6-year-olds playing soccer

October 10, 2008


The press is 6-year-olds playing soccer; nobody has a position, it’s just “Where’s the ball? Where’s the ball? Sarah Palin has the ball!” [Mimes a mob running after her.] Because they can only cover one thing.

-Jon Stewart

Maybe this is old news. But this interview with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, from an Entertainment Weekly I may or may not have stolen from the fitness center, is a must read. For the soccer metaphor alone.

That is all.

Tags: Journalism, Politics |

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NYT Oops

October 2, 2008


I just had to post this.

Kerrie and I used to get a good chuckle (and, more often than not, an exasperated sigh) from finding typos and gaffes in the Argus Leader, our local newspaper. In their defense, cutbacks throughout the industry probably led them to cut an editor or proofer or something. Regardless, it was like a word puzzle each day - find the typos (and there always were - I mean, lots of them, in obvious spots.)

So when a paper like the New York Times screws up, you know I’m on it.

see note below…
By MIKE MCINTIRE and SERGE F. KOVALESKI

don’t use this as a hp photo — it was used last night with BAILOUT! (but FINANCES wasn’t used last night, so a different biden pic would work.)

Just a peek behind the scenes at the NYT. Don’t use this picture. It was used last night. Oops.

Carry on. I’m just using this as an excuse to post. Because, you know, it’s not like I’ve ever done something this stupid. Oh. Wait.

Tags: Journalism |

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Thoughts on the 2008 SD Festival of Books

September 29, 2008


This year’s South Dakota Festival of Books landed during a busy time of weddings and prior engagements, so I was unable to make the most of the weekend. However, in addition to the Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me taping, I was able to ramble around downtown Sioux Falls enough to gather a few thoughts on writing, publishing and new books to read. (I’ll bold the authors, so you can skip to what you care about.)

Friday Night

Friday night’s panel featured Carl Kasell as moderator to Louise Erdrich, Kenneth Davis, Otto Penzler and Spring Warren as they spoke about the writing process and how they found their way into writing and reading in the first place. Several mentions of the importance of Bookmobiles led to each author (and editor – Otto Penzler is the Grand Puba of mystery/suspense literature) talking about their favorite books.

The thing I always forget is that writing is storytelling. It’s that simple. It’s not just writing, it’s animating and creating. The language of life. Spring Warren put it simply by explaining that when you’re young, you don’t think of authors as storytellers. You just think of the stories. The authors are invisible – they’re not writers as much as they’re just a name on the book. The stories are all that matters, and the style of writing is transparent, revealing the characters and plot and action in a way that seems natural, like each story was just sitting there in nature and someone found it, picked it up and published it.

Saturday Morning

Saturday morning’s breakfast featured Kim Ode, author of Breakfast with the St. Paul Bread Club. She talked about bread – both the art of baking and the pull of community that occurs as a result – and it was inspirational in the way that everyone probably ran to the store (as Kerrie did the next night) to purchase wheat germ and rye flour. But what stuck out wasn’t the speaker, but the way everyone in the audience had their own story, their own techniques and history. Every baker is touched in some way by the calming nature of kneading and mixing and baking. It’s a true community event.

We headed over to the Orpheum to catch Carl Kasell again, who hasn’t written a book but writes news every day. He talked about his life, we asked some questions, and that was that. He’s a humble man with ties to some major players – he gave Katie Couric her first job. Most surprisingly, South Dakota Public Broadcasting introduced him with an excerpt of my post on Kasell, without my knowing ahead of time. As in, “Here’s a post by Corey Vilhauer…” (I sheepishly raise my hand) “Oh! He’s here!” Weird, kind of cool, very humbling in its own right.

Thrity Umrigar’s break out session on finding the root of the story turned into more of a discussion on how she writes about what she knows. As a woman from India now living in the United States, she has seen her focus go from primarily Indian characters to fully American characters, her time away from her native country leading her to lose confidence in the validity of her characters. As for tips, she said that her career as a journalist helped her write on a deadline and write concisely. She has a sense of ethos on writing – it’s a job, not an art form (admittedly, an artistic job that requires creativity, but not the artistic mindset of “I’ll get to it when I’m inspired”) so roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Saturday Afternoon

A panel of authors (Brian Bedard, Ron Carlson and Kent Meyers) gave suggestions on how to stay on track when writing short stories. First, know the forms. Know what can be made into a short story, and what needs a full novel. It’s intuition and instinct, the natural ability to know what is valid. Surprise or reversal is a key element in a short story – you have short time span, and readers come into a story with expectations. Don’t meet those expectations. Do something different, and it will be remembered. Finally, reading is not writing. Reading is turning on a light. Writing is being in the dark, where you’re unsure of the final destination. Stay committed, and you’ll make your way through the dark.

Finally, I had the honor of seeing Pete Dexter again. He’s a kind, big-hearted man with a subtle, sarcastic sense of humor. He’s a weird guy at first glance, one of those eccentric author types, but he’s straight forward and grounded in what can seem like an industry filled with egos and pretentiousness. Dexter talked extensively about how Norman Mailer had the gall to claim righteous damnation on whichever writers he felt were “minor writers” (Mailer, of course, is a major writer, in his humble opinion). Dexter also took several questions about his screenplays, both those that were successful and those that seemingly took years off of his life through stress and Hollywood politics.

Overall, another success for the South Dakota Humanities Council, with everything coming together in an organized manner and a wide array of interesting authors and events. The Festival of Books has certainly come a long way from five years ago, when I first saw it as a bunch of tents in the middle of the street. It’s legit, now – an event worth waiting for.

And I’m not just saying that because I’m supposed to.

Tags: Books, Journalism, Literature, Sioux Falls, Writers, Writing |

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Voices of truth

September 26, 2008


To hear a radio voice in person is to peek behind the glass. It’s like focusing a blurred image, the subject coming into clearer focus but not really changing. It’s surreal, to say the least, a disembodied voice finding a home, moving in and looking completely at rest, natural and complete.

We saw it firsthand last night at the Sioux Falls taping of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

People on the radio never look like you think they do. Radio masks the physical attributes that we all use as landmarks and renders them illegible. So to see Peter Sagal walk on stage was like seeing a complete stranger who had stolen your favorite shirt. There’s something familiar, but it takes a while to figure out what it is.

The night went as you’d think it would. You see the inner workings of a radio production – the gaffes, the banter, the re-recorded pick-ups at the end. (These pick-ups, by the way, are the most surreal thing you can see – Peter Sagal, re-voicing his script to, well, no one. He even re-voiced some questions to Sen. George McGovern, our “Not My Job” guest. Or, at least, to the empty chair Sen. McGovern was sitting in earlier.)

The event was fantastic. The talent was gracious, genuinely impressed with the reception they received and willing to meet and greet after taping ended. Mo Rocca was there, as was Tom Bodett and Kyrie O’Connor.

The start of the night, however, was Carl Kasell. More to the point, his voice.

Carl Kasell is a public radio legend. Part of an older generation of news radio voices that focused on nothing but news, Kasell reads engagingly, yet without biased. It’s Walter Cronkite filtered down without the visuals. Sports radio has Dan “Duke” Davis to fill this role. But it’s all the same - an old radio man standing to the side, ready for updates and specializing in playing the straight man to the typical personality-driven programs.

At the top of the hour and every twenty minutes after, you can be assured of what you’ll get. Unfiltered radio. Straight talk. Nothing but news, nothing but that voice, nothing but the most familiar thing you’ll ever encounter.

Hearing Carl Kasell is moving in the way that it’s like family. Comforting. You can’t imagine any other voice taking its place. It’s the voice of a man who has seen everything, who has written about event that have shaped the world, brought us to tears and led us to rage. They are both a gentle grandfather and a sage business partner, a college professor and a moving narrator. They are the voice of reason. The voice of history. The voice of change.

The voice of the news. Talking not in bold print or all caps, but in a solid stream of Times New Roman, 12 point font, occasional italics for emphasis. Nothing fancy, but completely solid; nothing forced, just smooth effortless news, life unfolding from pen to paper to mouth to airwaves.

With a voice like Carl Kasell, there’s no need for the fame. Just the real, unfiltered news, a small spot every hour, to keep you grounded.

A voice that’s not sensational or misleading. Simply the voice of truth.

Tags: Concerts, Journalism |

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Studying expressionism

June 19, 2008


Where do our facial expressions come from?

Charles Darwin tackled the subject in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, and now a study published in Nature Neuroscience has revisited the question.

(Check out NPR.com for the full audio version of the article.)

It seems that facial expressions were developed to create a survival advantage. For instance, an expression of fear increases sensory information by opening up the eyes, flaring the nostrils and speeding up eye movements, allowing for better peripheral vision and faster breathing. An expression of disgust elicits an opposite response, scrunching up the face to shut out unpleasant sensory information. It all makes a lot of sense - so much that I’m surprised it hadn’t been noticed before.

Of course, it had never been studied before - at least, not since Darwin threw together his thoughts 125 years ago. It seems like such a simple subject, a natural point of curiosity. Why smile? Why frown? Why were these expressions ever developed, outside of simple communication?

It’s something that seems very interesting to me. Yet, despite purchasing Darwin’s book over a decade ago, I’ve never opened it.

I will admit, at times I feel a twinge of the excitment I used to experience while studying science years ago. It’s a facinating field, one filled with constant dicovery, one that slowly uncovers every secret of our life.

So though I’ve never opened Darwin’s book, I can’t help but thinking that, even if it’s just for a chapter or two, it’s about time I did.

Tags: Books, Journalism, Science |

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BBC in SD

June 19, 2008


Five and a half years ago, Kerrie and I moved from St. Cloud, Minnesota, back to our hometown of Sioux Falls. It was a happy occasion all around, save one minor annoyance: I had lost my BBC World News Service.

Four years of dedicated Minnesota Public Radio listenership had spoiled me. It’s not that South Dakota Public Broadcasting was that much different. They played many of the same programs as MPR, offered the same insightful local news and public interest and overall filled a void that commercial broadcasting created. But they didn’t offer BBC World News Service.

No. Instead, we got classical music. Seriously. Both during midday and overnights. Classical music. Sleepy strings and muted tympanis and other classical stuff.

I’ve always felt that classical music on a public radio station is an antiquated ideal, something that only perpetuates the general opinion of public radio as snotty, stuck up, over-intellectual tripe. I don’t know anyone who listens to it, especially in my younger generation. It’s like public radio filler, something put on because they can’t go silent.

As if the classical music itself wasn’t a silence of its own.BBC World News

I don’t have any beef with classical music as a genre. Aside from the fact that it was impossible to keep organized while I worked at Best Buy, I have respect for the music. It’s just that I don’t think it belongs on the radio. Especially when there was great chance to offer something that no one in South Dakota else did – unbiased world news in a sweet British accent.

Once, while camping, we were listening to the director of SDPB present a question and answer session on changes to their radio services. I grabbed my cell phone, ran to the edge of the lake (where our service was better) and made my plea: please, please, please bring BBC World News to SDPB. Please.

“We will keep it in mind. But many people enjoy our classical programming.”

Oh yeah? Name one.

Those people will be very upset today. An announcement during the morning news program revealed that I may have been right after all. Due to a lack of listeners, the overnight classical programming is being cancelled – from their end, not SDPB’s – and it will be replaced with…

…wait for it…

BBC World News Service.

Tags: Journalism |

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On respecting magazines

June 16, 2008


MagazinesAt home, I read books. I enjoy their heft. They’re created out of time, like a sculpture, and their solidity makes me feel like I’m doing something filled with honor; something worthwhile.

Or course, I also read magazines, but with a much slighter frequency. I find that I don’t give magazines any respect. They’re too easy to throw away, filled with short snippets of information. I enjoy them, yet, I don’t trust them. I refuse to let myself get caught up in them, regardless of my personal desires.

Why the difference?

I’ve always convinced myself that it’s a matter of time. Magazines come too often. I don’t have time to read everything. And being a completist, I’m the kind of person who feels the need to page through every article – whether or not I read them – in order to feel as if I’ve gotten everything I can get out of a magazine.

They’re also time sensitive, for the most part. A book I can set aside for months – years even – but a magazine begs to be read immediately.

So I don’t subscribe to magazines, even though that’s exactly what I should be reading in my much busier, post-delivery life. Instead, I cling to books, which are more difficult to read and ostensibly solid. They’re permanent, while magazines are flighty. They’re serious, while magazines are jaunty.

And here’s the irony. I cling to books, yet I haven’t completed one in over a month. In fact, I haven’t read one since May.

But magazines? I devour the trade pubs at work. I read Paste at home. I would probably get a lot of use out of a subscription to The New Yorker, or The Believer.

At home, I read books – but really I don’t. Instead, I pretend to read books, while actually scouring the house for magazines. Which, as I said before, I don’t trust.

When it comes to reading, I’ve got a lot of things to sort out.

Tags: Books, Journalism, Literature |

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