You know you know that guy

This is hilarious. A blogger (the blog's called "I want to go to the zoo with Roy Halladay") wrote character sketches for which Philadelphia Phillie is which player on your company softball team. For example: Ben Francisco -- "He wears all the latest Under Armour and Nike gear, is really fit, runs fast, has a strong arm, and it's evident that he goes to the gym regularly and can beat the crap out of you. But he sucks."

Even if you're not a Phillies fan (I'm not) and/or not a company softball-team player (I'm not) this is just flat-out good fun writing. And from my already-held impressions of Phillies' players, this blogger nailed it.

*Thanks to Pat Abdalla for flagging this one.

Overcoming obstacles in video storytelling

As part of Living's 'Senses' project, Kate Penn produced a video about a deaf couple raising a hearing child. Brad passed along this note, which talks about challenges Kate faced and how she dealt with them:

"The video that goes with this week's Sense/Ability story had some cool challenges involved.

The Drawbaughs answered Kate's questions with sign language, and Kate had to match up their responses with the interpretor's translations. (The interpretor doesn't speak as they are signing, she gathers their statement and then repeats it afterward.) So once Kate assembled the video, she reconnected with the interpretor, who came here and helped her place the responses at the right moments during editing. 

Another challenge was showing "B roll" while still keeping the Drawbaughs on screen so their signing could be seen.

Some interesting obstacles, but she put it all together well."

A recurring theme

I saw this line in a wire story today -- Rendell said Thursday that if those differences persisted and legislators took no action on the bills in the next 10 days, he would be required under the state constitution to veto the hard-fought budget -- and, as I stumbled over what exactly a "hard-fought budget" would be, I figured I'd point out (not for the first time) about modifiers and why they're silly sometimes.

 Obviously the writer is trying to tell you, in two words, that legislators have really wrestled over this budget. But to me, using "hard-fought" to modify budget is a lazy and, when you think about it, ineffective way to do it.

I don't think a budget itself can be "hard-fought" any more than it can be "purple-tinged" or "foul-smelling" or
"mouse-quiet." You could describe the process as hard-fought, maybe. But why attach a modifier to it at all? Why not trust your reporting and writing skills and write a sentence that says, "Legislators worked 16-hour days and argued for weeks over spending cuts and taxes," for example?

It's the same as writing "tragic accident" or "uplifting victory." Just show the reader what happened. Those little modifiers don't do nearly the work we sometimes think they do.

The perfect touch

A good friend of mine forwarded me an essay about the late John Wooden by the L.A. Times' Bill Plaschke. "For your TMAS blog thingee," read the e-mail subject line. I suppose I can forgive my friend for referring to this blog as a "thingee," because the story he passed on is pretty damn good. It is, obviously, not something that was tossed off when Wooden died recently, but something that's the result of years of reporting, of being around Wooden (at least every now and then), of deep thinking, and of heart. It focuses on Wooden's devotion to his wife, who died in 1985. The tone of the piece is, I think, just about perfect -- emotional but not fawning.

A sample:

 ... in the middle of the bed, was a bundle of carefully scripted letters, all in the same intricate handwriting.
"Fan mail?" I asked.
"You might say that," he said.
The letters had been written by Wooden to Nell.
They contained humble descriptions of his day, gentle laughs over private jokes, eternal promises of his affection.
They had been written once a month, every month, since 1985.
They had been written after she died.

Once upon a time ...

... Google Blogger was all proud of itself for introducing new blog designs. Try it! Google said.

So one day I did.

And then when I wanted to go back to my original design, I discovered that Google forgot to include an "undo" function.

So now this blog looks different.*

The end.

*If the new design sucks, let me know. I can always change it ...

Theater vs. government in (still communist?) Belarus

Pretty interesting piece here about a theater group in Belarus that's standing up to an overbearing government. It's written by an editor who was at the Nieman Narrative conference I attended a couple years ago. He's mixed observation & interviews to create a revealing and at times surprising story.

Dead or alive ... or both

Sometimes, the hero in a cop story isn't the cop, it's the mild-mannered office worker. This is a fun little piece, written with a nice touch, in which the writer got to use lines like, "For an alleged dead man, Newsome was diligent about keeping his court dates."

Bodani v. groundhog

Terrific, fun narrative. 'Nuff said.

Wondering what to write about?

Washington Post staff writer Hank Stuever had this on his blog as part of a longer post about his return to New Mexico for a week recently. He talked to a group about writing, which is the context of what he says below. It's a fascinating bit of analysis and, really, advice. What do you think?

One of the things I brought up — which I still strongly believe — is that the best nonfiction stories (and probably the fictional stories and novels, too) usually come from the subjects that most worry, frighten or repulse the writer. And I think the most boring stories come from familiarity, when we set out to write about things we really love or are already in the tank for. I would guess that 90 percent of modern-day nonfiction, especially online, comes more from people typing about things they already believe strongly in, or hobbies they already have, or food and books and music and movies and gadgets they already get, understand and savor. The Internet won’t get much more interesting until people stop writing about what they adore (or are certain they despise, i.e., the other side of the political fence) and just go out and take notes on things they don’t know about, and are possibly afraid of.

Carrying Darisabel: Police, others can't forget murdered 2-year-old