Dayjobs
Mar 17, 2010 storytelling, writing
Apparently I’m not the only one.
Like yesterday’s goodie, from here.
Tags: Lapham's Quarterly
If you were looking for something to read, may I suggest…
Mar 16, 2010 journalism, storytelling, writing
From NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute:
New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, together with a group of distinguished outside judges, will be selecting The Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade in the United States. Ten years ago New York University, using some of the same judges, selected The Top 100 Works of Journalism of the Twentieth Century in the United States.
The eighty works of journalism listed here were nominated by the faculty at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute (with some student suggestions) and by our outside judges, who include: Madeleine Blais (University of Massachusetts), Dorothy Rabinowitz (Wall Street Journal), Morley Safer (60 Minutes), Gene Roberts (University of Maryland), Ben Yagoda (University of Delaware), Eric Newton (Knight Foundation), Ron Allen (NBC), Kathleen Parker (Washington Post), Leon Dash (University of Illinois), Juan Williams (NPR), Ezra Klein (blog, Washington Post), Alex Jones (Shorenstein Center, Harvard), Sylvia Nasar (Columbia), Daisy Hernández (Colorlines) and Greil Marcus (cultural critic).
The full-time faculty and our outside judges are now being asked to vote on these nominees — by March 22, 2010. The “Top Ten” — in order — will be announced on April 5, 2010, at New York University. Please feel free to comment on the nominees and make suggestions. Clicking on a nominee in the list that follows will bring up a short description and a link either to the work or to a discussion of the work.
– Mitchell Stephens, Professor of Journalism, NYU
There’s 80 pieces. Anyone want to split it with me?
We could do something like this guy, who is reading the Best American Short Stories series from 1978- 2009 and blogging about each story. Love it…
Tags: awards, blogging, NYU, short story
The Evolution of Four Stories
Mar 16, 2010 storytelling
From here.
The evolution of four common storylines through place and time.
Tags: Lapham's Quarterly
Not that anyone reads magazines…
Mar 12, 2010 journalism, news, storytelling, writing
You should. Just most people don’t.
I had a video heavy posting day the other day and apparently today’s theme is documentaries. I will be posting about the one I watched last night a little later. But to break it up, I wanted to post this year’s ASME’s 2010 National Magazine Awards finalists.
I’m sure most of these can be found online.
(Aka: something to read while at my day job.)
Tags: 2010, 2010 National Magazine Awards, ASME, magazine, National Magazine Awards
Gone till October?
Mar 8, 2010 music, storytelling, video
Wayne, in the gray skully, finally entering courthouse and going to jail.
From this guy.
Video:
Trouble the Water
Feb 6, 2010 journalism, movies, storytelling, video
So better late than never.
I keep watching these docs that are a couple of years old.
But at least I am watching them.
Tonight I checked out Trouble the Water.
Nominated for an Academy Award® for best feature documentary, TROUBLE THE WATER takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. It’s a redemptive tale of two self-described street hustlers who become heroes-two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.
The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall-twenty-four year old aspiring rap artist Kimberly Rivers Roberts is turning her new video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. “It’s going to be a day to remember,” Kim declares. With no means to leave the city and equipped with just a few supplies and her hi 8 camera, she and her husband Scott tape their harrowing ordeal as the storm rages, the nearby levee breaches, and floodwaters fill their home and their community. Shortly after the levees fail, their battery dies.
Seamlessly weaving 15 minutes of this home movie footage shot the day before and the morning of the storm with archival news segments and verite footage shot over the next two years, directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal tell a story of remarkable people surviving not only failed levees, bungling bureaucrats and armed soldiers, but also their own past.
Directed and produced by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and Executive Produced by Joslyn Barnes and Danny Glover of Louverture Films, edited and co-produced by T. Woody Richman, with addiitonal editing by Mary Lampson, Trouble the Water features an original musical score by Neil Davidge and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, and the music of Dr. John, Mary Mary, Citizen Cope, TK Soul, John Lee Hooker, and the Free Agents Brass Band and introduces the music of Black Kold Madina.
The more I read and see about Katrina, the more in awe I become. It also makes me want to learn more about it and the more I seem to learn the more upsetting it gets. Movies like this put real faces on the events and I found Kim and Scott Rivers to be pretty amazing people. Not only did they survive it, but they don’t appear to be broken as a result. Times where I have zero doubt I would lose my patience under the circumstances and impossible conditions of dealing wit a negligent and uncaring government, they retained their dignity and self-respect never stooping to the levels I wanted to even watching from the comfort of my own living room.
I give Kim credit for having the foresight to be taping everything. I give the producers of the documentary credit for showing the human sides of the Rivers and not condoning or denying their character flaws, but by also not turning them into caricatures. The filmmakers also did not miss small but important details that while are not central, are still integral to the story are nonetheless important to the Rivers and what it say about the treatment of the victims of that city and the hurricane. This is a story that should not only be told, but a story that should be heard.
Well done.
Tags: Carl Deal, documentary, hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, Katrina, Kim Rivers, Lousiana, New Orleans, Scott Rivers, Tia Lessin, Trouble the Water
The Death of Fiction?
Feb 3, 2010 storytelling, writing
The Death of Fiction?
From Mother Jones’ January/February 2010 issue.
The editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review laments the death of the short story. He wields his blame thrower, hitting all the right targets. (Universities, writers, economy…)
My favorite line:
You may be a precious snowflake, but if you can’t express your individuality in sterling prose, I don’t want to read about it.
Tags: fiction, Mother Jones, short story, Ted Genoways, Virginia Quarterly Review, VQR
Books
Jan 28, 2010 etc., storytelling, writing
I said to someone the other day that as an addict, I am constantly worried about running out of anything I like. It’s reassuring to know I have an endless supply of books on my list to read that I might not ever get to.
I can’t ever run out.
Here’s what I just finished, just started and want to start.
I bought this because it was written by Dave Eggers, the founder of McSweeny’s, which I generally like and turn to for lit related stuff. Plus the whole Katrina angle interested me. But the book fucking bored me. I was extremely monotone. I didn’t think there was any change in the pitch and the angle of a Muslim facing illegal and Unconstitutional treatment post 9/11 in the middle of a catastrophe is trite. I only finished it because it was a quick and easy read.
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
Malcolm Gladwell‘s other books, but this one is different. While the others are almost books on theory and interactions/relationships/processing, What the Dog Saw is a collection of Gladwell’s pieces from The New Yorker. And it’s amazing. From stylistically to content wise, it’s hands down awesome. From making completely banal subjects intersting to making interesting subjects even more fascinating, while delivering information in a stylized way, it’s great. It’s only out in hardcover right now, but when it hits paperback I will definitely be copping it. I use books like this almost for reference and inspiration.
*Edit: One guess who spoke at UPenn today. One more guess who didn’t know/go.
Linchpin
I picked this up after having read something about it online. I can’t think of another book, especially about business/branding, that I felt compelled to go out and buy in hardcover the day it came out. But reading what I did about it (here, here, here, here and a post by author Seth Godin here) and having a $25 Border’s gift card, I splurged. I started it tonight and I’m psyched to read the rest. It kind of summed up my thoughts and what I have managed to do in many jobs I have had over the years. To find this niche role where I’m not necessarily trying to shoot up a corporate ladder, but find a void and make myself useful. Not what I am doing as useful, but make myself useful. It looks like Godin cohesively puts it all together.
The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers
I bought this at the same time I picked up this. If you pay any attention to my blog or bookshelf, I am mildly obsessed with the creative process and own many books on writers talking about their process and writing. Can’t wait to get into it.
I love me some books.
Tags: Dave Eggers, Hurricane Katrina, Linchpin, Malcolm Gladwell, McSweeny's, Seth Godin, The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers, What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, Zeitoun
Troy, NY
Jan 26, 2010 etc., storytelling, video
I came across this and thought it was interesting.
I grew up right outside Troy, NY. (Albany, Schenectady, Troy…)
The idea was to mesh journalism, audio/visual and poetry.
I can’t say that I am a huge fan of poetry, (Using it as a journalistic medium is… interesting. Not sure if it works for a few reasons.) but once again I’m glad people are experimenting and trying new things.
In Verse: Women of Troy
A century ago, Troy, New York, was a thriving industrial capital. Today many of its residents live in poverty. Studio 360′s Lu Olkowski went to Troy with poet Susan B.A. Somers-Willet and photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally to document some of Troy’s stories. They spent a lot of time with a single mother, Billie Jean Hill.
Susan B.A. Somers-Willet wrote a poem about DJ Guerrin, another one of Troy’s single mothers struggling to get by.
“In Verse” is Studio 360′s series documenting the lives of the working poor through poetry and photography. It was created by Lu Olkowski and Ted Genoways, editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review.
Harvard’s Narrative Digest goes on to explain more here.
Any thoughts about the piece itself or the mixing of mediums as a whole?
Effective? Trustorthy?
Tags: Billie Jean Hill, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Lu Olkowski, Narrative Digest, NY, Studio 360, Susan B.A. Somers-Willet, Troy
Brilliant
Jan 25, 2010 art, etc., storytelling
This is just kind of genius.
An absurd amount of time went into this.
200+ hours. I would of thought it was more.
All for 16 pages of (beautiful) infographics.
From Cool Hunting:
Earlier today infographic designer Nicholas Felton released his fifth annual report, the culmination of yet another year’s worth of data accretion and (according to his Facebook status) well over 200 hours of labor. With The 2009 Feltron Annual Report, Felton stepped up his game a sizable notch by creating his first ever crowd-sourced report, enlisting the help of relatives, friends, colleagues and even his dentist.
Calling daily on the people he met who he felt “had discerned enough of my personality and activities” to submit a record of the encounter through an online survey, the designer tracked responses and used his own subjective analysis to come up with the data set. While Felton acknowledges the variations in accuracy his methods produce, he exlpains that he “strived to sort and collate the data in a clinical and repeatable manner that could be reproduced by someone looking for the same stories I have selected.?”
Tags: 2009, 2009 Feltron Annual Report, crowd-source, data, Nicholas Felton
