The Valentine's Day Hangover Playlist

I am not an expert on calendars, but the general consensus I’m getting is that there is some sort of holiday now, and it has to do with love.

It is the worst.

In solidarity with everyone else who's spending the big V-Day embracing packaged food and Netflix rather than the warm touch of another human being, I present to you The Great Valentine’s Day Hangover Playlist. From the hallowed halls of angst to the deepest canyons of devastation, some of the best music is made from the ruins of love. At the very least, take solace in the fact that someone at some point had it as bad as you and managed to make a nice song out of it. Here are a few of my favorites:

Frightened Rabbit - Keep Yourself Warm

Right, so we’re going to start out with a brutal one. Take the disarming falsetto and unrelenting build-up from this Scottish band, add in some heart-shattering lyrics, and try not to be moved.

Final Project

See our exploration of Pittsburgh's street art here!

Last Class

Instructions: write a description of someone in the room not using name hair color outfit

To the rhyme scheme of “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle,” and/or “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” depending on how cultured you’re feeling.

Just sit right back

and you’ll hear the tale

of a loud but lovely girl.

whose laughter rings throughout the room

as bright as shining pearls.

And Batman is

her favorite dude,

she loves the comic arts,

photography, and videos.

She’s really very smart.

A pink backpack

beside her feet,

and pink most everything.

Inquisitive and curious

with two silver nose rings.

Ask her about

D.C. Comic books,

She’ll talk ‘til she turns blue.

She laughs real loud about most things

and makes great cupcakes too.

American Idol

My goal as a nonfiction writer is to have as interesting a life as Ernest Hemingway, but with less animal killing.

I can smell the books from here

The New York Public Library: I want to go there and read forever.

New rights management for a digital world

We talked a few times in class about copyright issues, the need to protect your work, and the need to exercise caution when using the work of others. These last two points are absolutely vital - you can't rip off other people, and you (probably) don't want people ripping you off, either.

The problem our society and creative culture currently faces, however, is a mangled, overly complex mess of copyright law, over which corporations with the most interest have the most influence. In earlier times, creative culture, or intellectual property, passed out of the control of the creator and into the public domain within a matter of years. This meant that there existed a growing, constantly updated pool of content upon which new creators could draw for inspiration. This is especially important when you realize every aspect of our creativity builds upon what came before. Isaac Newton's famous quote about "standing on the shoulders of giants" is absolutely true (and very probably borrowed from somewhere else.) Rap music came from hip-hop which came from jazz, which built upon the synthesis of classical music, ragtime, and the blues.

Unfortunately, this can no longer be the case. Consolidated content publishing companies like Warner Bros. and Disney have used their influence to lock up intellectual property ownership, preventing new ideas from refreshing the Public Domain for huge periods of time. As copyright law now stands, rights to new intellectual properties stay private for a period of 80 years after the creator's death. Technically, if you want to sing "Happy Birthday" to someone in a room full of fifty people, you'd need to pay money to Warner/Chappell Music, the rights holders.

Enter Creative Commons. Established by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, the Creative Commons system acts as an add-on to existing copyright law, allowing content producers to let others know which parts of their work are free and open to public use. This allows content creators to contribute to sustainable, remixable creative culture and clear up confusing questions about permissions and fair use while preserving the rights to their creations. Writing is just as much a part of creative culture as music or film, and I think the principles of Creative Commons apply as much to us as writers as they do to anyone else.

An example of a Creative Commons license:

Lawrence Lessig even looks smarter than me.

Where writing ends and stand-up begins

Recently, I spent some time researching author David Sedaris for a class presentation and because, well, he's pretty damn great. I needed to talk for 15 minutes, so naturally I started trawling the web looking for a video to show in order to eat up some time. This little gem comes from The Late Show with David Letterman:



Short of analyzing Sedaris' unique delivery or the various techniques he utilizes for maximum humor, what interested me most about this video is the blending of genre lines. Shows like The Late Show or The Tonight Show typically feature stand-up comedians, not writers. So what is Sedaris doing here? Where does the distinction between humor writer and humor performer lie? Is there one? If you're a talented enough writer and your delivery is entertaining enough, can you too perform on late-night television, regardless of comedic content?

Like Storify, but video

The Occupy movement is, it sometimes seems, everywhere and inescapable. Whether you're tweeting, watching the evening news, or merely walking through a particular section downtown in many major cities, you're bound to hear something about the 99% and their criticisms of modern financial and government institutions.

Lacking any real education with regards to economics and banking systems, I find myself unable to weigh in either in favor of or against the Occupiers. I do, however, support without question the right of American citizens to publicly assemble and voice their concerns and opinions without fear of oppression or violent aggression.

Assigned to make a remix video for my Creating Digital Media class, and with the recent police violence at Occupy protests in mind, I made this video, a cut up audio and video footage gleaned mostly from YouTube. And while it's a much more visually-oriented piece, it occurs to me now that my video-making process was really not so different from assembling a Storify - sourcing information, cutting it up, rearranging it as you see fit to say something meaningful. And when you think about it, Storifying is just classic storytelling via a different medium; so really, remix is at the heart of all storytelling.

In the Face of Death

By now you've no doubt ascertained my love of Christopher Hitchens and his writing. At the risk of boring you once more, I wanted to share this new article he wrote for January 2012 issue Vanity Fair. In it, he deconstructs the saying "Whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger," by analyzing its source (likely Nietzche, who Hitchens largely dislikes, it seems) while framing the whole thing within the context of his own battle with esophageal cancer and the necessary radiation and chemo treatments. The entire article is fascinating, but it was this paragraph near the end that struck me as particularly poignant:

I am typing this having just had an injection to try to reduce the pain in my arms, hands, and fingers. The chief side effect of this pain is numbness in the extremities, filling me with the not irrational fear that I shall lose the ability to write. Without that ability, I feel sure in advance, my “will to live” would be hugely attenuated. I often grandly say that writing is not just my living and my livelihood but my very life, and it’s true. Almost like the threatened loss of my voice, which is currently being alleviated by some temporary injections into my vocal folds, I feel my personality and identity dissolving as I contemplate dead hands and the loss of the transmission belts that connect me to writing and thinking.

I hope to never find myself in the painful situation that Hitchens now does, save for the desperate need to write and speak in order to properly live.

This Western Pennsylvania Life

I adore Ira Glass/NPR's This American Life program (when I remember to set aside 40-60 minutes to listen, that is.) If you ever need a fascinating look at people, flavored with a healthy dose of wit and whimsy, you couldn't do better the "show presented in three acts."

A while back, some friends and I decided to take a road trip to the great state of Kentucky, which was equally as fun as the drive was long. To help pass the time, my good friend Charles came prepared with a bevy of TAL podcast episodes on his iPod so we could listen in the car. We put this one on somewhere in Ohio, and it lasted us through the Pennsylvania border and a good bit of the way back to Pittsburgh. Never before has a public broadcast program made me more depressed or angry.

It's the perfect combination of fact finding and narrative-driven storytelling, and the fact that it hits so close to home makes it all the more compelling. To hear the interviews of people who live within a hundred miles away, and how adversely their lives have been effected by the Marcellus Shale drilling is devastating. Hearing about how Range Resources strong-armed local communities into adopting the company's policies is infuriating.

This is my favorite TIL episode, and I'm not sure I have the stomach to listen to it again.

Bonus: a diagram of how the drilling/hydrofracturing process works

Neil Gaiman and Henry Jenkins

I recently found this video of a conversation between author Neil Gaiman and American media scholar Henry Jenkins. In particular, I think the very first discussion question is fascinating, because it's about how an audience interacts with author's work when it comes in several different forms of media. Gaiman, for example, makes movies and comic books in addition to writing prose. In the battle to get comics the same recognition and respect as other art forms, it's nice to hear someone who does both say, "Hey, the comic is just as good. You'll get that same peculiar kind of buzz."




Bonus interesting point - According to Gaiman, there are a number of people who only read his blog, and none of his other written works.

Tumblr

Here's my tumblr on Chirstopher Hitchens - A Hitch in the Plan

Storify (disaster)

Here's the early draft of my Storify. Due to Storify's technical issues, none of my organizing/editing/most of my work saved, despite repeated clicking of the save button :(

Storify after the jump:

Byliner Follows

Some people I'm following on Byliner.com:

1.) Bill Donahue - When I logged into Byliner this morning, Bill's recent story for Wired, "6 Guys in a Capsule: 520 Days on a Simulated Mars Mission" was on the lineup of current new stories. Well, I love space, so obviously I clicked on it. It's great, and I figured if this is the kind of stuff he writes about, I definitely want to read more. Hence, the follow.

2.) Christopher Hitchens - I'm pretty sure I've talked about Hitchens a bit before. I really admire his journalistic work in addition to his more opinionated essays. Currently, he published pretty regularly for Slate in his column "Fighting Words"; it's usually about current events in world politics - like the recent flotilla to Israel/Gaza, or the United States' escalating drone war in Pakistan. Hitchens helps keep me informed about the wider world, and subscribing to him on Byliner reminds me when he publishes new material.

3.) Stephen Jay Gould - The only one of the three here who's no longer living (though Hitch isn't far behind), Gould was a famous well-known biologist who focused on the field of evolutionary biology. He proposed the concept that if the course of evolution were to replay itself, it almost certainly wouldn't turn out the same way again. As famous as Gould is for his work in science, he's almost as popular for his essays; I recently read an excerpt and decided I wanted to read further, so I subscribed on Byliner to help me find more.

Lab 10/26

Think of three different ways—other than print—to tell a story. (We’ll assume that your piece has a print component.) Give a descriptive one-paragraph summary for each. Post idea by the end of class.

Okay, so I really like music and music journalism/reportage. So let’s say, hypothetically, I’ve landed my dream job and i’m covering a band on the brink of major success.

1.) Naturally, an audio component is pretty much required. But we want to see change and growth, not just the finished product. Everyone hears the final product. Let’s say this band I’m covering is in the studio, recording their new album. It’d be great to embed audio clips of, say, one song in progress - 30 seconds each of an initial demo, somewhere midway through the recording process (a click track, a rough track mix or whatnot), and a sample of the finished song. Coldplay did something like this a while back where they posted early demos on their website (I can’t find it now, though), but that was all after the fact. Being able to hear audible evolution embedded along with a story would be great.

2.) I want to know how a band with big label backing spends their money during recording and touring phases. So, I'd take the data and group it: this much spent on studio time, this much on guitar strings, this much on room service shrimp cocktails, this much on cocaine, etc. Then, I'd turn the data into pretty colored shapes, or graphic icons to represent individual categories alongside numerical data and text. As often happens, I refer to the infographics living at Good Magazine. See:

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1105/opportunitygap/flat.html

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1104/pot-energy/flat.html

3.)Video - Day in the Life. Train a video camera on the band (or maybe one particular member of the band; if I were doing, say, 90's Oasis, it’d be fixed on Liam Gallagher) for 24 hours, plus or minus however long they’re awake. Are they normal people going about their business, drinking coffee at Starbucks and making stir-fry for dinner? Or are they snorting Adderall off the bathroom counter in the recording studio and prank calling Zooey Deschanel at 4am? These are the question I ask; the video shall answer them. I’ll take a day’s worth of raw footage and edit it down to a manageable time frame.

Sarah Palin, Poet Laureate

Jesus, what a terrifying title.

It's hard to tell whether Michael Solomon's remixed re-imagining of the former Alaska governor is tawdry or genius. Perhaps he's straddling the line with one foot in each yard.

To be sure, it's a brilliant experiment in language, and the brunt of the work seems to be in data scouring and formatting. It forces us to simultaneously rethink poetry and everyday speech. Somewhere, somehow, the two intersect. And if you can tease that intersection out of the torrential onslaught of faux-folksy speech inflections and you-betcha religious extremism, well then goshdarnit, you can probably find it anywhere.

Reading these poems: where to start? First of all, apologies to the poetry gods for the sin of elevating Palin's verbal utterances to the status of noble wordsmithery. I want so badly to write this project off the way I would cheap political action figures and calendars sold at shopping mall kiosks.

And yet, there's really something beautiful here, in the way a few paragraph breaks can turn a lament over a conference meeting into:


    The sunshine is perfect— 

    Too bad we’ll be looking at it 

    Through conference windows 

    This afternoon.

I want to hate Sarah Palin - for her ignorance, her intolerance, her insistence that there are "real" and "not real" parts of America - but when it comes to language I sort of have to pause now. Am I so pretentious that paragraph breaks make everything seem deep and meaningful and beautiful?

Is that Solomon's whole point?

The Atavist

My first question was what is an atavist? So I looked it up. Merriam-Webster defines atavism as:

recurrence of or reversion to a past style, manner, outlook, approach, or activity.

So with that in mind, I poked around the site a bit to see what they're all about. It became apparent pretty quickly that the name is a reference to the group's goal of bringing good, engaging, well-researched nonfiction narrative back en vogue. It seemed a bit like Byliner, if Byliner only published its Originals series and didn't link to other works. As such, there are way fewer titles available on the Atavist, but I think that might be a solid business decision - if you're not linking people to free articles, they're more likely to buy the ones you're selling, right?

Speaking of buying, The Atavist makes it short and simple - all links are right there on each piece's profile page. I like that they've made an effort to offer their product in a variety of formats (even though it's one fewer than Byliner). It's an obvious and simple way to distribute their stories as widely as possible (in terms of digital distribution). Personally, I think it's important to not let media distribution become too centralized if your aim is to preserve the freest and easiest possible dissemination of information.

So, it bothered me that I miss out on the extra multimedia features just because I don't own an iDevice. I understand the constraints on a small outfit like this one, and I'm sure their development budget isn't huge. But it just seems like a mistake to only let the Apple crowd into to multimedia party, especially considering that they brag out its benefits on their about page:

That allows us to do some things we couldn’t otherwise—within our own apps—like including a free audiobook version of every one, and allowing you to flip back and forth between text and audio while the story keeps your place. In addition to each story’s unique collection of video and other media, inside the Atavist apps they have what we call inline content: maps, timelines, character lists, primary documents, and links. You can turn on the inline content to find out what’s behind the story, or leave it off to read completely distraction-free.

I'm not trying to say that the writing can't stand on its own. I'm in the middle of My Mother's Lover and it's excellent, but I keep wishing that I too could have access to the video of a pilot from Zahrt's Air Force squadron, as well as to the audiobook version. Couldn't they host it online behind a wall, and email an access code to Kindle and other ebook buyers? (For the the extra buck, of course.)

I didn't mean to whine. It just seems like if you're trying to herald in a digital publishing renaissance, it'd be wise to not restrict it by distribution platform.

Class Lab

48-hour blog lab

Theme: "WINTER IS COMING"--What Pittsburgh is thinking as winter approaches

Format: Like Longshot, we’re aiming for a publication that can be printed and/or posted online. We’ll have articles and stories that contrast each other on a two-page spread.
Each story and infographic will have its own page, making the magazine roughly 20 pages long.

Story Ideas:

"Where do the LARPers Go?" / "Where do the Homeless Go?"

• The first story will focus on LARPers (Live Action Role Players; people who re-enact fantasy situations) in the area that meet in Schenley Park and Shadyside and see where they go in the winter.
• The second story will contrast the LARPers and see where Pittsburgh’s homeless seek shelter during the winter, covering the local organization that help the needy.

"Seasonal Depression" / "Sun Lamps"

• “Seasonal Depression” will take a look at those in the Pittsburgh area effect by S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and how they cope with the city’s weather
• “Sun Lamps” will be a brief report on sun lamps, what they do and the positive effects on users.

"Ode to and Ugg Boot" / "Ugghs"

• A brief poem in favor of Ugg Boots opposite a brief poem or manifesto attacking such a vile fashion trend.

Infographic:

sunny days in winter: PGH vs. Honolulu or wherever

• Envisioned as a kind of GOOD Magazine-style infographic - where data is presented in an aesthetically pleasing manner

Jobs Won in Winter / Jobs Lost in Winter

• Profile on the employment opportunities created by winter weather in Pittsburgh: for example, Christmas tree lot salesman, Snowplow driver, etc.
• In contrast, lots of people end up losing their jobs come winter, like Kennywood employees, construction workers, etc. This profiles the hardships they face and how they endure.

Infographic:
alcohol consumption v. winter injuries

• Again, presented like the previous infographic. Data localized with regards to the Pittsburgh region

Winter Crime / Winter Charity

• “Winter Crime” will be an inforgraphic on crime rates in Pittsburgh as weather worsens.
• “Winter Charity” will be an opposing infographic on philanthopy in the Pittsburgh area during the holidays.

Weatherman / Snowplow Driver

• These pieces will be characters sketches of local weathermen and how the public feels about
  their predictions (and therefore the weathermen themselves) for Pittsburgh weather during the winter. The opposing piece will be about local snowplow drivers and how the public feels about them. It will examine how children like bad weather predictions (snow days) whereas adults are the opposite and how these roles are reversed when it comes to the snowplow drivers.

Art

The art will include several infographics (like the charts for alcohol consumption and injury rates in the winter) These playful infographics will be in the style of GOOD magazine. In keeping with the theme of contrast throughout the magazine, art will also be “dark” or “light” in color and tone.

Finally, there will also be photography throughout the magazine.

Facebook Following

I'm now following Good Magazine on Facebook, since they're on my Twitter feed too. Gotta keep my social medias uniform, right?

Number two: Vice Magazine. I keep seeing links to their incredible short documentaries posted on Reddit, so I thought I may as well follow them properly. the Vice Guide to Congo was incredible - highly recommended. Now they're on to Belfast - like their FB page to see it on the front page right now. When a story opens with a group of your children proclaiming to "hate the Catholics," it's pretty damn chilling.

Social Media Extravaganza

For Grantland:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• RSS Feed (this is maybe a stretch for social media, but worth a shot, right?)
• last.fm page for podcasts
  
  This is all I could find for Grantland. Either I'm seriously missing something, or they haven't established a huge social media presence quite yet, which would be understandable considering the site's relatively recent launch.
  

For Slate:

• Facebook
• Interestingly, Slate has multiple Facebook pages for its various sections and columns: Culture, Slate V, Double X, Slate Politics, Slate's Culture Gabfest, Slate's Political Gabfest, Digital Manners.
• Twitter - like on facebook, Slate maintains multiple Twitter accounts and lists the Twitter profiles of many of its authors. Some of them include SlateArticles, SlateForeign, TheBigMoney, DoubleXMag, ForeignPolicy Magazine, Music Critic Jody Rosen, and so on and so forth. They even list their copy editors' Twitter accounts. See the complete listing here.
• Apparently Google+ doesn't have business/corporate accounts yet, so for now Slate recommends following one of its authors and "unofficial Google+ ambassador" Farhad Manjoo. Slate also lists the Google+ accounts for some of its other writers here.
• Slate has a YouTube account in addition to their own video site at slatev.com
• Slate also maintains a page on last.fm, where it posts podcasts.
  
  I wonder if it's important for large publication like Slate to maintain many social media feeds so that their readers are more easily able to get updates on the topics they'd like to read, without getting buried in the stuff they're not interested in.