The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 17, 2021, 12:00:52 pm ---Oops! You're a better New Yorkerologist than I am.
--- End quote ---
I just figured it was a typo.
--- Quote ---Could I find 19 more colorful characters to write about? Maybe not. But probably at least five or six.
--- End quote ---
Well, you lived and worked in NOLA. Isn't that whole city full of colorful characters?
--- Quote ---So I quit that one and flipped to Jlil Lepore's piece about work. I've only just started it but so far it's excellent. I already knew about most of the work-related things she's said so far, but they don't get said enough. It's one of those book-review essays and one amazing aspect is how she manages to read that many books, plus write that much, plus teach history at Harvard.
--- End quote ---
You know how much I adore her, but I confess to wondering sometimes about her teaching work. It's difficult for me to imagine her with a full teaching load. Maybe she just does a graduate seminar or two. If she has any undergraduate sections, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of them might actually be taught by graduate student assistants. I hope I'm wrong about that. If I were a Harvard undergrad and signed up for one of her classes and then found out it was taught by a TA, I'd feel cheated.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 18, 2021, 06:20:09 pm ---Well, you lived and worked in NOLA. Isn't that whole city full of colorful characters?
--- End quote ---
True, although admittedly most of the people I actually knew-knew there were journalist colleagues, most too ordinary to make a good New Yorker essay. I did interview some more exotic people along the way, though.
Here's one interesting character I've heard about lately. Stop me if I've told it before (oh wait, I guess you can't! :laugh:). A photographer colleague just published a book called You Oughta Write a Book About Me. It's about this guy -- the "me" of the title -- who my friend followed around for, I guess, years. The way my photographer friend met the guy was that he loves taking photos of American flags, in all contexts -- flagpoles, tattoos, whatever -- he's known for it. So one time he saw a homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk, using an American flag as a blanket. He took his picture and the guy woke up and said "You oughta write a book about me." Why, my friend asked. "Because I've been in two Superbowls."
:o Take that, Rachel Kushner!
--- Quote ---It's difficult for me to imagine her with a full teaching load. Maybe she just does a graduate seminar or two. If she has any undergraduate sections, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of them might actually be taught by graduate student assistants. I hope I'm wrong about that. If I were a Harvard undergrad and signed up for one of her classes and then found out it was taught by a TA, I'd feel cheated.
--- End quote ---
Plus, her title is one of those "The [some venerable person] Professor of History Chair at Harvard." I never know what those mean. Maybe they mean you hypothetically teach history there, but you don't do that much.
Hmm. If this is her resume ...
-- Full load at Harvard
-- Staff writer regularly churning out deeply researched New Yorker stories
-- Author regularly churning out deeply researched (I assume) books
... even with summers off and long winter breaks, that sounds pretty superhuman. Perhaps she has a clone?
Well, I guess she probably does have a staff of researchers. Other famous historians like Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin do (or did, in Ambrose's case).
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 18, 2021, 08:48:05 pm ---Here's one interesting character I've heard about lately. Stop me if I've told it before (oh wait, I guess you can't! :laugh:). A photographer colleague just published a book called You Oughta Write a Book About Me. It's about this guy -- the "me" of the title -- who my friend followed around for, I guess, years. The way my photographer friend met the guy was that he loves taking photos of American flags, in all contexts -- flagpoles, tattoos, whatever -- he's known for it. So one time he saw a homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk, using an American flag as a blanket. He took his picture and the guy woke up and said "You oughta write a book about me." Why, my friend asked. "Because I've been in two Superbowls."
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Seriously no joke. I swear I heard something like that story recently, something to do with a guy who had played in the Superbowl and had ended up homeless. Like one of those uplifting stories they do at the end of a news broadcast, or something like that. I wonder if it's the same guy? I don't remember anything about a photographer being involved, though. That could just mean I don't remember. ???
--- Quote ---Plus, her title is one of those "The [some venerable person] Professor of History Chair at Harvard." I never know what those mean. Maybe they mean you hypothetically teach history there, but you don't do that much.
--- End quote ---
.
Could be. I really don't know what those mean, either. At the least I've assumed it means some super-rich person left enough money as an investment somewhere to pay the salary of the person who gets the chair.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 18, 2021, 10:28:13 pm ---Seriously no joke. I swear I heard something like that story recently, something to do with a guy who had played in the Superbowl and had ended up homeless. Like one of those uplifting stories they do at the end of a news broadcast, or something like that. I wonder if it's the same guy? I don't remember anything about a photographer being involved, though. That could just mean I don't remember. ???
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I bet it's the same one, especially if this was recently, because the book came out recently. And although Ted is a great photographer and that's how they met, he also wrote the book, so the photo part wouldn't necessarily come up in a short segment.
I see I got the title slightly wrong. I thought that was weird yesterday -- Ted works for a newspaper, so the guy suggesting a book as soon as they met seemed a bit presumptuous. Definitely worth a story, though. And eventually, I guess, a book.
You Ought to Do a Story About Me: Addiction, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Endless Quest for Redemption Hardcover – August 25, 2020 by Ted Jackson (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/You-Ought-Story-About-Friendship/dp/0062935674
--- Quote ---Could be. I really don't know what those mean, either. At the least I've assumed it means some super-rich person left enough money as an investment somewhere to pay the salary of the person who gets the chair.
--- End quote ---
That seems likely!
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 19, 2021, 11:22:53 am ---I see I got the title slightly wrong. I thought that was weird yesterday -- Ted works for a newspaper, so the guy suggesting a book as soon as they met seemed a bit presumptuous. Definitely worth a story, though. And eventually, I guess, a book.
You Ought to Do a Story About Me: Addiction, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Endless Quest for Redemption Hardcover – August 25, 2020 by Ted Jackson (Author)
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That sounds familiar.
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