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Daniel Silliman
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| 31.8.02 |
In Ann Arbor
Riding North
We rode north through the green hills and trees beneath the blue sky on a Saturday afternoon a few days after school began again. We rode in a red convertible with the top down, four college students looking to escape the little town and seize some culture for the weekend, rocking to Stairway to Heaven with the wind beating our faces.
The primary colors are brilliant, almost searingly beautiful and memorable.
The Meaning of Cubism for a Little Girl
"Mom," said the little girl. "Is that a Picasso?"
"Yes," her mother said, looking at the black skull.
"Mom, what is a Picasso?"
Seizing Culture
A bookstore, an art museum with Picasso and Ansel Adams exhibits and a coffee shop with books--thus the cultured life of academia.
I'm packing the basic writings of Heidegger, but no one seems to notice.
We sit in the coffee shop and read for Monday's classes, mentioning Heidegger, Picasso, Blake, Miles Davis, Beethoven.
Blake spoke of the fall with the imagery of grapes bleeding.
Heidegger had classes at 7 a.m. and caused a stir among students throughout Germany with the power of his lectures. One of his students described it as "the full concentration of all the powers--the powers of genius--in a revolutionary thinker who actually seemed himself to be startled by the intensity of the questions growing more and more radical in him."
The Singular of the Word
He didn't know what was incorrect with the phrase "another criteria has." I pointed out that "criteria" was plural though generally, like "media," used for the singular as well. He didn't know that so we looked up "criterion." The dictionary makes the note that some plural words are now used without hesitation, giving the example of agenda. So the singular is agendum, which we didn't know and are now looking for opportunities to use.
The Feeling of the Rocks
The buildings around the University of Michigan campus are beautiful, with lots of brick and rock and climbing ivy. It feels like solid academia. It feels like Oxford should feel like. It feels scholarly to walk on green lawns between rock walls covered in ivy.
I love the feel of this glorious world of academia.
by Daniel Silliman @
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The smell of grass and the sound of the lawnmower brings back my childhood.
by Daniel Silliman @
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| 29.8.02 |
Talking Amillenialism
Gideon Strauss is talking about Amillenialism. Personally I'm a confirmed Postmillenial fellow. If one were to believe that Amillenialism has no chest hair and plays with dolls (as Doug Wilson, who said the Amillenial position comes from the quarterly taking grape juice for communion), Strauss goes a long way to convince you otherwise.
If the Amillenial fellows, rather than absolving themselves of the responsibility to engage the culture, were an active bunch (as Strauss and, he suggests, others like him are) they would certainly be welcomed by this Postmillenialist.
And a an a- is certainly always prefered to a pre-.
[If you're mystified and turned off by eschatology at least read the post for the mention of the use of the terms Liberal and Conservative.]
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The Job of the Reporter:
An Introductory Talk on Reporting for the Collegian Reporters
The reporter has two jobs. The first is curiosity and the second is storytelling. It is a job that can will take you anywhere and put you in the middle of anything, often with little preparation.
This is mostly a job about stories. I’d like to tell you in the next few minutes about the work I’ve done and convince to give the job a try. I hope you’ll be interested in working as a reporter for me in the next year covering this college.
In my two full years as a reporter I’ve written stories about a self-described “habitual thief,” a Native American tribe blessing of a hand carved canoe, the selection of one college president and the adjustments of our college president—Arnn—to his job. I’ve covered the shooting death of a 16-year-old and later his funeral. I reported on a 14-year-old girl—an aspiring actress—getting her first major part in a film. I did a story about a man who had his back yard washed away in a flood. I’ve covered the arrest of a bank robber.
The reason a descent reporter can cover such a variety of stories and do a good job is curiosity. You need to be able to come into something you know nothing about and get really interested in it.
I wanted to mention some cases I’ve had with as an example of this. I am a very curios person, I love to know what’s happening and get more information, and what happens is you’re sent to cover something you know nothing about and you let your curiosity kick in and take you into the story.
I was sent to cover a salmon hatchery experiment for a daily paper in Washington State. I know little about salmon, I think I’d done something in grade school about how they return to the place they hatched to lay their eggs but that was about it, and within three or four hours I was a salmon hatcheries expert. I’d called all over the state talking to officials and I read some reports on hatchery work and I spent an afternoon at a hatchery and now I was writing about the life cycles of salmon and the color of natural salmon compared with the color of hatchery salmon and prey and feeding habits and this whole world I never thought about before my editor handed me this piece of paper talking about this hatchery experiment.
It’s a curiosity that can just kick into gear and a fascination with things you just heard about and a love of good story.
The driving force behind a reporter is a good story. The only thing that matters, one excellent reporter said, is the story, the one for tomorrow’s paper.
And what is a story? How do you know if it’s a story? There are criteria and five categories you will probably have on a test of Joy’s if you’re in her class but basically a story is what people are talking about.
I had three people tell me about how the Classics department is so full that Dr. Jones is teaching seven classes—that’s obviously interesting. That’s a story. In the last few days I’ve heard a lot of people talking about Sir Martin Gilbert so that’s a story. Yesterday afternoon I heard that Gilbert’s Churchill library is coming to Hillsdale College and that it might be permanent. This is a great story because people would talk about it but the haven’t heard yet so we get to tell them.
The concept of a story being what people talk about should be used as a general concept but also used for the details of the story. When I reported on the arrest of a bank robbery I walked into this bar—it was about 11 a.m. seven days after the robbery took place and he’d been drinking and gambling the whole time. So I walk into this bar and the guy’s beer is sitting on the counter. So I ask how much the beer costs because I realize that everyone is going to be calculating how many he could have bought and I think the arrested fellow is probably just as mad about not drinking his beer as he is about getting caught. I know he’s saying “Damn! I got caught and Damn! I didn’t get to drink my beer.” And I know all the guys reading the story are going “So how many beers could you buy with the money from a bank robbery?”
If you’re going to be a reporter cultivate your curiosity and your love of a good story. Most of the technical stuff is simple and simply serves your curiosity and story telling.
I want to hit a few technical notes here before I close. I’d suggest you pick up and read something on news reporting in the next week. We have a few books in the Collegian office that are excellent and can give you a lot of good tips. You’re going to run into problems with you’re interviews but it you pick the brains of other experienced reporters, do a bit of reading and feel your instincts you can surmount those blockades easily enough.
You need to have an idea what the story is about and to know some basic information about the topic. But you’re not going to know everything and you need to be flexible and follow the conversation and get your information. Those are the two things you have to do in an interview: don’t miss what you’re being told and get the needed information. You may be going after the wrong dead cat and need some redirection or maybe someone’s trying to tell you the dead cat doesn’t stink.
For that reason I don’t write out my questions. You should be able to remember your questions and to be pretty flexible. I have an idea of what I need to know and then it’s not a question answer session it’s a conversation where the source does all the talking and I ask enough questions to keep him going and to get my information.
When it comes to asking questions this is where your curiosity really gets free reign. When it’s for the story, you can ask anybody anything. They don’t have to talk to you but you’d be surprised, most times they will talk or can be convinced to talk. We say in the business “there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers and it’s our job to be there to take them down.”
When you’re in the interview take a lot of notes. You’ll want to learn a sort of shorthand—at least your personal made up short hand—and listen for good usable quotes. That’s the only way you can handle a full conversation. Most of the information you’re going to paraphrase. As an example: I had an interview with Pewe yesterday and we talked about how they are trying to raise money for a new classroom. All that I can paraphrase. But then I have a direct quote of him saying: “When we get this building we will be recognized as one of the best places to teach liberal arts because we have the facilities.”
The best thing I can suggest—in addition to reading a bit about reporting and talking to folks with some experience—is to read newspapers. Newspaper writing is a craft and the more familiar with the craft you are the better. An editor can tell if you are a regular newspaper reader. I’d recommend staying away from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for a while because they are really big and play by their own rules. Read good metro papers, any major metropolitan paper. You can read them online easily. Being from the West Coast I read the Seattle Times and the San Francisco papers and the L.A. Times. Just look up the local metro paper and read it every few days—it’ll make a notable difference in your work.
If you can push your curiosity and ask questions and learn to love the story then you’ll do a great job as a reporter and we’ll have a great year.
by Daniel Silliman @
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The Exageration of the Antichrist
Gregg Easterbrook has a piece on why the figure of the antichrist is really exaggerated and shouldn’t be worried about.
Christians should be worried about the spirit of antichrist among us and the spirit of antichrist in us.
One cannot pass this point without noting the numbers of the Beast
[Both links via RazorMouth]
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| 28.8.02 |
Moving Back
Am I more intimidated? Less? Is impressing the professor less important than it used to be? Is it a sign of moderation growing with age?
I don’t know but I’m sitting in the second row this semester.
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| 27.8.02 |
Nothing like a Little Rivalry
Proving the Reformation is eternally fought at Hillsdale College, a sign where students sign up for information about the Catholic Student Union reads:
We haven't had this this much fun since TRENT!
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Campus Observations
From my bed at 1:45 a.m. where I read the intorduction to the philosophy text, I can feel the softening breeze after a warm day and hear the slap of sandles on the street as another student walks home from the first party of the year.
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This Semester’s Classes:
CLS 101 -- Elementary Latin
ART 204 -- Art History from Renaissance to Modern
REL 340 -- New Testament Ethics
PHL 493 -- Heidegger Seminar
PHL 340 -- 20th Century Continental Philosophy
(Sixteen credits, nine towards my philosophy major.)
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| 26.8.02 |
A Long Line
I bet that if you go to hell you have to stand in line to register.
by Daniel Silliman @
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| 25.8.02 |
No Pushing, No Shoving
Bush hasn’t issued a single veto, according to The New Republic.
This is dreadfully disappointing. Why can’t he fight a little?
Couldn’t he veto something?
MORE OPTIMISTIC UPDATE: For encouragement in politics, always look at the other guys and remember the winners are the ones who make fewer mistakes. Still from The New Republic, we see the lovely Greens are taking on the liberals and, Thank you!, hurting their chances of beating the GOP in one Minnesota race with potentially terrific ramifications.
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Lots of Muck, Few Pearls in Broadway’s Chicago
A story of murder, lust, greed, corruption, violence, adultery and treachery, Chicago was mostly lame. Telling us little about the human condition, the play gave a viewer scant return to make the dredging about in human muck worthwhile.
I didn’t know much about the play before I went—a friend arranged the tickets and I just said “Chicago, Jazz Age, court trial, Broadway, yeah let’s go”—and maybe that was part of my initial disappointment. I was expecting, well, something else. Rather than being on the way to the point, the debauchery was most of the point.
There were two brilliant exceptions to this, exceptions that made the show worth my half-price ticket.
We are given a good look into the character of Amos, the faithful, dopey, straight, longsuffering and highly boring husband of the adulterous star, Roxie. Amos is a kind man, considered a buffoon by the wild children of Jazz, caring and loving and common. He is completely ignored and pushed over by the world around him and, in the show’s best number, he thinks he is so unnoticed he should have been named Mr. Cellophane.
With great acting and a great number we actually get to see something of the humanity of this man, a man overlooked by his fast and rebellious age, a man terribly old fashioned and ridiculous. Taunted, ridiculed or ignored, Amos could and probably should have been the hero of the show, depicting a man at odds with the shifting world around him
The second bit of work that made the play worthwhile was at the climax of the show when one actor played the entire jury, shifting from seat to seat playing out the foibles of the American public. The actor was a nun praying, a middle-aged woman sympathizing, an old man sleeping and a workingman who doesn’t really care. It was a glorious bit of work hidden in a little sideshow of the three-ring circus of the trial.
But besides those two bits of brilliant work the show was too much “razzle-dazzle”, too much leg, an eminently forgettable score and not much insight into the human soul.
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Two links for St. Bartholomew’s day:
A picture of his death and a piece on the massacre of the French Huguenots, which also took place today.
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The current definition of a prolific blogger: Not on vacation.
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