M Is for the Many Meals She Made
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
To read the original post, go here.
First note the title. It's a well-chosen title, punning on the famous acrostic about "Mother" ("M" is for the many things she did for me, etc.). She doesn't just title her essay, "My Grandmother," but finds a title that captures the imagination.Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
To read the original post, go here.
My grandmother's hands are wrinkled and buttered and floury.
Her swollen knuckles knead the flour into crusts for the pies.
The writer doesn't "tell" about her grandmother; she "shows" us. One of the best ways is by showing the person "doing" something (another way is by showing them talking). Note the strong verb ("knead") and adjectives ("buttered" and "floury"; "wrinkled" is fairly common but sturdy). Note how specific she is (lower level of generality; not "baking" but "kneading . . . crusts"). Below the writer begins with another action ("hopping"): showing, not telling. Note the many vivid (specific) images (underlined):
Now she is hopping on her good leg to get to the sink, where she will drain the boiling sweet potatoes, the steam rolling off the water, melting her curls. Her red lipstick is glistening in the kitchen heat.
Note in the following paragraphs the repetitions of the conjunction, "and," which can be quite effective to build a rhythm (Hemingway was a master of the use of ands). This style reaches its climax in the third paragraph below. Note there are no general rules (some students may accuse a teacher of "contradicting" himself by saying one thing but also the opposite on occasion. It's obvious that too much use of "ands" is bad writing (if you don't now what you're doing). If you know what you're doing and do it deliberately, it's good. Clearly the writer here wishes to stress t he tedium of her grandmother's life, but also the ritual dedication, which she admires and which (as we learn below) is a lifestyle that is now lost to the granddaughter. Don't ignore the specific details below either:
She will mash the potatoes with sugar and butter and add some cinnamon and nutmeg. And she will beat the eggs and squeeze in a little fresh lemon to keep the pies from turning brown.
She will wash the roast and season it and put it in the oven. She will wash the collard greens and boil them until they are tender. She will scrape the corn off the cob and mix it with a little flour and salt and pepper and fry it in some butter.
Her aching hands scrape and mix and season and dust and wash and stir as she hops around that little kitchen in Kansas on her one good leg.
Note that the writer had delayed revealing her grandmother's name (Christine Taylor) until now. This is a device called "cataphora," which adds interest (curiosity). Note how the writer contrasts Grandmother and "the rest of the family" (sleeping). Note the strong final sentence of the next paragraph: "But they know Sundy dinner will be ready after church," which further defines Grandmother as a dedicated matriarch (female head of the household):
The sun hasn't even come up yet, and Christine Taylor has been up an hour making Sunday dinner, banging pots and pans, running water. The rest of her family, now spread over town in their own little houses, is sleeping. Nobody really knows when she cooks. But they know Sunday dinner will be ready after church.
Below is where I would differ with the writer, who seems to lose focus, from Grandmother to herself. That does not mean a double focus is impossible; because the essay is obviously not about Grandmother, but about Grandmother seen from the point of view of the writer's past and current life; in this sense, the essay has unity and the writer is in control of her double focus (in a sense, a double subject with a single focus). The real subject of the essay is the melting pot, and how an Afro-American woman (as we soon discover) has lost her basic ("soul") values. And that's another strength of the essay; the way the writer withholds important details until later, allowing the reader to "discover" her real subject: living as an Afro-American person. Still, we will jump to the next point in the essay where the focus shifts back to Grandmother. Besides, I believe the writing is not up to the rest of the essay in the strike-through text below; the details are less vivid, etc.
I remember sitting on those hard church benches, my mind trying to listen to the sermon, but wrestling with worldly concerns:
Fried corn, greens, turkey, peach cobbler -- and sweet potato pie--waiting on Grandmother's table.
The preacher would huff and the church organ would jump on his words, emphasizing each syllable.
And I would wait, sitting in my Sunday dress, hair pressed and tied, tight, in ribbons, sitting with my knees lotioned, socks turned down and patent leather shoes polished.
Praying little prayers, like: "God, please let the service end so I can go eat. Amen."
Sometimes, He would answer those prayers sooner than later.
Church would end at 1:58 p.m. rather than the regular 2:30.
We would shake the pastors' hand. Wait for my mother to finish talking. Wait for the cars to file out of the gravel parking lot. Wait, in the back seat of the white Ford Granada, windows rolled down, hand stuck out the window, beating the waves of the wind, traveling all the way down to where Grandmother lived in a little white house up a broken driveway. There, the food sat, like a glorified offering.
And we would dig in.
"Mother, this is so good," my mother would say. "You really put your foot in it today."
(Putting your foot in it means "This is an excellent meal! You seasoned it perfectly." But at these Sunday dinners, nobody but the proper cousins talked like that.)
A carefully chosen analogy (comparing two things of different kinds) adds to one's style:
We would dip into the sweet, red Kool-Aid punch with its ring of ice floating like an iceberg. We would eat until we were bursting. No pretense was needed. No need to make small, polite conversation. No need to talk at all. You could just sit on a sofa and eat, and nobody would think you were rude. And when you became a teenager, you could eat, put your plate in the sink and leave without helping to clean up, and nobody would say you were wrong.
At Grandmother's house, it was always about the Food.
Note how the writer plays on two different meanings of "Soul Food": Afro-American food, but also spiritual food, tying a family together, as shown in the ritual acceptance of the newcomer in the family (below):
This was Soul Food, food for the soul. Sunday dinner was the glue in the family, like flour and water--always spiced with drama.
I remember when the uncle brought home the new wife who was from "another culture, " and everybody stopped eating when the uncle put some chitlins on her plate. We waited for her to actually eat these meticulously cleaned, incredibly rich pig intestines. And when she did, we knew she would fit in.
As I grew and went off into the world, I would encounter other people's cooking at holidays and always leave slightly disappointed by the blandness, the lack of salt, the lack of
seasoning--the lack of drama.
Grandmother grew up in Mississippi, a pretty little thing who got married at 17 to get out of the house. Took the train north to Chicago. She doesn't talk about that part of her life much. Only bits and pieces slip out every now and again. Like the time I was helping her get dressed and I asked her about the scars on her back, three slashes on each side of her pretty back. The kind that you see in photos at the Smithsonian.
She doesn't talk much about that or having to move aside on the sidewalk in a segregated town.
Note how the writer reveals grim details bit by bit, to aid in the reader's process of discovery of what it meant to be a black person in her grandmother's time; so the essay "accrues" (builds) meaning, from being a mere picture of a person's grandmother to a picture of an entire ethnic (Afro-American) group. A minor point: although numbers up to a hundred should be spelled out, she writes "seventeen" as "17." Like I repeat in class, style has become less standardized than in the past; or the Washington Post editors simply overlooked it. Note, below, how omitting the subject ("She") adds to the style ("Doesn't" instead of "She doesn't"). If it's done on purpose, it's right; if it's done unknowingly and without a sense of pattern, it's wrong. Also "doesn't" has a purpose greater than style; it expresses or dramatizes the grandmother's refusal to speak about memories she's troubled by:
Doesn't talk much about the first husband, whom she left because he was mean. Doesn't talk much about the second husband, who was good to her but was in the service and her kids didn't want to travel the world with him, so she stayed home. She doesn't talk much about the move from Chicago to Oklahoma to Kansas, where she worked in a hospital for 25 years, cooking for more than 300 people each day, getting up at 4 every morning for the day shift. Twenty-five years--until one day she asked for a vacation and they didn't give her the days she wanted, so she retired early. She's been retired 13 years. She is 79.
Now she hops around in her own kitchen, hopping to keep the family together.
Now we can see that the subject if not only Grandmother, but the writer herself, who sees herself in comparison to her grandmother. Now note how the writer makes a simple and mundane action (eating) into a symbol or metaphor of a way of life:
Sometimes, I wonder how far I have gone from Grandmother's house.
It has come to this. I rarely eat greens. Who has time to wash each leaf, checking it for ladybugs? . . . I rarely eat homemade macaroni and cheese anymore. Who has time to make the roux and dice the onion finely? In fact, I don't have big Sunday dinners anymore because everything has changed and I have moved so far away from family.
I like this dialogue; it has a special ring to it:
On Sundays, I call Grandmother's house and she says, "Hey, baby. How you doin'? I'm so proud of you."
The final paragraph seems like a weak way to end the essay, but not if one realizes that food is really a symbol of the "soul" and of a way of life, which has forever changed:
I hang up and turn to my own Sunday dinner, something quick: grilled salmon and brown rice, a sliced organic tomato with extra-virgin olive oil. Grandmother would have never had this on her Sunday dinner menu. My dinner is not soul food.
O MENSCH, GIB ACHT!
TO HEAR THE music (with German text), go here.Based on a text by the German philosopher and poet, Frederich Nietzsche, this is the Fourth Movement from Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony.
It has a restrained solemn beauty, unfolding its lyrical side only on the melody to the words Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit -, (But all joy wants eternity—), so that the moment is even more pronounced compared to the lyrical restraint that came before. It's a ravishing moment, as is the entire movement.
As for the composer, Mahler, he was almost forgotten for much of the 20th century, but then was rediscovered in the late 1960s and became the most popular composer among college students across America and probably the world! Once impossible to find recordings of his music, now each symphony has dozens of recordings, which remain among the best selling in classical music. He now ranks among the great composers in Western music.
O Mensch! O Mensch!
O Man! O Man!
Gib acht! Gib acht!
Take care!
[The score now gives the first suggestion of the beautiful lyrical theme that follows later.]
Was spricht, die tiefe Mitternacht?
What does the deep midnight declare?
"Ich schlief, ich schlief -,
I sleep, I sleep
[A second theme appears, along with the persistent two-note motif]
Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht: -
From a deep dream I woke and swear:—
Die Welt ist tief,
The world is deep,
Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht.
Deeper than day had been aware.
[Now in its full lyrical beauty occurs the theme only suggested earlier; it will be repeated to key words in the text later: "But all joy wants eternity." This orchestral interlude ends on the persistent and haunting two-note motif heard from the beginning]:
O Mensch! O Mensch!
O Man! O Man!
Tief, tief
Deep, deep
[A solo violin is introduced]
Tief ist ihr Weh -,
Deep is its woe-,
Tief ist ihr Weh -,
Deep is its woe-,
Lust - tiefer noch als Herzeleid:
Joy - deeper yet than agony:
Weh spricht: Vergeh!
Woe implores: go!
Weh spricht: Vergeh!
Woe implores: go!
[Now to that lyrical melody, the finally words are sung, as a victory over gloom]:
Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit -,
But all joy wants eternity—
Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit!"
Wants deep, wants deep eternity."
Students,
Regarding your first paper, here's a list of goals:
1. Decide which kind of paper you wish to write:
a. A descriptive essay, describing a person, place, house, garden, or other scenic location. This should be organized mainly by space: far to near, up to down, from one room to another, in an orderly climax of importance:
"It seemed to me as a child that Father was born with a scowl on his face. No matter how cheerful the occasion, he never managed a smile on his face . . . As he turned out the lights he kissed me tenderly on the forehead and whispered, 'Goodnight, Princess.'"
Here the description is of a person's father; the orderly arrangement is from a focus on the father's rough personality to the sweetness within him (following the ellipsis: . . . , which here represents the missing part of the essay).
b. Narration. This is organized by time: early to late; past to future; present-past (as with movie flashbacks). This essay narrates a period of time: early spring; early morning; late evening; a lonely or spooky midnight; childhood; a painful moment; a happy moment; a holiday; a decade (the '90s). This too should be organized logically; the logic is always YOURS (the writer's), but there must be logic, with some kind of climax (from lesser to greater importance): obviously a narration of a birth climaxes with the birth of a baby (more important than the would-be father chain smoking in the hospital waiting room, or the married couple racing to the hospital, etc.); the narration of a marriage proposal climaxes with the lover asking his beloved to marry him, after a long meal at a romantic restaurant, etc.
c. An expository essay can focus on an action: fishing for salmon; moving into a new house; a walk in the countryside; a meal at a restaurant.
d. An argument may focus for or against capital punishment or higher tuition with supporting reasons. Again, organization is important: from less important to more important, from first to last, from past to present ("In the past we burned witches at the stake; later the guillotine was considered less painful, followed by the electric chair. But does that mean we have advanced in our humanity?")
e. A review discusses, analyzes and evaluates a work of art (movie, poem, CD, etc.). Again: find an orderly arrangement.
f. Confessional essay: confessing a strength or weakness one has or any peculiarity of character: "Curse me. Insult me. Make me an outcast of humanity. Tell me I am mad. But I cannot stand the sight of babies. Nor do I have the slightest wish to kiss them or hold them." And so on.
In any essay, brainstorming for details is important, as we learned in the first semester. Ideas have to be discovered.
Finally, you should seek out a model, either on the internet or on the library shelves. This is easy to do. If you think you want to write on cooking (an action), then of course search out cooking sites; with a little effort, soon you'll find an adequate essay on preparing a meal.
In all cases, remember never to lift even a single phrase from your source. To be safe, always staple your source to your original. There's nothing wrong however with directly copying your source, but only as an exercise, identified as such.
For next week, bring your chosen model to class as well as your chosen subject for your future essay and explain how you plan to model your own essay on your source text, or what you learned from it.
Don't neglect vocabulary. Every essay you write needs an adequate vocabulary. For example, if you plan to write on cooking your favorite fish, you need to know the words for pots, special knives, cooking utensils, etc.
Any questions, feel free to contact me.
Several months later The Beatles recorded a song called "Love Me Do" (their first single). It has a similar harmonica passage.
In fact, The Beatles actually included Channel's hit song in their repertoire. So there's no question The Beatles knew the song. It almost certainly influenced the style of the harmonica playing on "Love Me Do."
This is what I would call "creative plagiarism," or the creative adaptation of the ideas of others. This is done all the time, sometimes recognized, sometimes not.
Of course, boundaries are much less clear in the creative arts (as distinct from scholarship, where even remote borrowings are not tolerated). One has only to consider musicals such as West Side Story (adapted from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet); the many "robot" films (Terminator, RoboCop) and numerous other examples throughout cultural history:
Shakespeare borrowed almost all his stories, though he always turned dross into gold. His plots, by the way (that is, the arrangement of the story), are his own.
The German (later, English) composer Handel was a notorious plagiarist. In fact his most famous melody, known as Handel's Largo, was taken from another composer. I haven't heard the original, but scholars insist that by changing a few notes Handel turned a mediocre tune into a sublime melody.
Elvis borrowed a lot of his vocal phrasing from Black groups he knew. Listen to The Drifters' recording of "White Christmas," which preceded Elvis' version by about six years. Then listen to Elvis' far more popular version from his first Christmas album.
The phrasing is mainly borrowed from The Drifters' record. Yet there is also a great deal of creative originality in Elvis' recording. His vocal quality and intonation are his own. Even knowing the Drifters' record, it's clear Elvis stamped the song with his own personality.
The same is true for many of Elvis' Gospel recordings, whose phrasings are clearly borrowed not only from Black Gospel groups, like The Trumpeteers, but from white Gospel groups, such as The Statesmen.
To an extent, all originality develops from imitation (as I never stop saying in my Speech and Composition classes). That's why the early work of great painters, singers, or writers always seems like pale imitations of the works of their predecessors, until these artists soon develop their own style or (as we say) "voice."
One of the more fascinating records Elvis made was "Blueberry Hill." If one hears Fats Domino's original record, one can hear that, in this case, Elvis never quite made the song his own. He's mostly imitating Fats' nasal delivery. It sounds too much like an imitation of Fats' record rather than having Elvis' own personality.
Here we have a case of imitation that was not improved by creative originality; it remained imitation. It's one of the few Elvis recordings that makes me uncomfortable listening to, because it sounds like only an imitation. This is not what one expects from such an original artist as Elvis.
"I'm not a poster boy for good behavior and recovery in Hollywood," Robert Downey Jr. says. "I'm just a guy who knows he has a lot to be grateful for."
For much of his adult life, Downey, 43, was caught in a ruinous cycle of drug addiction, imprisonment and disgrace. His friends, lovers and therapists all tried to help. Nothing worked.
And then, something changed.
"Five or six years ago, I saw the writing on the wall. I knew the party was over. It was time for me to come out of the Dark Ages and get real," he says.
Downey lives on a quiet cul-de-sac in Los Angeles. The house is filled with contemporary art, including pieces he did himself. On the piano is a picture of Downey costumed as the comicbook superhero he plays in his new movie, Iron Man, opening May 2.
"Look at this!" Downey exclaims delightedly, picking up a plastic doll of himself in Iron Man armor. "I've done something most people thought I'd never do. I've become a leading-man superhero in a big action movie!"
Iron Man, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow, is the latest of Downey's more than three dozen features. Like the superhero franchises Spider-Man, Batman and Superman, it is expected to be a hugely profitable blockbuster.
"I went after Iron Man because Keanu Reeves got The Matrix, and Johnny Depp got Pirates," he says. "I'm looking at all these posters of the movies I've seen with my son, and I'm thinking, 'Damn! I could do that!' "
Downey, who says he was "tired of working my butt off doing films nobody sees," also will open later this summer in what he describes as "a very very raucous comedy called Tropic Thunder, with Ben Stiller." In the film, a send-up of Vietnam War movies, Downey wears blackface as an actor playing a black Army sergeant. The part is already inciting controversy. Downey, though, insists it is the kind of role the late Peter Sellers might have done.
Raised in a show-business family, Downey claims that by 8 he already had used drugs with his dad, a fi lmmaker. When he later dropped out of high school and moved to New York, his father wouldn't support him. "That's part of education," he observes, "the moment when your dad says, 'The gravy train is done.' "
Within a year of hitting New York, Downey began getting work as an actor. In 1984, he joined Sarah Jessica Parker in the cast of the film Firstborn. They were 19 and fell in love.
"We quickly moved in together and played house," he recalls. "It was idyllic." He and Parker settled in Los Angeles, and Downey's movie career took off after his astonishing performance in 1987's Less Than Zero. It established him, at 22, as among the finest actors of his generation.
Downey fast developed a reputation as a party boy. It didn't stop him from getting major films, but his self-indulgence subverted his relationship with Parker.
"I was so selfish," he admits. "I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn't jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is. She provided me a home and understanding. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn't get my act together.
"I was making money," he continues. "I was mercurial and recklessly undisciplined and, for the most part, I was happily anesthetized. Sarah Jessica would pull me out of a hangover, and we'd go pick out furniture together." He shakes his head at the memory. "She is a force of nature!"
He and Parker stayed together for seven years. She broke up with him in 1991. "I had very much this post-adolescent, faux nihilistic, punk-rock rebellious attitude," he says. "I thought my way was so much cooler than people who were actually building lives and careers.
"I was in love with Sarah Jessica," he quietly confesses, "and love clearly was not enough. I was meant to move on. And, after some heartache, she was meant to find her home with a great star." Describing Parker's husband, actor Matthew Broderick, Downey adds, "He is a lot more gifted and grounded than I ever was. They have a great kid."
Shortly after his breakup with Parker, Downey married model Deborah Falconer, and their son, Indio, was born. "Our marriage and having a child probably kept me from going off the rails completely," he says, "but it wasn't enough to right the ship."
By 1996, Downey's drug use became public with his arrests for drug, gun and DWI offenses. Falconer left him, taking their son with her.
"You use whatever rationalization you can to justify the fact that you're not living truthfully," he observes about substance abuse. "You make this death machine seem glamorous so you can get on to the next moment. But it isn't glamorous, and it isn't fun.
"People rise out of the ashes because, at some point, they are invested with a belief in the possibility of triumph over seemingly impossible odds."
Meeting his third great love, producer Susan Levin, also helped his recovery. "Things started to change when I met my life partner, Mrs. Downey," he says, using Susan's married title as a sweet salute. She told me, 'I'm not doing that [drug] dance with you. I'm drawing a line in the sand here.' She was absolutely clear about it. That doesn't mean that other women, business associates, movie directors, insurance companies, judges and law enforcement hadn't been clear about it too. It was that, before I met Mrs. Downey, I just didn't give a goddamn. What changed is that I cared."
He pauses a moment. "She said, 'We'll build a relationship that works and will last.' I believed her. We were swept up in the promise of that. We live in this commitment to each other.
"Now it's all about becoming rooted in the mundane, in the day-to-day stuff," he continues. "Life is 70% maintenance. I think of myself as a shopkeeper or a beekeeper. I'm learning the business of building a life. Instead of getting instant gratification by getting high, I push my nose as far into the grindstone as I can. The honey, the reward, is the feeling of well-being, the continuity, the sense that I am walking toward a place I want to go."
Upstairs, his son Indio, now 14, is watching TV. "My son is gifted and artistic and has a great sense of humor," Downey tells me, "yet he's a very contemplative guy. That's good. I don't want him to be in a hurry to fi nd out who he is. I'm a guy who was in such a hurry that I missed the train four or fi ve times. I didn't understand the importance of the crossroads I found myself at. As a dad, I think that my job is to do the right thing -- to prepare him for what is coming in his life.
"I used to be so convinced that happiness was the goal," Downey says, "yet all those years I was chasing after it, I was unhappy in the pursuit. Maybe the goal really should be a life that values honor, duty, good work, friends and family."
The writer smoothly introduces his subject, focusing on Winwood's age. Note the one-word sentence: "Maybe." Adds variety to the sentence structure. "Maybe" leads easily into the first quote. Synonymic replacement ("singer, guitarist and organist") and a relative clause ("who played," etc.) nicely fill in the details of Winwood's background for the reader:
"I think to be a musician (at 60) is fine but to be a rock 'n' roller at a ripe old age is maybe slightly questionable," said the singer, guitarist and organist who played with 1960s rock legends the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith.
Notice the style of a profile mixes descriptive writing and many direct quotes. This is the difference between a profile and a biography:
"If rock 'n' roll is indeed what I play, I'm not sure whether it is, as I try and combine bits of folk and jazz. The music I write I feel is not the kind of music for a 25-year-old," Winwood acknowledged in an interview.
Notice how the writer has many quotes he wishes to use and then finds transition sentences to link them coherently, so the reader has confidence there's a focus to the piece. Notice how the writer finds a transition in order to quote a line from one of Winwood's songs. Notice too that all important information is included, such as the year the album was released (1980):
Half a lifetime ago, Winwood was aware of the contradiction of an aging musician playing essentially youthful music. "'Cause my rock 'n' roll is putting on weight/ and the beat it goes on," he sang on his 1980 album, "Arc of a Diver."
The writer uses comparison to help the reader understand how long Winwood has been playing:
Winwood has been performing for 45 years -- as long as the Rolling Stones, who are still playing well into their 60s.
Note the material is not necessarily related; but the writer, by using transition phrases, makes the reader feel that one sentence logicall follows from the one before:
Whatever the definition of his music, Winwood has played his share of genres, from backing blues greats like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, performing with Eric Clapton, arranging English folk with Traffic and recording artfully produced 1980s hits like "Higher Love" in the early years of MTV. His new solo album, "Nine Lives," just came out.
Notice synonymity again: instead of repeating Winwood's name, the writer uses a synonymic replacement of that name: "the youthful-looking Englishman. . . ."
Asked how he felt about turning 60 on May 12, the youthful-looking Englishman was philosophical. "I'm OK, I'm lucky to still be doing what I love to do. I might slow down a little bit after 60 but I'm going out on a long tour this summer with Tom Petty and I still enjoy playing live. So as long as people want to come and hear me or buy the record, I shall keep going, I think."
Now the writer digs deeper into Winwood's background. Note that it's rare to follow a strict chronology in profiles (another difference with biographies, where a strict profile is always followed, from birth to death).
Winwood, whose father was a dance band musician, burst onto the scene in 1965, with his older brother "Muff," in the Spencer Davis Group. They had hits with "I'm a Man" and "Gimme Some Lovin"' featuring Winwood's driving organ and distinctive voice.
While still at high school, Winwood was playing and singing in church and also clubs in Birmingham, even playing with U.S. blues and R&B greats when they toured Britain.
Expletives ("It is," "There are") can be effective openings to insure coherence:
It was his love of the blues that he shared with fellow Britons Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Clapton, Robert Plant and Jeff Beck, that got him kicked out of a music school.
"It's an often-asked question, 'Why did all these spotty white English boys suddenly start playing blues in the '60s?'
"It was recognized as this kind of vibrant music and when I first started playing in a blues band I just wanted to bring it to a wider public who hadn't really heard it," said Winwood.
The writer simply sums up the content of the quotations, but by doing so insures coherence and a suitable transition:
Jazz and blues were not readily accepted in 1960s England. "I got thrown out of music school for even listening to Fats Domino and Ray Charles," said Winwood.
The writer ends on a strong note of dialogue: "I was gone" (meaning he was so dedicated to the blues that he never thought twice about leaving school in order to play the blues. This indeed is the focus or at least double focus of the profile: a blues artist at 60 (getting older).
In terms of style, the writer uses block paragraphing; that is, each paragraph begins at the margin but with a space between the paragraphs.
"I was asked, 'What kind of music do you like to listen to?' and I said, 'Well, I do like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky but I also like Fats Domino and Ray Charles and they literally said, 'Either forget about that or leave.' I was doing a few gigs around town so I said, 'Thank you very much,' and I was gone."
So how to write your profile? Start with an initial focus; organize your questions coherently; be sure they are carefully written: general or specific, depending on your personal judgment, itself based on wide reading or models.
Then as the interview unfolds, you may get further ideas, which may change your focus and motivate follow-up questions. After the interview, you organize the responses.
You may wish to cut each response or type each one on an index card (like I advised you to do in speech class). Then play around with them; try to find a pattern that makes sense: that's your focus.
Now decide which quotes are memorable enough to quote directly; and which can be quoted in indirect discourse ("Mr. Chen dislikes Western beers" instead of writing, "'I dislike Western beer,' he said." Only quote what is well phrased or otherwise memorable, either due to slang expressions, idiomatic language, etc.
Finally you find transitions to take the reader smoothly and logically from one quote to the next. That's coherence.
Now you have coherence and focus. But unlike the Winwood article, you'll spend a little more time on descriptions of the person and his home/office or the setting where the interview took place. Here too always use judgment; NEVER include details just to include details. Details must somehow add up to a point of view, be part of your focus, or revealing of the profile subject in some way.
Regarding your first paper, here's a list of goals:
1. Decide which kind of paper you wish to write:
a. A descriptive essay, describing a person, place, house, garden, or other scenic location. This should be organized mainly by space: far to near, up to down, from one room to another, in an orderly climax of importance:
"It seemed to me as a child that Father was born with a scowl on his face. No matter how cheerful the occasion, he never managed a smile on his face . . . As he turned out the lights he kissed me tenderly on the forehead and whispered, 'Goodnight, Princess.'"
Here the description is of a person's father; the orderly arrangement is from a focus on the father's rough personality to the sweetness within him (following the ellipsis: . . . , which here represents the missing part of the essay).
b. Narration. This is organized by time: early to late; past to future; present-past (as with movie flashbacks). This essay narrates a period of time: early spring; early morning; late evening; a lonely or spooky midnight; childhood; a painful moment; a happy moment; a holiday; a decade (the '90s). This too should be organized logically; the logic is always YOURS (the writer's), but there must be logic, with some kind of climax (from lesser to greater importance): obviously a narration of a birth climaxes with the birth of a baby (more important than the would-be father chain smoking in the hospital waiting room, or the married couple racing to the hospital, etc.); the narration of a marriage proposal climaxes with the lover asking his beloved to marry him, after a long meal at a romantic restaurant, etc.
c. An expository essay can focus on an action: fishing for salmon; moving into a new house; a walk in the countryside; a meal at a restaurant.
d. An argument may focus for or against capital punishment or higher tuition with supporting reasons. Again, organization is important: from less important to more important, from first to last, from past to present ("In the past we burned witches at the stake; later the guillotine was considered less painful, followed by the electric chair. But does that mean we have advanced in our humanity?")
e. A review discusses, analyzes and evaluates a work of art (movie, poem, CD, etc.). Again: find an orderly arrangement.
f. Confessional essay: confessing a strength or weakness one has or any peculiarity of character: "Curse me. Insult me. Make me an outcast of humanity. Tell me I am mad. But I cannot stand the sight of babies. Nor do I have the slightest wish to kiss them or hold them." And so on.
In any essay, brainstorming for details is important, as we learned in the first semester. Ideas have to be discovered.
Finally, you should seek out a model, either on the internet or on the library shelves. This is easy to do. If you think you want to write on cooking (an action), then of course search out cooking sites; with a little effort, soon you'll find an adequate essay on preparing a meal.
In all cases, remember never to lift even a single phrase from your source. To be safe, always staple your source to your original. There's nothing wrong however with directly copying your source, but only as an exercise, identified as such.
For next week, bring your chosen model to class as well as your chosen subject for your future essay and explain how you plan to model your own essay on your source text, or what you learned from it.
Don't neglect vocabulary. Every essay you write needs an adequate vocabulary. For example, if you plan to write on cooking your favorite fish, you need to know the words for pots, special knives, cooking utensils, etc.
Any questions, feel free to contact me.
Model Text:
Description of a Place
Description of a Place
from Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher
Notice in the following a mix of general and specific. There is no simple rule of when to use the general or the specific except that all words must be subordinated to a main idea or impression: here, one of gloom. Few words here have a very low level of generality, but the words are used successfully to convey (give) the impression of sadness ("melancholy"), so by the time the narrator tells us the house is melancholy, he has already shown us why the house is "melancholy." (The use of the word is itself a poetic device called a transferred epithet, because houses cannot be melancholy since they have no feeling; rather the feeling of the narrator is transferred to the house.) In this text, it is not the specific words themselves (there are few) but rather the accumulation of general ideas that makes the impression specific: vacant eye-like windows, blank walls, rank sedges gray sedge, ghastly tree-stems.
DURING THE whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was -- but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. . . . I looked upon the scene before me -- upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain -- upon the blank walls -- upon the vacant eye-like windows -- upon a few rank sedges -- and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees -- with an utter depression of soul. . . . I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in the unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down . . . upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.Notice in the following a mix of general and specific. There is no simple rule of when to use the general or the specific except that all words must be subordinated to a main idea or impression: here, one of gloom. Few words here have a very low level of generality, but the words are used successfully to convey (give) the impression of sadness ("melancholy"), so by the time the narrator tells us the house is melancholy, he has already shown us why the house is "melancholy." (The use of the word is itself a poetic device called a transferred epithet, because houses cannot be melancholy since they have no feeling; rather the feeling of the narrator is transferred to the house.) In this text, it is not the specific words themselves (there are few) but rather the accumulation of general ideas that makes the impression specific: vacant eye-like windows, blank walls, rank sedges gray sedge, ghastly tree-stems.
CREATIVE PLAGIARISM
IN 1962 Bruce Channel released a record called "Hey, Baby." It features an harmonica solo and accompaniment by Delbert McClinton, whom one of the Beatles, John Lennon admired.Several months later The Beatles recorded a song called "Love Me Do" (their first single). It has a similar harmonica passage.
In fact, The Beatles actually included Channel's hit song in their repertoire. So there's no question The Beatles knew the song. It almost certainly influenced the style of the harmonica playing on "Love Me Do."
This is what I would call "creative plagiarism," or the creative adaptation of the ideas of others. This is done all the time, sometimes recognized, sometimes not.
Of course, boundaries are much less clear in the creative arts (as distinct from scholarship, where even remote borrowings are not tolerated). One has only to consider musicals such as West Side Story (adapted from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet); the many "robot" films (Terminator, RoboCop) and numerous other examples throughout cultural history:
Shakespeare borrowed almost all his stories, though he always turned dross into gold. His plots, by the way (that is, the arrangement of the story), are his own.
The German (later, English) composer Handel was a notorious plagiarist. In fact his most famous melody, known as Handel's Largo, was taken from another composer. I haven't heard the original, but scholars insist that by changing a few notes Handel turned a mediocre tune into a sublime melody.
Elvis borrowed a lot of his vocal phrasing from Black groups he knew. Listen to The Drifters' recording of "White Christmas," which preceded Elvis' version by about six years. Then listen to Elvis' far more popular version from his first Christmas album.
The phrasing is mainly borrowed from The Drifters' record. Yet there is also a great deal of creative originality in Elvis' recording. His vocal quality and intonation are his own. Even knowing the Drifters' record, it's clear Elvis stamped the song with his own personality.
The same is true for many of Elvis' Gospel recordings, whose phrasings are clearly borrowed not only from Black Gospel groups, like The Trumpeteers, but from white Gospel groups, such as The Statesmen.
To an extent, all originality develops from imitation (as I never stop saying in my Speech and Composition classes). That's why the early work of great painters, singers, or writers always seems like pale imitations of the works of their predecessors, until these artists soon develop their own style or (as we say) "voice."
One of the more fascinating records Elvis made was "Blueberry Hill." If one hears Fats Domino's original record, one can hear that, in this case, Elvis never quite made the song his own. He's mostly imitating Fats' nasal delivery. It sounds too much like an imitation of Fats' record rather than having Elvis' own personality.
Here we have a case of imitation that was not improved by creative originality; it remained imitation. It's one of the few Elvis recordings that makes me uncomfortable listening to, because it sounds like only an imitation. This is not what one expects from such an original artist as Elvis.
'I Rose From the Ashes'
By Dotson Rader, PARADE Magazine
Sample profile for your next assignment: writing a profile. First you will have to choose a profile subject; then you will discuss this person in class; the class will suggest questions; the next stage is to build a list of questions; after that the class will review the questions and try to help each student find a focus, suggesting more questions and questions that should be discarded. Phrasing of questions is also important. Finally the student will interview the person and write the profile. Below is a sample profile. It's a good model, but I would prefer more (though selective) description of the environment where the interview takes place and of the person. Remember, the key is always SELECTIVE. One tries to "capture" something about the environment that seems to sum up the person; something of the person's attire or actions that sum up that person: "He removed his glasses, placing them on a tottering pile of books that were on his desk." (Here the PURPOSE is to show this man studies a lot.) "She led me through a smoky laboratory whose pungent smell forced me to cover my mouth until we reached a cramped room he called his office." Here the PURPOSE is to show a dedicated scientist, isolated, with not even a good office to sit in. "She held up her hand, stopping me from snapping her photo until she had fixed a curl over her right eye." Here the writer wishes to show the vanity of the person. "She glanced at her watch and asked if there were any more questions I wished to ask." Here the PURPOSE is to show the person as a dedicated professional who doesn't have too much time on her hands. And so on. DON'T JUST DO HOMEWORK! Have a PURPOSE (one point of the Communication Triangle [CT]). Then make sure you have the material (research, quotes, description, etc.) to express that purpose. (This is the second point of the CT: the text.) Finally, you want to be sure that text is organized so the reader will fully understand your purpose in writing it. (This is the final point of the CT.) To read the essay below in its original format, go here."I'm not a poster boy for good behavior and recovery in Hollywood," Robert Downey Jr. says. "I'm just a guy who knows he has a lot to be grateful for."
For much of his adult life, Downey, 43, was caught in a ruinous cycle of drug addiction, imprisonment and disgrace. His friends, lovers and therapists all tried to help. Nothing worked.
And then, something changed.
"Five or six years ago, I saw the writing on the wall. I knew the party was over. It was time for me to come out of the Dark Ages and get real," he says.
Downey lives on a quiet cul-de-sac in Los Angeles. The house is filled with contemporary art, including pieces he did himself. On the piano is a picture of Downey costumed as the comicbook superhero he plays in his new movie, Iron Man, opening May 2.
"Look at this!" Downey exclaims delightedly, picking up a plastic doll of himself in Iron Man armor. "I've done something most people thought I'd never do. I've become a leading-man superhero in a big action movie!"
Iron Man, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow, is the latest of Downey's more than three dozen features. Like the superhero franchises Spider-Man, Batman and Superman, it is expected to be a hugely profitable blockbuster.
"I went after Iron Man because Keanu Reeves got The Matrix, and Johnny Depp got Pirates," he says. "I'm looking at all these posters of the movies I've seen with my son, and I'm thinking, 'Damn! I could do that!' "
Downey, who says he was "tired of working my butt off doing films nobody sees," also will open later this summer in what he describes as "a very very raucous comedy called Tropic Thunder, with Ben Stiller." In the film, a send-up of Vietnam War movies, Downey wears blackface as an actor playing a black Army sergeant. The part is already inciting controversy. Downey, though, insists it is the kind of role the late Peter Sellers might have done.
Raised in a show-business family, Downey claims that by 8 he already had used drugs with his dad, a fi lmmaker. When he later dropped out of high school and moved to New York, his father wouldn't support him. "That's part of education," he observes, "the moment when your dad says, 'The gravy train is done.' "
Within a year of hitting New York, Downey began getting work as an actor. In 1984, he joined Sarah Jessica Parker in the cast of the film Firstborn. They were 19 and fell in love.
"We quickly moved in together and played house," he recalls. "It was idyllic." He and Parker settled in Los Angeles, and Downey's movie career took off after his astonishing performance in 1987's Less Than Zero. It established him, at 22, as among the finest actors of his generation.
Downey fast developed a reputation as a party boy. It didn't stop him from getting major films, but his self-indulgence subverted his relationship with Parker.
"I was so selfish," he admits. "I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn't jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is. She provided me a home and understanding. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn't get my act together.
"I was making money," he continues. "I was mercurial and recklessly undisciplined and, for the most part, I was happily anesthetized. Sarah Jessica would pull me out of a hangover, and we'd go pick out furniture together." He shakes his head at the memory. "She is a force of nature!"
He and Parker stayed together for seven years. She broke up with him in 1991. "I had very much this post-adolescent, faux nihilistic, punk-rock rebellious attitude," he says. "I thought my way was so much cooler than people who were actually building lives and careers.
"I was in love with Sarah Jessica," he quietly confesses, "and love clearly was not enough. I was meant to move on. And, after some heartache, she was meant to find her home with a great star." Describing Parker's husband, actor Matthew Broderick, Downey adds, "He is a lot more gifted and grounded than I ever was. They have a great kid."
Shortly after his breakup with Parker, Downey married model Deborah Falconer, and their son, Indio, was born. "Our marriage and having a child probably kept me from going off the rails completely," he says, "but it wasn't enough to right the ship."
By 1996, Downey's drug use became public with his arrests for drug, gun and DWI offenses. Falconer left him, taking their son with her.
"You use whatever rationalization you can to justify the fact that you're not living truthfully," he observes about substance abuse. "You make this death machine seem glamorous so you can get on to the next moment. But it isn't glamorous, and it isn't fun.
"People rise out of the ashes because, at some point, they are invested with a belief in the possibility of triumph over seemingly impossible odds."
Meeting his third great love, producer Susan Levin, also helped his recovery. "Things started to change when I met my life partner, Mrs. Downey," he says, using Susan's married title as a sweet salute. She told me, 'I'm not doing that [drug] dance with you. I'm drawing a line in the sand here.' She was absolutely clear about it. That doesn't mean that other women, business associates, movie directors, insurance companies, judges and law enforcement hadn't been clear about it too. It was that, before I met Mrs. Downey, I just didn't give a goddamn. What changed is that I cared."
He pauses a moment. "She said, 'We'll build a relationship that works and will last.' I believed her. We were swept up in the promise of that. We live in this commitment to each other.
"Now it's all about becoming rooted in the mundane, in the day-to-day stuff," he continues. "Life is 70% maintenance. I think of myself as a shopkeeper or a beekeeper. I'm learning the business of building a life. Instead of getting instant gratification by getting high, I push my nose as far into the grindstone as I can. The honey, the reward, is the feeling of well-being, the continuity, the sense that I am walking toward a place I want to go."
Upstairs, his son Indio, now 14, is watching TV. "My son is gifted and artistic and has a great sense of humor," Downey tells me, "yet he's a very contemplative guy. That's good. I don't want him to be in a hurry to fi nd out who he is. I'm a guy who was in such a hurry that I missed the train four or fi ve times. I didn't understand the importance of the crossroads I found myself at. As a dad, I think that my job is to do the right thing -- to prepare him for what is coming in his life.
"I used to be so convinced that happiness was the goal," Downey says, "yet all those years I was chasing after it, I was unhappy in the pursuit. Maybe the goal really should be a life that values honor, duty, good work, friends and family."
STEVE WINWOOD: A Profile
By Steve James
Turning 60, Steve Winwood is starting to believe rock 'n' roll may be a younger man's game. Maybe.By Steve James
The writer smoothly introduces his subject, focusing on Winwood's age. Note the one-word sentence: "Maybe." Adds variety to the sentence structure. "Maybe" leads easily into the first quote. Synonymic replacement ("singer, guitarist and organist") and a relative clause ("who played," etc.) nicely fill in the details of Winwood's background for the reader:
"I think to be a musician (at 60) is fine but to be a rock 'n' roller at a ripe old age is maybe slightly questionable," said the singer, guitarist and organist who played with 1960s rock legends the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith.
Notice the style of a profile mixes descriptive writing and many direct quotes. This is the difference between a profile and a biography:
"If rock 'n' roll is indeed what I play, I'm not sure whether it is, as I try and combine bits of folk and jazz. The music I write I feel is not the kind of music for a 25-year-old," Winwood acknowledged in an interview.
Notice how the writer has many quotes he wishes to use and then finds transition sentences to link them coherently, so the reader has confidence there's a focus to the piece. Notice how the writer finds a transition in order to quote a line from one of Winwood's songs. Notice too that all important information is included, such as the year the album was released (1980):
Half a lifetime ago, Winwood was aware of the contradiction of an aging musician playing essentially youthful music. "'Cause my rock 'n' roll is putting on weight/ and the beat it goes on," he sang on his 1980 album, "Arc of a Diver."
The writer uses comparison to help the reader understand how long Winwood has been playing:
Winwood has been performing for 45 years -- as long as the Rolling Stones, who are still playing well into their 60s.
Note the material is not necessarily related; but the writer, by using transition phrases, makes the reader feel that one sentence logicall follows from the one before:
Whatever the definition of his music, Winwood has played his share of genres, from backing blues greats like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, performing with Eric Clapton, arranging English folk with Traffic and recording artfully produced 1980s hits like "Higher Love" in the early years of MTV. His new solo album, "Nine Lives," just came out.
Notice synonymity again: instead of repeating Winwood's name, the writer uses a synonymic replacement of that name: "the youthful-looking Englishman. . . ."
Asked how he felt about turning 60 on May 12, the youthful-looking Englishman was philosophical. "I'm OK, I'm lucky to still be doing what I love to do. I might slow down a little bit after 60 but I'm going out on a long tour this summer with Tom Petty and I still enjoy playing live. So as long as people want to come and hear me or buy the record, I shall keep going, I think."
Now the writer digs deeper into Winwood's background. Note that it's rare to follow a strict chronology in profiles (another difference with biographies, where a strict profile is always followed, from birth to death).
Winwood, whose father was a dance band musician, burst onto the scene in 1965, with his older brother "Muff," in the Spencer Davis Group. They had hits with "I'm a Man" and "Gimme Some Lovin"' featuring Winwood's driving organ and distinctive voice.
While still at high school, Winwood was playing and singing in church and also clubs in Birmingham, even playing with U.S. blues and R&B greats when they toured Britain.
Expletives ("It is," "There are") can be effective openings to insure coherence:
It was his love of the blues that he shared with fellow Britons Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Clapton, Robert Plant and Jeff Beck, that got him kicked out of a music school.
"It's an often-asked question, 'Why did all these spotty white English boys suddenly start playing blues in the '60s?'
"It was recognized as this kind of vibrant music and when I first started playing in a blues band I just wanted to bring it to a wider public who hadn't really heard it," said Winwood.
The writer simply sums up the content of the quotations, but by doing so insures coherence and a suitable transition:
Jazz and blues were not readily accepted in 1960s England. "I got thrown out of music school for even listening to Fats Domino and Ray Charles," said Winwood.
The writer ends on a strong note of dialogue: "I was gone" (meaning he was so dedicated to the blues that he never thought twice about leaving school in order to play the blues. This indeed is the focus or at least double focus of the profile: a blues artist at 60 (getting older).
In terms of style, the writer uses block paragraphing; that is, each paragraph begins at the margin but with a space between the paragraphs.
"I was asked, 'What kind of music do you like to listen to?' and I said, 'Well, I do like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky but I also like Fats Domino and Ray Charles and they literally said, 'Either forget about that or leave.' I was doing a few gigs around town so I said, 'Thank you very much,' and I was gone."
So how to write your profile? Start with an initial focus; organize your questions coherently; be sure they are carefully written: general or specific, depending on your personal judgment, itself based on wide reading or models.
Then as the interview unfolds, you may get further ideas, which may change your focus and motivate follow-up questions. After the interview, you organize the responses.
You may wish to cut each response or type each one on an index card (like I advised you to do in speech class). Then play around with them; try to find a pattern that makes sense: that's your focus.
Now decide which quotes are memorable enough to quote directly; and which can be quoted in indirect discourse ("Mr. Chen dislikes Western beers" instead of writing, "'I dislike Western beer,' he said." Only quote what is well phrased or otherwise memorable, either due to slang expressions, idiomatic language, etc.
Finally you find transitions to take the reader smoothly and logically from one quote to the next. That's coherence.
Now you have coherence and focus. But unlike the Winwood article, you'll spend a little more time on descriptions of the person and his home/office or the setting where the interview took place. Here too always use judgment; NEVER include details just to include details. Details must somehow add up to a point of view, be part of your focus, or revealing of the profile subject in some way.
INTERVIEW: Michael Nobel spreading a noble vision
By Meggie Lu
STAFF REPORTER
Taipei Times
Thursday, May 15, 2008, Page 2
"Energy efficiency is the key to our future, there are no awards of this kind in the world, yet work in renewable energy technologies is extremely important," said Michael Nobel, the great-grandnephew of Nobel Prize founder Alfred Nobel.
Note a comma splice error in the above sentence, which should be punctuated this way: "Energy efficiency is the key to our future. There are no awards of this kind in the world; yet work," etc. Note how the profile begins with a quote, bringing us to the profile subject immediately. (However, that's not the only way to begin a profile.) Then the writer introduces her focus in the next sentence:
In an interview with the Taipei Times yesterday, Michael Nobel shared his views on climate change, the Nobel Charitable Trust and feasible solutions to the energy crisis.
Nobel, who chaired the Nobel Family Society for 15 years until 2006, spoke about the Nobel Charitable Trust, which he and his cousins Philip, Peter and Gustaf Nobel established last year to reward young researchers or politicians in the fields of the environment and renewable energy.
In the above paragraph, the writer, using a relative clause, fills in details about who Nobel is. I'm not clear what the ellipsis means in the next paragraph (...); but the punctuation is wrong:
“In the past 100 years or so, humans are rapidly consuming coal and oil … at the current consumption level, oil and coal will completely run out in 40 and 165 years respectively — we have got to find a working alternative,” he said.
Climate change is the most recent item on Nobel’s long list of social activism, which includes a non-violence project and a peace education program through music in schools. His work has won him the UNESCO Medal for Outstanding Contributions to the Cultural Dialogue between Nations and other awards.
The writer successfully links specific ideas to the general idea of "climate change" in the above paragraph, then develops her topic with an antithesis ("However") below. But I don't like joining two different quotes without some descriptive transition, as the writer does below:
However, Nobel feels climate change is “the most pressing and large-scale problem that the whole world is facing.”
“For the first time in human history, the world population is more city than rural concentrated — in 2028, the world will have an 8 billion population, 5 billion of which will live in cities, which means that more electricity will be needed for all of us to survive,” he said.
The rapid depletion of oil and coal and rising global temperatures has been caused by massive carbon emissions produced by human activities, Nobel said.
Note how the writer varies direct and indirect quotation, as in the indirect quote above, then the writer gets more specific below, using another indirect quote, followed by another direct quote. Basically, this is the style the writer uses in much of the profile: direct followed by indirect quotations.
Citing the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change, Nobel said the ecosystem would soon collapse if energy consumption habits worldwide did not change soon.
“It is nonsense to say that we are ‘killing the Earth,’” he said. “The Earth is made of rocks and doesn’t even notice that we exist — rather, we are hurting the environment that we can survive in.”
The challenge facing the world now was that carbon emissions must peak within the next 10 years or it would face further catastrophic global temperature increases, he said, citing the IPCC report.
“According to the latest reports, only a handful of nations, including the UK and Germany, are reducing their emissions enough to meet the goals set by the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.
However, all is not lost as solutions are available, he said.
“The beauty of mankind is that we always come up with a solution in the end with research,” he said.
One possible solution was conserving unnecessary waste of energy, he said.
“It is ridiculous to see neon lights blasting at 2am in Manhattan — inexpensive computerized controls, such as ones produced by Taiwanese company CQi, can foster ‘intelligent environments’ and turn off systems not in use, including lights, air-conditioners and such,” he said.
Energies devoted to commodity transportation should also be re-prioritized, limiting import and export to non-replaceable items, he said.
“For example, it is idiotic for Taiwanese people to drink bottled water imported from France, since you have perfectly drinkable water here,” he said.
Note how well the writer links an indirect quote with the direct quote that follows it within the same (long) sentence:
He also thinks everyone should eat less meat. Methane, a greenhouse gas, severely aggravates the already dire situation of global warming, Nobel said, adding: “The energy saved by everyone in the world going vegetarian would be greater than if every car owner swapped their big car for a smaller one.”
“I can go on, [but the essence is that] the solution is a joint effort of businesses, scientists, lawmakers, and the general public … it takes time and requires the accumulation of small things,” he said.
Another part of the solution to the energy crisis was for governments to support sustainable and alternative energies, he said.
“It is possible to change people’s attitudes, just like safety belt mandates and indoor smoking bans in some areas of the world,” he said.
Feasible renewable energy technologies already exist and can be mass-produced to bring down their unit prices if governments decisively supported their use, he said.
“For example, I see fuel cells and photovoltaic [PV] panels as possible solutions to the energy crisis — if governments allocated more money into their research, [they could become much cheaper],” he said.
As for biomass fuel alcohol, Nobel said that he “strongly suggests a shift away from using edible foods [in biofuel production] to cellulose in agricultural waste [such as rice stalks].”
“You have to think in an ethical sense — you cannot have 3 billion people starving in the world and use food as fuel,” he said.
Note the writer's simple transition sentence:
Nobel was equally ambivalent about nuclear power.
“Nuclear energy is good in that its generation emits little carbon and it is an existing technology to effectively produce massive amounts of energy. However, nuclear safety and nuclear waste treatment remain major issues,” he said.
Another antithesis ("Nevertheless"), a common linking device:
Nevertheless, though the public feels uncomfortable about nuclear plants, Nobel said there have been advancements in nuclear technologies and safety measures.
Another example of a comma splice in the next paragraph; it should be, "Who knows? Maybe in the end," etc.
“Who knows, maybe in the end [advancements] would make it work,” he said.
Good cause-effect transition, followed by a good direct quote about Alfred Nobel:
Asked what drove his interest in social work, Nobel said: “I want to look back at my life and say that I have made efforts for the betterment of humanity.”
Note synonymic replacement ("his great-grandnephew" instead of "Michael Nobel"):
“Alfred Nobel was a miserable man,” his great-grandnephew said. “He worked 20-hour days in labs, had three miserable relationships but never married, and died envious of the family lives his brothers and sisters enjoyed — I don’t want to turn out like that.”
Here the writer loses coherence: there's no relationship between what has come before and her next paragraph:
“I cannot commit to something I do not believe in … climate change is an extremely pressing issue and affects the survival of mankind … it does not matter if I fail in the end with the trust, I want to in the end be able to say at least I have tried,” he said.
“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught, will we realize we cannot eat money,” Nobel said, quoting an American Indian proverb.
The profile ends weakly, with Nobel speaking specifically about Taiwan, instead of concluding on a more general issue, or at least a specific issue revealing his personality. Actually, the final paragraphs are weak and the essay loses both coherence and focus at the end. Still it's worth study as a model for a profile. However, a complete profile should have a description of the person and his or her setting, where the person is interviewed. Actions should also be included, either as description of as part of attribution:
Based on that goal (Writer) and audience (recipient) you would then model your letter (text), completing the Communication Triangle, which should then guide you on all levels.
You should also observe my Ten Commandments of Writing, which I emailed you last semester, including Coherence (all ideas should be linked together logically), Completeness (no important information should be left out), Focus (the main point should be clear even though there are secondary or subordinate points), etc.
You should also use the Topics or the Five W's and H, or the Q/A or P/S models to help guide your content. Topics would include Cause/Effect, Definition, Example, etc. The Five W's would include why you want the job, what you think you can accomplish as a student at the university, etc. Q/A would pose a question and then answer it, or P/S would pose a problem then solve it.
The final model is W/R: writer to reader dialogue. As you write, you read and then revise based on weaknesses you see as your intended reader(s). "You stupid people made me miss my flight," would be read as if you were the intended reader; you would feel offended by what you wrote (you don't want to be called stupid) and so revise ("see again") from your reader's point of view.
W/R is to my mind the best of the "heuristic" (discovery") practices because it includes all the other paradigms (models). As your own reader of what you wrote you will recognize information that has been left out, offensive diction (vocabulary/words), strident (over-emotional) tone, etc.
Students write me email all the time: "Thanks. I will take your suggestion and meet with you next week. My email is hielizabethbaby@yahoo.com."
Now if the student had played the part of me in reading that, s/he would have forced many changes in the text:
"Thanks" for WHAT? WHAT was my "suggestion"? "Meet" WHERE/WHEN?
A revised letter based on the W/R model would look like this:
"Thanks for your suggestion last Tuesday regarding my graduate thesis on John Donne's poetry. Your suggestion that I should read T. S. Eliot's comments on the metaphysical poets was very helpful. I am available next Wednesday during your regular Office Hour. I plan to finish Eliot's essay before then. Perhaps we can meet Wednesday in your office to discuss my understanding of the essay. My email is ElizabethHuang@yahoo.com."
Writing from the point of view of my reader, as I engage in a back-and-forth dialogue between writer and reader, I've improved my short message, answering all the questions my intended reader might have.
(Remember, although you may know what's on your mind, the reader/listener doesn't know what's on your mind. What may seem evident to you, may not seem evident to the receiver. In fact the receiver may have forgotten even speaking with you by the time you refer to the conversation! For example, the teacher may have dozens of advisees; several may have the same name; a few may also be writing on John Donne; or the teacher just has a poor memory, etc.)
Notice that in my revision I also changed my email address, since I saw it again ("re-vise"=to "see again") from my reader's point of view.
In sum, use all the models we have learned thus far in class, but use them in a sincere way; not just as an exercise for homework, but (remembering the Communication Triangle) as a bridge between you and your receiver (reader/listener, as the case may be).
By Meggie Lu
STAFF REPORTER
Taipei Times
Thursday, May 15, 2008, Page 2
"Energy efficiency is the key to our future, there are no awards of this kind in the world, yet work in renewable energy technologies is extremely important," said Michael Nobel, the great-grandnephew of Nobel Prize founder Alfred Nobel.
Note a comma splice error in the above sentence, which should be punctuated this way: "Energy efficiency is the key to our future. There are no awards of this kind in the world; yet work," etc. Note how the profile begins with a quote, bringing us to the profile subject immediately. (However, that's not the only way to begin a profile.) Then the writer introduces her focus in the next sentence:
In an interview with the Taipei Times yesterday, Michael Nobel shared his views on climate change, the Nobel Charitable Trust and feasible solutions to the energy crisis.
Nobel, who chaired the Nobel Family Society for 15 years until 2006, spoke about the Nobel Charitable Trust, which he and his cousins Philip, Peter and Gustaf Nobel established last year to reward young researchers or politicians in the fields of the environment and renewable energy.
In the above paragraph, the writer, using a relative clause, fills in details about who Nobel is. I'm not clear what the ellipsis means in the next paragraph (...); but the punctuation is wrong:
“In the past 100 years or so, humans are rapidly consuming coal and oil … at the current consumption level, oil and coal will completely run out in 40 and 165 years respectively — we have got to find a working alternative,” he said.
Climate change is the most recent item on Nobel’s long list of social activism, which includes a non-violence project and a peace education program through music in schools. His work has won him the UNESCO Medal for Outstanding Contributions to the Cultural Dialogue between Nations and other awards.
The writer successfully links specific ideas to the general idea of "climate change" in the above paragraph, then develops her topic with an antithesis ("However") below. But I don't like joining two different quotes without some descriptive transition, as the writer does below:
However, Nobel feels climate change is “the most pressing and large-scale problem that the whole world is facing.”
“For the first time in human history, the world population is more city than rural concentrated — in 2028, the world will have an 8 billion population, 5 billion of which will live in cities, which means that more electricity will be needed for all of us to survive,” he said.
The rapid depletion of oil and coal and rising global temperatures has been caused by massive carbon emissions produced by human activities, Nobel said.
Note how the writer varies direct and indirect quotation, as in the indirect quote above, then the writer gets more specific below, using another indirect quote, followed by another direct quote. Basically, this is the style the writer uses in much of the profile: direct followed by indirect quotations.
Citing the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change, Nobel said the ecosystem would soon collapse if energy consumption habits worldwide did not change soon.
“It is nonsense to say that we are ‘killing the Earth,’” he said. “The Earth is made of rocks and doesn’t even notice that we exist — rather, we are hurting the environment that we can survive in.”
The challenge facing the world now was that carbon emissions must peak within the next 10 years or it would face further catastrophic global temperature increases, he said, citing the IPCC report.
“According to the latest reports, only a handful of nations, including the UK and Germany, are reducing their emissions enough to meet the goals set by the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.
However, all is not lost as solutions are available, he said.
“The beauty of mankind is that we always come up with a solution in the end with research,” he said.
One possible solution was conserving unnecessary waste of energy, he said.
“It is ridiculous to see neon lights blasting at 2am in Manhattan — inexpensive computerized controls, such as ones produced by Taiwanese company CQi, can foster ‘intelligent environments’ and turn off systems not in use, including lights, air-conditioners and such,” he said.
Energies devoted to commodity transportation should also be re-prioritized, limiting import and export to non-replaceable items, he said.
“For example, it is idiotic for Taiwanese people to drink bottled water imported from France, since you have perfectly drinkable water here,” he said.
Note how well the writer links an indirect quote with the direct quote that follows it within the same (long) sentence:
He also thinks everyone should eat less meat. Methane, a greenhouse gas, severely aggravates the already dire situation of global warming, Nobel said, adding: “The energy saved by everyone in the world going vegetarian would be greater than if every car owner swapped their big car for a smaller one.”
“I can go on, [but the essence is that] the solution is a joint effort of businesses, scientists, lawmakers, and the general public … it takes time and requires the accumulation of small things,” he said.
Another part of the solution to the energy crisis was for governments to support sustainable and alternative energies, he said.
“It is possible to change people’s attitudes, just like safety belt mandates and indoor smoking bans in some areas of the world,” he said.
Feasible renewable energy technologies already exist and can be mass-produced to bring down their unit prices if governments decisively supported their use, he said.
“For example, I see fuel cells and photovoltaic [PV] panels as possible solutions to the energy crisis — if governments allocated more money into their research, [they could become much cheaper],” he said.
As for biomass fuel alcohol, Nobel said that he “strongly suggests a shift away from using edible foods [in biofuel production] to cellulose in agricultural waste [such as rice stalks].”
“You have to think in an ethical sense — you cannot have 3 billion people starving in the world and use food as fuel,” he said.
Note the writer's simple transition sentence:
Nobel was equally ambivalent about nuclear power.
“Nuclear energy is good in that its generation emits little carbon and it is an existing technology to effectively produce massive amounts of energy. However, nuclear safety and nuclear waste treatment remain major issues,” he said.
Another antithesis ("Nevertheless"), a common linking device:
Nevertheless, though the public feels uncomfortable about nuclear plants, Nobel said there have been advancements in nuclear technologies and safety measures.
Another example of a comma splice in the next paragraph; it should be, "Who knows? Maybe in the end," etc.
“Who knows, maybe in the end [advancements] would make it work,” he said.
Good cause-effect transition, followed by a good direct quote about Alfred Nobel:
Asked what drove his interest in social work, Nobel said: “I want to look back at my life and say that I have made efforts for the betterment of humanity.”
Note synonymic replacement ("his great-grandnephew" instead of "Michael Nobel"):
“Alfred Nobel was a miserable man,” his great-grandnephew said. “He worked 20-hour days in labs, had three miserable relationships but never married, and died envious of the family lives his brothers and sisters enjoyed — I don’t want to turn out like that.”
Here the writer loses coherence: there's no relationship between what has come before and her next paragraph:
“I cannot commit to something I do not believe in … climate change is an extremely pressing issue and affects the survival of mankind … it does not matter if I fail in the end with the trust, I want to in the end be able to say at least I have tried,” he said.
“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught, will we realize we cannot eat money,” Nobel said, quoting an American Indian proverb.
The profile ends weakly, with Nobel speaking specifically about Taiwan, instead of concluding on a more general issue, or at least a specific issue revealing his personality. Actually, the final paragraphs are weak and the essay loses both coherence and focus at the end. Still it's worth study as a model for a profile. However, a complete profile should have a description of the person and his or her setting, where the person is interviewed. Actions should also be included, either as description of as part of attribution:
"No," he said, taking a deep drag of his cigarette. "I would never cheat on my wife."“Taiwan’s new government seems to be greatly concerned with the issue; from what I have heard, in the past the nation had mainly focused on economic developments, so I hope that a shift does occur,” he said.
A Chronicler of Night-Life Melancholy, Looking for Contradictory Layers
By ERIC KONIGSBERG
The New York Times
Published: May 21, 2008
Nikola Tamindzic went out late on Friday night to shoot pictures at Trash, a weekly themed party at 40C, an East Village nightclub.
Good beginning; puts the reader right in the middle of Tamindzic's life.
Mr. Tamindzic is a night-life photographer — equal parts Ron Galella, Weegee and Terry Richardson — with clippings in Time Out New York, Black Book, The Village Voice and something planned in Vanity Fair. The Voice named him Night-Life Photographer of the Year in 2006.
Synonymic replacement ("Mr. Tamindzic"), very simply defining T's work: "is a night-life photographer." Good use of dash parenthesis, to compare T to other photographers), then giving his resume (what he's published) very simply: he published in famous magazines and won an award. This leads to the first "salient" quote. That is, the quote tells us something important, relevant, significant, etc. Note how T uses a comparison ("Lee Friedlander photographs"). Note the use of the dash to add spice to the style. (I think dashes are under-used; I love them; they add color to the typography (printed page) too. Older writers used dashes a lot (Emily Dickinson, Poe, etc.), but they're less used in formal writing. I think they should be used more; it makes the writing more lively. (But of course never overuse anything, or do anything in excess!)
“My pictures suggest a story that happened before the shot and a story that hasn’t happened yet,” Mr. Tamindzic said. “There’s a sense of melancholy. I’m thinking Lee Friedlander photographs from the ’70s. Hopefully, when it comes together it puts two contradictory layers in the photo: you’re both adoring it and not repulsed by it — but, yeah, almost repulsed by it.”
Next the writer gives his own comparison to develop his profile. Remember, a profile focuses on a person, his or her work, and lifestyle (including manner, setting, etc.). This following paragraph describes exactly what T meant by his comment before:
Take, for example, a picture Mr. Tamindzic took the weekend before last at a book party for Arianna Huffington: Ms. Huffington with Charlie Rose, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Jann Wenner and Rupert Murdoch. None of the five — except for Mr. Wenner, who theatrically pretends to be holding Mr. Zuckerman and Mr. Murdoch at arm’s length from each other — appears to want to be in the photo. Yet they are all smiling gamely enough because, well, it would be horrible form to move out of the frame.
Next dialogue is linked by descriptive attribution, informing the reader of other kinds of photographs T has taken:
“I don’t judge my subjects,” Mr. Tamindzic said of his portraiture, which also includes studio and fashion work. He added that although he makes more money by selling pictures to glossy magazines, his primary employer (which had sent him to the Huffington event in the first place) is Gawker, the acidic media-gossip Web site.
Now we get to T's background and history. Note this can be placed anywhere in a profile, so long as it adds variety to it:
Mr. Tamindzic is 35 and grew up in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia. He came to America in 2000, took a job doing Web design work, then landed in New York in 2004. It was around that time that he fell in love with photography, and during his initial months in town, he happened to end up at a Halloween party held by Gawker’s founder.
This descriptive paragraph then leads logically, through dialogue, to a lower level of generality, using cause-effect:
“I was bored so I took a lot of pictures and posted them online, and the next day they called and said they’d pay me to start taking their party pictures,” Mr. Tamindzic said.
"His work" in the next transition paragraph, links to the previous mention of photographs in the last paragraph. Note how the writer uses a parenthesis well to include explanatory information the reader might need. (Remember, the writer is always thinking of the reader in the Communication Triangle; this can be shown in terms of the Question-Answer model: what questions might the "average" reader ask that I should answer. In fact, as in the case of the FD initials a student used in his profile, the reader would naturally ask the meaning of T's web site, so the writer answers that question in parentheses:
His work can be viewed on his own site, homeofthevain.com (the name comes from a lyric by the literate post-punk band the Fall).
The writer chooses to include a rather general quote of not much interest (the writer could have included this as description instead of dialogue, but the use of words like "kids" and "trustafarians" (I've no idea what "trustafarians" means & I coudn't find it in one online dictionary, so it must be current slang) adds color to T's speech.
At the nightclub on Friday night, Mr. Tamindzic sized up the crowd. “It’s very young,” he said. “Lower East Side Street kids, N.Y.U. students, trustafarians.”
This is a good paragraph, making us see T in action. Note the vivid (though conventional) phrase, "he leaped into action." Note the writer is specific in his description ("in underwear and cutoff shorts" and "encouraging them to mug [that is, make faces] for the camera"). A poor writer would have written the same paragraph like this: "He took pictures of people in the bar" or "He took pictures of people dancing." Can you see the difference between those sentences and the one the writer actually wrote. (Not that it's a great paragraph sentence; but it's adequate:
He leaped into action, snapping pictures of the two young women who were being paid to dance on the bar in underwear and cutoff shorts and encouraging them to mug for the camera.
Next we get a descriptive image of T ("all legs and elbows" and "purposeful and obvious"). By "obvious" the writer means T is obviously snapping photos and doesn't try to hide the fact from his subjects. The writer includes a specific mention of the camera T uses. Again, think of the Q-A model of writing: if a photographer were reading this, what kinds of questions would he or she ask? Certainly they would wish to know what kind of camera T uses! Note the precise image: "a noirish crime-scene photographer's burst of light") ("film noir" is a well-known movie genre whose subject is sleazy crimes and criminals).
Mr. Tamindzic, a lanky 6 feet 3 inches tall, all legs and elbows, was purposeful and obvious, with a hefty Canon EOS 5D camera in one hand and a LumiQuest softbox flash in the other (to throw up a noirish, crime-scene photographer’s burst of intense light). He uses long exposures, then shakes the camera while the shutter is still open, causing colors to blur and lights to streak.
A nice quote follows, telling us not only about T but about his subjects (those who attend parties). Note there's no standard style of writing numbers; magazines allow numerals (3 & 4), though in formal writing we would write out the numerals:
“I’m not recording what is really happening, but it’s something like what the brain is seeing late at night, especially if maybe you’re drunk or very excited,” he said. “I like that hour between 3 and 4 in the morning when desperation sets in, when you see all the anticipation of going out starting to fade. The masks drop and everybody realizes the night is not going to be everything they were hoping for.”
Paragraphing has changed too: formerly, the following short paragraphs would really be a single paragraph. Note how the writer gets to lower levels of generality. All of this information answers questions readers might have. There are many models of writing: the newspaper model (5 W's + H); the commonplace model (Definition, cause-effect, etc.); the Question-Answer model (Q-A): the writer is both reader and writer in dialogue as she writes, constantly asking questions as the reader and answering them as the writer; there's the psychological model (we are all voyeurs and wish to observe another's life completely). Note, by the way, the writer doesn't add a period after the final "a.m." Writers can learn more by studying good writing than by studying grammar books. Note also the use of anaphora (beginning each sentence with the same word(s), in this case "He." Parallelism is at work too, since each "He" is followed by the same type of verb form (past tense): snapped, photographed, photographed:
Mr. Tamindzic appeared to be at the top of his game as the clock struck 1:30 a.m.
Note the proper use of a semi-colon (our classmates would use a comma splice instead: "a bouquet of flowers, they were out," etc.
He snapped pictures of a couple of young career women in pumps and wool coats, one of whom held a bouquet of flowers; they were out on the town for her birthday.
A single sentence like the following seems easy when reading it, but it takes a lot of thought and word choices before the precise image is captured:
He photographed a rather robotic looking woman in a futuristic version of a Playboy Club waitress’s outfit.
He photographed a couple who had fallen into what appeared to be an unlikely and unaccounted-for embrace.
Notice that a film (Blow-Up) is usually italicized in formal writing, but in magazine writing it's placed in quotations. As students you should remember the formal writing style, because (at least in the near future) it's unlikely you'll need to put films in quotes; besides, the magazine editor would make the change for you. But the main point in the next paragraph is the way the writer compares T to the famous photographer in the movie, Blow-Up (by the way, this movie is in our library). (One more note: when the text is in italics, as here, then what should be in italics is put in Roman type, as contrast! So Blow-Up is then put in Roman type! Notice the use of dashes again and the "for example." I myself would just give the examples without writing "for example"! So it would look like this: ". . . coaxing them into poses: a hand on someone's stomach," etc.:
There was something of the character portrayed by David Hemmings in “Blow-Up” in the way Mr. Tamindzic worked the back room of the club, pulling women onto the velvet couch and coaxing them into poses — for example, a hand on someone’s stomach, or a shoulder strap undone. They were mostly shy but thrilled by his attention.
The writer ends as he began: with a memorable quote:
“I like to bring people to a point of vulnerability and then meet their gaze,” he explained earlier in the evening about his portraits. “That creates compassion, which hopefully is reflected in the image. If you get vulnerability out of them and then look away, that’s the cruelest thing you can do. To flinch at that point and not take the picture, the subject will throw the wall up faster than you can say — well, faster than you can say a very short word.”
The profile is not mine but the title is, just to give a sample. I named it after an old Rock song, linking it to the subject matter of the profile ("California dreamin' on such a winter's day"). (I could even use the lyric from the song just quoted in an epigraph under the title.) I think the use of "travails" in the subtitle is too strong; I need a softer (less strong) word; something like "dilemma," but not that obvious.
The profile itself has a strong opening paragraph. It tells us who Stephen Weir is, his job, his situation, then leads smoothly, by a transition sentence-paragraph (below) to the first salient quote. Note the quote is not just any remark, but a memorable remark, quoting a common proverb. The "rueful smile" in the attribution captures the man well. As for numbers, the style here is not the Chicago style shown on p. 202 of Harbrace, which recommends writing out numbers up to a hundred, but 101, etc. The main thing however is to write with a model in mind. Note how "irony" (below) is a synonymic replacement of the main idea in the first paragraph (above), thus insuring coherence (forcing the reader to link the paragraph below to the one before):
The irony did not escape him.
"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride," he quips with a rueful smile.
"So" is a common linking conjunction (linking ideas from one sentence or paragraph to the next). "Clerk-recorder" refers back to Weir by synonymic replacement, insuring coherence. "Same-sex couples" in turn refers ahead to Weir ("He and his partner, John Hemm") in the paragraph after the next one:
So Weir hopes the citizens of Contra Costa County understand if their clerk-recorder invokes executive privilege and opens up for business a little early on June 17, when same-sex couples may be able to legally wed in California.
He and his partner, John Hemm, want to be first at the counter that day. They plan to be the first to exchange vows and kisses in the conference room Weir converted into a wedding chapel that hosts 1,200 couples a year, but that he could never use.
Note how the descriptive paragraph above is linked to the quote that follows below:
"I've waited all of this time to be able to walk into my own office and stand in line and pay what used to be $64 and now is $85 to buy a license and have a ceremony," says Weir, who also is president of the state clerks association.
"It's a big deal."
Now the writer fills in the background of Weir's life, again using a good coherence device ("To understand how," etc.). The key to coherence is the replacement of "Weir" by "he" (along with other replacement words such as "his" and "mayor") throughout:
To understand how exceptional it is for the 59-year-old Weir to bring his personal needs into his professional life, it's helpful to know what a precarious line he's had to tread during 35 years in city, state and county politics.
He spent nine years on the Concord City Council, two of them as mayor, but took pains to keep his sexual orientation a secret. Concerned he would be outed as gay in the high-profile position, he sought the county clerkship as "a safer place for me" when the longtime clerk died.
Once the new job ("clerk") is mentioned, the writer can move to specific levels of generality by "cause and effect":
Within months of assuming the job, he had to oversee in his dual capacity as registrar of voters the counting of local ballots cast for a March 2000 initiative that strengthened California's ban on gay marriage.
More cause-effect ("getting serious," "see . . . elected officials," and "they never let on"); note that "getting serious" is at a high level of generality, while the examples that follow define "getting serious" at a lower level of generality ("started taking Hemm to events," etc. Note how all the underlined words in the same paragraph are linked by synonymic replacement or repetition (Weir, Hemm, he, other elected officials, colleagues, him, they):
That same year, when Weir and Hemm were getting serious, he started taking Hemm to events where they would see other elected officials. If his colleagues thought differently about him afterward, they never let on, Weir says.
The quote personalizes the objective description above while using synonymic replacement for coherence (he and I, couple, this thing):
"I said to myself, 'If he and I are going to be a couple, there is no hiding this thing anymore,'" he says.
For the most part, though, shouldering the contradictions he encountered at work came easily for Weir, who has spent his whole life in Contra Costa, a suburban county that is conservative by San Francisco Bay area standards.
Note how all the underlined words refer to Weir without mentioning his name, insuring coherence:
He is the consummate civil servant, the type of administrator who waxes poetic about document scanning software.
Cause-Effect of "fulfilling his oath," all involving legal issues shown in underline:
Fulfilling his oath to perform his duties faithfully and according to the law has put Weir in some awkward positions, however. Every Valentine's Day for the last five years or so, gay men and lesbians have gone to clerks' counters throughout the country to request marriage licenses in a coordinated act of protest.
Every year, Weir has turned away those who showed up on his turf with a polite apology and a referral to the state government Web site where they could learn about registering as domestic partners, a step he and Hemm took in 2003.
In the meantime, Weir has officiated at about 20 weddings, mostly for friends and relatives but occasionally for couples who come to the clerk's office.
Two years ago, as Valentine's Day was approaching, some of his fellow clerks wanted their state association to put out a statement supporting a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. It fell to Weir, the group's president, to remind them that their bylaws prohibited taking stands on legislation.
"People were respectful, but I know it was hard because they were trying to give me the legal rights I was seeking," he says.
Comparison and contrast shows how Weir and his job (role, country clerk, he) conflicts with a petition to make same-sex marriage illegal (initiative, illegal, signatures, sponsors, measure, ballot, petitions):
Weir looks the same way at his role in a pending ballot initiative that would again make gay marriage illegal. County clerks are responsible for verifying the signatures its sponsors have gathered to qualify the measure for the November ballot. He has stacks of petitions in his building right now and a roomful of employees going through them.
Weir now defines his job ("that") as a clerk, which he does "in an honorable way":
"We are doing that in an honorable way. We are discharging our duties as clerk. I didn't ever think of it as anything other than a petition in the queue. I can't let it," he says.
Cause-Effect ("If voters pass," etc.):
If voters pass the amendment, it would overturn the California Supreme Court's May 15 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in the state. It could also, depending on the outcome of further legal proceedings, invalidate the marriages performed between now and then, including Weir and Hemm's.
"That's" refers back:
That's a possibility that Weir, who will be busy on Nov. 4 making sure his county's ballots are processed swiftly and accurately during the high turnout presidential election, can't even contemplate.
Cause-Effect ("only after"):
"Only after I get that election to bed will I even begin to think about the issues I'm concerned with personally," he says.
Descriptive paragraph, using salient details to sum up this same-sex relationship:
At home in Concord, Weir plays the comic foil to the more outgoing Hemm, 53, who works as a school crossing guard and costume designer. Like most long-term couples, they finish each other's sentences and happily share the story of how they met in a San Francisco gym, drifted apart, and then reconnected after nine years.
Cause-Effect, Division (cookies, pets):
Elderly neighbors brought them cookies when they moved in to their 1950s-era ranch house and watch their pets when they are away.
Notice (below) the writer uses salient quotes (quotes that mean something, that stand out in content); not (for example), "I read books," but, "I read books, because I look at them as my friends."
"If you are honest and yourself, there is no reason to feel like you are out of line," Hemm says. "If you don't carry that with you, you don't see it in other people."
Cause-Effect ("would be the icing on the . . . cake"):
Getting married would be the icing on the proverbial wedding cake, the men say, something they hoped would happen in their lifetimes, but the absence of which they did not let diminish the delight they take in each other.
Very unusual (ironic) ending: the writer reveals at the last moment that Hemm has AIDS, as if that were not a main issue of the profile (after all: the profile is about Weir, not Hemm). At the same time, it sums up Weir's professionalism, the writer's focus, and the nature of Hemm and Weir's relationship. Note the strong short final sentence: "Hemm has AIDS."
One happy byproduct is that Weir should be able to get Hemm on his long-term health plan. They already have stood by each other in sickness and in health: Hemm has AIDS.
By ERIC KONIGSBERG
The New York Times
Published: May 21, 2008
Nikola Tamindzic went out late on Friday night to shoot pictures at Trash, a weekly themed party at 40C, an East Village nightclub.
Good beginning; puts the reader right in the middle of Tamindzic's life.
Mr. Tamindzic is a night-life photographer — equal parts Ron Galella, Weegee and Terry Richardson — with clippings in Time Out New York, Black Book, The Village Voice and something planned in Vanity Fair. The Voice named him Night-Life Photographer of the Year in 2006.
Synonymic replacement ("Mr. Tamindzic"), very simply defining T's work: "is a night-life photographer." Good use of dash parenthesis, to compare T to other photographers), then giving his resume (what he's published) very simply: he published in famous magazines and won an award. This leads to the first "salient" quote. That is, the quote tells us something important, relevant, significant, etc. Note how T uses a comparison ("Lee Friedlander photographs"). Note the use of the dash to add spice to the style. (I think dashes are under-used; I love them; they add color to the typography (printed page) too. Older writers used dashes a lot (Emily Dickinson, Poe, etc.), but they're less used in formal writing. I think they should be used more; it makes the writing more lively. (But of course never overuse anything, or do anything in excess!)
“My pictures suggest a story that happened before the shot and a story that hasn’t happened yet,” Mr. Tamindzic said. “There’s a sense of melancholy. I’m thinking Lee Friedlander photographs from the ’70s. Hopefully, when it comes together it puts two contradictory layers in the photo: you’re both adoring it and not repulsed by it — but, yeah, almost repulsed by it.”
Next the writer gives his own comparison to develop his profile. Remember, a profile focuses on a person, his or her work, and lifestyle (including manner, setting, etc.). This following paragraph describes exactly what T meant by his comment before:
Take, for example, a picture Mr. Tamindzic took the weekend before last at a book party for Arianna Huffington: Ms. Huffington with Charlie Rose, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Jann Wenner and Rupert Murdoch. None of the five — except for Mr. Wenner, who theatrically pretends to be holding Mr. Zuckerman and Mr. Murdoch at arm’s length from each other — appears to want to be in the photo. Yet they are all smiling gamely enough because, well, it would be horrible form to move out of the frame.
Next dialogue is linked by descriptive attribution, informing the reader of other kinds of photographs T has taken:
“I don’t judge my subjects,” Mr. Tamindzic said of his portraiture, which also includes studio and fashion work. He added that although he makes more money by selling pictures to glossy magazines, his primary employer (which had sent him to the Huffington event in the first place) is Gawker, the acidic media-gossip Web site.
Now we get to T's background and history. Note this can be placed anywhere in a profile, so long as it adds variety to it:
Mr. Tamindzic is 35 and grew up in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia. He came to America in 2000, took a job doing Web design work, then landed in New York in 2004. It was around that time that he fell in love with photography, and during his initial months in town, he happened to end up at a Halloween party held by Gawker’s founder.
This descriptive paragraph then leads logically, through dialogue, to a lower level of generality, using cause-effect:
“I was bored so I took a lot of pictures and posted them online, and the next day they called and said they’d pay me to start taking their party pictures,” Mr. Tamindzic said.
"His work" in the next transition paragraph, links to the previous mention of photographs in the last paragraph. Note how the writer uses a parenthesis well to include explanatory information the reader might need. (Remember, the writer is always thinking of the reader in the Communication Triangle; this can be shown in terms of the Question-Answer model: what questions might the "average" reader ask that I should answer. In fact, as in the case of the FD initials a student used in his profile, the reader would naturally ask the meaning of T's web site, so the writer answers that question in parentheses:
His work can be viewed on his own site, homeofthevain.com (the name comes from a lyric by the literate post-punk band the Fall).
The writer chooses to include a rather general quote of not much interest (the writer could have included this as description instead of dialogue, but the use of words like "kids" and "trustafarians" (I've no idea what "trustafarians" means & I coudn't find it in one online dictionary, so it must be current slang) adds color to T's speech.
At the nightclub on Friday night, Mr. Tamindzic sized up the crowd. “It’s very young,” he said. “Lower East Side Street kids, N.Y.U. students, trustafarians.”
This is a good paragraph, making us see T in action. Note the vivid (though conventional) phrase, "he leaped into action." Note the writer is specific in his description ("in underwear and cutoff shorts" and "encouraging them to mug [that is, make faces] for the camera"). A poor writer would have written the same paragraph like this: "He took pictures of people in the bar" or "He took pictures of people dancing." Can you see the difference between those sentences and the one the writer actually wrote. (Not that it's a great paragraph sentence; but it's adequate:
He leaped into action, snapping pictures of the two young women who were being paid to dance on the bar in underwear and cutoff shorts and encouraging them to mug for the camera.
Next we get a descriptive image of T ("all legs and elbows" and "purposeful and obvious"). By "obvious" the writer means T is obviously snapping photos and doesn't try to hide the fact from his subjects. The writer includes a specific mention of the camera T uses. Again, think of the Q-A model of writing: if a photographer were reading this, what kinds of questions would he or she ask? Certainly they would wish to know what kind of camera T uses! Note the precise image: "a noirish crime-scene photographer's burst of light") ("film noir" is a well-known movie genre whose subject is sleazy crimes and criminals).
Mr. Tamindzic, a lanky 6 feet 3 inches tall, all legs and elbows, was purposeful and obvious, with a hefty Canon EOS 5D camera in one hand and a LumiQuest softbox flash in the other (to throw up a noirish, crime-scene photographer’s burst of intense light). He uses long exposures, then shakes the camera while the shutter is still open, causing colors to blur and lights to streak.
A nice quote follows, telling us not only about T but about his subjects (those who attend parties). Note there's no standard style of writing numbers; magazines allow numerals (3 & 4), though in formal writing we would write out the numerals:
“I’m not recording what is really happening, but it’s something like what the brain is seeing late at night, especially if maybe you’re drunk or very excited,” he said. “I like that hour between 3 and 4 in the morning when desperation sets in, when you see all the anticipation of going out starting to fade. The masks drop and everybody realizes the night is not going to be everything they were hoping for.”
Paragraphing has changed too: formerly, the following short paragraphs would really be a single paragraph. Note how the writer gets to lower levels of generality. All of this information answers questions readers might have. There are many models of writing: the newspaper model (5 W's + H); the commonplace model (Definition, cause-effect, etc.); the Question-Answer model (Q-A): the writer is both reader and writer in dialogue as she writes, constantly asking questions as the reader and answering them as the writer; there's the psychological model (we are all voyeurs and wish to observe another's life completely). Note, by the way, the writer doesn't add a period after the final "a.m." Writers can learn more by studying good writing than by studying grammar books. Note also the use of anaphora (beginning each sentence with the same word(s), in this case "He." Parallelism is at work too, since each "He" is followed by the same type of verb form (past tense): snapped, photographed, photographed:
Mr. Tamindzic appeared to be at the top of his game as the clock struck 1:30 a.m.
Note the proper use of a semi-colon (our classmates would use a comma splice instead: "a bouquet of flowers, they were out," etc.
He snapped pictures of a couple of young career women in pumps and wool coats, one of whom held a bouquet of flowers; they were out on the town for her birthday.
A single sentence like the following seems easy when reading it, but it takes a lot of thought and word choices before the precise image is captured:
He photographed a rather robotic looking woman in a futuristic version of a Playboy Club waitress’s outfit.
He photographed a couple who had fallen into what appeared to be an unlikely and unaccounted-for embrace.
Notice that a film (Blow-Up) is usually italicized in formal writing, but in magazine writing it's placed in quotations. As students you should remember the formal writing style, because (at least in the near future) it's unlikely you'll need to put films in quotes; besides, the magazine editor would make the change for you. But the main point in the next paragraph is the way the writer compares T to the famous photographer in the movie, Blow-Up (by the way, this movie is in our library). (One more note: when the text is in italics, as here, then what should be in italics is put in Roman type, as contrast! So Blow-Up is then put in Roman type! Notice the use of dashes again and the "for example." I myself would just give the examples without writing "for example"! So it would look like this: ". . . coaxing them into poses: a hand on someone's stomach," etc.:
There was something of the character portrayed by David Hemmings in “Blow-Up” in the way Mr. Tamindzic worked the back room of the club, pulling women onto the velvet couch and coaxing them into poses — for example, a hand on someone’s stomach, or a shoulder strap undone. They were mostly shy but thrilled by his attention.
The writer ends as he began: with a memorable quote:
“I like to bring people to a point of vulnerability and then meet their gaze,” he explained earlier in the evening about his portraits. “That creates compassion, which hopefully is reflected in the image. If you get vulnerability out of them and then look away, that’s the cruelest thing you can do. To flinch at that point and not take the picture, the subject will throw the wall up faster than you can say — well, faster than you can say a very short word.”
California Dreamin':
Travails of a Marriage Clerk
MARTINEZ, Calif. - For 18 years, Stephen Weir has been in charge of the office that hands out marriage licenses in California's ninth-largest county. And for just as long, Weir has been unable to get a license himself because the love of his life is a man.Travails of a Marriage Clerk
The profile is not mine but the title is, just to give a sample. I named it after an old Rock song, linking it to the subject matter of the profile ("California dreamin' on such a winter's day"). (I could even use the lyric from the song just quoted in an epigraph under the title.) I think the use of "travails" in the subtitle is too strong; I need a softer (less strong) word; something like "dilemma," but not that obvious.
The profile itself has a strong opening paragraph. It tells us who Stephen Weir is, his job, his situation, then leads smoothly, by a transition sentence-paragraph (below) to the first salient quote. Note the quote is not just any remark, but a memorable remark, quoting a common proverb. The "rueful smile" in the attribution captures the man well. As for numbers, the style here is not the Chicago style shown on p. 202 of Harbrace, which recommends writing out numbers up to a hundred, but 101, etc. The main thing however is to write with a model in mind. Note how "irony" (below) is a synonymic replacement of the main idea in the first paragraph (above), thus insuring coherence (forcing the reader to link the paragraph below to the one before):
The irony did not escape him.
"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride," he quips with a rueful smile.
"So" is a common linking conjunction (linking ideas from one sentence or paragraph to the next). "Clerk-recorder" refers back to Weir by synonymic replacement, insuring coherence. "Same-sex couples" in turn refers ahead to Weir ("He and his partner, John Hemm") in the paragraph after the next one:
So Weir hopes the citizens of Contra Costa County understand if their clerk-recorder invokes executive privilege and opens up for business a little early on June 17, when same-sex couples may be able to legally wed in California.
He and his partner, John Hemm, want to be first at the counter that day. They plan to be the first to exchange vows and kisses in the conference room Weir converted into a wedding chapel that hosts 1,200 couples a year, but that he could never use.
Note how the descriptive paragraph above is linked to the quote that follows below:
"I've waited all of this time to be able to walk into my own office and stand in line and pay what used to be $64 and now is $85 to buy a license and have a ceremony," says Weir, who also is president of the state clerks association.
"It's a big deal."
Now the writer fills in the background of Weir's life, again using a good coherence device ("To understand how," etc.). The key to coherence is the replacement of "Weir" by "he" (along with other replacement words such as "his" and "mayor") throughout:
To understand how exceptional it is for the 59-year-old Weir to bring his personal needs into his professional life, it's helpful to know what a precarious line he's had to tread during 35 years in city, state and county politics.
He spent nine years on the Concord City Council, two of them as mayor, but took pains to keep his sexual orientation a secret. Concerned he would be outed as gay in the high-profile position, he sought the county clerkship as "a safer place for me" when the longtime clerk died.
Once the new job ("clerk") is mentioned, the writer can move to specific levels of generality by "cause and effect":
Within months of assuming the job, he had to oversee in his dual capacity as registrar of voters the counting of local ballots cast for a March 2000 initiative that strengthened California's ban on gay marriage.
More cause-effect ("getting serious," "see . . . elected officials," and "they never let on"); note that "getting serious" is at a high level of generality, while the examples that follow define "getting serious" at a lower level of generality ("started taking Hemm to events," etc. Note how all the underlined words in the same paragraph are linked by synonymic replacement or repetition (Weir, Hemm, he, other elected officials, colleagues, him, they):
That same year, when Weir and Hemm were getting serious, he started taking Hemm to events where they would see other elected officials. If his colleagues thought differently about him afterward, they never let on, Weir says.
The quote personalizes the objective description above while using synonymic replacement for coherence (he and I, couple, this thing):
"I said to myself, 'If he and I are going to be a couple, there is no hiding this thing anymore,'" he says.
For the most part, though, shouldering the contradictions he encountered at work came easily for Weir, who has spent his whole life in Contra Costa, a suburban county that is conservative by San Francisco Bay area standards.
Note how all the underlined words refer to Weir without mentioning his name, insuring coherence:
He is the consummate civil servant, the type of administrator who waxes poetic about document scanning software.
Cause-Effect of "fulfilling his oath," all involving legal issues shown in underline:
Fulfilling his oath to perform his duties faithfully and according to the law has put Weir in some awkward positions, however. Every Valentine's Day for the last five years or so, gay men and lesbians have gone to clerks' counters throughout the country to request marriage licenses in a coordinated act of protest.
Every year, Weir has turned away those who showed up on his turf with a polite apology and a referral to the state government Web site where they could learn about registering as domestic partners, a step he and Hemm took in 2003.
In the meantime, Weir has officiated at about 20 weddings, mostly for friends and relatives but occasionally for couples who come to the clerk's office.
Two years ago, as Valentine's Day was approaching, some of his fellow clerks wanted their state association to put out a statement supporting a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. It fell to Weir, the group's president, to remind them that their bylaws prohibited taking stands on legislation.
"People were respectful, but I know it was hard because they were trying to give me the legal rights I was seeking," he says.
Comparison and contrast shows how Weir and his job (role, country clerk, he) conflicts with a petition to make same-sex marriage illegal (initiative, illegal, signatures, sponsors, measure, ballot, petitions):
Weir looks the same way at his role in a pending ballot initiative that would again make gay marriage illegal. County clerks are responsible for verifying the signatures its sponsors have gathered to qualify the measure for the November ballot. He has stacks of petitions in his building right now and a roomful of employees going through them.
Weir now defines his job ("that") as a clerk, which he does "in an honorable way":
"We are doing that in an honorable way. We are discharging our duties as clerk. I didn't ever think of it as anything other than a petition in the queue. I can't let it," he says.
Cause-Effect ("If voters pass," etc.):
If voters pass the amendment, it would overturn the California Supreme Court's May 15 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in the state. It could also, depending on the outcome of further legal proceedings, invalidate the marriages performed between now and then, including Weir and Hemm's.
"That's" refers back:
That's a possibility that Weir, who will be busy on Nov. 4 making sure his county's ballots are processed swiftly and accurately during the high turnout presidential election, can't even contemplate.
Cause-Effect ("only after"):
"Only after I get that election to bed will I even begin to think about the issues I'm concerned with personally," he says.
Descriptive paragraph, using salient details to sum up this same-sex relationship:
At home in Concord, Weir plays the comic foil to the more outgoing Hemm, 53, who works as a school crossing guard and costume designer. Like most long-term couples, they finish each other's sentences and happily share the story of how they met in a San Francisco gym, drifted apart, and then reconnected after nine years.
Cause-Effect, Division (cookies, pets):
Elderly neighbors brought them cookies when they moved in to their 1950s-era ranch house and watch their pets when they are away.
Notice (below) the writer uses salient quotes (quotes that mean something, that stand out in content); not (for example), "I read books," but, "I read books, because I look at them as my friends."
"If you are honest and yourself, there is no reason to feel like you are out of line," Hemm says. "If you don't carry that with you, you don't see it in other people."
Cause-Effect ("would be the icing on the . . . cake"):
Getting married would be the icing on the proverbial wedding cake, the men say, something they hoped would happen in their lifetimes, but the absence of which they did not let diminish the delight they take in each other.
Very unusual (ironic) ending: the writer reveals at the last moment that Hemm has AIDS, as if that were not a main issue of the profile (after all: the profile is about Weir, not Hemm). At the same time, it sums up Weir's professionalism, the writer's focus, and the nature of Hemm and Weir's relationship. Note the strong short final sentence: "Hemm has AIDS."
One happy byproduct is that Weir should be able to get Hemm on his long-term health plan. They already have stood by each other in sickness and in health: Hemm has AIDS.
To view the original essay, go here.
HOW DO I LOVE YOU?
(Being a parody of the famous love sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
using the same rhyme scheme: ABBAABBACDCDCD, but written from a child to its parent.)
using the same rhyme scheme: ABBAABBACDCDCD, but written from a child to its parent.)
How do I love you? Let me tell you, Dad!
I love you to the sum of all you have
In cash and credit cards, and what you gave
To me this year in gifts. Still, I am sad
That I don't have the Rolls I wish I had—
Or that new Macintosh. And how I crave
To own the Gucci boots my classmates rave
About! O Father! I am going mad
Trying to put in words the love I feel
For you, and how I think about you all
The time—as when I want to have a meal
In an expensive bistro, or I call
You on my cell phone when a discount deal
Is advertised in a chic fashion mall:
It's then I love you with the greatest zeal!
Below is Browning's original sonnet.
HOW DO I LOVE THEE?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
YOUR FORMAL LETTER
REGARDING YOUR NEXT assignment, you should plan a recipient of a letter requesting employment or admission to a program or university or trainee program. Even if not literally true, your letter should be based on realistic facts or goals in your life, otherwise you won't write an acceptable letter. By now you should have goals in place, even though they may change by next year. These goals might include entering a trainee program, an academic institution, a business firm, a church group, or acceptance by a private instructor in music, language, etc.Based on that goal (Writer) and audience (recipient) you would then model your letter (text), completing the Communication Triangle, which should then guide you on all levels.
You should also observe my Ten Commandments of Writing, which I emailed you last semester, including Coherence (all ideas should be linked together logically), Completeness (no important information should be left out), Focus (the main point should be clear even though there are secondary or subordinate points), etc.
You should also use the Topics or the Five W's and H, or the Q/A or P/S models to help guide your content. Topics would include Cause/Effect, Definition, Example, etc. The Five W's would include why you want the job, what you think you can accomplish as a student at the university, etc. Q/A would pose a question and then answer it, or P/S would pose a problem then solve it.
The final model is W/R: writer to reader dialogue. As you write, you read and then revise based on weaknesses you see as your intended reader(s). "You stupid people made me miss my flight," would be read as if you were the intended reader; you would feel offended by what you wrote (you don't want to be called stupid) and so revise ("see again") from your reader's point of view.
W/R is to my mind the best of the "heuristic" (discovery") practices because it includes all the other paradigms (models). As your own reader of what you wrote you will recognize information that has been left out, offensive diction (vocabulary/words), strident (over-emotional) tone, etc.
Students write me email all the time: "Thanks. I will take your suggestion and meet with you next week. My email is hielizabethbaby@yahoo.com."
Now if the student had played the part of me in reading that, s/he would have forced many changes in the text:
"Thanks" for WHAT? WHAT was my "suggestion"? "Meet" WHERE/WHEN?
A revised letter based on the W/R model would look like this:
"Thanks for your suggestion last Tuesday regarding my graduate thesis on John Donne's poetry. Your suggestion that I should read T. S. Eliot's comments on the metaphysical poets was very helpful. I am available next Wednesday during your regular Office Hour. I plan to finish Eliot's essay before then. Perhaps we can meet Wednesday in your office to discuss my understanding of the essay. My email is ElizabethHuang@yahoo.com."
Writing from the point of view of my reader, as I engage in a back-and-forth dialogue between writer and reader, I've improved my short message, answering all the questions my intended reader might have.
(Remember, although you may know what's on your mind, the reader/listener doesn't know what's on your mind. What may seem evident to you, may not seem evident to the receiver. In fact the receiver may have forgotten even speaking with you by the time you refer to the conversation! For example, the teacher may have dozens of advisees; several may have the same name; a few may also be writing on John Donne; or the teacher just has a poor memory, etc.)
Notice that in my revision I also changed my email address, since I saw it again ("re-vise"=to "see again") from my reader's point of view.
In sum, use all the models we have learned thus far in class, but use them in a sincere way; not just as an exercise for homework, but (remembering the Communication Triangle) as a bridge between you and your receiver (reader/listener, as the case may be).
Students,
THIS IS THE sequence from the film, High Noon, we talked about in class. It's the kind of sequence one would mention if one were reviewing the film. Here's the link:
One would of course sum up the plot and briefly discuss the sequence in terms of,
a) suspense,
b) editing; called montage: a sequence of brief shots linked together by theme, mood, or subject (here the town folk expecting the arrival of the train with the gang leader who plans to kill the sheriff.
1. One can go further and analyze the montage in terms of rhythm;
2. The rhythmic pace quickens after the sound of the train whistle.
c) acting: the performance of the actors, especially the weary and concerned look of Gary Cooper as the sheriff, Will Kane, adds to the effect of the sequence.
d) sound: there is no sound, just the music underscore, except at the beginning when the pendulum clock is heard, and the end, when the sequence is climaxed by the sound of the train whistle breaking the suspense.
e) music plays a great part. Composer Dimitri Tiomkin uses the musical phrase set to the words of "he made a vow while in state prison" of the title song (by now well known to the viewer, since it's sung frequently throughout the film). Though the words are not heard, the viewer naturally attaches the words to this phrase, which Tiomkin repeats in a kind of ostinato (obstinate) and percussive pattern.
f) camera movement:
1. tilt shots go up from the bottom of the pendulum clock to the clock's face, allowing a dramatic climax to show the position of the clock's middle hand.
2. There's a dramatic dolly-in shot on the chair from which the gang leader threatened to kill the sheriff (Cooper) when he got out of prison.
g) deep focus shots of the railway tracks, on which the train carrying the gang leader will arrive at noon to carrry out his threat to kill the sheriff (Cooper).
h) camera scale: the shots get closer as the sequence continues; so by the end we see mostly close-ups of the main characters, including the sheriff's former mistress and an extreme close-up on his young wife, as well as Cooper (the sheriff).
i) theme: the sequence opposes Will Kane (Cooper) in his isolation, writing his Last Will and Testament, against members of the gang out to kill him and the hypocritical townsfolk (some in church) who refuse to assist him.
2. The lyrics. (To read all the lyrics go here.) How lyrics develop plot, character, or tone (wit).
3. The acting. (Main actors, but also supporting cast.)
4. The story.
5. Comparison with other musicals by Frank Loesser. (Guys and Dolls is in the library.)
6. Comparison with other musicals by anyone else. (My Fair Lady, West Side Story, etc.)
7. Tone (satire, farce, comedic, romantic, or mix of tones). Was it satisfactory? Funny?
8. Scenes (singled out to illustrate lyrics, music, acting, staging, dancing, etc.).
9. Dances (choreography).
10. Special cinematic devices (for example, in the opening number, as Ponty sings of going "up" the elevator goes down).
11. Direction (consider direction from the point of view of tone, pace, acting, staging of scenes, etc.).
12. Reception. Critical or audience reception of the film.
Cleveland Press March 22, 1967
I took this contemporary review at random to analyze it for you. Like NY Times reviewer, this reviewer starts off comparing the B'way and film productions. She starts off by tweaking the title (not giving the whole title, since everybody is supposed to know it; above). Then she identifies the writer (Frank Loesser) and the show's award (Pulitzer Prize) and evaluates it as "almost intact" and "one of the best movie musicals ever." I don't like the extra word "done"! It's useless. (How can a musical be "undone"?) She might have written: "one of the best musicals ever filmed" if she had not already called it a "movie" musical. But that's a minor point ("nitpicking" as we say).
Frank Loesser's Pulitzer Prize musical has been transferred to the screen almost intact and the result is one of the best movie musicals ever done.
Then she applauds the fact that the stage actors were kept for the film (hardly ever are stage casts repeated in the film, since only film stars can bring in the bucks. So Audrey Hepburn replaced Julie Andrews for My Fair Lady, though (ironically) Andrews later became a star in her own right and even won an Oscar.
Most surprising of all is the casting. Producer-director David Swift has chosen to take the people off the stage and put them on the screen. Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee do the roles they created on Broadway.
The writer loses me, grammatically (below), but also in terms of coherence and focus; she's getting too involved with discussing who played what on stage when the focus should be on the film in such a short review.
Michele Lee, the secretary in love with the young hero; and Maureen Arthur, the sexy secretary, though not in the original cast, did play it on stage subsequently with Miss Arthur creating the role in the touring company starting here in Cleveland four years ago.
More of the same digressions below! She's spending too much time on matters irrelevant to the movie being discussed:
Considering the way the movie producers generally do these things it would have been no surprise to find the show turned into a starring vehicle for big box-office names�say Natalie (doesn't sing-a-note) Wood and Tony Curtis (who was mentioned for the Morse role somewhere along the way.)
Next she gets back in focus, comparing Morse to the well-known actor, Mickey Rooney. The comparison is not that strong, and rather general:
Morse, badly miscast in movies until now, shows what he can do in the role that established him. He comes across as a humble Mickey Rooney, if you can imagine such a thing, but with trademarks all his own.
Then, in I think her finest paragraph, she gets specific:
Among them�the widest eyes on screen, a jaw that drops so easily that it seems to be weighted and hinged, and a head that almost slumps out of sight whenever humility is indicated as the way to get ahead.
More of the same, with a reference to the famous Italian political philosopher, Machiavelli (readers would know his name because the adjective, Machiavellan, is part of the language (Machiavelli advocated political plotting among statesmen):
But Morse never clouds the gleam in his eye, the glimmer that indicates a latter day Machiavelli of the business world.
Note the writer does not have to type the entire title again (once a title is mentioned it can be abbreviated in later references, such as "Merchant" for "Merchant of Venice," etc.). There's no rule for this; one just finds the key words in the title. Again, I don't like that the character's name is not mentioned; though in movie reviews this can be acceptable since most movie fans identify the character by the star's name (she mentions the character's name below, however). She neatly sums up the plot below as well as her reaction to it ("disarmingly funny"), put in objective terms (not "I think it's funny" but it is "disarmingly funny").
"How to Succeed" revolves around Morse and through him satirizes the tricky, self-seeking ways of climbing the success ladder � from mail boy to company president in as few steps as possible. It's cynical but disarmingly funny.
She next addresses a key issue when adapting a stage play to the screen; namely whether it's been "opened up" for the screen or not. This means that, because stage plays have a limited production space, usually the action is kept in one or two locations. But movies like to exploit their ability to move all over the place and think that audiences want to see many locations or changes of scenes. Hence that useless scene of Ponty (Morse) walking the streets of New York, which took up too much screen time and did not contribute anything to the movie. Then she further compares the film version with the B'way production by pointing out that 4 songs were deleted:
Except for some New York exteriors Swift has done little to open up the show, has pretty much photographed the action as it was originally staged. At least three or four numbers are gone but I really missed only two�"Coffee Break" and "Paris Original."
Nothing special in the next paragraph. She sums up Michele Lee as "winsome and appealing" and the actress who played Hedy as "brassy" and "curvy," but she does nothing with this adjectives.
Michele Lee as Morse's sweetheart is winsome and appealing and Maureen Arthur as Hedy, the boss' friend, sounds brassy and looks curvy.
Again she compares B'way and film productions by saying Rudy Valley (Mr. Biggley) is better than he was on stage, as does the song, "Dear Old Ivy."
Rudy Vallee registers better on screen than he did on stage as president of the World Wide Wicket Co. The Morse-Vallee duet of "Dear Old Ivy," a delicious spoof of college songs, never sounded better.
Finally she mentions the role that Morse plays and correctly indicates that his "hymn" is to himself ("I Believe in You") while pointing out that in the stage production Rosemary does not sing the song to Ponty but does so in the film.
Morse, as young J. Pierpont Finch, still sings his hymn of self-confidence, "I Believe in You." But before he does the moviemakers have allowed Miss Lee to sing it as well, to him. It's an endearing moment but out of keeping. It suggests that Finch may have had a moment of self doubt but that the confidence of a good woman has kept him going.
She finds a way to conclude on the issue of Finch's false humility:
Those of us who have watched J. P. Finch make his way to the top in repeated productions of this hit in the last five years know our sly and crafty hero better than that.
This is a readable review, mostly based on comparing stage and film productions. Once again I remind you that when the film was first released most people had probably seen the stage version either on B'way or in road productions. Remember the Communication Triangle, which takes into account shared knowledge.
The main thing one can learn from this review, despite its problems with focus, is being selective. The writer did have a focus (namely comparing stage and film productions) and mostly kept to it, and that focus controlled what she selected to talk about. Thus because "I Believe in You" was staged differently in the film, she discussed that song, but not other songs that she might have discussed instead.
Frankly, rereading her review, though it's hardly a first-class review, I feel it succeeded in what it set out to do. It doesn't go into any depth about the art of cinema, or even the art of the original musical; but it kept to its primary focus, which was to tell readers how the movie differed from, or repeated, the stage production, with a rather slight digression into Hollywood casting methods (usually choosing stars over stage performers).
The review is not in depth, but is concise, has focus and coherence, and a vivid vocabulary. The language is direct ("has a hard time separating fantasy from reality") and coherence is good ("you may have a similar problem" logically links the second sentence to the first by the replacement phrase, "a similar problem," which refers back to a "problem" in the first sentence).
The second paragraph uses subordination of ideas for coherence and focus in describing the plot. First the couple is mentioned, then the husband of the couple, and the wife. He squeezes in the actors' names in parentheses, as I advised in class (this saves space). He uses apposition to explain Leonardo ("an author with writer's block"). "Meanwhile" in the next sentence links the wife's actions to her husband's in the previous sentence to insure coherence.
The final paragraph concludes with a brief evaluation, not in depth, but credible because of specific ideas ("dreamlike story," "rapid-fire editing," "literal-minded," "puckish portrayal," and "a father lost without his children"). Compare: "story," "editing," "portrayal," and "a father and his children." So let's rewrite the sentence without these specific ideas: "Burman's story and editing may pose a problem to some viewers, but Martinez offers ample rewards with his portrayal of a father." See the difference?
Note: The 2 1/2 star rating is puzzling since the review seems more positive about the film.
<> “A Woman’s Work Is Never Done” was a typical episode. Ralph hires a maid when, following an argument, Alice refuses to do the housework. When the maid quits over Ralph's demanding behavior, Ralph has to do the housework himself.
As in the best comedy, the plot was only a peg on which to hang the characters' reactions. In a good series, viewers enjoy rounded characters behaving in expected ways in new situations.
Predictably, Ralph bellowed while Alice responded with sarcastic ripostes. In "A Woman's Work," for example, he asks Alice to get his bowling shirt with his team's name, Hurricanes, on it. "How are they going to know I am a Hurricane?" he bellows. Alice responds, "Just open your mouth."
The relationship between Ralph and Ed was similarly predictable, with Ralph hatching harebrained schemes that Ed went along with. But it was Ed's naive actions that got the bigger laughs, as when, in "A Woman's Work," he jingles a bell to call the maid back after she has already quit and walked out the door.
As in classical tragedy, the plots revolved around the deflation of Ralph's unrealistic schemes, followed by his heartfelt apology to Alice. In "A Woman's Work," for example, he is forced to admit how hard housework is before Alice can forgive him.
Apart from its lower-class characters (a novelty at the time and still rare in sitcoms today), it is this blend of comic and dramatic moments that made The Honeymooners unique and still popular in syndicated reruns across America.
A man gets on a bus. He finds he doesn't have enough change to pay his fare. An argument ensues and the driver insists the man get off the bus. The man becomes irate with the driver and they struggle on the bus. The man sustains an injury to his wrist and sues the bus company. Who was at fault?
According to the law, a person who is asked by a county employee to remove himself from a public vehicle must comply with the order to do. If there has been a violation of his rights, he has the recourse to legal redress at a later date. But he cannot defy an order to remove himself from the vehicle.
Therefore the man who boarded the bus is not entitled to legal damages for his wrist injury, etc.
This is correct because obviously the writer is in control of his material and the reader senses it. But compare with the version below, which poorly mixes tenses:
A man gets on a bus. He found he didn't have enough change to pay his fare. An argument ensues and the driver insisted the man get off the bus. The man became irate with the driver and they struggle on the bus. The man sustained an injury to his wrist and sues the bus company. Who was at fault?
Can you see the difference? This mixture of past and present tenses is wrong and confusing, without rhetorical purpose. The purpose of mixing tenses in the first sample was to bring the legal situation close to the reader, as if it were happening in front of the reader's eyes, before switching to the past tense to discuss the legal issues involved.
THIS IS THE sequence from the film, High Noon, we talked about in class. It's the kind of sequence one would mention if one were reviewing the film. Here's the link:
One would of course sum up the plot and briefly discuss the sequence in terms of,
a) suspense,
b) editing; called montage: a sequence of brief shots linked together by theme, mood, or subject (here the town folk expecting the arrival of the train with the gang leader who plans to kill the sheriff.
1. One can go further and analyze the montage in terms of rhythm;
2. The rhythmic pace quickens after the sound of the train whistle.
c) acting: the performance of the actors, especially the weary and concerned look of Gary Cooper as the sheriff, Will Kane, adds to the effect of the sequence.
d) sound: there is no sound, just the music underscore, except at the beginning when the pendulum clock is heard, and the end, when the sequence is climaxed by the sound of the train whistle breaking the suspense.
e) music plays a great part. Composer Dimitri Tiomkin uses the musical phrase set to the words of "he made a vow while in state prison" of the title song (by now well known to the viewer, since it's sung frequently throughout the film). Though the words are not heard, the viewer naturally attaches the words to this phrase, which Tiomkin repeats in a kind of ostinato (obstinate) and percussive pattern.
f) camera movement:
1. tilt shots go up from the bottom of the pendulum clock to the clock's face, allowing a dramatic climax to show the position of the clock's middle hand.
2. There's a dramatic dolly-in shot on the chair from which the gang leader threatened to kill the sheriff (Cooper) when he got out of prison.
g) deep focus shots of the railway tracks, on which the train carrying the gang leader will arrive at noon to carrry out his threat to kill the sheriff (Cooper).
h) camera scale: the shots get closer as the sequence continues; so by the end we see mostly close-ups of the main characters, including the sheriff's former mistress and an extreme close-up on his young wife, as well as Cooper (the sheriff).
i) theme: the sequence opposes Will Kane (Cooper) in his isolation, writing his Last Will and Testament, against members of the gang out to kill him and the hypocritical townsfolk (some in church) who refuse to assist him.
Here are some questions to consider regarding your review of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying:
1. The music (single out the best song or songs).2. The lyrics. (To read all the lyrics go here.) How lyrics develop plot, character, or tone (wit).
3. The acting. (Main actors, but also supporting cast.)
4. The story.
5. Comparison with other musicals by Frank Loesser. (Guys and Dolls is in the library.)
6. Comparison with other musicals by anyone else. (My Fair Lady, West Side Story, etc.)
7. Tone (satire, farce, comedic, romantic, or mix of tones). Was it satisfactory? Funny?
8. Scenes (singled out to illustrate lyrics, music, acting, staging, dancing, etc.).
9. Dances (choreography).
10. Special cinematic devices (for example, in the opening number, as Ponty sings of going "up" the elevator goes down).
11. Direction (consider direction from the point of view of tone, pace, acting, staging of scenes, etc.).
12. Reception. Critical or audience reception of the film.
How to Succeed Etc.,� Does Just That as Movie
By Toni MastroianniCleveland Press March 22, 1967
I took this contemporary review at random to analyze it for you. Like NY Times reviewer, this reviewer starts off comparing the B'way and film productions. She starts off by tweaking the title (not giving the whole title, since everybody is supposed to know it; above). Then she identifies the writer (Frank Loesser) and the show's award (Pulitzer Prize) and evaluates it as "almost intact" and "one of the best movie musicals ever." I don't like the extra word "done"! It's useless. (How can a musical be "undone"?) She might have written: "one of the best musicals ever filmed" if she had not already called it a "movie" musical. But that's a minor point ("nitpicking" as we say).
Frank Loesser's Pulitzer Prize musical has been transferred to the screen almost intact and the result is one of the best movie musicals ever done.
Then she applauds the fact that the stage actors were kept for the film (hardly ever are stage casts repeated in the film, since only film stars can bring in the bucks. So Audrey Hepburn replaced Julie Andrews for My Fair Lady, though (ironically) Andrews later became a star in her own right and even won an Oscar.
Most surprising of all is the casting. Producer-director David Swift has chosen to take the people off the stage and put them on the screen. Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee do the roles they created on Broadway.
The writer loses me, grammatically (below), but also in terms of coherence and focus; she's getting too involved with discussing who played what on stage when the focus should be on the film in such a short review.
Michele Lee, the secretary in love with the young hero; and Maureen Arthur, the sexy secretary, though not in the original cast, did play it on stage subsequently with Miss Arthur creating the role in the touring company starting here in Cleveland four years ago.
More of the same digressions below! She's spending too much time on matters irrelevant to the movie being discussed:
Considering the way the movie producers generally do these things it would have been no surprise to find the show turned into a starring vehicle for big box-office names�say Natalie (doesn't sing-a-note) Wood and Tony Curtis (who was mentioned for the Morse role somewhere along the way.)
Next she gets back in focus, comparing Morse to the well-known actor, Mickey Rooney. The comparison is not that strong, and rather general:
Morse, badly miscast in movies until now, shows what he can do in the role that established him. He comes across as a humble Mickey Rooney, if you can imagine such a thing, but with trademarks all his own.
Then, in I think her finest paragraph, she gets specific:
Among them�the widest eyes on screen, a jaw that drops so easily that it seems to be weighted and hinged, and a head that almost slumps out of sight whenever humility is indicated as the way to get ahead.
More of the same, with a reference to the famous Italian political philosopher, Machiavelli (readers would know his name because the adjective, Machiavellan, is part of the language (Machiavelli advocated political plotting among statesmen):
But Morse never clouds the gleam in his eye, the glimmer that indicates a latter day Machiavelli of the business world.
Note the writer does not have to type the entire title again (once a title is mentioned it can be abbreviated in later references, such as "Merchant" for "Merchant of Venice," etc.). There's no rule for this; one just finds the key words in the title. Again, I don't like that the character's name is not mentioned; though in movie reviews this can be acceptable since most movie fans identify the character by the star's name (she mentions the character's name below, however). She neatly sums up the plot below as well as her reaction to it ("disarmingly funny"), put in objective terms (not "I think it's funny" but it is "disarmingly funny").
"How to Succeed" revolves around Morse and through him satirizes the tricky, self-seeking ways of climbing the success ladder � from mail boy to company president in as few steps as possible. It's cynical but disarmingly funny.
She next addresses a key issue when adapting a stage play to the screen; namely whether it's been "opened up" for the screen or not. This means that, because stage plays have a limited production space, usually the action is kept in one or two locations. But movies like to exploit their ability to move all over the place and think that audiences want to see many locations or changes of scenes. Hence that useless scene of Ponty (Morse) walking the streets of New York, which took up too much screen time and did not contribute anything to the movie. Then she further compares the film version with the B'way production by pointing out that 4 songs were deleted:
Except for some New York exteriors Swift has done little to open up the show, has pretty much photographed the action as it was originally staged. At least three or four numbers are gone but I really missed only two�"Coffee Break" and "Paris Original."
Nothing special in the next paragraph. She sums up Michele Lee as "winsome and appealing" and the actress who played Hedy as "brassy" and "curvy," but she does nothing with this adjectives.
Michele Lee as Morse's sweetheart is winsome and appealing and Maureen Arthur as Hedy, the boss' friend, sounds brassy and looks curvy.
Again she compares B'way and film productions by saying Rudy Valley (Mr. Biggley) is better than he was on stage, as does the song, "Dear Old Ivy."
Rudy Vallee registers better on screen than he did on stage as president of the World Wide Wicket Co. The Morse-Vallee duet of "Dear Old Ivy," a delicious spoof of college songs, never sounded better.
Finally she mentions the role that Morse plays and correctly indicates that his "hymn" is to himself ("I Believe in You") while pointing out that in the stage production Rosemary does not sing the song to Ponty but does so in the film.
Morse, as young J. Pierpont Finch, still sings his hymn of self-confidence, "I Believe in You." But before he does the moviemakers have allowed Miss Lee to sing it as well, to him. It's an endearing moment but out of keeping. It suggests that Finch may have had a moment of self doubt but that the confidence of a good woman has kept him going.
She finds a way to conclude on the issue of Finch's false humility:
Those of us who have watched J. P. Finch make his way to the top in repeated productions of this hit in the last five years know our sly and crafty hero better than that.
This is a readable review, mostly based on comparing stage and film productions. Once again I remind you that when the film was first released most people had probably seen the stage version either on B'way or in road productions. Remember the Communication Triangle, which takes into account shared knowledge.
The main thing one can learn from this review, despite its problems with focus, is being selective. The writer did have a focus (namely comparing stage and film productions) and mostly kept to it, and that focus controlled what she selected to talk about. Thus because "I Believe in You" was staged differently in the film, she discussed that song, but not other songs that she might have discussed instead.
Frankly, rereading her review, though it's hardly a first-class review, I feel it succeeded in what it set out to do. It doesn't go into any depth about the art of cinema, or even the art of the original musical; but it kept to its primary focus, which was to tell readers how the movie differed from, or repeated, the stage production, with a rather slight digression into Hollywood casting methods (usually choosing stars over stage performers).
Sample Review: Empty Nest
I FOUND THIS review by Rick Warner of the Bloomberg News on the Internet. It follows a review of a documentary about former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. It's short and useful to study. I've numbered key parts.) (For original, go here and scroll down.)
The writer states the title (1), then starts with the main character (2), uses apposition (3), and sums up the film's theme in one sentence (4), Then he evaluates audience response by cause-effect (5), while also giving the director's name and country (6). (Note magazine style, using quotes instead of italics for the title. Book style uses italics.)
In the next paragraph he gives the names of the actors who play the two leads (7), then sums up the story (8). The divides plot into lead characters in (9) and (10), using just two sentences to do so (9) and (10).
The review is not in depth, but is concise, has focus and coherence, and a vivid vocabulary. The language is direct ("has a hard time separating fantasy from reality") and coherence is good ("you may have a similar problem" logically links the second sentence to the first by the replacement phrase, "a similar problem," which refers back to a "problem" in the first sentence).
The second paragraph uses subordination of ideas for coherence and focus in describing the plot. First the couple is mentioned, then the husband of the couple, and the wife. He squeezes in the actors' names in parentheses, as I advised in class (this saves space). He uses apposition to explain Leonardo ("an author with writer's block"). "Meanwhile" in the next sentence links the wife's actions to her husband's in the previous sentence to insure coherence.
The final paragraph concludes with a brief evaluation, not in depth, but credible because of specific ideas ("dreamlike story," "rapid-fire editing," "literal-minded," "puckish portrayal," and "a father lost without his children"). Compare: "story," "editing," "portrayal," and "a father and his children." So let's rewrite the sentence without these specific ideas: "Burman's story and editing may pose a problem to some viewers, but Martinez offers ample rewards with his portrayal of a father." See the difference?
Note: The 2 1/2 star rating is puzzling since the review seems more positive about the film.
(1)‘Empty Nest’
(2)Leonardo, (3)the central character in “Empty Nest,” (4)has a hard time separating fantasy from reality. (5)You may have a similar problem watching this fanciful movie (6) from Argentinean director Daniel Burman.
(7)Leonardo (Oscar Martinez) and Martha (Cecilia Roth) are (8)a middle-aged couple who have opposite reactions when the last of their three children leaves home. (9)Leonardo, an author with writer’s block, retreats into a fantasy world in which he chases his attractive dentist through a department store to the strains of “Bolero” and a chorus line of marching models. (10)His gregarious wife, meanwhile, goes back to school and hosts study groups at her home.
(11)Burman’s dreamlike story and rapid-fire editing may pose a challenge for the literal-minded, but Martinez (12)offers ample rewards with a puckish portrayal of a father lost without his children.
“Empty Nest,” (13)from Outsider Pictures, is (14)playing in New York and (15)opens May 1 in Los Angeles. (16)Spanish, with English subtitles. (17)Rating: **1/2
A Woman's Work Is Never Done
(Revised version)
ONE OF THE earliest classic American TV sitcoms was The Honeymooners (1955), a weekly half-hour series that featured Jackie Gleason as a bus driver, Ralph Kramden, with Audrey Meadows as his patient wife, Alice. The show co-starred Art Carney as Ralph’s simple-minded neighbor, Ed Norton, with Joyce Randolph as Ed's wife, Trixie. (Revised version)
I brainstormed for ideas. I selected ideas I could use coherently, dropping them if they didn't fit in my draft, or else changing my draft (rough organization) if I thought the ideas were important enough to keep in. I found an introductory point of view in which to situate my discussion of a single episode in the series, then I found a concluding paragraph based on higher levels of generality.
In the main body of my brief review, I had to get to lower levels of generality, referring to dialogue and specific incidents of the show, "A Woman's Work Is Never Done." Note how I refer to the show on subsequent occasions in shortened form as "A Woman's Work."
My second paragraph summarized the salient (main, important) parts of the story. But notice that I left out other parts for the sake of coherence, so I could refer to them later in the review (Ralph's apology and admission that housework is hard).
Note too my variety of diction (choice of words). My choice of simple strong words like "hard" was deliberate, so I could mix up simple and more complex words (that is, words derived from Anglo-Saxon sources like "hard" and words derived from Latin roots, such as "riposte"). One always has to consider one's readers. Too many Latin-derived words clutter one's diction; too many Anglo-Saxon derived words limits one's expressive ability.
I started out with higher levels of generality in my first paragraph, used lower levels in my second, then returned to higher levels of generality in my third paragraph, talking about general traits of character. Then in my fourth and fifth paragraphs I became specific again, referring to dialogue and incidents in the single show under discussion.
I used comparison (with classical tragedy) in my sixth paragraph to sum up the effect of the series in the next paragraph, returning to a specific reference to "A Woman's Work" at the end of the paragraph, so the reader doesn't lose focus. Notice that now I can return to the summary of the plot given previously, mentioning Ralph's apology. Otherwise, I would have had to repeat this detail twice in this brief review, which would have seemed awkward. So I removed this reference to Ralph's apology in the earlier paragraph and coherently included it in the later paragraph, precisely when I referred to the general idea of Ralph's weekly apologies.
In my final paragraph I went to higher levels of generality again, and summed up the entire series with a general evalution. This is called "contextualization," or putting a smaller matter into the context of a larger scheme (in this case, a single show in the context of the annual series of shows). This neatly rounds off my review.
Notice that I dropped reference to the incident about the bureau and replaced it with the incident of Ed ringing for the maid after she quits. That's because, first, I felt it was too difficult to rehearse (retell) the story in just a few words; I would need too many words and so telling it would be disproportionate to the size of the review, losing the focus of the whole just to tell one incident. So I replaced it with the incident of Ed ringing for the maid, which I could tell in one sentence and link it coherently in my review. In fact, as often happens in writing, once I chose to include that reference to Ed ringing for the maid, I needed a transition to it, which forced me to change my draft in a new direction. That's how genuine revision works, which is not the same as merely "doing it again." Real revision, as the word implies, means to be in a continuous dialogue with what one has already written and "seeing it again," more clearly, thus able to make the best changes in it.
In the main body of my brief review, I had to get to lower levels of generality, referring to dialogue and specific incidents of the show, "A Woman's Work Is Never Done." Note how I refer to the show on subsequent occasions in shortened form as "A Woman's Work."
My second paragraph summarized the salient (main, important) parts of the story. But notice that I left out other parts for the sake of coherence, so I could refer to them later in the review (Ralph's apology and admission that housework is hard).
Note too my variety of diction (choice of words). My choice of simple strong words like "hard" was deliberate, so I could mix up simple and more complex words (that is, words derived from Anglo-Saxon sources like "hard" and words derived from Latin roots, such as "riposte"). One always has to consider one's readers. Too many Latin-derived words clutter one's diction; too many Anglo-Saxon derived words limits one's expressive ability.
I started out with higher levels of generality in my first paragraph, used lower levels in my second, then returned to higher levels of generality in my third paragraph, talking about general traits of character. Then in my fourth and fifth paragraphs I became specific again, referring to dialogue and incidents in the single show under discussion.
I used comparison (with classical tragedy) in my sixth paragraph to sum up the effect of the series in the next paragraph, returning to a specific reference to "A Woman's Work" at the end of the paragraph, so the reader doesn't lose focus. Notice that now I can return to the summary of the plot given previously, mentioning Ralph's apology. Otherwise, I would have had to repeat this detail twice in this brief review, which would have seemed awkward. So I removed this reference to Ralph's apology in the earlier paragraph and coherently included it in the later paragraph, precisely when I referred to the general idea of Ralph's weekly apologies.
In my final paragraph I went to higher levels of generality again, and summed up the entire series with a general evalution. This is called "contextualization," or putting a smaller matter into the context of a larger scheme (in this case, a single show in the context of the annual series of shows). This neatly rounds off my review.
Notice that I dropped reference to the incident about the bureau and replaced it with the incident of Ed ringing for the maid after she quits. That's because, first, I felt it was too difficult to rehearse (retell) the story in just a few words; I would need too many words and so telling it would be disproportionate to the size of the review, losing the focus of the whole just to tell one incident. So I replaced it with the incident of Ed ringing for the maid, which I could tell in one sentence and link it coherently in my review. In fact, as often happens in writing, once I chose to include that reference to Ed ringing for the maid, I needed a transition to it, which forced me to change my draft in a new direction. That's how genuine revision works, which is not the same as merely "doing it again." Real revision, as the word implies, means to be in a continuous dialogue with what one has already written and "seeing it again," more clearly, thus able to make the best changes in it.
<> “A Woman’s Work Is Never Done” was a typical episode. Ralph hires a maid when, following an argument, Alice refuses to do the housework. When the maid quits over Ralph's demanding behavior, Ralph has to do the housework himself.
As in the best comedy, the plot was only a peg on which to hang the characters' reactions. In a good series, viewers enjoy rounded characters behaving in expected ways in new situations.
Predictably, Ralph bellowed while Alice responded with sarcastic ripostes. In "A Woman's Work," for example, he asks Alice to get his bowling shirt with his team's name, Hurricanes, on it. "How are they going to know I am a Hurricane?" he bellows. Alice responds, "Just open your mouth."
The relationship between Ralph and Ed was similarly predictable, with Ralph hatching harebrained schemes that Ed went along with. But it was Ed's naive actions that got the bigger laughs, as when, in "A Woman's Work," he jingles a bell to call the maid back after she has already quit and walked out the door.
As in classical tragedy, the plots revolved around the deflation of Ralph's unrealistic schemes, followed by his heartfelt apology to Alice. In "A Woman's Work," for example, he is forced to admit how hard housework is before Alice can forgive him.
Apart from its lower-class characters (a novelty at the time and still rare in sitcoms today), it is this blend of comic and dramatic moments that made The Honeymooners unique and still popular in syndicated reruns across America.
When It's Okay to Mix Past and Present Tenses
This is an example, which I made up, of how present and past tenses can be used in the same article for rhetorical purposes; that is, to best present the material. The legal statements are not factual; I made them up for the occasion:A man gets on a bus. He finds he doesn't have enough change to pay his fare. An argument ensues and the driver insists the man get off the bus. The man becomes irate with the driver and they struggle on the bus. The man sustains an injury to his wrist and sues the bus company. Who was at fault?
According to the law, a person who is asked by a county employee to remove himself from a public vehicle must comply with the order to do. If there has been a violation of his rights, he has the recourse to legal redress at a later date. But he cannot defy an order to remove himself from the vehicle.
Therefore the man who boarded the bus is not entitled to legal damages for his wrist injury, etc.
This is correct because obviously the writer is in control of his material and the reader senses it. But compare with the version below, which poorly mixes tenses:
A man gets on a bus. He found he didn't have enough change to pay his fare. An argument ensues and the driver insisted the man get off the bus. The man became irate with the driver and they struggle on the bus. The man sustained an injury to his wrist and sues the bus company. Who was at fault?
Can you see the difference? This mixture of past and present tenses is wrong and confusing, without rhetorical purpose. The purpose of mixing tenses in the first sample was to bring the legal situation close to the reader, as if it were happening in front of the reader's eyes, before switching to the past tense to discuss the legal issues involved.
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