reading responses, week 4

Wonder Town
I feel like this would have been much more comprehensible if I knew anything about Sonic Youth or about their scene. Although the imagery is technically quite good in this piece, I felt alienated from the piece as a whole, considering I was unfamiliar with much of the terminology. Certainly I can see how this would be a compelling read for anyone familiar with the topic, or with a passing interest in the band and its members, but, as I have neither, it fell flat to me.

Considering my unfamiliarity with the subject matter, although I found certain descriptions compelling, I also found them disturbing - though I suppose there's really no way to sugar coat, for example, a re-enactment of the Manson murders.

I did like the imagery of the band members being more like "conductors" than "players," though, and the description of how they could turn their instruments into a "choir." I suppose this piece is effective, in that after reading it, I looked up some Sonic Youth music on Spotify. Still, since I was largely unfamiliar with everything during my first read of the article, I found my mind wandering. I'm interested to see how people who are in the target audience responded to it.

Shooting an Elephant
I suppose I cannot lambaste Orwell for referring to the Burmese citizens as "yellow," considering the article was written in 1936, but that kind of language was still jarring enough to throw me out of the piece. That aside, the imagery was quite vivid, and I could easily envision everything that happened in this story. I especially appreciated the movement across time and space - I could definitely sense Orwell's representation of himself and could picture myself moving with him through the town, could sense his anxiety and his reactions to everything going on around him, from the death of the villager to the shooting of the elephant.

The death of the elephant was the most vivid part of this essay. Although lines like "The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die" made me question how, exactly, blood could seem like velvet - that doesn't seem like a likely comparison to me - they also served as very concrete and strong examples of what, exactly, it was like to watch the bullets rip through the elephant's side.

I am only unclear on one thing: Orwell discusses how the best way to kill an elephant is to shoot through the ears. He also continuously talks about what a bad shot he is. I found myself expecting the shot to misfire and actually shoot the elephant in the best possible way (if one can consider any kind of elephant-shooting to be "good"), and I would have liked a little more description about where each bullet landed in order to have a clearer mental picture of how Orwell presumably fell short of the ideal.

Telling True Stories
Although I found much of this repetitive, a lot of it is still at least on the edge of being useful. I agree with Ellen that much of this is "more poetic than technically helpful, more inspiring than informative." I did like the caution Merina puts on reporting other cultures. I also found the question about whether or not to tape interesting, especially after last week's class.

I found that a lot of these little essays and anecdotes gave good advice. However, I walked away from the passages thinking, "well, that's all well and good to hear, but could you provide some concrete examples of how to address these issues" more than once. Don't just tell us that it's important to do something; suggest a way in which to do it effectively. I know that, as a budding writer, I will need to make my own mistakes and learn from my own trials and errors. It would be nice to hear more concrete examples from others about the difficulties they faced too, though, in order to better determine a good starting point.

I also find myself wondering, regularly, how these journalists can afford to follow people around so much when they don't have a book or article deal, as was the case in several situations. I have some strange aversion to so-called "Gonzo journalism" and have not yet been able to identify where these feelings come from - perhaps my Cultural Psychology class primed me to be wary of people who try to immerse themselves in a culture, especially when they are immersing themselves as an obvious outsider - but I know that I will need to work past this aversion in order to be completely able to throw myself into journalism and this class.

Trina and Trina
This was a very compelling, if entirely depressing, story. I was anxious throughout the entire thing - I understand that LeBlanc had to be removed from her subject in that she couldn't really give her money or intervene, really, but I kept thinking, "I don't know how she can be involved in Trina's life and not want to do more to help her." The matter-of-fact tone helped a great deal in the telling of this; it could have easily run to too sentimental.

Part of me wanted more focus, maybe on just a specific stretch of time within the narrative, but I don't see how LeBlanc could have successfully done that - I know that if only a year of Trina's life, or a month of Trina's life, or one encounter with Trina was told, I would have wanted to know how everything turned out.

I really liked the way this piece ended with the voicemails and nothing else. I think it would have been interesting for LeBlanc to bookend the narrative with voicemails or written missives.

The American Man Age Ten
I find it interesting that Orlean chose to do her profile on random boy Colin Duffy rather than Macaulay Culkin. I think she did a very good job, though, especially of capturing the voice of a ten year old boy. Although her flow and style were somewhat convoluted - the way that this took the form of almost a list of preferences and attributes made it hard to follow - I found this to be a good look into a ten year old's life.

I feel like a lot was glossed over, though. Does Colin not want to be Chun Li because Chun Li is a girl? That's implied, but not explicitly stated. I would have liked to see Orlean go deeper into some of the things she brings up in passing instead of making this an overall superficial expose of the child's life, such as in the Street Fighter scene and also in her observations on Colin's preoccupation with money.

I found the voice of this to be wry, in a good way. Overall an enjoyable read, if a little superficial.

reading responses, week 3

Emergence (podcast)
I find it difficult to just sit and listen without multitasking, so that was my biggest stumbling block in consuming this narrative. Still, as an individual who works on a podcast (recording and editing segments - I don't put together the finished product but I do know the work that entails. I think it would be safe to say that I'm more interested in the production of audio segments and podcasts in general than the product), I have a lot of appreciation for the final editing of this radio segment. I felt like the extraneous sounds detracted from the overall message - when there was music playing behind the discussion, I found the music distracting me from what was being said. There were also some discordant sound effects, especially towards the beginning of the radio segment, that pulled me out of the narrative and made it difficult for me to become re-involved.

The way the narrative was constructed, though, both within description, and the way that actual vocal inflection could be directly heard, was quite compelling.

My issue, however, is that I am a visual learner - books and images stay with me a lot better than audio. I have listened to the segment three times, and I still can't draw any major points away from it. Maybe the issue is the length - when I was younger, I listened to NPR religiously when driving to and from school, and I always found the five-minute segments quite interesting and easy to attend to, and the longer segments more difficult to take in.


Jacob's Ladder (Atlantic article)
As someone who is actively interested in Africa, African politics, and African history, this piece automatically appealed to me. I appreciated that it provided background on South Africa - I know a decent amount of South African history, but nowhere near as much as I know about Eastern Africa. Although very little of the information given was new to me, it was nice to have a refresher, and I'm certain that what was given would be especially helpful for people who are unfamiliar with South African history and politics.

I know this was a piece on Jacob Zuma, and it is a well-executed piece. However, I kept finding myself wanting more of Khumalo's story - what are her thoughts on Zuma's life, and on her own life? How did she react when Zuma went into politics after promising he wouldn't? What are her feelings on the rape scandal and subsequent trial, and especially to Zuma's form of "protection" against HIV? I would have also liked more opinions from lay people, including the woman with the cross mentioned towards the end of the piece.

I guess this is what Franklin would refer to as not telling the story at hand - though the story told was very interesting and very well-done, I kept finding myself attracted more to the "silent women" that Zuma and the author of the piece, Douglas Foster, referred to than to Zuma himself. I would have definitely appreciated a little more about others an their reactions to him, and a little less about Zuma, himself.


Writing for Story
I have some serious problems with this book (I livetweeted them, actually, but rather than re-posting the tweets here (most of the tweets are visceral, knee-jerk reactions to specific passages I found questionable or even offensive, generally for personal reasons), I will incorporate some of my tweeted points into my response to this book), so I'm going to be honest here: I felt like, though the message was important, the delivery left a lot to be desired. Technically, the book is quite useful, especially when Franklin breaks down the parts of the narrative, and the best way to approach each part. I even appreciated the story he told of the adolescent writer. However, the devil is in the details and I must say that I'm disappointed with much of what I read. I definitely feel like the vehicle for making the points Franklin made was lacking. For starters, although the chapters on Polishing and The Nature of Art and Artists had really salient content, I did not feel like his points - especially about the need for consistent clarity - were met in the writing samples he gave. Maybe I'm just a product of my education, with irrelevant preconceptions that arguments are made stronger when you bring in outside evidence rather than just using your own points, but I thought that he would have been able to make his case a lot better had he used writing samples produced by other people, rather than himself. As it is, I felt that his holding his own writing as an example of what writing should be came across as very cocky, and rather unfounded.

I understand that they are technically good pieces, though I felt like they were quite vague in areas. Especially in the case of "Mrs Kelly's Monster" - I read that narrative twice before continuing onto the chapters about structure and outline, and still, when Franklin pointed out exactly what "clever choices" he made with his structuring and polishing of that piece, it was inevitably something that I had either not noticed, or felt was very heavy-handed.

I still did manage to bookmark several things that I know I will draw from as I continue on in the future. I already have a strong outlining system that has served me well in the past, but I will be taking on aspects of his, especially with regards to matching up the introduction and resolution of conflicts. I also found the list of no-no verbs quite useful, as well as the concept of identifying and removing "woodwork" from the final product (unless you have a flair for making it work after years of practice).

Also, as a side note: I realize the book is copyrighted 1986 and that times were ultimately different then, but by 1972, the officially-sanctioned term for Trisomy 21 had switched from "Mongoloid" to "Down syndrome;" a change not echoed in this work.

Questions for the Class

1. Do you consider the outlining structure Franklin proposes to be effective for your writing style? Do you think that there's another way of outlining that works better for you? Do you outline your works now, and, if not, do you now plan on starting to do so? How can you adapt the outline structure he provides to best suit your needs?
2. Have you been guilty of "woodwork" in the past? If so, what actions did you take in order to eliminate it? It can be difficult to decide that a beautiful passage that you've written is woodwork, so what suggestions do you have for noticing woodwork in your own future pieces?
3. Consider both "Mrs. Kelly's Monster" and "The Ballad of Old Man Peters" in the context of what Franklin says about Polishing your work, and about The Nature of Art and Artists. What about these narratives worked for you? Did anything not work for you? Why/why not?