CYOA Week 5: This Must Be The Place

http://vimeo.com/thismustbe

For this week’s Choose Your Own Assignment, I want to share this series of short videos with you all. We’ve already examined narrative nonfiction through a few different mediums other than writing and video seems like the logical next step. I think these videos have a lot to teach us about profiling people and places in unison. I know many of us in the class are preparing to write profiles of places, but those of us profiling people also cannot ignore the importance of context when telling another person’s story. These videos also might serve as inspiration for our upcoming picture/audio slideshows. Besides all that, they’re fun to watch (and Detroit gets the spotlight in one video!). So please take the time to watch all four of these videos and consider these questions:

Pay attention to the audio. How do the filmmakers manipulate and balance music with talking? How do you feel about it and how does it make you feel?

Consider the pacing of these films. What can we pull from these examples in film to apply to our writing? Does the narrative feel disjointed? Unified? Both?

Obviously, pictures and film express information differently than words. What, if anything, can be transferred to our profile writing from the images and visual styles used in these videos?

Who do you think is the target audience for these films? What message(s) are the creators trying to send with each film individually and with the series as a whole?  

Lives Essay: Revised

Love and Magic

In high school, nothing was worse than being normal, yet nothing was harder than accepting who I was. On a Friday night in the fall of my senior year, it happened. Before that fateful night, I was an average high school student, in just about every way imaginable. I earned a B average at a typical suburban public school. Most of my teachers had a hard time remembering my name. I played the trumpet until I realized that I would always be fourth or fifth chair in band class and I didn’t have the “intuition for jazz”. I was simultaneously a nobody and an anybody. But I don’t mean to paint my averageness as pitiable. It was merely average, that is, until one very special Friday night. 

Statistically speaking, at my age, on a Friday night, I should have been experimenting with alcohol or marijuana or sex. I should have been studying, playing video games, or working some minimum wage job. It was a Friday night in the fall of my senior year, so at the very least, I should have been at the high school football game with the other 90 percent of my class. But on the night I came out as an open nerd, I felt no interest in watching my classmates – the ones who were stronger, faster, more talented than average –  as they pummeled one another in the name of “honor” and “glory” and “Jock-dom”. I was tangled up in a different kind of battle. This one didn’t play out on the gridiron; it took place on a folding table in the backroom of a comic book shop. It didn’t hinge upon who could run faster or throw further; it was decided by bursts of supernatural lightning and barrages of imaginary arrows. And it wasn’t about physical domination; it was about magical supremacy. On that fateful Friday night, I found myself and fell in love – with Magic the Gathering.    

   

In 1993, Richard Garfield and a company known as Wizards of the Coast introduced Magic the Gathering to the world. A collectible fantasy card game, Magic simulates combat between players – or wizards – wielding collectable armies of magical creatures and arsenals of powerful spells. One of the first fantasy games of its type, Magic is a beautifully designed and ever-evolving with new editions and sets of cards released every few months. The game is almost paradoxical. Gameplay is extensively customizable yet standardized across the world. It’s heavily nuanced yet easy to learn. Wizards of the Coast estimates that there are over thirteen million players worldwide. Despite the numbers and the game’s long-running success, as an unbearably average high school senior, the knowledge that there were ten million other nerds around the world spending their Friday nights poring over paper battlefields and talking tactics between elvish archers and zombie legions offered me little comfort. They were just competition, and I was still a speck in the crowd.

To this day, when I reflect on my teenage years, “average” is still the first adjective that comes to mind. Though, in some ways, I had it better than average. I had a healthy and loving relationship with a beautiful girl – she was the opposite of average in my eyes and I’m not quite sure what she saw in me. I also had friends, good friends, some of who I even played Magic with from time to time. In fact, that’s where it all started. At some point during the summer before my senior year I was introduced to Magic in a friend’s basement. I was embarrassed to acknowledge it, but after I won my first battle – with a goblin berserker crashing through my friend’s defenses to deliver a brutal and fatal blow – it was only a matter a weeks before I started to play the game seriously and regularly.

By the fall of my senior year, Magic the Gathering had become more than a game to a dedicated few. An organized system of weekly tournaments had taken shape, raging in scale from sanctioned, neighborhood competitions, all the way to annual, international grand championships. As a result of this new level of organization, a community of “professional” Magic players formed, Wizards of the Coast was making larger profits than ever, and kids like me where falling deeper into obsession as a hobby that had quickly evolved into a recognized competition – one that I was actually good at.

I was eighteen and ostensibly average. It was a beautiful fall Friday night. Yet, when my phone shook with text messages from my friends asking about rides to the game, I ignored them. I was working on modifications to my tournament deck, substituting sorcery and enchantment cards, trying to build the most competitive package. As my phone vibrated with missed calls and text messages, I got into the car and drove in the opposite direction of the football field, toward my own arena in the name of “honor” and “glory” and “Nerd-dom”.  By the time I arrived at The Dragon’s Den Comics and Games, my girlfriend had called. Like the rest of the world, I ignored her.

This was my first officially sanctioned Magic tournament, and nothing else mattered.

Hours later, I called my girlfriend back.

“Where the hell have you been all night!?”

I tried to explain, “I’m sorry. I’ve been at the Dragon’s Den. I’m a little embarrassed to say it, but I really liked it…”

*Click*

She hung up before I could finish my sentence and like that everything changed for me. I learned, weeks later after we broke up, that she thought The Dragon’s Den was a strip club, but I didn’t even care to correct her. It wouldn’t have been any different had she known the truth. I was a different person than the average boy she had known. After that night, I was a nerd and I’ve been one ever since.

I found that reading this week's selection from Telling True Stories while simultaneously thinking about my upcoming writing project was very helpful. Here's just a small section of notes I started after reading Mark Kramer's section on finding and developing good narrative pieces. I don't know why I've never thought to do this before, but sitting down with a pad a paper and jotting notes for your own story as you read from a style guide seems brilliant to me now. Not only did I cement the concepts from this week's reading more firmly in my mind, but I also challenged my preconceptions about my next writing project, found some hurdles I will have to overcome, and also identified some strengths in my story.  I'll be reading with a pad and pen more often. 

Story Pitch: A Place Called Vine

In the heart of Kalamazoo, Michigan, sandwiched between downtown and two university campuses, there is a neighborhood named Vine. This neighborhood, which borrows its name from Vine Street, running east to west through the approximate center of things, is a vibrant haven for a diverse community of college students, young families, and entrepreneurs.  The neighborhood association describes the surrounding “tree lined streets for residents and committed urban pioneers who are reclaiming historic beauties as single-family homes” and promotes the use of community gardens and several public parks. It’s an eclectic place bubbling with a unique culture – not quite like any place you’ve ever lived before.

Chuck Taylors hang next to hiking boots along the telephone lines. No two houses are the same shape or color. Small businesses and one of a kind restaurants flourish on the edges of residential blocks. Students from Western Michigan University cruise the placid streets on antique Schwinn bicycles while others ride longboards down hills named Austin and Grant. On any given Saturday morning The Crow’s Nest – a local breakfast spot – has patrons lined out the door and onto the sidewalk waiting for a table and a good hangover remedy. Houseparties and block parties fill the evenings with music. On the western edge of the neighborhood, the Davis Street football fields stand a few feet above street level surrounded by black chain link fencing with more patches than the authorities care to fix. A sign on the fence modified with black graffiti reads “NO TRESPASSINGVIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED” and the fields are filled with dog poop, empty bottles, and forsaken Frisbees. That never stops the residents from enjoying the 250 yards of green space. Towering above the fields and looking Eastward over the neighborhood is East Hall, a 107 year old, 122583 square foot piece of western Michigan history. Once an academic icon, now it languishes in disrepair, just handsome enough to avoid demolition, it serves as the urban summit of this neighborhood unlike any you’ve ever lived in before.

I’ve never lived anywhere quite like the Vine Neighborhood before. I moved into one of the dozens of rental properties six weeks ago, along with a sizable cohort of my college classmates. We are all sharing in the discovery of this new place and new community. Already I’ve had conversations with my neighbors about compiling a poetry chapbook, starting a photo documentary, even writing songs about this dazzling neighborhood. Something about the place seems to summon creativity out of its residents. I want to spend the next few weeks, as I continue to discover and understand my new home, profiling not a person, not even a group of people, but a place. I want to capture the character of the Vine Neighborhood in writing. What makes this place so special? What does it mean to call this place home? 

"like being held hostage in a room with someone who refuses to turn on the lights"

In Wonder Town: Thirty years of Sonic Youth Sasha Frere-Jones uses metaphors like the above to describe a very unique brand of music a fittingly unique way. 

I really enjoyed the way Frere-Jones described Sonic Youth’s sound. From “the most hideous noise possible” to his comparison, “[i]f the bright, square notes of “Into the Groove” came from a world of easy round numbers, Sonic Youth’s music was made of intricate fractions” I found his language descriptively fun. As someone with very little exposure to the Sonic Youth, I took the time to listen to their songs as they were brought up in the profile and I have to say that I found myself nodding in agreement with Frere-Jones as I listened to the music and simultaneously read his interpretations of it.

I also thought Frere-Jones did a sound job of zooming in and describing the band members in the middle of recounting his own story in relation to the band. This piece was concise, vibrant, informative and flowed well. I also want to say that I found the lede intriguing and effective. The graphic descriptions of art and performances that seem to contradict most every preconceived stereotype about musical performance was striking in a way only paradoxical images can be.   

On Shooting Elephants

“[A] story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.” -George Orwell 

George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant is an intriguing piece of writing. Whether or not we can categorize the story as creative nonfiction is, I think, central to its interpretation. However, in the context of this class, I think it is fair to say that we can move forward assuming that if the piece is not autobiographical, that it was at least written from the perspective of someone Orwell knew or worked with in Burma and based on real events.

With this in mind, I was left with the impression that George Orwell wanted to deliver a message of frustration and anguish over British Imperialism. He uses this story of an imperialist pushed to his emotional limits by both the conditions he works for and against. It is explicitly stated by the narrator that “All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.” With this frustration made clear, Orwell shows us, in gruesome detail, the tragedy that unfolds as a result of the pressures imposed on the narrator. We see a man break and almost lose himself under the scrutiny of a people he is told to oppress. He shot the elephant “solely to avoid looking a fool” and put a torturous and haunting chain of events into motion. I think Orwell’s sentiment of anti-imperialism rings out clearly in this story – factual or otherwise.    

Complication/Resolution

Here is an outline for my revised version of Love and Magic (coming soon to a blog near you) inspired by Jon Franklin's method of outlining provided in Writing for Story.

Complication: Paul is disheartened by his perceived lack of identity and uniqueness

Development:

            1. Paul becomes addicted to Magic the Gathering

            2. Paul chooses a Magic tournament over going to a high school football game

            3. Paul ignores his girlfriend to focus on playing Magic (they break up)

Resolution: Paul embraces his identity as a nerd.  

On Writing for Story

“A story is not a line of dominoes, it is a web, and tugging on any filament causes the whole thing to vibrate.”

Jon Franklin's, Writing for Story is filled with insightful and instructive material, but also presents challenges to the reader both in format and philosophy. It was not an easy read, but a valuable one. I would recommend it to anyone who is searching for the writer within. One way or another, Franklin's ideas and ideals will help the reader move a little closer to their own style.

While I enjoyed Writing for Story for the most part, I felt that some of Franklin’s chapters on style and advice for new writers were verbose and, at times, more filler than substance. For instance, chapter four stands out in my memory. In chapter four, Stalking the True Story, Franklin writes early on, almost as a thesis statement, that, “[a] story, any story involves a special relationship between character, situation, and action” but then does not go any further in explaining this claim or this “special relationship”. Rather, he spends the next several pages unpacking the relationship between complication and resolution while including the editorial opinions of editors he has apparently submitted work to. It was a small, stylistic thing, but I didn’t enjoy the way Franklin would sprinkle these grand, universal (in his eyes) rules about story writing into his work and then just leave them there for the reader to accept without justification or explanation.  

Similarly, in Franklin’s chapter on outlining, I struggled to get past his long-winded introduction to the chapter to the significant information that contained real, usable advice. When I did though, I was very happy with what I read and learned. I appreciated Franklin’s emphasis on action and good, strong verbs as well as his (ironically) short and sweet examples of outlining. After reading this chapter, I want to go back to everything I’ve ever written and try to retroactively fit this type of crisp outline to the piece. I don’t know if it will be possible, but maybe it will lead me to some places in my writing that need a little more attention.

I completely resonated with chapter eight, Contemplating the Structure. I’m a true believer in shelf time – leaving your work alone on the shelf for a few days before returning to work on it – as an editorial/revision tool. I’m happy Franklin shares this view, and he gave it an appropriate and effective place in his book.

What did other people think of Franklin’s generalizations, particularly in places like pg. 82 where he writes, “resolutions…absolutely and without exception must, be the products of the character’s own efforts.” Do you agree with this? Can you think of a good story where this is not the case? Beyond that, what do you think about this kind of sweeping, absolute language regarding form and style? Is it limiting or liberating to see story writing (as it seems Franklin does) as subject to set rules, formula, and laws?

RadioLab Makes Science Journalism Cool Again

I love RadioLab! Before I get into my reaction to this particular edition I have to mention that I think this is one the coolest podcasts out there. While studying cognitive science this past year in Budapest, I often referred to and cited RadioLab broadcasts and the scientists/authors/awesome people featured on the show. Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich, and the rest of the staff at WNYC do a great job of balancing education, humor, and sentiment in there shows. It is something I want to strive to emulate in my own reporting.

This edition of RadioLab was particularly enjoyable. As a scientist/writer I always enjoy the creative ways in which people put difficult or complicated scientific theories into fun, relatable stories that resonate with a general audience. I think it is an important and rare talent to be able to translate technical scientific data into something anyone and everyone can understand. This episode about emergence struck me as particularly hopeful. The stories about the ants and the fireflies were nice and engaging, but the part I loved the most was near the end of the broadcast when the focused moved from bugs to brains. Maybe it’s my sentimental side, but I think the way the reporters talked about emergence in relation to the miracle of human cognition as well as the greater power of us vs. the power of the individual, was beautiful. When journalists, or anyone, can make cold, hard science beautiful and human, it is bound to stick with you, and stories that stick with you (in my opinion) are the best kinds of stories.  

Zuma/Foster Make Me Uncomfortable

In response to Jacob's Ladder:

First, I want to agree with my friend ellen and echo her reaction that Douglas Foster assumes the reader has a good knowledge of the history and politics of race in South Africa. Maybe I am of the relatively uneducated minority, but I wanted a little more background information to establish the political, social, and historical context of Jacob Zuma’s life. On the same note, I found myself Wikipedia-ing names and acronyms used in the piece. While I don’t think the author should outline the entire life history of every player in his story, I would have appreciated a little more information about some characters, like Mbeki. As a reader who is new to a lot of the people, places and politics of this piece, it would have been easier to read and follow with just a bit more explanation of who was who.

Secondly, I also want to acknowledge Foster’s writing and the way he used “comfortable language” to portray Zuma. I disagree that Foster meant to dismiss Zuma’s flaws and crimes. Rather, I think he highlights them and uses language and presentation to portray this man, Jacob Zuma, and his crimes in a way that I imagine is similar to the way he is seen in South Africa by many. Ellen said the story, and specifically the way Zuma’s crimes were almost swept aside by his political fame, made her uncomfortable. It made me feel uncomfortable as well. In this case, I think that is a hallmark of good journalism. In the light of such a story and such a man as Jacob Zuma, I think it is good for us to be uncomfortable. I think that may be exactly what Douglas Foster wanted. 

Love and Magic: The Writing Process

Writing about Love and Magic:

Writing about one’s Self is never easy. These days I always dive headfirst into personal essays and memoir pieces. I find it’s easier that way; just start writing something down without trying to anticipate where the story will go. Obviously, this strategy doesn’t always yield a good story, but more often than not I end up with something that has a little Truth in it that can be ironed out with a little revision and restructuring. I’ve found over the years that if I spend time trying to start with a particular moment or anecdote, I often waste time musing over memories and waffling back and forth between nostalgia and feeling pessimistic about retelling something so perfect as my cherished memories.

For Love and Magic, I put on a pot of coffee at 10pm and locked myself in my room. I thought for a few moments about my identity to prime myself. Specifically, I thought about the ways I’ve changed and the things that have stayed the same since leaving high school. I started writing about identifying as a nerd. Almost immediately Magic the Gathering and a dozen related memories came to the forefront of my mind and I quickly realized that I had a thread around which I could tell a good story. From there, I kept drinking coffee and writing, challenging myself to switch gears from high school to the card games to my relationships with myself and others. After a few hours of reworking and rewording, I had a decent first draft.    

Workshop Assignment: The Personal Essay

Below is the first draft of a potential submission to the column ‘Lives’ in the New York Times. There are 1042 words in this essay and I know it needs work:

Love and Magic

The moment I realized that I was, without a sliver of doubt, a certified nerd came unexpectedly on a Friday night in the fall of my senior year of high school. I was an average student, in just about every way imaginable, at a typical suburban school near the Twin Cities. Statistically, on a Friday night at my age, I should have been experimenting with sex or alcohol or marijuana. I should have been studying, playing video games, or working some minimum wage job. It was a Friday night, so at the very least, I should have been at the football game with the other 90 percent of my high school class. But as an eighteen year old I had no interest watching my classmates duel it out for honor and glory under the lights. All I wanted to do was play cards – and I’m not talking about poker. At age eighteen I looked forward to Friday nights for a different reason; Friday night was Magic night.

In 1993, Richard Garfield and Wizards of the Coast introduced Magic the Gathering to the world. A collectible trading card game, Magic builds upon a fantasy world where each “game” represents a battle between players – or wizards – wielding armies of magical creatures and arsenals of powerful spells. Magic, one of the first games of its type, is known for being widely customizable, sophisticatedly strategic, and addictively fun. There are estimated to be over thirteen million players worldwide according to Wizards of the Coast. Despite the numbers and the game’s long-running popularity, there was little comfort for me as a high school senior knowing that there were ten million other nerds out there spending their Friday nights in comic book shops and suburban basements poring over paper battlefields and talking tactics between elvish archers and zombie legions.

I mentioned that I was an average kid in high school, and I meant it. To this day, when I reflect on my teenage years, “average” is still the first adjective that comes to mind. Most of my teachers had a hard time remembering my name. I was smart, but I wasn’t smart enough for the honor roll. I played the trumpet for a year and a half until I realized that I would always be fourth or fifth chair in the band. I never made it onto a varsity athletic team; I also never worked up the nerve to try out. I was simultaneously a nobody and an anybody. But I don’t mean to paint my averageness as something pitiable. It was merely average. I had friends, good friends, some of who I even played Magic with from time to time. I had a healthy and loving relationship with an attractive girl – she was above average in just about every way. I even entertained a few other, more “normal” hobbies like snowboarding and photography. Despite it all, I always came back to Magic, and my love for it as the one part of my identity that pushed me over the edge from average teenage boy to high school nerd.

I don’t know when or where it started exactly, but at some point during the summer before my senior year I started playing Magic more seriously and more regularly than before. At this point in time, the game had become more than a game to a dedicated few. An organized system of tournaments had formed, raging in scale from sanctioned, local neighborhood competitions, all the way up to annual, international grand championships. As a result of this new level of organization, a community of professional Magic players formed, Wizards of the Coast was making larger profits than ever, and kids like me where falling deeper into obsession over a game that I once just loved. In the world of the truly nerdy, Magic the Gathering now had real significance.

So there I was, eighteen and average. It was a beautiful fall Friday night. It would have been a good night to watch a football game. We were in the midst of an Indian summer and the football team was nearing the end of a very successful season. Yet, when my cell phone vibrated with text messages from my friends asking about rides to the fields, I ignored them, or replied with some white lie of an excuse. Meanwhile I was working on modifications to my tournament decks and packing for my trip downtown to the card shop I had started to play at. By the time I was in the car, driving through dusk toward The Dragon’s Den Comics and Games, my girlfriend called. I looked down at my phone and couldn’t bring myself to answer it. I knew she was at the football game. I knew she was probably looking for me. I knew I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what I was up to. Despite how much I loved the game of Magic, and despite how open and communicative we had been, I couldn’t help but feel shame in admitting my status as an open nerd to her. I pressed the ignore button. By the time I got to the comic shop I had three missed calls. I decided to leave my phone in the car as I went inside to enroll in the night’s competition. I played for two or three hours. I don’t remember now if I won or lost, or how I played, but I do know that for two or three hours I lost myself in the company of fellow nerds and I had a blast pretending to be a wizard.

When I got back in my car to drive home I saw that I had four more missed calls from my girlfriend. I knew I needed to call her back. I didn’t want her to think I was ignoring her, though I had been. When she answered the phone I could immediately tell she was angry with me. I tried to explain myself. When she heard that I had blown her and our friends off to spend my Friday night at “the Dragon’s Den” she hung up before I could finish my sentence. She thought it was a strip club. We broke up that Sunday. I’ve been a nerd ever since.