"I've been writing short stories since I was fifteen. I have trouble writing simply and naturally. My mind is stocked with some black neckties, and though I'm throwing them out as fast as I find them, there will always be a few left over. I am a dash man and not a miler, and it is probable that I will never write a novel. So far the novels of this war have had too much of the strength, maturity and craftsmanship critics are looking for, and too little of the glorious imperfections which teeter and fall off the best minds. The men who have been in this war deserve some sort of trembling melody rendered without embarrassment or regret. I'll watch for that book."
- J.D. Salinger, in a letter to Esquire
Showing posts with label magazines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label magazines. Show all posts
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Excerpt
“I have no regret over calling Greenspan a political hack. Because he was. The things you heard me say about George Bush? You never heard me apologize about any of them. Because he was. What was I supposed to say? I called him a liar twice. Because he lied to me twice.”
New York Times Magazine profile of Harry Reid
New York Times Magazine profile of Harry Reid
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Excerpt
"Legos used to be jumbled batches of bright bricks with the occasional wheel or axle. Now you can buy the Star Wars Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser kit, 1,170 pieces with instructions longer than The Brothers Karamazov. You build a cool spaceship, so long as you follow the directions – a useful skill, but no the same as constructing a cathedral out of nothing but cubes and confidence."
-Nancy Gibbs in "The Power of Play-Doh"
Friday, December 11, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
J-School: How To Learn Nothing
Oh, what I wished I would have known when I needed to know it. A journalism education is acquired entirely outside of a classroom, yes. I should have majored in ANYTHING else, yes. A majority of universities with journalism programs are so out of touch with the working world it's hilarious? Yes.
Am I bitter? You betcha. I was duped. Slate, where were you when I needed you the most?
Highlights of Jack Shafer's 'Can J-School Be Saved?' below:
(PREACH!)
"I'm convinced that if all the programs in journalism—undergrad and graduate—disappeared tomorrow, America's newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters wouldn't miss a beat of the news cycle. Our culture produces news junkies, English majors, aspiring novelists, sports nuts, failed lawyers, and student journalists in such profusion that we'll never run out of the green material from which to build excellent reporters and editors.
In fact, a J-school degree means so little to me that I don't hold it against its holder.
Some wonderful people teach journalism, but let's acknowledge that most J-schools stock their faculties with aging journalists who bailed from the news business because they 1) got lazy or 2) wanted another gig after missing their paper's assistant-managing-editor track or 3) burned out and sought a place to relight or 4) fell in love with the academic life.
Non-journalists don't know that the greatest single impediment to becoming a reporter is overcoming the basic human aversion to getting in strangers' faces and asking nosey questions. With the exception of a few psychopaths, nobody in the business ever triumphs over this aversion.
All departments of journalism should divest themselves of advertising and public-relations tracks for the obvious reasons of cross-contamination. In general, PR people are journalists' enemies, except when they work for your publication, when they're enemies in specific.
Easterbrook remembers his one year at Medill as "one year of practice in writing simple declarative sentences."
I'd encourage J-school students to overload with courses outside their department, partly because those classes are more demanding, but mostly because it builds a journalist's character to skip classes and work on the school publication instead."
Am I bitter? You betcha. I was duped. Slate, where were you when I needed you the most?
Highlights of Jack Shafer's 'Can J-School Be Saved?' below:
(PREACH!)
"I'm convinced that if all the programs in journalism—undergrad and graduate—disappeared tomorrow, America's newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters wouldn't miss a beat of the news cycle. Our culture produces news junkies, English majors, aspiring novelists, sports nuts, failed lawyers, and student journalists in such profusion that we'll never run out of the green material from which to build excellent reporters and editors.
In fact, a J-school degree means so little to me that I don't hold it against its holder.
Some wonderful people teach journalism, but let's acknowledge that most J-schools stock their faculties with aging journalists who bailed from the news business because they 1) got lazy or 2) wanted another gig after missing their paper's assistant-managing-editor track or 3) burned out and sought a place to relight or 4) fell in love with the academic life.
Non-journalists don't know that the greatest single impediment to becoming a reporter is overcoming the basic human aversion to getting in strangers' faces and asking nosey questions. With the exception of a few psychopaths, nobody in the business ever triumphs over this aversion.
All departments of journalism should divest themselves of advertising and public-relations tracks for the obvious reasons of cross-contamination. In general, PR people are journalists' enemies, except when they work for your publication, when they're enemies in specific.
Easterbrook remembers his one year at Medill as "one year of practice in writing simple declarative sentences."
I'd encourage J-school students to overload with courses outside their department, partly because those classes are more demanding, but mostly because it builds a journalist's character to skip classes and work on the school publication instead."
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Excerpt
"In a neighborhood of stay-at-home moms, Shaun's mother worked. A public-health nurse, she was the one you went to if you woke up with yellow eyes or jammed a piece of caramel corn too far into your ear."
- From David Sedaris' "Loggerheads" in this week's New Yorker
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Excerpt
You take to swinging a pickax
I take back my vamping kinks
And the pavement beneath us sinks
This stinks. Think: In-situ leaching
But with leeches, louses,
Lampreys. Oh Spouse,
Your hard hat leaks a surfeit
Of lamp rays that's wasted sub-surface
A night so pitch it's perfectly black.
A sapphire scarred by a scratch.
Sickness, health, abundance, lack
The salt in my wound. The shirt on your back.
- December issue of POETRY
I take back my vamping kinks
And the pavement beneath us sinks
This stinks. Think: In-situ leaching
But with leeches, louses,
Lampreys. Oh Spouse,
Your hard hat leaks a surfeit
Of lamp rays that's wasted sub-surface
A night so pitch it's perfectly black.
A sapphire scarred by a scratch.
Sickness, health, abundance, lack
The salt in my wound. The shirt on your back.
- December issue of POETRY
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Remedy
a new favorite.
When unemployment loses its "hip to be poor" sentiment, I'm headed back to Indiana to open a bakery and start a little quarterly pub to match. Who's in?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Tuesday at the office
Live blogging of the reading of Dan Brown's latest affront on writing, "The Lost Symbol."
What an awful novel. What a fun day.
What an awful novel. What a fun day.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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