book that will help you think more deeply about the role of a journalist and journalism?
How does this work fit into the overall realm of "The Literature of Journalism?"
Read this story about the French virologists who won the 2009 Nobel Prize for their research about HIV. Note the reference to Dr. Robert Gallo of the United States who was in competition with the French researchers.
BH
The San Francisco Chronicle's online site has posted a May 13, 1982 Chronicle story that Shilts authored. Look at it to consider the evolution in cultural attitudes, and medical scientific understandings about HIV/AIDS.
What specific reporting and writing strategies can you identify in the book?
What weaknesses can you identify?
What are you learning by reading the book that will help you think more deeply about the role of a journalist and journalism?
How does this work fit into the overall realm of "The Literature of Journalism?"
Read this story about the French virologists who won the 2009 Nobel Prize for their research about HIV. Note the reference to Dr. Robert Gallo of the United States who was in competition with the French researchers.
BH
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monsters and men
An article in today's New York Times reports from the trial of a commandant of a notorious prison run by the Khmer Rouge in which an estimated 14,000 people were tortured and executed. It is the first trial of a senior Khmer official -- 30 years after Pol Pot was driven from Cambodia.
When considering the actions and behavior of seemingly regular, unremarkable people during events like the Killing Fields or in Hitler's Germany, I think it's instructive to consider the words of Primo Levi:
"Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions."
When considering the actions and behavior of seemingly regular, unremarkable people during events like the Killing Fields or in Hitler's Germany, I think it's instructive to consider the words of Primo Levi:
"Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions."
Monday, March 30, 2009
It Is Difficult
Here is an excerpt from an introductory frontispiece of IT IS DIFFICULT, a book about Alfredo Jaar's Rwanda Project from 1994-1998.
Jaar quotes Nigerian writer Ben Okri who won the Booker Prize in 1991.
In "A PRAYER FROM THE LIVING," Orki writes:
Inside, all the space was taken up with the dead.
But here the air didn't have death in it. The air had prayer in it. The prayers stank more than the deaths. But all the dead here were differently dead from the corpses outside.
The dead in the school were--forgive the paradox--alive. I have no other word to explain the serenity. I felt they had made the room holy because they had, in their last moments, thought not of themselves but of all people who suffer. I felt that to be the case because I felt myself doing the same thing. I crawled to a corner, sat against at wall, and felt myself praying for the whole human race. I prayed--knowing full well that prayers are possibly an utter waste of time--but I prayed for everything that lived, for mountains and trees, for animals and streams, and for human beings, wherever they might be. I heard the great anguished cry of all mankind, its great haunting music as well.
And I, too, without moving my mouth, for I had no energy, began to sing in silence. I sang all through the evening. And when I looked at the body next to me and found the luminous unfamiliarity of its face to be that of my lover's--I sang all through the recognition.
I sang silently even when a good-hearted white man came into the school building with a television camera and, weeping, recorded the roomful of the dead for the world--and I hoped he recorded my singing, too.
Jaar quotes Nigerian writer Ben Okri who won the Booker Prize in 1991.
In "A PRAYER FROM THE LIVING," Orki writes:
Inside, all the space was taken up with the dead.
But here the air didn't have death in it. The air had prayer in it. The prayers stank more than the deaths. But all the dead here were differently dead from the corpses outside.
The dead in the school were--forgive the paradox--alive. I have no other word to explain the serenity. I felt they had made the room holy because they had, in their last moments, thought not of themselves but of all people who suffer. I felt that to be the case because I felt myself doing the same thing. I crawled to a corner, sat against at wall, and felt myself praying for the whole human race. I prayed--knowing full well that prayers are possibly an utter waste of time--but I prayed for everything that lived, for mountains and trees, for animals and streams, and for human beings, wherever they might be. I heard the great anguished cry of all mankind, its great haunting music as well.
And I, too, without moving my mouth, for I had no energy, began to sing in silence. I sang all through the evening. And when I looked at the body next to me and found the luminous unfamiliarity of its face to be that of my lover's--I sang all through the recognition.
I sang silently even when a good-hearted white man came into the school building with a television camera and, weeping, recorded the roomful of the dead for the world--and I hoped he recorded my singing, too.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Walker at the Met
An exhibition of some 700 of the 9,000 postcards collected by Walker Evans during his life is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The New York Times ran a review of the show and said of it, "Although small and prosaic, [it] is also richly resonant."
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Clarity and Purpose=Project Completion
Here are some powerful ideas that can help us work and live with more vitality, clarity, and purpose:
1. On the door frame outside his workroom, [writer William Styron] tacked a piece of cardboard with a quotation from Flaubert written on it:
“Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
2. “A task left undone remains undone in two places - at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience. They siphon off a little more of your personal power every time you delay. No need to be a perfectionist, that’s debilitating in an imperfect world, but it’s good to be a ‘completionist’. If you start it, finish it - or forget it.”
– Brahma Kumaris, quote courtesy of David Allen
1. On the door frame outside his workroom, [writer William Styron] tacked a piece of cardboard with a quotation from Flaubert written on it:
“Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
2. “A task left undone remains undone in two places - at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience. They siphon off a little more of your personal power every time you delay. No need to be a perfectionist, that’s debilitating in an imperfect world, but it’s good to be a ‘completionist’. If you start it, finish it - or forget it.”
– Brahma Kumaris, quote courtesy of David Allen
Friday, March 13, 2009
Stranger With A Camera
Elizabeth Barret's 2000 documentary from Appalshop, "Stranger With A Camera," raises many provocative issues we need to consider as journalists and students of journalism. Irate about media outsiders coming into his community, Hobart Ison of eastern Kentucky shot and killed Canadian filmmaker Hugh O'Connor in Jeremiah, Kentucky in 1967. The documentary raises, among others, questions such as:
What is the role of someone who uses a camera to document a community?
What is the role of an outsider who goes into a community with a documenting camera? What is the role of an insider who wants to document his or her community?
In your comments on this blog, consider other questions and issues that the documentary brings to your mind.
Consider how Barret, as an insider of a particular kind, told her story. What raw materials did she use? What points of view?
How does this documentary work fit into the work of Agee and Evans in Hale County, Alabama; Shelby Lee Adams in Kentucky; Birney Imes in Mississippi; Jacob Riis in New York's Lower East Side; Rory Kennedy's in Kentucky; August Sander's in Germany; Adrian Le Blanc's in the Bronx; Alex Kotlowitz's in Chicago. And Nellie Bly, Barbara Einreich, Jonathan Kozol. And many more?
BH
What is the role of someone who uses a camera to document a community?
What is the role of an outsider who goes into a community with a documenting camera? What is the role of an insider who wants to document his or her community?
In your comments on this blog, consider other questions and issues that the documentary brings to your mind.
Consider how Barret, as an insider of a particular kind, told her story. What raw materials did she use? What points of view?
How does this documentary work fit into the work of Agee and Evans in Hale County, Alabama; Shelby Lee Adams in Kentucky; Birney Imes in Mississippi; Jacob Riis in New York's Lower East Side; Rory Kennedy's in Kentucky; August Sander's in Germany; Adrian Le Blanc's in the Bronx; Alex Kotlowitz's in Chicago. And Nellie Bly, Barbara Einreich, Jonathan Kozol. And many more?
BH
A Note About Balance
Here is an email I got today from David Allen, who thinks deeply about Getting Things Done. See davidco.com
He says this:
[Balance is tough enough when you are aware of all your goals, values, projects, and commitments. But it’s impossible if you don’t revisit the whole game consistently.
"The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world." – James Fenimore Cooper]
So this reminds us to spend an hour or two each week--I do it on Friday or Saturday mornings usually--reviewing all of our projects.
This time is not spent DOING the projects. It is spent going over the project list, adding to or subtracting from the list, of what is important and what needs to get done in the short term, medium term, and long term. It is spent thinking about the discrete parts of the project and what are the Next Steps.
Keep a notepad, virtual or otherwise, close by. Your mind will remind of things undone. You can also keep a list of the items you can do in two minutes or less. And you can schedule a time to tackle a batch of those. It can be SO SATISFYING to complete quickly some of those tasks. Set a timer. See if you can finish some of them in two minutes. You will become more aware of what can be done quickly and what cannot. You will see how you may or may not misjudge time.
In the end, you will get more accomplished of what you want to accomplish.
If you have other ideas about how to get things done, share them with comments here, in class or with your small group.
BH
He says this:
[Balance is tough enough when you are aware of all your goals, values, projects, and commitments. But it’s impossible if you don’t revisit the whole game consistently.
"The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world." – James Fenimore Cooper]
So this reminds us to spend an hour or two each week--I do it on Friday or Saturday mornings usually--reviewing all of our projects.
This time is not spent DOING the projects. It is spent going over the project list, adding to or subtracting from the list, of what is important and what needs to get done in the short term, medium term, and long term. It is spent thinking about the discrete parts of the project and what are the Next Steps.
Keep a notepad, virtual or otherwise, close by. Your mind will remind of things undone. You can also keep a list of the items you can do in two minutes or less. And you can schedule a time to tackle a batch of those. It can be SO SATISFYING to complete quickly some of those tasks. Set a timer. See if you can finish some of them in two minutes. You will become more aware of what can be done quickly and what cannot. You will see how you may or may not misjudge time.
In the end, you will get more accomplished of what you want to accomplish.
If you have other ideas about how to get things done, share them with comments here, in class or with your small group.
BH
Monday, March 9, 2009
Writing about Writers: Flannery O'Connor
By Joy Williams
FLANNERY A Life of Flannery O'Connor. By Brad Gooch. Illustrated. 448 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $30.
In Sunday, March 1, 2009, NYT Book Review, writer Joy Williams writes about the new book on the quirky and amazing Flannery O'Connor.
Here is the lead. What can you learn about writing from reading this?
Flannery. She liked to drink Coca-Cola mixed with coffee. She gave her mother, Regina, a mule for Mother’s Day. She went to bed at 9 and said she was always glad to get there. After Kennedy’s assassination she said: “I am sad about the president. But I like the new one.” As a child she sewed outfits for her chickens and wanted to be a cartoonist.
Here is the ending. What can you learn about writing from reading this?
Flannery. When asked why she wrote, she replied, “Because I’m good at it.” She found sickness “more instructive than a long trip to Europe.” She was buried the day after she died. Robert Giroux sent a copy of “Wise Blood” to Evelyn Waugh hoping for a blurb, and Waugh replied, “The best I can say is: ‘If this really is the unaided work of a young lady, it is a remarkable product.’ ” One should pretty much ignore her own pronouncements on her art, though in her last years she increasingly endeavored to explain her intentions. She was an anagogical writer, of that there is no doubt. The civil rights movement interested her not at all. When she received a request to stage one of her stories, she wrote, “The only thing I would positively object to would be somebody turning one of my colored idiots into a hero.” Her kinship, she believed, was with Hawthorne. She also described herself as being “13th-century.” She is reported to have had beautiful blue eyes.
FLANNERY A Life of Flannery O'Connor. By Brad Gooch. Illustrated. 448 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $30.
In Sunday, March 1, 2009, NYT Book Review, writer Joy Williams writes about the new book on the quirky and amazing Flannery O'Connor.
Here is the lead. What can you learn about writing from reading this?
Flannery. She liked to drink Coca-Cola mixed with coffee. She gave her mother, Regina, a mule for Mother’s Day. She went to bed at 9 and said she was always glad to get there. After Kennedy’s assassination she said: “I am sad about the president. But I like the new one.” As a child she sewed outfits for her chickens and wanted to be a cartoonist.
Here is the ending. What can you learn about writing from reading this?
Flannery. When asked why she wrote, she replied, “Because I’m good at it.” She found sickness “more instructive than a long trip to Europe.” She was buried the day after she died. Robert Giroux sent a copy of “Wise Blood” to Evelyn Waugh hoping for a blurb, and Waugh replied, “The best I can say is: ‘If this really is the unaided work of a young lady, it is a remarkable product.’ ” One should pretty much ignore her own pronouncements on her art, though in her last years she increasingly endeavored to explain her intentions. She was an anagogical writer, of that there is no doubt. The civil rights movement interested her not at all. When she received a request to stage one of her stories, she wrote, “The only thing I would positively object to would be somebody turning one of my colored idiots into a hero.” Her kinship, she believed, was with Hawthorne. She also described herself as being “13th-century.” She is reported to have had beautiful blue eyes.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Po' Folk Journalism
Pointing a camera at the poor, the isolated and the disenfranchised is not a journalistic practice that has gone out of favor. Reading Calvin Trillin's "A Stranger with a Camera" from 1969 reminded me of a recent 20/20 segment "Children of the Mountain" in which Diane Sawyer and her crew "investigate" the lives of the various dentally-challenged, drug-dealing, food stamp-living, unemployed people of Appalachia.
Being from Kentucky supposedly gave Sawyer an "insider's" point of view that was sympathetic and compassionate. Instead, as in so many other instances of this kind of journalism, the people of Appalachia are treated like subjects and types, not as individuals.
No wonder people in this part of the country greet strangers pointing cameras at them with shotguns.
Being from Kentucky supposedly gave Sawyer an "insider's" point of view that was sympathetic and compassionate. Instead, as in so many other instances of this kind of journalism, the people of Appalachia are treated like subjects and types, not as individuals.
No wonder people in this part of the country greet strangers pointing cameras at them with shotguns.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
CheckPoints
By John McPhee
The New Yorker (p. 59)
February 9, 2009
(Excerpt)
ABSTRACT: PERSONAL HISTORY about the writer’s experiences with fact-checking. Sara Lippincott retired as an editor at this magazine in the early nineteen-nineties, having worked in The New Yorker’s fact-checking department from 1966 until 1982. She had a passion for science. In 1973, a long piece of the writer’s called “The Curve of Binding Energy” received her full-time attention for three or four weeks and needed every minute of it. Explaining her work to an audience at a journalism school, Sara once said, “Each word in the piece that has even a shred of fact clinging to it is scrutinized, and, if passed, given the checker’s imprimatur, which consists of a tiny pencil tick.” The writer describes a paragraph from his sixty-thousand-word piece—which was about weapons-grade nuclear material in private industry and what terrorists might do with it—which presented Sara with a certain degree of difficulty. Physicist John A. Wheeler had told the writer about a Japanese weapon balloon landing on a nuclear reactor at the Hanford Engineer Works, in the winter of 1944 or 45. If Wheeler’s story were true, it would make it into print. If unverifiable, it would be deleted. Sara’s telephone calls ricocheted all over the U.S. Hanford Engineer Works, of the Manhattan Project, was so secret that the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t know about it. Sara finally located a site manager who confirmed that the balloon had landed on a high-tension line carrying power to the reactor. The fix was made and the piece ran. Sometimes a mistake is introduced during the checking process. This has happened to the writer only once—and nearly thirty years ago. The piece, called “Basin and Range,” was the first in a series of long pieces on geology. Mentions current fact-checker Joshua Hersh. Sara, who checked the “Basin” piece, told the writer that he was wrong about the Adriatic Plate, that it is not moving north but southwest. Eldridge Moores had apparently confirmed it. After the piece was published, the writer called Moores, who said that it was in fact the Aegean Plate, not the Adriatic, that was moving southwest. Any error is everlasting. Mentions Time and Atlantic. After an error gets into The New Yorker, heat-seeking missiles rise off the earth and home in on the author, the fact-checker, and the editor. In the comfortable knowledge that the fact-checking department is going to sweep up behind him, the writer likes to guess at certain names and numbers early on. Mentions Willy Bemis and the Illinois River. Describes the process of fact-checking a piece the writer wrote in 2003 about tracing John and Henry Thoreau’s upstream journey. Mentions Henry Moore’s “Oval with Points.” The writer describes checking parts of a book he was writing in 2002. The task took him three months. Mentions William Penn, Cotton Mather, and Joseph Seccombe.
The New Yorker (p. 59)
February 9, 2009
(Excerpt)
ABSTRACT: PERSONAL HISTORY about the writer’s experiences with fact-checking. Sara Lippincott retired as an editor at this magazine in the early nineteen-nineties, having worked in The New Yorker’s fact-checking department from 1966 until 1982. She had a passion for science. In 1973, a long piece of the writer’s called “The Curve of Binding Energy” received her full-time attention for three or four weeks and needed every minute of it. Explaining her work to an audience at a journalism school, Sara once said, “Each word in the piece that has even a shred of fact clinging to it is scrutinized, and, if passed, given the checker’s imprimatur, which consists of a tiny pencil tick.” The writer describes a paragraph from his sixty-thousand-word piece—which was about weapons-grade nuclear material in private industry and what terrorists might do with it—which presented Sara with a certain degree of difficulty. Physicist John A. Wheeler had told the writer about a Japanese weapon balloon landing on a nuclear reactor at the Hanford Engineer Works, in the winter of 1944 or 45. If Wheeler’s story were true, it would make it into print. If unverifiable, it would be deleted. Sara’s telephone calls ricocheted all over the U.S. Hanford Engineer Works, of the Manhattan Project, was so secret that the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t know about it. Sara finally located a site manager who confirmed that the balloon had landed on a high-tension line carrying power to the reactor. The fix was made and the piece ran. Sometimes a mistake is introduced during the checking process. This has happened to the writer only once—and nearly thirty years ago. The piece, called “Basin and Range,” was the first in a series of long pieces on geology. Mentions current fact-checker Joshua Hersh. Sara, who checked the “Basin” piece, told the writer that he was wrong about the Adriatic Plate, that it is not moving north but southwest. Eldridge Moores had apparently confirmed it. After the piece was published, the writer called Moores, who said that it was in fact the Aegean Plate, not the Adriatic, that was moving southwest. Any error is everlasting. Mentions Time and Atlantic. After an error gets into The New Yorker, heat-seeking missiles rise off the earth and home in on the author, the fact-checker, and the editor. In the comfortable knowledge that the fact-checking department is going to sweep up behind him, the writer likes to guess at certain names and numbers early on. Mentions Willy Bemis and the Illinois River. Describes the process of fact-checking a piece the writer wrote in 2003 about tracing John and Henry Thoreau’s upstream journey. Mentions Henry Moore’s “Oval with Points.” The writer describes checking parts of a book he was writing in 2002. The task took him three months. Mentions William Penn, Cotton Mather, and Joseph Seccombe.
The Power of an Artist's Notebook, Memories
Meditating on modernism
By Pierre Bonnard
The Economist
February 7, 2009
(Excerpt)
Much of the work on view was produced after 1926, when Bonnard and his model, muse and wife, Marthe, moved into "Le Bosguet," an unimposing villa above Cannes. But the many bowls and baskets of luscious-looking peaches and cherries, the plates of cakes and the roses in jugs are not the careful arrangements one would expect a still-life artist to create. The reason for this is that Bonnard did not paint from life. What we see are his memories. To help him recall images that captivated him, the artist always carried a small pocket diary. On its ruled pages he made pencil sketches. Whether his inspiration was a person, an animal, plants or the corner of a room, though, light was his main prey. To help him capture it, he jotted down notes about weather and colours. In one of the four notebooks on display, for example, the words pluvieux froid (rainy, cold) are scrawled across the top of a page.
There was nothing of the romantic arists in a garret about Bonnard. He appeared to live a bourgeois life. His studio was a smallish upstairs bedroom; it didn't even have an easel. He would just cut off lengths of canvas and tack them to the wall. When a picture was finished, he cropped off any remaining blank canvas.
By Pierre Bonnard
The Economist
February 7, 2009
(Excerpt)
Much of the work on view was produced after 1926, when Bonnard and his model, muse and wife, Marthe, moved into "Le Bosguet," an unimposing villa above Cannes. But the many bowls and baskets of luscious-looking peaches and cherries, the plates of cakes and the roses in jugs are not the careful arrangements one would expect a still-life artist to create. The reason for this is that Bonnard did not paint from life. What we see are his memories. To help him recall images that captivated him, the artist always carried a small pocket diary. On its ruled pages he made pencil sketches. Whether his inspiration was a person, an animal, plants or the corner of a room, though, light was his main prey. To help him capture it, he jotted down notes about weather and colours. In one of the four notebooks on display, for example, the words pluvieux froid (rainy, cold) are scrawled across the top of a page.
There was nothing of the romantic arists in a garret about Bonnard. He appeared to live a bourgeois life. His studio was a smallish upstairs bedroom; it didn't even have an easel. He would just cut off lengths of canvas and tack them to the wall. When a picture was finished, he cropped off any remaining blank canvas.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Always Running with Luis Rodriguez & Ruben Salazar
Read the articles I have posted on ERES from Rodriguez and Salazar.
Then, if you have time, read the Hunter S. Thompson one. Think about the branches, the webs, if you will, that go out from these writers, articles. Think about the ethnic social constructions embedded in their work, their careers. Think about how mainstream journalism, nonfiction publishing reflects and does not reflect those constructions.
You can also Google, research, seek out more about these writers and others who resemble these writers.
Here is a link to a site for Luis Rodriguez.
http://www.tiachucha.com/nonprofit/index.htm
Make connections when you read.
Post your comments here. Or you can post a link to your own blog where you respond to the reading.
BH
Then, if you have time, read the Hunter S. Thompson one. Think about the branches, the webs, if you will, that go out from these writers, articles. Think about the ethnic social constructions embedded in their work, their careers. Think about how mainstream journalism, nonfiction publishing reflects and does not reflect those constructions.
You can also Google, research, seek out more about these writers and others who resemble these writers.
Here is a link to a site for Luis Rodriguez.
http://www.tiachucha.com/nonprofit/index.htm
Make connections when you read.
Post your comments here. Or you can post a link to your own blog where you respond to the reading.
BH
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Walker Evans and James Agee. LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN. Connections With Early Twentieth-Century Hard Times
Julien Gorbach has pointed out this story from NPR
"Tough times can often be a springboard for creativity; when no one's job is safe, no one's house is secure and no one knows exactly what to do about it, artists get to work."
BH
"Tough times can often be a springboard for creativity; when no one's job is safe, no one's house is secure and no one knows exactly what to do about it, artists get to work."
BH
The Play, Flyin' West, Connects With DuBois/Wells/Washington readings
The play, Flyin' West, written by Pearl Cleage, tells the story of a family of African-Americans who settled in Kansas with the hopes they could escape prejudice in a state that had rejected slavery. The play indirectly references Ida B. Wells encouraging her readers to head West to escape bigotry in Memphis.
The play continues it run on March 5-8, 2009, at Rhynsburger Theatre on the MU campus. 8 pm. I saw it last Thursday and recommend it to you. You could also read the play.
BH
The play continues it run on March 5-8, 2009, at Rhynsburger Theatre on the MU campus. 8 pm. I saw it last Thursday and recommend it to you. You could also read the play.
BH
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Greening the Ghetto
The New Yorker
Jan. 12, 2009
Can a remedy serve for both global warming and poverty?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
This is an excerpt from Greening the Ghetto about Van Jones, founder and president of Green for All.
The modern environmental movement is sometimes said to have begun in the eighteen-nineties, when John Muir founded the Sierra Club, and sometimes in the nineteen-sixties, when Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring.” Muir and Carson saw themselves fighting narrow, private interests on behalf of the public in the broadest possible sense-all people, including those who had not been born. But stop by a meeting of any of the major environmental groups, and you will see that the broad American public has yet to join up. Chances are that most of the attendees will be white, and the few who aren’t will be affluent and middle-aged. A 2006 study commissioned by Earthjustic, a nonprofit environmental law group, found that the “ecological base”-defined as Americans who report the environment as being central to their concerns-is “nearly ninety percent white, mostly college-educated, higher-income, and over thirty-five.”
“Your goal has to be to get the greenest solutions to the poorest people,” Jones told me. “That’s the only goal that’s morally compelling enough to generate enough energy to pull this transition off. The challenge is making this an everybody movement, so your main icons are Joe Six-Pack-Joe the Plumber-becoming Joe the Solar guy, or that kid on the street corner putting down his handgun, picking up a caulk gun."
Jan. 12, 2009
Can a remedy serve for both global warming and poverty?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
This is an excerpt from Greening the Ghetto about Van Jones, founder and president of Green for All.
The modern environmental movement is sometimes said to have begun in the eighteen-nineties, when John Muir founded the Sierra Club, and sometimes in the nineteen-sixties, when Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring.” Muir and Carson saw themselves fighting narrow, private interests on behalf of the public in the broadest possible sense-all people, including those who had not been born. But stop by a meeting of any of the major environmental groups, and you will see that the broad American public has yet to join up. Chances are that most of the attendees will be white, and the few who aren’t will be affluent and middle-aged. A 2006 study commissioned by Earthjustic, a nonprofit environmental law group, found that the “ecological base”-defined as Americans who report the environment as being central to their concerns-is “nearly ninety percent white, mostly college-educated, higher-income, and over thirty-five.”
“Your goal has to be to get the greenest solutions to the poorest people,” Jones told me. “That’s the only goal that’s morally compelling enough to generate enough energy to pull this transition off. The challenge is making this an everybody movement, so your main icons are Joe Six-Pack-Joe the Plumber-becoming Joe the Solar guy, or that kid on the street corner putting down his handgun, picking up a caulk gun."
Introduction to David Allen & GTD
Dear Collaborators in Exceptional Learning,
For about four years I have been following the advice of David Allen about how to get things done--GTD, as he calls it.
I still have much to learn.
My wife and I went to his day-long workshop in Chicago and found it helpful. He has smart ideas--what he calls advanced common sense--about how to organize your time and your life to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
And yes he does live in California--Ojai, to be exact. But Wall Street and Fortune 500 companies rely on his advice. And now so do I.
I was introduced to Allen by an article in the Atlantic Monthly by James Fallows, former speech writer for Jimmy Carter and once the editor of US News & World Report.
Also my friend at Poynter, Chip Scanlan, told me about Allen's template--"Natural Planning"-- which is a set of useful questions to ask when you are doing a big project, such as a book.
Allen and his company are very tech savvy and has introduced me to many things, including a new brainstorming software--Mind Manager.
One of the strategies I have adopted is the Weekly Review. That is the time to go over everything--which I have stored mainly in my Entourage Tasks lists. There are about 480 items there today--anything from return a book to Amazon to write one hour today on an article. These are my Next Actions.
The idea of the Weekly Review is to review the things you need to do. This can take one to three hours. This is not time spent completing the actions. But the idea is to get all these things off your mind so you can then focus on what you need to do now and not be distracted by thinking: "I need to return the Amazon book" while I am drafting an article today.
Anyway, in this spirit, I ask you today to consider the rest of your semester.
What do you need to accomplish?
What are the discrete steps that you must take for each major project?
When will you do them?
When is the best time of the day to do these tasks?
And here are questions that David Allen asked me today in my Friday email I get from him:
=============
Do you need to be scheduling blocks of time for yourself in the coming two weeks?
Do you have any actions that require more than an hour of uninterrupted time, and which are "heating up" now in terms of urgency?
This is a very important benefit of your Weekly Review giving you tactical perspective and permission to bracket valuable space for yourself to get some of those things done.
"It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself." Johann Goethe
==============
May you move closer to getting done what you want to get done--including finding a balance in work and play.
BH
For about four years I have been following the advice of David Allen about how to get things done--GTD, as he calls it.
I still have much to learn.
My wife and I went to his day-long workshop in Chicago and found it helpful. He has smart ideas--what he calls advanced common sense--about how to organize your time and your life to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
And yes he does live in California--Ojai, to be exact. But Wall Street and Fortune 500 companies rely on his advice. And now so do I.
I was introduced to Allen by an article in the Atlantic Monthly by James Fallows, former speech writer for Jimmy Carter and once the editor of US News & World Report.
Also my friend at Poynter, Chip Scanlan, told me about Allen's template--"Natural Planning"-- which is a set of useful questions to ask when you are doing a big project, such as a book.
Allen and his company are very tech savvy and has introduced me to many things, including a new brainstorming software--Mind Manager.
One of the strategies I have adopted is the Weekly Review. That is the time to go over everything--which I have stored mainly in my Entourage Tasks lists. There are about 480 items there today--anything from return a book to Amazon to write one hour today on an article. These are my Next Actions.
The idea of the Weekly Review is to review the things you need to do. This can take one to three hours. This is not time spent completing the actions. But the idea is to get all these things off your mind so you can then focus on what you need to do now and not be distracted by thinking: "I need to return the Amazon book" while I am drafting an article today.
Anyway, in this spirit, I ask you today to consider the rest of your semester.
What do you need to accomplish?
What are the discrete steps that you must take for each major project?
When will you do them?
When is the best time of the day to do these tasks?
And here are questions that David Allen asked me today in my Friday email I get from him:
=============
Do you need to be scheduling blocks of time for yourself in the coming two weeks?
Do you have any actions that require more than an hour of uninterrupted time, and which are "heating up" now in terms of urgency?
This is a very important benefit of your Weekly Review giving you tactical perspective and permission to bracket valuable space for yourself to get some of those things done.
"It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself." Johann Goethe
==============
May you move closer to getting done what you want to get done--including finding a balance in work and play.
BH
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wright Thompson, GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI, ESPN MAGAZINE online
I draw your attention to Wright Thompson's strong reporting and writing in this ESPN Magazine.
Here is an excerpt of what I wrote to Wright, who received his undergraduate degree from the Missouri School of Journalism, who is married to another Mizzou journalism grad, Sonia Weinberg--Steve Weinberg's and Scherrie Goettsch's daughter.
I wrote to him:
Once I began reading, I knew I wanted to slowly read every word, and think about what you were saying, think about the 1962 Rebels football team and their intersection with history. Most of the 1962 games, (I can't recall if I went to the Mississippi State game), I heard in their entirety on the radio.
I read your story instead of writing a book chapter. But, in fact, I believe it will help me to now return to write that chapter, about magazines in America in 1880-1920 period.
The SATURDAY EVENING POST in November 1898, according to Frank Luther Mott, described football this way, before there was Buck Randall of Ole Miss:
"The capacity to take hard knocks which belongs to a successful football player is usually associated with the qualities that would enable a man to lead a charge up San Juan Hill or guide the Merrimac into Santiago Harbor."
There are many fine things about the 1962 story, including your own struggle with your family, the history of your state, our state. One of my brothers was in Meredith's biology class and lived a dorm or two away from Baxter Hall.
These days as part of my work, I deal with brutal photographs of racial violence in the 1930s in my hometown of Columbus. And at the same time I deal with images that are so sublime, pictures of black people and white people living their lives in the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s, in the era of "the little grocery stores and the guy pushing burgers off a griddle."
Great reporting. Great writing. You wove into this story so many specific, telling details that can resonate with people who know nothing about Mississippi and people who know a great deal about Mississippi.
I especially like how your handled the whispered phrase with the wives out of earshot: "The blacks..."
I will share your article with my Advanced Writing students at Mizzou.
Thanks for your care and insight, made manifest in journalistic writing.
Here is an excerpt of what I wrote to Wright, who received his undergraduate degree from the Missouri School of Journalism, who is married to another Mizzou journalism grad, Sonia Weinberg--Steve Weinberg's and Scherrie Goettsch's daughter.
I wrote to him:
Once I began reading, I knew I wanted to slowly read every word, and think about what you were saying, think about the 1962 Rebels football team and their intersection with history. Most of the 1962 games, (I can't recall if I went to the Mississippi State game), I heard in their entirety on the radio.
I read your story instead of writing a book chapter. But, in fact, I believe it will help me to now return to write that chapter, about magazines in America in 1880-1920 period.
The SATURDAY EVENING POST in November 1898, according to Frank Luther Mott, described football this way, before there was Buck Randall of Ole Miss:
"The capacity to take hard knocks which belongs to a successful football player is usually associated with the qualities that would enable a man to lead a charge up San Juan Hill or guide the Merrimac into Santiago Harbor."
There are many fine things about the 1962 story, including your own struggle with your family, the history of your state, our state. One of my brothers was in Meredith's biology class and lived a dorm or two away from Baxter Hall.
These days as part of my work, I deal with brutal photographs of racial violence in the 1930s in my hometown of Columbus. And at the same time I deal with images that are so sublime, pictures of black people and white people living their lives in the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s, in the era of "the little grocery stores and the guy pushing burgers off a griddle."
Great reporting. Great writing. You wove into this story so many specific, telling details that can resonate with people who know nothing about Mississippi and people who know a great deal about Mississippi.
I especially like how your handled the whispered phrase with the wives out of earshot: "The blacks..."
I will share your article with my Advanced Writing students at Mizzou.
Thanks for your care and insight, made manifest in journalistic writing.
Thoughts on the talent of Gay Talese
As I read Gay Talese’s collection of “Portraits and Encounters,” I found myself asking just what it was about his writing that is so appealing. It would be tiresome to point to his attention to telling details, like Frank Sinatra’s toupee or the mambo kings, salsa dancers and copper-colored prostitutes that bring to life a “breezy, palm-flapping winter evening in Havana.” This kind of craftsmanship seems almost a prerequisite of Talese’s genre. It would be equally cliché to point to his interest in nobodies and losers; it would also be false, as he is just as happy to write about celebrities and champions at the top of their game. What I picked up from returning to Talese this time is that at the heart of his talent is a kind of simple wisdom: the faith of a storyteller, namely, that all he has to do, by virtue of his curiosity, is find his way to the story, notebook in hand. Then he just follows the story along as it tells itself.
Gay Talese doesn’t so much tell stories as look at and listen to them. Late at night, he stares through shop windows at the “strange fairyland of gangling goddesses, all frozen in the act of dashing to a party, diving into a swimming pool or sashaying skyward in billowy blue negligee,” and he wonders who makes the mannequins that way. He sees the stray cats under cars or by the waterfront, and he asks if indeed there are different clusters of cat culture. A random afternoon in a pool hall, an evening in a TV studio and a day at a movie set, is each itself a tale, and at the same time each a slice of the sometimes lonely, other times tense and often sweet life of Frank Sinatra. Talese shows up at boxer Floyd Patterson’s clubhouse in upstate New York, and within a day he is off to witness the one-time knockout king lose in a standoff with a group of tweens. He hears of how Patterson slinks off from his defeated bouts in a fake moustache and dark glasses, afraid to face the crowd.
What Talese brings to each of these stories is interest in the variety and richness of life, his thoughtfulness, and his wide open eyes and ears.
Gay Talese doesn’t so much tell stories as look at and listen to them. Late at night, he stares through shop windows at the “strange fairyland of gangling goddesses, all frozen in the act of dashing to a party, diving into a swimming pool or sashaying skyward in billowy blue negligee,” and he wonders who makes the mannequins that way. He sees the stray cats under cars or by the waterfront, and he asks if indeed there are different clusters of cat culture. A random afternoon in a pool hall, an evening in a TV studio and a day at a movie set, is each itself a tale, and at the same time each a slice of the sometimes lonely, other times tense and often sweet life of Frank Sinatra. Talese shows up at boxer Floyd Patterson’s clubhouse in upstate New York, and within a day he is off to witness the one-time knockout king lose in a standoff with a group of tweens. He hears of how Patterson slinks off from his defeated bouts in a fake moustache and dark glasses, afraid to face the crowd.
What Talese brings to each of these stories is interest in the variety and richness of life, his thoughtfulness, and his wide open eyes and ears.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Response to the Gay Talese Reader
Gay Talese Response
Charlotte Atchley
I found Gay Talese’s profiles insightful and easy to read. I think the beauty of his method is he writes these profiles in the most intimate way, by taking his readers through a day in the life of his subject. What is more intimate than the daily routines of our most famous athletes, entertainers and publications—what they eat, drink, who they see and talk to.
Talese doesn’t restrict himself to the monotonous events of a day, however. He uses those moments as jumping off points for deeper revelations and explorations into a his subject’s character and past, much in the same way that our minds will notice a friend’s red car and take us back to the last time we saw that friend’s car and the events that surrounded that sighting. This much more readable form of stream-of-consciousness writing draws us in because it’s so natural. It’s how our brains function, and Talese uses it to weave background and depth into present, moving events.
Talese’s choices in his presentation of a profile and the very subjects he writes about are surprising. In New York is a City of Things Unnoticed, Talese writes a profile of a city that has appeared in hundreds of writings but never from this angle, that surprisingly reveals a fresh side to the city’s character. Talese writes about the down and out, the stars who are fading—Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and Floyd Patterson instead of profiling Mickey Mantle at the height of his career. By not following who and what is hot at the moment, Talese creates a profile so much more interesting and surprising than just another Mickey Mantle profile.
Charlotte Atchley
I found Gay Talese’s profiles insightful and easy to read. I think the beauty of his method is he writes these profiles in the most intimate way, by taking his readers through a day in the life of his subject. What is more intimate than the daily routines of our most famous athletes, entertainers and publications—what they eat, drink, who they see and talk to.
Talese doesn’t restrict himself to the monotonous events of a day, however. He uses those moments as jumping off points for deeper revelations and explorations into a his subject’s character and past, much in the same way that our minds will notice a friend’s red car and take us back to the last time we saw that friend’s car and the events that surrounded that sighting. This much more readable form of stream-of-consciousness writing draws us in because it’s so natural. It’s how our brains function, and Talese uses it to weave background and depth into present, moving events.
Talese’s choices in his presentation of a profile and the very subjects he writes about are surprising. In New York is a City of Things Unnoticed, Talese writes a profile of a city that has appeared in hundreds of writings but never from this angle, that surprisingly reveals a fresh side to the city’s character. Talese writes about the down and out, the stars who are fading—Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and Floyd Patterson instead of profiling Mickey Mantle at the height of his career. By not following who and what is hot at the moment, Talese creates a profile so much more interesting and surprising than just another Mickey Mantle profile.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Mark Twain's report on the Buffalo Female Academy's Writing Contest
My mentor Mel Mencher drew my attention to this report about writing, from Mark Twain. Note: LitJo master's student Charlotte Atchley is working on final paper about Twain's INNOCENTS ABROAD.
Excerpt from Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction Tom Quirk-University of Missouri-Columbia Copyright 1997 by Twayne Publishers Page 132-135
The paper we have chosen for the first prize of the graduates is very much the best literary effort in the whole collection, and yet it is almost the least ambitious among them.
It relates a very simple little incident, in unpretentious language, and then achieves the difficult feat of pointing it with one of those dismal atrocities called a Moral, without devoting double the space to it which it ought to occupy and outraging every canon for good taste, relevance and modesty.
It is a composition which possesses, also, the very rare merit of stopping when it is finished. It shows a freedom from adjectives and superlatives which is attractive, not to say seductive--and let us remark instructively, in passing, that one can seldom run his pen through an adjective without improving his manuscript. We can say further, in praise of this first-prize composition, that there is a singular aptness of language noticeable in it—denoting a shrewd faculty of selecting just the right word for the service needed, as a general thing.
It is a high gift. It is the talent which gives accuracy, grace and vividness in descriptive writing.
[I can send you a Word document with the full Twain report, if you want it. BH]
Excerpt from Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction Tom Quirk-University of Missouri-Columbia Copyright 1997 by Twayne Publishers Page 132-135
The paper we have chosen for the first prize of the graduates is very much the best literary effort in the whole collection, and yet it is almost the least ambitious among them.
It relates a very simple little incident, in unpretentious language, and then achieves the difficult feat of pointing it with one of those dismal atrocities called a Moral, without devoting double the space to it which it ought to occupy and outraging every canon for good taste, relevance and modesty.
It is a composition which possesses, also, the very rare merit of stopping when it is finished. It shows a freedom from adjectives and superlatives which is attractive, not to say seductive--and let us remark instructively, in passing, that one can seldom run his pen through an adjective without improving his manuscript. We can say further, in praise of this first-prize composition, that there is a singular aptness of language noticeable in it—denoting a shrewd faculty of selecting just the right word for the service needed, as a general thing.
It is a high gift. It is the talent which gives accuracy, grace and vividness in descriptive writing.
[I can send you a Word document with the full Twain report, if you want it. BH]
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Blog About Blogs: A Few Good Bloggers
I've had blogs on the mind lately.
Last semester, a few of us in this class were in a quantitative group together that produced a paper called "Be-Bop and Blog." We used the same article - a jazz review - attributed two different ways, to a blog or a magazine, and found that participants (college journalism students in intermediate writing) perceived bloggers as having more aspects of credibility and interest than magazine writers. The same article - only the attribution was changed!
Anyway, I don't think any of us are really confident that results we received were representative of national confidence in magazines, but like I said - them blogs have been on the brain.
So I thought I might point out a few interesting blogs out there. I'm only talking about sites for individual bloggers who have used their personality to make buzz. And I'm going to avoid the Gawkers and PerezHiltons of the world, but not to bash them.
I encourage everybody to comment with any blogs they enjoy. This seems like it could be morphed into an interesting paper topic, depending on the blog.
So, without further adieu (which, by the way, this guy told me was "ado"):
Last semester, a few of us in this class were in a quantitative group together that produced a paper called "Be-Bop and Blog." We used the same article - a jazz review - attributed two different ways, to a blog or a magazine, and found that participants (college journalism students in intermediate writing) perceived bloggers as having more aspects of credibility and interest than magazine writers. The same article - only the attribution was changed!
Anyway, I don't think any of us are really confident that results we received were representative of national confidence in magazines, but like I said - them blogs have been on the brain.
So I thought I might point out a few interesting blogs out there. I'm only talking about sites for individual bloggers who have used their personality to make buzz. And I'm going to avoid the Gawkers and PerezHiltons of the world, but not to bash them.
I encourage everybody to comment with any blogs they enjoy. This seems like it could be morphed into an interesting paper topic, depending on the blog.
So, without further adieu (which, by the way, this guy told me was "ado"):
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Son of Dith Pran Talks About Khmer Rouge Trials
Karen Ziner, my former colleague at the Providence Journal, has written an article of interest to those following events in Cambodia, now and in the past. Here is the link and top of article. I am unsure if you need to register to get on the ProJo site. Her email is kziner@projo.com
Karen is one of the finest journalists I know.
Son of Dith Pran says father would have relished seeing Khmer Rouge brought to justice at trials
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 15, 2009
By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer
Titony Dith and his father, Dith Pran.
Photo courtesy of Titony Dith
In April of 1975, as the Khmer Rouge advanced on Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Titony Dith saw the rocket attacks and dead and wounded people lying on the streets. He was just a boy.
That was shortly before the Khmer Rouge captured his famous father, Dith Pran, whose story was immortalized in the film The Killing Fields. Dith Pran died of cancer last year, before Khmer Rouge leaders could be brought to trial.
“He would love to have seen the Khmer Rouge brought to justice,” said Titony Dith, 44, in a phone interview from his home in Virginia. “Before he became sick, he told me he’d like to see the trial go on, and for the Khmer Rouge to be brought to justice for all the people who died under the brutal regime of Pol Pot.”
Dith Pran had ties in Rhode Island’s Cambodian community — one of the largest in the country –– and made numerous visits here, including to speak about the Khmer Rouge holocaust. After his death, Cambodians here said that if not for Dith Pran, the world might not have recognized their suffering.
Karen is one of the finest journalists I know.
Son of Dith Pran says father would have relished seeing Khmer Rouge brought to justice at trials
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 15, 2009
By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer
Titony Dith and his father, Dith Pran.
Photo courtesy of Titony Dith
In April of 1975, as the Khmer Rouge advanced on Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Titony Dith saw the rocket attacks and dead and wounded people lying on the streets. He was just a boy.
That was shortly before the Khmer Rouge captured his famous father, Dith Pran, whose story was immortalized in the film The Killing Fields. Dith Pran died of cancer last year, before Khmer Rouge leaders could be brought to trial.
“He would love to have seen the Khmer Rouge brought to justice,” said Titony Dith, 44, in a phone interview from his home in Virginia. “Before he became sick, he told me he’d like to see the trial go on, and for the Khmer Rouge to be brought to justice for all the people who died under the brutal regime of Pol Pot.”
Dith Pran had ties in Rhode Island’s Cambodian community — one of the largest in the country –– and made numerous visits here, including to speak about the Khmer Rouge holocaust. After his death, Cambodians here said that if not for Dith Pran, the world might not have recognized their suffering.
Cambodia Hearings About Killing Fields
Here are two links from stories today that connect with our upcoming inquiry into news reporting and writing about genocide:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/world/asia/17cambodia.html?scp=1&sq=Cambodia%20killing%20fields%20Tuol&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/02/17/world/international-us-cambodia-rouge.html
BH
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/world/asia/17cambodia.html?scp=1&sq=Cambodia%20killing%20fields%20Tuol&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/02/17/world/international-us-cambodia-rouge.html
BH
Polk Awards. If You Are Serious, You Will Study Them: Talese, Bearak, Dugger
The George Polk Awards were announced Monday. The Polk Award is one of the highest accolades in journalism. They are named for Polk, who was a CBS correspondent killed in Greece during the 1948 civil war there.
For those of you who are serious about journalism, you will look up the original stories by writers such as Barry Bearak & Celia W. Dugger--of the NYT. Bearak is one of my favorites. He worked at the LAT when I was there and was amazing and is amazing as a reporter and writer. Gay Talese won a lifetime achievement award
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/nyregion/17polk.html?scp=1&sq=Polk%20Awards&st=cse
I read this article in the hard copy of the NYT today. When I went to the website to try to find it, by just looking for the words Polk Awards, it could not. So I put Polk Awards in the search box. Actual newspapers have a virtue in that you can scan quickly through sections. Scanning on a webpage is a different experience: sometimes better. Sometimes worse.
For those of you who are serious about journalism, you will look up the original stories by writers such as Barry Bearak & Celia W. Dugger--of the NYT. Bearak is one of my favorites. He worked at the LAT when I was there and was amazing and is amazing as a reporter and writer. Gay Talese won a lifetime achievement award
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/nyregion/17polk.html?scp=1&sq=Polk%20Awards&st=cse
I read this article in the hard copy of the NYT today. When I went to the website to try to find it, by just looking for the words Polk Awards, it could not. So I put Polk Awards in the search box. Actual newspapers have a virtue in that you can scan quickly through sections. Scanning on a webpage is a different experience: sometimes better. Sometimes worse.
“Silent Spring” among today’s critics
In addition to the recommended readings for class, I came across different video clips on youtube and just wanted to share it with the class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vstRuRYcDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=548tzMJjtro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vstRuRYcDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=548tzMJjtro
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Fog Machine of Silent Spring
About the time Rachel Carson published SILENT SPRING in September 1962, I rode my bicycle behind the "fog truck" as it made its way through the streets of Possum Town. The gray, chemical mist that blew out from behind the machine in the bed of the pickup truck aimed to kill the mosquitoes that blanketed our humid, hot, Mississippi landscape. The fog smelled tart. It tasted bitter and burned my eyes as I weaved my three-speed Schwinn along the streets by the banks of the Tombigbee River.
BH
BH
Silent Spring and the current crisis in environmentalism
Have you ever had the nightmare where you are staring into the very teeth of doom, and you try to scream ... you scream and scream your head off ... but no sound comes out?
That's what it feels like covering the environment in South Florida for a community newspaper.
In class, we have asked what story would Woodward and Bernstein be working on today. My vote goes to the scoop about how the world's oceans are in crisis and will soon be nothing but viscous tubs of toxic algae if we don't take dramatic steps immediately, according to a consensus of scientists.
A series about this in the Los Angeles Times, entitled "Altered Oceans," won the Pulitzer for explanatory reporting in 2007. But have any of you seen any press about this?
Here's the Fresh Air interview with one of the reporters of the series.
And here's a report from the Naples Daily News about how the Gulf of Mexico is dying.
Here's the executive summary of the Pew Oceans Commissions report, in which scientists announce that the oceans are in crisis.
And here's the report from U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, a massive government study that essentially says the same thing.
That's what it feels like covering the environment in South Florida for a community newspaper.
In class, we have asked what story would Woodward and Bernstein be working on today. My vote goes to the scoop about how the world's oceans are in crisis and will soon be nothing but viscous tubs of toxic algae if we don't take dramatic steps immediately, according to a consensus of scientists.
A series about this in the Los Angeles Times, entitled "Altered Oceans," won the Pulitzer for explanatory reporting in 2007. But have any of you seen any press about this?
A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.Here's the Fresh Air interview with one of the reporters of the series.
And here's a report from the Naples Daily News about how the Gulf of Mexico is dying.
Here's the executive summary of the Pew Oceans Commissions report, in which scientists announce that the oceans are in crisis.
And here's the report from U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, a massive government study that essentially says the same thing.
Tom Junod’s biography. He will be at Mizzou, March 5-6, 2009
From John Fennell:
Tom Junod started his journalism career at Atlanta Magazine, before moving on to Life, Sports Illustrated, GQ, and Esquire.
At GQ, Junod won two National Magazine Awards, the first for a profile of an abortion doctor, the second for a profile of a rapist undergoing therapy while enduring what is known as "civil commitment."
In eleven years as Writer-At-Large at Esquire, Junod has written profiles of Kevin Spacey, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Fred Rogers, FBI counter-terrorist expert John O'Neill, Steve Jobs, and Nicole Kidman, among others, and reported on American hostages in Ecuador and American snipers accused of murder in Iraq. His noted 2003 piece, "The Falling Man," was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, as was his 2007 story, “The Loved Ones.”
A 10-time National Magazine Award finalist, Junod, 51, whose first job out of college was selling handbags, splits his time between Atlanta, Ga,. and Shelter Island, N.Y., with his wife, Janet, and their daughter Antonia Li.
Tom Junod started his journalism career at Atlanta Magazine, before moving on to Life, Sports Illustrated, GQ, and Esquire.
At GQ, Junod won two National Magazine Awards, the first for a profile of an abortion doctor, the second for a profile of a rapist undergoing therapy while enduring what is known as "civil commitment."
In eleven years as Writer-At-Large at Esquire, Junod has written profiles of Kevin Spacey, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Fred Rogers, FBI counter-terrorist expert John O'Neill, Steve Jobs, and Nicole Kidman, among others, and reported on American hostages in Ecuador and American snipers accused of murder in Iraq. His noted 2003 piece, "The Falling Man," was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, as was his 2007 story, “The Loved Ones.”
A 10-time National Magazine Award finalist, Junod, 51, whose first job out of college was selling handbags, splits his time between Atlanta, Ga,. and Shelter Island, N.Y., with his wife, Janet, and their daughter Antonia Li.
Diane Arbus as a Revelator
Here is part of the Guggenheim application statement by photographer Diane Arbus in 1963. I saw a phenomenal Arbus exhibit in New York in March 2005. The book DIANE ARBUS REVELATIONS represents some of the images in that show.
The show included a space in the museum that replicated her darkroom with her books and a photographic enlarger that allowed you to see with a safe-light how an negative image appeared when she was printing it.
What Arbus wanted to explore reminded me of some of the ideas you might pursue.
May her work and the work of others such as her inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams.
-------------
1963
Plan for a Photographic Project
American Rites, Manners and Customs
I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody’s grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful.
There are the Ceremonies of Celebration (the Pageants, the Festivals, the Feasts, the Conventions) and the Ceremonies of Competition (Contests, Games, Sports), the Ceremonies of Buying and Selling, of Gambling, of the Law and the Show; the Ceremonies of Fame in which the Winners Win and the Lucky are Chosen or Family Ceremonies or Gatherings (the Schools, the Clubs the Meetings). Then there are the Ceremonial Places (The Beauty Parlor, The Funeral Parlor or, simply the Parlor) and Ceremonial Costumes (what Waitresses wear, or Wrestlers), Ceremonies of the Rich, like the Dog Show, and of the Middle Class, like the Bridge Game. Or, for example: the Dancing Lesson, the Graduation, the Testimonial Dinner, the Séance, the Gymnasium and the Picnic. And perhaps the Waiting Room, the Factory, the Masquerade, the Rehearsal, the Initiation, the Hotel Lobby and the Birthday Party. The etcetera.
I will write whatever is necessary for the further description and elucidation of these Rites and I will go wherever I can to find them.
These are our symptoms and our monuments. I want simply to save them, for what is ceremonious and curious and commonplace will be legendary.
------------
BH
The show included a space in the museum that replicated her darkroom with her books and a photographic enlarger that allowed you to see with a safe-light how an negative image appeared when she was printing it.
What Arbus wanted to explore reminded me of some of the ideas you might pursue.
May her work and the work of others such as her inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams.
-------------
1963
Plan for a Photographic Project
American Rites, Manners and Customs
I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody’s grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful.
There are the Ceremonies of Celebration (the Pageants, the Festivals, the Feasts, the Conventions) and the Ceremonies of Competition (Contests, Games, Sports), the Ceremonies of Buying and Selling, of Gambling, of the Law and the Show; the Ceremonies of Fame in which the Winners Win and the Lucky are Chosen or Family Ceremonies or Gatherings (the Schools, the Clubs the Meetings). Then there are the Ceremonial Places (The Beauty Parlor, The Funeral Parlor or, simply the Parlor) and Ceremonial Costumes (what Waitresses wear, or Wrestlers), Ceremonies of the Rich, like the Dog Show, and of the Middle Class, like the Bridge Game. Or, for example: the Dancing Lesson, the Graduation, the Testimonial Dinner, the Séance, the Gymnasium and the Picnic. And perhaps the Waiting Room, the Factory, the Masquerade, the Rehearsal, the Initiation, the Hotel Lobby and the Birthday Party. The etcetera.
I will write whatever is necessary for the further description and elucidation of these Rites and I will go wherever I can to find them.
These are our symptoms and our monuments. I want simply to save them, for what is ceremonious and curious and commonplace will be legendary.
------------
BH
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
James Baldwin in the New Yorker, Feb. 9 & 16, 2009
I went to my mailbox this evening and opened the New Yorker to find this story below, which I encourage you to read in hard copy or online. It dovetails nicely with many of the topics we discussed today. BH
Another Country
James Baldwin’s flight from America.
by Claudia Roth Pierpont
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/02/09/090209crbo_books_pierpont
Feeling more than usually restless, James Baldwin flew from New York to Paris in the late summer of 1961, and from there to Israel. Then, rather than proceed as he had planned to Africa—a part of the world he was not ready to confront—he decided to visit a friend in Istanbul. Baldwin’s arrival at his Turkish friend’s door, in the midst of a party, was, as the friend recalled, a great surprise: two rings of the bell, and there stood a small and bedraggled black man with a battered suitcase and enormous eyes. Engin Cezzar was a Turkish actor who had worked with Baldwin in New York, and he excitedly introduced “Jimmy Baldwin, of literary fame, the famous black American novelist” to the roomful of intellectuals and artists.
Another Country
James Baldwin’s flight from America.
by Claudia Roth Pierpont
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/02/09/090209crbo_books_pierpont
Feeling more than usually restless, James Baldwin flew from New York to Paris in the late summer of 1961, and from there to Israel. Then, rather than proceed as he had planned to Africa—a part of the world he was not ready to confront—he decided to visit a friend in Istanbul. Baldwin’s arrival at his Turkish friend’s door, in the midst of a party, was, as the friend recalled, a great surprise: two rings of the bell, and there stood a small and bedraggled black man with a battered suitcase and enormous eyes. Engin Cezzar was a Turkish actor who had worked with Baldwin in New York, and he excitedly introduced “Jimmy Baldwin, of literary fame, the famous black American novelist” to the roomful of intellectuals and artists.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Power of Documentary Film and Its LitJo Connection
Throughout the semester I encourage you to pay attention to documentary films and how they connect with our subjects and discussions.
How does the work of documentarians intersect with that of print or photojournalists in terms of reporting, writing, revising, and thinking?
We will likely watch a film by Frederick Wiseman, perhaps Titicut Follies.
See www.zipporah.com
We may watch or talk about documentarians Errol Morris http://www.errolmorris.com/or Barbara Kopple. http://www.cabincreekfilms.com/barbara_kopple.html
Morris writes regularly for the NYT webpage.
Also I encourage everyone to find a way to attend the True/False film festival.
See www.truefalse.org
Here is a film I read about recently but have not seen:
http://www.farmingvillethemovie.com/playTrailer.html
Farmingville
Documentary
78 minutes
USA
Premier 2003
Directors Statement
To tell this story, we lived and worked for nearly a year in Farmingville, New York, where we experienced firsthand the tensions in this small Long Island town. Farmingville’s story reflects the challenge facing many communities as the Latino population not only spreads across the nation farther than any previous wave of immigrants, but also bypasses traditional immigrant gateways and heads directly to suburbs and the American heartland.
Crew
Directors: Catherine Tambini and Carlos Sandoval
Producers: Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini
Cinematographers: Catherine Tambini and Karola Ritter
Screenwriter: Carlos Sandoval
Editors: John Bloomgarden and Mary Manhardt
Composer: Steven Schoenberg
Sound Recordists: Peter Miller and John Zecca
Broadcast
PBS: P.O.V. 2004 (Season Opener)
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation): Passionate Eye, 2004
BH
How does the work of documentarians intersect with that of print or photojournalists in terms of reporting, writing, revising, and thinking?
We will likely watch a film by Frederick Wiseman, perhaps Titicut Follies.
See www.zipporah.com
We may watch or talk about documentarians Errol Morris http://www.errolmorris.com/or Barbara Kopple. http://www.cabincreekfilms.com/barbara_kopple.html
Morris writes regularly for the NYT webpage.
Also I encourage everyone to find a way to attend the True/False film festival.
See www.truefalse.org
Here is a film I read about recently but have not seen:
http://www.farmingvillethemovie.com/playTrailer.html
Farmingville
Documentary
78 minutes
USA
Premier 2003
Directors Statement
To tell this story, we lived and worked for nearly a year in Farmingville, New York, where we experienced firsthand the tensions in this small Long Island town. Farmingville’s story reflects the challenge facing many communities as the Latino population not only spreads across the nation farther than any previous wave of immigrants, but also bypasses traditional immigrant gateways and heads directly to suburbs and the American heartland.
Crew
Directors: Catherine Tambini and Carlos Sandoval
Producers: Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini
Cinematographers: Catherine Tambini and Karola Ritter
Screenwriter: Carlos Sandoval
Editors: John Bloomgarden and Mary Manhardt
Composer: Steven Schoenberg
Sound Recordists: Peter Miller and John Zecca
Broadcast
PBS: P.O.V. 2004 (Season Opener)
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation): Passionate Eye, 2004
BH
Sunday, February 8, 2009
More on Wideman
In 1997 Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on Jamila Wideman, the baby in Brothers and Keepers, that profiles her relationships with her family, teammates at Stanford and with her incarcerated brother.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Booker T. Washington and Du Bois
The February 2, 2009 issue of the New Yorker has an article about Booker T. Washington that mentions W.E.B. Du Bois' criticism of him in "The Souls of Black Folk."
Friday, February 6, 2009
Top 100 Works of Journalism, According to NYU
Here is the link http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Top%20100%20page.htm
What's missing? Why?
What books, articles, and authors would you add to make your own Top 100?
What books, articles, and authors would you remove to make your Top 100?
BH
What's missing? Why?
What books, articles, and authors would you add to make your own Top 100?
What books, articles, and authors would you remove to make your Top 100?
BH
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