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The New York Times has a story about how tastes in books affect relationships and compatibility. Basically, whether there are literary dealbreakers. The article is totally pretentious, but of course it is, and I love this stuff.
I’m not too much of a judger, but I’ll fully admit I judge people by their books. It’s not a great way of doing things. I don’t think I’ve ever actually dated any of the guys I was initially attracted to for literary reasons, and it’s probably better that way.
But, yes, I fully believe in literary dealbreakers and try to convince myself I don’t. Refusing to read novels or saying certain authors are boring are certainly grounds for dismissal in my opinion, though both of those represent cases where I’m glad I didn’t actually follow through.
One day I will stop trying to force books on people and getting the guys I know to stop smoking. Then we will all be adults and our lives will be more boring.
UPDATE: I should explain that whenever I feel inclined to judge, I remember that I have no definable taste in music whatsoever. That balances things out.
Since I’m always pointing out the silly things Victor does, I thought I’d give him credit for how his standard white board concept sketch, left, became the real Evergreen Sports blog, right. And it didn’t take seven months.
And I’m totally kidding about the headline, sort of. I totally appreciate Victor’s work, both the useful kind and the absurd.
As this semester’s Keeper of the Quotes, I transcribe all the ridiculous things we say in the newsroom into a text edit file for posterity and some busy night a few weeks from now when we’ll all sit around laughing at the things we said a month ago rather than working. Then I erase the board so we have room to say more funny things or write down each other’s statements out of context.
As copy chief, I sometimes write on the board errors that make me laugh. These were my favorites recently:
- foreword (instead of forward, weirdest homophone mix-up ever)
- nurtition (like four times in one article)
- general manger
- Provost Bost Babes (instead of Bob Bates)
On a totally nerdy tangent, I think it would be incredibly fascinating to do a content analysis of our quote board archives from the past few years to see how our cultural themes and memes cycle in and out. Of course, the things that really become part of the lexicon here don’t make the board, because by definition they’ve become too normal. Solely from my impressions, I think this year we have more potty humor and fewer death threats compared to last year.
It would have been so easy to not include the photographers. That’s what I thought was neat about these segments (the prison camp liberation above, and this handshaking) from the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. I know it’s been a while since I was there, but writing up the twined history of photojournalism and war for my thesis reminded me of it.
In case you were wondering, the camera is probably mean to be a Graflex Speed Graphic.
Yesterday I worked on my thesis for most of the day (with a break for the WSUPD chief candidate forum) until about 2 a.m. Today I woke up around 8:30 a.m. and worked on it all day (with a break to write the WSUPD chief candidate story, and a nice dinner) and am now at Zoe Coffeehouse for a change of scenery. The plan is to be done by tomorrow night. Just so you know. Here’s a random quote that I may use:
“Modern air travel made it possible for me to be in Sarajevo taking photographs in a front line trench and city morgue in the morning and by evening be back in London drinking a glass of wine with friends. That is a long way for the mind to travel.”
Every so often the discussion comes up about the best ending to a novel. I’ve long been a supporter of “Brave New World” and “The Sun Also Rises,” and usually if I’m in good company “The Grapes of Wrath” gets mentioned.
I’ve never quite agreed with that one, and this is probably why. The photographer Horace Bristol was inspired by Dorothea Lange photos to create a story for LIFE magazine about the migrant farmworkers of the Great Depression. He wanted John Steinbeck to write the text, and they set off together after Steinbeck initially agreed. Bristol photographed the people (if you have a copy of the book with a man’s photo on the cover, it’s a Bristol shot) and Steinbeck talked to them. Steinbeck was already working on a related novel and decided not to go ahead with the LIFE story, but when the book finally came out Bristol was eager to read it.
“He both admired the novel and recognized it as a masterpiece of American literature, but privately was troubled by several passages that he believed inappropriately sensationalized the lives of the men and women he and Steinbeck had interviewed and photographed. The novel’s final scene … especially troubled Bristol. He had photographed the woman Steinbeck had based the character on, but she was nursing an infant … The literary license taken by the novelist seemed to Bristol to be a deliberate attempt to shock and titillate readers.”
That’s from a book about Bristol I have for my thesis, and I’m not going to guarantee they’re presenting things with 100 percent accuracy, either, because I don’t know. But it’s enough to make me think and question, and maybe feeds into what always made me uncomfortable about the ending.
Still, it’s a good enough ending that I removed the spoilers as well as I could from the excerpt.
A new WSU Police chief candidate did his forum thing today, and everyone seems pretty hopeful. He’s a Pullman native who was around as a PPD officer during the riot, so that came up and he said he couldn’t believe how long it’s been because it feels like yesterday. I could say the same for the beginning of all this WSUPD business, because for as long as it’s taken to find a new chief, it doesn’t seem that long ago that Jacob was sketching out a timeline of events on the small conference room whiteboard while I asked questions from the other side of a table piled with documents.
A year later, I’m still writing about the aftermath.
I think it might be nearing an end. We’ve thought so before, along with the conspiracy guesses, but the administration seems fatigued with the whole thing and the candidate seems competent. The forum today was the highest attended so far, possibly because the candidate worked with both WSUPD and PPD in the past. When everyone around the table introduced themselves at the beginning of the forum, it was like seeing my source list come to life.
But along with this today, it’s been neat to see our work at the Evergreen matter. It’s an honor to be a part of it, though apparently that doesn’t keep me from making stupid mistakes. Keep reading for a confession and an inevitable fact.
Apparently it’s WSU’s birthday today. It was March 28, 1890, that the Washington state Legislature established the land-grant college named Washington Agricultural College and School of Science. I would have known this if I’d thought about it, though it was the Student Alumni Connection’s cake distribution on the mall that tipped me off. I took pictures, and then cake, because it was lunchtime and I think it’s a reasonable bias that I support my university’s longevity. I mean, my degree would not be worth much if WSU keels over before its 119th.
Just because I was curious, there are no people in the world alive today who were around when WSU was born. The oldest person in the world right now is only 114 years old (though almost 115). She’s older than the Evergreen.
I was, however, aware of another reason today is special, and it gives me a certain amount of delight that they fall on the same day because it represents two of my favorite interests. I’ll leave that for the next post.
We had the TV rigged up to project on our white board for the game, but afterward it was a fun way to watch and enhance Cable 8. V
ictor set up the anchors with a lovely spinning bow tie and lapel flower. They had a Kahlo brow at one point and an elaborate mustache as well. The figure on the right is Not Chewbacca, and I’m not sure what purpose he served.
The photos aren’t good, but they give you an idea of how absurd it was.
With a two-point jumper from Chris Henry. It wasn’t supposed to be like that for the WSU men’s basketball team, but if they’d done what everyone expected all along they never would have found themselves playing the No. 1 team in the nation in the Sweet 16. So it’s been good, and I’ve cared a lot, and it’s fitting that Henry, original “foundation” player relegated to cross-training for longer than I was, scored their last two futile points.
The first few minutes of the game were wonderful. The shame was not in losing to North Carolina, but that we’ll never know what could have happened if the team actually played as well as they’re capable. And the shame is also that no one in history will ever remember that the Cougars’ shooting was abysmal, that Tyler Hansbrough only had two points in the first half, that we annihilated Notre Dame five days earlier. It will just be another team set aside as North Carolina marched toward the national title.
It’s a shame for the seniors, because it wasn’t a dignified, fighting end to the legacy they’ll leave at WSU. If they blame themselves for the loss, no one can justifiably say it wasn’t their fault.
But I did care, more than I have since I was out competing myself. And I remember too being a sixth-grader chanting the fight song like a prayer while we watched the Cougars on TV losing the Rose Bowl in 1998. I don’t remember the score, but I remember that wrenched feeling of the point when hope disappears. It doesn’t get easier.
That’s it, I’ll leave the rest of the sportswriting to the sportswriters and get back to my own job.
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