Wednesday, February 12, 2003
In case you happen across this site and wonder why it's so, uh, unkept, it's because I've abandoned it for a younger, prettier site called travelinvan.com. Take a look.
Monday, January 06, 2003
One friend suggested I got him because I needed to care for something beside myself. I’d outgrown houseplants and was now ready to accept the challenge and responsibility of helping to raise a real living, breathing thing. Maybe it was the loneliness of a new life in this big city or a real desire to be near someone else with my family name. I honestly believe it was much less complex than any of that. One day someone in my office just said “kitten” and I responded with oohs and ahhs. The next day a tiny, freaked out baby cat was delivered to my doorstep and, at that moment, I became someone who needed a babysitter every time I left town. Well, really, it was more than that. I’ll admit I was crazy about this little kitty for the first couple weeks and routinely came home for lunch to play with him and make sure he adjusted well to his new home. I loved how he’d curl up with me at night and make muffins on my chest. His tiny mew (not quite yet a meow) would wake me up at night and sometime have me running in from the other room to check on him. I took copious snapshots and emailed them to my parents and friends back home. “Look. He’s mine,” I’d proudly tell them.
Perhaps it was bad planning, but about two weeks after Roo came to live with me and my two housemates in Chelsea I left for a 10-day windsurfing vacation in Bonaire. Those must have been some formative ten days because, when I returned, the cute little kitten had developed the temperament of a teenager. Within hours of my return, he pooped smack on the center on my roommate Rich’s bed. Just when we’d got that cleaned up, he laid a similar mess on my bed. (I wondered if he’d cut the first one short just to be sure he’d have enough for the both beds.) He actually went for a third attack on Rich’s freshly cleaned bedspread and we caught him just in time. This was one pissed off cat.
During the next few days I came to learn just how much the apartment dynamics had changed. Rich and Roo had bonded in my absence and I now was the neglectful mom, or so I thought. My jealousy damped my affections for the cat, thinking he’d rather hang out and eat catnip with Rich anyway. Months passed. The cat grew, I grew and somehow recovered from my jealousy.
Toward then end of my first year in Chelsea I got a new boyfriend, and together we moved Roo to a third-story apartment in Brooklyn where he saw his first tree, played on his first fire escape and touched his paws on snow for the first time. After the initial month in this new living arrangement, my allergic boyfriend stopped kicking him off the bed at night and started calling him ‘my cat’, except of course when he puked or missed the litter box.
We knew his habits – like how he’d sneak into the neighbor’s apartment from the second-story fire escape – and he knew ours – he’d get anxious and aggressive every time we’d start packing to go out of town. The vet referred to him as Roo Jones, and I sort of got a kick out of him having my last name. I toyed with the idea of putting Roo Hecht-Jones on his health certificate but it seemed a little too silly or presumptuous or something. I guess you could say we were pretty close, the three of us. Like a little family.
Roo’s in Portland now, spending a week with Anthony’s sister and her various pets while he waits for Rich to pick him up and take him to a new home in Seattle. With our road trip about to get underway, we figured a VW van in no kind of place for a cat, even one so sweet as he is. He’ll be happy in the company of a puppy, a whole world of trees and grass and the ever-adoring Rich with his unending supply of nip. We vow to retrieve him someday when we’re ready to park the car for a while, but I can’t be sure that we’ll be able to uproot him again or whether we could convince Rich to part with him a second time.
I once knew a woman who saved all her cat’s shed fur in a little wooden box on the bookshelf. She planned to knit it all into a sweater someday after the cat died. In my book, she was a crazy cat person. She’s still that person, but I guess I have an ounce more understanding for that kind of affection for a cat. I’ll miss Roo. I miss him right now, in fact. Maybe someday I’ll even want a sweater made of his fur but for now I’m just happy he’s found a good home and he’s still my kitty, Roo Jones.
Perhaps it was bad planning, but about two weeks after Roo came to live with me and my two housemates in Chelsea I left for a 10-day windsurfing vacation in Bonaire. Those must have been some formative ten days because, when I returned, the cute little kitten had developed the temperament of a teenager. Within hours of my return, he pooped smack on the center on my roommate Rich’s bed. Just when we’d got that cleaned up, he laid a similar mess on my bed. (I wondered if he’d cut the first one short just to be sure he’d have enough for the both beds.) He actually went for a third attack on Rich’s freshly cleaned bedspread and we caught him just in time. This was one pissed off cat.
During the next few days I came to learn just how much the apartment dynamics had changed. Rich and Roo had bonded in my absence and I now was the neglectful mom, or so I thought. My jealousy damped my affections for the cat, thinking he’d rather hang out and eat catnip with Rich anyway. Months passed. The cat grew, I grew and somehow recovered from my jealousy.
Toward then end of my first year in Chelsea I got a new boyfriend, and together we moved Roo to a third-story apartment in Brooklyn where he saw his first tree, played on his first fire escape and touched his paws on snow for the first time. After the initial month in this new living arrangement, my allergic boyfriend stopped kicking him off the bed at night and started calling him ‘my cat’, except of course when he puked or missed the litter box.
We knew his habits – like how he’d sneak into the neighbor’s apartment from the second-story fire escape – and he knew ours – he’d get anxious and aggressive every time we’d start packing to go out of town. The vet referred to him as Roo Jones, and I sort of got a kick out of him having my last name. I toyed with the idea of putting Roo Hecht-Jones on his health certificate but it seemed a little too silly or presumptuous or something. I guess you could say we were pretty close, the three of us. Like a little family.
Roo’s in Portland now, spending a week with Anthony’s sister and her various pets while he waits for Rich to pick him up and take him to a new home in Seattle. With our road trip about to get underway, we figured a VW van in no kind of place for a cat, even one so sweet as he is. He’ll be happy in the company of a puppy, a whole world of trees and grass and the ever-adoring Rich with his unending supply of nip. We vow to retrieve him someday when we’re ready to park the car for a while, but I can’t be sure that we’ll be able to uproot him again or whether we could convince Rich to part with him a second time.
I once knew a woman who saved all her cat’s shed fur in a little wooden box on the bookshelf. She planned to knit it all into a sweater someday after the cat died. In my book, she was a crazy cat person. She’s still that person, but I guess I have an ounce more understanding for that kind of affection for a cat. I’ll miss Roo. I miss him right now, in fact. Maybe someday I’ll even want a sweater made of his fur but for now I’m just happy he’s found a good home and he’s still my kitty, Roo Jones.
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
A smile only a mother could love
Reclining in the chair and carefully fixing my stare at the muted light, I’m inspired to make a list. My top five worst things about visiting the dentist:
1. The indignity of spit and drool sliding down my cheek, dripping off my face and pooling in my right ear. I’ll give my dentist a half point for lightly toweling me off a couple times (probably just because the pool was about to overflow onto his pants), but the hygienist – negative points for her. Minus one for neglecting a basic assisting duty to keep me comfortable and clean. Minus two for forcing the dentist to attend my teeth single-handedly while his other hand damned the saliva leak. I’m certain if I’d been wearing pointy leather shoes rather than sneakers and cashmere instead of cotton, the treatment would’ve been quite different. It can’t be long before upscale doctor offices start sending appoint reminder cards with a note that dress is ‘smart casual’ or ‘fashion forward’.
2. More point deductions to the hygienist for leaving the air vacuum suctioned to the back of my throat for the majority of my time in the chair. Within the two-inch space of my back right oral cavity we have a saliva hemorrhage from my right cheek and a back throat desiccation that could start forest fires. (I did smell smoke at one point – maybe those cotton swabs got a little close to the vacuum’s rim of fire.)
3. Novocaine. I fall for this one every time. The doc asks if I want it and I get fond memories of the time I laughed my way into a deep sleep before my wisdom teeth were knocked out. Then the needle comes out and remember it’s not the gas – it’s that stuff that crawls through one side of my face like a snake-charmer and numbs my tongue, then the cheek, the nose and finally my eye. It scares the hell out of me when it gets that high because the brain is right there and gravity is not on my side. So I recoil like a five-year old and try to think of holidays, Hawaiian luaus and baby animals to prevent myself from crying. My only solace is knowing the tears would be easily disguised when they merge with stream of saliva running down my cheek.
4. I made funny faces in the mirror before leaving – the half pucker, the slanted smile, talking fish lips (so named because my lips pulled in opposite sideways directions every time I tried to speak). Number four on the list is being obligated to contort my half-paralyzed face and talk to lost German tourists on the Subway platform. I recognize a look of horror and pity when I see it. (I later learned how to use this stroke victim disguise to my advantage, but that’s a tangent I’m not ready to make.)
5. And number five, the obvious reason why all this sucked – all this suffering and distortion could’ve been avoided if not for the flossing snafu that put me in the chair in the first place. (Just to be fair, I lifted that term ‘flossing snafu’ from my learned dentist…Good one, Dr. Zuckerman.)
Reclining in the chair and carefully fixing my stare at the muted light, I’m inspired to make a list. My top five worst things about visiting the dentist:
1. The indignity of spit and drool sliding down my cheek, dripping off my face and pooling in my right ear. I’ll give my dentist a half point for lightly toweling me off a couple times (probably just because the pool was about to overflow onto his pants), but the hygienist – negative points for her. Minus one for neglecting a basic assisting duty to keep me comfortable and clean. Minus two for forcing the dentist to attend my teeth single-handedly while his other hand damned the saliva leak. I’m certain if I’d been wearing pointy leather shoes rather than sneakers and cashmere instead of cotton, the treatment would’ve been quite different. It can’t be long before upscale doctor offices start sending appoint reminder cards with a note that dress is ‘smart casual’ or ‘fashion forward’.
2. More point deductions to the hygienist for leaving the air vacuum suctioned to the back of my throat for the majority of my time in the chair. Within the two-inch space of my back right oral cavity we have a saliva hemorrhage from my right cheek and a back throat desiccation that could start forest fires. (I did smell smoke at one point – maybe those cotton swabs got a little close to the vacuum’s rim of fire.)
3. Novocaine. I fall for this one every time. The doc asks if I want it and I get fond memories of the time I laughed my way into a deep sleep before my wisdom teeth were knocked out. Then the needle comes out and remember it’s not the gas – it’s that stuff that crawls through one side of my face like a snake-charmer and numbs my tongue, then the cheek, the nose and finally my eye. It scares the hell out of me when it gets that high because the brain is right there and gravity is not on my side. So I recoil like a five-year old and try to think of holidays, Hawaiian luaus and baby animals to prevent myself from crying. My only solace is knowing the tears would be easily disguised when they merge with stream of saliva running down my cheek.
4. I made funny faces in the mirror before leaving – the half pucker, the slanted smile, talking fish lips (so named because my lips pulled in opposite sideways directions every time I tried to speak). Number four on the list is being obligated to contort my half-paralyzed face and talk to lost German tourists on the Subway platform. I recognize a look of horror and pity when I see it. (I later learned how to use this stroke victim disguise to my advantage, but that’s a tangent I’m not ready to make.)
5. And number five, the obvious reason why all this sucked – all this suffering and distortion could’ve been avoided if not for the flossing snafu that put me in the chair in the first place. (Just to be fair, I lifted that term ‘flossing snafu’ from my learned dentist…Good one, Dr. Zuckerman.)
Thursday, November 21, 2002
Zero medium
Audio, video, photo, text – so many mediums, such different experiences for the subject, the subjected, and the subjecteur. While walking through the 42nd street subway yesterday during the post-work rush, twice I wished I could exchange the hefty video camera on my back for a discreet palm-sized digital camera. Occasion #1: Latino man dancing salsa/lambada with a life-size, somewhat responsive ragdoll. The pumping surround sound drew a good audience to watch this short brown man work his partner like a puppet. Really, it wasn't too far off from some partner-dancing I’ve seen in local salsa clubs.
Occasion #2: Same subway station, different artist, similar dilemma. This trumpet player’s moody tunes had mesmerized the crowd, so moving all onlookers to transfer a few dollars from their pockets to the open trumpet case at the musician’s feet. I’m not kidding – this guy was raking it in from every direction. His song: Human Nature by Michael Jackson. Rather than pull out the camera and distract the scene, I opted to give him a buck and go quietly to my train.
So, here’s the question. How can you introduce a camera or other recording device without disrupting and altering the story or the moment? In some ways, you just can’t. The camera has a presence. People react to it by becoming self-aware actors imposing personalities and alter-egos they never knew they had. Even when I’m home alone testing the audio levels on my camera, my voice becomes timid, weak and embarrassed – a voice I don’t recognize. Maybe it’s just an unfamiliar situation for me that can become more natural the more I do it. Being both in front of and behind the camera, that is. The idea of recording information, although, isn’t such a foreign experience. Taking hand-written notes during an interview is one thing that comes with relative ease, having a tripod looming somewhere nearby is quite another. The camera can’t be ignored, but if it’s there long enough people start to forget about and even become bored with it.
It’s a new experience, I guess that’s the conclusion. I’ve been reading “Rebel Without a Crew” by Robert Rodriguez (creator of El Mariachi) and thinking a little more lately how to tell a good story with film. He makes it sounds so simple. His advice, “Just get out there and make a couple unwatchable movies. Eventually you’ll learn enough to make something someone will want to see twice.” I’m starting to get the hang of the unwatchable thing. That’s a start, right?
Audio, video, photo, text – so many mediums, such different experiences for the subject, the subjected, and the subjecteur. While walking through the 42nd street subway yesterday during the post-work rush, twice I wished I could exchange the hefty video camera on my back for a discreet palm-sized digital camera. Occasion #1: Latino man dancing salsa/lambada with a life-size, somewhat responsive ragdoll. The pumping surround sound drew a good audience to watch this short brown man work his partner like a puppet. Really, it wasn't too far off from some partner-dancing I’ve seen in local salsa clubs.
Occasion #2: Same subway station, different artist, similar dilemma. This trumpet player’s moody tunes had mesmerized the crowd, so moving all onlookers to transfer a few dollars from their pockets to the open trumpet case at the musician’s feet. I’m not kidding – this guy was raking it in from every direction. His song: Human Nature by Michael Jackson. Rather than pull out the camera and distract the scene, I opted to give him a buck and go quietly to my train.
So, here’s the question. How can you introduce a camera or other recording device without disrupting and altering the story or the moment? In some ways, you just can’t. The camera has a presence. People react to it by becoming self-aware actors imposing personalities and alter-egos they never knew they had. Even when I’m home alone testing the audio levels on my camera, my voice becomes timid, weak and embarrassed – a voice I don’t recognize. Maybe it’s just an unfamiliar situation for me that can become more natural the more I do it. Being both in front of and behind the camera, that is. The idea of recording information, although, isn’t such a foreign experience. Taking hand-written notes during an interview is one thing that comes with relative ease, having a tripod looming somewhere nearby is quite another. The camera can’t be ignored, but if it’s there long enough people start to forget about and even become bored with it.
It’s a new experience, I guess that’s the conclusion. I’ve been reading “Rebel Without a Crew” by Robert Rodriguez (creator of El Mariachi) and thinking a little more lately how to tell a good story with film. He makes it sounds so simple. His advice, “Just get out there and make a couple unwatchable movies. Eventually you’ll learn enough to make something someone will want to see twice.” I’m starting to get the hang of the unwatchable thing. That’s a start, right?
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Remember substitute teachers? We took advantage of them because they were a rare, temporary authority figure in the classroom. How we behaved when they were in charge didn't really matter -- it wouldn't reflect on our permanent record. Like the time when I turned in my Shakespeare project and performed a 10-minute Hamlet soliloquy for the sub -- my real teacher didn't factor that award-winning performance into my grade. I really can't remember any individual substitute teacher from my school days, and I don't remember my regular teachers being absent all that often. I'm sure it happened at least a couple times. Strange, but I remember my college professors having surprise subs more often than my elementary or high school teachers. I suppose the sophisticated scotch-drinking, cigar-smoking profs were hungover more often...or maybe they got personal days for book tours considering that education at my university came third to publishing and research, in that order.
This idea has been on my mind lately because it's been at least a couple years since I've had a job where my daily presence or contribution really mattered; where people really depended on my work being done well. A job where I would need to seriously be bedridden to justify a sick day. Now, the slightest sniffle or sore throat seems a valid excuse to stay home and sleep all day.
I think about how my dad would rarely miss a day work, despite living in a house with four kids and tons of germs. Was it because he had some serious deadlines and people in rural communities would get screwed on their cooperative electricity legislation if he didn't get his work done? Was it the fact that he needed to provide for a family of six? Did the idea of staying home and doing nothing just not appeal to him? Maybe it was just his work ethic and he would have worked through any flu, cold or cancer because he really believes in the work he's doing.
There was a time when I was rarely sick -- I wonder if it's just that I still had all the seasonal ills but didn't let it interfere with what I was doing. It's a good feeling to have people depending on you. Sometimes I think I really need some rigid deadlines or goals to drive me to complete something. In fact, I'm sure that's the case. I've been sitting on some DV equipment and a couple unfinished stories for a few months now. It's difficult to be motivated without a clear idea of my goals with this work. The mere education and experience should be enough of a goal, right? Somehow it's not.
While it's nice to have a flexible job where taking a few days off on a whim is nice, I think I'd prefer to really feel needed, care about what I'm doing and make a meaningful contribution to something worthwhile. Sounds cheesy, I know, but it's what I've been thinking about these last couple of days spent laying in bed, drinking tea and emptying boxes of Kleenex.
Speaking of jobs where you just don't call in sick, here's a perfect illustration from a friend who recently quit the corporate world to become a teacher:
[via email]
Despite the fact that I can barely cook myself a plate of spaghetti without
burning it I'm teaching a class full of second graders how to make apple
sauce this Friday (after our apple picking trip tommorrow). I just
realized that what I thought was a hot plate in my closet is actually a hot
*pot* and that I need to find a hot *plate* by Friday. If you know what one
is and happen to have one that I might be able to borrow for the day you
would make my day..
please please please let me know..
This just reminded me of anther absentee story....
I volunteered part of last year with a school in Brooklyn, helping with an outdoor education class for an hour after school on Fridays. Now, try to imagine some high school seniors, flirting with prom dates, paying attention to a discussion about water filters and first aid on a warm spring afternoon. They didn't. Regardless, a few of them consistently endured the classes, feigned partial interest and completed the course work just so they'd be eligible to attend the weekend field trips.
Well, many of the co-ed trips had been suspended because, reportedly, a few of the older students were taking the whole 'back to nature' thing a little too literally and, as one particularly expressive red-headed wannabe black kid put it, "we was getting it on, mmmmmhmmmm". Note that he said that while straddling a chair, air-humping and spanking it from side to side.
In any case, we'd been working up to a day-hike in upstate New York. We'd talked about it for at least a month, the kids we're coolly psyched and all the arrangements were made. We'd had our final Friday after-school class on the final day of school -- Saturday was the big day.
As I'm filling my last water bottle before heading out the apartment door Saturday morning, my cell phone rings. It's Ed, one of the other two teachers leading the outdoors class. He's the one who always seemed a little nervous and distracted and, after quite a few years teaching, still couldn't hold five students attention for more than two minutes. He's also the one who looked me squarely in the eye on my first day of volunteering and said, "You're new. Why don't you do the lesson plan for next week?" Nice guy.
So, it's Ed on the phone telling me that his daughter is sick and when she's sick she needs her daddy. He actually used those words. Well, what about her mommy? I happen to know he's got a wife who's also a teacher at the school. Ed was the only qualified van driver -- the trip was off.
I felt terrible for the kids, I felt terrible that I was awake and dressed in hiking boots and zip-off pants at 6 am, I felt terrible that Ed was willing to let down all these kids who were graduating and might have just missed their one chance to see what mountains and lakes look like up close.
Beth, the other teacher, and I tried to reschedule but it was too late. Summer took hold. The kids were gone.
This idea has been on my mind lately because it's been at least a couple years since I've had a job where my daily presence or contribution really mattered; where people really depended on my work being done well. A job where I would need to seriously be bedridden to justify a sick day. Now, the slightest sniffle or sore throat seems a valid excuse to stay home and sleep all day.
I think about how my dad would rarely miss a day work, despite living in a house with four kids and tons of germs. Was it because he had some serious deadlines and people in rural communities would get screwed on their cooperative electricity legislation if he didn't get his work done? Was it the fact that he needed to provide for a family of six? Did the idea of staying home and doing nothing just not appeal to him? Maybe it was just his work ethic and he would have worked through any flu, cold or cancer because he really believes in the work he's doing.
There was a time when I was rarely sick -- I wonder if it's just that I still had all the seasonal ills but didn't let it interfere with what I was doing. It's a good feeling to have people depending on you. Sometimes I think I really need some rigid deadlines or goals to drive me to complete something. In fact, I'm sure that's the case. I've been sitting on some DV equipment and a couple unfinished stories for a few months now. It's difficult to be motivated without a clear idea of my goals with this work. The mere education and experience should be enough of a goal, right? Somehow it's not.
While it's nice to have a flexible job where taking a few days off on a whim is nice, I think I'd prefer to really feel needed, care about what I'm doing and make a meaningful contribution to something worthwhile. Sounds cheesy, I know, but it's what I've been thinking about these last couple of days spent laying in bed, drinking tea and emptying boxes of Kleenex.
Speaking of jobs where you just don't call in sick, here's a perfect illustration from a friend who recently quit the corporate world to become a teacher:
[via email]
Despite the fact that I can barely cook myself a plate of spaghetti without
burning it I'm teaching a class full of second graders how to make apple
sauce this Friday (after our apple picking trip tommorrow). I just
realized that what I thought was a hot plate in my closet is actually a hot
*pot* and that I need to find a hot *plate* by Friday. If you know what one
is and happen to have one that I might be able to borrow for the day you
would make my day..
please please please let me know..
This just reminded me of anther absentee story....
I volunteered part of last year with a school in Brooklyn, helping with an outdoor education class for an hour after school on Fridays. Now, try to imagine some high school seniors, flirting with prom dates, paying attention to a discussion about water filters and first aid on a warm spring afternoon. They didn't. Regardless, a few of them consistently endured the classes, feigned partial interest and completed the course work just so they'd be eligible to attend the weekend field trips.
Well, many of the co-ed trips had been suspended because, reportedly, a few of the older students were taking the whole 'back to nature' thing a little too literally and, as one particularly expressive red-headed wannabe black kid put it, "we was getting it on, mmmmmhmmmm". Note that he said that while straddling a chair, air-humping and spanking it from side to side.
In any case, we'd been working up to a day-hike in upstate New York. We'd talked about it for at least a month, the kids we're coolly psyched and all the arrangements were made. We'd had our final Friday after-school class on the final day of school -- Saturday was the big day.
As I'm filling my last water bottle before heading out the apartment door Saturday morning, my cell phone rings. It's Ed, one of the other two teachers leading the outdoors class. He's the one who always seemed a little nervous and distracted and, after quite a few years teaching, still couldn't hold five students attention for more than two minutes. He's also the one who looked me squarely in the eye on my first day of volunteering and said, "You're new. Why don't you do the lesson plan for next week?" Nice guy.
So, it's Ed on the phone telling me that his daughter is sick and when she's sick she needs her daddy. He actually used those words. Well, what about her mommy? I happen to know he's got a wife who's also a teacher at the school. Ed was the only qualified van driver -- the trip was off.
I felt terrible for the kids, I felt terrible that I was awake and dressed in hiking boots and zip-off pants at 6 am, I felt terrible that Ed was willing to let down all these kids who were graduating and might have just missed their one chance to see what mountains and lakes look like up close.
Beth, the other teacher, and I tried to reschedule but it was too late. Summer took hold. The kids were gone.
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
The hours I would have spent working before I was laid off a few weeks back, I'm now spending writing email, selling stuff online, researching road trip info and listening to a lot of back episodes of This American Life. My progress with the aforementioned 15-part intership application is something like a steady drip from a leaky bathroom faucet. Each day I'm here at my desk I'll listen to one or two radio shows then maybe complete a section or two of my application. Right now I'm evaluating my most and least favorite episodes. I was also just disheartened to reread the section of the application guidelines that states: Although there are no specific application criteria, most interns in the past have been undergraduate students or people recently out of school.
Makes me feel like I'm (a) too old for an intership, and (b) at the slacker-end of the career timeline since I'm not experienced enough for a real job in this field. I guess it's because I don't see it as a timeline or race that I haven't been as aggresive as I could've.
All this recent focus on my application reminded me to finally post some of the notes I took when I saw Ira Glass speak last year at Dartmouth College. Here ya go -- Ira's storytelling insights:
* x-factor: there must be an element of surprise, something unknown or mysterious, something that's slowly revealed as the story develops. ira used this example:
a man is walking down a subway platform, approaching individuals and wispering something in their ear. the storyteller describes the crowd's reaction, his personal curiousity and anxiety then finally lets us all in on what the man was saying. he was alternately telling people, "you're it"..."you're not it".
* big picture: audience wants to be told why this is important; what are the larger issues being illustrated by this story?
* characters must be plausible/true to life: most effective when voices, language is a direct reflection of real life -- e.g. "it's like, when someone says, but, i just didn't know, i just never thought..."
* facts & reflection: need to reflect on meaning of story, provide some analysis of events
* on finding subjects: let your unconscious lead. just observe your surroundings and something will catch your eye and lead you to more interesting ideas, people, etc.
* pleasurable surprise: it's refreshing to hear something emotional, funny. Humor can humanize the story, even very serious stories.
* Stories are backdoors to ourselves, another way to view our own lives. Stories are also windows into the lives of others. They help foster empathy.
* A documentary that everyone should see: Seventeen
Makes me feel like I'm (a) too old for an intership, and (b) at the slacker-end of the career timeline since I'm not experienced enough for a real job in this field. I guess it's because I don't see it as a timeline or race that I haven't been as aggresive as I could've.
All this recent focus on my application reminded me to finally post some of the notes I took when I saw Ira Glass speak last year at Dartmouth College. Here ya go -- Ira's storytelling insights:
* x-factor: there must be an element of surprise, something unknown or mysterious, something that's slowly revealed as the story develops. ira used this example:
a man is walking down a subway platform, approaching individuals and wispering something in their ear. the storyteller describes the crowd's reaction, his personal curiousity and anxiety then finally lets us all in on what the man was saying. he was alternately telling people, "you're it"..."you're not it".
* big picture: audience wants to be told why this is important; what are the larger issues being illustrated by this story?
* characters must be plausible/true to life: most effective when voices, language is a direct reflection of real life -- e.g. "it's like, when someone says, but, i just didn't know, i just never thought..."
* facts & reflection: need to reflect on meaning of story, provide some analysis of events
* on finding subjects: let your unconscious lead. just observe your surroundings and something will catch your eye and lead you to more interesting ideas, people, etc.
* pleasurable surprise: it's refreshing to hear something emotional, funny. Humor can humanize the story, even very serious stories.
* Stories are backdoors to ourselves, another way to view our own lives. Stories are also windows into the lives of others. They help foster empathy.
* A documentary that everyone should see: Seventeen
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
If one more person sympathetically asks how I’m doing, someone might get slapped. During a situation when someone loses something, it seems there’s often another person or group who feels more fortunate for not having endured the loss. Their varied actions betray feelings of gratitude, faux guilt or cajoled empathy and compassion. Right now I’m in the midst of the job loss situation. It’s a pretty rare occasion to share office space with people whose status has shifted from permanent to temporary and those who have secured a berth in the “first-class” part of the ship that isn’t yet underwater. Maybe it’s not so rare – companies like Microsoft intermix a regular army of temps and salaried employees all the time.
So here we have a pool of co-workers and friends who, up until a few weeks ago, were all on the same payroll list, same holiday schedule and convening at the same proverbial water cooler to bitch about the inept management and gossip about the inevitable next round of layoffs. Now, one half of that staff is busily working and semi-surreptitiously meeting with each other about how they will respond to the pleas of upper management to “save the site.” Meanwhile, the rest of us with a 3-month stay of execution are wandering into the office just minutes before our 2-hour lunch break, after which we return to check e-mail and the matinee times then wander out again to escape this thing we call a work-free job place. It’s eerily quiet. Right now all I hear are fingers tapping on keyboards, a sneeze, a “bless you”, a “thank you” and Molly’s exhausted voice pleading with Daniel to stop playing around and take his last project seriously. Yes, the halls are alive with the sounds of Molly.
Most annoying in all this land where time stands still is the unmistakable looks of pity from those select few who’ve been asked to stay. Smug pity. I want to wear a t-shirt that says “I fired…halleujah!” so they’ll all just keep those sympathetic comments and glances out of my direction.
I found this while rummaging through some old files today – not sure of the source:
But it probably makes sense to designate a dozen or so things that every American should know. I'm hardly an expert, but my short list would include: the difference between Theodore and Franklin, and between Joe and Eugene; the significance of Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, and Oswald; the meaning of the term "tax event"; the price of gasoline in other industrialized countries; the infield-fly rule; how to tell time on a nondigital watch; the custom that people be allowed off an elevator before others get on; the convention that when walking you keep to the right; the fact that a dozen specimens of a single species don't count as one item for Express Lane purposes; and the fact that the now universal linguistic trope "No problem" is not synonymous with "You're welcome."
So here we have a pool of co-workers and friends who, up until a few weeks ago, were all on the same payroll list, same holiday schedule and convening at the same proverbial water cooler to bitch about the inept management and gossip about the inevitable next round of layoffs. Now, one half of that staff is busily working and semi-surreptitiously meeting with each other about how they will respond to the pleas of upper management to “save the site.” Meanwhile, the rest of us with a 3-month stay of execution are wandering into the office just minutes before our 2-hour lunch break, after which we return to check e-mail and the matinee times then wander out again to escape this thing we call a work-free job place. It’s eerily quiet. Right now all I hear are fingers tapping on keyboards, a sneeze, a “bless you”, a “thank you” and Molly’s exhausted voice pleading with Daniel to stop playing around and take his last project seriously. Yes, the halls are alive with the sounds of Molly.
Most annoying in all this land where time stands still is the unmistakable looks of pity from those select few who’ve been asked to stay. Smug pity. I want to wear a t-shirt that says “I fired…halleujah!” so they’ll all just keep those sympathetic comments and glances out of my direction.
I found this while rummaging through some old files today – not sure of the source:
But it probably makes sense to designate a dozen or so things that every American should know. I'm hardly an expert, but my short list would include: the difference between Theodore and Franklin, and between Joe and Eugene; the significance of Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, and Oswald; the meaning of the term "tax event"; the price of gasoline in other industrialized countries; the infield-fly rule; how to tell time on a nondigital watch; the custom that people be allowed off an elevator before others get on; the convention that when walking you keep to the right; the fact that a dozen specimens of a single species don't count as one item for Express Lane purposes; and the fact that the now universal linguistic trope "No problem" is not synonymous with "You're welcome."