Style right out of a J. Crew catalog; a clear face and excited teeth
the tiny bit of hair right before each ear is like a prequel to yr jawline.
I imagine that underneath yr bed is full of boxes--
disposable camera sleeves of high school memories,
layered between ticket stubs, and nostalgia.
You see things beautifully, delicately
like each freckle across yr nose.
Wearing yr heart on yr
pinky finger as a modern romantic.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Skateboarder Ross Capicchioni-shot multiple times with a shotgun and survives
I know this is late and this isn't part of my blog portfolio, but the way this kid tells this story is so amazing that I had to post it.
watch part 1 here
watch part 2 here
I wouldn't have this story told any other way. Videography and skateboarding go hand in hand, so if it were a typed out article, it would feel contrived or sell out-ish, which is something skateboarders try so hard to avoid. The way that different film strips of Detroit, skateboarding, and still images break up the narrative don't take away from Ross's story at all. I feel that's it's equivalent to an image within a block of text. The way that film accentuates this story is so representative of the skateboarding lifestyle and without it, it would fall short.
Favorite Blogs
Paul- vegan straight edge lifestyle
Tommy- vegan straight edge life style
Tyler Knott-creative writing and photography
The Informed Vegan-vegan lifestyle
Tommy- vegan straight edge life style
Tyler Knott-creative writing and photography
The Informed Vegan-vegan lifestyle
LOST
"Lie to them, Jack. If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they'll believe you.”
-John Locke
Your dog in his shrunken sweater,
buries into my hair when we kiss.
A type of jealousy I can relate to.
I know you’re getting tired of watching
what happens between Desmond and Penny
because it’s breaking my heart.
My new apartment
doesn’t allow pets,
so we can be alone
after long nights of standing
in chilly houses
waiting for hours
to hear your friend’s band.
I’ll always cook when you’re hungry
but I can’t promise that I won’t fuck up
the pancakes or have much to say.
I will no longer feel self conscious about
the bras hanging off my bed posts
because your Ikea bedframe is broken, doesn’t have any--
You will be familiar with the black
and nude lace.
It shouldn’t be this hard to feel particular.
Tonight I hate most everything
About your one-word answers,
how I’m left to think about
love.
There is one thing I’ve actually never told you.
-John Locke
Your dog in his shrunken sweater,
buries into my hair when we kiss.
A type of jealousy I can relate to.
I know you’re getting tired of watching
what happens between Desmond and Penny
because it’s breaking my heart.
My new apartment
doesn’t allow pets,
so we can be alone
after long nights of standing
in chilly houses
waiting for hours
to hear your friend’s band.
I’ll always cook when you’re hungry
but I can’t promise that I won’t fuck up
the pancakes or have much to say.
I will no longer feel self conscious about
the bras hanging off my bed posts
because your Ikea bedframe is broken, doesn’t have any--
You will be familiar with the black
and nude lace.
It shouldn’t be this hard to feel particular.
Tonight I hate most everything
About your one-word answers,
how I’m left to think about
love.
There is one thing I’ve actually never told you.
Interviewing Carlos Miller
I interviewed Carlos Miller via Facebook a couple weeks back for an assignment for my internship. This dude is big, muscly, and tan but he is also one of the forerunners in the photographer's rights movement. As a photographer myself, knowing your rights to photograph public property is extremely important. Cops often make up their own rules or harass people with cameras when they are free to take pictures of things like subway systems, car accidents, and police officers themselves. Miller writes non-fiction articles about different injustices to photojournalists and videographers because he himself was arrested twice for photographing police and he won both cases against the police without a lawyer. That is how integrated digital media, public property, and the first amendment all are. It's so important to be aware of your rights especially if you plan on taking pictures or video of any of the occupy protests. Even the activists have turned ugly against media journalists. There are countless videos of harmless photographer's being harassed, attacked, and threatened by the "peaceful" sit-inners. As long as it's a public space, you can shoot whatever you'd like (with a camera of course, not a gun) and as Carlos Miller coined, "Photography is not a crime".
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
BELIEVE IN FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION?
SUBMIT YOUR STATEMENTS HERE
Send your photos to info@sampsoniaway.org with a quote about what freedom of expression means to you. We have an important privilege here, use it to tell our readers of Sampsonia Way how you feel.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Byliner.com
I followed three different writers on Byliner.com, Chuck Klosterman, Colson Whitehead, and W.C. Heinz
I feel that especially Chuck and Colson are dissimilar from one another. One often writes about sport-like events, more urgent and political issues, and Chuck writes about music, bands, and subculture, three topics I'm particularly interested in. Heinz wrote "Death of a Racehorse" which I found extremely moving. I cried while reading it. Neither Chuck nor Colson will probably evoke tears from me while I'm reading their work, most likely because of their biting sarcasm and wit. Each writer possess something that the others don't. Chuck is extremely self-aware within his writing, as well as Colson, but he doesn't focus on himself as much as Chuck does. They both are aware of themselves within their works, just in different ways. Heinz doesn't include any moments of inner speculation and the way Colson may write about a sport, or Klosterman may write about a sport is completely different than how Heinz writes about sports. It's less about sports are more about the emotion and anxiety in that sport. Chuck depicts emotions very bluntly, while Colson is slightly more poetic about it. If there was a scale on the poeticality of each of these writers, it would be on a scale from most poetic to "least" poetic starting with Heinz, then Colson, and finally Chuck. All of their techniques are effective depending on their subject matter and these techniques give way to their individual styles as writers. All in all, I'm saying that the same technique can be used by three writers, but each writer may be on a different spectrum than another. It's interested to see how all writers are aiming to evoke emotions from an audience, but the unique ways they go about utilizing their craft to do so.
I feel that especially Chuck and Colson are dissimilar from one another. One often writes about sport-like events, more urgent and political issues, and Chuck writes about music, bands, and subculture, three topics I'm particularly interested in. Heinz wrote "Death of a Racehorse" which I found extremely moving. I cried while reading it. Neither Chuck nor Colson will probably evoke tears from me while I'm reading their work, most likely because of their biting sarcasm and wit. Each writer possess something that the others don't. Chuck is extremely self-aware within his writing, as well as Colson, but he doesn't focus on himself as much as Chuck does. They both are aware of themselves within their works, just in different ways. Heinz doesn't include any moments of inner speculation and the way Colson may write about a sport, or Klosterman may write about a sport is completely different than how Heinz writes about sports. It's less about sports are more about the emotion and anxiety in that sport. Chuck depicts emotions very bluntly, while Colson is slightly more poetic about it. If there was a scale on the poeticality of each of these writers, it would be on a scale from most poetic to "least" poetic starting with Heinz, then Colson, and finally Chuck. All of their techniques are effective depending on their subject matter and these techniques give way to their individual styles as writers. All in all, I'm saying that the same technique can be used by three writers, but each writer may be on a different spectrum than another. It's interested to see how all writers are aiming to evoke emotions from an audience, but the unique ways they go about utilizing their craft to do so.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Lab: How to describe an observation of people at a casino in three different methods
Think of three different ways—other than print—to tell a story. (We’ll assume that your piece has a print component.) Give a descriptive one-paragraph summary for each. Post idea by the end of class.
1. Video or time lapse photography:
I feel that River's casino doesn't allow photography inside its walls, but if it was allowed, this could be an interested method to document the progression of a night in the casino. All of these methods take on a voyeuristic approach, an observer in a strange environment. There could be a camera placed at once table throughout the night to document the kinds of winning and losing that go on there. This footage could then be placed to music and played as a video with captions or subtitles throughout to give the story more background. In this method there would be no spoken word over the film, but just quick easy statistics that wouldn't distract the viewer from the images.
2. Cartoon:
A minimalist cartoon of the people at a casino or progression of time spent at a casino or diagram of the casino. All three could be incorporated together to create an illustrative and factual dynamic to the text of the piece. Observations would be easy to illustrate because all you'd have to do is sit and draw in the space. A progressive way to use a diagram to annotate the space would be to annotate assumptions and first impressions of the space and then take the same illustration and annotate it again once you learned the facts of the space. This could be a light hearted approach to the topic and give it a humorous element.
3. What is left behind:
Telling a story by what is left behind is something that we've done for hundreds of years. Archeologists look at remains to piece together a story about remnants of a community that have been buried for centuries. Doing this in a public space would be non-invasive and you could use garbage, or what people litter and leave behind at places they've once been sitting, to create some kind of narrative about this person or people. Although it would put pressure on obtaining the facts of the story, but it could be an interesting element to the story, stand as a cultural snippet of the city, as well as the behaviors of that person. Certain trash could say something about what that person was eating, how much that food cost, if they were celebrating or playing it safe, or if they drinking, why, etc. There could be tons of information pulled from these remnants that could be verified or grounded into the story with other facts and details.
1. Video or time lapse photography:
I feel that River's casino doesn't allow photography inside its walls, but if it was allowed, this could be an interested method to document the progression of a night in the casino. All of these methods take on a voyeuristic approach, an observer in a strange environment. There could be a camera placed at once table throughout the night to document the kinds of winning and losing that go on there. This footage could then be placed to music and played as a video with captions or subtitles throughout to give the story more background. In this method there would be no spoken word over the film, but just quick easy statistics that wouldn't distract the viewer from the images.
2. Cartoon:
A minimalist cartoon of the people at a casino or progression of time spent at a casino or diagram of the casino. All three could be incorporated together to create an illustrative and factual dynamic to the text of the piece. Observations would be easy to illustrate because all you'd have to do is sit and draw in the space. A progressive way to use a diagram to annotate the space would be to annotate assumptions and first impressions of the space and then take the same illustration and annotate it again once you learned the facts of the space. This could be a light hearted approach to the topic and give it a humorous element.
3. What is left behind:
Telling a story by what is left behind is something that we've done for hundreds of years. Archeologists look at remains to piece together a story about remnants of a community that have been buried for centuries. Doing this in a public space would be non-invasive and you could use garbage, or what people litter and leave behind at places they've once been sitting, to create some kind of narrative about this person or people. Although it would put pressure on obtaining the facts of the story, but it could be an interesting element to the story, stand as a cultural snippet of the city, as well as the behaviors of that person. Certain trash could say something about what that person was eating, how much that food cost, if they were celebrating or playing it safe, or if they drinking, why, etc. There could be tons of information pulled from these remnants that could be verified or grounded into the story with other facts and details.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Lab 3-48 Hour Magazine Idea
Topic:
The River’s Casino
Mainly personal stories with facts sprinkled in for solidity/humor
Online Magazine for video snippets
We’d cover our 48-hour magazine during the weekend of one of the Peirogi eating contests
Length:
Use tumblr as our format to keep updating after our 48 hour deadline
Articles:
1. Gambling Problems/Addiction
2. Seafood Buffet/Free Drinks (pop)
3. Entertainers-Journey Cover Bands
4. Winning and Losing stories/Range of Emotions
5. People, NRA convention-Time Lapse of a certain table/machine
-Convention Center events that draw in crowds to the casino
-How the people in Pittsburgh see the casino vs. other cities in US (Vegas and Atlantic City dress up)
6. Slot Machines, different types, penny machines (kitty glitter-a cat themed slot machine)
7. How to get banned from a casino: Using a fake ID
8. Policy on counting cards: could be a how to illustrative guide, how to play the games, count cards, etc
9. Employee’s outfits and funny stories
10. Card members and Player’s Club (bios on people who have these)
11. Dealer School- story about how to become a card dealer
12. Pro Poker players, any famous people from Pittsburgh seen there?
13. Recent Jackpot Winners!
14. How bad of an idea having a casino credit line is
Art wise:
Photography
Illustrations, cartoons, diagrams, labeled parts
Videos (time lapse and short interviews)
Stats: Short blurbs/side bars/cartoons
About money dropped
How much the employee’s make
How many people go there
The River’s Casino
Mainly personal stories with facts sprinkled in for solidity/humor
Online Magazine for video snippets
We’d cover our 48-hour magazine during the weekend of one of the Peirogi eating contests
Length:
Use tumblr as our format to keep updating after our 48 hour deadline
Articles:
1. Gambling Problems/Addiction
2. Seafood Buffet/Free Drinks (pop)
3. Entertainers-Journey Cover Bands
4. Winning and Losing stories/Range of Emotions
5. People, NRA convention-Time Lapse of a certain table/machine
-Convention Center events that draw in crowds to the casino
-How the people in Pittsburgh see the casino vs. other cities in US (Vegas and Atlantic City dress up)
6. Slot Machines, different types, penny machines (kitty glitter-a cat themed slot machine)
7. How to get banned from a casino: Using a fake ID
8. Policy on counting cards: could be a how to illustrative guide, how to play the games, count cards, etc
9. Employee’s outfits and funny stories
10. Card members and Player’s Club (bios on people who have these)
11. Dealer School- story about how to become a card dealer
12. Pro Poker players, any famous people from Pittsburgh seen there?
13. Recent Jackpot Winners!
14. How bad of an idea having a casino credit line is
Art wise:
Photography
Illustrations, cartoons, diagrams, labeled parts
Videos (time lapse and short interviews)
Stats: Short blurbs/side bars/cartoons
About money dropped
How much the employee’s make
How many people go there
Lab 2
Jon Krakauer's Facebook
Chuck Klosterman's Twitter
Chuck tends to post locations and times of his readings and there are plenty of retweets from other users. I think that this is a colloquial way of interacting with his followers. It's nice that he takes the time to respond to people who may or may not be other non-fiction writers who are fans of his work, because he's often @ing users and saying "thanks man". I scroll past these tweets, but I think that they're necessary, and how else would he quickly thank people for kind words? His style of tweeting works for me and I really enjoy what he has to say. It helps when you're clever and funny and can fit your sense of humor in 140 characters.
Krakauer's Facebook is probably not run by him, but one of his PR people. So getting past that, his facebook is a lot of links to his work on Byliner or articles people have written about him. It's nice to be able find excerpts of his work, interviews, and articles so readily. It's almost an archive rather than a personal facebook page, but it's helpful that he makes them available to his followers. It's kind of self indulgent to include your own quotes all over your Facebook page, so that doesn't really work for me. I think it's a pretty impersonal form of social media for non-fiction writers. There are NO status updates, only links to take you away from his facebook page to other pages that are relevant to him. His facebook page doesn't work for me, even though I love the pictures of him at the Magic Bus.
I don't think either of their pages is overbearing or "too-much", but I think that twitter is more successful for writers to interact with their readers than facebook.
Chuck Klosterman's Twitter
Chuck tends to post locations and times of his readings and there are plenty of retweets from other users. I think that this is a colloquial way of interacting with his followers. It's nice that he takes the time to respond to people who may or may not be other non-fiction writers who are fans of his work, because he's often @ing users and saying "thanks man". I scroll past these tweets, but I think that they're necessary, and how else would he quickly thank people for kind words? His style of tweeting works for me and I really enjoy what he has to say. It helps when you're clever and funny and can fit your sense of humor in 140 characters.
Krakauer's Facebook is probably not run by him, but one of his PR people. So getting past that, his facebook is a lot of links to his work on Byliner or articles people have written about him. It's nice to be able find excerpts of his work, interviews, and articles so readily. It's almost an archive rather than a personal facebook page, but it's helpful that he makes them available to his followers. It's kind of self indulgent to include your own quotes all over your Facebook page, so that doesn't really work for me. I think it's a pretty impersonal form of social media for non-fiction writers. There are NO status updates, only links to take you away from his facebook page to other pages that are relevant to him. His facebook page doesn't work for me, even though I love the pictures of him at the Magic Bus.
I don't think either of their pages is overbearing or "too-much", but I think that twitter is more successful for writers to interact with their readers than facebook.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Online Scavenger Hunt
1. William Faulker's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."-W.F.
2. January 1st, 1644 fell on a Friday. The weather in Philly from the 1st-10th was cloudy and rainy with occasional sunshine and somewhat warm.
3.5 Deadliest Hurricanes
1. Katrina (2005) Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Kentucky 1,500+deaths (approx 1844)
2. Floyd (1999) The Bahamas, the Atlantic Coast, New England and Canada were all affected 56 deaths
3. Allison (2001) Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and up the Atlantic coast 41 deaths
4. Hugo (1989) South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania 35 deaths
5. Alberto (1994) Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana 25 deaths
4. Blueprint of Frank Lloyd Wright's house Fallingwater
5. Ernest Hemingway's 1923 passport photo:
observations
-His number ends in 666
-It is physically stapled to the paper
-He has nice hair
-There is a signature over the image in black ink, I'm assuming his name
-The print of the paper the picture is stapled onto says "United States Passport
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Follow 10 new twitter accounts
1. Rob Dobi, photographer of cool abandoned places.
2. Writing in Public
3. Poets & Writers
4. Chuck Klosterman
5. Grantland
6. Colson Whitehead
7. Elite Editing
8. Pitt Writing Program
9. Feverzine
10. Publisher's Weekly Reviews
2. Writing in Public
3. Poets & Writers
4. Chuck Klosterman
5. Grantland
6. Colson Whitehead
7. Elite Editing
8. Pitt Writing Program
9. Feverzine
10. Publisher's Weekly Reviews
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