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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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