Freedom for the Images we Hate
Nudity on TV at noon is deplorable by many people. Some people hate porn movies. Footage of a semi-truck running over a pedestrian may not fall within the definition of “news”.
But protecting the right to broadcast and view these images under the First Amendment in the same way the right to publish is shielded should be appealing to all of us, not for the sake of the broadcasters, but for the sake of U.S. citizens.
The U.S. high court will soon have a chance to make a decisive call on this issue. A case regarding the responsibility of broadcasters to limit “fleeting expletives” comes before the Supreme Court this fall. It will be the first time in many years that the high court has had the opportunity to demonstrate the limit of First Amendment protections for broadcasters. This is the chance to extend to broadcasters what author Anthony Lewis, “one of the most inspiring advocates of a heroic view of the American judiciary,” according to the New York Times, so aptly called "the freedom for the thought we hate.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) placed special "prior restraint" rules on broadcast media outlets back in the day when limited bandwith placed the right to broadcast on a privileged pedestal. But with the accessibility of broadcasting on the Internet, and ever-expanding bandwith via cable and satellite TV and radio, this limit is no longer applicable.
A three-judge appellate court this week put a spontaneous flash of nudity in the same legal category as a fleeting expletive. This decision puts even more weight behind what the Supreme Court decides this fall, and whether the FCC’s current zero-tolerance rules regarding decency will be viewed as a type of prior restraint for which our country has no tolerance.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
My Fav Feature
Melissa Healy is the author of the following feature story, which appeared in the LA Times on Sunday, July 20. I like her writing in general, and this story is a good example of the best of what she does.
Healy takes science-based research, here from an article from a peer-reviewed medical journal, and translates it beautifully into what it means in our daily lives. She cites information from all kinds of sources, expert to anecdotal, books to Web sites. She works in scientific detail with the skill of a master weaver (for example, when she throws out the fact that brain scans of compulsive shoppers show stimulation in the same areas drug addicts do). And she does it all in a way that really moves, feels breezy even while conveying fairly heavy info, and never stalls -- all things I aspire to be able to do with similar content when I grow up : ).
HEALTH
Shopping's dark side: The compulsive buyer
Because we all shop it's difficult to distinguish the avid shopper, or even the occasionally excessive shopper, from the shopper who is out of control.
As mental health professionals debate the problematic behavior, clinics spring up.
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 21, 2008
IN A LAND where citizens are implored to shop as an expression of patriotism, where little girls can attend summer camp cruising the stores of a mall, and where the average credit-card holder is $1,673 behind in payments, buying things in the United States is more than a hunt for daily provisions. It's a national pastime, a form of therapy, a means of self-expression.But for more than 1 in 20 Americans, shopping is something darker. A study published in the October 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry found that at some point in the lives of an estimated 5.8% of the U.S. population, shopping will become a source of shame, a cry for help, the cause of job losses and broken relationships, a road to financial ruin. They are "compulsive buyers" -- troubled by intrusive impulses to shop, prone to lose track of time while doing so, plagued by post-purchase remorse, guilt and financial woes and sometimes given up on by loved ones.
Compulsive shopping: Is it a disorder?
Unlocking motive is the key to conquering compulsive shopping
Compulsive shopping: where to turn for help
As the drumbeat of depressing economic indicators accelerates, they are a group coming out of the closet."I get several calls a month from people who say, 'I don't know what you call it, but this is out of control,' " says psychiatrist Timothy Fong, director of UCLA's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic and co-director of the university's Addiction Medicine Clinic. For the truly addicted shopper, Fong says, "it's not lack of willpower" that makes them unable to stop shopping. "It's an inability to control impulses and desires and behaviors."Mental health professionals are actively debating how to label and treat these consumers' problematic behavior. As they do so, clinics, self-help groups and therapists specializing in the care and rehabilitation of compulsive shoppers are popping up across the country like so many specialized boutiques. They have found no shortage of clients.J.P., a 66-year-old Los Angeles man, is one of them. For six years a member of the 12-step group Debtors Anonymous (and so, following its rules, he's declined to identify himself by name), J.P. calls himself "a constantly struggling compulsive shopper" and "a binge person" by nature. Echoing the observations of many compulsive shoppers and those who treat them, J.P. says that what seems to trigger his impulse to spring for something is "a feeling of needing to fix yourself . . . a sense of filling a void."J.P. says that buying something -- in his case, costly services such as workshops and courses -- would make him exuberant, give him a shot of energy and a sense of purpose. But the crash, which could come hours, days or weeks later when he realized he had succumbed to a costly impulse, has always been hard. "I feel suckered. I feel incompetent in a way that I didn't feel before."It is an addiction," says J.P. "It becomes an addiction because it feels the more you do this thing, the better you're going to be. It's completely wrongheaded, wrong thinking."Programs designed to address such wrong thinking are growing more numerous and better attended. In the last five years, Stanford University and UCLA have established treatment programs for those who report out-of-control shopping. A New York City therapist, after running group programs for three years from her office, is set to launch an at-home program for those who overshop.Debtors Anonymous, meanwhile, has seen an uptick of attendance at its meetings in recent years -- a measure, says Jan S., a trustee of the organization, both of hard economic times and people's inability to curb their spending habits accordingly. By far, most of the organization's 400 meetings in the U.S. are held in chapters in and around Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.Nature of an addictionWe all shop. In that simple fact, say experts, lies the difficulty of distinguishing the avid shopper, or even the occasionally excessive shopper, from the shopper who is out of control. "You don't want to medicalize normal behavior," says Dr. Eric Hollander, chairman of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. But a small percentage of consumers, he says, seem to suffer from "a profound deficit" in the ability to resist their impulse to shop, in spite of negative consequences. For those people, says Hollander, the term disorder "seems to fit."True addiction of this sort doesn't rise and fall with economic cycles, says Dr. Lorrin Koran, a professor of psychiatry (emeritus) at Stanford, who wrote the 2006 study gauging the prevalence of problem shoppers in the United States. In good times and in bad, compulsive shoppers shop compulsively.But in boom times, these shoppers' passion for purchasing can be dismissed as a pricey hobby or hidden -- like so many unopened shopping bags -- in a closet. In times of economic downturn, mortgage woes and growing job insecurity, an uncontrolled yen for shopping becomes an addiction that few can afford to deny. "In hard times, people's money may be tighter so it might cause functional impairment at an earlier stage," Hollander says.In fact, for a true compulsive buyer, rising food costs and gas prices, possible layoffs and a hike in mortgage rates might even trigger a perverse reaction: Stressed by financial difficulties, many problem consumers will escape their worries with a trip to the store, a browse on a favorite shopping site or an impulse call to a shopping channel.Whether it's the growing number of treatment programs springing up or the worsening economy, the number of people coming forward for help appears to be growing. April Benson, a New York psychologist who has pioneered a telephone-based form of group therapy for compulsive shoppers, reports, "There's more and more traffic to my website, I'm getting more and more requests. I have to imagine that's in part due to the economic times."If those seeking treatment are any gauge, compulsive shopping is an overwhelmingly female condition. Some 80% of those who come forward, say experts, are women. Koran says there's every reason to believe that men are just as likely to buy compulsively. But "men don't come for help," he says.Gender differences are very real, however, in the tastes and habits of compulsive shoppers. Women, say those who treat the condition, overwhelmingly buy clothes, jewelry, makeup and gifts for other people -- largely objects of self-adornment they imagine will enhance their image in the eyes of others. Though many male compulsive shoppers are clotheshorses, experts say they are more commonly "collectors" of things -- electronic gadgets, CDs, watches, pens, books, cars. Men, says Koran, tend to have impulse-control problems around shopping when they feel agitated, angry, elated. Depression and boredom are more often the moods that send women to market.For both, purchases bring a rush of relief from uncomfortable feelings: Patients frequently describe a "rush" of arousal and a release from the unpleasant feelings that generally build in the hours and days before a shopping expedition, says Koran. Indeed, brain-imaging studies have shown that even in normal subjects, anticipating a purchase prompts activity in many of the same pleasure-seeking circuits that are activated when addicts succeed in finding a "fix."But disinterest, guilt and remorse tend to set in quickly. Their purchases are often stowed in the back of a closet or in a basement, their price tags never removed. The resulting ill feeling begins building again, and a compulsive shopper will frequently feel the need for another shopping fix. The cycle continues."Men tend to be much more object-driven," says Rob Weiss, executive director of the Sexual Recovery Institute in L.A., who estimates that 10% to 15% of the men and 30% to 40% of the women his clinic treats for sexual addiction are also compulsive shoppers. While women may get lost in the process of shopping -- the peace or excitement they find in gathering -- men are more often exhilarated by the hunt for a specific quarry. "Just like they're looking for a trophy spouse, they're looking for that trophy object," says Weiss. In the end, he says, "the result is the same: to fill some emotional void with objects and behavior."Tracking impulsesSince 2005, New York therapist April Lane Benson, author of the book "I Shop, Therefore I Am," has had participants in her group psychotherapy sessions keep journals and shopping lists that track their moods, their impulses and their household needs. When contemplating a purchase, Benson's patients are asked to record their answers to questions such as "Why am I here?," "How do I feel?," "Do I need this?," "What if I wait?," "How will I pay for it?" and "Where will I put it?"Working through a 12-session telephone program with six women across the country, Benson sees "enormous progress." Her forthcoming book, "To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop," due out this December, will include a purse-sized shopping diary, a CD offering ideas and encouragement and a laminated reminder card listing the questions shoppers should ask themselves.For most compulsive buyers, Benson believes that losing control is a chronic vulnerability. But with rigorous self-examination, she says, "I don't think it's as hard as people think" to break the spell that shopping seems to cast. "People have to understand what their triggers are, what the emotional aftermath is, what happens after the bill comes. And they have to think about what their values are and their vision in life."melissa.healy@latimes.com
Healy takes science-based research, here from an article from a peer-reviewed medical journal, and translates it beautifully into what it means in our daily lives. She cites information from all kinds of sources, expert to anecdotal, books to Web sites. She works in scientific detail with the skill of a master weaver (for example, when she throws out the fact that brain scans of compulsive shoppers show stimulation in the same areas drug addicts do). And she does it all in a way that really moves, feels breezy even while conveying fairly heavy info, and never stalls -- all things I aspire to be able to do with similar content when I grow up : ).
HEALTH
Shopping's dark side: The compulsive buyer
Because we all shop it's difficult to distinguish the avid shopper, or even the occasionally excessive shopper, from the shopper who is out of control.
As mental health professionals debate the problematic behavior, clinics spring up.
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 21, 2008
IN A LAND where citizens are implored to shop as an expression of patriotism, where little girls can attend summer camp cruising the stores of a mall, and where the average credit-card holder is $1,673 behind in payments, buying things in the United States is more than a hunt for daily provisions. It's a national pastime, a form of therapy, a means of self-expression.But for more than 1 in 20 Americans, shopping is something darker. A study published in the October 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry found that at some point in the lives of an estimated 5.8% of the U.S. population, shopping will become a source of shame, a cry for help, the cause of job losses and broken relationships, a road to financial ruin. They are "compulsive buyers" -- troubled by intrusive impulses to shop, prone to lose track of time while doing so, plagued by post-purchase remorse, guilt and financial woes and sometimes given up on by loved ones.
Compulsive shopping: Is it a disorder?
Unlocking motive is the key to conquering compulsive shopping
Compulsive shopping: where to turn for help
As the drumbeat of depressing economic indicators accelerates, they are a group coming out of the closet."I get several calls a month from people who say, 'I don't know what you call it, but this is out of control,' " says psychiatrist Timothy Fong, director of UCLA's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic and co-director of the university's Addiction Medicine Clinic. For the truly addicted shopper, Fong says, "it's not lack of willpower" that makes them unable to stop shopping. "It's an inability to control impulses and desires and behaviors."Mental health professionals are actively debating how to label and treat these consumers' problematic behavior. As they do so, clinics, self-help groups and therapists specializing in the care and rehabilitation of compulsive shoppers are popping up across the country like so many specialized boutiques. They have found no shortage of clients.J.P., a 66-year-old Los Angeles man, is one of them. For six years a member of the 12-step group Debtors Anonymous (and so, following its rules, he's declined to identify himself by name), J.P. calls himself "a constantly struggling compulsive shopper" and "a binge person" by nature. Echoing the observations of many compulsive shoppers and those who treat them, J.P. says that what seems to trigger his impulse to spring for something is "a feeling of needing to fix yourself . . . a sense of filling a void."J.P. says that buying something -- in his case, costly services such as workshops and courses -- would make him exuberant, give him a shot of energy and a sense of purpose. But the crash, which could come hours, days or weeks later when he realized he had succumbed to a costly impulse, has always been hard. "I feel suckered. I feel incompetent in a way that I didn't feel before."It is an addiction," says J.P. "It becomes an addiction because it feels the more you do this thing, the better you're going to be. It's completely wrongheaded, wrong thinking."Programs designed to address such wrong thinking are growing more numerous and better attended. In the last five years, Stanford University and UCLA have established treatment programs for those who report out-of-control shopping. A New York City therapist, after running group programs for three years from her office, is set to launch an at-home program for those who overshop.Debtors Anonymous, meanwhile, has seen an uptick of attendance at its meetings in recent years -- a measure, says Jan S., a trustee of the organization, both of hard economic times and people's inability to curb their spending habits accordingly. By far, most of the organization's 400 meetings in the U.S. are held in chapters in and around Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.Nature of an addictionWe all shop. In that simple fact, say experts, lies the difficulty of distinguishing the avid shopper, or even the occasionally excessive shopper, from the shopper who is out of control. "You don't want to medicalize normal behavior," says Dr. Eric Hollander, chairman of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. But a small percentage of consumers, he says, seem to suffer from "a profound deficit" in the ability to resist their impulse to shop, in spite of negative consequences. For those people, says Hollander, the term disorder "seems to fit."True addiction of this sort doesn't rise and fall with economic cycles, says Dr. Lorrin Koran, a professor of psychiatry (emeritus) at Stanford, who wrote the 2006 study gauging the prevalence of problem shoppers in the United States. In good times and in bad, compulsive shoppers shop compulsively.But in boom times, these shoppers' passion for purchasing can be dismissed as a pricey hobby or hidden -- like so many unopened shopping bags -- in a closet. In times of economic downturn, mortgage woes and growing job insecurity, an uncontrolled yen for shopping becomes an addiction that few can afford to deny. "In hard times, people's money may be tighter so it might cause functional impairment at an earlier stage," Hollander says.In fact, for a true compulsive buyer, rising food costs and gas prices, possible layoffs and a hike in mortgage rates might even trigger a perverse reaction: Stressed by financial difficulties, many problem consumers will escape their worries with a trip to the store, a browse on a favorite shopping site or an impulse call to a shopping channel.Whether it's the growing number of treatment programs springing up or the worsening economy, the number of people coming forward for help appears to be growing. April Benson, a New York psychologist who has pioneered a telephone-based form of group therapy for compulsive shoppers, reports, "There's more and more traffic to my website, I'm getting more and more requests. I have to imagine that's in part due to the economic times."If those seeking treatment are any gauge, compulsive shopping is an overwhelmingly female condition. Some 80% of those who come forward, say experts, are women. Koran says there's every reason to believe that men are just as likely to buy compulsively. But "men don't come for help," he says.Gender differences are very real, however, in the tastes and habits of compulsive shoppers. Women, say those who treat the condition, overwhelmingly buy clothes, jewelry, makeup and gifts for other people -- largely objects of self-adornment they imagine will enhance their image in the eyes of others. Though many male compulsive shoppers are clotheshorses, experts say they are more commonly "collectors" of things -- electronic gadgets, CDs, watches, pens, books, cars. Men, says Koran, tend to have impulse-control problems around shopping when they feel agitated, angry, elated. Depression and boredom are more often the moods that send women to market.For both, purchases bring a rush of relief from uncomfortable feelings: Patients frequently describe a "rush" of arousal and a release from the unpleasant feelings that generally build in the hours and days before a shopping expedition, says Koran. Indeed, brain-imaging studies have shown that even in normal subjects, anticipating a purchase prompts activity in many of the same pleasure-seeking circuits that are activated when addicts succeed in finding a "fix."But disinterest, guilt and remorse tend to set in quickly. Their purchases are often stowed in the back of a closet or in a basement, their price tags never removed. The resulting ill feeling begins building again, and a compulsive shopper will frequently feel the need for another shopping fix. The cycle continues."Men tend to be much more object-driven," says Rob Weiss, executive director of the Sexual Recovery Institute in L.A., who estimates that 10% to 15% of the men and 30% to 40% of the women his clinic treats for sexual addiction are also compulsive shoppers. While women may get lost in the process of shopping -- the peace or excitement they find in gathering -- men are more often exhilarated by the hunt for a specific quarry. "Just like they're looking for a trophy spouse, they're looking for that trophy object," says Weiss. In the end, he says, "the result is the same: to fill some emotional void with objects and behavior."Tracking impulsesSince 2005, New York therapist April Lane Benson, author of the book "I Shop, Therefore I Am," has had participants in her group psychotherapy sessions keep journals and shopping lists that track their moods, their impulses and their household needs. When contemplating a purchase, Benson's patients are asked to record their answers to questions such as "Why am I here?," "How do I feel?," "Do I need this?," "What if I wait?," "How will I pay for it?" and "Where will I put it?"Working through a 12-session telephone program with six women across the country, Benson sees "enormous progress." Her forthcoming book, "To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop," due out this December, will include a purse-sized shopping diary, a CD offering ideas and encouragement and a laminated reminder card listing the questions shoppers should ask themselves.For most compulsive buyers, Benson believes that losing control is a chronic vulnerability. But with rigorous self-examination, she says, "I don't think it's as hard as people think" to break the spell that shopping seems to cast. "People have to understand what their triggers are, what the emotional aftermath is, what happens after the bill comes. And they have to think about what their values are and their vision in life."melissa.healy@latimes.com
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Desperately Seeking a Good Quote
This exercise confounded me, because I think (or thought) that we're constantly awash with good quotes in our daily reading. But when asked to find one for this assignment, I searched several newspapers, ranging from the New York Times to my local paper. And I unearthed nothing within quotation marks besides rambling platitudes, corporate-ese, and marketing spin. Even the words of normal people whose houses had burned or whose brothers had been shot sounded like government clerics reading from a prepared script titled "Acceptable Responses to Terrifying Events." "I'm just grateful everyone got out alive," "I know that's the way he would've wanted it," and "Well, tomorrow's another day."
Huh? Do people in the midst of immense personal crisis really utter such staid sentiments? Or are journalists today so busy shooting photos, laying out pages, and covering the work of three people that they don't have time to write down what people really said?
I even read through a few back issues of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, in the desperate hope that maybe a newspaper that covered the South still published evocative voices. Alsas, alack. Doesn't anyone actually talk to anyone anymore?
In the end I reverted to the New Yorker, and picked a most obvious choice, a quote in a story that is only a story because of its quotes: "Digging" in The Pictures section, June 9, 2008, and on a most inane topic: the recent release of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull" (see link and full story below).
The quote that captured my attention in particular was near the end, when
Feisel interrupted.
“Listen,” he said, “archeology is really, really boring.” He went on, “I’ve been on only one dig, and where was it? In Secaucus, New Jersey, directly underneath the New Jersey Turnpike. Some guy had been researching where his grandfather should’ve been buried and figured out it was in this potter’s field beneath the turnpike. Turns out the government had known all about it. Later, they couldn’t excavate all the bodies, because moving them would’ve interfered with the structural support of the overpass. These bodies were basically holding up the turnpike.”
I like this quote because it conveys a real person moving inside those quotation marks; he’s three-dimensional – he offers to the readers both the perspective of the archaeologist but also of the general public. That’s rare in someone so completely entrenched in their field and when I find someone with that ability, I try to quote them because it tends to give a story balance, to show how far the pendulum can swing from the others being quoted. And with the inclusion of that voice, the reader will trust that the story is fair – or more fair than it might appear without that quote.
I also like the life this quote brings to the story (those the piece is pretty lively anyway). Leaving in the “listen” is key; it makes Feisel’s comments more confessional, a “just between you and me” kind of thing. That reaches out to readers. Feisel’s use of language makes me feel as if I’m having a casual conversation with this person, at a bus stop. His language is very loose. I also like the humanity that he shows, however crudely, in his astonishment over the government’s knowledge of the situation.
Then, of course, there’s the colorful anecdote that he shares. How can you beat that? When you get a quote about something like that you’ve hit pay dirt. That anecdote written in narrative form would not have had the same light touch, or humor, as it does when Feisel tells it in his own way.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/09/080609ta_talk_peedThe PicturesDiggingby Mike Peed June 9, 2008
Last week’s news that “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” had won one of Hollywood’s most coveted prizes—the Memorial Day-weekend box-office—sent shivers through the offices of Archaeology, a magazine of the Archaeological Institute of America. (The organization recently elected Harrison Ford to its board of directors.) “O.K., fine, the movie romanticizes what we do,” Eric Powell, one of the magazine’s editors, said recently. “Indy may be a horrible archeologist, but he’s a great diplomat for archeology. I think we’ll see a spike in kids who want to become archeologists.”The magazine had recently published its May/June issue, which includes the “Indy Spirit Awards,” a catalogue of those archeologists who best exemplify Dr. Jones’s spirit (e.g., Nels Nelson, 1875-1964: “When beset by outlaws in Mongolia, he brandished his glass eye at the brigands, who quickly fled”). Last Tuesday, Powell organized an expedition: a matinée in Long Island City, followed by lunch, where the archeologists would do what archeologists do best—scrutinize their findings.The group sat in the fourth row of the theatre. They passed around a tub of popcorn, snickering at Indy’s bravado (“If you want to be a good archeologist, you’ve got to get out of the library”) and recoiling at his crude excavation techniques. Later, over dolmades and Mythos beer at S’Agapo Taverna, they elaborated. “Those tombs!” Samir Patel, an associate editor, began. “That’s an awfully exposed site not to have been hit by looters.”“Looters?” Ken Feisel, the magazine’s design director, replied. “Indiana Jones himself is nothing but a stinking looter!”Powell joined in: “I loved that technique at the temple. Bang, bang, bang with a rock until the pieces fall off. Oh, that just makes you cringe. And when he cuts into the mummies? I was begging, Please, please do not do that.”Soon, the conversation had turned toward stories of Indiana Jones-ish exploits. “I guess it was in the seventies,” Malin Banyasz, an editorial assistant, said. “I was in Israel, working on this big dig, and one of the guys sort of looked up at me funny and then whispered, ‘Move just a tiny bit this way.’ And that’s when I noticed a huge scorpion about to crawl up my leg. I moved, and then with his little hatchet”—Banyasz made a hacking motion—“he sliced up the scorpion.”“West Texas,” Powell said. “Rattlesnakes all around. You could always hear them approaching because their tails would shake. But then one time, when I was walking over a site, I looked down and right between my legs was this huge rattlesnake. The end of his tail was flying back and forth, but there wasn’t any sound. I looked closely, and then I saw that his rattle had somehow been chewed off. So I froze, staring him down, just like the cobra scene in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ ”Feisel interrupted. “Listen,” he said, “archeology is really, really boring.” He went on, “I’ve been on only one dig, and where was it? In Secaucus, New Jersey, directly underneath the New Jersey Turnpike. Some guy had been researching where his grandfather should’ve been buried and figured out it was in this potter’s field beneath the turnpike. Turns out the government had known all about it. Later, they couldn’t excavate all the bodies, because moving them would’ve interfered with the structural support of the overpass. These bodies were basically holding up the turnpike.”A few more gulps of beer, and the group found its way back to “The Crystal Skull” and, in particular, to what the Archaeology colleagues were calling “the treasure chamber”—a room full of artifacts unearthed near the movie’s climax, a sand sifter’s Shangri-La. The group had discerned several Chinese terra-cotta warriors from 210 B.C., a statue from King Tut’s tomb, and—why not?—a few Buddhas. “I bet that if you could pause it you could figure out exactly what each artifact is,” Zach Zorich, an associate editor, said.“You’d need a frame-by-frame still to do it,” Powell said. Someone suggested bringing a cell phone to capture the images.“Who’s a big enough nerd to do that?” Feisel asked. Silence. “What I mean is, who’s a big enough nerd not sitting at this table?” ♦
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/09/080609ta_talk_peed
Huh? Do people in the midst of immense personal crisis really utter such staid sentiments? Or are journalists today so busy shooting photos, laying out pages, and covering the work of three people that they don't have time to write down what people really said?
I even read through a few back issues of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, in the desperate hope that maybe a newspaper that covered the South still published evocative voices. Alsas, alack. Doesn't anyone actually talk to anyone anymore?
In the end I reverted to the New Yorker, and picked a most obvious choice, a quote in a story that is only a story because of its quotes: "Digging" in The Pictures section, June 9, 2008, and on a most inane topic: the recent release of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull" (see link and full story below).
The quote that captured my attention in particular was near the end, when
Feisel interrupted.
“Listen,” he said, “archeology is really, really boring.” He went on, “I’ve been on only one dig, and where was it? In Secaucus, New Jersey, directly underneath the New Jersey Turnpike. Some guy had been researching where his grandfather should’ve been buried and figured out it was in this potter’s field beneath the turnpike. Turns out the government had known all about it. Later, they couldn’t excavate all the bodies, because moving them would’ve interfered with the structural support of the overpass. These bodies were basically holding up the turnpike.”
I like this quote because it conveys a real person moving inside those quotation marks; he’s three-dimensional – he offers to the readers both the perspective of the archaeologist but also of the general public. That’s rare in someone so completely entrenched in their field and when I find someone with that ability, I try to quote them because it tends to give a story balance, to show how far the pendulum can swing from the others being quoted. And with the inclusion of that voice, the reader will trust that the story is fair – or more fair than it might appear without that quote.
I also like the life this quote brings to the story (those the piece is pretty lively anyway). Leaving in the “listen” is key; it makes Feisel’s comments more confessional, a “just between you and me” kind of thing. That reaches out to readers. Feisel’s use of language makes me feel as if I’m having a casual conversation with this person, at a bus stop. His language is very loose. I also like the humanity that he shows, however crudely, in his astonishment over the government’s knowledge of the situation.
Then, of course, there’s the colorful anecdote that he shares. How can you beat that? When you get a quote about something like that you’ve hit pay dirt. That anecdote written in narrative form would not have had the same light touch, or humor, as it does when Feisel tells it in his own way.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/09/080609ta_talk_peedThe PicturesDiggingby Mike Peed June 9, 2008
Last week’s news that “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” had won one of Hollywood’s most coveted prizes—the Memorial Day-weekend box-office—sent shivers through the offices of Archaeology, a magazine of the Archaeological Institute of America. (The organization recently elected Harrison Ford to its board of directors.) “O.K., fine, the movie romanticizes what we do,” Eric Powell, one of the magazine’s editors, said recently. “Indy may be a horrible archeologist, but he’s a great diplomat for archeology. I think we’ll see a spike in kids who want to become archeologists.”The magazine had recently published its May/June issue, which includes the “Indy Spirit Awards,” a catalogue of those archeologists who best exemplify Dr. Jones’s spirit (e.g., Nels Nelson, 1875-1964: “When beset by outlaws in Mongolia, he brandished his glass eye at the brigands, who quickly fled”). Last Tuesday, Powell organized an expedition: a matinée in Long Island City, followed by lunch, where the archeologists would do what archeologists do best—scrutinize their findings.The group sat in the fourth row of the theatre. They passed around a tub of popcorn, snickering at Indy’s bravado (“If you want to be a good archeologist, you’ve got to get out of the library”) and recoiling at his crude excavation techniques. Later, over dolmades and Mythos beer at S’Agapo Taverna, they elaborated. “Those tombs!” Samir Patel, an associate editor, began. “That’s an awfully exposed site not to have been hit by looters.”“Looters?” Ken Feisel, the magazine’s design director, replied. “Indiana Jones himself is nothing but a stinking looter!”Powell joined in: “I loved that technique at the temple. Bang, bang, bang with a rock until the pieces fall off. Oh, that just makes you cringe. And when he cuts into the mummies? I was begging, Please, please do not do that.”Soon, the conversation had turned toward stories of Indiana Jones-ish exploits. “I guess it was in the seventies,” Malin Banyasz, an editorial assistant, said. “I was in Israel, working on this big dig, and one of the guys sort of looked up at me funny and then whispered, ‘Move just a tiny bit this way.’ And that’s when I noticed a huge scorpion about to crawl up my leg. I moved, and then with his little hatchet”—Banyasz made a hacking motion—“he sliced up the scorpion.”“West Texas,” Powell said. “Rattlesnakes all around. You could always hear them approaching because their tails would shake. But then one time, when I was walking over a site, I looked down and right between my legs was this huge rattlesnake. The end of his tail was flying back and forth, but there wasn’t any sound. I looked closely, and then I saw that his rattle had somehow been chewed off. So I froze, staring him down, just like the cobra scene in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ ”Feisel interrupted. “Listen,” he said, “archeology is really, really boring.” He went on, “I’ve been on only one dig, and where was it? In Secaucus, New Jersey, directly underneath the New Jersey Turnpike. Some guy had been researching where his grandfather should’ve been buried and figured out it was in this potter’s field beneath the turnpike. Turns out the government had known all about it. Later, they couldn’t excavate all the bodies, because moving them would’ve interfered with the structural support of the overpass. These bodies were basically holding up the turnpike.”A few more gulps of beer, and the group found its way back to “The Crystal Skull” and, in particular, to what the Archaeology colleagues were calling “the treasure chamber”—a room full of artifacts unearthed near the movie’s climax, a sand sifter’s Shangri-La. The group had discerned several Chinese terra-cotta warriors from 210 B.C., a statue from King Tut’s tomb, and—why not?—a few Buddhas. “I bet that if you could pause it you could figure out exactly what each artifact is,” Zach Zorich, an associate editor, said.“You’d need a frame-by-frame still to do it,” Powell said. Someone suggested bringing a cell phone to capture the images.“Who’s a big enough nerd to do that?” Feisel asked. Silence. “What I mean is, who’s a big enough nerd not sitting at this table?” ♦
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/09/080609ta_talk_peed