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10/15/2011
09/05/2011
From broadsheet to tab in one week
As the adviser to the Collegian student newspaper, I'm no longer the one pushing for change. The staff is coming to me with their ideas. It's a great feeling. Read managing editor Riah Lawry's blog post on how the staff successfully redesigned the paper from a broadsheet to a tab in just one week.
08/06/2011
"Jersey who?" My attempt at a sophisticated summer
I was hoping, during my month in Florence this summer, to escape (however briefly) from America and its low-brow obsessions. To look at paintings rather than watch television. To have face-to-face conversations in a piazza rather than computer-mediated conversations over Facebook.
So when I learned that the cast of Jersey Shore would be here at the same time, I laughed. I had never seen an episode of the show, but I knew that it stood in opposition to the sophisticated life of Florence--the kind of life I wanted for at least a month.
The first time I saw the cast, I continued to eat my gelato as if nothing was happening. I listened with amusement as an American teenager tried to explain the significance of the show to an elderly Italian woman. “Jersey?” the woman said. “Jersey who?” Then came the Facebook messages on my wall: “Have you seen the cast yet?” “Make sure to take pictures!” And after Snooki’s car incident: “Can’t you get the Jersey Shore kids to behave?” (From my mom.) By the end of the month, I was posting entire photo albums of my run-ins with the cast. Sophisticated life? Well, there’s always next summer.
Photo by David Wheeler.
05/19/2011
As I was about to jump out the window of a train in Livorno, Italy, I thought, “There’s got to be another way out of this.”
Why am I on a train in Livorno, Italy, in the first place? This summer, I’m writing for The Florentine, an English-language newspaper that caters to the expat community in Florence. My assignment is to write three to five travel articles about beaches along the Etruscan Coast. For most non-Italian travelers, these beaches are considered to be off the beaten path, and they’re certainly off the beaten path for an American like me.
My first beach: Vada. It’s a white-sand-and-crystal-blue-water beach. In short: It’s lovely.
Because the restaurants in Vada don’t open for dinner until around 7 p.m., I’m a little late getting back. I catch the last bus back to Livorno, 28 miles away, where I’m supposed to catch another train to Florence at 10:22 p.m. I bought my ticket earlier in the day.
I sit on the bench at Platform 2, reading my book, while the PA system says things like, “It is forbidden to cross the railway lines.” At 10:20 p.m.—two minutes early!—the train rolls to a stop at Platform 2. I punch the little button that makes the door open, as I’ve seen so many people do, and I hop on.
I take my seat. My first thought: Wow, there’s nobody else on here. Which is good. I can sprawl out, put my head against the window, and take a nice nap on the way back to Florence. No need to worry about moving my backpack for a little old lady. Yes, this is nice. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.
My next thought: Gee, it’s dark in here. Is it usually this dark on the night train? Maybe they forgot to turn the light on in this compartment. It’s kind of eery. Cinematically eery. I think about movies like Strangers on a Train and Murder on the Orient Express. Someone really could commit a terrible crime on here and get away with it.
But the train starts to move. We’re on our way. Just me and my backpack. On a dark train.
Then the train rolls to a stop again, making that metal-against-metal noise, and goes completely silent. Why is the train completely silent? It’s as if it’s being parked for the night. Parked for the night in a railway yard.
I see. I’m on the wrong train. That’s okay. I’ll just get off. Now, if I could only get this door open …
All right, fine. If I can only get this other door open …
All right, fine. If I can just walk through the compartments to the front of the train, I'll talk to the conductor. Next compartment opens. Next one opens. Then it’s locked.
I knock. “Hello?” I'm nowhere near the front of the trian.
I knock some more.
"Hello?"
Okay, don’t panic. No need to panic. Why panic? That’s silly. What’s the worst thing that could happen? I have to spend the night on the train? Come on, worse things have happened. I just had a full meal of authentic Italian lasagne at 7 p.m. I’m not hungry. I’m not cold.
Why am I still panicking?
“Somebody help me!”
Who could I call? Let’s see. There’s the guy whose apartment I’m renting for the month: Alessio. I could call him. And tell him … tell him what? That I’m stuck on a train in Livorno? Come and get me? I’m on the train that left from Platform 2 at 10:20 instead of 10:22?
What’s the Italian number for 911?
Okay, besides the door handles, there’s another handle that I can barely see. There’s some writing that goes along with it that I can’t read. It’s above the door. Maybe that’s an emergency exit. Yeah, that’s what it is. So I pull it.
It makes an ungodly hissing sound.
Right. Yes. I wasn’t expecting that.
WHY IS IT HISSING?
“Help!”
Okay, well, first of all, whatever you did that’s making it hiss, get out of that compartment. I think we can all agree that’s the first thing that should happen. Hard to think of a plan with that hissing noise.
I go two compartments down to be safely away from the hiss. Then I see it: the window. Why didn’t I think of this before? I’ll try the window. And the window opens. God bless you, window.
“Help!”
What’s the Italian word for “help”? Wonder if it’s something close to the Spanish “ayúdame”?
“¡Ayúdame!”
I think about breaking open my English-Italian dictionary, but it’s too dark to see.
The window opens wide enough for me to put my upper body through. Success. Wait. Now don’t just throw yourself out like an idiot. It’s not like the train is on fire. Things are hissing, but nothing’s on fire. At least not in this compartment.
Hmm, it’s a longer drop than I anticipated. I’m not going to break any bones or anything, but I might need to climb out backwards and then slowly loosen my grip for a more graceful fall. But I need to lower my backpack out first.
Here we go. Going to jump out the window. Looking at a dark railway yard. I can see the back of a department store. Civilization isn’t far away. Why am I nervous? In the movies, people jump out of trains all the time. At least this train isn’t moving.
Wait. Woah, what was that? We’re moving. This train is moving. And it’s moving at a pretty good clip. No warning. No warm-up. I guess there's no need to worry about jolting the passengers when nobody’s supposed to be on board. Good thing I didn’t attempt a jump.
Now we’re back in the station.
“Help me!”
The conductor sticks his head out the window. “What are you still doing on the train?” he says. Which, in his defense, is a reasonable question.
“I thought it was going to Florence!”
I hear a sound. He’s unlocking the cabin doors. I get out. I know I’m “forbidden to cross the railway lines,” but it looks like he’s going to make an exception for me.
A train similar to the one I almost jumped out of. Photo by David Wheeler.
05/15/2011
A poetic response to my article: "Google doesn't laugh; it doesn't even titter..."
Alex Balk at The Awl wrote a poem in response to my article in The Atlantic—and he concluded the poem with a link to my article. First of all, Alex, you're a creative genius. Second, thanks for linking to my full article—I will return the favor. The first two stanzas of Alex's poem are below, along with a link to the full poem at The Awl. The poem begins with the headline of the article, "Google doesn't laugh," which is a quote from my main source for the article, Matthew Crowley. For good measure, The Awl also created a graphic of a frowning Google logo—a nice touch.
Google doesn't laugh
It doesn't even titter
It can't guffaw like Facebook
It won't split its sides like Twitter
Google doesn't crack a smile
It won't respond to mirth
There's not a single laughing part
Not even Google Earth
Folks, there's much more. Read the rest here!
The Awl
04/19/2011
04/18/2011
Generation Y asks, "What's an after-school special?"
When I teach a unit on movie reviews, I make sure we take a few minutes in class to read The New Yorker's scathing review of the 2000 movie Left Behind, starring Kirk Cameron.
"If the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word 'Rapture' is Blondie, then start stocking up on food and water," writes Michael Agger. I don't expect my students to laugh at this line. Remember: Blondie's "Rapture" was released in 1981, a full decade before today's college students were born. It's as far away to them as Woodstock is to me. For everyone except the music junkies, this joke flops. Nevertheless, I take pleasure in introducing them to one of the first pop songs to incorporate a fledgling new genre called "rap."
But this year, when we read Agger's review, I noticed something new. Perhaps my favorite line in the review is Agger's description of Left Behind as "an after-school special about the apocalypse."
Silence.
Come on, guys. An after-school special about the apocalypse! Funny, right?
Then it comes. I should have expected it.
"What's an after-school special?"
Now that I think about it, I guess the laughter at the "after-school special" line has been dwindling over the past four years that I've been teaching college. And it makes sense: According to imdb.com, ABC's after-school specials ran from 1972 to 1996, with the final episode airing in January 1997. In other words, by the time today's college students were in first grade, the show was off the air. Unless they had a special taste, while still in pre-school, for such titles as "Educating Mom" (a soccer mom goes back to high school with her teenage son, air date: March 14, 1996), how would they know about after-school specials?
Nevertheless, I will keep using Agger's article when teaching movie reviews. For one thing, they need to know another synonym for "sappy television." But most importantly, they need to be exposed to lines such as this: "Read your Bible carefully. A global currency, the ascendancy of the U.N., the telling detail that the Antichrist will have a Russian accent—it’s all there."
criminalcinema.com
04/11/2011
The evening news: grandparents only, please
The average age of New York Times readers: 42.
The average age of Wall Street Journal readers: 52.
The average age of CBS Evening News viewers: 60.2—and this is the YOUNGEST audience of the three network newscasts, according to a New York Times article today discussing Katie Couric's expected departure from the CBS network.
Mediabistro.com
'Helms calls for donut tax' and other memorable Simpsons headlines
Andy Bechtel at The Editor's Desk has compiled a great list of headlines from The Springfield Shopper, The National Informer, and other publications that exist only in the world of The Simpsons.
GraphicsHunt.com
04/07/2011
Check out the Asbury student newspaper's delicious new food blog: Raspberry College
Recent entries include "En masse made easy" and "Flying carpets and foreign food."
Photo by Anna Leon.
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