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.