Stuart Isett

I first saw the work of photojournalist Stuart Isett in a December, 2004 The New York Times article about the Millau Bridge in France. Like most newspaper photographs, the image was meant to illustrate the story, but this one overwhelmed it. My eyes were drawn again and again to Isett’s image of a bridge that is “higher than the Eiffel Tower, longer than the Champs-Élysées”:

Strangely, however, this image of the monstrous bridge floating amid layers of thick, cottony clouds — a picture that seemed to place the bridge not in France, but rather in a vast, fantastical realm of mist and myth — was not representative of Isett’s work as I would later find it on the photo-sharing site Flickr. There, I would see most often among Isett’s photographs not towering shots of massive architectural objects, but rather street-level images of everyday life in Asia — images such as this one, which Isett took in Nanjie, a model Communist village in China:

As I combed through Isett’s work on flickr, I began to trace the outlines of the man behind the camera. Isett’s work is dominated by a strong social, empirical vision that manages to be both empathetic and investigative at the same time. His captions disclose the political and humanitarian interests that underpin his photography.

I wanted to know more about Isett, and to find out why this man, who had the ability to publish his photographs in the pages of The New York Times and on the cover of Time magazine, felt a need to publish his work on Flickr. I contacted Stuart and asked him for an interview; he gracefully acceded to my request.

on your formative years as a photographer

Q. When did you first become interested in photography?

A. When I was about 13. My Grandfather was a hobby photographer and he let me use one of his old 35mm, Zeiss cameras from the 1940s. With such a simple camera, I was really forced to learn quickly about camera basics which helped spark my interest in photography.

Q. What was the first photograph that you remember making an impression on you?

A. I think was amazed at all my first photos. Not amazed because they were great photos, but amazed by the mechanics of capturing the world and then having that world permanently stored onto paper. I like photos because of their sense of time and place, how they remind me of the time I took them.

Q. Can you describe the first photograph you took that made you, or someone else, think that you might have a calling as a photographer?

A. The first photo that made me think I wanted to do this as a professional was taken at the Statue Of Liberty of all places. I was 19 at the time and taking a intro photo class at university. I was looking for a different angle on the statue so I stood underneath and shot up.

It taught me early on to try and look at the world differently, see beyond what is normal, what is standard and what is expected.

Q. Do you feel that your identity changes when you lift the camera to your eye? Do you act differently?

A. I’ve always felt that being a documentary photographer requires that you ‘act’ to a certain amount. Whether I’m with gang bangers in Chicago, Yakuza in Japan or Khmer Rouge guerillas in Cambodia, you have to take on a certain personality that helps you to blend in and work. Maybe it’s being quiet and discreet, maybe I’ll be in your face and more aggressive. I’ve also described the process as being like dancing—sometimes you lead, sometimes you’re led, but you always have to be aware of the rhythm, tempo and form of the music. I’m a lousy dancer but when I photograph, I try to keep a finely tuned sense of what is going on around me at all times.

Q. Which photographers have influenced you most?

A. Too many to list and every week I’m influenced by someone new. Early influences were Eugene Richards, Philip Jones Griffiths and David Douglas Duncan. More recent influences have been Philip Blenkinsop, Weegee.

on photojournalism

Q. When you’re on assignment, and have submitted shots to an editor, do you find that you have differences of opinion over which shots should run in the paper? Or is it usually pretty easy to agree on the strongest images?

A. It’s never easy and deadline pressure often makes it impossible to have much say. Depends on whether I’m working with newspaper editors or magazine editors. The latter give you more time to have input. My editors at The New York Times are good and often go with my lead image when I file. When shooting, though, ultimately I photograph for myself. If an editor butchers the work there’s not much I can do besides look at the work myself and find its strengths and weaknesses.

Q. What’s the wildest thing you’ve done to gain better access for a shot?

A. Well, I’m not paparazzi so when I climb walls or take motorcycle taxis to a war zone, it’s usually to cross a simple physical barrier. I find talking is the best way to get any kind of access and sometimes that requires a certain ‘creativity’.

Q. What types of assignments attract you most?

A. Long term, documentary projects. The ones that sadly don’t exist much these days so I usually self finance them. I enjoy working at night, with shady characters in dingy cities. Something about Weegee’s style of work, showing the dark underbelly of life appeals to me.

A Manila policeman points to a man arrested after a drug raid.

Q. Have you ever not taken a photograph because you didn’t want to embarrass the person in front of you? Have you ever destroyed any of your shots for similar reasons? Has anyone else sought to destroy or confiscate them (or your camera) because they didn’t like the shots you took?

A. I’ve been detained and questioned a few times (China, Burma and in Cambodia) and have been forced to hide film in a few situations. Again, if there’s a problem I often try to politely talk my way out of it. Plenty of times I’ve not taken images because I could tell the subject did not want their photo taken. When people are in a tough situation I always make it clear what I’m doing—I will never just jump in, snap a shot and then take off.

Q. Recently, conservative blogs have criticized a New York Times photojournalist, Joao Silva, for his photograph of a Mahidi Army sniper. They imply that, by spending time with Iraqi insurgents, and by photographing them instead of relaying their locations to the U.S. Army, Silva was “sleeping with the enemy.” As a photojournalist, how do you respond to these accusations?

A. Nonsense. Trying to blame the press for failed policies never works for any government but we make a handy scapegoat. Joao’s doing his job, showing us the reality of what is happening in Iraq. People who want to hide this kind of information are simply divorcing themselves from reality, an attitude which seems to sum up pretty well our failed policies in Iraq.

on flickr

Q. The first time I viewed your flickrstream, I was amazed by your photos. But my incredulity doubled when I saw that you had taken a photo that I had noticed in The New York Times. Why post your photos on flickr when you’re already reaching such a wide audience?

A. Two reasons. I never get any feed back from my work in the New York Times. People rarely write letters to the editor about the images!! Also, I don’t even get much feed back from my editors beyond a ‘great’ or ‘thanks’ so it’s nice to here from people to hear what they think of my work. I’ve always preferred that kind of one on one feedback, shooting for a newspaper is a way to make a career but personally I sometimes don’t find it satisfying for the very reason that I don’t learn how my images affect people.

A surgeon at Sisophon Hospital prepares to amputate the leg of a soldier who stepped on a landmine.

Q. What do you think of Flickr? What are some of the good and bad things about it? What have you gotten out of posting your work there?

A. Well, what’s good and bad about the Flickr is the same as what’s good and bad about any public space. You get clowns but you also get people passionate about photography and passionate about the subjects I shoot. People use it for different reasons, for me it’s to see which of my images are affecting people and in what ways. I hope it helps my work.

Q. Can you name some photographers you’ve encountered on flickr who deserve a wider audience?

A. Tokyo Danz. Great work from Japan.

on the stories you’ve told

Japan’s Far Right

Q. Two of your photo sets on flickr are particularly stunning. Let’s start with Japan’s Far Right.

My sense is that many Americans don’t know much about his movement. Can you tell us a little about it, and what led you to cover it?

A. Americans don’t know much about what happened in Japan after the war and complicity of the US government in resurrecting many of the same war criminals who started the war. The uyoko are an ever present force in Japan and are very effective at limiting democracy and debate in Japan. Opponents to the Imperial Family, apologists for the war, union leaders, pacifists, ethnic minorities, all kinds of ordinary Japanese have been attacked and murdered (and many more silenced) by the right-wing extremists in Japan.

Q. Why do you think young people, like those pictured here are drawn to the Uyoko?

Young right wingers harass opponents on the streets of Tokyo.

A. For many it’s simply a job. For many, it’s also a place to find a home. Many come from broken homes and tough backgrounds so the uyoko can provide them with a sense of importance and power that they feel they lack. It’s why young people do stupid things in many countries and it’s how older people manipulate young people to do stupid things for them.

Q. Were you in physical danger while taking these shots?

A. None at all. They were actually quite nice. Being a foreigner helps, you’re kind of an oddity so they enjoyed having me around, if only to watch my odd foreign ways. I obliged them by playing the role of the dumb ‘baka na gaijin’ or foreigner. I generally find that people in any society or situation are usually motivated by the same things. Show some kindness, be genuine and polite and there’s rarely a problem. I often find humor is the best way to disarm people in difficult situations.

A Japanese yakuza gangster in the door of an extremist’s group sound truck.

Q. I found this photograph to be amazingly striking. The man’s style seems to come right out of Dick Tracy. He’s obviously posing for you, which leads me to wonder whether or not he saw you as a vehicle for promoting his message. Would it bother you if one of the effects of this photograph was to spread that message?

A. Actually he wasn’t posing but he briefly froze in the door when he saw me.

Easter Crucifixions

Q. First, I just want to say, “Wow.” This is quite an impressive set of photographs. What led you to take them?

A. For the same reason you said ‘wow’. It’s actually a well photographed event but something I wanted to try. It wasn’t easy. It was extremely hot and there was lots of blood flying around from the whips. By the time I got to the crucifixions I was so exhausted I don’t think I even noticed the nails being pounded in. The crowds and the crush were crazy so getting up front for to photograph required a lot of shoving. It’s not something for the faint of heart.

Q. As I look at shots like this, I wonder what you were thinking as you stood so close to someone about to have a nail driven through his hand. So . . . what was going through your mind when you took this shot?

Annual crucifixions are held by devout Filipino Catholics to celebrate Easter in San Fernando, north of Manila. Before being crucified participants whip themselves, or are whipped by locals, for penance.

A. I swear, I was so tired I didn’t notice until I got the film back that I caught that moment. It happened very quickly and I only got 2-3 frames. This one just worked out perfectly.

Q. Was this man aware of you when you took this shot? How did he react to you?

A. There were all in a trance basically so I’m sure they didn’t notice us.

Q. What was the toughest part about taking these pictures?

A. Heat, blood, dust, crowds. I’d never do it again.

on the profession

Q. What do you wish you’d known about the profession before you entered it?

A. I’d never get rich. Just kidding. I wish I had some staff work at a paper somewhere, I think it would have taught me more discipline. I’ve always freelanced so had to learn a lot of things the hard way.

Q. Do you enjoy your work? What are the best and worst things about it?

A. Enjoy isn’t a strong enough word. I’m lucky to do what I do and know there’s not much else I can do at this point.

Q. What techniques do you use to photograph people on the street without making them aware that you are shooting them?

A. I don’t sneak up on people or use long lenses. Quite often I enjoy the reaction I get with the camera but most often if I want a more unaffected scene I simply wait and shoot slowly until the people get bored of me and carry on doing what they do.

Q. What cameras and lenses do you use most often?

A. Nikon F100 35mm, small and compact, and a Nikon D2X for digital assignment work. I have all the Nikon F1.4 lenses so can never really leave Nikon, I love these lenses so much.

Q. What’s the most important quality a photographer needs to have?

A. Perseverance.

Q. What goes into a good crop?

A. I rarely crop my images so can’t really say. I have no problem with slight crops (less than 10%) to clean up an image a little, maybe clear off the edges but never more than that.

Q. What books do you recommend to people hoping to learn more about photography?

A. Actually I think the best way to be a good photographer is to have interests other than photography so I’d recommend reading anything other than photo books but about subjects you want to photograph. You have to be careful to see that photos are simply a means to an end, not an end in themselves.

I’d like to thank Stuart for taking the time to answer my questions. You can find his work in the pages of The New York Times, on Flickr, and on his portfolio site.

Related: Previous Interviews on The Tattered Coat

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Regular readers of this blog know that I was quite upset by the recent spill of cyanide into Philadelphia’s water system. My initial horror at the early reports of a “fish kill” turned to anger when I found out that the spill involved cyanide. That anger turned to indignation when I learned that Merck, the pharmaceutical company responsible for the spill, did not notify government officials of it until a week after the incident.

After reading one Daily News article that minimized the issue, I compiled a list of questions that remained unanswered. Susie agreed that the investigation should not be left in the hands of an agency, and a federal administration, that had spent the last five years weakening our nation’s environmental laws. This was a local story that cried out for some old-fashioned muckraking.

As the weeks passed without further coverage, I wondered why the Inquirer didn’t seem to be actively investigating the story. Although I was tempted to write angry posts condemning the paper, I decided to do the responsible thing — to contact the paper in an effort to figure out what was going on.

Dan Rubin, an Inquirer journalist who writes eloquently about the Philadelphia blogosphere on Blinq, put me in touch with Carl Lavin, Deputy Managing Editor of the Inquirer. Carl very graciously agreed to an interview.

He was not able to answer all of the questions I asked. I can’t say I blame him; here is one of the questions he skipped:

It’s hard to blame him for passing on that one.

At any rate, I’m extremely grateful for the dialogue that Carl and I did end up having during the interview process. His responses below remind me, as a blogger, of the human realities in which journalists operate. And his willingness to take part in a dialogue affirmed my sense that bloggers and journalists can and should make better efforts to communicate with one another.

Matt: How does the Inquirer decide which stories are worth investigative, rather than factual or topical, reporting?

Carl Lavin: There are more than 400 journalists at the Inquirer, and we share a certain discipline and an approach to our jobs. Accuracy, fairness, curiosity, skepticism, context, story telling, relevance, impact on the lives of our readers and immediacy are all values we cherish. Each of us might have a slightly different list, but I think there is a consensus around those core values. We each bring to our jobs a wealth of experience, as journalists, but also as people — with histories, families, connections, and a full range of personal interests. Any good journalist tries to chase a story with an investigative zeal, if by investigative you mean that we want to do more than serve as stenographers to press agents and officials.

We want to avoid cynicism, but we don’t want to be passive about the flow of information we each face every day. We sift, we challenge, we triple check, we look for discrepancies, for holes. We also are aware of the people in each story — the people who are the decision makers and the people who read our paper, the ones who don’t have the time or ability to sate their own curiosity but who want to know what really happened. We can find the answers, trace how their tax money is spent, uncover the broken promises made by the officials who represent them, and point out ways that their world — our world — can be made better. We also celebrate success, capture drama and emotion, listen to the music of the soul and the poetry of the heart.

We tell stories. We help readers make sense of the tumult of the world. We tell the truth. We are limited in what we can do each day, each week. We always have ambitions that overshadow our resources. We make mistakes. We try to be efficient and to pick the paths that will lead to stories that illuminate powerful forces. We hit brick walls. We sometimes find the path is easier than we expected. Luck works both ways. We try through conversation, planning, training and experience to make it work for us as often as possible.

Do you, as an editor at the paper, see this as a story that warrants more investigation?

As an editor at this paper, I do want to know more about chemical spills in our watershed, and I want to know more about this specific spill.

In fact, Carl has informed me that the Inquirer will publish a new article on the spill in tomorrow’s paper. When I asked him whether that article stemmed, in any way, from our conversation, he replied that it had not — the paper’s environmental reporter had been working on it beforehand. But he added that “hearing from readers always helps us as we make decisions about news coverage.”

Let us, as readers of the paper, make sure that neither we, nor our local journalists, forget that.

UPDATE: Here is the story: Merck faces fines for June fish kill. It is not the investigative piece I had hoped it would be (I’m thinking Woodward and Bernstein here), but it’s a start, and I’m happy to see continuing coverage of the offiicial investigation.

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A few weeks ago, Robert Ryang’s remixed Shining trailer exploded onto the internet with surprising force. Six days after it first appeared, it remained the single most popular link among bloggers. Two other trailers from the same contest, West Side Story and Titanic, also reached the top ten.

All three of these trailers were assembled for a contest sponsored by The Association of Independent Creative Editors. According to its website, members of AICE “edit over 85% of all television commercials post-produced in the U.S. and thus play a significant part in the $5 billion television commercial industry.” The success of the Shining trailer has helped raised the profile of AICE in particular, and video editors in general.

Soon after the video emerged, I sent Robert a short list of interview questions. He was kind enough to take time away from a sudden rush of calls from Hollywood executives in order to answer them. In the following interview, he sheds light on his creative process, his experience as a video editor, and the prize he received for winning the Trailer Park contest.

What do you do for a living?

My day job is as an assistant to a commercial editor at PS 260 in NY. It’s the first and only real job I’ve ever had since graduating college.

What do you want to do for a living?

I’ve always held artistic and professional ambitions to create feature films and video work that are entirely my own. I enjoy all aspects of filmmaking so I can’t really say I only want to specialize in one craft and only that.

How did you come up with the idea for this trailer? Did you have a eureka moment of inspiration?

I originally edited the Shining trailer for an annual contest open to assistant editors, thrown by the New York AICE.

Immediately, I had the Peter Gabriel song and the image of Jack Nicholson together in my mind, and it just made me crack up. However, when I watched the movie, there were so few touching scenes (Danny never smiles once and Jack’s smiles are deranged), I thought a good re-edit would be impossible for me to pull off.

I then started to turn my attention to the John Wayne classic Red River, intending to fully exploit the protagonist’s masculinity, and recut the film as a homosexual romance.

My initial Shining idea kept making me laugh though so I became determined to watch it again, which is when I saw more potential.

How long did it take you to put it together?

I watched the movie twice. Once I had my ideas, actually assembling it only took a weekend and a couple of weeknights.

You won a contest with this video . . . what did you win?

I won Avid Express Pro HD which is like the Avid version of Final Cut. I also got a cool trophy which is a little mini trailer that I get to keep for a year, like the Stanley Cup.

Did you expect this video to attract as much attention as quickly as it has? What is the best piece of feedback you have gotten?

I only posted it on a backdoor site on the PS 260 server so that two friends could see it. My buddy Dustin Stephens tossed the link on his blog so I can only assume that he was the host monkey. Most e-mails I’ve been getting just tell me that I made their day or that I made them spit coffee all over their computer monitors, which is simply amazing to me. Supposedly Jack Black really likes it, which is incredible, because he’s hilarious as hell.

Have you heard about any concerns about copyright issues in regards to these kinds of recut trailers?

I was told to consider the trailer “fan art” by the AICE and an entertainment lawyer. As long as no one’s making any money, I think we’re cool.

How closely have you been following all of the postings about Shining?

I haven’t personally been following the postings, but my friends and co-workers let me know whenever something unique happens. On CNN Money, the PS 260 website was the “Fun Site” of the week, and one of the veteran anchors remarked that some people have too much time
on their hands.

What kind of training or experience in editing do you have?

I’ve been an assistant editor for over two years now. I taught myself Final Cut in college and Avid when I started at PS. Over the past five years, I’ve edited several of my own as well as some friends’ short films. I’ve also cut together a couple of television spots and music videos.

Many people have noted that your trailer demonstrates the importance of the editing process to video and film making. What misconceptions do people have about the role of an editor?

Well, the extent of the editor’s role depends on the specific project and the collaborators involved. Sometimes a director will just drop a mile of footage in your lap and say, do your thing. Other times, he or she will sit shotgun at the editing station and play the backseat driver.

What filmmakers, and/or video editors, do you admire? What is your favorite film?

As much as I’d hate to single out any era of film that I admire the most, I’d probably have to say American movies from the 70’s. I love The Conversation, Chinatown, Ordinary People, Badlands, etc, and I wish they still made movies that good regularly.

Otherwise, I think that Boogie Nights is the greatest film ever made.

How and when did your interest in video editing begin?

I’ve been interested in film my whole life. I spent my childhood summers making comedic shorts with my friends with a family camcorder. When I was in college, I got a job on a boat racing show for Speedvision (racing 24/7), and I stole one of their old copies of Adobe Premiere. I used that to teach myself basic non-linear editing, so when Final Cut and Avid came along, they were easy to learn. I pursued editing after college, because the craft enables you to have a lot of creative control even at an assistant’s level. When I PA’d on sets in college, the only decisions I got to make were over what kind of coffee to buy. I also sucked at driving the cube truck and probably knocked off a bunch of side view mirrors.

What’s the most unintentionally funny movie trailer you’ve ever seen?

I’m not sure, but the most unintentionally funny movie I’ve ever seen is Deep Blue Sea, hands down. Actually, I’m sure a lot of the irony was intentional.

How has your life changed since this trailer came out? Are you going to leave your job? What kinds of offers have you gotten from Hollywood studios?

Some studio execs and producers have asked me to send them scripts and shorts so I’m currently trying to find representation to act as an intermediary. I was told that I have some “heat” right now– who knows if it will last, but at least it’s giving me the opportunity to have some power players take a look at my stuff.

I’ve gotten a couple of potential editing offers, one from a major studio, but most people are interested in my ideas rather than my editing skills.

Where can we find more of your work?

To check out some other short QT’s, you can go to http://www.ps260.com/molly

You can also see some coworkers’ trailers from the blog section of ps260.com.

Thanks to Robert for answering these questions. You can find out more about him in this New York Times story and in the updates to my original post on Shining.

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I’ve never understood why commercial radio is as bad as it is. With so much great music already out there, and so much great new music released every day, why do radio stations play the same tired songs, over and over? Does it have to be this way?

Apparently not. KEXP is a member-supported radio station in Seattle that is committed to playing good music all the time. The station won a 2004 Webby for Best Radio Website; its signal is streamed over the internet, and can be accessed directly though the station’s site, or through digital music players such as iTunes. The website also has a fantastic collection of live performances available for download.

My favorite KEXP host is John Richards, a smart, funny, and engaging DJ whose commitment to music is as strong as a cup of Seattle coffee. With playlists that combine older songs from The Smiths, The Clash, and Nick Drake with new music from artists such as Bloc Party, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and Sufjan Stevens, John’s show consistently lives up to the station’s motto: KEXP - Where the Music Matters.

John is a throwback to the DJs of yore — people with great taste who became DJs because they felt an almost missionary urge to share their passion with others. KEXP is John’s home; music is his tonic; and we are the lucky guests, invited in to the party.

John graciously agreed to answer some questions about KEXP, his experiences as a DJ, the state of contemporary radio, and — perhaps most importantly — the method he uses to organize his vast collection of CDs.

Read the rest of this entry »

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If you’re not reading Attytood, the blog of Daily News reporter Will Bunch, you should be. Few bloggers combine such trenchant wit with such fine investigative acumen, consistently delivering posts that evoke both gasps and belly-laughs on a regular basis.

At a time when many newspapers are struggling to find a path through the wilds of new-media business strategies, both of Philadelphia’s major newspapers have embraced new models of communication by employing bloggers (Will at the Daily News, and Daniel Rubin at the Inquirer) and offering podcasts (as the Daily News does through Philly Feed).

Will graciously agreed to do an email interview with me in which I questioned him about the challenges and benefits of blogging for a newspaper, the history of Attytood, and the vibrant Philadelphia blogging scene.

On Blogging at the Daily News

Matt, The Tattered Coat: How have your colleagues in the newsroom reacted to your blogging? How many of them knew about blogging before you started? What has surprised, pleased, or disappointed you most about the reactions you have gotten?

Will Bunch, Attytood: Everybody’s been highly supportive – many reporters read it, although I don’t want to be too pushy about so I’m sure that some don’t. More and more, folks are suggesting potential items, in fact. My relationship with editors is a little more complicated – they want me devoting as much time as I can to the newspaper, for obvious reasons.

TC: Now that you are blogging, how does your workday differ from your days of doing print journalism? Do you tend to blog from the office?

WB: That’s funny – now that I’m blogging my work day never ends! If I’m not blogging I’m thinking about blogging. And I post many items from home, either in the early morning or late at night, so I’d say it’s 60 percent office, 40 percent home.

TC: How much freedom do you have on your blog? Is an editor assigned to oversee it? Has management ever criticized one of your posts? Are your “Daily (News) Show” posts mandated as part of your contract? Are you allowed to curse?

WB: That’s an ongoing and evolving process. The short answer is that I have a lot of freedom – all my items are posted by me straight to the blog. The paper’s online editor, Vance Lehmkuhl, reads in behind me, and on a few occasions he suggested changes in content, most of which I’ve gone along with. None of my posts have been criticized. Very recently, there’s some understandable concern about whether I should write news stories about politicians I’ve criticized on the blog. But even then, management has been supportive and proposed several solutions, which I won’t list because we’re still discussing them.

Regarding obscenity — I think the standards should be the same as the newspaper. Although God knows I do curse — more than the average person in the newsroom, but almost never at home! — I don’t think it’s essential to making an argument in a blog posting. Also, I think most cursing bloggers aren’t parents of young children…my kids are 10 and 12 and I wouldn’t like them reading something with curse words. But I do think young people can and should read about what their government is up to.

TC: How did you get the blogging job at the DN—did you go to them, or did they come to you? How closely have the editors at the paper been following your efforts?

WB: It was a combination. Last summer, I wanted to try some new things and proposed blogging. At the same time, Vance was pushing for a blog that would focus on the election. It all came together amazingly quickly, in the form of Campaign Extra!

TC: Should bloggers have the same legal protections as print/radio/television journalists?

WB: Yes.

TC: Who are your blogging role models? How do they differ from the journalistic role models you presumably had when you got into the field?

WB: I don’t think I have any one role model. I try to combine the snarkiness of Wonkette, the passion for certain causes that is similar to Atrios or Daily Kos, with my own unique brand of investigative reporting as a longtime journalist.

On Blogging in General

TC: Your blog is only a few months old, but you’ve obviously already hit the big-time as a blogger, garnering links from atrios and kos in recent weeks. How carefully were you following the blog scene before you started? When did you first start reading blogs? Would you have started one even if the DN didn’t support it?

WB: I didn’t look for blogs – they found me! Several stories that I wrote for the Daily News – and one in particular, The 20 Unanswered Questions of 9/11, which was published on Sept. 11, 2003 – generated lots of emails, and several said they’d seen it on these websites that I was not familiar with. When I checked them out, I started reading some of them, and eventually I was hooked.

I probably wouldn’t have started one without DN support – there’s enough ethical issues doing one WITH their support.

TC: Do you have an imagined reader? Who do you write for?

WB: No. Because my blog appears on a newspaper Web site, I assume that my readership is as diverse as the newspaper’s, although over time I suspect that liberal readers will come back more.

TC: I’ve noticed that you rarely comment on your own blog. Do you agree with that assessment? If so, was it a conscious decision, or one made simply because of time constraints?

WB: Early on I did, and Vance dissuaded me – he argued that I would lose the voice of authority if I commented other than exceptional cases (like technical issues). I’ve actually eased up on that a little, though.

TC: Can you name a few blogs that you feel are deserving of wider recognition?

WB: Just Tattered Coat. [Ed Note: aw, shucks. Is this guy good, or what?]

TC: How has your life changed since you’ve started blogging?

WB: That’s a loaded question – I’ve been through some recent changes in my life that had zero to do with blogging. I do worry a lot about whether blogging interferes, or will interfere, with the No. 1 most important thing in my life, which is being a good father to my two children. So far I think it’s OK, but I worry about that a lot.

On Philly and Philly Sports

TC: I feel as though I’ve read some less-than-complimentary posts on Attytood about WIP. What bothers you about the station? What do you like about it? Do you think that it presents an accurate representation of Philly sports, Philly sports fans, and the city itself?

WB: I like WIP and almost all of the hosts – except for Howard Eskin, whom I despise and whose popularity eludes me, since he makes no connection with his callers and other than some insider stuff that he gets from sucking up to a few people, doesn’t even come off as that knowledgeable, especially about baseball, my favorite sport.

My other big gripe is how they deal with the Phillies. Other than a brief surge of optimism last spring, they once treated anyone who liked the team, or even baseball, as uncool; now they harass anyone who doesn’t take the most cynical view of the team. I think it’s part of the reason fans booed on Opening Day!

TC: Many people have noticed that Philly has produced an inordinate amount of prominent blogs, including Eschaton, Whiskey Bar, Corrente, Rittenhouse Review, All-Spin Zone, Suburban Guerrilla, and now Attytood, among many others. Do you have any guesses as to why that is so?

WB: Yes, I think that Philly has a lot of thoughtful, smart and politically aware folks – but not being in N.Y. or D.C., no one could pay attention to them. Now, we’re on an equal footing, at least in this type of media.

TC: Who is your favorite current Philly athlete? What about him or her makes you a fan?

WB: Andre Iguodala – he seems like a good kid who works on every aspect of the game, especially defense, and is going to be a superstar someday.

TC: What is your favorite Philly sports story of the last few years?

WB: The 2000-01 Sixers. No comparison.

TC: What, besides a predilection for cheese whiz, defines the heart of a Philadelphian?

WB: Loyalty, roots, a desire to win but not at the cost of compromising values.

On Journalism

TC: When did you realize you wanted to be a journalist? When did you first become interested in politics?

WB: I’m from the Woodward-Bernstein generation –- I was obsessed with Watergate when I was in HS, and I never looked back.

TC: How did you break into journalism?

WB: I was an editor on my college paper, worked for a weekly newspaper in Peoria, Ill, (where I had relatives) for one summer and was a summer intern at Newsday (L.I.) the next. I was a summer replacement reporter for the AP in Providence, R.I., then got my first “real” job in Washington, Pa., near Pittsburgh, and then in Birmingham, Ala., where someone I knew through college journalism was a young editor.

Things degenerated from there.

TC: What was the toughest thing you had to learn to be a successful journalist?

WB: Approaching strangers on the street. I still wouldn’t do that in “real life.”

TC: What advice do you have for young writers who want to enter the field?

WB:Be a good reporter, with a passion for asking questions and seeking the truth, and all the upheavals in forms of media won’t matter much.

TC: What piece of print journalism are you most proud of? What blog post are you most proud of?

WB: Print: The 9/11 piece, a pre-Iraq story called “Why War?” and a nostalgic story about the last season of the A’s in Philly (1954). Blog: Writing about Rick Santorum and his ties to Wal-Mart, because of the hypocrisy factor.

On Favorites

TC: What’s your favorite book?

WB: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

TC: favorite movie?

WB: Goodfellas

TC: favorite tv show?

WB: Seinfeld, Baseball Tonight

TC: favorite album?

WB: Bruce Springsteen, The River

Thanks very much to Will for answering such a long list of questions.

You can find Will Bunch’s unique combination of Wonkette-like snarkiness and Atrios-like passion on Attytood.

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In Part II of our interview, Salon.com Sportswriter King Kaufman graciously answered my questions about his own entry into journalism, and gave advice for others who would follow his lead.

How did you get into journalism?

Followed my brother, who was the real journalism star of the family. He had his own little newspaper that he typed up when he was about 8. He was a star on the high school paper, was working in professional radio pretty early on in college, and went on to a career in the radio and then TV news business before switching over to entertainment. I was always good at writing so I got onto my high school paper, but probably didn’t have quite the same kind of passion for it, though I had some, and I was good.

One of the best things that ever happened to me was deciding that I wanted to go to UC-Berkeley, which didn’t have a journalism major. If it had, I’m sure I’d have majored in journalism. Instead, I majored in history, got a liberal arts education, and only returned to journalism in my last year, when I started working for the campus radio station, KALX, and covering baseball for the Daily Californian. I only did that because I was going to graduate and started thinking, “Maybe I should figure out what I’m going to do for a living.” I eventually decided to go to Berkeley’s journalism school, ended up working for several years at the radio station, including a year as news director but also some sports play-by-play, and finally kind of settled on newspapers, because I got a job first at a chain of throwaway papers in the East Bay, and then at the San Francisco Examiner, where I hired on — believe it or not given this sentence — as a copy editor.

What advice do you have for people, like me, who yearn to write for publications such as Salon? What is the best way for a would-be journalist to get started? In your experience, how important (or unimportant) is a graduate journalism degree to success in the business?

The best way to get started is to get started. Find a place that’s looking for the kind of writing you want to or are willing to do. That might be a local paper, a Web site somewhere. Start a blog and treat it as a professional publication.

The best way to get anything published anywhere is to pitch a story that a publication would be likely to want to run. So get to know the publications your pitching. Figure out their needs and see if you can fill them.

A graduate journalism degree isn’t necessary for success, but going to journalism school is a way to get the basics while meeting people in the profession and probably getting some decent guidance both on your reporting and writing and on your employment search. It certainly can be helpful, though whether it’s worth the time and money is a question for the individual. I always put it this way: I learned more in my first two weeks at the San Francisco Examiner than I learned in two years at the UC-Berkeley J-School. But I got the job at the Examiner through the J-School.

What separates a good article proposal from a bad one? Do you have any suggestions about things to do or not to do when contacting editors?

A good one grabs the attention of the editor quickly — very quickly — gets him or her interested in the story, and is itself well-written. It makes the editor say, “I understand exactly what this person is trying to say, I think it’s a great idea, and I think this person would be able to write it.”

In a 2003 interview, you mentioned that it was sometimes hard for you, as an online journalist, to gain access to locker-rooms. Has the situation improved over the past two years?

No.

Maybe this is a reach, but the illustration of you on Salon reminds me of the frontispiece that Walt Whitman placed at the beginning of the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman was famous for using images of himself to construct a public self-identity. Can you tell us more about the image on your column, and the ways in which it helps create your public persona?

I might have a better answer if I’d had anything to do with the creation of that caricature, or even the decision in the first place to use a likeness of me on the column, which I didn’t. Salon had caricatures of its columnists from the first, all of them done by Zach Trenholm. He has a rule that when he does your caricature, you can make — I forget if it’s one or two — suggestions or requests for a revision. So I asked him to add my crown tattoo. Other than that, I had no input.

It’s a remarkable likeness, captures something about me. Everyone who knows me and sees it says that. And a bonus: It makes me better looking than I am. But I’m not sure what it does for my public persona. I write a daily column, and if you read me more than once in a while, I think you kind of get to know my public persona through the words.

Which writers do you most admire?

Mark Twain. As a kid, there was only one time I ever did that cliched thing of being so wrapped up in some adventure story I was reading that I’d stay up late, reading it in bed with a flashlight under the covers after I was supposed to be asleep. Of course it was “Tom Sawyer.” I have a book of his short stories next to the bed and every once in a while I just open it up and read one. I read “Huck Finn” about once a decade. It’s different every time, damndest thing.

James Joyce and Elmore Leonard. Each in his own way, I love what they do what with the language.

Red Smith. He was once on the cover of Time or Newsweek and it said “The DiMaggio of the Press Box.” I’ve read that there’s a play about him called “The Shakespeare of the Press Box.” Really he was the Mark Twain of the press box. I didn’t read him when he was alive, though I
think I was already in college when he died. I discovered him later. He was a New York guy and this was pre-Internet. You didn’t go around reading columnists who weren’t in your hometown paper. Lucky for me I grew up reading the Los Angeles Times, which had Jim Murray, a giant in his own right. In fact, when Smith died, Murray wrote, “He wasn’t a sportswriter. He was a writer.” That’s something I’d say about Murray too, and I hope someday people will say it about me. I’m just starting to look into his contemporary, Jimmy Cannon.

Dave Barry. That sounds a little ridiculous now, I suppose — the guy they based that bad TV series on? When I was just starting out, Barry won the Pulitzer Prize, and that was the first I’d heard of him. I came across the columns he used in his portfolio and they made me laugh so hard I nearly fainted. I was in a library. The librarian was ready to call the cops. And then right in the middle there was one about his mom dying, and it wasn’t mawkish but it made me well up.

I decided to try to figure out what it was that was so good, so funny about his stuff, because I didn’t think it was the subject matter, which was mostly boogers. I really studied how he set up his jokes, how he constructed his sentences. It was really an education. Barry probably gets underestimated because he’s dorky and he writes funny stuff, and I think in recent years he’s been mailing it in a lot, churning out all those dumb books and everything. But at his best, he’s a virtuosic stylist. Not only did I learn valuable lessons about rhythm and timing and syntax from him, but I learned how to study other writers by studying him.

There are dozens of others, of course, and of course they’re not all white men like these guys! But they’re the ones that kind of spring to mind first.

What’s the toughest part of your job?

The dailiness of it. It’s a grind. My wife works at a university, and as a benefit she gets to take a class each semester for free, which she usually does. One time she was kind of grumbling, saying, “I have to write a five-page paper for my class next week.” I said, “I write a five-page paper every day.”

How do your experiences writing for Salon differ from those you had at other publications?

The closeness of the audience. I get more e-mails from readers in a typical day than I got letters from readers in seven years at a newspaper. It really feels more like a conversation than writing for a newspaper does. I also have tremendous, ridiculous amounts of editorial freedom. The meddling levels of middle management that are so crushing to creativity and original thought, and that are so prevalent in the newspaper world, don’t exist at Salon. I appreciate that. There’s also the immediacy. I can finish writing something and have it in the hands of readers within minutes.

What skills does a successful editor, as opposed to a successful writer, need to have?

Good question. I’m not sure. I guess you have to be a generalist to a certain extent. It helps to be a good writer, but I guess the key thing is to be able to read a story and think like a writer and a reader at the same time. To be able to understand, as a reader, what’s missing from a story, what’s working, what needs some fleshing out, etc., and also understanding, like a writer, the structure of the story, how it’s built, how it can be tinkered with. It’s also important to be able to work on a story without making it your own, which is harder than it sounds. Just because you’d approach a story a certain way, or you’d rewrite a certain passage this way, doesn’t mean that’s the proper approach to this story for this writer.

King Kaufman is Senior Writer and Sports Columnist at Salon.com. Be sure to check out his latest column and his archives. You can also join his mailing list by sending an email to kingnewsletter@salon.com. If you missed Part I of our interview, you can find it here.

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I’ve admired Salon’s King Kaufman since the first day I read his work. Though he is nominally a sports columnist, and can go stat-to-stat with the most pencil-necked sabermetrician, Kaufman often moves from sports-related issues to the larger cultural ramifications of the stories he covers. Whether he’s criticizing the televised coverage of sports, debunking common sports superstitions, taking on Ricky Williams, revealing the pernicious influence of Craig Kilborn, dishing on the Oscars, or out-foxing Fox’s coverage of the Randy Moss moon, Kaufman writes pieces that spike informed analysis with incisive wit.

The first paragraph of the Moss column captures what I love about Kaufman’s writing:

In a few deft strokes, he lays bare the absurdity of the whole charade.

Many bloggers have an “It’s Your Birthday” moment; mine came when Mr. Kaufman agreed to do an email interview with me for this site.

I sent him two lists of questions, and asked him to respond to any that interested him. In Part I of our interview, King answered my sports-related inquiries. In Part II, which will appear tomorrow, King responds to my questions about becoming a journalist, recounts his early days in the industry, and gives advice that will help guide aspiring writers to the promised land of print.

I want to thank King Kaufman for taking the time to complete this interview with me.

Who is the smartest athlete you have ever met or read about? In which American sport is the stereotype of the “dumb jock” most off the mark?

I can’t think of anyone I’ve met who’s struck me as “the smartest.” Usually it’s the ex-athletes who have the most interesting, intelligent things to say, rather than the current ones, who tend to be more guarded and have less life experience. Off the top of my head I’d say the people who really impressed me when I’ve spoken to them are Mike Marshall — the former relief pitcher — Tony La Russa and George Foreman. Foreman was both a current and former athlete when I knew him.

But really, every sport both proves and belies the dumb jock stereotype. Athletes are just like anybody else. There are smart ones and dumb ones and plenty in the middle. They often come off as being dumb because they’ve spent their lives developing their physical side, by which I include the sort of niche intelligence of understanding game plans and things like that, rather than their intellectual side, and also because they exist in a culture that’s anti-intellectual.

The sport whose athletes are the most different from the stereotype, I think, is boxing. The stereotype I guess is that fighters are brutal, stupid inarticulate mugs, one step up from wild animals. They are, as a group, far more down-to-earth, gentle and un-posturing than most professional athletes. They’re regular folks. All but the very cream of them have day jobs. Guys you see fighting for world titles on TV often have to have gotten time off from work to do so. They also, I think, don’t have to go around proving what tough guys they are. And of course they need the media, because they need to sell tickets, like entertainers. Ballplayers get paid the same whether they have a good public image or not.

Which living or dead athlete would you most like to interview?

The dead ones give lousy answers but, that aside, I think it’d be fun to hang out with either Satchell Paige or Babe Ruth. I don’t know about interviewing them, but just shadowing them for a while would be fun.

What are your favorite sports books and movies?

Raging Bull is my favorite sports movie and one of my favorite movies, period. But I suppose it’s not really a sports movie. Kinda straight-up sports movies, of which I’m generally not a big fan, I’d go with Rocky. It’s easy to forget how good that movie was because the sequels were all so dumb and Sylvester Stallone became such a joke. My favorite sports book is The Sweet Science by A.J. Leibling. There’s also the great novel Fat City by Leonard Gardner, which is also a pretty good movie, by the way. Another favorite book and movie is The Harder They Fall, though in that case I think I like the movie better.

A lot of boxing here, which hardly makes me unique. I’d also add pretty much any collection of columns by Red Smith.

What is the single most annoying thing about television sports coverage?

“Interesting” camera angles. Not showing us what’s going on, but rather giving us some artistic view.

What non-major sport in America deserves more attention? What deserves less attention?

I don’t know that sports deserve more or less attention than they get. If people are interested, they, and the media that serve them, will pay attention. If you’re asking what sport do I personally like that doesn’t get much attention, at least in this country, the answer would be hurling. There are several sports that get plenty of air time that interest me not at all, primarily golf and figure skating, but I don’t begrudge those sports or their fans anything.

In a previous email to me, you heaped scorn upon fantasy sports. Why?

I don’t remember what I said, but I’m just not interested in fantasy sports. I don’t care about them. I think it’s an uninteresting way to follow sports, worrying about individual guys’ selected stats, creating mythical teams and seeing how they do based on those stats. If that’s your bag, fine. It just doesn’t interest me. I’d compare my feelings about it to being a lover of movies who isn’t interested in collecting movie memorabilia. It’s just not how I consume the product.

You’ve written a lot about the subject of race and American sports. Why does that issue resonate so strongly with you?

I’m a white guy who makes his living writing about athletes, many or most of whom (depending on the sport) are black. And they make their living performing for crowds that are mostly white, and are covered by a media dominated by white people, such as me. Just that set of
circumstances alone is tangled and fraught enough to take a lifetime to figure out. Add in that sports have traditionally been both at the vanguard of minority advancement and lagging far behind the mainstream. Think of the black jockeys and boxers of the 18th and 19th centuries, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, etc., and also of the still painfully slow integration of front offices and coaching ranks in some sports, or the whole native American nickname and mascot thing.

I covered boxing, where even today, a century after the “Great White Hope” era, every boxing manager’s dream is a white kid who can fight. I believe that race is central to the history and culture of this country. I’ve written many times, and I don’t claim this as an original thought, that there’s not a single conversation or interaction that happens in this country in which race doesn’t play at least some small part.

There’s that famous quote by Jacques Barzun, “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball,” which we baseball fans love to invoke. It’s a very apt quote, probably a little more true when he wrote it than today, but still true. But I think that if you want to really understand America, you’d better at least try to learn about race and race relations, particularly, but not only, black and white. What’s kind of funny is that Barzun, who was a professor at Columbia, wrote that famous line in 1954 — the year of Brown vs. Board of Education, one of the signature moments in American history. Of course, it was also the year of Willie Mays’ catch.

How I came to these feelings and beliefs I couldn’t say. Just from looking around me and thinking about it, I guess. But I believe that race is a central issue in this country, and the sporting world is the great nexus of race here. I can’t imagine not being fascinated by it.

Is chess a sport?

No, it’s a game.

Stay tuned . . . Part II of the King Kaufman interview will appear tomorrow. In the meantime, head on over to Salon and read King’s latest column. Also check out his 2003 interview with Paul Katcher.

UPDATE: Here is Part II of the interview

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Melanie Mattson, the sardonic voice behind Just a Bump in the Beltway, is getting into the habit of offering her readers five-question interviews. After seeing how much fun they had the first time she did it, I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring.

1. Someone new is coming for dinner at your invitation. What will you cook and why?

Ummm. . . toast? The truth is that my wife is a chef. To protect the health and taste buds of our guests, she handles the cooking when we have visitors (I serve as bartender/dishwasher/dj). If, for some reason, she was unable to cook, we’d cancel the dinner. If they insisted on coming, we’d order take-out. If all the restaurants were closed, and I was forced to cook, I’d prepare my one and only specialty: linguine with clam sauce. One “trick” my wife has taught me is that, upon sauteing garlic in olive oil and adding clam juice, pepper, and a touch of pasta water, the sauce should be simmered for a long time over low heat until the liquid has reduced and the sauce has thickened. The concentration of flavor produced by this technique can be pretty stunning, even when performed by a know-nothing cook like me.

2. You are headed for the library looking for something new to read. What will you check out? Do you know?

All too often, I judge a book by its cover. And, of course, the author photo (general guidelines: the quality of the book is inversely proportional to the attractiveness of the author).

3. Your part of the world is about to be treated to a complete lunar eclipse at about 4 AM. What will you do? The range of options here is huge, by the way.

Indeed.

Fantasy: A bacchanal. Wine, mood-altering drugs, dancing, shouting at the moon until the shadows swallow it.

Closer to the Truth: A movie night. 2001. Star Wars. The Werewolf of London. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The Warriors. Walk outside at 3:55 to watch the real show.

The Truth: Snore. I’m sleeping through it.

4. You get a coveted invite to one of Bush’s Social Security roadshows. What do you do?

I put on my cheerleading outfit and join the party!

5. When was the last time you wrote to one of your legislators, municipal or national? What did you write about?

I wrote to my city councilman about Philadelphia’s recent effort to cut hours and staff at local libraries in many of Philadelphia’s poorer neighborhoods, an issue that I wrote about in this post.

Thanks to Melanie for the great questions. Now head on over and see what the other respondents wrote.

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Deviated Septum links to an incredible interview with Richard Hell (of Television and Heartbreakers fame) from Bookslut. The interview is intriguing, but what elevates it to the realm of spectacle is what happened after it was conducted. Upon transcribing the interview from his tapes, the Bookslut author, Adam Travis, wrote up an introduction and sent it over to Hell for his perusal. To say that Hell was not amused would be putting it mildly.

Hell sent the introduction back to Travis with what I can only describe as one of the most antagonistic and entertaining dressing-downs of a young writer that I have seen. Hell dared Travis to publish his responses along with interview, and Travis had the balls (and the good p.r. sense) to do just that. Here is a small taste (Travis’ original intro in bold; Hell’s response underneath):

Go on, read the whole thing. Just pray that Hell doesn’t hear you talking about him as you’re walking down the street, because he just might kick your ass.

And for more on the 70s punk scene in New York, take a look at this post from Tom Watson on Johnny Thunders.

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I fell in love with The Blog of Henry David Thoreau at first sight. A brilliant utilization of the blog format, this site brings us excerpts from Thoreau’s journals every day of the week. Like a glass of single-malt scotch drunk neat, Thoreau’s stark, reflective prose has a memorable bite that ripens on the tongue.

Greg Perry, the founder and editor of the site, graciously agreed to answer some questions.

How did you come up with the idea for The Blog of Henry David Thoreau?

I had purchased the journals at a used book store some time ago. Every now and then, I’d check the entries for the particular date, but certainly not in any regular basis. Back in July, I had picked them up again, and read the entries for that date. And decided to post them on my blog, “grapez.” If I remember correctly I did this two days in a row, and light dawned on Marblehead: what about blogging these entries every day on a blog dedicated to just that. The rest, as they say, is history.

Can you talk about the process you go through when choosing excerpts for the blog? Have you ever found two great quotes, and felt dismayed that you had to wait an entire year before posting the second one?

I sit down at night and read the entries year by year. I have the Dover two volume set. Sometimes I begin with Vol 1, sometimes Vol. 2. I try to read them without any preconceived wish list for something to blog. I like to let the entry strike me as unique, inspiring, or just damned interesting. But I admit that very long entries usually are not considered. I just don’t have the time to type (at my typing speed especially). But every now and then, there is something that’s just too good, so I hack away at the keyboard. Not too often though. Because Henry has the tendency to be concise in short paragraphs. And then there are the one sentence pearls of wisdom. I like to mix those in. And yes, there have been many times when there has been more than one great entry. And every great while, it’s difficult to find an appropriate entry. But those are very rare (and usually when for some strange reason, Henry did not blog on that particular date in many of the years).

Thoreau’s journal seems particularly well-suited to the blogging format. What similarities and differences do you see between his 19th-century paper journal and our 21st-century electronic blogs?

The similarities are obvious. Daily entries. Personal notes. Natural observations. Runs the gamut really. I don’t think there are any differences except the obvious one. Thoreau wrote his journal as if others would read it eventually. So other than the immediacy of a blog, there isn’t that much different.

Does Thoreau’s journal show how vain, superficial, and ill-spoken we are today, or could he be vain, superficial, and ill-spoken, too?

Oh absolutely! That’s one of the great discoveries in reading him daily. He is human like the rest of us. His bigotries toward the Irish and the Indian are especially noticeable. There are times when you just don’t like the man. But that makes him even more appealing in fact. He’s not a saint. He’s a human being with all the foibles inherent with that species. Yet he could rise above that and recognize the better angel in himself. And that is truly inspiring to me.

One of the joys of reading The Blog of Henry David Thoreau is realizing that some things haven’t changed since his time. What continuities do you see between his era and ours?

Actually, that’s the thing. Most things are the same. He is living in a technological age as well as we are. The railroad and the telegraph are changing the world he knows. The country that he lives in has changed from the primeval days of his ancestors. There is a buried past there as well. And people are people. Politicians are especially politicians. Commerce is commerce. Even farmers are joining that business.

What has surprised you most as you have read through Thoreau’s work?

The lows and the highs. Sometimes I can’t believe the narrow view he has on some concern. And then there are the times (more than the lows I might note) when he just soars so high, I get shivers down my spine. These are the times that keep me going.

How has editing Thoreau’s journal affected your own writing?

I suppose I look at things differently, blog differently. Look to him as a mentor. I can think of at least a couple of instances in which my blog post was somewhat inspired by his journal, including my post yesterday. Although we have different temperaments of course.

Can you give us some links to your favorite journal posts?

That’s a difficult one. How to choose from the children? I’ll give you one that I remember stopping me in my tracks:

Thoreau’s Journal: 11-Dec-1855

What kind of feedback have you gotten on the site?

Comments and links which I always appreciate. I love it when something Thoreau posted stirs and inspires another. The Utne online notice was probably the biggest, in terms of attracting readership. It probably doubled the daily hits for Henry.
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You can find The Blog of Henry David Thoreau here.

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